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Government made him well
Look, I understand you believe your insurance company cares about you. I have no intention of trying to stop you from continuing with your coverage.
The only thing I am asking is please allow my children to get their insurance from the place where their father got his life saving coverage. Yes, I am one of those you heard about — a real life living, breathing, longtime healthy person who paid his insurance all his working life until it became unprofitable and expendable.
I’m one of those who got sick at the same time his wife passed away and got shoved out the door. Just a statistic to them — once an asset, now a liability. Do you know who got me well at great expense? You did! Thank you.
Yes, the government saved my life. Your Medicaid program paid my medical bills and the insurance company kept the profits. What a country!
I’m on Medicare now so I’m getting great Medical treatment. I go in, pay a small co-pay and get good care. I was told six years ago that I should contact a hospice but you got me well.
Do you understand now why I want my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be covered by government insurance. They will all opt for it I’m sure because they saw what happened to me. You won’t understand it fully until it happens to you or someone you love. When it does, you will want the government option to be available. I guarantee it.
The real reason the insurance companies oppose it is they know word of mouth will eventually kill their fatted cow. You will eventually see where the best insurance is.
Allen F. Cutler, 37210
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Thank you Allen for telling it like it really is . I don't understand your paying a co-pay though . I never have . Medicare has been a lifesaver for me too.
Could be a phony letter dooley. (which the lefty is prone to do to get what they want) My mother never paid a co-pay either.
Well, at least today's LTE is better than yesterday's...
Yes, yesterday's LTE was real boring. Like today's. Let's get OFF topic as quickly as possible.
I guess all those angry mobs would rather line the pockets of an insurance executive and let some flack decide what test they can and can't have. Do you get to front of the line in the doctors office now if you have private insurance vs. Medicare? Just curious because I can't for the life of me understand the anger driving these folks.
Dooley, the copay may be from supplemental coverage such as HealthSprings.
Yeah, real lefty lies like "we found the weapons of mass destruction" Bush 5/29/03
or Mission Accomplished
or "it could last six days, six weeks, I doubt six months" Rumsfeld 3/03
daK here is an off-topic for you
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_feuding_families
Kosh III: I never look up web addresses I do not know. I did once at "Chief's" request and the vulgarity was too much. Never before did I realize what midgets could sexually accomplish.
Good morning.
Life is full of amazing wonders and then there is idgaf. I am always astonished as to just how id can be so unintelligent and still find his way back to this board.
Good morning, Nemo. Do we get a verbal cartoon this morning?
Verbal Cartoon
As Atlantis sank into the sea, idum 'iramus laughs at the fleeing people swimming away from shore. "Run you fools. I will get all of the beachfront properity fo myself."
Good morning, Nashville!
The LTE is a refreshing change from the doom and gloom of previous letters on this subject. No Obama bashing, no acusations of socialism, no demonization of the Democratic led Congress and no whining about burdensome costs and deficits.
This appears to be an honest, grass roots testimonial from someone who knows what he's talking about.
How about this, house?
The letter writer went on welfare after several life events and I'm glad the safety net was there to catch him. He was laid off and did not elect, or could not afford, to continue his company's insurance using COBRA.
But then, when he says "I want my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be covered by government insurance", is he wanting the government to pay for his children's health insurance? Maybe he is just of the mindset that anything the government provides must be better than what the private market provides.
Funditto, I don't understand either. What is the name of the syndrome where someone who is kidnapped defends the captor? It's sort of like that.
Thanks, Nemo.
It's 'Helsinki Syndrome', I think.
A note as a public service message to all those who are scared stiff of National Health care reform: get OFF the sugar, proccessed foods, heavy red meat. Go for a walk twice a day. Go to the gym and pump some iron. Walk in the park, meditate. Grow a vegetable garden. Drink 2 glasses of red wine a day. Never eat at Sonic's, Burger King, McDonald's, Shoney's. DO NOT buy any product you see advertised on TV or in the DRUG isle at Walgreen's. Never see a medical doctor for anything except if you got your foot caught in a wood chipper or your hand in a chain saw. DO NOT expect to get healthy in a hospital. Hospital food is worse than dorm food, that's worse than cafeteria food. Hospitals smell of death and will kill you. Read this twice and call me in the morning.
House, I saw your post yesterday, I last visited Nashville in 2004. You're right, I should come down there and watch a Titan's game, but not if the Bills are playing...that could lead to bruised feelings. I love Nashville, but hey, I live in Bill's country and I support the local team.....or else.
Yeah, that Anna3 seems to have the hots for old loner. Maybe we could could take Anna to the game with us.....I'll bet she has a big, loud mouth and yells out obscenities at the officials....we'll just keep feeding her brewskis 'til she passes out in the stands.
