A Good Day For Some Balloon Juice

[filkertom]

John Cole on the Ryan Medicare plan.

Comments

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

AGGGGGGHHH!!

Okay, I'm going crazy here.

Why is health care even a goddamn issue? WHY?

Why is it that in this fucked-up state (AZ) I have to wait a month for my son with a severe heart problem to be seen by his cardiologist after having a cardiac issue the other night sending him to the ER? We have to have him on a State Insurance Program, because there's no way in hell we can afford insurance for him, even if they have to cover him now with his pre-existing condition. But the thing is, the state insurance only covers specialists one day a week.

Well, at least it only covers his cardiologist one day a week.

Guess how long the fucking wait list is.

So the first appointment we can get is in May.

You want your GODDAMN DEATH PANELS??? They're the Conservative Republicans who are all about saving the babies. Choose life, as long as it's unborn. Choose life, as long as we don't have to pay for it. Choose life, as long as it's healthy, and whole, and Christian like me. You Jewish/Atheist/Pagan/Liberals can go away... but live by MY values.

FUCK YOU SHITS.

sorry, had to get that off my chest.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No prob. My mom's out in AZ, and I'm worried about what's going to happen to her insurance soon.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

If she's a single adult on AHCCCS, it's very possible she'll be cut. That's what the current budget calls for. (And then people will complain that their insurance premiums will go up. Much better that than taxes.)

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

This would be a much better country, had Ayn Rand never been born.

Just sayin'.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

True health care reform would provide:

1. Immediate access to all types of care, including specialists.
2. Dental & mental care.
3. Exemption from any copays for those who can't afford them.

There is no way any of this will ever happen so long as we continue to be a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. The end goal of corporate healthcare is not to save lives. It is to show a profit for the shareholders. This is accomplished by collecting premiums, denying claims, and denying access to care in hopes those who need it will drop off the face of the earth.

[lone-cat.livejournal.com]

The "Good Christians" that support stuff like this had better hope that we atheists are right, because if they are going to be Eternally Judged based on how they treated "the least of these", they're in big trouble.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Why is health care even a goddamn issue? WHY?

Because a good half of the country is still fighting the Cold War, and equates civilized health care with a retroactive Soviet victory.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

Personally I've never read Ayn Rand and I don't really plan to, nor will I go to see the movie version of Atlas Shrugged.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

I've lost all faith in the political scene these days. The Republicans pander to their corporate masters and the democrats in the congress and senate have no spine or fight in them to get their own agenda accomplished. Paul Ryan's budget plan has no chance of getting through the senate, nor does it have a chance of getting past the President's desk. Beyond that I really don't know what to do.

Maybe hope that Alan Grayson runs again and takes his seat back along with a pack of Dems who will actually cause a ruckus and fight for what they believe in.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

That's good, and I commend you for that.

The problem is, we currently have THREE political parties- the entire right wing in this country- who act like Rand was the Second Coming.

[kengr]

Actually, that seems to be true of *most* insurance these days.

I begin to think that we need the laws changed to require that *all* insurance be converted to "non-profit".

That'd switch them to having the "customers" as the shareholders.

Of course, it'd never fly.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

Didn't Ayn Rand think that a psychopath actually had the right idea, except for the whole murdering people bit? I'm too exhausted after this week to find the argument I pointed out to someone about that once, but I'm pretty sure that was the case.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Rough summary of Rand's work: selfishness is the highest moral value, and anyone who teaches selflessness is either a freeloading leech or encouraging others to be so. The needy should only receive help if there's something in it for the giver. Oh- and it's perfectly all right for society to collapse and 9/10 of humanity to die off, so long as the correct 1/10 survives.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

Great.

I did read Atlas Shrugged. In high school.

I don't think I really understood it all at the time.

I teach at a Hebrew school. We spend so much time teaching about taking care of the most vulnerable in our society. I have a student who is giving all of his Bar Mitzvah money to the relief effort in Japan. (And he really doesn't have to do that.) Coming up, the 12 and 13 y.o.s and I are going to a food and clothing shelter set up for the working poor and spending all morning hanging up clothes and setting up boxes of food and working in the day care there. But we're considered a 'liberal' religion without family values because there are icky gay people in our congregation.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Gives me an idea for a bumper sticker;

"Objectivism deems only 1/10 of humanity worthy of survival...
Feeling lucky, punk?"

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Objectivism fails on one simple yet oh-so-crucial point...

It's core philosophy states that one should be willing roll over for their superiors.

Can you name a single Randroid you've ever met willing to admit that anyone is superior to themselves?

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

If you're talking about that guy she praised to the skies for ransoming and murdering some kid, if I remember correctly she thought he had the right idea including the whole murdering people bit.

She claimed the public outrage against the guy wasn't because of what he did, but because he was too independent for their collectivist little minds to comprehend.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Can you name a single Randroid you've ever met willing to admit that anyone is superior to themselves?

Every one I've met actively rejects the notion that anyone is superior to themselves.

[jeffreycwells.livejournal.com]

It's a thorny thing, I understand but there's a difference between saying "I don't care about the disadvantaged" and "the government shouldn't care for the disadvantaged". After some reflection, I have come to believe that the nature of government should mirror the nature of its people, and if we call ourselves caring, we should not struggle overmuch againt that caring being institutionalized in the form of government public welfare programs; but I also accept that being against government welfare does not correspond 1:1 with not caring about the disadvantaged.

In short, while I believe in Social Security, I think you can be a good Christian and still not believe in it. That having been said, I am a bit concerned about the surge in Objectivist-like sentiments in the current American Right which I do believe are antithetical to many Christian tenets.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Don't forget optical.