Good morning, and Happy New Year! Here were my top five favorite political cartoons this week. Be sure to vote for your fav in the poll at the bottom of this post!
by Glenn McCoy at Townhall.com…
by Gary McCoy at Townhall.com…
by Dana Summers at GoComics.com…
by Steve Kelley at Townhall.com…
by Chip Bok at Townhall.com…
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I’m voting for #4, because I can’t possibly imagine why anyone would ever admire Obama or Hillary.
I’m adding my own for my weekly vote.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/Santa-and-the-Mega-Rich.htm
Great to see the uninsured quarterly rate at the lowest it has even been (in Gallup’s tracking) – great to see continued good economic growth. The crazy right wouldn’t be happy with Obama if her personally sent people big checks of his own money – so it works better to just dismiss the petty, baseless criticism out there.
You can call the elephant in the room anything you like, but it still makes a pretty large pie, and somebody will have to clean it up.
I’m voting for # 4 this week.
#3 for me.
A great political cartoon reveals some truth that remains largely hidden to the general population.
Most Americans, love it or hate it, think that the ACA has been fully implemented and now we are able to deal with it and get on with our lives. We don’t realize that it has more punches with with to clobber us.
The new intrusions into our lives and jobs and families have only just begun.
Del –
I understand the law pretty well. ACA adds very little ‘clobbering’ that we didn’t go through before, and takes away some of the biggest clubs that were out there.
After seeing these cartoons, it brought to mind a recent quote I read from a very smart conservative leader – Erick Erickson from RedState.
– “A lot of conservatives are now where liberals were after 2004—hysterically angry about things they have no business being angry about. I think if you believe in a heaven, a hell, a savior who died and rose again, and a last day on which you’ll win because he wins, you probably should spend a lot less time getting worked up over the temporary politics of the here and now.”
Right wingers are hysterically angry about WAY too much right now. ACA has some issues. It also has insured MILLIONS more than were previously insured – rates have stabilized like we haven’t seen in a long time – we eliminated some really bad components of the insurance model. Yes, there are problems. I would really, really like to debate with somebody who wants to go back to what we had before. I’d welcome that.
EGV,
Dream on.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/10/06/clearing-the-air-on-obamacares-enrollment-statistics
Mary
Can you even make heads or tails out of his article, in which he had to write a second article because he screwed up in his first article (did you even catch that?)
I continue to stand by my statement regarding Gallup’s numbers.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/178100/uninsured-rate-holds.aspx
EGV,
I have no problem at all understanding it. So the man corrected himself. None of us have ever had to? Doesn’t prove he is wrong.
Also, did you catch where your article says the rate of uninsured was 14.4% in 2008! Before Obamacare was passed. It is now down to a walloping 13.4%.
Mary – your statement implies that it was at 14.4 right before it passed – this is incorrect – it was signed into law until 2010, and provisions didn’t start for several years. In 2013, the rate was 18% – if you remember, that was when the sites first opened for enrollment.
Furthermore, you seem to be arguing that more people insured is a good thing – and then you’d have to concede that the numbers would be even higher if many republican led states had expanded medicaid. Uninsured rates dropped significantly in states that embraced ACA vs states that didn’t.
EGV,
I imply nothing. Your source says it was 14.4% in 2008…before Obamacare was passed. I said nothing about “right before”. The senate passed Obamacare in 2009, congress in 2010.
So 14.4% was a catastrophe that required gov’t intervention in 2009,
the rates rose to 18% then dropped not quite 5% to 13.4%, essentially the same as in 2008, and this is a walloping success story??
Mary,
We would have fewer uninsured today if we had just scrapped the ACA all together and just added the same number to the Medicaid rolls.
Ex-RINO,
You Aare big on the numbers if insured. Tell us, how many people have gotten insurance through Obamavare and what percentage of those have been placed on Medicaid for their insurance?
Mary – on your question – before ACA was passed, you could have said the rate was just over 10% – I mean, that is what is was back in the 70’s. As health insurance costs have risen dramatically in the past 15 years, the rate has gone steadily up, and was over 18% before the exchanges opened.
Between 2000 and 2008, the premiums for a family went from $5800 to $12,600. In those same years, the number of uninsured Americans increased by 8 million.
If you understand the death spiral of the uninsured, non payments to facilities, and rates rising on those insured – you’ll understand that this is a crisis that needed to be dealt with.
truth
You insulted me twice on a thread and never apologized, so I’m not answering your questions until that apology comes – if it doesn’t come, then so be it.
I did want to say though that earlier this year you wanted to bet me on the rate of insurance – you were dead set on the opinion that there would be more uninsured people at the end of the year compared to the beginning.
Gallup estimated that the rate of uninsured dropped massively in 2014 – from 17.1% to 13.4%. We didn’t put any money or anything else on it – but just wanted to complete the circle on your prediction.
Good to see that you were massively, massively wrong on it and so many more Americans now have the security that comes with health insurance.
EGV,
It needed to be dealt with but not with more gov’t intervention, which had already created enough problems, including spiraling costs.
As you can see from my link the numbers of are questionable.
Mary –
You are an educated person.
If around 40 people got up in a class, and one by one, the first 39 talked about a system they created – and all were pretty similar and had small variances in results – and then the 40th person got up and said they went a different direction, and their system cost twice as much as anybody else’s, and their results were worse in most cases – you’d probably, as an educated person, reason that the 40th person is probably doing things wrong.
