The Republican Party is in serious trouble. For a long while, much of America has been debating “How does the Affordable Care Act really affect me? It’s been such an amorphous question that it’s allowed uncertainty to fester. Well…the thing is, now you can find out. And it’s not good for the GOP.
A friend called yesterday afternoon and talked me through using the California website for the Affordable Care Act, a clearinghouse of information about the new law, and how it affects Californians. Included on the page is a form that lets you determine what insurance plans might be available to you, and how much you'll pay. I found out how much I'll pay. As I said, the Republican Party is in serious trouble. My friend, who is a lawyer, is meticulous about reading everything about...well, anything, but especially insurance forms. And most especially about the Affordable Care Act. Better known as Obamacare. And as far as I can tell from going through this form, Obama really does care. A lot. I was so flabbergasted by what I found that I kept asking my friend if he was absolutely, positively sure there were no catches. He was sure. There are no catches. After entering your personal information, a page comes up that shows the plans that fit your situation. That first page was HMOs. Clicking to a second page, I found a PPO offered by a major company that I liked. And then I looked at the bottom line. The amount I would owe. And when I did, I was gobsmack floored. If I sign up for this plan (and honestly, there is no way I'm not), then thanks to Obamacare, I will pay around $750 LESS a month. That works out to a savings of $9,000 a year! My deductible? It dropped from $2,500 down to...zero. Maybe it's just me, but I think people are going to be very pleased by savings like that. Actually, I had various other options. There are Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Plans. The standard one (that I was looking at) was Silver. Called "Silver 94." What that "94" means is that about 94% of all health costs will be covered. That's another Really Good Thing. (Just out of curiosity, I looked at Bronze 60. Only 60% of your health costs will be covered with that, but for some people -- like perhaps if you're in your 20s -- that might be all they need. And how much would that plan have cost me? It was $1 a month. For those who are math-challenged, this would be $12 a year. It's really hard to take seriously any complaints about forcing people to buy health care when for a lot of people that cost could potentially be $12 a year. To be very clear, my numbers will not be the same as for others. As I said above, it depends on your income, age, what state you live in, what area, how many dependents and what plan you choose. But my numbers are actual figures and a good starting point for comparison. (By the way, my friend said that for his own family plan, his deductible was going to drop from $7,600 a year down to $500. It will not surprise you to learn that he's extremely happy. I believe the medical term is "giddy.") This will be different from state to state. California, for example, where I live, being so populous could negotiate a better deal that others. And being California, they were motivated to. Not every state will be that lucky. And not everyone will be aware of these price drops. Most people, after all, get their insurance through their employer. But it's hard to imagine that word will not spread about the massive savings. Moreover, some people may not want to leave their insurance company. Or they might find that the new plans available for them are out-of-network with their family doctor. But the thing is, no one has to switch. If you want to stick with your insurance company and pay $9,000 extra a year, you can! As for your doctor being out-of-network -- the reality is that right now, before Obamacare, my own doctor is already out-of-network. I've never cared about that too much. I care more about having a good doctor, having the doctor I want. Mine saved my life. So, I'll stick with him, thanks for asking. Therefore, to me, a doctor being out of network is a secondary consideration -- but even if not, given the $9,000 savings starting January 1 I'd be okay with paying a few hundred dollars more over the course of a year for the doctor I want, whether he's in a network or not. The only thing that annoys me about the Affordable Care Act is that I can't sign up until October 1, and it doesn't start until January 1. This is spectacular. And we now see empirical data why the GOP is freaking out about “Obamacare” going into effect on October 1. For the past two years, the Republican Party has been running around, trying to terrify America about the supposed-hell of Obamacare -- they've been so frantic about it that they're threatening to shut down the government. With savings like this, you now know the reason. And when the American public begins to understand what the Affordable Care Act is, what Obamacare is, whatever you want to call it is, they will see that the GOP has painted itself into a corner for the disgrace they have brought upon themselves, and will see that the Grand Old Party has never been grand nor had its supporters best interests, or anyone's best interests at heart. Some may wonder why Democrats haven't been calling this out from rooftops for the past two years. I would suspect that a big reason is that even as recently as a few months ago they might not have had all the numbers. States had to negotiate with insurance companies to get the prices, so these figures might only have been available recently, for all I know. They might also argue that they did get the word out, but Republicans yelled hell and damnation louder. I ran the numbers for a naturally-skeptical friend, who has a rehab condition that he hasn’t been able to afford for the past few years. When he heard what his new cost would be and that his former rehab doctor is in the program, this natural skeptic got excited that “This means I might be able to start doing rehab again." This is life-changing law for many. The Republican Party is in serious trouble. (To use the form, go to www.coveredca.com, click Shop Now / Get Started and then fill in the simple boxes. If you’re not from California and are just curious, make up a California zip code. Downtown L.A. is 90004. The only box that might be a little tricky is "Household Income." This is your Adjusted Gross Income. On your IRS tax form 1040, it's line 37.) Yesterday, President Obama was giving a speech and talking about the unrelenting Republican effort to slam and defund the program they've been trying to belittle as"Obamacare." Looking out over the audience, he said, "And once it's working really well, I guarantee you, they will not call it Obamacare." Obamacare already seems to be working really well.
