could have had by now, if those multi-billions were spent in a decent, moral way.

this is a pretty smart move, as it leaves the left on the sidelines ... It is using the left's argument against Democrats and will not gin up single-payer support; it just amps up anti-ACA resistance.

they just want everyone busy fighting with each other so they don't notice the 1% (and really the top echelon of that 1%) are running off with all the money. They aren't even staying in this country anymore. They are hiding it offshore and buying apartments in Monte Carlo and Dubai ...

ETA - just to clarify my post I mean the people at the top don't really care about the issues - the fools at lower income levels voting against their own best interest do get caught up in them ...

They have ginned themselves up into the evil liberal thing so bad, who it is, what it is no longer matters.

Just DEFEATING the democrats for the sake of defeating them trumps all.

FAUX news may be on it's way out but it sure did a number on the less critical folks out there. It's a damned shame.

where we are as country right now.

A racist jackass manages to let his real thoughts outside of his head, and HE is the victim.

We have a tragic school shooting, the OVERWHELMING majority of the country wants reasonable gun restrictions and not only do we not get any, we get a new wave of laws LESSENING gun restrictions.

The right engages in an ENDLESS string of voter suppression laws and people almost literally could give a shit.

WE FINALLY get some form of health care reform for the most jacked up health care system on the planet, and liberals hide in the corner while republicans (and by extension the "liberal" media) have made it into something to endlessly negatively portray this president.

The republicans almost literally can't be any worse, and the best we can get from this people in this country is "they all suck ..."

It is all very disheartening.

have an annual salary of $174K or some such voted yesterday to not even consider raising the minimum wage of $7.25/hr. Let's assume they work 2000 hours a year. That is a pretty generous estimate because as we all know they are off half the time .. but let's just be generous and say those are the hours (8 hours/day, 5 days/week, 50 weeks a year - 2 weeks off). Even at that schedule, which we know doesn't happen, they are making $87.00/hour. And they won't even consider voting on whether actual laborers who do real work can go from $7.25 to $10.10. That is insane.

and we are doing OK, not rich, but OK.

But, sadly, as many low income people stuck in low wage crap jobs as not will ...

Steadfastly vote for the morons refusing to raise the minimum wage.

When health insurers give Republicans so much money? I mean, the health insurance industry really truly loves the GOP. There is no doubt about that. They managed to play ball with the Dems and get an ACA they could live with but only because they were forced to---the alternative would have been single payer. And we all know that the private health insurance industry will be throwing its full support behind the GOP in the next two elections, no matter what they may be telling Democrats in Washington to their faces. Their absolute biggest fear is Hillary Clinton as president and the health insurance industry will stop at nothing---and I mean nothing---to make sure that the Dems nominate someone else. Anyone else. Indeed, their motto is probably Anyone But Hillary.

So, you know what? If the Koch Brothers want to waste their money bad mouthing the private health insurance industry, more power to them. Most working folks--i.e. Democrats---will just be glad that they have insurance. If they bother to think about which hand feeds the health insurance industry, they will know that it is the Republican hand.

Just the amount of profits that the insurance industry has to disclose to its investors dwarfs the income of the Koch brothers by orders of magnitude. The amount of assets and income the industry hides from the government and investors might be twenty times that.

So if the Kochs are really trying to fold insurers in with President Obama, the industry will quickly push back, and--I'm not kidding about this--if they wish they can knock the Kochs straight the fuck out of politics for a decade, before this summer is out.

How? Turn on your television and you'll see the answer why. Aside from the Department of Defense, the largest television advertiser in America is the insurance industry, with its ducks and pigs and lizards. Collectively, they reach 200 million Americans every fucking day, spending more than the Kochs have ever spent on politics in less than a year. If the Kochs dare to take them on, they will be publicly demolished within weeks.

I don't think they're that stupid, either side of it. So my conclusion is that the Kochs are operating in collusion with the insurance industry, not against them. I can't see what the industry's contribution to this is yet, but I guarantee you it is there--or we won't even remember who the Kochs are in 2016.