Even though it may be technologically possible, I don't want people to be able to vote from home.
People have been able to do this for quite some time. It's called absentee voting. I did it in the last election (I was registered in Northern California, but going to school in Southern California).
I shouldn't even be replying to this flamebait, but what the hell...
The media, no offense to Democrats, are a bunch of stupid liberals who insert craploads of bias into news reports and try to get the American public to think on the side of the Democrats.
At least the media isn't a bunch of heartless Social-Darwinist libertarian assholes, no offense.
"GASP! People disagree with my views! They must be mentally incompetent!"
I can't speak for radio or TV news, but you obviously don't have much experience with newspaper reporters. The only "general bias" a paper can have is in its editorials, because those are meant to be opinion pieces and have an intended slant. But getting the actual reporters to follow a distinct bias is like herding cats.
I don't want to get into it (it would make a great IRC session in the future to discuss this), but there's a lot of "coincidences" in major media reports that show a subtle but nauseating bias... Hence how Dubya looks like a complete moron but no one thinks it's a big deal that Gore is a pathological liar.
You must not have been paying attention if you think that wasn't covered.
(Disclaimer: I prefer neither candidate nor party in terms of the election... I think they both suck)
Good for you. Neither do I.
Anyway, the Electoral College didn't swing in their favor, and the media now wants to cry foul over the whole system after 200 years... just like Gore wants a whole county in Florida to vote again because 19,000 don't know how to vote. (And, after the fact, probably shouldn't be voting either)
Funny how the Constitution doesn't say anything about there being a minimum intelligence required for the right to vote. Or how poor eyesight should disqualify you. Or that you shouldn't be allowed to request a new ballot if you know you've blown it, and the screwed-up ballot should be taken away and counted anyway.
On the other hand, I agree with you that the electoral college isn't a broken system.
I'd prefer Instant Runoff Voting to determine electors, but that's a state issue.
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Re:what the electoral college REALLY means...
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
The EC currently _automatically_ gives their votes to the highest popular vote-winner in their state, so that is no longer a valid reason for the continuation of the EC system. The EC 'representatives' don't do anything nowadays other than announce on tv who got all their EC 'votes' (determined by the popular vote in that state).
That isn't true in some states. There is still the potential for "faithless electors" to swing the vote.
1. It was approved IN ADVANCE by an election official that just happened to be a democrat. You would think if the ballot was unfavorable to Gore, this person would have noticed it.
And that person probably has very good eyesight, and didn't realize that people with poor eyesight (remember, there are a lot of seniors in Palm Beach county) would have trouble.
And in any event, that just means that that person screwed up...the voters shouldn't pay the price.
2. This ballot was available for PUBLIC INSPECTION many weeks before the actual vote was taken.
I was going to say that this reminds me of a part of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it seems somebody else beat me to the punch.;)
3. All voters have 3 chances to vote correctly. If at first, you punch the wrong holes, you SHOULD NOT submit your ballot, instead you go to the marshal at the polling place, explain the problem, and request another vote. Any voter can request a new ballot up to two times.
People were denied new ballots, and some had their wrongly-punched ballots taken from them and filed as legitimate.
4. If the ballot was confusing, there were poll workings READY AND WILLING to answer any and all questions about the ballot itself.
How do you know they were ready and willing? Most election volunteers I've met were confused and apathetic. Hell, one of the guys at my polling place had a hard time looking up my name, even after I spelled it!
19,000 people in Palm Beach County voted for TWO PEOPLE for President. TWO PEOPLE!?! How can anyone with half a brain think their vote will be valid by voting for two people for the same office? If these 19,000 people had asked for help, a new ballot, or simply taken their time to READ the ballot, this certainly would not have happened.
In some states you vote for President and Vice President, not the combined ticket. And if these folks saw two holes next to their party's candidate, they might have thought that both needed to be punched.
Those who decide to be ignorant do not deserve the right to complain after the fact.
I'm sorry...they don't have the right to free speech? Or a redress of grievances?
This is just one more example of how this country is turning into a society of victims. Nothing is ever the fault of the individual, it's always some larger social problem and we are all helpless. God forbid that voters actually READ the ballot, bother to ask questions, or UNDERSTAND the process they are participating in.
