@Strife Delivery

I mean everything.

Economy
Environment
Peaceful Relations

The last hundred years could be called Humanity's Death Spiral

@Strife Delivery [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T2UeKKac-s]

I mean everything.

Economy
Environment
Peaceful Relations

The last hundred years could be called Humanity's Death Spiral

@Strife Delivery It's exploding based on Republican promises of unlimited crack cocaine for business.

I'm watching it daily, ready to pull the plug on the IRA when the next crash starts.

I mean everything.

Economy
Environment
Peaceful Relations

The last hundred years could be called Humanity's Death Spiral

@Azazello
So if young people don't want to pay predatory prices for HC, they don't have to. Without the mandate, the ACA numbers don't add up. The house of cards is coming down.

The IRS says it won't withhold the ACA penalties from tax returns.
--> WaPo
This is important. There are people who signed up for Obamacare only because of the penalties. If there are no penalties, enrollment will drop.

@duckpin It isn't just the health insurance industry. The pharmaceutical industry is doing its part.

Obamacare strengthened the for-profit insurance industry by transferring public, tax-generated, money to the private sector. Obamacare has no effective way to control costs. Since private insurance has administrative expenses about seven times higher than public administration, the rapid end was forecast.
The overall costs of our health system under Obamacare 17% in 2013 rising to 20% in 2020.

No other industrialized nation has these high costs.

Profit needs to be removed from the delivery of health care services in my opinon and, more importantly, in the opinion of those who are very familiar with the system.

@Citizen Of Earth

Trump did say at the PC that his Health Care plan is coming along Great and they will have an announcement on it in early March. Bend over folks, here it comes.

Take out stock in K-Y......

It was a laugh riot. I found myself laughing thinking "only a f**kin idiot would have said that."

Some CNN lady said "this should have been a conversation Trump had with a therapist -- not a national teevee press conference". I have to agree.

Trump did say at the PC that his Health Care plan is coming along Great and they will have an announcement on it in early March. Bend over folks, here it comes.

@gulfgal98 @gulfgal98 I agree. The thrust of our health care system should be taking care of ourselves; be our own doctor. We should learn in grade school through high school to understand, respect, nourish, trouble-shoot our biologic selves. The state of our health has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals but rather nutrients, movement (exercise), detoxification (it's not that complicated), and, shh, parasites. This is stuff I had to learn online like millions of people in the so-called alternative medicine niche. When I turned 50 I had to make major changes to set my health right. If I had been taught this stuff as a child, oy vey!

Check out Joseph Mercola and Marc Sircus for pretty much everything. For parasites, Hulda Clark. Also, there's great stuff on youtube. If you have high blood pressure, ask youtube..., etc.

Here's a link to an article I read today. Check out the first comment. It's an example of the kind people involved

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/02/16/early-deme...

Doctors are a last resort. They are concerned with their prescription pad and billing codes for insurers. Word.

peace

insurance. Healthcare should be a human right, but only in the US is it a right for those who can afford it.

This is exactly why Obamacare was destined to fail. It was flawed from the very beginning because Obama refused to consider single payer or even to use the bully pulpit to lobby for it. He caved to big pharma before the plan was even drafted. Medicare for all was the most logical route to universal health care, but that was never on the table.

Good going, Obama.

@Sunspots and be elected president for life.

I would love it if Trump said, OK, you couldn't come up with a solution and I promised it would cover everyone, cheaply, so I've just dropped the Medicare eligibility age to 0. He seems to really get a kick out of decisive action that surprises everyone. The GOP's heads would explode, but what could they do? The DC Democrats would hate it, too, for the same reasons that the GOP would, plus jealousy, but they couldn't admit it. Fury all around in DC.

@Not Henry Kissinger I don't know about individual states doing single payer though.

It is one thing when a nation does it since they have their own currency with which to continue to print funds if necessary. But states are forced to have a balance sheet.

I think the best Progressive outcome of the Obamacare dismantling would be for the states to be allowed carte blanche to set up statewide and even regional single payer pools.

