Health Care Bill Debate
- Thread starter madanthonywayne
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Without a "public option" there is no point to health care "reform".
A Massachusetts style mandate that people buy private health insurance with the government punishing those who refuse and subsidizing those who could not plausibly pay for insurance was just a gift to the insurance industry.
A Massachusetts style mandate that people buy private health insurance with the government punishing those who refuse and subsidizing those who could not plausibly pay for insurance was just a gift to the insurance industry.
Here's a great quote from Obama attempting to defend the public "option":
Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” -- Barack Obama, Aug. 11, 2009
Good one, President Obama. If only our healthcare could be run like the US Post OfficeThe USPS lost $2.4 billion in the quarter ended in June and projects a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal 2009, outstanding debt of more than $10 billion and a cash shortfall of $1 billion. It was moved to intensive care -- the Government Accountability Office’s list of “high risk” cases - - last month and told to shape up.
Aside from recently running in the red, what's wrong with the Post Office?madanth said:
The current US health care system doesn't run nearly as well as the Post Office. The Post Office is a miracle of efficiency and reliability and thorough coverage of service, compared with United Health or Blue Cross.
If we had a health care system that worked as well as the Post Office for the same relative cost, we wouldn't be having this discussion. And GM would still in business as a big, strong, market-competitive company.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
Why don't repeat the quote in full context ?
Obama was responding to the argument that the public option would crowd out Private competition due to its lack of requirement to pay taxes. And no, Government organisation in Australia, and hopefully the public option, can be run to corporate standards. Other nations have proven it, time and time again. why must the US be so obtuse?
In no way can that quote be taken as a generalisation on the whole healthcare system.
Selective memory ?
Unfortunately, Millions of others will also think Healthcare reform=Post office. Because they don't think.
The post office would probably be doing fine and turning a profit if the politicians who were bought by the junk mailers did not force the post office to give the junk mail industry subsidized services. As the post office's good paying customers (humans with stamps) shift to electronic bill paying there are not enough letters with stamps being sent to pay for the dirt cheap junk mail.
What will the medical equivalent of junkmailing parasites be, poor people, old people, or the pharmaceutical industry?
Anyway, socialized Medicare and and the socialized VA out-perform the private insurance industry. And I concede that government can never do anything as competently as private industry does when there is competition and informed consumers and government enforced honesty. So how doe the private insurance industry manage to underperform Medicare?
I think the answer is that the consumers of insurance are not informed consumers and the government is not enforcing contract law or doing the equivalent of meat inspection in the health insurance industry. If the government is not willing to make Medicare available for purchase by private citizens perhaps the government should help consumers understand the fine print in their insurance contracts and help citizens sue the insurance industry when the insurance companies won't pay for the services that they led the consumers to believe that they were buying. But how can government help the consumers get a better deal from the insurance industry when the insurance industry has bought all the politicians?
Something has to be done about the American Insurance industry because it puts Americans at a disadvantage to the rest of the world do to it's being less efficient than socialized health insurance despite the fact that socialized anything is inefficient by definition.
The problem is not lack of competition; there are plenty of competing providers of insurance and little sign that they are cooperating to rig anything other than coming together as an industry to buy the politicians and buy favorable media coverage. The Insurance industry is not like the oil refiners who somewhat transparently cooperate to restrict supply to drive up prices in violation of anti-trust laws.
The problem in the insurance industry is the consumers inability to be informed. It is as if the insurers were sellers of rotten meat and the government refused to inspect the meat. The insures say the fine print in their contracts specifies that the meat they sell may be rotten and therefore their customers have no grievance against them if they get sick.
Why can't the customers find an honest insurance seller? Is it the customers fault for seeking better prices and therefore winding up with insurers who spend all there money playing games to avoid paying medical claims?
It is a bit mysterious that private industry can't outperform socialized insurance but for the past 40 years socialized insurance has somehow been able to be dramatically more efficient than the private insurance industry.
Actually the insurance industry has done a good job at it's job of making money for it's stock holders. It is the consumers of insurance who have dismally failed at their job of making wise purchases of of health insurance.
