Merry Christmas from Ted Cruz

@looseneck you are Welcome! :)

@sohmageek I know a lot of people say if so-and-so becomes president they will move out of the country...I'm gonna really do it!

@magic_cave That messes with me as much as when they call Trump someone who will take on the establishment.

Because nothing says "anti-establishment" like a billionaire real estate mogul.

@LordFluffy Yup.

@MickiSue The question is... are they his daughters or did he hire them? I say it's his photogenic family that he has to pay for...

@MickiSue But... again... that's his photogenic family... I still say he pays them off....

@MickiSue ok... maybe they are... but I find it funny that he can use his daughters as ammo... but when someone else does... WOAH! http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/ted-cruz-blasts-washington-post-cartoon-daughters-monkeys-n484901

Sorry Teddy, but once you bring something out as a tool... don't get upset when others use that tool against you. Would I be upset yes, but I probably wouldn't have used my daughters as campaign materials promoting myself either.

@aarond12 That same health care bill DOUBLED my and my coworkers' premiums this year. But I'm glad you got your handout, really.

@crapface I'd actually like to see your before and after insurance premium deductions please. I'd also like to know if you live in a state that did not expand Medicaid. If so, thank your Governor for bending you over and fucking you...

@cinoclav Typical liberal denial. If it doesn't fit your narrative, it must be a lie.

@crapface Typical response, assuming you know something about me. What I said has nothing to do with any political slant. I'd honestly like to see that as I'm yet to see actual proof from someone that their premiums have doubled. So please, feel free to prove me wrong. I don't think the Affordable Care Act is anywhere close to perfect, but there are absolutely positive aspects and results due to its inception. There are also serious issues that need to be fixed.

@crapface Btw, just to contribute my own personal experience - my insurance premiums increased this year by the lowest amount they have in the last decade. Attribute that to whatever you'd like, just throwing it out there.

@cinoclav Forgive me for jumping to conclusions on your political leanings. I didn't appreciate essentially being called a liar, with the burden of proof being placed on my willingness to upload sensitive personal documents to the internet. You upload your pay stub scans first showing your deductions.

For what it's worth, every single middle class person I know has had their insurance increase 20-100% this year. Not exactly a statistically valid cross section, but proof that quite a few people are being harmed by the law.

@crapface i'm middle class and it didn't go up that much. In a red state that's trying to blame the affordable care act for everything too.

@crapface Here you go. First image is directly snipped from my online paystub. Second is taken from my new amounts that will kick in at the beginning of the year. I no longer have to pay for the group term life, so my total premium went up $2.99 per paycheck (bi-weekly pay). I think you're able to match up which payments are for what services... Obviously I wouldn't expect anyone to upload 'sensitive personal documents.' What I've posted is more than enough information. I'm middle class and work in healthcare in a hospital in a lower income area. Every day I see the impact of how the ACA has provided insurance and accessible healthcare to residents of the community who couldn't have afforded any insurance previously.

Your turn.

@crapface My husband's insurer is through Tricare Health, as he's a US Navy retiree. His insurance premium doubled as of this quarter. As far as I can recall, my health care costs through my employers over the last 20+ years went up every single year, pretty much like everything else rose in price.

I'm pretty sure nothing in the ACA guaranteed anyone that their premiums would never go up.

@cinoclav how about this one. Our single and double insurance premiums at work went up (very little like less than $1 ) while family plans actually went down by I think $.25. I don't really pay attention as I'm on my wife's insurance that covers more and we pay for more. Also my employer did say to us that a majority of the reason why it goes up or down is the usage of services. A few years it went down in a row then it went up a bit.

@cranky1950 Mine went up a little bit. Of course i think it does every year. Maybe you need a better job?

@medz people who work in healthcare and govt. are part of the problem. The rest of the middle class is supporting your free ride. Hillary care would have been a good thing.

@cranky1950
1 - It's not a "free ride" - everyone is paying in for their policy.
2 - If we had actually spread this cost out as it should be spread out - with corporate taxes helping to match funds, the middle class wouldn't be hit so hard. Then again, if wages weren't being strangled by top level greed, we wouldn't have the issue in the first place.
It makes me sad every time I see people pissed off at the poorer classes needing assistance - but not batting a damn eyelash at the upper level greed that pushed millions out of the middle class and into the working poor. You want to be pissed? Look at companies like WalMart - keeping wages SO low, that their FULL time employees require SNAP to eat.

So that "free ride" you're talking about? It not free to them, you, or me. It is, however - not costing corporate America their fair share.

That said - I dislike the way ACA was set up, it's not a good long term solution. BUT - it is better than nothing and it got the ball rolling in some direction, which beats the hell out of utter stagnation.

@cranky1950
Oh, I'd like to add an anecdote here - my parents, who've worked their ASSES OFF since they were teenagers - are finally able to afford medical insurance. They're in their early-mid 60's. Neither has had time off for anything not directly medical related since... ever? My mom regularly worked full time + a side gig to keep money rolling in.
Dad's been a mechanic for 40 years - a good one, too - but you know what happens to old mechanics? They get hours cut, because they don't crank out LOF's and M&B's like a 20 year old. They might not get that 6hr quoted job done in 3 like the younger guys - so they flag less hours on a paycheck, slowing down the shop's output. In order to keep their licensing, they have to take classes and certifications every year that cost hundreds of dollars and time off of work. That's just to do a basic Smog Check/State Inspection. This means that a man who's watched and turned a wrench on cars from distributor, to throttle body, to fuel injection, to computer controlled EFI - that guy? He can't hold a job commensurate to his experience. He ends up doing smog checks and light work - and still works full time, just making a hell of a lot less. That dude - he's getting your so called "free ride" - he fucking earned it. Every damned day. For forty. Fucking. Years.

