quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt Oh for the love of God. Visit their site. Read ANY of the articles.

i do. regularly.

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Originally posted by Capitalizt The link you posted contains plenty of insinuation that "the world" has it right with socialized medicine and that we should have something similar here. Most of their documentaries are loaded with anti-market, pro-government bias..and the fact that a proud lefty like yourself thinks they are an objective source is all the confirmation anyone needs.

no, its your insanely ridiculous levels of bias that make you think this is the case. PBS is a lone voice in the wilderness surrounded by a hugely pro-market media, who use terms like "socialist" when they don't have any idea what the word means.

your comments say far more about your own confirmation bias issues than they do of PBS. i have yet to see a program from your country that approaches the awesomeness of the news hour with jim lehrer. oh no, public socialist broadcasting!!

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Originally posted by Krypton Freeloaders? Serious offenders?

its how he's been programmed to deconstruct and portray complex social, economic and political issues. Its far easier to make an un-winnable argument (things are fine guys!) when you constantly demonise the esoteric, faceless people who constitute these terms.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i do. regularly. no, its your insanely ridiculous levels of bias that make you think this is the case. PBS is a lone voice in the wilderness surrounded by a hugely pro-market media, who use terms like "socialist" when they don't have any idea what the word means. your comments say far more about your own confirmation bias issues than they do of PBS. i have yet to see a program from your country that approaches the awesomeness of the news hour with jim lehrer. oh no, public socialist broadcasting!!

PBS, the last bastion of true journalism left in America.

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Things are fine guys.

And PBS is influenced by communists.

quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt Things are fine guys. And PBS is influenced by communists.

i think we get so worked up in here sometimes we forget to share a giggle. well played

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I was being serious.

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Originally posted by Capitalizt I was being serious.

Yeah, I thought you might be but I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re a smart guy and I couldn’t really believe you’re that retarded.

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quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Yeah, I thought you might be but I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re a smart guy and I couldn’t really believe you’re that retarded.

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1 What's the alternative, the current shit privatized, monopoly system that we have today? You have a better option, let's hear it. Personally the option that I hear regarding the public OPTION isn't too scary to me.

It's not a monopoly. The only institution with a monopoly on anything is the government (and maybe Apple a close second with the iPod). Oligopolistic, maybe, but at least be honest about it if we're going to have a real debate about it.

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I fail to see how adding an option covered by the government is going to somehow make us pay more, especially in lieu of this fact that our costs are rising with the current system due in large part to the uninsured already.

And apparently very few congressman have a decent comprehension of how economics and competition work as well. Government's drastically lower costs will drive down the margins for the industry to the point they will not be able to compete, provide the best standard of care, etc. And yes, care will be rationed as there will only be so many available resources to go around. There is no free lunch.

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Yes, because Conservatives were really up in arms over prior Republican Presidents like the douchebag we just had who took massive deficit spending to new heights (I know, some like you were upset, but you have to admit many others in the GOP turned a blind eye). It's funny how every Republican president comes along for the past 30 years, their supporters tout "small government at last!”, only to ignore the realities that their heroes put us into the red far worse than any of their Democratic counterparts, but I digress.

No objection here (and thanks for at least acknowledging my distaste for fiscal liberalism that we ended up with). In the same breath, we're talking about exponentially higher figures now than we were 4-8 years ago. I hope we haven't simply greased the skids for government to make whatever excuse it wants to go on unlimited spending sprees on whatever pet projects it tells us are necessary because we all know the path is unsustainable.

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And again not to be in lock-step with the President or anything, but he re-emphasized the point today in his town hall that the cost of his plan will be covered in large part to rolling back the tax cuts on those earning $250,000 and higher. IOW, the vast majority of Americans will not be given the burden of paying for this.

Is it rude for me to point out that $250K is not that much money? Maybe it depends on demographics but we throw that number out there as if it signifies someone who has not a care in the world because he goes home and swims in a money vault every night. I hate class warfare.

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I really don’t think that excuse is gonna fly here, especially when we see clear, outright lies and distortions by idiot “deathers” in your party in reading things on page 424 or whatever page that line is on. If this bill was being voted on tomorrow and Congress was handed this stuff 2 days ago, which was the approximate timeline of events that occurred when Bush’s Patriot Act was dropped in their laps, then you’d have a reasonable argument. But there’s plenty of time to dissect, and obviously obfuscate (as we’ve already seen by leaders in the GOP) what’s in the bill.

