Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 12, 2013

paid once and done.

Riiight… a lot of good it did you… the ‘death’ panel’s first decision.

Now that you no longer need it….

yeah right – some one has to pay for the eternal care of the plot so it does not go to seed. think that is cheap?

than again some else is paying for it – right. just like the current system.

Lawn care may be more significant at this point.

ah ha! medical coverage to die for…

I’m so pleased it got him THAT far!

Until the government-sponsored cemetery moves in next door and they have to raise your maintenance rates to cover the cost of maintenance on the government-sponsored cemetery, which pays only a token fee, leaving your estate to pay the difference. Eventually, to remain liquid and attract business, they will have to reverse the burial of high-maintenance corpses and reject business of people near the point of requiring a plot. Eventually, there will be a collapse of the whole plot system for too many plot holes and not enough people willing to pay for them, requiring forced payment for existing and ongoing plot holes, at which point people will notice that the government cemetery is already costing them more than they are willing to pay. But it will be too late.

The government’s only “shovel-ready” project.

There are no ’Death Taxes"..Another phrase from the rich so they can make this country into a aristocracy society..

if you don’t want to pay death taxes, don’t leave so much money on the table.

Republican health plan.

an example of the Republican Health care plan!!, Hurry up and Die! so efficient and tidy. so Christiian!! keep those poor people out of the way of health care for those who deserve it, (the rich).

I plan for a funeral at government expense! Y’see, they’re going to put me in a giant zip-loc bag, with a ten cent stamp on my nose and no return address, and mail me to the dead-letter office in Alaska!

Health care from the same congressional geniuses (Hello, Mr. Ryan!) who thought it would be a good idea for the USPS to pre-fund the retirement of its future workers – including the ones that hadn’t even been born yet!

If you like your mortician, you can keep your mortician.

burn me too a crisp, and scatter me hence…or whatever

oh goodie, the dependents are covered; of course, he has a deeper coverage…..

oh goodie, the dependents are covered; of course, he has a deeper coverage…..

oh goodie, the dependents are covered; of course, he has a deeper coverage…..

I wised up. I’m subletting my plot until I actually need it.

And now he has a post-existence condition (which is not covered).

No, only those over 65, thanks to the fact that the expansion of Medicaid and subsidies to insurance for those who earn too much for Medicaid are being paid for by diverting $6 billion out of Medicare. And by setting such strict caps on Medicare payment to doctors and hospitals that 10% will have to turn away new Medicare insured patients or go broke. The caps aren’t related to costs at all, just to outright goals in the Affordable Care Act to reduce Medicare spending in order to spend more on Medicaid. Source of this info is the report of the Actuary for Health and Human Services, which runs Medicaid and Medicare. The Actuary is not a partisan figure. Both parties have accepted the idea that the US needs to spend less on ‘elderly’, unless, of course the elderly patients are present or former members of Congress, Presidents or Vice Presidents.

I’ve never been a teacher, but had several aunts who taught before, during and after WW II, and some cousins who teach now. Teachers have NEVER been in control of their own classrooms; if administrators were not telling them what they were allowed to teach, then it was state and now federal officials. None of whom, of course, were teachers.

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Why not hold administrators or state officials responsible for the fact that every few days, they are ordering teachers to police a student’s apparel, or check on whether the student is eating too many sweets, or has a backpack with a cellphone in it. Those busybodies who have to justify their own huge salaries make certain that teachers are so busy with reports and noneducational responsiblities that it is a wonder anything is taught. But you would rather foam at the mouth at teachers. Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that most administrators and state officials are men and most teachers are still women, though. Nah. Total coincidence.-

It used to be that teachers could teach subjects at different speeds for different groups of kids, or in different ways for those who are visual learners versus those who have to have ‘hands on’ experience to learn. Now, if a teacher tries to teach in different ways, they can be sued for discrimination.

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And never, ever consider that parental involvement with their kids’ homework used to be very high, back in my day, even among first generation Americans whose English was fractured. These days, no one thinks that the parent has any role in education. If a child doesn’t do well on a test, it has nothing to do with no one paying attention to him at home, or the fact that he needs more time to learn visually than he does if he builds a model, or that he doesn’t have enough to eat.

