Prime Time Thread

has ron paul lost his damn mind?

gyps, darling, he never had it.

That Republican dude on Ed’s show who was supposed to explain the Republican Party’s awesome, shiny, new health care plan for ALL of us, made it perfectly clear that they have no real plan.

Republican Healthcare Plan – Spend even more, and recieve even less than you already do.Are they just completely fucking stupid or what?”Patient’s Choice Act”Yeah… the patients choice to get fucked in the ass.This plan actually provides even less incentive for employers to cover their workers. And it has that dumbasss tax credit idea that McCain campaigned on. 5000 tax credit wouldnt even cover my mother for 6 months, let alone a year. And the 5000 is for families! rofl2000 for individuals? Well… older single people get fucked there. 2000 is enough for what, 3 months? or lessEpic Republican Fail. More of the same, and worse.

They shouldn’t have a health care plan! Let the market decide! Because, y’know, profit should be the central motive of healthcare, and also if people don’t like the current system all they have to do is not have any health insurance. Oh wait…

Ahh…J.M., I see we’re on the same page here. That guy was totally pathetic.

The total lack of giving a shit about the common folk really astounds me sometimes. I should be used to it by now. But when you see a sham like this it really jumps out at you.This is one of the most fucking idiotic blatantly corporatist plans yet to come out of the “conservative” camp.

I know, right? I was just kinda staring at the tee vee with a confused look on my face, and my mouth hanging open trying to make sense of that dude’s BS.

I swear to:-Stop visiting the “evolution” post’s comments section-Flip my name back upside down in the morning

Don’t you remeber that awesome budget they came up with. The one with NO NUMBERS. Their health plan is kinda like that.

Lost my sweatshop job at the call center last night. Best thing about unemployment? The PTT, of course!!!

Aww, Matt, sorry about the job loss. That sucks.Yeah, their healthcare plan is mysteriously missing much healthcare and such as.

Kyle, that was some fine work today on that evolution thread. Although your forehead must be one gigantic bruise! Your comment about “you can’t handle the tooth” had me snickering at my mental image of an 98 year old Jack Nicholson without his dentures.

Three cheers for Kyle! We need a special award for those who pound their foreheads that hard — “order of the flattened forehead,” or something.

Ashby, I guarantee an army of 50-64 year-old Americans will say “no” to the GOP plan. Medicare Part D was the Republicans’ secret strategy to avoid universal health care, but in the long term it is backfiring big-time. I can’t tell you how many calls I took in the last year where seniors complained bitterly to me about their benefits, especially when GM started shifting its retirees off on the federal system.

gypsy: Ron Paul inhabits an alternate universe. What we see and hear is just a projection from that other dimension, where up is down and black is white.

Can’t believe congress just passed allowing concealed weapons in the National Parks (amendment to credit card bill). Watch out next time you’re in Yellowstone, and you need to talk a walk in the dark (like to a latrine). May get a backside full of buckshot.

sorry, Matt. Bummer.

Eh. I was pretty sick of it, anyway. The job kept getting worse and worse. People just have no understanding of what an 800-number can, and cannot, do for them.

Guns in the park? Great idea! Now I can live out my fantasy of defending myself from terrorists in the Great Smokies. Huzzah!

MattFirstly, sorry about the job. How does it look down there jobwise? As bad as NC? I hope not, good luck in finding something new.Secondly, just got done reading through your posts for the last few days. I really do feel for the lady whom the pharmacist was rude to. I was on oxycontin for 5 years and can tell you it is a bitch to deal with the DEA and the FDA. I had to go to a pain specialist and the paperwork was almost as thick as the mortgage papers I had to sign to buy my house. I really feel for her and hope she found someone to help her. If you have never been in constant pain, you have no idea of what the stress of not having the meds does to you. I was lucky enough to have the oxycontin “cure” my pain. I don’t pretend to know how it worked, but I was/am very thankful I never lost my script. Thanks for posting her story.

The whole country looks bad Jobwise. The county I live in has 10.2% unemployement “officially” and one county over has 15%. Unfortunately the official numbers leave out a good 3-5%.Vera – Pain pills are the most abused drug in the whole country. The people abusing prescription drugs are far away above weed, crack, or meth combined. Thats the reason for the hoops you have to jump through. Funny that the most abused drugs are the legal ones. Big Business.

N.O.M. now using children in their anti-gay campaign.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/national-organization-for_n_206003.html

Yeah Ashby, but it still amazed me because the pain doctors’ have to have special requirements to be operate. I know there are bad docs out there, yet it still amazes me.Also, they say coming off of oxy is harder than heroin, so I am pretty proud of myself. And Kyle, nice job on the evolution thread.

and just for thought, the people who need the meds get no what I like to call “fun” effects. if you need the meds for pain, etc. your body absorbs the chemicals differently. Just so you know, I hated that. I really wanted both, a buzz and pain relief.

“You can’t handle the tooth”I don’t even have to read what else was said. That was awesome.Hey, if all it takes is 5K for families and 2K for individuals to cover health care, why doesn’t the government just kick in the cash directly to the health care industry? If it will make the Republicans happy, we’ll call it Americans Pay For Their Own Health Care Enactment Act of 2009. Why call it single-payer when you can just rename it to something else? Kind of like calling torture “enhanced interrogation techniques”…Of course, it’s not that cheap. They could care less how much it costs the average family, because they don’t care if we even have it or not. And if they plan to give me a $2000 credit for health care, you can bet they plan to give the industry a $2,000,000,000 credit for being businessy enough to deny us coverage. Fuckstains, the whole lot of them…

Yeah theres plenty of bad doctors Vera. My father has been a pharmacist for 35 years. He sees people constantly that want their pain meds that they dont really need. The doctors keep writing them scripts though so he has no choice but to fill them. Its really a corporate driven abuse problem.

Oops, sorry for the double post.

Vera, ironically it was that call that did me in. She called back to tell them what a great job I did, so someone at corporate pulled the call and listened to it. They decided I was too sympathetic to the patient’s complaints about the pharmacy technician.Ashby, the DEA considers their war on Oxycontin a “success” because they’ve intimidated enough doctors and pharmacists out of dispensing it. They define success by more people being left in pain. And no, I am NOT making that up. Read the evidence for yourself.

karma will be good to you Matt….those corporate bastards.

Matt – I saw that, and its sad. But whats more sad is there is a laundry list of other things people are abusing. The most common one my father mentions to me is hydrocodone.

Love to see Rachel call out Newt’s hypocrisy.

I’m on hydrocodone as we speak. That’s what two spinal surgeries will do for you: a lifelong relationship with painkillers. Huzzah!

Has anyone else noticed that the Republitards are pro-choice only when it comes to forcing you to choose which health insurance company to be fucked by?

The only choice I ever had on health insurance were three choices: None, HMO, PPO. The HMO and PPO were from the same company. There were no other choices other than family and spouse coverage.Like everything the crooked Republicans talk about, this notion of choice is a complete canard.Bullshit. There is no choice.

Git, you’ve identified the reality that middle America knows and the GOP villagers don’t. They really are a party out of touch: “Cessna conservatives.”

J M -Last week Rachel reported that the federal goverment reported that the ‘underemployed’ rate is at 16%. This is people that are no longer receiving unemployment comp (and so are not in the unemployment rate) but do not have a job or are only working part time because they can’t find full time work. The 16% adds to the 10% unemployment rate. This implies that the real unemplyment rate is somewhere around 20% (assuming that 6% have at least part time work).I don’t know why they don’t do a real unemployment figure. (I suspect they prefer to make things appear better than they actually are.)

The republican choice is get bent over by insurers or dont have insurance. Your choice!

“Bullshit. There is no choice”Choice #1 NoneChoice #2 HMOChoice #3 PPOChoice #4 Family coverageChoice #5 Spouse coverageChoice #6 (employee coverage only)Choice #7 go get your own policy that you want.

I’ll also congratulate Kyle on a job well done on the evolution thread. That thread was a joy to read.

I’m on hydrocodone as we speak.Nasty, nasty shit. I took them back in Feb & they totally screwed with my mind. Can’t remember half the stuff I did & the other half is just appalling. No straight thinking, no logic, altho, I was able to do my work just fine – audit done during that time. (My initials are on work papers that I have no recollection of preparing.) And I pissed off and cut loose at people who in no way deserved it. And no one warned me that it could do that….Nasty shit. If it works for you, great, but it can have some very adverse effects on some people.

I have such a high tolerance for pain meds and a low pain tolerance. Hydrocodone only gives me a tummy ache..lol

health insurance – I now have it (after about 5 yrs without) and it covers my kids – same cost for 1 or 3 or more), which is great. EXCEPT that 2 of them are going to college in Sept in another state & my insurance won’t cover them there….so i have to now pay about $4K for insurance thru the colleges even though we have a policy! Grrrrr. single payer. Go!

ceu, everyone has different chemistry from everyone else, and a good pain management specialist can tell you that not all pains are alike.For instance, before my last surgery I was in such bad pain that hydrocodone wasn’t enough — it barely took the edge off. I had to take Oxycontin. But unlike Vera, it made me utterly incomprehensible and I remember nothing from the few days I was on it. That period is a complete blur.On the other hand, for the occasional bouts of pain that I endure now, the first hydrocodone tablet makes me sleepy. But then subsequent tablets make me feel completely normal, which is the goal of a painkiller.So there’s probably a painkiller that works for you, depending on the injury/illness and your individual chemistry.

So if Michael Steele really has no power and can’t even make decisions about RNC funds… then what the hell is he for?Token.

Vera, this is horrible to admit, but my GF has the same problem with hydrocodone and has found that a Blue Moon (beer) taken with the tablet removes all problems. This scares me, but given the fact she still isn’t insured and is living with a torn rotator cuff, I’m not gong to say no.

Ashby: I’m thinking South Park Token.

Blue Moon is good with a steak dinner.Not very safe to be drinking alcohol with a pain killer like that, but if its works… I suppose you cant complain.

thanks Matt..I really don’t like the idea of taking oxy again. I am very lucky that my foot pain has gone away for the most part. Although my TMJ still roughs me up and I take hydrocodone when I can’t take it anymore. I am very careful, once you are addicted, always I think.

So there’s probably a painkiller that works for youThank heavens I needed them only for a short period of time – 6 or 7 weeks – but the effect was much like what you described the Oxy doing to you. It took the pain away, but there was a steep friendship cost.I had horrible reactions to the pain killers (demerol, maybe??) in the hospital, too, after having c-sections…yet some things, like caffeine, have no effect on me at all (yes, i’ll drink a cup of coffee while reading before going to sleep…) As you said, we’re all different.I can’t even imagine living with the kind of pain you guys have.

stewart is on fire tonight! hilarious!

i haven’t read the ptt, but judging from ceu’s sentence above my post it is serious. sorry if my comment seemed crass thrown into the coversation.

nah….that was just me being all me-ish. and you reminded me that the Daily Show is on. So, THANKS!

Random ThoughtThe world would be a better place if Rush Limbaugh said absolutely nothing for 30 days.According to him, MSNBC would then have nothing to cover.He could do this. It’s all in his control.

Even if Lush Rimjob were to magically keel over, some one else would take his place.His kind can only be conquered through an aware and well educated populace.

I’m coming late to this, so I can only hope people see it (fuck homework, man!). But, to Matt and anyone else who’s had back surgery, I’ve got a story for you.My mom had a laminotomy back in 04 and then a fusion in 07; her leg nerve was pinched, so her leg was the affected part. A few months ago, she was taking care of a baby with meningitis who died. She had to take a dose of a badass antibiotic to make sure she didn’t get meningitis, and her leg was better. We realized it might’ve been because of the antibiotic, so we dug out an old bottle of amoxicillin and her leg kept getting better. Turns out that during the first surgery, she picked up a super-slow growing bacteria called P.Acnes, which is so slow growing that she didn’t have other symptoms. We did a little research: this is an increasingly common thing.So…try a dose of antibiotic (cipro seems to work best). If you want to look this up, just google antibiotics and sciatica. steps off soapbox

fe, that is awesome info. TM!