Mark your calendars, Frangela will be filling in for Randi Rhodes next Monday and Tuesday, August 17 and 18 from 12 to 3 PM. Don’t forget you can always stream the show live at KTLK. For more information on the Randi Rhodes show click here.
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Yeaaaaaay!!!!!!!!! Woopee! Woohoo!
Can you tell i am happy about this unexpected windfall.
Do not let the right-wing bats disconcert or confound you next week. If you don’t have the facts at your fingertips to hit back point by point whilst you are subbing, just be your charmingly witty selves..that alone will stun most of Randi’s regular listeners. (i kid because i love)
Hopefully more people will become aware of you and we can hear you more often. Light-hearts are scarce these days.
Aloha and Bon Chance Ladies!!
Please check out Daily Kos . The woman who spoke up at the Arlen Sector townhall and was on Hardball with Lawrene O’Donnel is a Glen Beck groupie and a plant. She’s not really some little housewife who just got involved becasue os healthcare. excuse the typos.
I streamed randi today expecting some vim and vigor and have been so delighted to be calmed and energized by the 2 of you.
Could you talk about how we can get this boat to start shifting direction towards where we need to go?
Now that the AARP crowd is all stirred up- an they are the ones with the single payer option we need a plan!
I am calling myy reps now twice a week
Thanks for your candor and entertainment
I am staying tuned
Hi guys-you do a great job when you fill in for Stephanie and now Randi. You are fun to listen to and I love your light-heartedness. My purpose in this e-mail is to emphasize that medicare is not free and it only covers 80% and does not cover prescriptions. So, it is necessary to have a supplement. I pay approximately $100 per month and my supplement is $386 as a State of Wisconsin retiree. Additionally, I have to pay the first $350 in copays for Rx. Therefore, I am paying over $500 per month for health insurance. To prove that insurance companies come between the doctor and the patient, I am in excruciating pain with a degenerative knee and have to wait up to 3 weeks for permission from some young clerk who will decide whether I can have a steroid injection to hopefully relieve the pain. The $500 plus which I need to pay takes a huge chunk of my retirement. I am 72 years old. Frankly, in my 72 years, I have never seen this country in such shambles. Additionally, I have lost 25% of my pension and half of the little bit of money I managed to save thanks to the Wall Street and banking shenanigans. I have never been so disgusted and am seriously considering moving to Mexico or Costa Rica. Enough is enough! Keep up the good work!
Hi guys-you do a nice job when you fill in for Stephanie and now for Randi. I love your sense of humor. I would like to clarify something about Medicare. A caller you had on Monday-I don’t quite remember the circumstances as I was multi-tasking at the time but it had something to do with medicare or medicaid. I am not familiar with Medicaid-it is sponsored by each state and as I understand it, it is for disabled people under 65. Many poeple have a misunderstanding of medicare. It is not free-it varies from state to state but it costs approx. $100 per month and it only covers 80% of charges-patients are responsible for 20%. it also does not cover medications. I pay the $100 and then have to have a supplement to cover the 20% and prescriptions and anything that medicare does not cover. I also have to pay the first $350 of my prescription copays. So, altogether I am paying over $500 per month which consumes a huge chunk of my income. The person who called about her husband with the brain tumor and it was all covered either has a supplement which they are paying for or they are on Medicaid which may cover it all but he is not just on Medicare. Just FYA as many think that Medicare is totally free. Keep up the good work!
Frangela,
I am SO FRANGRY!
OK, here’s a little nugget for your noggins, so bear with me on the backstory:
I recently had a wax buildup in my ear and went to see an ear specialist. I have BlueCross (for which I pay 20% of my income in premiums!). After a minor procedure, I was charged a $32 co-pay (so far, so good). Three weeks later, I get a bill from the doctor for $142, so I call up the doc’s office and ask what it would cost me for the same procedure if I DIDN’T HAVE INSURANCE? She looks it up and says it would cost $46 !!! Hmmmm $32 + $142 = $174 for something that would cost $46?
So, I am paying $500/mo in premiums for the privilege of paying almost four times the cost of a simple office visit? WE HAVE FALLEN DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE!
I immediately called both senators and my congressman (Alcee Hastings – who is FOR health care but he’s still a lazy ass do-nothing congressman who never has any serious challengers to his seat. I doubt he’s ever even been to our neighborhood he supposedly represents.) I asked if they had any good explanation why we can’t have nationalized health insurance like the rest of the civilized world where it works just fine! (No good reason was forthcoming…)
I am so FRANGRY that I can barely see straight! Which brings me to my next question: Why are my ears “covered” under insurance but not my eyes or teeth? What’s next? Will they will only cover my right side and not the left?
