A good amount of money for necessary social programs could be reallocated from the wasteful defense spending the Pentagon discourages in the first place. A well-run single-payer program would surely be more efficient than subsidizing low-quality insurance plans with deductibles so high as to be practically unusable.

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Single-payer is the end game of what started out as the ACA. The only way to get that door open and hold it open was to bend over backwards for the insurance companies...now that it's law, it can be tweaked until it makes sense. Every American should have a right to decent healthcare...imho.

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[quote="pittmike"][quote="Joe Orr Road Rod"][quote="Tall Midget"]This is a very good article (published during the Democratic primaries) by Michelle Alexander, one of the country's most important black intellectuals, detailing the racist politics of Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Clintons are hardly the overt, "throwback" racists that Donald Trump is, but their neoliberal agenda has systemically assaulted black communities--and achieved devastating results. Details below. [/quote]

To me, this gets to the heart of Trump's, "What do you have to lose?" Forget about who Trump is or what he plans to do. He really hasn't put forth any concrete policy that he has stuck to. We really have no idea what he might do. The guy is all over the place. But for the black person who is struggling (or the white person for that matter) I think it's a very good question.

That's why I don't sit in judgment of the Trump voter. It's easy for me to be high-minded and look at large matters of philosophy, where the country is headed long term, etc. I'm gonna open an $80 bottle of wine to drink with my pizza tonight.[/quote]

I actually think Trump got slammed for saying exactly that to the poor black community. "What have you go to lose?"[/quote]

As he should have got slammed. You can't run for President and have a slogan that says "Hey I don't know jack shit but vote for me anyway, what the fuck do you inner city folks have to lose?"

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Except she didn't marry well. She was the successful one when they got married.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

They met at Yale. She didn't marry the boy next door in Park Ridge.

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When Trump said that he wasn't talking to me or anyone in the black community. He was talking to you and Pittmike and clearly you both bought it.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

She didn't marry up. Bill wasn't rolling in money. She was the one who had a few dollars.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I didn't buy anything Trump was selling. But I'm objective enough to see that Clintonian policies haven't done a damn thing for Black Americans.

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Freedom is our Strength.

I do not know if he said it but I thought Jorr did not vote for Trump and I didn't vote at all. Not sure what we bought?

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Elections have consequences.

I agree completely that money is wasted on defense and could certainly be reallocated. I will never agree with a single payer system, although you are correct in that it was the ACA end game. Just take the Medicaid expansion for the poor, with Medicare and Medicaid together they are the majority of payers in society now. Except doctors won't take new Medicaid patients because it under reimburses when it reimburses them at all.

If you give away health care it will get over used. You need high deductible plans with very low premiums that provide what is essentially catastrophic coverage. That would be real insurance. HSA's are a great infill for the routine expenses. Coverage should not be linked to employment as that creates a double crisis when someone loses a job. Then you have to get on with addressing that portion of the population that cannot afford even catastrophic coverage. I'd explain that part, but you're already screaming, "no, no, no" at your computer.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I agree Bill Clinton was an awful president.

Pittmike you bought it in the sense that you believed that he was trying to reach out to the black community.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Not really. I just thought what was posted was similar to what Trump said. Either way it probably is healthy if all communities that vote as a block examine whether they are being served.

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Elections have consequences.

I liked Welfare Reform, Free Trade, and Balanced Budgets. Maybe he is a Republican after all......he just doesn't know it.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I've said this before, but I had medical bills for my kids that crossed insurance policies. In other words, the kid was born on my policy but my wife was on her own policy, so I essentially got double billed. I let the bills languish, other than making the first payment to avoid it going on my record while I tangled with the insurance company. The bill got out to about 10 months and bill collection came to me one day and said "pay half the bill and we'll cancel the rest". I had no extra money then (or now) but I dug it out of the seat cushions and promptly paid and wondered at this nation, where one can just wait out the bill collectors and pay half the actual cost they accrued. All this to say, catastrophic coverage is good but when people can't pay, these companies accept cents on the dollar. It made me sick to find out for the first time in my life that paying bills on time is a suckers bet.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

No, because most people don't want to go the doctor or the hospital, they just have to. It's not free candy.

