Looks like they have a lot more in common than their politics would suggest.What's the matter with Georgia? Two long-shot candidates in the state's governor's race were suspended as school-teachers after allegations of inappropriate conduct with female high-school students.
One of those, Republican Ray McBerry, leads a Georgia secessionist group and is hovering around 2 percent in GOP primary polls. McBerry already last weekend issued a hilarious pre-emptive denial of those charges -- as well as several others. The other, Democrat Carl Camon, is the mayor of Ray City, and polls around 2 percent in the Democratic primary.
In other news of politicians who didn't understand the concept of zipped trousers, John Ensign's sex scandal may be heating up to the point where even the mainstream media, which finds only Dem sex scandals titillating to the point of driving politicians from office, will have to take note. This should be fun.
And for those of you wondering if trusting insurers to do the right thing is a good idea, it isn't:
That right. Didn't really want to do it. Promised to do it, swore up and down they'd be good corporate citizens and do it, but in the end, didn't feel like doing anything even close to the right thing. So they didn't. They spent all the money on lobbying against health care reform instead. Isn't that special?Insurance giant WellPoint Inc. -- the company planning double-digit rate hikes for customers -- made a compelling promise a few years ago. Shortly after Democrats reclaimed the congressional majority, the insurer announced that it would use its charitable foundation to invest $30 million over three years as part of a "comprehensive plan to help address the growing ranks of the uninsured."
That was three years ago. How's that promise working out? Not especially well.[A]ccording to tax filings, company promotional material and former executives familiar with the initiative, WellPoint never came close to fulfilling that pledge. [...]However, WellPoint's public records indicate that from 2007 to 2009 the foundation gave less than $6.2 million in grants targeted specifically at helping uninsured Americans get access to coverage and care -- barely one-fifth of what was promised and just 11% of the charity's total giving over the last three years."It was just not something that the company really wanted to do," said one former executive, who, like others interviewed for this story, asked not to be identified out of concern that discussing WellPoint could have adverse career consequences. "So it went by the wayside."
Right, then. Think I'll go finish watching The Handmaid's Tale. It's only slightly more fucked up than the current state of our great nation.
It sure is a good thing that the insurance rate control board was ruled out of scope for a reconciliation bill. Gee, I'll bet someone who's been a Senator for decades wouldn't have seen that coming, huh? I'm sure Congress will be getting on that real soon, along with all the other stuff they forgot to put into this bill.
ReplyDeleteAll the nonsense from the Democrats about how they're going to control insurance costs and make it so we will get the coverage we're paying for, without actually doing anything to make that happen, would be hysterical if it weren't so sad.