This Much
Back in September, we asked an impertinent question:
The immediate, practical question is this: How much will the healthcare “reform” fuck us over?
And now, the Congressional Budget Office hands us a ruler:
Yesterday, in an analysis of House health care legislation, the CBO concluded that the six million people expected to enroll in the public option by 2019 will be paying, on average, higher rates than will people buying private plans.
It’s still early in the game, since healthcare legislation has umpteen hoops to jump through. But unlike Team Sarah, the gun we see in the bill is pointed at our head.
Wait A Minute—The Public Option’s Premiums Would Be Higher On Average? [TPM]
Oh congress. If you can’t fuck me one way, I’m sure you’ll find another way. Whatever we may have hoped for from “healthcare reform,” prices going up had to be at the top of the list.
T/J: I can’t help myself. If the Stinque Band needs a drummer, we should consider this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ThSi1wbqU
@Capt Howdy: I think so. I got this off the Vintage Guitar mag website.
I have always believed that I would end up being mandated to buy insurance I couldn’t afford. So gratifying to be right yet again.
I can’t deal with this. But…
Local vodka made with Hudson Valley apples, people!! Woo! Local apples!!
How awesome is that!!
(Sad. It’s sad… I’m such a loser…
… slinks away… )
@Benedick: If it’s as awesome as Hood River Vodka, I’d bring a cast-iron stomach.
@nojo: I actually like the Crater Lake Vodka (used chex cyn in the Xmas morning Bloody Marys (could there be a more appropriate drink for the occasion?) with the Thai Chili bloody mix made by the Garlic Lady in PDX.
@Benedick: Mr Cyn is trying to make a glass of wine from backyard grapes and yeast. It’s fermenting in a bowl on my kitchen counter. Be afraid.
@Mistress Cynica: Wait. Yeast? Yes I am afraid. I’ve seen what yeast can do to ceilings. The OH has made olives. They take six months to ripen and are so good you want to get in the cupboard under the stairs, bolt the door and eat the lot. I’m hoping you have a similar outcome.
@nojo: It actually is good. Has a taste like that really expensive Franch brandy made from pears which I love way too much (pass the straw, darling). And very smooth.
However, my work day is not yet over so … whatever (see above note about loser)
Congress will pass a mandate for health care insurance coverage that will either rape the consumer or force the taxpayer to pick up massive subsidies on a public plan that will go straight to insurance carriers’ executives whose pay packages will grow by orders of magnitude while they deride the crime of communistic health care. Republicans will retake the Congress in 2010 and begin using the national health system to track down and murder Democrats through strategic denial of health insurance claims.
@Mistress Cynica: I think that is called “prison hootch”. It is properly aged in a baggie behind a toilet tank.
@Benedick: Apple vodka? Hmmm. Had some Hendrix martinis (upgrading from the Bombay Sapphire) last night on account of winning a long running case, finishing and filing a appellate brief on 4 hr sleep and just because. Fell asleep by the fire and did not groove on my favorite tunes played loudly, which often results in cd or dvd damage. (Went through four copies of “Lateralus” by Tool, put a big gouge in U2’s “PopMart” dvd that I waited years to get. “2.0” by Garbage is unplayable due to late night listening. Guess I should trot over to Borders with my 40 percent off coupon and replace PopMart one this weekend, maybe find Garbage in a used bin somewhere. )
TJ: Ess Eff Mayor McDreamy pulls out of California governor’s race.
@SanFranLefty: I always figured him for a premature withdrawer.
@Jamie Sommers: So I’ve heard.
Not to mention he waits until 3 pm the Friday before Halloween, when the Bay Bridge is closed, there’s an oil spill in the middle of the Bay, and the guys who gang-raped the girl are arraigned.
Guess he’ll have to actually be mayor now or something.
@SanFranLefty: this gang rape thing, is it time to just wipe Richmond off the face of the earth?
@Dodgerblue: Where would the residents go? It’s pretty hopeless there, that’s for sure – I have nothing but respect for the people I know who work there in a variety of legal services positions. Maybe all the lead and toxic fumes blowing over the city from the Chevron refinery upwind has poisoned people, I don’t know.
Just FYI Dodger, Richmond has a reputation for being a primarily African-American neighborhood- at least it did when I was in the Bay Area. I mention this only because your comment may have a certain, ah, nuance you did not intend. It’s a bit like saying we should wipe Harlem off the face of the earth, if you see what I mean.
Or perhaps I am being overly sensitive. I feel fat this afternoon.
@redmanlaw: You know this of course, but when I wrecked a CD and needed to hear the music I popped it in my iMagicMac and iTunes presented me with a list of tracks that I could drag off and reburn. Could that work? Because the surface is trashed doesn’t mean the files aint there.
