J.P. Morgan Chase $13B Settlement To Be Announced Today, But Regulation Has Not Been Restored an No Deterent Is In Place To Prevent IThem From Doing It Again

Too Big To Fail Corporations Are Actually Bigger Than When They Caused The Biggest Financial Collapse Since The Great Depression

Remember What They Caused

On October 22, 2013 I posted an article on this site summarizing the chain of events that caused the 2008-2009 financial disastrous collapse Will the $13B Settlement Deter Others? After Bear Stearns was bailed out, and it was determined that Lehman Bros. would be allowed to fail, barring further government bailouts, Fed Chairman Tim Geithner and others had the other shoe drop, AIG. It was realized that through deregulation that had been in place since 1922 that AIG was Too Big To Fail, fearing total worldwide financial collapse. They, AIG, JP Morgan, and others had wiped out Americans net worth through there 401k’s and the housing debacle. The stock market went to 7900 (coincidentally the stock market went over 16,000 yesterday, doubling where it was after the collapse.) People not only lost their homes but with their 401k’s being severely reduced, found 65 year old people and many others without their retirement savings and having to look for work.

 What was done to Prevent This From Happening Again?

Well, on July 1, 2010 H.R. 4173 (111^th): Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed by President Obama. This was to restore the regulations set after the great depression. Here is  how well we’re doing on implementing that law according to http://www.davispolk.com Dodd-Frank Progress Reports Monthly 

November 1, 2013 REPORT

• In the past month, no rulemaking requirement deadlines passed, six rulemaking requirements were proposed and one rule was finalized to meet a rulemaking requirement.
• As of November 1, 2013, a total of 280 Dodd-Frank rulemaking requirement deadlines have passed. Of these 280 passed deadlines, 170 (60.7%) have been missed and 110 (39.3%) have been met with finalized rules.
• In addition, 162 (40.7%) of the 398 total required rulemakings have been finalized, while 115 (28.9%) rulemaking requirements have not yet been proposed  

The World’s 29 Too Big To Fail Banks, JPMorgan At The Top

 The updated list of the world’s too big to fail banks is out today and JPMorgan Chase  along with HSBC are at the top.The Financial Stability Board amends the list each year after examining banks to decide which ones pose a threat to the global economy if they were  to fail. Forbes List of Banks Too Big To Fail The list of Too Big To Fail banks has grown and so has the banks themselves. They are actually bigger then when the financial crisis occurred. Their profits are growing, their bonuses have been back for awhile and the stock market has doubled since 2009. Middle class income and salaries are not growing and income equality is increasing.

Corporations Have Too Much Influence On Politicians

Since the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court things have only gotten worse. Things will not get any better unless there is a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United. This is not a partisan issue, it is not a Right/Left issue, it is not a Conservative/Liberal issue. Polling has long indicated support for an amendment. A 2010/2011 Peter Hart Poll found that 79% of all Americans, including 68% of Republicans, 82% of Independents, and 87% of Democrats support a Constitutional Amendment. An Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) poll found that overall 69% of Americans agreed that “new rules that let corporations, unions, and people give unlimited money to Super PACS will lead to corruption. Three out of four Republicans (74%) agreed with this statement. 71% of Republicans also agreed that “if a company spent $100,000 to help elect a member of Congress, it could successfully pressure him or her to change a vote on proposed legislation. A March 2012 poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post showed that not only did two-thirds of Americans feel that Super PACS should be illegal, but 69% (two-thirds) of Tea Party supporters felt that Super PACS should be outlawed.

Nearly nine out of ten Americans (88%) say that big companies have too much power in Washington D.C. Super PACS, which became funnels for outside spending after an appeals court applied Citizens United, collectively spent more than $609 million dollars during the 2012 elections. Overall outside spending topped  $1.29 billion according to the Center for Responsive Politics “Outside Spending” April 22, 2013 “Outside Spending” by Center for Responsive Politics

Financial Reform is not at all where it should be 5 years after the worst financial collapse since the great depression. The banks have not only not been dismantled, but they have grown, the number of banks that are too big to fail has grown. WE MUST TAKE BACK THE POWER FROM THE CORPORATIONS! or face another, probably much worse, situation at the hands of the greedy and guilty people that caused the last crisis.

