Thursday, January 17, 2008

Hey! Circular Firing Squads are OUR Specialty...

But the Republicans are doing a great job of imitating us. I think it's hilarious. The Grand Old Party looks disorganized, un-united, silly and downright... well... um... Democratic. No clear front-runner and no clear message that all Republicans can unite around. I don't think the Republican voters are happy with any of their choices. And who can blame them? When all the Democratic candidates are pretty much selling the same message of change, brave new world, and all that stuff; the Republicans all sound like re-runs of the same old commercials they've been running for my entire lifetime. Don't they get it, yet? Fewer and fewer people are worried about what their neighbors do in their own bedrooms and more and more are worried about how much money is left in their pockets after they've paid the bills. Many of us can't pay all the bills when they are due and still have money left over for food, never mind having enough money for a little entertainment every once in a while.
And forget about health care if you get sick! We have insurance but I just added up the receipts from the pharmacy for the 4th quarter of 2007. Between the two of us we spent just a few dollars less than $1,600.00 on prescriptions. That's only 3 months! If we hadn't had insurance we'd have been shit out of luck. And that's just the meds. That don't count all the co-pays for all the doctor visits and the out of pocket expenses for tests and procedures that the insurance wouldn't pay or only paid a small portion of. All that stuff tallied up to over $5,000.00 for the entire year! And that amount doesn't include the dental stuff that I had done, which I had insurance for, as well. And I still paid over $2,000.00 out of pocket expense for what I had done. If we hadn't had insurance, I would have never been able to find out that I was diabetic; Pete would have never found out he had prostate cancer. Not until it was too late to do anything about it.
So... the Republicans are in disarray. And I watched the news this morning where they were talking about how the GOP campaigns in South Carolina are getting so dirty. I didn't hear the term "Swift boating" but it sure sounded like what was happening. Ads, flyers, phone calls, accusing Romney of supporting polygamy and not being a Christian; the same accusing John McCain of not really being a war hero, of making it all up, of being a collaborator with the enemy, of being a Democrat in Republican clothing (if he really was, I'd consider voting for him, but he's not, he's a Republican and therefore will not be getting my vote, no way, no how); accusing Thompson of only staying in the race to draw votes away from Huckabee and thus help his friend John McCain; accusing Huckasleeze, I mean Huckabee, of being too Democratic (like that's a bad thing), of being too much of a "populist" (huh?). Anyway... they sure are acting a lot like the Democrats did in the last two elections.
Besides, like I said: their message is just too stale, too old, too 80's. They aren't connecting with the mainstream, modern Republicans. Sure, their old-school, old-fashioned, core supporters still care about abortion, gay rights (or insuring the lack thereof), God (their version of), and guns. But even many of them are concerned more about the economy and less about who is sleeping with whom.
I just think it's pretty funny.

4 comments:

pamwax said...

I feel for you o health care. We have insurance but it is $10,000 deductable. Do we go to the doctor? No because we would have to pay for it. Our meds come from India via Canada. 9 months and Neil gets Medicare and I can get it in 2009. Now my little stock portfolio which I had hoped would grow so I could quit working, is in the dumper. Thank you George. Please America give us a change.

Some Kinda Wonderful said...

I know, we've been getting a lot of our meds from Walmart lately. Stuff that Kroger pharmacy charges us $65 and more for is only $4 at Walmart. I was concerned about buying meds from there, they are always so disorganized, but 4 bucks versus 65 bucks up to 100 bucks? How can you not use them. Unfortunately, not all of our meds are on their $4 list, so we have to pay the real co-pay. Since I realized that we could get a lot of them from there, our costs have gone down dramaticaly. I hate the place, but "Thank God for Walmart! Amen."

Some Kinda Wonderful said...

And about that medicare, pam. Pete has it. The only thing is, since he still works full time, they still take out full for it on his paycheck and then we still get a regular quarterly bill from them. And since he has insurance thru his job - medicare is his secondary! But he pays out the yingyang for it anyway. And he had to file for it when he became eligible because the primary insurance quit paying anything until he did! It doesn't matter what you do, you're screwed whichever way you go, it seems. Between what they take out of his paycheck for medicare and what we pay quarterly, we pay almost as much for that just for him as we pay for insurance thru his work for all 3 of us. Go figure.

pamwax said...

I figure when we are both on Medicare with a suppliment it will cost us a little more than we pay now but at least we will be able to go to the doctor. And maybe the premiums won't go up every 6 months. By the way Sam's also has the $4 perscriptions. None of Neils qualify of course.