He isn’t liberal enough?
I can respect a liberal, or a compromiser, as long as he’s honest about it. The reason Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neal became close friends is because even though they were philosophically on he opposite ends of the spectrum, they were both highly principled men, and they were both honest about what they wanted. I find that to be missing in these recent administrations, ,pre so now than ever before.
Dag, we disagree philosophically, but you’re articulate, stand by your principles, and don’t back down. You have always had my respect, albeit not my agreement.
Same…Ditto from here my good man. Keep up the passion. “won’t back down” I like that song a lot by Tom Petty. @db4690
You’re talking about my second most favorite congressman. Everyone else is tied for first !
People who openly argue about their beliefs are not the ones I worry about. They’re the ones who focus on the issues and read and think for themselves. It’s the ones who have no principles that scare me. They’re the ones that often argue with personal attacks rather than focusing on the issue at hand. A principled person says “I disagree, and here’s why”. An unprincipled person says “you’re wrong and you’re a jerk who subscribed to a communist newspaper when you were in college”.
I’m willing to bet that you’re an obsessive-compulsive reader, as I am.
I’d also bet that you have bookshelves full of books and none of them novels, as do I.
Did I guess right?
Boy, you got me on that. I read a lot, but if it isn’t technical or mathematical or political or a biography or …it looses me. I try a novel and think, " this isn’t real, it’s a waste of time."
Btw…nearly all of my closest friends are VERY conservative. Guess opposite work. We never discus politics but our moral compass is spot on in agreement.
The sixth is that millions are finally waking up to the reality of the law when they lose their jobs and cannot find other than 29 hour a week jobs.....due to Obamacare.
Sorry MB…but that’s been going on for YEARS. I know many people back during Bush the first presidency who were laid off and could only find part-time jobs. Try to find a full time job in retail? In the 90’s was the first time I ever heard of companies starting to hire part-time engineers. And then there was a huge shift of companies to not hire full-time engineers but to hire consultants. I had one consulting job that lasted almost 6 years. I was one of the lucky ones who had a wife with a good full time job with excellent benefits.
Did Obamacare add to those numbers…Maybe a little. Most states already had laws on the books that if you worked 30 hours the company had to provide you health coverage. That’s nothing new at all.
What I do like about Obamacare (one of the few things) - is families with working parents but no health care can now buy it at a reasonable price. The cost is less then 1/3 of what private insurance was before Obamacare.
John Boehner asked the CBO to do a write up on the effects of stopping Obamacare. The effects matched their original assessment which I posted a reference to earlier. 106 billion dollar increase in the deficit if it were appealed. All these independent CBO rulings which both the R’s Nd the D’s use to pass legislation is available on line. They have been very dependable in predicting outcomes. .Remember, they are using existing already aporoved Medicaid payments to help implement Obamacare for the uninsured and more young will be paying in and the payments to Medicaid now for premiums instead of emergency room care. Medicaid payments can then be more flatlined, reducing the deficit. It’s a no brainer. People that argue against it are just following false information that is political as it is a republican devised plan that reduces the deficit and ruled legal by the conservative Supreme Court. The Teaparty people in congress just need a history to take to their backwards, redistricting constituents to garner more votes.
Companies, @MikeInNH makes this point well also, have been limiting people in hours to avoid health nsurance for years regardless. Now, they have an out and would be more apt to increase their hours. They can pay a fine and drop them all together. The fine is pitlings compared to a health insurance bill and is a viable option for them. The employee can then go on line to buy his own instate if their gov. Decided to take expanded funds to set up state exchanged, fed. if he didn’t. Romneycare works. This will too if not continually sabotaged by the house and R governors.
Companies, @MikeInNH makes this point well also, have been limiting people in hours to avoid health nsurance for years regardless. Now, they have an out and would be more apt to increase their hours.