What we need is a heck of a lot more government intervention when it comes to healthcare. We had less. It failed us. Time to see what works and get in line.
EGV,
I would likely reason the 40th person must be talking about some gov’t run program.
Yes we definitely need more gov’t intervention. What is a greater example of gov’t efficiency at its best than Medicare?
Mary – I hope you were kidding – again, I’m assuming you understand our health care system and a lot of the rest of the world.
We pay more than double what anybody else does, and our outcomes are generally worse.
Our uniqueness doesn’t seem to be working out so well.
“You insulted me twice on a thread and never apologized, so I’m not answering your questions until that apology comes – if it doesn’t come, then so be it”
LOL. December 29th at 8:25 pm you posted, and I quote “Thanks for the thoughts truth”. You seem to suffer from selective memory syndrome. Perhaps based upon the the content of the posts you read.
Like when you are asked what percentage of the people insured since Obamacare have gotten insured by being enrolled in Medicaid? Cat got your tongue numbers man?
On another note. The gun control in France does not seem to have helped them today when criminals armed with AK-47 rifles attacked a publishing house and killed 12 people. In fact, three of police who were first responders on the scene didn’t even have guns. So much for gun control. The people of Europe who have allowed themselves to be disarmed by the government will be at the mercy of psychotic Muslim jihadis.
Ex-RINO,
I’ll throw a number out there just so you can look into it. For now, lets just say that over 70% of the newly insured since Obamacare launched have gotten their insurance through Medicaid expansion.
EGV,
Yes, I was kidding…about Medicare being an example of government efficiency.
Mary –
If you were paying out of pocket, would you rather pay medicare rates, or the rates negotiated by insurance companies?
You’d rather pay medicare rates, because they are significantly cheaper.
Yes – there is fraud and waste in medicare. Yes – there is fraud and waste in private insurance.
But the bottom line – Medicare is cheaper, and has high quality rankings.
Update as well – Gallups number was updated today – went from 13.4% to 12.9%.
12.9%!!!!!
That’s awesome.
EGV,
Medicare is not the panacea you think it is.
http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2014/CPA/JUN/Medicarewontpay.jsp
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/09/18/Why-Medicare-Cost-Problem-Still-Unsolved
So you acknowledge gov’t run healthcare is fraudulent and wasteful. Weren’t these the problems that were supposed to be solved by gov’t run healthcare?
Mary
First article is about how Medicare doesn’t pay all the bills. Guess what – my employer based insurance doesn’t pay all the bills. Does yours?
Second articles is about how Medicare could have future funding problems. If younger people were eligible for Medicare under an expansion, the whole system funding and laws would go under a rewrite – they could certainly address it then. They make changes to the program all the time.
Look – if you think I’ve ever implied that Medicare was perfect, then that’s the wrong impression. There is no perfect medical system. It’s simply clear that the private insurance model – the free market for health care – it has failed us.
EGV,
So you agree then that gov’t run health care is not a panacea or solution.
No the free market hasn’t failed, it has been infused and inflated with third party payers.
Mary –
I’m saying that when you’re trying to derive how to best handle terrible things like cancer, car accidents, and heart attacks, nothing will be perfect.
You are essentially arguing for a system that nobody else in the entire free world is arguing for. I think that should be your first clue.
I do, however, acknowledge that I think your system would drive down costs – but you’d have to be willing to treat healthcare like any other free market item, and refuse treatment to those who can’t pay.
EGV,
No one else in the entire free world is arguing for? You will find that many of these gov’t run health systems are two tiered: Those who can pay more get more. I’ve heard we are Canada’s second tier. This should be your first clue.
Refusal to treat those who can’t pay? Hardly. The fact people can’t pay for food doesn’t mean they have to die on the street. The city I grew up in had an excellent charity hospital, second to none. Doctors and hospitals charged what people could pay, they had no other choice if they wanted to stay in business. Doctors offered their services on a sliding scale, often offering free care. We had free health clinics. Hospitals would care for people at minimal or no cost. We had the “charity wards”, but people were being cared for.
I am convinced people would not be as inclined to abuse a system if it comes out of their pockets.
Obamacare is a monstrous cluster-you-know-what. Taxes and fines for working Americans to fund a bureaucracy of government controls and regulations. They could have just expanded Medicaid (other than the fines and regulations that is what Obamacare did) and left the private market alone.
Mary –
Nobody else is arguing to get rid of third payer systems and government run health care to leave it all between patients and individual facilities. Nobody.
The DemocRATs wrote the ‘Affordable Care Act’ so that implementation was postponed for several years. 2015 is the first year that the IRS will be going after the uninsured with Obamacare fines. And the amount of the fines double each year after 2015.
EGV,
I know.
“We didn’t put any money or anything else on it – but just wanted to complete the circle on your prediction.”
No Ex-RINO, there was no mention of putting money on it. I simply asked you if you would join the Obamacare repeal effort if more people were uninsured. You refused to even accept that proposition because you are a coward.
When I blog with people like you Ex-RINO, I expect you to gruber all over (I expect your numbers are a farce). Now clean these grubers off of me and tell me what percentage of those added to the insurance rolls in 2014 were added to the Medicaid rolls.
Ex-RINO,
Of the millions and millions of people who lost their health insurance due non-compliance with Obamacare regulations, how many of those were enrolled in Medicaid?