StrangeSox

There's going to be a total solar eclipse on August 21st, the first in nearly a century. Those of us in northern IL won't get a complete eclipse, but NASA has a nifty app that shows how it'll look where you're at. http://www.wlwt.com/article/this-is-how-th...em:+New+Content

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 26, 2017 -> 11:08 AM) No. Just f***ing no. Millions and millions of Americans had their health care situation completely ruined by the ACA, but hey, if you ever checked the box next to R once, then you wish for cancer to ruin every American family. Just wow. Republicans are going to reinstate lifetime and annual caps so yeah, that's what they actually want to happen and they've been crystal clear about rolling back the ACA and replacing it with nothing/dogs*** for nearly 10 years now. So, yeah.

Ron Johnson: People with preexisting condition don’t deserve insurance like ‘somebody who crashes their car’

This chart shows the stunning trade-off at the heart of the GOP health plan a lot of scrolling to drive the point home, but this is the main takeaway

SCOTUS will review the Travel Ban, allows it to go into effect for people who lack a "bona fide relationship" with someone in the US.

We don't have a full opinion from him yet, but we got a pretty good glimpse at Gorsuch today and he's going to be a hard right ideologue it seems.

It is more blatant lying to say the ACA was written and debated in secret and passed quickly. It doesn't matter what someone "thinks" when it is diametrically opposed to what actually happened.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 25, 2017 -> 06:34 PM) It was continually declining though. More and more insurance companies were dropping out and some even folded due to the funding issues. This was all prior to Trump being elected so you can't blame everything on him. There are some markets that have substantial issues. The majority are stable and successful.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 25, 2017 -> 06:36 PM) I disagree on both accounts. The ACA was not a compromise it was ramrodded through Congress just as this was is. Neither was a good compromise so I don't see either really working in the long run. This is straight up dishonest. The ACA took months and months, was all done publicly, was subjected to over a hundred public hearings, Democrats spent months working with multiple Republicans trying to get them on board and reworking the bill to do so, and they still got dozens and dozens of amendments allowed. But Mitch McConnell's political strategy of denying a single Republican vote worked, and years later we still get these disingenuous attacks on what the ACA process actually was. Trying to equate what happened in 2009-2010 with the process on this bill is absurd. And you ignored the bulk of the point, which is that this isn't actually a healthcare bill attempting to help anyone. The ACA bill, regardless of who did or didn't vote for it, was a bill that was focused on supporting and reinforcing our existing health insurance system. It featured previously conservative market-based approaches. If you actually care about getting people covered with decent insurance, it's about the most Republican-friendly approach that you can take, and Republicans were lockstep against it. There was never, ever a chance of getting a compromise bill with the Republicans in 2009-2010, and there certainly wasn't ever going to be one after the tea party wave got elected. Republicans simply do not care about expanding health coverage. Their bill starts with the goal of throwing millions off of coverage, destroying pre existing conditions protections, and gutting the broad insurance market protections we likely all enjoy and benefit from. The ACA is not some sort of radical left-wing bill and has been attacked from the left as an insurance company handout from the start. A "rammed down our throats" progressive bill would have had a public option if not straight up single payer.

Here's a republican senator straight up lying about what this bill does. He claims it keeps the Medicaid expansion in place. It not only passed out the Medicaid expansion, kicking over ten million back off of health insurance, it also substantially cuts the pre-expansion Medicaid program. https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/879000887171088385

That is just the most intellectually lazy "both sides" nonsense. Republicans don't care about helping people with health care. Full stop. It has never been and never will be a policy priority for them. This bill isn't intended to help fix anything regarding healthcare. Saying "this probably won't work very well" 1) blithely ignores the tens of thousands of Americans it will kill a year and 2) assumes it's actually supposed to "work" as anything but cutting healthcare to fund tax cuts. Liberals are not guilty of conservatives wanting to deprive millions of healthcare for ideological reasons. Conservatives get to own their own policies 100%. This is the party of cheering on "let them die" aft their own debates. They don't give one s*** about poor people not having health care. Their is nothing to compromise with on that ideology because it's essential become a death cult that worships wealth. You're also ignoring that the ACA itself is a massive compromise and about the only realistic and most conservative way you can approach covering the millions of Americans it has added and maintaining a private market based system. The "extreme left" would, at a minimum, have had a public option.