I agree...it's a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" situation: so many people claim to be victims, that when somebody is actually victimized, people have a knee-jerk reaction and scream "bullshit!" without actually bothering to check the facts.
I've even seen threads to the effect of "If you can't figure out the ballot you have no business voting." Elitist piffle.
Yes, it's funny to see the usual libertarian-leaning Slashdot crowd (okay, there not really the majority of readers, just the most vocal on political issues) take a position like this. Evidently, the voting rights of people with poor eyesight aren't worth protecting.
<flamebait>Or is that, "the voting rights of people who don't agree with libertarians"? Palm Beach has heavy left-leaning tendencies. Hmmm...</flamebait>
Then the local democratic elections administrator shouldn't have signed off on approving the ballot, which she did - thus officially endorsing the design on behalf of the Democrat party.
Actually, both parties signed off on the preview design, which didn't show where the holes were going to be placed.
The same people who are saying that Netscape 6 shouldn't be released because it isn't standards compliant are the same people who just recently said that Netscape should've released an interim browser between 4.7x and 6.x that at least implemented some standards.
These people who scream that Netscape isn't bug-free, then wail that it's taking too long to finish make me think of the old joke about the crotchety old woman in a deli: "Such horrible food...and in such small portions!"
As I read it, he's simply making the (entirely valid) point that trying to force an economy to play the way you like it Just Doesn't Work.
This works both ways.
If I invest my money in a bank, and the bank loans it out to some poor guy trying to buy a car, and the dealer spends it on his employees and on the purchase of the car, and the car company spends it on their employees, labor, and also part on making some other rich guy richer (who will then either save it, starting the same cycle as my money did, or spend it and stimulate the economy just as much), then EVERYBODY WINS.
You make it sound like a loan is a donation. Wrong...a loan is a donation with the understanding that it will be paid back completely, plus interest. It just means that the loanee can buy something now that he would otherwise have to save up for. If the poor guy has a low wage (or no wage), how is he supposed to pay off the loan? With another loan? Will he magically get a better paying job before it comes due?
Bankers generally don't make loans to people who are considered a "risk"...in other words, people who they think won't be able to pay it back on time.
Credit (loans are a form of credit, but you already know that) doesn't generate more money, it just delays payment for one person.
Netscape is just a closed branch, while Mozilla remains the development branch. Most later versions of Netscape are going to be later branches from the Mozilla tree.
At any rate, that's why I wrote "debatable", not "wrong".
Last I knew the popular vote didn't determine the presidential outcome, the electoral college did.
Right. And this is exactly why Nader's tiny little 5%-at-the-most[1] showing is hardly a threat to Gore despite campaign paranoia. You can also factor in the fact that not all of the people voting for Nader would vote for Gore if the big two parties were the only choices:
There's two components to the Green presidential vote, by my estimation. One component, which I call the DemoGreens (and of which I count myself a member[2]), consists of liberals who consider Gore a significantly better candidate than Bush, but are either tired of voting for "the lesser of two evils" or believe that a vote for Nader is more important (considering state polls, federal matching funds, etc.) than a vote for Gore. The other component, which I call Protest Greens, are people who are entirely fed up with both major parties. These are people who, if Gore and Bush were the only two choices, would simply abstain and join the large percentage of the American population that doesn't vote.
Gore's (or at least his campaign advisors') mistake is in thinking that all Greens are DemoGreens, and would otherwise vote for him. This is what hardline Democrats mean when they talk about Nader "stealing votes from Gore"--DemoGreen votes are votes that would otherwise go to Gore if Nader wasn't running. But they're ignoring the Protest Greens, and therefore inflating the impact of Nader's candidacy on Gore's (let alone the fact that, even if all Greens were DemoGreens, 5% isn't a huge figure--hardly Bush-spoiler-Perot territory).
[1] - 5% may not be the most, but it's at the upper end of how Nader tends to show in the polls. It's also the Greens' real target (only the most self-deluded think that Nader can actually win this election)--it would mean that the Green Party gets federal matching funds for the next election, a major coup. If they get it, and if they can hold it together through the next election (unlike the Reforms, who pretty much collapsed--but then, that was a party pretty much devoted to a single candidate rather than an issues-based platform), it could be a serious threat to the two-party oligarchy.
