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There are facts and attacks and a coin always has 2 sides unless it rolls

quote:

Originally posted by The17sss History was indeed made today... for the first time in U.S. history, major legislation was passed that undermined a vast majority of the people's wishes.

First, I'm just going to point out that this is blatantly untrue even in its most simple form. Do you have any idea what civil rights legislation numbers were like?

Second, and more important to your underlying claim, that most people are opposed:

quote:

Echoing many on the right, Newt Gingrich today sent an email claiming, "In every recent poll the vast majority of Americans opposed this monstrosity." But that just isn't true. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found last week that Americans supported the legislation by a 46%-42% margin. The Economist published a poll showing that 53% supported the bill and 47% opposing it. Today, CNN released a poll showing that will predictably be skewed by the right. It found that 59% opposed the Senate health care bill and only 39% supported its passage. Not a ringing endorsement, to be sure, but those numbers only tell half the story. As we've been arguing for months, it's equally important (and more valuable) to ask why a poll's respondents oppose the bill. If overwhelming majorities believed the bill was an example of big government run amok, it would serve the GOP's purposes to promote the poll's findings. But that's not what the poll showed. Luckily, CNN did ask respondents for their reasoning behind their opposition to the bill. They found that 13% of those polled opposed the bill because it was "not liberal enough." This shows that 52% of Americans either support the current bill or wish it was even more "liberal" while 43% believe it is too liberal. That hardly reveals that a "vast majority of Americans opposed this monstrosity." In fact, it shows that Democratic leaders carefully threaded the needle of public opinion. President Obama and Democrats in Congress successfully crafted a bill that is progressive enough for all but 13% of the country and falls well within the political mainstream, yet is still ambitious enough to deliver the much-needed change Americans desperately need.

http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/201003220006

This still does nothing, though to remove my argument that most people, particularly the most vehement, have no idea what's in it to start with.

quote:

Originally posted by Clovis Jesus dude your sarcasm detector is fucked. It's Jonsun, 1/3 of his posts are sarcastic. Have you not seen that picture of him and his wife?

Haha so true, however on a somewhat related note...
What does he look like?
Is that him in the picture?
Is that really his wife?
Is he really black?

I must have the answers so I can complete my "Jonsun Schematic" achievement on xLife Live.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Haha so true, however on a somewhat related note... What does he look like? Is that him in the picture? Is that really his wife? Is he really black? I must have the answers so I can complete my "Jonsun Schematic" achievement on xLife Live.

Fledz I have two short answers to all of your questions.

I have met jonsun. No.

Nice, here's the full schematic of Jonsun then:

The last real picture of jonsun i saw he had spiked guido hair and a mullet witha sweet bomber jacket.

quote:

Originally posted by Groundhog Boy First, I'm just going to point out that this is blatantly untrue even in its most simple form. Do you have any idea what civil rights legislation numbers were like? Second, and more important to your underlying claim, that most people are opposed: http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/201003220006 This still does nothing, though to remove my argument that most people, particularly the most vehement, have no idea what's in it to start with.

OH SNAP.

See, this is why I asked him to provide sources outside of telling me "lol just Google it you noob". I'd be willing to put money that he was just spouting rhetoric from people he heard discussing the issue rather than going out and looking up the information himself.

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Originally posted by osterzone Whatever, I'm done in this thread.

Further backing-up my claim in another thread that he will post one or two wise-ass responses and then quickly bail from the thread once people start pointing out the idiocy in his posts. Par for the course there, buddy.

durrr...



Comprehension of what this bill is still quite low, and it is already growing on people.

The partisan divide is pretty striking though. But seriously - what are the objections by the majority on the right? I'm not talking about wonks at CATO or Heritage who are worried about whether the government can really enforce the individual mandate or whether the health care industry can shoulder the burden of a shift away from emergency care and toward a greater emphasis on preventive care. I'm taking about the teabaggers - why are they opposed?

"The bill expands the size of federal government."

Actually, it doesn't. It decreases the size of the federal budget by $130 BILLION over the next ten years, and will decrease the federal deficit by a further $1 TRILLION in the ten years after that!

"The government has taken over health care."

Actually, it hasn't. There's not even a public option in this plan. Medicare is expanded to cover more people, but that's not government care - that's simply insurance coverage.

"This bill slashes Medicare!"

This one is especially rich, given that the very same teabaggers are decrying a supposed bloating of the Medicare system. What the bill does is curb add-ons to Medicare - basically, it eliminates the possibility that people can just tack things on to Medicare and increase costs later on. It limits the growth of Medicare in the future, it doesn't decrease funding in any absolute sense.

"This bill violates the free market!"

Actually, quite the opposite. By creating government-regulated exchanges for people to compare health care policies, this bill actually fosters competition and protects against monopolies.

"This bill funds abortions!"

Um, no. It simply doesn't do that. Anybody who says this doesn't know what they are talking about and can be safely disregarded in all political discussions going forward. This is a credibility wrecker.

"Obamacare is 3/4 of the budget!"

Actually, it decreases in relative share of health care spending in the budget over the next ten years, and is still dwarfed in comparison to things like, oh, the Iraq War over the past seven years. One of the favorite tricks of Republicans like Mike Pence (R-IN) is to use the ten year projected cost of health care reform, ignore the fact that we'd be spending even more money on health care if we didn't have reform, and then compare the figure to a one-year budget. Yeah, that's intellectually honest, Mike!

"This bill creates death panels!"

Ok, Sarah Palin. Another credibility buster. It doesn't ration care. There is a real concern about the capacity of the medical system, predominantly in ICU and preventive medicine, but this isn't really what teabaggers are talking about. They think there will be a panel of bureaucrats deciding if Grandma gets to have surgery or not. Nope - this decision will still be made by private insurance HMOs since there is no public option!