PLEASE use the links below to contact your Congressmen/women, and Senators RIGHT NOW, and OFTEN, and tell them that WE MUST PASS A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED. Left in the hands of those who will NOT be going to jail but simply paying fines, is a bad place to be. I don’t care how much the fine is (it’s no where near what they stole from the people,) it will happen again rest assured. Perhaps the world economy will collapse next time. We can’t let that happen, it’s up to us to take action.

So, today they’ll announce a $13B settlement will be paid, no one will go to jail, and the too big to fail banks will keep getting even bigger. Call or E-mail your Congressmen/women and Senators NOW!

Here is a sample e-mail, if you wish, you can copy and paste it into your representatives e-mail comments;
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Dear (ENTER YOUR Congressman, Congresswomen, or Senators NAME HERE)

I am writing you to tell you that I support a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling by the US Supreme Court. I believe, as does nearly nine out of ten Americans (88%) that big companies have too much power in Washington, D.C. With Super PACS spending $609 million during the 2012 election cycle and $1.29 billion from overall outside spending, I ask you to do whatever you need to do, to pass a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision.

This is not a partisan issue, not a Republican/Democratic issue, nor a Conservative/Liberal issue. A 2010/2011 Peter Hart Poll found that 79% of all Americans including 68% of Republicans, 82% of Independents, and 87% of Democrats, support a Constitutional Amendment. An Opinion Research Corporation poll found that overall 69% of Americans agreed that “new rules that let corporations, unions, and people give unlimited money to Super PACS will lead to corruption. Three out of four Republicans (74%) agreed with this statement. 71% of Republicans also agreed that “if a company spent $100,000 to help elect a member of Congress, it could successfully pressure him or her to change a vote on proposed legislation. A March 2012 poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post showed that not only did two-thirds of Americans feel that Super PACS should be illegal, but 69% (two-thirds) of Tea Party supporters felt that Super PACS should be outlawed.

I thank you for service and want you to know that I will track any legislation pertaining to this issue, and you, as my Representative, on GovTrack.us, Open Congress, Votesmart.org, or www.Senate.gov

Thanking you in advance for your anticipated cooperation, I am,

(YOUR NAME)
(YOUR ADDRESS)
(CITY, STATE, ZIP)
(E-MAIL, PHONE NUMBER)

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To find and/or contact YOUR Congressmen/women click here:
Click Here To Find and/or Contact YOUR Congressmen/women

To find and/or contact YOUR Congressmen/women click here:
Click Here To Find YOUR Senator

Will the JP Morgan $13B Settlement Deter Others? No! It’s Time Criminals That Destroy Lives and the Economy Go To Jail!

 

Bloomberg: Who Really Wins and Will it Deter Others on JP Morgan $13B fine, but who does it really hurt?

JP Morgan Chase had $28.9 billion of pretax income last year. It probably would be a stretch to give the Justice Department credit for the full $13 billion. The matters JPMorgan would be resolving include a 2011 lawsuit by the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as a separate suit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. It also isn’t clear how much of the $13 billion would be paid in cash.

Before continuing we need summarize what they, the entire financial industry, politicians, and the other greedy people behind the scenes, caused. 

The democrats passed a law intended to help people buy their own homes creating sub-prime loans. This allowed financial institutions, banks, investment firms, mortgage companies to borrow money at below prime rate, free money. The lenders pushed out mortgages to anyone that would take one, regardless whether they could pay the loan back. They would make money selling these mortgages. In fact, they set up mortgages that had very low monthly payments for the first few years so people thought they would be able to afford them. But just prior to the crash people’s monthly mortgage payments exploded, $600/mo went to $2800/mo and there was no way people could afford to keep their homes. People who took these mortgages are to blame too.

I had a student that worked for a mortgage company. One day she called a business to check on a mortgage applicants employment and salary history. The business that he put down as his place of employment never heard of him. When she told her boss what the company had said, he replied, “don’t worry about it, approve the mortgage.” This same scenario was playing out all over the country because they were making money selling the mortgages, the more they sold, the richer they got. 

