Trying to Sell ObamaCare
Expensive and maddeningly inefficient at times, the present health care system could certainly stand improvement. But it doesn’t follow that a government solution would provide the only, or best, solution. Imagine how much a leveling of the tax playing field among big corporations on the one hand and small companies and individuals on the other, plus the implementation of a true national health insurance market, would expand access while “keeping the insurance companies honest.” And how much would health care costs fall if “jackpot justice” were removed via tort reform? Yet these three potential cures aren’t even in Dr. Obama’s (or Dr. Pelosi’s or Dr. Reid’s) prescriptions.
Note to the alleged “progressives”: Historic election or not, this is still basically a right-of-center (read: skeptical) country. And though we’re certainly not averse to helping ourselves to a bit of government-brokered “other people’s money” at times (witness the Clunkers program), our manure detectors kick in when we’re promised another major entitlement by a government that has no idea how it’ll cover the promises it’s already made.
Show us how you’re actually going to put full Social Security benefits in the pockets of all current and future workers — while covering elders’ medical care despite ever-lengthening life spans — and we just might buy the idea that you can also guarantee us all “affordable, quality health care” that saves the government money.
Indeed, Obamacare registers a “major stinky” on my manure-o-meter, it is not the change we were hoping for. Tort reform. Portability. Both are needed and both will work and there would be no need to play hide and seek from the CBO–a plan that included both would score well with Doug Elmendorf and with regular Americans.
One thing we’ve learned about “I’d give myself a B+” BO, it a plan does not include a major power grab by the government, he isn’t for it. Advice to others, when he is speaking, er, reading on TV, turn your manure-o-meter off. After his health care speach a few months ago, mine had to go in the shop for repairs.
edit: health care speech (not speach)
It wouldn’t matter a dented copper groat to me if Congress and the Administration could guarantee, on pain of simultaneous mass seppuku with the cameras rolling, that the “U.S. Health Service” could guarantee better care at lower costs plus a free golden-egg-laying goose to every household in America. Their proposition would still be unConstitutional.
There is only one way to escape the “century of socialism and war” (Herbert Spencer) to which the
proregressives have subjected us: a full and unblinking return to the Constitution as written and amended, with a death penalty clause for any public official of any elevation who dares to act or vote against it!You mean you don’t believe the best way to extinguish a fire is by pouring kerosene on it? Tut, tut. You must be one of them thar conservative knuckle-draggers (heartless bastards who want the uninsured to simply go away and die).
That’s the kind of abuse you’re likely to receive, for having had the nerve to speak the truth.
Obama claims (as so many Dems before him did) to have assembled the “best and the brightest” minds to assist him in his administration. Couldn’t prove it by me. Nothing about massive increases in social spending — at a time when existing ones are fast approaching a brick wall — hints remotely at intelligent thought.
Then again, if ObamaCare results in death panels, there might be a way out of this mess. The elderly could simply be denied medical treatment — thereby reducing Medicare costs. When they then prematurely “expire,” Social Security savings would also result. And, finally, if Uncle Sam were to increase Death (i.e. estate) Tax assessments, the government could actually profit.
A win / win / win for Big Government Barack — and his socialist (totalitarian) cronies!
See: Socialism (of a sort) http://bereapundit.com/socialism-of-a-sort
Mike Murray said, “You must be one of them thar conservative knuckle-draggers (heartless bastards who want the uninsured to simply go away and die).”…..
….as contrasted with the heartless bastards constructing this gubmint plan who want the INSURED to simply go away and die.
Anybody who was ever cursed with enrollment in Kaiser Permanente health care in California from the 1980′s-on could tell stories that would illustrate why “simply going away to die” may actually end up being an attractive option if we ever all get ordered into the gubmint’s health care camp…(oops, sorry, insurance program).
@ 4. Mike Murray:
there might be a way out of this mess
Said the riders of the sled pursued by wolves…
The question which divides them is:
Who will be thrown to the wolves,
and in what order.
