I Challenge YOU to Educate the Low-Information Voters Who Are Hurting Themselves and the Rest Of The Country – Really, This is a Challenge, You Game?

Most of us wonder how people can vote in political candidates and incumbents into, or back into elected office that clearly do not represent their own personal interests. How do women vote for a Governor that clearly is attacking women’s rights? Like when a Governor wants to force any woman who wants an abortion to be raped by requiring them to endure a trans-vaginal ultrasound even though no medical doctor prescribed it, or even says that it is not necessary, or any of the other disgraceful ways the TeaPublicans have attacked women and their rights. How do people who don’t/didn’t have any healthcare, whose state already gets much more money from Washington D.C. then it sends to the government, vote for politicians who refuse to expand Medicaid (which wouldn’t cost their state a dime for the 1st 3 years and then only 5-10% percent of the costs after that) and/or refuse to set-up healthcare exchanges to help those who can’t afford reasonable healthcare get affordable healthcare? After speaking to many people and getting a lot of feedback from people who actually live in those areas, like the Southeast, I found that we don’t understand something. It reminds me of a story I saw on the news many years ago that I still can’t, or won’t, forget. There was a 14 year old boy, attending Public School, in New York City, it was discovered that his parents were making him live in a coffin, whenever he wasn’t in school he would have to stay in a coffin. When he returned from school he had to get into his coffin, he had to eat, wash, and yes defecate in the coffin! When it hit the news the first question was obvious, “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” His answer? He was surprised by the question, “I thought everyone lived the same way I did.” Understandably the child was severely introverted and had no friends so he really didn’t talk to anyone unless he had to. But it made me realize that if you brought up a son or daughter in a green room for 5 years and told that child the color of the room was blue, what do you think that child would say the color of a green traffic light was? That’s why people in areas that receive more in social welfare like disability, food stamps, Social Security, and so forth, vote for politicians that claim the government is a socialist one and is bad! So why don’t they just get smarter? Watch more news? Read more? Well, some of them do, but what they are seeing, hearing, and reading is total bullcrap because the ultra-rich are controlling what they see, hear, and read. Did you know that the Koch Brothers went as far as paying off a State College in Tallahassee, Florida (FSU) to have the final word of who the economics department hired! Yea, no lie! Charles Koch Buys Rights To Control Who Florida State University Hires in their Economic Dept. The amount of money being spent on corrupting our politicians, elections, and on media (written, TV, internet, and other outlets) is absolutely insane. Why do they spend this money? Because it gives the 1% power, power through influence. What can we do? We can make sure that those people who “only watch Fox (faux – false) news” and only see, hear, and read, the misinformation they are being fed, that are told that the room is blue, get the facts, the truth, that the light is GREEN! We must find a way to get the truth to the “low-information voters,” whom many are not to blame for being wrong, and we must do it without the advantage that the ultra-rich billionaires have, which is billions of dollars. I want to challenge each and everyone of you who actually read this post. I want to challenge you to start a massive information blitz telling the facts, the truth, and get it out there in every way you know, in hopes of some of the information getting to those people who are only being told the room is blue. I thought I would try something. We know that those low-information people see very limited information, they may not read a lot, or watch much other than a source that misleads them, so we have to do something that is simple, interesting, and will appeal to those who can’t be bothered researching information. The information must be served in a way that will catch their attention. If enough of the information makes it to these people, perhaps we can get them to see that they are hurting themselves. That’s why I’m asking you, challenging you in fact, to join me in an information campaign targeting those low-information voters. Whatever you create and get out there, remember that it must be something that the target audience will relate to. For instance, I want to target the red states (9 out of 10 of the poorest states are Republican states) in the Southeast, so I’m going to start making memes (pictures with something you write on them) and I’m going to use NASCAR pictures. Here’s my 1st idea on how to start getting information to these people: I challenge each and everyone of you to the make and distribute the best meme, to educate the misinformed, one that will get widespread attention and circulation, so much so that it will make it’s way into the areas where these voters are, and to get widespread distribution of that meme so that it will reach our target audience. Don’t know how to make a meme? “No problem it’s not only easy, it’s fun. Below, I give you a couple really easy ways of doing it, and showing your creativity and sense of humor. So what do you say? Hey, if you share this and my blog post and get others involved we could have millions of these target oriented information memes circulating everywhere! Some of them are bound to reach our target audience and change some minds, AND VOTES! O.K. Let’s see what we can do. Contact me if you have any questions, and please involve as many people as you can by sharing this. Thanks so much for your anticipated cooperation.

How to Make a Meme

There are numerous free sites to assist you in your quest to make a meme, whether you want to be funny, creative, a mix sending a serious message and being a creative, funny, teacher. The site I’m going to recommend here is one that I found to be the easiest and quickest. You will make a meme in a few minutes, I promise. Go to quickmeme by clicking on the colored word (link) quickmeme in this sentence. This is what you will see:

Quickmeme – A Meme Generator

Step 1: On the black on top, instead of seeing a picture of me you will see the word “Login.” You will need to click this and register/Login, if you are on Facebook you can just click Log in with Facebook, or simply type in whatever information you need to, to create an account.

