Biden just gave every person in Texas free health insurance

Not free ACCESS to health CARE, but actual health care. Great job, Joe.
Hey let’s be happy for them. With so many families ending in the hospital or needing to go, but knowing that they can’t afford one more damn bill. Yay. Tomorrow we will demand that for the rest of us.

Update

Hey don’t worry Scott, Biden’s gonna send you $1,400 really soon...oh wait you won’t be getting any if you made too much money or had more than $400 just in case you have any type emergency. Never mind.

Update

Oh look... But there is good news for Scott:

After a public outcry from people like Scott Willoughby, whose exorbitant electric bill is soon due, Gov. Greg Abbott said lawmakers should ensure Texans “do not get stuck with skyrocketing energy bills” caused by the storm.

source

Biden said that every person who gets Covid will not have to pay 1 penny for their bills just like Trump did, but people are still getting lots of bills from hospitals and doctors and respiratory therapists and from the lab or any of the numerous departments that helped keep them alive. One woman got a bill for $2 million. She must have been very sick and in the ICU for months. Some have. Or longer.

I’ll be updating this if I find more info on it or the situation in Texas or other states that are experiencing difficulties with people dying horribly from lack of care from their government. Yeah Ted Cruz got caught going to Mexico with his family, but so what? Biden went to camp David and his staff wanted us to know that he was having a fine time with his grandkids and staying nice and warm in front of a fire. Gawd’s nightgown didn’t anyone think of the optics or was that the POINT of letting people in Texas know that HE was nice and warm while they 1st couldn’t know because they had no internet because they had NO effing power, but by damn it was ballsy.

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travelerxxx's picture

Pretty sure a group of ultra-wealthy Texans paid Cruz to take his excellent vacation in Cancun. This was done in order to shift the limelight off the guilty-as-sin Texas Republicans who control the less-than-stellar Texas electrical grid via ERCOT, the comically named Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

It mostly worked. Ted doesn't care, as he's right that no one will remember. Anyway, just spell his name correctly.

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@travelerxxx snap!
To be fair, Cruz spent lots of time in Cancun praying, as his Dad would wish.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

snoopydawg's picture

@travelerxxx

was handled. Here’s more info..

I posted a link to an article on how Texas screwed the people living there by privatizing and deregulating the electric grid for not just them, but people in other states and it’s been known for a decade if not before then. I’ll dig it up if you’re interested in it. But 10 years ago Texas had an emergency and the power grid failed and every person involved in it was told to fix it now before it fails again. Well now that it has what will be done to hold them accountable for the deaths that happened when people had no power?

If no one is then this will be Biden’s Katrina like Obama’s was Flint when he lied to their faces and said that it was safe to drink. Bush’s was ignoring poor and minorities in New Orleans and he just flew over the area to see how bad it was for a lot of people.

As for Cruz how many other members of congress fled not just Washington, but the country too? Biden went to Camp David to play with his grandkids and to sit by a nice warm fire and his staff actually tweeted about that event so everyone could know how he too was AWOL as half the country’s power grid collapsed? Nice way to tell the world what you think of your citizens. Gawd how can anyone defend the government? But defend they are.

Joe Manchin won’t vote for Neera cuz she was mean on Twitter, but it’s okay for her to censor her staff if she didn’t like them spilling beans on her corrupt deal with Cuomo and NYPD, out a woman who had been sexually assaulted and wanted her name kept secret, to her taking gobs and goblins of money from despotic leaders over the pond like Bibi, whoever runs the UAE and other country and people who needed her help on matters before her government and was setup to be held for when Her-heinous Herself became president so she could dish out favors for whomever gave her enough money. But actually it’s Bernie’s fault that he’s not voting for her because Bernie was mean to her in'16 as were his supporters! 5 years after Bernie killed Hillary’s one last chance of being president he’s still responsible for everything others do to people who gave Bernie a bad time.

lol..she lost because of her heinous self and should own up to it. Not cuz she’s a woman and shades of Helen Ready may she restaurant in peace.

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snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

I'm blown away that these energy companies just arbitrarily decided to hike the price from $50 a megawatt to $9000 a megawatt, and the powers-that-be in government seem to just be arguing on the best way to get them paid, not about criminalizing the act.

