US begins government shutdown as budget deadline passes - BBC

The US government has begun a partial shutdown after the Republican-led House of Representatives refused to approve a budget for next year.

A midnight deadline passed without agreement despite a last-gasp appeal by President Barack Obama.

More than 700,000 US government workers face unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.

US begins government shutdown as budget deadline passes - BBC

So it looks like the budget has actually failed to have been passed - the House, which has a large Tea Party composition, decided that it was not going to pass the budget unless the Senate agreed to changes to Obama Care, which they added into the budget -

Shortly after midnight, President Obama tweeted: "They actually did it. A group of Republicans in the House just forced a government shutdown over Obamacare instead of passing a real budget."

The Senate is to meet again at 09:30 (13:30 GMT) on Tuesday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington says the divide in US politics has grown so bitter that government itself cannot function.

It is the US government's first partial shutdown in 17 years.

The White House Twitter Account has since been shut down due to budget expenditures - seriously.

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So now the Senate is going to meet again on Tuesday, and the government shutdown will remain in effect until the budget is passed - however we have a looming Debt Ceiling on October 17th as well - if nothing is done about that, either, the U.S. will default on its debt.

reply to post by darkbake


Mods- delete. I was late.

This crap happens every year, Im not worried. It happened last year, and POOF we were still working. So we will be fine.

reply to post by darkbake


2 of the pics doing the rounds lol.

TWITTER ACCOUNTS ARE #ING FREE!



*deep breath*

I am so mad about this crap. Why can't we just fire the crappy doctors instead of having all these huge malpractice policies? I mean come on... obviously the hospitals are the ones mishandling the money if you go in for standard neck xrays because you were in an accident and just want to make sure nothing is seriously wrong and then the bill gets filed with the insurance claim and it's a couple grand.

Now, even though it has been 5 years since I've been under a doctors care or in a hospital ER or anything like that suddenly I have to start paying hundreds of goddamn dollars month for health insurance that I will likely not use since I hate doctors unless I lose a limb or have to get a bone set or have my scalp ripped off or some crazy thing...and if I wind up with a serious illness, you bet your ass I'll be applying for medicaid.

And why are we looking at these astronomical rates that are high as some people's rent? to offset the insurance rates for all the people that go to the damn doctor and ask for medication every time they stub their damn toe.... but even though I believe in natural healing too, since I am not a documented native american, I can't claim exempt unless I can prove financial hardship and god only knows what the hell that is going to entail.

I haven't even looked at other posts in myATS because I'm pretty pissed off about this # and don't want to talk about anything else. They should have done something for us FIRST, before they planted this # on us... like as in weeded out all unnecessary expenditures of doctors and hospitals..but NO... Doctors and hospitals can continue doing WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT and they'll just make it a law that we have to pay for it.

This is SO WRONG.

I'm all for a national healthcare plan, but if you look at these damn rates and know good and damn well that all the crap you'll be paying for is unnecessary medicines for people and BS doctors salaries and policies, it ought to be enough to make you sick... that is if you don't have health insurance. If you do, maybe it doesn't bother you a bit.

that twitter account crap is government HYPOCHONDRIA.

As in "we have to make the people believe this is really going to hurt us all if they keep standing in the way of funding this.... PULL THE TWITTER ACCOUNT... That's something they actually pay attention to"

The account is FREE!

I wish i could sue the government for undue stress caused by morons.

reply to post by NotAnAspie


Thank you NotAnAspie for explaining this to me.
I found it hard to understand why many Americans were opposed to Obamacare - it seemed to resemble our National Health system, which used to be our pride and joy.
I actually thought you were turning down a decent offer, something to improve your social situation which many "lesser" countries already have.
I should have known better.

My local hospital is in a constant state of chaos. This is basically because the fundamental motivation of any organisation is to thrive -- as an organisation. If it comes to a choice between patient welfare, and the good of the organisation, then the patient comes second. The place is cleaned by the company that put in the lowest quote, and owes it's first allegiance to its shareholders, not the patients. Records are falsified to protect the organisation's performance figures, patients unable to feed themselves watch their food go cold just out of reach, old people get discharged from hospital in the middle of the night, and taken to cold empty homes -- but we get it for free, quite possibly with a spot of MRSA.

Anyone wanting a real health service "goes private" to avoid these pitfalls.

Medicine, in America as in Britain, is a profitable business.
If it's a choice between your welfare, and the bottom line .....

You just get screwed in a slightly different manner.
And it's good to get an inkling of what your objections are.

mistersmith.

reply to post by mistersmith


well, you know... I thought after hearing the news...better check on some rates to avoid being fined even though I have not seen a doctor since 08 and they really didn't do much...certainly not 2 grand worth. I walked out with a prescription for about ten tramadol which is a pretty tame synthetic pain killer for a sore neck.

Ridiculous. And at the same time the FDA takes away things we can use as natural medicine and they have done this systematically. We are NOT encouraged to grow healthy foods because the government seems to want control of agriculture and they would rather us rely on the monopoly money wheel of waste and inefficiency.

Now, granted... at first I thought maybe it wasn't such a bad thing you know... been meaning to look into healthcare anyway (but never having health care outside of work supplemented healthcare, I had no idea what these rates could look like) I fully admit that if some tragedy befalls a person that is in no other way covered by any other type of insurance... hell yes, you'd want healthcare.... but what I'm looking at here is a few thousand dollars per year. A few tens of thousand dollars in ten years. Well over ten thousand damn dollars in the amount of time from the last time I have seen a doctor. Looking at it that way, I could have paid several of those insane doctors bills.... so is it any wonder I don't have health insurance?

