…just as Social Security was rammed down people’s throats. And Medicare was rammed down people’s throats. And, for that matter, so were Civil Rights…which may come as a surprise to the people yelling racial epithets at politicians who apparently were unaware that that happened.
Fascinating that the Right, led by Fox, is howling what a douche bag Obama is for ignoring the will of the people, considering that, just a couple of years ago, those selfsame individuals declared that criticizing a president during times of war was unpatriotic and, furthermore, praised Bush for his refusal to be swayed by polls and protestors.
The Democrats got something done and the GOP is furious, because it removes the ability to campaign on the idea that the Democrats are getting nothing done. So now their plan is going to be campaigning on the basis of undoing it…so that they can return to the status quo of doing nothing about health care. It’ll be interesting to see if it works.
PAD
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FIrst thing, stop calling them the “Right”, they’re the republicans, and they are rarely “right”.
In fact, where did the whole left/right axis come from and who decoded which party was which?
My guess would be the repuds, since they ended up on the “right” side…
As I recall, it came from the French. In the French Parliament some centuries back, the progressives tended to cluster to the left side of the assembly while the conservatives grouped to the right hand side. So when you heard from the right, it was literally the right side of the chamber, and likewise from the left.
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In those days, of course, Fox News was called Renard.
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PAD
have you heard there is no left or right anymore just up and down.
Or, more likely, “Faux”.
You’re right in that it comes from the French, but I believe even more specifically, it comes from the Meeting of the Tennis Courts in the very beginning of the French Revolution (the one during the 18th century). The more conservatives on the right, the more liberal on the left, and the absolute loonies in the back.
They are in this case. And this fight is just getting started. This deal was so dirty that it will be fought(and beaten) on many fronts. And the idea that the GOP won’t be able to campaign on the Dems getting nothing done is a joke. The GOP owns Congress after the next election. That’s why all that vote buying was so expensive. Pelosi, through arm twisting, beatings with rubber hoses, and a whole lot of our tax money to purchase cooperation, managed to convince an entire political party to commit suicide.
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But the Dems did accomplish a lot yesterday. Undermining the Constitution, breaking every parlimentary rule in the book, and twarting the will of the people to pass a key item in their socialist agenda.
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IT’S MILLER TIME!!!!!!!
Actually the Dems’ major accomplishment seemed to be using the GOP’s favorite parliamentary tactics against them. As for the will of the people, I think every person who’s ever been denied health care because of pre-existing conditions would feel their will has been served just fine.
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PAD
Undermining the Constitution
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So, where were you during the signing of the Patriot Act?
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I keep asking this of those on the Right, but I never seem to get an answer. I wonder why…
Why have health insurance until you are sick? If there are no pre-exsisting conditions we can now just sign up when we get sick. I like the idea will save me big time.
Actually, there’s a part of the constitution people always seem to forget. It’s called the Preamble, or the statement that sets the goals of the document.
Bold is my emphasis, if it works..
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”
It’s that General Welfare thing, ya know. Doesn’t mean the Welfare of Generals.
But lets face it, this was not about Healthcare. This is about the polarization of politics and the fact that more people now care about who proposed or carried the legislation than the content. If this had been a Republican initiative, the Democrats would have fought just as ugly as a minority party, because its not about the people anymore, its about who wins and beating the other guy (with some tints of racism, classism, regionalism, etc.
Why have health insurance until you are sick? If there are no pre-exsisting conditions we can now just sign up when we get sick.
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The short answer is: Let’s not have auto insurance until you get into an accident.
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The longer answer is: Because if you have health insurance, then it becomes easier for you to go to the doctor and get regular check-ups so that small health problems can be caught and treated before they become big health problems.
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PAD
And fortunately for you, thanks to the healthcare bill, any alcohol poisoning or jaundice you may suffer from you celebrating can no longer be used as a reason to deny you or drop your coverage.
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Wrong Miller Time, Sasha. From the way he threw it in there I believe it’s a reference to Dennis Miller’s braindead bit on O’Reilly’s show on Fox News.
Bladster-YOU are right with that comment. Frankly I hope the health care bill gets the GOP sick as a dog.
A very weird day. Went to bed soon after hearing that the National Healthcare Bill has nearly arrived admist the screams of Republican Politicians’ protests of outrage… only hours after watching Unprecedented, a documentary that provided detailed information on how the Republican Party manipulated voting laws, the co…urt system and the American Public during the 2000 election….very weird indeed. Also, sadly reaffirming that many of our representatives see us as suckers, when they consider us at all.
It’ll be interesting to see if it works.
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Sadly, it just might. The GOP is leading by anger and fear, which is about the only way they know how to operate these days.
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And is there anybody the right-wing nutjobs haven’t attacked over the last week? There was the video of Teabaggers throwing money in the face of a man who claimed he had Parkinson’s. They verbally attacked an 11-year old. They targeted the children of a Democrat in Ohio. They went after gay, black, and Hispanic Democrats.
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In the end, the Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves for this, because they continued to refuse to do nothing about our fûçkëd up health care system.
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Is this bill perfect? Hëll no. But I’d rather some attempt be made to address the situation than to sit back and do nothing, as so many of those in Congress who get whatever they want for health care seem content to do.
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My biggest complaint is the fact that I’m not sure this bill really addresses what I think are the root problems of health insurance: the existence of the insurance companies themselves and the wasted money involved (paperwork, unnecessary tests).
You’re not going to get very far helping out health care until you deal with one of the root problems as shown by the symptom of “unnecessary tests”. And that’s the dismantling – or at the very least throttling back – of the litigious society you’ve got going down there. Now, it isn’t so much providing health care as covering their áššëš in case a frivolous lawsuit comes their way.
Now, it isn’t so much providing health care as covering their áššëš in case a frivolous lawsuit comes their way.
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Lots of people – particularly the Republicans – like to talk about ‘tort reform’. Ie, stopping lawsuits.
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But frankly, in the numbers I’ve seen put out there for the waste in health care, frivolous lawsuits are a drop in the bucket. The biggest wastes by far appear to be in paperwork and unnecessary tests. We’re talking more than 50% of the waste, combined, where as tort reform came in at like 5-10%.
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So why is tort reform the issue they choose to focus upon (and still actually do little to nothing about)? I can only guess.
The actual suits may be a drop in the health care bucket, but my point is that doctors are worried enough about them that they order piles of tests … just in case … which they might otherwise eschew if they didn’t feel the need to keep the lawyers at bay.
Social Security and the Civil Rights Act legislation were both very bipartisan in both the creation and passage, and represented the will of the majority of Americans. This health care reform bill is neither. It’s a convoluted, tainted train wreck that we will all have to live with.
Wow. Civil Rights act? We had a war over the right to own slaves (and tax issues also). “activist judges” had to get involved to overturn the “will of the people” when it came to segregation in our schools. Many were killed, maimed and emotionally and physically devestated by conservatives who refused to admit that the negro had the same rights as the white man.
While there might have been some bipartisan work on the act itself, it was born out of hatred and blood as Americans killed to keep things the way they were and to protect their white way of life.
The Civil Rights Act, which is what PAD referred to, was in 1964, and it was a totally bi-partisan effort. It was also the will of the majority of Americans at the time. The majority of the most vocal and violent dissenters of the Act were, by the way, Democrats.
You’re talking about the Civil Rights Act that had ‘sex’ added to the list in an effort to SINK the bill, right? The one with the filibuster that lasted fifty-four days? The one that, when Lyndon Johnson signed it he reportedly declared “We have lost the South for a generation.” THAT Civil Rights Act?
Yeah, the South that had been solidly in the Democrat camp from the Civil War through 1948; and a South that was still fundamentally voting Democratic until 1968; and a South that did not break firmly into the Republican camp until the 1980 presidential election. By then, those “evil Southerners” were but a shell of their former segregationalist selves. The fact is, the Democratic Party as a whole embraced those Southern Democrats for more than 100 years — as long as it was politically convenient to do so.
R, when you say, “the Democratic Party”, you’re not talking about the same Democratic Party that exists today. There were a lot of people who broke away from the Democratic party in movements like the Dixiecrats over the decades. Some of them or their descendants are in the Tea Party rallies today, or are just flat out registered Republicans. Some are still Democrats, showing just how complex this whole thing is.
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So it doesn’t really make sense to lump everyone who has ever been in a political party together. Republicans aren’t the same party as they were in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, either.
Jason, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t crow about past initiatives and ignore important contextual realities. PAD brought up examples from the past where he alleges programs were “rammed” down the throats of the American people and where now things are supposedly all better. All I did was put things into historical perspective. I didn’t even mention the fact that two of the three “successful” programs are perpetually strapped for cash — one of which was even gutted to pay for this new healthcare reform bill (robbing Peter to Pay Paul, so tto speak). The third, the Civil Rights Act, has had resulted in some important successes, but has also has resulted in some dismal failures. For example, do blacks have access to better schools now than they did in the 1950s? I know they don’t in some areas — many of which are perrenial democratic enclaves. This is ironic because Democrats regularly tout as one of “their” successes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As an independent, I don’t trust either party, and, as I’ve pointed out before, I always keep my hands on my wallet when dealing both sides.
R, I’m not trying to have it both ways.
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In fact, there’s absolutely no “having it both ways” type arguments in what I said. Plus, none of what I said is false.
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If you want to claim that I said something wrong, respond to what I said instead of throwing out a cliche like “you can’t have it both ways.”
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Also, you’re not actually arguing against what PAD said like you think you are. When PAD mentioned Social Security, Medicare, and Civil Rights he didn’t say which side supported those things. He said that some people opposed them, but he didn’t give total and sole credit to Democrats. Take a look at his post again and see exactly where he uses the word ‘Democrats’ because it wasn’t there.
Over the past few months, I’ve heard quite a few Democrats argue PAD’s exact points, and most HAVE touted those legacy programs as examples of Democrat success stories. Therefore, for most Democrats, I’d say the connection is most likely implied even when it is not specifically mentioned. This “We know what’s best for you” attitude — which Congress has taken to arrogant new heights — makes me bristle. Again, I did not link past programs with this healthcare reform fiasco — PAD did. As a Chicago native, this whole process reeked with Chicago-style politics. Democrats have ruled Chicago for about 75 years, and the typical process is as follows: Ignore the Republicans because they are irrelevant. Arm-twist the city council to play ball, and if certain people won’t budge, either isolate them until their term’s up and then dump them, or, if their vote is really necessary in the short term, make a deal — and then get rid of them later. In addition, if you want a result fast, but a law or two might be in the way, do it now and worry about the legal repercussions later (the mayor’s order a few years ago to bulldoze the Meigs Field runway in the middle of the night is a perfect example). This whole healthcare reform passage process was ugly, ugly, ugly; and it broke I don’t know how many campaign promises along the way.
Over the past few months, I’ve heard quite a few Democrats argue PAD’s exact points, and most HAVE touted those legacy programs as examples of Democrat success stories
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Uh…no. I think you’ll find that they’ve been touted as success stories that happened under Democratic presidents. The only reason I didn’t approach this from “Obama rams Health care,” which has been the Fox refrain, was that Pelosi really pitched in as well.
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PAD
PAD wrote: “Uh…no. I think you’ll find that they’ve been touted as success stories that happened under Democratic presidents.”
In the context it is usually raised, the “Democrat success story” angle is generally inferred. But the fact is, every one of those past programs had strong Republican buy-in. In the case of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, Republicans in both houses of Congress actually voted “yes” for the legislation at a much higher percentage rate than the Democrats because the Democrat voting bloc still included most Southern states. Yesterday’s particular bit of major legislation had zero Republican support, and the majority of Americans did not want it in its current form — yet it was passed anyway. It was a Pyrrhic victory for Democrats, and one that will very likely have negative repercussions for a long time to come. In the end, that many Democrats were saying of the nearly $1 trillion legislation, “Well, it’s better than nothing,” just shows how dysfunctional our Congress is.
History has proven that once a bill like this gets put into place, its rare that it is repealed. No Republican is going to want to take discounts to senior citizens prescriptions, no Republican is going to tell a family (esp during a recession) that they cannot keep their child on health insurance (because they aged out). Insurance Companies are going to like the new customers…
Its sad that the tea partiers who seem to be nothing but a bunch of ignorant racist a-holes(it annoys me that Marvel apologies to these people about hinting that they were racist and then having these people screaming racist and homophobic slurs) have not really tried to understand all the positive that the bill is going to accomplish.
I dont understand how they can claim health care is socialism when our police, public schools and fire departments are all “socialized”
I dont understand how people can be more afraid of a terrorist attack on their own person and therefore support two wars and yet not be afraid of getting sick and going bankrupt trying to get healthy or stay alive.
I dont understand how its the law that we all have to wear seatbelts (to protect our health) and buy car insurance when health insurance is looked at as socialist? Sure car insurance not only protects you, but the other driver in an accident, BUT health insurance not only protects you but the finacies and health of those around you. I had to take care of a sick brother for 3 years and the amount of money I spent on health care (not covered by his insurance) and the amount of energy it took to take care of him almost wiped me out physically.
I dont understand how my nonprofit that I run had a 65% increase in health care costs in Dec when it was time to renew and I had to spend valuable time trying to find a cheaper policy (which resulted in huge deductables for my staff and still increased the cost by 20%) and most people think that its okay.
I dont understand america, politics or the rural conservative republicans who fight like hëll against these policies and yet they are the ones who benefit from them the most.
Fox is also making up the “will of the people,” since polling consistently shows that a majority of Americans support health care reform.
But, you know, polls aren’t accurate. Unless they’re Fox’s polls, of course.
Right, but if you take all the people who hate the bill because it goes too far, and all the people who hate the bill because it does not go far enough, BAM, a majority of people don’t like the bill.
Lies, dámņ lies, and statistics, as D’israeli aptly noted. Or, as my friend Terence Chua remarked, “The more things stay, the more they change the sane.”
Well then, nothing to worry about come November. Should be a cakewalk. It’s a wonder they had to bribe so many Democrats to support this popular bill. But at least they will get to reap the benefits of supporting the people’s will.
Bill, the “bribes” were removed from HR 3950 by the reconciliation fixes contained in HR 4872.
But they had to put the bribes in to get the support. Once given they took some of the bribes back. Suckers!!!! The fact that these dopes did not get their pork does not in any way change the fact that said pork had to be dangled in front of them to get the support. And again, it jyst amazes me that a bill some seem to think is so popular–despite evidence to the contrary–was so difficult to pull off…and has seemingly left many of its supporters so defensive. Here’s a victory that would seem to call for celebration but look at how many of its fans are instead still snarling at the opposition, name calling and already preparing themselves for a possible defeat at the next opportunity for the voters to register their approval. It is to wonder.
This bill was difficult to pull off because in the Senate, any one Senator can stop a bill from passing unless the opposition can muster 60 votes to overcome that one Senator.
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The Senate filibuster has got to go. It’s killing our country.
I’d really love to see the Democrats turn the tables on the Republicans and make “voted AGAINST health care reform” a political liability.
The had a year to do so and it seemed to get less and less popular the longer they talked about it.
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here’s the thing–the situation, the overall situation vis a vis health care and the economy in general, is pretty poor. No need to go into all the details–look up the States public pension deficit situation or the coming commercial housing crash or the situation in China and the implications it has for us…anyway, it’s bad.
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Healthcare was going to be a mess regardless. I think this bill will not prevent that. Might even make it worse. At beast, it will not do much for most people. But from this point on, anything that does go bad will be blamed on it. Fair? No but when you make big promises you take your lumps when reality isn’t all candy and harmonicas.
Shouldn’t be a problem for the Dems. On the other hand, some conservative pundits are already proclaiming the passage of HCR as the “Waterloo” moment for the GOP. Too bad that their leadership still hasn’t understood those memos.
Change always seems so scary to some of the whiners, until they finally realize that they can actually LIVE with it after all.
It’s not the bill I wanted. It doesn’t have a lot of what’s needed in it. But it has quite a bit. And now that SOMETHING is there, it can be adjusted and tweaked until what America truly needs is worked in. So, thank you, congress.
You know, I was always taught in classes on the US Government that we elected our Senators and Representatives to, well, represent our best interests, as running a government by plebescite is seldom helpful (see the state of Washington for an example, especially since Tim Eyman started abusing the initiative process in 1998 to replace working for a living).
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Looks to me like these people – well, a majority of these people – finally got off their butts and did something that represents the best interests of their constituents, rather than leaning in the wind of public-opinion polls (which are themselves unreliable, as they seldom, if ever, correct for sample bias – the ones most likely to take the time to respond to such a poll are the ones most likely to hold an extreme opinion, on one side or the other).
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Now, being both adult and broke, all I have to do is hold out until 2014, and the expansion of Medicare, and maybe I can find out why my back hurts so very constantly (a condition I was never able to get investigated when I was employed, because it was a “pre-existing condition”…).
If I’ve learned anything from the Health Care “debate” over the last year, it’s that a VAST amount of Americans are selfish bášŧárdš.
In a country that a majority of, consider themselves a Christian, god fearing nation.
In a country that supposedly considers spreading peace throughout the land and over seas.
With all this flag waving and god loving “values” why the do so many care so little about their fellow man?
Why is America so much about ME, ME, ME and the HÊLL with anyone else?
I was raised to, among other things, be proud of my country and to treat and care for others as I do so for myself.
Why do I see so many Americans not give a dámņ for anyone else but themselves?
That’s what I’ve noticed about the whole debate and the douch…er…teabaggers.
It hasn’t been “How can we help the uninsured” it’s been “My health insurance will be affected/devalued by helping those that don;t have insurance!”
The typical republican “I’ve got mine, fûçk you!” attitude.
Their insurance will suffer because of left-wing initiatives?
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I’m behind the times – i’m still trying to figure out how/why the same people think gay marriage will damage their marriage.
We have become the Isreal of the time of Jesus. The money changers and whørëš are running the temple. In my opinion there is nothing “Jesus” like in modern Christianity. Christanity has become big business, something that provides millions for those who don’t want to do much but wallow in their own greed. You have the Catholic church and the Vatican turning into pedophile and illicit sex central, not to mention all their riches. You have the mega churches in the Protestant realm funneling tons of money through themselves and the majority of their leaders being scum, IMO.
About the only thing Marx got right was that religion is a “drug”, the majority of people will excuse anything if you just start belching out god this, jesus that in Christianity. The crooks know this and have taken over churches and their flocks are a reflection of their own corruption.
Frankly if Jesus showed up today, the modern god “fearing” conservative and church leader would have him tared, feathered and brought up on trumped up charges and thrown in jail.
Brian, I’ve thought for some time that if Jesus came back tomorrow and started preaching, a lot of the people who scream the loudest about being Christians would suddenly find themselves called to another religion pronto.
In fact, I’m thinking the anti-semitic homophobe my district has sent to Annapolis twice would probably suffer explosive decompression of the cranium.
The ironic thing about our healthcare system is that back in 1945 President FDR came on the TV and stated that he wanted America to create a second bill of rights. One of them being healthcare for all.
He died before the war ended and after the war, American dipolmats were sent to Japan, Italy and Germany to help rebuild. During this time America helped them create a new constitution which stated that healthcare and education was free to all.
In America the conservatives and the emerging health insurance giants quickly got together and killed any legislation that would prevent them from making money on peoples pain, illness and misfortune.
Now that we have a health care law, perhaps some of you conservatives will now be able to afford to call a
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WAHHHHmbulance.
That’d be the insurance with multi-tear coverage based on many different cry-teria.
I submit the following hypothesis:
There are more people in favor of some kind of healthcare reform (even this one) than people against it; but the people against it are more vocal and louder than the people in favor.
Just like the teabaggers they are in a miniorty standing against it.
Now if Obama and his team get their heads out of their behinds and actually spin this to their favor. I don’t know how the same people who ran one fantastic campaign that did the near impossible, have been such failures at controlling the message since then.
Was Howard Dean and his team the real masters behind the curtain and without him in a position of power the Dems are wimps or did their win make them too lazy. Really they win an African American the White House (something I didn’t think would be possible for another 20 to 30 years) and now can’t get “health care reform is good” out above the noise of Faux News and a minority who call themselves Teabaggers. WTF!
Well, after a year of yelling, arguing, arm twisting, vote buying, and enough political wrangling to strange a cat, the Democrats finally have a health care bill.
Accomplishments:
Increased the age that non-married children can be carried on a parents insurance.
Halted the ability for an health insurance company to drop a client due to illness.
Halted the ability for a health insurance company to deny coverage due to a pre-existing condition
Probably a few I don’t recall…
Failures:
Most provisions don’t take effect till after the next presidential election
Adds a new requirement for all adults to obtain health insurance.
No public option.
Does not address any of the tort or medical regulatory problems that have caused most of the problems we now have.
Starts taxing for the benefits immediately, but doesn’t provide most of those benefits for four years.
Who knows how many ‘attachments’ and ‘amendments’ that have nothing to do with healthcare, and everything to do to buying votes.
They accomplished something, but I suspect that for every positive in it, there will twice as many negatives. I think any protests from the insurance companies were of the “Don’t throw me in dat der br’ar patch!” variety…
Charlie
When the IRS (the designated enforcement arm of this) asks me to provide proof of health insurance, I intend to tell that that it’s none of their business whether or not I have engaged in a contract with a private firm. And I intend to cite HIPAA privacy laws to tell my employer and potential insurance provider when I tell them not to share that information.
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I particularly like the comparison to auto insurance. That one fails on two fronts: first, such laws are a state matter, not a federal one; second, if I don’t want to buy auto insurance, I can just not own a car. Here, I can just die.
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On the other hand, I think about all those young Obama voters who now have to pay for insurance that they don’t want and arguably don’t need, and I smile a little.
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J.
When the IRS
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You’ll excuse me if I call this what it is: an empty threat.
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On the other hand, I think about all those young Obama voters who now have to pay for insurance that they don’t want and arguably don’t need, and I smile a little.
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Do you smile when a child is denied coverage for a ‘pre-existing’ condition that they were born with? Do you smile when an insurance company decides to drop a medication that they covered before simply because they no longer wish to pay for it? How wide is your smile when somebody has health insurance, and then their insurance company drops them after looking for the flimsiest excuse possible?
Craig,
Are you in Austin TX?
No. I’ve never been to Texas.
There’s a word polite society has devised for people like you, Jay,
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That word is “jerk”.
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I really want to see you tell the IRS that you’re defying the law and/or its enforcement powers. Will you let me know in advance when you’re going tro do so, so that i can get my popcorn and cold drink ready?
“first, such laws are a state matter, not a federal one.”
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That’s a false argument. State’s Rights is always a false argument. If you were really anti-government, you wouldn’t care which government created the law.
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The truth is, people only talk about States Rights when their current state government happens to agree with them. It’s the grown up version of a child whose mother says no, so he goes and asks his father.
“Grown up” isn’t really apropos here, i’d say, but i can’t think of any other term that doesn’t also falsely imply some degree of maturity…
I just use “grown up” to me that someone is taller now. I think the fact that it’s thought of as a term used by kids keeps it from sounding more meaningful than that.
Except that as our Constitution is written, that is exactly what is supposed to happen. States are SUPPOSED to be a check on the federal government – it was designed that way to stop a large government from taking over.
From the beginning, though, that’s been a push-and-pull argument. Jefferson hated the thought of a strong federal government, Hamilton encouraged it.
Congress justifies virtually everything today as “interstate commerce”. Considering this bill accomplishes a lot of its reform with individual state exchanges, I keep wondering where the interstate commerce comes into play.
“States Rights is always a false argument.”
I’m so glad to hear from such a constitutional expert. Perhaps next we can just toss out that foolish Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. After all, the morons who wrote it weren’t even Democrats! They were … and – God help us! – “Democratic Republicans> (Huh! Democratic Republicans? What were they trying to pull? I bet they were Tea Partyers.) Actually, some of them WERE Tea Partyers, if you count the one in Boston. Modern political trends have steadily reduced claims of “state’s rights,” and the United States is increasingly treated as a unitary entity rather than a confederation of states, but the Constitution still remains, and Congress is not guaranteed or granted all conceivable power over the states. What power is not expressly granted to the Federal Executive or Legislative branches of government is reserved to the states.