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Not really. It's like wondering why a bunch of private fire departments are less efficient than one city fire department. The overhead costs of competition are large, and the efficiency of service delivery is much reduced, and the benefits of universal coverage are lost.
Blue Cross has something like four times as many office employees per ten thousand enrolled as Medicare. Medicare doesn't have to screen its customers, or compete with another Medicare to reduce its payouts, or spend a lot of trouble on setting rates for this or that kind of coverage and enrollee.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
A serious Healthcare debate, with Guns?
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/theg...uns-at-obama-rallies-where-s-the-outrage.aspx
Where is the outrage?
If someone as so much looked harshly at a Republican president, they'd be on the floor and apologizing before you could say, what ?
Is this somehow an attempt to prove a point ? Because they can't come up with a legitimate argument, they bring guns in to intimidate people ? This is a nation that supposedly leads the free world ? Granted, these are individuals, but
Where is the outrage ?
What a Shame..
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/theg...uns-at-obama-rallies-where-s-the-outrage.aspx
Where is the outrage?
If someone as so much looked harshly at a Republican president, they'd be on the floor and apologizing before you could say, what ?
Is this somehow an attempt to prove a point ? Because they can't come up with a legitimate argument, they bring guns in to intimidate people ? This is a nation that supposedly leads the free world ? Granted, these are individuals, but
Where is the outrage ?
What a Shame..
Outrage at the shameless is a futile endeavor
I think what the Stone article you provided overlooks is the sheer power of the Obama presidency insofar as his supporters are trying very hard to take a high road when one is available. The idea of the first black president being gunned down, while many, if not most, are aware of it, has absurd transformative potential. The collective yawn Stone refers to is that this is exactly the sort of stupid belligerence we expect of this irrational rabble determined to shout down any rational discussion of the health care issue. People know the score. It's up to the screaming divas of this angry faction to not only push the line, but cross it. Martyring one of these gun-toting protesters with handcuffs will only distract the issue. And martyring President Obama by actually taking a shot will only crush the far right's political credibility regardless of what the bullet actually hits. It's a delicate moment, to be sure, but insofar as the questions of outrage and shame are concerned, the answers are interconnected. There really is no point in being outraged at the shameless. They don't care.
And, yes, this is the nation that supposedly leads the free world. I suppose there are a couple ways, at least, to look at that. But what comes to mind is, to the one, more fool you for letting us; and, to the other, we're happy to make fools of ourselves so you don't have to. In the grand scheme, these folks are hardly the biggest embarrassment to our credibility as leaders of the free world in recent years.
Challenger78 said:
I think what the Stone article you provided overlooks is the sheer power of the Obama presidency insofar as his supporters are trying very hard to take a high road when one is available. The idea of the first black president being gunned down, while many, if not most, are aware of it, has absurd transformative potential. The collective yawn Stone refers to is that this is exactly the sort of stupid belligerence we expect of this irrational rabble determined to shout down any rational discussion of the health care issue. People know the score. It's up to the screaming divas of this angry faction to not only push the line, but cross it. Martyring one of these gun-toting protesters with handcuffs will only distract the issue. And martyring President Obama by actually taking a shot will only crush the far right's political credibility regardless of what the bullet actually hits. It's a delicate moment, to be sure, but insofar as the questions of outrage and shame are concerned, the answers are interconnected. There really is no point in being outraged at the shameless. They don't care.
And, yes, this is the nation that supposedly leads the free world. I suppose there are a couple ways, at least, to look at that. But what comes to mind is, to the one, more fool you for letting us; and, to the other, we're happy to make fools of ourselves so you don't have to. In the grand scheme, these folks are hardly the biggest embarrassment to our credibility as leaders of the free world in recent years.
American politics is truely in a sad state of affairs. This Republican rabble arrived with the elimination of the "Fairness Doctrine". Now we have talk radio inciting the mobs on a daily and even hourly basis. If we are ever to get back to some form of civil discourse, I think we need to end the lies, distortions, and drama queens...especially the gun bearing ones. And before you Republicans jump on my tail, I am for gun rights. I am a gun owner. But one also has to be a responsible gun owner. I would never take an assault weapon to a public rally or protest of any kind...that is just STUPID.
