field of pumpkinsTime for the great count-down to Halloween with a field of jack-o-lanterns.  Some of those fellows look pretty ferocious!  Want pumpkin but don’t feel like carving?  Try some pumpkin flavor coffee, found at Starbucks or Dunkin Doughnuts.

International Delight and Baileys both make a pumpkin flavored creamer for your coffee.  Pepperidge Farm has wonderful pumpkin swirl bread.  If that isn’t decadent enough, there is pumpkin flavored cream cheese to finalize the pumpkin fix.  Pair it up with pumpkin swirl toast.  Enjoy!

110 Thoughts to “Open Thread…………………………..Thursday, October 24”

  1. Lyssa

    Today’s NYT is reporting that some Republicans are changing tactics and going to delve into the ACA or Obamacare and see what’s going on. Democrats are joining this effort – some disappointingly are trying to save face. The most heartening aspect of this effort is that it appears to be headed by Fred Upton of Michigan. Upton is a Republican who has been criticized by Limbaugh as “not conservative enough”. Sounds like a good start.

    Maybe all is not lost.

  2. @Lyssa
    Oh no…all is lost. Get used to it.

    Wasn’t Upton the one that promised to work to rescind his idiotic light bulb ban?

  3. Steve Randolph

    Today is United Nations Day!

    (Moon, trust you have your UNICEF box ready for Halloween.)

  4. Lyssa

    C’mon Cargo, there are too many smart people around. This is when they’ll get up and move.
    Are you a prepper?

  5. Lyssa

    Those preparing for Doomsday.

  6. Second Alamo

    Prepare for what? Too late, Doomsday is already upon us! Just ask your grandchildren when they’re old enough to understand what this government has done to their financial future.

  7. @Lyssa
    Nope.

    When the Zombie Apocalypse comes…. I’m realistic….I’ll probably be one of the herd.

    I’m just going to enjoy the decline.

  8. Furby McPhee

    Hail to the Bravehearts?!

    It looks like we may be cheering the Washington Bravehearts soon. Washington Times has the story.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/redskins-watch/2013/oct/25/dan-snyder-neighbor-trademarks-washington-bravehea/

    It seems to make sense. They wouldn’t have to change the helmet since that’s not offensive and the fight song wouldn’t have to change much either.

    1. Not sure why the helmets would stay the same. I did some snooping around. It seems that the Bravehearts is a group founded to help fight sexual addiction. That doesn’t sound like an attribute one would like to Hail to …Hail to the sex addicts…? And we thought that the tea party had issues with not knowing about tea baggers. (I didn’t know that term either, I will admit it.)

      What would the mascot be? Oh please, someone cleanse my mind.

      Isn’t the internet great? http://www.bravehearts.net/

  9. Bill Clinton will be in Dale City tomorrow with the McAuliffe campaign.

    12:30 VFW post.

  10. Wolverine

    The Cigar Man cometh. Keep your daughters home.

    1. My daughter is totally capable of handling herself. We didn’t raise a sniveling idiot.

  11. Wolverine

    I hope so.

    1. You used to make productive comments here. Now its just snark. Why?

  12. punchak

    @Moon-howler
    I made a similar comment a while back. Don’t know what has
    happened to Wolve, but I liked his comments a lot better back then/when. 🙁

  13. Wolverine

    Sorry, ladies. Just too busy being amazed at the absolute mess that has become ObamaCare. More and more prominent Dems are calling for a delay of the individual mandate for a year, obviously fearing the electoral consequences for 2014 if this public screwup continues. Warren Buffet, one of Obama’s favorite billionaires, says we should scrap the whole thing and start over. Millions of Americans losing their personal health care policies and finding ACA replacements much higher in cost. Old people anguishing over the loss of their doctors of long standing. A website which looks like it was put together in a kindergarten in a contract arrangement which is beginning to smell. A President trying to do a fast shuffle because the botched ACA launch, his prized program and Joe Biden’s “f***ing big deal,” appears to have caught him like a deer in headlights.

    On the other hand, I could just throw some “snark” in here from time to time.

    1. I have counted 2 democrats and one of them has been sort of a DINO, if there is such an animal.

      I feel you have overstated the case. Do you remember the horrible mess when Medicare D first came out? They are still tweeking that.

      I think you sound hysterical over something that needs tweeking and I would be the first to say it very much does need to be corrected…in places. That will be done.

      Think of how unhappy you would be if it went off without a hitch.

