John Cole nailed it last night:
I find this whole “Obama lied” about keeping your plan nonsense to be quite distressing. The only reason people are not able to keep their plans is that insurance companies no longer offer them. This may because the companies have decided they needed to alter the plans to be more competitive with other plans, or if the plan was so shitty that it covered nothing and the ACA requires the plan to actually do something. That’s it. Obama isn’t running around kicking people off their insurance for shits and giggles, it’s that people can’t keep their insurance plan because the companies ARE NO LONGER OFFERING IT.
There are a ton of things that used to exist that I would love to have back. The original Boomslang Razer, for example. But it doesn’t exist, because the company NO LONGER MAKES IT, so I can’t have what I believe was the best feeling mouse ever. I’m not blaming Obama for that, either.
This is exactly right, and it’s annoying the shit out of me that the news media is picking up the whole “people were kicked off their plans” language. This is what we call technically true but collectively bullshit. If your health insurance was so crappy it doesn’t pass the minimal standard, then you will need to get another one. Cry me a fucking river. Because Congress decided it’s not in the national interest for you to saddle the rest of us with your medical debt because your “insurance” is really just a scam and doesn’t cover jack when you actually need it. That’s the fucking point, people.
If you liked insurance that is basically ripping you off then you’re a moron. You’re probably one of those people who thinks a Nigerian prince wants to send you a million bucks. Guess what, that’s a scam, too.
And can I tell you how annoying I find this national pearl-clutching over what Obama said about people who like getting ripped off by their health insurance company? Jesus effin’ Christmas Tree, people, where the hell was this national pearl-clutching and word-parsing when Bush-Cheney-Rummy et. al. told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we invaded and occupied Iraq and then it turned out he didn’t have them after all? My God, this “but he said it!” bullshit is gonna give me an aneurism.
The discourse in this country is so fucking annoying. Why is it Democratic presidents are always held to a higher standard than Republican ones? So President Obama said if you like your health insurance you can keep it, and then the insurance companies no longer offer these plans, and Obama is a liar and impeeeeach??! Grow the fuck up, people.
Okay, end rant.
There are a lot of things that have gone the way of the dinosaur which I miss. For example:
1- Free matchbooks at restaurants. I loved those things. I loved them as souvenirs of places I visited, restaurants I liked. I used them, too, because I love matches (not lighter wands) for things like candles and incense. I love that smell of sulfur as you light a matchstick. But no one offers them anymore because people don’t smoke anymore.
2- Public laundromats. I don’t know about where you live, but pretty much every public laundromat in Nashville has closed its doors. I use public laundromats for washing dog beds and large quilts. I don’t know what I’m going to do when the last one near me closes (which is going to be soon, I hear).
3- Liner notes. It was bad enough when liner notes shrunk down to microscopic levels to fit in CD jewel boxes. You needed a magnifying glass to read them, but they at least existed. But now with digital music, you just don’t see them at all. I miss that.
4- Neighborhood speed humps. Metro Nashville Public Works used to put them on residential streets to keep the damn speeders from roaring through our neighborhoods but now that we really really need them on my street I’m told they aren’t building them anymore. Not only that, they’re actually ripping out ones they’d already built. That kinda pisses me off.
These are things I liked and, dangit, I can’t keep ’em. Whaah. What are yours?
Southern Beale 
Southern Belle , I think the real message is not put out there. It’s incomprehensible that the people concerned cannot explain things very well. Progressives are even piling on the negatives. It didn’t help that Clinton is saying stuff . Aaaargh.
I just knew one day I would disagree with the Southern Beale.
I hate speed bumps. They’re still very much en vogue in Albuquerque.
The biggest problem is that the reich-wingers control the message. Sure the corporate media is a willing participant, but the progressives just cannot get their act together–message-wise.
There are 2 laundromats in Madison between OHB and Rivergate.
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Matchbooks, yeah, I’d forgotten about those.
Madison is soooooo far out of town. But I betcha anything those will be gone in 5 years.
Yeah, it’s a further part of Nashville but if you know where to live in Madison then it’s THE best part of Nashville.
Madison is where I grew up. Perfect neighborhood on the river.
wwwwoooowwww… John Cole actually talked about politics for once? It seems like his posts have been mostly about food or his pets lately.
I loved it when they put speed bumps on my street. (Pasadena, CA), but the jerks with monster cars still fly over them. Nice rant, BTW.
Slave girls, slave boys, and good old fashioned black heroin. Oh sure, you can still get them, but the price!!! AIEEE yee yee, yee…
“You’re probably one of those people who thinks a Nigerian prince wants to send you a million bucks. Guess what, that’s a scam, too.”
Shit. I was gonna write something else, but after reading that I have to check my bank balance
The letter seemed sooooooooooooooooo sincere!
Oh, and for the record, the random brick or concrete block throw out in your street is a reasonable alternative for speed bumps.
speed bumps are a crazy solution to a very dangerous problem. I don’t have a problem with reasonable ones if I am not in a hurry and need to drive down a street quickly… its such a hassle to have stuff flying around and bouncing out of my truck and then stopping to pick up my tools 🙂
The health insurance issue is just so mind boggling. I had to listen to some of the crap this morning because we have to fill out insurance forms again for our company sponsored insurance. This is something that has happened on a regular basis, but now it is because of Obama. it is something to blame things on and like the children of Israel constantly talking about how good it was back in Egypt.
