Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine What Will Conservatives Do?

One thing I have noticed while flipping through the channels.

If wither side actually had a story that didn't somehow involve how evil Obama is (guess which stations those are) or how evil the Conservative reporters are (we all get it...at least I would hope) maybe they could report some actual useful news.

It's sad when Faux News like those on Comedy Central happen to be the best at actually reporting the idiocy of all of those involved. Whether they be Right/Left/other news media.

I personally support a single payer system. I'm not sure what the majority of Americans want. Some quick Google searches for polls conducted during the presidential season and during the health care debate provide mixed results. I found one poll that reported that 75% supported single payer. I found another that showed 32% in favor. As with most policy issues, the devil is in the details. Support appeared to go down when questions were asked about who should pay, if taxes should be increased to pay for it, or when questions about effectiveness were asked.

I do know that Americans did not elect officials who campaigned on single payer. President Obama did not campaign on a promise of delivering a single payer system.

The 2007/2008 Presidential campaign season started out with 10 Republican candidates. It started out with 8 Democratic candidates.

There were 18 nationally televised debates on the Republican side. There were 24 nationally televised debates on the Democratic side.

Of the 18 candidates for the two major parties, only one supported a single payer system during the debates. That was Representative Dennis Kucinich from Ohio. Kucinich is an intelligent, likable, and articulate man. There was no attempt by the Democratic party or the mainstream media to muzzle him. He presented his position with passion and humor in each of the debates he participated in. He failed to win a single primary.

After the election, he continued to make the case. Kucinich argued for single payer on the floor of the House. He was a frequent commentator on cable news shows. Speaker Pelosi never reprimanded him, nor did she make attempts to silence him. When she made the decision to use the budget reconciliation process to try to force the Senate version of health care reform into law, Kucinich was one of the first people the Speaker reached out to. He signed on to the bill, even though it was a bitter pill for him to swallow.

Elections have consequences. If American voters truly want a single payer system, they need to support candidates like Representative Kucinich.

[snip]

Downthread, you mention that only one did. But this isn't about individuals. If Democrats wanted to present a clear alternative to their supposed opposition, why didn't they have single-payer in their party's platform?

Could it be because the party is up to its eyeballs in corporate contributions from Big Pharma and giant insurance corps?

No, no. I'm sure they just take all that money because it would be rude to turn it down, right?

As for Kucinich, he can kiss my whosiswhatsis. I figured out the dude was worthless when he meekly delivered his followers to Kerry in the '04 primary. "Anti-war," my big fat rear. I'm only sorry that I fell for his shtick in the first place and re-registered Dem to vote for his weak a** in the primary. No surprise that he folded again on healthcare. Why shouldn't he? We're already footing the bill for his medical coverage and we will continue to do so for the life of our (sort-of) Republic?

You referred to these people elsewhere as "gamesmen," and you're correct. The super-rich and their elected servants play, and we're the pieces they play with.

Small wonder that the majority of Americans don't vote. I frequently can't recall why I bother to. Some lingering trace of childish sentiment, I guess.

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President Obama did not campaign on a promise of delivering a single payer system.

Thanks for letting me know, but I figured that out on my own and voted Green, since they actually have single-payer in their platform . Anyone who voted Obama thinking that he was a stealth Leftie just dying to get into office and do Wonderful Things was delusional. I almost feel sorry for them.

You say that people like me aren't solving anything by complaining, even though I've already pointed you towards places where you can find out what else we're doing. But leaving that aside, why shouldn't people like me complain?

How many times do we have to get punched in the face by our supposed defenders before we're allowed to run away from them?

What do we solve or improve by keeping silent no matter how badly it effing HURTS?!

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mr_cleome's a fan. I don't bother watching most of that stuff, because when push comes to shove they still defend the same broken system we already have. It's hard for me to laugh when I know that in the end, I'm the one the joke's on.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I like complaining from the left. I like agitation and action from environmental activists, feminists, and labor unions. I support just about everything on the Green Party platform, and want to see the Greens participate in debates and field viable candidates. I wish there was more activity of this kind going on.