That means something. What it means is subject to a great deal of debate, but it is not nothing. The argument that States’ rights is always a false argument leads inevitably to the idea that the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government has unlimited power to do anything willed by a simple majority of its members. This has been argued before. The fact that the Supreme Court can invalidate acts of Congress or the Executive Branch which violate the Constitution proves that nowhere in this nation is that degree of absolute power vested. Neither should it be. Much has been made of the lateness of health care, civil rights and other reforms. Think about that for a moment: Prior to the passage of such reforms, sufficiently distant, there was no majority demand for such reforms. In 1850, you could have found no majority which declared Blacks legally or socially equal to Whites: That did not settle the question, as one would expect from the fetishization of Congress. I have no doubt it would have been easy to find more than 50% who would have assured you it was the natural order for blacks, American Indians, Southern Europeans, Hispanics, Central and South Amerocans, Asians, women, Catholics, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and others to subject themselves to the wise rule of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Men. I hope you do not believe that would have been a permanent or a desirable solution to social inequality.
Unless your insurance company (and I mean all of it, from business offices to billing offices to call center) is located entirely in the same state you’re in, your dealings with it fall under the heading of “interstate commerce” – which the Constitution plainly puts within the purview of the federal government.
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It’s the same loophole that is used as a fig leaf for the fed’s anti-drug laws (although it is possible that if you smoke pot, it’s being grown in the same state you’re in, and should thus be free from federal regulation; however, very few of us live in places where cocaine or opium poppies are grown and processed…).
It is possible to grow opium poppies in much of the United States. It just isn’t done very often. I don’t know if there’s anywhere you could grow coca, though. (Maybe if you could find the right altitude in Hawaii.)
However, Jonathan, all insurance policies in a state, regardless of where the company’s home office is, must be approved by that state’s Department of Insurance. A policy I buy here in Pennsylvania could be verrrrrrrry different that the same policy written in New Jersey.
I’m unconvinced by the regulation of interstate commerce argument. The Government has the authority to control the way one engages in interstate commerce, but it seems a stretch to say it can compel a citizen to engage in interstate commerce. Declaring that a citizen is obligated to buy services from a private business is rather socialist collectivist. This country has fought quite a few ill advised wars to prevent other nations from moving toward collectivism: Are we now to do so ourselves because the big daddy in Washington says we should?
The Tenth Amendment pronounces that any powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government belongs to the individual States or the people. It is more than wishful thinking to believe no branch of the federal government has unlimited authority to regulate society: It is patriotism and respect for the U.S. Constitution.
Tell me, Jay, assuming you applied for student aid, did you advise the Financial Aid Department it was none of their business whether or not you used drugs? Did you also advise them it was none of their business whether or not you registered for selective service?
Just curious.
“On the other hand, I think about all those young Obama voters who now have to pay for insurance that they don’t want and arguably don’t need, and I smile a little”
Mr. Tea,
How do you know they don’t need it?
Does you smug attitude give you “ESP” powers?
My niece, at the very young age of 21, and on the last year under her mother’s insurance, went in for normal check up.
They discovered a problem with her heart. There was no heart history problems with her family and she was having no pains or any other warnings. Had she not found this out at that time, it could have grown into a life threatening condition.
So yeah Mr. Tea, all those young voters don’t need insurance. Hëll, they’re all indestructible!
I don’t think he said that all the people who don’t have health insurance don’t need it. But there is a large group–arguably the largest group among the uninsured–who are uninsured by their own choice.
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you can argue that they should be forced to get it and this law will provide for that. But pointing this out is not the same thing as denying that young people may need health care and checkups.
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I have a question though–now that we are all paying for each others health care shouldn’t we all have more say in how we live our lives? I don’t care if someone wants to drink themselves to death, unless I’m paying for it.
Bill, if you have insurance, you’re already paying for other people’s health care. Every month, your premiums have funded other people’s treatments minus administration costs.
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PS — not everyone is uninsured by choice. My applications for coverage were rejected three times by three separate insurers because of a preexisting condition.
Minus, also, ever-increasing profits paid to stockholders.
Well, sometimes. Some insurers are not publicly traded. For example, Kaiser Permanente is a non-profit HMO with no stockholders.
I sincerely hope we don’t live in the same community. I say this because I don’t agree with you, and since I disagree with you on this issue, it follows that I disagree with what you approve of for your money.
As such, I don’t think the police should ever come to your aid. Neither should the fire department. Also, and this is key, I think the sewage and street repair crews should skip the area in front of wherever you live.
You see, since we disagree on our choices, I think you should be denied services that I pay for.
QED.
AD
Bill, if you have insurance, you’re already paying for other people’s health care. Every month, your premiums have funded other people’s treatments minus administration costs.
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That’s very true but it would have been possible for the company to drop those who are egregiously abusing the system. That does not seem possible with the new bill (though I will not be surprised if something like that eventually comes to pass)
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PS — not everyone is uninsured by choice.
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I did try to make it clear that those uninsured by choice were a large group but not the only group among the uninsured. I am glad that this new bill will make life easier for people like yourself, Jennifer. that is a definite good to have come out of it, though it does not mean that this bill was the best way to achieve it.
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I sincerely hope we don’t live in the same community. I say this because I don’t agree with you, and since I disagree with you on this issue, it follows that I disagree with what you approve of for your money.
As such, I don’t think the police should ever come to your aid. Neither should the fire department. Also, and this is key, I think the sewage and street repair crews should skip the area in front of wherever you live.
You see, since we disagree on our choices, I think you should be denied services that I pay for.
QED.
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Not sure if that was directed at me or not. Since I also pay for said services you are in no more a position to deny me services than I am to you. My question was directed at those who are costi8ng all of us more than their fair share of the health care resource by their own careless behavior. To use your analogy, perhaps it could be argued that street repair crews should skip repairs on the streets of people who, after every repair, deliberately go out and tear up the road again.
“Fair share” seems a bit awkward in this context, doesn’t it?
How do you define “fair share?”
Let’s say that someone leaves their window open. A mouse scuttles in and goes into the heater, catches fire from a pilot light, and sets the house ablaze. Are they paying less than their “fair share” of the fire department resources? Should they get charged extra from now on for the firefighters to arrive?
The logical extension of your “fair share” argument is this: from each according to his ability, for each according to his needs. This is, of course, impossible to quantify (and thus why Marx’s argument is unequivocally subjective, as history has proven on multiple occasions).
I think I’m willing to run with Mill on this one: to each the least harm. I won’t interfere with you, and we will all contribute to the general welfare, simply because it does the least harm (causes the least pain). I can’t tell you what to think, or do, or say (within limits) and you can’t turn around and dictate to me, either. If I need a bit more of this than you do, that’s the way it goes. If you get a bit more of that than I do, then there it is. The one thing so-called “libertarians” always forget is that freedom, even relatively governmentless freedom, requires two things: a social contract and liberty. One balances against the other. The social contract desires limits to freedom so that society can function without self-immolation. (What limits, of course, are constantly up to debate and consensus agreement.) But liberty (which I generally advocate, thus my “liberalism”) does mean that I must accept a certain level of abuse, so long as it does not violate the social contract with others. What we do, clearly, is try to minimize any abuse of liberties, whether through regulation, example, social pressure, or other contextual methods that set the limits where one person cannot willfully hurt others.
Do I think baseball players should earn more than teachers or firefighters? Absolutely not. But I understand economics, and I realize that our society allows the market to dictate economic value (especially at the upper end of the scale), and the market has placed a value on people who hit and throw a ball very well that is far greater than those who teach and those who risk their lives. Is it fair? No, of course not. Is it “right” (ethically)? Clearly not. But while I abhor this reality, I accept it (which is to say, I do not strive to dictate or legislate otherwise, though I continue to advocate for the reversal of fortunes) because I understand that abuse (in this case, excessive compensation) is a necessary consequence of freedom so long as it does no significant harm. In this case, it may be unjustifiable on ethical grounds, but the economics don’t detract from the pay of teachers or firefighters, so utility is clearly on the side of bygones.
Someone will get more than their “fair share.” Someone may get less. The question remains: will this create an environment where “the minimum” is sufficient to fulfill the social contract? If so, the bill is good, the contributions are good, and we do less harm than good. I’m for it. And if we can, we should continue the trend towards greater good and less harm.
If not, then let’s pass another bill with, say, better cost controls: a public option or require that all insurance be NPO’s or some other better solution that will help the most possible people, without resorting to selfish and ill-reasoned “libertarian” attitudes that reflect neither reality nor the ethics of common decency.
AD
It isn’t how I define “fair share” that matters. It will not be my decision. And it isn’t the people who leave their window open for pyro mice who will feel the backlash.
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My point is simple; now that we are all paying for the healthcare of all, we all have some say in the lifestyle of all, at least as it pertains to health. And this is hardly a new thing–already I’ve heard people come down hard on smokers because “we all pay for your bad choices in the form of higher premiums” etc etc. This bill will certainly make it easier to figure out where that money is going and if, as I suspect it will, it shows that a relatively small group of the population is getting a lion’s share of the goodies and, if in addition to that, it appears that this is due to poor life choices (as defined by whatever the general public deems it so), there will be a backlash. People will be forced to change.
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To get back to your earlier analogy, you are aware that we are not completely free to do as we wish vis vis fire safety and serer use, yes? If I try to change my electrical system in the house to something that runs entirely on Tesla coils or if I get in the habit of flushing baby caimans down the toilet, with the resulting mess that both those decisions are likely to cause, I will be fined. My (poor) decisions will have affected the system that we all pay into. Nobody is going to just shrug while the sewer dept spends every weekend fishing out confused caimans.
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In my opinion, the bill will cost a lot more than advertised. I would have said “more than we think” only I haven’t met anyone who thinks it will actually cost as little as advertised. I think we are headed for some serious financial problems up ahead. many of them completely independent of health care. Entitlements will be cut. They will have to be. (alternatively, we can just print money like crazy, bringing on the most regressive anti-poor tax ever invented–inflation). As health care is now an entitlement, it will also be on the chopping block and the easiest, most popular way to do it will be to target to people for whom there will be less public sympathy; smokers, drinkers, recreational drug users, addicts, criminals, the mentally ill, etc. and hey–maybe in the long run this will result in a greater good. forcing people to do what’s best for their health WILL make them healthier, whereas having the freedom to make choices, even bad ones, is a good that is more difficult to quantitate. But there you are.
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Me, I have no dog in that fight–don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, etc. Practically a boy scout. If it were up to me we’d legalize most recreational drugs and get out of the business of telling people what they can do in their own homes. But I think that will be an increasingly minority opinion.
Bill, do you find that (mostly European) countries that have national health care tend to interfere more in the smoking habits of their citizens than America?
That’s a good point, Micha. I guess it is not inevitable that increased government control of something must lead to increased control of personal freedoms…but looking at the way things are going already, with people being told they can lose jobs for smoking, with calls for regulation of fast food, etc etc, I just see that as where this country is going. And again, I see bad financial times ahead and the question will be where do they cut? And how?
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As I said, I’m not too worried about my own situation–government workers will be the last to feel the pinch, rest assured–and there isn’t too much in the way of vices for them to take away. It’s more of a general distaste for the idea of control over personal choices–but is it a personal choice if it affects other people?
“but looking at the way things are going already, with people being told they can lose jobs for smoking, with calls for regulation of fast food, etc etc, I just see that as where this country is going.”
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Paradoxically in this case the government and the concept of entitlement are the ones protecting individual liberties, while private business threaten them. Since the logic of private business is profit, they have more a financial interest to force people to be more healthy, threatening them with loosing their insurance or their jobs. The logic of entitlement let’s you do whatever you want and still giving you health care, since it’s an entitlement. Not that this approach doesn’t have problems, but not concerning government control of personal choices.
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What you might see is what you’re already seeing, like regulation of fast food, or calls to improve health education. However, not everything is a slippery slope. Supporting regulation on health care doesn’t mean you have to support regulation of fast food.
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“And again, I see bad financial times ahead and the question will be where do they cut? And how?”
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What might happen is increasing taxation on vices like smoking and drinking.
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“It’s more of a general distaste for the idea of control over personal choices”
It’s a myth that government involvement always means control, and private sector always means freedom. As we’ve seen the private sector can be very repressive and reduce your options. It’s also a myth that the free market is inherently just, or that the government is inherently less competent than the private sector. (Which is not to say I suggest accepting the opposite myths either.
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“but is it a personal choice if it affects other people?”
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According to American private sector logic, if you’re paying for health care then you own people’s health. According to the European entitlement logic the individual is entitled to health care.
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As I understand it, the way other people’s health affects you in this case is only that your taxes pay for their medical treatment if they are too poor to pay for it themselves. Isn’t it already the case to a certain extent? What’s the alternative? If they are too poor either you’re going to pay, somebody else is going to pay, or they will be harmed by their medical condition. If they are harmed by their medical condition, doesn’t that affect you, either because they don’t work and pay taxes, or because at a certain point they end up receiving medical treatment at the expense of the taxpayer anyway?
Bill Mulligan wrote: “That’s very true but it would have been possible for the company to drop those who are egregiously abusing the system.”
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The people who “egregiously” abused the system were people who had the nerve to fall ill while insured by an individual policy.
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Insurers abused their right to rescission. In states that did not ban preexisting condition discrimination, insurers canceled the individual policies of cancer patients for failing to disclose acne treatments on their applications. Insurers also rescinded coverage for typos on applications.
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If insurers could not find a reason to rescind coverage, they increased premiums past what the sick patient could afford to pay. This practice is called “purging.”
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Read more about rescission and purging abuse here:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/the_truth_about_the_insurance.html
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The new law protects people who rely on individual insurance policies from the worst abuses of the old system.
Bill Mulligan wrote: “That’s very true but it would have been possible for the company to drop those who are egregiously abusing the system.”
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jennifer wrote: The people who “egregiously” abused the system were people who had the nerve to fall ill while insured by an individual policy.
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Jennifer, isn’t it possible that you and I are talking about two entirely different groups of people? Nothing I was talking about can be logically interpreted as an indictment against sick people. Some of my best friends have serious medical issues for which they deserve no blame at all. In fact, without getting into personal details, that would describe some of my all time favorite people and family members. When I say “those who are egregiously abusing the system.” I mean, listen carefully, “those who are egregiously abusing the system.”
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Eliminating abuses by the insurance companies is one of the positive aspects of the bill. It does not address the problem of the bill possibly being too expensive to work if, as I suspect, the costs will be far greater, the benefits a good deal less than thought, and the political courage to follow through on the delayed taxes and cuts completely missing.
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And, if I am reading this correctly, I still fail to see how this will stop people from gaming the system. according to the herald tribune, “The fines (for not buying insurance) will be phased in, starting at 1 percent of income in 2014, and rising to the maximum of $2,085 for a family in 2016”
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Well, boy howdy, so for $173 a month I could skip paying for any insurance for my family until something serious happens. then I can buy it. they can’t stop me from buying it. And this is the max! So right off the bat I think they need to put more teeth into the penalty for not buying insurance but since this is probably the least popular part of the bill (and not just among conservatives–some of the gang at Firedoglake are livid) I don’t think we’ll see too many politicians sticking their neck out to fix that.
Bill Mulligan wrote: “Well, boy howdy, so for $173 a month I could skip paying for any insurance for my family until something serious happens. then I can buy it. they can’t stop me from buying it. “
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No, Bill. Insurers can still stop sick people from buying health insurance unless they are children or live in states that already ban preexisting condition discrimination.
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Under the new law, the ban on preexisting condition discrimination does not take effect until 2014, the same year as the individual mandate and the exchanges. A temporary, national high-risk pool will be created to help people like me between now and 2014.
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Your above scenario describe the existing situation in New York, New Jersey, Vermont, and Maryland. These states ban preexisting condition discrimination, but they do not require that residents purchase health insurance. So, residents who did not have the foresight to purchase insurance can buy it on the way to the hospital, driving up the cost of premiums for everyone else.
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Massachusetts solved this problem in 2006 by banning preexisting condition discrimination while also mandating that residents purchase insurance. This puts enough healthy people in the pool to subsidize the cost of treating the sick people in the pool, while also keeping overall premium costs lower than those in New York, Vermont, New Jersey and Maryland.
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The new national law follows the Massachusetts model instead of the New York model. The ban on preexisting condition discrimination against children ends this year, but adults with preexisting conditions must wait until 2014.
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Financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn explains what will happen under the new law in 2010:
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http://janebryantquinn.com/2010/03/health-reform-that-helps-you-out-this-year/
Ok, so does that mean in 2014 my scenario becomes feasible? That’s what I was thinking when I wrote it–I did not mean to imply that I thought you could do it now.
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But you’re saying that you actually CAN do it now in New York, New Jersey, Vermont, and Maryland??? I did not know that. Is this part of the reason that costs are so much higher than in, say, North Carolina? Do the companies charge more to make up for those who play the system? And has anyone tried to measure how often that happens? Maybe it’s not that big a problem.
No, your scenario will not happen in 2014 because of the individual mandate. In 2014, every American will be required in 2014 to have health insurance or pay a tax to the IRS. So, people who try to “game the system” by waiting until they are sick to buy insurance will pay a penalty.
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Yes, your scenario can happen right now in New York, New Jersey, Vermont and Maryland. It cannot happen in Massachusetts, because Massachusetts paired its ban on preexisting discrimination with an individual mandate.
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Yes, a ban on preexisting condition discrimination without including a mandate raises premiums. After rejecting my application for health insurance, Blue Cross sent my husband a form letter imploring him to defend their right in California to deny the applications of people with preexisting conditions. The letter pointed out that premiums in New York were higher than premiums in California because New York banned preexisting condition discrimination.
The same Government that couldn’t get aid to Katrina victims, can’t get a nationally mandated monopoly to turn a profit (Post Office), can’t efficiently run the DMV, has a bureau of land management that says Southern California home owners can’t clear up dead debris in their yards leading to even more out of control fires, and sends in IRS agents to tear a place apart for owing the government .04 (actual story if anyone wants the link let me know) in back taxes is now in charge of your health care. Don’t give me that crap about Katrina being Bush’s fault as the government will always be inefficient. The fact that the majority of the people on here are thrilled that the government is taking over your health care scares the crap out of me. If this is such a great idea why are members of Congress exempted from taking part?
I’ll respond to only one of the irrelevant points in your comment: the Post Office.
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Yep, the PO is “nationally mandated”. And one result of the mandate its that it will almost never turn a profit.
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First – the PO’s monopoly is only on First Class Mail – and that is porous; a good bit of what FedEx carries might properly be classified as First Class.
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Second – unlike UPS and FedEx, the PO’s mandate requires it to extend service to all – even those it will ge unprofitable to serve.
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Third – the PO is not allowed to manipulate the law and the tax code to reduce expenses/increase profits and bust unions the way that FedEx (in particular) has done.
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As to your mention of Katrina – we have no idea how a different Administration – say, Obama’s – would react in a similar crisis, until it happens.
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OTOH, we do know the manner in which the Bush (mis) Administration dropped the ball on the situation, much of which was typical of that particular group of venal, incompetent blunderers – particularly in the matter of in lieu of taking prompt and meaningful action to address shortcomings of the process.
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They proved themselves spectacularly incapable of doing so … but past masters of (unconvincingly) alibiing and shifting blame.
I’m not disagreeing with anything you said here, but in fairness it should be pointed out that companies like Fedex and UPS are required by law to charge higher prices than the US Postal Service, which works (somewhat) like a subsidy for the Post Office. And I’m told there are countries where the Government-owned Post Office does make a profit.
1) “The same Government that couldn’t get aid to Katrina victims”
And how long till all this takes effect vs. “We need help now” weather victims? Not to mention Obava vs. Bush, I have a feeling things would have been smoother and faster handled under a human president.
2) “can’t get a nationally mandated monopoly to turn a profit (Post Office)”
Monopoly? HAHAHAHAHAHHA
UPS, FedEX, E-mail, insternet banking/bill paying, etc etc etc
3) “can’t efficiently run the DMV” That’s a state government issue, never had any problems with the Secretary of State’s Offices here in MI (SoS is the MI version of the DMV).
4) “and sends in IRS agents to tear a place apart for owing the government .04 ” Where are they for these scumbags in the commercials for law firms bragging that “we owed the IRS over $200,000 and this law firm got us a settlement for under 10K!”
And where is the government “taking over” health care? Jist because there are no limits on the scumbags at the Insurance companies?
1. Even if he is the Messiah, Obama won’t be President forever.
2. None of your examples are government run, but the Post Office is.
3. The DMV may be a state-run institution but it is still an example of government.
4. Spurious argument. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And no one makes the IRS accept the offer those guys give them.
The Post Office isn’t supposed to turn a profit. Neither are Police Departments or Firehouses.
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Joel, calling Obama “the Messiah” doesn’t help you. Nobody here thinks he’s infallible, so you’re making yourself look unreasonable by trying to cast our opinion of him that way.
I think we have a teabagger here.
1 Katrina was completely mis-managed by the Bush administration. FEMA was being run by a Bush lackey that couldn’t get a race horse out of its gate, why would anyone expect him to be able to handle a real crisis! Bush was all about undermining federal agencies for political or monetary gain. Haliburton made millions out of Katrina thanks to Bushco.
2 Post your link. Something smells fishy in your story.
3 The post office is a government mandated company but is run by a board of governors that are not even appointed by the government. The USPO also isn’t suppose to make a profit. However the board of governors pay themselves millions along with the PMG a year. What the Feds need to do is clean out the governors and upper management, but they aren’t going to do that because it is not their purview. However the problems the USPO is suffering today is A. the advent of electronic transmissions, starting with faxes and now really biting into them, the internet with email. B. gas prices. The post office just like every day people are fighting to survive these ever increasing gas prices. Massive amounts of their budget is going into fueling their trucks and their rates haven’t increased to keep up.
The USPO could easily break even, but it would cost us $1 to mail a letter and create a catch 22. The higher postage climbs the less mail people send and the more reliance on electronic forms grow. They raise the cost of postage to a break even point and they are going to kill themselves even more.
>The fact that the majority of the people on here are thrilled that the government is taking over your health care scares the crap out of me. If this is such a great idea why are members of Congress exempted from taking part?
The fictional argument of the teabaggers. No one is taking over anyones health care. Please get your facts straight. And government health care must not be all that bad, Sarah Palin loved her some in Canada!
Look, if having to pay taxes on other people’s insurance means that I can FINALLY GET TO SEE A GORRAM DOCTOR, I will HAPPILY do it.
Here’s how rediculous this health care plan is. I eat too much fast food, I admit it. I am overweight so I want the lapband. I expect a check for 1/30th of the cost from the 30 different posters on here so far to cover it. How many of you think that’s stupid?
That doesn’t reflect what’s in the plan.
Jason, people don’t value what they don’t have to pay for themselves. I was just saying that it isn’t the government’s job to force you to pay for my bad mistakes. I was using a somewhat simplistic analogy to make a point.
“Jason, people don’t value what they don’t have to pay for themselves. I was just saying that it isn’t the government’s job to force you to pay for my bad mistakes. I was using a somewhat simplistic analogy to make a point.”
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No, actually, you weren’t. Your analogy is very vague and doesn’t have anything in common with the health care plan.
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If you’d said that you can’t afford food and suggested a plan where 30 posters contribute enough for you to buy enough food to survive, that would reflect what’s in the plan. If you’d said that every restaurant and grocery store was refusing to sell you food at a reasonable price and suggested a law to make them do so, that would reflect the plan. An example of you gorging yourself doesn’t relate to anything in the plan.
First, you admit that you eat too much fast food, and that you’re overweight. Well, geez. How stupid is that?
And as for trying to infer that people who want Health Care reform now having to pay for your stupidity, well… I don’t have any children. And will probably never have, yet I pay school taxes for those who have children, so they can send them to school.
I guess that’s stupid too, eh?
It’s funny you mention school. To me, joel’s analogy sounded a lot more like an argument against the school lunch program than against the Health Care Bill.
