WaPo continues it’s march to extinction.

And BTW, el Señor y Salvador Marco Rubio is one thirsty hombre.

Just so happens, I’m scheduled for a medical procedure this morning. The accounting office called yesterday that my portion of $335. would be due up front. I explained that I’d always made monthly payments, she explained that “due to new health care laws that started Jan. 1, they are no longer accepting monthly payments.” More punishement for us poors?
So since I’m livin’ large on social security, I am forced to put it on my credit card, thus paying interest to the banksters.

How in the hell can you afford health care (mainly insurance, not “health care) when real wages are dropping and most cost of living prices are rising ? Do any of these people shop for their own groceries ? We must have Medicare for All. 2-3% overhead versus 20-30% for private insurance. The profit motive must be removed from discussions of healthcare.

Good luck ‘jan. Hope all goes well.

Thanks for the post Attaturk.

Stony,
Rubio makes my skin crawl.

Good morning all,

Were the health cost savings aided by an increase in the death rate among the poor ? Poor woman in my wife’s office needed breast surgery instead of anesthesia they gave her a local and cut away. what a way to “cut “costs.

Just picked up health care from my PartTime job at $10 an hour I get insurance instead of a raise but have to pay for the wife, so out of $ 800 take home a month the insurance company gets $ 500 I get to get by on $ 300.

What an exceptional country woo woo !

The right wing has managed to redefine poor and needy and lazy and shiftless. And people like Cilizza lend legitimacy to it by buying into it without an argument.

El Señor y Salvador made Bobby Jindal look like Demosthenes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is their best shot.

Good luck! New health care law? Sounds like the bullshit Wells Fargo handed us about “having” to raise service fees because….Obama and…..freedom or something. (don’t have an account but had to listen to a pitch from them at work last year)

Yep. First they trotted out Jindal and his volcano monitoring in scare quotes and then here comes Rubio who pretty much ended his chances last night by not being able to even lie convincingly.

Thanks, been sick for over 7 months. Told my family dr. back then I have a hiatal hernia. Of course, what the hell do I know, so after 4 specialists I have a hiatal hernia. Today they’re inserting a “probe” in my stomach to measure the acid content. (?) Other than money, don’t really see the point. Just do the damn surgery already.

Good morning, pups. Today is the first day of Lent so we get to suffer through Dowd and Friedman. MoDo has decided to give us “The Rap on Rubio.” She says we gotta start makin’ changes, as Tupac says. And Marco Rubio is doing just that as he leads a desperate white, male Republican Party away from country to gangsta. (Maybe someone should tell her that it’s time to start talking about Tupac in the past tense.) The Moustache of Wisdom is all fizzy again today. In “When E.T. and I.T. meet ID” he squeals that innovation is alive and well in India. Just look at these start-ups.

Here they are, and

here’s Krugman’s blog.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese. Last night I gave the SOTU a pass and watched the dog show. Judging from what y’all are saying I may have to see what Rubio did… It poured all day yesterday, and all last night, and the rain continues. The cats are FURIOUS, and convinced it’s all our fault… Have a great day.

Good luck!

Boxturtle (Public option single payer solves so many problems)

Thanks, Margaret. Yup, that’s what they told me. Must admit, I did not read ACA in it’s entirety, but pretty sure there’s nothing in there that forces upfront collections.
Another little nugget to chew over. The area I live in is known for it’s orthopedic industry (and RV’s). I have a friend that is employed at one of these businesses. They are so pissed about the 2.3% medical device tax that they have discontinued all bonus plans and company parties. Just can’t afford it, although their profits are in the billions of $$. Those poor, put-upon businesses that can’t find a loophole yet.

Thanks, attaturk, medicare is another frill, yaknow, unlike the tax cuts for petrochemical creators.

Thanks. Yes, medicare for all would be nice. Seems to work for other countries just fine. I guess they’re just not as “exceptional” as we lucky folks that live in the US of A.

Hope this goes well, anyway, that up front payment is all about stop loss on their poor business practices. Incidentally, the insurance co’s in TX not too long ago claimed they had to raise premiums because it had been a disastrous weather year, so some bright young reporter ran the figures and discovered that actually it was totally a run of the mill year, but the co’s had lost a bunch in their bad investments in high tech that year.