Another part of the disaster is that President George W. Bush deregulated the financial industry removing all safeguards and allowed banks, investment firms, securities houses, all to be joined into companies that became “Too Big To Fail.” Think about this when you here the Republicans screaming about too many regulations! So the Bear Sterns, AIG (the biggest) and others were acquiring all these mortgages, making a great deal of money, but they knew that they were bad mortgages because in a few years people were going to realize that they couldn’t pay the monthly payments once they exploded. They had to figure a way to dump them.

This is when they decided to bunch these bad mortgages together and make them mutual funds. They were selling bad investments to their own customers, and they knew it! but they still had a problem. Their customers would realize that the funds were risky. So, here came the gem of an idea that went so far over the line that everyone involved from this point on should go right the F%^K to jail. 

The “Credit Swap” is born. If a company sells an insurance policy they have to show assets, capitol, to show that if the insurance policy has to be paid off, that they have the assets to pay it off.  That means that if an insurance company sold insurance policies worth $1 Billion on their face value, they actually had the $1 Billion to pay them off. Also, this is important, insurance is REGULATED. So, the “Credit Swap” was born. The potential buyers of the mutual funds, who would not buy such risky funds were told they could buy a “Credit Swap” “which would ACT as an insurance policy so that if the Mutual Fund didn’t pay off it’s projected amount that they could use the credit swap to get the face amount of the fund, like getting your insurance policy to pay the benefit in full. So they sold these horrible funds filled with bad mortgages all over the world, selling credit swaps to assure they would pay off.

Here’s the problem,  they were NOT insurance policies and were completely made up, NOT requiring the seller to have the assets to pay them off. When people starting getting the increases in their monthly mortgage payments and knew immediately they could never afford them they either gave their lender the keys back or were foreclosed on. This made the mutual funds worthless. The buyers of the mutual finds started to say they wanted their credit swaps to pay off what they were due. The problem with that is that the sellers of the credit didn’t have the money to pay them. Remember if an insurance company sold $1B worth of policies they had the assets. These financial giants sold, we still don’t know how much,  much more in credit swaps then they had assets to pay them off. In some cases a company that had $50B in assets sold more than $300B in credit swaps it is suggested. But, in actuality it is believed to be much worse. These companies, to this day, will not tell how much they sold in credit swaps, even though we, the taxpayers had to bail out the ones that were too big to fail.  

These institutions, except for a few, like Lehman Bothers are back on their feet, thanks to the tax payers, enjoying hugh bonuses and profits again. They are using part of their gigantic profits today to lobby and fight the regulations in the Dodd-Frank bill that passed from becoming reality. The Dodd-Frank bill was passed to restore the regulations that were removed and allowed companies to become too big to fail. These companies are supposed to be broken up into smaller companies so that this could never happen again. Well, big money has been able to block these regulations from being put back into place and these firms are actually BIGGER than they were when they caused the atrocities that they caused in 2008. 

When the customers of the funds and the credit started demanding payment on the credit swap, because the funds became worthless the crash came. When the stock market dropped it wiped out peoples retirement funds, 401k’s. People who worked 40+ years and had contributed to their retirement were now now without their life’s savings. People had to either forfeit their homes or be foreclosed on.  Here’s a real kicker, how can this not be illegal? 60 Minutes did a piece where someone who was a regulator got a foreclosure notice. She checked and found that the bank didn’t have a “Transfer of Deed.” A document the bank would absolutely need to foreclose. After a lot of wrangling she was given one. After doing some searching on the internet she seen that the Vice President of the bank that signed her transfer of deed, was apparently the Vice-President of many banks. The mortgage lenders were in such a frenzy to sell mortgages that tens of thousands of the mortgages didn’t even have the proper paperwork when they sold them. No problem, they actually created a company, hired hundreds of workers, at $8/hr to forge documents, I’m not kidding! I believe the employees had to sign a minimum of 300 documents per day or they were let go.

Back to the Bloomberg article; 
About $4 billion would be earmarked for consumer relief, details of which are fuzzy. For all we know this could take the form of coupons, discounts or other soft benefits, which might not cost JPMorgan anywhere near $4 billion in the end. This month the Association of Mortgage Investors sent U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder a letter to complain that some of the government’s settlements with large banks “have resulted in the responsible party shifting a portion of the settlement costs” to investors in residential mortgage-backed securities. If the government lets JPMorgan finance breaks for homeowners with other people’s money rather than its own, that isn’t much punishment.

