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$18M Contract For Transparency Website Released — But Blacked Out
zokuga writes "The US government recently approved an $18 million contract for Smartronix to build a website where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money, as part of President Obama's promise to make government more transparent through the Internet. However, the contract, which was released only through repeated Freedom of Information Act requests, is itself heavily blacked out. ProPublica reports: 'After weeks of prodding by ProPublica and other organizations, the Government Services Agency released copies of the contract and related documents that are so heavily blacked out they are virtually worthless. In all, 25 pages of a 59-page technical proposal — the main document in the package — were redacted completely. Of the remaining pages, 14 had half or more of their content blacked out.' Sections that were heavily or entirely redacted dealt with subjects such as site navigation, user experience, and everything in the pricing table. The entire contract, in all its blacked-out glory, is here."
Ahh, the hypocrisy of our democracy.
What? I can't assume Occam's Razor was a slick fold-up scooter?
To add insult to injury, I wonder if it was a no bid contract?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Listen, I worked on the project. This is no big deal. Basically, it's [12 LINES REDACTED]. So I don't know what all the fuss is about.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Change we can believe in ! Belief being necessary because, you know, you don't get to check.
Say what were those economic numbers again ?
I love this f*cking country, and this country loves f*cking me.
Standard practice, unfortunately. Despite what folks may think.. the website itself will provide the necessary transparency. However, the redactions in the contract are to protect trade secrets, national security concerns (explaining integration with other confidential government systems), etc. What we need, is the website, and for the website to provide the information clearly, and efficiently. Who does it,a nd the details of the contract, are largely irrelevant.
0100010001101001011001 0100100000011010010110 1110001000000110000100 1000000110011001101001 0111001001100101
To bad it's scanned and not digitally blacked out like those documents the government released before that could be easily be read...
Now that it's slashdotted, it's completely blacked out!
I would hate to see a secretive US Government then...
Ramming bills through Congress, no five day period, hell five days seems to apply how long a before a thousand page bill is dropped on us before its rammed through.
One party rule never works and just as before when they were in power they do all the same rotten things they claim the other side did when they had power.
Apparently they are so wrapped up in knowing whats best for us, because they are so obviously smarter and well... transparency is where they deem we need to have it.
Now we have a nearly sinister cooperation of the press and government all walking the same line. Calling them out on it is now unAmerican. We get town halls that first tell us everyone is entitled to their opinion followed by statements that those who dare have a differing one need to get out of the way.
Website, schebsite, its all just more bs for the point column where the score never matters as long as they win.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"Power corrupts" may be true
But, equally as true.
The corrupt seek power.
What's the old saying, the more things change the more they stay the same.
"Dad, how do you know that politicisation is lying? His lips are moving."
Maybe, just maybe, it's one of those PDF dealies where it's not really blacked out because they're just rendering rectangles over text that's still in the document. Yeah, it's a longshot but check on it anyway.
Also, WTF could possibly be so sensitive about a contract for a WEB SITE??? You'd think they have some kind of sense for how much traffic the most popular government sites are getting, and be able to order some colo and stuff based on that. That's what I'd expect to find in there... servers, bandwidth, hourly support rates to handle wierd stuff like DDoS attacks. WTF could possibly be in there that needs to be blacked out for any reason???
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If this is the way that things work in the Government, maybe we should all try it on our 1040's next April.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Well said.
I am also interested in how people are supposed to verify information from the supposed transparency. If the government is the one setting it up, it is childs play to manipulate the system to show what they want. I suppose that is what the redacted sections touched on.
Could it be more ironic to redact the contract for a website that is supposed to make things transparent?
Puts me in mind of Yes, Minister for some reason.
However, the redactions in the contract are to protect trade secrets, national security concerns...etc
So what part does cost of the contract fall under for you.
If they are hiding costs here, how can you assume the website is really revealing all money being spent, when the foundation itself remains obscured.
Not one cent of government expenditure should be obscured. I can understand something like military spending sometimes being put in a black box (and that only in truly exceptional cases), but you should at least be able to see the cost of the box...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And this is different than any other administration how, exactly?
(Not that everyone else doing it makes it OK now, just that the US government has sucked exactly like this for at least several decades, and probably longer.)
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." Or in this case, incompetency. I have trouble believing that there was much thought process going on here. They just did what they always do. There is a heavy governmental culture of giving out as little information to the public as possible. That's just what they do. They likely aren't even thinking about it enough to appreciate the irony.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
black out? you guys have new code word everyday. just can't accept an African president can you.
Anyone else find it iron on page 93 they talk about their benifits to their open design with over half the page blacked out (page 93 for those interested)
>>We get town halls that first tell us everyone is entitled to their opinion followed
>>by statements that those who dare have a differing one need to get out of the way.
It's not so much that shouting the pledge of allegiance in an overly jingoistic way in a juvenile attempt to disrupt things is unAmerican; it's more a matter of being annoying and counter-productive. It wasn't entertaining when the Dems acted like babies for the last 8 years, and it isn't entertaining now to see Conservatives acting the exact same way. If you want to express a dissenting opinion, then do it in a civil manner, but please, take the dress off before you do.
it's only half blacked out.
If you have any shred of guilt about your spamming activities, please rectify your conscience by spamming this story to every inbox within your, uh, readership.
As we've seen to date, when you criticize the Obama administration they'll simply label you an extremist or rabble-rouser and dismiss all allegations against them. You think Bill Clinton was slick? He was just Teflon. Obama is made out of superfuid.
The funny thing about events of late is that politicians think people are pissed simply because they oppose the certain bills, like the health care initiative. Newsflash Washington, you're pissing EVERYONE off with your nonstop bullshit. You're in the pockets of those that truly control things, so why should we give two shits about what you say? You don't make decisions obviously, they are obviously made by outside forces. You work for the people alright, it's just which people we wonder because It's obviously not us.
Dear Mr President. I'm not angry because Glenn Beck or anyone else told me to be. I'm pissed because:
A. Unemployment is way too high. Jobless recoveries don't pay the bills.
B. The economy is in the tank. Blame it on Bush, again. That seems to be what you guys are great at.
C. You bail out banks that simply took too much risk, breaking the model of capitalism that you tout as the best in the world.
D. You refuse to allow oversight of the Federal Reserve and it just keeps printing money out of thin air. A huge risk for us if we can't meet our economic goals.
E. You don't stick to your promises (see deal with drug manufacturers for an example)
F. Your party is filled with hypocrites and fools (for example Nancy Pelosi) and you pander to them repeatedly.
G. And finally you promote transparency and then blank out FOIA released contracts. WTF?
The gig is up Obama. Time to cut the shit. Your blank check is revoked. And yes I voted for you so save your "Republicans yada yada" nonsense.
Unless it's part of stimulus dollars, which the transparency website is intended to show, there's no problem. And if it actually IS part of stimulus dollars, then I wouldn't expect to see it until the site goes live.
If we see all of the details, all we're going to do is bitch about it and probably end up delaying the website with investigations into no-bid contracts or who designed this crappy thing or other junk. So just let it ride until the damned thing's ready.
I saw the headline in rss, and thought transparent like see your desktop through the web-page transparent, then thought 18M is a lot for a website, but it is transparent which is a huge selling point cause no one else has one like that.