  14. middleman

    Wolverine, do you have any reliable data to back up claims like “millions of Americans losing their personal health care policies and finding ACA replacements much higher in cost?” Your quote “Old people anguishing over the loss of their doctors of long standing” would seemingly refer to doctors no longer accepting Medicaid or Medicare, something only tangentially related to Obamacare.

    A recent poll shows 85% of folks are satisfied with Obmacare in Mass. (or Romneycare or whatever you want to call it): http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/blogs/white-coat-notes/2013/08/05/survey-despite-some-red-flags-people-satisfied-with-health-care-mass/7F6kfyVJiNMxs0Gahvs4QL/blog.html

    States that were pro-active like California, Washington, Kentucky and others have already signed up hundreds of thousands of folks:
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/17/obamacare-is-winning-in-kentucky-thanks-to-steve-beshear.html

    The GOP resistance is proving somewhat problematic, but it’s proven that once folks understand it they like it.

  15. Second Alamo

    You can’t deny Obama repeatedly stated that if you like your doctor you will be able to stay with him, and if you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it. Tell that to the upwards of a million people who have now been dropped by their insurance companies. It appears that no one spent a single moment thinking through what the response of the insurance companies would be once the bill was enforced otherwise they knew and were clearly lying to the public to get it passed. How is it that Obama supporters are happy to totally forget his many speeches detailing Obamacare before its passage now that we can see that the effects have been the opposite for many? Never mind his comments about the national debt when first running for office!

    1. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Millons? Where are the stats?

      It sounds like the insurance companies will do what they do best….gouge the customer.

      Most people will keep their own plans.

      We shall see. Right now, I hear way too many urban legends about the ACA with it all being doom and gloom and no real substance.

  16. middleman

    Again, Alamo- do you have reliable data to back up your claims: “upwards of a million people who have now been dropped by their insurance companies?” I can claim that frogs can fly, but that don’t make it true!

    No matter what the president might have or have not said, it’s hard to argue with success. And the ACA is proving to be successful…

  17. Furby McPhee

    I don’t have the links for 1 million (yet) but tomorrow I’ll post the links to back up 750,000 people (and counting) who have been dropped by insurance companies. Links to come but the raw numbers are:

    119,000 from Blue Shield in California.
    160,000 from Kaiser in California.
    300,000 in Florida.
    24,000 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
    13,000 in central and eastern Pennsylvania.
    76,000 from CareFirst in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

    And there are other states but they don’t have specific numbers in them.

    1. Why aren’t you blaming the companies? It is they who are dropping people. If I got dropped I would make sure I went with another company.

  18. Lyssa

    Let’s see….many people who buy their own insurance for various reasons – some with sick kids, some with pre-existing conditions or employers that don’t offer coverage. They are among the thousands receiving letters. One reason is that the insurance they have doesn’t meet minimum standards under ACA. One avenue of thought is that this is a way for some of those major carriers to purge their higher risk clients. Carriers include Kaiser, the Blues and others.

    This makes me wonder if there is something in this Act like Assigned Risk for drivers. Bad risks are thrown in a pool and assigned to various insurance companies by the state.

  19. middleman

    Lyssa is right- many of these policies don’t meet the minimum requirements- they are what’s called “junk” policies. What most folks don’t understand is that most (if not all) of these people will qualify for subsidy’s under the ACA to purchase a policy that is better than what they have for less money.

    Some of it is apparently, as Moon says, companies taking advantage of the situation to drop folks- the insurance companies are not happy about being held to task for a change and are just being vindictive.

  20. Second Alamo

    I stated: “It appears that no one spent a single moment thinking through what the response of the insurance companies would be once the bill was enforced …”

    Moon then asked: “Why aren’t you blaming the companies?” in response to Furby. Clearly someone isn’t paying attention to details. What the companies did should have been predetermined as part of the possible outcomes from the bill if anyone cared to look at the possible downsides before pushing the bill through, locked doors and all. Just like the lack of thought on the possible outcomes of opening a flawed website. These are the same folks who are now more or less in control of your health issues. Why, I feel better already!

    1. SA, no one wants to control your heath issues. I don’t know why you think that. Its all about health coverage. If you were on Medicare, no one would be controlling your health issues but you. You would just have coverage.

