On what planet? Do you know what oligopolies are or what it means to be exempt from anti-trust legislation? Why would Wellpoint get in a price war with Atena or Cigna when they can collude to keep their profits high?
Just because a market is dominated by a single insurer doesn't mean that you have to buy from the dominant insurer.
Except the entire point of insurance is to spread the risk into a pool. The larger the pool, the more stable it is. Then there's economics of scale - a large insurer is going to be able to negotiate better prices than a smaller one. And again, since they're exempt from anti-trust legislation, there's nothing to stop United Health from offering killer deals on employer-based plans that will save companies a lot of money - while hosing you individually - to drive smaller companies out of the market.
but violations of copyright are indeed theft from the artist/author
Indeed that's utter nonsense. Look, it's really not that hard - the key part of theft is that I take something from you, then you don't have it any more. If I break into your house and make off with your valuables, you don't have them anymore. Whereas with copyright infringement, I'm make off with a copy of your stuff, but you haven't lost anything. You can keep your stuff, sell it, burn it, whatever you want.
If I steal a painting from an artist, he can no longer sell that painting. He can make precisely zero dollars from it. Contrast that to downloading Contrast, Emninem's album from last year, from TPB instead of buying it. Is Eminem completely prevented from making money from Contrast in the future? Is he going to have to re-record the album or not be able to perform songs from it at concerts?
Of course not. We have different terms for different violations of the law because they are...wait for it...different. No one conflates drunk driving with arson, even though they both involve property. No one conflates embezzlement with assault with a deadly weapon, though they both involve property. But for some reason, some people insist on conflating copyright infringement with theft, when the only thing that connects them is property.
Supporting copyright law is important -- the GPL is built on copyright, Creative Commons is built on copyright.
What's your point? If you call driving under the influence of alcohol drunk driving instead of cannibalism, does that mean that you are diminishing drunk driving?
Right. A democratic constitutional republic. NOT a democracy.
Not a direct democracy.
Recall that the breakup of AT&T is widely regarded as a mistake.
By who, AT&T shareholders?
No improvement has been registered there as a result of government intervention.
You liked having high prices and paying a monthly rental for a $10 phone? When has a non-heavily-regulated monopoly ever provided low prices to a captive market?
Can you be more specific about "blowing up the world's economy" every few decades?
Stock market bubbles and the inevitable collapses. See: 1929, 1987, 2008. Why didn't we have a collapse between 1929 and 1987? Because of regulations that created firewalls and limited risky practices.
Recall that the current worldwide economic crisis was driven by the housing sector in the US.
No, it was driven by credit default swaps, that took out insurance and made bets on loans, all bundled up as AAA rated securities.
Specifically by the unwise lending of money to people who should not have been considered good credit risks.
Specifically, that's deliberate misdirection. You could have bought out every one of those mortgages for less than the cost of TARP. It wasn't poor people or the CRA that created a bubble just about equal to the monetary supply of the entire planet.
More specifically still, lending that was mandated by the federal government.
More specifically, a well debunkedlie you're repeating:
The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where they take deposits. Just the idea that a lending crisis created from 2004 to 2007 was caused by a 1977 law is silly. But it's even more ridiculous when you consider that most subprime loans were made by firms that aren't subject to the CRA. University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. As former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich said in an August, 2007, speech shortly before he passed away: "In the subprime market where we badly need supervision, a majority of loans are made with very little supervision. It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the beat."
Not surprisingly given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA program were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans. CRA loans carried lower rates than other subprime loans and were less likely to end up securitized into the mortgage-backed securities that have caused so many losses, according to a recent study by the law firm Traiger & Hinckley (PDF file here).
Then of course, there's all the hand waving involved in pretending that the CRA was a horrible law that caused a massive crisis - but took 30 years for it to happen.
It is not the right that ever has or ever will favor application of a religious test for office.
Of course it will be, since it's the free market jihadists that made a marriage of convenience with those that believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and put up museums showing humans riding dinosaurs.
Recall that atheism/secularism is as much a religion as any other
I'll recall you like to pretend that polar opposites are the same thing.
