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At this moment -- when 72 percent of the nation supports a public plan option and 14,000 people lose their healthcare every day -- the House Blue Dogs and conservative Democratic Senators are doing just about everything they can to cripple real health care reform.
So why does the media keep ceding them the label of "centrist" or "moderate" as if they are the guardians of mainstream values?
In a recent profile on reform slayer Max Baucus -- Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and creator of his majority Republican "Coalition of the Willing" -- Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen refers to Baucus as "a longtime centrist in the Democratic caucus." Even Harold Meyerson -- who along with E.J. Dionne and Ruth Marcus keeps the Washington Post op-ed page from being neocon central and is one of the best in the business at understanding the ideologies at play in Washington -- in a recent op-ed repeatedly decries the "centrist Democrats" such as the Blue Dogs who fight against taxing the richest 1 percent of Americans and promote a "can't-do" view of government.
All Things Considered host Guy Raz recently introduced a story on "forty centrist House Democrats from the so-called Blue Dog Coalition [who] are threatening to block the proposal in its current form...." He also spoke of "Congressman Mike Ross [who] heads up the Health Care Taskforce for the centrist Blue Dog Democrats." Want to see how "centrist" Mike Ross is? Check this out.
Even a good regional paper like Louisville's Courier-Journal-- in rightly blasting the Blue Dogs as "deplorable" for being "unable to muster the spine to pay for health care reform with even so innocuous a measure as higher taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans"--calls them "centrist".
The danger is that promoting the view that these conservative Democrats are somehow at the center of our politics plays into the hands of those who would like to marginalize progressives as far outside of the mainstream. (And I have no doubt K Street is advising Republicans to constantly refer to their Democratic allies as "moderate" and "centrist".) It also misrepresents what most Americans want from the government in these times.
As Drew Westen, professor of psychology at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of the invaluable The Political Brain, told me: "The average American, according to all available data, has largely moved slightly left of where it was in the Reagan years, and with changing demographics, it will be far left of Reagan and Bush in twenty years. So to call Democrats who are substantially right of the center of the electorate (let alone of their party), like Heath Shuler, 'moderates,' is both to misrepresent the center of political gravity in the general electorate and in the Democratic Party."
How we tell the story of this battle for health care reform matters and will impact whether the battle is won or lost. So-called "centrists" are far from the center of this debate. They are, in fact, out of touch and out of the mainstream -- like the rest of their conservative brethren.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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I'm shocked, absolutely shocked that Katrina thinks that moderates are the extremists. (LOL)
Before long, she will be calling Ted Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich "moderates".
Posted by antisocialist at 07/24/2009 @ 1:55pm
They are doing everything they can to prevent irresopnsible spending is what Katrina meant...
I think...
I dunno, maybe not...
Katrina?
Oh that's right, She's upstairs trying to figure out why the tub is overflowing with the drain closed and the water running.
Posted by william.harry13 at 07/24/2009 @ 2:15pm
Ahem.. Uh that's "irresponsible"
Posted by william.harry13 at 07/24/2009 @ 2:16pm
When Democrat is labeled a "Centrist", it means he is no threat to business interests or conservative ideology. You need to look on Congress.org to see who contributed to their election campaign. A Centrist does not represent the "center " of the Democratic party. I would say Kennedy would be the real center of the Democratic Party. Since I voted for Kucinich in the Primary, I don't regard him as a radical. He is a dreamer and true to his values. You might not agree with him, but what you see is what you get.
Posted by pjcasey at 07/24/2009 @ 2:38pm
Yes, because to wingnuts all spending on the health and well-being of Americans is "irresponsible."
Economy busting spending on a war for Halliburton's Oil, according to wingnuts, is "responsible."
What would be irresponsible, is to take the -- always wrong -- wingnut opinion as "responsible."
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 2:40pm
"At this moment -- when 72 percent of the nation supports a public plan option."
More accurate: 72% of the nation wants someone other than themselves to pay for their health care. I mean, like, you know, who doesn't?!
Frankly, I think walking around all day asking strangers you would be hard-pressed to find 72 people who really understood the issue at all.
C'mon, this is a power grab. It has shit to do with improving health care. Government catering to special interests has created problems in the system. The solution is LESS, not MORE government.
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 2:47pm
ONE WAY TO COUNTER FAR- RIGHT "CENTRISTS"
"Rep. Henry Waxman has announced that he may sidestep his own committee and force a floor vote on health care reform!
A powerful House committee chairman threatened on Friday to force a floor vote to break the impasse within Democratic ranks over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a drastic step that could roil the House.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said negotiations with fiscally conservative Democrats on his panel cannot continue indefinitely. But a floor vote would put fellow Democrats in an exposed position, having to cast a vote on a $544-billion upper-income tax increase that the Senate is unlikely to embrace to help pay for covering the millions of uninsured Americans.
"We're going to have to look at perhaps bypassing the (Energy and Commerce) committee because we've got to get moving on this legislation," Waxman said. "I hope we don't come to that conclusion."
It's pretty unusual for a committee chairman to bypass his own committee on any bill. Waxman's frustration is definitely growing. Two House panels have already passed legislation. Waxman is stymied because seven conservatives on his committee -- part of a group called the Blue Dog Democrats -- are sticking together.
Negotiations are continuing, but Waxman said he's running out of patience.
"We're not going to let them empower the Republicans to control the committee," he said."
Well said.
http://tinyurl.com/kkfnz5
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 2:47pm
Again, wingnuts were happy -- thrilled! -- to spend billions upon billions (and kill thousands of American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) so Halliburton could access Iraq's oil for free.
(So, where ARE those weapons of mass destruction, wingnuts?)
Wingnuts are also happy to endlessly regurgitate simple-minded talking points spoonfed them by rightwingnut talkshow hosts, provided those talking points are mean-spirited, narrow-minded, disasterously wrong, homophobic or bigoted.
Facts, not so much.
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 2:52pm
Stupid me, wingnuts were (and are) the weapons of mass destruction.
Happy to destruct a foreign country for Halliburton profits, happy to destroy our military in the process, happy to destroy the U.S. economy so long as their politicians could borrow trillions to fight a war in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, but had oil their oil executives president and vice president wanted to hand over to their buddies at Halliburton.
Now wingnuts perfectly happy to finish the destruction of the U.S. economy for insurance company profit, destroy small business and the health, lives, careers and families of America in the process.
I'VE FOUND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: WINGNUTS!
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 3:00pm
AND THE BATTLE RAGES BETWEEN WINGS NUTS AND LEFTNUTS.
THERE'S A LEFT!
AND ANOTHER LEFT!
AND A RIGHT!
WHATAFIGHTWHATAFIGHTWHATAFIGHTWHATAFIGHT!
Have a good weekend, Judy. Don't forget to shut off the water.
Posted by william.harry13 at 07/24/2009 @ 3:16pm
Wingnuts: No one could have predicted their numbers would be cooked --
"Research firm cited by GOP to oppose health care reform "is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers."
The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.
To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."
Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.
More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.
In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994. "
http://tinyurl.com/ls973l
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 3:20pm
Why do wingnuts want dely and deny for healthcare reform?
Just three weeks of delay will mean:
•143,250 of the American people will lose their health insurance coverage •53,507 of the American people will file for bankruptcy because they can't pay their medical bills (75% of whom will have health insurance.) •1,265 of the American people will die because they lack coverage
Tell Congress Health Insurance Before Vacation!
http://tinyurl.com/l8l9ll
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 3:30pm
Dillon Radigan has finally found his voice. I was really worried that he was going to be a junior Chris Mathews, but this morning he was really impressive. I knew there was a real person in there. i have been impressed by his honesty in the past on CNBC.
Posted by julien38 at 07/24/2009 @ 4:15pm
So why does Chuck Grassley get a seat at the healthcare reform table? And why is Max Baucus continuing to drag this process out to their benefit? Surely it's not the money.
"...When Baucus ran for his sixth term last year, his campaign raised $11.6 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly half of the funds came from out-of-state donors, including millions from health care and other industries overseen by Finance and Baucus' other committees.
Just 5 percent of Baucus' re-election funds came from Montana donors.
...So as Baucus and other lawmakers attempt to craft a bill that can smash through a virtual gridlock of interests, the awkward question lingers: To whom are they more attentive -- their voting constituencies back home or the dollar constituencies who are at the Capitol every day?"
http://tinyurl.com/lxg6yd
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 4:51pm
BREAKING!
(UPDATE 4:00 PM EDT) An agreement has been reached aimed at controlling the growth of the cost of Medicare:
Democratic officials in the House said late-night talks had produced agreement on changes in Medicare to try and reward doctors, hospitals and other providers for high-quality care. Critics argue the current system simply pays by volume -- compensating providers regardless of whether additional medical procedures contribute to better health care.
Under the agreement, the Institute of Medicine would complete a study by September 2011 recommending changes in the current fee structure. The administration would have 45 days to submit the report to Congress, and it would go into effect unless Congress blocked it by the end of February 2012.
Separately, lawmakers agreed to call for a second study by the Institute of Medicine to investigate regional differences in payments to Medicare providers, to be implemented in 2014."
Officials said the two steps combined were designed to control the steady increase in Medicare costs, although they provided no immediate estimates of anticipated savings.
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 4:57pm
the left approaches the definition of "new center" as the right's ideology flails and looks increasingly responsible for most of our current messes.
it was a nice ideology on paper, and in the minds of its most invested adherents, but like hardcore marxism, simply could not deliver on all its lofty promises.
regardless, should take a few years to either exterminate these dinos at the polls or watch them have a change of heart when their positions depend upon getting votes of the new center, which is closer to th old left than the right by far.
Posted by dexter666 at 07/24/2009 @ 5:16pm
Government catering to special interests has created problems in the system. The solution is LESS, not MORE government.
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 2:47pm |
I agree with the problem, but have a polar opposite response for the solution. The fact that healthcare is for most people a necessity of life, gauranteess for corporate interests a source of revenue. In order for them to make money they need to get people to pay into the system more than they pay out. Without governement involvement, we reach a situation like we have now. Where people go bankrupt even with insurance trying to pay the medical bills. Why? Because the corporations who run healthcare can deny claims or even policies if they can find a fine print violation. They are highly motivated to screw the client, because the less they pay out the more profit they have.
It is corporate involvement in our governemental process that has lead to this situation. Health insurance should not be resulting in 300billion in profit for health corporations. Who is paying for that?
I hear complaints about the 1 trillion cost of healthcare proposed in congress, that is over 10 years, healthcare corporations are making way more than that. How are they? Inreasing cost of health insurance to individuals and companies at rates that are 4-8 times that of inflation. Increasing deductible, and co-pays, decreasing perscription coverages, etc. I am sorry but F that. I dont want a corporation who has a profit motive managing my healtcare. I would way rather have the government. It is working for our vets and for our seniors, why not the rest of us?
Posted by Extraneous at 07/24/2009 @ 5:54pm
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 2:40pm
Judy, honey, wake the f**k up. Your little Haliburton conspiracy is beneath you. American troops aren't dying in the desert sands so Haliburton (do you even really know what it is) can get free oil. American troops are there to ensure we can defend oil supplies for first world development and growth. Secondly, the war is being financed - and you should understand who benefits there. (Hint, the same folks who financed both sides of the "cold war".)
Cut the Haliburton crap. It makes you sound like a nutcase. Look at the bigger picture.
Oh, and while I'm at it, don't you see that the very terms wingnut and liberal are labels encouraged by the plutocracy as a way to keep us divided?