State healthcare reform’s biggest impediment might be federal law, specifically the ACA and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The Affordable Care Act’s requirements that states follow its exchanges can be waived, starting in 2017, if states achieve a waiver. The three standards for doing so are providing coverage at least as good as the ACA’s, providing coverage to at least as many people, and costing no more for the federal budget. These are rather easy standards to meet, especially if states implement basic coverage single-payer. At worst, the states will need to supplement funding to meet the third requirement.

ERISA’s requirements, on the other hand, might be a little more difficult to overcome. The law preempts any state laws that “relate to” employee health benefit plans, either in their administration or structure. The federal government tried to make these preemptions as broad as possible, in hopes of creating one universal American health coverage law to keep insurance companies from having to follow fifty different sets of laws. Because of this, writing a state law that circumvents ERISA can be difficult. Multiple states have seen their regulations overturned, while others—Massachusetts, for one—simply wrote their healthcare laws into their tax policy.

Trump has said before he thinks that health is a state rather than Federal issue. So fine, give the states the freedom to experiment with various models. It's deregulation. Its state's rights. What's there not for a Gooper to like?

Once the Federal shackles come off, Progressives can target various states for implementation. It's basically the medical marijuana strategy but taken to another level.

Click this link to see a great position paper on state single payer. It's worth a full read.

America may or may not join the rest of the industrialized world by eventually implementing a federal single-payer system. But for now it’s not happening, and given the ACA’s third rail status, other major federal healthcare reforms appear unlikely in the foreseeable future. But at the state level, where legislatures regularly enact laws that would be unthinkable at the federal level, Vermont led the way and provided all of its citizens with healthcare. Though state-provided healthcare systems have some comparative weaknesses, they seem more possible now than ever and could provide a transition step before federal reform.

@Not Henry Kissinger

I think the best Progressive outcome of the Obamacare dismantling would be for the states to be allowed carte blanche to set up statewide and even regional single payer pools.

State healthcare reform’s biggest impediment might be federal law, specifically the ACA and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The Affordable Care Act’s requirements that states follow its exchanges can be waived, starting in 2017, if states achieve a waiver. The three standards for doing so are providing coverage at least as good as the ACA’s, providing coverage to at least as many people, and costing no more for the federal budget. These are rather easy standards to meet, especially if states implement basic coverage single-payer. At worst, the states will need to supplement funding to meet the third requirement.

ERISA’s requirements, on the other hand, might be a little more difficult to overcome. The law preempts any state laws that “relate to” employee health benefit plans, either in their administration or structure. The federal government tried to make these preemptions as broad as possible, in hopes of creating one universal American health coverage law to keep insurance companies from having to follow fifty different sets of laws. Because of this, writing a state law that circumvents ERISA can be difficult. Multiple states have seen their regulations overturned, while others—Massachusetts, for one—simply wrote their healthcare laws into their tax policy.

Trump has said before he thinks that health is a state rather than Federal issue. So fine, give the states the freedom to experiment with various models. It's deregulation. Its state's rights. What's there not for a Gooper to like?

Once the Federal shackles come off, Progressives can target various states for implementation. It's basically the medical marijuana strategy but taken to another level.

Click this link to see a great position paper on state single payer. It's worth a full read.

America may or may not join the rest of the industrialized world by eventually implementing a federal single-payer system. But for now it’s not happening, and given the ACA’s third rail status, other major federal healthcare reforms appear unlikely in the foreseeable future. But at the state level, where legislatures regularly enact laws that would be unthinkable at the federal level, Vermont led the way and provided all of its citizens with healthcare. Though state-provided healthcare systems have some comparative weaknesses, they seem more possible now than ever and could provide a transition step before federal reform.

@the_poorly_educated This wreaks of being classist and anti-science. There are a large number of diseases that don't necessarily respond to diet therapy and yoga. I don't disagree that we have a major health crisis which is in part, rooted in nutrition, but let's not get carried away.

Rather take drugs and under go chemo than change their diet. Lazy mans way of health care.

@the_poorly_educated I beg your pardon?

I presume you have never had cancer or similar conditions. Not all diseases are caused by bad diet/living/morality etc. Ruth Carter Stapleton - Jimmy Carter's sister - died from pancreatic cancer in her 50s. Given her evangelical background, her faith, and her work in healing, I doubt she drank, smoked, or chowed down on McDonalds - but she died young all the same.