Sure, I'd love to have health insurance... paid at a reasonable rate but the majority of stories I hear about doctors and health care... there is something bad there. there is something inept. Many doctors just walk around like they know more than every body else and owe them an arm and a leg just to look at you for five minutes. So out of all these insane doctor bills, where is the money going...why it's going to be wasted on trips to the doctor where he barely even does anything or his malpractice insurance. I mean it's pretty obvious when they charge you as much as they do for one stupid Tylenol. Sure, I've skipped out on some hospital bills... but I have never been seriously injured or hurt and the most I got out of those doctors bills was a few x-rays and an IV once, a pill to calm me down here and there while having chest pains and prescriptions I had to pay for. they've never really DONE anything. You know...and some of those bills, thousands of dollars.. I HAVE paid. A lot of damn money to lay there and wait.

So how does anyone expect the average american to not bail on some of their doctor bills?
The only justifiable reason to keep it up all nice and tidy no matter what stupid thing they charge you with, is so that hospitals don't sue you and garnish your wages. We all know these bills are insane and that is where the problem needs to be addressed FIRST before we just dump more money into he problem because it's not going to work. the whole endeavor is just going to create more debt. what we need is smaller, more effective healthcare but a lot of practitioners just want to keep cycling you into more unnecessary visits and medication that could be avoided by some change of lifestyle. they seriously just want to shove pills down our throats.

We need to save our healthcare system for when it is REALLY needed. We need to give the BEST doctors the chance to have jobs, not just cover the butts of crappy doctors and fund hospital politics. I hate to say this but instead of telling everyone DON'T SELF MEDICATE so much YOU NEED TO STOP ASKING FOR HEALTH ADVICE AND GO SEE A DOCTOR- for any little damn thing, they need to be encouraging people to take the natural approach and encourage them to take care of some of these problems by prevention. Not too long ago, my grandmother had been waiting for her doctor for an hour and when I got there, she had to wait even longer. The doctor came in and asked her if her medicine was helping her and she said yes and he asked her if they made her feel funny or dizzy and she said no and then he gave her a prescription and we finally got to leave.

She's 83... she has a bad back and it's not going to go away and it's pretty stupid to waste that much time when that could have been done over the phone. Surgery can't help her and would be too hard on her. Hell, maybe she could go to a masseuse or something as well, but that would probably take less time than the stupid doctors visit just to ask her two questions.

but no... they gotta shuffle all this paperwork around and have a dozen people in one office walking people back and forth and clicking stuff on their computer to keep everything nice and tidy in the filing system that we hardly ever even get to see about our own damn records unless we pester them about it. that's why soon... I'm really afraid they are going to push this RFID crap.... but it will just be an excuse. All this red tape is just an excuse. people feel so self righteous having some job in which they really do nothing but shuffle the crap around... and that is what we are supposed to be trying to stop... but instead, we feed it... we feed the consuming beast with more waste.

just the fact they have been able to sell us these ideas on this scale is proof that it is pretty far gone. there's no looking back now. There's no catching the fall. These people in government with jobs cannot fathom in their little worlds how it could be possible that everyone cannot have a job. The answer? CREATE THEM, they say. All they do is create more waste and more loopholes and more problems.... but they don't get it because they have jobs and cannot seem to get it through in their heads that it is IMPOSSIBLE for everyone to be employed when the work week is typically 40 hours and some people are OVERWORKED but have been lead to believe that is the only way to survive... and many of those unemployed people have NOTHING... NO ONE to lean on.

Do I TRUST this government to consider their situation knowing not paying taxes can get you locked up?
Can I TRUST this government to give reasonable exemption when they think the way to solve problems is print monopoly money and refuse to address the underlying inefficiencies.

No...because that would make me some kind of fool.

I know damn good and well that when you call a sovereign government entity to take care of some kind of crap like this, you'll wait on the phone an hour only to be cut off by a bad connection. Ive got a call log from just days ago to prove it and that is one of MANY such calls.

It's just more hoops. It's just more impossibilities.

reply to post by xavi1000



of all the worthlessness they could cut off due to lack of funding... it has to be stupid crap like this that they can parade and rub in our faces. If this is not some guise for something else, they are being incredibly childish in their pissing contest. Other politicians have just as much of a right to oppose this...and while I, personally, have signed a petition that had over 2 million signatures. well over... maybe closer to three and I'm sure that was not the only petition floating around. Instead of facing that there is a real problem with this that needs to be worked out first before it can be reasonably implemented... they are conducting a pissing contest and pulling FREE twitter accounts to try to teach us a lesson. One that is NOT sinking in to those who know better and see past this childish crap.

OR IS IT SOMETHING ELSE.

Could they seriously be "shutting down"

How is it that some can get the bill passed and other can't stop it, but the others can shut down the government?

What is REALLY going on? cause I have a hard time believing this is what is REALLY going on.

I said a month ago or more when arguing about the syria stuff...I said "Why don't they just go ahead and go to their hidey holes instead of trying to make us believe all this crap"

Now the government is shutting down.

I don't know about anybody else but i think much of this is merely a damn excuse for something else.... and some in government are taking some time off to arrange some things which we know nothing about.

I just got a telemarketer call and went to make sure my number was on the do not call registry and it is down as a result of the government shutdown and will resume once the government is funded.

I thought all that was computerized.

This has got to be some kind of scam and I think if the government ever does resume normal services, we should take a tax break on this shutdown... the same as you would any other service that goes out for any length of time.

What say you ATS? (if any one sees this... I might make a thread to petition the IRS charging us for taxes during this time frame)

We should keep track of every damn thing we buy during this period because we are still paying sales tax while the government is shut down and that is BULL#! We should not have to pay any kind of tax while they are up there pussyfootin around.