This is why no one should pay any attention to Obama. Any wealth accumulation, including extreme, is good for everyone.
WEALTH IS NOT FINITE. Rich people are NOT keeping you from living better. It is not like all of wealth (not money) is hoarded by the rich. Money can be finite but money is only one representation of wealth.
That means it is entirely possible for a homeless person to become mega-rich. The book and later the movie, "The Pursuit of Happyness" is not fiction. Chris Gardiner, the author of the book, it is his journey from homelessness to rich. I doubt he is the only one to do that. And it doesn't take the government to help. In fact what the government does is get in the way. That is why there aren't more rich people.
When the economy is good and there are plentiful jobs in the private sector then that tide lifts all boats and it is doing that right now. We have the lowest poverty rate ever recorded right now. People are earning more money now than in the last several years, even though Biden's inflation as horribly devalued the dollar.
"As I said if your premiums increased roughly double it's because you made over 400% what the poverty level was at the time"
You're fooling yourself if you think that I made anything close to that much money. That's a joke. I am very frugal because I never earned enough money to where I could just spend money on whatever I wanted. I do have a mortgage on an average middle class house. Fortunately for me we bought the house before property values skyrocketed. I could not afford my house at what it appraises for right now. I had some debt on my credit cards but I try to pay cash for everything. I was living paycheck to paycheck when Obamacare was forced on me.
"Also 2x ain't even that bad considering after Repub's OBBB was passed some people's insurance premiums have gone up 10x."
You're nuts. That bill did not do anything to inflate the cost of healthcare. I am right at a good position to let you know about something. I just retired 3 months ago. I went from my employers health insurance to Medicare because I am over 65. The premiums for health insurance that was taken out of my paycheck did not change because of Trump, in fact they just did not change at all. Because I was working and collecting Social Security, I had to pay taxes on Social Security but not nearly as much as I would have if it wasn't for the OBBB. That cut my taxes quite a lot. Unfortunately, next year I won't have that tax cut because Congress is only interested in themselves and not any of their constituents.
I think taxing social security is evil and at least Trump gave social security recipients a two year reprieve on our taxes. Congress is the obstacle of getting taxation on social security benefits repealed completely.
"Let me guess... You attribute the post-pandemic inflation under Joe Biden to be 100% Biden's fault..."
I attribute Biden's inflation to the fact that Biden caused the Federal Reserve to print/digitize more and more dollars. The pandemic did not cause inflation, it caused a massive economic downturn because of the lockdown.
The ONLY thing that causes inflation is when a government (or in our case the Federal Reserve) prints/digitizes more money than value of the money. Biden's belief in Modern Monetary Theory was the direct cause of inflation. Each new dollar printed devalues all existing dollars. Print enough dollars and soon the currency is worthless. That was the road Biden was taking us down. Look into Modern Monetary Theory.
That's racist? So if an illegal alien comes to America and takes a job from an black, Hispanic or Asian American citizen is that still racist? Or does "native" only mean white. I though the natives were the American Indians?
Some of the illegal migrants are dangerous. We have many dead American citizens to prove it.
When Biden let anyone who wanted to get on welfare come into the country we had about 100 thousand (that we know of) Islamic males between the age of 18 and 30 came here illegally. I know the left has some sort of alliance formed is the Islamacists but sooner or later you're just going to have to realize the religion of Islam is a religion of world conquest through violent means. I guess it is the fact that you love authoritarianism so much that it doesn't matter do you which dictator or cleric controls every detail of your life, you are just happy to not have to make decisions any more.
First off my comment was for Modda and only Modda. Modda will probably hate this but he's my buddy. I like him.
"1. Yes there was a mandate but there were/ are a bunch of exemptions for people who can't afford it. I can go through them if you want."
I COULD NOT AFFORD THE INCREASE but I didn't get an exemption. That is STILL taking more money away from for less service.
Why are Democrats so devoted to making the government steal more money from all of us?
"2. Healthcare costs were also rising prior to Obamacare. If you were making over 400% over the poverty level at the time such that your premiums nearly doubled, that sucks but also.. good for you."
Healthcare cost rise every year since the government got in bed with them. But that is no excuse for doubling, tripling and in some cases quadrupling people's healthcare for a substandard policy.
"3. When Trump removed the mandate it made it go further up. He and Republicans seem to continuously do things that make it go up. They don't like it, they didn't repeal it, so they want to make it more expensive to prove Obama bad."
It did not make it go up any more than the standard yearly increase that healthcare imposes.
Trump did not devalue the dollar like Biden did. Under Biden we had the worst inflation we have seen since Carter. The prices just haven't gone down because Trump hasn't worked on rebuilding the dollar. Regardless inflation is back down to about normal or lower.
I am not happy with the Republicans over a lot of things and not repealing Obamacare completely is just one of them. Especially when they were making such a big deal about repealing it when they knew that the bill would never get passed or signed by the president. Once they had an actual chance to repeal it no one introduced any bill to eliminate it because they're all talk and no action. They live in fear of the media and the media is entirely devoted to your side.
"Speaking of which, Repubs scheduled something like a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid for after the midterm elections,"
This is how Democrats are spinning what is actually happening so that they will scare people into voting Democrat in the midterm. This was already passed in July 2025. What is happening is a reduction in projected spending over a 10 year period. That is projected spending not actual spending. People are not going to see increases in their Medicaid bill other than the typical yearly increase that has always been in place.
