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Trump and healthcare


kscarbel2

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Reuters  /  March 13, 2017

Fourteen million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare that would also reduce the budget deficit, the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on Monday.

The CBO report forecast that 24 million more people would be uninsured in 2026 if the plan being considered in the House of Representatives were adopted. Obamacare expanded insurance to about 20 million Americans.

The report could influence sentiment toward a bill already under fire from Democrats and some Republicans, who have long vowed to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

The CBO projected that 52 million people would be uninsured by 2026 if the bill became law, compared with 28 million who would not have coverage that year if the law remained unchanged.

Two House of Representatives committees have approved the legislation to dismantle Obamacare that was unveiled by Republican leaders a week ago, but it faces opposition from not only Democrats but also medical providers including doctors and hospitals and many conservatives.

The CBO, however, said federal deficits would fall by $337 billion between 2017 and 2026 under the Republican bill.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Trump's plan would cover more individuals at a lower cost and it was "virtually impossible" to envision that 14 million people would lose insurance coverage by next year.

Democratic leaders in Congress said the bill could result in elderly people being kicked out of nursing homes as it simultaneously gives tax cuts for the richest Americans.

"How can they look their constituents in the eye when they say 24 million of you no longer have coverage and those of you who do have it, will have less coverage at more cost to you," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said.

PREMIUMS TO RISE

The Affordable Care Act aimed to help restrain U.S. healthcare spending, which is about 17 percent of the nation's economy, but it has continued to grow faster than inflation.

The proposal would end the Obamacare expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor and would replace Obamacare's income-based subsidies with fixed tax credits for the purchase of private insurance.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center on Monday said the Republican plan would benefit the wealthiest U.S. households far more than middle-income families.

A family making $51,600 to $89,400 a year, including fringe benefits like employer-provided health insurance, would get a tax cut averaging $300.

The top 0.1 percent of earners with incomes of at least $3.9 million would get a tax cut of about $207,000, the study said.

The CBO estimated that insurance premiums would rise 15 percent to 20 percent in both 2018 and 2019 because fewer healthy people would sign up after the repeal of the Obamacare penalty for declining to obtain insurance. But it said the hikes would be offset after 2020 by a $100 billion fund allocated to states in the bill and deregulation in the insurance market.

While the federal government would lose revenues through the repeal of Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates’ tax penalties, CBO said the loss would be surpassed by savings on insurance subsidies and Medicaid payments that Washington would no longer have to provide for people who lost coverage.

At the same time, CBO said the repeal of the individual mandate’s tax penalties would mean higher health insurance premiums for those who retained coverage, because insurers would still have to cover any applicant without being free to raise premiums for older, sicker people, despite lower numbers of younger, healthier customers who are cheaper to insure.

Craig Garthwaite, director of the healthcare program at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, said the CBO estimates made it harder for Republicans to sell their proposal.

"Overall, this is a really bad number for the AHCA. Far more people are predicted to lose coverage than many estimated - and these losses are going to happen more quickly than we would have thought," he said.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a key backer of the plan called the American Health Care Act, said the CBO estimates showed it would ultimately lower premiums.

"Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage. It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down," Ryan said.

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How about putting the news up about everyone who lost insurance under our current healthcare system?  Or how about how premiums have doubled or tripled and are supposed to go up 110% in AZ this year?  Like rowdy said the old plans (high deductible low cost)  great because anyone can save seven to ten grand for their deductible. Pay it just like a monthly premium and guesswhat?! If you don't use that money sitting in your account it's still yours, you don't lose it if you don't use it like the plans are...but I forgot, like the guy who framed Obama care put it the American people are to stupid to realize this is a tax. 

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The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by the people who vote for a living.

The government can only "give" someone what they first take from another.

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Nancy Pelosi tweeted out a question seeking people's experiences with ACA, and linked the results to the White House website... Too bad she didn't get the ammo she wanted, most of the feedback was negative. Costs way up, lost providers, etc. What remains of ACA is not really affordable to working families.

If ACA is so great maybe Ms. Pelosi and her Congressional colleagues should give up their Cadillac coverage and walk the walk down here in the real world.

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Sounds like you've been watching Faux News too. Congress members never had a "Cadillac" plan, they were covered under the same "cafeteria" plan as the rest of the federal workforce. The ACA now requires that they buy their insurance through the ACA, or they can try to buy it on the individual market or get insured through a spouses coverage, COBRA, etc..

