The business of making health care a privilege for the well off in the United States is messy and confusing. One of our members just explained what Trump did (and didn't do) today, Friday, October 13, 2017.

"This order doesn't even impact unsubsidized premiums directly at all. He is threatening to end subsidies paid to insurance companies to help them comply with their obligation to reduce your out-of-pocket costs.

Insurance companies are required by law to reduce the deductibles and coinsurance payments for low income people (essentially anyone who is eligible for reduced premiums is also eligible for reduced cost sharing). They are still required to do so, even if they do not receive the subsidies Trump is threatening to cut off.

You will still receive the individual ACA subsidy. You will still get the cost sharing reduction on deductibles and coinsurance. Just like you don't pay $1202 now, you won't pay the $1330 in 2018. Your premium subsidies are safe (for now). Your reduced out-of-pocket cap and reduced coinsurance and deductibles are safe (for now).

The indirect impact, though, is that the insurance company can't create money out of thin air. Because it is obligated by law to give you a break, it has to find that money somewhere. The only option is to increase premiums (or leave the market). Many insurance companies increased their rates in anticipation that Trump would carry out his threat, so because of how late he issued the order, there is not likely to be much additional impact this year.

Hope that helps. None of the articles I've run across are explaining it clearly." 

Having done this for almost 9 years now once in a while we come up with something worth preserving here on the blog. Today was one of those days. It's related to things we hear daily from conservative "Christian" trolls.

Conservative "Christian" trolls frequently tell us "There is no such thing as The Christian Left."  That's silly of course and truth be told we're not sure if there's any such thing as a right-wing "Christian." We have a really hard time reconciling right-wing ideology and the words spoken by Jesus.

Another thing they like to harass us about daily is that we discuss politics here. In fact this is a page where Christian progressives (and their allies) can freely discuss political and cultural issues of the day without being harassed. It's a haven and we protect it.

Right-wing "Christians" have been blabbering about politics and culture in the public square forever. The second Christian progressives start doing the same they come here all day and say things like, "I don't see anything Christian about this page. You need to call it 'The Left' instead of 'The Christian Left'"

That is of course ignorant. We post scriptures every single day and anyone can talk about Jesus on any thread we post. In fact we encourage that because right-wing politics is so obviously opposed to the words of Jesus that every post is an illustration of the contrast.

by Charles Toy

Let this sink in. Vladimir Putin “asked” Trump to take Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on a private tour of the Oval Office. Trump complied and the “Russian press” was allowed in but the American press wasn’t.

Russia just hacked our presidential election, breaking in to the DNC computer network and distributing their confidential information with precise tactical timing to cause the maximum political damage. They were sanctioned by President Obama because this kind of cyber-sabotage is an act of war.  Every single US intelligence agency confirmed it was Russia behind these attacks. In recent public hearings James Comey stated that Russia continues to manipulate and sabotage the US political system on a large scale. Trump fired Comey the day before he granted the private tour of the Oval Office to Putin’s Russian officials.  Then he made veiled threats to Comey via Twitter.

A few questions come to mind.

Are you KIDDING me? What the hell is going on?! Why are we giving private tours of the Oval Office to our enemies? How many Russian spies do you think were in that Russian press pool in the Oval Office? What does Putin have on Trump? What do you think Ronald Reagan would think of all this? What actions do you think he would recommend moving forward? Why is every member of the US congressional leadership utterly paralyzed to do anything about this?  Even McCain is walking back his comments comparing all this to Watergate earlier today and is now trying to water down those  statements. Watergate was 5 guys breaking in to DNC headquarters. This was an entire nation with vast resources breaking in to the DNC’s electronic data files and using them to sabotage one party in the presidential election.

Several more developments have recently come to light. It turns out Trump invited Comey over to the White House for dinner the week after he was elected. After spending dinner talking about crowd size Trump told the other two guests, AG Sessions and VP Pence, to leave.  He then demanded loyalty from Comey and dropped big hints that he wanted the Michael Flynn investigation terminated. Comey refused on both counts and went home and typed up a memo detailing the entire encounter. He sent the memo to contacts within the FBI and filed it.

In an interview with Lester Holt last week Trump said that when he fired Comey he was thinking, “This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story; it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election.”

During the private Oval Office tour, in an attempt to brag, Trump blurted out information categorized as “Top Secret” and held in a secure “compartment” to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.  Several news agencies including ABC reported the life of a spy placed by Israel inside ISIS was at risk last night as a result of Trump’s carelessness.