[2] - In more ways than one. I'm registered Democrat, but voting Nader this election. Then again, I may be voting for a Republican for Senate because the Democratic incumbent is worthless, and none of the third-party alternatives look particularly competent. I prefer to vote my mind rather than follow the "party line".
I for one am pissed at the idea of my vote meaning _nothing_ just because more than half of the people in my state are conservative. I'll vote for Nader because he believes in proportional representation and I'll vote swap to do it because I believe in proportional representation.
Not much point in vote swapping if your state is overwhelmingly conservative and you were already going to vote Nader...
people who will vote on things like "how much will it increase my wellfare/social security/income" and "what government programs will it create to help my particular selfish need". Or worse, "which candidate went on what cheesy day-time talk show and who looks better on a magazine?"
Not to mention, "how much will they cut my taxes at the expense of everyone else."
There are stupid and greedy people on every side, my friend. Not just on the side you disagree with.
Just in case anyone out there wants a somewhat more indepth look at *all* the candidates
Actually, the site linked in the article has quite a bit of information. Taco got this bit wrong:
Of course to me, the best part is the huge percentage of questions where yes/no wasn't good enough and a little asterick denotes "but" so you really don't know what half the candidates think of half the issues anyway.
If he'd bothered to read to the bottom of the page, he would have found links to Q and A's with the candidates (or, occasionally, bits grabbed from the candidates' websites) instead of just the neat little summary table. It actually explains what those asterisks really mean in each case.
I think the problem with health insurance is that the wrong people buy it. The System as it is now usually has companies buying it for their employees, which is, IMHO, just plain stupid. It should be illegal for companies to buy health insurance for their employees, damnit. The person who is insured should be the customer, not the company they work for.
Good point. I agree.
As for universal health care/socialized medicine- I don't see how the federal government has the constitutional authority to do that.
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;" (emphasis mine)
That is social b.s. you can always leave your place of work, economcially you may choose to stay but you are not forced to stay.
Sure, you can always leave your job and have no health care at all.
Secondly HMO's provide bad healthcare? Funny I can see my doctor tommorrow if I want to, can you do that in Canada or Britain?
I haven't heard any complaints about the health care system from any Canadians I know. However, almost all of the Americans I know personally with full-time jobs complain about dealing with their HMOs.
Admittedly, these aren't hard numbers. Then again, your link didn't have any either.
Doctors in Socialized medicine are not 'elected officals.' If you are implying that elected officals would pressure doctors to preform better, then I suggest we think this through a.) Big deal in a buercrats eye, which is what a doctor would end up being. The elected offical would be gone in four years so if they put pressure upon the doctor all he has to say is that he is working on it then after four years when the elected offical is voted out due to pissed off voters you start the cycle over again
Doctors aren't the problem in health care for the most part. There are already laws against malpractice, which exist in both privatized and universal systems (There is some evidence, however, that doctors who are invested in their HMO are less likely to reccommend expensive procedures, even when there isn't a cheaper alternative). The problem is who is paying the doctors, and paying for treatments. Because of the emphasis on minimizing overhead, HMOs never want to pay for expensive treatments even when they're necessary.
b.) pressure from elected offcials seems to be working real well in our public education currently.
Depends on where you live. Some districts have very good public schools. Others don't. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a town that supports its public school system.
The universal healthcare proposition that was voted down a few years ago in California would have created a new elected position in charge of health care
The point of this is...it would have created more government ohhh yay! More inefficiency great.
Why do you assume that it would be more inefficient than private HMOs? It wouldn't take any more people to run.
nd anyway, under what definition are HMOs not bureaucracies?
Now that was a dumb statement your previous arguements were based upon the fact that HMO's want to maximize profit,i.e. like buisnesses. Yes I can see how HMO's thus could also be the same as a bureaucracy.
And how are wanting to maximize profit and being a bueaucracy mutually exclusive? Have you ever worked for a large corporation?
You say that HMO's replace a buisness model that paid for lawsuits, now you get to the real problem, HMO's replace the older form of health insurance partly because of ridiculous lawsuits such as coffee being too hot.
Leaving aside the validity of that particular case, it's a pointless example because that woman sued McDonald's, not her healthcare provider.
This can be fixed by placing in the law the ability to sue HMO's, under circumstances that fault is proven.
At least we agree on something, apparently.
The question that you should be asking is what right do you have to place your values on me?
I believe that all people deserve adequate health coverage. What right do you have to place your values on me?