She is right. Whomever was in charge of getting electricity to the states that lost it could have held a press conference to tell people what about others jacking up the price so much that it’s unaffordable and instead they will be doing rolling blackouts until the grid stabilizes and that might have lit a fire under the feds and got them off their buttocks and getting people help. Then when people’s pipes broke and spewed water everywhere there would have been some people to that might have been held accountable for the damage. Instead he stayed quiet and government went on doing what ever they did.. but I do want to know how many fled the area for one that had power and water.

Can you imagine the sorrow for paramedics, cops and doctors that worked on families that had been injured badly or killed by trying to stay warm by sitting in their cars with their heat on and the garage door closed. A family of 4 did that and the mom and daughter died and the dad and brother lived but are still in hospital. Very sad. And possibly preventable. Hell yes I’m pissed.

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vtcc73's picture

@snoopydawg My MIL, birth date 11/22/33, remembers the electrification of West Texas very well. She was a young girl when her family finally got electricity on their dry land farm 45 miles east of Lubbock. It was one of many reasons her generation loved FDR. It was a federal project. Texas "deregulated" it by intentionally and purposely turning it over to Texas companies to operate, maintain, and modernize as necessary. Keeping it unconnected to grids outside Texas allowed these companies to do pretty much what they damn well pleased which was, has been, and is to make money for the few who own the network and means of production. It is a monopoly with no way to connect to the grids outside of Texas.

I can't remember if it was 2010 or '11 but a similar storm caused a somewhat smaller but almost as significant a mess in Texas. Only the severity of this storm and the resultant scope of the damage makes it notable. Well, that and the callous price gouging that is hard to hide these days. As my long time friend in Austin said this is same shit, different day as will be the aftermath. Following the 2010, or '11, mess there was the usual screamin' and hollerin', fingerpointing, and politicians promising action which came in the form of legislation. As Bobby says it was legislation well designed to say they did something while changing nothing at all.

This is not a federal problem. It is Texas being Texas run by the same good ol' boy network to make shitloads of money while telling the rubes how great it is to be free. This disaster is Texas' problem. It is up to the people of Texas to fix. The federal government could not have prevented it simply because Texans have chosen to not fix it. Maybe that will change but like my friend says, not likely. Claiming the feds or Biden in particular should have done something to prevent this is kind of like being mad about Biden's COVID response. Nonsense.

On the other had, it is a proper disaster response by the federal government unlike what we have seen from Texas, so exceptionally damn free, and the feds the past four years. Likewise, the feds could not control the weather (although they, like most of us, are complicit in our steadfast refusal to do fuckall meaningful about climate change), force Texas to install an adequate power grid or connect outside of Texas as a backup, require the citizens of Texas to weatherize their homes, or prevent any of this. The federal government can only react to what is. For me it looks like an appropriate, adequate response.

That's not to say that while this is a disaster that deserves a federal response it was also foreseeable, preventable, and that the response assumes responsibilities/liabilities that should rightly be left to Texans, the government they chose, and the power grid owners. I doubt a Texas court would hold power companies liable for the deaths and damage but I wouldn't be surprised if the legal argument would otherwise stand that they have some liability. Federal legislation that prohibits a future federal response to a similar disaster caused by Texas not modernizing their power grid is probably a worthy consideration.

In my opinion our sense of freedom needs to be altered to focus at least as much on responsibilities as it is on rights. It's how I was brought up, by high school dropouts no less, and seems to have been the predominant idea among the adults I knew as a kid. Schools taught responsibility too. I know that's heresy to the "It's all about me." culture. My point is that the balance is long dead in the 61 years since "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,...” was spoken. In this vein, the Texas mayor who is getting so much bad press, and resigned over it IIRC, had it partly right. The people who have been affected are partially responsible for putting dickheads and charlatans in office. Maybe two weather related power grid disasters will be enough to get rid of those who have been using Texans as piggy banks. But I doubt it.

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"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

snoopydawg's picture

@travelerxxx

The power outages and gas shortages in Texas provided Jones and his company an opportunity to profit. And he took it.

Jerry Jones is doing what he has always done: trying to cash in. He is damn good at it. He is a billionaire for a lot of reasons: business acumen, luck, fearlessness and the willingness to do things like jack up the price of natural gas at a time when the people of Texas need it the most.