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48 minutes ago, Underdog said:

If ACA is so great maybe Ms. Pelosi and her Congressional colleagues should give up their Cadillac coverage and walk the walk down here in the real world.

Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan pays a large share of the cost of coverage. On average, the government pays 72 percent of the premiums for its workers, up to a maximum of 75 percent depending on the policy chosen. For example, the popular Blue Cross and Blue Shield family plan  carries a total premium of $1,327.80 per month, of which the beneficiary pays $430.04. Washington, D.C.-based employees who prefer an HMO option might choose the Kaiser  family plan. It carries a total premium of $1125.15 per month, of which the employee pays only $206.29.

In addition, members of Congress also qualify for some medical benefits that ordinary federal workers do not. They (but not their families) are eligible to receive limited medical services from the Office of Attending Physician of the U.S. Capitol,, after payment of an annual fee of $641.00. But services don’t include surgery, dental care or eyeglasses, and any prescriptions must be filled at the member’s expense.

House and Senate members (but not their families) also are eligible to receive care at military hospitals. For outpatient care, there is no charge at the Washington, D.C., area hospitals (Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center). Inpatient care is billed at rates set by the Department of Defense.

FEHBP offers over 300 different private health care plans, including five government-wide, fee-for-service plans and regional health maintenance organization (HMO) plans, plus high-deductible, tax-advantaged plans. All plans cover hospital, surgical and physician services, and mental health services, prescription drugs and “catastrophic” coverage against very large medical expenses and many fees are tax deductible.

 So see they obviously  have the same plans, and same fees we have.

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"OPERTUNITY IS MISSED BY MOST PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS DRESSED IN OVERALLS AND LOOKS LIKE WORK"  Thomas Edison

 “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy shit, what a ride!’

P.T.CHESHIRE

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6 hours ago, TeamsterGrrrl said:

Sorry, but you've been watching Fake News. Fact is, way more people gained health care coverage than lost- We have a higher percentage of Americans than ever insured, and the republicans are about to blow that with TrumpCare.

More people "have" insurance, because the government made an unconstitutional mandate that they buy a policy...just like if the government were to mandate everybody "had" to own an electric car, more people would buy them. They do so because they are afraid of not being in compliance with "the law", because most folks do their best to obey whatever the law happens to be.

So now, more people have electric cars because the government says you MUST have one. So when there is a change in government and that silly mandate is repealed, people scrap those useless little shit-boxes because they can't even drive them to town and back without having to recharge the damn thing. Have these people "lost" their electric car? No. They didn't want the damn thing in the first place, so they CHOSE to get rid of it the first opportunity they had under the law. Same with health "insurance". I refuse to buy a policy that covers much of what is mandated by law, especially when purchasing those coverages costs money I work hard to earn, and have much better uses for than paying for useless coverages. I don't need drug rehab insurance. I'm not paying for abortion coverage. Etc., etc., etc. So you take somebody that never really wanted this crap, and give them the option not to buy it. If they chose to cancel their policy, they haven't "lost" it...they CHOSE to rid themselves of it.

Freedom was lost when Obamacare was forced through DESPITE the people's strong opposition to the bill...or have you forgotten HOW it was passed? MASSACHUSSETTES elected a Republican Senator to replace Ted Kennedy in order to strip the Democrats of their 60 seat filibuster-proof majority. Scott Brown was the 41st vote against the bill, which left the democrats 1 vote shy of cloture. So what did Harry Reed do? He took a "fiscal" bill that had passed the house, stripped EVERYTHING but the bill number out and inserted the Obamacare language, then proceeded under reconciliation to pass the bill with only democrat votes. Fiscal bills are supposed to start in the people's house, which Obamacare clearly did NOT.

Governments derive their just powers by consent of the governed. EVERY TIME the people have had the chance to oppose Obamacare, they have. Democrats lost Kennedy's seat as Massachusetts attempted to stop Obamacare. Democrats lost the House in 2010 to Republicans pledging to stop Obamacare. Democrats lost seats in 2012, and then lost the Senate in 2014 to Republicans pledging to repeal Obamacare. Trump won the presidency, and the Democrats failed to win back the Senate in 2016 under the Republican pledge to repeal and replace. Democrats have lost 1200+ seats nationwide all of the way down the ballot...governorship, state legislatures...because people just don't like what Democrats forced upon them. There is a reason only 5 states out of 50 are controlled by Democrats in both the legislative and executive branches...and one is only because ties in the legislature are broken by the executive. Democrats ARE the minority, and yet they force their agenda as though the people want it. The people have REPEATEDLY rejected what the Democrats have to offer. There is no consent of the governed for the Democrats agenda. There is no consent of the governed for Obamacare. It "passed" in 2008, and to this day has NEVER garnered a majority support in any poll.

