Gail Collins is one of the funniest journalists in the mainstream media. She used to be editorial page editor of the New York Times, and she now writes a very funny column which is way more fun than writing serious editorials.
In today’s New York Times, she says she has figured out the mystery of Trump’s conflicting statements and rapid policy reversals. He has a very short-term memory. He forgets what he said yesterday.
She writes:
Do you remember “50 First Dates”? It was a Drew Barrymore movie about a woman with short-term amnesia who wakes up every morning with no memory whatsoever of the day that went before.
I am thinking it’s the perfect Donald Trump analogy.
In the past, I’ve always presumed that when Trump completely changed his position on health care or the Mexican wall or nuclear weapons in Japan, it was due to craven political opportunism. But it’s much more calming to work under the assumption that he doesn’t remember anything that happened before this morning.
Think about it next time you hear him bragging about his big margin of victory. “We won in a landslide. That was a landslide,” he told a crowd in Ohio on Thursday. It was perhaps the first time in history that a candidate used those terms after receiving 2.5 million votes fewer than his competitor.
It’s stupendously irritating, unless you work under the assumption that he no longer recalls the real story.
This week, Trump was on a victory lap in Indiana, where United Technologies just agreed to keep about 1,000 jobs at a Carrier gas-furnace factory that had been slated to be moved to Mexico. Trump had repeatedly vowed to save the Carrier jobs during the campaign, and even though there is no reason to believe this will have any effect whatsoever on other jobs in other factories, it seemed like a nice symbolic win.
But during his remarks to his ebullient fans, Trump cheerfully explained that he had no memory whatsoever of having promised to protect the Carrier workers. Until he heard it on TV….
Some of you may find it disturbing that one of Trump’s chief apologists was basically saying that he talks policy like a drunk at happy hour. Some of you may hear Trump constantly contradicting today what he said yesterday and decide he’s an idiot.
From now on I’m going to try to think of him as a little bit like my dog, Frieda. Frieda is extremely intelligent, but her memory is only good for about 90 seconds.
When you listen to Trump’s Inaugural Address, or his first State of the Union, keep reminding yourself that he’s reserving the right to forget everything he’s said as soon as he says it. No way we can believe him long term. Unless he tattoos it on his arm.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not sure what is worse. Obama willfully not fulfilling his promises or a trump who can’t remember.
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How could Obama fulfill all of his campaign promises with an obstructionist Congress dominated by a GOP majority controlled by biased, bully elements from the Alt-Right?
I wonder how many U.S. presidents have ever fulfilled all of their campaign promises. A campaign promise is not a guarantee, because whatever a newly elected U.S. president wants to achieve depends on approval from the Congress and must also survive legal challenges in the courts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Until Trump came along, U.S. presidents had to share power with the other two branches of govenrment set up by the Founding Fathers back in the 18th century when they wrote and signed the U.S. Constitution, a document designed to be flexible with the additions of Amendments because nothings stays the same forever.
And Vanity Fair gives us (dated November 23, 2016) “All the camping promises Donald Turmp has broken in the last 24 hours.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/donald-trump-new-york-times-interview-broken-promises
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Thank you Lloyd for telling this truthfully….amazing how Obama is condemned by loss of memory, or design, of Rudy and others as to Mitch McConnell’s statement to the world on day one of the Obama presidency, that he will see to it that NOTHING that Obama proposed would pass Congress…NOTHING, even bills that McConnell proposed. This Repub intransigence caused great harm to the nation.
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Read what Rush Limbaugh said on November 6, 2008.
To start, “The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression. He hasn’t done anything yet but his ideas are killing the economy. His ideas are killing Wall Street. They need some certainty, and now everybody in the Drive-By, … ”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2008/11/06/obama_recession_in_full_swing
How did Wall Street do under Obama?
On November 7, 2011, Think Progress.or reported, “Wall Street Traders Have Profited more Under Obama Than in Eight Years Under Bush.”
https://thinkprogress.org/wall-street-traders-have-profited-more-under-obama-than-in-eight-years-under-bush-e70d05ed9a64#.j2pl60j3a
Did Rush ever make a public apology for what he said in 2008?