Another $4 billion would go toward resolving the lawsuit related to Fannie and Freddie. For the Justice Department to include this accord in its total settlement figure would be akin to the rooster taking credit for the dawn. The suit isn’t a law-enforcement matter. It’s a business dispute.
Back in 2011 the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is the conservator for Fannie and Freddie, hired the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP to litigate the two companies’ mortgage-bond claims against JPMorgan and other large banks. The agency’s lawsuit covers $33 billion of residential mortgage-backed securities issued from 2005 to 2007 that Fannie and Freddie brought from JPMorgan and other companies it later acquired, including Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns.

In court papers, Quinn Emanuel attorneys have said Fannie and Freddie lost billions of dollars on those bonds, without specifying more precisely. Perhaps $4 billion (before attorneys’ fees) is a good deal for Fannie and Freddie. Or maybe it’s an even better bargain for JPMorgan, at about 12 percent of the bonds’ face value. It’s hard to say.

The settlement wouldn’t end the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of JPMorgan. The bank was told it won’t receive a waiver from prosecution, and would have to cooperate with the Justice Department’s probes of individuals still under investigation.

Bloomberg Article on “Who Really Wins”

What Do We Do?

The problem going forward is that there is no deterrent from them doing the same thing or worse. These firms are doing better than ever, and using part of their profits to block regulation. What they did, on so many levels, is in fact criminal. They have even admitted fraud. We need to start putting CEO’s CFO’s and the others responsible for ruining so many people’s lives in jail, and not some country club. Let’s not forget that they caused us to go into a recession and a financial crisis of the magnitude that we have not seen since the depression. The entire world economy was in danger, and was damaged. We need to regulate the industry and cause a deterrent by putting these criminals in a real jail.

The President Lays Out Where We Should Go in the Next Few Weeks

Photo mavericksquared.com

From David Simas
Deputy Senior Advisor
The White House

October 18, 2013

In his remarks, the President asked Congress to focus on finishing three specific policy priorities in the weeks to come.

First, that means passing a budget that invests in the things that will create a better bargain for the middle class — like educating our children, and improving our infrastructure — while continuing to cut our deficit in a balanced way.

Second, it means fixing our broken immigration system so everyone plays by the same rules. The Senate has already passed a bill that would continue to strengthen our borders and grow our economy by bringing millions of undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and give them the chance to earn their citizenship by paying a fine and taxes, passing a background check, and going to the back of the line.

And third, it means passing a farm bill that ranching and farming families can rely on: one that protects working families and gives rural communities opportunities to grow.
We’ll be back in touch soon with more specific ways that every one of us can support this work. But for now, we should all have the facts on exactly what ending this shutdown means for all of us — today, and in the weeks to come.

Take a look at the President’s remarks from yesterday, and pass them along to the folks you think need to see them:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/the-shutdown-is-over

 P.S. — It’s been a while since we’ve talked about immigration reform, and how it would help make our economy a lot better. Let’s change that. Take a look at this whiteboard video our team put together. 

Let’s Hope America Can Start Moving Forward and Stop The Nonsense

Cartoon by web.media.mit.edu

Government Open, Debt Ceiling Lifted, Can We Move On To the Many Things That Have Been Neglected Now?

The fact that we got to this point, and how we got here, is not only embarrassing for the country, but it hurt the country in many ways, and very deeply. The economy lost a great deal. On October 1st Bloomberg News stated “A partial shutdown of the federal government will cost the U.S. at least $300 million a day in lost economic output at the start, according to IHS Inc. In sixteen days that would be $4.8 Billion, but it’s actually worse than that because it lasted so long. I guess we need to be grateful the end of the shutdown and the threat of default is behind us but it doesn’t feel like a time to celebrate. There are many families that have lost and will not be able to make back what was lost during this shutdown. Although the Federal workers may be paid for their time off, all the people, and businesses, that service them, and depend on income from tourists around our National Parks will never see the income they lost come back. For now, I guess we just have to be grateful it’s over.

