In the early 2000s, Debbie Mills and her husband paid monthly health insurance premiums of approximately $1200. This year under the Affordable Care Act with its tax credits, premiums for the couple and a son are $115. When Sarah Kliff visited southeastern Kentucky, a heavily pro-Trump section of a state which was heavily pro-Trump on November 8, she found many individuals who
voted for Trump because they were concerned about other issues — and just couldn’t fathom the idea that this new coverage would be taken away from them.
“I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this, he would not take health insurance away knowing it would affect so many peoples lives,” says Debbie Mills, an Obamacare enrollee who supported Trump. “I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot pay for insurance?”
At least Ms. Mills, whose husband recently was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, now understands that candidate Trump and his party probably were serious when they campaigned to "repeal and replace Obamacare."
Nonetheless, many individuals across the country remain blithely unaware of the Trump-GOP agenda. On Friday, Ivanka Trump tweeted a photograph of the President and his two grandchildren entering Air Force One, and a Twitter war ensued over Trump's vacation time compared to that of his immediate predecessor.
After one Trump critic claimed the incumbent "has run up a bill in his first 4 weeks that matches what the Obamas spent in a year," another man (best guess) responded "I will help pay, at least he salutes the men in uniform assigned to protect him."
Contact that fellow quickly and sell him your ski chalet in Alabama before someone else takes him for all he's worth. We read in The American Prospect
Across the country, scores of veterans who have served the nation with honor and distinction are discovering just how much harder it is to get a job thanks to the federal hiring freeze that Trump ordered January 23 as one of his first official acts.
Why is the federal hiring freeze causing such hardship for our military veterans? Simply put, the federal government is the nation’s largest single employer of veterans. Nearly one-third of all federal employees are veterans—about 623,000.
Federal agencies hired 71,000 veterans in fiscal 2015 alone, including 31,000 disabled veterans. The government increased its hiring of veterans from 31 percent to 33 percent between fiscal years 2013 and 2014. Not coincidentally, 2014 was the first year since 2009, when President Obama established a program to increase veterans’ employment, that the federal government hired more workers than it let go.
Simply put, the number one engine getting veterans back to work in the United States is the federal government. When government jobs dry up, so do veterans’ employment leading opportunities.
It was easy for the average, busy voter not to notice during the campaign what Donald Trump promised to do to the federal government. Further, most people are unaware that when the government payroll is cut, they themselves will suffer. It always will be someone else, they figure.
However, even most Trumpists who believe Donald Trump admires, and is crazy proud, of the American serviceman and woman must have heard that in 1997 Donald Trump, asked by Howard Stern about avoiding venereal disease, replied
It's amazing. I can't even believe it. I've been so lucky in terms of that whole world. ... It is a dangerous world out there. It's crazy.. It's like Vietnam, sort of like the Vietnam era. .. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.
Sick Americans may lose their health insurance and die. But as long as Donald Trump keeps saluting, a lot of people won't notice that he looks down on members of the armed services like he does practically everyone who can't afford the membership fees at Mar-a-Lago.
Share |
No comments:
Post a Comment