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Associated Press  /  March 14, 2017

The Congressional Budget Office report on a Republican health care bill set off an intense reaction in Washington, and some on both sides of the debate are playing loose with the facts.

Republicans are overlooking President Donald Trump's promise to deliver "insurance for everybody," which the CBO makes clear will not happen if the legislation becomes law. Democrats are assailing Republicans for "attacking the messenger," seeming to forget all the times they assailed the budget office themselves.

The Congressional Budget Office is respected for nonpartisan rigor in its estimates of the costs and impacts of legislation. But no projection is infallible, particularly when it comes to large, complex programs. For example, the agency in 2010 overstated the number of people expected to buy insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law, misjudging how many would join because of the threat of tax penalties.

Yet, CBO's neutrality has been valued by both parties - though not always at the same time. It depends whose ox is being gored.

A look at statements in the debate and how they compare with the CBO's estimates and the underlying facts:

TRUMP: "We're going to have insurance for everybody. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us." - To The Washington Post, Jan. 15.

CBO: It estimates the bill would leave 14 million fewer people insured in the first year, 24 million fewer by 2026.

In the first year, the biggest reason more people are uninsured would be repeal of penalties Barack Obama's law imposes on those deemed able to afford insurance but who don't buy it. Still others would decide to forgo coverage because of higher premiums or do without Medicaid.

In following years the main reason for a drop in the number of insured would be that the Republican bill scales back Medicaid for low-income Americans. Altogether, CBO estimates 52 million people would be uninsured by 2026, a vast distance from "insurance for everybody."

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SEAN SPICER, White House press secretary, Tuesday: "Having a card and having coverage that when you walk into a doctor's office has a deductible of $15,000, $20,000 a year isn't coverage. That's a car. That doesn't get you the care you need."

THE FACTS: He's wrong about deductibles under Obama's law.

Out-of-pocket expenses for consumers are limited. Deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance together can't exceed $7,150 this year for an individual plan sold through HealthCare.gov or similar state markets. For a family plan it's $14,300. After that, the insurance plan pays the full cost of covered benefits.

In addition, more than half of customers in these plans get subsidies to help with their out-of-pocket costs.

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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, Senate Democratic leader: "CBO is virtually unassailable. Everyone, Democrats and Republicans, whether it be George Bush, Barack Obama or anyone else has gone along with CBO. ...CBO speaks the truth. They've been speaking the truth for decades and to try to attack CBO is simply attacking the messenger." - Comments to reporters Monday.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, House Democratic leader, on Republican reaction to the CBO: "Some of them are trying to pin a rose on this report and make it sound like it's a good thing and the others of them are trying to discredit the CBO, but it's completely wrong, completely wrong. ... Numbers are quite elegant things, you know. They speak very clearly." - Comments to reporters Monday.

THE FACTS: Democrats have not hesitated to attack this messenger when its conclusions have not suited them.

"The Congressional Budget Office never gives us any credit," President Obama said in 2009 when the CBO pointed to the expense of Democratic health overhaul proposals. Complained Pelosi at the time: "The CBO will always give you the worst-case scenario."

Again in 2014, Pelosi did not consider CBO's numbers "elegant," or correct, when they forecast job losses from a Democratic effort to raise the minimum wage. She accused the CBO of making arguments that "contradict the consensus among hundreds of America's top economists" and said it "ignored new perspectives in the wide array of analysis on the minimum wage."

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TRUMP: People covered under the law "can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better... lower numbers, much lower deductibles."

CBO: It says cost-sharing payments in the individual market, including deductibles, "would tend to be higher than those anticipated under current law." Cost-sharing subsidies would be repealed in 2020, "significantly increasing out-of-pocket costs for nongroup (private) insurance for many lower-income enrollees."

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TRUMP, at a Cabinet meeting Monday: "Obamacare, all of a sudden, the last couple of weeks, is getting a false rep that maybe it's OK. It's not OK, it's a disaster and people understand that it's failed and it's imploding. And if we let it go for another year, it'll totally implode."