Many people will be shocked to find
that they are included on the List
of those who never will be missed.
Look, Dr. Bones: Up there in the e-sky: It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
Why, it is yet another Junior Birdneo, soarin’ aloft in the path of Party ’n’ Ideology!
“Where do the scrape them up from?,” you ask, sir? Well, I don’t know for sure, and you would probably have to trespass on the asylum grounds to learn that, but Wombschool Normal University seems a likely recruitin’ ground to me.
Señorito J. de Durstewitz is very likely to be fresh wombschool fruit, sir: look how it blithely takes for granted that all the innocent victims of President Summers and Mr. O’Bama are as interested in so-called “fiscal responsibility” as itself and the Concord Coalition are.
Its neobetters up the slippery slope at Castle Podhóretz really ought to have briefed it a little more extensively before sendin’ it out on a solo mission! It is not clear, though, that the C. P. neogentry give much of a a hoot about Concord Coalition Consciousness themselves — the risk of drawin’ too much attention to the costs of their own nifty neocapers overseas should be ever present to their minds.
I’d guess that that risk actually *is* still present, in most cases. But that’s only a guess that could be wrong, should the rate of ethical and intellectual degeneration in the Hate-’68 Movement™ be only a little more rapid than I estimate.
There’s a certain picturesqueness and _peripateia_ here, independent of whether Neocomrade J. Durstowitz notices it, or even possesses enough information about the annals of its factionette to know what we speak of. For Hate-’68-ism, neoselfservatism, began as a sort of revolt by grumpy middle age from the Fourth International against the young folks at the universities, — and now here comes a Señorito de Durstewitz tryin’ in effect to repackage the same product as anti-geezer ammo for use by the _Padschamajugend_! [*]
Healthy days.
___
[*] CCC, “Concord Coalition Consciosness,” if considered in isolation, is about the last ideoproduct one would think likely to appeal to (chronological) kiddies. Even Jeffersonito here can’t really be exclusively worried about its pension and its meds supply when it is barely old enough to booze and agitprop and vote. (Can it?)
That angle only adds to my suspicion that up at the Castle, the decayin’ neogentry that run the joint care for “fiscal responsibility” very little, and that little only instrumental or tactical. I betcha when Wasilla Woman takes over in 2013, the authentic Baní Concord will swiftly realize that they have, for the umpeenth time, been wooed and then ditched by the militant extremist Party of Grant ’n’ Hoover.
But Father Zeus knows best.
Obamacare can be summed up as ..”When Dumb(Reid) and Dumber(Peloser) met Ponzie(Obama)”
The result was predictable.
Trying to convince or “sell” sounds legitimate enough. When “bribe”, cajole, collude, strongarm, and hijack” come into play as part of the Chicago-way, then criminal charges are in order, if we had an AG who was not a lap dog. How ever is it that congress and the American people have accepted the way of Thug-ocracy? Threatening to close that Nebraska air force base or the $300 payoff to the La. senator come to mind. Are our elder statesmen working for the good of the American people or trying to payoff P.O.R. ego’s?
Count me in as very disappointed the Medicare buy in is off the table.
And why you retards are celebrating is beyond comprehension. We have a very valuable infrastructure that costs less than private insurance. Much less. And the idiot teabaggers think the best thing to do is limit this most cost effective system to those over 65.
The ignorance is stunning.
When will you white male oppressors wise up?
We had an election last November. We won, you lost, and you will never get another chance.
You will pay reparations for your exploitation and oppression of women and people of color. If you wish, you might consider the provision of health care to your victims as part of those reparations.
Your time has passed. Just pay up, shut up, and go away.
Constitution-defending patriots need to make fellow citizens aware of the following concerning Obamacare. Not only is the Senate’s huge, unreadable healthcare bill nothing more than a license for activist judges to eventually read anything that they want to into the bill, but Congress is wrongly ignoring the following. Given that the federal Constitution is silent about public healthcare, the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate healthcare to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress. In fact, the USSC has already decided that Congress has no business sticking its big nose into the medical practice.