Ask yourself this... Is Obama living up to his campaign pledge regarding Iraq and Afghanistan? What I see is the only difference between Bush and Obama is stylistic. In substance they are the same political animals.
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 5:54pm
"The challenge for the Blue Dogs is that they want an America where everyone has insurance but are reluctant to force workers to buy it or employers to help pay for it.
They understand that achieving universal coverage will require subsidies for low-income workers and small businesses, but they insist that none of those changes add to the federal deficit or raise anyone's taxes.
They want to introduce more competition into the private insurance market, but not if it comes from a government-run insurance plan.
They complain constantly about the need to rein in runaway Medicare costs while at the same time demanding higher Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals in rural areas.
You see what I mean about mushy centrism?" -- Steven Pearlstein
http://tinyurl.com/mv33es
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 6:03pm
judybrowni is loading up the thread again with all kinds of "proof"
I am one of the "wingnuts" Judy talks about -- people who do not buy into all of her "facts".
Here's an article that should scare people. It talks about how the health care will be rationed, how government will decide that some older people should not get health care.
Judy will declare the article invalid....everybody will have to wait a few minutes or so for Judy to post in and tell you why. Maybe the fact that a "wingnut" is posting it will be reason enough.
It is a good thing, though, that there are some of us wingnuts around to debate the "facts" that Judy and Dr. Obama put forth!
Here's the article:
DEADLY DOCTORS O ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE By BETSY MCCAUGHEY July 24, 2009 http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/postopinion/ opedcolumnists/deadly_doctors_180941.htm
(link may contain spaces that need to be taken out after pasting into your browser - as a Conservative I am too stupid and lazy to figure out how to use the tiny url that would eliminate this problem. Also, even though I am not a resident of the Commonwealth, I have spent a lot of time over the years in Pennsylvania, so my thoughts are turning to God and Guns, like President Obama says, rather than concentrating on learning how to use tiny URL or learn the facts and truth that Judy Browni puts forth about the socialist health care that Dr. Obama is offering our country)
Posted by sjchermak at 07/24/2009 @ 6:10pm
Ms vanden Heuvel's criticism of "centrist" is best applied to Barack Obama himself, who is called a "centrist" Democrat. Nothing centrist about Obama on continuing the renditions, secrecy, evesdropping and torture-abroad policies of GWB! Nothing centrist about BO in having given away our children's (and theirs) taxes to the financials "too big to fail"! Nothing centrist about BO in expanding our military's role in Af-Pak, while extending (now into 2011) their stay in Iraq! Is he a centrist for wanting a public option in future health-care, when not even considering single-payer? Maybe, but that's only one out of four major issues. I find BO far to the right.
Posted by goedel at 07/24/2009 @ 6:12pm
Is he a centrist for wanting a public option in future health-care, when not even considering single-payer? Maybe, but that's only one out of four major issues. I find BO far to the right.
Posted by goedel at 07/24/2009 @ 6:12pm | ignore this person | warn
I think the strategy of not even considering a single payer option shot the democrats in the foot. Had they gone that way initially there would have been a wider bargaining space.
When I go to a car dealer to buy a car, do I start the bargaining with exactly what I want to pay? NO! You start lower than you want to pay so there is room for negotiations. The democrats by not even bringing single payer to the table, hamstrung themselves to begin with. Had they brought single payer to the table the compromise would have been a government option, but now the compromise is no government option.
Posted by Extraneous at 07/24/2009 @ 6:21pm
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 5:54pm |
So, we're making the oil safer (and Halliburton, KBR, et al's pockets stuffed) by creating a security situation where there was none before...curious logic that.
And they told us it was for democracy...I feel so oily and cheap now.
Posted by sjchermak at 07/24/2009 @ 6:10pm |
Man your inferiority complex as evidenced by all the caveats about how posters will discount your tripe is getting tiresome.
Posted by goedel at 07/24/2009 @ 6:12pm |
"Nothing centrist about BO in having given away our children's (and theirs) taxes to the financials "too big to fail"!
Right logic (oxymoron), wrong president.
Posted by snowball777 at 07/24/2009 @ 6:26pm
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 5:54pm |
So, we're making the oil safer (and Halliburton, KBR, et al's pockets stuffed) by creating a security situation where there was none before...curious logic that.
And they told us it was for democracy...I feel so oily and cheap now.
Haha, I know! Hey, why do you think we're there?
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 6:33pm
snowball777,
I do not have an inferiority complex... I caveat my postings only because it is proven fact that libs such as you, JudyBrowni, chaozen, crabwalk, etc....will declare a post by a conservative as invalid because of the source.....
The reason this happens is because the liberals can not argue about whatever is in the post on it's own merits...so they declare it invalid and that works well amongst the other leftists here in liberal land.
My commenting on this is getting tiresome to you because you do not like anybody calling attention to your behavior.
Here's another one for you leftists to digest:
JULY 24, 2009 Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare It turns out the president misjudged the nation's mood. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702035173 04574306533556532364.html
(again, link may contain spaces that need to be taken out.....perhaps the Pennsylvanian in me is thinking more about the six time winners Steelers, greatest football team ever, instead of learning tiny URL)
Posted by sjchermak at 07/24/2009 @ 6:34pm
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom warned on Friday that local governments throughout the country would find themselves bankrupt if the current health care crisis is allowed to continue...
Over 100 mayors, Republicans and Democrats alike, launched a national campaign on Friday in support of Obama's health care reform effort -- including a public option for insurance coverage.
...San Francisco... currently "has the only public option in America" and a successful one at that. "Nearly 75 percent of our previously uninsured residents are now in the program," he said.
http://tinyurl.com/mvqwe8
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 6:42pm
Bill Maher New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit
"Health care. It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.
But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.
Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.
When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain."
http://tinyurl.com/kwvbpe
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 6:49pm
Couldn't resist publishing the punchline for Bill Maher's rant:
"And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!"
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 6:50pm
I honestly can't recall ever having so much fun with my party totally out-of-power......these past few months have been marvelous....sitting ringside, having the time to read a lot, taking in more viewpoints than I have ever done in 30+ years of adulthood.
Holy Toledo, Lord forgive me.....I know a fair portion of our folks are suffering, and even those that voted for Magic, deserve some sympathy, for they know not what they did.....they were born with that Follow-the- Messiah-DNA most of us were immunized against by better parenting, education and just having an open mind against populist horse manure.
Hey, Libs.......would you rather NOT get what you want with your Party in full control.....or would you rather NOT get what you want with the Repubs in full control....an honest question deserves honest answers...any takers?
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 7:02pm
And do you folks think HCA will go away under a nationalized system? To the contrary, nationalization will not only erase their competition, it will give them access to the full force of the Federal government.
Is everyone here aware that the Federal Reserve is a banking cartel protected by the force of the Federal Government? Ask yourself if you think the banks are doing pretty well.
Now, think for a moment how good that cartel environment appears to the insurance industry, HMO's and big pharma. They would love to eliminate competition in their industries and function as they wish backed by the force of the Federal government.
And the useful idiots out there think that "nationalizing" health care is going to put the evil insurance companies, HMO's and drug companies in their place?
When in fact it will put them exactly where they want to be. Unencumbered by competition and in control of government - just as the banks are. Our power as consumers (currently it seems our only power) will be neutralized.
Sadly, URL copying and pasting zealots like Judy don't even see their own manipulation.
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 7:04pm
Hey, Libs.......would you rather NOT get what you want with your Party in full control.....or would you rather NOT get what you want with the Repubs in full control....an honest question deserves honest answers...any takers?
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 7:02pm
Sure Hap. I would much rather not get what I want with my party in control, because I know I won't get what I want the the repubs in control, plus I'll get a lot of crap that I REALLY don't want with the repubs.
The repubs don't have problems with folks of their own party acting like the blue dogs. So they are acutally much more effective at getting what they want accomplished.
Posted by Extraneous at 07/24/2009 @ 7:09pm
True, but nothing new. whatever the demographics were, are or will be, the "center" moves to the right whenever any progressive issue comes up, including Supreme Court nominees. Remember the "centrists" who brokered the Senate agreement that got Roberts and Alito confirmed, both of which are significantly to the right......
By today's media standards Eisenhower was an extreme leftist, and by European standards Obama is closer to the right than the left. German universal health care goes back to the nineteenth century and Bismarck, I believe, which leaves old Prussian and conservative Ottto far to the left to the US network mainstream....
Charlie M.
Posted by cmsandia at 07/24/2009 @ 7:12pm
judybrowni,
You ask ".....When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything?...."
I guess it goes way back to the days of the Pilgrims, when it became apparent that capitalist or free market type of behavior did a much better job of satisfying people's needs and wants than socialistic type of behavior. (actually, in this case even meaning the survival of the colony altogether).
Yet you keep pushing socialism. Phew!
'Giving Thanks' By Jennifer James November 23, 2008 http://articles.latimes.com/2008 /nov/23/entertainment/et-story23
(again, link may contain spaces)
For the Pilgrims, life was a constant battle for survival. Later, Governor William Bradford made a decision. Instead of the colonists sharing their crops equally, he assigned a parcel of land to each family and told them they could keep whatever they produced for themselves."
"Then what happened?" asked Sam.
"At last the Pilgrims began to prosper. Governor William Bradford wrote in his book 'Of Plimoth Plantation,' 'This had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.' "
"Shoot! If you can keep everything you make, of course you're going to work harder. Everybody knows that."
Grandpa answered, "The first seed had been planted for the American Revolution. People were free to practice their religions as they saw fit and were free to keep the fruits of their labor. This had never happened before in the history of mankind. In the words of William Bradford, 'As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.' "
Posted by sjchermak at 07/24/2009 @ 7:21pm
Hey, Libs.......would you rather NOT get what you want with your Party in full control.....or would you rather NOT get what you want with the Repubs in full control....an honest question deserves honest answers...any takers?
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 7:02pm
What's this "full control" stuff?
Remember, when Repubs were in "full control" in the not-too-distant-past, one of their CORE issues (at least around election season)e.g., abortion, in the form a a human life amendment, never made it out of committee. OUT OF COMMITTEE. A core issue like that. And along with that, went the full boost of the then-ascendant fundamentalist wing of the party. Didn't move the ball an inch. An inch. On a core issue, nonetheless.
So, some "libs" not getting "all they want", sounds like a pretty watery story to me.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 07/24/2009 @ 7:36pm
The Pilgrims also survived only because an epidemic had wiped out a local Native American village.
The Pilgrims pillaged that village, lived off their crops -- and it's been a conservative ideal ever since, profiting off death and disease, and robbing the corpses.
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 8:19pm
I also remember my family and their medical care in the 1950s, when Blue Cross and Blue Shield were nonprofits.
Several major illnesses didn't bankrupt my family, and my mother, like most women of that generation, spent 10 days in the hospital, as did their babies, because complications from birth can develop in both mother and child and be life-threatening within that period.
But those were the days when what doctors prescribed and actual medical care mattered, rather than bloated profits and million dollar bonuses for insurance company CEOs, which have led to drive-by mastectomies.
Nixon was famously against managed-care HMOs, until promised it would mean more profit for the few, and less healthcare for the many.
Republicans and their enablers, always for the few, never for the many.
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 8:29pm
And yessssssssssssssss, there are few doctors who would prescribe 10 days in the hosptital for mothers now (I'm hoping because medical care has progressed) -- but also no one, besides insurance clerks and CEOs, who believes the patient's health is served when those who've had major surgerie are tossed out as soon as they come out of anesthesia.
