Wow,Airforceone...So sorry to hear about your son and im glad he is doing good now....I dont think we ever should attack kids or loved ones of people we disagree with...I accept your apology...It takes a big man to apologize.....

There are times when someone says something absurd and I really want to post what I think abut them and their nastiness. Sp I write out what I would say on a piece of paper, go out to clean the dog run and use what I wrote to pick up the turds, a turd for a turd so to speak. Then I take a walk as far as my gimpy arthritic legs will carry me. By then I am too damn tired to be really angry, particularly with someone I don't even know and, from their posts, I don't CARE to know. And I am tire enough to take a nap, and happy that I actually wake up later in time for dinner.

Your story defines part of the divide in this country, and it is the kind of people who are small in number that end up painting the group as a whole. Those who would put down someone in the position your son got caught in are truly despicable. There are millions of hard working people who were caught in the self employed and pre existing condition loophole that couldn't get healthcare. And we are divided by people who want to lump them with deadbeats.

My wife and I had an odyssey that wasn't nearly on the magnitude of yours prior to the ACA that involved pre existing conditions and losing insurance because of a loss to a business that my healthcare had been through.

She was able to get Kaiser with her business as a group plan situation. I was on COBRA and had 18 months to find an insurance plan. It became obvious after a year that the gall bladder removal and hiatal hernia surgeries I'd had were going to keep me from getting any insurance at any cost, there were no offers of even cost prohibitive plans. I had the broker who had set up our business group plans jumping through hoops. With only a few months left he started looking at creative ways to get me insurance. He told us that my wife needed to put me on her business as a paid consultant. I already was an unpaid consultant and did an array of things that increased her revenues, so it wasn't hard to uphold as reality if ever questioned.

We got Kaiser, and the plans were the very highest tiers with the lowest copays and maximums even in catastrophic care that were capped at a $4500 max. We started at about $600 each a month a few years before the ACA. They couldn't drop us, but it was understood that if we ever missed or was even late that policy would not be renewed. The last years prior to the ACA Kaiser tried to get us to drop to a lower premium with higher shared copays but we refused. The last two years before the ACA they were raising rates at a level every year that had them at $850 and $950 for a combined $1800 a month plus copays on meds and tests. Kaiser promotes and wants the plans that have shared copays on catastrophic that are tens to even hundreds of thousands of dollars. People lose houses over these kinds of copays.

I looked into VA care and switched to that, so my wife's Kaiser was $950 a month the year before the ACA started. The first year her premium was $500mo, the second came down to about $450, 2016 was $350... 2017 was $950 and she was hit with a retro active charge back to 2016 of $900, so she was surprised with a $6000 healthcare bill at tax time. 2017 taxes had a $12,000 surprise because of changes to write offs.

So GOP lack of support and undermining the ACA at every turn had already caused insurance rates to go up significantly, and those who are in similar situations with pre existing conditions have been holding their breath on what the GOP was doing.

The ACA could have worked significantly better had it not been undermined at every turn, including refusing to fund provisions that were to save billions in waste and fraud. It's a shame when only the people who fit the categories that need healthcare who will lose it are the ones who get it.

Amen and Amen same here. I didn't see eye to eye with you so my way of dealing with you and the situation that you were bringing to the table every day or every other day as it seemed was to simply ignore you and your posts. That was unkind on my part and so I in turn ask you to forgive me for not at least trying to understand your situation and feelings. I intend to stop ignoring you and your posts and at least give you the benefit of the doubt and read your posts. Hopefully I will be able to be more sensitive and more understanding. I lost my son at the age of nineteen do to a hit and run driver and I oh so hope that you can find your son a kidney. Thanks for that post Airforceone.

I made many accusations against people on OPP. Put states and classes of people in my insults. I want to apologize to all OPP readers and Bloggers. I should should not have attacked all right wing bloggers because of the insults from a few.

I got invovled in the whole h**e and d******eness on OPP. When all these insults were lodged at me I responded with insults. But it was only the actions of a few which I refused to name these people.

