So, why are there two cartoons today instead of just one? Because we're sick (not in the demented sense, which is sort of our day-to-day normal, but in the
coughing, hacking, and spraying phlegm sense) and we honestly don't know if
either cartoon will connect, so we thought we'd throw them both out there and hope for the best.
Personally, we have a fondness for the ducks (who haven't appeared here since 2013) and the solidly constructed comedic phrase "Aunt Edna's schnozz." But then again, we've coughed ourselves into a concussion and may be judgement impaired.
We don't have a
lot to say about the passage of the GOP Health Insurance bill just yet, although we think that the DrudgeReport got
waaaaaaaaaay ahead of themselves by declaring that this means Obamacare has been repealed. Not hardly, folks.
Moreover, we don't really have a firm grasp of what's contained in the House bill, and how much it might change in the Senate. We
do know that the bill throws roughly $138
billion into helping make sure that people with pre-existing conditions can get insurance as the market "stabilizes."
Although to our ears, that simply sounds like propping up the system with taxpayer cash (unavoidable after Obamacare) until a future date - at which point people who have
deliberately not insured themselves will finally and inevitably suffer the dire consequences of their poor decision making skills. Only we all know
that will never happen.
In the classic sense, real "insurance" can't co-exist with a mandate to accept people with pre-existing conditions without charging them higher rates...at least, not in the long run. The GOP bill attempts to remedy this by re-establishing high risk pools which taxpayers will help fund - but in the end, the health insurance system will have to be either market driven or government driven, not both. We're hoping that yesterday's vote will be a step in the right direction.
And we'd say more, only now we're coughing flecks of lung tissue on our computer screen and having no real success wiping them off with the tiny (but numerous) wax paper wrappers from our extra-menthol cough drops.
Cough drops we
damn well paid for ourselves.
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No, the irony isn't lost on us.
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UPDATE: PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS
Hilariously, the Left is going insane on social media claiming that the new healthcare bill strikes down coverage of any pre-existing conditions (which it doesn't) and also defines "pre-existing conditions" to include things like rape, domestic violence, c-sections and more. Cher is even bitching that she won't be able to get her asthma medication anymore.
It's all lies, of course, and easy enough to check - although that's not as much fun as spewing outrage and virtue signaling on Twitter and Facebook. A friend who is an actual, certified expert in health insurance matters (you've likely seen him on TV) lays out these simple truths about the new plan:
Those who keep consistent coverage in place without any lapse in coverage will be able to move freely from one policy to the next and cannot be charged anymore for a preexisting condition. Those who REFUSE to keep consistent coverage in place and who as such attempt to 'game the system' by WAITING until they are SICK to buy health insurance (which drives up the costs for everyone else) will be penalized up to 30% more for health insurance. Those who are so sick that they are uninsurable (which is about 5% of the 23 million who buy individual health insurance) will be able to buy affordable health insurance coverage through state high risk health insurance pools. $128 billion was allocated to ensure that those people have affordable coverage when they buy health insurance in the state run high risk health insurance pools. This is the way it was done for 20 years before Obamacare as dictated in 1996 HIPAA law. The problem was there were about 5 states that did not follow that federal HIPPA law and did not have a functional high risk pool in their state. This law mandates that they not only have one but that it is well funded.