Once you go black, you never go back...
I was going to moderate this, but I couldn't divine a coherent thread that justified any available moderation. Specifically, I wonder:
Is this a criticism of the Democratic or Republican Party politicians, as if they are responsible for the redaction of this document (which doesn't seem likely)?
Or is it meant to say that politicians are consistently in the pockets of corporations?
Or is it a criticism of the press, and the inability of people to say what they think without being labeled unAmerican, (as if this is somehow new, now that George W. Bush is no longer president)?
Or is it a complaint that the recent "town hall" meetings across the country have been effectively neutralized by people who have turned the process from a discussion into a name-calling event?
Have you actually watched/listened to any Town Halls? Sure, there are people acting in the way in which you describe, but the vast majority wait their turn and relay their concern in a civilized manner.
Is it just me or is something about the deliverables on page 97 a little off? "Advanced search" due Aug 10, but the system architecture due after 6 months? Data migration due in 2007?
http://documents.propublica.org/recovery-gov-contract-documents#p=97
The first few redacted pages are the names and histories of the people involved. This is privacy, and nothing new.
The other pages are management chains used on the project and are part of KPMG's/Smartronix value-added business techniques, and it's their option to not reveal those practices.
I'm not too concerned. Wait until the site opens up.
I wonder if Marie Antoinette was as out of touch with the people's anger before she lost her head...
Why did they black out the organization name, the same one that can be seen on every page?
Because the webdevelopers are the same ones investigating no-bid contracts amiright?
Am I the only one that finds this a little creepy and salker-like? From page 70, "Recovery.gov will come to you, even if you do not come to us. We will come to you on Twitter and on Facebook, we will come to you on YouTube and via government websites, we will work with old-media and with new media to get our message out." Apparently the author also never learned about run-on sentences.
So far the ones that are being called unMerkin are the ones that seem to be incapable of speaking in any manner other than yelling and screaming about "Death Panels". Rather than contributing to the discussion they are denying everyone else the chance to contribute to the discussion.
Now I know why its $18 million - they are using Sharepoint.... from Open Source software to the Evil Empire..
E
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
just goes to show how accurate the original statement was.
They didn't hide the costs for the project. They hid the cost per job type. They probably don't want their employees knowing what the others are getting paid.
But this looks more like they are hiding *companies* involved, not individuals.
In fact I would very much like to know just who is getting paid for this, and how much - so that if I wished I could trace back connections to various senators that insisted certain web development providers were chosen...
If you don't want someone to know how much you are getting paid, even as an individual - don't work on government contracts. It's that simple.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did those other administrations make any claims about accountability and openness?
...compelling data visualizations and tools for customizable visualizations and widgets...we have rich expertise in knowing how users can best view and comprehend data...codify the incoming data-stream into cohesive, relevant data points...and they are building it on Sharepoint. I guess the USA will get a lot of web 2.0 stats, etc. but will you be able to see who got that contract for fitting the golden faucets in the governor's loo, and how much they were paid?
Freedom of speech doesn't come with bandwidth.
The only way for this to get more attention is for the opposition party to take it up as a cause. That's the reality of our 2 party system. Not just this website but lack of transparency across the board. We've seen a number of examples in the last 7 months. So, instead of birth records or death panels, take something that's actually demonstrably outrageous. I'm about as far left as it gets, which makes me want someone to call out this bullshit even more. This is one check on the power of a political party but I doubt we'll see this story get any play on right wing radio or fox news.
Hold on, I'm being told that we want more Orly Taitz and town hall attendees with vague fears who want their America back.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
.. see what's being blacked out!
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
Like the one in NH where everyone present was hand-selected by the party?
He couldn't even FIND a skeptic in that auditorium.
It may have been civil, but wasn't anything that could pass as debate.
This is the 2nd article that I have checked up on in the past 2 days that was posted on slashdot but turns out to have been sensationalized to the point where the headline misrepresents the reality. Yesterday was the article about Microsoft being sued for its XML implementation in Word. The comments displayed everyone freaking out that XML is now patented - which is patently false. That patent had nothing to do with XML other than that Microsoft infringed upon it in the way that it handled some files (including but not limited to XML).
Now today this piece makes it look like the Obama administration is putting a fast one over on everyone and wiping out all of the evidence. Reading the document shows that this is not even close to the truth. The document is 159 pages and only a handful of pages are blacked out - and it is clear that the reason for those blackouts is to protect the private information of individuals in the contract. It makes sense that they should black out the individual entries in the pricing section because that information can be used by the company's competitors to undermine that company. We know the total bill, and we can now see exactly what's involved in the project. The only thing we can't see are the names of people involved and some other personal or sensitive details.
Let's get things back on track here and end the CNN-esque sensationalism.
was it the panties thing?
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I would hate to see a secretive US Government then...
Not to take sides, but how about one that "loses" millions of emails? That's when stuff gets really scary-- when they stop redacting records before releasing them and start destroying them outright.
But no, sure, this isn't exactly transparent.
Now we have a nearly sinister cooperation of the press and government all walking the same line. Calling them out on it is now unAmerican. We get town halls that first tell us everyone is entitled to their opinion followed by statements that those who dare have a differing one need to get out of the way.
Now you won't believe me, but lots of people think I'm too conservative, and I consider myself conservative to a large degree, so this isn't about that. But still, I don't agree with what you're saying.
As far as the evil press, it does seem to me that most people who talk about the press being evil are still blindly listening to someone who is part of "the media". People complaining about NYT and MSNBC are watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh, and vice-versa. The reason you think "the other side" is trying to use the media to mislead you is largely because "your side" tells you they are, so no one is completely clean in that regard. Yes, both sides are manipulating their coverage because the people running the show have an agenda that they're pushing. If you don't see how they're manipulating your and you don't know what agenda they're pushing, then you should pay more attention.
But as far as these people at the town hall meeting being "un-American", well... they're certainly being disruptive. What they're engaging in isn't constructive criticism or deliberate conversation. What they're doing is not debating. Hard to say whether that's "unAmerican" since our founding fathers were the intellectual elite who founded our government on philosophic theories, but they're also the lawless hooligans who dumped someone else's tea into the harbor.
However, it does seem to me that many of them are misinformed. There are plenty of valid things to be concerned about with this health care reform, but death panels aren't really one of those things. No one is suggesting death panels. Being misinformed and refusing to listen to anyone who might inform you better can be problematic behavior.
A website that is costing taxpayers 18 million dollars. So maybe you can try to understand the concerns of some and retract the female panties that are wedged in your own cheeks.
REDACTED we REDACTED!
Yeah, sort of, except it isn't really just a website. Its a propaganda machine. For better or worse, there's no pretense of neutrality on these sites. They are supposed to represent a '.gov' point of view, but reflect only those positions of the President.
Further, they suck. Under the 'fact check' segment about Obama not seeking to dismantle private insurance, all you find is hand waving. A simple trip to youtube reveals the comments being quoted were NOT taken out of context and/or spliced together.
Either the President is deliberately lying to us or someone is wasting a lot of government money by not doing what he asked them to do.
