Working Poor STILL Can’t Afford Health Insurance!

Ah, yes – five years ago, the battle cry was Affordable Health Insurance for all the po’ folks who can’t afford it! And now…..

It’s called the Affordable Care Act, but Obama’s health care law may turn out to be unaffordable for many low-wage workers, including employees at big chain restaurants, retail stores and hotels.

That might seem strange since the law requires medium-sized and large employers to offer “affordable” coverage or face fines.

But what’s reasonable? Because of a wrinkle in the law, companies can meet their legal obligations by offering policies that would be too expensive for many low-wage workers. For the employee, it’s like a mirage — attractive but out of reach.

By the way – policies that young, healthy, low-wage earners could afford are outlawed – too bare-bones for the Nannies-That-Be.

The law is complicated, but essentially companies with 50 or more full-time workers are required to offer coverage that meets certain basic standards and costs no more than 9.5 percent of an employee’s income. Failure to do so means fines for the employer.

Who can chop 10% off the top of their paycheck these days?

… (Full-time work is defined as 30 or more hours a week, on average.)

And there is why hours are so tough to get – some places used to have 32 hours as full-time, some had 33 or 36 – and employees got used to seeing 30, 32, or 35-hour paychecks.

But now Bo has decided full-time will be 30 hours… I see a lot of 29-hour workweeks ahead….

Or – companies that have a heart can schedule 20 hours at regular times…. so an employee can go out an find a second job, and dovetail the hours of their two jobs, in order to pay their rent.

But do the math from the worker’s side: For an employee making $21,000 a year, 9.5 percent of their income could mean premiums as high as $1,995 and the insurance would still be “considered” affordable.

Even a premium of $1,000 — close to the current average for employee-only coverage — could be unaffordable for someone stretching earnings in the low $20,000′s.

And the kicker:

Another thing to keep in mind: premiums wouldn’t be the only expense for employees. For a basic plan…

- that would be the only kind a low wage-earner could envision purchasing -

… they could also face an annual deductible amounting to $3,000 or so, before insurance starts paying.

All of which I said back before this became “Law”. It is amusing that Nancy Pelosi still does not deign to notice this aspect of the bill she “passed, so she could see what’s in it.”

I don’t know anyone making, oh, say, $17,000 – the general amount a fairly full-time Wally World employee might make – who would be able to carve out $2000 for a fee every year, whether he used it or not. Of course, “whether he used it or not” is really moot, because there will be a HEFTY deductible each year, adding to the cost our low-wage earner will need to chisel out of his meager earnings.

So, $1000 – $2000 each year to pay for everyone ELSE’S health care….. and then pay for your own health care to boot, up to $2000 – $3000 in any given year, EVERY YEAR.

Yeah, that’s Affordable.

UPDATE: a Commenter at Hot Air left this:

Actual post from a Prog on Craig’s List:

‘What Obamacare did for me:

I thought it would be great, free health insurance, then I got a job. Boss says 28 hours a week is all they are offering now because over 30 requires insurance. Great, 30% pay cut right off the bat. But it gets better. My 28 hour week gives me about $18,000 a year which is too much for any government insurance.

So now BY LAW I HAVE TO BUY MY OWN ($5,000) or pay a fine. I’M FVCKED AND EVERY YEAR THE FINE GOES UP. SO WHAT I THOUGHT WAS A SWEET DEAL TURNED INTO AN ASS FVCKING.

Thanks, Obama. I wonder how many people like me turn 27 and find out YOU SCREWED US?’

 

 

Al Gore to Al Jaz

Thank you, greedy bastard Al Gore, for selling your “Current” “network” to AL JAZEERA. Sure, Time-Warner immediately cancelled their “Current” coverage, but Comcast hasn’t, and there’s still somewhat of a “network” left. Sooooo……

Al J. is now opening “bureaus” in TWELVE American cities (according to Politico, they’ve announced one in Chicago, one in Detroit, and will announce the rest of these as time goes on):

New York
Washington
Miami
Nashville
Chicago
New Orleans
Detroit
Dallas
Denver
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Seattle

They will have their filthy presence spread all throughout this country, which was previously a non-existent presence …. except for you and your greed, Al G. You just HAD to get lotsa undeserved money for your lame failed experiment in lib./prog. programming.

Thanks.

Genius Awards

A Middle School principal in Massachusetts has canceled the school’s Honors Night…

“The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients’ families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade point average,” he wrote in a letter to parents.

Also…

…because academic success can be influenced by the amount of support a student receives at home and not all students receive the same level of emotional and academic support at home.

Sooooo…. he’s decided to include the honors ceremony with a previously planned end-of-the-year assembly where exceptional students will be recognized IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE STUDENT BODY.