Firstly, I must be in the dark here--I don't know what you're referring to with the "deathers" thing. I'm sure I missed some of the talking points.

Secondly, thankfully congress has at least tabled this discussion until after the August recess, but I doubt many of them will spend their last weeks of summer vacation reading 1000 pages of legalese--hoping their aides will do it. I honestly don't know how long the Patriot Act was, but given how much resultant controversy there was over it, I'd guess it is a great example of why major legislation that is crammed through quickly is rarely, if ever, a good thing. I'm more likely to believe that Obama is trying to spend his political capital while he has it, and sensing that momentum is stalling and seeing his poll numbers steadily decline like most other presidents before him, he is getting anxious to get something done ASAP.

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And who says anything about making insurance more expensive for those who choose to pay for their own insurance if the public option even goes through? If, according to your party’s Capitalistic Bible, we go forth with another competitor in the mix (i.e. government), shouldn’t those other privatized companies ideally compete by LOWERING costs against their competitors? And if they don’t, they would simply be outcompeted and run out of business, right?

You're getting it. Whatever savings I see on my premium will surely be offset by the huge tax increase I will pay in order to subsidize health insurance for everyone else that isn't paying for it. Here's the question: In basic economics, what happens if you bring in a business that has an absolute competitive advantage and is not subject to the same rules of the game? What happens when that business is a price maker, not a price taker? What happens to the structure of the business when everyone else cannot possibly compete on the same level of price? They must lower the quality of their product to compete, or make other undesireable adjustments in order to stay in business.

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Yeah, leave it to the WSJ to give you reliable, unbiased statistics.

Well I'm sure it chaps your hide that Rupert runs the WSJ now, but it's still one of the more objective papers out there. Fwiw, I actually read the NY Times first with the WSJ as my secondary paper during the day. In any event, they're both better sources of reliable information that most of the blogosphere.

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Again I find it funny how the pot of Republicans calling the Democratic kettle black (no racist pun intended at all) when it comes to deficit spending, considering your Presidential record dating back since at least Reagan.

Amazing what happened when we left the Gold standard in the 70s. Amazing how Greenspan manages to get no mention in any of this!

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Okay, great, I’ll be happy to consider this point WHEN WE ACTUALLY START TALKING ABOUT A SINGLE PAYOR SYSTEM. Because if memory serves, no single-payor system is in this bill, is it? If so, can you point it out?

Which version? There have been splinters in the Democratic party as some have said they absolutely would not sign any bill without a single payor system while the Blue Dogs have been more pragmatic. I honestly don't know if anyone knows what version of the bill we'll have on the president's desk at the end of the day.

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I’m sorry, Shakka, but the Deathers and the people at these town halls yelling and disrupting the meetings are nothing but stupid fucks, period. They are not interested whatsoever in rational discourse, nor do they care. They have been worked up by CORPORATE INSURANCE LOBBYISTS and Astroturf shitmongers and haven’t a feeble fucking neuron in their brains to stop and think for themselves before they paint fucking swastikas on Congressional buildings

Again, not sure who Deathers is, but I'll take your word for it. In any event, with regard to the Astroturf defense, I thought Peggy Noonan (of that despicable WSJ) made some fair points.

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What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t. People are not automatons. They show up only if they care. What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.

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We are rated 24th in life expectancy, yet we pay more than any other country for insurance. In comparison to Canada which pays an ave. of $2k/yr on health insurance, we pay an ave of $16,800/yr: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/44667 http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/05/21...-medical-index/

So do we address things like obesity? Is it Un-American for the government to raise taxes on soft-drinks? I don't like the idea, but this is just one example of the dilemma we face. I've heard plenty of horror stories about Canadian, British, etc. healthcare (No offense to our Canadian posters). Why do so many of them choose to come to the U.S. for a major procedure when they can't get an appointment for 2 years? I just can't imagine why...