The more money the government takes from me to pay for your health care is less I can spend on my own family. And my family is far more important to me than you are Richard.
And yes, considering how the government runs the schools and how poorly we do compared to the rest of the world I would say yes it is stupid. You think the government will do a better job with your health care? Thank you for making my point for me.
But you benefit from having other people’s kids go to school. They will be the future workers who will pay taxes to support you in your old age, after you have retired. What benefit do you derive from subsidizing the bad health choices of others?
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(Note–this does not imply that all or even most of those in a health crisis have brought it on themselves. But for those that do, what should we do with them? Normally I’d say it’s their choice, bad or not, but now that they may be adversely affecting the rest of us with those choices…)
joel, this is how the current American private insurance system has worked for decades.
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For decades in the States, healthy people have paid for the cost of treating sick people, with private insurers as middlemen. This bill does not change that. The private-insurer middlemen still exist.
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Think about it, joel. Blue Cross can’t print money. If you need a $400,000 treatment and but have paid only $10,000 to the insurer in premiums, where did Blue Cross collect the remaining $390,000 to pay the doctors? That money comes from the hundreds of healthy people who pay their premiums each month without costing the insurer more than annual checkups.
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To paraphrase angry people on TV, Blue Cross redistributes the wealth of healthy people to pay for the cost of treating sick people. They’ve done this for years.
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In 2014, Blue Cross will just be providing this service for more healthy people and more sick people.
But Jennifer, the difference is choice. If the government let you buy health care across state lines instead of these government created monopolies my health insurance would be less AND I could choose who to go with if one carrier became too expensive. Let the free market drive down prices. With the government plan it doesn’t matter how much it costs you in tax increases, increased wait times, loss of jobs, rationing of goods and services, the stiffling of medical innovation, increase in the cost of goods, etc…. YOU MUST KEEP THE SAME CARRIER UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE.
I can’t reply directly, but I must answer joel’s misinformation with the truth.
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joel claims that under the current bill, “YOU MUST KEEP THE SAME CARRIER UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE.”
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This is not true. The health insurance exchange in 2014 will let participants choose between Blue Cross, Aetna, Kaiser, HAP, HealthNet, and any other private insurer who chooses to sell their products on the exchange.
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joel also claims that Americans can’t buy across state lines in the future. Unfortunately, this is also not true. Section 1333 allows the formation of interstate compacts so that Americans can buy insurance across state lines:
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/five_compronises_in_health_car.html
Joel, I encourage you to try your plan. Eat more and more fast food every day until you have a heart attack. Then, while you are in the intensive care unit, call an insurance company and ask them to cover you. They will…from that day forward. But they will not cover the expenses you have already accrued.
@Free Market Will Set You Free
Joel, there are small problems with the free market concept here.
First, there is an anti-trust exemption for health insurance companies that has not been excised. Therefore, collusion is not only possible, but it is the current market model for private, for-profit insurance carriers. It is regular practice to increase premiums by large percentages on small-business and individual plans (30%-70% per year), and because of exclusionary tactics and intra-company agreements, if you don’t agree, you lose coverage entirely. There is no “free market” competition here. So, “leaving the system alone” simply doesn’t work here.
The reality, which I realize you may not fully grasp at this juncture, is that if the free market were really working, insurers would be having a hard time making a profit. Instead, one company (WellPoint, I believe) walked away with something like $2.6B in 3 months (1 fiscal quarter) just last quarter. If the free market worked, insurance companies would beg to be granted NPO status to protect their assets in a tightly competitive market. Instead, they’re making billions, all of them, on the backs of small business and by kicking the sick off their rosters. (Please remember their ostensible purpose is to cover the costs of health care when people get sick, which is fundamentally at odds with any corporate mandate: corporations desire to keep money rather than “spend” it.)
I have only occasional problems with public companies and how they handle their own fiscal affairs, except when it interferes with their stated mission (cover sick people, distribute power efficiently, create potable water, &c.). When the mission and the mandate aren’t in sync, problems with the “free market” competition and correction occur, and you end up with (criminal) abuses: Lehman Brothers, AIG, Enron, WellPoint, &c.
Spout the “free market” all you want, up to the point where the system is inherently in conflict. Then shake off your ideology, realize that not everything can function within a purely free market system, and adjust accordingly.
Rigid ideology, whether left or right, will always lead to poor judgment. Health care is really part of the commons, and the corporate mandate conflicts with the mission of the company. The “free market” is failing here.
How would you fix it?
AD
Craig mentioned the Patriot act a while back, (there is no reply button for his post.) It is true that the Constitution was violated by Bush and everyone that voted for it. I can’t help but notice that IT IS STILL IN EFFECT. Obama hasn’t done anything about it.
Obama has always been of the opinion that the Patriot act goes too far, but we need something like it. I don’t necessarily agree, but that’s his position and he’s been fairly consistent about it. As a Senator he did vote for it, but that came after working on provisions for more protections of civil liberties.
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http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/06/hillary-clinton/he-fought-to-improve-it-then-voted-for-it/
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There have been some efforts to further limit is since he took office, but they’re currently stalled in Congress.
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http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/179/revise-the-patriot-act-to-increase-oversight-on-go/
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I think Craig is right to mention the Patriot Act, however. I consider the “let’s spy on Americans without just cause” act to be more of a restriction of freedoms than the “let’s make sure more people have health care” act. The Patriot Act is clearly a restriction of liberties towards the goal of a good cause. The people claiming that the Health Care Bill is a restriction of liberties have yet to make a good case that it is. It’s not a good thing that they defend the obvious restrictions of liberty while deriding something else.
Sure he has. He’s taken it even further. But there will be no complaints from those who saw the very existence of the plan as the equal of the jackbooted nazi hordes.
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Remember when talk about bringing in Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” was dismissed as cowboy rhetoric? Now we have the attorney general just flat out stating that Osama will be killed and his rights read to his corpse. Tough talk. But not, it seems, an empty threat:
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-prison21-2010mar21,0,4558899,full.story
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In one case last year, U.S. special operations forces killed an Al Qaeda-linked suspect named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter attack in southern Somalia rather than trying to capture him, a U.S. official said. Officials had debated trying to take him alive but decided against doing so in part because of uncertainty over where to hold him, the official added.
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Move along now. Nothing to see.
I can’t help but notice that IT IS STILL IN EFFECT
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Which, as somebody who voted for Obama, angers me. The same goes for “Don’t ask, don’t tell” not being addressed sooner.
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But, as I’ve rightly seen pointed out, it’s a lot harder to overturn something once it’s on the books (which also applies to the notion of the GOP trying to take apart this health care reform bill should they get back in control).
It’s really hard when you don’t try. Exactly what has been done to even attempt to get rid of the patriot act? read Glenn Greenwald who, for all his faults, is one of the few liberal pundits who has actually held Obama to the same standards they did Bush on this issue. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/16/obama/index.html
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Or try http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen/index.html where he condemns the fact that the administration has compiled a hit list of Americans who are accused (not convicted) of being in league with terrorists. Don’t know exactly how I feel about that one…but I have a feeling it would have been condemned a bit more vociferously if it had been Bush (for that matter, I would think (and hope) that John Ashcroft would have been hounded out of town had he said something as stupid as Holder’s “reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama” brag.)
What we need, instead of “laws like it” that violate the Constitution, is prison time for those that do it. (Isn’t it already a federal crime to violate someone of their civil liberties?) That will get people to read things before they vote for them, won’t it.
When I was at the Airport in Dallas, I was matter-of-factly reminded (gleefully?) over the intercom that you can be arrested for telling a joke. Again, I was in Dallas, not Russia. Are we proud of ourselves yet?
It’s really hard when you don’t try.
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Agreed. And in this case, it’s a failure on the part of Obama and those in Congress for not doing anything about it.
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the administration has compiled a hit list of Americans who are accused (not convicted) of being in league with terrorists.
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So it’s No-Fly List v2.0 then?
I don’t think that will happen…did anyone from the Roosevelt administration go to jail for the internment of American of Japanese descent in WWII? There must be some clause that prevents lawmakers from being charged for passing laws that are later found unconstitutional (and that may be for the best, or the system would be paralyzed…at least I think that would be for the best…)
There is a clause in the Constitution giving Congressmen immunity for anything they do in Congress (but not in their private lives), so unfortunately we can’t arrest any of them for the Patriot Act. I’ve long considered this to be one of the biggest flaws remaining in the Constitution (along with that ‘necessary and proper’ clause)
Well, gee, Mike, if the GOP hadn’t spent the last year dragging its heels and giving him so much crap about fixing health care, maybe he’d have had the time to address it. Hopefully this year.
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PAD
Republican obstruction of one aspect of the president’s agenda does not in any way explain why the Patriot Act is not only still here but in some ways stronger than it was. This may be a hard pill to swallow but it’s time to face facts–Obama has made it clear that he likes having these powers. he has no intention of giving them up. maybe he never did or maybe he has determined that these powers are necessary.
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But the true believers will either accept the excuses, ignore the facts, or accept superficial non-changes (close Guantanamo and open a new facility in Afghanistan!).
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That’s why I have to respect people like Greenwald (and Craig, I might add) when they show that their positions were not simply “If the other party does it it’s an atrocity but when it’s our guys, well, can’t make an omelet…”
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Anyway, it does suggest a possible slogan for whoever runs against Obama–“Vote XXXX they can do more than one thing at a time.” (I would also suggest that Obama himself would chafe at the suggestion that he has been too distracted by health care to properly guard our civil liberties.)
I sure hope you are right. If Obama is, in fact, willing to overturn the Patriot act, (the other posters pointed out that he may not be.) and pulls it off, that would be great.
@Bill
Hi, again. Two quick things:
First, there are 280-odd bills out of the House that the Sentate hasn’t looked at yet because it’s 100 members have to “focus” on health care. It isn’t Pres. Obama that can’t do more than one thing at a time. If one must lay blame, at least get who’s who.
In any case, the record clearly shows Pres. Obama’s agenda helped pushed through an overhaul to student loans, a $700B stimulus package, is working on a Consumer Protection Agency, and a (rather short) list of other major legislation that has been passed or is being created over the past year. So…one thing? Not so much.
And to point out another thing — there were never 60 Democratic votes, at least by the way most people mean it. First, at any given time there have only been 59 Democrats in the caucus, including Sanders and Lieberman, because of illness, injury, or death. Some six to eight of those are “Blue Dogs,” and traditionally vote with Republicans on most issues (it’s where you get “bi-partisan” support for the Bush Tax Cuts, for example). So the “D-60” has always been a myth. The real problem this past year has been this faux-filibuster that Reid allowed for reasons that wholly pass understanding. I’m all for the filibuster. I say they keep it. But you must stand and speak. You must truly follow the spirit of the buccaneer and yell it out into the wilderness. You must obstruct, delay, and make a scene. All this nice, neat, “oh, surely all law has historically required a ‘bi-partisan’ super-majority” is simply nonsense.
Second, Greenwald is often over the top, but he’s straight up right about the USA PATRIOT Act (man, I wish more people would remember to spell it right). But once power is given, it’s awfully hard to take it away. At the end of the day, repealing the Act would (a) strip extant powers away from those who currently have it and (b) open the possibility that it something did happen, accusations would be hurled that it could have been prevented if…
I don’t think any politician in his (or her) right mind would accept that as a reasonable opportunity for re-election prospects, regardless of how thoroughly reprehensible it may be. The political calculus makes sense, even if it is demonstrably immoral. If Pres. Obama has a fatal flaw, it is that he is a politician. Sure, I like him. And I want to see the repeal of DADT and the USA PATRIOT Act. I think we’ll see the first in the next year-ish. The second, if it happens at all, will happen on Jan. 21, 2013/17 @ 11:59am, depending on the outcome of the 2012 election.
AD
Aaron says: First, there are 280-odd bills out of the House that the Sentate hasn’t looked at yet because it’s 100 members have to “focus” on health care. It isn’t Pres. Obama that can’t do more than one thing at a time. If one must lay blame, at least get who’s who.
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I agree but at the risk of appearing to cravenly palm this off onto someone else, it was PAD who suggested that Obama was unable to find the time to address issues other than health care. I do not agree with that assessment and pointed out how it could be used against the president. I didn’t say it was valid.)
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In any case, the record clearly shows Pres. Obama’s agenda helped pushed through an overhaul to student loans, a $700B stimulus package, is working on a Consumer Protection Agency, and a (rather short) list of other major legislation that has been passed or is being created over the past year. So…one thing? Not so much.
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So we are in agreement that he could certainly have found the time to go after the excesses of the Patriot Act if he wanted to.
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The real problem this past year has been this faux-filibuster that Reid allowed for reasons that wholly pass understanding. I’m all for the filibuster. I say they keep it. But you must stand and speak. You must truly follow the spirit of the buccaneer and yell it out into the wilderness. You must obstruct, delay, and make a scene. All this nice, neat, “oh, surely all law has historically required a ‘bi-partisan’ super-majority” is simply nonsense.
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we agree again. this is getting terrifying.
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The political calculus makes sense, even if it is demonstrably immoral. If Pres. Obama has a fatal flaw, it is that he is a politician.
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And evidently an immoral one at that, in your opinion. I’m willing to cut him a bit more slack…it’s possible that once he assumed office he discovered some truths that we are not privy to and has reassessed the need for the Act. We’ll see. If he does not rescind it I hope he has the decency not to run against it in 2012 and if he does i hope those who oppose it will point out the hypocrisy of it.
Let me begin with: I’m threading the needle here; splitting hairs a bit; reveling in the details.
I did not say: “Pres. Obama is immoral.” What I said was that the political calculus (the act) is immoral. Do not mistake the whole for the part. The defense of the USA PATRIOT Act is bad mojo (barring, as you note, some unavailable information to which any sensible person would alter his or her position once the data was completely known). I think his (not quite) defense of the Act is understandable in the political environment, even if I think it is morally wrong (all in). I won’t defend it, but I won’t dámņ him for the choice, either.
I don’t want this to be mistaken for rationalizing, either. I think he’s wrong on this one, all other things being equal. But if he won’t change it and a Republican won’t change it, then it follows that (while we can and should criticize the decision) it should not affect the outcome of my support of the incumbent.
Hit and miss, I think Pres. Obama’s got a .700 batting average so far (and, coincidentally, about the same cost of each of his major initiatives) — up from .650 since he finally got stumping on insurance reform. An improvement over Pres. Bush (43), anyway, but he could certainly be better (more vocal, more determined, show stronger “leadership,” reverse the clearly unconstitutional stuff, &c.). But again, I see the calculus he’s weighing and I would be hard pressed not to make the same decision in his place. Is it a risk? (Sure.) Could it lead to abuse? (It has.) Could it backfire? (Yeah, but is a Republican candidate really likely to rail against it, either?)
So, I don’t care for the choice, but it is reasonable given the context. This is one of those instances where I’d prefer the environment to change, but I don’t think that’s happening with our complicit media (terrorism is too good a ratings grabber) and vapid and “influenced’ congress. Such a mess.
What was the old saying? Power corrupts…
AD
Whenever I think about how difficult it is to get rid of bad laws once they’re in place (such as the USAPATRIOT Act), I think about Robert Heinlein’s suggestion of having a seperate house of Congress just to repeal laws. Legislative bodies as they currently exist everywhere that I’m aware of have a built-in bias to enacting laws. Having one body that had no other power than to repeal laws would help to correct this.
Why have health insurance until you are sick? If there are no pre-exsisting conditions we can now just sign up when we get sick.
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The short answer is: Let’s not have auto insurance until you get into an accident.
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The longer answer is: Because if you have health insurance, then it becomes easier for you to go to the doctor and get regular check-ups so that small health problems can be caught and treated before they become big health problems.
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PAD
I would wait to buy the auto insurance, but no one writes coverage for a wrecked car, but if your agent or company does please forward their number.
It’s most likely cheaper to go to the doctor each month or every three months and pay full price than it is for monthly health insurance.
So if what they are advertising is correct, I will opt for no coverage till something bad happens.
“I would wait to buy the auto insurance, but no one writes coverage for a wrecked car, but if your agent or company does please forward their number.”
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You can make the same argument about health insurance. If you have to go to the emergency room, you’re not going to be filling out forms while they cut you open. By the time you got your policy worked out you could already have a mountain of bills that you’ll never crawl out from under.
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This isn’t just something that happens in car accidents. A family member of mine woke up screaming in the middle of the night a few years ago. Her shoulder bone broke while she was asleep. Why? Undetected cancer had eaten through it. Her mother took her to the emergency room right away, but the treatment was very involved and neither mother nor daughter had a moment to think about anything else for a couple of weeks.
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Most of the country already has insurance. They get it even before they’re sick. That’s not going to change. The whole point of insurance is that you don’t know when you’ll need it and people understand that.
And when something bad happens, it’s too late.
Stupid.
Let’s not get into name calling. I’ve done it myself, so I may not be the best person to say this, but it feels like we don’t have to take the conversation to that level. Yet.
Is it still cheaper to pay full price with the doctor when you go to see the doctor because of a pain in your leg that turns out to be tumor eating your femur? Good thing you opted out of coverage. I’d hate to see insurance help you pay those massive bills. Having health insurance is important because it offers peace of mind. If something bad happens you will be covered. Being without insurance means one day you’re doing just fine and the next you’re going bankrupt because you don’t have money to pay for that trip to the ER last night.
Only problem is, we do end up paying.
He has no insurance, rings up hundreds of K in medical bills, can;t pay them, so they hospitals raise their prices for everyone else to cover the “misswing” money…
Having health insurance is important because it offers peace of mind.
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Well, in this country, it merely offered the illusion of peace of mind, because insurance companies were actively looking for petty excuses to drop people from coverage on a whim. You merely hope to be covered because you never know for certain.
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Even people who had ‘good’ health insurance are going bankrupt because of what the insurance companies do not cover. Or the companies look for reasons to drop people because they do not want to pay.
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Hopefully some of this kind of stuff won’t happen any more. Hopefully the illusion is being stripped away.
10 THINGS EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM
1. Once reform is fully implemented, over 95% of Americans will have health insurance coverage, including 32 million who are currently uninsured.2
2. Health insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions—or to drop coverage when people become sick.3
3. Just like members of Congress, individuals and small businesses who can’t afford to purchase insurance on their own will be able to pool together and choose from a variety of competing plans with lower premiums.4
4. Reform will cut the federal budget deficit by $138 billion over the next ten years, and a whopping $1.2 trillion in the following ten years.5
5. Health care will be more affordable for families and small businesses thanks to new tax credits, subsidies, and other assistance—paid for largely by taxing insurance companies, drug companies, and the very wealthiest Americans.6
6. Seniors on Medicare will pay less for their prescription drugs because the legislation closes the “donut hole” gap in existing coverage.7
7. By reducing health care costs for employers, reform will create or save more than 2.5 million jobs over the next decade.8
8. Medicaid will be expanded to offer health insurance coverage to an additional 16 million low-income people.9
9. Instead of losing coverage after they leave home or graduate from college, young adults will be able to remain on their families’ insurance plans until age 26.10
10. Community health centers would receive an additional $11 billion, doubling the number of patients who can be treated regardless of their insurance or ability to pay.11
I wanna live in Karen’s world. I bet the unicorns there crap Skittles, too.
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Here are some facts about the bill as passed:
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1. The bill for this plan will total at least 940 billion over ten years — and anyone who thinks that’s not understated by at least a few hundred billion knows NOTHING about government spending.
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2. The taxes to pay for it will start now, but no benefits will start paying out until 2012.
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3. The government will decide what is “minimal” coverage, and you will pay the premiums to cover it under penalty of law.
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4. Student loans are now exclusively the business of the government. If you need a loan for school, you don’t get to choose whether you want to go through a bank or not. I’m not quite sure what that has to do with health care, but it’s in there.
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5. President Obama’s promise about the Executive Order regarding abortion coverage is a complete and utter fraud. Executive Orders can NOT countermand existing law; to do what he says he will do would require a line-item veto, and that has been struck down as unconstitutional.
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6. The Internal Revenue Service is the designated enforcement agent for verifying that all Americans carry government-approved health insurance. This will require over 16,000 new IRS agents to carry out.
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7. By requiring all Americans to carry health insurance, the government is saying “you’re all too stupid to be responsible for yourselves, so we’re going to make certain you’re covered.”
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8. By making individual health a oollective issue, it’s not unreasonable to expect that unhealthy lifestyles and practices that would increase the health care costs of individuals will start to be regulated and penalized. The moves in New York City on trans fats and salt are highly indicative.
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9. By attacking profits in the health care field, one is guaranteed to slow medical progress. R&D is always one of the first areas to be cut, especially when it’s clear that company’s competitors will also be constrained, and there will be a major slowdown in new drugs and medical devices.
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10. By mandating universal coverage, there will be a tremendous increase in the demand for primary care physicians. This will be coupled with increased limits on what doctors can charge, and will inevitably lead to a shortage in good doctors, especially general practitioners. This is playing out in Massachusetts right now.
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11. For all its power, the government simply cannot demand businesses operate at a loss. In one state, Walgreen’s has decided to accept no new Medicaid prescriptions, as the reimbursement rates means they have to sell the drugs at a loss. One of the Mayo Clinics is no longer accepting Medicaid patients. More and more doctors are opting out of Medicaid, refusing to take patients under it because they lose money on them.
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12. Like Social Security and a host of other things the government has done “for our own good,” Congress is exempt from this law. Apparently it isn’t good enough for our rulers.
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There, I two-upped Karen, and I didn’t even have to cut and paste talking points from the nutroots psychos at MoveOn.org. Here, since Karen won’t give credit to her sources, let me correct her plagiarism:
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http://pol.moveon.org/healthcare/tenthings/?id=19502-538505-L1W129x&t=1
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Yes, the system has problems. This bill will make things far, far worse. Simply calling this dog’s breakfast “health care reform” doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and flowers.
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J.
Well, except for the horrible consequences of health care reform you state as immutable that are *not* expected to happen in my world, i would like to live in yours – i bet the purple paisley sun and marshmallow sky are real pretty.
Beginning a comment in which you have no – or severely “massaged” – facts to rebut the poster with by insulting them is *not* a very productive form of argument, and liable to lead to insults in return; the main difference being that the return insults may be less offensive…
Actually, Mike, it’s tangerine trees and marmalade skies. and I suspect Karen will never see my reply — it’s my blog experience that people who cut and paste lengthy diatribes with no original content never come back to see how their “contribution” was received. It’s almost like they score points for quantity of pastings or something.
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So, then, let’s take just a few points. Can you tell me how federalizing the student loan program improves health care? Can you tell me why Congress exempted itself from it? How about how it’s so great that the IRS will be the agency in charge of enforcing that all Americans buy health insurance?
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That’s all in there, Mike. Now that it’s passed, as Nancy Pelosi pointed out, we can all see what’s in it — and it ain’t pretty.
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J.
Jay Tea: “Can you tell me why Congress exempted itself from it?”
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Sure. Congress is NOT exempt from this reform.
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Section 1312 states that Congressmen and their staff are required to purchase health insurance on the exchange when it goes online in 2014.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/members_of_congress_get_the_sa.html
Sorry – i should have said “in manners relevant to healthcare”.
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The college loan thing was a typical bit of Congressional chicanery – especially beloved of Republican Congresscritters who like to be able to brag about What I Got For The Homefolks at the same time they brag about Voting Against Spending Bills.
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It is totally irrelevant to what the cost/benefits of the healthcare bill will be.
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You ignore the projected benefits in the CBO report while focusing on the costs. The CBO report projects a net reduction in deficit.
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I doubt that Medicare reimbursement rates mean that Walgreen’s is losing money on most drugs; i will bet that they are happily collecting full reimbursement rates for Medicare drugs that they sell under their generics plan for $4 for a month supply. I know for a fact that, once, when i didn’t ask for that price, they were ready to bill my prescription plan for the full amount for the “name” drug *and* charge me a $10 co-pay.
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As to how it will lead to a shortage of doctors … the same predictions were made when Medicare was first starting out. Didn’t happen.
