The President of the United States of America tweeted this.

to be fair, I do remember the hundreds of times you scolded Fox News and other right wing media for telling Obama what he should do (up to and including the appropriate color of his suit)

No...wait...the opposite of that.

Yeah because those premiums have really been dropping with Obamacare. Obamacare is not fiscally sustainable. The only people benefiting are the ones getting insurance free or dirt cheap while the rest of us pay for it. Insurance will continue to go up with Obamacare because freedom of choice has been removed and people are required to buy insurance or face a penalty. Can you imagine any greater gift to an industry than requiring everyone to buy their product? The one tool that the consumer has to keep insurance (or any other business) honest is the power to say "you shit is too high and I am not buying it", and the government took that away.

You've got to be shitting me. Did he write those lyrics, because it sounds like he did.

Given that there were over 30 million Americans uninsured before Obamacare was enacted, it appears that people not buying insurance wasn't enough to encourage lower rates.

Jesus H Tap Dancing...



Not long now.

First of all, a considerable minority of the population was getting insured through ACA exchanges;
second many people who were ended up significantly BETTER off than they had been (with steadily rising rates) before;
Third, aggregate rate increases were accelerated by direct deliberate action of the Republicans in Congress intentionally sabotaging the exchanges in order to magnify the problems with the ACA for partisan political gains in the 2016 cycle;
Fourth, those who say a big spike were a quite narrow segment of the market - they made great scare stories but they were relatively rare

By contrast, when/if the GOP guts Medicaid and rolls back rules on pre-existing conditions, lifetime-payout caps, and so forth, not only will they be creating an even stronger narrative (vulnerable and sickly victims rather than middle-class folks complaining about increased premiums) and those victims will VERY often be found among the very red-state voters that normally make up their base.

They are gambling that Koch money will buy their way out of the backlash but....it's huge gamble and a lot of folks will suffer for it.

Also, for the standard right wing argument against supposedly wasting taxpayer money on "lazy bums" via Medicaid, consider:

64% of people in nursing homes are their because of Medicaid - that's basically an entire industry furnishing millions of jobs, many in small town red-state areas, that it would kill off; that's one among many examples of direct negative economic impact. Thousands of small-town hospitals will close and some whole management companies will go under for example. Worse than even that, those without insurance very often eventually end up resorting to the ER. Going to the ER is the most wasteful and expensive way of delivering health care BY FAR. If the GOP gets everything they want, spending on health care - including government spending on health care, will go UP at an even faster rate than with the ACA or before it. Just because it won't technically be via Medicaid that these bills are paid doesn't mean fewer dollars will be spent.

And that's just the fiscal argument, nevermind that among those "lazy bums" are overwhelmingly elderly people and kids, and of those kids overwhelmingly disabled kids, and of the (non-elderly)adults who are covered, the majority actually do have jobs.

that would be the good folks at First Baptist Dallas, erecting their golden calf.

and nevermind the troubling Evangelical tendency to equate patriotism with holiness and vice-versa that predates Trump.

And lets be clear, making America "great" again is a mixture of "let's go back to a mythological greatness that never really existed" and "make America White Again"

ETA: the guy states at the end who wrote it.

The whole core idea of a "golden age", in the past is wrongheaded bullshit.

Things get better going into the future, not going backwards.
Forwards, crime goes down, medicine gets better, technology improves, more people have equal rights, more people have opportunity, etc, etc.

Backwards? Opposite of all of it.

Who gives a shit?
What point do you think that made?

You think 80's were the golden age?
I have nostalgia goggles for it because it was my childhood, but the 80's were openly and virulently homophobic, the crack epidemic started, the AIDS epidemic started, and it was a death sentence, there were no meds, the USSR was still in business, the Catholic molestation scandals hadn't broken yet, need I go on?

I think the point is Trump didn't make it up like he claims.

I don't see her claiming that.
You see a lot of things that don't actually happen.
Get your eyes checked.

I didn't say she did, was just pointing it out. I just learned about it yesterday and was waiting for the opportunity to post it.

And it was all for nothing.
Turn yourself in to the cops.

Dicky I gotta side with FF here. He might not have been clear in his intent but it's an illustration that Mr. Not-a-politician stole his main trope whole from Reagan.

As it turns out, he's a lot more of a plastic copy-cat dude than it might seem given he's our first demented president.

He's not original.

At least you're honest, unlike most of the barely closeted Trump fans.

I love that dance. Anyone out of step gets shot from long range. Just to keep things festive.

You forgot the cardinal, the one unforgiveable sin of the 80s: Day-glo.

Anyway, Trump doesn't hark back to the 80s. IMHO his narrative goes back even farther. I'm getting a 50s vibe from him. When an honest menial job digging up coal could provide for a family of 6. A time when the "niggers" were still down. When the world was simply black and white. Where Mary-Sue tamed and married Bill and that was it forever. A time that looks like a simplistic paradise between the milkshake bar and the drive-in theater in retrospect. When people didn't have any other problems than the rascals from the other side of the street getting dirt on the perfectly white picket fences.

A world that, of course, never actually existed.

They want the social norms of the 50's, and the economics of the 19th century.

"brb, nuking N Korea"

Well, we have bad publicity too, but

Oh, well then, rather than supplement that freedom, let's take it away altogether.

Private, for profit health insurance, essentially making medical care a privilege subject to the whims of middlemen... Still can't wrap my head around that in a 21st century, first world context.

I mean... I get cancer, I can go to one of the best facilities in the world (Sunnybrook)
Get a hernia repaired? Shouldice Clinic, where laparoscopic repair was developed.

Hell, I've got a friend who's been living with AIDS since 1990. He's not in the workforce, but he volunteers whenever he feels well enough to.

In short, I can get the same treatments as are available to the wealthiest people in the country and medication will be affordable-if not included.


Also-why is it so many folks here that are against public health care (and most social assistances) guys with jobs dependent upon the government being the sole "customer"?

the U.S. culture has created this wonderful mythical illusion that if you can afford to take care of your and your families needs, if not go beyond that to bass boats and Caribbean cruises and whatever, then it's because you're a hard-working upstanding citizen that got their by the sweat of your own brow and the strength of your noble integrity with no help from anyone. Doesn't matter if you're Donald Trump Jr, you are a paragon to be admired.

If for whatever reason you do not have that financial ability, well, you simply lack the diligence and/or character to take hold of your own bootstraps and pull harder.

it's mostly bullshit but it's a key doctrine of the civil religion.

The highlighted is huge and perverts many of our social programs.

For some fucked up reversed morality Americans are more concerned with making sure no one is 'getting away' with something than they are with helping people. Think about the drug tests for benefits, the hoops required to get and maintain benefits, etc. Not only have these proven to cost more than they save but have proven to hurt those receiving as all the appointments eat into job searching or worse holding down a new job.