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46 million uninsured: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80897.php

Plenty of uninsured, but what's the real number? How many are transient between jobs and temporarily lack coverage? How many are invincible 25 year olds that willingly choose to forego insurance? How many are illegal immigrants? What's the real number that we should be worried about?

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18,000 folks die each year as a result of a lack of healthcare, about 50/day: http://hc-dw.org/ 2/3 of American personal bankruptcies are secondary to health care costs: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily...edStories_ssi_5

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I clearly don't put as much stock in these figures as you do. They do tell a nice story though, depending how you weave it.

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Given these facts, Jesus if this isn’t a broken system to you, what the hell is? This is certainly one of the most inefficient (and outright corrupt) systems I’ve ever seen.

And I readily admit there is room to improve the system. I give Obama credit for pushing the idea of portable health records (but isn't HIPPA something that Bush put into effect?) I think it is just one way to help streamline the current system and make it more efficient. There are plenty of other things we can do that stop short of tearing down the whole system in a few short months and replacing it with something completely new (wow, I sounded very conservative with that statement:O)



I'm off to Vermont for the rest of the week. Enjoy yours.

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Originally posted by Krypton Affordable healthcare is this nation's primary concern and the right wingers all out attempt to stop healthcare reform at all costs will be the down fall of this country. Fucking Bush whackjobs.

Nobody wants to stop true reform. When you define "reform" as a government takeover, that's what people want to stop.

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1 And again not to be in lock-step with the President or anything, but he re-emphasized the point today in his town hall that the cost of his plan will be covered in large part to rolling back the tax cuts on those earning $250,000 and higher. IOW, the vast majority of Americans will not be given the burden of paying for this.

You seriously believe that? First of all, the CBO $1 trillion cost mark is horribly incomplete. Here is the CBO stating that they see no cost savings in the house bill---> http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/20...alth-plans.html

Here is the Politico doing a story on a conveniently excluded CBO report that the "only" $239 billion in deficit spending needed is actually closer to $800 billion----> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25520.html

Congressional Budget specialist explaining how preventative care will actually raise costs, not lower them---> http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalp...-cut-costs.html

Secondly, the true cost is probably closer to $4 trillion... of course there are attempts at burying this information too. This is from testimony given by Dr. Stephen Parente of the University of Minnesota and Johns Hopkins, in testimony given to a House subcommitte on health care reform at the end of June. BTW, he is a health economist who's expertise are in health insurance, health information technology and medical technology evaluation:

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There are two things people most want to know from these proposals. One, how many uninsured will be covered? Two, what will it cost the nation in one year and in ten years? HSI estimates, like CBO’s recent results, find there is no free lunch to expand health insurance coverage. Our early assessment of the Senate Finance committee proposal shows a 74% reduction in the uninsured with a 10 year cost of $2.7 trillion using public option plan modeled after the Massachusetts Connector. We also modeled an FEHBP version of the public plan and got a cost of over $1.3 trillion, but with a 30% reduction in the uninsured.

http://www.hsinetwork.com/E&C_SC-He...9_oralFinal.pdf

Read the whole thing... it gets better. Here's the final snippit worth mentioning:

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CBO scored the Kennedy Bill last week at approximately a 30% reduction for 1 trillion over ten years. Using the ARCOLA model, we found nearly everyone would be covered if all elements of the Kennedy bill were enacted at a ten year cost of 4 trillion. That 4 trillion estimate over 10 years assumes a public option plan with Bronze, Silver and Gold levels in the proposed insurance exchange with a subsidy for premium support that is income-adjusted and calibrated for assistance at the Silver level. The Silver level is equivalent of PPO plan with medium levels of generosity, something with 15% coinsurance rate, manageable copays and average level of access to physicians and hospitals. We accounted for the public plan being reimbursed at 10% above Medicare reimbursement, which is also 10% below commercial insurance premiums.

So, we'd get a medium level plan with moderate access to physicians... and doctors getting underpaid by 10%. Sweet!

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I really don’t think that excuse is gonna fly here, especially when we see clear, outright lies and distortions by idiot “deathers” in your party in reading things on page 424 or whatever page that line is on. But there’s plenty of time to dissect, and obviously obfuscate (as we’ve already seen by leaders in the GOP) what’s in the bill.