Mother and son: Medicaid isn't about politics, it's about lives Mike Phillips is severely physically disabled, but thanks to Medicaid, he's able to be cared for at home by his family. In a remarkable interview with Ari Melber, Mike and his mother Karen Clay explain how Medicaid cuts would literally end life as they know http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/m...sm_npd_ms_fb_lw

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 25, 2017 -> 10:11 AM) This is the reason that nothing can get done in the government. Its if you are on the other side you are the worst thing possible and the cause of all the problems. There can be no compromise and no deals because the other side is so wrong that we can even meet. Look at how messed up Illinos is from this attitude. There is too much polarization in politics today. Too much animosity. Republicans are trying to kill tens of thousands of Americans a year with this bill so they can give tax cuts to the rich. Spare me pearl clutching about civility. That's their political preference. That's what they're working hard to pass. They are not actually trying to solve any health care issues, just cut cut cut. They need to own the dead Americans they are striving for.

I don't get why you seem to be excited about this, Reddy. Bernie being charged with a crime isn't going to make his fans or leftists in general embrace centrist Democrats all of a sudden.

That is absolutely brutal.

Exactly. They're all wording it as "I can't vote for it as written" or "I can't vote for it without changes." McConnell intentionally left some of these things out so that they can "negotiate" these amendments and use that as cover for voting for what is certainly the worst piece of public policy in my lifetime.

The economic system should serve humanity, not the other way around.

Illinois, my state Broken, Shattered, Destroyed, Dead Illinois, no more

So this flew under the radar with the AHCA stuff today, but Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say Election hackers altered voter rolls: report

lol bulls

Right, they are fine with the poor and middle class dying so that the wealthy can hoard even more wealth. Because that's what's actually at stake here. The pre-ACA estimates found anywhere from 10-45,000 people died in the country every year due to lack of health insurance, or about 1 death for every 600-1500 people uninsured. We're throwing 20+ million back off of insurance. This bill will kill thousands of people a year so that the rich get a tax cut.

Listen to this WV reverend explain how reinstating lifetime and annual caps will likely kill her daughter. https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/...972190213292032 This is the policy the GOP wants. This cap alone will likely result in the early death or the bankruptcy of two of my friends' children who were born with chronic, life-threatening diseases (e: and one of my friends who had a chronic genetic illness manifest itself around the same time they discovered his son's problem). Sen. Warren is absolutely correct when she says these wealthy tax cuts are paid for with blood money.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 22, 2017 -> 07:48 PM) just within the ACA itself? It is by no means as simple as the way you are stating it. They raised taxes for the wealthy to pay for healthcare for the poor and middle class for ACA and it didn't work very well. It worked fairly well. Tens of millions of more people have actual access to health care thanks to the ACA, and all of us have very valuable patient protections. The rate of premium increases slowed down overall, though they are still a problem in the individual markets because insuring sick people is expensive. They're now cutting those taxes and throwing the poor and middle class (and others, such as people with pre-existing conditions or anyone 55-65) to the wolves to give millionaires tens of thousands of dollars a year. They're blowing up the individual markets in many states, and they're bankrupting rural medical facilities. Calling this anything other than a tax cut for the upper class is the biased framing. It really is that simple. These are the policy preferences of the GOP. They don't really hide them. They value the wealthy having even more money over anything else. This is primarily a tax cut bill, and it will allow them to cut upper class taxes even more in the near future.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 22, 2017 -> 06:57 PM) There is no other way to phrase it. Either they are only repealing the special tax to fund the ACA or they are cutting taxes beyond it. That's it. I don't see how it's a difficult question to unless you are intentionally trying to bias the answer. The part dealing only with Healthcare CEO's is obviously not tied to the ACA tax. So the answer would be yes they are cutting taxes other than just the ACA special tax. There are various taxes within the ACA, not a specific "ACA tax." They are cutting taxes for the wealthy and paying for it by taking health care from the poor and middle class. There are widespread effects beyond that, as well.