  21. Second Alamo

    “No matter what the president might have or have not said, …” Really! So what comes out of the president’s mouth is of NO importance whatsoever? He was elected because of what came out of his mouth, and certainly not due to any past experience. What then is the purpose of his constant speeches if they aren’t to be believed, or the content is of NO importance? Again, what exactly is his purpose then? At least I now know that Bush’s purpose was to take blame for all that occurred throughout the country and the world whereas Obama can’t be blamed because he’s never aware of anything!

    1. That’s just an absurd statement. Blame Bush….? Here’s the problem and I am sure you already know. Everything that happened, regardless of when, some folks immediately had a fit at Obama. Obama inherited a lot of problems when he took office, after Jan. 2009. People seemed to forget that the crash happened before Obama took office. So did the TARP act. That didn’t stop the criticism of Obama either.

      It was just a hate fest from the git go. It if wasn’t that, it would be something else.

  22. @middleman
    Actually, I keep hearing that people who are losing policies can only find similar policies at a much higher price. These are not “junk” policies. The are policies that people like.

    1. So they were paying for junk poiicies before they lost them. Now I get it.

  23. Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

    http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21213547-obama-admin-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance?lite

    This amount of dishonesty should lead to impeachments.

    1. Impeach this! [middle finger up]

      That makes about as much sense as what you just said. You actually think the president of the USA can be impeached because insurance companies drop people? Maybe the policies need to be impeached along with Obama?

      Let’s take another look. All these people make over $90k and no government subsidies kick in?

      To me, a raised rate is when you are paying $500, you get dropped and the replacement policy is $800. For some reason, I just don’t think that is what is happening. If it is, I would be blaming the insurance companies who are once again gouging.

      Why aren’t the tax credits kicking in?

  24. Censored bybvbl

    I guess it’s time for single payer then. 😉

  25. @Censored bybvbl
    Only if you REALLY want crappy health care that bankrupts the fed’l budget even faster…… but, then…. we’re used to the IRS… so, most won’t care. 😉

  26. http://sweetness-light.com/archive/aca-site-maker-in-charge-of-1-7b-in-sandy-relief

    The same company that blew billions in Canada and committed this ACA rollout travesty is is also responsible for disbursing funds to Hurricane Sandy victims…..and failing.

    Where’s the press? Where are the reports hounding FEMA and the White House that promised ON TV to cut through red tape, implying that HIS FEMA wouldn’t be the same as Bush’s?

    “The Associated Press revealed Tuesday that a mere $700 million of the $60 billion federal aid package – 1.2 percent of the total funds – has been given to victims of super storm Sandy.
    Nearly a year after the devastating storm, a majority of the 24,000 families that have requested monetary assistance have yet to receive a penny from the federal aid package.”

  27. Furby McPhee

    As promised, here are some links to show that lots of people have lost insurance coverage because of Obamacare.

    119,000 from Blue Shield in California, 160,000 from Kaiser in California & 300,000 in Florida:
    http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/October/21/cancellation-notices-health-insurance.aspx

    24,000 in Philly:
    http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/61120-blue-cross-cancels-24000-plans-that-dont-meet-affordable-care-act-rules?linktype=hp_topstory

    13,000 in Central PA:
    http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/898262_Thousands-of-Highmark-insurance-customers-in-Central-Pa–face-cancellations.html

    76,000 in Metro DC, Maryland & Virginia:
    http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537782

    Here are a few extras with no numbers listed:
    Alabama:
    http://www.timesdaily.com/news/local/article_a4fb40b2-3b97-11e3-858c-10604b9f6eda.html
    Georgia:
    http://www.examiner.com/article/thousands-of-georgia-residents-get-healthcare-coverage-revoked
    New Jersey: (The article mentions 800,000 but doesn’t say if they are cancellations or not.)
    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/10/obamacare_forces_insurance_companies_to_scrap_some_plans_create_new_ones.html

    And I saved the best for last:
    NBC News says that as far back as 2010 the Obama administration estimated that 7 to 10 MILLION people would loose existing coverage because of Obamacare.

    http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/29/21222195-obama-administration-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance?lite

    None of this should be a surprise to anybody. Obamacare was designed to force people into the exchanges if they didn’t have employer provided coverage. The whole point of Obamacare is to make young and healthy self-employed people pay more for health care to subsidize the poor and unhealthy. Nobody should be arguing over that. It’s just a fact. You might think its a good thing or a bad thing, but millions of people are being dropped off their existing insurance because of Obamacare.