Today, in his commencement address to United States Coast Guard Academy graduates, Trump didn’t even try to take the high road.  On one of the biggest days of their lives Trump made it all about him. Everyone is being mean to him. “Look at the way I have been treated lately, especially by the media,” he said. “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

There was one small silver lining in Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad two weeks. Vladimir Putin put the word out that he would be happy to provide a transcript of the private Oval Office tour. Let that sink in.

As you may have heard, A senior member of our admin team has been banned from posting to the Facebook page or interacting with the page in any way, this time for 7 days.

The offense was posting an article about Alex Jones from Right-Wing Watch. The header on the post was simply a quote from the article.

It seems like this only happens if people complain about it to Facebook, which leads us to believe we are being targeted. We have an e-mail in to Facebook about the situation. As you may remember this has happened before. Facebook also says that if it happens enough the ban can be permanent and the page could be taken down.

All the more reason for you to do two things in case we're ever taken down and you want to remain in touch with the community.

First, Sign up for our e-mail list by clicking on the link below,

Second, make secure emergency donation so we can set up an emergency fund if we ever have to do some fast developing. We may have to set up our own website that functions much like Facebook. Emergency secure donations can be made by clicking on the link below. Backup Facebook pages wouldn't help if we were personally suspended from Facebook.

1.) Join Our E-mail List By Clicking Here. You will receive regular e-mails from us as well as instructions of how to find the community if we're ever taken down from Facebook.

Once you join you will receive a welcome e-mail detailing all the various methods of staying in touch with the community and the story about the last time this happened to us.

2.) Make A Secure Emergency Donation By Clicking Here. We will store the funds in a development fund should we ever need to re-build the community from the ground up. We could face building a website that acted much like Facebook.

By Charles Toy

Good news! I found an Orthopedic Surgeon who accepts an A1C level of 7.5, which is my current level!

I'll keep you all posted. I meet with his physician's assistant on Monday.

I knew it was going to be a good idea to tell this story and get your feedback. I have my pain post running as a promoted post for the next week. So many have already offered great suggestions for pain. I hope this comment thread will be an ongoing resource for people like me, those who have long term untreated severe chronic pain.

You can view the original post and read all the comments by clicking the link below.

Pain Post

We're Going To Do What?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by invading the privacy of women’s bodies and the sanctity of their most private medical decisions? Instead allowing the federal government to be in charge of making these decisions?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by rounding up people like animals?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by writing laws that allow bigots to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the name of ‘Religious Liberty?’

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by ripping away health care from 30,000,000 people and with the assured outcome of going back to discriminating against sick people who have ‘pre-existing conditions?’ We’re going to cause 24,000 Americans to needlessly die every year because Republicans have turned health care into a political game that they must win for the sake of their party? Can you imagine how the country would mobilize if terrorists killed 24,000 Americans per year? We would stop at nothing. We would spend trillions. What is the difference? A death is a death.

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by profiling and tracking adherents of an entire religion thus putting all of them under a veil of suspicion?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by privatizing Social Security and Medicare which by its very nature turns these funds over to the volatile, for-profit Wall Street sector? We’re going to put the elderly, who are highly vulnerable in the hands of cut throat capitalists whose only objective is profit?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by ratifying the draconian, social Darwinist ‘Ryan Budget’ based on the daydreams of someone who worships Ayn Rand and has said he bases his entire economic philosophy on her philosophy? We’re going to ‘balance the budget’ on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans in every category? We’re going to take food off their dinner tables to pay for bogus wars based on lies and reckless Wall Street gambling?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by labeling black people as criminals and gangsters because they are tired of getting shot and killed by dirty cops over nothing?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by granting access to white supremacists like Steve Bannon to the Oval Office itself? A person who has made up crazy conspiracy theories about Democrats specifically for years? There’s just something God awful wrong about that. It’s sickening actually.

