Wednesday, March 01, 2017

John Oliver mocks the Republican's lack of a plan to replace Obamacare.

Courtesy of Quartz: 

Oliver took aim at the fragments of a plan that Republicans have released, dismissing each suggested fix as covering Americans’ health costs “the way a thong covers your dad’s ass. It doesn’t, and there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.” 

The best sense one can get of what the Republicans will present, as Oliver points out, is from House Speaker Paul Ryan’s vague policy paper (pdf) on repealing Obamacare issued earlier this month. Oliver delved into the four bullet points Ryan offered about the Republican solution: “refundable tax credits,” “high risk pools,” “block grants,” and “health savings accounts.” None of these ideas will actually work, Oliver argues, breaking them down in financial terms—they all share the same “thong problem.” 

Compounding the problem for Republicans, Oliver says, is Trump’s promise that “everybody is going to be covered,” and that he will “take care of everybody… much better than they’re being taken care of now.” 

“Insurance companies are deciding right now whether to even offer Obamacare plans next year,” Oliver notes. So, he tells Republicans, “Tick tock, motherfuckers.”

Once again Oliver, and this team, break down a complicated issue into its basic parts, squeeze out the bullshit, and add enough humor to make it more palatable to television audiences.

Shows like This Week, Full Frontal, the Daily Show, and now The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, do the country a great service by making these issues entertaining and understandable to a population that is now hooked on short sound bites, CGI, and flashy explosions.

22 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:31 AM

    OT?
    "The only thing we have to fear is, the fear itself that intimidates voters of color, limits flow of the whole truth to the entire electorate, denies clean water & air, nutritious food & affordable healthcare and the scientific freedom and historical facts of our Bill of Rights – within a free public education system, that opens minds and rewards inquisitive individuality, in structurally sound schools."
    " we remain exceptional enough to insure number forty-five is the last hurrah storming against equality, before the calm, of diversity and justice for all, shakes off the dust of bigotry and ignorance from our hearts and minds."

    http://lnr.politicususa.com/not-just-trump-2182/

    TRILLION$
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/trump-s-not-quite-state-of-the-union-address-risks-trillions

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:17 AM

    NO surprise> drumpf wears a RED thong.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:23 AM

    Another one for that list... "Late Night with Seth Meyers." If you haven't already, please check out his segments called "A Closer Look." Awesome, insightful stuff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:02 PM

      Continuing to depend on millionaire Hollywood and late night comedians to provide your political insights.

      Still wondering why Hillary lost the election?

      Delete
  4. Anonymous7:33 AM

    Poor folk don't have money to buy insurance.

    GOP doesn't want to pay for poor people's insurance.

    Poor people vote Democratic.

    In conclusion ... GOP does not care if they have no insurance and die. I fully expect GOP to end insurance (Obamacare) for 18 million people and they will smile for the cameras when they do it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:50 AM

      Congress needs to pay for their own health insurance and medical needs out of their own fucking pocket, instead of making us citizens pay for theirs. Especially when they won't even help out the poor!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:52 AM

      The Republican Health Care Plan is Depraved, But It's Political Genius

      This comes as no surprise to anybody, but here is Kaiser's analysis of tax subsidies under Obamacare vs. the House discussion draft that was leaked last week:

      The difference is pretty obvious. Obamacare provides subsidies to those who need it most. The Republican plan provides subsidies to everyone, even if they're already well off.
      Politically, you can see the attractiveness of the Republican plan. One of Obamacare's major failings is that its subsidies phase out too soon. The poor get Medicaid and the near-poor get generally decent subsidies, but the working class gets very little and the middle class is left out entirely. The Republican plan provides bigger subsidies for working and middle-class families, and does it by cutting subsidies for the poor.

      In other words, it helps two groups who vote at high rates, and who often vote Republican.1 It hurts a group that doesn't vote much, and votes Democratic when it does. It's immoral on almost every level, but it's political genius. Luckily, thanks to the malignity of the tea party wing of the GOP, which views even this amount of government assistance as unacceptable, it will probably never see the light of day.

