Jump to content

General Political Thread


Recommended Posts

Guest Don Draper

I'm way too lazy to shop around. Also, my employer pays our $500 deductible and the first $500 of our out-of-pocket expenses and Ifind it hard to believe I'll find a significantly better situation.

It looks to me like Jules is explaining the character of the free market without editorializing, for the record.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 3.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

 Oh, you haven't hear about the ACA fees?  Imagine that.

 

OH! You mean the ones implemented state by state and mostly Republican Governors who want to destroy health care for poor folks?

 

Have you heard about the many different tax CREDITS small and medium businesses get under the ACA? No?? Oh! Imagine that!

 

Quote: (not that anyone really cares)

 

"

How will the credit make a difference for you?                 

For tax years 2010 through 2013, the maximum credit is 35 percent of premiums paid for small business employers and 25 percent of premiums paid for small tax-exempt employers such as charities.

 

For tax years beginning in 2014 or later, there will be changes to the credit:

 

  • The maximum credit will increase to 50 percent of premiums paid for small business employers and 35 percent of premiums paid for small tax-exempt employers. 
  • To be eligible for the credit, a small employer must pay premiums on behalf of employees enrolled in a qualified health plan offered through a Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Marketplace.
  • The credit will be available to eligible employers for two consecutive taxable years.

 

Here’s what this means for you. If you pay $50,000 a year toward workers’ health care premiums — and if you qualify for a 15 percent credit, you save... $7,500. If you save $7,500 a year from tax year 2010 through 2013, that’s total savings of $30,000. If, in 2014, you qualify for a slightly larger credit, say 20 percent, your savings go from $7,500 a year to $10,000 a year.

 

Even if you are a small business employer who did not owe tax during the year, you can carry the credit back or forward to other tax years. Also, since the amount of the health insurance premium payments is more than the total credit, eligible small businesses can still claim a business expense deduction for the premiums in excess of the credit. That’s both a credit and a deduction for employee premium payments.

 

There is good news for small tax-exempt employers too. The credit is refundable, so even if you have no taxable income, you may be eligible to receive the credit as a refund so long as it does not exceed your income tax withholding and Medicare tax liability.

 

And finally, if you can benefit from the credit this year but forgot to claim it on your tax return, there’s still time to file an amended return."

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Canada Has Death Panels

 

And that’s a good thing.

 

The pre-Obamacare media in 2009: There's no such thing as death panels and Sarah Palin is an idiot for suggesting otherwise.

 

The post-Obamacare media in 2013: Death panels are a good thing.

You're mixing issues. I'll fix it for you.

 

Pre-Obamacare fact in 2009: There's no such thing as death panels in proposed Obamacare legislation.

 

One post-obamacare blogger in 2013: Death panels in Canada are a good thing.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Canada Has Death Panels

 

And that’s a good thing.

 

The pre-Obamacare media in 2009: There's no such thing as death panels and Sarah Palin is an idiot for suggesting otherwise.

 

The post-Obamacare media in 2013: Death panels are a good thing.

 

Guess what, there is no such thing as death panels, and Sarah Palin is an idiot for suggesting otherwise.  

 

ACA is not government run health care.  They will not decide what kind of healthcare you get.  They have set up exchanges for private companies to compete for customers.  

 

Anyone that thinks there are government run "Death panels" is willfully ignorant, an spreading misinformation.  More to the case before ACA there were corporate death panels.  These "panels" could decide not to insure someone based upon pre-existing conditions.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Pre ACA insurance company's make decisions on health care issues - good. ACA era - insurance companies make decisions on health care issues - bad.

 

Oversimplified sure but so is the "DEATH PANELS" meme

 

The only people who should make decisions on your healthcare are you and your doctor.  That has been my opinion. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

The only people who should make decisions on your healthcare are you and your doctor.  That has been my opinion. 

I agree, as long as the "you" is the only one paying for the expensive-as-shit process of keeping someone alive on a machine. 

 

I don't know if I want my tax $ going towards keeping someone in a 3 year coma alive.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree, as long as the "you" is the only one paying for the expensive-as-shit process of keeping someone alive on a machine. 

 

I don't know if I want my tax $ going towards keeping someone in a 3 year coma alive.

We already do. What do you think Medicare and Medicaid is but tax $ keeping people alive. (As is the VA, etc.) If anything ACA is not really government money for health care, it is government money to help people get health care.

 

LouieB

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree, as long as the "you" is the only one paying for the expensive-as-shit process of keeping someone alive on a machine. 

 

I don't know if I want my tax $ going towards keeping someone in a 3 year coma alive.

 

There is the rub, isn't?  

 

But unfortunately your tax dollars go for a lot of things you don't agree with.  It is the nature of the beast really.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

We already do. What do you think Medicare and Medicaid is but tax $ keeping people alive. (As is the VA, etc.) If anything ACA is not really government money for health care, it is government money to help people get health care.

 

LouieB

I'm speaking specifically of keeping someone alive, who otherwise would be dead, by keeping them hooked up to a machine. That's the whole Canadian "death panel" example, as given in Hixter's link.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The only people who should make decisions on your healthcare are you and your doctor. That has been my opinion.

