You Want More?!

The Republicans in Congress are having difficulty passing their replacement healthcare bill for the Affordable Care Act. It seems that many Republicans find the new healthcare law to be too generous. House Speaker, Paul Ryan has even offered to make additional cuts to satisfy the Republican upstarts who won’t settle for less than an all out repeal of the ACA… You know, exactly what the American people want and have mandated by electing them.

Here is the list of the frivolous health benefits that health insurers are required to provide under the ACA that the Speaker has offered to have removed from the new bill:

• Ambulatory patient services (doctor’s visits) • Emergency services • Hospitalization            • Maternity and newborn care • Mental health and substance abuse disorder services,            • Prescription drugs • Rehabilitative services and devices • Laboratory services • Preventive and wellness services, and chronic disease management • Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

Wow! Who needs that stuff?…But still the watered down porridge of a bill could not receive enough votes from Republicans. Why, you may ask? It still left too many benefits intact! It wasn’t a repeal!

President Trump is demanding that this healthcare plan be passed by Congress tomorrow (at the latest) or else he’s done with healthcare and the nation can go scratch! (as in Beelzebub?) (As in “This is going to be the best healthcare plan ever! New and improved and cheaper! And now with better care!”… ???)

Anyway, what’s a political party to do with a nation that wants to visit their own doctor when they are sick??? And at these prices?! Have you seen what doctors charge nowadays? (Most Congressmen haven’t…but they’ve heard!) And it’s much too expensive for people who are…Non-Congressmen!

But Even with their proposed cuts the National Budget Office says that about 151 billion dollars will be shaved from the national deficit… in a budget that sees half a trillion dollars in payment to the National Debt!…every year! (Now that’s saving some real chump change)

And now we pause for a brief excerpt from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens:

‘Please, sir, I want some more.’

The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

‘What!’ said the master at length, in a faint voice.

‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘I want some more.’

The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,

‘Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!’

There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

‘For MORE!’ said Mr. Limbkins. ‘Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?’

‘He did, sir,’ replied Bumble.

‘That boy will be hung,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘I know that boy will be hung.’

Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman’s opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

‘I never was more convinced of anything in my life,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning: ‘I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung.’

And so what will happen in tomorrow’s chapter of American Healthcare? As always, stay tuned! Perhaps with a promise of 5 bucks per person some other country will take our excess poor citizens off of our ruling class citizen’s hands? Doesn’t someone need an apprentice??? ( OK we’ll make it 400 dollars adjusted for inflation but that’s our final offer) We’ve got to be in Mar-a-Lago by Saturday morning!

 

Amalgamation and Capital

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, discussed President Trump’s newly proposed budget last week. Here is how he justified the President’s proposed cuts to Meals on Wheels and after school programs that provide meals for children.

When it comes to helping feed the elderly:

“We can’t spend money on programs just because they sound good. Meals on Wheels sounds great. We cannot defend that anymore. 20 trillion dollars in debt. We’re going to spend money, we’re going to spend a lot of money but we’re not going to spend it on programs that can’t deliver the promises we made to people.”

When it comes to helping feed school children:

“They’re supposed to help kids who don’t get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? There’s no evidence they’re actually doing that. There’s no evidence they’re helping kids do better in school, which is what–when we took your money from you to say, we’re going to spend them on after-school programs, we justified it by saying these kids will do better in school and get jobs. We have no proof that’s helping.”

He might have added, “Are there no workhouses? Are there no orphanages?”…but he didn’t….So there we have it. There is no proof that feeding hungry seniors and/or hungry school children helps!

Not as in, helps hungry people eat, but as in, helps American taxpayers get something for their money. Like a profit? Or tangible benefit? Or bang for our tax buck? But we will be spending an additional 54 billion dollars on military equipment and hardware so the President’s budget does have a bright side…if that is the sort of thing that brightens your day.

However, if this budget proposal gets the approval of Congress then I think they should also remove Lady Liberty’s torch and replace it with her middle finger and amend the plaque beneath her with the phrase “Turn ye around all who seek to enter and go back from whence ye came and while ye are at it look out for a bomb with your name on it!”

But I’m just a liberal democrat so what do I know? If this is the mandate Americans were hoping for when they voted for Mr. Trump…so be it…or should I rather say…Amen?