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by turning over Medicaid to the states in the form of ‘block grants,’ which experts have shown will deprive the poorest of the poor of health care?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by demonizing the press and stepping all over the first amendment, thus making the only ‘news’ outlets people believe are those like Alex Jones, Fox ‘News,’ Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart ‘News,’ and other right-wing extremist propaganda outlets that spew lies and opinions based on fear and emotion but have nothing to do with reality?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by denying climate science as a matter of national policy and setting the planet on an even faster course towards widespread human suffering and death?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by giving those who need it the least more tax cuts and adding to the tax bills of those who can least afford it? We’re going to take away tax breaks like earned income credit from the poorest of the poor?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by allowing private prisons to exist and flourish thus putting a profit incentive behind locking people up? Not only that, everyone knows that the rich don’t get locked up. The poor do. The rich can afford lawyers. Court appointed attorneys will provide you with what you paid for ... nothing.

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by installing people to cabinet positions who want to wipe out and destroy the departments they’re in charge of?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again decimating public education and gradually privatizing all of it? You know what that means. The rich will get a quality education. The poor and middle class won’t. Oh and it’s easy to see how we could go back to ‘white only’ schools. Bigots have been furious about that for decades. Depriving them of their federally subsidized ‘white only’ schools is what caused them to rise up and establish the modern “Christian” Right.

• We’re going to Make America Great Again trampling all over the rights and wishes of Native Americans by resuming the building of the North Dakota pipeline as soon as Trump is installed?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again stacking the Supreme court with right-wing extremist, activist judges who will slant the court for decades?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again taking the policy boilerplate of states like Sam Brownback’s Kansas and imposing it on the entire country, assuring the same outcome, the wholesale destruction of all civic institutions and services throughout the entire country, throwing just about everything into utter chaos?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by allowing nutcases like Mike Pence to have their hands on the levers of lawmaking and government? The man who says birth control is ‘too modern and newfangled’ for him to understand and who wanted to force women who had abortions or miscarriages to conduct funerals for the fetuses? This almost takes the cake on this whole disastrous mess if it wasn’t for all the other things literally causing the death of thousands of Americans. It’s just nuttier than sh-t, and this man is Vice President!

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by continuing to erode decades worth of human effort and suffering to assure that all Americans have the right to vote and that right isn’t infringed upon by ridiculous actions like eliminating poll locations, demanding special voter ID’s and all the other petty methods Republicans use to suppress the vote?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by allowing people like Jeff Sessions, our new Attorney General and a well-known bigot, homophobe, and right-wing extremist, to take our Federal Law infrastructure back to the thirties?

• We’re going to Make America Great Again by throwing out the Iran Deal, moving the Capital of Israel to Jerusalem, encouraging the continued building of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and abandoning the Two-State Solution? All of this will pretty much assure World War Three, the final war.

This is craziness.

It’s time to rise up by any and all (non-violent) means available.

It’s time to take this to the streets with as many organized marches as possible as often as possible.

It’s time to call all of the Democratic Senators and tell them we expect them to stand in the way of every one of these killer policies. Every single one.

It’s time to get politically active in new and creative ways. If you write, write something. We can put it out there. If you’re an artist draw a piece of protest art. If you’re a musician write a protest song. On and on. Figure out a way to use your unique gifts and special talents for the cause. We’re going to need all hands on deck for this one.

The fate of our nation hangs in the balance.

 The Word became flesh!

Do you know why among other reasons that’s so profound? It’s because God knows what it’s like to actually be a human being. God has experienced first-hand everything you and I have experienced. He was born of a woman. He worked with his hands. He got tired and needed rest. He enjoyed companionship. He experienced hunger and required food. Many times he had to flee from those who wanted to harm him. He wept with sadness. He took part in celebrations, even providing the wine for the party. He endured temptation and experienced abandonment from people he loved. He suffered immense physical pain and agony at the hands of the Romans. He was tormented and laughed at. Ultimately he experienced death. He was fully human and he knows exactly what that feels like in every way.

What a beautiful thing. We have a God who knows what it’s like to be one of us! We can’t ever accuse God of “living in a bubble.” He told us we can call upon his name any time and he will deliver us and walk by our side. He assured all of us who are weary and burdened to come to him and he will give us rest. He told us he was gentle and humble in heart, that drawing close to him we will find rest for our souls. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

At the center of his teaching is to love God and love our neighbor as we do ourselves. That’s something profound and important too. When we live in harmony with God and neighbor we can not only draw strength and comfort from God, but from one another as well! We can assure one another, love one another, care for one another, bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s joy! We will experience troubles in this world but God has provided us with everything we need to survive and thrive. The more we love God and neighbor the easier this life becomes. Love is the final solution! Love wins!

"For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” -- Matthew 12:50