Bozvotros
Bozvotros's JournalI am less interested in the out of pocket max than I am about first dollar coverage.
I had an employer drop a very good local HMO plan which had a 10,000 deductible with first dollar coverage for another one which had a 10K deductible before the insurance kicked in. I think this was called a fee for service plan. For every year but one, I paid through the ass and never got a red cent in insurance coverage. This was about 10 years ago. I remember that once I hit that magic number it went from no coverage to full coverage. Whoppee.
My insurance cost was around 280 a month for my wife and I. Our medical bills ran us around 700-800 a month which meant the insurance never had to kick in for us. This was in Indiana when I made about 50K. The new plan was like taking a 15-20% cut in my salary. It was breaking me and I ended up quitting that job and taking one with first dollar coverage. I have also worked as case manager in a hospital and negotiated admissions and rates with insurance companies. There I learned that there were all kinds of crooked, deceptive insurance plans out there which cap or just didn't cover lots of health care needs.
Now I am hearing about this same kind of bullshit with the ACA. I am hoping that when I hear about 12000 out of pocket that it doesn't mean that there is no coverage until you hit your out of pocket.
Big Pharma owns the FDA
They don't want anything OTC stepping on their toes. DMAA is too much like methylphenidate and mixed amphetamine salts which are the lifeblood of the ADD drug industry. Here are all the Ritalin and Adderall drugs the FDA have allowed on the market, Ritalin, Ritalin XR, Metadate, Focalin, Focalin XR, Daytrana, Concerta, Benzedrine, Dexedrine, Dextroamphetamine, the mixed amphetamine salts (Adderall, Adderall XR), the time released amphetamines, Vyvanse, Didrex, Dextrostat. I think I am forgetting some. Then there are the amphetamine like medications like phentermine, Tenuate Dospan, Meredia, Xenical and I am sure lots more. And then there is ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in meth which is really just a way of inhaling the same meds millions of people take. Do you really think the FDA is trying to protect consumers from DMAA when they allow this cornucopia of speed on the market? Fuck them.
I hate to admit it but I think you're right.
Living in America under Obama is a little like being an abused spouse who sheds her psychopathic mate and marries someone who no longer punches her in the face and molests her children. At first you're happy things aren't so brutal. You don't even care that he told you a lot of lies and hangs out with some of your ex's old friends. And, OK, sure, he fenced some of your jewelry for meth and booze and new clothes but he talks so sweet to you.
Believe me, I am not someone who thinks it would have made no difference if we would have elected McRomney or any other stooge the Repugs would have run. With the Pugs in the White House and the House and kind old Harry Reid standing between us and full fascism, I am giving the nod to fascism 10 to 1. But Obama has continued to disappoint and finally really irritate me. I am sick of having to compromise and capitulate to these sick fucks running the con game that is American politics. I am tired of being told to wait for things that should have come long ago or that this screwing is less harsh than the one we could have got or that something is better than nothing.
We are at war all right but it isn't with Al Qaida and the Muslims. (Good band name... I doubt it is taken.)
Two things have the pharmaceutical companies shaking in their boots
Legal marijuana which could replace 100 billion in prescription medications for antispasmodics, anti-psychotics, antidepressants, appetite stimulants, bipolar medications, glaucoma medications, pain medications and specialized medications to ease alcohol and opiate withdrawal, tranquilizers, sleep medications, AIDS and Cancer Drugs and many more we don't know yet. Once good old American know how starts discovering ways to control and standardize levels of THC and cannabinoids and which levels are most effective for which conditions, the big orgy of pharmaceutical profits will grind to a halt. We can't have that.
It would also lead to legal hemp which would crush cotton and polyester producers as well as paper mills. They simply will not allow it to happen and can and will spend billions to stop it.
The other thing is the electronic cigarette. 6 billion in high profit, low effectiveness nicotine replacement products would just dry up, along with two billion for Chantix, Zyban and other worthless and dangerous pharmacueticals. Not to mention the hundreds of billions in state and federal taxes they are soaking smokers out of.
