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VeeJay says, "Are you really happy about Bush's Prescription Drug Legislation?"
Another in a long list of victories for the Neocons, America's Laissez-Faire Robber Barrons, which American somnambulists have swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Are you really happy with Bush's "Prescription Drug Legislation"?
What a farce for four big reasons.
Can you name them?
The reasons are as big as Elephants but nobody had paid any attention apparently.
Hint: the Elephant you pretend not to see even though it is right in the middle of your living room: The turnover of Medicare and Medicaid to the Laissez-Faire Robber Barons has begun. Social Security, without which many millions of students over the decades wouldn't have college degrees, is next on Bush's list.
Americans won't find out what's been done to Medicare until 2006. That's when they'll find out how bad they've been snookered.
Elephant One
The Gaping Hole In The Bell Curve.
With Elephant One the good President Bush chuckles with contempt. From $0 to $2,200 the federal government pays 75%. Wonderful. From $5,000 on up the federal government will pay 95%. Great. What about the gaping hole in the middle which ostensibly is where the mean and or median point is situated? That's where most people may actually be, right? They get zip, nada, zilch. No help at all. Who said Bush was fair? Heck he's probably laughing his silly head off. So are all the rest of those who voted this legislation into law. And the joke is on YOU.
It gets better. Cost caps were eliminated, remember? So either the government pays 75% or 95% of unlimited, and sure to skyrocket costs. Or YOU pay 100% of unlimited, and sure to skyrocket, costs. Either way John and Jane Q. Public lose. It's pretty funny, huh? Health security? Health security, Schmealth security.
Social Security honeymoney pot is next.
Bell Cuve 1 Bell Cuve 2
Elephant Two
Encouragement Of Skyrocketing Costs. Little to explain with Elephant Two. No cap on costs means just that. There is no limit to what patients can be charged.
Elephant Three
Rats Trapped In Their Cage.
When is a Free Market not a Free Market. Never. A Free Market is always a Free Market. Simon says. Simon says the name says Free so it's Free.
But what if you go to Canada and buy your $1,000 presciption pills for $200? Are you free to do that?
No way, jelly bean That is expressly forbidden. You could be incarcerated for that.
So why do they pretend it's a Free Market?
Look, jelly bean, Simon says it's Free. End of discussion.
Elephant Four
Government Subsidized Dismantling of Medicare.
Competition? Or Dumping on Medicare?
About a half a dozen
locations around the nation were selected to "compete" with Medicare. In order to insure that Medicare is successfully and thoroughly dismantled in these areas pork, is to be liberally doled out to HMO's and insurance companies in the form of subsidies. Large subsidies. Everyone heard the president's surrogate mouth pieces yapping about making sure that these HMO's and insurance companies had all the help they might require in order that they could compete successfully with Medicare. "Compete successfully with Medicare"? What might that disingenuous phrase mean? VeeJay handed us her handy dandy tommy-rot decoding device. The translation which popped up was, "Dumping." Dumping is a term which is ususally used viz a viz unfair international trade practices in which Nation A subsidizes steel, semiconductors, or some other widget. The product from Nation A is then sold relatively cheaply in large quantities in Nation B.That is dumping. The industry which had produced the dumped product in Nation B progessively loses market share until it is compelled to cease its production operations. Whereupon Nation A can then raise prices on the product in question. Nation B naturally complains of an unlevel playing field, while Nation A insists it had simply competed successfully.
In the case of Medicare, the American federal government is now dumping on its own federal Medicare program to hasten its demise by awarding large subsidies to insurance companies and HMO's.
It's a triple bonanza for the HMO's and insurance companies. Win-win-win. Cool, huh? Well ok, maybe it's lose-lose-lose for VeeJay and fuddy-duddies like her but, what the heck.
1) The coveted Medicare honeymoney pot is delivered unto the sharks.
2) The sharks are paid to recieve the coveted Medicare honeymoney pot.
3) Prices for the Medicare honeymoney pot are raised without limitation.
Classic Nationalization-Privatization pendulum in action. So why didn't you hear so much as a whimper of compaint? Creative semanticists used the magic words, "Free Markets" and "Freedom to Choose." Any time you want American morons to beat themselves on the head with a hammer, just say, "Free Markets" and "Freedom to Choose." Those words have a Pavlovian stimulus-response pattern. Except that dumb animals are rewarded positively, whereas dumb Americans are rewarded negatively.
Vee Jay says, 22; Privatization/Nationalization Pendulum
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them
being made.
-- Otto Von Bismark
VeeJay says, "Which would be better, a gridlock or a
Bush Steamroller?"
The world's only living heart donor, the good
Spin Doctor Frist insists it must be the latter. Why? He says it's good for the
people. No, really. You've no doubt heard him mouth that Bushit countless dozens
of times. It keeps getting easier and easier for American somnambulists to swallow
hooks, lines and sinkers. They scarf them down with extraordinary relish when
dished out by politicians with southern accents.
VeeJay sat up in her hospice bed and watched ABC's Nightline installment on or
about March 25, 2004, concerning the ramming through of Bush's Prescription Drug
legislation. As she lowered her head in disgust, she murmured something about the
way the Patriot Act was rammed through. We couldn't quite catch what she was
saying, except for some bits and pieces.
VeeJays says, "$400 billion? $500 billion? $Trillions?
Whitewash? Real figures? $Trillions? What a crock?"
45,000 People Quit AARP Over Medicare
January 16, 2004, by Mark Sherman, AP
"At least 45,000 people have quit the AARP over its support for Medicare
legislation last year, association president William Novelli said Friday.