Unfortunately, with the identities of those involved all redacted, we won't ever get to look into who did what and why. And THAT is NOT transparent.
Picture this - what if the management team were headed up by one Mr Rod R Blagojevich? Does it matter now?
For being more accountable and transparent, this whole thing stinks to high heaven.
What amuses me is how many sheeple in this country still Trust the government to do what is best for them and to keep them safe.
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FACT: The Government can only always be trusted to take your money and rights away from you.
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Any government form is flawed as it is composed as many flawed individuals who are not good people. From the DMV clerk with an attitude, the City council member who taking kickbacks from the country clubbers, to the senator who is taking money from PACs, all of the way to the president who is taking money from companies like G.E.
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When will people learn that you need government but you need to be vigilant and limit their powers at every turn. We need to also teach people the common ideal that when you let or expect people to take care of a certain aspect of your life you lose some of your freedom. For every sugar coated promise a politician makes there is a equal price to pay in lost control, money or freedom over our own lives.
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The Instant Gratification ME, ME, ME culture of today's society feeds directly to the politician's sweet saccharine promises of how the government is going to take care of them. There used to be a time when people used to have enough pride in themselves that if you gave someone a free meal they would see to it that they would return the favor because they felt if they didn't they would be viewed a selfish loser. We used to bear the burden of our families and help take care of our grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, cousins and children. These days those responsibilities are dropped upon the government who ends up doing a sub standard job of doing so. The politicians don't mind this, in fact they love this dependency on their special programs, they gain power in political capital which ensures that they get re-elected each term. These guaranteed votes allow them to be as corrupt as they want as they no longer fear reprisal. They no longer fear reprisal because they they have large voting block dependent on them.
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Put it this way, when you were a kid and were totally dependent on your parents and your parents grounded you, did you have the power to stand up against them in any meaningful way? No you didn't.
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Same with the government, the more of your life they control and make you dependent on them, the more they can get away with.
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The Government has so much of this control that they are no longer accountable to their own actions. It doesn't surprise me that they would black out information and manipulate documents even when it comes to a promise of transparency. They are all a bunch of corrupt schmucks because we let them be that way. Maybe if we are to be a ME ME ME generation who acts like children, then we really deserve Big Brother or Father watching over until we grow and wake up. What is the German word for Father again????
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We all have inherent human rights, the government's role is not to GRANT you rights, the role of government is to RESTRICT your actions when they infringe upon other people's rights. But people these days think that the government is their parents handing out things like rights, privileges and safety.
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Maybe we deserve exactly what we got.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
. . . that "open" for a politician really means "only as 'open' as I want to be"? Also check the definition of "naive" to see your picture, dude.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
This.
At the end of the day, the lesser of two evils still bends you over at will.
Be ashamed, but know at least you either voted for the winner or voted with your party, and didn't dare throw your vote away. Right?
Phase 3 of the roll-out plan got redacted. The whole phase. I can't quite figure out what it would be. Television, maybe?
On page 73 -
Phase 1 - In the site itself
Phase 2 - On Facebook, etc
Phase 3 - ???
All we know is that it took five times more space to describe what ever it was than it took for 1 and 2.
What on earth could it be?
Somewhere in those redacted lines has to be the explanation for how any website can possibly cost 18 million dollars.
it was the panties thing!? wow, I struck a little close to the mark apparently. Guess I could have said "Nothing to see here, move along."
so let's see. $16M for a website that will coordinate disparate information flowing from all the federal government's offices and organizations, collating that information securely and providing it quickly and to thousands of users on a daily basis.
a little on the pricey side, sure, but it looks like these systems will tie in to the DoD and other sensitive agencies. I don't suppose that's easy stuff to do. also, they've probably put a rush on it. hard to judge until we see the finished product, though, eh?
how much is Facebook hypothetically worth again?
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
This contract reminds me of a Mad Libs.
The funny thing is, if you replace the word election with primaries, while the numbers are off, they are not off by an overwhelming amount and the article remains correct.
Now we have a nearly sinister cooperation of the press and government all walking the same line. Calling them out on it is now unAmerican.
What the fuck are you talking about? Obama bashing is all the rage right now. The media has even been keeping the ridiculous "birth certificate" nonsense going. You can't visit any news site without seeing comments about Obama being a fascist or the spawn of satan.
Compare to the Bush administration after 9/11 - where one actually faced serious risk (loss of job, physical assault, arrest) for publicly speaking against Bush.
... and then they built the supercollider.
what a crazy hypothetical. why didn't you use Osama Bin Laden?
there's probably a lot of interesting little things in government contracts. but then there are a lot of interesting things in my wireless phone contract. it seems to be the nature of the beast.
do you actually think if you could read the full text you would find a place where it said, "The President of the United States will have a secret password that will allow him to edit anything he wants so no one will know it happened."?
I mean, you think of the Federal Government as one big unified whole, acting to screw you at every step. But it's really an enormous collection of disparate entities (made up of regular people doing their jobs) that have a wide variety of purposes, goals and agendas and almost always in conflict with itself.
These entities send reports hither and thither, and that information goes to some people in government and not others. It's hard to keep track of what's going on and there's no central place for it all.
Now Obama's idea (probably not his idea originally, but he's a proponent of it) is to not only store that information centrally, but also to make it available to everyone.
I can see the value in it and I don't see the point of dismissing it as a propaganda tool before it ever exists.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Very occasionally you'd get a claim of accountability, but they mainly restricted it to one or two issues. Never seen any other claims of openness though.
To bad it's scanned and not digitally blacked out like those documents the government released before that could be easily be read...
The "original PDF" at the link is not scanned. I could switch to the I-beam cursor and cut-and-paste the text.
Cutting text across a blackout didn't show any of the text under the blackout. Perhaps it was removed from the pdf file when the blackout was put in, perhaps the cut-and-paste function honors the blackout. Don't know. Perhaps someone with more time and more knowledge of the PDF format can check.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Some of us are just wondering how exactly you spend $18M dollars on such a website. It's not too much to ask how our money is being spent, regardless of what it is on. Is it getting your panties in a bunch to ask your wife why she took $10k out of the bank and what she spent it on exactly?
However, it does seem to me that many of them are misinformed. There are plenty of valid things to be concerned about with this health care reform, but death panels aren't really one of those things. No one is suggesting death panels. Being misinformed and refusing to listen to anyone who might inform you better can be problematic behavior.
The more this issue gets pressed, the less I believe that it is a non-issue. For Mr Obama to put this to bed, all that would be needed is his personal guarantee that he would not sign a bill that denies care to anyone, ever. Then death panels aren't required.
Of course, he's not doing that.
He's advocating a system that makes "informed decisions" and "controls waste".
Our current system has an open wallet option. If you are dying you can bankrupt your estate to try and beat it. Does that exist in the Obama-care plan?
Will it continue to exist after the 5 and then 10-year windows have passed and all the grandfathering is done?
Probably not.
If it did not exist, and a mortal condition were at play, how would 'we' decide who gets care and who does not?
A death panel, for lack of a better term.
So while it MAY be an exaggeration, it is a logical one and a very real issue. It needs to be addressed, at the highest level, with concrete information and in a caring, understanding, sympathetic way. Being dismissive and cracking-wise are NOT going to change minds on this kind of an issue.