Step 2: Your ready to make a meme. You can use any of the pictures you see, or you can browse the web, or your personal photos, and “upload” a picture (more on uploading in a minute.) Pick a picture by simply clicking on the picture you want to use. I’ve picked one as an example, I chose one that they call “Condescending Wonka” this is what you’ll see:

Condescending Wonka from quickmeme

Step 3: Your almost done! Now put your creative, humorous thinking cap on and fill in the prompts; 1st think of a title, the title will only be seen when your meme is listed with other memes for people to see. Then fill in the “Top Caption, this is what will appear at the top of the picture. Finally fill in the “Bottom Caption.” Suggestion: The Top Caption should be the set-up for the point you want to make, the Bottom Caption should be the punchline to drive your point home. See what I’ve done here (mind you, I never claimed to be good at humor.):

quickmeme instruction on filling in the content of a meme

Step 4: Click “Create” Congratulations! You just made your very first meme! Don’t leave yet, you need to save your work! You can click on “File” and save it, or you can share it to Twitter or Facebook and then “save it as a picture” from there. Done!

Now that your an expert you may want to try other meme generators that give you a little more control, like picking what size the text is, and other options. I suggest you try Imgur.

I promised to tell you about “uploading” your own pictures. It’s very simple. If you’ve ever saved a picture on your computer it was shared into a “file” the default file would be “pictures” or “My Pictures”. If you want to use your own picture, instead of clicking on one of the pictures the meme generator offers, like when I picked Wonka, simply click on “Upload” a picture. that will bring you to your files on your computer, one of which is where you saved your pictures. Simply navigate to the picture you want to use and double click on it, or click on a picture and then click on “save” or “open”, your picture will be uploaded to the meme generator like Wonka was and you can do the same steps as before to create a meme.

Finally, and this is the best, if you have an idea for a meme and have a picture in mind that you would like to use, type the topic into your “search” box on the top of your browser and then click images, it will give you a bunch of pictures to choose from, then save it. This is a picture of my browser:

Google Screenshot

You’ll notice in Google the big white bar near the top of the screen, that’s the address bar. To the right of that is the “search box”, you can type in there whatever you want to find a picture of, ex: fire engine and hit enter, that will give you a list of articles on fire engines, but above the list of articles you’ll see the word “images”, simply click on that and you will have a number of pictures of fire engines. Save one into “pictures by right clicking on the picture you want, then left click “Save Image As” and it will open up your library of folders. click on the “Pictures” folder to open it, then name the picture in the box that says “File Name” and then click “Save”. You then have a picture you can upload to use in a meme. Note: instead of the search box you can click on the word “images” on the google screen, it’s just below the search box, then click in what picture you want to find.

GOOD LUCK! ENJOY! And PLEASE join this challenge so we can educate those who are being fed the ultra-rich garbage so we can keep the Senate and take back the house. If you have any questions use the “Contact Me” button on my blog ay www.Medic3569.com thanks for helping take back our Republic.

Medicare Part D – Joe Scarborough Doesn’t Remember "All These Problems"

 Medicare Part D – It’s Problems – It’s Rollout Similarities to the Affordable Care Act

by Kaiser Family Foundation

It bothered my when Joe Scarborough said he didn’t remember “all these problems” with the Prescription Drug Plan bill back when President George W. Bush and the Republicans pushed through what some call the “worst legislation passed since the 1960’s. At about 6:20 AM  this morning on his show, Joe Scarborough said “the only thing I remember is that they (the Republicans) held the vote open for 3 weeks and then bribed Nick Smith for his vote. He should use his current health plan to look into what pharmaceuticals are available for a bad memory. I sent an e-mail off to the show immediately, here’s a copy of the text:

 

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“First let me say that I love Morning Joe and you all help me start my day, everyday. I’ve been watching for years and depend on the show to start my day and gather information before I work on my blog http://www.Medic3569.blogspot.com which I use to inform and motivate people to become well informed and especially to contact Congressmen/women and Senators.

At approximately 6:20 AM Joe Scarborough said he didn’t remember “all these problems with Medicare Part D.”  What I remember about the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act is that the vote was held open until like 3:00 AM while Republicans twisted arms of other Republicans to vote for the bill. The party threatened Republicans to not back them in their next election if they didn’t vote for the bill. I remember that it took away the right to negotiate price (except for the Veterans Administration who was smart enough to stay out of it) and the price Medicare would pay for a common heart went from $280 annually to over $1200 annually.

On December 8, 2003 these provisions of the law passed the Congress by a narrow margin:

• it provides a subsidy for large employers to discourage them from eliminating private prescription coverage to retired workers (a key AARP goal.)
• it prohibits the Federal government from negotiating discounts with drug companies;
• it prevents the government from establishing a formulary , though does not prevent private providers such as HMO’s from doing so.