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I've been anxiously waiting for The Word tonight.
As people around these parts well know, I've been yammering about the musical Harmony for the last few months here, the Barry Mannilow-Bruce Sussman show I'd seen 16 years ago in a San Diego pre-Broadway tryout that's been given a second life at the Tony-winning Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. I happen to know a couple of people who live in Atlanta, and so ever since I hear that the show as going to be playing there, I've been ranting to them about getting tickets. They finally gave in and bought tickets a week ago. That's was great, but then the stakes went up. While I was aware that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had given it a rave, I knew my personally credibility was on the line because I’d been going on about it so hard, pushing them not to miss the opportunity. And this was someone I knew who had put up hard, cold cash. The tickets were for tonight, and all day was thumb-twiddling time. I just got a note back from the wife – “Harmony was Wonderful!!!! Still needs work but the goods are there. So glad u encouraged me to go - Gracias !” PHEW! I’m off the hook…! And nice to know that I sometimes do know what I'm talking about. Watch this space... Okay, as I mentioned a few days ago, I was going to post of a few songs from the musical, Take Me Along, written by Bob Merrill. It's such a charming, evocative score -- and so little known -- that I thought it deserved the extra attention. Anyway, we got a little detoured with a story about the show's source, but now back to the musical part of the evening. This first one today is sung by Walter Pidgeon, who played Nat Miller (the character portrayed by Will Rogers in the original stageplay version, Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neill). He plays the father of a young teenager, and the father of the boy's girlfriend has come over to have it out with Nat, as the relationship has been heating up more that he cares for, in that time of 1910 Connecticut. After the girl's father leaves, Nat is left alone to stew and then lead in to his lovely ballad, "Staying Young." Walter Pidgeon above with his son in Take Me Along, Richard, played by Robert Morse -- who in a couple years would become a star of his own in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and today, 54 years, later, plays Bertram Cooper, one of the founders of the Sterling Cooper ad agency on Mad Men.
I had something else planned to post right now, but I just came across something else by total accident, and want to get it here now, rather than wait. I was browsing on YouTube when by chance I saw something that caught my eye and decided to check it out. It's a 6-1/2 minute video of Julie Andrews and Mama Cass Elliot singing a medley of songs by Paul Simon. As far as I can tell, this comes from The Julie Andrews Hour in 1972. Though both women had incredible singing voices, this doesn't necessarily seem a match made in heaven. Their styles were very different -- one of them meticulous and angelic, the other a more free-spirited Earth Mother. And Julie Andrews was hardly known for pop-folk '60s music. But they bring out the best in the other here, and it's a spectacular duet. I think that if Julie Andrews had done this medley alone, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well, and arguably not at all. It might have come across as too precious, almost like when many opera singers try to sing pop. But Cass Elliot grounds the performance, and Andrews blends with her. And if Mama Cass did the number alone, it would have be appropriate and come across as fine, though no more than that. A nice Mama Cass Elliott tribute to Paul Simon. But with Julie Andrews' elegance and soaring soprano, it turns a standard medley into something with grace and richness. I don't want to overpraise this, but along with a wonderful, full-orchestra arrangement (which could have gone way-wrong as well for songs written with a single guitar in mind), this medley from these two women is just a gem. Baptist minister E.W. Jackson spoke from the pulpit of the Restoration Fellowship Church in Strasbourg, Virginia, on Sunday. His words were fiery.