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It’s all the fault of teachers. It amazes me that anyone ever wants to follow that profession, and, interestingly, this newer generation is not doing so. While the nation is eager to see the end of the so-called ‘boomer’ generation (those of us who selfishly all demanded to be born after WW II), school districts are realizing that when that group of teachers retires, there will be insufficient flesh covered robots to replace them.

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Give control back to the states? The state adminstrators were and are just as bad as the interfering theorists af the federal level. Here’s a novel though. Give control to some teachers, for a change….

Zing! Some bait is so sweet that you just can’t resist taking it hook, line and sinker. I am surprised the the relatively few comments.

It would be funny if it weren’t true for so many people.Thanks for that GOP!

Yeah. About 5 years back, my family buried my father. Cremation, plot, military honors (free),masonic honors (free), stone (provided free to military vets)….$15k+

A lot of people are dying to see if the Affordable Care Act is affordable or just an act!

He was always an optimist, but now he’s eternal……

Yeah, I get it. Allof his future health care expenses are affordable. :)

“A good dose of common sense, a result of critical thinking skills, probably would have prevented the conditions that led to this person’s demise.”

How right you are!

“Owebummer knew this and lied through his teeth.”

To whom do you refer, and HOW did this person ‘know’ this …?

Inquiring minds want to know …

Wish we could even be optimistic about universal health care here in the US.

At least his widow isn’t left in bankruptcy

Why bother with a plot, stone, and casket? Just bury my rotting corpse in the ground and let nature take its course. Only have to pay for the funeral service, that’s affordable! Or at least for now it is.

" And just how are we attacking schools, teachers & the education system? Throwing money at the problem does not work. " Nice to see a reb-ugly-can’t admit that the right wing does actually attack schools, teachers, and the education system. They’ve been attacking public education for years. And, by coraryan’s argument, since schools get worse if we provide better funding, they’d perform better if we provided less. If we paid teachers nothing at all, we’d soon have the best educated students in the world!

National Socialist, of course. But eventually, we hope to have it all become the responsibility of the Global Socialist government. The farther the power is from the people, the easier it is to convince them that it is their neighbors under whose iron thumb they must squirm, while, for all of our progress, things become steadily worse until they become so intolerable that we Must Do Something.

I was in Aetna before I was told I was because the company that was covering my Medicare needs dumped a bunch of us and got out of the business.

So, you have over a million to leave your heirs?, I would think that puts you in with the “haves”.

“Common Sense” is the most egregious misnomer that ever was — being the leastcommonly found thing in the universe!!!!

Well, well, well! Gov. Rick Scott of Florida! Welcome to the ‘tubes’! Like all good Tea-publicans, you just don’t get it, do you? Like Homeowners insurance in Florida – you can’t afford private insurance (my last bill from State Farm was $1400/month), you’re forced into MORE expensive government insurance.

Let’s talk health care, Governor. Come January 1, I’ll lose my health care and have to go to state subsidized health care because Tea-publicans like you decided that you’d rather score political points with your hard-right base and decline the federal subsidy for Medicaid. That means that 3.5 million working poor like myself will not have affordable health care. That’s 3.5 million working poor that VOTE, Governor; and that you’ve PISSED OFF!

Because of ONE Republican Senator that didn’t want federal single-payer health care in the ACA, we now have the state and federal pools. Guess what, Governor? According to the CBO, it would have saved 50+ Billion to go Single-Payer, but it’s politicians like you that have cost us this money.

Wasn’t it Thomas Paine that said “The Tree of Liberty must be watered in blood.” I’m just waiting for the class warfare to start…

Who invented the concept of ’ the ‘death’ panel’? Countries with ‘socialized’ medicine (I prefer the term ‘civilized’ medicine) are rather bemused by this US interpretation of the way their systems works. In the US you simply die if you are poor or get treatment if you are rich.

Lol! That is the only way my healthcare is going to be affordable, now that the “Affordable Care Act” has raised by individual health insurance rate over 650% over 3 years. The Obamacare taxes are going to bury a lot of Americans.

Yes, when you’re dead your insurance does get cheap. Of course, the ACA may change that.