Sushi
Frangela – I heard you last nite and I want to thank you for enlightening me on the health care issue. I have been shamefully ignorant about it, but you talked in down to earth terms that I could understand. I appreciate you opening my ears and mind. Cheers – L
Your observation (yesterday) that “it seems like a lot of the protesters simply don’t want other Americans to have healthcare” is spot on. It is a sad state of affairs. Those protesters, themselves struggling, worry more about even more disenfranchised people getting what ought to be considered a very basic right: healthcare. Instead, these protesters ought to be wondering about why it is that 0.01% of the population makes off with 6% of the income! And why it is that 0.01% get a bigger share each year? In essence, those 0.01% use their money well: they have so much control of the media outlets and members of congress that they can pit “the poor against the poorer”, while making sure that no one ever checks out the richest 0.01%. All with corporate help, of course. Americans have been essentially trained to always argue and vote against their own interests. They have permanently replaced common sense with a belief in the, get ready, American Dream.
I really hope you guys come back to Randi’s show on Friday. You were great! The Wed. Thurs. guy is uninformed, angry, and unproductive.
HEALTH CARE “DISCUSSION ITEMS” FOR PROGRESSIVES
By James Paul Wright, JPaulWright@Comcast.net
1- The cost of your Health Care Insurance for your family (usually paid by the employer) has doubled in the last 10 years to over $12,000 per year per family.
2- Your Health Care Insurance costs will double in the next 10 years to $24,000 per year per family. Most of this increase will be pad directly by you, NOT your employer. http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/15636
3- Employers who are not embracing Health Care Reform to reduce their costs obviously plan to shift Health Care cost increases to their employees. Ask them! Why are these employers so silent?
4- Your future pay raises will not cover the ever increasing cost for Health Care Insurance, unless you’re a corporate executive. Do the math.
5- Republicans imply that “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is now “government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.” Need proof? Google: “Senators AND Lewin Group”. The Lewin Group is owned by UnitedHealthCare, a Health Care Insurance company.
http://globalgrind.com/content/885741/Lewin-Groups-Parent-Company-Donated-Big-To-GOP-Leaders/
6- Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats protect the very profitable Health Care Insurance Companies and themselves, NOT you or me! Everyone needs to get a clue! These obstructionists do NOT care about YOU! They only pretend to care about you to protect themselves and the enormous profits!
7- Boomers can NOT retire without meaningful Health Care cost reductions and protections. Those of you under 50 right now just won’t get your promotion very soon! Or may not even get a job! Guess what? Boomers want to retire, but can’t afford it.
8- About Health Care discussions (or any discussion):
Meaningful adult conversations discuss the problems, the facts, and then find solutions. Destructive child-like conversations resort to “Silence or Violence.”
9- Destructive child-like conversations are the techniques of bigots, obstructionists, the scared and the uninformed. People must be told this because most do not know that yelling is “Violence!” And “Silence” is ignoring the problem.
10- Health Care for the military is a government run “socialist” system. How many in the military want to pay a private insurance company $12,000 per year per family and let the insurance company decide if their condition is covered? Civilians don’t want this either!
11- Congress should suspend Health Care for all elected officials until everyone gets Health Care. Call this the “Government Empathy Lesson.”
12- Private supplemental Health Care insurance is required for those on Medicare. Health Car Reform should include improved Medicare. Fact: Most doctors in major cities do not accept Medicare patience because if they accept one, they have to accept all and they can’t earn enough to stay in business. Find a doctor in Bellevue WA, for example, who will accept Medicare for an eye, heart, jaw, or cancer operation.
13- Republicans, like the Christians that they are, need to ask themselves what would Jesus say and do about Health Care reform for everyone? Would Jesus say “Well, I got mine?”
Will Saint Peter at the pearly gates embrace those that have made billions for the insurance companies but let 18,000 American die each year because they have no preventative care?
14- Like car insurance for drivers, health care for every American must be required.
15 – If not a universal Health Care program, then there must be either 2) a “public option”, or 3) a government controlled and regulated “American option” that all health insurance companies must provide to any and all Americans who want it, no exceptions or cancellations or rejections for any medical condition that is pre-existing or that occurs. Doctors and hospitals would control all their patient’s needs, not the insurance companies.