"Well I don't think US policy should be written to appease YOUR particular sense of spite"

It's restaurant week here in Baltimore. Extended from last week, I met with a few LayDees and one LayDee's new hubby at one of our Ruth's Chris for some din din that benefits a good cause. The conversation turned to healthcare. My friend's new hubby started the GOP mantra, "Well I don't want to see MY tax dollars go to help some woman who won't get off her ass and work for a living" He went on to say how he was in back of a woman in a grocery store who used food stamps and then got into a waiting nicer car, blah blah blah..."Well I don't think US policy should be written to appease YOUR sense of spite". I told him and my girlfriend to go quit their jobs and go on welfare if they think it's such a high fallutin' lifestyle.

I am not kidding, I watched his face change. By now, the tables around us are noticing, but we weren't screaming or anything. (The FAB-ulous gay couple sitting within arm's reach were even rooting for me). He then starting changing his stance to the "how are we gonna pay for it" mantra, and I asked how we're gonna pay for HMO CEO's hourly wage of $100,000.00 when the CEO demands a raise and a bonus.

Rationed care, he says. (The mo's are waving at me and texting, waving and texting. Hillarious) It *IS* rationed care now AND we ARE paying for it now. It's only gonna get worse if we don't DO something.

"Well I don't want the gov't between me and my doctor". I retort, "yeah, you just want that CEO and his his bean counters between you and your doctor". I'm throwing $100,000.00 per hour around like it's pizza dough. AND "Well I don't think US policy should be written to appease YOUR sense of spite"

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Clean the lies. We don't want grandma's choice be between real food or a can of alpo because that CEO needs a(nother) yacht. Again, the $100,000.00 per hour. I'm repeating this over and over and over because it was GETTING somewhere with them. For real.

The booth backing to ours actually interrupted. The lady at that table asked about the $100,000.00 per hour number and was I sure. I said yes I was, and I believe it was United Healthcare. Her son gets out his iphone and tells her he can look it up. We comment that we love the way their food looks, with "Oh, what this and that" typical restaurant jargon.

We go back to our table talk and banter, and not just healthcare. A while later, we hear the exclamation, "Mah, that guy makes a little bit MORE than $100,000.00 per hour. LOOK." He hands her his phone. My friend sitting across from me notices that everyone around us started taking out their phones and looking this up. The lady at that booth said, "She might not think US policy should be written to appease their particular sense of spite, but *I* don't think it should appease that guy's bank account"

I came home all fired up to post about this, because I was still pretty upset at the vindictiveness behind "not wanting to see" someone 'get' healthcare. There was a lot of "I work and I PAY for MY health insurance, and I want to know people are PAYING for theirs". It is so spiteful. Anyway this is what I now say to people who spew this, and this OP is my way of letting it out.

If you don't have some big-ass cable network dedicated 24/7 to spewing wrong-wing lies, then you have to do it by going from restaurant to restaurant, or checkout line to checkout line. One-on-one. And they can't sustain it, since all they hear are empty, hysterical lies. You, however, have some further inconvenient truths.

EXCELLENT JOB!!!

:patriot:

mouse only to run back here and have a pity party.

Hey, I just wrote a letter to the editor because my normally sane local newspaper ran a death panel political cartoon. We aren't all just in here venting to the choir, you know :-)

As someone who worked my ass off for years without insurance, and who's had a couple of minor problems getting insurance to cover things when I did have it, it really pisses me off when people say that the only people uninsured are too lazy to work.

Next time, remind them that the person who cooked his steak and washed his dishes and served him probably came to work sick because they most likely don't have sick days OR health insurance and can't afford to take time off. Hell, I've had restaurant managers order me to come in, even when I was so sick I was puking all over the place.

How little they seem to understand how the world really works, and that pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps is literally impossible.

That might be the case if the playing field were level, but it's not. In fact, the field is getting more & more skewed to favor the rich every day. They have better education, more opportunities, better networking, dozens of little things that don't seem like much, but add up to a huge advantage that not everyone has. And yet they pat themselves on their back, with their self righteous "I'm better than you slackers" attitude.

And I know it's not impossible to better your lot with some hard work, BUT (and this is the part the right tends to forget) it's not an automatic or guaranteed thing, or anywhere near it. You can bust your ass every day, go to school, do everything right and still not become rich. Or you can be rich through no hard work or success on your own (see: George Bush).