@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Or perhaps I am being overly sensitive. I feel fat this afternoon. Darling, you don’t look fat. From the front.
@Benedick:
Darling, you don’t look fat. From the front.
Ah, Dearest, I knew I could count on you for a pick-me-up when I am feeling down! Just like my old aunt Gladys!
@Dodgerblue: Uh, yeah, what Tommcatt said, too. I know you would never intend it that way, but for a local it comes across as kind of harsh. I did a case there, and I’ve never seen a more sad, hopeless, depressed, gang-ridden place, which is saying something given some of the places I’ve been.
i think tommiecatt and benedick need their own show.
Anthony Weiner on insurance companies: “If they’re not squealing like a pig, we haven’t done this right.”
@nojo: I heart Anthony Weiner so much. It would have been entertaining to watch that scrapper take on Bloomberg.
@baked: Love your new avatar! (But I’ll miss you on the camel, which I also loved.)
So THAT’s what that was! A camel. All this time and I could never figure it out.
@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: What, did you think that was Rat Bastard she was riding through the desert like a broken mule?
@SanFranLefty:
I wasn’t going to say anything….
Speaking of avatars, is Benedick supposed to be Jesus?
@JNOV:
Only in his own mind, Darling.
@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Heh. You’d let him wash your feet.
@SanFranLefty: From my time in the Bay Area I remember Richmond as the Place I Never Did Go. To. The terminus of a BART line I’d never like to see. Etc. I assumed they had the same librul-ish tendencies as the rest of the region, but for the toxic fumes from the refineries that must have been just like glue.
Funny how when poor brown people protest the pollution dumped upon them, we shudder and have fleeting thoughts such as, “there but for the grace of FSM go I”. And console ourselves with the smug knowledge that we are doing our part by recycling.
And I’m sorry for that impression, but is it correct or no?
the six million people expected to enroll in the public option by 2019 will be paying, on average, higher rates than will people buying private plans
Mission Accomplished!
@Pedonator: Who is this “we” of which you speak, white boy?
@SanFranLefty: Touche, you are so right about that!
@baked: I volunteer to be the slice of ham in a Tommmcatt-Benedick sandwich.
Or the comic foil at the variety show, prancing upon the stage dressed up as a bicycle, for the men to fumble upon me.
@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: But you don’t look fat from the front. Just don’t turn sideways.
@JNOV: Right! I am Jesus as envisioned by the Bamf theatre centre’s production of Jesus Christ; Bow wow wicka bow wow; Superstar; yikka yikka yikka which seems to have cast a somewhat elderley Jeebus as Jeebus. Now don’t tell noje. His mental health is hanging by a thread. One more Webber/Bachman episode could push him right over the edge.
@Pedonator: Get your hammy ass down here.
@Benedick: I seriously sing “Jesus Christ, Superstar — who in the world do you think you are” every time I see your avatar. I do.
@Benedick: It’s not my ass that’s hammy. My ass is the one thing I have preserved from my Youth — it’s still tight and luscious and not at all cynical.
It’s my mouth typing fingers that get me into trouble.
@JNOV: I love you for that. But the person who really appreciates it is nojo. He can’t get enough of it. He’s the number one fan west of Cheyenne. I’m told he’s plastered the walls of his mother’s basement in Sandy Eggo where he lives with pictures of the Mary Magdalene of the Scandinavian tour (Utte Nucksbrout) but I don’t know if that’s true.
@Pedonator: I will be there and you will have lunch.
@Benedick: My mother and father are still at the ancestral home in Eugene, and the basement there has been taken over by generation-old newspapers she promises she’ll get around to reading.
Besides, I don’t think basements exist in Sandy Eggo.
@nojo: OOOO! We’re SPOOQUE! Like Google and shit!
@Benedick: You forget the Cheetos. Which nojo consumes in quantity whilst watching Les parapluies de Cherbourg over and over. On the 42″ plasma flat-screen. Wearing pajamas. In his mother’s basement.
@nojo: Damn, you got there before me. Why would you let the world know that San Diego doesn’t have basements?
This forever disqualifies America’s Finest City from participation as the setting of slasher flicks.
@Pedonator: Kisses.
We’ll just let nojo be what he wants to be. Much like Luke Skywalker when the Tattytounians mounted their rebellion gainst the Empire.
He’s our dork.
@Benedick: Tattytounians? I’m gonna have to check that with my boss (who, if you’re reading this, boss, is the best boss in the history of the universe) — ’cause he’s a total Star Wars dork geek.
But yes…nojo, I think the Force be with him.
@JNOV: I like the part about how “you’ll be the power and the glory” which is my fave part of the Mass.
In the meantime, “she’s living like it’s the last night on earth” (watching undamaged portions of PopMart dvd.
meet me in the clubhouse!
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