That is actually the way it is and has been however insurance companies and benefits officers decide if your treatment will be paid for. My point was that "death panels" have always existed since insurance came into being and more so since the advent of HMO's and such.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm speaking specifically of keeping someone alive, who otherwise would be dead, by keeping them hooked up to a machine. That's the whole Canadian "death panel" example, as given in Hixter's link.

 I didn't read the article, but making sensible end of life decisions is hardly the crazy-ass death panel panicathon the right wing propagates. People sign DNR orders all the time along with other sensible directives.

 

That is actually the way it is and has been however insurance companies and benefits officers decide if your treatment will be paid for. My point was that "death panels" have always existed since insurance came into being and more so since the advent of HMO's and such.

Lots of folks have died for lack of health insurance or being denied coverage that could otherwise have saved them. Again this death panel bullshit is just that - Bullshit of the highest order.

 

LouieB

Link to post
Share on other sites

People sign DNR orders all the time along with other sensible directives.

Completely different. This is a case of a government-appointed panel saying, "We don't care what you want. We're pulling the plug against your wishes." It's not a road we should go down. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Completely different. This is a case of a government-appointed panel saying, "We don't care what you want. We're pulling the plug against your wishes." It's not a road we should go down. 

 

Absolutely.  But in regards to ACA, is there any indication that is the road we are going down?  

 

LouieB is right, the whole Death Panel talk is bullshit of the highest order.  It does nothing but misinform and frighten.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

Completely different. This is a case of a government-appointed panel saying, "We don't care what you want. We're pulling the plug against your wishes." It's not a road we should go down.

 

So you believe the "death panels" meme? Could you point to the section of the law that supports it?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Is there anything worse (besides my posts of course) than listening to this woman f up the English language?? I mean Im not literary giant but is there something weird about this first paragraph??




Look, I’ll keep this brief because I want to spend quality time getting kids to bed tonight. Doubt I’ll get much sleep though because the recent proof of government corruption makes me nauseated. If it doesn’t you, and you can blindly ignore the status quo embraced by our politicians and low information voters, then I unapologetically call out your disloyalty to the ethical foundation of the greatest nation on earth.

When you have a moment, please read my review of a jaw dropping, searing new book that provides the proof that Washington, D.C. has strayed so far from the planks in both major political parties' platforms that we are fools for trusting any who have refused to fight against cronyism and extortion. This is the stuff Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin and a few others have railed against so boldly. It's the stuff “tea party” patriots of all stripes rallied against to grow the grassroots movement that is the only political solution to defend... our republic! “60 Minutes” covered some of this on Sunday, Sean Hannity had an outstanding interview with the book’s author tonight, and other mediums are doing right by not ignoring these revelations.

Here’s the deal: all politics is local. And personal. Let me personalize this. It is UNBELIEVABLE that the press would investigate every nook and cranny of my life; send gullible reporters to my little town to kick over every rock any family member ever tread underfoot; scour every email I’ve written; research every Palin campaign disclosure like junkyard dogs; sic 12 AP reporters to fact check my book; breathlessly report about my wardrobe and an old used tanning bed I bought to get some sun during Alaskan winters as if these were vital national news stories; hound friends, personal doctors, strangers, and just downright strange people, etc., etc., etc., to know everything we do (and they still get the story wrong!). They blew and still blow all those resources “investigating” the irrelevant hockey mom from Wasilla. Meanwhile our government goes to hell in a hand basket right before the “elite media’s” closed eyes, and it took my friend Peter Schweizer to slap you upside the head to see any of this corruption? Good God. Be ashamed, media, be very ashamed.

Now, I think I’ll go read “Green Eggs and Ham” to my little boy, then we’ll all say a prayer for our country as I join you in readying for tomorrow’s battle for America.

Here’s my review of Peter Schweizer’s new book “Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets”:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/21/Extortion

- Sarah
Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Now, I think I’ll go read “Green Eggs and Ham” to my little boy, then we’ll all say a prayer for our country as I join you in readying for tomorrow’s battle for America.

 

- Sarah

 

 

Again with the Green Eggs and Ham.  What is the obsession with this book?  And I wonder if they actually understand the meaning.  

 

But I will say this about Sarah Palin, people on the right and people on the left, just keep giving her a platform.  They spread her words either as gospel or a joke.  I wish people would just stop paying attention to her.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

I know a lot of people who think she is brilliant and would vote for her for president. Stuff like that article make total sense to these people.

 

I thought she was a weird unhinged speaker, but that editorial makes her speaking sound thoughtful and eloquent in comparison.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Every time I see another corn pone Caribou Barbie quote, I am reminded of this:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

 

People like her have a truly warped view of America. Instead of celebrating our diversity, they long for some idealized version of the past, where everyone looked alike (white), and we all waved the flag at the Veteran's Day parade right before going to our Baptist services. They really believe this shit.

 

Fortunately, we keep moving forward without them (civil rights, marriage equality), and when they die, they will be thrown on the dung heap of history. There won't be many Sarah Palin statues.

 

In other news, I see where the national average price for a gallon of gas has fallen to $3.34. Wasn't it supposed to go up to six, or even eight, under Obama?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...

×
×
  • Create New...