I agree, although there is a bit too much blacked out to say for sure this is just for protecting personal details and payment rates. It's hard to have a guess what is stricken out at some places as even the headers and footers are gone. I cannot believe that these would interfere with security or privacy. But I would call the article sensationalist for sure. Ironically the pages they point at clearly have to do with privacy.
Johnny Rotten,
"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
how much is Facebook purportedly worth? ~$4 billion.
how much did MySpace lose its owner (News Corp) this year? $680 million.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
what a crazy hypothetical. why didn't you use Osama Bin Laden?
Because Obama is known to be propping up his own political allies, and not those of the Bush family.
I can see the value in it and I don't see the point of dismissing it as a propaganda tool before it ever exists.
True. I'm judging it based on what we have seen so far, but I feel that this is a reasonable assessment.
A truly open organization would hold itself to the highest standard possible.
Stallman doesn't do Windows.
it might be a little silly when your bank balance is $30 million and your wife is constantly taking out hundreds of thousands to buy new cars and planes.
and of course, then she says that the $10k is for a way for everyone in the family to more honestly account for the money they are using.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I would hate to see a secretive US Government then...
Not to take sides, but how about one that "loses" millions of emails? That's when stuff gets really scary-- when they stop redacting records before releasing them and start destroying them outright.
Well no doubt they're making sure all those emails to fishy@whitehouse.gov are backed up and kept in a safe place.
With lots of copies.
Several that are littered around the IRS audit offices.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Once again we see how the perfect is the enemy of the good.
And Stallman can do whatever he wants. I will use the tool that's best for the job.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
The phrase commonly used to describe our political system is 'democracy.' Yes, we know it is a constitutional representative democracy, otherwise known as a Republic, but that is still a kind of democracy. And just so you know, some states do have voter initiatives, you know, laws the voters get to vote on directly. But thanks for the civics lesson, knowing our country, I'm sure there are some people who are actually confused on the issue and wondering why they don't get to vote on every single issue.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If it's not CHANGE, it at least is HOPE, right?
It's just that white Americans get really nervous when a black man goes around asking for change.
However, it does seem to me that many of them are misinformed. There are plenty of valid things to be concerned about with this health care reform, but death panels aren't really one of those things. No one is suggesting death panels. Being misinformed and refusing to listen to anyone who might inform you better can be problematic behavior.
You're right they aren't "death panels". They are panels that will decide whether you get treatment based on their assessment of whether your "quality of life" plus remaining years of life expectancy is high enough to justify the expense. If it isn't, they will give you counsel on pain amelioration and writing a living will.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
But how much did they cost to develop? I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the Facebook guys didn't have $18m lying around when they developed it AS COLLEGE STUDENTS.
The more this issue gets pressed, the less I believe that it is a non-issue. For Mr Obama to put this to bed, all that would be needed is his personal guarantee that he would not sign a bill that denies care to anyone, ever.
You want no one to ever be denied any kind of care? Ok, just to put that to the test. imagine the following scenarios:
Those are just some ideas off the top of my head, but considering situations like that, do you really want the government making a blanket statement that they'll pay for *any* medical treatment?
I'm just going to assume you said "no", and point out that obviously the line needs to be drawn somewhere. We can debate exactly where, but the government shouldn't cover everything all the time.
Our current system has an open wallet option. If you are dying you can bankrupt your estate to try and beat it. Does that exist in the Obama-care plan?
First, I'm having a real hard time imagining how that could be disallowed, or why anyone would try to disallow it.
But is that really your concern, though? You're worried about the people who can afford to pay all of their medical bills out-of-pocket? Don't worry about it. Millionaires will always get better medical care than you or me. There's no way around rich people getting preferable treatment.
If it did not exist, and a mortal condition were at play, how would 'we' decide who gets care and who does not?
A death panel, for lack of a better term.
Even following your argument, that's still a bit of a stretch. The "death panels" they're talking about is the idea that the government is going to sort through individual patients and decide who gets which procedures. That would be political suicide.
If the government were completely taking over medical care (which so far at least, they're not), and if they were to be so tight with their money (Ha! When has the government been tight with their money?) that they started rationing health care, they would probably cut out the most expensive procedures rather than cutting cheap procedures to particular people.
So in the fairly unlikely scenario where the government puts all other insurance companies out of business and makes it illegal to provide any kind of private medical care as well as rationing care, then you'd get basic medical care for all and advanced medical care for no one.
However! Even in the case that it happens, some economics start to kick in. Drug companies would probably lower the prices of their drugs, and doctors might just charge less for "advanced" procedures, since the prices are set, to some degree, by the level of demand. So the only "advanced procedures" that are unavailable in this *extremely* unlikely scenario are those that are inherently expensive.
If your against government offering a public health care option, then it should be because it will probably be expensive, which increases our national debt and therefore increases inflation. Proponents might argue that it will ultimately be less expensive because it will improve productivity and improve our economy in other ways, but maybe you don't believe them. That's a pretty valid argument. The idea of "death panels" is nonsense.
Whoever we elect has to deal with all the other people we elected. Not to mention the thousands of people who've spent years of their lives (and upon whom we've spent millions of dollars) to become experts in their fields so they can accurately advise the president.
Though I am sure Ron Paul would have had all the answers. He would have know how to forestall a second great depression, made peace with the suicide bombers in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, reversed the spread of AIDS and malaria in Africa and brought prescription and health care costs to 1970s levels.
Why, his very presence would have inspired NASA to ...
oh wait, he would have spent all his political capital trying to do away with the income tax. his platform of drastically reduced federal spending and lax regulation would have been perfectly timed for our recent recession. the slashing of federal spending just as private capital was drying up would have an incredible impact on our way of life.
and then after the fallout and devastation following the second great depression the survivors could get to the real business of building a new utopia based on the works of Ayn Rand.
now that is change I can believe in! sign me up!
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
From wikipedia:
Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[33] This was followed a year later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $27.5 million more from Greylock Partners.[33][34] A leaked cash flow statement showed that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net loss of $3.63 million.[35]
that's over $40 million to develop a site to let people share pictures, play scrabble, and post nonsensical one-liners about how bored they are at work.
$18 million so that everyone can see how the disparate federal agencies are spending their appropriations... if it works, I'd say that's worth it.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Another pile of steaming turd excuse about how integration details are hidden would magically make the system more secure. Time and again that's been proven to be unreliable at best, yet it persists.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and defend this. (I have nothing whatsoever to do with the site or the company, which I've never heard of)
Is this site not much more than a CMS with some cool extras? Yes. But only on the surface.
This is a site that receives a ton of traffic. You know, the kind of site that needs a larger infrastructure than your blog about your family. This is also a site that likely takes a large amount of resources to manage on an ongoing basis. There is a lot of cost in doing that.
Also, the 18M is for the life of the contract I would assume. So for however long they agreed to run the thing is how long that 18M needs to last for the duration of the contract.
This is also a government website. These sites come under attack much more often than your normal site. The security that needs to be in place for this just isn't that cheap. And any updates done to the code during the life of the project have to go thru security audits. It is simply a lot more time consuming to do.