(Salon blocked at work, will be quite interested to read the article when I get home)
Maybe they're blocked as DFH's, as they were the ones that outed the fact that Henry Hyde (Gooper that ran Clinton's impeachment in the House) had had an affair himself.
Worst case scenario, Social Security will still be able to pay out 75% benefits, and that's decades away. This scenario can be prevented by either a rebounding economy or a 1% change to the tax code. Those wanting to dismantle Social Security pretend that this is an oncoming hurricane, when really it's a 20% chance of light showers. And why aren't these guys Concerned over the ballooning defense budget? How much are we going to throw away to the military-industrial-congressional complex over the same time frame that they like to use for Social Security?
This is even more laughable when you consider what they want SS to be replaced with - privatized accounts placed in investment markets. That'll be just greeeaaat - funneling billions into Wall Street, making for another all time high bull market - until the bubble pops again. Hmm, trade a system that has worked for three quarters of a century, or watch it blow up every 20 years or so, like the 1987 meltdown or the 2008 meltdown.....
Dude, did you even glance at my second link? Why are you citing Cato as a "more reputable source" when they're the ones that came up with the propaganda in the first place?!?
Those who want to dismantle Social Security know that current and soon to be retired Americans would never put up with it. So they've been promoting the baseless meme that "Social Security wont be around for me" to younger Americans instead. And a lot of people have been suckered into it.
And your NYTimes link isn't to a piece of investigative journalism, but an op-ed by Gregory Mankiw. Who's Gregory Mankiw? The former head of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, from 2003-2005. Care to guess when Bush was pushing the privatization of Social Security? Furthermore, this from a guy who loves outsourcing:
"Now, to get back to the question about outsourcing, I think outsourcing is a growing phenomenon, but it's something that we should realize is probably a plus for the economy in the long run," Mankiw said.
Any more "more reputable" sources you'd like to share?
They do, when it comes to providing services. Social Security, Medicare and the VA have 2%-4% overhead, compared to ten times that for the private insurance industry.
I predict a good chance it will be knocked down by the Supremes since the court is Majority conservative.
No, the conservatives on the court are why you should be pessimistic. Alito, Roberts and Thomas invariably rule in favor of corporations. We'll see if it's gonna be an actual-strict-constitutionalist day for Scalia, or if he's just going to be a hack again.
I think back to the architect of the Social Security Act, who's name I can't recall and I don't have time to google, stated from it's inception that it was not durable long-term solution, yet almost 75 years later we still haven't done anything to prevent it's insolvency.
Because there is no threat of insolvency. Zilch, none, nada, zip, ninguno....
See this article for a nice debunking of the propaganda you've been suckered into. These meme that there's a Social Security "crisis" or that "it wont be around for me" is a bunch of Cato propaganda called the Leninist Strategy.
Because really, how is a system that's funded directly out of paychecks ever going to go "insolvent"?
It's not that hard - don't be intimidated by the size of the bill. It's what's left out that's important - there is no public option to force costs down, there is no end to the anti-trust exemption enjoyed by insurers, to bring costs down.
While I agree the current health care system leaves a lot to be desired, I think the timing is terrible. Our financial house is not in order and the economy seems to be in the middle of a long term case of fatigue. In short, I don't think we can afford it.
We can't afford not to do it. If you think this is expensive, how about the fact that insurance companies have been upping their rates by double digits every year - 39% in California this year alone?
Re:dear libertarians and tea baggers:
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Let's see, how much of this needs to be debunked?
More government power over our lives.
The only ones with power over your medical decisions would be you and your doctor. Which would be a huge improvement over the current situation, where the insurance company has power over your medical decisions. With a vested interest in saying no, so they get more profit.
More people to handle the money and drive costs up.
Actually it would be less people and drive costs down. Medicare and the VA have 2%-4% overhead, compared to 20%-30% for insurance companies. The former are ten times as efficient because they aren't employing an army of bureaucrats to deny you what you paid for (health care) and the highest paid federal official is paid a fraction of a CEO's salary.
Universal health care doesn't fix the more pressing problem of expensive health care.
Uh, yeah, it does. It's why other industrialized countries have better care for half to a third of what we spend per patient. It's why freaking Cuba has comparable health care despite spending 1/30th per patient that we do.