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925. http://supreme.justia.com/us/268/5/case.html
Also consider that the USSC has already determined that Congress cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
So not only is Obamacare constitutionally unauthorized, but Congress never had the power to lay taxes to fund Obamacare.
The bottom line is that the corrupt, Constitution-ignoring Democratic Congress is using Obamacare to rob taxpayers!
Voters certainly have their work cut out for them in 2010.
Finally, the following link should help give people an idea how state sovereignty-ignorant voters have shot themselves in the foot with big, corrupt federal government as a consequence of the ill-conceived, anti-state sovereignty 16th and 17th Amendments.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=199792
To 7. JHM dba “Neocomradologist”:
Fer Chrissakes, give it a rest. Are you fresh from one of those creative writing classes at the local community college? Your awkward attempts at colorful prose gives incomprehensibility new meaning and your fetish for dropping “neo” in front everything is….just irritating beyond measure. Why don’t you have your mom edit/proofread your posts first before dumping them here?
11. You think this is over? We have not yet begun to fight! What you have seen so far is a mere warm up!
jharp, what planet do you inhabit? Medicare is NOT cost effective. It is trillions of dollars underfunded because no one in Congress has the political guts to make it pay-as-you-go. Payments by CMS to providers cover a small fraction of the cost to provide services to Medicare recipients. Last year alone, Mayo Clinic lost over $800,000,000 in providing medical services to them. Who makes up the difference? Hint: There is no Santa Claus.
Allowing a buy-in for 55-64 year-olds will be the trainload of hay that derails the engine.
John F:
jharp, what planet do you inhabit? Medicare is NOT cost effective.
Then why was the GOP trying to kill 500 BILLION in cost cuts to Medicare?
Or why did the GOP do absolutely nothing to fix it in the 14 years they controlled Congress (8 with Bush as POTUS). Nothing isn’t quite accurate though, the GOP did hand 700 BILLION to big Pharma and tacked it right onto the debt. In other words, the GOP expanded Medicare! And then they bitch about it being underfunded when they did nothing to try to pay for it.
No sir. Medicare is a fabulously successful program. A funding issue is obvious but easily fixed. Who else is going to insure our seniors?
And tell me, why is it OK to blow a trillion on a war and put it on our kids credit card yet we can’t borrow a dime to keep Americans healthy?
Tell me that, jackass.
And tell me, why is it OK to blow a trillion on a war and put it on our kids credit card yet we can’t borrow a dime to keep Americans healthy?
Because one is an immoral waste of money, whereas the other kills jihadis.
WTF do you get off claiming the right to compel someone else to pay your medical bills?
16. First, Medicare is going bankrupt. It will be completely insolvent in 2016, and stripping it of half a trillion dollars only accelerates that process. You can’t cut half a trillion in funding and add tens of millions of people- something’s got to give. Besides that, Medicare has a horrible fraud problem, the likes of which would result in the entire management being fired were it to occur in a private company.
Second, war, unlike health care, is the Federal government’s job. Hundreds of billions for defense, not one cent for redistribution of wealth. Let the socialist programs go bankrupt- not one cent of tax hikes to pay for them. Cease and desist!
If this clustXXXX ripooff ever passes I will take disability and quit working and become one of the leaches / non-productive members of society to help hasten the collapse of the American economy and government. As it stands now I am one of the “producers” (with a pretty high salary which I’ve had for 20+ years – earned through working long hours, taking night classes, pursing advanced degrees, taking risky assignments, etc.) who the lefty Congress is setting up to rob even more from to cover all of the non-productive members and also cover Congress’ pet projects. I’m fed up with this crap. Social Security is broke and the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. Medicare is a fraud and is riddled with fraud. I’m sure there are many other “producers” who feel the same. I know I’ve heard from a lot of doctors who will retire or quit the business. How will these geniuses figure out how to cover the additional 30 million uninsured (and many illegals) with even fewer doctors without increasing costs and decreasing benefits. It’s all a big lie to take over control. I will quit too and do my little part to help accelerate the eventual collapse.