As Texans continue to go days without power or heat, shale-driller Comstock Resources Inc., a publicly traded company of which Jones is the majority stockholder, has, according to NPR, been selling gas at “super-premium prices.” It has been “like hitting the jackpot," Roland Burns, Comstock’s president and CFO, said on a Wednesday earnings call.

This is business to Jones, as defensible to him as—I’m being hypothetical here, of course—another billionaire claiming that not paying taxes “makes me smart.” Jones does not need the money, but need has nothing to do with this. Making more money for himself is one way he keeps score. (Winning Super Bowls is the other, though he hasn’t done that in almost three decades.)

O.K. then. Let’s keep score.:

I thought there was a law that made speculation during certain events illegal, but maybe it’s been rolled back like so many things have so to let rich folks make even more obscene profits than evah. If this bothered people then they would never let this information be exposed. They don’t care who knows how evil they are. Imagine having enough money to buy everything you want more than once over, but still refused to give back to the people who made them rich in the first place and which public service did they use to get that way. I just made my will and I’m giving half to charity and my family. But then who knows how much I’ll have when I die after the sociopaths in charge crash the economy again?

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travelerxxx's picture

@snoopydawg

I thought there was a law that made speculation during certain events illegal, but maybe it’s been rolled back like so many things have so to let rich folks make even more obscene profits than evah.

Yeah, there are laws like that. Usually known as "anti-price gouging" laws, etc. Often, states will have a direct phone number to the state attorney general's office for this. Seems what they go after are small businesses ratcheting up the price of pump gasoline, or bread, or ground hamburger, etc. However, if you own a pipeline or are a natural gas provider, you can apparently shoot for the moon with no worries - they only go after the little guys.

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snoopydawg's picture

@travelerxxx

I should have mentioned it. More on Jones.

That would be enough for most of us. Yet Comstock Resources is selling gas at prices ranging from $15 per thousand cubic feet to $179 per thousand cubic feet, a markup of between 600% and 7500% over pre-crisis levels. The idea that people might desperately need the gas and can’t afford this has probably not even occurred to him. The church of market worship has a narrow definition of sin.

Jones should be embarrassed, but billionaires don’t get embarrassed by what they see as good business deals. They get embarrassed when many people call them out, or when the public shame is so great that the good business deal morphs into a lousy one. Cowboys fans can show Jones how angry they are by cutting down on their financial support of the team. Logic says they should. History says they will not. Jones is betting that he can make money by price-gouging the very people he purports to represent. In that sense, he is a fitting owner of America’s Team.

This should have been made illegal the moment the crimes were known. Hello, Obiden you there? Gawd what a disgusting person he is. May he be next for the mortal coil shuffle. Umm did he procreate much?

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janis b's picture

@travelerxxx

Is that the correct spelling?

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travelerxxx's picture

@janis b

Yeah, it out to be Cruise ...or Mudd.

The easily-propagandized Texas voters will doubtless return him to D.C. next election - if he isn't elected President first.

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snoopydawg's picture

Just interesting.

Wish we could separate tweets so we can just post the one we want. But check out this eerie video.

What horror film is playing in theaters now?

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mimi's picture

@snoopydawg a fiction movie, but the real stuff.

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mimi's picture

FUBAR = RABUF = Real Abusers Be United Forever.

Snoops, shut down the puter. Get rest. Take your little doggie and have some quality time warming each other up on the couch.

Sigh. Can you believe this shit?

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snoopydawg's picture

@mimi

The pup has crashed after a very busy day and I don’t want to wake her...

I’m still working on my reply to your comment in my essay. It’s so sweet and I thank you for saying that. Look for it tomorrow.

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Yeah Ted Cruz got caught going to Mexico with his family, but so what? Biden went to camp David and his staff wanted us to know that he was having a fine time with his grandkids and staying nice and warm in front of a fire .

And not to defend Cruz, but Biden also has a lot more on his plate at the moment that he, and the whole damn government, just walked away from because they needed recess like a kindergartner. I’m sure the media has been breathlessly reporting this dereliction of duty, haven’t they?

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

enhydra lutris's picture

FEMA "can come in and ..." versus
FEMA "must come in and ..." versus
FEMA "will come in and ..."

is not a quibble with EOs, regulaations and legislation; tons of court cases have hinged on enabling legislation using "may" versus "shall"

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

snoopydawg's picture

@enhydra lutris

I think you spotted the fly in the soup.