It's amazing. Do conservative actually believe there is a direct 1:1 correlation between someone's actions and the success they achieve?

:puke:
Good Lord...

Give Mr. Hubby that paragraph,
and maybe he'll see the sense of spending
HIS hard-earned money on universal health care
and mandatory paid sick leave, as well...

Hey, stranger things have happened! :shrug:

and have no access to insurance. That is a bullshit thing to say. I don't know anyone who doesn't want insurance... the young ones (like I used to be) who made minimum wage and barely ahd enough to get by tend to forego it because they are young and healthy and feel invincible perhaps... but they are not lazy. This is their way to justify their selfishness... just like the meme about all those welfare queens and black folks sitting at home collecting welfare I get to hear from my family members. If the person is lazy and not trying.... then these folks can feel morally superior and feel justified in their selfishness.

restaurant theater - with a big dose of education to boot.

Good job!

We must counter the bullshit. Every Single Day.

:bounce:

:fistbump:

:applause: :yourock:

:toast: to you for speaking up!

Recommended.

"The mo's..." Wazzat mean?

is my guess

'Mo, short for Homo. Either way you slice it...

I am theatre girl twenty years and counting, and this is common term. Even Rachel Maddow has said 'mo on her show. It's actually where we all got it.

for twunny though, honey, and I PROMISE you this is not a dig.

It is not that way around here. promise. Pinky promise.

In this sense, it's more of a term of endearment, but I guess it could be used in a derogatory manner. But it'll never have the same punch as "Homo", "Fag" or "Teh Gay". It's just too damn cute.

It was not used in any fashion other than derogatory.

Not sure anyone actually says "teh gay", but that is more like making fun of the hate email writers and those who still proffer the myth of homosexual recruitment.

In fact, my best 'mo is known as "slow 'mo" since it takes him longer to get ready than anyone else. When he's late, he texts, "Slow 'mo comin'. Look out, slow 'mo comin'". My other friend, who went for three years practically loveless met a guy and they were an instant "couple" are now referred to as what I think is a bit pejorative: Lesmo. But even that is not meant to be mean to anyone. Our lesbian friends COINED IT for them.

It MAY be one way thirty years ago in east Texas. But that does NOT make it that way here.

Those are golden.

Willfully ignorant bigots are lower life forms. Unevolved and doomed to remain so - they are the dog shit on the bottom of our shoes.

The religiously insane have had some success in indoctrinating their kids to hate "Teh Gay", but most born after 1980 could give a damn about the 'moes - they were kept on outrage overload for so long, they burned out, got over it and grew up with gay friends. There are so many other things to worry about - things that actually affect them personally and daily, why wallow in hatred over who other people are boinking? There's bills to pay, bosses to placate, kids to feed and clothe and we're all drowning together, thanks to BushCo*. We have far more in common than we have differences.

It is my experience that only those (males) in their 50's and 60's are obsessed with the butt-sex, and it's a very unhealthy obsession they've got. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was projection in 9 out of 10 cases - and they keep proving my theory.

It's been a long time coming, but bigotry is no longer socially acceptable in our society. Sure there are pockets (and will always be), but their own kids are asking "WTF is your problem. They're people, just like us."

because, lawdy, lawdy, it wouldn't be a righteous liberal rant without some of those theatrical mo's to back you up! Too bad there weren't no nigra's to make a trifecta.

I see you have no grasp for plural, so I'll go ahead and explain the matter. In a brief essay such as the OP, one tends to see two main styles of writing:

Either the dry news report style with the basic information on the time, place, and participants, or the somewhat more endearing artistic spin, where the writer uses adjectives, proverbs, and many other tools in their linguistic arsenal to enchant the story with emotions.

I figure if the agreeing party was a gigantically obese man of 600 lbs, this would be pointed out to reflect the situation. In this case, it happened to be, and I quote, a 'FAB-ulous' couple, which I understood as a couple not one bit concerned with the closet. That's something that enriches the story, and the context in which it was mentioned was mildly humorous, if anything.

I know discrimination is a bitch, I'm forever branded as a member of an ethnic minority myself. Still, that doesn't mean that any and all mention of the fact that people are not the same is a giant hating conspiracy.

Equality won't come when you enforce taboos into the subconscious, it won't come with tolerance. It will come with acceptance, when "gay" isn't going to mean any more than "German" or "sleepy".