Et cetera.
As to how it will lead to a shortage of doctors …
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And here I thought we already had a shortage of doctors. Not surprisingly, it’s a problem the rest of the world has, too.
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Maybe that’s one area where they could’ve genuinely tied student loans and health care, by setting aside funds for those who go to college in the health care industry? We need more doctors, nurses, etc, regardless of this bill.
The hypocrisy of conservatives is just unfathomable. First they go off on the fact that the government is supposedly going to tell them how to live their lives. Then they go off whining about the government NOT telling women how to live their reproductive health and denying them their choice.
I’m reminded of the line from “West Wing”–“I like you guys who want to reduce the size of government. Make it just big enough to fit into our bedrooms.” I guess we could add “And a woman’s uterus.”
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PAD
The fact that the “sperm donor” doesn’t get a say is so wrong on so many levels. What’s growing in there is my son/daughter and just because a woman doesn’t feel like being a mother she gets to suck it into a sink with no say from me? But if she wants to go full term and have someone pay for it for the next two decades I also get no say?
As someone who watched a fraternity brother lose his mind because his ex-girlfriend got an abortion the day before Father’s Day and then hand-delivered the ultra-sound pictures of his 5 month old son to drive the point home I just can’t call it reproductive health. Where were my friend’s rights?
Joel —
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“The fact that the “sperm donor” doesn’t get a say…”
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If that’s all you consider yourself to be, then you probably don’t deserve a say.
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That fraternity brother of yours was wronged, but if he lost his mind over it, he wasn’t too stable in the first place.
That fraternity brother of yours was wronged, but if he lost his mind over it, he wasn’t too stable in the first place.
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Doesn’t sound like his ex was playing with a full deck either.
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PAD
“1. The bill for this plan will total at least 940 billion over ten years — and anyone who thinks that’s not understated by at least a few hundred billion knows NOTHING about government spending.”
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And it saves even more than that. Yes, 940 billion is a big number, but if the savings are an even bigger number (which they are) then the deficit goes down. You’re basically saying that you want to save money building your new house by not putting in insulation, while ignoring that you’ll lose all that money and more on heating and cooling bills. If you like smaller deficits, then you like this bill.
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“2. The taxes to pay for it will start now, but no benefits will start paying out until 2012.”
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Incorrect. Small businesses can get tax credits for buying insurance for their employees as soon as the bill is signed into law.
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I stopped reading after the first two points. Given Jay’s track record, I don’t know why I bothered reading that far.
If the savings materialize then the bill may make sense. But I have to be pessimistic on that. Correct me if I’m wrong (it happens!) but my impression is that the savings depend largely on fiscal fixes that are being punted down the line, unpleasant cuts to doctors and hospitals that the current congress does not have the guts to enact now…but a future one will? I just don’t believe it. The CBO is required to take at face value those promises and factor them in but we are not.
In no particular order:
Well, #9 is simply nonsense. Please name for me the last insurance company to have anything to do with a breakthrough in the medical field. Go ahead…I’m waiting.
#12: Members of Congress get social security, and as private citizens, they pay into it, too.
#11: Please cite your sources. I know people at the Mayo Clinic, and I’ve never heard of them turning anyone away because of inability to pay.
#10 & #6: So, what you’re saying is that this system creates more jobs. This is bad how, exactly?
#1: It decreases the deficit by $128B, so something is working. Economics includes both costs and savings. Surreal, huh?
#7: By requiring that all drivers carry driver licenses, the government is saying, “You’re all too stupid to tell who’s a competent driver at a minimum level.” Really? That’s your argument? Yes, that’s exactly what they’re saying. And since 40M people are uninsured, many of them by choice (and many of them not), the insurance companies are too profit-driven and the voluntarily uninsured maybe are too stupid not to be regulated. I suspect the uninsured are more than happy to get seen if they get cancer, fall down and break a leg, or whatever, and if they’re not covered before hand, there’s a bit of stupid-shock when they get the bill. Now that won’t happen. Isn’t “big government” nice?
#5: The executive order thing is weird. I’d think that Pres. Bush’s were illegal, too, except they managed to be enforced. I wonder why? Maybe you’re misinformed?
#4: I don’t know either, but I’m happy about it. The money came from the government anyway. This isn’t about getting the money from multiple sources, it’s about eliminating the 4% origination fees that were pure profit. The money is supplied by the government, guaranteed by the government, and then distributed by people who pressed a button and made 4-6%. Now, it can be done by the government for 1-2%, eliminate the usurer, and fund more Pell Grants. Unless you happen to be one of the lenders, how are you unhappy about this? (And maybe they can get jobs at the IRS, since they appear to be hiring.)
#2: I’m with you on this one: taxes suck, except when they go for the things I like. Then, taxes are fine. But otherwise, they suck. That’s the way it works, right?
While the bill could be substantively improved, stating you have the facts doesn’t mean you actually have any. Spewing misinformation and twisted half-truths and calling them “reality” doesn’t make it any less nauseating.
AD
Jay says- 9. By attacking profits in the health care field, one is guaranteed to slow medical progress. R&D is always one of the first areas to be cut, especially when it’s clear that company’s competitors will also be constrained, and there will be a major slowdown in new drugs and medical devices.
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Aaron replies- Well, #9 is simply nonsense. Please name for me the last insurance company to have anything to do with a breakthrough in the medical field. Go ahead…I’m waiting.
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But he didn’t say that they did. the question is, does this bill in any way discourage R&D and technological innovation? And I don’t know but there is one aspect that makes me wonder- there’s an article at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-Obamacare-hits-industry-and-threatens-jobs-88860652.html#ixzz0j0PrMWKL that, if accurate, does not bode well.
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briefly, it looks at a company, Zoll, that is the leading maker of heart defibrillators. According to them (and I’ve seen this mentioned elsewhere) the bill is at least partly funded by a new tax on makers of medical devices. Zoll estimates it will cost them 5 to 10 million a year. Last year they had a profit of 9.5 million. Even assuming that the company is putting out a worst case scenario, how does ANY new tax on these companies not make it less likely they will continue the level of innovation that has enriched our lives? Why are they being punished?
>briefly, it looks at a company, Zoll, that is the leading maker of heart defibrillators. According to them (and I’ve seen this mentioned elsewhere) the bill is at least partly funded by a new tax on makers of medical devices. Zoll estimates it will cost them 5 to 10 million a year. Last year they had a profit of 9.5 million. Even assuming that the company is putting out a worst case scenario, how does ANY new tax on these companies not make it less likely they will continue the level of innovation that has enriched our lives? Why are they being punished?
Another conservative straw man argument. So your article and you are insisting that the shareholders or private owner, the president, the vp, everyone involved with the company will just stop wanting to make money? Really? They are going to close up shop, live off of what money they have in the bank, and risk ending up on the street because it won’t be possible to make money!
Why does this straw man argument show up every time someone mentions raising taxes? Where in history is it even proven to be a valid argument? Sweeden has over 50% income tax, with health care and I don’t see any mass business or people in revolt or immigration to other countries happening there? Clinton raised taxes and we had the best economic status in my lifetime. The bill passed yesterday and Wall Street went up. Obama signed the bill an hour ago and Wall Street is up.
I’ve never seen a tax put anyone out of business, but I have seen bad management put businesses out of business many, many times. And I have never met someone who didn’t want to make money especially a business owner.
Another conservative straw man argument. So your article and you are insisting that the shareholders or private owner, the president, the vp, everyone involved with the company will just stop wanting to make money?
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Wow. You start out claiming it’s a strawman argument and then you make up one of your own. Astonishing.
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Or maybe I’m wrong. Please point out where I “insisted” that “the shareholders or private owner, the president, the vp, everyone involved with the company will just stop wanting to make money?” I know that’s an easier argument to knock down than the actual one but it’s also pretty transparent.
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They are going to close up shop, live off of what money they have in the bank, and risk ending up on the street because it won’t be possible to make money!
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Nope. I never said it and neither did the article. But if a new tax eats into profits they will simply do what it takes to cut costs. the article mentions a few possibilities–none of which are your stawman argument; pass the increase on to customers like hospitals and ambulance companies, cut research and development, and look at trying to shift jobs to lower-cost places around the world.
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Did you read the article before you reacted? It tends to help in the not looking foolish department.
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Left unanswered is my question of why an extra tax on companies that provide technology for health care is a good idea. If one is bound and determined to raise taxes I could think of better businesses to do it to–ones that are CONTRIBUTING to bad health, not saving our lives.
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Are you new to this forum? there are a LOT of liberal posters here and boy are they a whole lot more capable of presenting a coherent and reasonable argument. You could learn a lot.
Let us assume, for the moment, that the $2B levee gets changed to a 2.3% excise tax, which would (I think) get distributed more equitably. Should that tax be assessed, then what the article depends on is that medical manufacturers run at a profit margin of less than 2.3% or that the medical system cannot absorb a 2.3% increase in costs when medical costs are rising, on average, 12% per year. There appears to be a problem with this argument.
First, it’s absurd to think that medical device manufacturers are running only on a 2-3% profit margin. MRI’s cost $10M; CAT Scanners cost $2M; the software to “upgrade” costs in the order of hundreds of thousands (my dad runs a private, for-profit radiological clinic). There’s no way GE isn’t making money on these. To keep up to the medical malpractice insurance code, he has to upgrade or replace his machine every two and five years, respectively. While I’m glad that the equipment is always up to date, I’m not inclined to think the device manufacturers (who are also, by the way, now shielded from medical malpractice from faulty manufacturing, thanks to a Supreme Court decision a few years back) are going to be on the chopping block for a small tax increase.
But let’s say that, all things being equal, they aren’t making money hand over fist. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that their margin is only 2%, meaning a 2.3% tax would eliminate their profit margin. Wait, that’s not right, since the only thing that gets taxed is the profit margin in a corporate structure, unless it’s a tax against gross income, which is illegal in corporate law. So, if the 2.3% tax hurts them that much, then they’re doing their taxes incorrectly. But anyway…let’s say that it does, in fact, eat up their entire profit margin at present.
What does the 2.3% tax pay for? If I’m not mistaken, it goes to more health care coverage, which means more money and need for health-care organizations, which means more per capita inventory, which means more sales for Zoll, which means higher volume sales and more money. Will it wholly offset the loss? I can’t answer that without a lot more information (and I don’t think anyone else on this board can, either). But it seems to me that Zoll can gain not only by an increased investment in R&D to make better cardiac machines to meet increasing demand, but they also stand to make a lot more money, increasing their margins without a loss of quality.
And so I remain confused by the “taxes hurt business” argument, especially in a targeted case like this.
Nonetheless, unless there are many hidden tax mechanisms like this (it seems to me, also, that this $2B tax (yearly) represents perhaps 2% of the income for the program coverage, so it’s a relatively small problem anyway), the net effect of such a levee could quite possibly be positive rather than negative (at least it presents a positive opportunity).
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Wrong on 2 counts. One, I come here almost every day and post rarely and two, maybe you should stop getting all of your news from Fox. Yes, the points are from Move0n, but since they want the truth to get out, this is not plagiarism. They actively want us to pass on this info. I wanted people to read this without having the knee-jerk reaction to MoveOn that you just had. The government is doing what the government is supposed to do. It’s trying to fix a huge problem that we can’t address ourselves. No one asks you to like it, just stop whining about it and get your facts straight.
Bill Mulligan wrote: [i]Wow. You start out claiming it’s a strawman argument and then you make up one of your own. Astonishing.
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Why not throw out a straw man argument that’s what your doing, it seems to be all the Republicans can dish out lately or understand.
[i]Or maybe I’m wrong. Please point out where I “insisted” that “the shareholders or private owner, the president, the vp, everyone involved with the company will just stop wanting to make money?” I know that’s an easier argument to knock down than the actual one but it’s also pretty transparent.[/i]
Please point out an intelligent argument that this company will go out of business because of a tax.
[i] But if a new tax eats into profits they will simply do what it takes to cut costs. the article mentions a few possibilities–none of which are your stawman argument; pass the increase on to customers like hospitals and ambulance companies, cut research and development, and look at trying to shift jobs to lower-cost places around the world.[/i]
Yes the typical strawman arguments always brought up by conservatives. I’ve heard them a thousand times.
1 well that is probably what is exactly going to happen. But lets not forget it will be an increase across the board by all manufacturers.
2 Research, so we’re back to the board packing their bags. No intelligent manager shuts down R&D because the competition won’t and it’s the equivalent of putting a “closed sign” out. Microsoft tried to do it with IE, you’ll notice early last year they back peddled.
3 Pft. The tax rates in this country are lower than they were under than Rondald Reagan and still our hemorrhaging of jobs is going unabated in the last 30 years. Corporations don’t need an excuse to leave the country they just do it, heck we even pay some of them to do it! If they leave the tax is an excuse, greed is the reality.
[i]Left unanswered is my question of why an extra tax on companies that provide technology for health care is a good idea. If one is bound and determined to raise taxes I could think of better businesses to do it to–ones that are CONTRIBUTING to bad health, not saving our lives.[/i]
Taxes? What taxes the bill is loaded with corporate rebates and the ones that pay the taxes, those are far less than buying actual insurance for your employees. I know, I’m a small business owner and the price of health insurance for me and my employees is killing me. In fact it’s my largest yearly expense. Frankly, it will be far cheaper for me to pay the tax for not having insurance, than it is today to pay for the insurance.
[i]Are you new to this forum? there are a LOT of liberal posters here and boy are they a whole lot more capable of presenting a coherent and reasonable argument. You could learn a lot.[/]
One thing is for sure Bill, you haven’t changed one bit over the years.
Wow, could you fail more than this?
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Why not throw out a straw man argument that’s what your doing, it seems to be all the Republicans can dish out lately or understand.
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because it makes you look stupid when you do that, right after complaining about it, that is, you see.. Also…calm down, take a deep breath, write a coherent sentence.
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Please point out an intelligent argument that this company will go out of business because of a tax.
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Since nobody said this company would…not me, not the article…why would I? Oh right…because that’s the strawman argument you made. FAIL.
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Seriously…have you never actually READ some of the people on this board who have the same political leanings you do? Notice how they, you know, don’t sound so…well, let’s leave it at that.
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es the typical strawman arguments always brought up by conservatives. I’ve heard them a thousand times.
1 well that is probably what is exactly going to happen. But lets not forget it will be an increase across the board by all manufacturers.
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Heh…you say it’s a strawman argument and then say that it is probably exactly what will happen…you do know what a strawman argument is, right? FAIL.
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2 Research, so we’re back to the board packing their bags. No intelligent manager shuts down R&D because the competition won’t and it’s the equivalent of putting a “closed sign” out.
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Cutting research is not the same as shutting it down. You understand the difference, right? FAIL.
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Corporations don’t need an excuse to leave the country they just do it, heck we even pay some of them to do it! If they leave the tax is an excuse, greed is the reality.
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The more it costs them to be here, the more likely they are to leave. That’s so painfully obvious it defies reason that you would try to argue against it. true, they may leave anyway. Make it a greater cost savings to do so and they will be more likely to do so. Irrefutable.
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Taxes? What taxes the bill is loaded with corporate rebates and the ones that pay the taxes, those are far less than buying actual insurance for your employees.
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I may need a translator to parse that sentence…but if you are asking “what taxes” I’ve already provided the link. If the facts don’t interest you and you’re only here to vent out poorly written screeds…hey, have a nice life.
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One thing is for sure Bill, you haven’t changed one bit over the years.
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haven’t been the same since “Rondald Reagan”
>Heh…you say it’s a strawman argument and then say that it is probably exactly what will happen…you do know what a strawman argument is, right? FAIL.
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Yes fail Bill on your part. If they suffer an increase in costs and considering all of the tax credits in the bill if they buy insurance I doubt their costs increase, they will be like all companies when costs go up, it will be passed to the end user.
>Cutting research is not the same as shutting it down. You understand the difference, right? FAIL.
Another Bill failure. Are the competitors cutting research? If the competitors are innovating faster than they are, then they will kill themselves off either way. Companies need to keep up with one another. As I pointed out, MS tried to kill off IE as an independent product, they quit developing it and made threats at users about updating to the latest windows. They got away with it against Netscape that had also stagnated and the crap Apple called Safarit. It worked until Mozilla started kicking their butts and then Google came along with Chrome. Suddenly Microsoft had a change of heart early last year and started to release new versions of stand alone IE that didn’t require the newest version of Windows.
In a tight market, where margins are at the line, you either keep up or you die. If their competitors cut R&D or kill it then this company can survive doing the same. Sorry but that is just a fact. Like I said only a bad manager kills or cuts R&D, but then I have seen bad managers do exactly that.
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>The more it costs them to be here, the more likely they are to leave.
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Do you read the Wall Street Journal? Obviously not. There are many reasons companies ship jobs off shore. Taxes usually aren’t the reason. They have lots of ways around taxes.
Craig, you are correct. We need more doctors.
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Luckily, the new law addresses this:
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From http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/health-care_reform_and_the_ele.html#more
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“Going forward, we will provide $1.5 billion in funding to support the next generation of doctors, nurses and other primary care practitioners — on top of a $500 million investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
Ðámņ. I hit the wrong “Reply” button. :^(
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Craig J. Ries asked this question upthread:
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And here I thought we already had a shortage of doctors. Not surprisingly, it’s a problem the rest of the world has, too.
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Maybe that’s one area where they could’ve genuinely tied student loans and health care, by setting aside funds for those who go to college in the health care industry? We need more doctors, nurses, etc, regardless of this bill.
Let’s cut some of the crap here. Neither of the two big American parties can claim the libertarian ground. Both of them advocate telling people how to live and what to do, only in different areas. Likewise, neither of them can claim to be economically conservative, as the cost of the Iraq War has been $2 billion per week, in conservative estimates. When you take a honest look at it, neither of them is really against big spending.
And the situation is too complex for facile predictions. But here is one prediction that I’m reasonably sure of: the dudes that claim Obama has taken the first steps to make America a socialist hëll will be disappointed when, in 5-10 years, America will not be much different than it is today.
Were I American, I’d be guardedly optimistic. Other Western democracies haven’t fallen into total ruin when they chose this path. Common sense says that, whatever the long-term results, they’ll not be disastrous.
Without getting into detail about the bill (overall I think it’s flawed but better than what we had), I found one aspect fascinating:
Republicans threatened that any Democrats who voted in favor of this bill would pay for it in November.
Does that mean Republicans wouldn’t run against any Democrats who voted against the bill? Would these Republicans gracefully stand aside and allow Democrats to be elected or reelected as thanks for not passing on the bill?
Um, no, it means that they think they will have a good fighting point against those who did vote for the bill. They will, of course, run against the others as well, but will not be able to use that particular point. Seriously, did the fact that Lincoln Chafee disagreed with the republican party leadership quite often mean that the Democrats should not have run against him? Of course not. They did and beat him. It’s silly to expect anything less, especially on such flimsy grounds.
I look at this blog every single night, and there were already over a hundred responses here before I even saw it.
I’m not sure what I should say about this subject. I’m afraid I’m going to get attacked no matter what. I guess I should first state for the record that I’ve had a serious pre-existing condition since the age of 14, I make less than ten thousand a year, and I’ve been on Medicaid for a bit less than a year. I did go for several years with no insurance, and for the most part I had to sponge off of relatives. I did have a hospital bill in the past few years that exceeded by annual income. So, I’m probably the sort of person who could most benefit from socialised medicine
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But I still don’t know if it’s morally acceptable. I don’t like the idea of people relying so much on the Government for such a vital part of their lives. It sounds so dangerous. If you depend so much on the Government, will you really be able to stand up to them when you need to?
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I’m fully aware that the system we’ve been suffering under for the last few decades has been a disaster, and it’s quite probable that this new plan will work better. I think I would have preferred scrapping all the laws and regulations we had and starting over with a legitimate Free-Market system, though to be honest I don’t know if that would’ve worked all that well, either.
Or at least left it all up to the states, so that we would have fifty different Socialist systems to choose from. (I’m told the Hawai’ian version has worked fairly well.)
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I don’t have any specific criticisms about the bill that has just been passed, because it’s too difficult to know yet exactly how it’s going to work out. It must always be remembered that what a law is intended to do, and what it actually does, can be very different, particularly when a bill is large and complex.
“It sounds so dangerous. If you depend so much on the Government, will you really be able to stand up to them when you need to?”
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Someone could make the same argument about the police department or the fire department. We all depend on those and other government organizations for our lives. The truth is, the whole point of a government is people as a group doing things that the individuals can’t do well. A small group is a family, a slightly larger group is a community, and at some point that group gets so large that it needs organization and is called a government. Sometimes it becomes overly complicated at that point and there are always some problems, but there’s nothing wrong with the basic idea of it of people working for each other instead of just for themselves.
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We’ll still be able to stand up to the government. If we take a good look at the world, it’s the countries where the governments do the least for their people where the people have the hardest time standing up. The government can’t do everything for their people, but if we look at the countries that have universal health care and those who don’t, it’s clear that this is something where governments have a role to play.
And where the result when they do is the bloodiest and most disruptive.
Really? You are sponging off of Medicare right now, and before that sponged off of relatives and are now calling HCR socialism and saying, “I still don’t know if it’s morally acceptable”
Really? Do you not see your own hypocrisy? If it is so morrally unacceptable then what the frak are you doing on Medicare? At $10,000 a year you aren’t even surviving, so not only if your story is real are you on Medicare but I’m pretty sure welfare, disability, food stamps and probably several other government programs.
I’m also getting sick and tired of the right screaming Free Market. Seriously are people that stupid? Really? Does anyone on the right know what Free Market really looks like? Free Market, no government oversight. Take a long look at Love Cannal and then start adding in every toxic dump site you know of. That would be our environment. Then if you want to know who you would be, well if you truly do suffer what you say then you’d probably be dead. If you want to know where you would be, you may want to study turn of the 20th century robber barons and child labor.
Republicans and conservatives have created this myth that a Free Market is some sort of Eden or Heaven where everything would be perfect and the ultimate American dream would exist. It is a LIE! The environment would be crap, working conditions would be deadly moreso than they are anywhere today and money would be concentrated to the few and the rest of us would eking out the lives of serfs.
The founders of this country warned against the Free Market System, they knew the dangers and created a Republic with government oversight and individual liberties.
Yes, I am aware of my own hypocrisy here. That was why I mentioned all the personal details in the first place, to let everyone know that I do benefit from things like this. But just because I do take advantage of something does not make it ethical.
I would much rather support myself fully, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to. This has been tearing me apart for years.
I do think that sponging off of family is not as bad as sponging off the Government, because their support is voluntary, and that of the taxpayers isn’t. (Some taxpayers may volunteer, but others don’t.)
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I’m not going to try to defend the way I live, because I don’t think I have any defence.
You don’t have to defend yourself because you have done nothing that requires you to do so.
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And don’t sell yourself short–you have personal courage and integrity, which is a dámņ sight more than some can honestly claim.
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Brian, a family supporting a family member who is in a time of need is not sponging, it’s what a family does. My condolences if your family’s treatment of one another made you unable to tell the difference between those two things and my deepest sympathies to any member of your family that may one day need to turn to you for help and support.
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As for what Mary said…
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I read it as Mary pointing out that she very well knows some of the issues with the system and may very well see the need for reform, but that she just feels that this isn’t the right bill or the right way. You can agree with someone else that a certain goal is admirable while disagreeing on what should be done to reach that goal.
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Best Buy and Circuit City both presumably had the goal of selling electronics and related merchandise to the population at large and raking in the cash. As of last year there was no Circuit City anymore. Look at the business plans and actions of the two companies over the last decade plus. Two different companies with the same goal but different plans on how to get there.
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Same here to a degree. She may well agree with you on a goal. She just doesn’t seem to agree on how to get there.
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Her comments were honest and showed some level of intelligence. Your comments showed us that you were a dìçk.
“I’m reminded of the line from “West Wing”–”I like you guys who want to reduce the size of government. Make it just big enough to fit into our bedrooms.” I guess we could add “And a woman’s uterus.””