      1The only downside is the cut in subsidies for older working-class voters, who Republicans very much care about. But I imagine that Paul Ryan can come up with some kind of hack that takes care of that.

      http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/03/republican-health-care-plan-political-genius

      Delete
  5. Anonymous7:45 AM

    OT? Top News
    AP FACT CHECK: Trump takes credit he hasn't earned>

    https://apnews.com/c920befa97f54b9ea5a6988f700846a3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:57 AM

      The only '2 seconds I watched was this>

      http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/ex-nsa-analyst-rips-trump-for-exploiting-trapped-widow-she-didnt-want-to-stand-up-we-know-why/

      I did not know who she was but it made me sick.
      Literally.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous8:21 AM

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/01/generals-may-launch-new-isis-raids-without-trump-s-ok.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

      Delete
    3. Anonymous9:14 AM

      http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/how-can-you-exploit-his-widow-the-views-sunny-hostin-boils-with-rage-over-trumps-owens-tribute/

      Delete
    4. Anonymous9:23 AM

      @7:57 Sick-ne$$ is RIGHT.

      http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/the-sickness-of-this-man-michael-moore-blasts-trump-for-record-applause-boast-as-grieving-widow-wept/

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:54 AM

      The worst part is when he started to ad lib and said Ryan would be happy, he broke a record, referring to the applause, it was absolutely DISGUSTING.

      I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I couldn’t believe the applause, as though it was some kind of award show.

      If anything, he should have asked for a moment of silence, but of course it was really all about the donald trying to cover up his fiasco in Yemen.

      I have a feeling his father is really angry right now.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous2:47 PM

      It still turns my stomach:
      http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/how-carryn-owens-ended-up-at-trumps-speech-to-congress/

      Delete
    7. She let herself be exploited for Trump's propaganda.

      Wonder if she'll let her in-laws see their grandchildren ever again.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous8:20 AM

    http://www.hillarybeattrump.org/

    We wish.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:22 AM

    Coming to your neighborhood...soon!

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/01/the-russian-opposition-is-under-siege-by-putin-s-investigators.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Universal healthcare. It is their only option.

    That, or revolution and losing every Republican seat from here on out.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous11:36 AM

    Trump said that everyone will have ACCESS, not everyone will be covered.

    And no one but the rich are going to love his tax credits based on age rather than income. It means you will have to pay for your insurance up front, if you can afford it, and wait until tax time to subtract from your income tax.

    He also wants to speed up FDA drug approval, I hope he gets the "bad" prostate medication or hair replacement drug.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In prior interviews he said everyone will be covered, everyone will have healthcare and if they can't afford it the government will pay for it.

      The best. And everyone. Not hard to find those clips.

      So he's either walking it back, didn't write that speech or he's a fucking liar.

      But hey, it could be all three.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous3:21 PM

    "Trump is basically the Bush Doctrine realized in human form."He didn’t even bother to bone up on the actual duties of the president before he took office." Bet he can't BONE UP?
    ". Americans as a people are addicted to being afraid, as a nation we embrace fear, we wallow in it, but conservatives? Conservatives own the market. Hell, they even fear their God. Fear is the very cornerstone of their religion, fear of a crazy genocidal unpredictable deity who just might wipe out the entire nation because he’s mad about the idea of gay people or socialism."
    "we have a House led by a Tea Party hack and a Senate run by a self-serving power-mad ideologue who’d rather burn the country to the ground out of pure spite than compromise with anybody. Our representatives, the congressmen who are supposed to be our voice, they don’t show up for town hall meetings because they don’t want to hear what we have to say, because they’re actually afraid of us, because they don’t even have the guts to face the kind of crowd any women has to push through just to get a goddamned pap smear from Planned Parenthood." FEAR US
    "They don’t care where their allies or opponents are located physically. For them physical geography doesn’t exist. The virtual world has eliminated the differences between East and West, city and country, left and right, and nations for that matter. And this cosmopolitanism will only grow as connectivity increases (this is what will eventually defeat the communists of China, not guns or bombs, but gaming networks and Facebook."

    http://www.stonekettle.com/2017/02/red-sea.html

    ReplyDelete

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