I'm just saying, that by comparison with the Tea Party, at present, there doesn't appear to be as much activity going on and it is having less of an impact. That worries me. What I disagree with is blaming the Democrats or the mainstream media for activists on the left not having an impact. To their credit, the Tea Party movement is energized, and is going to have an impact on the midterm elections.

I'm a Democrat because I think there are real differences between the Democrats and Republicans. You don't see the differences as being that great. Fair enough, position. By and large, independents aren't going to voting for Democrats this fall. They'll be voting for Republicans or staying home. They most likely won't be voting Green. I don't see that as President Obama's, Nancy Pelosi's, or Harry Reid's fault. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid get the blame for independents not voting for Democrats in this election. It's not fair to blame them for all the flaws in our political system. It's a convenient position for their critics on both the right and left to take. Ultimately, it's not a solution to the many and very real problems that our nation faces.

I've spoken my piece, Jerry. Anything I add at this point will just be repetition.

As with rickshaw1, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I very much doubt that all the angry people I've spoken to recently are going to bolt the Dems, even if it's just to stay home. The force of habit is too strong, and the same old scaremongering that worked before will probably work again. Our Leader's team may well eke out a narrow victory. For whatever difference that makes.

Still, it's a pleasant thought that I could wake up the day after the election to see Obama and his friends reeling from the backhanding that they so richly deserve.

Okay, truce for now, then. Maybe we can pick it back up in November. I would love to hear your post election analysis...

Sure. If I'm sober.

Maybe I shouldn't hold my breath, then...

Cle, I'd say you are a few years away from being me. Not believing anything the political parties tell you because you know they are smart enough to mix a bit of the truth into their lie foundations, and realizing that your life is going to go on no matter what the ahole politicians do. It just gets a little dirtier and grayer each passing year.

Easier said than done, rick. Especially in a state that's essentially a ballot-measure mill like OR. I can try to tune out, and sometimes I even succeed for a while, but it never lasts.

It's government control of a piece of the economy and the market. That sounds socialist to me.

As someone who's probably a lot further to the right than a lot of people here, I have to say that I'm reminded of the Monty Python scene where the Judaean People's Front can't stand the People's Front of Judaea. That was a parody of the British left, but it applies to the American left too. Differences that seem so huge to you--even differences that make you say "those other guys aren't really on the left"--may look trivial to outsiders.

You could say that about anything the government does. Doesn't the postal service control a big piece of the market and the economy? Yet, I doubt any but the diehard libertarians would call the US Postal Service a socialist institution.

In regards to the health care, I would say that having a single-payer system would be socialized health care. The public option would not be. The other thing is the opponents of the health care reform just said "it would be socialism" and never really said exactly why that would be bad.

It always gets tricky when we start to use the words socialism and capitalism. Both, after all, are just economic theories. All economies in nations that have governments and businesses are mixed economies. To be truly socialist, the government would own the businesses, all private property and the means of production.

The health care system in the United States - both before and after reform - involves a lot of government (taxpayer) money going to private companies who provide healthcare services, products, and medicines. These are companies that make a profit. I believe that is what Cleome objects to.

The companies, of course, want less government regulation. Throwing around politically scary words like socialism is one way to try to fight that regulation. In the end, though, these companies are happy to take government money, and that isn't socialism.

[snip]

Well, you could look up the term "corporate socialism." That comes close to what's been foisted on us by the President and his handlers. Everyone must buy insurance. Private insurance. They can go to jail for not buying it. Studying what happened with Romney's plan in MA is instructive. There is little regulation in place to control costs or to stop private insurers from screwing people in much the same manner they always have.

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As someone who's probably a lot further to the right than a lot of people here, I have to say that I'm reminded of the Monty Python scene where the Judaean People's Front can't stand the People's Front of Judaea...

Well, that's nice. In their own charming way, a lot of Democrats don't see any difference between people like me and themselves, either. They continue to nurture the idea that if anyone on their left ever voted Democrat, even once, we're now their property-- because none of our misgivings about the DP and what it does and where its money comes from are important. It's like their own touchy-feely spin on Bush II's comments about "the ownership society."