And yet federally-funded abortions open that same uterus to regulations by guvmint apparatchiks if you take this 2,700+ page behemoth that passed with what the people who passed it have promised is in our future. Many of the same people who whined about expanded federal power with the patriot act now applaud the hiring of 16,000 IRS agents to make sure we buy health care.
I no longer have the right to choose to pay $9,000 a year to insure my family of three (as it costs here in Oregon where we have near-universal coverage), I’m a criminal if I don’t. In other words, unless I pay, my very existence is a crime.
Whenever the guvmint decides to do anything, it always costs more than originally intended. Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare were mentioned. Those programs have been bankrupt for decades. If the Feds want to take over health care, doesn’t anyone here think that maybe they should show us they can fix those programs first before we hand them one sixth of our nation’s economy?
Social Security is not bankrupt, and won’t be till 2037, according to the CBO.
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Or it *wouldn’t* be if Congress and the White House – particularly Republican Administrations – hadn’t plundered the Trust Fund, replacing actual money with IOUs in order to use the Social Security Trust Fund money to make their deficits look smaller than they actually were.; Just as Reagan attempted to block a major highway spending bill which authorised spending money from the Highway Trust Fund which *by law* could not be used for any other purpose … because so long as it wasn’t spent, it could be counted with the General Fund and used to illusoriosly “reduce” the record budget deficit he was running up.
I no longer have the right to choose to pay $9,000 a year to insure my family of three (as it costs here in Oregon where we have near-universal coverage), I’m a criminal if I don’t. In other words, unless I pay, my very existence is a crime.
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Really. Considering that everything I’ve read says that if you’re satisfied with your current health insurance, then you’re good to go–that indeed Obama addressed that very point and said no changes would be required if you were happy with what you’ve got now–I’d be interested to know your source on that since the assertion makes zero sense to me.
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As for abortion, yeah, I’m not happy with that, and it frustrates me that anti-abortion Democrats were responsible for it. It’s tragic that Democrats are unable to march in perfect lockstep like the unimind Republicans. That whole “thinking as individuals” thing can be a major pain in the ášš.
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“I no longer have the right to choose” is the key phrase here.
Malcolm has up til now chosen to pay for this health insurance. Implicit is that he has the option choose to not have health insurance. That choice has been taken away from him. It is now against the law for him to not pay for health insurance.
In this case, I suppose, “pro-choice” folks would oppose this health care bill; “anti-choice” folks would be in favor of it.
Malcolm has up til now chosen to pay for this health insurance.
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And yet, hospitals are not allowed to choose to not then treat him if he doesn’t have insurance, even though those without insurance are likely an even greater drain on the system as a whole. If you don’t have insurance now, you’re probably not get preventive care which would help avoid more costly care down the road.
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So, it’s a double-edged sword. I don’t like the notion of being forced to buy insurance. But I like the notion even less that millions of people are out there draining the system with emergency and long-term care due to a lack of preventive care.
Malcolm has up til now chosen to pay for this health insurance. Implicit is that he has the option choose to not have health insurance. That choice has been taken away from him.
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He also doesn’t have the right to buy a car without a seat belt, and if he refuses to buckle that seat belt, he faces fines if caught. On the other hand, if he is stubborn enough to buck all that, he faces a higher risk of death should there be an accident.
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I suppose it could be argued that the gene pool would be well served if people of that mindset are removed from it, but that seems a rather extreme position to take.
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There is a difference between this and seat belts. As far as I know–and please correct me if I’m wrong–this would be the first time Americans were forced to buy a product as a requirement for lawful residence.
There is a difference between this and seat belts. As far as I know–and please correct me if I’m wrong–this would be the first time Americans were forced to buy a product as a requirement for lawful residence.
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Okay, you’e wrong. What else is social security, which you’re required to pay into, if not a product that you’re being forced to buy? What else is income tax if not money that you’re being compelled to pay in exchange for any number of services?
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No. You do not buy social security or buy taxes. If you do not work you do not contribute to either. You can legally live here without buying either. It’s not a legal requirement for residency.
David says–Actually, your assertion that you don’t “buy” taxes if you’re unemployed is incorrect on two fronts.
First, no one “buys” taxes. We’re required by law to PAY taxes.
Second: I’m unemployed (and have been for over a year) and I still pay income tax. Unemployment benefits are not tax exempt, at least not here in the States.
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Take it up with Peter. he’s the one who disagreed with me that this would be the first time Americans were forced to buy a product as a requirement for lawful residence. he gave taxes and social security as examples. And while you are correct that unemployment benefits can be taxed, not everyone who is not working for an income is a person who has lost a job. There are people who are either off the grid, or homemakers, or any number of situations.
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I agree with you wholeheartedly that taxes are not at all the same thing as being forced by law to buy health insurance as a requirement for residency. While I do not have the level of hatred for the idea as, say, the folks at firedoglake who claim it is a step on the path to “neo-feudalism”, I do think it deserves some attention for being what it is.
You want to those programs fixed, the pay for your wars and put the money the Republicans stole from the trust funds back! It was in the news just last week that the SS fund has been raided for Trillions since the Reagan era mainly by Reagan, Bush and Bush to balance their overspending and tax cuts! A large chunk was stolen by Bush II to fund his sorry excuse for a war in Iraq and the bill is coming due. So I would suggest start cleaning up the mess by purging the Republicans. You can’t spend more and more money and cut taxes and expect to balance anything even though the Republicans seem to think so.
A couple quick points.
SS has been raided regularly since Truman and it’s the congress responsible for that. And even JFK recognized that lowers taxes paradoxically meant greater tax revenue.
The fact that no Republicans voted for this works both ways. Sure, they may be of uni-mind, but the opposition to the bill was the only bi-partisan effort on the hill.
“And even JFK recognized that lowers taxes paradoxically meant greater tax revenue.”
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Sometimes. Not always. Clinton raised taxes on the rich early in his term and the next few years had not only great economic growth for the country, but also lower deficits due to the extra money brought in by taxes because of that growth. So the rich were making more money and the government was getting more money at the same time all with higher taxes.
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It’s very, very complex. Lots of factors go into the final result and it doesn’t boil down to a simple rule like, “lower taxes paradoxically mean greater tax revenue.”
Bill Mulligan:
Actually, your assertion that you don’t “buy” taxes if you’re unemployed is incorrect on two fronts.
First, no one “buys” taxes. We’re required by law to PAY taxes.
Second: I’m unemployed (and have been for over a year) and I still pay income tax. Unemployment benefits are not tax exempt, at least not here in the States.
President Obama just said that if you want to keep your present insurance, you can.
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I am not making this up. I heard it not 90 seconds ago on television, which is my background music this afternoon.
It’s great living in Ireland, if you’re sick you go to the hospital and they treat you,
If you have healthcare you have a semi-private or private room.
If not you may be in a ward with 4 or more people.
But if you to need to stay overnight you will stay overnight.
All healthcare costs the same for everyone over 18, no matter what condition you develop.
If you are poor you get a “medical card” and all your doctor and hospital visits are free.
Also, there are no “wallet checks” where if your unconscious they check you wallet to see which hospital you go to.
You go to the nearest hospital that can treat your type of injury.
There are no stories of someone tripping and falling, staying in hospital for the weekend and having to pay a
fifty thousand euro bill. In fact I was talking to an American tourist here who was treated for a head injury for free with no fuss.
What I don’t understand, from not living in the states I suppose, is why anyone would be against this?
We have a healthcare system to benefit the people using it, if there are profits they go into the system.
Private healthcare is to benefit shareholders, and no-one else.
Its was different when you didn’t have the option but now you do people are still against it?
Ordinary people are saying “We prefer a system that makes a handful of people rich”
to “We prefer a system that benefits everyone so we don’t have to worry about it”.
Now I’m not saying our system is perfect, and some operations are expensive all over the world.
But I have never spoken to anyone who was refused cover for an operation, and I’m 32.
So over here we think your president is great, and he’s really looking out for you.
And its weird some of you don’t.
>What I don’t understand, from not living in the states I suppose, is why anyone would be against this?
Because the majority of people are stupid and wasted their chance at an education. Suffering from both of these conditions a large percentage will blindly follow anyone who says something that comes close to their own hatreds, beliefs, idiocy they heard their parents say as children. A few studies over the last couple of years came out with the findings that conservatives are less educated and intelligent than liberals. Considering the lies they are believing these days I have no doubt of the validity of those findings.
There is also the fact that Ronald Reagan came to power not by offering to help people but with a saying that went something like: The scariest thing in the world to hear is I’m from the government and am here to help, 30 some years ago. That saying has somehow lodged in the psyche of the conservatives and won’t shake free. So any time you say government help they go into collective convulsions and start spewing free market crap.
You will notice above Mary Warner, someone who claims to make less than $10,000 a year, an amount that would have her living in a box under a bridge, has supposedly had a life threatening condition for years, sponged off of relatives to survive and now sponges off of Medicare along with dozens of other government welfare programs I’m pretty sure if her story is real and what did she say: But I still don’t know if it’s morally acceptable. I don’t like the idea of people relying so much on the Government for such a vital part of their lives. It sounds so dangerous. If you depend so much on the Government, will you really be able to stand up to them when you need to?,,,I would have preferred scrapping all the laws and regulations we had and starting over with a legitimate Free-Market system, …
This is the type of hypocrisy and contradictions we have to put up with constantly from the conservatives/Republicans. Free Markets are some sort of Eden and government is bad and needs to get out, even though true free markets would be hëll on earth except for a select few. But when the crap hits the fan and a tornado wipes out their house or a fire burns everything they own or a crook holds them at gun point these are the same people who call the government services in a blink of an eye. Oh and they have a fit they have to pay taxes for these services. The same ones that when they reach the age of Medicare don’t burn their cards and leave their SS checks un-cashed.
I have developed the theory that these people act against their own best interests because they think that the Conservative Rich will rain money down on them and welcome them to the gilded cage for their loyalty.
Charming. Thank God the vast majority of those on the left are not like you. Mary is a valued member of this community. You’re a guy who thinks that those who disagree with him are stupid idiots. I think I can guess who the vast majority would rather hang out with, perhaps explaining your bitterness.
Brian, please stop attacking Mary. She did not make a rigid statement, she expressed an unsure feeling of doubt about the health care reforms. That she recognizes that she is ambivalent to the changes is a good thing. She is open to more information and willing to be convinced of its benefit to our society.
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It is possible to make less than the poverty level and still survive. It isn’t pleasant, and it often means living in places where you wouldn’t invite company over, or living with people who you really don’t want to.
My grandfather was a skilled union electrician working for Chicago Edison. During the Depression, he was about five numbers from being next when the layoffs stopped.
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The union organised food baskets for members who weren’t so lucky.
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One guy said, when they arrived at his place, “Thank God you came – if there wasn’t food for my wife and kids by tomorrow, I was going to get out my .45 and go get some.”
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Morals are all well and good – and the person who can live by his, even in situations where it would be easier (to the point of survival, if “easier” covers that) is admirable.
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But Arthur Ransome, in his “Swallows & Amazons” books, more than once quotes a sailor’s proverb: “When it’s Life and Death, all rules go by the board.”
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I will not criticise anyone who does what they must to survive (short of overt harm to others).
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Reality trumps abstraction.
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And Mary quite freely admits that her moral stance is at least potentially in conflict with her actions; well, it’s called “being human.”
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I was wrong about you before, Brian. you’re not a dìçk. You’re even worse than that, but even I’m too polite to write on Peter’s blog what you should truly be called.
Because different societies are slow to recognize different needs. It could be argued that, in Ireland, you’re quick to recognize physical health needs, but slow to acknowledge relational health needs, because Ireland prohibited divorce until 1995. So until 1995 basically a woman could be stuck in an abusive marriage and get her face caved in by a husband she couldn’t divorce, but hey, at least getting medical attention was a snap.
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Sorry Peter, I’m not replying to you but why does the reply button disappear the longer a thread gets?
To Jerry Chandler this is like the third time you called me a name over the years I have been here, right back at ya.
To Bill Muligan, no I’m the guy who is fed up listening to conservatives call me names because I am a progressive. Today I couldn’t turn on a new program without listening to some red in the fact conservative calling me and those like me names. How about your leaders, Glenn Beck, Rush, McCain, Sarah, Hannity, Michelle, Ann, I don’t think one of them missed a beat in the name calling today saying far worse than questioning Mary’s story or calling conservatives stupid. Oh then there’s this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ik4f1dRbP8&feature=related Modern conservatism at it’s best.
So yes, ask me if I care and I’ll just think about being labeled a traitor by a few of you on this blog way back because I stood against the war.
Mike, Alan, Mary knew exactly what she was saying when she said it. If she wants to cast it in a “moral” or now “ethical” debate that’s her choice and I think she is a big girl who can take care of herself. And I take offense at being told there is a possibility because I desire health care for everyone that I’m not moral! I’m one of those cheer leading her right to get medical treatment when she can’t afford it and she’s questioning my ethics, my morals all the while using what she considers it morally wrong?!!! That’s the very definition of hypocrisy and being ungrateful!
How about the moral and ethics that in the richest country on earth we are letting people die of tooth decay because they can’t afford a visit to a doctor and have it taken care of! Mary knew full what what she was saying, I assume she’s an adult and if she wants to cast aspersions at the very people who are trying to support her and pay for keeping her alive, she knows the price, she even typed it into her post.
Ok Brian, here’s a suggestion–turn off the radio, Because you seem to think that if someone on the radio–someone who doesn’t even know you are alive!–“calls you names” you then have the right–nay, the obligation!–to go act like a dìçk to other people.
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Nobody–No. Bo. Dy.–gives rat’s ášš what you think Glenn Beck, Rush, McCain, Sarah, Hannity, Michelle, Ann, said to you (and wow, I never listen to any of these people and you spent the entire day doing just that??? MY leaders? Sounds like you are a regular acolyte!) Your bruised ego, wounded at the voices from the radio in no way mitigates your dickishness.
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BUT–and this is no small thing–in an atmosphere where decent people on opposite sides of the fence on an important issue can sometimes speak a bit more harshly to each other than is warranted, it is an altogether good thing when someone..someone like you…comes along and unites both sides in disdain. You serve a purpose, even if it’s that of a bad example to be avoided.
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So, thanks.
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So yes, ask me if I care and I’ll just think about being labeled a traitor by a few of you on this blog way back because I stood against the war.
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Names? Since you have given no reason to think taking you at your word is a wise move, how about a quote. Who here did that? Call them out by name, those dirty dastards!
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Brian: “Sorry Peter, I’m not replying to you but why does the reply button disappear the longer a thread gets? “
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You can reply to the original post or you can reply to the reply to the original post, but the format will not let you reply to the posts beyond that generation. If you want to stay in the same discussion column, follow the discussion upwards until you see a reply function and use that one. Your comment will fall in place chronologically in the thread below it.
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“To Bill Muligan, no I’m the guy who is fed up listening to conservatives call me names because I am a progressive. Today I couldn’t turn on a new program without listening to some red in the fact conservative calling me and those like me names.”
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And yet, the people who are finding your act foolish and asinine here are almost all left of center to greater or lesser degrees or moderates. Wonder why that is? Hëll, Alan Coil has seemed almost bomb thrower loony left on his bad days of late and even he’s telling you the crap you’re hurling Mary’s way is off base.
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Hey, here’s a thought. Maybe it’s you that’s the cause of the problems your having in discussions like this and not the other people that you’re talking to.
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“How about your leaders, Glenn Beck, Rush, McCain, Sarah, Hannity, Michelle, Ann, I don’t think one of them missed a beat in the name calling today saying far worse than questioning Mary’s story or calling conservatives stupid.”
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Wow Bill, this guy just has you so pegged on the first go. God knows that your always going on about what a great and insightful bunch your “leaders” in the cause are. Maybe I should be worried about being brainwashed in my sleep next weekend on top of being eaten by the undead.
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Seriously Brian, while Bill is more right leaning than left leaning, anyone who reads or posts here with any regularity was laughing at that statement.
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“So yes, ask me if I care and I’ll just think about being labeled a traitor by a few of you on this blog way back because I stood against the war.”
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Yeah, and since Bill wasn’t calling anyone here a traitor, the majority of bloggers here were against the Irag war and Alan, Mike, I and others here who have responded to you were most certainly against the Iraq folly and/or how it was carried out… This isn’t an idiotic point to bring up… how?
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“And I take offense at being told there is a possibility because I desire health care for everyone that I’m not moral! I’m one of those cheer leading her right to get medical treatment when she can’t afford it and she’s questioning my ethics, my morals all the while using what she considers it morally wrong?!!! That’s the very definition of hypocrisy and being ungrateful!”
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Because, again, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything. That includes the mechanisms in the thing that has you doing something that you think is right. There are issues with the bill as passed. It aims to do the right thing, but there are several major issues with it as well as a multitude of little ones.
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This may be the right thing to do, but this bill as is may be the wrong way to do it.
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“I assume she’s an adult and if she wants to cast aspersions at the very people who are trying to support her and pay for keeping her alive, she knows the price, she even typed it into her post.”
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“To Jerry Chandler this is like the third time you called me a name over the years”
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Gee Brian, maybe it’s because you’re earning it? Hey, it’s just the price you pay.
>Gee Brian, maybe it’s because you’re earning it? Hey, it’s just the price you pay.
Tell you what Jerry I’ll just start addressing you as big dìçk. I’d say you’ve earned it.
Brian —
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Please ease up a bit. Be calm.
I’m perfectly calm Alan.
Brian>/b> said:
So was HAL 9000.
> So until 1995 basically a woman could be stuck in an abusive marriage and get her face caved in by a husband she couldn’t divorce
Fair point, but a woman could get a seperation from her husband and live somewhere else. And the courts back then gave the house and kids to the mother in a seperation 9 out of 10 times. And remember Ireland was piss poor up until the 90’s. But even when we were dirt poor (“looks like your brothers clothes might fit you” poor), people still weren’t refused healthcare. Money does bring prosperity and we prospered with it, bringing divorce and other things. Hierarchy of needs and all that.
I like your point, we are quick to recognise physical needs, maybe thats why no-one has guns in this country, not even the cops (or guards as we call them).
So in your hypothetical situation, the wife (or husband) might have their “face caved in”, but at least they weren’t getting their “head blown off”.
Maybe thats why our health system is cheaper.
(the above humbly stated with the utmost respect to your ongoing genius)
The US and Ireland (and other countries) go through different cultural processes that shaped them over time. At the end both countries end up being similarly western, liberal, democratic countries, but the evolution was different. It’s not always good or bad. It’s just that each country gets there in a different way.
In Europe there is a strong historical connection between the country, the nation and one religion, but there was also a strong tradition of secularism and anti-clericalism (less in Ireland, I think). In the US there is a strong tradition of religious pluralism and separation of church and state, but less anti-clericalism. So Europe went from an extreme of an established religion forcing restrictions on society to the other extreme of secularism. The US had less religious laws but the the culture is more religious. So the US looks down at the way religion was part of European societies, and Europeans look down at the way religion is part of American society.
Europe has less of a concept of gun-ownership as a right, but more of social welfare as a right. In the US the reverse is true.
Micha, thats a BRILLIANT response.
I can’t believe it, someone actually wrote something intelligent and well written on the internet, its a real breath of fresh air.
Thank you.
I’m glad we don’t have guns here, I’ve never ever seen a real gun (movies don’t count).
Thanks.
It’s interesting that despite being ruled by and fighting the English Ireland did not develop a more positive attitude toward guns and more of a negative attitude toward small government like in the US. I guess you never know how attitudes like that would develop.
Maybe all the gun loving Irish moved to the US.
On the face of it it seems that guns cause a lot of problem for Americans. But that’s how the culture developed in the US. There are reasons for the American attitude toward guns, just as there are for different attitudes.
>Thank God the vast majority of those on the left are not like you.
You want to talk about what people are like? Let’s talk about the right and this disgusting piece of video: http://wonkette.com/414272/nice-wealthy-ohio-teabagger-will-pay-for-mans-parkinsons-ugh Let’s talk about the way the rest of the conservatives that day were acting, so bad the minority leader walks out and tells them to behave.
Should we discuss the way conservative leader Glenn Beck behaves? How about Rush Lumbaugh? Here is a good one should we discuss how conservative leader Sean Hannity is stealing money from donaters in the name of war orphans and wounded soldiers? http://www.debbieschlussel.com/6938/sean-hannitys-freedom-concert-scam-only-7-of-charitys-money-went-to-injured-troops-kids-of-fallen-troops-g5s-g6s-for-vannity/ The government has forcibly taken over charities less crooked than Sean’s.
So Bill tell me, how is Mary’s rant intelligent? Really government supported health care is some sort of moral failing yet she is on Medicare? Really? Really, she is accusing those of us who want government involvement of being morally wrong for wanting it, all the while she’s what? Has no morals at all?
Yes I consider today’s conservatives to be lacking in intelligence. Your leaders are robbing you blind and you keep cheer leading them on. Bush created the greatest transfer of wealth in history from the many to the few under his regime http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer and you keep telling us how good we had it under Bush.
Not bitter but pìššëd øff, fed up, and mad as hëll. The Republican party died with Nixon, the conservatives of today are people who are cheer leading their own downfall into serfdom, in the name of something they don’t understand. And they are dragging the rest of us down with them. If that isn’t stupid I don’t know what is!
“There is also the fact that Ronald Reagan came to power not by offering to help people but with a saying that went something like: The scariest thing in the world to hear is I’m from the government and am here to help, 30 some years ago. That saying has somehow lodged in the psyche of the conservatives and won’t shake free. So any time you say government help they go into collective convulsions and start spewing free market crap.”
That saying reflects the soul of the classic liberalism of Edmund Burke (the British politician, not the Chicago Alderman) which is the heart of modern conservatism. A conservative looks at a problem and doesn’t say, “That’s horrible! How can the government fix it?” He sees a problem and does something about it himself.
We don’t look to the government for answers, we look to ourselves. It is the supreme abdication of personal responsibility towards my fellow man to leave it to the guvmint to alleviate misery and suffering.
I don’t understand your sentiment. Why can’t it be that Barack Obama looked at a problem and basically decided to do something about it himself. Rather than acting as a bellweather to opinion polls, he said, “This has to be fixed. So I should fix it.” As opposed to…what? Saing, “This has to be fixed, but it’s not my job to do it?” Again, the same conservatives who praise Bush for his rugged individualism condemn Obama for the same attributes.
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When you enact a law, especially a federal one, there is a cost to it, often in the form of taxpayer money, and/or our rights. When you help pass a law that takes a bit more tax money out of the pockets of the citizenry, you’re not just doing it “yourself”. And when you take away the people’s rights, that’s hardly a solution. How is forcing people to buy health insurance an option? I thought one of the reasons for health care reform were people like me who couldn’t afford it? So what if I don’t buy it? Do I get fined? And how am I going to pay that? Any details on this? Or is this only for employers?
First, unlike most of my fellow Republicans, I do admire the way the Democrats were willing to fall on their own swords to put through something they thought was right when roughly 70% of the country opposed it. I don’t like the parliamentary tricks applied, but I admire the drive. I wish W showed the same determination in Social Security reform. This isn’t to say I think the bill will do anything we’re told it will. I don’t believe it will lower premiums for the rest of us while simultaneously forcing insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions at the same rate. I can spout economic sophisms here, but I’d rather focus on the sentiment.
Obama’s tax returns during the campaign showed the man as not donating a cent to charity, so I’m not sure I can buy the rugged individualism argument. It seems more like he’s telling the rest of the country to do what he won’t. I suppose that might be individualism of a sort. Also, Bush was not the model of conservatism.
When government gets into the charity business, it does so with taxes which are compulsory for everyone. When I see someone with a “Will work for food.” sign, I’ve been known to take the person up on it and take him home to do a few odd jobs for which I feed him and slide him a few extra bucks. I never think, “I’ll get my pistol and hold it to my neighbor’s head and tell him to feed the poor man.” nor do I take the poor guy to the welfare office.
I’ll try to expound more on this later.
