A Bit Of Much Needed Mass Humor
In taking a break from the usual political bullshit tonight (GRAND JURY, MAN! WHOO!), I was perusing some Masshole memes, had a few chuckles and decided to share a few. Just for shits and giggles 🙂
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Here’s the “Skinny” on “the Skinny”
As of this moment the bozos in Washington are dicking around with an 8-page “bill” that took them seven years to create. They call this the “skinny repeal” plan because it repeals some of the ACA. The problem I have with it is what it repeals.
The “skinny repeal” plan would likely eliminate the individual mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty.
This is the part of the ACA that young people have been bitching about. They’ve been bitching about it because they’re young and healthy so their thinking is “why should I be required to pay for insurance if I don’t need it”. That’s like someone saying they’ve been driving for twenty years, have never gotten a speeding ticket and have never been in an accident. Why should I have auto insurance? I’m a great driver. Then one day–BOOM! They hit someone, total their car and send the other party to the hospital. Bet they wish they had auto insurance.
It’s the same thing with health insurance. You’re a 20-something young stud, never smoked, don’t drink or do drugs, eat right, exercise, do all the right things. But one day you start to feel “not right”. You start to become clumsy. Your stamina has gone AWOL. You lose complete sensation in both your arms at the same time. After many, many visits to many, many doctors and many, many medical bills you have had to pay out-of-pocket from your $15.00 an hour job because you were too ignorant to get health insurance, you learn that you have Multiple Sclerosis. Health insurance would be nice right about now.
On the surface the option of not being required to buy health insurance may seem appealing to some. Shit, we could all save a lot of money, right? Maybe take that dream vacation we’ve always wanted but won’t be able to take because we now have cancer and are bankrupt from all the bills we couldn’t pay. Because we didn’t buy the health insurance. Because we didn’t have to. But now we wish we had. Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda. Didn’t. Do you think Washington gives a fuck about your bad decision? They should all be shot for even wanting to give you the fucking option!
Then there is the elimination of the employer mandate, which obligates larger companies to provide affordable coverage to their full-time workers. The company I work for is a rather large company and I do obtain health insurance for me and my family through them. If they are given the option to eliminate affordable coverage, what kind of health insurance options am I going to have as an employee? Great, they can save money by offering some watered down shit plan. Oooh, maybe they’ll install new windows with their savings. Christ, the plan they offer now isn’t even that great but it’s first class compared to the health insurance offered at my husband’s company and at a few other companies I know of. I can’t imagine what the plan would be like if they were only “obligated” to offer the “minimum”. I’d probably be better off with nothing.
A little over a month ago President Barack Obama posted a message on Facebook regarding the Republican plan. One thing he said that stood out to me was:
“Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family—this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.”
Folks, this means all of us. We’re only human. You know at some point in your life you will get sick, even if it’s just the common cold. Hopefully you will live long enough to get old but along with age comes a myriad of health issues from simple ailments to complex diseases. And you may or may not start a family. But if you have any kind of dependent in your life, whether it’s a child or spouse, they may rely on you for health insurance.
WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT IT??????????????
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Can You Spell Better Than the Trump White House?
The 80’s Live On
One cool thing about being a parent of a “tween” is that I’m once again living my own “tween/teenhood” through my daughter Melanie. Thanks mainly to YouTube and Netflix, things that were once old are new again and 80’s pop culture is still alive and well in my household.
A few years ago my daughter was first exposed to the TV show “Full House” via re-runs on Nickelodeon. She couldn’t believe it when I told her that John Stamos started out playing a guy named “Blackie” on “General Hospital” and that Bob Saget was the first host of “America’s Funniest Videos”. So when “Fuller House” appeared on Netflix, it was a no-brainer that she would be watching it.
I viewed an episode with her where DJ, Stephanie and Kimmy have a girls’ night out at a club. While Stephanie sings a duet of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” with Macy Gray, DJ and Kimmy do the “lift” part of the famous dance scene.
“Johnny and Baby did it much better”.
“Who?” My daughter asked.
I then explained that the song and dance were from the movie “Dirty Dancing” and that she wouldn’t be able to see the film until she was 15. But she loves the song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”.
Having OnDemand TV has allowed my daughter to see her fill of older kid-friendly movies. Thanks to the mediocre movie “Daddy Day Care” and a frequently seen television commercial, my daughter’s favorite song for a while last year was Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking On Sunshine”. Ugh. I didn’t even like this song the first time around.
My daughter also has a fascination with Weird Al Yanchovich and some of the parodies he’s created from popular 80’s songs. “Eat It”, “Girls Just Want To Have Lunch” and “Like a Surgeon” are her favorites.
Aside from “Full House” we can’t leave out many of the other TV shows and movies my daughter has discovered and come to love. She recently discovered a cartoon on YouTube that I vaguely remember seeing myself in the 80’s. It’s called “Just Say No” and it opens with an introduction from George and Barbara Bush, which certainly dates us. The first time Melanie showed me the video with the intro just so happened to be the day after Super Bowl LI, the very one where George and Barbara were carted out on to the field for the coin toss. I pointed this out to my daughter and asked her if she recognized them. Of course she said no. Anyway, the cartoon features Garfield, Alf, Disney characters, Looney Tunes characters, and the Smurfs and as the title says, it’s about just saying no to drugs.
We recently exposed her to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, she loves watching “Uncle Buck” and she’s become obsessed with Donger from “Sixteen Candles”. Over the years my daughter’s gone through her attachment phases of various cartoon characters. She’s been in love with everything from Betty Boop and Felix The Cat to the Looney Tunes and The Flintstones. Her latest fascination is with the Muppets. Not so much with The Muppet Show but with all the movies. In fact, she has discovered Muppet movies I never knew there were. Thanks to “Muppets From Space” she now knows and loves the Kool & The Gang song “Celebration”. She’s even discovered reruns of “The Jim Henson Hour” on YouTube. I never knew there was such a show. Most recently she’s discovered “The Fraggles” and “Dinosaurs”, neither of which I watched when I was a kid.
So the 80’s live on in our household, at least for now. I’m enjoying it while I can because who knows how long it will last.
michellemchatton.com 
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