If Donald Trump is "beaten" in whatever manner, with schoolyard rumor-mongering, through gotcha focus on misspoken words,through Republican manipulation, the Republicans will definitely lose because consumers now see the underbelly of Republican practice. Yet, the media promises that if Trump WINS then it doesn't look like he does well against Hillary Clinton. So,either way, the Republicans have rendered themselves as likely losers.
I'm disgusted because I believe we NEED two REAL parties and we haven't had that in a lot of years. The new Republicans are great lecturers. We're being played, being explained to, being told all the reasons why our votes don't count if we're considering Donald Trump. Whether it's the measured tones of Kasich who has no business continuing in the race EXCEPT to try to play the system as a seasoned politician or the newly found fondness former Cruz-haters have adopted that's as phony as the "loyalty pledge," the Republicans should and will lose if they manipulate the candidate, because we're not that stupid and few if any will support a party that dismisses voters.
And Democrats are no better, with talk of how Hillary is a shoe-in-- voters be damned.
But where does that leave us if Hillary is already President? It leaves us all unlearned, oblivious to the very strategy that brought us Obama and Obamacare--phony promises with an out of touch Republican party that's more stuck than even the most committed addict to ideas that have failed and failed and failed while leaving the "Democratic" field wide open to indulge their personal agendas pedaled to the American people on false morality, lies and half-truths that brought us-- well, Obama.
Hillary Clinton is running down that open rabbit hole as the newest Alice in the Democratic "Alice in Wonderland" where everything is some deranged version of reality.
After all, it's hard to talk seriously about "Democratic" values after eight years of Obama, an OBAMA presidency that has perpetrated the worst gutting of the non-government employee middle class in history with the gap between rich and poor at its greatest levels EVER, the number of people PARTICIPATING in the labor market at some of its LOWEST LEVELS EVER, where food stamps have been slashed (2014), unemployment benefits have been slashed (2014), taxes have gone up (payroll tax increase 2013), out of pocket maximums for health insurance have gone up (see latest increases for 2016), no social security cost of living increases leaving our seniors in peril (2016 benefit). And as for the idea of a representational federal government? Boy, that American value is taking a hit.
As consumers, we've never been more irrelevant. Even as the politicians spout their promises to Americans, we see the real reveal, the power-crazed egocentric pursuit of power with endless lectures we're receiving as to why our votes don't matter (and yet we're somehow supposed to believe that we do). Nonsense.
Where are the questions to Hillary Clinton about Obamacare and her Obamacare+ plan? Clinton intends to not only widen the gap between the entitlement payments to the individuals who use Obamacare exchanges at the expense of those with employer health insurance, (which already employee-only pays up to 9.5 and Obamacare only up to 8.5 of income, now Clinton wants to add a $5,000 tax credit to Obama exchangers only available to individuals paying over FIVE percent of their income PER FAMILY).
Are we listening? For those who purchase health insurance from an exchange not only will you get an Obamacare plan that can't cost more for self-only insurance than 8.5 percent of your income, but you'll get health insurance for your WHOLE FAMILY that can't cost more than 5 percent of your income or else you get the $5,000 credit. Plain English, everyone on the exchanges will get the 5 percent tax CREDIT. BUT NOT THE REST OF US.
The GAP between employer health insurance costs to consumer employees and Obamacare entitlement recipients will widen so that employees pay up to 9.5 percent of their income for self-only health insurance and can be charged any amount for family coverage BUT for exchange enrollees only up to FIVE PERCENT of their income for the whole family.
Employee health insurance will be worse than ever in comparison to the new Obamacare handout (https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/). Clinton gives a lukewarm nod to the most egregious Obamacare features for employees including the family glitch, the unemotional brutally dismissive label given to Obamacare's anti-family provision that insurance costs for employees must be limited to 9.5 percent of income for self-only health insurance but the sky's the limit for dependent coverage which meant that some employees could no longer afford purchasing health insurance for their families. Not only has the problem remained unfixed despite all the cheap manipulations and quick-fixes Obamacare has made to accommodate employers or insurers, or the IRS, but Clinton too shows a cold-hearted blindness to the plight of American employees faced with this Obamacare-created opportunity for employee gouging.
Clinton promises NOTHING but to try to improve access for those millions of people. It looks like her idea is to try to move more people onto exchanges by perhaps allowing those employees who cannot obtain "affordable" coverage from employers onto "exchanges." Naturally, she can't promise such a thing because Obamacare would have to be changed to accommodate such a shift, including provisions of Obamacare about the disparate guidelines provided for who can use the exchange which is only employees who can't get affordable health insurance, defined as up to 9.5 percent of income for self-only coverage and provides for employer fines if such "affordable" plans aren't offered to employees but doesn't penalize employers for over-charging families.
Clinton also ignores the fact that millionaires and richer can already gouge the entitlement system under Obamacare which omits an assets test in favor of an income test in terms of eligibility for handouts. This means that anyone who can manipulate income within the broad guidelines of Obamacare can get the federal government handout--even millionaires.
And while allowing the rich to get richer using the Obamacare handouts, Clinton has NO meaningful recommendation for covering the millions upon millions of poor people EXCLUDED from health insurance options, you know, the phony justification for Obamacare to begin with--the government's interest in "public" health. Whether a person is homeless or desperate or left out of Medicaid eligibility, those millions of people are left only with "permission not to be fined" for not having health insurance, not with any option of obtaining health insurance (see individual mandate exemptions).
Naturally, Obama ignores this stark failure of Obamacare, the leaving millions of the poorest and most desperate OUT of our healthcare system--sort of like ending unemployment benefits for those unemployed for longer periods of times so that they aren't counted as "unemployed," or ignoring a middle class beyond protecting a government middle class which leaves the government itself bragging that "...BENEFITS BETWEEN THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTTORS HAS BEEN GROWING IN FAVOR OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR," http://gogovernment.org/government_101/benefits.php.
Clinton also plans to push for more expanded Medicaid which remains a perilous alternative to those individuals who use Medicaid since states are currently PERMITTED to go after any individual's estate to clawback some of the money spent on their Medicaid and states are COMPELLED to go after the estates of those over 55 who use Medicaid to get back money. This clawback power will likely be expanded as the Federal rolls of Medicaid recipients balloon.
The Republicans are buffoons, "explaining" why people don't matter and have once again effectively rendered themselves to consumers as no choice at all while the Democrats pursue their self-interested brutality and call it "Democratic," knowing that they are the party of default, the only choice available. For consumers, we lose and that's the shame of it.