That "how Gore sold his vote" thing isn't particularly damning. That trading of speaking time is just how things work in Congress...it's how congressmen make sure they've got enough time to talk on subjects they're interested. Either the guy who wrote that is so idealistic that he had a knee-jerk reaction without realizing that it's not really a problem (the legislative branch has plenty of problems. This isn't one.) and that everybody else participated[1], or he's too dumb to (I doubt this), or he's just spinning for the Republican party. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, since he uses straightforward language whenever he's talking about Republicans (short, concise sentences, using neutral terms like "say" when quoting them), but loaded, emotional language when talking about Gore (Gore doesn't "say" things, he "explodes" or "gives a droning response").
Just for the record, I'm not voting Gore.
[1] Note that Dole doesn't seem to have any problem with the arrangement. However, this works on the honor system...if somebody doesn't come through with their end of the bargain, the only way of punishing them is to hinder them. Voting against them, stonewalling them, refusing to deal with them in the future when they want to get some time, etc.
Heh, you write this like Gore was some sort of socialist. He's not even a liberal (unless you're using Rush Limbaugh's definition of "liberal", which includes anyone left of Attila the Hun). He's a big-business moderate, just like Bush.
You'd think this poll would be a golden opportunity to throw that option in there.
More seriously, why isn't McReynolds on this poll, when he took part in a Slashdot interview?. And why does it have the comments from the Nader article under it?
You get to decide which HMO you belong to, if you do not, quit your job, and go somewhere else, it annoys me more that people try to say that in a capitalist society you are forced to stay where you are working, you have a choice to leave
If the job market is tight, and/or your skills aren't in high demand at the time, you can't leave. And anyway, my point was that even if you switch HMOs, their goals are all the same (profit) and create the same problems (bad health care). Even leaving for another provider doesn't help, because it's your employer paying them, not you. If you change jobs, it doesn't bother the HMO because your ex-employer will just hire someone else to fill your position, and continue to pay the HMO.
in socialized medicine you do NOT. You are told which doctor to see if you do not like it too bad.
But elected officials live in fear of being voted out of office, and so are loathe to piss off too many voters. If somebody dies because of substandard care, their relatives are going to be pissed. If somebody dies because of substandard care in an HMO, the HMO says "oh well" because their revenue stream is barely interrupted (they get paid by the person's employer, and if the employer hires somebody to fill the position, the revenue stream continues), and they don't have to worry about angry relatives because the relatives are legally unable to sue.
in Socialized medicine doctors are not elected officals, they are part of the bureaucrat, when is the last time you have been allowed to vote out part of our bureaucracy?
The universal healthcare proposition that was voted down a few years ago in California would have created a new elected position in charge of health care.
And anyway, under what definition are HMOs not bureaucracies?
As for the problem with HMO's and lawsuits this is easily fixed by changing legislation not by socializing medicine
However, the entire point of HMOs is their lack of accountability. That's why they replaced the older form of health insurance, which, since insurers could be legally held responsible for problems, became extremely expensive in order to pay for the inevitable lawsuits. HMOs are cheaper because they don't have to pay for lawyers. It's the foundation of the HMO business model.
You just made my argument for me. As defined by the left, justice requires taking a person's situation into account and thus, *cannot* be blind. Specifically, the left's perversion of justice requires desirable outcomes for members of #insert_random_oppressed_group_here#. From the left's point of view, justice would involve hamstringing the defendant's attorney because he is more skilled than the plaintiff's attorney. After all, it's unjust the defendant has a more competent attorney.
Your definition of justice would involve the judge picking a ruling out of a hat. You completely ignored my point. This entire metaphor is irrelevant anyway, since there is no equivalent of "guilty" or "innocent" in economics.
If you think my analogy is absurd, ask yourself the following: how is it substantially different from one of the most influential leftist philosophers call for a "withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc?" or as he more succinctly put it "intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left." BTW: influential in that his philosophy is well-represented in law schools by a school of law called critical race theory.
Critical Race Theory is widely known to be a sham. Including by members of the left. That's not my form of liberalism.
Judging a person's influence in the world by their popularity in academia doesn't work very well---last time I checked, there were more conservatories concentrating on classical composition than pop songwriting, and nobody claims that classical is more popular than pop.
