ObamaCare is Cutting Health Care Costs. Haters Ignore This Fact.

Here is a link to a story in Forbes that shows how ObamaCare is saving money by slowing the previously unsustainable growth in health care costs. Yes, that is correct: the much-reviled Affordable Care Act would appear to be making health care, well, affordable.

And do we hear any of the many haters recanting? Of course not. Because facts mean nothing to them; all they care about are their opinions, and they will cling to those irrational beliefs long after reality has rendered them irrelevant.

The ACA is doing exactly what the Prexy said it would. And, much as it may gall us to say so, we owe President Obama an apology, and our thanks as well.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Senators and Congress Critters Deserve to Suffer. But Their Constituents Don’t.

Much justified anger has been leveled at the legislators who voted against funding for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and then turned around and yelled for help when THEIR states needed disaster relief. Some people are even hacked off enough to say “no aid for those states, teach them a lesson”, and other such revolting statements.

Both Oklahoma Senators (Coburn and Inhofe) voted against such relief and are now in a bind: a bind because their own state now needs one whole helluva lot of relief after the recent spate of tornados: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/oklahoma-senators-disaster-relief_n_3309234.html?icid=hp_front_top_art

Truly a couple of dickwads, and they deserve to get dejobbed after the next election. But their constituents deserve our help just as much as the victims of Sandy, Katrina, and other natural disasters.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

We Told You So (How Obamacare Is Cleaning Up Health Care Financing)

In April of 2012, Mr. Blunt and Cranky wrote this post:http://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/you-are-already-paying-for-the-uninsured-but-the-costs-are-hidden/, in which he pointed out that hospitals inflate the prices charged to the uninsured in order to cook their books. The uninsured get charged far more than the actual cost + profit; they get sued and their credit is destroyed when they can’t pay the bill; and the hospital writes off the artificially high loss as charity care, or as an unpaid debt. This shell game allows providers to scam patients, governments, insurers, and taxpayers. And for years, it’s been in the shadows.

Recently the New York Timed came out with a story that said pretty much the same thing as this blog said last year (nice of them to finally catch up). Short version: ObamaCare requires these medical con artists to clean up their acts and stop fleecing the rest of us, and shines a bright light into the shadows where the ripoffs have hitherto occurred. Specifically, ObamaCare requires health care providers to charge the uninsured the same as they charge the insured. That, people, is a big deal, because it makes their cost-shifting scams illegal.

You can learn a lot about what something is for by seeing who is against it: almost everybody is in favor of this part of the ACA; almost everyone, that is, except for health care providers. They hate this law, because they can’t rip us off as easily as they used to. So they have bought Congresscritters and Senators aplenty, and spent money on lying TV and radio ads to make us believe that ObamaCare is badbadbadohyessoverybadindeed. They didn’t do that because Obamacare is bad for US, they did it because Obamacare is bad for THEM, and their borderline-criminal activities.

And what does it say about the state of our news media that one cantankerous old blogger scooped the NYT by 13 months? After all, it’s not like the information wasn’t out there, or that this writer is some kind of frickin’ genius. No, the media sat on this story for years before they put it out. That is almost as contemptible as the actions of the health care industry.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Republicans Say: Have a Miscarriage, Go To Prison

Or at least, that’s what Virginia’s “Republican” AG-in-waiting thinks. He feels so strongly about it, in fact, that he wrote a law in 2009 that would imprison women who had miscarriages if they did not call the cops to report the event, and save the miscarried fetus to hand over as evidence.

This is the man that Virginia Repubs think should be their next Attorney General, so it’s pretty clear that they like his ideas about what should be legal or illegal. And he believes that women who endure the tragedy and trauma of losing a child-to-be should be assumed guilty of criminal acts until proven otherwise. So, the rest of the Republican Party of that state (and maybe the entire country) thinks women who miscarry are de facto criminals.

Don’t take the Cranky Word for it: it’s right there in Section E:
“When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.” Please note that Virginia already has similar laws on the books.

