March 31, 2014

Update on governors accepting or refusing the expanding of ACA (Obamacare):

Here are the states whose governors signed to allow the expansion of ACA (Obamacare):

•Arizona: On June 17, 2013, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed into law legislation that will expand Medicaid to an additional 350,000 people in the state. The signing came after Brewer called a surprise special session on the 2014 budget and Medicaid to try to resolve a deadlock among lawmakers on the two issues.

•Arkansas: Gov. Mike Beebe (D) on April 23, 2013, signed the state's expansion plan into law. Under the plan, Arkansas would accept the federal money for Medicaid expansion provided through the ACA but would use it to buy private insurance for about 250,000 eligible low-income residents. The federal government approved the plan in September 2013.

•California: Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on June 27, 2013, signed legislation that would expand the state's Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, to more than 1.4 million additional residents under the ACA.

•Colorado: Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed the expansion into law on May 13, 2013. He says that the expansion will save the state $280 million over 10 years and help cover an additional 160,000 adults.

•Connecticut: Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) was among the first governors to sign up for the Medicaid expansion after the ACA was enacted. The state was one of five states that opted to expand eligibility early.

•Delaware: Gov. Jack Markell (D) in January 2013 reiterated his support for the Medicaid expansion, including an additional $35.8 million for Medicaid in his FY 2014 spending plan. On July 1, 2013, Markell signed a FY 2014 budget plan that includes $29.8 million to "fund the State's Medicaid commitment."

•District of Columbia: D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) in a statement on June 28, 2012, said, "The District is not at risk of losing any Medicaid funding as a result of [the Supreme Court] ruling, because District officials have already begun implementation of the ACA's Medicaid-expansion provisions and will continue to implement the expansion." D.C. sought permission from the federal government to expand its Medicaid program on May 13, 2010. The move expanded Medicaid to an additional 35,000 residents.

•Hawaii: Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) has said his state will participate in the expansion. In a statement on June 28, 2012, Abercrombie said, "The Affordable Care Act is our ally in this effort" to "to support a healthcare system that ensures high quality, safety and sustainable costs." According to the Department of Human Services, the state is expanding Medicaid eligibility through the ACA.

•Illinois: Gov. Pat Quinn (D) signed Medicaid expansion into law on July 22, 2013. Approximately 342,000 low-income Illinois residents will be newly insured under the expansion.

•Iowa: On Dec. 12, 2013, Gov. Terry Branstad (R) announced that his administration and the White House had agreed on the finals details of his plan to expand Medicaid. Two days earlier, CMS approved Iowa's alternate expansion proposal, which would allow the state to use federal funding under the ACA to help more than 100,000 low-income residents purchase private health coverage through the new Iowa Health and Wellness Plan. Branstad also proposed a small additional premium for certain beneficiaries. Under the agreement, Iowa will levy the additional premium on individuals with incomes exceeding 50% of the federal poverty level beginning in 2015. The state promised that it will not drop individuals' coverage if they fail to make payments.

•Kentucky: On May 9, 2013, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) said that expanding Medicaid is the right choice for Kentucky, noting that it would halve the number of uninsured in the state. He reiterated that sentiment in a Sept. 26, 2013, opinion piece in the New York Times. On Sept. 3, 2013, a federal judge cleared the way for the state to participate in the Affordable Care Act, ruling that the governor has the authority to expand Medicaid and establish an insurance exchange.

•Maryland: On May 5, 2013, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) signed into law HB 228 to fully implement the Affordable Care Act.

•Massachusetts: On July 5, 2013, Gov. Deval Patrick (D) signed into law HB 3452, requiring Massachusetts to come into compliance with new federal regulations under the ACA. On July 12, 2013, Patrick signed into law the state's FY 2014 budget, which supports full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including the Medicaid expansion.

•Michigan: On Sept. 3, 2013, the Michigan House voted 75-32 to grant final approval to a bill that would expand the state's Medicaid program beginning in April 2014. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed the bill into law on Sept. 16, 2013. The proposal contains cost-sharing provisions for Medicaid beneficiaries; it received federal approval in December.

•Minnesota: Gov. Mark Dayton (D) in February 2013 signed legislation that expanded Medicaid to an additional 35,000 childless, low-income adults in the state.

•Nevada: Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) in December 2012 became the first GOP governor to commit his state to expanding Medicaid under the ACA. According to Sandoval's announcement, nearly 78,000 Nevadans would be covered by the expansion.