Saying that some professor's views characterize the entire left is like saying that all people on the right firebomb abortion clinics and drag gays behind pickup trucks. Isn't pigeonholing fun?
With regard to (a) you're are assuming that the economy is akin to a pie - that it can (and should) be divided and given to those who have less - This idea is a fable that is brought on because we are used to thinking about money as a concrete thing as opposed to an abstract thing. The ideology that supports a redistribution of wealth usually does so on this basis. It infers that because someone is a millionaire -- THEN they are taking money from YOU. This is patently absurd. Wealth is created. The economy is NOT a pie -- it is a fluid system. Last year the US GDP was ~ $3.9 Trillion. 20 years ago it was much less. And conversely, 10 years ago Russia's GDP was significantly higher than it is now. Economies expand and contract with the relative economic health of the underlying society. There is no "pre-set" amount of money out there that needs to be divided. Money is NOT a natural resource....
For your basic premise that if wealth was redistributed it mean the "same amount of money in the system" -- that idea is all fine and good, except for the tricky little thing known as inflation. Lets suppose everyone doubles their income tommorrow. Shortly thereafter, you will notice that the price for a loaf of bread goes from 1.25 to 2.50. The end result is that everyone makes more money - but things just cost more.
Wait a minute...first you say that redistribution of wealth isn't a good idea because the amount of money in the economy isn't fixed. Then you turn around and say that if everybody increases their income, that's inflation. Whose point are you trying to make?
Slashdot Mirror
People have been able to do this for quite some time. It's called absentee voting. I did it in the last election (I was registered in Northern California, but going to school in Southern California).
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One word...braille.
It's not like a blind voter could use a touchscreen, after all.
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I shouldn't even be replying to this flamebait, but what the hell...
At least the media isn't a bunch of heartless Social-Darwinist libertarian assholes, no offense.
"GASP! People disagree with my views! They must be mentally incompetent!"
I can't speak for radio or TV news, but you obviously don't have much experience with newspaper reporters. The only "general bias" a paper can have is in its editorials, because those are meant to be opinion pieces and have an intended slant. But getting the actual reporters to follow a distinct bias is like herding cats.
You must not have been paying attention if you think that wasn't covered.
Good for you. Neither do I.
Funny how the Constitution doesn't say anything about there being a minimum intelligence required for the right to vote. Or how poor eyesight should disqualify you. Or that you shouldn't be allowed to request a new ballot if you know you've blown it, and the screwed-up ballot should be taken away and counted anyway.
On the other hand, I agree with you that the electoral college isn't a broken system.
I'd prefer Instant Runoff Voting to determine electors, but that's a state issue.
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That isn't true in some states. There is still the potential for "faithless electors" to swing the vote.
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And that person probably has very good eyesight, and didn't realize that people with poor eyesight (remember, there are a lot of seniors in Palm Beach county) would have trouble.
And in any event, that just means that that person screwed up...the voters shouldn't pay the price.
I was going to say that this reminds me of a part of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it seems somebody else beat me to the punch. ;)
People were denied new ballots, and some had their wrongly-punched ballots taken from them and filed as legitimate.
How do you know they were ready and willing? Most election volunteers I've met were confused and apathetic. Hell, one of the guys at my polling place had a hard time looking up my name, even after I spelled it!
In some states you vote for President and Vice President, not the combined ticket. And if these folks saw two holes next to their party's candidate, they might have thought that both needed to be punched.
I'm sorry...they don't have the right to free speech? Or a redress of grievances?
I agree...it's a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" situation: so many people claim to be victims, that when somebody is actually victimized, people have a knee-jerk reaction and scream "bullshit!" without actually bothering to check the facts.
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Yes, it's funny to see the usual libertarian-leaning Slashdot crowd (okay, there not really the majority of readers, just the most vocal on political issues) take a position like this. Evidently, the voting rights of people with poor eyesight aren't worth protecting.
<flamebait>Or is that, "the voting rights of people who don't agree with libertarians"? Palm Beach has heavy left-leaning tendencies. Hmmm...</flamebait>
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Actually, both parties signed off on the preview design, which didn't show where the holes were going to be placed.
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Here's a fun little thing to tide you over in the meantime: Bush and Gore rap!
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These people who scream that Netscape isn't bug-free, then wail that it's taking too long to finish make me think of the old joke about the crotchety old woman in a deli: "Such horrible food...and in such small portions!"