We have a neighbors of ours (my youngest son and their daughter are dating). Both parents work full time and neither have health care. They both work in retail. The father has 2 part time jobs totally 50 hours. The mother has now 3 part-time jobs totally 50 hours. They struggle to keep their heads above water. Health insurance for their family of 3 BEFORE Obamacare was well over $1500/mo. And the coverage was just OK. It came with a very large deductible.There were years they couldn’t afford healthcare. They actually thought about moving 2 miles to MA for affordable health care. Then Obamacare came in…and they were able to find BETTER healthcare for less then half of what they were paying before.
For a family of 3 living with a weekly income of $1000/wk AND pay $1500/mo for health care is a major struggle.
But Obamacare has so many other problems. The healthcare system needed something. But I don’t think this is it.
I feel the healthcare system needed a public option for those with the kind of struggles you talk about @Mike. But watering down some thing that works works into something dosen’t work as well is the nature of healthcare that cuts profit margins for insurance companies and has such powerful lobbies.
It wasn’t meant to be a massive federal govt program. It was ment to be state run with more Medicaid funds in the mix. Now, with half the states refusing to help insure their uninsured, there is a bottle neck which is a big problem. You need to take small steps before the big ones.
Even Romney care in one state had it’s own teething problems according my son who lives there. But, EVERYONE likes the mandated changes that keep people on roles, insure stay at home kids and preexisting condition removal. These are small but worthwhile steps for people who are just one illness from bankruptcy. This is the biggest cause of personal bankrupcy in America. And kills 30k people a year.
No opponent has an answer for my neighbor’s 26 year old, uninsured daughter while living in New York when she died of acute appendicitis while waiting over 6 hours in an emergency room before she could see a doctor. This was her second visit after they turned her away before, miss diagnosing her in the ER and sending her home. No insurance, no care. It really doesn’t matter what the law says about mandatory treatment, these people( the uninsured) die at alarming rates. With an insurance card and my primary care advocating for me, I can go to Tuffs just to get an eye exam by a team of doctors for my condition. This uninsured girl didn’t stand a chance. Opponents just don’t get it and frankly, don’t care ! They all have their own insurance , many on the taxpayer’s dime. It’s the disgraceful part of capitalism which in itself is necessary.
I just think they could have been a much simpler way to achieve many of the shortfalls of the health care system without this bloated system called Obamacare.
Mike, the jobs problem began in 2000. Between 2000 and 2005, NH alone lost over 25,000 jobs just in the manufacturing sector. I was, at the time, working with the DOL numbers as well as people from Concord and Washington. At the time I ran a complete analysis, with trend curves, in support of a $2M DOL grant application that I put together. We at the colleges were also eliminating through attrition full time faculty positions and replacing them with adjunct contracts. The economic problems definitely started pre-Obama. The reasons are myriad, and go back to issues like the collapsing housing market, NAFTA, the changing of China to a “most favored trading nation” status, and a whole slew of other contributors. No single president was the cause. And no single policy.
However, everything I’ve been able to find confirms my belief that Obamacare has significantly contributed to the loss of full time positions and replacement with 29 hour a week jobs, particularly with small businesses. Also, in preparation for the added costs of Obamacare, global corporations are closing all their marginal stores. A bit of profit used to be acceptable, as that at least kept a given store as a part of the overall assets of the organization, but under the new cost structure these stores are no longer viable. One global company’s HR director who I know personally said they’ve estimated that the ACA will cpst their company $17million annually. We’ve seen the results in Staples, Shop & Save, Lowes, and countless others, as store closings. Nationwide, millions are becoming unemployed, and all that’s available are 29 hour a week jobs.
If it were to be described as analogous to a fire, we had an inferno start at the turn of the century. The ACA has poured gasoline on it.
I’d like to see those figures…You name a few companies like Staples, Lowes and Stop & Save…For well over 2 decades the bulk of their employees have been part-time (NO BENEFITS) employees. That is nothing new for the vast majority of retail. Even a store like Sears has very few full time employees. Only some of the upper managers at each of the stores are full-time. One of my neighbors I mentioned is an assistant manager at a retail store in the mall. And it’s a part time job.