No matter, it's no longer doctors who decide what's in the patient's best interest.
Posted by judybrowni at 07/24/2009 @ 8:37pm
Here's what the MSM and leftist's like Judybrowne1 won't tell you; The facts including the alternative legislation proposed by Senator and Doctor, Tom Coburn
<For the past month, members of the House and Senate have been rushing to meet an artificial deadline set by President Obama to pass one of the most important domestic policy initiatives in our nation's history. Now, however, serious questions about the cost and scope of the bills are causing members on both sides of the aisle to step back and realize that it is more important to do reform correctly rather than quickly.
One problem with the so-called reform bills is that they are based on a flawed and confusing argument that says we must spend a lot now to save a lot later. The problem in health care is not that we don't spend enough, but that Americans aren't getting enough value for their dollars.
Backers of the House and Senate bills are also forgetting that every major health care program created by the government since 1960 has cost far more than originally envisioned. In 1965, Medicare was supposed to cost $3.1 billion a year. Today, it costs $455 billion a year and is headed for bankruptcy. Moreover, Medicaid has shown that access to a government program is not access to health care. Today, 40 percent of doctors refuse to see Medicaid patients because of a corrupt and broken payment system.
Last week the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, warned members that the bills being rushed through Congress did not contain "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs."
Posted by antisocialist at 07/24/2009 @ 8:43pm
Senator and Doctor Tom Coburn continued
<When fully implemented, the Senate bill will increase the national debt by about 20 percent, or $2 trillion. States, many of which are in the midst of budget crises of their own, will be hit with an unfunded mandate of $500 billion in the form of a Medicaid expansion. Most importantly, CBO has no way to measure the cost of the collapse of the private insurance market. If 114 million Americans are forced to give up their current health plans and are herded like cattle into a government-run program, as the Lewin Group predicts, the costs of the program will balloon even further.
As a practicing physician, I know that health care costs are not just about dollars and cents but individual lives. Getting reform wrong has the potential to not merely bankrupt our economy but shorten lives. For instance, cancer cure rates in the United States are as much as 30 percent higher than in the United Kingdom, which saves the lives of 1 million Americans every year. Replacing this system with one run by the government could be a death sentence for those patients who now have a fighting chance.
The fact is every member of Congress is committed to passing some kind of health care reform. I've introduced a bill along Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) called the Patient's Choice Act,which guarantees coverage and choice for every American without raising taxes or increasing spending. In fact, our bill will save taxpayers at least $70 billion.
Tom Coburn is the junior United States Senator from Oklahoma. He is also a licensed physician.>
http://tinyurl.com/mctvha
Posted by antisocialist at 07/24/2009 @ 8:48pm
I would much rather not get what I want with my party in control, because I know I won't get what I want the the repubs in control, plus I'll get a lot of crap that I REALLY don't want with the repubs.
Posted by Extraneous at 07/24/2009 @ 7:09pm
Fair enough and pretty good, if not entirely unexpected. But what you avoided is 1) the issue of unmet but very high expectations given the overwhelming control the Dems have....something NO Repub POTUS enjoyed in my adulthood; and 2) the sheer number of BIG programs you boys (& girls) were aiming for.
P.S.: For us, growth-focused tax policies are always THE BIG with any GOP administration (except Bush `41) , with or w/out control of Congress and/or Senate. And, not to brag, we have always gotten it. Why we get the BIG stuff passed? Because it's truly popular and it works....generating growth, jobs and Fed. tax revenues.
For me, esp. if the GOP controlled most if not ALL of Gov't, and we can't get our BIG stuff passed, I'm not sure what I would do....never faced this yet and hope never will.
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 8:57pm
Remember, when Repubs were in "full control" in the not-too-distant-past, one of their CORE issues (at least around election season)e.g., abortion, in the form a a human life amendment, never made it out of committee. OUT OF COMMITTEE. A core issue like that.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 07/24/2009 @ 7:36pm
You actually believe the MSM? Guess that explains why the MSM just isn't credible to most folks....except folks like you and FeminNazis.
IMO, not 1 out of 3 Conservatives will make abortion a "CORE" issue.......but I'll bet small Gubber, personal responsibility, personal liberty and low taxes are CORE issues with EVERY Con. Doesn't mean some won't trade away part of these CORE values....see Collins, Snow, Bush `43!
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 9:05pm
Katrina doesn't seem to understand what the word "centrist" means. First off, it's not "center of the Democratic party," it's "center of the American people." Second, it's not "traditional values," it's the people in the middle between extreme right and extreme left. Third, no one's saying "centrist= people who hate poor people and kick puppies." The fact that people should have health-care doesn't entail the conclusion that the government should provide it. That's what the actual debate is about.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/24/2009 @ 9:30pm
One of the reasons Medicare is going broke is the fee-for-service method of payment.
I can't tell you how many times octogenarians had to endure multiple painful procedures so that healthcare providers can charge medicare as much as possible.
A little government intervention is in order. And thanks Judybrowni for your intelligent comments.,
Posted by nursevic at 07/24/2009 @ 9:44pm
Katrina,
Why not get a few of your fellow left leaning millionaire friends and just by-god buy health insurance for the 40 million uninsured.
Put your money where your mouth is.
You wouldn't miss a few million.
Hell, Made-off stole enough to fund universal healthcare for godssake.
Do it for "the children".
Posted by bleedingheart at 07/24/2009 @ 9:45pm
I can't tell you how many times octogenarians had to endure multiple painful procedures so that healthcare providers can charge medicare as much as possible.
A little government intervention is in order. And thanks Judybrowni for your intelligent comments.,
Posted by nursevic at 07/24/2009 @ 9:44pm
Right. It has nothing to do with 1)an unsustainable system, 2)Doctors operating to fee schedules that are less than the cost of business.
We know that you are part of the marxist group of nurses who see this as your power move and guaranteed meal ticket.
Posted by antisocialist at 07/24/2009 @ 10:07pm
Posted by bleedingheart at 07/24/2009 @ 9:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person
what nonsense. are there no repug billionaires you could be bugging with this crap?
Posted by emile duBois at 07/24/2009 @ 10:11pm
But can the US really afford to wage wars abroad while providing universal health care coverage at home?
Or to put that another way ... what is limit on the number of foreigners the US can afford to kill abroad versus the number of lives the US can afford to save at home?
The two expenditures are not unrelated.
Posted by sloper at 07/24/2009 @ 10:48pm
Katrina claims:
>>> 72 percent of the nation supports a public plan option <<<
The latest Fox poll found this: Reforming health care is most pressing for 12% of Americans. Fixing the economy is the top priority of 36%, followed by creating jobs, at 21%.
"On health care, 43% of Americans support the president, 45 percent don't."
USA Today/Gallup poll has 59% of Americans saying, the president's proposals call for too much government spending, and 52% say, Obama wants too much expansion of government power.
KVH has a big problem with the truth.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 07/24/2009 @ 11:17pm
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009
you'd have a point if those cons constituency weren't at least in large part the very people who have so heavily contributed to the giant mess.
Poor rural people living off welfare exhibiting no sense of personal responibility, spending money they never had.
The same people who vote republican based on so-called "values".
I seem to remember that being one of the top issues people based their vote for W.
Also, Barack may be fucking up, but seriously how much worse could it be? The health care system as it stands is an abomination, and honestly even if it becomes the socialist gulag some of these clowns say it will, is that actually worse than it is now?
Posted by TexasFlood at 07/24/2009 @ 11:30pm
How cynical am I to think that doing just about anything is better than standing by, with a pompous smirk on your face, saying everything is just dandy?
But of course happy and friends will tell us that insurance companies are great (no bureaucracy to wade through there!), and that it's totally reasonable to be bankrupted if you get cancer.
Yes everything is going swimmingly.
Watch out, obamma's after you to stick you in Marxist reeducation camps!
Posted by TexasFlood at 07/24/2009 @ 11:37pm
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/24/2009 @ 11:43pm
not you, tex.
just this whole "left, right" hogwash.
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/24/2009 @ 11:44pm
To your MOOOOOO.....I say, your sirloin tasted good on my dinner plate tonight! Waitress was very friendly too....it paid off for her.
stupid cattle?
sharp waitress?
big HAPPY tipper?
Time to hit Kite Runner!
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 11:51pm
Haha, I know! Hey, why do you think we're there? Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 6:33pm |
Profiteering; gotta love those no-bid contracts.
I was mildly surprised to see that Chevron passed on the oil rights recently auctioned in the Sunni-heavy portions of Iraq, but it made sense once I read three articles on recent deadly explosions.
Posted by snowball777 at 07/24/2009 @ 11:58pm
Posted by Happy at 07/24/2009 @ 9:05pm |
Like Rove didn't use abortion and gay marriage as the motivators for all those `charismatic' voters...please.
This is Lee Atwater 101 type stuff and they most certainly WILL do it again to get `real America' on-board the LastChance Express.
Posted by snowball777 at 07/25/2009 @ 12:00am
C'mon, this is a power grab. It has shit to do with improving health care. Government catering to special interests has created problems in the system. The solution is LESS, not MORE government.
Posted by freiheit1 at 07/24/2009 @ 2:47pm | ignore this person | warn this person
"There are none so blind as those that will not see!"
But then that is what the whole "regressive" leftwingnut dominated Demoncrat party is all about today, leading their sheep blinded by hate, jealosy, arrogance, and lust for power to places only fools would venture!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/25/2009 @ 12:14am
Here's an article that should scare people. It talks about how the health care will be rationed, how government will decide that some older people should not get health care.
Posted by sjchermak at 07/24/2009
Why not oppose the insurance companies for rationing healthcare, which they do every day?
Refusing to pay for a procedure or treatment or prescription is rationing healthcare; so is refusing coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
One word debunks this dishonest scare tactic....Medicare. Name one old person who the government presently decides does not get health care.
Posted by koroviev at 07/25/2009 @ 12:29am
A different perspective on the health care debate -- and a reason to be ashamed of American healthcare.
http://tinyurl.com/na5nv9
Posted by judybrowni at 07/25/2009 @ 01:32am
A different perspective on the health care debate -- and a reason to be ashamed of American healthcare.
http://tinyurl.com/na5nv9
Posted by judybrowni at 07/25/2009 @ 01:32am |
Another aspect of this problem is how many of these people with rotten teeth cannot get a job because of their appearance. Some of the only decent jobs for nonprofessionals are in the service sector and rotten teeth could preclude employment.
Posted by koroviev at 07/25/2009 @ 01:52am
"The danger is that promoting the view that these conservative Democrats are somehow at the center of our politics plays into the hands of those who would like to marginalize progressives as far outside of the mainstream". KVH
You know Katrina, maybe they're right.
Posted by fram at 07/25/2009 @ 04:00am
Okay so what ARE the "conservative" "solutions" to health care reform (which even the Repubs are forced to admit has huge support in the public)?
1. "personal medical savings accounts"?....which means if you get cancer at age 23, you'll have $1500 to pay your bills.
2. "eliminating fraud"....which the GOP failed to do when it controlled everything from 2003-2006, because it would have hurt them with their donors.
3. "tort reform"....which again, they didn't do from 2003-2006.
"They couldn't...Barney Frank and Chris Dodd would have stopped it!"...
so, with that excuse, the Repubs would NEVER do any health care reform, would they????
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 07:01am
republican health care?
free condoms for married senators.....
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 07:59am
Okay so what ARE the "conservative" "solutions" to health care reform?
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 07:01am | ignore this person | warn this person
1. just die
2. the wonderful magical market
3. call on doctor jesus!!!!