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This works both ways.
You make it sound like a loan is a donation. Wrong...a loan is a donation with the understanding that it will be paid back completely, plus interest. It just means that the loanee can buy something now that he would otherwise have to save up for. If the poor guy has a low wage (or no wage), how is he supposed to pay off the loan? With another loan? Will he magically get a better paying job before it comes due?
Bankers generally don't make loans to people who are considered a "risk"...in other words, people who they think won't be able to pay it back on time.
Credit (loans are a form of credit, but you already know that) doesn't generate more money, it just delays payment for one person.
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Netscape is just a closed branch, while Mozilla remains the development branch. Most later versions of Netscape are going to be later branches from the Mozilla tree.
At any rate, that's why I wrote "debatable", not "wrong".
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Debatable. Netscape 6 contains some proprietary extensions, but the bulk of the code is Mozilla, which is open source.
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Right. And this is exactly why Nader's tiny little 5%-at-the-most[1] showing is hardly a threat to Gore despite campaign paranoia. You can also factor in the fact that not all of the people voting for Nader would vote for Gore if the big two parties were the only choices:
There's two components to the Green presidential vote, by my estimation. One component, which I call the DemoGreens (and of which I count myself a member[2]), consists of liberals who consider Gore a significantly better candidate than Bush, but are either tired of voting for "the lesser of two evils" or believe that a vote for Nader is more important (considering state polls, federal matching funds, etc.) than a vote for Gore. The other component, which I call Protest Greens, are people who are entirely fed up with both major parties. These are people who, if Gore and Bush were the only two choices, would simply abstain and join the large percentage of the American population that doesn't vote.
Gore's (or at least his campaign advisors') mistake is in thinking that all Greens are DemoGreens, and would otherwise vote for him. This is what hardline Democrats mean when they talk about Nader "stealing votes from Gore"--DemoGreen votes are votes that would otherwise go to Gore if Nader wasn't running. But they're ignoring the Protest Greens, and therefore inflating the impact of Nader's candidacy on Gore's (let alone the fact that, even if all Greens were DemoGreens, 5% isn't a huge figure--hardly Bush-spoiler-Perot territory).
[1] - 5% may not be the most, but it's at the upper end of how Nader tends to show in the polls. It's also the Greens' real target (only the most self-deluded think that Nader can actually win this election)--it would mean that the Green Party gets federal matching funds for the next election, a major coup. If they get it, and if they can hold it together through the next election (unlike the Reforms, who pretty much collapsed--but then, that was a party pretty much devoted to a single candidate rather than an issues-based platform), it could be a serious threat to the two-party oligarchy.
[2] - In more ways than one. I'm registered Democrat, but voting Nader this election. Then again, I may be voting for a Republican for Senate because the Democratic incumbent is worthless, and none of the third-party alternatives look particularly competent. I prefer to vote my mind rather than follow the "party line".
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Not much point in vote swapping if your state is overwhelmingly conservative and you were already going to vote Nader...
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Not to mention, "how much will they cut my taxes at the expense of everyone else."
There are stupid and greedy people on every side, my friend. Not just on the side you disagree with.
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Actually, the site linked in the article has quite a bit of information. Taco got this bit wrong:
If he'd bothered to read to the bottom of the page, he would have found links to Q and A's with the candidates (or, occasionally, bits grabbed from the candidates' websites) instead of just the neat little summary table. It actually explains what those asterisks really mean in each case.
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Good point. I agree.
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;" (emphasis mine)
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Sure, you can always leave your job and have no health care at all.
I haven't heard any complaints about the health care system from any Canadians I know. However, almost all of the Americans I know personally with full-time jobs complain about dealing with their HMOs.
Admittedly, these aren't hard numbers. Then again, your link didn't have any either.
Doctors aren't the problem in health care for the most part. There are already laws against malpractice, which exist in both privatized and universal systems (There is some evidence, however, that doctors who are invested in their HMO are less likely to reccommend expensive procedures, even when there isn't a cheaper alternative). The problem is who is paying the doctors, and paying for treatments. Because of the emphasis on minimizing overhead, HMOs never want to pay for expensive treatments even when they're necessary.
Depends on where you live. Some districts have very good public schools. Others don't. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a town that supports its public school system.