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Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
So what if someone whacks Obama? Are you going to say that there's no point in being outraged then too ?
Really ? there are worse embarrassments ? I can understand geopolitically, and resource why, Australia isn't the "leader" per se of the free world. But part of me can't help but wonder if power/prestige changes the nature of a nation. Whether you go from a nation of isolationists, to an interventionist.
Maybe we in the US should cede leadership of the free world until when and if we get our act together. I would favor that approach. As long as we have mobs and rampant corruption running the political system, we can hardly claim leadership of the free world.
Ganymede
Valued Senior Member
Look at how the Republicans acted when Black Panthers were armed with sticks at a polling station during the last election.
http://www.mixx.com/videos/6500655/video_of_armed_pro_obama_black_panthers_threatening_voters
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=4006
This is why I perpetually bitch when it comes to racial politics. What did these Black panthers do that was any different then the psycho's carrying assault weapons at Town Halls?
A drastic change
Then circumstances will have changed drastically.
It is impossible that the thought hadn't occurred to Obama at some point well before he actually won the election. And yet he continued the race, and won, and was inaugurated. He's had every chance to walk away.
Yes, it will be cause for outrage. It's the difference between pushing and crossing the line. Undoubtedly, there are some who are outraged by these ultimately petty demonstrations of force.
There's this line from the movie Mississippi Burning that goes, "Well, you only left me a nigger, but at least I shot me a nigger." That would be all the shooter would have, in the end. The Obama legend would be fixed by that bullet. The significance of being the first black president would certainly carry over into the significance of his untimely death.
So perhaps it's not so much a collective yawn as Stone suggests, but rather a wary (and weary) eye. We can't let these people freak us out. Obama knew the score coming in. This is one example I can definitely follow him in.
He wants calm. He needs calm. For my part, he gets calm.
Perhaps you missed that delightful little war in Iraq we dragged you guys into. You know, the weapons of mass destruction that weren't there.
But the list goes on, too. I mean, how many free countries in the world find serious campaign traction in denouncing someone for being well educated? Or the Schiavo debacle. That was nothing politically if not embarrassing. A vice-president who doesn't know what branch of the government he's part of? A presidential administration that thinks human rights conventions are quaint? I mean, it gets so ridiculous .... Okay, imagine a person who runs a company manufacturing scare videos trying to steer teenagers away from sex. Now, imagine this person attending a gathering of Christians and relating, in a speech, how someone once asked if the abstinence approach worked. And imagine that person saying she doesn't care if it works or not. After all, that's not why she's in the fight. Rather, she's in the fight to please God and earn herself a spot in Heaven. Now, take that person and put her on a panel that you send to the U.N. to advise about birth control, sexually transmitted disease, and related issues.
Sometimes it seems that if the prior administration saw a chance to embarrass itself and the nation, that was all the excuse they needed.
And if the president gets shot because nobody is willing to disarm the people who come into his presence? Well, that would be pretty freakin' embarrassing, too.
It is possible you have it backwards. Some would say we emerged from isolationism, got a taste of what power and prestige buys, and liked it. Most see World War I as our coming out in this sense.
But others saw it coming:
Flip a coin. But power and prestige are acutely intoxicating.
____________________
Notes:
Goldman, Emma. "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty". Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. Anarchy Archives. August 19, 2009. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/goldman/aando/patriotism.html
Challenger78 said:
Then circumstances will have changed drastically.
It is impossible that the thought hadn't occurred to Obama at some point well before he actually won the election. And yet he continued the race, and won, and was inaugurated. He's had every chance to walk away.
Yes, it will be cause for outrage. It's the difference between pushing and crossing the line. Undoubtedly, there are some who are outraged by these ultimately petty demonstrations of force.
There's this line from the movie Mississippi Burning that goes, "Well, you only left me a nigger, but at least I shot me a nigger." That would be all the shooter would have, in the end. The Obama legend would be fixed by that bullet. The significance of being the first black president would certainly carry over into the significance of his untimely death.