You loons are so funny. I love all the ‘science’ babble when it comes to ‘climate change’….I really get this piss running down me leg though when you start rolling the gibberish about MATH?
Just how accurate has the CBO been historically?
Hmmmmm???

Thanks, Marion, Rubio repeat of Jindal, the right wing trying to push its Others up front, where they’re at a complete loss on how to stir up the base without losing elections.

Who the fuck are you and what makes you think your contributions steaming piles of excrement are welcome?

It’s got any number of little tin drums that it loves to bang on, as can be seen if you check it out.

Thanks, me too. Speaking of poor business practices (or incompetence). Not one of four specialists has submitted correct billing. The pulmonologist billed for a day when I was no where near his office, another miscoded and billed both Medicare and me, another posted my payment to another account.
I can understand an occasional error, but I have a feeling this is the norm.

You’ve got to go over every medical bill with a nit comb. At this point it’s pretty much standard operating procedure for medical offices to outsource their billing to a management company or a hospital they’re affiliated with. Hospital billing is even worse.

IOW, everything is working the way the plutocracy intended.

Wishing you well with your procedure.

So true, then good luck trying to get anything corrected.

That sure matches my experience. And it was always an error to the high side. I cynic might wonder if it’s coincidence or conspiracy.

Boxturtle (once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action)

Thanks for the good wishes, don’t have much faith in any of them.
I tried acupuncture for awhile, would rather have one good acupuncturist than a busload of m.d.’s, but couldn’t afford to go often because Medicare doesn’t cover his fees.
Yes, the plutocracy has had a firm grip for hundreds of years, and no change in sight.

If the error is always in favor of the house, it’s no error.

I am sorry that you don’t have faith in good wishes. On the internet, it’s about the best I can do. If I were your neighbor, I’d bring over some supper for you

My sister was born with a hiatal hernia. However, as far as acid, Nexium seems to be enough for her.

True. However, it’s entirely possible I’m not seeing underbilling errors because I’m not looking for them. :-)

Boxturtle (I wonder what a professional, independent audit would show)

Bless your heart.

Bobby Jindal and Herman Cain and now El Señor y Salvador Marco Rubio. These are not the droids you’re looking for.

Not to mention a Cuban, and the scion of Batista emigres at that, has no chance of getting any Hispanic votes outside of Florida. Flimflam and humbug.

Are you in NW Indiana? I seem to recall that you are (so am I).

Looks like I didn’t miss a thing not seeing the SOTU or the rebuttal.

I was only listening…I think that Rubio must have sounded, for awhile, abit better than he looked. Had a pretty good rhythm, then went on and on.

Ain’t that the truth. I feel like I live in some bizarro world when you hear about how unfair it is that a “hard working” guy making 46 million to hit a golf ball around shouldn’t be forced to live on a mere 20 million but the people working minimum wage jobs(yes plural) and often working 50-60 hours a week belong not only making their under $20,000 a year because they’re “unskilled” but should be paying more in taxes to have some skin in the game. It’s insane.

I’m the ghost of reality past, present, and future…Just here to get a chuckle by checking out what the useful ones are fantasizing about:)

The ghost of reality, not to be confused with reality itself….

Just how accurate has the CBO been historically?
Hmmmmm???

Ok, so there’s no need to worry too much about future deficits then, since their wild speculation about trillions and trillions of dollars of deficts are likely way off.

Or is it that when they predict increasing deficits they’re right but when they predict decreasing deficits they’re track record sucks???

If their track record is so awful, then there should be no need to worry about future Social Security funding and/or future deficits until we get closer.

Good suggestion.

Stupid people are fun.

…the poor and needy must be punished for being poor and needy.

That really is the thinking of most conservatives.

You would think being poor would be its own punishment, but the contempt they feel for the poor is enormous. It makes no impression on them that many successful people were at a time in their lives very poor–including their spiritual leader Ayn Rand who survived on public assistance. It does not bother them that destroying labor unions means that the wealthy get to grab more than their due. What really gets under their skin is that some poor person somewhere might be staying alive with food stamps, no matter that the policies they support created that poverty to begin with.

@19
thank you for your comment. your comment is important to us.

A difference of opinion is one thing, but trolling is another. He or it had nothing to offer but insults.