And what about a few facts from Fact Check.org, something the racist, lying, hating Alt-Right, that now owns the White House, the Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court, will never admit. – dated January 12, 2016.
Since President Barack Obama first took office:
Homicides have dropped 13 percent, but gun sales have surged
The economy has added more than 9 million jobs, and the jobless rate has dropped to below the historical median.
The number of long-term unemployed Americans has dropped by 614,000 under Obama, but it is still 761,000 higher than at the start of the Great Recession.
Corporate profits are up 166 percent; real weekly wages are up 3.4 percent.
There are 15 million fewer people who lack health insurance.
Wind and solar power have nearly tripled, and now account for more than 5 percent of U.S. electricity.
The federal debt has more than doubled — rising 116 percent — and big annual deficits have continued.
Click the link for the rest of the facts, all the facts, and not just the ones Trump and the Alt-Right that voted him into the White House from their Rust Belt states will cherry pick.
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/01/obamas-numbers-january-2016-update/
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And, ironically, it was in this very obstructionism that so many citizens became less and less wealthy….and, then, in anger turned around to vote for those who OBSTRUCTED.
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It’s calling fooling the masses to support the few who have almost everything already. In other words, enough is never enough when you don’t have it all.
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An uncle of mine who died at 96 lost his short term memory in his 80s. He only remembered people he’d known before he lost his short term memory. If you met him today, the next day he wouldn’t remember meeting you.
That defines Donald Trump. Maybe the people he’s picking for his cabinet are people he remembers and never forgets. Almost every one of them is a nut case like him. That shows us who he hangs with.
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I’ve been writing here all year that Trump has dementia. He has no control over his prefrontal lobes, and does not remember much of anything…it is why he keeps repeating himself and has such limited vocabulary…and keeps Yvanka close by to clean it all up.
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What would the country think if they discovered that less than half the voters elected a man losing his mind?
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Well, more than “50 First Dates,” I would point you to the film “Memento.” This was an excellent film, about a man suffering from anterograde amnesia. And a scary film, as well.
Actually, I don’t think that Donald Trump has anterograde amnesia. I am thinking that he is sliding right into Alzheimer’s, or another type of dementia. The first thing to go with Alzheimer’s et al, is short-term memory.
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“Some of you may find it disturbing that one of Trump’s chief apologists was basically saying that he talks policy like a drunk at happy hour.”
If you’ve never seen this, it’s a must-watch (“Your Drunk Neighbor: Donald Trump”)
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Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.
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I laugh the same amount watching any Trump interview. “He obviously is not serious, he cannot be” I keep observing.
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I believe the writer here has demonstrated considerable insight. I have encountered both children and adults who have this difficulty. They seem especially sensitive and tend to react very strongly when someone points out their inconsistencies. At one time I believed it was a deliberate or purpose driven behavior but have concluded that for some this is simply who they are. They simply do not remember. It also seems that intense pressure and/or anxiety exacerbates the issue.
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I have thought for a long time, that he is senile. I remember my husband’s father as he became confused. No one could tell him anything, and he was confused about everything.
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When you listen to Trump’s Inaugural Address, or his first State of the Union, keep reminding yourself that he’s reserving the right to forget everything he’s said as soon as he says it. No way we can believe him long term.
I heard he was going to pass on the Inaugural to do a rally in Mar a Lago. Something about the people in DC not voting for him .
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“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Period”. Barack Hussein Obama. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter”. Jonathan Gruber, a self-confessed architect of the ACA.
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So what’s the GOP plan? Oh yeah, don’t get sick and drop dead already. The GOP has stood in the way of a national health care plan since forever. Truman proposed a national health care plan in the late 1940s but was shot down by the GOP and the AMA. As flawed as the ACA is, it has covered 20 million more Americans and gotten rid of some of the worst practices of the predatory insurance companies. The ACA is like a patient’s bill of rights.
It’s 2016 and this country still does not have true universal health care? What an obscenity.
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HAVE you done the math, and considered the repercussions??
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GOP plan is we will sell you a “cheap” plan you will adore as long as you stay healthy. If you actually get sick, you are SOL and good luck finding another real insurance company to cover you with your pre-existing condition now that your old company dropped you when you got sick.
