Not like this is a big surprise or anything...

The Democratic Party no longer believes in hard work
By Betsy McCaugh


July 25, 2018 | 8:04pm


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Would you rather show up at work on time or stretch out on the sofa and watch TV? Stupid question. Most people punch a clock out of necessity.

But progressive Democrats want to make work optional and guarantee a slew of benefits to everyone, whether they get off the couch or not. It’s a slap in the face to America’s workforce.

Some 70 House Democrats endorsed a plan last week to outlaw private health insurance and force all Americans into a government-run system. Let’s be clear. This plan isn’t about helping the needy. It would rip away medical coverage from half of all Americans, including the 157 million who get their insurance the old-fashioned way — earning it through a job.

The plan, dubbed “Medicare-for-All,” would prohibit all employers — even giant companies that self-insure — from covering workers, retirees or their families.

Union workers with gold-plated health benefits would have to give them up and settle for the same coverage as people who refuse to work at all. Why work?

Apparently the Democratic Party no longer believes in work.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is taking the opposite route — beefing up incentives to work. Last Thursday, the president’s Council of Economic Advisors revealed that about half of able-bodied adults who collect benefits like food stamps, housing aid or Medicaid work zero hours.

Why should they toil, if they can take it easy and get freebies instead? No wonder nearly one out of every five working-age adults collects these benefits. Dependence soared during the Obama administration, while workforce participation plummeted.

Trump wants to reverse this grim trend. The administration is urging states to require able-bodied adults on Medicaid to do something — either work, go to school, go to job training, get addiction treatment, take English as a second language or care for a family member.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bashes these efforts as “mean-spirited,” and left-wing advocacy groups are suing to stop them.

No surprise. After all, back in 2010, Dems sold ObamaCare to a doubting public with the argument that it would allow them to quit their jobs in the “pursuit of happiness.” ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies would liberate them, Pelosi promised. “Just think, if you could be a photographer, a writer,” instead of being locked in a job to get health coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office warned that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the incentive to work. Astoundingly, Democrats considered that a positive.
And the predictions are coming true. Medicaid rolls are nearing 74 million, and are projected to reach 87 million within a decade. Over half the able-bodied adults enrolled work zero hours, while the nation’s working stiffs pay the tab.

Even more outrageous, the progressive wing of the party is ready to sabotage those working stiffs. Congressional bigwigs like Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are staying quiet about Medicare-for-All. It won’t become law anytime soon.

But confrontational progressives like DNC Deputy Chair Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), New York’s newly nominated congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and salivating presidential-wannabe senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) are pushing hard for it, showing where the party is headed. They don’t care that employees with on-the-job coverage would be the biggest losers. Working people be damned.

Unlike single-payer in the United Kingdom, which allows residents to buy private insurance, Medicare-for-All outlaws any escape from the government-run system. Even if you’re desperate for better care, you’re trapped. The idea is no one should receive more or better care by earning it.

That’s crazy. People who work hard should have the freedom to spend their earnings on top-of-the-line health insurance. Democrats used to be the party of working people. But the party’s fast becoming their worst enemy.

 

Wow that "article" is unbelievably delusional and not at all true.

 

Oh it's true.... If you have evidence to the contrary, then post it....

 

It's a desperate attempt to blame Obama and "welfare queens" for the current state of things.

 

Washington Examiner, August 23, 2018

A large majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, back a "Medicare for all" policy, according to a new poll that bodes well for progressive backers of "single payer" healthcare.

In total, 70 percent of Americans support a "Medicare for all" program, which would insure all Americans through Medicare, the federal healthcare program for seniors. Only 20 percent of Americans oppose the policy, according to a new Reuters poll.

More than 84 percent of Democrats support the policy, while only 11 percent oppose it. Almost 52 percent of Republicans back the policy, although just over 37 percent remain against it.

 

Betsy McCaugh's essay is an interesting take on an institution that has long been a settled issue in most affluent democracies. For decades these democracies have had universal health coverage. Those countries spend less per capita for health care then the United States. They get better results. In these countries there is little support for a return to a privately finance system.

If the lack of universal health coverage - socialized medicine, if you will - encourages Americans to work, where is the encouragement for the working poor? Low wage jobs usually provide little or nothing in the way of health coverage. Those in those jobs cannot afford private insurance. For those people paying the rent is a monthly struggle.

With a sleigh of the hand that convinces fewer Americans as time goes on, Betsy McCaugh argues that a policy that will help a large segment of America's working class as a policy desesigned to harm working class people.

 

And what happens to those that get sick for extended periods... Once their coverage runs out, they lose their insurance and then their jobs... And when they try to find another job they are told that their pre-existing condition won't be covered...

How many bankruptcies are due to medical conditions? One estimate is that 60% of all bankruptcies are due to medical reasons.

Making work a requirement for having medical is part of the problem. But of course, now I'll be accused of not having a job or some stupid shit...

 

So, you're saying there's absolutely nothing in the article that has any ring of truth to it?

Here's the summary text of the bill.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676

Expanded & Improved Medicare for All Act

This bill establishes the Medicare for All Program to provide all individuals residing in the United States and U.S. territories with free health care that includes all medically necessary care, such as primary care and prevention, dietary and nutritional therapies, prescription drugs, emergency care, long-term care, mental health services, dental services, and vision care.

Only public or nonprofit institutions may participate. Nonprofit health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that deliver care in their own facilities may participate.

Patients may choose from participating physicians and institutions.

Health insurers may not sell health insurance that duplicates the benefits provided under this bill. Insurers may sell benefits that are not medically necessary, such as cosmetic surgery benefits. (JCP note: Yeah, cuz there's always been a booming sector of the insurance market for "medically unnecessary" services.)

The bill sets forth methods to pay institutional providers and health professionals for services. Financial incentives between HMOs and physicians based on utilization are prohibited.

The program is funded: (1) from existing sources of government revenues for health care, (2) by increasing personal income taxes on the top 5% of income earners, (3) by instituting a progressive excise tax on payroll and self-employment income, (4) by instituting a tax on unearned income, and (5) by instituting a tax on stock and bond transactions. (JCP: Do they mean a tax on every trade on every US exchange?? I'm sure they won't be crowing too loudly about THAT financing mechanism.) Amounts that would have been appropriated for federal public health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), are transferred and appropriated to carry out this bill.

The program must give employment transition benefits and first priority in retraining and job placement to individuals whose jobs are eliminated due to reduced clerical and administrative work under this bill.

The Department of Health and Human Services must create a confidential electronic patient record system.

The bill establishes a National Board of Universal Quality and Access to provide advice on quality, access, and affordability.

The Indian Health Service must be integrated into the program after five years. Congress must evaluate the continued independence of Department of Veterans Affairs health programs.

 

I can't say I don't believe in hard work, mostly because I've seen it done. Given the choice, I'd rather inherit money and live off of the investments than work hard.

 

How about working hard for your money, and then live off the investments? That's what a few of us on the forum have done.

 

Fuck that shit. Nobody ever asked me which I wanted.

I don't know what it's like to live off of inherited money, but working hard for my money and living off the investments sucks.

But then again, if I had inherited money and was living off the investments, I'd probably be voting Republican and wondering what all the hard working people were bitching about.

 

Me neither. I've never lived off inherited money. I worked 34 years for the same company, and invested 'mostly' wisely. No one bats a thousand.
It worked out swimmingly. Perhaps you need a better financial adviser?

 

so 77 million on all his golf trips as opposed to the 100 million on one trip for the obamas to Africa

 

no Obama took a trip to Africa that 1 trip was 100 million

 

So, the Chicago Tribune says that Obama spent $97M for his entire 8 years in office, but you claim he spent $100M on one trip...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...-mar-a-lago-obama-travels-20170419-story.html

Got proof your facts are correct?

 

Show your source because I have shown mine.
The new Obama travel records obtained from the Secret Service were the result of a FOIA lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (No. 1:17-cv-01007)). Judicial Watch’s lawsuit produced the following travel records showing a total of $3,696,266.56 for Obama travel:

• Michelle Obama’s trip to Morocco cost $128,108.47 in hotels; $88,725.60 in car rentals; $1,476.07 in gas/oil and $972.22 in cell phone charges for a total of $244,218.01
• Michelle Obama’s trip to Liberia cost $55,220 in hotels; $44,000 in car rentals; $2,500 in gas/oil and $1,000 in cell phone charges for a total of $107,890
• Michelle Obama’s trip to Spain cost $79,764.49 in hotels; $81,750.99 in car rentals and $4,547 in staff overtime pay for a total of $166,062.48
• Obama’s November 2016 appearance at a Clinton campaign rally in Orlando, FL. cost $150,530.99 in hotels; $103,526.96 in air/rail; $11,588.76 in car rentals and $5,829 in equipment for a total of $271,467.71
• Obama’s trip to Los Angeles in October 2016, which included two fundraisers and an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” cost $127,822 in hotels; $38,715 in air/rail; $24,326 in equipment and $4,992.30 in car rentals for a total of $195,855
• Michelle Obama’s October 2016 appearance at a Clinton campaign rally in North Carolina cost $13,206 in hotels; $11,965 in air/rail and $1,331 in car rentals for a total of $26,502
• The Obama family trip to Martha’s Vineyard in August 2016 cost $2,512,380.88 in hotels; $89,586.82 in rental cars; $53,234.69 in air/rail and $29,068.97 in miscellaneous expenditures for a total of $2,684,271.36
• The Secret Service spent $1,862,230.74 on the Obamas’ final Christmas to Honolulu on the taxpayers’ dime: $1,765,583.12 on hotels and $96,647.62 on car rentals.

Added to the previously released costs, the known total of travel expenses for the Obamas is now $105,662,975.2

 

The Republican Party has not believed in fiscal responsibility since Ronald Reagan decided it was a good idea to cut taxes for the rich while raising military spending.

In 1980 Christian conservatives rejected a hard working, deeply religious family man for a man married to his second wife, who took little interest in his children, and who seldom attended church.

 

So who is paying for all this "FREE" stuff? Remember the government only gets money from the people. When the people run out of money, so does the government.