I dunno. Playing devils advocate. How about ask the slashdot creators what they would charge to build and run slashdot for 2-3 years.
I'm a small developer. I know I could have built this site for a lot cheaper too until I think about it. I just don't have the resources to build and maintain something of that magnitude. It would take a large effort to do, especially in a small time frame.
And lets imagine for a minute that this did go thru a bidding process. This company was probably on the cheaper end of things.
Some of it is understandable. They aren't going to publish individual's names or pay rates.
But if you look on Page 102 you can see the cost break down by CLIN #. And on page 145 you can see the tasks associated with each CLIN.
Some of the black out is clearly for individual's privacy. You can see the company name, but not the specific individuals assigned to the job. Other parts, yeah, it looks way over board. But the pricing is there.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
By some measures, the U.S. government is the most corrupt in the world. For example, this Rolling Stone article about the extreme financial corruption in the U.S.: The Great American Bubble Machine. (The full article is in the paper edition, available at any library.)
The U.S. government spends more money on surveillance and war than any country in the history of the world. That taxpayer money partly helps those who want corruption to profit, and hurts U.S. taxpayers, and the entire world. For just one example, see the book, House of Bush, House of Saud.
The U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the 2nd world war. Most or all of the interference was for profit. Quote: '... although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites'. The dictators pay the corrupters. In Iraq, those who control the U.S. government want control over the oil, and don't care how many people they kill. In Afghanistan, the corrupters want to build an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to a port where the oil can be delivered.
The U.S. government has a higher percentage of its people in prison than any country ever in the history of the world, over 6 times higher than in Europe, for example. Wikipedia quote: Approximately one in every 18 men in the United States is behind bars or being monitored.
U.S. citizens don't want to believe that their government is as corrupt as it is, even though the recent financial corruption has made many of them poor.
i was clued in to this when obama was asked about transparency and answered that the media was given access to the health care deal meetings with health care execs.
his idea of transparency doesn't seem to be between him and the tax pay but him and the media that he gets to hand pick to attend select meetings.
why don't people get pissed about this? why is it that every time bush so much as misspoke it was front page news but when obama blatantly turns his back on the tax payer and panders to the media it's winked at?
as long as people are picking teams and letting fouls by their team slide nothing is going to change. obama needs smacked down on this. he needs to be shown that we are watching and that even though he may be answering the medias questions the accountability is still to the tax payer.
Citation needed.
Actually, There were plenty of non-RP supporters who said this was going to happen. Like every frigging non-progressive who's ever lived in the greater chicagoland area who's even remotely paid attention to the politics here.
Our current system has an open wallet option. If you are dying you can bankrupt your state to try and beat it.
There, fixed that for you.
Knowledge Brings Fear
Well yes, I'm sure they will make sure any emails you send to the White House are backup up and kept in a safe place. At least, I would hope so, since they're legally required to do so.
Look, if you're going to send email to the White House and don't want your personal information to be included, then don't include that information. If you don't want them to know exactly who you are, use a gmail address with an alias. If you find evidence that the secret service is investigating people who send questions (not threats) to that email address, then I'll be right on your side complaining.
But complaining that they're not deleting your emails? WTF?
I usually universally ignore Anonymous Cowards, but every once in a while one catches my eye who actually has something useful and insightful to say.
I read through the redacted form of the proposal and I agree with you that they are protecting private individual information. In addition, it seems like they might have redacted anything that mentioned the name of a specific vendor or product - perhaps to avoid any appearance of favoritism.
As far as redacting the system capacity, my guess is that was done at the request of some "security" department who feels that security by obscurity is a valid policy. Obviously it's not, but that would be consistent with the way pretty much the entire government operates.
Overall, though, my opinion is that there wasn't any malicious intent in the redactions, but rather an intent to adhere to various policies that were put into place in an attempt to make government appear open, fair and safe, and instead end up making it look nefarious.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
I saw dollar amounts listed for the various services, so that info is not redacted.
BUT ...
If I had a contract to do that work I would do everything possible to keep my identity secret to avoid the total and complete invasion of my personal life, professional life, financial info, family member and friends. The mind boggles at the damage and death that could result.
Why would anyone consider keeping that kind of information secret breaking the promise of transparency?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Some of us are just wondering how exactly you spend $18M dollars on such a website.
Doing things the right way, securely, the first time, costs money. Proper design, documentation, review, implementation, QA, security, fault tolerance, backup, oversight, and maintenance, is not cheap. You might be able to get by with wordpress for your crappy company website, but quality professional websites with SLA contracts are expensive.
Sir, I've built multi-million dollar websites for the US government and have contracted for the US government here in DC for 13 years. So please break it down how this particular website would cost that much because I've helped build entire mission critical systems for Federal agencies that cost less on 3-5 year contracts. I've been involved from front to back and that includes multi-year budgets. So take your "crappy website" nonsense somewhere else. I know what I'm talking about and I don't appreciate someone belittling me through allusions.
But complaining that they're not deleting your emails? WTF?
I don't think you get it. The fishy@whitehouse.gov is for reporting on people opposed to the White House agenda.
So, yea, okay, they are required by law to keep those emails. But they are also prohibited by law from collecting lists of people opposed to their policies or party (it was put in place after it was revealed that Nixon was doing just that).
Since that email address is explicitly for the purpose of reporting about enemies and opposition activities, how do you reconcile the two?
My guess is they'll just ignore the law that doesn't suit their purposes.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Obama's secret deal with big pharma splitting the proceeds from "health care reform".
Nope, this is malice. Pure and simple.
Toss in things like Stasi-inspired snitch email addresses, and Obama really is getting scary.
The Democrats are doing every damn thing they accuse Republicans of doing: secretive government, secret deals with large corporations splitting money between themselves, not only spying on US citizens but openly encouraging snitching to the goverment.
We have seen the enemy, and they all have a big fat scary D after their names.
Please explain to me how a 154 page contract with copious amounts of data blacked out is transparent.
On page 69, you state the following:
Recovery.gov must be a model of transparency. Recovery.gov must be open. The
data behind the website must be open. Users must be able to collect, manipulate, and
display authoritative recovery data on their own site and on Recovery.gov. Creating a
truly open environment for collaboration will achieve a number of key objectives - 1)
ensure that citizens engage with the data, 2) provide the best possible data
visualizations, 3) demonstrate a commitment to transparency.
How does this "demonstrate a commitment to transparency"? Doesn't the contract qualify as "data behind the website"? I fully understand that parts of this are probably secure and require secrecy to keep chances of compromise at a minimum. However, clearly - some portions that are blacked out - especially concerning compensation are not matters of national security.
Thanks
- too scared by other content to sign my name -
On the new Recovery.gov we will communicate broadly with vast constituencies of
citizens where they are. Recovery.gov will come to you, even if you do not come to us.
We will come to you on Twitter and on Facebook, we will come to you on YouTube and
via government websites, we will work with old-media and with new media to get our
message out.
If this qualifies as transparency, how do we trust this administration with ANYTHING else?
Except that you CAN'T see how they're spending their appropriations because they redact all of the relevant information...