KUDOS LaydeeBug!!

k&r!!

:hi:

irrational, spiteful idiots like that guy. The contrast is beautiful to behold.

Thank you for showing that contrast to the folks in the restaurant. :)

And it illustrated one thing that really pisses me off. Seems to me that if a person pays for groceries with food stamps, anyone else who notices this fact always feels the need to do things like:

1. note what the person is buying with the stamps

2. not how the person is dressed

3. note how many kids the person has (if the person has kids)

4. note what kind of car the person is driving (assuming the person has a car)

and you can bet that judgments are passed based on that. If the person buys anything other than absolute necessities within the limits of food-stamp rules, or even, say, a name brand vs. a store brand; if the person isn't dressed in complete rags; if the person has more than maybe two kids; and the person steps afterward into a car that is anything less than a clunker on its last legs, they roll their eyes at the checkout person or the next person in line as if to say "Can you BeLIEVE????" And then they save up the memory to recite at the next social gathering at which anyone expresses a twinge of concern or empathy for the poor.

"Well, I saw a woman just ahead of me pay for her groceries with food stamps the other day--and I saw what was on the belt--and I could've given her advice on how to get more food for her money, that's how spendthrift she was! And she was not exactly dressed in rags, either--her clothes looked damn nice to me! And then she has these four squalling brats, and she doesn't look a day over 25--you tell ME how you get four kids before age 25 unless you're just having sex with every Tom, Dick and Harry with no birth control! And THEN--and THEN she leaves the store and I see her walk out and get into a late-model car that looks nicer than the piece of crap I've been driving for years! I'm sorry, but you tell me we should feel pity for these people? They're living better than I am!"

Yeah, they sure are. You bet. Because, of course, it's not like that woman could have lost her job through no fault of her own, or like two of those kids might be her sister's whom she agreed to babysit while her sister worked. And then her working sister said "Look, as long as you're shopping, why don't you use my car? It's more reliable than yours. You can come pick me up after I get off." And maybe advised her "When you do go out, wear some of your nicest clothes, OK, hon? I don't want to see you out there dressed in your worst clothes just because you're depressed over having no job. Hold your head up high. I love you, OK?"

The point being: One of the great advantages of NOT being poor enough to need food stamps is that you know people aren't going to assume they have the right to pass judgment on you for what you buy, how you look, how many kids you have and what kind of car you drive every time you go out to buy groceries. It's something most of us take for granted. But it sure is nice.

Me? I don't care what people buy with food stamps. I assume that if they're buying with stamps they're probably selfconscious about it, or may be, so I deliberately mind my own business if I get a glimpse of them. But that's the LAST thing I assume. I don't assume I know their whole life story and have a right to pass judgment on what they're buying or whether they "need" food stamps or not. I do this because if the day ever comes when I need them, I'm sure many people will wonder why I don't look like I'm on my last legs or like I "need" them. I know I'm not going to protect myself against their judgment just by not judging myself, but at least I can practice now the kind of treatment I'd like to get were I in their shoes.

The problem with too many people is that they can't imagine being in the shoes of such a person. Yet they so easily could be. They just don't want to think about it.

...that food stamps be phased out, and replaced with a debit card system.

That's what my state does now for unemployment comp:
If you don't opt for direct deposit to your own bank account,
they set you up with one, and issue you a card to draw on it.

Maybe they could do the same with the food stamp system?

As long as they don't put a design on it that somehow manages to scream,
"WELFARE CASE!!!" from twenty blocks away, maybe, just maybe
your troubles won't be quite so obvious to total strangers?

I don't know. Might cause more problems than it solves, but... who knows?

Someone I know who gets 'food stamps' has a card with a certain amount of credit (for food only of course) placed on it each month. It's a much improved system I believe.

The only ways someone behind me in the checkout line can tell
my food stamp card isn't a credit/debit card is that I enter a pin number
on the touch pad instead of signing an authorization slip.

I remember having food stamps, and it's AWFUL!! standing there counting out food stamps while people stand behind you giving you that glare. The last time we had food stamps they were on EBT cards (electronic benefit card). I do not have food stamps now... we make too much. But you see people with them in the store.... and people DO notice still.