Your comparison is bad because this isn't some trivial difference regarding a sequence of names. It's about real issues regarding the continuance of an insane energy policy, an unwinnable and immoral war, fiscal policies that reward criminals-- so long as they're wealthy criminals, spying on U.S. citizens under some foggy notion of "security" and so on.

So ironically, you echo the idea that, say, U.S. Greens or Socialists or Anarchists or even Anti-war Libertarians are basically interchangeable with Democrats. You echo a philosophy that leads Democrats to demand that the entire American Left just shut up, vote Demo and get back in the veal pen where it so clearly belongs.

Thanks. :rolleyes: I can't hear often enough that my ultimate destiny is to meekly vote and tithe to people who don't represent me and who don't ever intend to. I can't hear often enough that life and death concerns are "trivial."

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I believe that Canada uses public-run healthcare as its "baseline," which everyone in the country is entitled to and pays for with taxes. But Canadians have the option of purchasing additional, privately-owned insurance if they wish to.

Why couldn't the U.S. support both? It's not unheard of. (Even if I personally loathe private insurers and would love to see every CEO of every major U.S. healthcare company tarred and feathered live on CNN.)

The only real difference between this and socialized medicine is that instead of the government collecting taxes and paying it to a company to get you medical care, the insurance companies are collecting the tax directly. It's as subject to corruption either way.

It's just that by doing it this way Obama can claim that because the money isn't being directly paid to the government it's not a "tax" so he hasn't raised taxes.

I'd think that if a channel you criticize for not having the best reporting has the best reporting, your reaction should be "I guess Fox News isn't so bad after all", not "I'm disappointed that they're the most accurate".

Hardly. Public care and private care are apples and oranges in terms of cost, not to mention the potential for corruption. If this is not the case, why aren't millions of people around the world clamoring to dump public care for private? Why are U.S. companies able to make money and do business overseas, using workers who receive state-run care?

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[b]...Won’t this just be another bureaucracy?

The United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. Over 31% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. Because the U.S. does not have a unified system that serves everyone, and instead has thousands of different insurance plans, each with its own marketing, paperwork, enrollment, premiums, and rules and regulations, our insurance system is both extremely complex and fragmented.

The Medicare program operates with just 3% overhead, compared to 15% to 25% overhead at a typical HMO. Provincial single-payer plans in Canada have an overhead of about 1%.

It is not necessary to have a huge bureaucracy to decide who gets care and who doesn’t when everyone is covered and has the same comprehensive benefits. With a universal health care system we would be able to cut our bureaucratic burden in half and save over $300 billion annually. -- via Physicians For a National Health Program[/b]

I recommend reading the whole PNHP FAQ. It's succinct, but thorough.

So, House Minority Leader, John Boehner indicated today that he is willing to vote for an extension to the Bush tax cuts for middle class taxpayers that does not include the highest earners. This has been President Obama's position all along. Compromise in very heated political season. Interesting.

Some conservatives are running on a campaign promise to repeal the Healthcare Reform Act. This is a massive piece of legislation that is implemented in stages up until 2019. Some of the more controversial elements take effect in 2014.

On September 23, 2010 some elements become law, including:

* Dependents can stay on their parent's insurance until the age of 26.

* Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to children (under 19) for pre-existing conditions.

* Newly issued plans cannot charge co-pays or deductibles for certain types of preventative care.

* Rebates will be available to Medicare recipients for some prescription drug payments they incur when their expenses fall into a gap area called the donut hole.

* An excise tax for tanning bed fees will be implemented.

* Insurance companies will be prohibited, by law, from dropping coverage for policy holders because they get sick.


Do you favor repeal of any of the above (September 23, 2010) provisions? Do you think Republican lawmakers will be successful in repealing any of these provisions?

You left out a question: Do you think Republican lawmakers will be interested in repealing any of these provisions?