There's no explicit constitutional authority for universal health coverage.
Of course there is, General Welfare. It's in the Constitution. Twice.
And before you launch into the standard Libertarian shpeels that this would be a 10th Amendment violation or that Article I, Section 8 is a strict list of powers given to Congress, remember that the Constitution "only allows" Congress to fund an Army and a Navy. Which means that if Medicare for All and Social Security are unconstitutional, so is the Air Force, NORAD, the CIA, the NSA, most of the FBI, and spy satellites.
The US is in a unique situation
How so? We already have some forms of single payer (VA, Medicare), and they already provide better care for less money than private insurance.
the current crop of politicians has massively fucked up markets before (for example, the California electricity crisis
You mean Enron's massive energy fraud against the state after power was deregulated? Your California example is a good one for showing how regulation is good and deregulation is bad.
cap-and-trade
The whole point of cap-and-trade is to use the power of capitalism to fight global warming. How long have you hated capitalism, commie?
Re:dear libertarians and tea baggers:
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It's an appropriate term for idiots engaging in childish antics. As they proved when they started protesting Obama, right after he gave them the largest tax cut in their lives.
Re:dear libertarians and tea baggers:
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Economics of scale. A national health care system will save far more money than state-based systems, and then you don't have to fiddle fart around when you move from one state to another. Just as it makes far more sense to have a national highway system than trying to patch together multiple state-based highways.
Hardly. Health insurance companies have an anti-trust exemption, so most states are dominated by a single insurer. And even when they are, they act as a oligopoly, just like cell phone companies.
Focusing on the trees to ignore the forest. We have high medical costs because of our fucked up insurance industry, period. Every other industrialized country has single payer (or draconian regulation), and it's why they have better care for a fraction of the cost.
Re:Every other European democracy has this.
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Western Europe also hasn't had to pay to defend itself for the last 60 years either. We pretty much subsidized their defense.
Bullshit. Not to mention the fact that the Soviet Union has been gone for a long time now. Just what belligerent power is threatening Europe, exactly?
Constitutionality: The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract.
This part you got right - there is nothing in the Constitution that suggest the federal government can require citizens to sign contracts with private companies. Nothing. But don't expect that to stop hacks like Alito and Roberts from rubber stamping it.
Common sense The kings of efficiency.
FTFY. Social Security and Medicare have 2%-4% overhead. Compared to the 20%-30% for private insurance. Because with Medicare, you get what you pay for - health care. As opposed to private insurance, who's entire business model depends on charging you the most they possibly can for premiums while denying your claims as much as possible. And federal officials are paid far less ($400,000 for the president vs $10 million for an insurance CEO) and their salaries aren't tied to the aforementioned business model.
to the point that the two programs have unfunded liabilities of over $100 trillion
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. These are based on pulled-from-the-ass numbers over an indefinite timeline, while only looking at "entitlements" - how about that Pentagon spending?
This bill causes lack of care (not coverage)
This bill doesn't cause the lack of care, it just doesn't help it any. Because Obama and the rest of the corporatist Democrats in power decided that extending the broken insurance industry to the non-insured (by force/taxpayer subsidization) rather a public option, or even better, single payer.
Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days.
Ah, the old "you'd have to wait in lines" canard. This is a batch of sophistry, as it's comparing non-emergency wait times in other countries to ideal conditions in the United States - where we have plenty of lines ourselves.
We will have a government panel deciding who is worth said liver transplant and deciding who gets to live and die, instead of your doctor or a panel of your doctors.
A right wing lie with zero basis in reality. Seriously, pull your head out of Sarah Palin's hypocricial ass.
How much is too much? People in this country continue to live longer and longer.
Actually, it's barely budged for decades, and we're far behind other nations in both life expectancy and infant mortality.
Dems say that our private insurance is increasing at too fast a rate (3%/yr)
3% on what planet?!? We've seen double digit increases in the cost of insurance just about every year in the last decade. And insurer in California announced an increase of 39% this year.
and are generally heather than our contemporaries in other countries, so much so that when people in other countries can afford it they come here, from all over, the U.K., Canada, Cuba.
That the wealthy can afford to travel all over the world to find the best specialists says....what exactly about the level of care in this country?