Lying in America's is the only thing we continue to manufacture in mass quantities.
We are very good at it and our people have a tremendous appetite for it. Advertising is just one lie after another. Politicians and their endless campaigns live or die with strategic applications of the lie. Conservative radio is awash in it with virtually no opposition views permitted in most markets. The pulpits pour lies down on us. Schools shovel it into our children. Pharmaceutical and chemical companies constantly serve up bogus research that gets immediate air time and acceptance. When bankers and mortgage brokers lied their asses off what happened? Bushco?
What consequence is there for all the fucking lies that dominate our culture? This story will disappear. Their will be a cover story to explain why it doesn't matter and then we'll resume the lying chatter about how doomed we are unless we cut down some more safety net.
Secret Fox News Recipe Leaked: "No soup for YOU!"
Today the internet was ablaze with the discovery that some wag had posted a stolen copy of the secret recipe for Fox News. Many networks had tried without success to imitate or copy the success of this wholly owned media subsidiary of rich corporate interests. Many fear that the publishing of the recipe will lead to a glut of this type of programming while others feel that the appetite for Fox News is in decline and that the recipe has no value and point to the total lack of cognitively nutritious ingredients.
SECRET RECIPE FOR FOX NEWS STEW
Preheat audience with racial, sexual, Muslim and minority fearmongering.
INGREDIENTS:
blowhards
leggy blondes (preferred but may substitute leggy brunettes and redheads)
clusters of ignoramuses
corporate shills (may substitute stooges)
tea party jihaists
lobbyists
slander
innuendo
distortion
lies
hypocrisy
trickle down tax cuts
dog whistles
catch phrases
banalities
irrelevancies
select liberal sellouts (may substitute) liberal punching bag
SAUCE: prolife, progun, homophobic bombast, racial animus, trickle down tax cuts, patriotic fervor.
DIRECTIONS:
Steep blowhards in distortions, slander and innuendo. Set aside.
SAUCE: Combine prolife, homophobic and pro-gun bombast with trickle down tax cuts, racial animus and patriotic fervor. Bring to a boil and then simmer.
Combine leggy blondes with clusters of ignoramuses. Gradually blend in tea party jihadists, corporate shills and lobbyists. Sift out fact, reason and counter argument. Add steeped blowhards. Cut in lies, dog whistles, catch phrases, banalities and irrelevancy. Mix well. Pour congealed mixture into Reagan profile pans. Inject loaf with hypocrisy and pour sauce over all of it. Sprinkle with liberal sellouts or punching bags if desired. Half bake at low temperature until smugly satisfied. Serves 25 million.
Just like agent orange
20 years must be the accepted maximum amount of time our government has learned it can sit on a mountain of data about criminal negligence or callous indifference towards our own troops. It took awhile but we finally learned that Monsanto knew and our military commanders knew dioxin was a mutagenic, neurotoxic carcinogen right from the beginning. They went full bore ahead anyway.
Of course they fucking knew the risks of bombing nerve gas sites and god knows what other deadly substances we helped them build. They didn't care. They did it all out and lied because it would blemish their perfect little fix for the Vietnam syndrome... remember?
And now its depleted uranium dust and toxic gases from massive burn pits that will claim the life and future of this latest group of vets. But of course there isn't any real proof of that......
And for what? Somebody give me a reason, a good fucking reason any of these last three wars had to take place or why it was worth destroying the futures of those men lucky enough to survive.
Romney starts over
Romney starting over from the beginning.
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"If I did it once I can do it again" said a somewhat disheveled and pathetic Romney at his new job. His wife Ann was inside behind the counter quietly crying, telling customers to eat cake and slipping 20's into her bra. The floor was littered with torn up home redecorating magazines and pictures of Michelle Obama. She fired up a cigarette beneath the "No smoking" sign and gave the finger to her huckster husband outside.
Mitt's sons, Tab, Biff and Powie pulled in one by one in their Euro-trash sports cars and made dad give them a fill-up while they laughed and brandished money to impress the hookers they had riding shotgun. No one went in to see Ann. They knew better. An old friend watched silently at the pathos. As the son's squealed away, Romney began dousing himself with fuel.