The insults against me were generated by 4 bloggers that attacked me with personal insults denigrated my son and threaten me personally.

As I think back as to when all my h**e and insults started. It started when Congress under Obama first started debating Obamacare. My son has an incurable Kidney disease and he was at that time living in the state of Florida. His medical cost were growing as the disease advanced but he continued to work and coach youth hockey. He had a employee based Medical insurance which picked up 80% of his cost but 20% was still putting a major burden on his finances. So he moved in with me so we as a family could better manage his medical cost.

My son is single and my wife passed away at the age of 47 of pancreatic cancer.

Then came the worst thing that could happen his boss called him in and said he had to let him go because the insurance provider was going to increase his cost on the employee based system. So living in Florida and no worker protection my son now has no job and no insurance. His yearly income was $75,000 a year plus quarterly bonuses in 2009.

So this was okay because he is a very talented guy and could get another job, pay the COBRA till his new job picked up his insurance premium. Wrong when he applied for a new job guess what the first question at his interview is (WHY DID YOUR LAST EMPLOYER LET YOU GO AFTER 9 years)
Yes sir my last employer let me go because I have a kidney disease and his insurance premiums were going up because of my medical cost. (INTERVIEW ENDED) Now how do you get a job.

So again no problem my son begain an attempt at getting medical insurance on his own. Wrong again there was no insurance provider in this country that would give him insurance at any cost. (PRE-EXISTING CONDITION) ( THIS ALL OCCURED PRIOR TO THE ACA)

So no job no insurance and medical bills rising. But what I did was set up with his primary care physician and his specialist a payment plan. One of his biggest cost was medication. Then periodic hospital stays for 2 or 3 days I also requested payment plans.

So no job no insurance and under these payment plans the cost was anywhere from $3000 to $3,500 a month (THIS WAS PRIOR TO HIM GOING ON DIALYSIS) this does not include medication which varied from month to month between $800 to $1500 CVS has no payment plans. And yes I explained to OPP bloggers that I was financially sound and was able to pay these medical cost so my son could keep his doctors, and specialist. But it was beginning to drain my retirement funds and it wasn’t looking good for me so I had to resign from the private golf club sell my home and downsize. Now after playing golf 5 times a week to playing 5 times a month. But it was an easy decision.

Then Obamacare was passed and like I said I followed the Obamacare legislation from start to finish. I believe that nobody on OPP understands Obamacare as I do. I followed it through the legislation process, I read all the CBO reports as to cost. I studied the Massachusetts Affordable care act passed by Republican Gov Mitt Romney and a democratic legislators.

When Obamacare became law I was very excited. When the first open enrollment started I went on the Government web site and started to reseach the different providers and the level of insurance my son could get.

I picked up the phone and called the government provided specialist and having a lot of knowledge about Obamacare I was able to ask my questions and how the whole process worked. When I got off the phone and having full knowledge of the different programs available was able to get a 80% policy, with $10 co-pays for primary care, $5 co-pays for medications $100 co-pays for specialist with a $750 deductiable for hospitalization. The cost was $385 a month and absolutly no government subsidies. Still incuring major cost with a 80% policy.

I explained this on OPP and was met with insults a government taker my son was a fraud, liar and also the fact I was financially sound comments like pay your own medical bills and stop living off the government. I was called a Marxist, C*******t, and the right wing favorite socialist. (SORRY I GOT VERY ANGRY AND OVER THE YEARS BEGAN TO ATTACK ANY RIGHT WING BLOGGER AND IT CONTINUED OVER THE LAST 4 YEARS YOU PEOPLE DID NOT DESERVE THE KIND OF INSULTS THAT I HAVE MADE) But I want all right wing bloggers to know it was only a few and I attacked, denigrated all right wing bloggers. (I WAS WRONG)

I have read every topic every blog about Obamacare and having full knowledge of Obamacare it became very frustrating for me to read the misinformation about Obamacare and when I attempted to explain and try to get the proper information posted on Obamacare the insults just kept coming and they never stopped.

