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LAGC

LAGC's Journal
LAGC's Journal
November 22, 2015

Trump again won’t rule out a third-party run

Donald Trump is not ruling out a run for president as an independent if things go south for the front-runner in the Republican race.

"I'm going to have to see what happens," he told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "I will see what happens. I have to be treated fairly."

Trump was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that Republican operatives are considering banding together donors from the other GOP campaigns in a bid to knock Trump off the top spot.
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If Republican operatives succeed in knocking Trump off his perch, their plan could backfire if he then runs as an independent.

A July Washington Post-ABC News poll found that in a hypothetical general election matchup between Bush and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Clinton led 50 percent to 44 percent. But throw a third-party Trump run into the mix, and the poll found that he would tear support away Bush and give Clinton a 16-point lead.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trump-again-wont-rule-out-a-third-party-run/

November 20, 2015

PJ Media: I Compared My Obamacare Options to My Current Plan, and Surprise, Surprise

So I saw this nasty piece of conservative propaganda trending on Yahoo! News just now:

It happens that I started a new day job as a principal engineer a couple of weeks ago. It's for a Very Large Company, VLC. It has a health insurance plan that is, if not the absolute best one I've ever had, a nicely adequate one. It's what's called a "high deductible" plan, but that means a $1500 deductible, with both a health savings account to which the company contributes, and a flexible spending account. Looked good to me. With my contributions to max out both the HSA and the FSA, my net deduction from my pay is around $600 a month -- but remember, that's almost entirely pre-tax money going into accounts I can use to pay for health care of various sorts.

Because of the ACA, however, they were required to notify me I could opt out of their plans, and choose instead a plan from the health insurance exchanges.

Okay, so just to reassure everyone I haven't completely lost my mind, when this option was offered, I immediately said "you mean I can opt to buy my own expensive and inadequate coverage instead of going with the company's plan they pay for?" And, reassuringly, the HR person explaining these plans answered, "Yes, that's about it."

I did get curious, though: what would that option be?

So I went to Connect for Health Colorado, the Colorado exchange website and ... well, tried to sign up. After filling in a long page of personal information, I tried to submit it, and got an error


https://pjmedia.com/trending/2015/11/18/i-compared-my-obamacare-options-to-my-current-plan-and-surprise-surprise

So I thought I'd do a little quick investigating to see if he was telling the truth.

So I went to Colorado's exchange site:

http://connectforhealthco.com/

Clicked on the blue "Sign-In/Shop" button on the top-right, then chose "Individuals & Families" from the drop-down list.

Then scrolled down to the lower-middle: "Browse Plans" (you don't even have to sign up and make an account and enter anything to see prices and plans, like that guy was claiming)

I just entered a Denver zip code (80123) and a date-of-birth making my fake persona age 50 like I presume is around the age of the author of that piece is, based on his profile picture, then left "Start Coverage" date to 01-01-2016 and ticked the "Health" coverage type leaving "Dental" blank.

Well lo and behold... I did find some cheaper shitty Bronze and Silver plans like he was saying that had high deductibles, but if you scroll down further I was able to find a decent Gold EPO plan (Cigna Vantage Flex Gold 1400) that cost less ($589.41/month) than what he is paying now through his private employer and has a slightly lower deductible.

In short, he's a bald-faced liar! Claiming that none of the Obamacare plans are any good in comparison.

I suppose that's just par for course for right-wing media, but I found it quite funny how I could debunk this guy's story in less than 5 minutes just by visiting the Colorado exchange site that he claimed "stumped" him, trying to sign up.

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