Outright lies and distortions... I don't know man. You should read this Washington Post article from yesterday explaining exactly how it's not too far off base to see how doctors will be incentivised to nudge along people near the end of their life to consider that option.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...l?nav=emailpage

And, from bigtime liberal Lee Siegel in an article called "Obama's Euthanasia Mistake", he makes this point:

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For those of us who believe that the absence of universal health care is America's burning shame, the spectacle of opposition to Obama's health-care plan is Alice-in-Wonderland bewildering and also enraging -- but on one point the plan's critics are absolutely correct. One of the key ideas under consideration -- which can be read as expressing sympathy for limitations on end-of-life care -- is morally revolting. And it's helping to kill the plan itself. Make no mistake about it. Determining which treatments are 'cost effective' at the end of a person's life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal healthcare affordable. This reeks of the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...sa:mostpopular2

You must also be forgetting what Obama said in his June infomercial on ABC to a woman in response to her mother getting a pacemaker at an elderly age. He literally said this: I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit... End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we're going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they're not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they're being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off, uhhh, not having the surgery but taking, uh, the painkiller.

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The problem, Shakka, is that “sticking with the tactics” hasn’t done shit in the past, and given the giant oiled lobbyist insurance and Pharma machine that we’re up against today, the likelihood of little “tweaks” here and there in the current system simply won’t do shit now or ever.

Are you aware that Obama accepted $150 million from pharmaceutical companies in exchange to go easy on them with drug pricing? Are you also aware he executed a back room deal in private (where are those promises to show all health care negotiations on C-SPAN?)where Pharma would committ to $80 billion in savings if Obama agreed to not let Medicare set drug prices? Sounds like a mix of extortion and our president getting in bed with big business to shape legislation.... another broken promise.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9081102810.html

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If, according to your party’s Capitalistic Bible, we go forth with another competitor in the mix (i.e. government), shouldn’t those other privatized companies ideally compete by LOWERING costs against their competitors? And if they don’t, they would simply be outcompeted and run out of business, right? You know, that whole free market, laizzes faire stuff, right?

Man... come on. For real. Don't you get it? The bill itself is a trojan horse for a singal payer option to destroy private insurers. Companies will not be able to afford to provide coverage and to save themselves, they'll have to offload their coverage to the government. When one entity does not have to show a profit to stay in business, there IS NO free market competition. Barney Frank was just bragging about it last week, how the bill will force us into Single Payer.

If our health care system is so horrible, why does Obama keep saying we can keep the plan we have if we like it? It's obviously a lie, but think about it... if we need an overhaul so badly, why would he say that people can keep their current plan if they like it?

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Okay, great, I’ll be happy to consider this point WHEN WE ACTUALLY START TALKING ABOUT A SINGLE PAYOR SYSTEM. Because if memory serves, no single-payor system is in this bill, is it? If so, can you point it out?

If Shakka can't point it out... I gladly will. First of all, there is a provision on page 16 of the bill that clearly outlaws private insurance. Once your current plan is up, peace out.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArt...332548165656854

But there's a lot more. Obama in 2003 speaking at an AFL-CIO conference:

quote:

I happen to be a proponent of single payer universal health care... And that's what Jim's talking about when he says, "Everybody in, nobody out," a single payer health care plan, universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see but as all of you know, we may not get there immediately because first we've got to take back the White House and we gotta take back the Senate and we gotta take back the House.

Obama in 2007:

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My commitment is to make sure that we've got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. I would hope that we can set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort, but I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.

And if that's not good enough, watch the video clip of him saying all this, PLUS several other Democrats admitting to the trojan horse:

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I’m sorry, Shakka, but the Deathers and the people at these town halls yelling and disrupting the meetings are nothing but stupid fucks, period. They are not interested whatsoever in rational discourse, nor do they care. They have been worked up by CORPORATE INSURANCE LOBBYISTS and Astroturf shitmongers and haven’t a feeble fucking neuron in their brains to stop and think for themselves before they paint fucking swastikas on Congressional buildings (http://www.11alive.com/news/local/s...?storyid=133691) and putting Hitler mustaches on Obama’s picture.

Oh boy... talk about being stuck in an ideology and letting it influence your thought. You're dead wrong about the hitler mustache bullshit, but I'll get to that in a minute.