By: Dragon on 8/25/09 at 8:41
Maybe he is just of the mindset that anything the government provides must be better than what the private market provides.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dragon does this mean that you think that a private corporation would have provided a better war in Iraq, than what George W. Bush's government gave us?
That would be the Stockholm syndrome; so named because the captives in a Stockholm bank heist eventually sided with their captors. Patty Hearst was a victim of the Stockholm syndrome - some say.
My bad, Loner. My other 2 guesses were 'China Syndrome' & 'Turrets Syndrome'.
Can the Stockholm sydrome inclued all of the right-wing nuts too? Or are they a special nut case?
Now they are reversing letters.
Actually, private contractors did replace uniformed servicemen in many capacities under Bush-Cheney. We can all see just how cost ineffective that whole idea is. Remember the missing eleven billion under Paul Bremer's rule? That was swept right under the carpet...patriotic contractors ripped off Uncle Sam and got away with it.
We like to call our armed forces an all volunteer force. That's bull. Volunteers work for free. What we do have is a modern, hi-tech mercenary force that personally answers only to the President of the United States. It's the Commander-in-Chief's personal hit squad. Congress no loger declares war, Presidents send in the troops whenever the War Lobby tells them to.
Sinking...sinking!
White House projects bigger deficits, bigger debt
Citing worse than expected economy, White House projects bigger deficits and bigger debt
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/White-House-projects-bigger-apf-2714959279.html?x=0&.v=2
Not sure how I feel about this one. I believe they should have full disclosure...but it would cause harm to the institutions.
Court Orders Federal Reserve to Disclose Emergency Loan Details
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7CC61ZsieV4
The GOP has been held hostage by the Judeo-Christian theocrats for so long that they now actually believe that they are doing the Lord's work.
Grab your life vest and jump overboard, Chief. Watch out for sharks.
Loner,
Sorry but the use of contractors actually started under George H Bush during Desert Storm and was continued thru the Clinton years up to George W. years.
As for the military being "a modern, hi-tech mercenary force that personally answers only to the President of the United States", I, of course, disagree with this assessment...unless of course you'd like to compare every soldier who's ever been in since the draft has been removed as a mercenary.
Loner,
Nah, a country boy can survive. I'm going to sit back and watch those who don't know how to do that dog paddle.
Mornin', you batched bunch of lazy lousy good-for-nothings!
( /sarc; don't go ballistic Capt. Schemo~!~)
Did any of you woebegones happen to notice yesterday' Crossword in the NCP print edition (I don't know if it's available online)?
Look at the Title of the Crossword.
Look at and solve clue (Across) 1.
Write the answer, then step back and review the title of the Crossword Puzzle.
Hilarity ensues!
(Oh, I posted the pic of it this morning, if you want to look at it...)
Do hyperlinks work yet?
http://serr8d.blogspot.com/2009/08/hilarity-in-crosswords-ka-boom.html
See ya in a fortnight or two! Keep 'em in line, Loner! Don't start any Reichstag fires... )
Chief, I forgot to add the term "highly paid" to describe the mercenary force. When I was in the Army, recruits got about 25 dollars a month after a few years, an E-4 made about $250 a month.
The Bush boys started the idea and Clinton kept it going? Clinton did not order huge numbers of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen into harm's way, as the Bush boys so liked to do. (Especially the chicken-hawk junior Bush.)
The Vietnam War might still be going on, if we had an "all-volunteer" army at the beginning of that foolish confllict. When teenaged draftees were coming home in boxes, Americans eventually pulled the plug on the senseless war. The way it is now, when a mercenary gets killed, folks say that it was an occupational hazard, and he/she knew the risks. Wars can now go on indefinitely, thanks to the "all-volunteer" force.
Orwell predicted this exact situatuiion, in his novel, 1984.
Hit and run, Serr8d? Come back here and put up your dukes!
Serr, I went to your link, but, for some reason, could not post the following comment -
Actually, Allah gets more bang (Kaboom) for His buck than Jehovah does. Just compare the defense budgets for the US and Israel with those of the "Islamic nations". Jehovah is a spendthrift, Allah knows how to squeeze a buck for the most blood. Oh, the sanctity of it all!
Hit and run butter knife don't you mean, Loner.
If he got any dukes, you can be sure that they were stolen.
Let me give you another instance of the good nature of the insurance business.