"Uh, Mitt? the friend said carefully, "Don't be so hard on yourself. You never really started like this. Your Dad gave you a million bucks and his friends gave you a leg up. You just were good at destroying perfectly good companies and filling your pockets. It's OK you lost the election and can't even pump gas competently."
Mitt looked up, his face full of sorrow and wet with gasoline and newly diluted grease from the oily pomade that used to slick back his heavily dyed hair. "You think maybe I don't need to immolate myself?"
"That's right, Mitt, you're just a chiseling rich bastard like me, nothing wrong with that," his friend said earnestly.
The front door of the convenience mart opened and Ann walked out, obviously shaken and irritable from drinking a case of 5 hour energy and downing a rack of Krispy Kremes. She had a lit cigarette in her mouth and removed it slowly, eying the two friends who began backing away. ""You got that insurance paid up Mitty?" she said holding the butt in flick position in her trembling hands.
"No" said Mitt shakily. "Liar" she said flatly, "I paid it myself this morning." The cigarette took flight.
I am not buying Boehner's BS.
That blubbering boob lost control of his yahoos long ago. The real shit stirrers are still around with longer ladles. If we know anything about them is that they will never admit they are wrong.
Yesterday and no doubt today, humiliated and frightened right wing bloviators have been circling their burning wagons for a combination circular firing squad and circle jerk. Seems like an odd combination to me. You'd also think they would put the fires out first. But these are folks still selling a political party which tells half the country they are lazy moochers and women that they have magic vaginas to abort rapist sperm during "legitimate rapes." Perhaps they need the flames to reheat the warmed over trickle down that nobody wanted or maybe they just prefer to cannibalize each other medium rare. At any rate. Screw them. They are wounded now and more dangerous than ever.
Can we start hunting them by helicopter yet?
It's funny but a little sad....
It's funny but a little sad watching the Republicans try to pretend that their presidential candidate didn't just set their matchstick house on fire with his 47% remark. They were still hoping that no one had noticed that their VP not only grabbed the third rails of Social Security and Medicare, but he stuck them both between his legs and thrust his pelvis mightily at whoever would watch. Now it is like watching old people picking through what's left of their home after a tsunami hit it. "Hey Rush, maybe.. maybe this could still work....maybe maybe we could still ride this old class warfare tricycle....if we could just get this tree off of it and find the wheels... Right Rush? Rush? Don't cry, Rush.... look I found a box of dog whistles!!"
The Republicans are all confused. They can't figure it out. They were good patriots. They had done everything right. They had hamstringed the colored fellow right from the start, whipped their base into a lather with lies, distortions and constant fear mongering. They had even practically reinstated the Jim Crow laws like Uncle Karl had told them to. They had sold off all of their values to those nice billionaires who shoveled bucket of money at them and handed them their two candidates handpicked just for them and they promised to finish off that darkie just as soon as they finished the biggest fracking operation they had ever done.... Right under their house. Then, coincidentally, there was that earthquake, then the tsunami. And OK it sounds like locusts coming now, but it can't be as bad as it looks. "Can it, Glen?" Oh please, don't you start crying again."
They try to cheer each other up. "Maybe this is good Shawn... maybe we should have destroyed our house a long time ago. That house wasn't really right for us. "And hey look Mr. Savage.... I found a picture of Reagan!!"
The rest of the campaign should be good as they try to pretend that Romney wasn't talking about anyone's grandma, or the soldiers home from the war without a job, or the guy next door working two jobs to take care of his family who still can't make enough to pay federal income taxes or most of white Appalachia and the deep south. No he was talking about that other 47% who aren't paying enough, who expect to eat and have shelter and don't want to be responsible for themselves. Those bums think that the richest people who have derived the most benefits from our society and who it would hurt the least should chip in some more.
"That's funny, aint it Mr. O' Riley, sir?"
Profile Information
Name: James Crackcorn (I don't care)Gender: Male
Hometown: Anytown
Home country: Just browsing
Current location: On the Ramparts
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 785