Tag: Tea Baggers

Florida, the State Where the Governor Ignores Voters, is Number One in Federal Healthcare Enrollment

Trish
The governor is the clown on the right

Floridians led the nation in signing up for health insurance on the federal exchange since its inception on Oct. 1. Almost 18,000 state residents from all backgrounds have enrolled, despite the refusal of far-right Republican leaders to facilitate access to health care for the uninsured, noted in a recent Tampa Bay Times editorial.

Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen. Gov. Rick Scott refuses to repeat his earlier support for Medicaid expansion, and House Speaker Will Weatherford refuses to hear the economic and moral arguments for accepting billions of federal dollars to cover the poor.

But thanks to healthcare.gov, residents don’t need the permission of state officials to do what’s best for themselves and their families. And they are doing just that.

Tampa Bay Times: ‘Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen’

Since the site launched at the beginning of October, 281,517 Floridians have taken the first step in applying for coverage and 75,480 are eligible for a subsidy to help pay for it, according to federal health officials… [Navigator Jodi] Ray said Florida applicants don’t fit a particular profile, so far.

“They’re not necessarily the sickly. They’re not necessarily the poor. They’re not necessarily the white or Hispanic. They are a whole range of demographics,” she said.

The numbers show the need among working age people and children. While Florida is first in federal health exchange enrollment, it is fourth in population, with many of its residents seniors who are presumably already covered by Medicare.

Finally! A Tea Party Leader Describes the Extreme Right’s Plan for Replacing the Affordable Care Act

Jon Ponder

The GOP/tea party has been promising for years to offer a proposal for replacing the Affordable Care Act with a plan that would move the country toward universal health care coverage. Now, at long last, one of the tea party’s best minds and most innovative thinkers has revealed the basics of the tea party plan for health-insurance reform. Here it is:

“The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health-care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there’s more competition, there’s less tort reform threat, there’s less trajectory of the cost increases, and those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It’s the far left. It’s President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care.”

Every word in this salad is either a lie or simply wrong, of course. […]

Still Waiting for That Other Apology

Trish

When I hear Bush apologize about being wrong about WMDs, I’ll give a shit whether or not Obama said he’s sorry.

@RudePundit, on Twitter, commenting on those being given air time to say Pres. Obama should apologize more because the Affordable Care Act website wasn’t fully functional when the health care exchanges became available on Oct. 1. The toll-free phone number, in-person “navigators,” and other venues in various states worked great on opening day, despite the 17-day tea party led government shutdown that began simultaneously.

3 Things to Know About Florida Politics Now

Trish
  1. Former Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is running for governor in 2014 as a Democrat. The official announcement was made in Crist’s hometown of St. Petersburg, and puts an end, not to speculation that Crist would run, but to when the campaign would begin. It’s on.
  2. Alex Sink (D), former state chief financial officer, who lost to Gov. Rick Scott (GOP/Tea) in 2010 by 1% in a campaign where Scott provided $75 million of his own money, announced she is running for Congress to fill the seat of U.S. Rep. Bill Young (R), who died in October. Sink claims a fundraising headstart, and if successful, will help chip away at the Republican majority in the House. Dist. 13, where Sink is running, is 37.7% Republican, 35.2% Democratic, 23.2% independent, and the rest “other.”
  3. Republicans are already gunning for both Crist and Sink. This promoted tweet from the Florida GOP went up as Crist was delivering his announcement:

Ted Cruz Is Covered under His Wife’s Goldman Sach’s Gold-Plated Health Insurance Policy

Jon Ponder

$40,000

Annual cost of health-insurance premiums paid by Goldman Sachs to cover Canadian Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) and his family. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, is the managing director of the Houston branch of Goldman Sachs, which received a $12.9 billion payout from the government’s bailout of AIG in 2008. The New York Times reported in 2009 that Goldman Sachs’ plans for executives and managing directors are worth $40,000.

South Carolina Senator Vows to Shut Down Government Appointments Because – Benghazi!

Jon Ponder
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham has a tea-bagger primary opponent in his campaign for reelection to the Senate from South Carolina next year, so he he is now threatening to shut down government appointments, including to top positions at the Federal Reserve and the Department of Homeland Security, because — Benghazi! He made the shutdown threat on Fox News last Sunday:

[…]

Good News, Bad News for Cruz

Trish

15 points

The rise in UNfavorability experienced by Sen. Ted Cruz (Tx-Tea) among Republicans who do not align themselves with the tea party, in a new Pew poll. In June, 16% were unfavorable to Cruz, while today, 31% are. The tea party itself also fell among Republicans, with only 27% of those who think of themselves as liberal or moderate Republicans approving of the movement, compared to 46% in June. The good news for Texanadian Cruz is that among the shrinking league of tea party members, his popularity rose from 47% to 74%.

John Oliver: 10% Approval But 90% Re-Election Rate? Yes.

Trish

John Oliver, of Daily Show fame, is also half of a funny, intelligent podcast called The Bugle. Comedian Andy Zaltzman, who lives in England, is the other half, and John recently explained our government shutdown to his countryman.

He particularly pointed out the depressing legacy of legislative redistricting, and how it’s left even the worst representatives invulnerable to losing office. Oliver:

It’s a pretty bold move for Congress to do something that pisses almost everyone off on this kind of scale for no kind of rational reason, but again, that’s hardly surprising. There is no incentive for them to be anything other than awful. Just look at the numbers.

Congress currently has a ten percent approval rating. Apparently that is lower than the approval rating for colonoscopies, which actually makes sense because the more you think about it, both Congress and colonoscopies deal with assholes, but the American public can at least acknowledge that colonoscopies serve a practical function.

Also, colonoscopies exist to make assholes better; Congress just seems to make them worse. And yet, Andy, and yet, even with this mere ten percent approval rating, members of Congress also have a ninety percent re-election rate. How is that fucking possible? Andy, they’re somehow batting 900 while striking out every time they’re at bat. That doesn’t obey the basic laws of mathematics.