It amazes me how Democrats love to drum up protests, and in the most crass and destructive manner, but when people oppose their policies those same people are labled as unstable mobs full of vitriol and hate. It is the Democrat party who has astroturfing to a science, and has all the rent-a-mobs bussed in... so when something legitimate bubbles up, those people can't believe that it's real. David Axelrod himself has made millions of dollars running a firm that specializes in astroturfing. Obama's entire town hall in New Hampshire yesterday was STAGED; the 13 year old girl who asked a question was identified as the daughter of a major Obama supporter (link--> http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news...ostPop_Emailed2) ; Obama had his own rent-a-mob group Organizing For America bussed in; NONE of the town halls got violent until our Agitator-In-Chief put out a call to the SEIU and made sure the Democrat representatives filled half the room and (his words) "hit back twice as hard". Take a look at 1825 K Street in D.C. dude.... the HCAN (Health Care for America Now), AFL-CIO, ACORN, MoveON.org, SEIU, and other unions/organized groups who exist to protest for Democrat causes are set up right by the White House. Funny though, I didn't see Obama come down on the SEIU when a black conservative man got beaten up at a meeting in St. Louis like he did on the Cambridge police guy.

Anyway, shit yeah people are up in arms, and they should be. And it's not just Republicans that are pissed off in those town halls. For too long they have been treated like stupid peasants who aren't smart enough to make deicisions for themselves... that even if a majority of people disagree, the political class knows better. People are genuinely sick and tired of being ignored, and treated as if they work for the elected official and not the other way around. Why are Democrat protesters allowed to go berzerk because "dissent is patriotic"? But people are now expected to sit down and politely accept the bill of goods being sold to them? They should just accept a largely unread bill and have it rammed through wit breakneck speed?

They are mad because they are coming with legitimate questions, and realizing that they are more informed than their representatives. People are tired of being polite... if you were on an airplane with a madman flying it towards a mountain, would you sit politely and say, "excuse me sir... excuse me... uhhh... would you mind please steering the plane to the left a little bit?"

So what do you suggest. Maybe the people up in arms right now should protest like Democrats?
1) Left wing Minutemen storming the stage during a speech at Columbia Univ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNXmy0e5fc

2) Tancredo getting forced off stage while speaking at UNC-Chapel Hill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTkGgE-hXA

3) Olympia Washington protestors blocking military shipments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM2tNL_roBY

4) ACORN breaking into a Baltimore home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRrHZGTdhKw

5) Left wing mob chasing CHristians out of San Francisco's Castro District: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRxFoBSPng

6) Left wingers stomping on elderly woman's cross at a Prop 8 rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmMpPS8IRT0

It's fucking amazing... the hypocricy.

Now, as for the Swastika business.... the guy carrying the sign with Obama having the Hitler mustache was identified as a supporter of the Democrat John Dingel who was holding the town hall meeting... after the meeting was over he was even passing out literature to people for Dingel!!
http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/200...poster-was.html

The fact of the matter is Pelosi started the swastika bullshit when she lied on TV last week saying she saw them all over the place, while the only shread of evidence was someone holding a sign with a swastika that had a circle and line through it saying "no socialism". Then, by coincidence, swastikas start popping up... one guy gets busted as being a Dingel plant, and the spray painted swastika over the sign from your link is too politically convenient to be real now.

How many BusHitler signs did we see flailing around the place anyway? There are plent of visible swastikas in this Bush protest from 2005 (but it's cool... they're Democrats): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Ur...player_embedded

quote:

Most Americans still want a public option, despite these stupid fucks deliberately disrupting a rational conversation. But you’re welcome to believe anything you want.

Rassmussen, Gallup, and Pew all report that you're wrong. A strong majority of people DO NOT want Obamacare in general... 53%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...alls_to_new_low

And you're even further off base about the single payer... 32% favor it and 57% oppose it.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub..._care_57_oppose

You're probably sick of reading by this point... but if you want some good clarity you should read this article by a Duke University professor who breaks down controversial parts of the Healthcare Bill into plain english, and you can see how much Obama and the others are blatantly lying to you when out on the stump. Link here:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/...l-actually-says

Last edited by The17sss on Aug-13-2009 at 01:17