The thing is, it takes a lot of pride swallowing to go into social services and apply for food stamps or medicaid.... I have been on both. And you feel like a piece of crap for doing it... and whether they are or not, you feel like the workers are looking down at you.... it's awful. When I was on medicaid, I swear when I went to the doctor or the mental health clinic they would say very loudly as if so everyone could hear... 'i need to see your medicaid card'. It's like... do you have to shout it. maybe I should wear a sign on my back so everyone knows I am on medicaid. It's very humiliating.

But the EBT card is a big improvement.... works just like a regular credit/debit card and is quick and easy.

but it wasn't tremendously long ago. And when I did, I just didn't think about it further.

It is amazing how embedded that nonsense became in the minds (?) of ignorant Americans (and not just Republicans!)

You said HMO's CEO's salary so that is what I checked up on. Here is a quick summary of my findings.
Howard Phanstial CEO of Pacific Care $3.38 million
Larry Glassrock CEO of Wellpoint $25 Million
Edward Hanway CEO of CIGNA $13.3 Million
John Rowe CEO of AETNA $22.2 Million
Stephen Hemsley CEO of United Health care $3.3 Million
William McGuire CEO of United Health Group $124.8 Million.
While none of these make $100,000. per hour the total of all of them is $192 Million and that comes to a little over $92,000. per hour if you figure a forty hour week for fifty two weeks a year.. I am sure I did not get every HMO's CEO Salary so it would appear your number of $100,000. per hour is actually a low figure...
This does not include ANY Insurance CEO numbers either..

However you are correct, they should be added as some are added each and every year.. As high as these hourly figures are for the Industry, they do not hold a candle to a single company in the Oil Industry. Exxon for example makes a NET PROFIT of OVER a Hundred Million Dollars a Day,And notice gas prices are beginning to climb once more.. The same as health Care Costs by the way..

And a good example of why we should all know our stuff and have it together when we go out in public.

Well done :applause:

because Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease(aka mad cow) can be acquired through eating brains!

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease  / –noun Pathology. a rare, usually fatal brain disorder caused by an unidentified pathogen and characterized by progressive dementia, blindness, and involuntary movements.

I've seen you say this now several times and my advice would be to at least cut back. :rofl:

Some kind of free-radical, nanobot "virus" thing.

Who knows?

He calls us on the Left whiny for making the public option our line in the sand on healthcare reform. He and Ed Schultz got into a hot debate last night on MSNBC.

:dem:

-Laelth

would get some illness (okay, not fatal) and go bankrupt and lose their house trying to pay their medical bills. THEN see what they have to say.

you did better than many of our elected officials.

Well played.

Always nice to see some minds enlightened.

:yourock:

thank you!!!!!

"The conversation turned to healthcare. My friend's new hubby started the GOP mantra, "Well I don't want to see MY tax dollars go to help some woman who won't get off her ass and work for a living" He went on to say how he was in back of a woman in a grocery store who used food stamps and then got into a waiting nicer car, blah blah blah..."Well I don't think US policy should be written to appease YOUR sense of spite". I told him and my girlfriend to go quit their jobs and go on welfare if they think it's such a high fallutin' lifestyle."

Exactly. These people never, ever stop bitching about the non-working who collect some sort of meager, bottom of the barrel benefit from the government. If they think it's such a great deal for those collecting the benefits, they are wholeheartedly encouraged to quit work and sign up.

Otherwise, shut the hell up.

I hope you don't mind me reposting this on a couple of other sites.

I'm not gonna post it as my own story, but I'm not sure if I wanna post the source, DU, as it will send the RWers apeshit and I don't want them to move or delete that thread.

LOL

Costing You?"

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/06/paying_more_get.html

"Of the additional overhead in the current U.S. system, approximately half is borne by doctors’ offices and hospitals, which are forced to maintain large billing and negotiating staffs to deal with all the plans. By contrast, under Canada’s single-payer system (which is run by the provinces, not by the federal government), each medical specialty organization negotiates once a year with the nonprofit payer for each province to set fees, and doctors and hospitals need only bill that one payer."

THATS AWESOME. THESE HC CORPORATIONS AND FOXNEWS + MANY OTHERS HAVE MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS INVESTED IN SEEING PEOPLE SUFFER IN ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT REPUBLICAN "CLASS WARFARE" BUT TRUTH AND JUSTICE SHALL PREVAIL.

"Keep-a-goin'!"

I'll bet your dinner invites come with caveats from now on, but...hell yeah!

