Do any of you believe the rich people who back the Republicans, and Democrats for that matter will risk their wealth by allowing the country to default on our obligations on October 18th? I cannot believe they would risk their fortunes in what could be an international financial meltdown to make a point.

I may be wrong, and am open to being educated on this subject.

Let me start by saying I believe we need the ACA. If you don't have insurance you have NO CHANCE! However, I want to say that what you can face WITH insurance can be frightening as well.

A few years ago I needed major surgery on my back. The day we saw the neurosurgeon he told me to see the surgery nurse to schedule. I went to talk with her and she presented me with a bill for $2100 that had to be paid BEFORE they would schedule the surgery. Thankfully we had a credit card we never used that had enough on it, but we both wondered what people without the means would do.

Having insurance eases the pain a bit, but it is not a cure all. I know at least 5 families that have gone into financial ruin over large medical bills AFTER insurance. ACA is a start folks, not an end all.

I read the post and declined to participate, I could not make a decision. Now, that has never been something hard for me. The post was pretty strong language (not nasty, strong) my first impulse was to hide it, then I felt like I couldn't make a decision.

Has that happened to anyone else?

I have 4 longhair doxies, standard size. It has been a tough year for us, we had 3 over 15 years old that went to the rainbow bridge in the past 18 months. We have adopted 2 older (age 7 and 9) who needed forever homes, we have a 2 year old who has a disbility (leg issue) and a 14 year old.

Long story short, does anyone have any tips on keeping the vet bills down to something reasonable? We can afford these pups, we did ortho surgery for the youngest one earlier this year but it seems like the costs keep escalating.

We like our vets we have been with them a long time but the younger ones in the office seem to jump quickly to costly tests and things. I have had doxies all my life, I can handle back issues pretty well, crate them, give them some muscle relaxers for a week or so and 9 times out of 10 they are fine. I need the vet for the drugs. Now they won't do that without $200 worth of bloodwork and $200 worth of xrays. I know the breed well, I have only been wrong about a pulled or strained muscle once and we knew it 2 days in and asked the vet for xrays.

We don't have kids, these fur babies are our family. We love them and want them to have the best care but wow are the vets getting silly expensive.

my question is, when should doctors stop. I have a friend who has a very ill grandson, he is 12 months old and has not been out of the hospital more than a few days in that time. He has an unusual medical condition that is attacking all of his organs (don't ask what it is I can't say it or spell it). The doctors continue to go to great lengths including 3 code blue situations to save this young child. He has experienced 2 strokes in the past 2 months.

No matter what happens, his outcome will not be a good one. It has bankrupted the parents and is well on the way to bankrupting the grandparents who have mortgaged their homes to help pay for his care.

We went through something similar when I lost my mom but we were given options as a family and she had given us strict instructions on her end of life issues which helped us make the difficult decisions we faced. We kept her comfortable with drugs and let her go quietly, no theatrics since it would have prolonged the inevitable.

I am not saying this child is not valuable or loved, it just seems like they are using him as a guinea pig for these new procedures and drugs with no good outcome.

This is a huge ethical quandary, I don't want "death panels" and i don't want to limit research and discovery of new medical cures and medicines, but do we go farther than we should sometimes?

Ok, I will admit my limitations I know NOTHING about smart phones. My cell died and I am looking for a new one. My former students say I need a "windows compatible" phone, others say an I phone or a "droid". Help!

I use my phone quite a bit but am not attached to it at the hip, in fact I turn it off from time to time. I would like gps for trips home and would like a few apps.

i am so confused, it is like buying a car....

we moved from the front porch/stoop to the back deck/patio. When kids played in the front yard, in the street sometimes and all the neighbors were on the front porch or stoop we knew each other, we could not ignore each other. We noticed when an ambulance pulled up next door and instead of CLOSING our door, we moved off the porch to help our neighbor.

When I was little, the lady down the road was always home, we knew to call Mrs. Bane or ride our bikes to her farm if anything happened. If she wasn't home there was Mrs. Stevens two farms down. When my sister came home from school got off the bus and somehow was locked out of the house in the rain, a neighbor driving by saw her sitting alone on the porch in the rain, took her in and waited until Mom got home from the doctor's office (she had been delayed). In towns and cities when a kid fell of their bike, there were 10 people jumping off their porches or out of their homes to help.

We have become immune to pain and suffering because we don't know each other. In our city, a disabled man on a scooter fell off at a busy intersection. People drove by, around him, nobody stopped until a florist saw him and ran out of her business to help him. He was seriously injured and is still in the hospital. NOBODY stopped to help!

We need to move back to the porch folks....

Ok, I just got home from an hour waiting to get my car serviced here in Oklahoma. The waiting room was full, the tv was on Faux news and I asked if I could change it. You would have thought I said I did not believe in God. I gave up, got out my ipad and tried to ignore it.

At that point two over 60 white guys began to talk about socialism and how the liberals were trying to ruin the country. They began to talk about Medicare and I bit my tongue. Of course they believe they have earned that and it is not one of those social programs. They also think that the government should get out of the healthcare business BUT they talked about medicare and how much they could not function without it.

They talked about Obamacare, they said it was wrong to force an American to buy health insurance for $1000 a month .... Then they showed themselves, one man said "if we didn't have a black guy who loves to give his buddies welfare and buy elections with welfare this country would be fine", the other people in the room agreed. I could not bring myself to take on all that ignorance at one time while my care is on the lift.

They really don't get it.... It is 10 a.m. and I need a drink....