The nation's largest seniors' organization provided a key boost to Republicans
who led the effort to revamp the Medicare program for older and disabled Americans
and provide insurance coverage for prescription drugs. AARP's endorsement
unleashed a torrent of criticism from Democratic lawmakers and seniors across the
nation accusing AARP of allowing its business relationship with insurers to drive
its decision. Novelli has called the criticism baseless. But AARP officials said
many members do not understand the complex legislation and are unhappy with it."
"Despite the resignations, though, AARP's membership rolls grew last year from 35.2
million to 35.7 million, he said."
"'Our message to them is, let's go forward,'
Novelli said. 'It's all going to happen, but it's going to happen episodically.'"
Story ...
Unexpected guests at the slop trough?
A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse, right Novelli?
The members who understand the legislation are the ones who've
quit. The ones who don't understand or consider themselves affluent enough not to care
are the apathetic ones who have not quit. And William Novelli is quite right, it's all
going to happen and happen episodically. The key word is all. The "all" which is going
to happen is a really ugly thing. And once that's locked in place, we will remind the
sleepwalkers, "We told you so, we told you so, we told you so."
Regarding the Federal Deficit
They're being total slime-weasels.
They're spending MORE. They're pandering their brains out. The Republicans just
added a hugely expensive new drug "benefit" for senior citizens, which the
Democrats have bitterly criticized because it isn't expensive ENOUGH. In other
words, our so-called "leaders" are buying senior citizen and Baby Boomer votes by
piling massive debt on future generations?
groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/54259
www.raisethefloor.org/ VeeJay says, "Talking Rot? Rot Wing Religious Repubs. Rot. All Rot. Nothin but Rot."
VeeJay says, "Why not? It works so beautifully for them!"
Kerry's '350 Tax Increases'
March 25, 2004, by Michael Kinsley, Washington Post
"President Bush seems to be running his reelection campaign on the basis of the Powell doctrine: Go in with overwhelming force from the start and strike a blow from which the enemy can never recover. Like the United States in Iraq, the Bush campaign has superior firepower and far more money. The lesson of Vietnam, articulated by Colin Powell, is: Use your superiority -- don't fritter it away in gradual escalation.
One of the weapons in Bush's arsenal is an old family heirloom. Bush fired it himself during his big Florida rally over the weekend. He asserted that John Kerry had voted for higher taxes 350 times during his 20 years in the Senate. Vice President Cheney and other presidential surrogates have been using this statistoid for several weeks, and it has been picked up and repeated in the conservative media echo chamber. In 1992, Bush's father charged that Bill Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, had raised taxes 128 times. This shabby and deeply disingenuous allegation became an embarrassment to the elder Bush, but it took weeks and months of pounding by the media and the opposition to make it this way. I'm hoping to spare us all that with a Powell doctrine-like strike early on.
The purpose of a phony statistic such as this one isn't to convince people of its own accuracy. The purpose is to trap your opponent in a discussion he doesn't want to have (in this case about his past votes on taxes), bog down the discussion in silly details that few people will follow, and leave a general impression that where there's smoke there must be fire. And certainly, if what matters to you above all else is paying fewer taxes, you'd be a fool to choose Kerry over Bush. But this isn't about taxes; it's about honesty. Honesty means more than factual accuracy, it means avoiding disingenuousness: not talking rot when you know it's rot. If that matters to you above all, you may be out of luck with either candidate this election. But if you wish to measure comparative rot, this 350-tax-increases business may be hard for Kerry to top."
"Yes, it's unfair. It's ridiculous. That's the point."
VeeJay says, "Is the American somnambulism affliction incurable or what?"
US Labor Department offers ways to not pay overtime, by Leigh Strope, Associated Press, January 6, 2004
"The 1.3 million low-wage workers the Labor Department says will be guaranteed overtime pay as part of new rule changes may not necessarily see any extra cash.
While touting the $895 million in increased wages it says those workers would be guaranteed from the changes, the Labor Department is suggesting ways employers can keep their labor costs from going up.
The department says it is merely listing well-known choices available to employers, even under current law."
"New overtime regulations were proposed in March after employers complained they were being saddled with costly lawsuits filed by workers who claimed they were unfairly being denied overtime. But the regulations themselves have stirred controversy over how many workers would be stripped of their right to overtime pay. "
Story... Sleep walking will of course become popular with Iraqis. If you want to get the oxen to work for you, you have to put the yoke in place first.
Army OKs Halliburton Waiver for Oil Deal
by Sue Pleming, Reuters, January 6, 2004
"The U.S. Army said on Tuesday it had granted Halliburton a waiver to bring fuel into Iraq via a no-bid deal with a Kuwaiti supplier despite a draft Pentagon audit that found evidence of overcharging for fuel."
"Bringing in fuel to Iraq is part of a larger no-bid contract KBR won in March to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.
So far, the company has clocked up more than $2 billion of business under that deal and billions more under a separate logistics contract with the U.S. military"
Story ...
Gas used to be cheaper than water in Iraq. The Iraqis can kiss that goodbye. They can add those costs to the skyrocketing debt the US is saddling them with. Debt is a four letter word which in this case as in so many others is synonymous with the word, yoke.
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VeeJay says,"Paul Krugman. Why can't we get people
like Paul Krugman to be president? He's funny too."
Forget it VeeJay. It
ain't never gonna happen. Paul Krugman describes how that Grand Old Republican Party
is running huge deficits in order to make Social Security impossible to fund. That's
enough to keep anyone out of the Whitehouse. Why? Because it's true.
The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive
pkarchive.org/
Paul Krugman Princeton Website
wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/
nytimes.com/ref/opinion/KRUGMAN-BIO.html
"In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it.
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
-- George Orwell, 1984 |