Many premodern religious traditions blame illness on the person who is sick - most famously, leprosy. I believe that such a view is hardly compassionate and only adds more suffering on top of what the person is already going through. New Age spiritualism has a strong streak of this blame-the-sick-person attitude.

There is little doubt that modern medicine has eliminated or largely eliminated many horrific diseases - smallpox, polio, measles, and leprosy, too. Cancer treatments are difficult for the patient and expensive, but they do save or prolong lives with many types of cancer. Kale and kudzu don't.

YMMV - It's your thing - but don't make your thing mine.

Rather take drugs and under go chemo than change their diet. Lazy mans way of health care.

@the_poorly_educated @the_poorly_educated

Would be nice if there was a safe food supply, safe water, safe air, safe products and a living wage and social safety net to assure everyone of the base for a healthy lifestyle.

But the official placement of corporate/industry profits before human, animal and environmental health assures that none of this can exist in America or, now, anywhere in th world, regardless of established protective law, to whatever extent it existed in various countries.

And 'exhausted, impoverished and unable to obtain nutritious food' does not equal 'lazy'.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/california-using-recycled-fracking-water-to...

California Using Recycled Fracking Water To Irrigate Crops

By MintPress News Desk | July 9, 2015

REDDING, California — California’s governor, a recipient of generous donations from the oil and gas industry, is now responsible for putting dangerous “frack water” into the American food supply.

As California struggles with a historic drought, some farmers in California’s agriculturally fertile Central Valley turned to a water recycling program, allowing them to irrigate their crops at a fraction of the normal cost. According to Phys.org, the recycled water costs about $33 per square foot, while freshwater could cost as much as $1,500 for the same amount.

The recycled water, which was used on some 45,000 acres of farmland, came from fracking wells, and recent water testing found some dangerous chemicals remain even after treatment. Chevron submitted the results of its water tests on Monday, according to Julie Cart, an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times:

(List follows, at source)

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/17/california-farmers-rely-oil-wastewate...

U.S.
In California, Farmers Rely on Oil Wastewater to Weather Drought
By Zoë Schlanger On 4/6/15 at 6:54 AM

... That’s where Chevron comes in. For every barrel of oil Chevron produces in its Kern River oil field, another 10 barrels of salty wastewater come up with it. So Chevron is selling about 500,000 barrels of water per day, or 21 million gallons, back to the Cawelo Water District—the local water district that delivers water to farmers within a seven-mile slice of Kern County—at an undisclosed amount, but “essentially ‘at cost,’” according to Chevron spokesman Cameron Van Ast. In a time when freshwater in the Central Valley is selling at up to 10 times the typical cost, it’s a good deal for farmers.

The wastewater Chevron is selling flows, without municipal treatment (though the oil products are removed), to 90 local farmers who spread it on their citrus, nut and grape crops. The Cawelo Water District might first mix the wastewater with freshwater, or it might not, depending on what crop the wastewater will be used on—and on how much freshwater is available at the time. In the midst of a drought, there is less freshwater, so the water the farmers get is saltier than in a wet year. But the farmers understand that using the salty wastewater on their crops is an emergency measure. If all goes as planned, when the rains come back the excess salt will be flushed through the soil. ...

http://www.maebrussell.com/Articles%20and%20Notes/Toxic%20Waste%20As%20F...

Killing Fields? Toxic waste being spread as fertilizer
BY DUFF WILSON
Seattle Times
(reprinted in the San Jose Mercury News 7-5-97, front page)

