SCOTUS upholds healthcare law- Page 7

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:21pm

I just see a blank post from you, but I get those a lot when people post pictures, so it's probably something with my computer. Mea Culpa!

Maybe I can get my eyes checked under the Affordable Care Act! :)

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:30pm

I just wish the Affordable Care Act could treat Obama Derangement Syndrome.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:33pm

You can't fix stupid, jJoe

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:41pm

Broadway Joe, thanks for responding with that information. It's not a plan I personally would feel comfortable paying into for the reasons sidwich listed, but if it's working for you, that's great.

But since you didn't answer the question I posed, let me rephrase: do you think the 45 million Americans without insurance all have access health care plans that cost only $100 a month? The point I'm trying to make is that your case is an extreme outlier, not the model from which you should be judging the entire health care system in America.

The fact that insurance companies are charging $400+ a month for something most healthy young people will use maybe 3 times a year is the real issue. You keep using the iPad excuse as a misuse of funds, but an iPad costs less than a month of private health insurance, and they last for years.

So I can understand the logic of the "lazy" young people who think $5000 a year to pay for a service they barely need or use is the real misuse funds. That's a lot of money for what probably amounts to 15 minutes annually of face time with a doctor. It's a scam, and that is what needs to change, not the priorities of our generation.

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 1:41pm

I actually do think that most Americans do have their priorities wrong, especially where I live. I have friends who lease nice cars for 300-400 bucks a month because they want to give the appearance that the have money when the truth is they don't. I have tons of friends who are in credit card debt because they buy stuff that they can't afford in the first place. Yet these same people don't have health insurance and that's their choice.

I do agree with you that $400+ a month for people our age is ridiculous but will those prices actually decrease once the bill is activated? That remains to be seen. We live in NYC, stuff here is always going to be more expensive then most other places. It's the price we pay for living where we do.


Updated On: 6/29/12 at 01:41 PM

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 1:44pm

I guess I'm puzzled then why you oppose this bill so much- it forces people to re-order those priorities and act responsibly- as you have- and get insurance.

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 1:53pm

Because I think the middle class is still going to have to float the bill for all these people who choose to still not get health insurance, whether they can afford it or not and then there will be taxed on top of that. Who is going to pay those taxes(fines, whatever you want to call it) It will be the middle class yet again.

That's the problem that needs to be solved for me but it won't ever happen. As a middle class member we get hammered the most with everything and it's really gotten out of hand. Especially living in this area and getting screwed with ridiculous water bills and having the Port Authority screw us constantly.

In the end, whether Republican or Democrat or whatever else, they all suck and end up screwing us over and over and it's only going to keep getting worse.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 1:57pm

"I actually do think that most Americans do have their priorities wrong ..."

Let me tell you about how that came to pass. In 1981, when Reagan became president, he ushered in our current era of selfishness. In the backlash to the social changes of the '60s and '70s, of which he was the figurehead and loudest mouthpiece (the backlash, not the changes), he told the citizens of this country that what THEY wanted as individuals was the most important thing, that helping other people was not a priority.

He gave people permission to not give a crap about their fellow citizens. He enabled white working class men to feel aggrieved, gave them permission to not even think about racism, since white guys checking their biases is "reverse racism" anyway.

He set the stage. He set the stage for materialism and focused on the pleasure centers in the brain not stimulated by counter cultural drugs, but by purchase power, ownership and greed. The more you "get" the better you feel and the more of a winner you are! Screw the losers.

31 years of that. 31 years of people missing the fact that "Greed is good" was supposed to be a critique, not a mantra. When he ran for reelection, Reagan's "Are YOU better off than you were four years ago?" was a question about individuals, because thinking about anybody but ourselves was passe, very twenty years before.

Of course it continues to this day. What did Bush tell the citizens of the US to do after 9/11? Go shopping! GO SHOPPING!!!

The deregulation Reagan ushered in let insane credit card policies to go unchecked, marinated generation after generation of people intent on "getting theirs" and screw everybody else, and shopping and acquisition the only measure of success and worth that most people recognize.