The ACA/Obamacare was a massive piece of legislation it’s not something you will understand by reading it Once. Over the years I heard how the misinformation train by right wing bloggers that had there own perception on Obamacare but (PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY) It all started with misinformation on the following topics in Obamacare.
(Mandate) (Insurance pools) (Keep your Doctor) (You can keep your insurance provider) ( PRE EXISTING CONDITIONS) (Cancelled policies) (Acused Obama from stealing $750 billion from Medicare) (Obamacare premiums rising) (Doctors refusing patients covered by Obamacare) (DEATH PANELS) (How can republicans v**e on a bill when they only had 24 hours to review) (This bill had 7000 pages) (Insurance company networks) all misinformation as to how Obamacare works. It was without a doubt the biggest misinformation campaign by the Right wing media, conspiracy theorist, Republican legislators this country has ever seen. I am not denying that there are problems with Obamacare so fix the problems. Not everything in Obamacare is bad. But for the right wing to just continue with repeal with no replacement as promised. With the Trump promise of creating new healthcare legislation giving all Americans affordable health insurance but first you have to repeal the ACA. Well that clearly will not happen.

So over the years I was attempting to explain how Obamacare functioned and explain the misinformation about the above topics. Let me explain just one example. Sarah Phalin coined the phrase death panels, and Doctors refusing coverage all due to Obamacare.

Death panels that was so obsurd, that so called death panel was a $225 allowance to meet with your doctor to be informed what was the best plan for your family. My son used that $225 and it was one of the best meetings he had because he had full knowledge as to best pick out a policy that would address his daily medical treatment and his long term medical care as his disease was never going to get better.
Then when my son choose the BC/BS platinum policy he got a phone call from his specialist that he would no longer be able to treat him because of his insurance policy. Well having full knowlege of Obamacare I called the specialist and asked why. What I got for an answer was he received a letter from the insurance company that they would no longer cover my son’s health cost. I thought that was strange because his policy was covered by all other doctors and hospitals. So I called BC/BS and what they told me was that this specialist was not signatory with there network of providers. So I got the name of there network of providers called my son’s specialist back and told him why they refused payment and the doctors office asked for the name of the network the doctor then signed onto that network and my son was able to keep his doctor. There are many networks set up by providers. But how many people just except this type of issue and don’t Follow up as to (WHY) I fixed that issue within a few hours. But not understanding Obamacare, Not understanding provider networks people just except this type of wrongdoing and the right wing blamed these cancelations on Obamacare. It was amazing to me reading right wing bloggers complaining about there doctors canceling them. When all it took was a simple phone call and problem corrected. These provider networks were in place long before Obamacare if you remember when HMO’s first came out.

Now over the years explaining to the the bloggers on OPP that post misinformation I was met with some of the most nasty insults you could imagine and I got mad and forgot who I was and went on the attack. I was told I was a liar and never read Obamacare. If it meant your son’s life (WOULD YOU READ AND UNDERSTAND OBAMACARE THE WAY I HAVE)

I have been battling this for over 10 years now. I have battled the state of Florida when Rick Scott the governor illegally allowed insurance providers to create high risk pools which was illegal. If Rick Scott got what he wanted and many OPP bloggers agreed with High Risk pools my son’s premiums would have gone up to $9,500 a month. But that was a way that insurance providers could cancel your policy and stay within the laws of the set by Obamacare that you could not cancel your policy. As it turned out Rick Scott did this illegally. But during the 3 months of this battle my son was on peritoneal home dialysis where it cost $11,500 a month just for the dialysis medication. I had to pick up that cost for two months. But when it was ruled illegal I was reimbursed.

So there has been many bumps in the road over the last 10 years. I am not looking for sympathy because there are over 40 million people in this country that battled the same issues as my family has gone through without having medical insurance in different degrees.