QUINCY, Wash. — Some farmers blamed the weather for their lousy wheat crops, stunted corn and sick cows. Some blamed themselves.
But only after Patty Martin, the mayor of this small, dusty town 100 miles east of Seattle, led them in weeks of investigation did they identify a possible new culprit: fertilizer.
They don't have proof that the stuff they put on their land to feed it actually was killing it. But they discovered something they think other American farmers and consumers ought to know:
Manufacturing industries are disposing of hazardous wastes by turning them into fertilizer to spread around farms. And they're doing it legally.
"They just call dangerous waste a product, and it's no longer a dangerous waste," Martin said. "It's fertilizer."
An investigation by the Seattle Times has found the practice occurs around the country. Industrial toxic waste is being used increasingly as a fertilizer ingredient.
There is no conclusive data to prove the practice poses any risks, and none to prove its safety.
Experts disagree on the risks and say further study is needed. However, little study is under way.
As things stand now, any material that has fertilizing qualities can be labeled and used as a fertilizer, even if it contains dangerous chemicals and heavy metals.
The wastes come from iron, zinc and aluminum smelting, mining, cement kilns, the burning of medical and municipal wastes, wood-product slurries and other heavy industries.
Across the Columbia River basin from Quincy, in the town of Moxee City, Wash., a dark powder from two Oregon steel mills is poured from rail cars into the top of a silo attached to Bay Zinc Co., under a federal permit to store hazardous waste.
The powder, a toxic byproduct of the steel-making process, is taken out of the bottom of the silos as a raw material for fertilizer.
"When it goes into our silo, it's a hazardous waste," said Bay Zinc President Dick Camp. "When it comes out of the silo, it's no longer regulated. The exact same material. Don't ask me why. That's the wisdom of the (Environmental Protection Agency)." ...

There are endless and long-running examples, as well as new exposures less well understood and others which may not be mentioned, being 'confidential business information'. But a general idea of past practices in a time when corruption had not perhaps so entirely permeated all levels of protective agencies can be found here.

http://www.williamsanjour.name/main.htm

Collected Papers of William Sanjour

After 30 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency I finally retired in June 2001. Before my retirement I decided to try to gather all the things I have written about EPA and my experience as a whistleblower in one place. With my retirement I continued to write on subjects of interest to me and in 2013 I wrote my memoirs titled "FROM THE FILES OF A WHISTLEBLOWER, Or how EPA was captured by the industry it regulated."

Includes many gems, such as:

2003

October 17, The Death of Capitalism. An essay/review of "Trust Us, We’re Experts" written at the suggestion of one of the authors, John Stauber. It gave me the opportunity explain my theory of how capitalism is destroying capitalism. Stauber loved it, a feeling not shared by any of the periodicals I sent it to. Posted May 10, 2005

THE DEATH OF CAPITALISM

by William Sanjour

October 17, 2003

Capitalism – market economy – free enterprise – these are the jewels in the crown of civilization which, since the renaissance, have brought unprecedented wealth, prosperity and freedom to large parts of the world. Capitalism has struggled and eventually triumphed over its historical adversaries; in earlier times, popes and kings and in our time socialism and communism. In the 21st century, since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, international corporate capitalism is bursting, like fireworks, in triumph; merging, globalizing and buying governments. What puny opposition remains is easily dispatched with a broad range of powerful weapons which have been developed over the years. Today the only real threat to capitalism is capitalism!

Socialists may practice socialism and Christians may practice Christianity but if by capitalism we mean a competitive market driven economic system, then capitalists do not practice capitalism. Theorists notwithstanding, capitalism is not an ideology, it is merely a description. Capitalists are not trying to implement some philosophy, they are only trying to make a buck any way they can. To a capitalist the biggest enemy is not socialism or labor unions or liberals or environmentalists, or even big government, the biggest enemy is risk. Risk of not making money. Risk of losing money.

Making money and avoiding risk in doing so is what capitalism is all about. But it is precisely in the risk taking that society draws its benefits from capitalism. That is the dilemma. Risk promotes wise investment resulting in efficiency, innovation and the creation of wealth, not just for the capitalist but for society as a whole. But a lot of capitalists fall by the wayside in the process. It is in the capitalist’s interest to eliminate risk and society’s interest to prevent them from doing so. The way to avoid risk is to control the market and to do that they must also control the government. This struggle has been going on for hundreds of years: capitalists forming monopolies, oligarchies and trusts and society breaking them up. ...

And:

October 1, The 1978-79 Sludge War. Because of the recently revived interest in sewage sludge I have decided to memorialize the sludge battles in which I was involved in 1978-79 during the early days of RCRA. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Posted 10/5/99.

http://www.williamsanjour.name/Sludge3.htm

The 1978-79 Sludge War
by
William Sanjour
October 1, 1999

Because of the recently revived interest in sewage sludge I have decided to memorialize the sludge battles in which I was involved in 1978-79 during the early days of RCRA.

Keep in mind that the purpose of a sewage treatment plant is to capture the toxic substances and other bad stuff in sewage and to concentrate it in the sludge. To start with, let me give you an idea of the kind of pressure EPA was (and is) under to try to find some use for the millions of tons of sewage sludge being and expected to be emitted by the waste water treatment plants funded by the EPA Construction Grants Program, the largest public works project ever in America. Here is a quote from a letter written by the Seattle Sewer District to EPA in 1974(1) in response to the Agency's then proposed guidance on "Methods for the Utilization or Disposal of Sludges". This was written long before RCRA and is typical of the kind of pressure exerted then and still being exerted on EPA.

The limits suggested for the metal content of sludges will not allow many large cities to use sludge for agriculture unless the metal content is reduced. If metals are removed at the source, it will represent a large cost to industry and ultimately to the consumer. There will be a demand on the natural resources for the chemicals needed to remove the metals, and there will be chemical and metal sludge to dispose of. If a cost benefit analysis is carried out, it would appear doubtful that the value of using sludge in agriculture could equal the costs. The proposed guidelines would appear to favor landfill or incineration.

Municipal sewage treatment agencies and their allies in the engineering, construction and fertilizer business dominated the policy of EPA's Construction Grants Program and that policy was to remove any impediments to the flow of federal money into the construction and operation of new sewage treatment plants. I saw an illustration of that domination when I attended a meeting of a panel of the EPA Science Advisory Board in 1976 to evaluate a proposed Technical Bulletin concerned with the health effects of using sewage sludge as fertilizer on crops. The EPA Science Advisory Board has a reputation for scientific objectivity which was not evidenced in this meeting. The Chairman was the former head of the Chicago Sanitary District and the originator of Chicago's sludge utilization program. In his opening remarks(2) he railed against the "negative nature of the Technical Bulletin" and said "there would not be a municipal official that would dare to approve land disposal in the form that report was proposed for our review". His bottom line was "you wouldn't even get favorable interest rates on your municipal bonds". The panel then proceeded to blast the Technical Bulletin without ever considering the human heath effects of sludge utilization. As a result, the bulletin was revised so as to be toothless. So much for science. ...

... In fact sewage sludge contains very little in the way of nutrients relative to commercial fertilizers, so much so that some sanitary districts add nitrogen to their sludge in order to give it away(10). Furthermore, many instances of land farming industrial wastes were known at the time(11).

The draft standards prepared by my office(12) limited the arsenic, cadmium and lead which can be applied as soil amendments made from hazardous waste. At the intra-agency meeting to review these draft standards the Water Office objected that the regulations for arsenic, cadmium and lead may set a dangerous precedent for the Section 405 (i.e. sludge) regulations(13).

By September, everyone involved recognized the futility of resisting the sludge juggernaut -- everyone but me, that is. I was finally instructed by Gary Dietrich, Jorling's hatchet man, to weaken the standards for land farming hazardous industrial waste to the comfort level of the Water Office, regardless of the consequences to human health(14) And the consequences of this cruel decision were indeed far ranging and severe as not only sewage sludge but raw industrial hazardous waste is "recycled" into fertilizer to this day(15). Eight days after this decision I was canned(16).

Different people handled the defeat in different ways. I became a whistleblower(17). My ex-boss, Jack Lehman, consoled himself with the knowledge that there was a potential medical treatment for the people we were poisoning(18). And Bob Tonetti wrote the definitive letter to the Washington Post(19).

The Environmental Protection Agency is in need of being told not to waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. I believe the problem to be mismanagement. You judge:

The clean Water Act requires EPA to develop regulations for the disposal of sewage sludge. The agency is already six months--and could be another 18 months--late in meeting the act's mandate. Meanwhile, cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and many others venture on with development of local sludge programs. When EPA finally completes its regulations, many of these programs may be found inadequate particularly those that distribute sludge for homeowner use as mulch or soil conditioner.

More than two years ago, the General Accounting Office requested that EPA provide "immediate" guidance on sludge distributed to the general public because of "potential health hazards." This guidance has not yet been provided.

