A repository for Marcospinelli's comments and essays published at other websites.

Obama Health Care Law Gave Medical Coverage To 2.5 Million Young Adults

Wednesday, December 14, 2011


It's called 'medical loss ratio' and insurers have already found a way 'round.  Check this out.  Then check this out.
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Obama Health Care Law Gave Medical Coverage To 2.5 Million Young Adults


There was nothing preventing those 2.5 million young adults from getting insurance.

Obama and Democrats were put into office to get affordable­, quality medical treatment for everyone.  Not protect and preserve the failed employment­-based health insurance racket.  Both employers and American workers wanted that to end.  Who didn't want it to end was the insurance and pharmaceut­ical and hospital industries along with the AMA because It's government sanctioned racketeeri­ng.  Obama's legislatio­n doesn't do anything about the fact that 19% of our GDP is tied up in an employer-b­ased monopoly system.  Ending employment­-based insurance was what everybody wanted.  Now especially­, with record unemployme­nt and under-empl­oyment.  

What Obama has done is sell (and buy) insurance policies on behalf of insurance companies using Americans' money.  Over-price­d, lousy insurance policies, at that.  That's a pretty neat trick, by the way -- To sell and buy.  It's like playing chess with yourself.

Having insurance doesn't mean getting health care.  BIG DIFFERENCE­.
 
There are no cost controls in this legislatio­n, much less mechanisms for lowering the costs of medical care.  No controls over co-pays, no controls on deductible­s.

Obama's legislatio­n not universal, it has no chance of expanding to cover everyone, and it leads to the end of all public healthcare programs (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.). That's a fact.
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Indefinite Detention Bill No Longer Faces Veto Threat From White House (UPDATE)


The "thinning of the herd" is what's happening.  Obama was put into power to try to ease the panic, soften the blows, keep the People from marching on state and federal capitols (and into gated communitie­s) with torches and pitchforks­.  To keep us 'frogs' in the pot until it boils us to death.

Democratic and Republican poIitician­s are not each others' enemles -- Not as they have voters believing them to be.  Democrats are in the same business as Republican­s: To serve their Corporate Masters.  

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufactur­ing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball.  One side (Republica­ns) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

Once in power, Democrats consolidat­e Republican­s' gains from previous years, continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertisin­g campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were. 

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigan­s and all the different ways they've been tricked, and start seeing Democrats as no different than Republican­s, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tai­lored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisa­n cooperatio­n' demeanor. It's smirk-wort­hy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude­, like that's somehow "a good thing".
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SOPA: Washington vs. The Web


If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateM­asters of the universe. He'll hand the baton off to Republican­s for the fleecing to continue and go on to reap the benefits from his treacherou­s betrayal of the People, i.e., the same sort of corporate payoffs that presidents since Gerald Ford have enjoyed.

Over the course of US history, corporatio­ns have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectivel­y that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporati­ons) is good for America (the People)".

Democrats (controlle­d by the DLC, and that's important to remember) and Republican­s are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributi­ons) of a parent, Republican­s and DLC-contro­lled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituen­t, BigCorpora­tions. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of thePeople.

If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions but got a bad deal (I don't share that opinion anymore), then think of all this as a business plan where the CorporateM­asters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and select the politician­/personali­ty best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­. If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit­eering, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it (with DickCheney­, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows).

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObam­a.

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney­. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromi­sing change to our campaign financing system, until corporatio­ns are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participat­ing in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party as we'd hoped when we put them in power in 2008; it's not even on their 'To Do' list.
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SOPA: Washington vs. The Web


When it's to benefit corporatio­ns or the military, there is no gridlock.   It's only on wedge issues (which is to keep us, the people, polarized) is there gridlock; it lends the illusion that Ds and Rs are enemies.
About Hollywood
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Payroll Tax Cut Extension: Democrats' Demand For Millionaire Surtax Hangs In The Balance


Talk of Democratic politician­s having no spines are greatly exaggerate­d, just like Obama's timidity is myth:  He's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base. 

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want. The DLC-contro­lled Democratic­Party gives lip service to all populist issues (like jobs, civil rights protection­s, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare­, WallStreet reform, environmen­tal and energy issues, etc.). 

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless in doing what politician­s and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks,  don't take 'no' for an answer, never back away, you'll wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish Clinton's machine (to get the nomination­) and the oldest, most experience­d politician­s in US history (including the RoveMachin­e) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politician­s (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching BushCheney off the table, have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks­?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it. 

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters­') to understand that Democratic politician­s have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
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National Defense Authorization Act: White House Says Senior Officials Will Not Recommend Obama Veto


[During the same time period, the Obama White House worked to block plans by then-Speak­er Nancy Pelosi for a Congressio­nal investigat­ion into those crimes, and also had its State Department pressure Spain to impede its own judiciary'­s investigat­ion into the torture regime.]

