Mat-Su Surprise!
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy. – Hamlet
If anywhere in Alaska can be relied upon for its lobstery redness, and overabundance of bootstraps and red pickup trucks, it’s the Mat-Su Valley – home of the ex-half governor, home of the State Rep who held up honoring the Girl Scouts because he heard a rumor on the internet they were in cahoots with Planned Parenthood, home of the former State Rep who tried to outlaw Sharia Law, home of the High School that covered up their 1% for art because it looked a little too much like ladyparts. The local paper, The Frontiersman, is a great read, and periodically features a reader poll.
Today, as I scanned the online paper, I saw that the poll question asked about the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of what is commonly known as “Obamacare.” Do readers agree, or disagree with this opinion?
They may as well have been asking readers if they like the bubonic plague, or welfare queens, or migraine headaches, or cross-dressing Kindergarten teachers.
I mean, the same issue has a letter to the editor from a guy who laments:
…we are witnessing the death of individualism as over half the country now values group thinking and collectivism over being capable, self-sustaining, individuals. They have no interest in living a life free from interference by the government.
They want a world where their decisions, from the size of their sodas, to the health care they are given are made for them. We are evolving into a country where success is no longer something to be admired, rather it’s something to be jealously mocked, ridiculed and destroyed.
I recalled the Tea Party rally in Wasilla that was called specifically to protest Obamacare. They were not pleased, as you can see.
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I chuckled to myself. “This poll is gonna be good,” said I.
The only way you can see the results of the poll, of course, is if you vote in it. Wondering if I’d be the only yes vote, I clicked, and then viewed the results. Would it be 70% 80% More?
Well, give me a bad wig and call me Sarah…
Perhaps there is hope.
Dean Baker on how getting a grip on health care costs actually causes the deficit to practically vanish:
As some of us have long pointed out, there are serious grounds for questioning the plausibility of projections that the health care sector would rise to 30 or 40 percent of GDP over the rest of the century. Recently a paper from the Federal Reserve Board documented this argument in considerable detail.
Even more important than the professional argument over health care cost projections is the recent trend in health care costs. While the CBO projections assume that age-adjusted health care costs rise considerably more rapidly than per capita income, in the last four years they have been roughly keeping pace with per capita income.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/the-crisis-of-the-deficit-crisis-mongers
In fact, in the last year nominal spending on health care services, the sector that comprises almost two-thirds of health care costs, rose by just 1.7 percent. This is far below the rate of nominal GDP growth over this period, which was more than 4.0 percent. While at least some of this slowing in health care costs is undoubtedly due to the downturn, it is hard to believe that it is not at least partially attributable to a slower underlying rate of health care cost growth.
CBO and other budget forecasters can ignore economic reality for a period of time (they ignored the housing bubble until after its collapse wrecked the economy), but if it continues, at some point they will have to incorporate the trend of slower health care cost growth into their projections. When this happens, the really scary long-term deficit numbers will disappear.
I think the poll was confusing to the Mat-Su readers. They have been instructed by Fox to oppose Obamacare. They don’t know nothing ’bout no Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
I would wager that a large # of Republican respondents did not understand the question…….
SayItWithWookies at Wonkette echoes Talimat:
“The Tea Party platform, as best I can grasp it, is something like STOP SPENDING! Life is sacred except for them what needs killin! Get government out of my life! No, not Social Security or Medicare or my son’s government job — just get government out of my life! We want to be free from government oppression, so government should be small enough that it can’t keep corporations from being our oppressors instead! Hunting, fishing and Jesus and NASCAR!
So basically they don’t know what they f_____’ believe — but they’re damn sure their biggest problem is that some people don’t believe it enough.”
Related to Cancer Survivors (and I admit to being one) Obamacare will change lives and save money. Without it, people like me and my neighbor 7 year old J. who will live long and healthy (after leukemia) could be denied insurance coverage. the ER would be our stopgap and we all know that that doesn’t work and ultimately leads to huge bills when there is no preventative or appropriate care.
Also, the million $ ceiling caused parents of childhood leukemia to make health decisions today because of their fear that their child, tho in remission would not be able to access health care when they got to be adults.
It is often much more expensive to die of cancer than to live…too many people put off treatment or choose not to “burden” their families and ultimately die – but not before the emergency (and often too late care) kicks in. My hospital and insurance pays for that and we’ve lost the person.
