Teapublicans are out to steal YOUR retirement insurance premiums.

Let’s call some spades, here, OK? Social Security is INSURANCE for which we are forced to pay premiums. Some of us have paid for this insurance for decades and have the right to expect that the seller will deliver the product we had no choice but to purchase. Sounds simple, yes? We pay, we should get what we pay for, like any other insurance (car, home, life) product.

But not according to “Republicans”: they are out to breach our contract and steal our money:

As one of its first orders of business upon convening Tuesday, the Republican House of Representatives approved a rule that will seriously undermine efforts to keep all of Social Security solvent.

The rule hampers an otherwise routine reallocation of Social Security payroll tax income from the old-age program to the disability program. Such a reallocation, in either direction, has taken place 11 times since 1968, according to Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The most cynical aspect of this attack is that it comes from some lawmakers who were helped by Social Security in their own lives. The roster includes Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who received Social Security benefits during his college years, after his father’s untimely death, and now thinks that the nation can’t afford to keep paying them as currently scheduled.

Another is Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), the sponsor of the House rules change, whose father died when he was 2 and then was raised by a single mother on Social Security and veterans benefits. Now he talks about Social Security going “bankrupt,” which is flatly incorrect, and promotes a measure aimed at cutting benefits for all. This is known as climbing the ladder and pulling it up behind you.

Got it, folks? The Teapubbies are doing exactly what they said they would do if elected. They are out to wreck Social Security, pocket our premiums, and throw anyone who is retired or disabled onto the streets instead of giving you the insurance benefits you paid for.

F*** those people. And if you voted for a “Republican”, f*** you too.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Attention, American Women: “Republicans” Really, REALLY Want You to be Stupid.

Almost none of the women that this writer knows are stupid. In fact, a preponderance of them are smarter than, well, stupid old white guys like him. And thank the Gods for that. The world needs more smart people. But the GOP has a desperate need for the exact opposite: they need women to become stupid. Lots of women. In a big hurry. But only until they cast a ballot this November.

You see, Repubs know that their War On Women has pissed off a lot of women. So now they are trying to find a way to fool women into thinking that the GOPee really doesn’t hate them, so that they can get a few more votes. And the way they’re going about it?

By f***ing women out of getting their birth control covered by insurance, and pretending that it is a “benefit”. Here is a good piece on the matter. A few excerpts:

A string of Republican candidates for Senate are supporting an issue usually associated with Democrats: increased access to contraception.
They’re supporting it on the road and in ads, like this one from pro-life conservative Cory Gardner:In it, he says he believes “the pill ought to be available over the counter, round the clock, without a prescription.”

The catch? OVER-THE-COUNTER MEDS ARE ALMOST NEVER
COVERED BY INSURANCE, that’s the catch. It’s Hobby Lobby 2: another way to screw women out of equal access to health care. At a stroke, they would further fatten rich people’s wallets and discriminate against women. Not that Repubs are admitting it. But even NPR has cottoned on:

Calling for an over the counter pill allows Republicans to support access to birth control while also supporting the right of corporations to avoid covering it. Getting the pill at a pharmacy without a prescription leaves insurers and employers out of the picture altogether.

Got it, Gentle Reader? We’re talking maybe hundreds of dollars a year that women would have to cough up. It’s a cynical ploy, and an insulting one at that. Add to that sexist, unfair, and any number of other perjoratives. Republicans hate women and have indeed declared war on them. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t act towards females as Ray Rice does in elevators (Offended by the comparison? Well, OK, maybe it’s unfair. After all, the “Republican” party has injured LOTS more women than Mr. Rice has).

Women are not deserving of such blatant and systemic hostility and abusive action from anyone, be it individuals or an entire political party. We all owe it to ourselves to vote the scum out of office. AND cover everyone’s health care without caveats.

We’re ALL smart enough to know that it’s unfair for men to get their Woody Pills covered while women can’t get their reproductive prescriptions paid for as well. Let’s act like we’re that smart when we vote.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

John Boehner has been mooching off the taxpayers for 30 years.

Yes, he’s been sponging off us since 1984.

