Obamacare

JYProvocative Question #17 — Low Tech

Fandango21 Comments

Our host for the weekly provocative question challenge is Jewish Young Professional, aka JYP.

So what is her provocative question for this week? Well, without giving a definition of “low tech,” JYP asks us…

What was (or is) your favorite low-tech innovation?

If you live in an area like I live in, where, during the summers, temperatures average in the mid-to-upper 90s and where there are probably 10 to 15 days when they reach more that 100°F, then you, like me, might choose air conditioning as your favorite low-tech innovation.

I can’t deal with the extreme heat during the summer, so having central air conditioning keeps me going. Is air conditioning really “low-tech”? I don’t know, but since JYP left it up to us, I’m declaring it to be low-tech.

Who Won the Week? 06/20/2021

Fandango11 Comments

FWWTWThe idea behind Who Won the Week is to give you the opportunity to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

I often have difficulty, given the state of the world, picking a Who Won the Week winner. Not so this week, though. In fact, I have two winners this week: Juneteenth and the Affordable Care Act. Let’s take them one-by-one.

Juneteenth

This past week Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill, which President Biden signed into law, making June 19th a federal holiday. June 19th is known as “Juneteenth,” a day commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. It is also often observed for celebrating African-American culture.

Juneteenth celebrates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered and about 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Southern states.

It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983. One of the federal holidays, Inauguration Day, happens every four years.

Upon signing the bill into law, Biden said, “This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take.”

The Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act, also known as ACA and Obamacare, survived yet another challenge to the legislation passed under Barak Obama that provided health coverage to 31 million Americans who previously had none. This week the Supreme Court voted 7-to-2 to turn aside the latest effort by Republicans to kill the health care law.

And yet, for some reason that I just can’t fathom, after more than a decade as law and multiple failed challenges in Congress and efforts to have the Supreme Court kill the ACA, 77% of identified Republicans still disapprove of Obamacare.

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

A Rhetorical Question

Fandango20 Comments

2F163B24-41FA-41C7-AA25-6AC9CE320F15The above headline showed up on my iPhone’s newsfeed last night.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 2.5 million Americans and killed close to 128,000, and with new cases continuing to surge — as of yesterday the U.S. had hit a new record for daily coronavirus cases — Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), telling the Court that “the entire ACA must fall.”

Trump has pledged to follow through on his 2016 campaign promise to overturn Obamacare, a program that expanded by more than 20 million the number of Americans with health insurance, despite the ongoing pandemic. The White House brushed aside concerns about how dismantling Obamacare during the pandemic could worsen the crises, saying, “A global pandemic does not change what Americans know: Obamacare has been an unlawful failure and further illustrates the need to focus on patient care.”

Is that really what most Americans know? Of course not. In fact, the popularity of Obamacare is at an all-time high. Around 55% of Americans support the ACA. Most Americans are against the dismantling of Obamacare. Especially since Trump and the GOP have yet to come with anything that would be better than Obamacare.

What kind of sadistic bastard is Donald Trump to want to get rid of Obamacare when America is in the throes of its worse health crisis in 100 years?

That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.

Quick Question

Fandango15 Comments

Why are the Republicans in Congress so hell-bent on repealing Obamacare? Why do they feel compelled to take healthcare coverage away from so many American citizens.

Seriously, can someone — anyone — help me to understand why this is so goddam important to Republicans?

SoCS — Sealing the Ceiling

Fandango12 Comments

Image result for man painting the ceiling

“Please be careful up there,” she entreated me.

“Don’t worry, this ladder is very safe and secure,” I responded. “Besides, after that downpour on Thursday and the ensuing leak, someone’s got to get up here and take care of sealing this ceiling now that the roofer has fixed the roof.”

“I get it,” she responded, “but don’t forget that you lost your job and you don’t have any health insurance.”

“I can get coverage through Obamacare,” I noted.

“Well, I guess if you’re going to fall and break your neck while sealing the ceiling, better to do it now before the Republicans are successful in sealing the deal to repeal Obamacare.”

“Thanks for bumming me out,” I said. “Maybe the ceiling will come crashing down on the GOP in the midterms next year.”

“One can only hope,” she replied.

This post was written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt this week, where we are challenged to write a post using the words “sealing” and/or “ceiling.”