Blogs by David A. Schwinghammer
Fran Tarkenton's political ad
3/14/2014 8:18:48 AM
Former Viking quarterback claims the AARP doesn't live up to his conservative principles.
I listen to an oldies station that sometimes plays new music. They also don't mind taking money from shady organziations like Tarkenton's AMAC, an alternative to the AARP, that claims a million members.
I would imagine those initials stand for Association of Mature American Citizens. The AARP supports Medicare and social security. I haven't noticed them hyping Obamacare, although they certainly should, if only because it forces people who rely on the ER for their medical needs to pay their check. Presently ERs are not allowed to turn anyone away. The government pays. That's you and me; we pay with our taxes.
Not anymore; if you show up at an ER after March 31, 2014, expecting treatment and you don't have insurance, you will be reported to the IRS, and you will pay a fine. Obamacare does not pick on poor people; those who can not afford insurance can apply for financial aid.
Let's look at those conservative principles for a minute, shall we? They would privatize social security, the most successful law ever passed by the American Congress. What sort of shape would we be in if social security had been privatized in 2006 when the bottom fell out of the stock market and America was plunged into the worst recession since the Great Depression?
Conservatives are all for privatization until it's a democrat president's idea. Obamacare ideally would create insurance marketplaces in each state. Minnesota did that, and we now have the cheapest health care in the United States. Very few red states formed their own marketplace, one of the reasons the health care web site crashed when it opened for business. They relied on the federal database, which wasn't ready for that kind of business. Minnesota also had trouble with their web site, but the governor called in a crack team of computer geeks and solved the problem, as did President Obama. We are now up to 4.2 million state and federal clients who have signed up for a new plan. But we need more young people to pay for people under 65. They tend to put things off until the last minute so there's still hope. Sign-ups spiked when Obama went on Zach G.'s "Between the Ferns" and hyped his plan, while jousting with the host. Of course, Republicans complained that he was disrespecting the office of the presidency by appearing on a comedy show. I suppose they don't remember Nixon "socking it to them" on "Laugh In", but as usual he was a Republicans so that was all right.
Why listen to Fran Tarkenton in the first place? His software firm paid a financial penalty for hyping the worth of his firm. Remember Enron? They did the same thing, but their executives went to jail. If your company is edging towards bankruptcy, there's a temptation to cook the books.
No,it's better to stick with the tried and true. The AARP has done more for senior citizens than the entire Republican party put together, at least since the 1920s when Calvin Coolidge deregulated everything, leading to the Great Depression. I guess George W. Bush never heard of Calvin Coolidge.
Dave Schwinghammer's (no politics included, unless you count religion) unconventional mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on authorsden and at Amazon.com, new and used. Available for book clubs; I will communicate personally and provide a guideline if requested. This is a very intricate and complicated novel (see Amazon reviews), especially appropriate for discussion.
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