Do I know all the details of AHC? No, and I’m sure it’ll need some work but I am happy to kick in a little more if my neighbor can get preventative care like I did. Many of us are already paying for a failed system (“just take ’em to the ER) and wouldn’t it be grand to pay for success?
I have watched this poll inch up from 46% in favor to over half. I too was floored but I have developed an alternate theory. Perhaps the more computer savvy read the online line papers or perform computer maintenance (resetting cookies and registry etc. permitting another vote). These people may have leanings towards intelligence and intelligent decisions. Just a guess. I was impressed enough about the 46% when it first was posted.
There is hope for the future.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83752.html?hp=r5 I’m not sure,Zyx. In Arizona this young nutter woman’s head exploded because her husband did not vote. Probably a good thing she had a Jeep,imagine the rill damage if she carried a pink Glock,as well.
I live in North Mat Su. My sister lives just outside Wasilla.
This is how we describe republicans in the place we live.
50% are low information voters
20% don’t vote
10% don’t understand why they are republican. They claim to of filled in the circle yet there was little boxes on the voter registration cards. The circles vs boxes thing is confusing.
The rest are red voters because of the clueless high school girl dancing at the corner of Parks Highway & Wasilla/Palmer Rd.
She is there during high school football season wearing a old tattered tacky RED feathered Indian head dress purchased by some long forgotten high school coach, who said girls look better in it than a Indian. Bleed like a Warrior! So because of this, voting age people register as republican.
I’m not sure many who voted on the poll understand that the poll is referring to Obamacare. It doesn’t actually say Obamacare. So that might be a clue as to why its a Mat Su Surprise.
In a mock election at the Anchorage School District, President Obama won. Maybe there is hope with the next generation of Alaskans.
I wish there was a community organizer of caliber who could lead us, to get more people out to vote against Alaska’s right wing establishment. (using the Obama campaign’s grassroots and technological model).
Alaska is the unfortunate destination of those right-wing nutcases who even Dixie does not want. That too will change, as it is now numerically impossible for a Republican candidate to win a national election. It does not matter what the right-wing nutcases say, they no longer have the base to win any national election. Change has come.
Just as the nutcases arrive the nutcases leave. This next 6-12 months may see a larger than 20% turnover of residents. Just observe how much Real Estate is on the market. Many of the nutcases cannot handle the severe winter we had last year.
Maybe there is more scripture about the end-times vis a vis too much snow. n
I was astonished how fast the Republican talking heads did a turnaround from their obstructionism du jour as soon as the prez was re-elected and began saying things that sound almost reasonable and intelligent.
For example—
“Bill Kristol: “It won’t kill the country” to raise taxes on millionaires.
The Weekly Standard columnist says the GOP shouldn’t “fall on its sword” over tax increases on the wealthy
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/11/bill_kristol_it_wont_kill_the_country_to_raise_taxes_on_millionaires/
If that kind of response to raising taxes is possible, then I will continue to live in my little dream world that one day, enough people will stand up and say that Obamacare saved their family from bankruptcy and extended years of hopeful possibilities to a loved one whose illness was caught early, so that, finally, the naysayers will be silenced in the face of THAT kind of reality.
If the rightwing nutjobs get their comeuppance about taxing the uber-wealthy with a reality kick-in-the-pants from the re-election of a president who was recently described as “a black man in power who has nothing to lose now”, then what other great things might come about in these next four years?!
I just regret that a certain wonderful, moral, intelligent independent from the southern parts of Anchorage is not headed into the Alaska senate next term. That’s a terrible loss for the good people of Alaska.
In view of that, I hope that Ron Devon is headed for some other excellent role in government along the lines of “when a door closes, a window opens”….
And I hope that Giessel the Weasel gets her butt handed to her on a platter very shortly, and very frequently. http://juanitajean.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/[email protected]
Kristol is willing to throw Rmoney under the bus,but he was very careful not to offend the billionaire Koch bros or Sheldon Adelson by suggesting they pay more. Am I cynical or what?
Obama should take the advice of Truman. ” If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen”.
What do you mean; when has the President acted like he can’t take the heat?
You seem to have lots of closet Obamacare supporters or none of the naysayers can read? =) I’m very impressed.