Graphic by www.jpayplans.com

 Time to Start Rebuilding, Dealing With All The Other Issues That Were Neglected During the Obstructions

First we need to fix the enrollment computer problems for the Affordable Care Act. We have so many things that need tending it’s hard to think of what to do next; Jobs (maybe an infrastructure bill,) Immigration, Economy, Voting Rights, Equality, Climate, etc., etc.. The Congressmen/women and Senators must find a way to work together in the best interest of the people of this great country. The obstructionism and hatred has hurt this country but we shall overcome it. Perhaps we can at least start talking about some of these issues before the next round of talks about continuing resolutions and debt ceilings start again in January and February. There are many things in the works that need to be addressed like voter suppression laws in over 30 states, Women’s Rights that are being attacked, and the corruption of our politicians and elections that Citizen’s United has blown wide open. We’ll have to hope that the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t make it ten times worse with McCutcheon v FEC. But “what can I do?” you might ask. You can gather facts from numerous sources, that’s important, and then contact your Congressmen/women and Senators.

Now is an Opportune Time to Contact YOUR Representatives to tell Them How YOU Feel about the Issues that We face

Graphic by capwiz.com

 Get the Facts First!

With news cycles being almost non-existent as far as how long a news cycle actually last with cable news and the internet it is more important than ever to make sure that you rely on more than one source, and the credibility  of those sources. I think it is extremely important to listen to different sources on any issue to know I’m hearing both sides, although at times I almost get sick to my stomach and wonder why it’s legal for our own politicians to knowingly go on TV or radio and lie, knowing damn well that they are lying. Once your sure you’ve formed an opinion from gathering facts from numerous sources e-mail, or call, your Congressmen/women, ans Senators (2) to tell them what YOU think would be better for yourself and the country. History shows that when the American people get involved and contact their representatives your voice gets louder and louder. You can make a difference. Finally, take the time to engage in conversation with your neighbors, your co-workers, your fellow Americans and have discussions on why you think a certain way. We obviously need to talk to the people who are representing us in the government, because right now all they hear is from the big money influences that only care about themselves having everything their way. The richest Americans have done extremely well since they took all the 401k’s, people’s equity in their homes (if they were able to keep their home at all,) basically their net worth. Middle class Americans have had stagnant wages and no growth because the 1% has all the money and the power because they control our lawmakers.

Use this link to find your Congressmen/women and how to call or e-mail them:

  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Use this link to find your Two (2) Senators and how to call or e-mail them:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm 

Let’s Get Our Country Back to The Beautiful Country That It Is

Photo by walkerreort.blogspot.com

Congressional Reform Act of 2012? "Warren Buffet-How To End The Deficit in 5 Minutes"

 Demand Our Congress Live Like The Rest of Americans and Tell Our Senate and Congress to Pass This

This appeared on my News Feed on Facebook from Josh Duhamel.   I think we should ALL save the picture and then send it to our Senators and Congressmen, demanding it be made a bill, passed by the House and Senate, and signed by the President.

I love this. I think we should e-mail it to all our Senators and Congressmen and tell them we want this to become a bill and passed by the house and Senate. In fact I’m going to send this picture to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Senator Chuck Schumer, my Senators, and Congressman Tim Timothy Bishop, my Congressman. I urge EVERYONE, RIGHT NOW, to use these links to find your Senators and Congressmen and their contact information and send this picture to them and demand it be made a bill, and passed;

To find your Senators and their contact information:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

To find your Congressmen and their contact information:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/

I just sent an e-mail to my Senators and Congressmen. Please join me. It’s easier than you think, DO IT NOW!

You DO NOT Want a government Shutdown if you are a Sane Human Being

Senate to Vote on Continuing Resolution or Let a Shutdown Happen – Now is the Time to Contact Your Senators!

Photo by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard.com

Use this link to get the direct phone numbers of your Senators

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Call them Now and tell them a Government Shutdown is NOT what you want!

How Far Can People Be Pushed Before They Push Back?

 

 

How Far Can People Be Pushed Before
They Push Back? Volume 1 

(The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)

  When People Stand Together and Actually DO What They Can DO We Are HEARD!

Anytime we can get people to stand together and act together we gain strength, this is why I’ve created this blog, and a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-the-Obstructionist-Tea-Party/1404191656471075 . I get frustrated when I see Tea Party members, and other Conservatives, saying absurd things that are totally untrue and outright lies. Then people make comments, act out at town hall meetings, and appear elsewhere in the media, because they actually BELIEVE the misinformation and outright lies that these obstructionists spew out. Politicians put this garbage out, not because they believe it, but because they’re only worried about their reelection, and people buy it!

