A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

COBRA is vastly expensive for most Americans and does very little to combat "job lock" and HIPAA doesn't help the situation.

COBRA:

• COBRA is prohibitively expensive for most people who are attempting to transition to another job especially with the risks that are often incurred by switching to another job (see below)

• It has a time limit. If it doesn't work out with new jobs, you can find yourself without any health insurance. For example, if you're forced to get a job in the meantime that doesn't provide insurance, COBRA won't qualify you. Also, even if the job did have insurance and they lay you off, COBRA is expensive and will drain savings (if one is fortunate enough to have savings in the first place).

• If things go wrong after your transition to another job and you're expensive COBRA runs out you may get stuck with State-sponsored high risk pools with yet even more high costs, waiting lists, poor benefits. Of course, that is IF you're "luckily" enough to live in a state that has such a things.

• If you dare apply for another job and your current employer finds out you're looking for another job and find an excuse to fire you, you can't qualify for COBRA. You're SCREWED.

• Not all states are consistent in applying COBRA. Depending on which state you're in, if you're denied COBRA, you may be stuck.

• If you want to leave a job to start your own business, you may not quality for COBRA and/or afford it in the first place.

HIPAA does not ensure that a worker who changes jobs will have access to health insurance coverage on the new job or that the coverage offered will be affordable. Thus, neither COBRA nor HIPAA ensures affordability of health insurance -- the main cause of job lock.

What I implied was that a lie about "most" Republicans is just as asinine as a lie about all Republicans.

Undeserved stereotypes don't have any place here, and as pragmatists, we should all be above them.

The complaint I had was with the false equivalence.

From your link:

    About half of Democrats (48%) say global warming is a 
    very serious problem

Should we conclude from that they're putting "the almighty dollar ahead of the environment", or can we agree that whatever they may or may not believe,

1) climate change isn't the sum totality of the environment, and

2) whether one chooses to believe or disbelieve in either its presence or its seriousness, that does not necessarily bely an ulterior profit motive?

Many Democrats are against the private ownership of 'semi-automatic firearms', but that doesn't mean that they're trying to disarm the populace so that they can crush us like Hitler.

Many Republicans are against expanding social welfare programs, but that doesn't mean that they're trying to crush the poor and kill off minorities through starvation.

Many Libertarians are against the idea of income taxation, but that doesn't mean that they want people whose jobs are paid for with tax dollars to be evicted from their homes and be subjected to the elements.

Whether or not Republicans agree on climate change, that does not mean they hate the environment, and even if it does mean that, it does not mean they're hating the environment because it's unprofitable to do otherwise.

In short, you've took an almost fact, overvalued its importance, devalued the importance of all other possible environmental concerns, and then drawn incorrect conclusions from that, for the purpose of unnecessarily vilifying roughly half the voting population of America.

> You're ignoring the rest of the research that clearly shows that most Republicans are notorious for being deniers of everything from warming itself, to it being caused by human activity, along with impact denial.

Which doesn't equate to hating the environment, nor does it associate that {non}hatred into profiteering.

> You're actually very much using the tactics of global warming deniers as well. Ignore the vast amount of evidence against your argument, while cherry-picking small sections of data in a desperate attempt to fudge the overall point.

No, I'm pointing out that your initial statement is meritless, while you attempt to dilute the issue completely.

> Once AGAIN, I didn't say ALL republicans.

Okay, fine. Even if MOST Republican agree on climate change, that doesn't mean they hate the environment. Even if it does mean that, it doesn't mean that they're hating the environment because it's unprofitable to do otherwise.

"In fact, in areas where curbside recycling is available, an overwhelming 70 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans say they “always” participate."

That doesn't seem very hateful to me, even though it clearly isn't profitable to either party.

In short, your initial statement was baseless, and shame on you for trying to dilute the issue into plausibility. That isn't how facts work.

This still holds true.

> In short, you took an almost fact, overvalued its importance, devalued the importance of all other possible environmental concerns, and then drawn incorrect conclusions from that, for the purpose of unnecessarily vilifying roughly half the voting population of America.

Edit: Typo which, ironically, was quoted from an original typo I'd made, but which I now can't edit. :-)

Thanks. That last bit of hyperbole was all that I needed to completely discount your arguments. I'll stop feeding the troll.