#17 Bohemond:
“And tell me, why is it OK to blow a trillion on a war and put it on our kids credit card yet we can’t borrow a dime to keep Americans healthy?”
False Choice Alert! False Choice Alert!
What your Moonbat Periscope does not allow you to see is that a trillion spent on a war has a metric of success of how many Americans have not died and how much of their property has been protected, whereas a trillion spent on a public health program is measured in savings realized to the State when Americans are allowed to croak in a timely and cost-effective manner and their worldly possessions are confiscated.
Both expenditures are predicated on the well-being of the taxpaying citizenry, but both have vastly different mechanisms and diametrically opposed concepts of success.
Social Security will not be going bust if the Health Scare Bill passes. People should understand that part of the deception going on in DC today is to take care of the Social Security “problem” by administering their “health care”. You won’t be paying out much if you are in the process of doing away with the elderly. Doubt it? Has anyone ever seen such a malevolent group of people assembled at one time committed to the abject and utter destruction of our society and our people? Why should “killing the elderly” be a problem for a man who when asked about a “problem” with a child born succeeding a botched abortion he response was to “give it a blanket and let nature take its course”. Look at the people who are his advisors and associates. Criminals and outlaws all. Euthanasia for the elderly will be the budget balancer of Social Security. Count of it.
17 Bohemond:
Kindly duck, as that broadside should have been aimed at #16 jharp behind you.
“No sir. Medicare is a fabulously successful program. A funding issue is obvious but easily fixed. Who else is going to insure our seniors?”
If Medicare is such a great program, why is it broke?
And I’d observe that the REAL aim of Obama/Pelosi/Reid’s Socialist Utopiacare was ALWAYS to compel those pesky young adults who are spending their dough on other things than health care insurance, to subsidize the maintenance of their elders.
It’s a tragedy when you go bankrupt paying for your terminal illness.
It’s a crime when you cause OTHERS to go bankrupt paying for your terminal illness.
18. myth buster:
16. First, Medicare is going bankrupt.
Turn off Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, and the like.
Do you even know what “bankrupt” means? Medicare isn’t going bankrupt you fool.
Medicare insures our seniors for a fraction of what private insurance does. And covers EVERYONE over 65.
You idiots are voting against your own best interest. And God knows how I wonder how long can this lunacy can last.
There are no full Social Security benefits. The federal government already taxes 85% of the benefits at whatever happens to be the taxpayer’s highest rate. And now, if you earned more than they think proper, they take some of your Social Security away by deduction from what your benefits otherwise would be. Of course this deduction is not a tax. If it were it would be at your highest rate. That game is over. They simply have taken it away. You never receive the benefit to begin with. One could say it is taxed at 100%.
I saw this over at drudge: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30681.html
#23 jharp:
“You idiots are voting against your own best interest. And God knows how I wonder how long can this lunacy can last.”
If that be the case, then you and your Statist pals have signally failed in the task of ratioanlly explaining to the public what their best interests are…a task that should be manifestly easy.
If it was, then it would be so, but contrariwise, it ain’t, and therefore it isn’t.
Elementary logic, really.
Health care is already a defacto entitlement — Obama’s plan basically was to try to manage the skyrocketing costs of it all. Getting anything fixed or done in this country is getting ridiculous: you have a major party, the Republicans, who can be counted on only to be conniving, useless dumbf*cks who put politics so far, far above anything else that nothing too vile is beyond them, and a news media who can’t explain anything more complicated than a sports score.
