JFKA Forum Journals of the Plague Year?

[Kirk Gallaway]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Anybody who wants to quickly find out what Obamacare would cost them can use the Kaiser Foundation Obamacare Calculator. I just used it to get these figures:

Single 60 year old with $15k income:   $26 monthly premium

Single 60 year old with $20k income:   $77 monthly premium

Single 60 year old with $30k income:   $199 monthly premium 

Married 60 year olds with $30k income:   $68 monthly premium each

 

(In comparison, Medicare is $145 monthly per person. So most of the above examples are cheaper than Medicare. And they include drug coverage while Medicare doesn't.)

Obviously these are all highly subsidized premiums.

There are three levels of coverage, named Bronze, Silver, and Gold. YOU GET A SUBSIDY ONLY IF YOU PICK A SILVER PLAN. I suspect that some people who complain about the price of Obamacare picked a Bronze plan hoping to pay a lower premium, only to discover it has a very high premium. And so they walk away thinking that Obamacare sucks for low-income folks. LOW INCOME PEOPLE NEED TO PICK A SILVER PLAN. Bronze and Gold plans are for high-income folks.

 

Sandy, a central tenet of the Trump right wing wacko conspiracy  movement is the idea of an elitist Eugenics movement lead by Gates and Soros and others, and yet the people who swallow this cant even see that it's Trump whose going to take away the ACA, with still no plan to replace, leaving the people most in jeopardy like yourself to be uncertain of their future healthcare, and that's not population control?

And consider Trump's deliberate feet dragging on the virus, disproportionately killing off the lower economic strata of Americans. And that's not another example of population control?

Some of these hard core Trump supporters just can't make the connection, that this  will eventually happen to them.

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

David - would you elaborate? The underlying story here, it seems to me, is the incredible ignorance of the parents, who certainly could have taken their child to the doctor once, or to an emergency room once. Why is this a story about Obama care? Maybe you could share your personal complaint - why it doesn’t work for your family. I’m not defending the Affordable Care Act, which did help millions of people, but surely left millions behind. How did you and your family fall between the cracks? 
 

Debt, expenses, low pay; fear of adding to the first two.  Not every family has $100-plus disposable per month to pay for healthcare, even if co-sponsored by an employer.  Look at the statistics for people still uninsured under AHCA.  For these people, doctors and hospitals become the enemy.  Do you know how expensive an emergency room visit "once" is for the uninsured?  Those visits can have huge co-pays under some forms of insurance.  The US deserves single-payer healthcare for all below a certain income level.

Edited September 20, 2020 by David Andrews

[David Andrews]

Double post, please delete.

Edited September 20, 2020 by David Andrews

[Kirk Gallaway]

I know what's going on Dave, you try to edit your post and it comes out as another post, but in quotes, leading others to think they already read it.

Damn!

Edited September 21, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[Richard Price]

David, it sounds trite, but I understand your situation pretty well and agree about insurance/healthcare.  I was a supporter of Bernie Sanders (and anyone else) that truly wanted to reform our healthcare/insurance industry for that very reason.  I don't care what it's labeled, if a country cannot take care of its citizens who toil at the mundane and mostly low paying jobs that make it run, there is a problem that sooner or later will boil over.  My family would be in exactly your situation had I not lucked into a US Postal Svc. job many years ago.  We have been blessed with pretty good health up until now and no accidents that required hospitalization.  Even with this, we are struggling to hang on to our bottom of the barrel "middle class" status.  It always feels that we are swimming against the current and the current is getting stronger while we get older and weaker.  My best to you.  I wish I could offer more.

[Paul Brancato]

2 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Debt, expenses, low pay; fear of adding to the first two.  Not every family has $100-plus disposable per month to pay for healthcare, even if co-sponsored by an employer.  Look at the statistics for people still uninsured under AHCA.  For these people, doctors and hospitals become the enemy.  Do you know how expensive an emergency room visit "once" is for the uninsured?  Those visits can have huge co-pays under some forms of insurance.  The US deserves single-payer healthcare for all below a certain income level.

Yes - I get it. The Democrats only partially succeeded, and it was a compromise at best. I agree completely that we deserve single-payer at the very least for low income citizens.