How dare Obama not understand that the idiots wanted to KEEP that cheap non-insurance because they thought they were getting a deal! Those are the same people Trump scammed his whole life in business and he can’t wait to continue.
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Rudy: Holland manages to cover all its people through private insurance policies and government assistance for the poor, medications are much cheaper than in the US. Holland has universal health care and bankruptcies from medical costs are nil. They spend less on healthcare than the US with very good results and a low infant mortality rate. However, everyone in Holland is mandated to have insurance or they will be fined. That is fair considering what you will be getting.
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Holland changed its system drastically. Mostly because it realized the system could not be sustained.
I got universal health care by working just ONE SINGLE hour a week. As long as it was the same hour/day every week. My premium, withheld from my pay, was negligible.
A young man moved from South Africa to the Netherlands, and had immediate access to the national health system.
And you are correct. No one has yet gone bankrupt. But that is not necessarily because of that part of the system. It is more because it is not a sue happy nation like the US. Most tests performed are totally unnecessary in the US. BUT out of fear to have overlooked something that might be grounds for a malpractice suit, there you go.
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Rudy “I got universal health care by working just ONE SINGLE hour a week. ”
So what? Babies work even less.
The idea is that you don’t earn healthcare, you get it, no matter what. Even if you are in jail.
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Exactly, Mate.
Everyone needs healthcare. It should be a right, not a privilege.
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It should be a right… based on what philosophy?
Apart from that, paid by whose billfold?
How does one establish a “right?”
Internationally, people are trying to make a base income a “right.” Dutch numbers fluctuate between $750-$1,000 per month. No age limits. No income limits – the people who make a million get that, too. You don’t have to work. It’s just handed to you, because it’s a “right.”
Holland had 17 million inhabitants times 750 x 12. Who is going to provide the financing for that “right?”
Who will finance the “right” to health care insurance for everyone in the US? Let me guess: tax the rich, right?
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Yes, taxing the rich more would help, as well as taxing companies more.
You do realize, I hope, that the top marginal tax rate for the higher earners was much, much higher under Eisenhower? And even under Nixon.
I would also like to point out to you that, if people in restaurants, fast food places, and other places that you may frequent, can no longer afford health insurance, they will be coming to work sick (because many of them also do not receive any sick leave). So just be very careful about eating out, or or going to any other public place, for that matter.
They may be coughing into your food, or in your face.
We are all in this together as citizens. If you don’t think this way, then I feel sorry for you.
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If you think coughing in your food is new…
Again, you can tax only so far. One of the most amazing things I have learned in the past few years is that American companies see the nether as a tax haven – @25%. You want to see more companies leave the country? Raise the taxes more here, and holland will make out like a bandit.
Have you ever played a game like Sim City? Or sharks and fish? It teaches about ratios. Sharks and fish makes you find the right balance: just enough fish to keep the sharks alive, and just enough sharks to keep the fish population stable. Sim city works along the same lines. Build a city, need power, industry, people, transportation and roads in just the right ratio. You set a tax percentage and see what happens. Find the balance between power, people and industry.
Need more roads? Increase taxes. Lose people? Decrease taxes. Road needs repairing? Increase taxes. People leave.
Want to have a government paid health care? Start playing the game. Increase company taxes? They will leave. Increase taxes on the wealthiest people? They will leave. Increase taxes on you and I? We wish we could leave.
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” Lose people? Decrease taxes. ”
This is exactly the point: I have no problem with losing those people. I have no problem with Microsoft or GE leaving. There will be many small companies happily taking their place.
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So lower their taxes and they will come back. Even if you tax between 18 – 20%, that is 5 – 7% less than what they pay in The Netherlands.
And that will always be 18-20% more than what you have NOW!
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I am not getting it. The 1% has made us believe, we need them for our own survival. We don’t need them. If they want to leave, let them leave.
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And they will take 43% (FORTY-THREE!) of the annual IRS revenue from taxes with them I don’t know about you, but I would prefer not to have to double the amount of money I pay in taxes.