Malcolm said:
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“…when roughly 70% of the country opposed it…”
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Not true. Only 43% opposed it. The rest either were in favor of it or thought it should go farther. The 3 choices were ‘In Favor’, ‘Opposed’, and ‘Think it doesn’t go far enough’.
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“I don’t like the parliamentary tricks applied…”
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Same tricks the Republicans have used in the past. Goose meet Gander.
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“This isn’t to say I think the bill will do anything we’re told it will.”
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Obviously. It’s all lies, or the Democrats wouldn’t have supported it. Right.
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“Obama’s tax returns during the campaign showed the man as not donating a cent to charity, so I’m not sure I can buy the rugged individualism argument.”
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That doesn’t always mean anything one way or the other. I obviously can’t speak for Obama here, but I don’t write off anything I give to charities so it will never show up on my tax records.
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I also find this logic to be less than spectacular when used by some. Many Republicans and their supporters claim state that a program like this is making other people’s tax money pay for another person’s “charity” of choice. Yet, when it comes time to show what givers they are they roll out their tax records to show what a big credit they got on their taxes for charitable giving. Ever actually think about the fact that if you’re paying less on your own taxes for charity write offs it means that you are in fact having other people foot the bill to your charity with their tax money?
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They certainly have. Every notice that one of the first objections really wealthy politicians and political supporters have when someone suggests removing the tax credit for charitable giving is that charitable giving to churches and shelters would drop like a rock the first year it was gone? If you write off your giving on your taxes than you are, to at least a degree, having the government foot the bill for your charitable giving.
Luigi Novi: “How is forcing people to buy health insurance an option? I thought one of the reasons for health care reform were people like me who couldn’t afford it? So what if I don’t buy it? Do I get fined? And how am I going to pay that? Any details on this? Or is this only for employers?”
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Depending on your circumstances, you might not need to directly purchase insurance yourself.
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Employers will have additional incentives starting this year to insure their employees. Children will be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. Medicaid will be expanded to people making 133% or less of the federal poverty level.
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Americans who are too rich for Medicaid, too old to use their parents’ insurance, not covered by their employer, and too young for Medicare will need to purchase their own health insurance. Those making below a certain amount each year will receive subsidies to help them purchase their own health insurance.
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This is similar to the existing Massachusetts health care system.
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The Washington Post has a calculator to help individuals figure how the new law will affect them:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/what-health-bill-means-for-you/?nav=most_emailed
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“This is similar to the existing Massachusetts health care system.”
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Yeah, and from what I’ve read about theirs it’s been a train wreck in as many areas as it’s been a help.
Yeah, and from what I’ve read about theirs it’s been a train wreck in as many areas as it’s been a help.
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How so? Do you mean Massachusetts’ lack of cost controls?
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/the_lessons_of_massachusetts.html
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The new law does improve on the Massachusetts system by adding cost controls.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/the_five_most_promising_cost_c.html
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We hope it works that way. We don’t know that it will and, frankly, very few government programs perform as advertised in the financial end of the deal.
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There’s much I like in this bill, there are some things I’m unsure of and there are several major things that I dislike greatly. I was really hoping that the process would work out a little longer and iron a few things out. I’m certainly not in the Rabid Right’s camp here, but I am less than enthusiastic about this bill’s passage.
I pity all those that listen and truly believe ignorant sound bites, intellectually dishonest, hypocritcal observations and talking points over the REAL, obvious suffering of people who through – no fault of their own – were either born the way they were or had an accident or illness thrust on them.
November’s coming and all those that voted “no” that would’ve eased suffering and bankruptcies, and who threatened to make this a “Waterloo” will be remembered. I hate to belabour the obvious but it ain’t like 1994.
Fact is: even if McCain had won and he had tried to reform health care I would’ve been on his side. Just like those enlightened moderate Republicans who voted for Social Security and Medicare back in the sixties.
In the history of the United State no rights were just GIVEN.
They were fought for either in the battlefield {Independence) in the courtrooms or in the polling booths. If the status quo were maintained: Women would not have the right to vote, Blacks would still be segregated, children would be working in mines from sunrise to sundown, women would still be having back alley abortions, no Pregnancy leave, etc., etc,
Change is scary but it is also inevitable. Is this health bill perfect? No, neither was Social Security or Medicare when they were passed – they certainly don’t look NOW as they were approved back then.
The grave mistake was those against reform made everything personal. For all their public denials – at least (oddly enough) Rush and Beck are honest (also insane) – it was really all anti-Obama!
If the president NEVER took ideas from the other side – even I (an independent) would have raised concerns. The reality is – if he publicly announced he liked a proposal that the other side wanted, then they’d change and go against him.
All I during these debates saw was the POTUS going out of the way and even angering his own party JUST to get at least ONE vote from the other side. Sorry, IMHO the Republicans have made a HUGE mistake by doubling down and just saying, “NO.”
One could hope that they (Repubs) go after waste, fraud and abuses so I can be on their side of the argument but if they keep this toxic and petulant attitude – they MIGHT just shrink themselves out of relevancy.
My question is, not that the POTUS signed it into law, isn’t Rush supposed to be headed towards Costa Rica? Want to know when to go to the airport and wave him goodbye.
We can all get together and throw him a nice farewell party!
That was before Rush found out that Costa Rica not only has universal coverage, they have government run hospitals. His potential refuge is *way* more socialist than what he was going to run away from.
We need to have t-shirts that say “Rush went to Costa Rica and all I got was this huge grin.”
The Costa Rica comment came when he was talking to someone who asked him where he’ll get his health care if the bill passed. He said he he’d go somewhere where the medicine wasn’t socialized if he needed medical care and caller suggested Costa Rica to which he said, “Fine, I’ll go to Costa Rica.” Anyone who listens to Rush regularly has heard him say, “It’s not time to move to New Zealand just yet.”
It’s Barbra Streisand and a couple other limousine liberals who threaten to move every four years if the Dems don’t take the White House.
He said he he’d go somewhere where the medicine wasn’t socialized if he needed medical care and caller suggested Costa Rica to which he said, “Fine, I’ll go to Costa Rica.”
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Which means he’s relying on the ignorance (or the intentional misdirection) of his callers. Not exactly a great defense.
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Anyone who listens to Rush regularly has heard him say, “It’s not time to move to New Zealand just yet.”
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I tend to doubt that New Zealand would let him in. And yes, New Zealand has publicly funded health care, too. Ol’ Rush might want to turn his eyes to a real third-world country that doesn’t have universal health care (or any health care at all) instead.
Thank you to everybody who supported me above. I know my views are very unpopular here, and I know I don’t really have a coherent idea for a workable alternative.
It really hurts when so many people assume that anyone in opposition to the Health-Care bill, or other welfare-type programs must be cruel and heartless, or at least unmidnfull of other’s suffering. Because that’s not necessarily true. I’m so glad that many of you can understand that someone can see the need for reform without necessarily supporting the reform plan in question.
Don’t let it hurt you. Especially when it comes from people who are…well, the way they are.
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It’s a complex issue and we won’t know for some time how it will all shake out.
>Ok Brian, here’s a suggestion–turn off the radio,
I don’t listen to the radio Bill, I listen to the news and see the parade of conservative leaders across the screen every day. Can’t even watch Leno without Palin showing her mug or Rush.
> you then have the right–nay, the obligation!–to go act like a dìçk to other people.
I’m stating my opinion, Bill, you’re the one acting like a dìçk and calling me name.
> MY leaders? Sounds like you are a regular acolyte!) Your bruised ego, wounded at the voices from the radio in no way mitigates your dickishness.
You don’t listen to them, but you sure are acting like them right now. Thanks for supporting my theory that most conservatives are just like their leaders.
>.someone like you…comes along and unites both sides in disdain. You serve a purpose, even if it’s that of a bad example to be avoided.
Sure thing Bill, thanks for proving that you are just like your leaders and spokesmen. But then I’ve known that for quite a wile, ye of short memory.
>Names? Since you have given no reason to think taking you at your word is a wise move, how about a quote.
Don’t care.
>Who here did that? Call them out by name, those dirty dastards!
Don’t remember if you ever said traitor but I do remember you having trouble with vomiting about your private parts. Nice to know that some things never change.
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Brian, above you tried to use [ ] to format your quotes. Those don’t work here. This blog’s formatting uses instead. Also, there’s an odd glitch in the paragraph break. Well, there is no paragraph break. That’s why we’ve all taken to putting a period in between our paragraphs.
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Not that this will make your posts more intelligent or sane at this point, but at least they’ll be easier to read and laugh at.
Try this…
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It doesn’t use [ ] for formatting. It use this instead. Just putting those in before, even with a space between them, made them invisible.
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Sigh…
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Last try. Hit shift ‘,’ button and shift ‘.’ button. The little sideways angles. Can’t even use them at all or they disappear.
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> <
You could just do what I do when I feel the need to quote somebody. I just write what the person said, and enclose it in quotation marks. (Well, actually I prefer to use ‘inverted commas’, or ‘single quotes’ as they are called in the US, because I love using British spelling and punctuation. But I’m weird.)
It’s really easy to do, and even more importantly, it’s the only way I know how. I never had any idea how people on here did those quotations until I saw Jerry’s instructions just now. And now I still don’t know.
Brian, above you tried to use [ ] to format your quotes. T
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Thank you, this software was one of the reasons I wasn’t posting. Quite strange.
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>Not that this will make your posts more intelligent or sane at this point, but at least they’ll be easier to read and laugh at.
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I”m crushed. No not really. What ever Jerry. I’ve laughed at yours several times in the past. And now I think you are a dìçk. So I guess we are even.
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Mary,
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On some forums they use…
[i]whatever you write[/i]
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… for italics.
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To bold they use…
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[b]whatever you write[/b]
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… to do the trick. On this blog you just have to use > in place of ] and use < in place of [. I hope that putting them in reverse order in that last sentence actually lets them post this time.
Just seeing if this works
I guess it did work. Thank you, Jerry.
We now resume the scheduled shouting match, already in progress….
Formatting on this page is accomplished through basic HTML markup.
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I don’t remember if the URL markup is enabled – but, if it is, here’s a link to a page of basic HTML formatting tips.
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(If it doesn’t work, i’ll figure out some other way to get it across. Be glad it’s HTML, though – the uComics comments board uses a weird markup format called “Textile”…)
You mean you people haven’t just shrouded this twerp yet?
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It’s a simple procedure – I read his first couple of posts, found that all he had to offer was personal abuse and poor reasoning; after that, I just have to see his name at the top of a text-wall, then scroll down until I see another name, and read what that person has to say instead. That way, I avoid annoying myself with insults and illogic (except when that’s what the next person has to offer, of course, but that’s a rarity around here, really…)
Oops, sorry – meant to append that beneath Jerry’s post, to make it clear I was referring to this “Brian” character, but it’s still early. Curse the lack of an “edit” function!
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“Oops, sorry – meant to append that beneath Jerry’s post, to make it clear I was referring to this “Brian” character”
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Really? Huh… We were thinking that you were finally taking a stand against that notorious hothead Mike Weber. It’s about time he paid the price for his calm demeanor and reasonable debate points. Maybe Vanderboegh can throw a brick through his window.
What? We’re not going after Weber/ What am I supposed to do with all of these pitchforks and torches? I even bought a few of those weird rake things the villagers in frankenstein movies always had. I mean, I can always pitch hay or something and you know I can think of fun to do with torches–youtube is full of amusing fire related videos–but what do I do with the rakey things? They don’t even work particularly well as rakes. maybe they were strictly for fighting monsters and storming castles, though this would seem to be the sort of thing that did not happen every day.
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So Weber lives to fight another day…but vengeance, lemony fresh, served piping hot with buttered biscuits, shall one day be ours!
Use them to groom yer beard…? Find someone near coals….?
trying an experiment with markup – might not work.
Jerry Chandler said:
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And
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Bill Mulligan said:
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Geeze – are you guys sure you’re not talking about some other mike weber – well, come to think, you must be, because he apparently types his name with uppercase initials.
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But ask anyone who’s ever been on a usenet newsgroup with me, or in an apa together, and you’d probably hear different lyrics.
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It’s not that i go looking for flamewars to pour petrol on, but it seems to happen…
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…and when it does, i am infamous for my legendary powers of tenacity and snarkiness
Oh – Bill – i believe those things are left-handed Cornish hop-reaper’s hooks…
(Trying a different mark-up experiment here: < >)
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Mary, when the person who is attacking you says this…
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“Because the majority of people are stupid and wasted their chance at an education.”
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… and then goes on to prove that he is in fact the perfect example of this criticism he ain’t worth the sweating it. Most of the rational posters here got what you were trying to say. It’s not your fault or the fault of your views being “unpopular” that’s the problem with the few who don’t get it.
I don’t know if it’s scary or amusing, but this whole Obamacare thing and all the protests against it made me realize how so many people still believe in Capitalism! (with the capital C and the exclamation point, as in the “religion of…”), and how they may be as devoted as the ones that still believe in Socialism! (most of THOSE nuts outside of America and I’ve met too many of them in Brazilian college).
I must have dreamed that we were 10 years into the 21th century. I am afraid to wake up and realize the Cold War is still going on.
Just a quick question.
So far the word “republican” has been mentioned 42 times and “democrat” 44 times. Do you all consider yourself part of one party or another?
In Ireland we have a few parties (though the same one has been in charge for a while, admittedly, but always in coalition with another one) but you rarely meet anyone who says they supports a party, mostly its just “bloody government and their bølløçkš”, and if theres an issue we discuss it only on the right and wrongs of the issue. Not the party.
Might ye consider leaving parties out of the remaining conversation?
Might ye consider leaving parties out of the remaining conversation?
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It’s a bit difficult to do so when the issue is so blatantly partisan. Every Republican voted against the health care bill, along with some Democrats. It was the reverse on other issues under Bush… which just goes to show how deeply seated the two parties are.
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“Do you all consider yourself part of one party or another?
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Might ye consider leaving parties out of the remaining conversation?”
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I’m neither party. Can’t stand them to be honest, but they’re a part of the conversation here. The almost party line votes on a number of issues sort of makes them a big part of it actually.
I’ve never belonged to any party and I don’t ever plan to.
Party membership isn’t quite the same in the US as it is in most countries, though. To be a member of an American party all you have to do is say your a member. You don’t have to pay anything or officially agree to any set of principles and if you disagree with your party on every major issue they still can’t expell you. Party affiliation is such a vague meaningless thing in the US, I don’t understand why anyone ever cares about it.
For some people it serves a double purpose–it tells them what they need to believe and gives them an easy to identify opponent. Saves time and brainwork.
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Howard Stern, of all people, did a bit where they sent off one of their people to the streets and interviewed people in Harlem about Barak Obama during the election. The gag was, they told the people they interviewed that Obama was in favor of or opposed specific issues only they gave him McCain’s issues. And while this was no scientific poll and was undoubtedly editted for maximum effect, they seemed to have little trouble finding people who happily agreed with all of “Obama’s” issues. I’ve little doubt one could do the same in some Republican districts using Sarah Palin and giving her Nancy Pelosi’s opinions. There’s a chunk of the population that doesn’t really care much about this, it’s little more than a personality contest.
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A smaller but more pathetic group just like having parties because it gives them a socially acceptable way to be hateful.
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But I think the vast majority just see the parties as imperfect means to a desired end.
So, some 200+ entries under this topic, the question now becomes:
What do you have planned for I-CON this weekend, PAD?
(For those not on Long Island, NY, I-CON is a terrific annaul sci-fi and fantasy convention. Details at http://www.iconsf.org )
They’ve got me on some panels, although I’m doing less than usual because the Pro Bowlers on in town this weekend. So Saturday evening I’ll be bowling in the Pro-Am, and for much of Sunday I’ll be in the audience for the ESPN broadcast.
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PAD
Ah, the age-old conlfict between sci-fi conventions and bowling. Well, I’ll hopefully catch you at some of your panels. And good luck with your bowling! (Think you might win on Saturday night?)
I guess this is the closest it will get to a proper place to put an off-topic post so here it goes:
PAD, where are you LOST posts? I miss them. You haven’t done any since the season started.
They’re LOST, of course…
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Personally I think he just too dámņëd confused by all the stuff being thrown at him by the show this season. In other words, he’s just like the rest of us.
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😉
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Entertained, but very possibly deeply confused.
BTW, there’s a news report (playing behind me on CNN now) that ten Democratic Congressmen and women have requested greater police protection because numerous threats against them (and their families) following their votes on the health care bill.
There was a great moment during the preisdential campaign when an elderly woman was worrying that she was fearful Obama would be elected and she didn’t know what to do, and McCain reassured her that Obama is a good man and he’d make a fine president.
Those days are long gone. Instead we’ve heard heath care reform attacked as everything from socialism to government takeover of medicine to the end of the United States. And after a congresman shouts “baby killer!” at Sytupak he then claims he said “the bill is a baby killer” (despite audio recording catching what he says), then apologizes, *then* almost retracts his apology by saying he didn’t have anything to apologize for.
I would hope Republicans would come out and openly condemn these actions and try to bring some civility back to politics. However, the problem with allying oneself with fanatics is the danger that those fanatics will turn against them, and there have already been signs that the moderate Republican is rapidly becoming an extinct species. As revealed a few weeks back, the first tool Republicans advocate using to get small donations is fear.
Barkey Frank observed that back with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” the Republicans moved from portraying Democrats as good people with whom they had policy differences into portraying them as enemies of America who would destroy us all. Maybe these threats will serve as a wake-up call to restore some civility.
Or maybe Rush Limbaugh will replace Michael Steele and make it official.
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Note the “Maybe Vanderboegh can throw a brick through his window.” comment I made above. Look the guy up. Total nutter. I’ll likely be dealing with some of the fallout from his garbage real soon.
Jerry Chandler said
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Note the “Maybe Vanderboegh can throw a brick through his window.” comment I made above. Look the guy up. Total nutter. I’ll likely be dealing with some of the fallout from his garbage real soon.
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…BONG coo*coo BONG coo*coo…
You’d have to throw their leaders out,before anything will change. What od you expect form people who follow the likes of Glenn Beck who said this last night:
It will be remembered as a black spot in our nation’s history, it will be. It will be — ah well, depending on who wins the war. Because those are the people that will write the history books.
These are the people the Republican politicians apologize to every time they say something negative about them.
There was a great moment during the preisdential campaign when an elderly woman was worrying that she was fearful Obama would be elected and she didn’t know what to do, and McCain reassured her that Obama is a good man and he’d make a fine president.
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Also remember that not only did that woman call Obama a Muslim terrorist (iirc), but that was after days if not weeks of other such incidents at other rallies that McCain *did not* attempt to stop. At that point, he was merely being reactionary and trying to stem the tide, and it was far, far too late.
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Meanwhile, McCain’s bottom half of the ticket was doing everything she could to stir up fear and anger, and making no effort to hold the crowds back when she went over the line. She *encouraged* people to step over the line.
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Now you’ve got the talking heads getting even worse with their rhetoric and the Teabaggers are running amok talking revolt. It makes the average left-wing nutjob look downright moderate by comparison in terms of extremes and sheer numbers.
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The GOP stirred these groups up, but they lost control of them long ago.
I know it’s simplistic, but I always thought the polarization in the US has a lot to with the two-party system. Sorta obvious, right? You give people only two choices, it’ll become Us versus Them.
While on multiple-party systems, the moderates on the left and right form 5-6 respectable-sized parties, and the radicals form 5-6 small parties, and then everybody start to ignore the radicals as the tiny, loud minority they usually are, and the big moderate parties start to blend together.
And then people can become more or less apathetic to politicians and their hijinks, as Conor described the Irish.
It has become polarized because many on the right have become rabid dogs.
But are they that many?
Or just a relatively small and very noisy minority that the Republicans have courted and cultivated?
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“But are they that many?
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Or just a relatively small and very noisy minority that the Republicans have courted and cultivated?”
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It’s a bit of an illusion that they’re (the truly rabid) a large chunk of either side. It’s a problem of selective viewing. If you watch too much MSNBC, you’ll see rabid, evil Conservatives crawling out of every crack in the wall. If you watch too much Fox news you’ll see rabid, evil Libs seeking the death of the American Way around every corner.
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Too many people believing the hype.
I’m surrounded by highly-conservative people where I live. Most are pretty easy-going and willing to compromise on most issues. (And social-welfare programmes are fairly popular, but most people don’t trust them if they come from leftist Democrats. They like the idea of the plans far more than they like the people who propose them. Conservative red-state Democrats like Bill Clinton– but not Hillary– are trusted more. Don’t ask me to explain why this is, because I don’t know.)
Since our Executive is not selected/appointed by the party (or coalition) in power, and we don’t form Governments on the basis of majorities in Congress, there’s no real imperative to form more than two parties.
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In a Parliamentary system, small parties (even splinter groups from/within the majority party) can demand policy concessions as part of their price for joining a coalition to establish a Government, and can threaten to bring down a Government that’s doing things they don’t like by calling for a confidence vote and withholding their support.
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The Knesset often is a good illustration of this.
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In this country, the major parties (usually) don’t have to cater to or offer concessions to minor ones, and can (in general) ignore them with impunity. (Whether that applied to Nader in 2000 is still a matter of discussion and controversy.)
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And the supporters of minor parties usually see this (eventually), and affiliate themselves with the major party they feel closer to (or are less nauseated by), possibly in hopes of working from within to reform it.
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And, so, eventually, the major parties become so major that they begin believing that they tell their members what to think and do, rather than the reverse.
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Very occasionally, this results in the formation of a third party that actually overthrows and replaces its parent. Very, very occasionally…
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(But, mostly, you get the Bull Moose Party or the Dixiecrats…)
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I believe the Republican Party may be heading in that direction – i’m not sure if that would be good or bad…
Well, here in Brazil we don’t have a Parliamentary system and we DO have many parties. Same thing in the rest of the Latin American countries.
I don’t think I follow why you mantain Presidential systems have to be Two-Party systems?
We have a two party-system because there were two opposing ideologies that framed our constitution – the federalists led by John Adams and James Madison and the anti-federalists led by Thomas Jefferson. The Federalists were mostly responsible for the constitution proper, and the anti-feds gave us the Bill O’ Rights. (I realize I’m oversimplifying this, but I’m trying not to post a civics course.)
Incidentally, people saying were more polarized than ever should look at the early elections. Adams claimed that if Jefferson became President, rape was going to become the order of the day. Of course, the era surrounding the War Between the States actually saw a much more divided country compared where we are now.
I didn’t say it always will – i said that it is more likely to than a Parliamentary system.
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I’m not familiar with Brazil’s government – are there any elements of the system in which parties gain power in a proportional manner?
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Our system is an “all or nothing” one – there’s no advantage to being part of a minority party, and a lot of reasons for aligning yourself with the majors.
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If a third party formed, it would almost certainly not be able to elect more than one or two Congresscritters, meaning that it would be completely marginalised and ineffective; it would be very unlikely to be able to hold on long enough to elect a sufficient number to really have any power.
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In a Parliamentary system, minority parties are frequently the *most* important – last i heard, the British General Election is felt to be very likely to produce a “hung Parliament” – in which neither Labour or the Tories will be able to form a Government, because they won’t have a majority.
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At that point, minor parties, in many ways, become more important than the big ones. If both parties need three more votes to form a Government and the Monster Raving Loony Party (an actual British party at one time … so far as elections were concerned) has five seats…
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Then the MRLP is suddenly the most important party in Parliament.
We have a two party-system because there were two opposing ideologies that framed our constitution – the federalists led by John Adams and James Madison and the anti-federalists led by Thomas Jefferson.
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For what it’s worth, John Adams hated the entire concept of political parties and felt they should be abolished. He thought they were divisive and impeded the ability to govern. He called them “the greatest political evil under our Constitution,” and worried about “a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.”
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PAD
So John Adams could see the future?
Amazing he wasn’t burned at the stake…
So John Adams could see the future? Amazing he wasn’t burned at the stake…
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That’s nothing. When dispute broke out in the Continental Congress over the inclusion of an anti-slavery clause in the proposed Declaration, Adams asserted that slavery–a great evil, as he described it–would lead to civil war in a hundred years if it was not ended immediately. Unfortunately he was overruled by the delegates in the south and the clause was removed from the Declaration.