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Where’s the means testing? I ask only slightly sarcastic. Recall the clip of Biden going around asked about student loan debt. It was all this mealy mouthed means testing garbage and faux concern that rich people might benefit.

If this plan can be taken at face value, and I’m skeptical it can, it shows they can do this. They just don’t want to. They have to realize they’re not going to get this toothpaste back in the tube. Other people will start asking “why not us too?” Or they should at least.

And I’m not saying they shouldn’t. God, they should have done this years ago, for everyone. If this is true, I hope the people of Texas get the help they need. But damnit it’s just hard to celebrate someone finally doing the right thing because they have run out of alternatives.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

If this plan can be taken at face value, and I’m skeptical it can, it shows they can do this. They just don’t want to. They have to realize they’re not going to get this toothpaste back in the tube. Other people will start asking “why not us too?” Or they should at least.

Whether FEMA will get them health insurance relating to the Texas fiasco is a good point as EL points out, but people are going with Biden told FEMA to give them health insurance and they will think that now all of Texas has it and by golly they should too. Plenty of disasters around the country that could qualify that the government should pay for people's health care. But the thing that is also getting around is the news that everyone in Libby, MT has it because of an environmental disaster and guess who gave it to them? Barack Obama. Yep according to the article I am once again wrong about how long they have had it. It was in 2009 and Zero was the pres parking his butt in the Oval to look like he was in charge. Some maybe, but not all. If all it takes for a president to declare a disaster and say that everyone will be covered is waking a lot of people up and looking at their environment. Some for the 1st time. I'd love to see poor, minorities waking up to the fact that that big space over there filled with lots of yucky things are making us sick and have been doing it down generations for a very long time and get that shit out of there.

Side note, but when you see your state falling in line with other republican run states and passing the same laws, look behind the mask and see the Kock organizations behind them. The new on is letting people plow through protesters in the street if they feel that their lives are threatened. We don't need a law to let them do that. A jury trial could determine if indeed that was why he fled. Or not. We have most of the laws on the books we need, not new ones to fit whatever agenda gets raging.

And not to defend Cruz, but Biden also has a lot more on his plate at the moment that he, and the whole damn government, just walked away from because they needed recess like a kindergartner.

Well impeaching is hard work and it is also hard for Biden to be trotted out there for photo ops on signing statements that are not actually valid because of the way they are worded. See EL's comment above. If you don't fund something when you create it good luck getting it funded later. Oh wait...

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snoopydawg's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

Oh it’s there. Just today we learned that only 77 counties will be included in the FEMA relief and pretty much everyone else is on their own. That’s how I read it.

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snoopydawg's picture

Plenty of disasters around the country that could qualify that the government should pay for people's health care.

Both Trump and Obiden said that no one should have to pay for COVID treatment or testing so whether they backed that up or not doesn't matter, and Kamillary said it too. I remember Bree asking why people shouldn't go bankrupt for COVID, but it's okay to go bankrupt from everything else if congress has the power to stop that resource for bankruptcy lawyers.

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snoopydawg's picture

the rest do not qualify for federal relief programs. Now why would you means test disaster relief?

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Granma's picture

Texas Republican governor asked for health care for his state. I would like it to be true but am skeptical.
Do you have any source for this besides the tweet.?
My internet was down for a week straight and has gone down several times since it first came back. It is mostly down. Otherwise I would try harder to find this information myself. A quick search didn't turn anything up.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Granma

I searched before I posted but couldn’t find anything more on it. But the governor doesn’t have to ask for anything. FEMA sets its own rules. Google seems worthless anymore and the duck seems even worse. Search results on the duck aren’t even close to what Google posts or near the topic. Very sad to see that going away.

I read how the epi pen was created by the military way back when, but it was sold to big pharma and you know the rest of the story.

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Granma's picture

@snoopydawg and then there were one or two that searched all the search engines for your request. Google was not the best of them, as I remember.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Granma

and now have a monopoly which allows them to determine what we read. Remember when they changed their algorithm a few years ago that cut traffic to alternative websites by so much many went under. That too is censorship, but guess congress is okay with what Google's doing.

Has anyone heard anyone from government talking about what FB did to Australia? I haven't heard much about that lately.

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