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Sandy, a central tenet of the Trump right wing wacko conspiracy  movement is the idea of an elitist Eugenics movement lead by Gates and Soros and others, and yet the people who swallow this cant even see that it's Trump whose going to take away the ACA, with still no plan to replace, leaving the people most in jeopardy like yourself to be uncertain of their future healthcare, and that's not population control?

And consider Trump's deliberate feet dragging on the virus, disproportionately killing off the lower economic strata of Americans. And that's not another example of population control?

Some of these hard core Trump supporters just can't make the connection, that this  will eventually happen to them.

Well, the good news is that Trump still claims to have a "terrific" healthcare plan.

He has, apparently, been keeping it under wraps for the past four years, and it's so secret that even his closest advisors don't know what it is.

Check with Wheeler for details.  🤪

[David Andrews]

5 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

I know what's going on Dave, you try to edit your post and it comes out as another post, but it in quotes, leading others to think they already read it.

Damn!

It's because the Edit button used to be next to the Quote button, so I keep hitting Quote instead of opening the menu.  Must...stop...that...

Edited September 20, 2020 by David Andrews

[Joe Bauer]

14 hours ago, Richard Price said:

David, it sounds trite, but I understand your situation pretty well and agree about insurance/healthcare.  I was a supporter of Bernie Sanders (and anyone else) that truly wanted to reform our healthcare/insurance industry for that very reason.  I don't care what it's labeled, if a country cannot take care of its citizens who toil at the mundane and mostly low paying jobs that make it run, there is a problem that sooner or later will boil over.  My family would be in exactly your situation had I not lucked into a US Postal Svc. job many years ago.  We have been blessed with pretty good health up until now and no accidents that required hospitalization.  Even with this, we are struggling to hang on to our bottom of the barrel "middle class" status.  It always feels that we are swimming against the current and the current is getting stronger while we get older and weaker.  My best to you.  I wish I could offer more.

Well said...true reality.

My family situation is so similar to yours. Except I never had even the somewhat benefit providing middle class job like your U.S. Postal Service one. 

[Joe Bauer]

Strange times with the Covid-19 shutdown and economic turn down like nothing I have experienced in my 69 years ( turn 69 today ) but this following political election campaign observation just adds to this odd and ominous weirdness imo.

We have what ... just 6 weeks until the national election?

I haven't yet seen ONE political party or candidate yard sign, one open space banner or sign, one bumper sticker, one newspaper ad ... nothing!

And we haven't received one political campaign mail brochure as well!

I have always remembered presidential election political signs everywhere in the past.

Obama -McCain, Kerry - Bush, Obama - Romney, even Hillary - Trump!

It was always fun to read funny bumper stickers. Yard and window signs gave color and excitement all over town like Christmas decorations.

They added to the excitement of the election. Same with state, county and local candidates and issues.

I understand almost everything has been put on the internet with T.V. ads as well, but even with TV, there seems to be a huge drop off.

Heck, we received political ad promotion mailers almost daily from the Mike Bloomberg campaign when he ran in the Democratic primary for 2 and 1/2 months.

Since then...nothing!

Why the complete disappearance of these traditional campaign ad items?

Could it be that because we have never been so divided politically with palpable anger towards each other that people are afraid to display yard and window signs and car bumper stickers?

Lest someone take a pot shot at their homes and cars?

If so, what a sad state of national angst we have in the U.S. anymore.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[W. Niederhut]

6 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Strange times with the Covid-19 shutdown and economic turn down like nothing I have experienced in my 69 years ( turn 69 today ) but this following political election campaign observation just adds to this odd and ominous weirdness imo.

We have what ... just 6 weeks until the national election?

I haven't yet seen ONE political party or candidate yard sign, one open space banner or sign, one bumper sticker, one newspaper ad ... nothing!

And we haven't received one political campaign mail brochure as well!

I have always remembered presidential election political signs everywhere in the past.

Obama -McCain, Kerry - Bush, Obama - Romney, even Hillary - Trump!

It was always fun to read funny bumper stickers. Yard and window signs gave color and excitement all over town like Christmas decorations.