Highly contaminated back-yard soils have now been found In Chicago, where sludge was used as a mulch. Thousands of Chicago-area back yards have been contaminated in a program that continued for one year following GAO 's warning to EPA. Many similar programs are still ongoing nationwide--without restriction.

The position of EPA's construction grants program has been the biggest factor in the delay of the sludge regulations. Construction grants provide funding for the planning, design and construction of sewage-treatment plants. These are the plants generating the sludge that another part of EPA, the Office of Solid Waste, has responsibility for regulating.

Since 1973, construction grants have provided cities some $22 billion, of which sludge systems take up no small portion. The grants program has assisted the cities so well, it's often hard to tell the regulators from the regulated.

This "industry's" influence was primarily responsible for the exemption of municipal sludge from EPA's proposed hazardous-waste regulations. The exemption will apply even though some sludges contaminated with industrial wastes can be quite hazardous.

The construction-grants program should not be capable of so strongly influencing other offices in EPA that are charged with regulating certain aspects of sewage treatment and disposal. Perhaps the grants program should be set in some corner of EPA where this influence could not be exerted. Or, maybe placed in another agency altogether. (Please not the Army Corps of Engineers.)

ROBERT TONETTI
Burtonsville, Md.
(The writer is an employee of the Office of Solid Waste at the Environmental Protection Agency.)

We are continually inundated in industrial toxins; no wonder industry 'science and 'life-style scientists' were so beloved of complicit governments for so very, very long that now even a number of us unthinkingly frame our poisoned-for-profit health situation in their terms...

Edit: I do agree that good nutrition and exercise are essential for optimum health, but transferring liability/blame to the victim is a very old and very evil polluting industry tactic used to avoid regulation enforcing safer processes, products and restricting pollution and the payment of medical costs, compensation or pensions to those they injured or bereaved in the pursuit of maximized profits.

This also being adopted by multiple governments following WW2 to avoid having to recompense expediently/experimentally exposed military, war workers, the general public and even groups of school-children to substances known to be deadly upon inhalation/exposure, including radon/radiation, asbestos and damaging petrochemicals, (as well as the effects of combusted fossil fuel/industrial air and other then-uncontrolled pollution not specifically related to war-time efforts) having often long-delayed effects which could potentially be re-attributed to other causes for which they would not be held responsible or obliged to respond to down the road.

The wave of predominately respiratory/heart disease resulting among the exposed through ensuing decades was entirely predictable - yet such expedient/profit-driven toxic exposures continue to be 'acceptable', if at typically less obvious levels, nonetheless still causing avoidable disease now more comprehensively denied by the industry 'science' officially used.

Hey, cool - what I'm replying to is showing at bottom now, rather than the OP!

Rather take drugs and under go chemo than change their diet. Lazy mans way of health care.

@HenryAWallace nice connecting down to root cause, you radical. Heh.

Statement on Signing the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973

IT IS with great pleasure that I today sign into law S. 14, the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. This legislation will enable the Federal Government to help demonstrate the feasibility of the HMO concept over the next 5 years.

Expanding the geographic distribution of health maintenance organizations is an integral part of the National Health Strategy that I first proposed nearly 3 years ago. S. 14 is somewhat broader than the Administration's proposal, but it nevertheless contains the essential concepts and principles that I support. It will provide initial Federal development assistance for a limited number of demonstration projects, with the intention that they become self-sufficient within fixed periods.

The national health insurance bill that I will be submitting to the next session of this Congress will allow patients to use such insurance to join HMO's. For that reason, it is particularly important that this demonstration effort get underway immediately and build upon the momentum which has already been achieved in this field.
...

New and Improved! Bloody Obama version: https://www.healthforcalifornia.com/covered-california/health-insurance-companies/kaiser

Find Affordable Kaiser Permanente Health Insurance through the California Health Exchange

Kaiser Permanente is the oldest and largest HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) in the United States, serving nine states and the District of Columbia. Its largest membership base in California with over 8 million, many of which being Covered California Kaiser plans. Kaiser has sought to lead the way in the health care model on many fronts. Its integrated delivery of care is what makes it so unique. A patient’s care is coordinated and connected all within one system from the beginning to the end. This can include but is not limited to an office visit, lab work, treatment, disease management, and in-patient procedure to recovery.