FWIW. I have no strong feelings either way, I'm Canadian, we have our own shit government to worry about, I just find it appalling that anyone can quote 18million for a website with a straight face.. were any other companies given a change to quote on this site? its just not possible that this was the best value they could find.
I read it and it appears to dabble in all of the things mentioned(minus the coloring you gave them). As long as we are playing questions:
What is wrong with writing about more than one thing in a post?
Why all these "or" statements? (as opposed to and)
Why the chain of the loaded questions?
Dissent isn't un-American. What Pelosi said was that drowning out the other side so that there cannot be any debate is un-American. I agree. The town hall protesters are not interested in a debate. They are showing up, and walking up within a few feet of the speaker to yell at them in a physically-threatening manner.
Mr. Gingrinch opines that Obama's health care plan has spectres of Nazism. Protesters promptly paint swastikas onto the door of politicians who support the plan and waive signs calling Obama a Nazi. A black politician received death threats, and references to himself and Obama as "niggers". They are standing outside of town hall meetings with guns strapped to their legs with a sign saying it's time to water the tree of liberty.
The protesters don't even have anything intelligent to say other than, "YOU'RE LYING TO ME!" and "YOU'RE A BUNCH OF SOCIALISTS." That's not debate. That's a hateful mob trying to rule by intimidation. Look up videos of these confrontations. It's freaking terrifying. Tell me that's American.
For more fun, look up how Republicans and conservatives freely called Democrats un-American or anti-American. For fuck's sake, a few months ago, Republican Senator Inhofe called Obama "un-American" for opposing the war in Iraq. A speech is un-American but showing up threatening physical force and painting swastikas is not?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
And now for a more meaningful and comprehensible number: At least 61% of the document is blacked out.
$18M for a drupal site. Good deal.
No, hiding material terms in wierd places is good practice, if you're profit minded and don't have a sense of ethics.
What better way to snooker your clients than to make sure they don't get wise to draconian terms?
This administration was elected on promises of Hope and Change, and that they'd be better than everyone who came before them. The press was hyping this fact every night from June-November 2008, maybe you're one of those people who don't have a TV? (Nah, because then you'd have pointed out the fact in your post...)
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I don't think you get it. The fishy@whitehouse.gov is for reporting on people opposed to the White House agenda.
Well no, it's not, or at least not so overtly that you don't need any evidence to claim that's the purpose. The stated purpose is not to gather information on people, but to gather information on rumors. They're suggesting that if you hear a rumor about the health care proposal that sounds bad, you send it to them so that they can rebut it.
It's fairly clear that they're just asking for the rumors, and even if someone is forwarding an email they've received, it's easy enough to drop off any headers or signatures that identify who sent it.
I mean, geeze, really, even if people don't strip out email headers, they're going to get millions of emails from dubious sources, often with nothing but email addresses. Do you really think they're going to hunt everyone down who forwarded a rumor about death panels? With the secret service and the intelligence agencies at their disposal, do you think that this was the most clever thing they could come up with for finding their most dangerous political opponents? I think you're overestimating the importance of the information this is likely to net them.
Really, just think very carefully about it. If they had nefarious intent, this would be a silly and ineffective way to go about it. There's absolutely no evidence of malicious intent, and there was no explicit request for a single person's identity.
Yea, you're right. We should just trust them. I'm sure it's all nothing more than what they say it is. The government, after all, has never done anything nefarious, or outside of its stated intent.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So what is your contribution to the conversation? Do I need to fund insurance for your fat ass as well?
MSA - Marker Sniffers Anonymous
Has anyone ever wondered why they use black marker to redact the documents? Why not whiteout, gasoline, or huge coffee stains?
I'm convinced there are people in the government that like to get high on the smell of the markers. That's right, there's no other valid reason to use markers other than to fuel someone's marker sniffing habits.
We need government santioned MSA meetings. Stop the addiction, stop the habit.
Then, the duct tape, whiteout, Starbucks and oil company people can themselves bid for new redacting technologies and techniques. Of course my solutions can also be equally addicting. Then again, its as ironic as redacting documents for a new, more open government!
Having low cost chinese programmers do this is probably the only way they can stay within budget....
If you are dying, you are dying. (hint: everyone dies)
It's simply amazing to me that anyone is defending a system that allows such egregious waste to happen -- because some schmuck can't face the fact he's going to die, while hundreds go without basic medical services because they can't afford it. I mean, really man, no doctor is ever going to give you less than the care you need to recover under the scaaarrry socialized medicine that works for the rest of the world.
Wasting time and resources on people who aren't going to 'beat it' just because they have the money to burn is not only foolhardy, it's stupid.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Where is wiki-leaks when you want it ?
...
Come on guys, you can do it
of a campaign poster parody I saved:
"Warrantless Wiretaps We Can Believe In"
The new boss ain't much different than the old boss, n'cest pas?
Belgium is NOT a republic, but a federal monarchy. As are most countries in the above list.
When have you ever listened to what the government said they would do, and actually think they meant it.
This is just another sad reminder of how really little the government wants to keep its people informed on what they do.
No news here, move along......move along!
No, that's actually not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you actually think about it, this is extremely unlikely to make it any easier to attack political opponents. Insofar as they want to retaliate against political opponents, they already can. If they wanted to gather more information on their opponents and "compile a list", they would have better ways of doing this. This whole thing is unlikely to net them any meaningful information on who their political opponents are.
So trust them or not, this just isn't that scary.
If this is the case, why do Canadians come down here for this kind of care?
Insurance companies deny claims every day. They refuse to authorize treatments. They do so according to contract law and a caveat emptor standard.
The government is in the position of mandating that everyone take their plan. They can also mandate that the physicians take it. Further they can leverage their power to basically make everyone do whatever they want throughout the entire medical field.
This is why state funded healthcare is not an improvement.
Looking to our neighbors in the north, when they find gaps in their care, they come down here. They're not able to use cash to grease the skids of their own system, so they opt to use another one rather than wait.
If the US also goes on such a system, where are we going to go? Mexico?
You want no one to ever be denied any kind of care?
Hyperbole. Look it up. Point being, as you stated, there have to be limits. Adding stanzas about end of life care imply what those limits are going to be. Blanket statements can sweep both ways, but in the absence of any detail, only an incredibly strong statement is likely to produce any comfort. Making wise cracks and being dismissive isn't going to get it done.
First, I'm having a real hard time imagining how that could be disallowed, or why anyone would try to disallow it.
The government will call it 'waste' and will make it illegal. They have those powers, and can do it in the interests of 'protecting Medicare'. The proponents of universal care will want that care to be denied because it demonstrates an incredible failure in the system. As in, it paints it as a system where you get care, but only so long as you don't really, really need it. Rationing is the only way to combat that failure, and you'll need plenty of propaganda so no one else ever fears finding themselves in that same situation.
You're worried about the people who can afford to pay all of their medical bills out-of-pocket?
Not really, but I do worry about men made of straw. I believe that I said 'bankrupt your estate' which explicitly states they cannot afford it. Yet they get it anyway. Depending on your level of reading comprehension, you may or may not be misconstruing my position to support your own argument. Wouldn't you agree?
So in the fairly unlikely scenario where the government puts all other insurance companies out of business...
