And special friends indeed...Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams in the band for this show, long time Levon Helm cohorts.  

Plus a little hiking at Bear Mtn...few places more beautiful than upstate NY in fall, and the kaleidoscope of color.

It's a new low to call "Fortunate Son" anything but American as god damn apple pie and baseball.

Some of the new treatments cost in excess of $10,000 per pill or per shot. Life saving treatment may be delayed or abandoned while trying to find a way, any way, to pay for the treatment.  

I'm not going to shop around, even though I am an educated consumer and will just renew, and even though my premiums are increasing by 11%.  I don't get subsidies, so it won't matter, but I think the bottom line is that people who signed on last year, maybe for the first time, and who are receiving subsidies need to realize that if there was any change in their income this year - they got a new job, they got divorced, they get alimony, etc. - and if they did not report that change, then they could end up owing some or all of the subsidies back.  The subsides are a tax credit, after all.

Here's a better example:

Americans who bought plans on the Obamacare exchanges are entitled to premium assistance tax credits on a sliding scale, if they earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. For 2014, the income limit tops out at $45,960 for an individual, and $94,200 for a family of four.

In a report published in Health Affairs, researchers at UC Berkeley and UCLA calculated that in California, three out of four subsidy recipients will likely see their income change more than 10 percent year-over-year, and that will result in about a third having to make repayments. According to the researchers, for about one in 10, it could amount to a full repayment because their higher incomes will put them above the 400 percent poverty level.

"A lot of low income people piece together two to three part-time jobs," said Tricia Brooks, senior fellow at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. "I think that's where it becomes particularly more challenging to calculate your income accurately. For the self-employed... it is particularly challenging to think about that."

And then, shopping around is a pain in the neck as it is.  Adding to that is, when you DO find you need to change your plan, and you've just established relationships with medical providers, sometimes it's a great hassle to find a plan that will let you keep those providers.

It's like your company telling you must stay in downtown NYC and reimbursing you as if you were staying in Memphis.

It isn't enough and Obamacare is the driving force.

Hospital officials contend that the law's penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they're released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.

"The stand-alone, community hospital is going the way of the dinosaur," says Angela Mattie, chairwoman of the health care management and organizational leadership department at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University, known for its public opinion surveys on issues including public health.

Low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements hurt these hospitals more than others because it's how most of their patients are insured, if they are at all.

I have written about this before.... A friend of mine has severe COPD. He is a widower and has no one to take care of him. Last year he was admitted with pneumonia. After a day or two his O2 levels dictated that he be released, even though everyone knew it was too soon and he would have to be readmitted.

It is a tough and complex problem. But taking the decision away from the Doctor and letting a bureaucrat say what must be done serves no one.

expanding Medicaid would help the situation, but not completely fix it.

So I repeat. If the state of GA had accepted the federal money and expanded Medicaid there is no proof that would have provided enough money to save the hospitals.

And you went from low unemployment to high for variety of reasons. Could it be that businesses aren't locating in Atlanta because of the high crime rate?? Why have many big conventions went other places??

Plus, the middle class see another expansion of welfare, already hugely expanded with the welfare payments called "subsidies" for Obamacare, that they must pay for in 3 years.

People aren't stupid and they are resentful. A single payer system would put everyone in the same boat. Obama decided to not do that.

There is no simple answers. We can look in the mirror and see some great economy under Clinton... and see a high tech boom and a low energy cost situation. Yet that bubble popped in 2000 and the economy tanked. Bush came along and even with 9/11 the economy recovered and then the housing bubble popped and a sharp spike in oil prices finished it off... Bush could have slowed the housing bubble if he had used more political clout in 2003, but he didn't because the Demos said they would fight. He could have popped the oil price speculation by reforming the laws governing the industry but he didn't.

But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel.

WaPost

Bush finally acted by issuing an EO in July, which the Demos also passed in Sept, which opened the continental shelf but Obama shut that down in 2/2009 and energy costs went back up and the economy has struggled.

Here's a refresher:

"This week will be the last stand for Obamacare, and the trickery that Speaker Pelosi is concocting to get the 2,700-page Senate bill through the House almost defies belief.

"It's aptly called the "Slaughter Strategy," after Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), who chairs the House Rules Committee.

"Under this scheme, House members would vote on a bill of amendments to the despised Senate bill, and the Senate bill would be "deemed" to have passed if this companion bill is approved.

"This is supposed to inoculate House members, who could say they never actually voted for the Senate bill.

"Former Speaker Newt Gingrich has the best line: Last year, the House was passing bills without reading them. This year, they're passing bills without voting on them.

It will very expensively give insurance to people who could have gotten better insurance other ways.  No need to debate how.  There are lots of ideas from Single Payer to libertarian.

The bill was simply terribly thought through and established a new social program with little to no forethought of what would happen 10 or more years down the road.

As for you underlying premise that if I don't like ACA I am a traitor to sick people or a hypocrite that is simply unfair.   One should be able to separate the self from good social policy.

The main flaw with the bill was how it disrupted so much of the current system it's goal and delivered only on one promise, more coverage.

Why?  Because nothing in life is free and in order to just support the obvious facade that it would break even or somehow save money it had to have loopholes, double counting and various accounting tricks to convince people that 2+2 now equaled 5.

It really comes down to wether or not you believe doing something to address a problem is better then doing something that might actually help or solve the problem.

I ask you.  It's obvious the administration and the writers of this bill were aware of how much they were saying wasn't true.  Does that not matter?  

What kind of logic is that?  Lie to pass a bill.  Pass it to get very expensive insurance at a huge financial obligation now and going forward for the rest of us and after it "works" then claim the moral high ground.

As for me I am the rare of rare when it comes to insurance and my disease.   In most scenarios I'd already be dead but fortunately my company offers a self insured plan that offers no limits on coverage as long as you agree to pay a very high deductible and I come from a Mediacl family that didn't take no for an answer several times and I found the one of two doctors in the world who specialized in my disease and the one surgeon in the world who would take the risk to operate on me.  Most kids with good insurance, Medicare or ACA wouldn't have made it.  I'm lucky.

I'm glad some people now have insurance.    It shouldn't be taken away. It is and was a noble goal and democrats should have sold it honestly.  We all pay more so more people have insurance.  Instead we were told it would revolutionize or healthcare system but not disrupt the good parts, no one would lose their doctor.  It would save The Federal Government money and even lower the deficit.   None of that
and many other promises came true.

Now the argument seems to be cares?  What's done is done.   Lying is just good public policy as long as at least one goal is met.

And you're mind-reader enough to know that only fake pacifists would've used the footage.

What we do know, is they blocked the press, and that is/was disturbing.

You a Constitution guy, it's one right before the one about guns.

You're beginning to sound like Grover Norquest, whose stated aim was to make government small and weak enough to drown in the bathtub.

"I, ___, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me."

And I am thankful that I never had to consider that whether or not the order violated the Constitution and this was illegal.

As I look at the next two years that question may become germane for some.

You have a rich imagination that goes into outright fantasy.  Have you ever considered seeing a specialist about that problem?

How do you feel about Pat Tillmsn's family releasing his written thoughts about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?