As a director of engineering and one of the officers for a small company I’m involved with many meetings with HR. We offer good benefits and have only 2 part time employees. Obamacare didn’t effect us one bit. The companies who it effected were companies who’s health benefits didn’t meet the minimum standard set by Obamacare. Yes I’ll concede that number may be high. But I don’t know. Our company offers good benefits, so we had no penalties and our employees don’t pay anything for single coverage…and the family plan is pretty good at an extra minimal cost. My wife’s company has even BETTER coverage. But it’s a larger company and they self insure. Much cheaper for the company. Again Obamacare didn’t effect them one bit.
“The bottom line is that WE spent somewhere between $800 billion and $1 trillion on an Iraq war that never had any strategic importance for the US. And, in addition to that $800 billion-$1 trillion (that was totally UNfunded)–translation: GWB put it on a virtual credit card–the toll of thousands of US soldiers who were lost in that unnecessary experiment is truly tragic.
”
Two things I find interesting about this-
Why is it that people tend to attribute whatever happens during a President’s adminstration to them personally? Do you REALLY think one man (historically a man anyway) is calling the shots?
I would take exception to the notion it had NO strategic importance. The fact the US was willing to squander treasure, that exceeded some nations net worth, to make a point was sending a message to others about our resolve in the face of defiance. The cost of which was probably much less than taking on other, more capable, adversaries.
“I just think they could have been a much simpler way to achieve many of the shortfalls of the health care system without this bloated system called Obamacare.”
Probably, and I hope that the ACA will be changed as large problems become apparent. But we won’t know for at least a few months until the ACA starts in full and has been around for a while. I’m not sure what is best, but the system we have for a couple more weeks is seriously flawed. We have to try something different, and now we have a chance to do so.
@twin turbo I agree; the Iraq war was “president” Chaney’s idea and his 2 helpers, Bush and the Secretary of Defense. He sold it on the idea that it would be “self financing”, the war would be paid for with all the oil Iraq would give the US to pay for it.
The rest of the world is still baffled by the fact that one of the most ruinously expensive wars was paid for with a…TAX CUT!
Mike, I wish I could send you the analysis, but it’s all on my computer at the college. Having retired, I no longer have access to the data.
I can send you to the empty/closed stores. You’ll find empty Lowes stores on Hughes road just off exit 1 on 293 and off exit 10 of I93. You can find empty Staples stores off exit 10 of I93 and other locations throughout NH. Shop & save left an empty stores everywhere, I stumbled on an empty Shaws store just w few days ago, although I can’t remember where. These are all marginal stores left empty by companies reorganizing to adjust to their new cost structures. The evidence is all around you.
There’s no question that there are industry niches that are unaffected by Obamacare. But for every business like yours, there are countless others that are having to adjust.
Jt, I believe it’s going to be at least a year before the full effect of Obamacare becomes apparent.
You can find empty Staples stores off exit 10 of I93 and other locations throughout NH. Shop & save left an empty stores
But that doesn’t mean they are related to Obamacare!! The housing market in many parts of this country still haven’t recovered from the the great recession.
And as for the Empty Lowes store you mentioned. That had NOTHING to do with Obamacare. But EVERYTHING to do with the new Lowes store that opened up less then 10 miles away in Tax Free Salem NH. The manager of that Lowes store even said so in an interview. Said his store was doing just fine until the one in (“in the tax free state”) as he called it was opened. He was extremely p*ssed with Lowes for doing that to his store.
Ther’re a couple of empty Lowes stores that are also in “tax free” NH. Lowes is shutting down marginal stores, just like so many others are.
The ACA is going to cost large organizations millions. There’s no way around it. The only way for large companies to deal with it is to make adjustments. Some of these adjustments will be in cost increases, others will be in closing marginal performers to reduce exposure to only those stores that can be self supporting under the new cost structures. It’s just common sense business.