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That would be the same south that LBJ famously said he was losing for a generation after signing civil rights into law. He underestimated.
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PAD
Hmmm. I just made two attempts at posting something that didn’t materialise. I thought at first that i might have typoed m,y e-mail address (which i’ve done before, resulting in the post going to moderation and appearing later), but i tried again, making sure that i hadn’t, and it didn’t show then, either.
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I guess it must because i included a link to the Fancyclopedia.
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Oh, yeah – about bolding text and so on, the markup for some common things you might want to do (if i’ve managed to type all this stuff correctly):
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If you type <>BOLDb</b>, you’ll get BOLD.
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If you type <i>ITALIC</i>, you’ll get ITALIC.
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To insert a link, the markup is <a href=”http://electronictiger.net/index”>Index of my online reviews</a> would give Index of my online reviews
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For blockquotes, you use <blockquote>This text will be set aside as a block of quoted text, complete with leading paragraph break.</blockquote>. This results in
You can also combine markup: <blockquote><i><b>Like this, but be sure to make sure that the order of the end tags is consistent with the order of the beginning tags.</i></b></blockquote>
<><><><><><>
The little row of <‘s and of >‘s was an accident – please ignore
Ooops
In the first example up there: the markup should be <b>>BOLD</b>.
Rowrbazzle.
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<b>BOLD</b>
errrrr.
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One last try.
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<b>BOLD</b>
Well, I had a post eaten by the spam filter, it seems. I had posted a link about a USA Today poll that was taken after the health care bill was signed and how, at least in that ‘dámņ liberal media poll’, the opinion seemed to be in favor of the health care bill well beyond the standard margin for error.
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Just now, I’m reading an article on the front of Yahoo via McClatchy about how the GOP is condemning the mandate to buy health insurance… even though some of them pushed for it just a couple of years ago, including Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson. Oh well.
I think posts containing links – at least links not recognised to be non-pernicious – get dropped to moderation.
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It may well turn up later.
“The GOP is condemning the mandate to buy health insurance… even though some of them pushed for it just a couple of years ago”
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Astonishing! A political party is advocating against something that some of its members once supported? Unprecedented!
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Ðámņëd if you do, dámņëd it you don’t. Those naughty Republicans are always marching in uni-mind lockstep…except when they hypocritically aren’t. Evil!
The entire trick of marching in lockstep, Bill, is the ability to change direction in lockstep as well. If a marching column couldn’t change direction with precision, they wouldn’t be much worth, would they. That’s how you get the GOP talking heads condemning practices that they embraced just a few years ago.
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PAD
A political party is advocating against something that some of its members once supported? Unprecedented!
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Bill, it’s flat out hypocrisy, and you know it. And it’s also completely irresponsible when you consider that Democrats are now receiving death threats due to the fact that the GOP continues to push their goose stepping followers in a direction that they knew could end in violence.
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And if you don’t think that this could end up with somebody being assassinated, then you’re deluding yourself. Go back to the abortion doctor that was murdered. The right nudges, nudges, and nudges… and then when something bad happens, they try and walk away as if they’re not responsible in the least.
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At this point, with the rhetoric the GOP has been using for years, by leading with fear and anger and the threat of retribution if not outright violence against those that oppose them, it’s simply come down to just how much blood they want on their hands.
I don’t know that it’s total hypocrisy, Craig. (And I’m not saying that just to poke you, either.) As for the death threats, and the possibility of assasination, those scare the crap out of me. Still, I don’t view the Republicans as one vast evil monolith twirling it’s mustache. Sorta going back to some of what was said above, it’s the more vocal on both sides that get the press/media coverage because THEY’RE MORE ENTERTAINING. No one in a news room, leaning whatever way, wants to see someone speaking in a cool rational voice. They want blood pressure up, red-faced, veins on the forehead about to burst diatribes against THOSE EVIL WHATEVERS ON THE OTHER SIDE. The loud and obnoxious are easier to hear, but I don’t think they’re the majority of any side.
“The entire trick of marching in lockstep, Bill, is the ability to change direction in lockstep as well. If a marching column couldn’t change direction with precision, they wouldn’t be much worth, would they. That’s how you get the GOP talking heads condemning practices that they embraced just a few years ago.”
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But aren’t the Dems embracing practices they condemned just a few years ago? What’s the old saying about two wrongs?
Hëll, just a few months ago in some cases.
I continue to be fascinated by the fact that so many people who felt that any criticism of Bush 43 should be punishable by imprisonment or deportation suddenly discovered the value of dissenting speech ten seconds after it became clear that Barack Obama had won the election.
I spent about a half-hour earlier tonight trying–unsuccessfully–to locate a Daily Show clip from right after the 2006 midterm elections which I think speaks volumes about how this debate has gone. The guest was some Republican congressman or senator, and in the course of the interview, he said something that boiled down to, “We’ll just sit the Democrats down and explain how things are going to be.” Essentially, he was saying that Congressional Republicans intended to continue to act as if they were still the majority party regardless of the outcome of those elections. Sorry for the paraphrasing, but I couldn’t locate the clip and I did check the clip archive at the Daily Show website.
That was three and a half years ago. Clearly, that attitude survives and thrives today.
I continue to be fascinated by the fact that so many people who felt that any criticism of Bush 43 should be punishable by imprisonment or deportation suddenly discovered the value of dissenting speech ten seconds after it became clear that Barack Obama had won the election.
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you hear this a lot and I know some on the left felt like they were being told that…but can anyone give me the names of a few of the “many” people who claimed that criticizing the president was punishable by imprisonment and deportation and are now actively criticizing Obama. Should be easy, there being so many and all.
I don’t know about imprisonment or deportation. But accusing somebody of being unpatriotic for criticizing the president was pretty common. Not to mention, the whole “if you don’t like it, move to some other country” motif.
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I’d have to spend the time looking for examples, but I’d consider the flash point to be Bush’s White House press man after 9/11, where he said that people need to watch what they say.
But aren’t the Dems embracing practices they condemned just a few years ago? What’s the old saying about two wrongs?
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I don’t recall them “condemning” it so much as saying, “This is what the GOP is doing and they should watch out because they won’t always be running the show and it could come back to bite them on the ášš.”.
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I think the more appropriate old saying would be, “Sauce for the goose…”
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PAD
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“Should be easy, there being so many and all.”
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The list is long and distinguished, but it’s distinguished by the mental instability of the people on it. Guys like Savage like to use the played those cards a lot while Hannity would have the occasional guest who would throw that one out there. No one in power though, just the usual @$$holes that work so hard to feed the fringe.
Bill, it’s flat out hypocrisy, and you know it.
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So if there is anything in the bill that any member of the Democratic party once disagreed with but now supports, the Democratic party is guilty of hypocrisy?
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2 points– 1- if Tommy Thompson now says mandates are bad, after saying they were good, then arguably Mr Thompson is a hypocrite. Hard to make much broader a statement than that though.
2- Some of the most vociferous anger against the bill is coming from the far left, like the folks at firedoglake. That, however, gives me no reason to think less of the democratic party as a whole.
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BTW, for those watching polls, here’s a new one–from those neocons at CBS news- http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001117-503544.html
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briefly, 62% of those polled want the republicans to continue fighting the bill. Approval of the bill is at 42% for, 46% against. Twice as many say it will hurt them as say it will help.
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Given the widely disparate results from widely disparate polls, I think one needs to be careful about citing them as conclusive evidence of what the American people want.
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And if you don’t think that this could end up with somebody being assassinated, then you’re deluding yourself. Go back to the abortion doctor that was murdered. The right nudges, nudges, and nudges… and then when something bad happens, they try and walk away as if they’re not responsible in the least.
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All violence should be condemned. I would hope that those on the right will see to it that any violence against Democrats should get the same media attention and condemnation as the 3 who were arrested for trying to burn down GOP headquarters in Raleigh in 2004; the 100 protesters who ransacked the Orlando headquarters that year; the gunshots that were fired at the offices in Tennessee that year.
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And given the fact that some on the left have openly accused those who did not support the Bill as being in favor of killing hundreds of thousands of people are you not a little nervous that someone on the left might see it as a moral duty to take out some those mass murderer wannabees? (lest anyone think I exaggerate here’s Ezra Klein on Joe Leiberman: “Many condemned me for saying that Joe Lieberman was willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands to settle an old grudge with liberals when he threatened to blow up the bill if the Medicare buy-in wasn’t removed. I’ll stand by the math of the comment, and the analysis of Lieberman’s motivations, but I certainly wish I had phrased it somewhat more delicately.”
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So if there is anything in the bill that any member of the Democratic party once disagreed with but now supports, the Democratic party is guilty of hypocrisy?
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Considering how regularly the Democratic party is being accused of helping the gov’t take over the lives of Americans, I think it’ll be much harder to find it. For example, during the ’08 campaign, Obama called for more coverage by employers.
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Another piece of that McClatchy article was about how McCain as well had talked about it in the past as a good idea, but then didn’t use it during his campaign.
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In the end, it’s simply “Well, it’s a terrible now because we want to oppose anything the other side does”. It sounds a lot like the complaints the GOP had under Bush when the Democrats opposed things.
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Some of the most vociferous anger against the bill is coming from the far left, like the folks at firedoglake.
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Only, I’m not talking about the extremes of the groups here. I’m talking about how this crap has gone mainstream.
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I think one needs to be careful about citing them as conclusive evidence of what the American people want.
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Well, then both sides are equally guilty, as the right is using it as their biggest evidence chip that Americans do not want health care reform.
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All violence should be condemned.
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The problem is that the right all but encourages it, and then they have to condemn it later. Thus my example of the abortion doctor who was murdered.
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I’m angry in response to the encouragement of people to get angry. Go figure. 🙂
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are you not a little nervous that someone on the left might see it as a moral duty to take out some those mass murderer wannabees?
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There is always the risk of nutjobs, but I think the risk posed by the right-wing ones has increased dramatically. That, and I don’t see liberal members of Congress shouting at their counterparts the equivalent of “baby killer” for not voting in favor of health care reform.
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It’s just my opinion here, but I see the level of ‘discourse’ of the conservatives as pretty proportional to the ‘discourse’ from their elected representatives. When congressmen and vice-presidential candidates make comments such as “palling around with terrorists”, “baby killer” and “you lie”, then the people who support them feel free reign to say such things, or, as has been the case, far, far worse.
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Oh, and since we’re in favor of cringing at polls: Another wonderful poll came out this morning where 25% of the Republicans polled think Obama could be the anti-Christ. Oh, and 20% of all those polled think Obama is doing things that Hitler did (goes back to the fact that Obama is apparently a socialist, a fascist, and an anarchist for good measure).
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Ignorance rules the day.
I had really hoped that nobody i liked would cite that poll. I’m a little busy at the moment so I will just direct you to the jackbooted far right nutjobs at ABC news: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/03/polling-on-presidential-pejoratives-.html
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briefly, you should demand the time it took to read that poll back. It wasn’t even a scientific poll. Not that I expect this will stop people from citing it.
Evidently some people on the left must be getting riled up–republicans are getting threats too. Eddie Cantor’s office was shot at.
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Of course, one can legitimately wonder if some, none or all of the reported incidents are actual threats from the opposition, as opposed to fake incidents meant to gain sympathy. Look at the woman who claimed somebody attacked her and carved “Obama” on here head or the several recent cases of supposed racial threats that turned out to come from the people who were supposedly threatened. Always be wary–accusations are easy to make, hard to refute, and there are a lot of people who desperately WANT them to be true. The politicians in question may not even know for sure if the threats are genuine or from “supporters” trying to gain sympathy for the cause.
Of course, one can legitimately wonder if some, none or all of the reported incidents are actual threats from the opposition, as opposed to fake incidents meant to gain sympathy.
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All of them? Bill, that sounds downright… conspiratorial. 😉
Bill, Craig, if I could poke my nose in here, maybe the nutjobs would’ve done something ANYWAY. Maybe this situation just gave them somewhere to focus the ire that has been simmering under the lid for so long, THIS is our cause, THIS is why we’ve been angry so long, even though this started a relatively short time ago…
Nutjobs are always employed to a certain extent. Sometimes, though, the “company” they work for is just a little more visible.
I don’t pay attention to any poll that doesn’t have a streetlight on it.
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“Evidently some people on the left must be getting riled up–republicans are getting threats too. Eddie Cantor’s office was shot at.”
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Nope. Talk about a story that’s gotten played up into something it wasn’t. No one fired at Eric (easy to tell the diff, he doesn’t sing as well as Eddie nor is he as funny) Cantor’s office. This was one of those too strange to be real things on both event and timing.
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The bullet hit the window at a severe downward angle that would have been impossible to do outside of the office. It was also so weak that it couldn’t even penetrate the blinds after it shattered the glass. The bullet was fired from a gun before it hit the window though.
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The officially ruling is that one of our local idiots fired a gun into the air (not an uncommon thing around here unfortunately) for some reason and the bullet struck the building when it fell from the sky.
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Some of that I knew before the updates to the story broke, but Richmond Times Dispatch has the updated story up as well. I’d link, but at the moment I’m not at a good computer for their website. But, really, can you imagine a writer trying to pass that one off in a fictional story? Amidst real threats and incidents directed at the opposition party, the Republican Whip becomes the focus of an “attack” that was actually a random bullet falling from the sky after a random idiot (probably drunk or high) fired his gun into the air. The conservative pundits then spin it as a “real” attack on one of theirs rather than just words and threats (if you set aside cut gas lines) like the other side is getting.
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The readers would laugh at the “unrealistic” nature of the writer’s plot device and talk about how hokey it was.
yep, you’re correct, it looks like it was a crazy random thing. Though I don’t doubt that he gets threats. Then again, so have I, and I’m just a jerk who writes occasionally on the internet.
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It’s becoming a game of “Who has more reason to be afraid?”
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Though it occurs to me that this may not be a game you want to win. Democrats spent a lot of time portraying the protests at the town halls as if hordes of angry people were screaming for their blood…and the result was congress ratings going into the toilet. Is it really wide to publicize how unpopular you are? Complaining about death threats and such gives you a little sympathy…but makes you look like a pretty unpopular person. Not sure it’s a wise strategy.
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Probably not a wise strategy at all, but it’s one that they think will work. If, they likely think, you can demonize the opposition by painting the fringe as the mainstream you can damage them. They’re being a bit clumsy about it, but then they’re being clumsy about a lot of things lately. It’s certainly a workable strategy. The Republicans have been very good at it in the last couple of decades. But then they, unlike the Democrats, have a better organized noise machine working for them. But I suppose that the Democrats think that the recent nuttiness will be overly shocking and, if not win support for their side, erode support for the Republicans based on the actions of their fringe base.
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The truth of the situation is that elected officials on both sides get threats every single day that they’re in office. Sometimes it’s worse than what’s been covered on the news and sometimes it’s not as bad, but they always get them. But most people don’t remember that unless, like me, your job entails knowing about these things every day. Still, even for those with really short memories, this is so clumsy an attempt that only the base is going to go for it.
And hey, if we are condemning someone who said one thing about the mandate to buy insurance and then hypocritically turned around and did the opposite, who was that guy who debated Hillary Clinton and disagreed with her call for a mandate?
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“”When Senator Clinton says a mandate, it’s not a mandate on government to provide health insurance. It’s a mandate on individuals to purchase it. Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20% of the uninsured because they’ve concluded that that 20% can’t afford it. In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford it so now they’re worse off than they were. They don’t have health insurance and they’re paying a fine. In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you’ve got to have a very harsh, stiff penalty.”
who was that guy who debated Hillary Clinton and disagreed with her call for a mandate?
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Obama disagreed with an *individual* mandate. And this health care bill will help those who cannot afford it, so that they do not get fined.
What is the difference between an individual mandate and what the bill has? Aren’t I forced to buy insurance? Or are you saying that he was only arguing against one particular mandate but was in favor of individual mandates? If so…that was positively Clintonian, and I don’t mean Hillary.
Looking at the whole video, I think it is almost impossible to argue that Obama was not trying to convey that he was against the idea of an individual mandate, backed up by fines for non-compliance. The bill just passed has an individual mandate, backed up by fines for non-compliance. Seems to me one can fairly criticize Republicans who switched positions on the mandate or you you ignore that Obama switched positions on the mandate. You can’t do both. Well, yes, of course you can, but it won’t be taken as a very serious argument.
What is the difference between an individual mandate and what the bill has?
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Well, if it makes you feel better, it may be a matter of picking nits: the mandate debate can be boiled down to one of individual vs employer.
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One can view this that we’re using both with the health care reform: employers have to offer insurance, and individuals have to buy in, regardless of whether they’re employed or not.
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But I know that my employer would love to no longer deal with health insurance. Not because they don’t want us to have insurance, but because of the time it consumes each year in going through plans, meetings, etc is ridiculous.
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As for your poll, yeah, you’re right, it is a bad one to cite. However (and this probably entirely unfair), it’s hard for me to deny the sentiment behind it, and that scientific or not, it’s likely pretty accurate.
Well, if it makes you feel better, it may be a matter of picking nits:
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Well, yeah, I’d guess so–the whole argument was that some republicans were doing something wrong by opposing the individual mandates but hey, they LIKED individual mandates before…and then, when pointed out that Obama was against individual mandates, suddenly there were no individual mandates? This is confusing enough as it is.
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As I understand it, everyone has to buy insurance, like it or not. The poor will be covered through welfare. Those who work for small companies (which do not have to provide it) or are self empleyed or retired or just don’t work…they, these individuals, if you will, MUST buy insurance. If that is not an individual mandate what exactly WOULD be and individual mandate?
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As for your poll, yeah, you’re right, it is a bad one to cite. However (and this probably entirely unfair), it’s hard for me to deny the sentiment behind it, and that scientific or not, it’s likely pretty accurate.
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Well, as long as you admit there is no science to back it up, you can believe anything you wish! I’d be surprised if that were the case–if the facts are on your side why not make a good poll? Lousy polls are usually a function of an inability to get the answers one seeks-which of course, is not how science works, but I guess that’s why they did not want a scientific poll.
If the facts are on your side why not make a good poll?
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Well, your link did have a note at the bottom updating the article to include the results of a couple of other scientific polls done in the last year or two. And those two Pew polls still found that a (imo) ridiculous number of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim. Although, the most recent of those two polls was a year ago, so I wonder what it would say now.
I think it’s ridiculous that so many people think he’s a Muslim…though that’s not a bad thing to think about someone. Still, THEY probably think it’s a bad thing, so it still counts as a slur. (And it would mean he was a coward as well for denying it).
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On the other hand, there was a supposedly scientific poll that said an astonishing number of democrats believed the 9/11 truther nonsense that Bush was involved with the bombings or that the towers fell from a controlled demolition or some such thing. Which, I’m sure we would all admit, is a far more serious charge than being a Muslim..
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Although in truth, I’m always a little suspicious of the results of things like that. I know some wacky 9/11 conspiracy types but I know a lot of democrats and no way are 25% of them truthers. I think some people when they get a poll like that answer in the way that gives the general sense of where they stand, even if they really don’t buy the specifics. They see saying “Yeah, Bush was behind 9/11” as a way of saying “I don’t like Bush.” So one needs to take those with a grain of salt.
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Then again, if you are going to parse the results, what good are they? Mark Evanier always maintained that Bush’s low numbers were actually lower–people said they supported him even if they did not. I have not heard him say the same about Obama’s scores so I don’t know if this is a general rule he has or if it’s only limited to politicians he doesn’t like.
I wish we would get a Muslim president. One who keeps his religion to his personal life and doesn’t make a big deal out of it. It would dissipate a lot of the ludicrous fears people have about Islam. (Not completely, of course, but look how people stopped fearing Catholic politicians once Kennedy was elected.)
I think it would be hard to get a Muslim president. he would get it from both sides. Conservatives would demand he denounce every bad thing done in the name of Islam and liberals would demand he denounce the rampant sexism and homophobia practiced in so many Muslim cultures. Fair? No, but I’m sure Mitt Romney will have to answer all kinds of questions about being a Mormon. Hëll, someone burned Sarah Palin’s church, so even being a member of a mainstream religion is no protection against those determined to hate you.
You know, I think I do understand why Obama once opposed the individual mandate, then proposed it here.
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Based upon statements he’s made, I think Obama would have been happier with a single-payer system, but it was also obvious that there was no way he was going to get Republican support for such an idea. So, he may have reasoned, let’s borrow the principles of jiu jitsu, and use our opponent’s strength against him. The Republicans, the last time this was debated, supported individual mandates; it should be a slam-dunk, right? Then maybe we can move the debate along to whether we want to keep this or go with single-payer, after we’ve taken care of making sure people have health-care coverage.
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Only then he learned that the current Republican Party isn’t in favor of any of their old ideas; they’re not in favor of anything – their position has become to oppose things in this era, not to support them. It’s hard to maintain the necessary climate of fear, after all, if you’re saying that anything besides cowering in your basement is a good idea.
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I miss the days when our “conservative” party was run by conservatives…
It is quite plausible (but by no means certain) that this healthcare reform will have a good effect. That is not sufficient to make it permissible. Does it impose only obligations it has the authority to impose, or does it exceed the constitutional powers recognized as belonging to Congress? There are any number of changes to society which seem appropriate to me. This country might or might not be better if it is reformed along my personal desires, but I have no right to compel the world to please me. Neither does Congress, the President, the Justice System or the state and municipal governments in this country. Does Congress have the standing and the authority to compel citizens to employ private companies to achieve a public goal? I think it does not.
*Sigh*
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The elected State Representative for Gainesville (GA) – not “my Representative”, note; i voted for the semi-sane one – is trying to whip up the State Legislature to impeach Georgia’s Attorney General because he’s refusing to waste the State’s money in these parlous economic times by getting involved in the almost-certainly-doomed-to-fail lawsuit against the healthcare bill, as the Governor wants him to.
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Granted, the AG is a Democrat and Gov. Perdue is a Republican, so there’s likely a little politics involved, but, the AG is right about what it will cost the State and what the probable result will be…
Since i posted that, Perdue has appointed a Special AG to file the suit.
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How can people who lived through the Civil Rights era in the South think that this suit has even a remote chance of prevailing?
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(OTOH, the creator/showrunner of True Blood is from Atlanta, and the ways that show got the South wrong – starting with accents; what does it say when the best and most plausible Southern accent on the show is from a French-Canadian who grew up in New Zealand? – in the one-and-a-bit episodes i was able to watch (and in the four episodes Kate, whose background is closer to the characters than mine, managed to watch before she finally gave up) were simply amazing.
One of the three delegates my district sent to the state legislature (none of whom I voted for, but this guy’s the one I specifically voted against) wants to impeach our attorney general because the AG made a statement saying Maryland should recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
There are nutbars everywhere.
I really can’t say much about it either way. I admit that I don’t have particular facts that would weigh heavily in my making a decision.
The thing that really bothers me is that John McCain said, “There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year.” It actually scares me.
I understand politics is all about getting votes and all of that and making sure your side “wins”, but that quote to me means that he’s not even looking out for the best interests of the people he governs.
That means if there comes a bill made and sponsored by a Democrat that says “you can’t go around kicking old people in the junk”, he wouldn’t support it? If it helps the people that he governs, he should be for it no matter whom advocated it and if I was a voter in his state, I’d be pìššìņg my pants after hearing him say that.
Too many politicians on both sides think this way & it just makes me sad.
As a Canadian, I have been following the whole healthcare debate you are having with the sort of sick fascination of watching a 50-car pile-up and with more than a little sadness. I have a great deal of trouble understanding the viciousness of the internecine struggle over something we take for granted and like, despite its many admitted shortcomings.
I just wanted to address one point about the possiblity of reduced R.& D. under your new system. It doesn’t have to be that way. Even under our “socialized” system, there continue to be breathtaking breakthroughs in Canada, including a probable cure for diabetes by pancreatic transplant, complete lung and heart transplants, the development of the ATC antiviral drug, the decoding of the DNA sequence for metastatic breast cancer, etc., etc. It can be done.