So perhaps it's not so much a collective yawn as Stone suggests, but rather a wary (and weary) eye. We can't let these people freak us out. Obama knew the score coming in. This is one example I can definitely follow him in.
He wants calm. He needs calm. For my part, he gets calm.
Perhaps you missed that delightful little war in Iraq we dragged you guys into. You know, the weapons of mass destruction that weren't there.
But the list goes on, too. I mean, how many free countries in the world find serious campaign traction in denouncing someone for being well educated? Or the Schiavo debacle. That was nothing politically if not embarrassing. A vice-president who doesn't know what branch of the government he's part of? A presidential administration that thinks human rights conventions are quaint? I mean, it gets so ridiculous .... Okay, imagine a person who runs a company manufacturing scare videos trying to steer teenagers away from sex. Now, imagine this person attending a gathering of Christians and relating, in a speech, how someone once asked if the abstinence approach worked. And imagine that person saying she doesn't care if it works or not. After all, that's not why she's in the fight. Rather, she's in the fight to please God and earn herself a spot in Heaven. Now, take that person and put her on a panel that you send to the U.N. to advise about birth control, sexually transmitted disease, and related issues.
Sometimes it seems that if the prior administration saw a chance to embarrass itself and the nation, that was all the excuse they needed.
And if the president gets shot because nobody is willing to disarm the people who come into his presence? Well, that would be pretty freakin' embarrassing, too.
It is possible you have it backwards. Some would say we emerged from isolationism, got a taste of what power and prestige buys, and liked it. Most see World War I as our coming out in this sense.
But others saw it coming:
The usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the country from foreign invasion. Every intelligent man and woman knows, however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the foolish. The governments of the world, knowing each other's interests, do not invade each other. They have learned that they can gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest. Indeed, as Carlyle said, "War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."
It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards! True, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher Weyler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women. Still, in justice to the American Nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely. But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists, which were threatened by the Spanish government. That this is not an exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba was firmly in the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war.
(Goldman)
It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards! True, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher Weyler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women. Still, in justice to the American Nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely. But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists, which were threatened by the Spanish government. That this is not an exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba was firmly in the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war.
(Goldman)
Flip a coin. But power and prestige are acutely intoxicating.
____________________
Notes:
Goldman, Emma. "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty". Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. Anarchy Archives. August 19, 2009. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/goldman/aando/patriotism.html
I don't see any point in bringing firearms to a townhall meeting, but that's not the same thing as violent hate groups "patrolling" voting areas.
To these people, guns symbolize freedom and are the tool which preserves freedom. The Narrative in their media is that Obama is a Hitler type character who wants to end freedom. The government desire to become involved in health care is an attack on freedom. Showing guns is like shouting "you will not take my freedom".
I think a lot of this attitude starts with the civil war and that the attitude of the losing Southerners towards the Federal government simply spread outside of the South into every other community that felt oppressed by the government but did not did not hold kindness as the highest value. Those that felt oppressed by the government and or the American power structure, but hold kindness as the highest value are the left wing radicals. Those that feel oppressed by the the government and or American power structure while holding anything other than kindness as the highest value are the right wing radicals and the right wing radicals tend to love their guns.
I think a lot of this attitude starts with the civil war and that the attitude of the losing Southerners towards the Federal government simply spread outside of the South into every other community that felt oppressed by the government but did not did not hold kindness as the highest value. Those that felt oppressed by the government and or the American power structure, but hold kindness as the highest value are the left wing radicals. Those that feel oppressed by the the government and or American power structure while holding anything other than kindness as the highest value are the right wing radicals and the right wing radicals tend to love their guns.
There's a big difference between causing a scene during a speech and intimidating people who are trying to vote.
It seems more like they hold the desire to wield the power of the government as their highest value.
Possibly so. And since freedom is more important than kindness (both true kindness and the left-wing wacko version of it), I'd have to side with the right-wingers on this one.
There's not so much difference between intimidating people who are trying to convene and do political business, and intimidating people who are trying to vote.acid said:
This is not the first eruption of the Republican goon squads. We saw them in action during the Florida recount of 2000, for example - but the gun packing is new. The mob stuff seems to have gotten worse since they lost the election.