    The only part that’s dumb about it is that Obama spent three years claiming people could keep their existing insurance if they liked it, when everybody knew that wasn’t true.

    1. Furby,the entire point wasn’t to make young and healthy pay for old any more than that is the how health care works in the first place. The entire point, goal, objective was to get as many people with medical insurance as possible.

      What floors me is that republicans keep talking about the young and healthy not being insured like it is a good thing. No. It is a horrible thing. Young people are who get pregnant. Maternity coverage is expensive. Young people are involved in more sports accidents and automobile accidents.

      Here’s the big news flash, we are already paying for the poor, both healthy and otherwise. We already are paying for the marginally poor who don’t have coverage because many of those people, not having an extra 10k or 20k lying around, walk on their health care bills. They simply don’t pay them. Well, someone pays them and the someone is us. We pay higher insurance premiums because the no-pays drive up hospital and general medical bills.

      If people are being dropped, it is the fault, once again, of the insurance companies who exist for one reason–profit.

      I am not sure I see a million, much less millionS without coverage in your links.

      I see some employers are also playing with the funny money on this one.

      I am not sure what the answer is but young people remaining uninsured isn’t the answer nor the previous status quo. Decent health care shouldn’t be just for the middle and upper classes. The “I got mines” mentality just won’t cut it.

  28. “The “I got mines” mentality just won’t cut it.”

    but that’s all we are seeing from liberals: “Mine went down so its great! Who cares about that 60 year old woman whose premiums just tripled.”

    How is it the insurance company’s fault when they are having to change the policies to fit ACA and thus people lose what they want and had?

    1. But they don’t have to change anything, Cargo. They would have been grandfathered in.

      The 60 year old woman should get tax credits. What happened to those? Maybe she was too well off to qualify? That would mean her income was fairly substantial.

  29. Furby McPhee

    A couple things:

    1) First, I said originally that I didn’t have hard numbers for a million (yet) but 750,000 from a handful of states and the government’s own estimate of 7-10 MILLION should make it obvious the total number is going to be more than 1 million.

    2) Yes, one of the stated goals of Obamacare was to move virtually everybody with individual coverage (not employer provided coverage) into the exchanges. The idea was that the exchanges would have better prices then through the larger volume of customers. If you are a supporter of the ACA, you should see this as a good thing. (people loosing individual coverage)

    2) I don’t think you understand why these people are being dropped. Here’s an analogy: I go to the Deli and buy a turkey sandwich, chips and a coke for $6.00. I do this every day for years. Now, I go into the Deli and because of a new law the city passed the Deli CAN’T sell me that meal anymore. Instead, the closest I can get is a turkey sandwich with cheese, a pickle on the side (which I hate), pretzels and a juice bottle for $8.50. The new meal MIGHT be a better deal overall, but it’s still more expensive than the meal I wanted and I’m paying for things I don’t want (like the pickle) (The argument for the pickle is that by including the pickle in everybody’s meal it makes the pickle cheaper overall.)

    So in this situation, would you blame the deli or the city that passed the law? And if you can’t see how this compares to Obamacare and why individual coverage plans are being cancelled, then you really need to read more about Obamacare. This is what is happening with the insurance companies and individual coverage. The insurance companies are dropping a lot of individual coverage plans not because of “profit” but because they LEGALLY CANNOT OFFER THE PLANS ANYMORE.

    3) I’m not talking about young and healthy people not having insurance. I’m talking about the government forcing them to buy more coverage than they need to subsidize other people that are worse health risks. Overcharging the young and healthy is a basic part of Obamacare. It doesn’t work without it.

    4) Let me turn the tables on you: Please name one thing in the “Affordable Care Act” that reduces the cost of health care. Not subsidies, not cost-sharing, risk sharing or other techniques to spread the costs around differently but an actual change to the health care system that makes care delivery more cost effective. I don’t actually expect an answer on this because (spoiler alert) there aren’t any actual cost savings.

    If you want to make health care more affordable for the poor, how about we work on doing that? We should be trying to make catastrophic plans more affordable for the poor, not legislating them out of existence. Obamacare isn’t going to keep the a large percentage of the poor from using the ER as their primary care doctor since they still won’t be able to afford coverage.

    You seem to think everyone who is opposed to Obamacare is opposed to it for ideological reasons. Actually, a lot of people oppose Obamacare because it’s a bad idea that has structural problems that guarantee it to fail, leaving millions of people still without health care and costing hundreds of billions of dollars.