I saw a post on Facebook by Robert Reich, author of “Beyond Outrage – What has gone wrong with our Economy and our Democracy, and how to Fix it.” It provoked many comments and emotions among people. I thought I would share the link to that post because it inspired me to post another piece to try to motivate people to speak up and get involved, which is the mission of this blog. 

Robert Reich’s Facebook page address is: https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?hc_location=stream. This link brings you to his Facebook page, on it is a post he made on August 25, 2013. You can identify the post as it begins with “A few days ago I had breakfast with a man who had been one of my mentors in college,”.
I encourage you to read it, comment, and come back to this blog and comment on this article so I can hear what you think.

 People are being pushed further than ever before on many fronts. Inequality of Opportunity, Income inequality, we are being told that getting health insurance for 30 million uninsured people is not what we want, we are having to deal with a minimum wage that full-time workers, working a full 40 hours a week are living below the poverty level, we are told that if a women wants to have an abortion that she must consent to a trans-vaginal ultrasound that has not be deemed medically necessary by a doctor, (isn’t that assault?,) we are having to deal with numerous Voter ID laws that clearly discriminate against the poor and the minorities, we are told that no environmental concerns exist with fracking, pipelines, and deregulation of industries, we are told that the deregulation of the financial industry didn’t cause the near depression and wipe out people’s 401k’s and net worth, and much more rhetoric that is simply NOT TRUE!. ENOUGH!

People need to speak up! Many people say “What can I do? Plenty. History shows that when people stand together and speak out by flooding the offices of politicians with enough calls, e-mails and other personal contact, that we can pressure them to do the right thing. But we must flood them with contact. We must let them know, that we know, what they are doing. There are links on this blog page for people to find out who there representatives are, how to contact them, and to see how their Representatives are voting on bills. . If you want to get involved and don’t know who your Congressmen, Senators, and other Representatives are, please use the links on this page to find out who they are, and how to contact them. Do it now! It’s as simple as putting in your zip code, and for your local politicians, your address. We can make a difference! Speak to your neighbors, coworkers, friends, and encourage them to seek out various sources for news and information. The internet is a useful tool but people need to be aware that anyone can write anything they want on the internet, so they have to look at numerous sources, and respected sources. People should visit fact-checking organizations; here are a couple sites http://www.factcheck.org/ , http://www.politifact.com/ , http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker , http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/29/realtime-political-fact-checking-becomes-a-reality-with-wapos-truth-teller/ ,  and not accept when people in the conservative party say “we will not let fact-checking get in the way of our agenda”

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Volume 1 emphasis) 

Why aren’t people telling their Governors, Congressman, and Senators that it is NOT O.K. to do NOTHING! Elected officials get a golden healthcare plan, for life, and turn right around and vote 40 times to repeal Obamacare which will help 30 million uninsured Americans get health insurance. Governors in many states refuse to implement “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, a LAW, not a bill, (which many conservatives insist on still calling it.) They refuse to set up insurance exchanges so people can sign up on October 1, 2013. In lieu of setting up exchanges they must come up with alternatives. One state decided that a viable alternative was to have a lottery where only 2500 people would “win” an opportunity to get health insurance. The problem? there were numerous, 1) there are 3 million people uninsured in that state, 2) everyone had to call within the same 2-3 hour window and 3) it was announced on the news that the phone lines were closed, before they ever actually opened. One woman that was in the hospital for surgery, she was under anesthesia and couldn’t call. She was told that she had the opportunity just as everyone else in the state did and she was out of luck. One person who “won” the lottery actually didn’t get health insurance but did get a 19 page application that a lawyer for the news agency reporting on this lottery said “was confusing and it was not probable that citizens could possibly complete accurately.”

This is where states stood as of June 13, 2013:

Via: The Advisory Board Company

and this site tracks executive and legislative action taken to achieve—or totally rule out—expansion in each state. http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/Resources/Primers/MedicaidMap

Please get involved, be heard. Tell the Congress that it is not O.K. for them to make a salary of $29,000 for 9 days work in all of August when they have done nothing to help Americans yet voted 40 times to repeal “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act!”