Yup. We are all such whiny babies, always have been. Sometimes humanity tires the living daylights out of me.
We get used to good things easily and fail to notice them until they are gone. Confronted daily with many good things in life, we overlook them as “normal” and tend to focus our attention on the handful of bad things—(like that one pothole in the miles of smooth pavement), and then generalize from those one or two bad things that everything is awful and our lives suck. Try that on someone newly arrived from Somalia. Example: The Social Security Aministration processes 39 million checks for retirees each month – but if your check is delayed, “The government can’t do ANYTHING right!’
I love that smell of sulfur as you light a matchstick.
Wow, that day where I disagree with you is here. Some of us find it nauseating. (Also, isn’t phosphor part of the match as well as sulfur?)
To add something here: Not that I “miss it”, however, I see an end coming to the stock comedy reply protest of “But I’m a happily married man!” whenever someone suggests a male has had a homosexual tryst or went to a gay bar or may have been anywhere where gay men hang out.
I think it will become obsolete as gay closeting becomes less and less the norm, and also as marriage becomes something viewed more and more as what gay people get to do normally.
(Does this mean gays and lesbians will be subject to the whole “When will you meet that ‘special someone’ and settle down?” talk that so many straight people have had foisted onthem in their 20s and 30s?)
Well Obama changed his mind and now you can purchase your existing health insurance plan for one more year. Conveniently pushing this issue to just after the 2014 election cycle. Of course I expect to hear the cries from the Democrats that the ACA is the law of the land and cannot be changed or repealed at this time. I mean we shut down the government over a 1 year delay and now Obama just waves his hand and grants a partial 1 year delay anyway? Aren’t the Dems pissed about this?
When you *dog* farts, there’s nothing like a lit match to kill the …fragrance. Just sayin’.
Bah those evil, greedy corporations eager to take money and the stupid American citizenry willing to spend it on all the wrong things. Thankfully, we have you fine folks to clue us in, right ?
We’ll really have to keep some Democrats around after 2014. For profiling purposes if nothing else.
Those saran wrap plans didn’t qualify as “insurance” anyway. A dollar a month in a coffee can would have been a better plan – and would not have had 40% skimmed off by the “insurance” companies.
Here’s the thing about speed bumps. Yes, they slow down automobiles. They do the same thing for emergency vehicles trying to navigate residential neighborhoods, either on the way to pick someone up, or en route to the hospital with a patient in the back. It’s a problematic solution to a situation that needs consistent enforcement, not infrastructure.
Not if they’re made properly, they don’t. That argument has been debunked a million times.
Traffic calming speed humps are large, gentle slopes, not like the actual “bumps” you see in parking lots. An emergency vehicle is not going to be affected by them, unless it’s a police car on a high-speed chase, and as far as I’m concerned that shit doesn’t need to be going on in residential neighborhoods anyway.
There are several varieties of them in the suburban neighborhoods around mine. No, they’re not like old-fashioned speed bumps, but yes, there is a noticeable jolt, if you’re going over 20 mph, and I drive a pick-up truck. 20 mph for an ambulance does not reassure me, if I’m the one in the back.
Well, if “speed bumps” are too hard on the vehicles lets just go to TED’s*. Five miles over the limit you get a citation, ten miles or more over the limit, you get a Hellfire.
* Traffic Enforcement Drones.
I had a brilliant idea for RCSS’s*. Husband talked me out of it.
*Remote Controlled Spike Strips
Dear Overlord Steve:
Fuck off.
Jimbo:
Is being full of shit something that gives you, like, major wood, or what?
I have a hard time remembering anyone else from this blog who is so durably stupid.
The GOP has done everything that they can to derail the ACA. That it works at all, particularly in states where the asshole governors decide that political posturing is more important than DOING THEIR FUCKING JOBS, is nothing short of amazing.
That you ignore the facts is not even mildly surprising.
Didn’t Obama come out last week and say he was granting a one year waiver for current policies that did not meet the ACA standards in response to all of the complaints of people being forced to give up insurance that they thought they would be able to keep? Is this not a partial one year delay in the mandate for people to purchase acceptable insurance as required by the ACA? Isn’t this just a random change to the law of the land that cannot be changed now?
You’re making the claim, furnish a link to a reputable source.
One of the problems is that a lot of companies have decided that they can throw their employees health plans into the shitter now that the ACA will FORCE the help to be responsible. Free hand of the market and all that shit. How about your employees, are they still getting a handout from the man?
Hard to believe you missed this press conference last week. Not sure what you consider reliable, so here are several reports about the press conference:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303789604579197733759439274
http://nypost.com/2013/11/14/white-house-to-allow-users-to-keep-insurance-under-obamacare/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/politics/obamacare-fix/index.html?iref=allsearch
We early renewed our current policy to make sure we had coverage at least through November of 2014. At the same time, my broker is looking at the options and costs for new plans that will meet the ACA requirements. I will continue to pay for insurance premiums for my employees because that was the promise we made when we hired them.