Yeah, the so-called more cost effective Medicare is where the Federal Government (i.e., the crooks) reimburses Doctors at 60 – 75 cents on the dollar of the true cost. Doctors then have to pass on the losses to those of us that actually earned / pay for our own private insurance so we pay more. Meanwhile, less and less Doctors accept Medicare patients because they’re tired of either getting robbed by the Government or tired of unfairly passing on the cost of the Fed rippoff to the actually fairly paying customers. Meanwhile, less and less of our best and brightest are showing interest in becoming Doctors since there is no future benefit => long hours, unfairly scape goated by Obama and lefty morons for high costs, frivolous litigation (i.e., Dem Parties biggest constituent – can’t have tort reform can we), and for all of this they have to incur upwards of $150,000 dollars of education / training debt (usually in the form of loans that are paid off over the next 20-30 years) and work / train for grueling 10 years beyond normal undergraduate studies all for the pleasure of being screwed by the Government that now wants to control their profession even more (after screwing it up so bad already). We really need Universal Legal Coverage. The Feds should take over the Legal profession. There would truly be tremendous cost-benefit pluses if they did that.
“If that be the case, then you and your Statist pals have signally failed in the task of ratioanlly explaining to the public what their best interests are…a task that should be manifestly easy.”
That’s rather obvious, my friend. We reelected George Bush for God’s sake!
And no, it’s not easy by any means. Please tell me how you are supposed to rationalize with the teabaggers after they stage a tax protest after Obama cut taxes?
And we have folks here claiming Medicare is bankrupt. We ain’t dealing with folks playing with a full deck. It’s anything but easy.
Everywhere the communists (i.e., jharp and his pals) intervene / interfere the costs go up and the quality goes down and ultimately the rationing begins (there will be rationing). Nobody wants to give 120% of effort if there’s no reward. Look what happened with the failed communist experiments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They just couldn’t sustain themselves and compete against a West that rewarded extra effort and risk taking (i.e., innovation and challenges to the status quo). The only way there system can work is by making everybody miserable (i.e., putting in place laws and penalties to penalize producers and reward non-producers – like the former Soviet Bloc). They’ve already started us down this path!!
“Everywhere the communists (i.e., jharp and his pals) intervene / interfere the costs go up and the quality goes down and ultimately the rationing begins (there will be rationing).”
Do you men like the interstate highway system? Or the National Parks? Or the air traffic controllers? Or the military? Or the countless other successful federally administered programs.
And yet on the other hand you want this same group (the government) intervening into your religion.
Go away jackass. Go back to listening to Glenn Beck. You are an embarrassment to our country.
You are an idiot, a fakir, and have no idea what you are talking about.
I am embarrassed to even be engaged in a debate with you.
Heh heh heh! We’re kind of getting to you aren’t we jharp! It’s not like you mass murdering communist “do gooders” aided and abbetted the killing of between 60 and 100 million Europeans and Asians last century (imagine a killing uncertainty of 40 million – so is it 60 +- 40 million or 100 +- 40 million, who knows, when you control the state media like you do now in America you can hide it like the global warming decline). Maybe you guys can top that number this century with a forced one child policy, rationed care, and death panels (and very few capable doctors). Heh heh heh!
This is not Obamacare or even health care. It’s a health insurance bill that requires everyone to buy insurance. So I don’t see how this helps all the people who cannot afford insurance in the first place–and none of you have come up with any solution other than to scream about socialism.
Pay no attention to the ever growing $12,000,000,000,000.00 national debt or the largest ever (in world history) $1,400,000,000,000.00 annual deficit that we’re already outpacing for the current new fiscal year(some say it was actually $1,800,000,000,000.00 last year but who’s counting).