Class 1 offenses can get you up to a year in prison. A year in prison for someone who did nothing wrong. For a woman who loses a baby. For a heartbroken woman. Yes, that’s what today’s “Republicans” think.

This writer knows families that have lost babies, including his own: indeed, he came within a few months of having a brother named “Chris”, so he gets it. A pity that our Elephantine legislators don’t. Miscarriages are human tragedies, not crimes.

Regardless of one’s political philosophy, how could anyone be so cruel, so callous, so despicable as to summarily imprison grieving mothers who either failed to called the police immediately after suffering a miscarriage, or didn’t keep the remains of the poor lost child in their possession to hand over to the police? How could anyone hate women that much?

And how can anyone (including you) vote for a party that supports such legislation?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Big Government “Conservatives” Are Still Snooping in Our Bedrooms

Lots of so-called “conservatives” claim to be in favor of small government: Mr. Blunt and Cranky has waxed quite wroth on these hypocritical preeves before, like right here, for instance.

A stupid, bigoted, Big Government lesbian-hating judge has decided he has the right to tell taxpaying citizens where they can live and with whom they may live.

Short version: a Texas woman divorced her stalking ex-husband and is living with a woman. A “conservative” judge is enforcing a “morality clause” against her.

People, here is yet another example of the lie that is “small government conservatism” in today’s America. These antediluvian louts are actually lovers of Big Government; nay, frickin’ HUGE Government. They love running things just as much as Liberals do. These alleged “Conservatives” just want to control different aspects of our country.

If it’s a choice between the Liberals wanting to tax a few über-rich twerps, and the “Conservatives” wanting to stick their pimply noses into the bedrooms of the rest of us, this writer knows which one he prefers. And it sure as H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks ain’t the pervert judge, getting his jollies by monitoring our sex lives.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Lying Sack of S*** of The Week: Darrell Issa

Self-confessed and convicted criminal Darrell Issa has not changed his spots since his first criminal career ended: indeed, since he is now a multimillionaire Congresscritter, we can safely say all he did was find a different venue in which to use his thieving, lawbreaking skill set.

This week, it was his lying abilities that catapulted him to his first Crown O’ Polished Turds. Anyone who listened to him lying, exaggerating, misquoting or just plain making s*** up during Congressional “hearings” this week pretty much had to hand the title over. No contest.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

UmbrellaGate? Really? No, Seriously, Really???

It is now clear that the only thing the Right Wing (and their puppets the “Republican Party”)cares about is getting Obama out of office. They used to care about other stuff, too, but since they got their elephantine arses handed to them on a Chinet platter last November, their anger and hatred of the Prexy has gotten even further out of hand. Since the voters told them to pound sand, they have decided to try to run him out of office via scandals.

So we have had (just in the past few weeks) BomberGate, BenghaziGate, IRSGate, and other such manufactured bits of outrage that turned out to be, well, manufactured when looked at closely. Not to mention all the other fake bits of fertilizer that had emerged prior. But today, we have hit a new standard in faux outrage: UmbrellaGate.

Obama and the Turkish PM were holding a presser when it started to rain. A couple of Marines came over with umbrellas and held them over the two heads of state. Pretty normal stuff, but you’d not know it to hear the Teabaggers and their cohorts screeching away.

Calm down, peeps. Here are a couple of Umbrella-related photos for you to peruse:

Funny how the Right Wingnuts never made a peep about these people getting umbrellas held over THEIR heads, eh? (Yes, yes, Marines were holding the brollies for these two guys, so that makes this all different, right? Wrong. He’s the CIC, and the PM is an honored guest.)

Oh, and here’s a picture of Obama holding an umbrella over PM Cameron’s head the other day:

Outrageous, eh? Hrrrrmmmmm…no. It isn’t. People hold umbrellas for other people all the time. It’s not called a “scandal”. It’s called “manners”. Here’s another example of manners: accepting the results of an election, getting the f*** over it, and doing the work you were elected to do. Try it sometime, Wingnuts: maybe your approval ratings would climb out of single digits if you did.

 

Mr. Blunt and Cranky