•New Hampshire: On March 27, 2014, Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) signed bipartisan legislation (SB 413) to expand Medicaid coverage to an estimated 50,000 low-income state residents. Starting in April 2014, the state will move eligible residents into Medicaid programs. The plan then calls for enrolling those residents in private coverage options through the ACA insurance exchange in 2016, which would require a federal waiver. The law requires the state to receive that waiver by March 31, 2015; failure to do so would result in termination of the program three months later.

•New Jersey: Gov. Chris Christie (R) on June 28, 2013, signed a state budget that includes $227 million for Medicaid expansion in the state. However, he vetoed legislation that would have made the expansion permanent in the state.

•New Mexico: Gov. Susana Martinez (R) on Jan. 9, 2013, announced that the state would participate in the Medicaid expansion.
•New York: On June 28, 2012, in an announcement immediately following the Supreme Court's ruling on the ACA, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said the state would participate in the expansion.

•North Dakota: Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) in April 2013 signed legislation expanding Medicaid in the state.

•Ohio: The state's Controlling Board—a special bipartisan legislative panel—approved Medicaid expansion in 5-2 vote on Oct. 21, 2013, allowing Gov. John Kasich (R) to expand the program on Jan. 1, 2014, without approval from Ohio's Republican-controlled Legislature. Conservative lawmakers have pledged to mount a fierce legal campaign against the move.

•Oregon: The state has moved forward on Medicaid expansion with the support of Gov. John Kitzhaber (D). Starting on Jan. 1, 2014, state residents earning up to 138% FPL will qualify for Medicaid, up from 100% FPL in 2013.

•Rhode Island: On July 3, 2013, about one week before the state General Assembly adjourned for the year, Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) signed a fiscal year 2014 budget measure that included a plan to expand Medicaid, which he endorsed in June 2012 and outlined in his 2014 budget proposal.

•Vermont: Health Care Access Commissioner Mark Larson in July 2012 said that Vermont would receive federal funds to expand its Medicaid program under the ACA. The expansion is expected to insure an additional 47,000 state residents.

•Washington: Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on June 30, 2013, signed a state budget that would expand Medicaid in the state.

•West Virginia: Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) in May 2013 announced that the state would expand Medicaid, extending coverage to an additional 91,500 state residents.


http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/resources/primers/medicaidmap#lightbox/1/

Of course, my state is not on the list, Florida, but we have that Medicare fraud criminal of a Republican governor.

March 27, 2014

Because the GOP wasn't able to defund or destroy Obamacare, instead...

They got together and decided to wage the biggest-scale propaganda machine to trash it.

Not only that, but the Repuke governors, got together and opted to make this first version of this first attempt to insure everyone, a disaster by denying their own states' residents coverage by REFUSING to allow the Obamacare EXPANSION.

http://www.bustle.com/articles/6227-gop-governors-reject-obamacares-medicaid-expansion-millions-to-stay-uninsured-as-result

Boy, they must be some kind of angry.

Maybe the Repukes will just do themselves in when they realize that this first version of the first-ever program to insure all, IS GOING FORWARD ANYWAY.

March 27, 2014

Don't let the Republicans in here passing as Democrats let you know. Read this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1102&pid=15862

March 26, 2014

First Doctor Visit in Five Years: Why Repubs Want Us Broke or Dead

First Doctor Visit in Five Years: Why Repubs Want Us Broke or Dead

They'd love to make us work 473 hours for a visit, some blood work, and a single medication. How many House ACA repeal votes now? And how many "replacement plans"? They'll fight with fervor to return us all to that standard, to enrich their owners and themselves while we die, until we fight back. Until we win.

That means fighting to protect and strengthen the law that allowed me to get there today. It may not be perfect but its a hell of a lot better than allowing a group of immoral insurers and politicians to kill us, at the bank and in our bodies, so they can live the high life.

And if those snakes running the insurance company cartels think the ACA was rough for them, they'd better wait to see what we do when we run the scum that work for them out of office. I'll be happy to show them catastrophic. I'll be happier to grin and pull the plug on an ugly industry when we finally achieve single payer. But for now, I'm happy to have coverage and relieved so many no longer have to work hundreds of hours to secure what should be a fundamental human right.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/26/1287424/-First-Doctor-Visit-in-Five-Years-Why-Repubs-Want-Us-Broke-or-Dead?detail=email

March 25, 2014

Why are so many rape, murder, kidnap, and battery criminals running free? This is why.