My father-in-law paid car insurance to the same insurance company for years before having his first accident. He never had a single accident in over 50 years of driving. Then at the age of 75 he had a very minor incident... almost immediately his premiums doubled. But living where my in-laws lived, driving was an absolute necessity so they hunkered down and came up with the doubled premium payments. Then, about two months later he was in another accident; in this case the fault was clearly the fault of the other driver. Within days my father-in-law received notice that his drivers insurance was to be canceled. Luckily for my in-laws, they lived in a small town where they knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who worked for the insurance company, and they were able to get my father-in-laws insurance un-canceled, as it were. Even at that, they still had to pay the doubled premiums. Eventually my father-in-law had to give up driving, not because he couldn't, but because my in-laws couldn't continue to pay the premiums. At that point they completely became dependent upon others for all their transportation needs, essentially being a prisoner of their own house. And before someone says, "well why didn't they go to another insurance company?".... they did. But because of the recent incidences and his age, no one would touch him. This is insurance in America.
Loner,
"I forgot to add the term "highly paid" to describe the mercenary force. When I was in the Army, recruits got about 25 dollars a month after a few years, an E-4 made about $250 a month."
Wow...you must have been in SOME time ago!
"The Bush boys started the idea and Clinton kept it going? Clinton did not order huge numbers of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen into harm's way, as the Bush boys so liked to do. (Especially the chicken-hawk junior Bush.)"
No but Clinton DID use Halliburton to support the military, without bidding out the contract. Why? Because Halliburton was the only company that was big enough to do the job, or so Clinton said at the time.
"The Vietnam War might still be going on, if we had an "all-volunteer" army at the beginning of that foolish confllict. When teenaged draftees were coming home in boxes, Americans eventually pulled the plug on the senseless war. The way it is now, when a mercenary gets killed, folks say that it was an occupational hazard, and he/she knew the risks. Wars can now go on indefinitely, thanks to the "all-volunteer" force."
I see....so all this stuff about how patriotic they were, how they gave their life for their country is nothing but BS to you then. Well, if that's how you feel, that's how you feel. There's nothing I can say to change your mind...but I hope you have no one in your family who's in now.
"Orwell predicted this exact situatuiion, in his novel, 1984."
Indeed...as I recall Orwell predicted many things:
1. The elimination of language as hurtful (or mean spirited)
2. Destruction of love between men and women (as in men aren't a necessary element for having a family)
If you really want to get down to the nitty gritty, in point of fact, if you combined what both the liberals AND the conservatives would like in DC, then you would have a complete blueprint for 1984. That is fairly frightening.
I dare anyone to watch this edition of Bill Moyers Journal...
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08212009/watch.html
And then tell me that we don't have a dysfunctional health care system. Three families, three stories about health care in America.
The demise of Western civilization, though hard to pinpoint, can be traced to GW Bush and "Dracula" Dick Cheney. They took the American people, hook, line, and sinker...on dry land. Bush, as a reformed alcoholic and "born-again" Christian, has rumblings of Revelations from the Bible in his head as he took America down the ladder of inialation. We now find ourselves in a quagmire...damned if we do, damned if we don't. It's possibly worse than Vietnam ever was.
Dargent,
Personally, I pinpoint the beginning of the demise of Western Civilization at the point of the 1960s, when the children of those who suffered thru the Great Depression and WWII had grown up, spoiled by their parents who wanted to give them everything they never had and basically never having to grow up. I guess they are now called Baby Boomers, and BTW I happen to be one of them.
Just my opinion on the matter.
Chief, the patriotism angle and the "they gave their lives for their country" language no longer stirs my juices as it once did. I have aged and learned a few things.
I was in the US Army 1967-69, I guess forty years ago is ancient stuff. No argument on that...I'm gettin' freakin' old!
But back then, a good wage, in the US, was ten grand per year. Even so, the pay that we soldiers received was quite tiny compared to what civilians were getting. I'm sure that today's regular army enlisted men receive much higher compensation, relatively speaking, than we earned back in the sixties.
As for the patriotism and sacrifice thing, dying for the War Lobby is not the same thing as dying for your country, in my opinion.
When the special interests dictate foreign policy and promote pre-emptive war, it's difficult for me to rationalize the ensuing losses in men and materiel as being a necessary sacrifice, to keep the nation safe and secure from foreign enemies.
Using our armed forces to project global hegemony and economic domination, for the benefit of the special interests, is not what the Founders of this republic had in mind. Or am I wrong on that?
The all-volunteer force is just what the War Lobby called for. The feedback mechanism for ending conflicts has been re-wired, war protests will be minimal and marginal. The supply of meat for the meat grinder has been secured and assured. Still, guys like you, Chief, are completely sold on the patriotism angle....I gotta hand it to the War Lobby, they are doing a hell of a job.
"Who is this nefarious "War Lobby", loner?", some may ask. Here's the acronym: DIE. That stands for the Defense lobby, the Israel lobby, and the Energy lobby. Together, these three powerful lobbies effectively dictate US foreign policy, especially in the oil-rich, Middle East.