Cancer survival rates are a much better indicator of the quality of the medical system [google.com] than the life expectancy.
Not when it only looks at those who are treated and not thrown off their insurance because of a job loss or benefit cap, it's not.
The Obama Administration claims to the right to slay U.S citizens in "targeted killings" in the GWOT. But like the Bush Administration before it, the Obama Administration defines the "battlefield" as the entire planet. Which means that Obama claims the right to assasinate U.S. citizens anywhere, by invoking that magic word that suspends the Constitution: "terrorist". Nevermind that you can only be a suspected terrorist until you're convicted in a court of law. Nevermind that many of these people are not out on the front lines fighting American troops, but going about their daily lives when they are hit by a drone attack (see recent Slashdot discussion.
Then Obama is patting himself on the back for his transparency and accountability, at the same time he's issuing veto threats over bills that would strengthen Congressional oversight of intelligence.
But this really doesn't make any damned sense. It did for poppy Bush, because he was a CIA man. But Obama never worked for the CIA, so acting like a hard neocon on military/intelligence issues is baffling. Just as his acting like a neoliberal corporatist is baffling, as he's a self-made man and owes very few people any favors (compared to your normal politician).
Except your link doesn't say what you think it says. Perot took votes from Clinton as well, you know? And in fact exit polls showed that if Perot wasn't in the race, Clinton still would have won.
But don't let facts get in the way of your storyline.
What's wrong with accepting responsibility for your own national defense and travel? If you want to drive to another state, just build your own road.
Do you honestly believe it would be any less costly with a government program in place? If so, why?
Because every other industrialized nation does it, while providing better care at half the cost? The fact that we already have single payer health care in this country, in the VA and Medicare - which have 2% overheads compared to 20%-30% for the insurance industry? Not to mention the fact that with single payer you actually get what you pay for - health care. Whereas with insurance companies, they actively work to let you die on the streets rather than pay out claims.
Granted, there will always be some people at the edges of society. They are, generally speaking, the exceptions, rather than the rule.
Half of all kids in the U.S. will be on food stamps at some point of their lives. And a 10% unemployment rate is a rather large "edge".
During the past two decades, liberals have strived to create a country where morality was separated from government.
What are you even talking about.
Which, of course, is mighty convenient for someone whose political platform includes "free" health care.
It's free to use. Same as it's free to use a public library, use a public sidewalk, use a public highway.
As if it wasn't already strange enough. I'm thinking there's a chance He'd berate the Left for striving to give *someone else's* money to the poor, rather than their own (ever hear the story of the Widow's mite?), and doing a bad job at that (for every dollar spent on social programs, the recipient only receives a quarter's worth of aid).
About as good a chance as you winning the Powerball, or as they say in the eTrade ad, being mauled by a grizzly bear and a polar bear in the same day. Doonsbery had a nice strip a few weeks ago pointing out the one time Jesus ever got pissed off about anything: with the moneychangers.
So it's funny that you don't see Operation Rescue trying to shut down CitiGroup with massive protests, or assassinating payday loan providers.
Slashdot Mirror
So women making money off of men's hormones is...demeaning to women? You need to get some pot & prunes and lighten the hell up already.
And even there was, it still doesn't excuse all the disgusting, misogynistic comments on this article.
Poutrage.
As I was saying, competitive market.
On what planet? Do you know what oligopolies are or what it means to be exempt from anti-trust legislation? Why would Wellpoint get in a price war with Atena or Cigna when they can collude to keep their profits high?
Just because a market is dominated by a single insurer doesn't mean that you have to buy from the dominant insurer.
Except the entire point of insurance is to spread the risk into a pool. The larger the pool, the more stable it is. Then there's economics of scale - a large insurer is going to be able to negotiate better prices than a smaller one. And again, since they're exempt from anti-trust legislation, there's nothing to stop United Health from offering killer deals on employer-based plans that will save companies a lot of money - while hosing you individually - to drive smaller companies out of the market.
You can call me an idiot
If the shoe fits...
but violations of copyright are indeed theft from the artist/author
Indeed that's utter nonsense. Look, it's really not that hard - the key part of theft is that I take something from you, then you don't have it any more. If I break into your house and make off with your valuables, you don't have them anymore. Whereas with copyright infringement, I'm make off with a copy of your stuff, but you haven't lost anything. You can keep your stuff, sell it, burn it, whatever you want.