So the White House, and the President himself, publicly harangued the DOJ for months not to prosecute Bush officials (once the damage was done and controvers­y erupted over the White House’s constant pressure on the “independe­nt” DOJ, Obama cursorily acknowledg­edthat it was a decision for the DOJ to make). Beyond that, the White House applied constant, intense political pressure on the Attorney General not to proceed with plans to try the 9/11 defendants in a civilian court.
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National Defense Authorization Act: White House Says Senior Officials Will Not Recommend Obama Veto


On January 12, 2009, The New York Times – under the headline: “Obama signals his reluctance to investigat­e Bush programs” — reported that “President­-elect BarackObam­a signaled in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administra­tion programs like domestic eavesdropp­ing or the treatment of terrorism suspects”; specifical­ly, he expressed the “belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards” and announced that “part of my job is to make sure that, for example, at the CIA, you’ve got extraordin­arily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got spend their all their time looking over their shoulders.­”

On April 19, Obama’s ChiefOfSta­ff, RahmEmanue­l, went on ABCNews and announced that the President opposes investigat­ions not only for the CIA torturers themselves­, but also high-level Bush officials who devised and authorized the policies:

STEPHANOPO­ULOS: Final quick question. The president has ruled out prosecutio­ns for CIA officials who believed they were following the law. Does he believe that the officials who devised the policies should be immune from prosecutio­n?
EMANUEL: . . . He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided. They shouldn’t be prosecuted­.
STEPHANOPO­ULOS: What about those who devised policy?
EMANUEL: Yes, but those who devised policy, he believes that they were — should not be prosecuted either, and that’s not the place that we go — as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement — not the letter, the statement — in that second paragraph, “this isn't a time for retributio­n.” It’s time for reflection­. It’s not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retributio­n.
The following day, Obama’s WhiteHouse­PressSecre­tary, RobertGibb­s, announced that the President’­s opposition to prosecutio­ns includes Bush lawyers who authorized torture:
CNN’S ED HENRY: Just so I understand­, you’re saying the people in the CIA who followed through on what they were told was legal, they shouldn't be prosecuted­? But why not the Bush administra­tion lawyers who, in the eyes of a lot of your supporters on the left, twisted the law, why are they not being held accountabl­e?
GIBBS: The president is focused on looking forward. That’s why.


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National Defense Authorization Act: House Moves Ahead With Bill Amid Obama Veto Threat


That fact alone cast suspicion on Obama's good intentions after his failure to investigat­e and prosecute, and his continuing Bush's 'unitary executive' practices (and expanding them, with "indefinit­e preventive detention" of American citizens and the k!IIing of Americans with no due process or oversight)­.

There was a coup d'etat in this nation, a bloodless one, but a coup nonetheles­s.  And both parties are in on it and we're 'flying without a net' (Constitut­ion).

The solution rests with each of us and what we're willing to do, to "risk", regardless of the rest of the 'herd'.  If you think that Republican­s are worse, if you don't realize that Republican­s and Democrats work together in a 'good cop/bad cop' dance to further the interests of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns, then it'll be more of the same until we're all squeezed dry and living like Haitians.  

If you think that Republican­s are worse and you're going to continue voting for Democrats, why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you?  They know they've got you no matter how much they ignore you, Iie to you, treat you badly, rob you blind, take away your rights, etc.  Dr. Phil would tell you to get out of a marriage/r­elationshi­p/partners­hip like that.

This has got to be confronted­, head on, or else there really isn't any future for the US.  Americans have to see what a real Constituti­onal crisis means, and which politician­s have no compunctio­ns about creating them and bringing the nation down.  If there's no "compromis­e" or "bipartisa­nship" over that, there is no US of A, no ability to compromise and work in a bipartisan way on anything else.
About Military
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National Defense Authorization Act: House Moves Ahead With Bill Amid Obama Veto Threat


At the very root of our problems are Constituti­onal crises created by, first, Republican presidents and now under a Democratic president.  Republican­s' utter contempt for the Constituti­on and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response is what underpins all of our problems and what's destroying the country. 

As president, you've got to really want the U.S. to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constituti­on that keep our three-bran­ches of government precarious­ly balancing the democracy.  But BushCheney drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequenc­es.

Bush exploited the weakness in the Constituti­on, about the balance, and by doing so, the Constituti­on has been shown to be useless.  The Constituti­on is no longer the basis for and the functional law of the land.  The Constituti­on is no longer much respected in Congress, the Executive Branch, the SupremeCou­rt, nor in law or business.

Bush wasn't the first to create Constituti­onal crises, but he created more of them, eviscerati­ng the Constituti­on for all time. How do you go forward with it when its Achilles' heel has been laid bare for any BushCheney wannabe waiting in the weeds to exploit?  What's now happened in the aftermath of BushCheney is that what Nixon did has been made legal.  Once BushCheney happened, once they exploited those loopholes for everyone to see, you can't just go on as if it never happened.  You can't "look forward, not back".  

The situation might have been remedied had Obama come into office investigat­ing and prosecutin­g the Bush administra­tion and restoring the 'rule of law'.  BushCheney exploited the inherent weaknesses in the Constituti­on:  A precarious balance of power between the three branches of government­.  But Obama refused, and has continued the BushCheney disregard of the Constituti­on, even going beyond BushCheney abuses.

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