Trippitorial - "Supreme Tax"

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"Free Speech Show" - The Affordable Care Act

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act

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"Comedy Nation This Week" - July 6, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

 Panelists discuss the SCOTUS Affordable Care Act ruling, Presidential politics and the weekly Trippitorial.

Trippitorial - Supreme Tax

America’s health care system is ailing and I don’t feel so good myself. The affordable Care Act is compromised legislation. It’s compromised because the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists had to let some of the politician’s staffs write part of it. Instead of implementing a streamlined one payer, not for profit model, it preserves a failed model of limited coverage based on profit, not patient care. It preserves a market not worth preserving and insures increased future profits for those corporations with little thought given to cost containment. This happened because the campaign contributions politicians get from the insurance and pharmaceutical interests are too big to bail.

The for profit private insurance model of health care is a failed model whose life should not be prolonged. It’s time to pull the plug. The constitution does not begin, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect market…”

Chief Justice John Roberts said the penalty for not participating in the private market is a tax. The whole thing is a tax. It’s a tax we can pay to a private corporation, or for a smaller fee, to the government. I would prefer to pay it to the government for a single payer non-profit model like Medicare. The government should not be coercing its citizens to buy products from corporations, although I did recently incorporate.

Probably not since Rome hired private companies to collect taxes from their conquered territories has a citizen been mandated to pay a tax to a private corporation. And we all know what happened to Rome…What happened to Rome?

It’s like the government ordering us to send our taxes directly to Halliburton to pay for the Iraq war with no other bidders. Oh, wait, that happened. Halliburton was essentially the single payer provider for the Iraq war and yes, they did have death panels. But the affordable care act does not have death panels. Private insurers have death panels that deny coverage or delay it until you are dead. “The doctor will see you now…oh. Next.”

Forcing everyone into the private market keeps the unfair market alive. It’s like making us pay for protection: “I’d advise youse to peruse a primary plan from Blue Cross. And I put the emphasis on ‘blue’ and ‘cross.’”

The insurance companies are the pimps of our whore health care system. That’s why you see their executives driving around in pink Cadillac’s.

Corporations want to be people? I say let’s let some of them die. And hopefully they’ll be uninsured. Let some markets die. Corporations may be people, but guess what? I don’t like people.

Mitt Romney says the penalty is a tax unless it was signed into law by Mitt Romney. He’s an idiot. He said he wants to repeal Romneycare, although he may be confused. Republicans would repeal common sense if they had any.

Getting money out of politics is the real cure for health care reform. Any elected politician who is not actively pursuing campaign finance reform is corrupt and should be voted out of office, although he’s probably not in his office. He’s probably at a fundraiser somewhere. And I think that describes most of them.

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"Free Speech Show" - The War On Drugs

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the War On Drugs

"The DAMage Report" - July 5, 2011

Here's yesterday's show with me, Steve Gelder, Rick Overton and host Johnny Dam:

"The DAMage Report" - April 21, 2011

Here's yesterday's show with me, Lou Santini, Michael Codispoti and host Johnny Dam:

"The DAMage Report" - December 7, 2010

Here's yesterday's show with me, Jamee Damron, Mike Dorval and host Johnny Dam:

Who Mourns for the Insurance Industry?

As Congress prepares to overhaul the U.S. health care system, I am really worried about the insurance companies. Who’s looking out for them? What about their health? All anybody in Washington cares about is the individual. Who cares about the corporation? I do. That’s who.

Right now I don’t have health insurance, but I don’t deserve it. I don’t want it. Health coverage is for the weak. It sounds French: “Le coverage de health!”

I don’t need a health care system that works. I’m an American! So we have a shorter life expectancy than most other industrialized nations---it goes along with my motto: “Live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse…riddled with cancer.”

This health care overhaul really scares me. I’m scared. I’m scared that a doctor will be making medical decisions about my treatment instead of an insurance company. That’s socialism!

You know what really scares me? Do you know what gives me nightmares that keep me from sleeping? Worrying that Congress will have to use whatever coverage is approved for voters instead of that great private option they have now. The public option is for the public. If it was for Congress, it’d be called “the Congress option.”

Members of Congress deserve better coverage than the people who vote for them. They can’t reform health care if they’re sick, or if their coverage gets a socialist disease. It’d be un-American.

There’s nothing wrong with our health care system. It’s like my doctor said when I was still insured and went in for my annual physical: “What are you doing here? I just saw you last year.”

A lot of people think that the system we have now can’t be saved. They say that greed is a pre-existing condition. That’s a lot of left wing socialist propaganda! They don’t care about the insurance companies. But you know who does care? James Tripp, that’s who.

But I’m just one guy. I wish there was some group that could represent the insurance industry. And what about the poor pharmaceutical industry? They’re under a lot of stress lately. They’ve started to take their own drugs!

I just wish someone could speak for them. I say let it be James Tripp!

Wherever there’s a fight, so sick people can be denied coverage, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a politician who wants to shorten the length of a protected patent to create a generic drug to save lives, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way any government plan denies the reproductive rights of women. I’ll be in the way any final legislation will make it illegal to use the bargaining power of any government plan to negotiate lower drug prices.

And when people try growing marijuana for medicinal uses, I’ll be there! I’ll be in the way bullies yell at old people to scare them. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when town hall meetings get interrupted by victims of a diminishing gene pool. Wherever there’s anybody fighting a denial of coverage, I’ll be there! And when people are dying because they have no health insurance, I’ll be there too!

"The DAMage Report" - July 29, 2009

Here's yesterday's show with me, John Fugelsang, Rick Shapiro, Lakota Phillips and host Johnny Dam:

The DAMage Report with guest James Tripp