Posted by dexter666 at 07/25/2009 @ 08:13am
free condoms for married senators.....
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 07:59am | ignore this person | warn this person
too late. they've already been born...
hundred and fifth plus trimester abortion perhaps?
Posted by dexter666 at 07/25/2009 @ 08:16am
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 07:59am
Posted by dexter666 at 07/25/2009 @ 08:13am
They have a real problem politically...the polls show 72% want some kind of health care reform, so they have to offer SOME kind of solutions.
But then MY questions immediately arise, including the most important "Well, then, why didn't you guys do all that stuff BEFORE when you controlled Congress and Dubya was in the White House?"
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 08:17am
Posted by sloper at 07/24/2009 @ 10:48pm | ignore this person | warn this person
it used to be known as guns or butter. now we could say guns or docs.
there are some here who always prefer killing over healing. you know who you are.
Posted by emile duBois at 07/25/2009 @ 08:24am
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 08:17am | ignore this person | warn this person
the problem is so effed up that people could care less about "socialism", and many who were snookered by the clinton era anti-healthcare bullshit...
have changed heir minds after living with the results of parasite style healthcare.
even their stupid and/or lying mantra about us having the best healtcare in the world sounds hollow and meaningless. great - if ya can't afford the bloated mess...
call on doctor jesus!!!!!
if we have the best healthcare in the world...WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVELY INEFFICIENT?
Posted by dexter666 at 07/25/2009 @ 08:30am
When you (Katrina) think you are the center of the universe, naturally anyone that is to your right is not mainstream.
Posted by golperuano at 07/25/2009 @ 09:06am
Katrina,
Off topic: THANK YOU FOR "ignore this person"! All political websites need to have it. While there are some conservative people who it's pleasant and informative to read, most are just hate-spewers. That goes for an unfortunate slice of the left, too.
The best news is "ignore" actually WORKS here on The Nation. There are a few places that ostensibly have it, but it doesn't work.
Posted by anandakos at 07/25/2009 @ 09:30am
anandakos
good point.
Posted by emile duBois at 07/25/2009 @ 09:56am
Yes, conservatives do offer solutions to the current health care mess. But since this is a liberal website and most of the posters here would only berate any conservative ideas....what's the point in even trying?
On the other hand, this is what Obama is promising:
1.) All the uninsured will get insurance. 2.) If you have insurance, you be able to keep it and your doctor(s) of choice. 3.) There will be no government interefence with your private insurance. 4.) Quality of health care will increase. 5.) Costs will decrease. 6.) Waste and fraud will be squeezed out of the system. 7.) A handful of millionaires will pay for it.
Anyone with any economic sense or common sense will tell you that it is not possible. "Fantasy Island" went off the air decades ago.
Dexter asks "if we have the best healthcare in the world...WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVELY INEFFICIENT"?
My answer is...if government health care is so efficient, why is medicare and medicaid going broke?
Posted by fram at 07/25/2009 @ 10:15am
"They couldn't...Barney Frank and Chris Dodd would have stopped it!"...
so, with that excuse, the Repubs would NEVER do any health care reform, would they????
Okay so what ARE the "conservative" "solutions" to health care reform?
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 07:01am |>
Instead of your usual DNC spinning, you could have bothered to read; While I disagree with the Republicans even offering an alternative instead of reminding the American public that the Fed has no authority to be involved in health care, you are not being honest Mask and others if you say the GOP offers no alternative.
<As a practicing physician, I know that health care costs are not just about dollars and cents but individual lives. Getting reform wrong has the potential to not merely bankrupt our economy but shorten lives. For instance, cancer cure rates in the United States are as much as 30 percent higher than in the United Kingdom, which saves the lives of 1 million Americans every year. Replacing this system with one run by the government could be a death sentence for those patients who now have a fighting chance.
The fact is every member of Congress is committed to passing some kind of health care reform. I've introduced a bill along Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) called the Patient's Choice Act,which guarantees coverage and choice for every American without raising taxes or increasing spending. In fact, our bill will save taxpayers at least $70 billion.
Tom Coburn is the junior United States Senator from Oklahoma. He is also a licensed physician.>
http://tinyurl.com/mctvha
Here is the House version HR2520
http://tinyurl.com/m2kkpc
Senate S1099
http://tinyurl.com/mfpljv
Posted by antisocialist at 07/25/2009 @ 10:49am
My answer is...if government health care is so efficient, why is medicare and medicaid going broke? Posted by fram at 07/25/2009 @ 10:15am | ignore this person | warn this person
because our congress won't fund it adequately.
there is another gov't health care that isn't going broke, it's the health care congress and all gov't employees get. that one is adequately funded, big surprise.
it is of course a question of allocation of resources. slash the pentagon budget by 90% and let's see what we can do with that money. also slash foreign aid, which is really a subsidy of the war industry. take the profit motive for the insurance companies out of the equation, voila more money.
good health incidentally contributes a great deal to the economic heath of this country. war not so much.
Posted by emile duBois at 07/25/2009 @ 10:53am
it's the health care congress and all gov't employees get. that one is adequately funded, big surprise.
Posted by emile duBois at 07/25/2009 @ 10:53am
You are aware that government employees and members of Congress get their health insurance through private health insurance companies, aren't you?
The rest of your comment is just plain silly.
Posted by fram at 07/25/2009 @ 11:07am
because our congress won't fund it adequately.
there is another gov't health care that isn't going broke, it's the health care congress and all gov't employees get. that one is adequately funded, big surprise.
it is of course a question of allocation of resources. slash the pentagon budget by 90% and let's see what we can do with that money. also slash foreign aid, which is really a subsidy of the war industry. take the profit motive for the insurance companies out of the equation, voila more money.
good health incidentally contributes a great deal to the economic heath of this country. war not so much.
Posted by emile duBois at 07/25/2009 @ 10:53am
so, how much should taxes go up on ALL Americans to cover the 54 Trillion dollare deficit we currently have with Medicare? And that figure is expected to more than double in the next 50 years.
Posted by antisocialist at 07/25/2009 @ 11:08am
"Katrina doesn't seem to understand what the word "centrist" means. First off, it's not "center of the Democratic party," it's "center of the American people." Second, it's not "traditional values," it's the people in the middle between extreme right and extreme left. Third, no one's saying "centrist= people who hate poor people and kick puppies." The fact that people should have health-care doesn't entail the conclusion that the government should provide it. That's what the actual debate is about."
wow, did thrawn actually read past the headline?
Posted by darladoon at 07/25/2009 @ 12:03pm
"My answer is...if government health care is so efficient, why is medicare and medicaid going broke?"
1. because politicians are horrified of raising taxes, becauase it will kill contributions from their base.
2. because the lobbyists don't want the government to provide any public services, because that will kill the private sector.
3. because we spend too much on protecting our overseas empire.
Posted by darladoon at 07/25/2009 @ 12:06pm
" The fact that people should have health-care doesn't entail the conclusion that the government should provide it."
yes, it does.
Posted by darladoon at 07/25/2009 @ 12:13pm
Posted by judybrowni: "What's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!"
Do you really think firefighters work for free? They are paid just like police and other emergency services. It is a line item on my property tax form.
Posted by pyeatte at 07/25/2009 @ 12:47pm
Some of the oldest people in the world live in Japan, another country that has universal health care.
You can't tell me that 50 million Americans with no insurance is vastly superior to universal health care.
Posted by guitarsandmore805 at 07/25/2009 @ 12:52pm
Posted by darladoon at 07/25/2009 @ 12:13pm: Sorry, but most people do not conclude the government should provide healthcare. Most people do not trust the government to make decisions in their best interests. A consumer driven system "can" deliver the best solution that allows the individule, and their doctor, the freedom to make their own decisions. This is way too complex to depend on the government to do the right thing for the people. The government solution will result in rationing. Seniors are going to be enraged - they have been told to essentially "go off and die" in order to save money.
Posted by pyeatte at 07/25/2009 @ 1:02pm
pyeatte-Insurance companies dictate what can and cannot be done and having insurance does not make a person freer to choose and having some form of govt insurance does not mean that the govt decides your care anymore than an insurance company does...The govt does not tell old veterans to go off and die,but insurance companies have told many old people to go die just as insurance companies have told young people to go and die..You guys need to come up with solutions and sensible positions rather than just claim that the govt will be worse than insurance companies since that would not be the case.They would,probably,be about the same in terms of care given...
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/25/2009 @ 1:14pm
Posted by guitarsandmore805 at 07/25/2009 @ 12:52pm:
Your uninsured number is a little high to say the least. We have about 15 million illegals here with no insurance. Guess how many illegals are in Japan....none. There are about 10-15 million people uninsured only because they have not signed up with the appropriate agency even though they qualify. The balance could be covered if addresssed directly. The fact is, we do not need to rip up our entire system and force everyone to cow down to the governement in order to get everyone covered. Government control means a huge loss of freedom.
Posted by pyeatte at 07/25/2009 @ 1:16pm
pyeatte-Your claim that insurance companies equals freedom and the govt equals no freedom does not play out in the real world.The military and veterans administration can order more tests and do more treatments than insurance companies will pay for.
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/25/2009 @ 1:20pm
Posted by judybrowni: "What's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!"
"Do you really think firefighters work for free? They are paid just like police and other emergency services. It is a line item on my property tax form. --pyeatte"
Well, idiot, that was the punchline to a JOKE, in the previous post, as I explained at the top of the post.
The joke was about (since one even has to explain jokes to wingnuts) the idiocy of insisting that healthcare must be profit-making for health insurance companies, or it's scary "socialism," and yet, wingnuts are completely comfortable with other social benefits supplied and paid for by the government, such as fire fighting.
However, fire-fighting was capitalistic and profit-driven up until mid-19th century America, and that was a nightmare similar to healthcare at this moment.
"Amateur fire brigades would compete with one another to be the first to respond to a fire because insurance companies paid brigades to save buildings."
And would duke it out with each other, while the building behind them blazed -- reduced to ashes while rival fire departments "competed."
"It was not all that uncommon to see someone "squatting" on a fire hydrant by placing a barrel over it so other fire brigades could not use it." (http://tinyurl.com/ct5fco)
The free market at work! Completely perverting the purpose of firefighting (does this sound familiar?)
Over time, govermentwas forced to step in and "socialize" fire departments for the public good. (Sound familiar?)
(And yes, I 'm aware fire departments are generally supported by local government, but I'm running out of characters here,...)
Posted by judybrowni at 07/25/2009 @ 1:26pm
I was really depressed when I started reading this, but then I got some exercise and ate a healthy meal, and I now I don't feel so bad about it.
None of this means shit if we can't find some way of getting more Americans to live a health lifestyle.
Ask any medical professional. The amount of money spent on people who are in horrible condition is astronomical.
The conservatives will immediately fume, idiot, that's why those people don't deserve health coverage they lack the motivation to earn!
But that's not solving the cost problem. Because even the sternest among us can't bear to deny people emergency care when they need it.
And it will never change until it is the law of the land that all citizens are entitled - there's that word again! - entitled to common medical care regardless of ability to pay.
That's the de facto system we have now. What we're talking about is a sustainable business model that pays for it.
And once our pro-business friends realize that part of that model is a government-backed insurance company that covers people a private business can't make a profit on, then we'll start to get somewhere.