March 23, 2014

Tax Deductions are a HUGE form of welfare, and the richest people are getting the most welfare

Tax deductions are a HUGE form of welfare. Right wingers constantly say that deductions aren't welfare, but that's bs. If one person can't afford to take a deduction (for example, the mortgage tax deduction), then that person is not keeping money.

Those people who can afford to take a deduction (say, those who are buying homes because they have money enough to buy one), are the ones getting to KEEP money rather than pay it to the maintenance of the country. Keeping money rather than paying it in to maintain the country, is the same as being sent a check in the mail.

There are more ways in which the wealthy get welfare in this video:

March 19, 2014

Honey the Great Dane and Lemon the kitty - this is beautiful

March 18, 2014

Imagine you're a highly competitive person rewarded with fat checks... then the fat checks stop

Imagine you're a highly competitive, results-oriented person whose job once rewarded your work with a fat check. Then the world's economy crashed. It's your fault. As a result you have new rules about what you can and cannot do. You're catching up with new compliance regulations and working harder than before, but you can't produce the money you once did. The means of production you once had are gone.

Perhaps it would be rash to call it a spate or a trend, but in the past six months a number of financial professionals from the United States to London to Hong Kong have committed suicide.

So it's time to talk about why.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-wall-street-bankers-committ-suicide-2014-2

March 17, 2014

A little history - When the Soviets liberated Auschwitz - an account by one of the Soviet officers

I honestly can't post any of the article on here, because it's too heart-wrenching. Nonetheless, the Soviets liberated Auschwitz, and here is the account told by one of the Soviet officers that liberated it.

http://www.jspace.com/news/articles/anatoly-shapiro-the-soviet-jew-who-helped-liberate-auschwitz/13238

March 17, 2014

Americans are the loneliest, most isolated people

I have observed this for a long time. I lived in other countries and didn't find the same extreme isolation and loneliness that I do here, and I blame the system of life here for that. I don't think each individual is to blame for this. I blame things such insane ideas as the American Dream, the pull yourself up by your bootstraps madness, and other false, absurd, non-sensical and silly capitalistic notions of American life for the isolated American lifestyle. It's a whole system based on isolation, and sporadic get-togethers. The worst part of it is, we are accustomed to it, and know no other way of life, and we believe this is normal. It isn't. Here are excerpts from a truly good article on American loneliness and isolation.


Upstairs, she found Vickers’s body, mummified, near a heater that was still running. Her computer was on too, its glow permeating the empty space. Vickers’s web of connections had grown broader but shallower, as has happened for many of us. We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible…

In 1950, less than 10 percent of American households contained only one person. By 2010, nearly 27 percent of households had just one person. A 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier. According to a major study by a leading scholar of the subject, roughly 20 percent of Americans—about 60 million people—are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness. Across the Western world, physicians and nurses have begun to speak openly of an epidemic of loneliness…

We meet fewer people. We gather less. And when we gather, our bonds are less meaningful and less easy. The decrease in confidants—that is, in quality social connections—has been dramatic over the past 25 years. In one survey, the mean size of networks of personal confidants decreased from 2.94 people in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. Similarly, in 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant…

In the face of this social disintegration, we have essentially hired an army of replacement confidants, an entire class of professional carers. As Ronald Dworkin pointed out in a 2010 paper for the Hoover Institution, in the late ’40s, the United States was home to 2,500 clinical psychologists, 30,000 social workers, and fewer than 500 marriage and family therapists. We need professional carers more and more, because the threat of societal breakdown, once principally a matter of nostalgic lament, has morphed into an issue of public health. Being lonely is extremely bad for your health. If you’re lonely, you’re more likely to be put in a geriatric home at an earlier age than a similar person who isn’t lonely. You’re less likely to exercise. You’re more likely to be obese. You’re less likely to survive a serious operation and more likely to have hormonal imbalances. You are at greater risk of inflammation. Your memory may be worse. You are more likely to be depressed, to sleep badly, and to suffer dementia and general cognitive decline…

And yet, despite its deleterious effect on health, loneliness is one of the first things ordinary Americans spend their money achieving. With money, you flee the cramped city to a house in the suburbs or, if you can afford it, a McMansion in the exurbs, inevitably spending more time in your car. Loneliness is at the American core, a by-product of a long-standing national appetite for independence… Today, the one common feature in American secular culture is its celebration of the self that breaks away from the constrictions of the family and the state, and, in its greatest expressions, from all limits entirely.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/