Wow! I got my seeds! It took a little detective work to figure out what swap this package belonged to, but once the fear of having lost my mind were over and i started pulling out my seed packets and recording them, the pleasure stretched out to 181 packets of a great variety of seeds, thanks to all of you, my new GGF(great and generous friends). you guys are de bom! The assortment is awsome considering that there was no want list matchups at all. Cathy, awsome job sorting our packages, I only got 2 of my own seeds, and the rest was just pure pleasure to receive and record! Thank you. Chris

EmmaR, that is not entirely correct. The ACA does impact Medicare. There are $700million of Medicare cuts in the ACA. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone really knows what they are. That is partly where all the talk of "death panels" comes from. Whether you believe it or not; there are going to be some kind of reductions in Medicare services - who knows what they are. Unless you are VERY poor, or in one of the privileged groups getting exemptions you are going to be paying more, much more, for your healthcare for a number of reasons. You can't add millions of people to the free healthcare rolls without the money coming from someplace. Additionally, not near enough young healthy people will ever sign up to pay for this program. As of today, some 5 million people have LOST there healthcare and only about 300,000 have signed up. So right now there are several MORE million people without healthcare than before all this started. Just the opposite of what was intended. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who is not in a privileged group and makes more than about $25K a year will not be able to afford the new costs or will be paying much more. You can go to a several sites to see rates and costs now. One of the easiest to use is healthsherpa.com. You just put in your zip code, age, and income and see all the plans with there costs, subsidies, out of pocket expenses and co-pays. If you are a middle income person/family the costs are scary. None of this even addresses the fact that the federal system to actually pay your premiums is not yet useable or even in place. So no matter what you have signed up for, unless you are making payments, you don't have insurance. I don't even want to get into the doctor shortage issue that will become painfully clear as time passes; or the fact that millions more will lose insurance when there companies drop them next year.

kswl -- Well said. @ollliesmom - Of course there are people who did not want to sign up. There are states that are not making it easier. But it still does fill a need. Very imperfectly and sometimes badly. No question. It's infuriating all around. A friend of mine is a cancer survivor. She has been signed up with the only plan in my state that accepts the cancer hospital she goes to. Her plan has gone bankrupt. It's not clear what will happen. She has a little more than 2 weeks to figure it out. Fortunately, the hospital is large and influential and fighting for a longer extension. I'm all for capitalism and profit making. But if we must do it at the cost of the lives and health of our citizens, so that the president of health insurance company can have a private plane, then we need to ask ourselves what's important in our country and our culture.

smhinnb, says: "along with lack of physicians and specialists in some Provinces, especially the rural areas." Response: I think that is what most Americans are afraid of in going single-pay, is that, the lack of physicians would probably be a big problem for us. Americans are used to the best care around, and we may lose that if we go single-pay, which I am definitely a fan of instead of ACA for sure. There is already a problem in the US finding specialists in rural areas. There has been for decades. And I'm not talking just about just pediatric cardiologists, or endocrinologists -- I'm talking about basic OB/GYN services, radiologists, etc. these underserved areas will remain underserved for some time, even under single payer. It will take a while for the new equilibrium to settle in -- new earnings expectations for physicians, etc. -- and there will definitely be growing pains. Growing pains can mean scarcities in areas that haven't experienced them before. But it wouldn't be the end of the world.