Blah blah blah, just don't be mental. California does suck, for being THE Neo-lib ATM far too long. Help? Bueller?

PEACE

business. Instead, insurance companies are putting Obamacare out of business.

Obamacare = Romneycare on steroids.

Romneycare = Billarycare

Billarycare = HeritageFoundationCare

HeritageFoundationCare = response of conservatives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to Nixoncare.

Almost a half century later, Democrats gave us a health insurance plan that is worse for individuals than Nixon tried to give us. Whooptiefrickindo.

@BernieOrBust thanks for including your experience. I fully supported the ACA, had that silly certificate signed by Obama on display, until it was implemented.

The first thing rolled out at my Health Center was ... robots! They bought an IVR (Integrated Voice Response) phone system and re-purposed the people to other tasks. Maybe that is fine and good for general health issues, but mental health? Nope. Instead of an actual person answering the line, a robot says "If this is a mental health emergency, please hang up and dial 911". How's that for service? I won't give too much detail, but "pill mill" is descriptive, as far as what became offerings for "treatment" after the ACA kicked in. I can't even afford my doctor's rate, it shot to $400 an hour and her bill time-slices were reduced to 10 minutes each. She never realized the cost of anything she prescribed, no prices attached to the digitized records. Twice I took 'scripts I can't afford to the pharmacy, now I don't even bother going to the doctor anymore. Too expensive, for nothing in return.

Her final words: "I couldn't stand the pain."

Still I totally agree that is has helped millions of people, my neighbor for one, a low-income immigrant from Mexico, raised her two boys here they are both LEOs now, all good people. Until MediCaid expansion here in California she suffered a lot with stomach troubles, has since received great care at the local Health Center, got well, and passed the citizenship test, thanks goodness she doesn't have to worry so much about traveling and such. We are all one people, insurance companies don't give a fuck for any, as far as I can tell.

PEACE

Hey Everybody, I know the ACA sucks. We wanted/needed Single Payer. Obama and the Dems SERIOUSLY sold us out on this. Big ins sucks and is run as a criminal enterprise with money and not people in mind, etc, etc, etc...... With all that said, there is another side to the story....and that is the side of MILLIONS of people who now get care, that previously did not. It might be crappy, or expensive care, but it's better than nothing, and those people are going to be very, very hurt by not having health ins, or Medicaid. I have Cushings. It's quite rare, and usually a benign tumor on the pituitary gland. Sounds easy enough, but it's not. The average patient sees 10 or more doctors over an 8 year period before being believed and/or diagnosed. It's extremely common to take 20, and even 30 tests, some of which are done in the hospital under full anesthesia, to get accurately diagnosed. It's a bastard, tricky mother of a disease for many of us. There is a big FB page for Cushings people, and I am increasingly seeing comments from "veterans" such as myself to "newbies" to "GET YOUR TESTING DONE NOW!!!!" "Try to get diagnosed and surgery done NOW!!!!" Because all of us have a "pre-existing condition" and will be uninsurable potentially in the next 1-2 years. Or the folks who depend on Medicaid, may totall be up shit creek soon. Cushings doesn't kill immediately, but it is emotionally and physically debilitating, and many of us become bedridden while trying to get diagnosed. So please don't feel too much "I told you so", or "glee" at Obama's signature policy taking the plunge. Real lives are at risk here. Be angry, advocate, but don't hope the ACA dies until there is a real replacement, or so very many people with so very many weirdo and not so weird diseases will die, and/or suffer needlessly. I'm lucky, I kept my individual $1089.00/mo grandfathered, HIPPA BC PPO plan because it's WAY better than the ACA plans. I kept it partly because I have kick-ass coverage, and I need that, but also because I was worried when Obama left office things might crumble. Most people are not so fortunate to have done so, or to have had the funds to do so. Anywho, have an open and loving heart, please. Those of us who do not enjoy great energy and health need health ins. For many, the ACA being annihilated will be a death warrant, and/or make their lives very difficult. Thank you.