Posted by MyParadigm at 07/25/2009 @ 1:32pm
WINGNUT LOGIC:
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE IS SCARY AND WRONG -- EXCEPT WHEN I GET IT, AND RECOMMEND IT TO YOU
"GOP Senator Chuck Grassley keeps tweeting about health care. It's all a bit odd." http://tinyurl.com/meb5qn
"You''ll recall that Senator Grassley is the guy who thinks that if you want better health care, you should just go work for the government. Yet now he's afraid of a big government takeover, after he told every American to go work for the government. Not to mention, if the government is so bad, then why does Chuck Grassley work for it himself? I think Grassley is getting a bit confused."
http://tinyurl.com/nfsrzv
Posted by judybrowni at 07/25/2009 @ 1:37pm
I suspect there are a lot of pragmatic conservatives like me who do believe we can do a whole lot better on our existing health care system and use the savings to heavily subsidize insurance for the working poor doing close-to minimum wage jobs in the nation's gazillion small businesses.
The reason we can't get excited about any serious health care reform is the total lack of will by the Libs/Dems to first tackle tort reform. My own primary physician pays something like $80k a year for liability insurance...this was a couple of years ago when I last went in for a physical and I just asked him flat out.
No system, now or in the future, will be perfect but it seems that it is way past time to take on tort lawyers who siphon an enormous sums out of our current system. Unless and until the Libs/Dems can take on their own bag men, the plaintiff's bar, you will never control healthcare costs in ANY system.
Our society is skewed heavily towards producing lawyers and the incestuous relationship between our Gubbers (almost ALL lawyers) and the tort bar, must be severed. Stop the medical malpractice lottery and institute some kinda of No-Fault insurance for ALL doctors, with a modest cap, say $1 million tops, decided by a medical/citizen arbitration board....then let's work together on expanding coverage!
Most of you here know this is the Inconvenient Truth
Posted by Happy at 07/25/2009 @ 1:44pm
3. "tort reform"....which again, they didn't do from 2003-2006.
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 07:01am
You are of course, aware that Bush's political capital was heavily deployed elsewhere and that weakened his position on domestic matters, heh?
Hard to play offense when one is forced to play defense.....at least, Bush's `war' turned out well and his defense was perfect after some strategy changes.
Isn't this is what Magic is facing.....except he's defending a losing hand on the economy and employment (but won't change a thing), and finding playing offense on healthcare and CapandDie, a bit difficult?
Now, he voluntarily adds another front, RageGate.....how many "Centrists" will he win over dealing with this `front'?
Posted by Happy at 07/25/2009 @ 1:56pm
happy- the only inconvenient truth is that it has just as much to do with cons/repubs as it does with libs/dems so if we are to seek solutions you guys will first have to stop the finger pointing.Until then none of you, on either side,will have anything to offer,but partisan nonsense.
Posted by i'm nobody at 07/25/2009 @ 2:01pm
It's morally wrong to leave 100 million Americans un or underinsured, 1 illness away from financial ruin. And it's wrong to burden small business with the outrageous insurance costs also -- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth
Posted by reg373 at 07/25/2009 @ 2:13pm
HEALTHCARE REFORM FOR A VIBRANT ECONOMY
"It's a talking point you hear regularly from President Obama--in order to fix the larger economy, healthcare costs have to be brought under control. That's not just rhetoric, there's plenty of empirical evidence to back up the claim, including two brand new studies.
The first, conducted by the non-profit Rand Corp links the rapid growth in U.S. health care costs to job losses and lower output...
Another new study, conducted by the progressive Center for American Progress looks at the potential costs for American families if the system isn't reformed.
Health care costs are expected to grow 71 percent over the next decade, which will in turn drive premium increases for health insurance. Unless we take serious steps now to reform our health care system--in particular to reduce the rate of growth in health care costs--health insurance coverage will slip out of reach for even more individuals than the 52 million Americans who today are uninsured.
This analysis shows that without health reform, average family premiums will grow to more than $22,000 by 2019, up from $13,100 today. "
Posted by judybrowni at 07/25/2009 @ 2:22pm
Government control means a huge loss of freedom.
Posted by pyeatte at 07/25/2009 @ 1:16pm
THAT'S why i feel so imprisoned!
it's my doctor's fault.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 2:23pm
Seniors are going to be enraged - they have been told to essentially "go off and die" in order to save money.
Posted by pyeatte at 07/25/2009 @ 1:02pm
THAT'S why canadians live longer.
oops, nevermind.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 2:29pm
"Well, then, why didn't you guys do all that stuff BEFORE when you controlled Congress and Dubya was in the White House?"
Posted by Mask at 07/25/2009 @ 08:17am
they figured scaring everybody to death would be cheaper.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 2:32pm
THIS is for all those "i trust business more than government types"
••
"More than 2 million federal employees and military service members were enrolled in plans that used the Ingenix database to set out-of-network pay, potentially reducing reimbursements for out-of-network care."
•• ripping off soldiers, that's the american way!
right guys?
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/07/13/bisb0713.htm
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 2:39pm
You seem to have a strange definition for "centrist."
The Centrist legislators from either Party, whether Federal, State or in local units, tend to come from areas that: 1. flip fromone party to the other every few terms, along with national trends. 2. will often, even usually, split for more than one party within a single election. Pennsylvania is an excellent example, since 1954, it has split for US Senate, with the opposite party winning for President or Governor, in 21 of the past 27 such elections. No wonder Specter and Casey have "moderate" records. Also, Pennsylvania has elected Governors of the Party OPPOSITE to the President, for the past 76 years, (except in 1982.)
For more information on Penna's split patterns: Groups.Yahoo.com/group/Politicometrics for the Chapter "Split ballots in the Keystone State."
Posted by balataf at 07/25/2009 @ 3:02pm
I agree on most of what KVH said. The truth is however, there is at least two issues that have too much weight into our political decisions, it is:
A) Fear to the rather wealthy (say people in the first 8% of income perhaps) B) Fear to the military
Those 'blue dogs', they represent conservative districts but are dressed with the Dem pants only to get access to power by defeating I guess really 'ultraconservative-pseudo-Christian-6,000 years world'.folks.
What they defend over the Dem platform is unclear, maybe it is only to keep Social Security and the public school system. Else, they are afraid to ask for more reform because they don't want to enter into collision with the 'big people' (A factor) in their District. Of course those are the ones that finance their campaigns and after all the most important issue is to keep into the power group.
The other factor, B, is really dramatically important. Unless we don't reduce our military expenditures to at the most 25% of their current level, we won't be able to finance any good Health Care reform program or any other thing by the way.
If we don't really reform campaign financing and not reduce our mesianic military role in the world to reasonable levels, we won't ever be able to achieve anything for our people.
Posted by Frank42 at 07/25/2009 @ 4:40pm
"They are, in fact, out of touch and out of the mainstream -- like the rest of their conservative brethren."
I agree that Blue Dog Democrats are out of the mainstream, but it is not true that conservatives are all "brethren." Unfortunately, some conservatives and "centrist" Democrats are women. Hey, it's sexist to say "brethren" when talking about both women and men.
Posted by ktrig at 07/25/2009 @ 4:41pm
" The fact that people should have health-care doesn't entail the conclusion that the government should provide it."
yes, it does.
Posted by darladoon at 07/25/2009 @ 12:13pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Stand back and watch darlaloon try to dig that one up in the U.S.A. constitution's backyard! That would be fun, but a real waste of Lies!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/25/2009 @ 5:07pm
Stand back and watch darlaloon try to dig that one up in the U.S.A. constitution's backyard! That would be fun, but a real waste of Lies!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/25/2009 @ 5:07pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Nor matters of life and death should be subject to market rules. Or should they Rio? Maybe your god is the marketplace, but we liberals aren't that selfish and think that human life, dignity and well-being are far over market considerations.
Or the right to "pursue of happiness" sought by our Founding Fathers can be attained with poor health?
Posted by Frank42 at 07/25/2009 @ 5:19pm
Posted by Frank42 at 07/25/2009 @ 5:19pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Pursue all the happiness you want, if you do it lawfully and with your OWN money! You have NO right under the consitution or bill of rights to make others pay for your personal happiness, folly, or idiocy!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/25/2009 @ 5:33pm
Too many re crying out: "Give me healthcare! Give me healthcare!" But, so long as they can get away with making someone else pay for it.
Everybody has a right to eat, and do many other things. But they decidedkly DO NO IMPLY that government should be involved, except to prevent fraud.
John D. Froelich
Posted by balataf at 07/25/2009 @ 7:24pm
Posted by balataf at 07/25/2009 @ 7:24pm | ignore this person | warn this person
we waste an ass of money under our current system. more than other countries who have single payer systems. as a % of our gnp.
not saying ANY system is perfect. if that is your yardstick - please!! its what i call the "fallacy of absolutes" - requiring a phenomenon adhere to its perfect definition or that perfection is the only measure of success. which is dishonest.
but again the fact is that other countries, whose citizenry have AT LEAST as long an average lifespan as do we, support single payer health care more cheaply than do we.
in order to compete we will need a healthy, relatively secure, population. we need to improve our system.
please do not hit me with some robotic aynrandian lecture on anarcho-libertarian economic ideology. i don't credit it as science or fact because it is neither.
Posted by dexter666 at 07/25/2009 @ 8:13pm
"Some of the oldest people in the world live in Japan, another country that has universal health care.
You can't tell me that 50 million Americans with no insurance is vastly superior to universal health care."
If American's all went to live in Japan and lived under their health care system, nothing would change. Our mortality rates are a product of our culture and life style, not our health care system.
Posted by golperuano at 07/25/2009 @ 9:51pm
VANCOUVER -- A fin whale has been impaled and killed on a Princess cruise ship that docked in Vancouver Saturday morning.
The whale, about 20 metres long, was wrapped around the bow of the Sapphire Princess Saturday in full view of tourists at the Canada Place tourist hub, many snapping pictures of the disturbing sight.
A worker from the cruise ship, who didn't want to be named, said he was not sure when the whale had been hit.
"From what I hear there was a bit of a rumbling this morning," he said. "It's too bad; I wish we had some system to detect them."
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/25/2009 @ 10:53pm
<i>Posted by dexter666 at 07/25/2009 @ 8:13pm </i>
The argument (and this directly answers darla as well) is that no entailment exists between the following two propositions:
1) People should have X 2) The government should provide X
I'm not making the ultra-free-market argument that some posters here are; my personal perspective is rather ambivalent. All I'm saying is that the mere fact that people should have X does not entail that the government should provide it.
Darla, let me ask you this: what should the government NOT provide? Anything? Only those things that people shouldn't have? What, for you, is the standard for determining whether the government should provide it? Do pragmatics figure into that calculus?
I ask this because the philosophical framework from which you work makes a big difference in the political solutions you are willing to entertain.
Finally, I stand by the idea that KVH doesn't understand the concept of centrist. Centrist is an independent label; you are leftist, you are rightist, or you are centrist. A "centrist Democrat" is a centrist and a Democrat, not a centrist relative to a Democratic standard. That's why KVH's argument doesn't mean anything. And no, KVH, "Blue Dogs" are NOT substantially to the right of the electorate; that's simply false.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/25/2009 @ 11:19pm
1) People should have X 2) The government should provide X
I'm not making the ultra-free-market argument that some posters here are; my personal perspective is rather ambivalent. All I'm saying is that the mere fact that people should have X does not entail that the government should provide it.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/25/2009 @ 11:19pm | ignore this person | warn this person
1. people want x, x is obtainable at an acceptable cost. in fact looking at other countries who have had x in effect, we should save money by implementing x and serve people at least as well...
(anticipated aynrandian lie response - "but their stuff don't work. u gotta wait MONTHS to getyer cheapo ingrown toenail operation! gubbament bad! gubbament bad!!!")