If I steal a painting from an artist, he can no longer sell that painting. He can make precisely zero dollars from it. Contrast that to downloading Contrast, Emninem's album from last year, from TPB instead of buying it. Is Eminem completely prevented from making money from Contrast in the future? Is he going to have to re-record the album or not be able to perform songs from it at concerts?
Of course not. We have different terms for different violations of the law because they are...wait for it...different. No one conflates drunk driving with arson, even though they both involve property. No one conflates embezzlement with assault with a deadly weapon, though they both involve property. But for some reason, some people insist on conflating copyright infringement with theft, when the only thing that connects them is property.
Supporting copyright law is important -- the GPL is built on copyright, Creative Commons is built on copyright.
What's your point? If you call driving under the influence of alcohol drunk driving instead of cannibalism, does that mean that you are diminishing drunk driving?
Right. A democratic constitutional republic. NOT a democracy.
Not a direct democracy.
Recall that the breakup of AT&T is widely regarded as a mistake.
By who, AT&T shareholders?
No improvement has been registered there as a result of government intervention.
You liked having high prices and paying a monthly rental for a $10 phone? When has a non-heavily-regulated monopoly ever provided low prices to a captive market?
Can you be more specific about "blowing up the world's economy" every few decades?
Stock market bubbles and the inevitable collapses. See: 1929, 1987, 2008. Why didn't we have a collapse between 1929 and 1987? Because of regulations that created firewalls and limited risky practices.
Recall that the current worldwide economic crisis was driven by the housing sector in the US.
No, it was driven by credit default swaps, that took out insurance and made bets on loans, all bundled up as AAA rated securities.
Specifically by the unwise lending of money to people who should not have been considered good credit risks.
Specifically, that's deliberate misdirection. You could have bought out every one of those mortgages for less than the cost of TARP. It wasn't poor people or the CRA that created a bubble just about equal to the monetary supply of the entire planet.
More specifically still, lending that was mandated by the federal government.
More specifically, a well debunked lie you're repeating:
Then of course, there's all the hand waving involved in pretending that the CRA was a horrible law that caused a massive crisis - but took 30 years for it to happen.
It is not the right that ever has or ever will favor application of a religious test for office.
Of course it will be, since it's the free market jihadists that made a marriage of convenience with those that believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and put up museums showing humans riding dinosaurs.
Recall that atheism/secularism is as much a religion as any other
I'll recall you like to pretend that polar opposites are the same thing.
(Salon blocked at work, will be quite interested to read the article when I get home)
Maybe they're blocked as DFH's, as they were the ones that outed the fact that Henry Hyde (Gooper that ran Clinton's impeachment in the House) had had an affair himself.
Worst case scenario, Social Security will still be able to pay out 75% benefits, and that's decades away. This scenario can be prevented by either a rebounding economy or a 1% change to the tax code. Those wanting to dismantle Social Security pretend that this is an oncoming hurricane, when really it's a 20% chance of light showers. And why aren't these guys Concerned over the ballooning defense budget? How much are we going to throw away to the military-industrial-congressional complex over the same time frame that they like to use for Social Security?
This is even more laughable when you consider what they want SS to be replaced with - privatized accounts placed in investment markets. That'll be just greeeaaat - funneling billions into Wall Street, making for another all time high bull market - until the bubble pops again. Hmm, trade a system that has worked for three quarters of a century, or watch it blow up every 20 years or so, like the 1987 meltdown or the 2008 meltdown.....
Dude, did you even glance at my second link? Why are you citing Cato as a "more reputable source" when they're the ones that came up with the propaganda in the first place?!?
Those who want to dismantle Social Security know that current and soon to be retired Americans would never put up with it. So they've been promoting the baseless meme that "Social Security wont be around for me" to younger Americans instead. And a lot of people have been suckered into it.
And your NYTimes link isn't to a piece of investigative journalism, but an op-ed by Gregory Mankiw. Who's Gregory Mankiw? The former head of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, from 2003-2005. Care to guess when Bush was pushing the privatization of Social Security? Furthermore, this from a guy who loves outsourcing:
Any more "more reputable" sources you'd like to share?