 

 

 

 

And the Winner is…

 Check out President Trump’s budget proposal and this year’s winners and losers. Here’s to making America GREAT again… as a military war machine that is…but wait…aren’t we already the greatest military war machine in the world?

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-TRUMP-BUDGET/0100405W0DC/

Oh well, you know what they say:

War is peace…. Freedom is slavery…. Ignorance is strength….

And then again, maybe the Republicans in Congress will challenge the President’s vision for our future and come up with something more… humanity friendly?

And maybe the First Lady will move into the Presidential bedroom…

Once again…we just have to wait and see what happens.

There’s Always a Joker

President Trump is on another campaign tour (even though he has already been elected to the presidency) to try and explain how everything he says has a different meaning from what normal people who use dictionaries think his words mean.

A week or so ago he had this to say: “Tonight I am calling on Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that will expand choice, increase access, lower costs and at the same time provide better healthcare. The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the cost of health insurance and that is what we are going to do…”

That message received a standing ovation from the Congressional Republicans who, you would surmise, by their standing and applauding, actually supported what the President was saying.

Earlier President Trump had this to say about healthcare in America: “No one will lose coverage. There will be insurance for everybody. Healthcare will be a “lot less expensive” for everyone — the government, consumers, providers.”

And before that he had this to say: “I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid”

And of course there is this famous declaration about healthcare from another speech that he gave: “I am going to take care of everybody … Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

But tonight the President is out and about to explain how the Republican’s new healthcare plan for America is less than all that… but somehow more… and still cheaper for others but not so much for everyone and that although Medicare will be cut it won’t be so that anyone of particular import will notice…etc… etc… etc.

Because the President never means what he says but we Americans have come to understand that, and now we just shrug and laugh and realize that he is just like that friend that we all have who says that he will be right over but then never shows up, or who borrows something from you and then swears that he thought it was his when he gave it away to somebody else, or who says that he’ll buy 12 boxes of cookies from your daughter but then never has the money to pay for them on delivery day.

So what do you do? You stop making dates, loaning him things and never take his promise to pay for anything, seriously. But you still remain friends and laugh whenever he suggests that you make a date, loan him something or chip in on anything. That’s just him and even though he hasn’t a clue that you’re on to him you chalk it all down as a life lesson learned. (for you, that is)

But is this any way to run a country?

I sincerely hope you… nor I… don’t lose healthcare or Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security or anything else of importance over the next few years… but that unreliable, insincere, liar who we all know? He’s in charge now and he has a lot of friends just like him who make up the majority of the neighborhood…

So beware. If you lose something or can’t find something else or wonder where all of your money has gone, you’ll just have to give a shrug and laugh… because the joke is on you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back?

Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s Chief Advisor, recently provided an explanation as to why almost all of the President’s cabinet choices are known mostly for opposing the very Federal agencies they’ve been designated to lead.

Mr. Bannon said, “If you look at these cabinet nominees, they were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”

deconstruction: the analytic examination of something often in order to reveal its inadequacy; dismantling.

So, according to Steve Bannon, President Trump’s right-hand man, The President’s cabinet has a mission. And that is to show how inadequate their departments are and then perhaps help dismantle them….because, after all, do we really need clean air, clean water, fair labor laws, fair housing standards, anti-discrimination laws, financial protections, food and drug safety, national education standards and such?

Will this be the result of 4 years of a Trump Presidency? The dismantling and downsizing of the government as famed Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, has advocated for many years… until it can be :”Drowned in a bathtub”?

It is of course too early to tell and it is hard to know on which ideology President Trump’s ever changing mind will settle, but it does not bode well especially when you consider that the President has already signed an executive order on future and present government regulations.

“If you have a regulation you want, No. 1, we’re not gonna approve it because it’s already been approved probably in 17 different forms,” President Trump said. “But if we do, the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation. So if there’s a new regulation, they have to knock out two.”

The President’s supporters tend to applaud whenever they here this mantra repeated at rallies and speeches but if you take the time to think about it this new policy on government regulations is either one of 2 things. It is either a short-sighted and silly gimmick that sounds like it could be a good idea, when left unexamined… or it is meant to be quite sinister in nature from the get go…and here’s why.