    Honestly, and please don’t take this as an attack because it is not meant to be, but I don’t think you understand what Obamacare/ACA actually does vs. what people claim it does. I think if you read more on what it actually does and how it does it, you’d be less enthusaistic about it. Obamacare has some good things in it, but it has a LOT of problems that outweigh them.

    1. Actually, I don’t believe you have heard me singing the praises of the ADA, just defending it against attacks from ideologues. Well, I have praised the kids until 26, no disqualifying pre existing conditions, and not being stuck on your job but that’s pretty much it.

      I would sing the praises of any laws that did that.

      I don’t know what the nuts and bolts are doing to people’s policies because those reports are just coming in. I am not sure I believe all of them either.

      What will save money in the long run is if most Americans have coverage so that hospitals aren’t being left with billions of unpaid bills.

    2. Furby, its a lot cheaper to prevent unwanted pregnancy than it is to have an abortion or to give birth. Taking it a step past that, it is far more important to see that women have reliable contraception than it is to have to pay into WIC, SNAP, Schips or any of the other “welfare” plans that support children of poor people while they are growing up.

  30. blue

    Furby makes excellent points. It is the result of having to pass the bill to find out what is in it with NO hearings and no Republican support. Where the hell was OMB and OIRA?

    Worse is the idea that the $640 million website was developed under a No-Bid IT support contract — at no bid government contract for non-military, non secret IT development — awarded to a college friend of Michelle – who, it turns out, was a leading communist campus organizer at Princton.
    There is a contracting officer at HHS whose career is done.

    1. I am just not sure I believe what you just said Blue. In the first place, CGI was not the only company working on the website. About 6 other companies if not more had large chunks of the website as a responsibility.

      Let’s name this college friend of Michelle’s who is a communist. Call her out. Which company did she work for or own?

  31. middleman

    Actually, I think the point people are missing is what I stated earlier- that many of the people being dropped will be able to get better policies on the exchanges, and those in need will get subsidies to further reduce costs. THAT will make it more affordable for the poor. The ACA doesn’t mandate “gold plated” policies, just things like preventative care, contraceptive coverage, etc.

    There are actually many cost-saving strategies in the ACA, such as panels that will look at care vs cost and recommend Medicare changes, but admittedly we need to do a lot more work on that. What are the odds that the GOP would actually sit down with the Dems and modify the ACA to do more? Their proposals are to delay or kill it, not to improve it.

    1. Part of the ACA is reducing the cost of rx drugs for those on Medicare and will eventually close the donut hole, I think but 2018. I guess I should have left that remark for Furby. (who thinks I know nothing about ACA)

  32. Rick Bentley

    Bottom line the self-eployed are no longer able to get bare-bones premiums which are actually backed by the fact that the US taxpayer will end up paying the bill if anything goes particularly bad with their health.

    I would think that a true fiscal conservative would stand up and applaud.

    People who work for large corporations and most small businesses are seeing no appreciable increase this year.

  33. Rick Bentley

    The average 60-year old woman is probably happy with the fact that she now has greater ability to switch jobs without risking loss of access to health care based on preexisting conditions.

    1. Excellent point. I only know one person who had one of those bare bones catastrophic policies. I think you had to pay about 10k out of pocket before the damn thing kicked in. This friend had a lawmower accident, a fall, and then abdominal surgery. I bet the people have paid more than $20 k out of pocket. A policy costing a grand a month would have been better than that thing.

  34. Rick Bentley

    It seems to me that from the size of most people’s premiums next year, “Obamacare” itself is working better than we would have expected at this point. Though the web site is a disaster, which will provide some compolications policy-wise I’m sure.

    Hopefully, this is an initial step towards the “health care reform” that our political establishment has bene punting on for decades, that will bring costs down towards world standards, reduce our debt, and make our workers competitive.

  35. Rick Bentley

    (“Yes, we can”)!

  36. Ray Beverage

    @Moon-howler

    Moon, have to agree with you in what you wrote…somebody has to pay for it and look no further then the eastern portion of Prince William County. Sentara Northern VA Medical Center has a large service area with the highest rate of diabetes, teen pregnancies, low-birth weight babies with a high rate of related health issues. Breast and Prostrate cancer is also high in that area vs. the rest of Prince William County, along with cardiac health issues.

    Guess who has to absorb the costs of care for those targeted populations without insurance.