The fact that Social Security is not really funded and the baby boomers are retiring like it’s going out of style and will be collecting from the non-existing Social Security bank account will only further push up annual deficits (especially with Obama and the Dems in charge). Add to this the Climate Fraud Cap and Tax plan to permanently wreck the once best economy in the world (less folks with jobs means less tax payers and more folks on the Government dole and will require higher taxes for the few poor folks who still have jobs). It’s not like conservatives have offered plans like tort reform (trial lawyers are one of the Dems biggest donors) or to eliminate all of the loop holes / restrictions on private insurance companies that prevent portabilty across state lines and promote more competition or proposed elimination of all of the individual state and federal requirements to cover crap like liposuction, abortion, birth control, Viagra, etc.. Yeah, none of these proposals are viable solutions that might be better than further increasing the National debt which will force higher and higher taxes which will result in more unemployment. We call it communism / socialism because that’s what it is! It failed ever so miserably every where it was tried in the past century and yet we’re being driven down this dead end path once again. I guess you guys will do better this time with communism / socialism because you’re much smarter than the folks who failed in the last century.
31. jharp:
“Do you men like the interstate highway system? Or the National Parks? Or the air traffic controllers? Or the military? Or the countless other successful federally administered programs.”
How right you are! Highway and transport infrastructure to support interstate commerce and travel; a strong national defense and preservation of some limited and valuable natural resources.
You unwittingly cited perfect examples of what should be the proper and LIMITED role of the federal government. We troglodyte, limited-government conservatives thank you for your support
What is abundantly clear is that none of the “countless” other successful federally-administered programs made your list because even you know there are none to be found.
The whole damn “health reform” thing should be stopped completely until all the false data is flushed out of the democrat claims about health care just like the false data is now being flushed out of their climate claims. If the data they use for their claims is anything like the climate data, there are probably only a very few people who actually go without care but millions who are overcharged due to government intervention.
Anything and everything that has been done by the EPA since Al Gore was elected VP needs to be repealed and anything and everything that has been done about health care since Hillary was trying to pass her version should be repealed. After things settle for a few years and people who aren’t lying and falsifying data can replace the democrat liars at the various agencies who keep relevant records, we can then get an idea of what the real problem is.
The democrats have their own liars to produce “information” that they then use to support the goal they want no matter what the real situation is. The only thing to do the situation we’re now in is to ignore democrat initiatives and repeal those that have been passed into law during the past twenty years. Until there are independent people in the jobs that supply information to the Congress, and until the data Congress based prior democrat sponsored laws on can be verified by independent groups, there is no reason to believe that anything the democrat party has done or wants to do is based on anything other than lies.
From the top where we have a president who hides information the public could reasonably expect to see when hiring someone, to the bottom where the temporary ACORN workers voted multiple times, the democrat machine is a lying and corrupt organization. We can’t allow the party of slavery, secession, the KKK, Jim Crow, eugenics, socialism, and constant lying, to be a national party any longer. Just as the Nazis were banned in Germany after WWII, the democrat party needs to be banned in this country.
and none of you have come up with any solution other than to scream about socialism.
Well, now there’s an admission that most leftists have never even read any of the multiple proposals that in fact solve the problem without taking over the whole system. I guess that someone not reading the alternatives is a good reason for others to not mention socialism, huh?
Deliberate ignorance, the hallmark of a democrat.
have a nice day
Just a reminder for all ObamaCare supporters: There’s nothing stopping you from setting up non-profit insurance companies staffed by people willing to work for low wages to enable the poor to obtain insurance coverage. Nothing.
In other words, since you are the ones who perceive a problem, you should be the ones to fix it. To the extent I even perceive a problem, it’s not one I think is sufficiently important to waste MY time and resources fixing, but you are free to knock yourselves out. Why the government has to get involved is a question you’ve never really addressed. If it’s because the government can get “economies of scale”, well, so could a private company which could claim every Leftist in the country as a policyholder. If it’s because the government can force providers to provide services at a discount, so could a private company with huge numbers and, hence, negotiating power. If it’s because of the “everyone in the risk pool” requirement, I doubt there’s any real statistical difference in the risk profiles of single-payer advocates and the rest of the population.
So, none of the practicalities of the insurance business are stopping you. That only leaves one thing: you expect “the rich” to pay for it all for you, just like the parasites you are. You people are disgusting.