We may have a new president, but if he doesn't perform well for the War Lobby, his tenure will be short.
dargent7"
I have seen the fall of Western Civilzation before. It was call ed The Fall of the Roman Empire.
There was more than one factor to the Fall. Rome was a Christian Nation at the time of the Fall along with, decadence, lead, monetary troubles, military troubles, caused the Fall of Rome. Imperian incompetance and change could be added list.
Eight years of Bush?
Chief: And I was born in 1957, so I'm a "boomer". As Woodstock celebrates it's 40th year, I was too young to appreciate it. I was too young to feel the horror of the National Guard's men shooting and killing 4 students at Kent State. I was old enough to know Watergate and Nixon's cabal of psychos, and old enough to realize the witch hunt by the GOP after President Clinton was 100% b.s. and a vendetta.
I'm also old enough to know Bush & Co. were the most vile, corrupt, collusive bunch of oil barrons to occupy the White House.
Captain Nemo, you ticked off those causes for the fall of the Roman empire as if it was current events.....did you ever visit Rome, in it's heyday using the time-warping effects of the stellar drive units? If so, were the Roman chicks really that hot?
Loner,
"But back then, a good wage, in the US, was ten grand per year. Even so, the pay that we soldiers received was quite tiny compared to what civilians were getting. I'm sure that today's regular army enlisted men receive much higher compensation, relatively speaking, than we earned back in the sixties."
They do...I won't argue that. However, given that some were on Food Stamps earlier, the government was sort of forced to increase the wages across the board to get them off of welfare. It was an embarrassment.
A"s for the patriotism and sacrifice thing, dying for the War Lobby is not the same thing as dying for your country, in my opinion. "
Ah, there's always a war lobby no matter what war you're in. I just fight because I'm called by my country and my President to do so.
"When the special interests dictate foreign policy and promote pre-emptive war, it's difficult for me to rationalize the ensuing losses in men and materiel as being a necessary sacrifice, to keep the nation safe and secure from foreign enemies. "
Loner, tell me one war, just one, that DIDN'T have special interests dictating foreign policy and promoting pre-emptive war. I mean, we had factories already supporting the allies before we even went to war in WWI. They're always there and always will be...because to them, war is a profit making action. Doesn't necessarily mean the war is wrong though.
"Using our armed forces to project global hegemony and economic domination, for the benefit of the special interests, is not what the Founders of this republic had in mind. Or am I wrong on that?"
Nor did the Founding Fathers want our armed forces to be a "meal on wheels" provider. And what do you think they would have thought about us deferring our forces to the UN? There's a lot that one could comment about how our Founding Fathers would have felt about how we do things now.
"The all-volunteer force is just what the War Lobby called for. The feedback mechanism for ending conflicts has been re-wired, war protests will be minimal and marginal. The supply of meat for the meat grinder has been secured and assured. Still, guys like you, Chief, are completely sold on the patriotism angle....I gotta hand it to the War Lobby, they are doing a hell of a job."
So you'd rather we go back to a draft? Personally, I have no problem with that, as I think a lot of the younger folks could do with a bit of discipline now and days. BTW, before anyone cries that I don't know how that would feel, I have two kids who would be of age to be drafted, a girl and a boy.
What's all this "Fall of the Roman Empire" crap? US Presidents and the US Congress, as well as all American's bring down anything in it's path. For one reason or another.
History repetes itself, Loner.
Thoes who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
By: dargent7 on 8/25/09 at 11:19
What's all this "Fall of the Roman Empire" crap? US Presidents and the US Congress, as well as all American's bring down anything in it's path. For one reason or another.
_________________________________________________________________
That was a Roman slogan...once.
Chief: Here we go again..grow a conscious will you? "Your President" doesn't rule you. You have to own up to your own moral compas and values. "My President"...is b.s. You LOVE war/ conflict/ patriotism/ and all the entitlements. Just admit it.
You don't care about the moral complications and ethical implications of your actions. You LOVE firing off 90 rounds of ammunition a pop. It gives you a woody. Admit it. Hiding behind vernacular and articulation is embarrassing. Who do you think you're foolin'?
Chief,
You're right in one regard, what we're going through today has it's roots in the 60's, but not because of the decadence of the Baby Boomers. It's because of the rise of a conservative movement that was a result of a reaction to the middle class (or as John Adams called them, the rabble) daring to think that they had a say in what happened in this country. This new conservative movement believes that the control of this country should squarely rest in the hands of the religious or financial aristocracy per the six canons of the father of the new conservative movement, Russell Kirk...
two in particular.
1) A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law
2) A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions