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Medicaid is now the largest health insurance program in the United State, covering about 74 million Americans with low incomes and disabilities, along with participants in the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Medicaid is costing our federal and state governments enormous amounts of money and the costs are growing – rising from $553 billion in the 2016 federal fiscal year to $565 billion in 2017. That’s about $1 out of every $6 spent on health care in the U.S.
And, may I add, this was intentional on the part of Obama -- and Trump too.
What, you say? Yes, Trump too. He has done exactly nothing to address this, Siegel's rant notwithstanding.
Never mind the reality put forward here:
Before she joined the Trump administration, Verma was a health policy consultant who worked on Medicaid reform programs in Indiana with then-Governors Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence, as well as in Ohio and Kentucky. Now vice president, Pence knows from firsthand experience that if anyone can tackle the Medicaid challenge, it is Seema Verma.
Oh really? Argument by assertion me thinks.
Where is the evidence?
The problem is this sort of nostrum is utter and abject nonsense:
In other words, instead of simply cutting Medicaid and other programs for poor people, help poor people work their way out of poverty.
I interviewed Verma for Fox News recently. I was impressed with her vision for ways to enact President Trump’s plan to help able-bodied Medicaid recipients gain skills and self-esteem, and ultimately get off Medicaid. She emphasized that these programs are not simply work programs, but include community service and education and job training options.
Again, how?
Let's face the numbers here folks. A decent "health insurance" policy for a single person in their "prime years" is over $1,000 a month today. That's $12,000 a year. For two people it's double that, then add another five grand per kid for those under 18.
So for a family of four we're talking north of $30,000, each and every year.
Obamacare makes this "tolerable" for single people who make $25,000 a year or less, and about $45,000 for married people filing joint -- by forcing "someone else" (the taxpayer) to pay for it. The problem is that you can't live on that in the so-called "middle class" virtually anywhere, unless you own your home outright somewhere that's low-cost. The reason is that rent for a 2 bedroom apartment, along with basic living expenses (food, utilities, renters insurance, transportation, etc) consumes a solid $20/hour, or $24,000 a year, virtually everywhere in the United States today.
It does so because of the imputed taxes in both rent and property ownership, imposed by the states, counties and cities as a direct result of promising to give things to people who didn't pay for them, and those promises never diminish -- even in times when the economy is "good" (like right now, for instance.)
Now add to this the complete phase-out of Obamacare subsidies at about $50,000 a year for a single person, and about $80,000 a year for a married couple. Then add to that FICA/Medicare and income tax and the second $25,000 earned for a single person, or the band between $45-80k for a married couple, is taxed at an effective rate that in many areas exceeds 80%.
A huge percentage of the population, indeed most of the population, by definition cannot get out of that band and start to pull clear of it. It's simply impossible as their skill level and basic intellectual firepower is not worth enough in the marketplace to do so. Even if you do manage to break free the drag of that band and it's "take" from you which remains for the income in that band makes your standard of living much worse than it first appears; in essence you make $25-40,000 less than your income appears to be once you cross the phase-out threshold.
For someone who makes $400,000 a year that $25,000 "hole" is around 6%, and not all that material. For someone who makes $100,000 a year the hole is 25% and enormous! For someone who makes just over the phase-out the hole is utterly ruinous and prevents them from getting into the middle-class entirely -- PERMANENTLY.
There is no fix for this other than to collapse the entire medical scam. To get people "out of poverty" and fix this problem you have to jail all of the medical providers, insurance companies, hospital executives and pharmaceutical company executives, or credibly threaten to do so and thus force the collapse of all of the monopoly pricing models.
Specifically, the US must have "most-favored" nation pricing on all pharma products and surgical supplies, without exception.
All prices must be posted and everyone must pay the same price for the same thing.
All instances of collusion, price restraint and other monopolist behavior must be met with prison sentences, in every single case -- not fines which can be passed on to the consumer.
Jail has to be the consequence for such behavior -- EVERY SINGLE TIME.
If this is not done then eventually you will wind up with a feral environment -- a literal civil war -- or worse, as you cannot put the entire median and below earnings-capable population into permanent poverty by design when it's impossible to pay for that in perpetuity without those people eventually deciding that they are going to kill their oppressors -- and mobs of this sort tend to be rather indiscriminate in how they target such aggression.
This problem can be fixed, but not the way Siegel says. The reason is simple: The system has been set up in such a fashion that for the median person in America it is impossible for them to get out of the hole without solving this problem first.
There are answers however, and we can start right here.
That is, if there is anyone left in America willing to demand same, and stand behind that demand with a credible and immediate "or else" should Trump, Congress and the States refuse to immediately act to resolve it.
At the same time, should we take this on and resolve the issue, we permanently and immediately fix both the budget deficit and the "entitlement" explosion, plus the National and State debt issues.
You're welcome.
The never Trump folks are utterly insane.
Twatter is full of these clowns. Then again, the other side "whatever he does is fine" idiots are out in force too.
The US is disengaging from the UN's alleged "Human Rights" group. May I remind you who is on that committee these days?
China -- routinely persecutes, dispossesses and even imprisons religious minorities.
Cuba -- Need we really go there?
Nigeria -- Have you stopped the 419 scams yet?
Rwanda -- You're kidding, right? The most-recent genocide-committing nation is on the UNHCR?!
Saudi Arabia -- Have you stopped throwing gays off buildings yet? Oh wait -- you just imprison or execute them, right? It's your other Muslim friends that toss them off buildings.
South Africa -- As long as you're black you have human rights. Yeah, I know, the other side did it too. That makes it ok to do it now.
Venezuela -- Are you serious?
Decrying the Trump administration for erecting the middle finger to this "group" is now considered "turning out the shining light of America."
Never mind the well-documented rapes that the UN's so-called "peacekeepers" have committed upon various populations over the years. That fits right in with "human rights", yes?
This sort of rank stupidity, along with the frothing-mouth nonsense that has been engendered by the media over this and related issues (e.g. the very policy Hillary Clinton announced with regard to kids being used as human shields for illegals coming across the Mexican Border) has reached the point that frankly I'm shocked that there hasn't been a complete schism between groups in America.
May I remind you that such a schism is legal for either side to choose to engage in -- or both for that matter.
Starbucks wants to have its corporate mantra tied to political causes? So does Bezos? So does Google and others?
Well now, that could get rather messy and it's all perfectly legal as well.
Remember that liberals were allegedly all for American jobs -- right up until Trump started saying he was going to enforce fair trade principles against nations that screw their people so hard they commit suicide by jumping off buildings, and that if the corporations that profit from same get ****ed for sleeping with said prison-gang governments (cough-Apple-cough) that's just tough ****.
Then you have Mark Meadows who, along with Ted Cruz, are so outraged about families being separated at the border they've introduced legislation.
Where was the legislation when Obama was President? Or Clinton? Or Bush for that matter? The much-passed-around photo of kids on social media is from Obama's time in office, not Trump's. May I remind you that when you illegally cross a border you're not an asylum seeker -- you're a criminal? And oh by the way, Congress passed that law originally -- so are you really trying to tell me that the DOJ should ignore laws Congress passes?
Does that include ignoring the law when our government sells guns to drug lords? Because, you know, Eric Holder did that -- and it got a bunch of people, including children, killed. If you're so outraged why is that ******* still walking around a free man?
Asylum seekers present themselves at a border and ask for asylum.
Criminals, on the other hand, commit their first crime in illegally entering said nation.
Why do they do this? Because under International Law and long-standing principles of comity and respect for all nations if you're an asylum seeker you are supposed to present yourself at the first safe nation you reach and make your request.
For 99% of these people that would be Mexico, not the US.
But no! Instead we have a criminal nation to our South called Mexico that has repeatedly, maliciously and feloniously aided, abetted and trafficked in these people despite allegedly claiming to be a "safe nation" with whom we should trade freely, never mind that they screw their people blind ($3/hour -- and no benefits -- to build cars, eh?)
Oh, and a very material percentage of said children coming illegally via this method into the US are not with their parents.
Do you want to know what happened to them previously? We practiced "catch and release"; both kid and adult were let go, three to ten percent of them ever showed up for their hearings and most of the children disappeared entirely, never to be seen again or accounted for.
Want to know where they went? Many were traded and sold into sexual slavery -- as children, since their usefulness as a "mule" to get around US immigration law had expired as soon as we let both them and the adult(s) go inside the US.
We have absolutely no idea where most of those kids who were "caught and released" with the adults they were with have gone -- or what has become of them. While I'm sure some of them are in loving homes it's an utter certainty some of them have been sold into sexual slavery or worse, yes, right here in the United States. The people running illegals into this nation do not care about anything other than money and leveraging kids as weapons.
This is what the Democrats, Republicans in Congress and all those on Twitter screaming are actually demanding be allowed to be restarted and continue forever.
Let me be crystal clear: There are a bunch of *******s in this country who are demanding the continued systematic abuse of children as human shields and, when they're "used up" for their original intended purpose many of them are not reunited with families since those families are not in the US; they are instead trafficked and abused.
There is utterly no reason whatsoever for any legitimate asylum-seeker to not show up at a legitimate border crossing and make their claim. Those people are not being arrested because they've committed no crime. Some are denied entry at that specific moment in time but that's not a crime either, nor does it result in family separation.
It is the unlawful, criminal crossing into the United States that results in arrest and, when you're arrested you are separated from the others in your party, including if present, children.
Go rob a bank and tell me what happens -- you're separated from your children.
Go pull a carjacking and see what happens -- same deal.
Go run a couple kilos of heroin or fentanyl into the country, get caught, see what happens -- same deal.
Go stick up a liquor store and manage to get a whole $20 and see what happens -- same deal.
The difference here is that in this specific case these criminal invaders are intentionally taking children as human shields in a bid to evade arrest, prosecution and deportation. They are not presenting themselves at a border and claiming asylum.
They are monsters exactly as is the bank robber who grabs a kid and holds him or her in front of them so the cops don't shoot him and everyone who supports this crap are also monsters.
This crap must be permanently stopped and those who support this sort of nonsense no matter whether they're Democrat, Republican, Trumpers or Never-Trumpers deserve to burn in Hell, which is exactly where they're going to end up because they, along with Ms. I-like-raped-kids Bush and Hillary I-never-met-an-intern-bill-couldn't-blow Clinton are in fact advocating for the continued abuse of children, including by human traffickers who use said kids to gain entry into the United States at which point many of them, along with the kids, just flat-out disappear.
Again, let me point out that only somewhere between 3 and 10% of these people, depending on who's stats you believe, show up for their hearings. The other 90-97% disappear and cannot work at any legal job in the United States. They all undertake criminal lives to be present and live in the United States as there is no legal way for them to obtain a job, place to live and means of transportation such as a driver license when they abscond from their "asylum" hearing; are you really insane enough to believe that the children with them, nearly none of whom have any sort of documentation proving they are related to the adults, are anything more than weapons to be used in their criminal pursuits?
Maybe it's time for a hard schism in America -- it appears there simply is no way to bridge differences any longer. There is no "accommodation" to be reached with those who claim that abuse of kids as human shields is acceptable conduct or can be allowed to continue.
I don't give a flying **** what political affiliation you have, or whether you like Trump or not (and those who think I'm some sort of "ultra-conservative" or "trump-lover" ought to go read the last ten years of this column first) if you support the abuse of children for political purposes, and to be clear that's exactly what advocating for letting *******s who cross illegally into the nation using children as shields go free for one second amounts to, you are a ******ned monster and you have forfeited your humanity card, by your own hand and acts, long ago.