Mathematically, the end result of this policy will leave one with no regulations at all. For if you have, let’s say, 100 regulations to start with then by creating 100 new ones you will have to eliminate 200…and 200 regulations will be exactly how many you would have after creating the 100 new ones. Any which way you examine it, a 1 step forward 2 step back approach will leave you, not in the same place that you started, but rather a considerable distance backward.

And if you think I’m being silly because you know that the President doesn’t really mean it (like he doesn’t mean most of what he says…literally?) then why did he make it a Presidential Order? Do those mean nothing to him also? He is our President after all…and he made it a Presidential Order! (with his giant signature and everything!) So if you don’t think he meant it to be literally true… then does the POTUS know that?…or doesn’t he?

Should we be listening to his advisors and spokespeople and tweets and executive orders…and believe what we are hearing and seeing?…Or should we be taking them all with a grain of salt?

Once again…we have to wait and see. Will everything simply work itself out in the end and all for the best? Just like in a Hollywood Movie… or Network Reality Show… or Good, Bad Dream?… Or should we prepare to draw America its bath?

The Devil in the Details?

Congressman Roger Marshall, a newly elected Republican to Congress who is also a doctor, recently said that he doesn’t support the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion because he believes some poor people just don’t want health care.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us.’ There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves. The Medicaid population, which is a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging, I’m just saying socially that’s where they are, So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought the ER.”

That’s a direct quote from one of our Congressmen and a doctor who basically believes that poor people, as a group of people, just don’t want to take care of themselves health-wise…as opposed to rich people?

You’ve never seen a rich person who didn’t eat right and who never exercised or was overweight? have you? Like our President maybe?… But I’m not judging… Anyway, just like Jesus said once,… according to Congressman Marshall…Fuck em!

Apparently that’s how the Congressman understands his Bible when he reads it… and he is part of the GOP Doctors Caucus, which is a group of 16 lawmakers with health care backgrounds who are at the center of the Republican Congressional effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Wow! Is that how you read your Bible? Is that what Jesus meant?… There are poor people. There will always be poor people. Because poor people don’t care about themselves (like non-poor people do?)… Jesus was poor. He was always poor. He died on the cross rather quickly. Was that because he never exercised or ate right?

President Trump, in his most recent speech before Congress said that he wants to see Repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that “expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, provide better health care.”…with freedom to choose our own healthcare plans (not forced upon us, but the ones we want) and Medicaid resources that make sure “No one is left out.”

I think that’s great! And I agree with that POTUS plan! And I hope we get just that and for everyone! But that is not what Congress is pursuing. Let’s hope that the President is true to his word and stands up to Congress. That’s why we elected him, right? So stay tuned! Will we end up replacing Obamacare with JesusCare with a capital J…or with a smaller case j…where the devil just may be… in the details?

The Illegality of Being

1.4 million…. That’s the number of Americans who have been shot and killed by Americans, here in America,  since 1975.

0…. That’s the number of Americans who have been killed in terror attacks from the 7 countries targeted in President Trump’s proposed immigration ban.

And yet the President of the United States is not only planning to re-instate his travel ban but is also likely to sign a bill this week, sent to him by Congress, that will repeal a regulation signed by President Obama that required the Social Security Administration to report to the Attorney General individuals receiving certain kinds of Social Security mental health disability benefits so that this information could be used in firearm background checks.

So while our government is now working hard to make the simple act of “being” an alien (illegal or not) in America a crime… it is also working hard to make it a little easier for all Americans (mentally ill or not) to obtain a firearm in America.

Plus, the average likelihood of an American being killed in a terrorist attack in which an immigrant participated in any given year is one in 3.6 million — even including the 9/11 deaths. The average American is more likely to die from a toddler with a gun than an immigrant terrorist.

If 30,000+ gun deaths each year don’t bother us then why should having a 3.6 million to 1 chance of being killed by a terrorist on American soil be of any concern at all?

This is an odd way to make America safe… again?… or still?… is it not? And ironically enough, while It really won’t make Americans any safer, it just might make immigrants who can’t get into our country, a little safer, because they won’t have to worry about being shot by Americans… or their toddlers… with guns… Go figure!