2. we've tried private. that's what we have. it don't work.
(anticipated aynrandian lie response - "but their stuff don't work. u gotta wait MONTHS to getyer cheapo ingrown toenail operation! gubbament bad! gubbament bad!!!")
whatever. the right lies and lies and lies. it invests buzillions in fake AEI and HERITAGE and uses every tool in its portfolio to LIE AND LIE to save their parasitic asses.
the voters want the united states to join the twenty first century and they will make obstructionist politicians pay.
for profit medical coverage= BLOOD SUCKING PARASITES
and inefficient ones at that.
Posted by dexter666 at 07/26/2009 @ 12:17am
with your OWN money! You have NO right under the consitution or bill of rights to make others pay for your personal happiness, folly, or idiocy!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/25/2009 @ 5:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person
First don't talk idiocy....that is a Republican feature. Let's give you an "anti-idiocy" class though I think a specimen like you will never learn.
So I need to keep my good health with my own money, ha....Actually I am subsidizing the insurance companies paying a lot more for the "service" they give. With the system actually in operation somebody is getting richer and richer with the health of the people and that is not fair.
Why is it that the system is not suited for the market? Because NOBODY can bargain with health. Supply and demand don't work with precious things as life. You can bargain with any material good: cars, or bananas; but not with health, cause you can not bargain with the total treatment you need. They tell you can actually choose from several providers but all of them have increased their costs by much more than 100% in the last 8 years. It is an oligopoly, and it is an inefficient system with many middle men. It is much more costly than almost all of the developed countries and excludes about 17% of the population while almost 50% is under insured.
Our society deserves better. The whole idea of making profits out of the people's need to live or their pain, does make me vomit. In a semi public system these costs should be much more rationalized. Finally, actually rich people pay for the education of poor people via the taxing system, they do so for Medicare, so what the heck? Why not include a thing as desirable as health care?
Posted by Frank42 at 07/26/2009 @ 12:19am
not saying you would respond thusly...
Posted by dexter666 at 07/26/2009 @ 12:22am
Katrina, Let's call the health care cost explosion for what it is, a health care tax. Do you know any conservative that would stand idly by when his local taxes went up by 175% in 9 years? Of course you don't. So why haven't we as intelligent arguers, come to the conclusion that to get someone to agree with us we have to explain something to them in terms they would understand. Do you really think that someone who's MRI was disallowed by an unknown person within an insurance company would be happy with that insurance company? My gosh it is time to get personal in order to win the debate. Big words are great but they win few battles. I would also like to end the illusion regarding the effects of the health care business on re-election campaigns for both sides of the aisle. When is Harry Reid going to show up? It is time for you to blast these people. He has shown no leadership on health care. I would also like someone to tell me how a public option would be paid for. I think it is laughable that the "rich" would pay for it. A real tax system must be put forward to pay for this. I believe the whole battle here is individuals versus businesses. When it is all said and done it will come down to that ,mark my words. That battle is already being fought. The labor unions would be wise to stay out of the fray. Again, this issue must be personal and put right up into the face of every American.
Posted by whatizz at 07/26/2009 @ 01:39am
Posted by Thrawn at 07/25/2009 @ 11:19pm |
"1) People should have X 2) The government should provide X...I'm not making the ultra-free-market argument that some posters here are; my personal perspective is rather ambivalent. All I'm saying is that the mere fact that people should have X does not entail that the government should provide it."
If the Taxing and Spending Clause is taken at it's word, "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States", then can we at least agree that it is within Congress' power to declare that the government should (i.e. that healthcare reform will be Constitutionally sound) ala US v Butler?
Larry, I know you disagree, but I'm with Hamilton on interpreting the General Welfare Clause to include ANYTHING that Congress believes is necessary to promote that welfare, and that health IS a national interest at this point.
"What should the government NOT provide? .. What, for you, is the standard for determining whether the government should provide it?"
Anything that CONGRESS doesn't deem necessary to the general welfare of the people by writing a bill and getting it passed into law while keeping said law Constitutional.
"I ask this because the philosophical framework from which you work makes a big difference in the political solutions you are willing to entertain."
The Constitution is that framework.
"Finally, I stand by the idea that KVH doesn't understand the concept of centrist..."
I reject the attempt to pigeon-hole something as complex as political identity into a one-dimensional geometry, in the first place.
I'm a quantum field, not a position on a number line.
Posted by snowball777 at 07/26/2009 @ 07:46am
From the all-knowing, all-powerful Wiki:
"The [GENERAL WELFARE -ed] clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. "
"In her dissent, Justice O'Connor noted that Butler was the last case in which the Supreme Court struck down an Act of Congress as beyond the authority granted by the Spending Clause."
Posted by snowball777 at 07/26/2009 @ 08:11am
As usual, rightwing fecal matter that has assumed a transiently human form, such as BIG-P, anger for more abuses to be visited by the elites on innocent people. But that is, in itself, the very essence of the rightwing paradigm of the world, from their patron saints among the Nazis onward. It is why rightwingers like BIG-P enthuse with such disgusting zeal over the compound regimes of the WARREN JEFFS-style rightwingers.
As for health care, this is the kind of elite abuse of innocent people that the fecal and feral right anger for. Here is the opening of former Cigna PR exec Wendell Potter's testimony before Congress earlier this month:
[from: www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/potter_testimony.html]
"Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon. My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick -- all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.
I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information we need. As you hold hearings and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit insurance companies play in making our health care system both the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the world. I hope you get a real sense of what life would be like for most of us if the kind of so-called reform the insurers are lobbying for is enacted..."
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 07/26/2009 @ 09:14am
MO' POTTER:
The average family doesn't understand how Wall Street's dictates determine whether they will be offered coverage, whether they can keep it & how much they'll be charged for it. But, in fact, Wall Street plays a powerful role. The top priority of for-profit companies is to drive up the value of their stock. Stocks fluctuate based on companies' quarterly reports, which are discussed every three months in conference calls with investors and analysts. On these calls, Wall Street investors and analysts look for two key figures: earnings per share and the medical-loss ratio, or medical "benefit ratio," as the industry now terms it. That is the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits.
To win the favor of powerful analysts, for-profit insurers must prove that they made more money during the previous quarter than a year earlier and that the portion of the premium going to medical costs is falling. Even very profitable companies can see sharp declines in stock prices moments after admitting they've failed to trim medical costs. I have seen an insurer's stock price fall 20 percent or more in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had to spend a slightly higher percentage of premiums on medical claims during the quarter than it did during a previous period. The smoking gun was the company's first-quarter medical loss ratio, which had increased from 77.9% to 79.4% a year later.
To help meet Wall Street's relentless profit expectations, insurers routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick. Insurers have several ways to cull the sick from their rolls. One is policy rescission...
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 07/26/2009 @ 09:17am
POTTER on PRIVATE-SECTOR "RATIONING":
"...policy rescission. They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment. Asked directly about this practice just last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers refused to end the practice of cancelling policies for sick enrollees. Why? Because dumping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line. Ten percent of the population accounts for 2/3s of all health care spending. The Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation into three insurers found that they canceled the coverage of roughly 20k people in a 5-year period, allowing the companies to avoid paying $300 million in claims.
They also dump small businesses whose employees' medical claims exceed what insurance underwriters expected. All it takes is one illness or accident among employees at a small business to prompt an insurance company to hike the next year's premiums so high that the employer has to cut benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering coverage altogether, leaving workers uninsured. The practice is known in the industry as "purging." The purging of less profitable accounts through intentionally unrealistic rate increases helps explain why the number of small businesses offering coverage to their employees has fallen from 61 percent to 38% since 1993, according to the National Small Business Association. Once an insurer purges a business, there are often no other viable choices in the health insurance market because of rampant industry consolidation..."
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 07/26/2009 @ 09:22am
Why does Katrina Vanden Heuvel neglect to state that Obama will gut medicare in the name of healthcare reform? How can you cut $500 billion from medicare when baby boomers are nearing enrollment age and the medicare trust fund is going broke? Instead of medical treatment, seniors will get end-of-life counseling.
Posted by althusius at 07/26/2009 @ 09:35am
I do not agree that opposition to Obama's plan from blue-dog democrats and conservative senators is necessarily a bad thing. The alternative will be ramming a faulty health care plan down the throats of millions of people who question it's viabilty.
Having said that, our system of health care does indeed need some reform but only in four areas.
1. Medicare and medicaid should be strenthened to provide for the influx of baby boomers that is expected. If we can bail out the banks and auto industry, it would be a sin not to provide for the elderly who have built this country.
2. The Government should provide protection against anyone of it's citizens financial ruin from a catastrophic illness. But it should be in the form of an insurance plan that individuals would pay a modest yearly sum into. It shouldn't be forced but rather made attractive enough so that everyone would participate seperate from their private plans.
3. There must be legislation enacted that makes it illegal for any private insurer to deny any of it's clients coverage because of the so-called prior condition.
4. Lastly, we need tort reform to alleviate the financial burden imposed upon doctors in the form of malpractice insurance. Doctors are ordering billions of dollars worth of unesscessary tests because of fear of suit. The system should be made more fair to doctors, perhaps with a lowering of premiums or a lessor cap on damages that they can be sued for. It is up to individuals to do their homework and select competant doctors, which patients should be able to select.
I think that if these four areas could be ironed out, the nation would have improved it's health care system drastically. There is no need for a complete overhaul that would cost trillions.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 07/26/2009 @ 10:30am
"I'm shocked, absolutely shocked that Katrina thinks that moderates are the extremists. (LOL)
Before long, she will be calling Ted Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich "moderates".
Posted by antisocialist at 07/24/2009 @ 1:55pm | "
I'm shocked, absolutely shocked that antisocialist would ignore the, y'know, actual evidence that Katrina provided showing that the so-called "moderates" are now significantly to the right of the American mainstream. Facts and reality have such a liberal bias.
Posted by siegeljd at 07/26/2009 @ 12:07pm
Haven't we spent well over $1 trillion on the Afghan and Iraq? Didn't Bloomburg report $11 trillion bail-out, to date, for big "banksters"? Now we're begrudging any money for health care reform and not nearly enough money for job creation. Isn't it somewhere around 30,000 jobs for every $1 billion spent on infrastructure? That's like 360 million jobs if we used war and bail-out money on infrastructure. People doubt that it can't be that easy but, every time I've run into a situation like this on a small scale in my personal life at work, it is THAT easy. It always turns out that someone is gaming the system for personal gain.
Posted by OccidentalPeninsular at 07/26/2009 @ 12:10pm
Posted by gunslinger1 at 07/26/2009 @ 10:30am:
That makes perfectly good sense.
Posted by pyeatte at 07/26/2009 @ 12:59pm
Every Objective Poll on the Planet Indicates Americans Don't Trust Republicans on Health Care
Consider: last week's ABC News poll shows Obama with a staggering 20-point lead on the GOP.
the irrelevance of the GOP is even more striking. 10% (trust Republicans with health care)! So less than half of the GOP's own shrinking base trusts Republicans to fix health care.
So the next time you see Bill O'Reilly or Eric Cantor prattling on and on about What Americans Really Want From Health Care Reform, just remember: no one's listening.
http://tinyurl.com/njgl9d
Posted by judybrowni at 07/26/2009 @ 2:37pm
Hopeful news:
•Nancy Pelosi says insurance companies have had a long enough time and rejected possible delays for a public option.
"No, no, no, no," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN's State of the Union when asked whether she had softened her position on the public option.