The bottom income bracket pays NO taxes, so their taxes cannot be increased (well, they can, but they will get it all back at the end of the tax season; will keep a lot of IRS employees working).
So yes, we DO need them. Not only for their tax dollars, but also for their philanthropic work. I happen to believe that musea are good places to have. Without the contribution of the 1% group, there will be a lot less of those.
I happen to believe in research/teaching hospitals. Without the 1% group (and companies), their funding will be a lot less. Do YOU have money to replace those funds? I donate to the Comen’s Childrens Hospital in Chicago. They will miss my measly donation, should I move. But when the 1% group who also donate leaves, they WILL feel the pain, as will my granddaughter.
It is not as easy as you seem to think: Just get rid of them, we don’t need them sounds brave, but is as thoughtless a statement as “You can keep your own plan, doctor etc.
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Even the poor won’t get their money back if the U.S. under Trump goes to a flat income tax of 10 percent, for instance, with no deductions except for the top 1 percent who will keep their loopholes to avoid paying even the flat tax on the gains of their holdings and investments.
Imagine what that will mean. No deductions means you pay 10 percent on the total gross amount you earn instead of the net after dedications.
Someone who earns only $15,080 annually will end up paying $1,506 in federal income tax, but what about someone in the middle class earning a middle class income between $25,500 and $76,500 without the mortgage interest and property tax deduction? How many Americans will end up losing their homes when they don’t have enough left to pay the mortgage payment that mostly interest on the loan and property tax?
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“And they will take 43% (FORTY-THREE!) of the annual IRS revenue from taxes with them I don’t know about you, but I would prefer not to have to double the amount of money I pay in taxes.”
Ah, Rudy, you just convinced me that we wouldn’t be able live without rich people.
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Does your math show any different? If so, please, let me know! But something tells me that a) People below poverty level will not be made to taxes, and that means that you and I will have to make up for the difference. Or: Scrap a bunch of programs to lower the government expenditures. Not a whole lot of options left.
It’s easy to start throwing out “solutions,” but when taking a broader view, other things will come into play – and there goes the utopia…
France is already suffering from such an exit. Gerard Depardieu is one of the most vocal protesters – and he’s not even rich, compared by what we see in this country!
My dad was warden of a maximum security prison. He made the equivalent of $ 47,000.00 and was in the 61% tax bracket. I don’t know what YOU make, but I cannot afford that tax bracket.
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Rudy, you are making the assumption that with rich people leaving, their money will be leaving with them, too. No.
Before:
Rich CEO makes $10 million, pays 10%, so $1 million tax.
1000 employees also makes $10 million, so $10K each, no tax.
After:
Rich CEO is trying to take other people’s money in a foreign country (much more difficult).
1000 employees get $20 million, so $20K each, but their tax will be increased to 25%, so $5K.
They will be happy to pay this much tax since their net salary increased by $5K, so by 50%, but they now also get free health care, day care, higher ed. You see, all these things are automatically paid for without the need of the merciful generosity of a philanthropist’s paying a small fraction of it.
At the end, much more people are happy. True, nobody will be left with the all important choice of a yacht or private jet, but I say, it’s not a great loss.
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What makes you think the rich people won’t take their money with them??
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For the calculation, it didn’t matter. The point is that the money that before went to the CEOs pocket, now goes to the workers’ pocket–where it belongs.
CEOs are not as useful as they make themselves appear to be—as, for example, Dan Kahneman’s research shows
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Gotta love that optimism!!
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The rich peolpe already have moved most of their cash off shore. What wealth they still have in the U.S. is investments, not cash.
From Forbes (dates July 23, 2012): “Super Rich Hide $21 Trillion Offshore, Study Says”
“A new report finds that around the world the extremely wealthy have accumulated at least $21 trillion in secretive offshore accounts. That’s a sum equal to the gross domestic products of the United States and Japan added together. The number may sound unbelievable, but the study was conducted by James Henry, former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, an expert on tax havens and offshoring. It was commissioned by Tax Justice Network, a British activist group.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/#2aacaf2973d3
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If that were true, Mate, people shouldn’t have any problem with corporations moving manufacturing out of the U.S. and into cheaper labor markets. But I’m not aware of small companies happily taking the place of General Motors or Apple Computer.
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If a gigantic company doesn’t like the 80% tax they should pay then they can move the company out of the US. Not just the manufacturing, but the whole company. should move.
These big companies are way too powerful, and they prevent fair competition.
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If they don’t like the taxes, they should leave.
Nice attitude. Ask cities like Detroit about how well that went for them. Ask the steel country in Pennsylvania, and see how well that worked. The textile mills in the North East. The steel plants in Ohio. CHI in Illinois. Amana in Iowa. The list can go on and on. These companies HAVE left, and that departure devastated communities all across the country.
As long as there are kids, teachers are needed, in one shape or another. But when a large manufacturer leaves, no other companies will take their place (usually).
So, let’s stop the ostrich way of thinking, and come up with workable suggestions. “Just let them leave…” is not workable.
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Well, aren’t you special. Bless your heart.
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Rudy: “Let me guess: tax the rich, right?”
Whatever it takes to provide free healthcare. Yeah raise the tax for the rich to 80%–and perhaps raise it to all. Until the US spends more on military than the rest of the World combined, doctors and drug companies are allowed to make a fortune, nobody will share your worry about where to find the money.
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Rudy: thanks for spreading that zombie myth about medical law suits. Baloney. What if a hospital or doctor maimed or crippled you for life? You would just go ho hum I don’t want to sue because it’s so unfair to the doctor. Most states have already enacted tort reform. Texas has some of the most extreme tort reform laws and yet has the most percentage of uninsured of any state. I’m on Medicare and the doctors don’t do any unnecessary testing. Before Medicare, insurance companies refused to cover the old because they didn’t want to bother with an at risk population like us geezers. US insurance companies only wanted to cover healthy people, if you got too sick they would drop you like of ton of bricks UNTIL the ACA changed those unfair practices. As I said, the ACA is a patient’s bill of rights.
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Really??? If a doctor is truly respibsible, of course something should be done. But there is a simple formula used in the Netherlands.
Based on age, education and lost income over x years. But the millions upon millions for “untouchables” like emotional damage etc?
Of course as a medical institution I want to protect myself for that. Insurance only covers so much, so if I can protect myself by prescribing every test in the book every time – even when necessity is questionable?
The bill structure is different, too. I started getting bike from an outfit I had never heard of. Turned out that is was him he do read dem black n white piccatures no one understands… hospital did not have one of those, so they sent it to a place evavout 70 miles away. Adds on to the bill.
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Obama wasn’t lying — that was what the plan intended.
According to you, Obama KNEW that the plan had absolutely no protections for people to keep their doctors or health care plans but decided to keep saying that it did.
In fact, MOST people could keep their doctor and health care plan. Do you know who could not?
The one who had FAKE health insurance! The fact that you think Obama was lying because he didn’t realize that people wanted to pay for insurance that was only good if they stayed healthy is the mark of someone who finds every utterance of Trump to be brilliant.
Oh how I can’t wait until you have close family members who get to purchase some of that NEW “Republican approved” health insurance that will sell your granny her new “private” medicare policy that dumps her as soon as she gets sick. Turns out any illness connected to her “pre-existing condition” of being old isn’t covered! Medicare brought to you by republicans who say “Obama lied because we couldn’t keep our fake insurance and we wanted to keep our fake insurance”.
Don’t worry, when Republicans sell you insurance, you can keep it. As long as you want. As long as you stay healthy! Shame on Obama for thinking that is not exactly what Republican voters wanted. I hope they get exactly what they deserve, every single one of them.
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Must be because Obama did not get to read it either. That is what pelosi said, right?
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Rudy,
Do you have even an ounce of compassion for the poor people whose kids got cancer with their pre-Obamacare policies and learned that their health insurance wouldn’t pay for treatment beyond a small amount? Or found their own treatment was not covered?
Keep on pretending that Obama’s misunderstanding of what people define as “insurance” is just as bad as Trump saying Obama was born in Kenya. Or that Mexican illegal immigrants were rapists.
If I say “well Joe Smith killed a child, he is evil”, you will no doubt say “but Bill Jones jaywalked so he is evil too”.
You left your morality somewhere else.
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Once again, I have argued against Aca because if the financial outcome.
Your EMOTIONAL appeal has no value because there are many other programs to benefit those at certain financial levels.
It is far more likely for some one in my circumstances to go deep into financial debt. Not enough or to much income to qualify for certain income, a health care plan that has high deductibles
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NYC public school parent
The Republican Plan is as Greyson said was and is just drop dead.
Employer provided healthcare was dying heading the way of the defined benefit pension. It was becoming very expensive and more and more costs were being transferred to employees for crappie plans. In 99, 62% were covered by 11 that had dropped to 51% of employees .
That was the background
But the sad Truth is Obamacare was never the answer. If you want to say that we extended medicaid to the working poor it did
What it did not do, is provide for what I am going to guess was that Trump voter . Plenty of them right here in the burbs of NYC . Those with incomes above the subsidy level who had no employer provide healthcare . It was a costly catastrophic insurance plan .
The subsidy caps out at 97,000 for a family of four. Keep in mind that subsidy drops as dependents drop. That cap drops as dependents drop.
So in NYC can a family of four live on 98,000 a year and pay 15,000 or more for healthcare. For plans with an out of pocket cost of 5000 for an individual before coverage kicks in.
Do these people go to the doctor the first time they see blood
in their stool. Do they ignore the lump or the cough.
It is not as if we do not have a working model for what does work . That model makes insurance affordable for the majority of Americans by taking the highest risk individuals out of the pool and putting them on 2 government run programs . I must be getting old because I can’t remember the name (LOL) but you could go to Canada their healthcare system has the same name. They love it.
Like everything that POTUS did, ,he never attempted to reach for it . He may not have gotten it. What he got was a sell out to big Pharma and the Insurance industry. But now it will be on the back burner for decades.
The American people in 08 were so disgusted they voted for a Black man overcoming the tremendous racial baggage we carry as a nation . They voted for “HOPE AND CHANGE” . when Romney ran they reserved judgement on Obama giving him another four years. The vulture capitalist was not their man. They just voted for a moron flimflam man who promised not hope and change . But burn it down. They will get burnt .
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Those Percentages are from memory ,here is a more accurate summation
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-geyman/employersponsored-health-_b_1009718.html
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Joel,
I was furious and sickened that Obama didn’t fight for a public option. It wasn’t just that it left us with a very flawed health insurance plan. It was that Obama’s lack of fight made voters believe that Democrats WANTED that very flawed health insurance plan. That’s where he blew it. I think if Ted Kennedy had been alive and healthy and strong and in the Senate, he could have made the case and made it clear what the Democrats really wanted.
Imagine a world where every voter understood that Obamacare was the Republican plan offered by Romney and McCain because Republicans absolutely refused to allow any other plan to be voted on. The so called “moderate” but completely unethical and selfish Republicans like Olympia Snowe said “we care so little about our own citizens that we will threaten to filibuster any plan but the Romney/McCain plan so that it can’t even be voted on.”
But in the end, Obamacare was better than what we had — even for the people in the NYC suburbs.
The irony is that 97,000/year goes a long way in Ohio, Wisconsin and parts of Pennsylvania. So the people eligible for the subsidies who benefited the most should have been exactly those white working class families who voted for the Republican Senators who wanted to end Obamacare.
I guess pandering to those white working class voters gets you nowhere. They are too blinded by how much they despise the “other” that they don’t bother to learn what Obamacare was all about. I worked in benefits before Obamacare and you are exactly right that every year premiums increased tremendously and coverage dropped. Too many people were idiotically paying for cheap health insurance coverage that was meaningless, but they were happy because no one in their family got cancer or another expensive illness – at which time they learned their fake insurance put them in bankruptcy and then some.
And in truth, people do like Obamacare. Notice the lack of the Republican desire to immediately repeal it. Can you imagine all those white working class voters in Kentucky getting what they actually voted for and losing their health insurance? If I didn’t care about their kids despite the fact that are willing to screw non-white kids over and over again, I would wish them to experience the Obamacare repeal they voted for.
The simple solution is to have medicare for all. But I worry the Republican solution is to allow insurance companies to insure who they want to do and make the public the insurer of last resort for any family who the insurance companies don’t want. And since the majority of under 65 people don’t get cancer that needs more than one operation and one round of chemo or radiation to treat, the majority will be happy. But if you get sick with an illness that needs more expensive treatment, you are on your own or sent to underfunded government hospitals where there is no will to spend money.
It will be very similar to charter schools. They will teach the cheapest students and everyone is happy because their kid’s charter school can toss a few extras their way. They are happy until they have the kid who gets sent back to the underfunded “government” school. Then they wonder why no one cares about their kid anymore.
I guess that’s the system we are about to get. As long as the majority is happy, it’s fine to leave the rest to rot or die. They are just too expensive.
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Rewriting history, are we? Who famously said, “you can read it after you voted for it?”
Wait, wait, don’t tell… I know!!! It was that republican leader Pelosi. Oops… Democrat, I meant.
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NYC public school parent
We may agree on more than you think. The answer to republicans is not being polite . The answer is reminding them they lost . Does Obamacare have to go yes . SHOW ME YOUR PLAN MITCH.Because I’ll tell your voters who you are screwing, how you are screwing them and how much. . I had a Gold Plated Cadillac Plan . No body has health insurance when it depends on employment. How many employers would tolerate a long term illness. Once unemployed you can not afford insurance.
I must be terrible, but I am hoping Trump starts a trade war with China the end result will be tanking the world economy. Understand I am a populist who has fought Trade agreements since NAFTA . But there are ways to do it that will not tank the economy.Like stimulating and protecting new industries through government procurement. Buy American provisions in contracts and tax breaks.. .Donnie Little Hands is not Bernie and not skilled enough to do it. China could care less about Taiwan. They aren’t invading or being invaded, its eyewash . But it is enough to make them hostile to any economic moves we make against them.
Those Trumpites losing jobs in the downturn could be very unforgiving. Little hands is right, when he says that the unemployment rate is not reflective. Of course he is off by about 30 points. The real rate is probably 2 points higher when worker participation is figured in. Point being the economy is not strong enough to tolerate rising interest rates, which is why the Fed has been reluctant to raise rates . . China dumps dollars and we could be in for quite a ride. Haven’t seen stagflation since the seventies . Coming off of 4.7% official unemployment and 2% inflation they could flip both house by the midterm .
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not a happy thought that his mental state is already weak and declining – he’s 70 and obese, has no executive function, and is already making edicts with companies and countries while not yet president. God help the USA!!
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Trump tells so many lies in such a short space of time that he can’t possibly keep track of them. You’ve heard of RPM, with Trump it’s LPM. No one could recall that volume of lies. He’s buried himself in his own lies, this is the occupational hazard of a con man and huckster.
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According to Mother Jones, our beloved Leader Elect has ADHD
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/does-donald-trump-have-adhd
I know I said this already, but I’m honestly not sure Trump is deliberately evading questions. Maybe he is. It’s certainly the case that he hasn’t bothered to learn even the first thing about either tax policy or the Iran deal. At the same time, he genuinely sounds like an ADHD kid whose mind is in such chaos that he simply can’t string together more than two coherent sentences at a time. And yet, as he keeps reminding us, he is really rich. Can someone with the attention span of a kitten on crack get that rich?
The part of the Trump interview by Hannity that is referenced begins here
He really does sound like a hyperactive 10 year old kid. Marketing and sports, especially gymnastics, are full of these people.
Apparently, we love fast talking doers who believe thinking before doing or talking is for wimps.
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Sry, this is the link that jumps to the correct part of the interview
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Apparently wordpress takes out the time reference from a link. Anyhow, the quoted part starts at 2 minutes 45 seconds.
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I have one last thing to say about Donald Trump and then I will stop. Just a little quip, and I am done talking about him unless it’s about his handling of the DoE. There was another Republican elected President without having held prior elected office or served as a general, Herbert Hoover. He had been a working engineer, and promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Trump is a hotel owner, so he will give you a chicken in a restaurant if you can afford it and a bible in every room.
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Serving, not served. OK done.
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