CBO: Not in the view of the budget experts. They described the market for individual policies under Obama's health care law as "stable." They said it is likely to remain stable under the proposed GOP replacement legislation, too.

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MICK MULVANEY, Trump's budget director: "If you have coverage that doesn't allow you to go to the doctor, what good is it in the first place? ...Democrats took all of this credit for giving people coverage, but ignored the fact that they had created this large group of people that still could not go to the doctor." - Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

THE FACTS: Republicans gloss over reality when they make this argument. While deductibles are high for the Affordable Care Act's private insurance plans (averaging $3,000 last year for a standard silver plan), the law requires preventive care to be covered at no charge. And more than half of the people enrolled in the health law's insurance markets get an extra subsidy when they go to seek care. It can reduce a deductible from several thousand dollars to a few hundred. The GOP bill would repeal those subsidies.

Other evidence points to tangible benefits from Obama's coverage expansion. For example, government researchers have found fewer Americans struggling to pay medical bills. A 2015 report found that problems with medical bills had declined for the fourth year in a row. Most of the improvement was among low-income people and those with government coverage, and it coincided with the ACA's big coverage expansion.

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TOM PRICE, health and human services secretary: "I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process that we're going through." - NBC's "Meet the Press," Sunday.

CBO: There are losers as well as winners, the analysts found. Generally, older people are bound to face higher costs because the legislation would let insurance companies charge them up to five times more for premiums than they charge young people. They can only be charged three times more now. The bottom line, the analysts say, would be "substantially reducing premiums for young adults and substantially raising premiums for older people."

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MULVANEY: "Actually I don't think the costs will go up at all." - ABC's "This Week," Sunday.

CBO: It estimates that some costs indeed will go up, at least for a few years. The analysts say average premiums in the private insurance market would rise in 2018 and 2019 by 15 percent to 20 percent, compared with current law, then start to come down. By 2026, average premiums could be 10 percent lower, compared with the existing law. One reason: insurers could eliminate a current requirement to offer plans that cover a set percentage of the cost of certain benefits.

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14 minutes ago, Underdog said:


No, I'm pretty sure Rowdy is correct in that the PEOPLE are the ultimate authority, and hopefully our government will once again honor that constitutional decree. The Supreme Court is an extension of the political party in charge at the time, that's why this recent presidential election was so important to so many PEOPLE.

My 2 cents, which really has zero value..........

Technically, the people all agreed to create a country and government, and gave their government (3 branches) the power to.....govern them.

The Supreme Court is an unusual beast, with justices serving thru many presidential administrations, until they die or step down.

I don't know any people who actually feel they have any control whatsoever over their local, state and the federal government. If you look back one decade or ten, the masses never had any say in government. Power has since day one been in the hands of a small group.

We all can recall 40-50 years ago when you company covered 100% of your health insurance AND your family. From then, the burden shifted to the worker to the point that, today, one has incredible amounts deducted from their salary, and jaw-dropping deductibles. The health care, pharmaceutical and insurance (health, car, ect.) industries are government-supported scams of the highest magnitude.

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4 hours ago, TeamsterGrrrl said:

Sorry Rowdy, the Supreme Court is the ultimate authority and they decided that mandatory health insurance is constitutional.

No, they are NOT "the ultimate authority"...or are you forgetting Dred Scott (blacks not entitled to same citizenship rights as whites), Plessy v Ferguson (segregation is Constitutional), Pace v Alabama (bans on interracial marriages are Constitutional), Korematsu (internment camps were deemed Constitutional), Bowers (homosexual acts are a crime), Kelo (property can be seized and reallocated to another private party for commercial use if it will increase the tax base), not to mention Roe v Wade, Obamacare, and the list goes on. The SCOTUS has a long history of issuing rulings that simply do not conform to what would be expected if they stuck to the Constitution as the basis for making their decisions.

Our government has 3 co-equal branches, each with checks and balances to keep the others in line. No branch is superior to the other two, and no branch is inferior to the other two.

And actually, the power to decide whether or not a law passed by the Congress and signed by the President is Constitutional isn't even a power granted to the court by the Constitution. They seized that power for themselves in Marbury v Madison. Like I said, there's a long history of decisions made by the court having no Constitutional basis...and in many cases directly opposed to what the Constitution would demand.

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19 hours ago, TeamsterGrrrl said:

Sorry, but you've been watching Fake News. Fact is, way more people gained health care coverage than lost- We have a higher percentage of Americans than ever insured, and the republicans are about to blow that with TrumpCare.

You just keep sitting there in La la land milking your fellow teamsters for your early retirement and medical bennies you made on their backs. 

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The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by the people who vote for a living.

The government can only "give" someone what they first take from another.

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Losing the argument, so now you resort to personal attacks. And lies at that... My pension is totally funded by investments made when I was working, and no currently working Teamster funds my retirement. My health insurance is totally unconnected from the Teamsters. Sorry HeavyGunner, but you just attacked a fellow forum member, and with lies at that!

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50 minutes ago, HeavyGunner said:

You just keep sitting there in La la land milking your fellow teamsters for your early retirement and medical bennies you made on their backs. 

That is the way it is suppose to work and does until the union pension scam goes broke.  Then the goverment takes over and tax payers make their pension checks good.  Some of those plan might have stayed solvent if not for poor union managment of the funds and union giving sooo much of the dues to the democratic party.  Makes one think the real work of unions is a fund raising branch of the socialist democrat party.  

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Ya I know you have heard this before........You need a hobby.....Most of us did not profit from obambi care......You might get it some day.....And as far as I'm concerned.........I'm not paying for dead beat losers to get cheap healthcare..... Hold up your own weight and man up and take care of your kin....You will never win an argument with me because you have no fuel for it....... Simple solutions you don't work.....You don't eat.......And pretty much sums it up.....🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸bob
 

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Mowerman, you clearly don't know me. I'm currently debating a republican legislator on another forum who thinks he's entitled to a drug that's not even been tested or approved for treatment of the disease he has. Yup, I'm taking the conservative position, arguing for careful conservative spending of our limited health care dollars, and the republican legislator is arguing for entitlements. Nice try at pigeonholing and stereotyping me, buy I'm really an old school moderate who will fight for what's right, whether that position be liberal or conservative.

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Is he saying he's entitled to it as in insurance ought to cover it? Or entitled to it as in he ought to be able to make the decision for himself as to whether or not to pay for the drug himself to treat the disease he has? Because if you're arguing that he shouldn't even be able to purchase the drug on his own because the government hasn't yet given their stamp of approval on it, well then you aren't exactly arguing a conservative point. I understand insurance not covering an unapproved or experimental drug, because as a 3rd party it is in their responsibility to act on what's best for the pool of insured persons which may not be what is best for a specific individual...but the individual ought to be able to make the decision for themselves as to whether or not to spend their own money on an unapproved or experimental treatment if they so choose.

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Rowdy, it's well settled law that the government has the right and duty to ban harmful drugs and restrict therapeutic drugs to use by only those who can benefit from them and by prescription. We've got enough of an addiction problem in this country already, no need to let everyone take whatever harmful drugs they want.

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Again, you're taking the scope of an argument and broadening it to ridiculous proportions in order not to sound foolish. We weren't talking harmful or dangerous drugs, only a specific drug that treats a specific disease that just hasn't been approved for use yet by our government. I'm guessing it is likely used and quite possibly even very successfully elsewhere (leading this individual to want to try it to treat his own illness), but it is a prohibitively expensive process to get the official seal of approval from the FDA, and in that process all of your competitor drug makers who have similar drugs already approved are lobbying against approval of your drug because it benefits them to have less competition in the marketplace. So if the drug works with good results, and is available elsewhere in the world and has a proven track record, WHY SHOULDN'T an individual and his doctor be able to decide to use that drug provided the individual pays for it himself? We aren't talking heroin or crack. Actual medications in use around the world with proven track records that just haven't jumped through the FDA's hoops.

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1 hour ago, 41chevy said:

 

You don't "know us" either, yet you pigeon hole, name call and attack most all on here for not agreeing with you, so climb down from your pulpit.

She's the first one to call someone on here names yet when I give her a hard time about her line "you guys don't get it I retired at 55 and do whatever I want" she plays the typical liberal victim card. "You attacked a member". Attacking you teamstergrrrl would be calling you names like you do to others on here on a regular basis. I don't like you but I still don't resort to name calling like you do. But I'm sure like every other conversation you'll either be right (because you've never been wrong yet) or play another victim card or call someone a name again. 

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The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by the people who vote for a living.

The government can only "give" someone what they first take from another.

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