But my son who now is fully employed has a great job earning over $100,000 a year with a employee base medical insurance and purchased a supplemental policy through Medicare and pays the premium because of his earnings. My son, my family, and myself have never asked for government subsidies we dealt with it as a family. All we ever wanted was to have the ability to purchase medical insurance.

My son goes to dialysis 3 times a week, he works 40 to 50 hours a week, He still coaches an elite hockey team for 16 to 17 years of age. With his contacts in hockey because he played college hockey he has been able to help Florida teenagers get hooked up with the northeast juniors program and get scholarships to Division one college teams. He also has many contacts on the devision 2 college teams and this less talented players were able to go to college and play hockey.

(MY SON NOW HAS TWO YEARS TO RECIEVE A KIDNEY T***SPLANT BEFORE HE GOES INTO TOTAL RENAL FAILURE THEN HE WILL BE IN BIG TROUBLE) But it is just not happening in Florida due to the regulation of the t***splant centers in Florida. Another daily battle where my son has to text his blood pressure everyday and don’t forget To do it because they take you off the list. If your blood pressure rises they take you off the list, if you get the flu your off the list. But unknown to my son was when they take you off the list you have to re-Apply.

But I had no right denigrating all the right wing bloggers and denigrating all those southern red states that refused the Medicaid expansion. ( I JUST HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND IN SOME SMALL WAY WHY I GOT ANGRY AND HAD ALL THIS BUILT UP H**E BECAUSE THAT IS NOT ME.)

In life we have so many challenges and it seems that some people have greater burdens than others. And then there are others who seem to float through life, entirely blessed. Certainly, now that I have read your heartbreaking story about your son and his medical conditions, your anger in those threads is understandable. I will be first to say that I have never understood obamacare, it still remains confusing to me..... but, my circumstances is different than most. I am having difficulty in understanding your attitude in other threads unrelated to obamacare and your treatment of individuals who maintained a level of respectful discussion even when you treated them badly.

I will not automatically accept your apology, I will wait to see if you are indeed contrite. I see nothing in your apology implying that you intend to treat others any differently. Only time will tell. Having said that, I will pray for your son. I hope that he gets his t***splant and hope that you will keep us updated on his condition.

I personally know close to a dozen people who could not get healthcare due to pre existing conditions. A friend of mine who is a contractor got hepatitis when he was about 22 through blood t***sfusions before screening.He refused to drink because his liver was going to k**l him as it was, and he wasn't going to do anything that shortened his life. He could not afford the drug that cures hepatitis because the cost was ludicrous, something like $80,000 or that much a month for four months. He got that within the first couple months of getting healthcare, and is now cured. That money in preventive care saved the government hundreds of thousands in chemo later.

Here's an interesting aside on this guy. He works hard as a contractor and makes between ten to fifteen thousand a month. When he got healthcare he filed taxes based sort of on the expenses for materials he could show as a write off and added an income that seemed reasonable to him. He was claiming a minimal income, so his healthcare plan was highly subsidized and cost him a couple of hundred a month. He gets a new lease on life being the beneficiary of an expensive drug that cured him... and what does he do, what are his circumstances now?

I was talking to him a few days ago, he is having a tough time working because of severe hemorrhoids, he said the surgery will be about $8000. I asked him why his healthcare wasn't covering it, he said he hadn't filed taxes for two or three years so he didn't have any. Meantime over the last few years he's bought a custom Harley, put a supercharger performance package in his truck at about $8000, he put $20,000 into engine and suspension in his quad.

The custom paint job on his $40k Harley was several thousand dollars, it says "live free or die" on the tank

If you really mean what you say - that you want to have common sense debates here - telling someone that you need them to go away because you don't like what they have to say, or how they say it defeats your own purpose.

We all know that you can keep this person (and any others you don't like) from commenting on threads you create by using the ignore function. And we all know that when you are on a thread that involves that person (Archie) and any others you don't like, you simply ignore them and don't respond to them. You apologize and say you don't want to get involved with certain people, and then you go ahead and get involved by responding (and telling them to go away!). I have a feeling your apology is not sincere, but we'll see, I guess.