How is this unlikely in the least? They will set rules on plans so they cannot be profitable. No one will voluntarily run a business at a loss for very long. Read the bills, sir. None of them provide for health insurance to survive. Even the most liberal of studies show all the small businesses going out of business and leaving only the mega-corps still standing. Something along the lines of 60-70% of covered lives will be on the government plan. This leaves the big corps fighting over the last 30%. They just won't do that. They are risk-reward businesses, and in that kind of climate they will simply close their doors. All those companies are built to fold anyway.
Other points, because I'm tired of quoting...
A system that provides no advanced care will lead to a lot lower life expectancy.
Drug prices are not set by demand. See generics.
Don't presume to tell me why I should be against something. You have no idea who I am or what my concerns may be.
And what exactly is the track record for government-run programs increasing productivity and improving our economy? Surely you have examples of this. USPS, perhaps?
I'm very sorry. Whatever happened to make you this jaded must have been quite horrible indeed.
Look, human life has value to many, if not all, humans. Particularly their own life and that of their loved ones. The very nature of survival and reproduction means we strive to maintain our state of being alive. We avoid dying every single day, even in our modern world. Why would being diagnosed with a terminal disease suddenly change all that?
Because it costs a lot to fight it?
Well, as they say, you can't take it with you. What is one more day with you family worth to you? What is it worth to THEM? And finally, who is "tres (151637)" to decide for someone you will never even meet, what is an appropriate level of end of life care?
because some schmuck can't face the fact he's going to die
Like these schmucks?
End of life care isn't necessarily only going to be an issue for the elderly. Children also get these kinds of diagnoses.
...while hundreds go without basic medical services because they can't afford it
Fine, expand Medicaid. Why mess with the part that works for everyone else?
I mean, really man, no doctor is ever going to give you less than the care you need to recover under the scaaarrry socialized medicine that works for the rest of the world.
Right. Which is why they never come here for treatment that their government won't allow. Right? Never, ever happens. Because their system is awesome and does not ask you to wait six years to treat a cancer that will kill you in less than one. Right?
Wasting time and resources on people who aren't going to 'beat it' just because they have the money to burn is not only foolhardy, it's stupid.
And it is quintessentially human. While you may not agree, you simply cannot legislate that everyone sees it the same way you do. Not without a lot of yelling, screaming, and endangering ever getting re-elected.
CLIN 001: Development, from date of award to Jan 31, 2010
$7.76M
CLIN 010: (Optional) Operations and Maintenance from end of CLIN 001 to 1 year after.
$1.35M
CLIN 020: (Optional) Operations and Maintenance from end of CLIN 010 to 1 year after.
$1.40M
CLIN 030: (Optional) Operations and Maintenance from end of CLIN 020 to 1 year after.
$1.44M
CLIN 040: (Optional) Operations and Maintenance from end of CLIN 030 to 1 year after.
$1.49M
CLIN 050: (Optional) System Improvement and Enhancements. From date exercised to 1 year.
$1M Ceiling
CLIN 060: (Optional) System Improvement and Enhancements. From date exercised to 1 year.
$1M Ceiling
CLIN 070: (Optional) System Improvement and Enhancements. From date exercised to 1 year.
$1M Ceiling
CLIN 080: (Optional) Continuation of Operations Site
$1.76M
There's your $18M at work. The $7M for development seems a bit odd given the Jan 2010 dead line, but if you look at the proposal, it becomes immediately clear that they have already sunk a significant amount of effort into the development and are probably billing for a substantial amount of work already completed.
All in all, given the content, up-time requirements, bandwidth usage, and high profile nature of the site, I'm not surprised, nor all that skeptical of their costs.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Death is pretty much defined as 'the end of life'.
If the Democrats really don't like people going on about "death panels", then maybe it was a bad strategy to write a bunch of special provisions for "end of life" treatment into the bills.
Just a thought...
What galls me is how many people out there absolutely adore Obama and have basically ceased questioning anything the president does. People who so completely relished in mocking Bush are no offended by any suggestion of disrespect towards Obama.
I think people really overdid it with Bush, not content to simply criticize his policies they mocked him in every way conceivable. However, the great thing about it is that people were openly questioning him. There was a lot of good debate. Certainly it wasn't foolproof by any stretch of the imagination but it helped keep the administration in check to some extent.
Now with Obama as president, we have this huge segment of the population, a huge number of those comprised of people who hated Bush, blindly following the president. Not only are they not critical of the president but they tend to attack anyone who does criticize him. And the blind support seems to extend to congress. I find that extremely troubling. I believe it's the responsibility of citizens to question their leaders, regardless of party of political beliefs.
If you want to express a dissenting opinion, then do it in a civil manner
Yes, because that's worked so well for us. Would you prefer me to do it in a dedicated place, too? Like an Orwellian-named cage in a place where nobody sees or hears me?
take the dress off before you do
I wish there was a -1 Sexistic.
Look, I'm not going to continue to talk with you if you're going to be so blatantly hostile. The point is, you're claiming to know that the government plans to kill people because Obama wouldn't promise that the government would cover *all* medical claims, when you yourself know that nobody is going to cover *all* medical claims, and no one should cover *all* medical claims. So that little bit of "evidence is completely meaningless.
As far as "worrying about millionaires", my point is specifically that money will always get you better service. Always. It's always a question of "do you have enough?" Whether you bankrupt your estate to come up with the money is fairly irrelevant for what we're talking about.
The more interesting question is, if medical costs keep ballooning, will we all have to go bankrupt just to get normal medical care?
And you brought up the issue of live expectancy. If the health care in Britain and Canada is so amazingly scary, then why is it that both of those countries have higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates?
And what exactly is the track record for government-run programs increasing productivity and improving our economy? Surely you have examples of this. USPS, perhaps?
What's wrong with the USPS? First of all, I think it's a great example of a public service coexisting side by side with private commercial services. The USPS hasn't kept you from being able to ship things, has it? It hasn't put FedEx out of business. But on the other hand, can I get FedEx to take a postcard from NY to CA for... whatever it is now, $0.30 or so? Even close?
Are you under the impression that the USPS is sucking up lots of our tax dollars or something? Because it's not. The USPS doesn't actually cost us any tax money, and our postage is very very low. So how is that not an example of the US government doing an excellent job of providing unglamorous service to the public in a cost-efficient manner?
The point is, you're claiming to know that the government plans to kill people because Obama wouldn't promise that the government would cover *all* medical claims
I am not. I have made no such claims, whatsoever, not even by proxy.
My claims along these lines are:
A) Government-ran care will make life and death decisions
and
B) Obama has the power to put these fears to rest, and is electing not to do so
when you yourself know that nobody is going to cover *all* medical claims, and no one should cover *all* medical claims. So that little bit of "evidence is completely meaningless.
You have good points. No need to resort to putting words in my mouth. Let your arguments stand on their own merit.
Again, I deliberately labeled what I said as impossible. There's no "evidence" in what I said, it is a device to illustrate my point.
And you damn well know it is.
As far as "worrying about millionaires", my point is specifically that money will always get you better service. Always. It's always a question of "do you have enough?" Whether you bankrupt your estate to come up with the money is fairly irrelevant for what we're talking about.