If you think you somehow deserve more than him - that you worked harder, or chose better - whatever special snowflake bullshit you think you did that makes you more deserving of BASIC MEDICAL CARE than that man, I'd love to fucking hear it.

Then there's Mom. That woman could and should have been a programmer out of high school - but was told that women don't do that, so they sent her to the typist pool. She did well, found a niche and wasn't afraid to try new things. She jumped on the trucker craze of the '80's - owned her own rig and made a good living for several years. Having kids threw a bit of a wrench in that. So she changed gears and took her computer skills to a successful firm that moved her straight to HR. She did well there for a decade. Then, due to her company being bought, she found herself trying something new, yet again - and finally got close to her calling - as a database specialist. She was good at it, too. Did that until that company went under - then she had to start from scratch, again, because database specialists weren't high demand, at least not without a degree. I'll skip through the next 20 years of hard work and making it work while raising a family and end up here:
She sacrificed herself, her time, her everything to keep working those middle class jobs that kept being shifted to people with degrees, all slowly pushing out an aging, intelligent, hardworking woman. She earned it, too. Every day. I'll take the rate increase and the tax increase we eat to make sure people like my parents - the hard fucking working poor - are able to access medical care.

I'll take that hit to make sure the 1 in 4-5 kids in this country that don't have enough food, get access to it.

I'll take it to provide shelter for those who need it.

I'll take it to do the right fucking thing, in a country where we have so much wealth, and so little of it shared.

Make no mistake - those "free ride" receivers you're bitching about? They're the WORKING poor. They bust their ass, daily - to never keep up. They are the blue collar workers that built this damned country through their blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice. The least we can do is give them a chance to afford to pay for their own fucking medical care.

@cranky1950 woah. How are government and healthcare the problem? Perhaps healthcare the billing departments where they take an item and charge it to insurance at a 3000% markup. Or when you get charged for a doctors visit. Then get fees from both the doctors office and the affiliated hospital for "room rental" those are bullshit charges.
I can say I am on a government plan for insurance. It costs us about 30% more than my work's offerings per month for the insurance. My co-pay at the office visits are $30 instead of $5 with my work's insurance. The only major difference was we had a few choices on which plans and ultimately went with one that has high premiums, high copays but no deductibles. Still. I did the math one year. It is about the same as if we had my work's insurance just paying for it pretax with known amounts and if there are any major issues it's covered a little easier than with my work's pay the deductibles before we cover anything.

@Thumperchick So your solution is to throw more money at the abusive medical industry rather than reform it? How humanities majorish of you.

@cranky1950 Right off the bat I take high offense to your comment. As I mentioned above, I work in healthcare. As you can also see above, I pay for my insurance. And you know what? It's not even very good insurance. My girlfriend also works in healthcare and pays $20 less per pay period and has significantly better coverage and deductibles. It costs me from $20 to $40 for a visit to the Doctor. It costs her $5. That's simply because she works for a non-profit system that funnels their money back to their employees in various ways while I work for a hospital that's owned by a greedy corporation. For now anyway, as we're being sold and will once again be non-profit at some point next year, exactly how I believe hospitals should be... So please explain, how is that those of us that work in healthcare are part of the problem?

As for your comment above, the ACA is not about throwing money at the medical industry. It's about regulating the insurance industry and preventing them from playing favorites. Like @Thumperchick said, they got the ball rolling. And it's rolling in the right direction, albeit with many speed bumps in it's path. Now if only the assholes in Congress would stop trying to end the ACA simply because no one can agree to play nice and instead would work together to fix the areas that need help. Pretty much guarantee, if the current President was Republican and passed the ACA, this Congress would be kissing his ass to spread it not only throughout our country but they'd deem it such a positive idea that they'd insist the entire world should follow suit.

@cinoclav You get a sweeheart deal on health insurance because people like me are carrying your ass

@cranky1950 No, I pay what I pay because I work my ass off to help make the company money. Our parent company has 198 hospitals and over 135,000 employees in the system. With the number of employees working for this company the insurance companies can provide better rates than what a small company may pay. Do I pay less than you? Maybe. Are there others that pay less than me? Absolutely. As of my last paycheck I've paid about $2200 this year for my share of my insurance premium.

In other words, don't be a fucking dick and think that you're carrying my ass at all.

@cranky1950 it is entertaining to watch you consistently throw out an insult when faced with an opposing view, or a fact - rather than stay the course and have the discussion. I understand though, why debate when your argument is selfish, short sighted and doesn't stand on its own?
Much better to lob an insult and hope no one noticed.

@Thumperchick Your mom is awesome!

@aarond12 - Bravo.

@aarond12 No I'm not, the ACA is actually a srep backward. Fixing the healthcare industry is the solution, not rewarding th\e abuse.

@cranky1950 sreping backward is always awkward...