"The president has said he believes the public option is a way -- a way to keep the private insurance companies honest. But he said if you could find another way to do this, show it to me."
Pelosi also rejected the idea of using a trigger to kick in a public option three to five years after passage of any health care reform bill.
"I think the private insurance industry has had a long enough time to have a trigger. We know what happens left to their own devices," the California Democrat said.
On whether the healthcare bill might fail, she went on to say:
"Absolutely, positively not," Pelosi responded. "When I take this bill to the floor, it will win." http://tinyurl.com/lkyxbg
Posted by judybrowni at 07/26/2009 @ 2:57pm
Hey Mask, You out there?
Obviously, it's WAAAAAAAY too early to start gloating, so I'm definitely not doing that. But with respect to our bet from June 25 I found this article interesting.
All other things being equal, I'm much happier to see 3000 record low temps rather than 3000 record high temps.
http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp? blog=weathermatrix&partner=&pgUrl=/mtweb/ content/weathermatrix/archives/2009/07/10 00_low_temp_records_set_this_july.asp
3,000 Low Temp Records Set This July!
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/26/2009 @ 3:34pm
<i>Posted by snowball777 at 07/26/2009 @ 07:46am </i>
First off, I completely agree with you on the Constitutional analysis (and, by the way, antisocialist has made NO substantive response to this, other than to say "no they don't" in any of the threads I recall seeing; I've made the argument for both clauses, and I've seen no good response whatsoever). Congress has the power to spend for health-care under the "tax-and-spend" clause, and it has the power to regulate health-care under the "interstate commerce" clause. One word of caution, though: the "general welfare" standard is ONLY for taxing and spending; it has to impact interstate commerce before it can be regulated.
That aside, it seems to me like you're dodging a big part of the question. The fact that Congress has the constitutional power to do something doesn't mean that it should do it. That's why the philosophical framework question is still relevant. The Constitution defines what the government MAY do; I'm asking you what the standard is for determining, within the government's rightful powers, what it SHOULD do.
<i>Posted by dexter666 at 07/26/2009 @ 12:17am </i>
This, however, is the start of a response. What I'm arguing is that there are two practical questions:
1) What role ought government play? 2) Is X program efficient?
Question (1) seems like it's being ignored because the presupposition is "if it's easier to have the government do it, the government should do it."
Whatever some may say, this debate is not "do we care about people?" It's "what kind of system will work best." Both sides largely agree that the status quo has some gaping flaws, so let's quit saying "oh, those conservatives, they just don't care."
As I said, I'm ambivalent, but let's make the arguments honest.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/26/2009 @ 4:09pm
It is time that Democrats support Russ Feingold and not weak, scared, cowardly republican light Democrats. obama has done little to give America the confidence we need when it comes to prosecuting the bush/cheney crime spree... I will vote for a strong Democrat who supports liberal values in 2012.
Posted by Tiger2Lover at 07/26/2009 @ 4:22pm
Max Baucus IS 'centrist'......... for a Montanan. I lived there for a long time. Which is like saying that he eats red meat in a tribe of cannibals. Montanans, as a rule, work very hard, but are mostly self-employed or sponge off government subsidies paid for by the rest of the country. (though they will deny it to Jesus Christ himself.) They lust after the 'easy money' that corporate America has promised. They just haven't figured out that, in order to be a member of 'the club', you have to be a brother of the right fraternity, have your MBA from the right school or be related to the Rothschild or Rockefeller mob. Max Baucus probably means well, just like Al Cap0ne did.
Posted by DejaVu at 07/26/2009 @ 4:39pm
Those who say must have Govt Ins. plan have no understanding of how insurance works & reason we can't afford coverage! Govt allows insurance companies to tell you you're not part of a group so you must pay highest rate offered for policy. Pass law requiring companies put all insured in no more than 3 groups. Law would allow them to offer 3 coverages high, medium & low. Ins. Companies then have 1 large group maybe 2 or 3. Now businesses of only 100s of young employees get real low rate and an individual gets same coverage at extreme high cost. If in 1 group they get a cost between the high & low. Means near 1/2 people will pay less, near the same (if they match group health characteristics of population) & uninsured will be able to buy coverage at more reasonable rate than now.
Thus spending not a single dime the Govt makes it possible for between 1/3 to 2/3 s of uninsured to buy affordable health insurance coverage. Do this first, & find how many really can't afford it!
Example: Fed Govt employees with Blue Cross & Blue Shield (BC&BS) insurance: Those non-Govt folks BC&BS covers are splintered into many groups all over USA & smaller groups pay more. Fed Govt negotiates rates for all its employees nation wide & gets Lower Rates. This law forces companies to handle everyone they cover in no more than three groups nationally. All Govt employees are now 2 groups, medium coverage & lower coverage, these groups are so big they get lower rates & everyone thinks government employee are getting great deal, even if as single with medium coverage they pay $152.06 a month on top of large sum the government pays. Put all covered by BC&BS nation wide into 2 or 3 groups and group size will make Govt group look like molehill next to mountain. end 1HKgovt Continued with 2HKgovt
Posted by HKgovt at 07/26/2009 @ 4:44pm
1) What role ought government play? 2) Is X program efficient?
Posted by Thrawn at 07/26/2009 @ 4:09pm
It's more complicated than that. You have to define what you mean by "efficient". If I spend 10 hours picking aluminum cans out of the ditch and take them to the recylcing center and get paid $1.50, that is not cost efficent if I spend $2.00 in gas to get there. It is cost efficient if I only spend $1.00 in gas round trip, but it means my time is worth $0.05 per hour. So it's not time efficient.
This is the crux of politics becuase you have people with different goals. Do you want to maximize national utility? Do you want to minimize economic disparity? Do you want to maximize avg life expectancy? Do you want to maximize GDP?
Free markets are the most efficient means to allocate scarce resources; however, they have risks. Markets break down when half the population riots because they can't afford food.
I think you need to better define what you mean by "efficient".
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/26/2009 @ 4:44pm
2HKgovt 1HKgovt1 continued with: Big savings for Ins. Companies because: only underwrite 1 to 3 groups instead of dozens, 100s or 1000s, only three kinds of paperwork not 100s of kinds. Underwriters and actuaries will determine estimated annual cost of medical treatment for group members plus the necessary profit and divide that total by the largest number of group members they have ever seen. Answer is premium we pay & it will benefit nearly all, but especially the uninsured. This will happen at all insurance companies big & small. Companies have splintered coverage groups as small as possible & used that excuse to charge high premiums. Their profits were increased, but they harmed the USAs medical system, the coverage & care available & worst of all expanded the uninsured. Ins. Company marketing will cause many more to be covered than are covered now! Let profit motive work to the benefit of all. Don't throw a stupid Govt monkey wrench in health care system and expect anything to work better.
Posted by HKgovt at 07/26/2009 @ 4:46pm
Those who say must have Govt Ins. plan have no understanding of how insurance works & reason we can't afford coverage! Govt allows insurance companies to tell you you're not part of a group so you must pay highest rate offered for policy. Pass law requiring companies put all insured in no more than 3 groups. Law would allow them to offer 3 coverages high, medium & low. Ins. Companies then have 1 large group maybe 2 or 3. Now businesses of only 100s of young employees get real low rate and an individual gets same coverage at extreme high cost. If in 1 group they get a cost between the high & low. Means near 1/2 people will pay less, near the same (if they match group health characteristics of population) & uninsured will be able to buy coverage at more reasonable rate than now. Thus spending not a single dime the Govt makes it possible for between 1/3 to 2/3 s of uninsured to buy affordable health insurance coverage. Do this first, & find how many really can't afford it!
Example: Fed Govt employees with Blue Cross & Blue Shield (BC&BS) insurance: Those non-Govt folks BC&BS covers are splintered into many groups all over USA & smaller groups pay more. Fed Govt negotiates rates for all its employees nation wide & gets Lower Rates. This law forces companies to handle everyone they cover in no more than three groups nationally. All Govt employees are now 2 groups, medium coverage & lower coverage, these groups are so big they get lower rates & everyone thinks government employee are getting great deal, even if as single with medium coverage they pay $152.06 a month on top of large sum the government pays. Put all covered by BC&BS nation wide into 2 or 3 groups and group size will make Govt group look like molehill next to mountain. end1HKgovt seefinish at 2HKgovt
Posted by HKgovt at 07/26/2009 @ 4:51pm
The current status of healthcare in America:
There ar 47+million people uninsured. Today it is virtually impossible to have a primary care physician without having health insurance. Paying for your treatment by cash or credit card usually isn't good enough to become a patient of the practice. The uninsured usually wind up in emergency rooms or "emergency clinics" which can treat your cough or flu symptoms for Visa or Mastercard. We all pay for those hospital emergency room visits.
If you are uninsured you cannot get insurance if you have a "previously existing condition".
If you lose your job you wind up on COBRA which is usually good for 18 months. It is expensive (compared to what you were paying when you were employed) - of course being out of work doesn't help pay the premium. After COBRA you can usually buy a policy if you have no break in coverage. It happened to me - cost $1,120 per month - just for me.
Millions are "under insured" and not by choice - having say a 50% co-pay for hospital stays. Health care costs a responsible for 40% of all personal bankruptcies.
Hospitals routinely overcharge for services - they settle for a relatively small percentage of the total from insurance companies and Medicare but not from individuals.
Millions of us over 65 would be uninsured without Medicare.
Capitalism 101 dictates that a profit making health insurance company will try to increase revenue each year by raising premiums, reduce expenses by increasing deductibles, renegotiate regularly with hosptials and doctors to reduce the amounts paid for services, cull their insurance customers by dropping sick and old people, not insure sick and old people individually to begin with etc.
Reform without a public option is more B. S.
Posted by toritto at 07/26/2009 @ 6:46pm
now they are saying that h.k will give free abortions they don,t care about abortio as long as itsnot againts whie babys
Posted by glennleon at 07/26/2009 @ 6:47pm
<i>Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/26/2009 @ 4:44pm </i>
Fair enough. What I'm trying to tap into is the fact that there are two broad levels of analysis: the philosophical and the pragmatic. The philosophical matters because there's a difference between saying "the government has the power to do X" and "the government should do X." The question there is: what role ought government play? The pragmatic part matters because even if government is justified in somehow providing or paying for health-care, the next question is whether it's pragmatic for the government to do so.
Engagement has to happen on both levels. In other words, I'm primarily dealing with the framework debate.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/26/2009 @ 7:11pm
Why does Katrina Vanden Heuvel neglect to state that Obama will gut medicare in the name of healthcare reform? How can you cut $500 billion from medicare when baby boomers are nearing enrollment age and the medicare trust fund is going broke? Instead of medical treatment, seniors will get end-of-life counseling.
Posted by althusius at 07/26/2009 @ 09:35am | ignore this person | warn this person
Euthanasia for the over 65 boomers is what the Obamanaiton that makes desolation and the Demoncrats refer to when they say there will be "rationing" of healthcare! Kinda reminds one of Charlton Heston in "Solent Green" doesn't it?
Posted by BigPasture at 07/26/2009 @ 11:12pm
Posted by Thrawn at 07/26/2009 @ 4:09pm
1. There is no right to healthcare. The govt has no authority controlling things that are not rights.
2. Healthcare is not an issue even for a liberal interpretation of "the general welfare". the general welfare of the nation cannot possibly be impacted by how people choose to obtain medical assistance (or don't choose to).