I try to be neither conservative nor liberal (although I have been accused of being both). I happen to think that there is no one philosophy that can address the myriads of myriad problems of our individual and collective existence. If you are dealing with a situation such as the environment which is difficult to fix once you screw it up, it seems to me that a conservative approach is best. If you are dying of some illness where all other treatments have failed, then by all means, try the wackiest, out-there possiblities. Depends on the situation.
I also recognize how hard it is, biologically-speaking, to change people’s minds about anything. It seems that our brains process information that supports our preconceptions differently than information that challenges them. (For an eminently readable explanation of this, I highly recommend “Mistakes were made {but not by me}.
I have been away from this board for many months due to health and family considerations but I read it semi-religiously (well, not quite but that is another kettle of carp for another day.)
I hope you guys can work things out and PAD, when’s the next New Frontier novel coming out – I’m suffering withdrawal here and I can’t get treatment.)
Best regards, The Rev.
Back again – it appears that the “N-word” incident may have been fabricated, and that Lewis never said what he was quoted as – the latest word i have implies that it was fabricated by the news site that first reported it.
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The major news media showed an almost FOX Izvestia-like eagerness to jump on it and run with it without getting confirmation, if that is indeed true.
What was the Lewis story? I can’t find any reference to what that is.
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There does seem to be an awful lot of eagerness on the part of the media to make these threats into something significant. But I find it odd that there is no evidence of any racial epithets being hurled–some of the lawmakers had cameras out recording the event as it happened–why not release it? Breitbart just offered $10,000 for evidence so maybe we will see something. If not,…that might be evidence of something else.
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And then a mini brouhaha over a threatening coffin that was reported left on a congressman’s lawn that turned out to not be about a threatening coffin left on his lawn. (to their credit, Democratic Underground retracted the story.). Then there’s a report that a congressman had a brick thrown through the window of his office but another person says that the congressman denied it and the window is on a 30 story building…I’ll wait to call shenanigans on that one until more comes out but it sure seems like there’s more comes out but it sure seems like there is a lot of pretty flimsy reporting going on here.
Rep John Lewis – the man who supposedly had racial epithets tossed at him.
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Survived a fractured skull in the Selma.
John Lewis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_(U.S._politician)
Back again – it appears that the “N-word” incident may have been fabricated, and that Lewis never said what he was quoted as – the latest word i have implies that it was fabricated by the news site that first reported it.
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mike, where did you hear this? Everywhere I look people are just reporting the incident as fact, even though I have yet to see any actual evidence. I also can’t find anything where Lewis has repudiated the stories.
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If true, there will be some red faces. Just kidding, they won’t concede a thing.
BTW, for everyone shocked, shocked, that people are protesting with intemperate language and calls for violence…http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html
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mental exercise…if, at a McCain rally, there had been a guillotine with Obama’s decapitated head in a basket…would it have made the news?
Well, give them some credit Bill: at least they can spell and use proper grammar… well, except that first one. I mean, have you seen some of the signs used by those who don’t like Obama? 😉 And I know it sounds silly, but I think that some of the reason why the anti-Obama ones pop up more: a sign that has spelling errors does get more attention because it makes the person who created the sign look like a fool.
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My favorite example, and as far as I know it’s not politically-related, is the “Get a brain, moran!” sign.
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There are other things at play here, some of which we’ve discussed here in the past. Yes, I think racism against blacks is a factor.
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Another factor I think that is involved here? Gun owners. The NRA is predominately made up of conservatives, and some of those individuals made it a point last fall of attending an Obama rally in Arizona, which is an open-carry state. Constitutional right, yes; also using said right to instill fear and intimidation.
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Considering that unarmed individuals were arrested inside events for Bush, I can’t say the reaction would’ve been good for an open-carrying gun owner protesting outside an event against Bush.
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Not to mention, the ‘symbol’ of opposition has become the photoshop of Obama with the Joker makeup. So, Obama is an anarchist… okay. Yes, I know it’s simply about painting Obama as an evil person, but it needs to have logic behind it, and in this case, Spock is weeping.
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In the end, nobody is disputing that the left has their fair share of nuts. But the nut tree for the right is starting to look more like a nut forest. And, contrary to the views of ‘the other side’, the left-wing nuts don’t appear to be in control of the party. Where as the Republican party is practically giving their nutjobs a warm embrace.
Since the focus lately is on violence not misspellings, which seldom cause deaths unless from a pharmacist, I’m a bit more concerned about graphic beheadings and such. Well, maybe not concerned, but amused by the disparity of reaction. As for the milder offering from the Tea Partiers being racist…how do you determine whether a person is registering a legitimate protest against something they disagree with or just being a racist because the president is black? or do you think that should be the default assumption and it is up to the protester to prove you wrong?
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regarding the dangers of NRA members…I have no way to check this out but I will be willing to bet that A- most gun owners are not members of the NRA and B-the vast majority of those who kill people with guns are also not members. In fact, I’ll bet that whatever the percentage of gunowners who are members is the percentage of gun killing criminals with NRA membership is considerably smaller. Looking at the people in my local area arrested on gun related murder charges lately I don’t know if there is a likely NRA member in the lot.
Well, maybe not concerned, but amused by the disparity of reaction.
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Well, you can always fall back on blaming the liberal media.
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or do you think that should be the default assumption and it is up to the protester to prove you wrong?
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At this point, I have no qualms saying that it’s up to the protester to prove me wrong. But then, I thought we’d already gone over this before? The birther movement. Trying to claim Obama is a Muslim, or that he grew up a terrorist. It’s all motivated by racism, whether directly toward Obama, or against other groups like Muslims. It was certainly tolerated by McCain’s campaign last fall.
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regarding the dangers of NRA members
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The fact remains that the NRA basically pushes for every man, woman, and child to be armed 24/7. And I have a simple view of it: carrying weapons anywhere near a political rally is a blatant attempt at intimidation.
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So, much like politicians talk about the evils of abortions, then an abortion doctor is murdered and the politicians have to back track, I view the effect of the NRA the same way. They help foster poor situations with their policies and views.
At this point, I have no qualms saying that it’s up to the protester to prove me wrong.
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Which illustrates nicely one reason why political discourse has gotten so divided–upon hearing you express that, most of the people who are targeted by that attitude will simply dismiss you as not worth the effort it would take to convince you otherwise, if such a thing was even possible. And how could they prove it anyway, other than by just adopting your own views?
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I think that’s one reason why the charge of racism has lost some of its sting. Reducing it to simply another political shorthand for people we disagree with makes the term essentially meaningless. Which is too bad, as it gives cover to the actual racists.
And how could they prove it anyway, other than by just adopting your own views?
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Actions speak louder than words.
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And right now, the words and the actions are that racism is alive and well in this country, and quite a bit of continues to be directed at Obama, among others.
Again, what actions–other than not protesting against his policies, what is it they must do to show themselves pure in your eyes? You are specific on the charge but very vague on the details.
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And what is the magic percentage that allows one to make a generalization of an entire group? I can show pictures of vile antisemitism at some anti-war rallies–stuff that is so far beyond the pale that nobody can legitimately claim that the protester is just showing displeasure with Israel, not Jews in general. Can I, with your approval label the anti-war movement as being demonstrably full of anti-Semitic, nazi-sympathizers for this?
Incidentally, and only tangentally related to the healthcare bill, the CBO just announced that the president’s 2011 budget will “generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation’s economic output by 2020”
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For all the good that the bill might do,in the end I think we are facing a economic situation that is simply unsustainable, not matter how much we wish it were not so. And there are no easy ways out of this and anyone who says differently is either a fool or desperately hoping that you are. taxes cannot be raised high enough to fix it. Services would have to be cut to the bone, to the point where people will suffer. The amount of inflation it would take to get us out from this would be ruinous to those who are struggling. But this is where we are heading and when we get there all the promises in the world will not matter.
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The federal public debt, which was $6.3 trillion ($56,000 per household) when Mr. Obama entered office amid an economic crisis, totals $8.2 trillion ($72,000 per household) today, and it’s headed toward $20.3 trillion (more than $170,000 per household) in 2020, according to CBO’s deficit estimates.
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If this is true, and I see little reason to doubt it (and this assumes no x-factors–North Korea goes nuts, the Big One hits LA, the 1918 flu comes back) it is time to give serious thought to planning ahead. But how? Saving money that may be worthless seems pointless.
“The fact remains that the NRA basically pushes for every man, woman, and child to be armed 24/7. And I have a simple view of it: carrying weapons anywhere near a political rally is a blatant attempt at intimidation.
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So, much like politicians talk about the evils of abortions, then an abortion doctor is murdered and the politicians have to back track, I view the effect of the NRA the same way. They help foster poor situations with their policies and views.”
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So NRA members should just shut up? Because we assert our second amendment rights means we forgo our first amendment rights? When Obama made his “bitter clingers” comment he invited the NRA into his campaign. He asserted that people clung to God and guns because the guvmint failed them.
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I understand if you disagree with the NRA, but trying to paint it as a racist organization is ludicrous. The NRA was founded by a Union General with two purposes in mind. One was to teach everyone how to shoot. The other was to insure blacks their second amendment rights so they didn’t have to play victim to the Klan. I know – Michael Moore lied, imagine that.
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Also, compared to their membership, very few NRA members actually carry daily. I have my concealed handgun license and exercise its use unless going to a prohibited area. However, most NRA members don’t exercise the right to carry even if they support it.
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As for racism, I for one, am sick of the accusations that conservatism equals racism. Wilson was an unregenerate racist. Margaret Sanger advocated birth control because she wanted to reduce the number of ethnics, blacks specifically. The Tuskegee experiments were mainly carried out under the Roosevelt administration. Father Coughlin was a socialist who broke with FDR because he thought FDR wasn’t radical enough in his wealth redistribution schemes. W.E.B. DuBois supported Hitler as late as 1936. FDR’s administration was the one that came up with the Japanese internment camps. These are all people of the left. More Republican senators and congressmen voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats.
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Yet, the somehow the Left and the Drive-by media have always gotten away with painting the Conservative as a racist. The NY Times said Barry Goldwater was a crypto-Nazi (a hint, if the guy’s last name is “Goldwater” I’ll lay you 10-1 odds he isn’t a Nazi). Reagan was a smooth fascist according Shirley MacLaine. Rush Limbaugh is the modern Father Coughlin to people who have never listened to either one of them. Ashcroft, whose wife taught at Howard University, kept a black from being appointed to the bench just because he was black. Charlie Rangle said that the Republicans who came to D.C in ’94 were the new Klan who turned in their hoods for red ties. Bush, who had the most racially diverse cabinet in our country’s history, allowed Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because he hated black people, not because the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana insisted they had it under control.
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Meanwhile, any conservative minority is a traitor. Condi Rice is an Uncle Tom, and Clarence Thomas is a sexually frustrated Uncle Tom. Janice Rogers Brown is a judicial extremist. Their sins? They dared to not live on the democratic plantation. . Don’t believe me? Though a memo in Ðìçk Durbin’s office said they had to keep Miguel Estrada off the bench because “he is Latino” they insisted he just wasn’t qualified and that race was no factor. But a conservative can’t oppose Obama’s plans without a being closet racist
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In the 38 years God has given me on earth so far, I have been told by the drive-by media I’m an intolerant, racist, fascist, sexist, homophobe who wishes to destroy pristine wildernesses, and drown polar bears while pumping oil and arsenic into the drinking water of children just so fat cats can get richer. And then these same people who hurl the accusations turn around and tell me that I’m the one who resorts to baseless name-calling.
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The bottom line is that the Dems need people to believe we’re racist, otherwise minorities might vote for someone else.
Reagan was a smooth fascist according Shirley MacLaine.
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I see where you’re coming from but if I ever spend an iota of time worrying about Shirley MaCLaine’s opinion on politics, someone kindly force me to dig my own grave and decapitate me with a shovel. You’ll have to do the hard work of filling in the dirt but, in fairness, I won’t be able to do it myself, what with the aforementioned decapitation and all.
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Seriously, getting upset is what they want. If it upsets you it might compel you to keep your opinions to yourself, stay out of the fray. Treat it with the benign neglect it deserves. And keep an eye out for the actual racists–your condemnation will carry more weight than those from people who yell “Racist!” at every opportunity. Similarly, if and when those who play the race card too often get unfairly slandered with same, come to their defense. As amusing as it is to see people hoisted by their own petard, it isn’t in the long term good for society. You can, however, secretly chuckle.
So NRA members should just shut up?
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When the NRA says that more guns will mean less violence, I think they’re not helping their cause. When they speak out against banning assault rifles, I think they’re not helping their cause. That’s just two examples where I think the NRA harms more than helps.
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And I don’t believe I said the NRA was racist, either. The NRA is unabashedly conservative, but as I already stated, it’s the pushing and prodding of how gun owners should exercise their rights that are a cause for concern for everybody, not just liberals or minorities or whoever.
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guvmint
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That’s several times you’ve used this now, and I fail to see why you do.
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As for clinging to guns and religion, well, it seems to me that it’s pretty accurate. Both are more the province of the right. Both are the last things that many on the right would ever give up. In the end, the partnership between guns and religion in this country is certainly odd.
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As for racism, I for one, am sick of the accusations that conservatism equals racism.
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Nobody is saying that. I’m saying that a *segment of conservatives* themselves are in fact being racist. For your impressive little rant, I notice that you didn’t dispute the fact that the tactic from the presidential campaign was to say Obama is a foreigner, more specifically a Muslim, ergo, he’s a terrorist. What other motivation have you got for that?
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Instead of condemning such motivation, you throw out a dozen other examples of ‘the other side’, which doesn’t really do squat to dispute the fact that there are conservatives actively engaging in racism.
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The bottom line is that the Dems need people to believe we’re racist, otherwise minorities might vote for someone else.
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I’m sorry, but this sounds like the claim of somebody who believes they’re part of the ‘oppressed majority’, which is a newer tactic I’ve seen taken by some on the right. “Woe are conservatives now that we’re not the party in power!”
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Although, now that you mention it, I’m not sure why minorities would vote for ‘you’. There hasn’t exactly been a lot lately that would endear conservatives to blacks or Hispanics. Conservatives are more pro-life when many woman are pro-choice. Gays and lesbians? I think it goes without saying.
Nobody is saying that. I’m saying that a *segment of conservatives* themselves are in fact being racist. For your impressive little rant, I notice that you didn’t dispute the fact that the tactic from the presidential campaign was to say Obama is a foreigner, more specifically a Muslim, ergo, he’s a terrorist. What other motivation have you got for that?
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It’s the politics of fear, Craig. The politics of fear and character assassination. That’s the GOP/Conservative stock in trade and tactic of choice. Obama’s race is almost beside the point; it’s all about using whatever is at hand to make voters afraid of Democrats or Liberals. Democrats will be soft on crime. Democrats will turn loose criminals. Democrats will invite terrorists into the country. Democrats can’t be war heroes; they must be lying about it (but don’t dare question Bush’s non-existent service in the National Guard: That’s unpatriotic, don’t’cha know.
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To say it’s racism implies that they hate blacks. I don’t think that’s the case so much as that they just hate Democrats and Liberals and will use whatever tool is at hand. Forty years ago they were saying JFK would destroy the nation because, as a Catholic, he’d be taking marching orders from the Vatican. Didn’t mean they hated Catholics; just meant they’d say anything. Saying that these guys are racists because they’re using whatever loopy tactics they can–birth certificate, false accusation of being Muslim (which of course means you’re a terrorist, which is massive unfair to Muslims)–is like saying that if a guy picks up a hammer and assaults you with it, he’s a carpenter.
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The nature of human beings is evolution, we don’t evolve, we stagnate and then become extinct; Conservatives who espouse this POV to its extreme are destined to face decline, it is simply a proven, unsustainable formula.
Progressives – on the other hand – who espouse change for change’s sake (a form of extreme progressivism) always fail to take into account the full effects of said transition on a culture and its identity and can make matters worse.
At the end of the day, if you examine closely, we ALL retain characteristics of a conservative and a progressive. I would argue that we are mostly progressive when we are young and rebelling (against our parents or the ‘stifling’ status quo) and we mainly become conservative as we get older and the world around us changes to a point that we begin to fail to recognize it.
Once again, the major flaw with this two party system becomes evident. It is simply intellectually dishonest to continue with the idea that one party has a monopoly on either progressivism or conservatism values.
Are they minority (Black, Hispanic) Republicans conservatives? Of course, however, let’s not act like blind people … the majority who run the Party (pull the strings) aren’t. Are they Republican who areatheist? Yep, so are atheist Democrats. Are Democrats’ demographic more diverse? Of course it is – do some Democrats hold conservative values? Of course!
What I still find insulting is those who announce to the world their Christian faith and where they side on the issue of Health Reform then show as much compassion towards their fellow man as a shark biting into chum. Unemployed? Get a job. Sick? Get well or die. Can’t pay your health insurance, don’t tax me, ain’t my problem.
Let me ask this: Is your faith so weak that this deficit concern may bankrupt the US and make us a ‘socialist state’ upon implementing Health Reform, and it is something beyond the power of prayer for the Lord to fix?
Oh yeah, you’ll take on faith (amongst other things) he walked on water and fed a multitude with just some break and fish but fix this problem – uh, too much.
Do you really follow Jesus’ philosophy salvation through him? Are you cognizant that it means that the vilest of human beings can be forgiven if they believe and ask him for forgiveness? No matter what they might have done to you personally? That you cannot (i.e., it is NOT your place to) get revenge or judge why a person is seeking an abortion or gay or lost their jobs or got sick or got into financial straits and needs help – lest you be judged?
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat and still identify yourself as a Christian you REALLY, need to examine if this is the right faith for you. Seriously.
I use “guvmint” as a disparaging term for “big government.” The earliest use of it I’ve found goes back to a monologue of Jim’s in Huck Finn. It has since been used by people from such disparate points of view as Will Rogers and Ronald Reagan.
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“As for clinging to guns and religion, well, it seems to me that it’s pretty accurate. Both are more the province of the right. Both are the last things that many on the right would ever give up. In the end, the partnership between guns and religion in this country is certainly odd.”
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I don’t cling to either because the government has failed me, nor is it out of bitterness. I have guns because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away and because I collect them. I cling to God because His grace abounds to even the chief of sinners and count myself in those ranks.
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“Nobody is saying that. I’m saying that a *segment of conservatives* themselves are in fact being racist. For your impressive little rant, I notice that you didn’t dispute the fact that the tactic from the presidential campaign was to say Obama is a foreigner, more specifically a Muslim, ergo, he’s a terrorist. What other motivation have you got for that?”
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McCain fired people from his campaign for even mentioning Barack’s middle name. There was a bigger firestorm over his attendance of Rev. Wright’s and his association Bill Ayers than there was over him possibly being a Muslim.
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“Instead of condemning such motivation, you throw out a dozen other examples of ‘the other side’, which doesn’t really do squat to dispute the fact that there are conservatives actively engaging in racism.”
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Sure there are few. My point is that racism on the left goes uncalled while conservatives have to deny it’s their motivation in at least half of any serious debates.
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“I’m sorry, but this sounds like the claim of somebody who believes they’re part of the ‘oppressed majority’, which is a newer tactic I’ve seen taken by some on the right. “Woe are conservatives now that we’re not the party in power!”
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Although, now that you mention it, I’m not sure why minorities would vote for ‘you’. There hasn’t exactly been a lot lately that would endear conservatives to blacks or Hispanics. Conservatives are more pro-life when many woman are pro-choice. Gays and lesbians? I think it goes without saying.”
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And that’s the problem. I don’t Latino Americans or African Americans, or any other ethnic descriptor. I just see Americans. That’s the way my father took pains to raise me from childhood.
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“What I still find insulting is those who announce to the world their Christian faith and where they side on the issue of Health Reform then show as much compassion towards their fellow man as a shark biting into chum. Unemployed? Get a job. Sick? Get well or die. Can’t pay your health insurance, don’t tax me, ain’t my problem. ”
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Politically it isn’t in my concern when my neighbor loses his job. It is my personal concern when my neighbor loses his job. When my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I didn’t wring my hands wish for more government aid, I did something about it myself. When my stepmother who raised me was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, I didn’t let her become a ward of the state. I took care of her myself and God rewarded me richly for it in ways that monetary payoffs never could.
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“Let me ask this: Is your faith so weak that this deficit concern may bankrupt the US and make us a ’socialist state’ upon implementing Health Reform, and it is something beyond the power of prayer for the Lord to fix?
Oh yeah, you’ll take on faith (amongst other things) he walked on water and fed a multitude with just some break and fish but fix this problem – uh, too much. ”
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If I rely on government to take the role of messianic provider for the sick and the poor, I abdicate my responsibility. I rob myself of the need to get personally involved. Christian are commanded to help the suffering and the poor and I see no place in scripture where they are told to let the government handle it.
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Your definition of faith is also flawed. It was Kierkegaard who essentially defined faith as taking leave of all your senses with his famous phrase, “leap of faith.” If you read the “faith hall of fame” in Hebrews 11, you realize that all those mentioned had extensive contact with God either themselves or through their forebears and faith was merely believing God to be as good as His word. Another way of saying it is that you believe past results are indicative of future performance.
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Since the advent of the social gospel over a century ago, government involvement in charity has led to little else other than disaster and bankruptcy. The reason why can be summed up by “Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy” which states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
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“Do you really follow Jesus’ philosophy salvation through him? Are you cognizant that it means that the vilest of human beings can be forgiven if they believe and ask him for forgiveness? No matter what they might have done to you personally? That you cannot (i.e., it is NOT your place to) get revenge or judge why a person is seeking an abortion or gay or lost their jobs or got sick or got into financial straits and needs help – lest you be judged? ”
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I couldn’t honestly call myself a Christian and say I don’t believe in salvation through grace. And I don’t see where anything I’ve said so far advocates taking personal vengeance on anyone for anything. I’ve never said shooting an abortion doctor is a righteous act or that Christians should “blow up the clinic real good.” Yes, I believe abortion is murder, and if I believe the act is murder, motivation for it doesn’t matter anymore than it does for the wacko who shoots the abortion doctor. And God’s grace can come to both the person who had the abortion and the person who shoots the doctor.
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That’s the wonderful thing about grace, its very definition is “unmerited favor” and it abounds to murderers, and the law-abiding, gays, straights, transgendered, Finnish ice fisherman who secretly wish they were Swedish and maybe even people who leave their cell phones on in movie theaters.
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None of that changes my view on whether or not the government should be involved in charity work. We’ve seen repeated programs to eradicate one societal ill or another. The New Deal failed to eradicate poverty and the Great Society failed miserably at it. Social Security was bankrupt almost from the beginning, and medicare and medicaid have always had huge over-runs. So now we’re to accept that the same government which has shown itself to be incompetent in every other regard is going to do a job right when it comes to expanding its involvement in health care.
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This bill we just passed was passed because Obama wanted to look he was doing something rather than do something right. They say a flawed bill is better than no bill. I want to believe that, but every bit of past performance tells me otherwise.
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“Whether you are a Republican or Democrat and still identify yourself as a Christian you REALLY, need to examine if this is the right faith for you. Seriously.”
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I like to consider myself self-conscious in my epistemology. However, considering the previous statement you just tossed my way, you might want to reconsider. I’ve never once questioned someone’s regenerate state because of where they stood in this argument and yet you seem to feel that’s your job.
Don’t toss anything *YOUR* way. You really nothing to me specifically. My job is not to post anything to you.
The post was talking in general.
I will state openly and directly to you that many people of your ilk – more often than not – jump gleefully into posting a whole inventory of opinions and pseudo philosphies while picking and choosing those that help you present your disparaging remarks without even the slightest effort of asking first, “Hey, did you mean me, specifically?”
If anything I don’t judge you but and – to be perfectly honest – (can’t help it)I do pity you because with all the things you THINK you know, you really don’t have the slightest clue about anything other than what your rigid thought patterns indicate.
And so, the last thing I will ever post to you is “Good luck with that.”