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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. 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. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Vanishing Obamacare plans

Finding out what’s in it: More than a million people are losing their health insurance plans this year as insurers increasingly flee Obamacare.

The number above was determined by

At least 1.4 million people in 32 states will lose the Obamacare plan they have now, according to state officials contacted by Bloomberg. That’s largely caused by Aetna Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and some state or regional insurers quitting the law’s markets for individual coverage.

…Nationwide estimates of the number of people losing their current plans are higher. For example, Charles Gaba, who tracks the law at ACASignups.net, estimates that 2 million to 2.5 million people in the U.S. will lose their current plans, compared with 2 million a year ago. Gaba’s estimate is based on insurance company membership data.

For the people losing plans, there are fewer and fewer choices. One estimate by the Kaiser Family Foundation predicts that for at least 19 percent of the people in Obamacare’s individual market next year there will be only one insurer to choose from.

Obviously, the solution is to ask the people that wrote this bad law to fix it. We should all vote Democratic on election day, and help make this disaster even worse!

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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

  • PeterF

    If your insurance company pulls out and cancels your health insurance, the IRS will fine you for not having mandated insurance. Hows that for a “bag over the head, punch in the face”?

  • pzatchok

    Just had a “benefits” meeting at work tonight. They are not benefits anymore.

    I have told these Obama bots and Dimocrats at work for the last several years to watch their health insurance rates go up and coverage go down.

    The company just switched insurers for a better rate.
    It doubled our deductibles. Doubled our co-pays if not eliminating them outright. And to top it off doubled, yes doubled, our premiums. All while dropping our total coverage.

    But to make up for it they are also offering a cheaper HSA plan with HUGE deductibles and somewhat similar coverage to what we have now. Huge deductibles, as in those very same plans Obama said were toxic and didn’t offer enough coverage. They changed some numbers and now they are back and good enough for Obama.

    As a kicker if you smoke its a hundred bucks a month more. And we were warned that they would eventually start charging extra for things like high blood pressure, over weight and a few other higher risk items.

    I have never seen 200 people literally want to rip an insurance agents ass apart. We had a few older women (Hillary supporters) crying.

    Even the top bosses looked grim. They are on the same plans as we are.

    Tonight just made a hundred or more Trump voters. Plus a few new republicans.

  • pzatchok

    This is one of the October surprises Hillary was hoping to avoid.

  • wayne

    pzatchok–

    Yowza! And it only gets worse for 2017– the ACA hasn’t fully kicked in 100%. Part of that was intentionally planned and part as a result of (illegal) delays Obama ordered early on.

    [And Obama is currently shifting hundreds of millions of dollars in “risk-corridor” payments to insurance companies, in a manner many believe is illegal, even under the ACA. (which, I would put forth, most all of us believe is illegal, except for Chief Justice Robert’s.)]

    My Plan just morphed on October 1st & my premiums almost doubled.

  • wayne

    Love Gov:
    A Remedy for Healthcare Choices (Ep. 3 of 5)
    https://youtu.be/uUPfWwy4G1Q

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