31 years of that will really screw up a country. I don't really see a way to blame people who have lived in this, since so many have never known anything else and most have certainly never been expose to anything that gave them permission to think about anybody but themselves.

Updated On: 6/29/12 at 01:57 PM

[Addison D.]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:02pm

Yes. ^^What he said.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:18pm

And now we're through the looking glass. Now people who think gay people have the right to be equal to other tax paying citizens of this country, for example, are urged to "support" JC Penney because their multi-million dollar spokeslesbian has come under attack by a group of people who may as well have been created with Reagan's rib!

This is one of the only ways people feel connected to any sort of collective voice. "Support" JC Penney! Save the Ellen!!

Updated On: 6/29/12 at 02:18 PM

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:22pm

Bravo!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:27pm

None of my screed is intended to dismiss the people who DON'T have their priorities wrong. I think of our own late, lamented IflitIfloat who had a very busy professional and personal life and STILL managed to volunteer overnight at a men's homeless shelter.

But I think it has been really hard for people who stayed committed to things like that. Laughingly dismissed as "do-gooders" as if those two things, doing and goodness are just far too beyond the pale for a world where knowing cynicism prevents people from caring, less they be the objects of derision too.

[madbrian]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:28pm

Yeah, the fact that so many people in this country venerate Reagan confounds me. He did more to ruin this country than any other president in our lifetime, even more than Bush. He set this country on the trajectory that got us to where we are today, and no one has been able to effectively change that trajectory. Throw in Iran-Contra, and you have 8 years that set us back for generations.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:31pm

But he sold a feel-good message predicated on selfishness. And a LOT of people did feel good as a result of it. Again, his era condemned pleasure as it had been experienced for the previous two decades (just say no!), and sold the idea that there were winners and losers and it's better to be a winner no matter the cost to other people, your wallet or your soul.

[romantico]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 3:57pm

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 8:59pm

The deification of that awful man is the biggest mystery of my life.

So many social problems went from bad to catastrophic. It was heartbreaking to see the difference in care and treatment for PWAs under Clinton. If only we hadn't had to wait 12 years!

And of course, don't forget- the rise of Al Queda was absolutely due to Reagan's awful policies. Osama Bin Laden would be working in his family construction business if not for Reagan's terrorism training.

[romantico]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 11:06am

Debunking the myths about the Supreme Court decision

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im8QnqhQRSE&feature=player_embedded

This graphic should give the five conservative Supreme Court Justices something to think about.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 5:04pm

Reagan sold weapons to Iran, Saddam Hussein, and the Taliban. Remind a conservative hero-worshipper of that and watch them try to justify the conservative contradiction.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 5:21pm

[romantico]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 5:29pm

Ronald Reagan raised taxes eleven times. That is one fact Republicans today HATE hearing.


http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/05/142288/reagan-centennial/

[Yawper]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 5:40pm

and the average tax rate now is LOWER than when Reagan was in office

[romantico]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 6:03pm

The Tea Party and the Republican Party today (is their really a difference?) would disown Reagan.He would be labeled a socialist and a communist by the RNC.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 6:09pm

And he was a bad actor.



Ronald Reagan and Eleanor Parker in "The Voice of the Turtle"


And he was apparently bad in bed.



18-year-old Piper Laurie first met the famous 39-year-old actor on the set of the 1950 drama Louisa, in which he played her father. He asked the virginal young girl’s mother for permission to take her "out on a date," then subjected her to what was pretty much the worst sex ever.
Ronald Reagan Was Terrible At Sex, Says Actress Piper Laurie In Memoir

[romantico]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 6:32pm

I would love to see her go on Hanity's show on Fox to promote this book and tell that story. Will Sean be turned on or just get angry?(or both?)

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/30/12 at 8:38pm

The only divorced president and he set the precedent of running on "Family Values" and abandoning your family. Of course, he also had many close friends that were gay and even friends with AIDS and yet exacerbated their plight.