"This bill is unconstitutional, and our forefathers would be against it."

Well, if our forefathers thought it was unconstitutional, they shouldn't have included the Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution, granting the federal government the ability to regulate industries that span multiple states.

If Republicans were really worried about fiscal responsibility, they wouldn't engage in frivolous lawsuits that scream "we're sore losers!"

"This bill would send me to jail if I don't want health insurance!"

Well, it does change the law. So if you can afford health insurance and you don't purchase it, then yeah, you'll be penalized. To the tune of $94 on your next tax return. That's the individual mandate. If you don't pay the $94? Well, what happens when you don't pay taxes to the IRS?

****

There's a lot of misinformation floating around still, but as details become clearer, more and more people will be supportive of the bill. This may be the Republicans' Waterloo - they're showing that they are increasingly incapable of living in a world based on fact - they didn't want a part of the policy debate and chose to spread lies and fear-monger about slippery slopes into socialism. Come November, they may not have quite the strong showing everyone expects them to.

President Obama accomplished what no President has done in nearly 100 years of trying - we have comprehensive health care reform. It's not the end of the process, but it's a new dawn.

Excellently put, thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On Excellently put, thank you.

Haha, thanks.

For those interested, I've written a bit more about what the bill does and doesn't do here:

http://newmillenial.wordpress.com/2...overnment-meme/
and here
http://newmillenial.wordpress.com/2...-care-reaction/
and here
http://newmillenial.wordpress.com/2...tion-part-deux/

You need to post all that in TOTA.

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Originally posted by jennypie You need to post all that in TOTA.

By all means, feel free to quote or repost any or all of that wherever the good fight needs to be fought!

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov President Obama accomplished what no President has done in nearly 100 years of trying - we have comprehensive health care reform. It's not the end of the process, but it's a new dawn.

Are you still disappointed?

Now you Yanks need to convert to the metric system

If you don't like the new healthcare plan start another civil war and separate these United States.

quote:

Originally posted by wotyzoid Are you still disappointed?

Haha, good question. He sure moves slowly, but Obama has a habit of getting nearly everything he wants in the end. I'm still learning to trust this President, but thus far at least he's shown real progress toward achieving each of the things on his agenda. Change isn't immediate, but it is happening incrementally.

I have a feeling he must be an incredible poker player.

I certainly would not want to play chess against him. Mainly because I've never played a game of chess in my entire life, but there are other reasons!

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Haha, good question. He sure moves slowly, but Obama has a habit of getting nearly everything he wants in the end. I'm still learning to trust this President, but thus far at least he's shown real progress toward achieving each of the things on his agenda. Change isn't immediate, but it is happening incrementally. I have a feeling he must be an incredible poker player.

Good to know.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov "The bill expands the size of federal government." Actually, it doesn't. It decreases the size of the federal budget by $130 BILLION over the next ten years, and will decrease the federal deficit by a further $1 TRILLION in the ten years after that!

Shakka would disagree with you.

quote:

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

I think the term "rework the calculus" makes it sound like a load of bullshit. But the article explains it further.

quote:

Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.

I'm not sure what to believe here. Could you help me debunk this?

quote:

"This bill funds abortions!" Um, no. It simply doesn't do that. Anybody who says this doesn't know what they are talking about and can be safely disregarded in all political discussions going forward. This is a credibility wrecker.

Could you expand on this? I've been reading about how there was a ban on federal funding for abortion, but that there was a loophole where patients could receive vouchers or credits related to an abortion.

I would love a state-issued abortion credit card. Just to show people.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On I would love a state-issued abortion credit card. Just to show people.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On I would love a state-issued abortion credit card. Just to show people.

Truthfully, the US needs more abortions, not less. Especially in the south.

Well it'd certainly adress poverty down there, too. Not only would there be less mouths to feed, those people eat anything.

quote:

Originally posted by ziptnf Shakka would disagree with you. I think the term "rework the calculus" makes it sound like a load of bullshit. But the article explains it further. I'm not sure what to believe here. Could you help me debunk this?

Hmm. Well, I have to admit that I think Douglas Holtz-Eakin is a ponce and an economist of magical realism given that he was in charge of the Congressional Budget Office that proclaimed the Iraq War would be pennies in a bucket. But given that I suppose I have to admit he knows a thing or two about the CBO making shit up.

My first reaction is that it seems unfair to add $162 billion onto a new bill if it is a pre-existing cost. Even if this cost hasn't been accounted for in the CBO analysis, the CBO is conducting a comparative estimate of deficit reduction as compared to the status quo. So you'd be adding $162 billion to each side for a net increase of zero. It still reduces the deficit in relation to the status quo.

His "Gimmick #1" strikes me as complete bollocks. It's true that revenue collection starts before subsidies are doled out. But by his logic - that 10 years of revenue is used to finance 6 years of cost, wouldn't we expect the next 10 years of implementation to be horrendous deficit spending? Why then do we have 10 years of revenue and 10 years of subsidies at a sticker price of $1 TRILLION in deficit reduction??? He's grasping at straws here.

And given the "overestimation of Medicare cost reduction" - well his math is as fuzzy or more than the CBO. Why is it somehow more plausible that putting an add-on freeze on Medicare won't stick? Skepticism doesn't make good policy rebuttal.

quote:

Could you expand on this? I've been reading about how there was a ban on federal funding for abortion, but that there was a loophole where patients could receive vouchers or credits related to an abortion.

Well, to the best of my knowledge abortion language was removed from the final version of the bill in order to get progressives back on board. The language as it read would have actually constrained government support of abortion even further than it currently is.

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