This will make the losers feel better HOW?!?! With the previous arrangement, ‘runner-up’ students would know about the awards, but they could give it little attention, thus softening the blow of their loss. But Mr. Genius Principal here will now make the crowning of the Intellects a school-wide event! Hard to see where that will help the disadvantaged……

Let the Sequestering Begin…!

The Bo Dizzle likes to spend money, and gets cranky as a toddler when the purse strings get tightened. So now that his administration looks to be forced into the Sequestration budget cuts, he is looking to take it out on the American citizens. Here’s one fun way:

Advocates reported “waves” of illegal immigrants being released from at least three detention centers in Texas, Florida and Louisiana.

U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement confirmed the release of some illegal immigrants Monday night but would not say how many or from which detention centers.

~ Kansas City Star, courtesy limitstogrowth

How many is that….?

The intervening time has brought more details. A report from Texas says that “several hundred” illegals have been freed from that state.

In Arizona’s Pinal County, Sheriff Paul Babeu reported that ICE released more than 500 alien detainees in that county alone over the weekend.

~ limitstogrowth

It’s worth going there, just to read Sen. Jeff Sessions’ comments – perfect, but too long to grab & post here.

And to prove that’s not just an outlier, here’s Janet Napolitano:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 border control agents under mandatory spending cuts, likely allowing more illegal immigrants into the country and potentially compromising national security.

Napolitano said the cuts, known as the sequester, would disrupt the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to conduct customs inspections at ports, leading to increased waiting times for travelers and cargo shipments. Disaster relief funding would be reduced by $1 billion, she added, meaning relief for victims of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy and tornados in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., could be cut. …

~ Washington Post, via Hot Air

So Bo holds a private (NO media, before, during, OR after!) meeting with a bunch of Governors…. who are NOT happy with the Administration’s ideas for Sequester Cuts.

“I could not be more frustrated than I am right now,” [South Carolina Gov. Nikki] Haley told reporters after the meeting. She said that when she asked Obama if he would consider a last-minute plan to shave about 2 percent from the annual federal budget without increasing taxes, the answer was “no.”

“My kids could go and find $83 billion out of a $4 trillion budget,” Haley said. “This is not rocket science.”

…

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal added that Obama seemed bound and determined to use the sequestration fight to win higher taxes, willing to hold out the prospect of painful cuts to accomplish his goal.

“I think the president is trying to force us into a false choice,” Jindal said. “The reality is, there is no reason for these cuts to be made this way.” Obama could instruct his Cabinet to emphasize cuts to spending on things like consultants, Jindal said, and not on things like Head Start. “It is the president’s job as the chief executive to prioritize.”

Well, he IS prioritizing…. in his own personal way.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said the governors asked Obama to come up with better cuts, or even to delay future spending, like the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare, if the budget situation is as dire as the administration says. “The answer to everything we got was no,” Haley said.

~taken directly from Hot Air

Will keep you updated as I find more exciting Sequester Cuts to come!

Gun Control Answers, with Updates

Well, Piers Morgan is a Brit who messed up in his own profession, in his own country, and came to the U.S. in order to begin again in his profession. So it is really no surprise that he’s messing up here, too…!

Having scored his own show, on CNN, Piers has taken a high-profile stance advocating lots of gun control in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. In this video (plays automatically; scroll down a bit to watch) Ben Shapiro (of Breitbart) pwns him repeatedly. Enjoy!

Then read Jim Treacher’s view of the epic battle. Lol!!

… Will update as I collect the other Answers to Gun Control…

UPDATE:

In response to Piers Morgan’s assertion that British gun laws are superior to America’s, here is a nine-minute video describing the effects of the British laws.

I love this quote from their Member of Parliament, talking about the case of a man defending his rural home from burglars, inside his home, who went to prison because he was a good shot:

“I have every sympathy. I genuinely do. But I can’t say that the law shouldn’t be what the law was. What I can say now, is, because of that, we ought to review that particular law.”

WTF?!? “It was a good and necessary law. Yesterday. But Today we need to try to change it. And I stand by my multiple positions, refusing to acknowledge my overweening hypocrisy.”

UPDATE 2:

A firearms instructor points out (in a great video…. For The Record!) that the Sandy Hook shooting was not done by any rifle, let alone a Bushmaster AR-15. Final reports say it was done with four pistols, and the long weapon (he explains why it was a shotgun) was left in the trunk.

This brings us back to the persistent media-pulling-the-wool-over-our-eyes, that I first became aware of in the ’90′s. Early Sandy Hook media reports mentioned the long gun found in the trunk of the car, but subsequent reports kept saying how an AR-15 was used in the attack. How, when, why did the truth get buried, instead of brought to light?