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Drs sign you up for it though in many ways.

In my experience there are "doctor people" and "non doctor people". I have friends who run to the doctor every time they get a runny nose. Personally, my balls would probably have to be seven times their normal size or my arm falling off before I went to the doctor.

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Freedom is our Strength.

I have awesome insurance and see the doctor a few times a year. My experience the past few years is they love to order tests. All sorts of tests all the time. Mainly blood work and the like doing the whole preventive medicine deal. Part of me thinks though that a part of modern medicine and all the testing and visits is to avoid lawsuits.

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Elections have consequences.

Yeah, I'm a non-doctor person (after a childhood full of visits to the pediatrician for strep throat and all that), which probably informs my approach. I just want to get in and out of a hospital if I ever get hit by a car.

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Speaking of free candy, I forgot to raid the Osco seasonal aisle for post-Halloween 25-cent bags of candy corn. Now it's probably all Christmas stuff. Wait till next year!

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Listening to America's Anchorman ripped from youtube. LOLOL
Only 5 states (out of 57!) have both a Dem Governor and a Dem legislature, and one-CT-depends on a tie breaker.
Total repudiation of Obamaism and Clinton Crime Family politics.
IOW, there is hope for the Homeland.
Obama's Legacy is Trump and the GOOPers.

#Carhartt
#Kofi
#Evita
#theRapist

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Obama's Legacy is Trump.
And dead cops.

"One guy lays the pipe, the other guy smokes it"--Clint Eastwood

I'm like you

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Nobody likes or wants to go to the doctor, that's absurd to think people would overuse medical services.

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You made the comment regarding Disinvestment and I asked a question related to investment in the black community spearheaded by Bill Clinton. If you need a refresher this would be it

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9339886

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When has it been much different? The majority of counties in every state run red...It only turns blue when you get to the cities or education centers.

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My wife's family goes to the doctor when they have a sniffle. I would have to be near death.

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I agree with you philosophically, but I hate when people call it a "right." No matter how you slice it, health care is not a "right," and using that term will turn off a lot of people. Health care takes resources, and those resources aren't free, so it's not a right.

I personally believe that in a country as wealthy as ours, everyone should have access to health care, but it's not a right.

Sorry... rant over.

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The crime bill gets unfairly slammed by progressive democrats looking to make excuses for crime and criminals. That fact is that many blacks pushed for tougher crime laws too. Urban areas were war zones at the time I know because I lived in one. I'm from the low end of Chicago and I came of age during precisely the time in which crime was peaking in this city and other Cities like L.A. and New York. There was a movement to get "tough on crime" and it just wasn't the Clintons that were promoting it. Black leaders were as well.

Drugs and violence were running rampant in Chicago and the Hosing Projects in particular were as wild as anything you'd see in Beirut. The vast majority of my friends were knee deep in the drug trade and violence and it was absolutely destroying neighborhoods and communities. Turf wars over drugs was the single biggest problem in impoverished areas during the late 80's and early 90's. Most of my friends dropped out of high school to participate in it. I had a number tell me directly that Govt couldn't do anything to stop it and they didn't care about getting caught because they'd be out in an hr. Communities were decimated and you had teenagers assuming the role as head of household because they were essentially the breadwinner in welfare dependant homes.

The Crime Bill was an outgrowth of the violence and destruction which haunted impoverished neighborhoods during this priod. The murder rate in Chicago New York and L.A dropped as a result of this bill too. That is the dirty secret no one ever quite discusses either.

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And I agree with you philosophically, but everyone who's anyone has figured this out but us, and I don't believe a key part of American exceptionalism is that our health insurance industry is wasteful and stupid.

Oh well, we're not getting there now. All we can do is try to prevent this psychotic Paul Ryan plan with "health savings accounts."

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Agreed. My quibble is only with use of the word "right." I would like single payer healthcare. I just don't call it a right.

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