# At what price victory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2009, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945 "2009-08-19T13:13:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/81 "2009-08-20T18:25:02Z")
> [@furt](#): > > So wait … you missed him being given a [seat of honor](http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000683.php) at the 2004 DNC weeks after releasing Farenheit 9/11 and its inside-job theories? You missed him [getting ovations](http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503232) from Democratic crowds for saying of Republicans that “they aren’t patriots” or “real Americans?” Touché. Moore was just turning the Republican attacks on Democrats back at them for opposing the war. Remember how people who opposed the war were being accused of treason and such? I do. Quite vividly. But as I’ve said earlier, I think it’s more justified to freak out about war, with the attendent deaths and all, then over a Health Care Reform bill. One is substantially more hyperbolic than the other. I’ve seen not a single shred of credible evidence (just scaremongering) that the health care reform bills running through Congress is going to cause a net increase in deaths. Not all freakouts are created equal. Where exactly are the mass graves in Europe of people who died from botched government run healthcare? I wish I could just get you conservatives to admit that government healthcare won’t kill a bunch of people. You can feel free to ideologically oppose it all you want, but at least concede that for me. Please? ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/82 "2009-08-20T18:30:29Z")
> [@Kiber](#): > > I would add that your point about the government not paying income tax seems like an argument for government run healthcare - since there is an immediate savings right off the bat. > > Not to mention that, without a profit motive, the government doesn’t need to charge higher rates to then pass on a profit to investors. How about that being an argument for no corporate income tax, instead? And, without a profit motive, there is no incentive to increase efficiency over time. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/83 "2009-08-20T18:30:59Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You criticized them for being rude. No, I didn’t. > [@](#): > > But perhaps you agree [that](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6481.htm) [comparing](http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01102004.html) [the President](http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/01/15/16678611.php) [to Hitler](http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/2007/08/28/minneapolis-newspaper-defends-ellisons-bush-hitler-comparison/) is a clear sign that that side has marginalized itself and is composed of crazies, right? No, I don’t agree. I don’t go for guilt by association, and I don’t think every member of a political party, or group, or large movement, is responsible for the behavior of every other member of the group. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/84 "2009-08-20T18:36:50Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > But every day, more and more of these people emerge, and the media is covering it with increasing fervor. I am willing to concede that for every Rush Limbaugh there is a Michael Moore. That for every Michelle Bachman there is an Al Sharpton. That for every lunatic with an Obama=Hitler sign, there was a lunatic with a Bush=Hitler sign. But what seems different to me this time around is that mainstream republican politicians are playing along with the dishonesty and the distortions and the rabble-rousing. There are a handful of republicans in congress who are putting up honest, good-faith arguments in the health-care debate - but they are a tiny minority. The rest seem happy to ride the Crazy Wave. I’ll confess that it troubles me a lot. > [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > Finally, what effect, if any, do you think this tactic will have on the future of political debate in this country? It depends. If the dems really screw this up (and there is a pretty good chance that they will), the pubs will get back in and it will be a different crowd with pitchforks and torches and political discourse will slowly spiral down the drain. If the dems succeed (economy recovers, sensible health plan passes, sensible energy policy, happy endings in Iraq & Afghanistan etc) - or even if they only screw it up a little bit - I think we’ll see a dramatic realignment of politics. In that climate, there would be room for a new centerist party (non-authoritarian, small-government, pro-business, free-market, secular - readers of The Economist and their ilk) to be successful. They might not succeed first time out the gate, but I bet they could make some dramatic inroads in congress and be a credible third party in a future election. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/85 "2009-08-20T18:37:41Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > That’s your opinion. I don’t agree with it. Tell me why you think they’re equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/86 "2009-08-20T19:23:37Z")