Why do you assume that it would be more inefficient than private HMOs? It wouldn't take any more people to run.
And how are wanting to maximize profit and being a bueaucracy mutually exclusive? Have you ever worked for a large corporation?
Leaving aside the validity of that particular case, it's a pointless example because that woman sued McDonald's, not her healthcare provider.
At least we agree on something, apparently.
I believe that all people deserve adequate health coverage. What right do you have to place your values on me?
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Zardoz has spoken!
That "how Gore sold his vote" thing isn't particularly damning. That trading of speaking time is just how things work in Congress...it's how congressmen make sure they've got enough time to talk on subjects they're interested. Either the guy who wrote that is so idealistic that he had a knee-jerk reaction without realizing that it's not really a problem (the legislative branch has plenty of problems. This isn't one.) and that everybody else participated[1], or he's too dumb to (I doubt this), or he's just spinning for the Republican party. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, since he uses straightforward language whenever he's talking about Republicans (short, concise sentences, using neutral terms like "say" when quoting them), but loaded, emotional language when talking about Gore (Gore doesn't "say" things, he "explodes" or "gives a droning response").
Just for the record, I'm not voting Gore.
[1] Note that Dole doesn't seem to have any problem with the arrangement. However, this works on the honor system...if somebody doesn't come through with their end of the bargain, the only way of punishing them is to hinder them. Voting against them, stonewalling them, refusing to deal with them in the future when they want to get some time, etc.
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Zardoz has spoken!
Heh, you write this like Gore was some sort of socialist. He's not even a liberal (unless you're using Rush Limbaugh's definition of "liberal", which includes anyone left of Attila the Hun). He's a big-business moderate, just like Bush.
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Zardoz has spoken!
You'd think this poll would be a golden opportunity to throw that option in there.
More seriously, why isn't McReynolds on this poll, when he took part in a Slashdot interview?. And why does it have the comments from the Nader article under it?
Weird.
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Zardoz has spoken!
If the job market is tight, and/or your skills aren't in high demand at the time, you can't leave. And anyway, my point was that even if you switch HMOs, their goals are all the same (profit) and create the same problems (bad health care). Even leaving for another provider doesn't help, because it's your employer paying them, not you. If you change jobs, it doesn't bother the HMO because your ex-employer will just hire someone else to fill your position, and continue to pay the HMO.
But elected officials live in fear of being voted out of office, and so are loathe to piss off too many voters. If somebody dies because of substandard care, their relatives are going to be pissed. If somebody dies because of substandard care in an HMO, the HMO says "oh well" because their revenue stream is barely interrupted (they get paid by the person's employer, and if the employer hires somebody to fill the position, the revenue stream continues), and they don't have to worry about angry relatives because the relatives are legally unable to sue.
The universal healthcare proposition that was voted down a few years ago in California would have created a new elected position in charge of health care.
And anyway, under what definition are HMOs not bureaucracies?
However, the entire point of HMOs is their lack of accountability. That's why they replaced the older form of health insurance, which, since insurers could be legally held responsible for problems, became extremely expensive in order to pay for the inevitable lawsuits. HMOs are cheaper because they don't have to pay for lawyers. It's the foundation of the HMO business model.
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Zardoz has spoken!
Your definition of justice would involve the judge picking a ruling out of a hat. You completely ignored my point. This entire metaphor is irrelevant anyway, since there is no equivalent of "guilty" or "innocent" in economics.
Critical Race Theory is widely known to be a sham. Including by members of the left. That's not my form of liberalism.
Judging a person's influence in the world by their popularity in academia doesn't work very well---last time I checked, there were more conservatories concentrating on classical composition than pop songwriting, and nobody claims that classical is more popular than pop.
Saying that some professor's views characterize the entire left is like saying that all people on the right firebomb abortion clinics and drag gays behind pickup trucks. Isn't pigeonholing fun?
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Zardoz has spoken!
Wait a minute...first you say that redistribution of wealth isn't a good idea because the amount of money in the economy isn't fixed. Then you turn around and say that if everybody increases their income, that's inflation. Whose point are you trying to make?
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Zardoz has spoken!
Yeah, earlier posts had gotten me pretty pissed off by that point, so my sarcasmometer was a little out of whack. But I'm better now :)
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Zardoz has spoken!