in line. That promise that they are going to get to that Utopian world, if we just keep electing D's or R's. The Evangelical crowd still wants abortions outlawed, they stick to the Republicans because that promise is out there, somewhere, they'll get there.

Dem's are a little tougher, we have so many goals, but we are lead down the primrose path time and time again with the promise that we will get there with universal health care, gun control whatever it is that motivates you to get out and vote.

The trick is just never getting there.

land when that puppy was voted in. It has helped a few, but it is leaving a very bad taste in the mouths of many. Those who haven't signed up because it is still too expensive for those who don't qualify for the lowest premiums are now facing bigger and bigger penalties every year on their income tax returns. So they are between and rock and a hard place.

Many find that the deductibles are very large, and would bankrupt them, with or without ACA. A lot of clinics won't see a person who would appear to have some real problems, they are sent immediately to the ER, where the initial bill runs to several thousand dollars. All three of my sons have experienced this in the last few years. The first words out of the mouth of the billing people is how are you going to pay for this? When asked how much it will cost, they are told, no one will know until after the fact! How do you plan for that kind of crap?

The insurance companies are complaining mightily that they just can't make enough money under ACA. I'm not sure where they're going with that, other than higher premiums and more gov. subsidies.

If anything, by going this route, they have made people more suspicious of healthcare options. I don't know that it is a net plus that will get us to universal healthcare. One way would be to lower the eligibility age for Medicare, INCREMENTALLY. Allowing people 55 and up, to apply for Medicare at a small percentage rate would be a real start. Medicare payroll deduction is .0145 per employee, matched by .0145 by employer. A small bump in this rate, with the possibility of dropping private health insurance for both would be a viable way to go.

I have never understood why big corporations cry the blues about "having" to provide healthcare while slamming universal health care at the same time. We have lost manufacturing to Canada and other countries who provide healthcare, it is a big expense at this point, my last employer was spending 20% of payroll on healthcare and that was 2008.

of a rewarding afterlife. The medieval world view was that sure, the aristocracy get their rewards in this life, but if you keep your head down and keep working and conform you'll get your reward in the next life. After you die. When you're dead. As in fucking never.
It's based on faith. Faith that there's a future. If not for your physical body, then for your spirit. If not for you, then for your kids, or their kids. Someday. Way out there. Not now. Never now. Later.
For those of us without kids that particular rhetorical technique doesn't work. Single payer generations from now is identical to no single payer.
As far as climate change is concerned, there is no future for anyone without rapid, radical, revolutionary change. The window for modest, incremental change that doesn't disrupt the status quo closed 70 years ago.

He's extended the War OF Terror and his drone assassination program to more corners of the earth; he's bombed seven Muslim countries and started 3 more illegal wars; he's on the verge of his signature economic goal, the TTP; he's implemented austerity measures on the serfs; he's strengthened the intelligence and security industrial complexes as well as the prison industrial complex; he's overseen the largest increase of the national debt in history; he's insured no measures have gone forward to fix any of the wealth and income inequality; and he's institutionalized the corporate money first health and pharmaceutical industries with his Obamacare.

He's also shown the world the full potential of what a fraud and liar the American President can be. It just goes to show if you keep fighting for the ruling class, you will make incremental progress.

I couldn't be more shocked. History will not be especially kind to Barack Obama, probably not least for paving the way for President Hillary. The entire DLC phase of Democratic Party history will probably be viewed as akin to late 19th century Robber Baron era corruption. Until we elect a Teddy Roosevelt to start a new progressive age, though, nobody in the Beltway is going to see it that way.

Old movies tended to show donkey pulling wagons with a carrot dangled just out of reach. It is thus with the Democratic Party, and has been since FDR died, with the exception of JFK. We know what happened to him!

The Democrats have promised change for the better all of my life. When they are called upon to deliver, somehow that carrot isn't on the string anymore. Did some Republican need it for a salad?

The empty promise of change is to ensure that the only real increase in the lives of those lied to about changes is in the number of steps (election votes) taken in pursuit of that which is kept just out of reach but never out of view. We drag the wagons, but receive no reward for doing so. And we can't understand why Republicans sneer at us with smug disdain!

Obama is an excellent example of a mule driver. How many times has he promised, and how many times has he failed to deliver? How often has he joined the sneering at us when we complain about how a moderate 1985 Reagan Republican isn't walking his talk? He did his job, now he expects to have his LIEbury built no matter what the people living around UofC want.

It would be poetic justice if his carrot gets yanked out of reach right as he expects it to be given!