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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

If you have been a regular reader and a fan of my work and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider doing so. I take no ads, I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands (most of the time). Thus, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

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5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
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The people directly hurt by Obamacare rises

Finding out what’s in it: A new poll shows that the number of people directly hurt by Obamacare has continued to rise.

Currently, 29% of Americans say Obamacare has hurt them and their family, up from 26% in May, and the highest Gallup has measured to date. Meanwhile, the percentage who say the ACA has helped their family dropped from 22% to 18%. The bulk of Americans, 51%, continue to say the law has “had no effect.” As more provisions of the law have taken effect over the years, the “no effect” percentage has dropped from the first reading of 70%, in early 2012.

Not surprisingly, support for Obamacare, always low, has shrunk as well. As the article at the link notes,

Wait until the next round of open enrollment starts in eight weeks. The number of people who feel the ObamaCare pain is likely to rise even further, especially in places like Tennessee, Minnesota, and other states where premiums will go up 40% or more over 2016.

The fact that in many regions there will be only one or fewer insurance options will help to underline why people increasingly hate Obamacare. Sadly, every one of these failures was predicted by conservatives back in 2010. The Democrats however were too wise and caring to listen. For them, caring is all that matters, even if it means instituting policies that destroy people’s lives.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Localfluff

    As a foreigner I don’t, and I don’t really want to, understand the Obamacare bureaucracy. I read mostly conservative texts describing how failed it is. But honestly, does it provide benefits to some voting groups, like students or retired people or something like that? Doesn’t anyone like it? This is Hussein Obama’s great reform after 8 years in power. Is it a failure, even in the minds of his supporters? He doesn’t seem to mention it much about it anymore. He’s not exactly boasting about having accomplished it, does he?

  • Edward

    Localfluff asked: “does it provide benefits to some voting groups, like students or retired people or something like that?”

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (dis)affectionately known as Obamacare, does not provide benefits, as such. It’s main purpose is to require everyone to either purchase healthcare insurance or to have someone purchase this insurance on their behalf. Thus, everyone should be covered by insurance, meaning that they have access to healthcare. (Apparently, the government believes that no doctors will treat any uninsured patients.)

    The only real benefit that Obamacare provides is a reimbursement of insurance premiums to those who are impoverished. If you are not impoverished but still are unable to afford the continually increasing price of premiums, you are out of luck and must pay a fine — er — tax.

    The rest of the Obamacare law mostly makes sure that everyone is equally poorly treated by the insurance companies, the medical industry, and the doctors. It also makes sure that all of these groups are also poorly treated by government.

    One of the major benefits was supposed to be that people with pre-existing conditions (already sick or disabled) would be able to find insurance coverage, but — surprisingly [sarcasm] — it turns out that most of those people and families are still unable to afford the supposedly affordable insurance.

    There are a large number of sociological, cultural, and political downsides to Obamacare as implemented (at least for We the People, not for They the Tyrants), but we have mentioned many of them earlier, over the years, and it is a topic for another day.

  • Localfluff

    Thanks, Edward!
    I’m just surprised that it seems to be uniformly impopular. A weak president can have problems with the economy and with foreign policy, because other people mess with that stuff. But a social health care reform is completely within a government’s power. This should’ve been Hussein Obama’s proud legacy.

  • C.V.Accardo

    That Obama care is a failure should surprise no one given it’s progressive liberal provenence. However, the decades of republican “kicking the political can down the road” until obama care was
    forced down their throats is worth mentioning.
    There are elements of Obama care which do serve a greater societal good, such as pre-existing condition coverage. Why was healthcare reform allowed to develop as a democrat initiative? Why didn’t republicans work towards improving the efficient delivery of health care services well in advance of Obama care?
    The single greatest gift Donald Trump has provided our country thus far, is to send a resounding shot across the bow of establishment Republican leaders and exposed them as empty shells who need to be replaced as soon as possible.

  • Edward

    C.V.Accardo wrote: “There are elements of Obama care which do serve a greater societal good, such as pre-existing condition coverage.”

    Of course that is a good thing, and I think it would do a greater societal good if all other insurances also had the same requirement of pre-existing conditions. For instance, we all could save a lot of money by waiting until after the auto accident before buying insurance coverage. Same for homeowners/renters insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, income protection insurance, and even life insurance.

    It would be wonderful if all I had to do was look through the obituaries before taking out a huge life insurance policy on someone who died. I wouldn’t have to work or be productive for society ever again, and that would be better than good, that would be great!

    C.V.Accardo asked: “Why didn’t republicans work towards improving the efficient delivery of health care services well in advance of Obama care?”

    Delivery of health care services in the United States was considered the best in the world. Efficient delivery was not the issue. The issue was that some life-saving treatments were unaffordable to many people. That is not a problem with the health care system, that is a problem caused by the advancement of healthcare treatments into areas that were impossible half a century or so ago.

    It’s kind of like saying that we have a housing problem because not everyone can afford to live in a mansion with plenty of servants. It’s kind of like saying that we have a food problem because not everyone can afford to eat at a five-star restaurant every day.

    Obamacare is much like when the Soviets took over Russia and forced everyone to live like paupers and eat nothing but gruel (or the cuisine equivalent).

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