I am not the one referring to millionaires. I'm talking about regular people who are willing to put it all on the line to save their sick kids, as a single example.
Again, attack me on the words I said, not the ones you wished I had said.
The more interesting question is, if medical costs keep ballooning, will we all have to go bankrupt just to get normal medical care?
Obamacare will only increase costs. In fact, Medicare's published rates are already the basis for all the inflated costs we presently pay. More federal dollars will only mean more inflation. We need tort reform, less regulation, and greater competition. Real economics, not meddling.
And you brought up the issue of live expectancy. If the health care in Britain and Canada is so amazingly scary, then why is it that both of those countries have higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates?
This is a red herring. Show me one infant that doesn't receive care due to health insurance. One.
You can't because they're all eligible for free care. The worst the hospital can do is send them to collection.
Again, this is well known, and you're not being intellectually honest by drawing lines between infant mortality and a non-state-sponsored healthcare system.
But on the other hand, can I get FedEx to take a postcard from NY to CA for... whatever it is now, $0.30 or so? Even close?
Why do you suppose that is? This is a crucial point, and one we should not overlook.
Why does the USPS only excel at delivering letters? Why are the package companies able to compete with a government-ran option?
Research it, and get back with me.
Are you under the impression that the USPS is sucking up lots of our tax dollars or something? Because it's not. The USPS doesn't actually cost us any tax money, and our postage is very very low.
On the one hand, this is false. Look it up. On the other, again research what I asked you to and get back with me on how this applies to healthcare. I think you may find something interesting.
So how is that not an example of the US government doing an excellent job of providing unglamorous service to the public in a cost-efficient manner?
Again, I don't want to spoil it for you. Look it up.
The point is, you're claiming to know that the government plans to kill people because Obama wouldn't promise that the government would cover *all* medical claims
I am not. I have made no such claims, whatsoever, not even by proxy.
My claims along these lines are:
A) Government-ran care will make life and death decisions
and
B) Obama has the power to put these fears to rest, and is electing not to do so
And how do you suppose Obama could put those fears to rest? Because your original argument was that he could do so by saying the government would cover all claims, and obviously that's a bad idea.
He's already said there would be no "death panels", and nothing like the sort of decision making processes that people are worrying about. The only limits that he's suggested is that there might be a panel of doctors who decide whether a given treatment is a real treatment that has been demonstrated to work.
I am not the one referring to millionaires. I'm talking about regular people who are willing to put it all on the line to save their sick kids, as a single example.
Yeah, and I'm saying that if you come up with the money, you're going to get better medical care. That's always how things work. You can't stop people with more money from getting better service, even when you set out to do it (which there's no evidence they're setting out to do that here).
Obamacare will only increase costs. In fact, Medicare's published rates are already the basis for all the inflated costs we presently pay. More federal dollars will only mean more inflation. We need tort reform, less regulation, and greater competition.
Citation needed. Sorry, you might be right about some of these things, but someone could come in here and claim opposing things. Since you're presenting claims, not evidence, and not even real arguments, there's nothing really to discuss.
Again, this is well known, and you're not being intellectually honest by drawing lines between infant mortality and a non-state-sponsored healthcare system.
Hey, you were the one that brought up life expectancy. Healthcare systems are often (usually) judged by life expectancy and infant mortality, since those are some of the harder stats to skew or misread.
And the issue isn't whether infants are eligible for some degree of care, but whether the system is set up in such a way so as to provide good care for each infant. So what kind of care do infants get? Are mothers being educated about proper care? Are parents being discouraged from getting care for their children, even in cases where they're eligible?
If those socialized systems are so much worse, then just explain why they're getting better results in those countries. How hard could that be?
Research it, and get back with me.
How about you research some things and make whatever argument you want, and get back to me. The cheapest I can ship any envelope for FedEx is $12. And yeah, I know they can't use my mailbox.
Just make it a Google site for free and spend the rest on trips to Hawaii for "background research".
Your homily about the worth of individual life is unnecessary. No one knows this more than I do. I make daily decisions with that in mind (I don't eat meat for moral reasons). And since I've had to sit at the foot of a family member's bed and watch them struggle to take their last breath as they die of cancer, I can say that I know terminal illness personally.
So now that we have this diversion implying that I don't care enough about people out of the way, we can get back to the topic of discussion.
I completely agree -- expand medicaid; which is the same kind of system that Canada uses (not socialized medicine, but socialized insurance). It's a strange thing to hear -- as Medicaid is the government run bogeyman that conservatives seem so afraid of.
If you're dying, you are dying. If there is hope of recovery, then any medical system will provide that for you -- whether it is here or Canada.
People are on waiting lists for surgeries in the US as well as Canada. The Canadian traveling south myth has been debunked many times.
My apologies this is a bit terse; I've got some business to attend to.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Beyond the lack of transparency, we should be wondering about the competence and integrity of the evaluators who awarded this to a company that doesn't know that Section 508 is not part of the ADA (see http://documents.propublica.org/recovery-gov-contract-documents#p=72), but is actually part of Rehabilitation Act (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12)
Here's the money breakdown:
http://documents.propublica.org/recovery-gov-contract-documents#p=102
Not that you can see quite what $1.2 mil in labor actually buys...
How you liking that change?
The Obama administration has told government agencies that its Department of Justice will not back Agencies that refuse to release information under FOIA for illegitimate reasons, e.g., to cover up mistakes. The policy now is much more strongly in favor of releasing information to the public than that of the past administration. The ARRA (stimulus) money (which is said to be the funding used in this instance) was in fact subject to new and unprecedented transparency rules.
I don't know about this particular document, so I can't say with any certainty what the reasons were for redacting these parts. Usually, a document released under FOIA would be accompanied by more information identifying the specific rules corresponding to the exception(s) used for each individual redaction. It's possible that another explanatory document is elsewhere and not included with what we see here online. Before jumping to conclusions, one should consider that it is at least possible that these were redactions under Exception (b)(4) of the FOIA. If that is the case, the purpose was to protect the contractor's private business interest in information concerning its proposal. Businesses working with the government must trust that their secrets will not get turned over to the public, undermining their ability to compete. In those circumstances, full disclosure of project proposals may undermine both the government's ability to find contractors willing to work with it and perhaps even threaten the marketplace as a whole by turning FOIA into a tool for companies to use to access their competitors' trade secrets.
Again - it's possible that there is some other reason for these redactions - the document I see online does not specify. I just provide this comment to suggest a possible alternative explanation in which the government may have had a legitimate reason for some or all of its redactions.
They are showing up, and walking up within a few feet of the speaker to yell at them in a physically-threatening manner....waive signs calling Obama a Nazi. A black politician received death threats, and references to himself and Obama as "niggers"
The protesters are certainly acting like nazis based on this description. Funny how people often accuse the "other" party of behaving exactly the way they themselves seem to behave.
If you don't think Republicans use the media far more efficiently and insidiously to propagate lies and misinformation, I HIGHLY recommend you visit outfoxed.org and download (there's a torrent of it) and watch the program. It's extremely enlightening. Seriously, you have *no idea* how single-minded and biased Republican channels are. Democrats aren't perfect, but they do a significantly better (or perhaps less worse) job than Republicans.