:yourock:

on Facebook right now, with a friend to which I have reconnected from years ago. (one should note that he is a huge Reagan fan).

He doesn't want to pay for the health care (with his tax dollars) of those who "pop out babies like fleas", "can't walk away from a cheeseburger", "or smoke". To which I responded, we all engage in health risk behavior, so should we not pay for the healthcare of the person in the car accident because they were driving distracted while on their cell phone (I talked to him the previous night, while he was driving to an event), should we not pay for the health care of the person who failed to get a flu shot (perhaps because they could not come up with the $25.00) but yet contracts the flu? So the question becomes, just how does he make the decision on who gets healthcare and who doesn't?

Having watched the Obama town hall during the day, I also used information that a single payer would be cheaper as Medicare runs with less overhead, but I haven't gotten to his responses yet on that.

My other argument was lifting the burden of healthcare off of business to make them more competitive in the world market, using GM and their troubles as an example. (it's hard to be competitive when you have $2500.00 per unit in legacy costs built in to each new car).


:hi:

Even though reason is usually wasted on someone with those kinds of attitudes and manufactured fears.

I wouldn't be as quick on my feet as you were. You had the good answers.:fistbump:

That's:

1,000 mammograms an hour.

or

30,000 flu shots an hour.

or

Half of the median dentist's yearly salary.

or

Enough money to pay for a year of health care for 14 Americans every hour. Multiply taht by a 40 hour work week and that's enough health care for 560 Americans. Take that out to a year and it's more than 29,000 Americans.

29,000 Americans could have health care (at $7,000 per year) for the UnitedHealth CEO's salary. That crap has got to stop.

I always lose it and start spanking them.:spank:

This is exactly what needs to be done. We need to break it down for them. I had a similar conversation with my FIL last week and I have no doubt that he is seeing things in a different light. I really think you nailed it when you pointed out the vindictiveness behind not wanting to see someone get health care. I really believe that much of this spite comes from the fact that people need a target of blame that they can see with their own eyes. That CEO is not part of their reality and they lack the ability to see the bigger picture. Besides, it is much easier to blame powerless than it is to blame the powerful. Great post!!!

Thanks for the example. Way to go.

They have been using debit cards since the late nineties. There is no way he could have known if the person was paying with food stamps, unless it happened years ago.

at least in NY. Our benefits cards have your picture on them and everything. Unmistakable. Unless they have a different system there... but most people could tell an EBT card here anyway.

It sounds like he made up the story as his own, but really heard it from Beck, Boortz, or Hannity.

every time my family makes these kind of comments to remind them that I have been on food stamps.... so when they are talking about these people, they are talking about ME. i am trying to get them to see the idiocy of the bs they say... they always try to justify it as somehow different when it's me. it isn't different. there are a couple of people i have personally known who abused the system.... but even though i have personally known people who abuse the system, i know that they are a small minority blown up to make it seem like ALL people on food stamps or welfare are like that.... most people who are receiving assistance want to get on their feet and get off assistance. as someone who has been on it, i know how hard it is. they don't wean you off... slowly take you off of it as you start to be self sufficient... If you make any amount of money they just cut you off. So, a single parent with three kids who has to put those kids in daycare and is working at walmart making minimum wage may very well end up getting cut off completely even though she isn't making enough to even survive. I wish there were a way to help people to get to a point where they can sustain themselves without creating a cycle where they are teetering on the edge even as they are trying to get on their feet.

Keep up the good work. People like you are what makes this country great.

passionate/angry/loud when confronted with these eejits.

I love your command of the language and facts.
THANK YOU!!!

I was the exec asst to the CFO of a large not for profit health care system. They made a LOT of money but provided a LOT of free care. I personally saw my boss write off about $22 million in free care every year. Here was a typical case:

Single mother of two. Waitress. No health insurance (of course). She fell and fractured her leg. She needed ER services, orthopedist services, pharmacy services, physical therapy services and she was an inpatient over night. Her bill was about $20,000. We didn't even attempt to set up a payment plan. We wrote it off.

Now who in their right mind would think that this woman could afford to insure her little family? And chose not to so she could drive a "nice" car? She road the bus. Her kids were 8 and 10 and she couldn't even afford child care, which is against the law in this state to leave a child under 13 alone. But she had to risk it, because she just didn't have the money.

I hate these people. They care NOTHING for the plight of their fellow man. And I bring that to their attention every chance I get.