One has to wonder if the Dems are figuring on losing the Mass. Senate seat. That would explain the haste in ramming this mess of pottage through.

and another thing:
and I can get a year’s supply of maintenance drugs for less than the up front deductible on my Part D Drug plan.

there is no ‘up front deductible’ on Part D coverage.
They pay from day one up to the ‘gap’, which won’t exist after this year.

Sounds as if AARP is taking you for a ride.

I think I’m correct in this, Medicare doesn’t tax you anything at all for Part D. You don’t have to have part D. It’s completely optional. AARP is not as cheap as Mutual of Omaha or Blue Cross.
You pay the full cost of your Part D coverage, there is no subsidy from Medicare or Social Security.
If you can get your drugs cheaper than thru Part D, I would recommend you not purchase Part D (you’re not required to have it) and just buy your drugs at the cheaper cost. You have til the end of the year to change from the Communist Socialist AARP organization to Mut of Omaha or Blue Cross, If you want to keep Part D.
Please correct me if I’m not correct in this.

I know for sure that you are NOT REQUIRED to carry Part D.

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/12/21/we-are-no-longer-a-nation-of-laws-senate-sets-up-requirement-for-super-majority-to-ever-repeal-obamacare/

“On December 21, 2009, however, Harry Reid sold out the Republic in toto.

Upon examination of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment to the health care legislation, Senators discovered section 3403. That section changes the rules of the United States Senate.

To change the rules of the United States Senate, there must be sixty-seven votes.

Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment requires that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The good news is that this only applies to one section of the Obamacare legislation. The bad news is that it applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medical Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels.

Section 3403 of Senator Reid’s legislation also states, “Notwithstanding rule XV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a committee amendment described in subparagraph (A) may include matter not within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Finance if that matter is relevant to a proposal contained in the bill submitted under subsection (c)(3).” In short, it sets up a rule to ignore another Senate rule.

Senator Jim DeMint confronted the Democrats over Reid’s language.”

“Their [the Liberal government's] biggest problem was that if they had to face down the Unionists, they would have to use the army to do so, and the officer class in the British Army was to a man sympathetic to the unionist cause. They were the ‘King’s men’, and to them all those Ulstermen who wished to remain under the rule of Westminster were likewise ‘King’s men’, whereas Irish nationalists, who supported self-government, were regarded as ‘disloyal’. For most senior officers, their duty bound them to fight against the King’s enemies, not the king’s loyal subjects.”
…
“[Sir Arthur] Paget [commander in Ireland] was summoned to London to answer for his inaction. In discussions with the War Office, he brought up the vexed question that some of his officers might be unwilling to participate in actions against the Ulster Volunteers. What was he to do about this? In the atmosphere that prevailed in spring 1914, he was given a straight answer. Officers living in Ulster could temporarily vanish. However, any other officers refusing to serve were to be dismissed. He also received assurances of naval support, if and when disturbances broke out. Only then would the army be sent into Ulster. He returned on the 20th and informed a number of officers, then living in Dublin, of the War Office position. All declared they would prefer dismissal to the ‘coercion of Ulster’. The following day General Gough, Commander of the Curragh-based Cavalry Brigade, notified his superiors that he and 59 of his officers also chose dismissal from the army. ”

The government backed down because the mutiny would have spread had they tried to bring in other troops. When I did grad work in Modern European history, the early 20th c. Britain scholar I worked with considered the Curragh tremendously significant. Similarly, he dated the true fall of the Empire to the British public reaction to the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, signifying that they had lost the nerve to use force to maintain it.

Funny what you remember after almost 40 years….

We brought too much of this upon ourselves. Rememer Bernanke, in the spring of ’07 simpering that the mortgage crisis was “contained”? These criminal lending and securitization practices represent the biggest fraud in the history of finance, and it is frivolous to try to pin it all on the Democrats. Too many people were making vast sums of money peddling worthless derivatives to the unsuspecting to support the claim they were somehow forced into this racket unwillingly. And where are the Republican lynch mobs?

As disgusted as many may be with “progressives,” they aren’t buying the notion that Republicans aren’t largely to blame for our present distress. I was listening to Rush here a while back, and his guest asked him if he really thought Angelo Mozila was sitting at his desk, face in hands, lamenting the fact that the CRA forced him to make all the garbage loans that made him wealthy.

And the bankers, Lord, the bankers. It almost seems they are taunting us for being such suckers as to bail them out.

All I’m saying is that we have a long way to go to regain enough public trust to break the backs of the Acorn and SEIU cabal.

Was just listening to the senate debates on C-Span (7:30PM Monday) and heard Senator DeMint ask about a provision in the bill that changes the Rules in the Senate and House that basically says “this bill can not be changed” by future congresses. DeMint says that this might be unconsitutional since any rule change requires a 2/3 vote by the senate, not 60%.

Can you or anyone shed some light on this?

Who’s to say that bobo hasn’t already heard from the armed forces—–they seem to understand the importance of their constitutional duties quite well and are best prepared to explain the same to the boy prez.

We’re getting real close to the time for pitchforks, tar and feathers, burning hanging effigies, and true massive resistance to the state that takes the form of a complete refusal to cooperate on every level.

But, most Americans simply don’t have the sand for it. Maybe those who’ve immigrated from the former Communist countries would (but maybe they’re used to going along….) and maybe the descendants of the patriots who fought our early wars, and, just maybe, some of our current veterans and military. But, that’s about it.

If Obama tries to use the military against the people, will we have a Curragh Incident? Or, will the ambitious careerists fall all over each other to do his bidding?