> [@Kiber](#): > > Medicare Overhead: 2-5% > Private Health Insurance Overhead (low estimate): 10-15% > Private Health Insurance Overhead (higher estimate): 31% or \>31% Those numbers are calculated based on administrative costs vs money payed out. Medicare pays out far more per person than private companies, because it deals mostly with seniors,disabled, etc. Private insurers, on the other hand, have a large number of healthy people enrolled. They still need to administer the plans, but they make very little payouts for them. As a result, medicare has much higher admin costs per person, but lower admin costs per dollar payed out. To me, it makes more sense to use the former calculation. [http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm2505.cfm](http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm2505.cfm) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/87 "2009-08-21T02:46:59Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > I’ll tell you that you’ve just written a total mischaracterization…heck, just about a fictionalization of history. Inasmuch as Bob Taft would have been first in line to mockingly “boo hoo” Israeli immigrants? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/88 "2009-08-21T02:50:05Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Like I said, liberal Dopers comb the rest of the Internet, and pick out the worst they can find, and then Pit it. Don’t believe me? Cool - show me the last time some liberal started a thread about how someone on FreeRepublic made a good point. That’s moving the goalposts to the other side of the field. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/89 "2009-08-21T02:59:48Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > That’s moving the goalposts to the other side of the field. He didn’t do that deliberately. It was the mighty wind off his keyboard as he started all those threads on good points made by DU posters, coupled with all those times he started threads on good points made by liberal posters here, couple with all those times he has just said the words “good point” to liberals. A mighty wind indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/90 "2009-08-21T04:28:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You criticized them for being rude. But not if they were protesting the Viet Nam war - there rudeness was fine. > One might say the same about those calling Viet Nam soldiers “baby-killers”. > > But perhaps you agree [that](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6481.htm) [comparing](http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01102004.html) [the President](http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/01/15/16678611.php) [to Hitler](http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/2007/08/28/minneapolis-newspaper-defends-ellisons-bush-hitler-comparison/) is a clear sign that that side has marginalized itself and is composed of crazies, right? > > Regards, > Shodan Well, in Vietnam our leaders’ policies _did_ kill actual babies. Lots of 'em. And, from the second cite: > [@](#): > > Bush simply is not the orator that Hitler was. Ouch. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/91 "2009-08-21T05:12:51Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Moore was just turning the Republican attacks on Democrats back at them for opposing the war. Remember how people who opposed the war were being accused of treason and such? I do. Quite vividly. Sure, there was implications to that effect from the Hannity/Coulter crowd, just as there routinely is from the Olberman/Moulitsas crowd. Assholes behave assholishly. Sadly the assholes on both sides are numerous enough that the pols think it necessary to court their favor, and they’re probably right, since we’ve seen the extremists of both parties take aim at their own more moderate members. > [@](#): > > But as I’ve said earlier, I think it’s more justified to freak out about war, with the attendent deaths and all, then over a Health Care Reform bill. You do. I don’t. > [@](#): > > One is substantially more hyperbolic than the other. I’ve seen not a single shred of credible evidence (just scaremongering) that the health care reform bills running through Congress is going to cause a net increase in deaths. Not all freakouts are created equal. > > Where exactly are the mass graves in Europe of people who died from botched government run healthcare? I wish I could just get you conservatives to admit that government healthcare won’t kill a bunch of people. You can feel free to ideologically oppose it all you want, but at least concede that for me. Please? Three answers: 1. It’s hard to show the graves for the people who don’t die because of medical innovation. One of the biggest objections to government-run healthcare is it reduces the incentives for doctors and medical corporations to develop new treatments. See [this](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/postrel-drugs) and especially [this](http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/07/a_long_long_post_about_my_reasons_for_opposing_national_health_care.php). 2. Deaths are not the only measure of a heathcare system. They are the easiest to measure, and the one that will get the most headlines, but other things count, too. When you spend a year waiting for a treatment that lives you in severe pain, or immobile or whatever, IMO that’s not much different from dying a year earlier. Even long waiting lists for less-serious conditions are not unimportant, IMO. 3. By far most importantly: I think government-run healthcare will fundamentally alter the relationship between the people and the government, in a permanent way. IMO it will, frankly be the end of any hope of returning to the free and self-reliant citizenry the founding fathers intended. We’re headed that way anyway, and it’s probably more or less inevitable, but that doesn’t I’m not uninformed, I’m not stupid, I’m not astroturfed, and, contrary to what the President has said, I’m not [failing to live up to a divine mandate](http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-would-like-you-to-see-government.html). I’m also not alone in thinking that inserting the government into people’s medical decisions is a landmark point on the road to serfdom. Some liberals like to talk about the importance of keeping “your laws off my body.” I agree with them. You no doubt feel differently, and that’s fine. But this is about what those of us who oppose government-run healthcare think. And yes, I do think it is every bit as important an issue as one of war and peace. ---