I repeat that even a very liberal member of Congress like Jesse Jackson Jr. has proposed a constitutional amendment to make healthcare a right because he believes UHC or single payer will not stand up under SCOTUS scrutiny.
3. Not that you have made this comparison, but the pro Sgl payer/UHC side errs in citing Europe as contrast. The EU charter mandates that healthcare is a right and all EU members are required to implement guaranteed healthcare.
Posted by antisocialist at 07/26/2009 @ 11:19pm
A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that President Barack Obama's rating in Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index has hit negative double digits for the first time.
The survey found that 29 percent of voters strongly approve of Obama's job performance, while 40 percent strongly disapprove.
Rasmussen calculates its Presidential Approval Index by subtracting the "strongly disapprove" figure from the "strongly approve" figure. As a result, Obama's overall score is a minus-11. That's the first time his rating has reached negative double digits.
Other results of the poll:
49 percent somewhat approve of Obama's performance.
50 percent disapprove of Obama's performance.
76 percent see Obama as liberal.
48 percent see Obama as very liberal.
54 percent primarily blame former President George W. Bush for America's economic woes.
25 percent say the U.S. economy has been aided by the economic stimulus package.
53 percent oppose the Democratic healthcare reform package.
37 percent say deficit reduction should be Obama's top priority.
20 percent say healthcare should be Obama's top priority.
The poll is based on answers from 1,500 likely voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
I'd say all you 29%ers have a real problem along with the 20%ers that think national healthcare is important!
Posted by BigPasture at 07/26/2009 @ 11:39pm
You have completely missed the point. The "Blue Cross" Dems don't have any kind of ideological bent at all. It's the money, stupid. Max Baucus and his ilk have sold out in order to protect their political careers.
Unless and until we get the money (lobbyists) out of our political system, America is doomed.
Posted by China at 07/27/2009 @ 01:01am
The philosophical matters because there's a difference between saying "the government has the power to do X" and "the government should do X." The question there is: what role ought government play? The pragmatic part matters because even if government is justified in somehow providing or paying for health-care, the next question is whether it's pragmatic for the government to do so.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/26/2009 @ 7:11pm
I think my point is that before you can answer what the government ought to do, you have to know what you'd like to achieve.
If your goal is to maximize utility, the government should leave the delivery of health care to the free market. (Since the purpose of democracy is to balance competing priorities, as a pragmatic matter, the government will have to subsidize the poor who can afford care, as they do now, with laws about emergency rooms and medicaid. Who is subsidized and how much will depend upon the democractic balance point.)
If your goal is to maximize life expectancy or minimize economic disparity among the population, the government should deliver healthcare.
You can't know what ought to be done until you know what it is you are trying to accomplish.
In Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers", he describes a societal opinion survey conducted by a bunch of academics that polled public opinion regarding responsibility: Is it primarily the individual's responsibility or is it the responsibility of the collective society to provide for individual's needs.
Of all the countries surveyed the US had the highest support for individual and Guatamalla had the highest score for collective.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 06:38am
Also, what a hypothetical government ought to do may be an interesting theoretical discussion, but a more practical question is what should President Obama's administration do?
In practice our Constitution, with it's winner-take-all framework, means that Dems and Reps take turns implementing changes in policy.
The Dems favor greater collective responsibility and the Reps greater individual responsibility. On the issue of healthcare, public opinion has been moving in the Dems direction. This has created the opportunity for the Dems to change US policy. But what should their strategy be?
Technically speaking, the Dems have control of the White House, House, and Senate. In theory, they could do just about anything that is not directly in violation of the Constitution. In practice, their members won't do anything to jepordize re-election.
The best strategy is to figure out where the new balance point is and craft a policy "a little" more collectivist than that. If they go too far, voters will revolt and Reps will just repeal it in four years, and it will damage attempts to move things in their direction for decades. (Think about trying to restart a discussion on alcohol prohibition.)
The other thing the have to do is keep their fingers crossed that the economy recovers. The middle class is notoriously fickle when it comes to caring for the poor. In hard times, support for welfare (income transfer programs) evaporates. That was the brilliance of FDR's decision to make SS virtually universal. Even though it is primarily an anti-poverty program, people don't view it as welfare and support is generally high through thick and thin.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 06:57am
Assuming they take my advice and craft a program a little to the left of the current balance point, the next thing they have to do (if they want continued support and success in changing public opinion regarding the individual/collective responsibility for healthcare) is to change public opinion regarding rationing.
I read an article in one of the London papers that had an interesting observation. UK citizens are very comfortable with the necessity of rationing. The author commented on how the opinion that pervades the US is one of entitlement to the best for everyone. US citizens believe that if a treatment is available, they are entitled to it no matter the cost. (The result of three generations of third party payer insurance.)
This is the reason that the US spends a higher percentage of GDP on healthcare than any other contry in the world.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 07:03am
...sorry to say, you have lost your cojones now. Posted by IlyaKuryakin at 07/24/2009 @ 3:42pm |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQyJnAs7BlU
Wait for it...around :53...
"I go and do whatever I am told to, by our Chief..."
Posted by snowball777 at 07/27/2009 @ 07:30am
And at 1:24
Posted by AlexWaverlyNumber1Section1 at 07/27/2009 @ 07:34am
IlyaKuryakin at 07/24/2009 @ 3:42pm |
"Georgia's always on my my my my my, my, mind..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NiIHtbvpLM
Posted by AlexWaverlyNumber1Section1 at 07/27/2009 @ 07:38am
<i>Posted by antisocialist at 07/26/2009 @ 11:19pm </i>
Since you seem to be conceding the technical Constitutional grounds ("government can only enforce rights" is clearly not a limit in the Constitution), I'll address the theory.
<<There is no right to healthcare. The govt has no authority controlling things that are not rights.>>
What? How do you figure?? The government provides a national defense, and people don't exactly have a right to have someone else fight for them. People don't have a right to highways, either. This argument just seems bizarre.
<<Healthcare is not an issue even for a liberal interpretation of "the general welfare". the general welfare of the nation cannot possibly be impacted by how people choose to obtain medical assistance (or don't choose to). >>
Really? One, the Constitution leaves it to Congress to ascertain what the "general welfare" is (see political question doctrine). Two, how could this not be part of the general welfare? It involves literally millions of people and affects the overall health of the society. The health-care system under which a society operates affects everyone.
In fact, you agree with this...because this is what many of your arguments against universal healthcare are premised on! When you say "lines will be long" or "quality will go down," you're not talking about a select group of people, you're talking about the society as a whole. In doing so, you're conceding that the choice of what health-care system to operate under affects society as a whole. At that point, your "this doesn't affect general welfare analysis" gets beaten by your own arguments.
Posted by Thrawn at 07/27/2009 @ 07:58am
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/26/2009 @ 3:34pm
Darin, you can gloat all you want...
when the 2012 Republican nominee for President comes out and says EITHER GW isn't man-made or isn't real.
Otherwise, you're still irrelevant.
Posted by Mask at 07/27/2009 @ 08:17am
If you enjoyed KVH's take on the Blue Dogs you'll love Paul Krugman's take:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=2
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 09:04am
Darin, you can gloat all you want...
Posted by Mask at 07/27/2009 @ 08:17am
I'm not gloating. I just said it was better news than the alternative.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 09:06am
I find it very interesting that in 2006 Rahm Emmanuel headed the DCCC and he went out of his way to pick Blue Dogs to run for Congress. Now Emmanuel is Obama's chief of staff, what goes?
Heath Shuler was mentioned in the article. Heath Shuler was not sure if he wanted to run as a Republican or Democrat until Bill Clinton called him and urged him to run as a Democrat. He was one of Emmanuel's favorites
Posted by CPooler at 07/27/2009 @ 09:18am
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 09:06am |
Hey, again, gloat away...
soon as GW Denial is shown to have any REAL political influence in 2010 or 2012.
BTW, saying "We need market solutions" (a la Gingrich)...still means he believes it's real, man-made, and needs addressing.
Posted by Mask at 07/27/2009 @ 09:53am
do blue dogs have red fleas?
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 09:58am
The govt has no authority controlling things that are not rights.
Posted by antisocialist at 07/26/2009 @ 11:19pm
don't forget the constitution says in article 3, section 2b that "iraq is a right".
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 10:00am
If your goal is to maximize utility, the government should leave the delivery of health care to the free market.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 06:38am
ooooooooooh, like derivatives!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 10:01am
UK citizens are very comfortable with the necessity of rationing.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 07:03am
as are insurance companies.
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 10:03am
"The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage." --
Danish Proverb
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 10:13am
it's 3 a.m........
the phone rings.
ARF!
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 10:28am
If you enjoyed KVH's take on the Blue Dogs you'll love Paul Krugman's take:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=2
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/27/2009 @ 09:04am
That was a great article. Thanks for sharing Darin.
Posted by Extraneous at 07/27/2009 @ 12:38pm
In fact, the vast majority of Blue Dogs, won in their districts as Democrats while the very same voters carried those districts for McCain and Palin.
Split-vote districts yield centrist Congressmen. The alternative to centrist Democrats is cenrist Republicans.
Posted by balataf at 07/27/2009 @ 1:00pm
Posted by sjchermak at 07/24/2009 @ 6:34pm
Dude, stop being so paranoid. I am a die-hard-pinko-commie-librul and I don't know how to use the tiny url, either. Chill out, man.
Life continues....
BREATHE.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 07/27/2009 @ 1:48pm
I'm a quantum field, not a position on a number line.
Posted by snowball777 at 07/26/2009 @ 07:46am | ignore this person | warn this person
Dude, that's a great quote! Can I steal it...maybe for a character in a play I'm working on?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 07/27/2009 @ 1:54pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 07/27/2009 @ 1:54pm |
Have at it, whether you were sarcastic or not.
Posted by AlexWaverlyNumber1Section1 at 07/27/2009 @ 5:14pm
Posted by AlexWaverlyNumber1Section1 at 07/27/2009 @ 5:14pm |
What he said.
Posted by snowball777 at 07/27/2009 @ 7:46pm
Obama care is not reform. It is statism. Obamas plan with Orzag removes power from the people, by removing the congress to make decisions. With the Orzag plans they create a new bureaucracy like the EPA which panders to fringe groups who create law without the input of the constituents. No choice. Barack is only pro-choice when he gets to choose. Kinda like the decider.
Posted by apoorspic at 07/27/2009 @ 10:28pm
Posted by apoorspic at 07/27/2009 @ 10:28pm |
But what color are their helicopters?
Posted by snowball777 at 07/28/2009 @ 07:05am
The Democrats are losing the health care argument because the Republicans are controlling the discussion. The fact is that Republicans are for Anti-Social Health Care, you know like "I got mine and I really don't care if you get yours". Like it's OK for my human "too big to fail" assets to be protected but not yours.
If we are truly equal, (is this still true?) I have a suggestion: simply take the current annual cost of USA health insurance and divide it by the amount of people in the USA and charge each person that amount annually. Then the employers can decide whether or not to pay it and the insurance companies can compete for the business based on the quality of their use and preventative care service. The poor can use some sort of tax credit and work for health program.
If you respond that some are healthier than others and do not need it, then why don't we use the same philosophy and get rid of Social Security and let the Republicans run a new Anti-Social Security, and watch old people revolt?
thanksbutnothanks
Posted by thanksbutnothanks at 07/28/2009 @ 07:22am
Thank you for this article. Sen. Baucus and his senate buddies are not only destroying the reform, but they are also destroying the democratic party itself. I hope the democrates realize what is happening.
Posted by wwsd at 07/28/2009 @ 3:03pm