It's easy to pick out a couple of innocuous items from a huge act, on the technicality that someone who opposes the act opposes the innocuous items. Do you have any evidence that Republicans are opposing such provisions specifically, rather than just opposing the whole act because the rest of it is so messed up that it's not worth salvaging?

Absolutely none. All I've seen are general statements about "repealing Obamacare". That's why I'm asking. Are they serious? Do they want to repeal the entire legislative package? Just some parts of it? Are there plans to replace it with anything?

In short, do Republicans have a health care plan?

I personally wouldn't shed any tears if the plan was scuttled. But I doubt Republicans want that. They're up to their eyeballs in money from Pharma and Insurance, just like their "opponents" across the aisle.

You may see some minor modifications here and there with an eye towards giving insurance companies even more room to exploit the helpless than they've already got. That's about it.

I feel bad for uninsured people who think they're going to get real help from these well-dressed thieves, rather than just being treated as a resource to be sucked dry and then discarded when they're no longer useful. The whole spectacle really is vile, and both parties are equally responsible for it.

Trouble is: the way that you write it, the primary actor/agent is the illegal worker. IRL, there are multiple actors/agents involved in the transaction. Only one of them is the illegal worker, and s/he incidentally has the least power of every other actor/agent in the equation.

Seriously. I see this all the time in these debates, and it's effing tiresome. Probably because I'm one of those smelly Red Anarcho-Commie Green goofballs and we tend to have weird ideas about things. For example, I figure that in any given exercise of power, those who hold more power are more responsible for the way the transaction goes.

Yeah, I know. Nutty, isn't it?

It's funny that several years back, Kinky Friedman ran as a 3rd Party candidate for Governor of Texas, and his platform was strongly against illegal labor. But Friedman was blunt in stating that businesses that hire illegal workers should be punished in a signifigant manner for breaking the law.

Interesting how few supposed champions of Law & Order and of the poor, suffering American worker supported his stance, and how little national media coverage it got.

Could it be that for all their yammering about Teh Evol Aliens, the supposed champions of Law & Order don't actually want reform on that front? Because reform would mean that Americans, who are an integral part of keeping the market for illegal labor going, would find themselves punished for breaking the law, too? Could it be that bosses knowingly exploit illegal workers because they are an excellent club with which to beat on poorer American citizens? Bawwww... it's not our fault that you can't find a job with a living wage! Look over there!! Those evil Mexicans! It's their fault!! Hate them!! Punish them!!


Actually, Cle, I'd say that Kinky didn't get much play because..well, honestly, he's Kinky Friedman. I've read some of his fiction works. Its funny stuff, and a bit wacky, and when people are looking at political leaders, wacky doesn't factor highly into their desirable skill set.


As to the rest, of course. Wealthy are going to try to retain wealth. Poor are going to try to attain wealth. Were is the wealth? With the Wealthy. They don't want to give it up, so they fight.

The single greatest thing stopping this country from really advancing is the the old saw "Divide and Conquer". Whether it be class, race, reglion, social sets, what have you, as long as those in power have the factions fight amoungst themselves, they pay no attention to the powers behind the curtain. And they prey on people's natural weakness' to do it. Envy, greed, pride, jealousy, desire, enjoyment of salacious gossip, national pride, all the darkness. Its why statements such as "...like hell" are used much more frequently that statements such as "thank heaven". Dark is easy, light is hard. Blaming your neighbor or a boss or someone you don't know is much easier than examining your own life and figuring out that you've wasted a significant portion of it. (I know, because I recently had to... and it hurt).

So, if you are sick, its easy to blame big insurance (and even though you are probably right that they have shafted you) rather than admit that you made a bad deal and didn't do your homework. If you aren't getting paid a living wage, its easier to blame someone else than admit that the degree you earned (or didn't earn) and are thus in a low paying job (again, something that I had to recently examine in myself, and again, painful).

Its too easy in this day and age to lay everthing you don't like at someone else's feet rather than own up to your own shortcomings. I did it myself, even though I hate it and hate to admit it.