But Speaker Boehner desn’t want YOU to have more than a few weeks of taxpayer money if you become unemployed.

Think about it.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

ObamaCare problems: meet the new cause, same as the old cause.

It’s the same greedy, heartless, motherf***ing insurance companies that killed my son a while back. While the “news” media points their paid fingers at the Prexy, the insurers are using loopholes in the law to continue to f*** us over, just as they have always done. This is how they repay the government for not only providing them with millions of customers, but even requiring customers to buy their products: they screw us and the government.

Honorable mention to the “Republican” states that boned the working poor by refusing to take free money and provide them with insurance. That scumbucketry is another big reason that the ACA is not living up to expectations.

And of course, lots of people are so s*** stupid, they believe the Infotainment industry types who peddle the lies that the Repubs and health insurers pay them to spew at us 24/7/365.

Three causal agents for why our health care has been one of the worst in the developed world. The same three that will cause it to continue to be so in the future, unless we get off our unhealthy asses and hold those stinkers to account.

Meet the new cause, same as the old cause. F*** ’em all.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

How Employers screw us and blame the Government, Example 400 Gazillion and Three

ObamaCare is the current excuse du jour, of course. But there is always some scapegoat that employers will blame decisions on (because, hey, who wants to put “because we’re greedy motherf***ers” in a corporate announcement?). So where it used to be “burdensome regulations”, they now say “ObamaCare” when trying to pad their illegal offshore bank accounts at the expense of their employees.

Today, let’s talk about Trader Joe’s. They recently made a decision to summarily take health care bennies away from all their part-time workers. They claim it’s a benefit, that these people can get their health care cheaper that way, oh gee golly aren’t they beneficent exploiters employers for making this change: but employees are not fooled. And they are some kinda ticked off.

See, some of those workers would in fact save money via the ACA’s health care exchanges. Lots would not – in fact, their costs would go up, so they’d lose money. Lots of money. But guess who makes money on each and every employee who had their benefits yanked away? Why, Trader Joe’s, that’s who. Millions of dollars flowing into the pockets of the corpulent corporate types: dollars that the company used to spend on benefits.

Had management REALLY cared about these workers, they’d have given the employees an option: keep what you have, or go get your health insurance elsewhere. But they did not do that. They screwed their employees and used ObamaCare as the excuse.

This writer is done shopping at Trader Joe’s until they reverse course, and suggests that you do so as well. In fact, forward this post along to all and sundry, and let’s see how big of  a hit we can to deliver to their wallets. You can  (and should) also vent your spleen at those greedy bastards: http://www.traderjoes.com/about/general-feedback-form.asp

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Why American Needs Health Insurance Reform. And Why You Need Affordable Health Insurance.

Here is just one example out of  millions: a woman, bitten by a snake shortly after losing her health insurance, got hit with a $55,000.00 bill for less than a day in the hospital. Had her insurance not lapsed, she would have paid maybe $300.00   http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/snake-bite-victim-socked-with–55k-bill-150152873.html

That, peeps, is why everyone needs health insurance. Even young, healthy people can have accidents. So to all the “conservative” “Republicans” who are trying to keep people from signing up for ObamaCare, here is why you are completely and irredeemably full of s***.

And to anyone who believes these rubes as they try to destroy common-sense health care reform – wake up and smell the snake oil.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

FreedomWorks Wants ObamaCare to Fail, so they can Make Money for Themselves.

FreedomWorks, a “Conservative” “Republican” organization, is not working for freedom –  not for your freedom, anyway. They are funded by industry groups, and their mission is to remove the last teensy shreds of regulation from the marketplace so they can mulct the last coppers from our pockets (see the links below, for those of you who want the source material as well as a rant).

Their latest stunt: to have people refuse to buy health insurance, and to burn fake “ObamaCare” cards as a “protest”. Really. That is what they are promoting. Yes, they want you to risk death or bankruptcy and look like an ignorant fool.  Gentle Reader, does this sound like an organization with your best interests at heart?