  37. @Ray Beverage
    Guess who will STILL absorb the cost of that care when they all go on subsidies. We will…by taxes AND higher premiums.

  38. @Ray

    We absorb it. If any of those people go to the hospital, we foot the bill, pay for the long range care, etc. The ACA isn’t going to fix things in a day. It will take time.

    Just take one unwanted pregnancy. No money for an abortion? That leaves one alternative. Birth. So we pay for prenatal care (hopefully), the birth (often complicated), WIC, Medicaid, SNAP, SCHIPs, free and reduced lunch, (for 18 years), various subsidies from cash to housing, etc. Perhaps that child becomes pregnant at 14…it starts all over again. Institutional poverty.

    So who pays for it all? We do. Free contraception goes a long ways towards breaking the cycle.

  39. @Cargosquid
    Trust me, Cargo, its a lot cheaper to pay for the subsidies than it is to pay for what I just decribed. Stop being so middle class and look around you.

  40. That one “foreign company”, CGI who is owned by a friend of Michelle’s [sic]

    is on the New York stock exchange, ticker symbol GIB.

    Perhaps it isn’t so foreign. It employees thousands of Americans.

    Let’s go with some actual information rather than rumors. Also remember that CGI isn’t the only dog and pony show working on this endeavor.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/meet-cgi-federal-the-company-behind-the-botched-launch-of-healthcare-gov/

    1. CGI Federal is who is doing the website. They even have offices in Manassas.

      Come to Manassas….we have cookies.

  41. middleman

    Cargo, those subsidies are paid for under the act, with higher taxes for medical devices, etc. According to the CBO, the ACA will reduce the deficit.

  42. Rick Bentley

    I don’t know a lot about CGI Federal, but I do know a lot about large-scale software development. They obviously did a poor job and have more or less fleeced the American people.

    They would argue that they were just following orders. But when you’re being paid hundreds of millions of dollars, you’ve got some responsibility to speak truth to power and to try to make things succeed. Not to roll out an unusable website, turn it on, and start figuring out ways to bill big money for the follow-on work.

    Sibelius is obviously ignorant of the issues. When she said recently that they would work to make the site “perfect” going forward, that choice of words revealed that she still knows nothing about software or web development.

  43. Rick Bentley

    This is why the term “Beltway Bandits” originated. Would be a good name for the Redskins, actually. Selling the government on your ability to do the work is where the action is, the big money. (Going to school with Michalle Obama probably helps in this area). Actually DOING the work is an afterthought.

    1. The only person I know involved used to be a member of this blog. We were to liberal for this person.

  44. Pat.Herve

    Here is what is funny – with all the commentary in this thread, there is not one person here who is without healthcare and has had to rely on the exchange to get coverage – yet everyone has an opinion about it. There are plans that are not being renewed – Yes, many plans are just not adequate and many people do not even understand their auto insurance policy never mind their healthcare policy. Some of those plans cannot be renewed and the people are being offered other plans in place of the substandard plans. What is not being spouted by many people is the fact that the Insurance company used to be in the drivers seat and could drop those people from policies once they got sick and were using those very same benefits that they were paying to get. Ever deal with a Home policy when your house flooded? Get dropped?

    Yes the web site has issues – but it has not stopped many advances in the healthcare coverage. People can now get coverage and cannot be dropped because they make a claim – isn’t that a good thing? Why is it that so many of the nay sayers think insurance companies are all on the up and up? Talk to Erin Brockovich about how ethical companies are.

  45. Carlos Danger

    This is purely a suggestion…. Why not start a thread of what may, or may not, happen when the employer mandate kicks in? Just a hunch, me thinks the shit is really going to hot he fan then. The whole “if you like your plan and can keep your plan” charade is peewee league compared to what is going to happen when the employer mandate exemption expires.

    My advise, get out in front of it and confront the issue head on instead of letting it slap you in the face.

    Makes you wonder, why delay the employer mandate in the first place? Cause a political disaster is coming…

    1. It’s not slapping me in the face one way or the other.

      Just think of how delighted you will be if something else screws up.

    1. The important thing to remember is …President Obama isn’t running for office.

      Ask Ken Cuccinelli how he feels about that poll here in Virginia. I expect, not so good.

      It doesn’t matter in NJ either. Christie isn’t tea party. In fact, they pretty much diss him.

  46. Pat.Herve

    when the tea party back Cruz for President it will show and prove without a doubt what the tea party is all about.

Comments are closed.