They do, when it comes to providing services. Social Security, Medicare and the VA have 2%-4% overhead, compared to ten times that for the private insurance industry.
Maybe that's why they mentioned it again in Article I, Section 8.
No, the conservatives on the court are why you should be pessimistic. Alito, Roberts and Thomas invariably rule in favor of corporations. We'll see if it's gonna be an actual-strict-constitutionalist day for Scalia, or if he's just going to be a hack again.
Because there is no threat of insolvency. Zilch, none, nada, zip, ninguno....
See this article for a nice debunking of the propaganda you've been suckered into. These meme that there's a Social Security "crisis" or that "it wont be around for me" is a bunch of Cato propaganda called the Leninist Strategy.
Because really, how is a system that's funded directly out of paychecks ever going to go "insolvent"?
It's not that hard - don't be intimidated by the size of the bill. It's what's left out that's important - there is no public option to force costs down, there is no end to the anti-trust exemption enjoyed by insurers, to bring costs down.
We can't afford not to do it. If you think this is expensive, how about the fact that insurance companies have been upping their rates by double digits every year - 39% in California this year alone?
Let's see, how much of this needs to be debunked?
The only ones with power over your medical decisions would be you and your doctor. Which would be a huge improvement over the current situation, where the insurance company has power over your medical decisions. With a vested interest in saying no, so they get more profit.
Actually it would be less people and drive costs down. Medicare and the VA have 2%-4% overhead, compared to 20%-30% for insurance companies. The former are ten times as efficient because they aren't employing an army of bureaucrats to deny you what you paid for (health care) and the highest paid federal official is paid a fraction of a CEO's salary.
Uh, yeah, it does. It's why other industrialized countries have better care for half to a third of what we spend per patient. It's why freaking Cuba has comparable health care despite spending 1/30th per patient that we do.
Of course there is, General Welfare. It's in the Constitution. Twice.
And before you launch into the standard Libertarian shpeels that this would be a 10th Amendment violation or that Article I, Section 8 is a strict list of powers given to Congress, remember that the Constitution "only allows" Congress to fund an Army and a Navy. Which means that if Medicare for All and Social Security are unconstitutional, so is the Air Force, NORAD, the CIA, the NSA, most of the FBI, and spy satellites.
How so? We already have some forms of single payer (VA, Medicare), and they already provide better care for less money than private insurance.
You mean Enron's massive energy fraud against the state after power was deregulated? Your California example is a good one for showing how regulation is good and deregulation is bad.
The whole point of cap-and-trade is to use the power of capitalism to fight global warming. How long have you hated capitalism, commie?
It's an appropriate term for idiots engaging in childish antics. As they proved when they started protesting Obama, right after he gave them the largest tax cut in their lives.
Economics of scale. A national health care system will save far more money than state-based systems, and then you don't have to fiddle fart around when you move from one state to another. Just as it makes far more sense to have a national highway system than trying to patch together multiple state-based highways.
Health insurance is a competitive market.
Hardly. Health insurance companies have an anti-trust exemption, so most states are dominated by a single insurer. And even when they are, they act as a oligopoly, just like cell phone companies.
Just to say it again - those who conflate copyright infringement with theft are blathering idiots who don't know wtf they're talking about.
Focusing on the trees to ignore the forest. We have high medical costs because of our fucked up insurance industry, period. Every other industrialized country has single payer (or draconian regulation), and it's why they have better care for a fraction of the cost.
Bullshit. Not to mention the fact that the Soviet Union has been gone for a long time now. Just what belligerent power is threatening Europe, exactly?
This part you got right - there is nothing in the Constitution that suggest the federal government can require citizens to sign contracts with private companies. Nothing. But don't expect that to stop hacks like Alito and Roberts from rubber stamping it.
FTFY. Social Security and Medicare have 2%-4% overhead. Compared to the 20%-30% for private insurance. Because with Medicare, you get what you pay for - health care. As opposed to private insurance, who's entire business model depends on charging you the most they possibly can for premiums while denying your claims as much as possible. And federal officials are paid far less ($400,000 for the president vs $10 million for an insurance CEO) and their salaries aren't tied to the aforementioned business model.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. These are based on pulled-from-the-ass numbers over an indefinite timeline, while only looking at "entitlements" - how about that Pentagon spending?