Of course not. The next question is “whose interests are they advancing?” And the response to that, is, of course, their own. For example, they have made  money by selling near-worthless health insurance products in the past:

“In 2006, the Washington Post revealed that from 2001 – 2006 FreedomWorks engaged in a hidden deal with insurance brokers whereby the brokers would sell high-deductible insurance policies and tax-free medical savings plans to individuals at a group discount, and those who purchased the plans would automatically be added FreedomWorks membership list..”

FreedomWorks pocketed over a half-million dollars  from this single, shady deal. They don’t want ObamaCare to succeed, because they and their cronies won’t be able to fleece us with their crappy insurance products. Speaking of cronies, they are funded in part by the tobacco industry: you know, the people that sell us deadly, addictive s***? Right, THAT tobacco industry.  Hardly the champions of health: in fact, quite the opposite.

Freedom for themselves, and not for the 99%: that is what FreedomWorks stands for. Put another way, FreedomWorks for them, but they don’t want freedom to work for you.

So you shouldn’t work for them.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-goes-after-freedomworks-call-burn

 

Private Insurance ALREADY Rations American Health Care

As his readers will already know, Mr. Blunt and Cranky is managing a goodly list of chronic and acute maladies. Because of that experience (as well as having been an industry insider), he is more than a wee bit acquainted with the American “health care” system.

And he has had his health care rationed. But neither by our big-eared President nor his weird-haired challenger. No, it is the for-profit insurance companies that have screwed with his health care.

Rationing in America is driven by profit margins. For-profit health care is built upon this gigantic conflict of interest: making money vs. providing care.  It happens every day, people dying because of Aetna et.al.  denying them care so as to remain in the black. What this means is that people who are as rich as Bill Gates or Charles Koch get a little richer every time somebody’s care is denied.  Once again: investors make more money if you get less care.  The idea of a family member being sicker or dead just so some Wall Street suit can buy a bigger Beemer does NOT help this writer to stay in his Happy Place.

The private industries who are running this get-rich-over-our-dead-bodies (literally, that is one way they become rich) scheme are paying millions to keep things as they are, and not because they give a rat’s hiney about your health. No, they are buying TV ads, Congresscritters, Senators, and Clarence Thomas to make sure they keep on making money. They hate ObamNeyCare because it threatens a teenytiny piece of their enormous profit margin. Said margin at least substantially derived from rationed care, private sector style.

When these industries try to scare us with the bogeyman of “government health care”, we should stop for a second and consider: could government employees, who get paid the same whether they approve care or not, really do any worse by us than private sector employees who are pressured via their paychecks to deny us care?

Nope, not likely. This writer knows from socialized medicine, and can tell you it beats the living Hell out of our for-profit system.  And the reason is: people get more and better care when the primary criterion for deciding on care is whether the doctor, in their expert opinion, thinks said care will fix the problem.

Right now, your doctor is not, repeat, NOT in charge of your health care. Some accountant at an insurance company is. And they get bonuses if you get less care. This blogger calls that rationing, and it has been going on for years.

Bring on the bureaucrats. At least they won’t get paid extra for second-guessing medical professionals.

Mr. B & C

If not for Obamacare, my son would have died even sooner.

Those who know the Blunt and Cranky family are aware that Mr. Blunt and Cranky’s son died two days ago. We are in more than a bit of shock, grief and all the other emotions that one feels at such a time. The worst thing he has ever been through in his long life.

He is taking a moment from family, funeral planning and such to speak from the heart. Obamacare allowed his son to stay insured,and that (and only that) kept him alive these past 18 months. If his precious son had not had coverage, he would have died long ago. And without the Affordable Care Act, he would not have had coverage.

All the politicians, political theoreticians, academic wonks, and smug commentators can stick that in their craws and choke on it. Lives are on the line here, people. And one life was prolonged for at least a while, while the so-called conservatives advocated (and still do) a policy that would have killed that 20-year-old kid.

If you are against the affordable care act, you are for (or do not care about)  the death of your fellow American citizens. Whether you want to admit it or not, that is the way of it. Politics and parties be damned, we are talking about living, breathing people who are sick and dying so you can advocate policies that suit your selfish natures.

If you are for the ACA, then please spread this testimony far and wide.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky