Weed Be Better Off

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Contraception Crap Shoot

One way Obamacare is designed to deal with increasing healthcare costs is preventative care.  This includes physicals, mammograms, and yes contraception.  You know that stuff that keeps you from having an unwanted pregnancy.  Under the new law insurance plans have to cover contraception.  No surprise the Catholic Church is against this and complained extensively in 2012.  So the administration capitulated and now allows churches, charities, non-profits and the like to be exempt.  All they have to do is sign a form exempting them from paying for contraception, and the insurer has to pick up the tab.  But of course this wasn’t enough for a fanatical group of nuns (Little Sisters of the Poor), who now say that even signing the letter is too much for them to bear.  They are suing, saying it violates their religious freedom, and we’ll have to wait and see if the courts take this one up.  The next player of the religious card is the company Hobby Lobby.  They are a for profit organization that will be required to cover their 13,000 employees starting next year.  Unless the Supreme Court rules in their favor, and then they won’t.  You see Hobby Lobby, according to the owner is: “honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles”.  Really?  This is the slipperiest slope I’ve ever seen.  If the company becomes exempt why wouldn’t any new company just say they’re doing work for the lord.  ‘Thanks for calling so and so lawn care, keeping your yard green just the way god wanted’.  Great, now I’m tax exempt!  'We're not just a hospital, we're a Catholic Hospital, so we don't want to pay for our employees health care.'  Yeah well I don't want you to get a tax benefit.  If the court rules in their favor - that is, allows corporations to receive the same religious freedoms as individuals - expect everyone to come out of the woodwork; no pun intended.

Republicans 'D'evolve

A New Pew Research poll on evolution has come out.  www.pewresearch.org.  Most of the numbers haven’t changed over the past 50 years.  60% say humans have evolved over time, while 33% say humans have existed in their present form since the beginning.  Let’s look at that latter number.  First, evolution among scientist is settled science.  All but 3 of them don’t except it as fact.  Not 2 + 2 = 4 fact, since science doesn’t work in absolutes.  Evolution is a ‘theory’, on the same lines as the theory of gravity, and the theory of atoms.  Present new or better evidence to the contrary and they’ll change their minds.  The evidence for evolution is overwhelming.  So much that if you actually looked at it and still decided you’re among the 33%.... Well that for me is the real answer.  It’s why Pew isn’t taking a poll on germ theory.  People just refuse to look at the evidence because it doesn’t fit their theological world view.  They believe in a literal interpretation of the bible.  Everything we see today created in its present form around 6000 years ago. (Agriculture is 10,000 years old).  A deity responsible for billions of galaxies, black holes, supernovas, planets, and 100,000 different species.  This all created by the same guy who says you can’t eat shrimp!  Ok, back to the Pew Poll.  Republicans have moved from 54% accepting evolution in 2009 to only 43% today. This number is making it real hard for me to cast a vote for a Republican anytime soon.  Call it a wedge issue I guess.  I would prefer to keep religion and politics separate, but this has become impossible thanks to the Religious Right.  They have made it impossible for a Republican candidate to embrace science.  And this is the 21rst century!  While that’s unfortunate, I’ll live and let live, so long as they stay 100 feet from my kid’s science class room.

Bring it 2014!

             If you think you had a bad 2013, think again.  You’re not the President.  Obama Care so far has been a mess.  Technically, politically, a total mess.  I guess that’s what happens when you embrace a Republican idea (Romneycare), and get 0 Republicans to embrace it.  That’s right, most progressives would like a single payer, Medicare for all plan, but because that won’t happen in America they went with the next best option.  Yes Romneycare in Massachusetts has been mostly successful.  Free market competition among health insurers to keep prices down and more affordable to everyone.  Like putting your car in a ditch, unless you can see the future you don’t know when you’re going to get sick….. or put your car in a ditch.  So to keep costs down, and to keep you from losing your house, you’re required to purchase health insurance, right along with your car insurance.  Also a conservative idea called personal responsibility.  If you don’t think you need health insurance and then you have a heart attack and end up in the hospital for a month, good luck paying that bill.  (We all know hospitals rip us off so I won’t go into that.)  Well I don’t want to pay the bill either.  You would have to file for bankruptcy and end up on Medicaid, where you guessed it; the tax payer picks up the tab.  I know, I know, Medicaid has been expanded, won’t that bankrupt the country?  Only if healthy people who can afford to buy their own opt out.  There’s no turning back now.  If the ACA succeeds, so can the country.  If not the Democrats are in trouble.  If it does end up working-the Republicans biggest fear-consider them done.   So here’s to a better 2014 for the man who received the ‘Pinocchio’ of the year in 2013.  “If you like your insurance you can keep it.”  OUCH!