This bill doesn't cause the lack of care, it just doesn't help it any. Because Obama and the rest of the corporatist Democrats in power decided that extending the broken insurance industry to the non-insured (by force/taxpayer subsidization) rather a public option, or even better, single payer.
Ah, the old "you'd have to wait in lines" canard. This is a batch of sophistry, as it's comparing non-emergency wait times in other countries to ideal conditions in the United States - where we have plenty of lines ourselves.
A right wing lie with zero basis in reality. Seriously, pull your head out of Sarah Palin's hypocricial ass.
Actually, it's barely budged for decades, and we're far behind other nations in both life expectancy and infant mortality.
3% on what planet?!? We've seen double digit increases in the cost of insurance just about every year in the last decade. And insurer in California announced an increase of 39% this year.
That the wealthy can afford to travel all over the world to find the best specialists says....what exactly about the level of care in this country?
Not when it only looks at those who are treated and not thrown off their insurance because of a job loss or benefit cap, it's not.
The Obama Administration claims to the right to slay U.S citizens in "targeted killings" in the GWOT. But like the Bush Administration before it, the Obama Administration defines the "battlefield" as the entire planet. Which means that Obama claims the right to assasinate U.S. citizens anywhere, by invoking that magic word that suspends the Constitution: "terrorist". Nevermind that you can only be a suspected terrorist until you're convicted in a court of law. Nevermind that many of these people are not out on the front lines fighting American troops, but going about their daily lives when they are hit by a drone attack (see recent Slashdot discussion.
Then Obama is patting himself on the back for his transparency and accountability, at the same time he's issuing veto threats over bills that would strengthen Congressional oversight of intelligence.
But this really doesn't make any damned sense. It did for poppy Bush, because he was a CIA man. But Obama never worked for the CIA, so acting like a hard neocon on military/intelligence issues is baffling. Just as his acting like a neoliberal corporatist is baffling, as he's a self-made man and owes very few people any favors (compared to your normal politician).
Change you can believe in!
As I see it, the Tea Party people simply want a reduction in taxation.
Then they would have been cheering for Obama for reducing their taxes.
Except your link doesn't say what you think it says. Perot took votes from Clinton as well, you know? And in fact exit polls showed that if Perot wasn't in the race, Clinton still would have won.
But don't let facts get in the way of your storyline.
What's wrong with accepting responsibility for your own national defense and travel? If you want to drive to another state, just build your own road.
Do you honestly believe it would be any less costly with a government program in place? If so, why?
Because every other industrialized nation does it, while providing better care at half the cost? The fact that we already have single payer health care in this country, in the VA and Medicare - which have 2% overheads compared to 20%-30% for the insurance industry? Not to mention the fact that with single payer you actually get what you pay for - health care. Whereas with insurance companies, they actively work to let you die on the streets rather than pay out claims.
Granted, there will always be some people at the edges of society. They are, generally speaking, the exceptions, rather than the rule.
Half of all kids in the U.S. will be on food stamps at some point of their lives. And a 10% unemployment rate is a rather large "edge".
During the past two decades, liberals have strived to create a country where morality was separated from government.
What are you even talking about.
Which, of course, is mighty convenient for someone whose political platform includes "free" health care.
It's free to use. Same as it's free to use a public library, use a public sidewalk, use a public highway.
As if it wasn't already strange enough. I'm thinking there's a chance He'd berate the Left for striving to give *someone else's* money to the poor, rather than their own (ever hear the story of the Widow's mite?), and doing a bad job at that (for every dollar spent on social programs, the recipient only receives a quarter's worth of aid).
About as good a chance as you winning the Powerball, or as they say in the eTrade ad, being mauled by a grizzly bear and a polar bear in the same day. Doonsbery had a nice strip a few weeks ago pointing out the one time Jesus ever got pissed off about anything: with the moneychangers.
So it's funny that you don't see Operation Rescue trying to shut down CitiGroup with massive protests, or assassinating payday loan providers.