It’s the second one I have a problem with, especially since the Republicans and George W. Bush offered no way whatsoever of paying for it!
Later, after the hugh windfall that drug companies enjoyed, I believe it was 60 Minutes who reported, 23-25 of the politicians that co-sponsored the bill had left their jobs in the Congress by either not running for re-election or, in at least one case, just resigned their position, and went to work for pharmaceutical companies at salaries well north of $1M a year.
Joe Scarborough doesn’t remember any problems with the bill except for one Congressman that the Republicans were pressuring to change his vote, perhaps he should look into what prescriptions are available for senility.”

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Photo by crooksandliars.com

Here are Some of the Problems Medicare Part D had on Rollout

For one thing, the Bush administration faced a difficult political battle to get the bill passed in 2003. I remember they had to hold the vote open until 3:00 AM while they twisted the Republicans arms to vote for the bill. Joe Scarborough said they actually held the vote open for three weeks, I don’t know about that.

That damaged public opinion of the law, making it a challenge to educate 43 million seniors on its nuances.

Enrollment in the law was set to begin in late 2005. In April of that year, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 27 percent of respondents understood the law, while only 21 percent favored it. (In a comparable Kaiser poll in April 2013, 35 percent viewed the Affordable Care Act favorably and less than half felt they were well-informed of its details.)

The Medicare site, meant to help seniors pick benefit plans, was supposed to debut Oct. 13, 2005, but it didn’t go live until weeks later in November. Even then, “the tool itself appeared to be in need of fixing,” the Washington Post reported at this time.

From PolitiFact – Did Medicare Part D have the same rollout problems as the Obamacare online marketplaces? :

“Visitors to the site could not access it for most of the first two hours. When it finally did come up around 5 p.m., it operated awfully slowly,” the Post reported. (Sensing a pattern?)

Once seniors began to enroll, problems persisted. According to the report, the online tools had “accuracy problems,” and local organizations designated with assisting seniors “reported problems getting necessary and accurate information.” Call centers provided by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services underestimated “the needed capacity to ensure that reliable answers could be provided” and “service representatives were not knowledgeable or failed to provide accurate information.”

The Georgetown experts anticipated similar hiccups with the Affordable Care Act, noting that the country’s experience with Medicare Part D suggested “the experience will be far from perfect” and “problems were not always addressed as quickly or as thoroughly as critics would have liked, but fixes were usually found.”
These days, nine in 10 seniors who utilize the program report they are satisfied with it.
“There’s really a striking amount of similarity even though this time it’s a far larger and daunting task. It’s a fair comparison,” said Jack Hoadley at the Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute and one of the authors of the study. “Once something works its way through the problems, you forget the problems.”

Approximately twp weeks before the bill passed and the Bush administration was saying the law would cost about $100M, but it was revealed that the plan would cost at least $500M, it turned out to cost much, much, more.

Photo by econbroswer.com

 In a story by Nick Gillespie at Reason.com on November 19, 2013:

         According to the latest actuaries’ report, Medicare Part D will cost taxpayers – beneficiaries pay virtually nothing –    Part D will cost taxpayers — beneficiaries pay virtually nothing — $62 billion this year. This figure is expected to rise sharply in coming years to $150 billion in 2019. By 2030, Part D alone will cost taxpayers 1 percent of GDP. In present value terms, Medicare Part D adds almost $16 trillion to our national indebtedness. (That’s how much would need to be in a trust fund today to pay all the benefits that have been promised over and above the trivial premiums paid by beneficiaries.) That is why former U.S. Comptroller David Walker has called the unfunded prescription drug benefit “the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960’s.”  Read more at Reason.com

Photo by blog.floridablue.com

Where Does The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Go From Here?

After spending more than $60M on 46 votes to repeal Obamacare the Republicans still have never offered any other plan to help insure the 40 million Americans who didn’t have, and couldn’t afford health insurance. Mitt Romney, the Republican, who when he was Governor of Massachusetts passed the health law that Obamacare is designed after. They would like to forget how much insurance premiums were rising and that since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law that the rate of increases has been reduced. The Republicans complain about “millions of policies being cancelled” but choose to not respond to where they were when millions of people who paid health insurance premiums for years had their policies cancelled once they became ill. The TeaPublican Republicans have no response about positive things that the Affordable Care Act have done like; allowing children to stay on their parents policies until the age of 26; or that insurance companies now have to spend at least 80% of the money they collect from premiums on the policy holders instead of giving themselves hugh salaries and bonuses; or how 40 million Americans who only had emergency rooms to use as their only access to healthcare, the most expensive way to pay for someone’s healthcare will now have healthcare plans and preventive medicine. What  we all need to do is work to fix the problems with The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as they arise and get everyone affordable healthcare.