They added to the excitement of the election. Same with state, county and local candidates and issues.

I understand almost everything has been put on the internet with T.V. ads as well, but even with TV, there seems to be a huge drop off.

Heck, we received political ad promotion mailers almost daily from the Mike Bloomberg campaign when he ran in the Democratic primary for 2 and 1/2 months.

Since then...nothing!

Why the complete disappearance of these traditional campaign ad items?

Could it be that because we have never been so divided politically with palpable anger towards each other that people are afraid to display yard and window signs and car bumper stickers?

Lest someone take a pot shot at their homes and cars?

If so, what a sad state of national angst we have in the U.S. anymore.

Joe,

     I envy you for living in such a blue state.  Colorado is currently "purple," and we've been inundated with the usual pre-election political advertising lately.  

    I don't watch much television, except for occasional sports events, when I have been forced to watch political ads -- e.g., during Denver Bronco games.  Who'd have thunk that the manager of the Koch's Senate slush fund, Senator Cory Gardner, (R-Colorado) is a guy who deplores John Hickenlooper's apparent corruption, and has "reached across the aisle" since 2014 to "break the gridlock" in Washington?  🤥

     With this kind of advertising, who needs Comedy Central?

[James DiEugenio]

This is a devastating story.  In some ways its as bad as Woodward. And the fact it came from Max Kennedy makes it more ironic.  Please read to see why Kushner is Trump's bonded alter ego.

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/a-young-kennedy-in-kushnerland-turned-whistle-blower

[Chris Davidson]

I commend Max for his well aimed intentions, but there was quite a bit of naivety in his thought process.

"How did a Kennedy end up in a sensitive role in the Trump Administration? After graduating from Harvard, in 2016, Kennedy did some time at consulting and investment firms; he planned to take the LSAT in March, but the pandemic cancelled it. At loose ends, he responded to a friend’s suggestion that he join a volunteer task force that Jared Kushner was forming, to get vital personal protective equipment, such as masks, to virus hot spots. Kushner, he was told, was looking for young generalists who could work long hours for no pay. “I was torn, to some extent,” Kennedy, a lifelong Democrat, said. “But it was such an unprecedented time. It didn’t seem political—it seemed larger than the Administration.” And he knew people who’d been sick. So in March he volunteered for the White House Covid-19 Supply-Chain Task Force, and drove to Washington."

[Kirk Gallaway]

59 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is a devastating story.  In some ways its as bad as Woodward. And the fact it came from Max Kennedy makes it more ironic.  Please read to see why Kushner is Trump's bonded alter ego.

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/a-young-kennedy-in-kushnerland-turned-whistle-blower

I do take Chris's point, that a Kennedy  found every lame excuse, to serve in a Trump administration, and couldn't see what he was getting into is incredibly naive.

******

But it's a good article. This is the crux of it all. Take ineffective efforts to show the government failing at combating the corona virus, so as to propagate the idea that the government can't do anything effective anyway, so why even have a government? Let's get back to Koch Libertarian ideal of as little government and regulation as possible, with government baring no responsibility for any kind of safety net, much less a health care system, much less health care for all. And put up for a starting position, whether government even has the right to tax it's citizens at all.

That was also the plan for running the USPS out of existence. To cut their services prior  to an election during a pandemic and blame it on the government.

And of course the ploy that was swallowed by a number of people here, and is propagated by the Trump cult, that the "Deep State " government's only moment of any kind of efficiency is when they are evil and trying to take away the citizen's rights, and trying to run an anti  government, non politician, "leader of the people",  President from office.

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[James DiEugenio]

It was Trump's idea to make sure it failed so he could say,  "See we can't do anything about this."

And then he throws it back on the states. Without authorizing the defense mobilization act.  

I love this one:

He said that Brad Smith, one of the political appointees who directed the task force, pressured him to create a model fudging the projected number of fatalities; Smith wanted the model to predict a high of a hundred thousand U.S. deaths, claiming that the experts’ models were “too severe.” Kennedy said that he told Smith, “I don’t know the first thing about disease modelling,” and declined the assignment.