"Any time you say, ‘There is no other means of salvation but through Jesus Christ, and if you don’t know him and you don’t follow him and you don’t go through him, you are engaged in some sort of false religion,' that’s controversial. But it’s the truth. Jesus said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me.'" Fiery, yes, as were his words about same-sex marriage. "God intended heterosexual marriage. I don't hear anything about two people of the same sex being married." But still, not out of the ordinary of what you might expect to hear in church. However, Mr. Jackson wasn't there as the preacher. He's the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor. Not surprisingly, statements such as this have caused problems for his running mate, Ken Cuccinelli, on the ticket as the Republican nominee for Governor. Previous, Mr. Cuccinelli had say that the two men were "running together." Now? Not so much. "I am just not going to defend my running mates’ statements at every turn," Cuccinelli told the Washington Post. "They’ve got to explain those themselves. Part of this process is just letting Virginia voters get comfortable with us, on an individual basis, personally." Alas, Virginia voters aren't getting comfortable with either candidate, individually, personally, together, or otherwise, as both are behind their Democratic opponents in this Red state. The most recent NBC News/Marist Poll has him behind Terry McAuliffe by five points, and by eight points in a Washington Post poll. The added problem for Mr. Cuccinelli, who is the current Attorney General of Virginia, is the same questions of bribery dogging the state's outgoing Govenor, Bob McDonnell, as well as his lack of popularity with the women folk. He's behind McAuliffe by a massive 24 points with women -- in large part for his having introduced a fetal personhood bill when a state senator that would ban all abortion. But back to Mr. Jackson, who is behind his opponent Ralph Northam by three points in the most recent Washington Post poll, inside the 5-point margin of error. To be clear, I understand any Baptist or Catholic or Methodist or whoever believes in Jesus Christ as his personal savior to believe that it is the only true salvation. To call all other faiths "false religions"...well, that doesn't strike me as terribly brotherly or endearing or substantive or decent -- especially since some of those religions pre-date Christianity by several thousand years, but I understand it. I understand intolerance, even if I certainly don't agree with it. But it's one thing for a religious sermon to preach that, or a private individual to believe it -- after all, everyone is entitled to their intolerance, just as they're entitled to be bigoted, racist or full of hate, or love and joy. But it's something else for a candidate for Lt. Governor to be so intolerant of those he'll be governing, and so outspokenly and so proudly, even if he is delivering that intolerance as a sermon. "He did not set out to offend people," said the church's pastor, Jay Ahlemann. He just arrived there all on his own, even without needing a map. Ultimately, it's not really a case of whether anyone was offended. I am certain that all people who believe in faiths other than Christianity have full comfort that their personal beliefs are not "false," so what E.W. Jackson says about that is utterly meaningless. It's a case of whether it is in the public's best interest to have elected officials who are small-minded, divisive and feel that everyone who doesn't believe as they do is damned and going to hell. We continue with the 1959 musical, Take Me Along. As mentioned, the show has a wonderful score by Bob Merrill, and is based on that rarity of rarities, the only comedy ever written by Eugene O'Neill, Ah, Wilderness! Today, we have an odd tale related to the show, through really about its source material. Years ago, I worked for the California Park Service at Will Rogers State Historic Park, and going through papers one day, I came across this story. The original Broadway production of Ah, Wilderness in 1933 with none other than George M. Cohan in the starring role of Nat Miller, the role played in the musical version by Walter Pidgeon. A year later, the show was re-mounted in a major production in San Francisco with Will Rogers in the same starring role. At the time, Will Rogers was not only a popular actor, but the top box-office star in the country, when the country was movie crazy. He was a big deal -- not just from his movies, but his radio show and newspaper column, all with his good-natured, homespun humor. He was taking a break from movies, and had a long contract with the show, agreeing to take it on the road across the country after the San Francisco run ended. One day, Rogers received a letter at the theater. It came from a minister, who said that when he saw that Will Rogers was in the play, he knew that meant it would be good, wholesome, clean-cut humor, so he took his young daughter to the show. However, in the show, there is a scene when Nat Miller, the character Rogers played, delivers a talk about sex education to his name. The minister said he was so mortified by this that he didn't know if he would ever be able to look his daughter in the face again.
Will Rogers considered the impact of the letter. He cared a great deal about his audience, and knew that they did trust him for good, family humor and content. And he decided that the minister had a point. So, he told the producers that he would agree to play out the rest of the run of the show in San Francisco, but after that he negotiated to get out of the contract, and wouldn't take the show on tour. It would have to travel without him. Check the program above. Look underneath the heading of the Curran Theatre. There you can see the opening date of this production, May 7, 1934. No longer having a long run tour with the show, Will Rogers now had a great deal of unexpected free time on his schedule. So, in its place, he planned to go on an adventurous trip with his friend, the aviator Wylie Post. And on August 15, 1935, the two of them crashed and were killed in Point Barrows, Alaska. There are easy morals that might be drawn from this, about listening to others pontificating about decency, though I think those are a bit unfair. In the end, it was Will Rogers' decision to leave the show because he had a certain reputation with his audience and wanted to keep to that standard. Whether most of his fans felt the same as the minister is another matter. They might have been fine with it, and given that we only know about this one letter only, it's quite possible they were mostly fine with it. But further, there are a great many things Will Rogers could have chosen to do with with newly-freed up time. He chose the air trip. But it's nonetheless impossible to hear this story and not shake your head, "If only..." |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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