The only answer is the willful misdirection by reporters who had an agenda they wished to emphasize.

Okay – gotta go – will update more as time goes on…..

UPDATE 3:

Stephen Colbert had Piers Morgan on his show (scroll down to watch the vid), and Piers uttered a fascinating statistic. I will paraphrase, because I just don’t feel like transcribing the segment:

England, which has “zero” guns, has 35 – 40 gun murders each year. The U.S. has about 300,000,000 guns, and has about 11,000 – 12,000 gun murders each year.

Piers and Stephen went on to suggest that there was no need to wait for emotional reactions to Newtown to subside, or for cooler heads to prevail. But….

Taking a calm moment to LOOK at those statistics Piers bandied about, we can see that England has no guns, but somehow 35-40 people are killed by them each year. On the other hand, for each person murdered by a gun in the U.S., there are 249,999 guns that hurt nobody.

UPDATE 4:

A NY senator (who voted against the gun control law),  speaking to the NYS Senate (2:57) [someday I will learn to embed..... but not today!]

ACLU Heads In A New Direction

Edited with extreme prejudice for today’s short attention spans (you’re welcome!):

… the ACLU is now largely run by Muslims.

“The ACLU was founded on the basis that there shouldn’t be any blasphemy laws,” said Steve Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.  “Yet in the last 10 years, they’ve appointed (to their boards) members of the Muslim Brotherhood who believe in blasphemy laws.”

The top Muslim lawyer in ACLU’s stable is Jameel Jaffer, who now heads the ACLU’s Center for Democracy after heading its National Security Project. He happens to be pals with Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the Egyptian founder of the radical Muslim Brotherhood (who was denied a visa in 2004 after “allegedly” raising funds for Hamas terrorists.)

Among his “accomplishments”:

Jaffer successfully sued the U.S. to get Ramadan’s visa restored.

And then picked him up at the airport and carted him all around NYC. Pals. Best buds.

He  successfully sued the U.S. to reveal CIA secrets for interrogating terror suspects.

In 2010, Jaffer personally helped CAIR raise $130,000 at a Dearborn, Mich., fundraiser…

Jaffer has lobbied the Justice Department to remove CAIR and other Brotherhood and Hamas front groups from its blacklist of groups complicit in a criminal conspiracy to raise money for terrorists.

That would be the List Of Un-Indicted Co-Conspirators from the Holy Land Trial. (In response, the judge entered the entire list into the record so it would be able to be publicly released – not just the top three or four names.)

He’s also pressured the FBI to purge names of Muslim terrorist suspects from the no-fly list.

What’s more, Jaffer wants to deny the feds one of its most effective weapons in the war on terror — freezing the assets of terrorist front groups.

He’s also sued to kill the government’s drone program, perhaps its most effective weapon of all.

~ From Investor’s Business Daily, hat tip: Creeping

In the case of the low-budget Muhammed film (the 14-minute “trailer” released last summer), the ACLU released no comment about the railroading of the American filmmaker’s  rights….. and when called for a comment by The Daily Caller,

It said it was “concerned” about the White House request to censor the “repellant film.”

Which clearly shows which side they were standing on….!

Is Jaffer the only one?

The ACLU now counts at least eight on its national executive staff alone. In fact, a Muslim runs the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, while another heads its National Security Project.

So, really, there’s no need to wonder why the ACLU no longer seems to defend American rights – it’s moved on to defending muslim entitlements.

Election Humor For You…!

Here is a link to a video from the Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. This is an annual white tie charity fundraiser for Catholic Charities USA. When it is held in a Presidential election year, the tradition is for both candidates to speak.

I wasn’t going to bother hunting down the Bo D.’s speech (as could be expected, it’s a bit lame), but I found it while looking for info. on the Dinner event. So, here it is…. he’s best when poking fun at himself… especially his own debate performances! Although, everyone’s favorite clown, Joe B., does provide material for at least one joke.

However, in the second clip, Mitt Romney rocks! I will let you enjoy that on your own, but here are a few notes:

As a Mormon, Mitt doesn’t drink – several jokes make reference to this…

The advertized “lowest unemployment numbers in four years”, is only so low because one state was left out of the mix: California, the biggest population state in the Union. Hmmm….!

And Romney’s dad was Governor of Michigan… and Romney, himself, was governor of Massachusetts for one term – then he went on the fix the Utah Olympics.

That is Katie Couric (formerly NBC, now ABC) sitting right behind to the left of the podium. As Mitt’s video begins, it appears that Obama has just finished speaking, and each candidate ended his speech with a minute or so in praise of the Dinner itself, so the applause is particularly strong at that moment.

My personal favorites might be the Sesame St. references….!    : )      But his comments about the Press are a close runner-up…!