**Author:** ![Kiber](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kiber/32/317_2.png) [@Kiber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiber)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/92 "2009-08-21T12:13:44Z")
> [@furt](#): > > By far most importantly: I think government-run healthcare will fundamentally alter the relationship between the people and the government, in a permanent way. IMO it will, frankly be the end of any hope of returning to the free and self-reliant citizenry the founding fathers intended. We’re headed that way anyway, and it’s probably more or less inevitable, but that doesn’t > > I’m not uninformed, I’m not stupid, I’m not astroturfed, and, contrary to what the President has said, I’m not [failing to live up to a divine mandate](http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-would-like-you-to-see-government.html). I’m also not alone in thinking that inserting the government into people’s medical decisions is a landmark point on the road to serfdom. I’m curious how the [1.9 million](http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2009/01/14/federal-workers-happier-than-private-sector-employees.aspx)Federal employees feel about their Federally provided insurance plans - seeing as they are leading the way down the road to serfdom. Or maybe the [1,454,515](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces)active duty service members suffering under the yoke of Federally provided health care. Or the [848,000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces)active reserves. Or the [26 million](http://www1.va.gov/vetdata/) veterans, painfully aware no doubt, of their loss of freedom at the hands of their Federally provided healthcare ([within limits](http://usmilitary.about.com/od/benefits/a/vetbenefits_4.htm)). I wonder how they feel about sacrificing their self-reliance. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/93 "2009-08-21T14:32:05Z")
> [@Kiber](#): > > I’m curious how the [1.9 million](http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2009/01/14/federal-workers-happier-than-private-sector-employees.aspx)Federal employees feel about their Federally provided insurance plans - seeing as they are leading the way down the road to serfdom. > > Or maybe the [1,454,515](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces)active duty service members suffering under the yoke of Federally provided health care. Or the [848,000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces)active reserves. Or the [26 million](http://www1.va.gov/vetdata/) veterans, painfully aware no doubt, of their loss of freedom at the hands of their Federally provided healthcare ([within limits](http://usmilitary.about.com/od/benefits/a/vetbenefits_4.htm)). I wonder how they feel about sacrificing their self-reliance. Providing healthcare insurance for the ~1% of the population that are government employees is one thing; insuring a hundred times that number and putting us on the road toward UHC is another thing entirely, and it’s what’s being discussed here. I’m also OK with the government issuing uniforms and assault rifles to the military, but I wouldn’t be OK with that for the rest of the population. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/94 "2009-08-21T15:12:41Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Providing healthcare insurance for the ~1% of the population that are government employees is one thing; insuring a hundred times that number and putting us on the road toward UHC is another thing entirely, and it’s what’s being discussed here. You’re aware that the “Public Option” is just that, an _option_ and not mandatory, right? Take a look at this [flow chart](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BTt4cJQj7GI/Sol7S9NA7QI/AAAAAAAAACo/YIwN-rOQCRQ/s1600-h/hayes_flowchart.PNG). ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/95 "2009-08-21T15:47:29Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > You’re aware that the “Public Option” is just that, an _option_ and not mandatory, right? Take a look at this [flow chart](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BTt4cJQj7GI/Sol7S9NA7QI/AAAAAAAAACo/YIwN-rOQCRQ/s1600-h/hayes_flowchart.PNG). I’m aware of the current proposals. I’m also well aware that 1. government programs have a near-universal tendency to metastasize and grow far beyond their original intent 2. many of the people pushing this program, including the president, have repeatedly stated that what they really want is universal single-payer, and that some of them have said that a “public option” is a means to that end 3. simply on its own terms, the program stands to grow enormously over time as employers increasingly opt to cut costs by not offering coverage, and put more and more people on the public teat 4. I do not think that a government-run healthcare insurance program will ever be self-finacing. In fact, I find the idea laughable. It will inevitably become a vast means for transferring wealth and creating bureaucracy. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/96 "2009-08-21T16:11:58Z")
> [@furt](#): > > simply on its own terms, the program stands to grow enormously over time as employers increasingly opt to cut costs by not offering coverage, and put more and more people on the public teat Senator DeMint (R-South Carolina) has proposed giving out vouchers to individuals who can’t afford it to purchase private health insurance. What would you think of a bill that incorporated Demint’s proposal alongside a Public Option? Individuals could decide for themselves, instead of relying on employers, what plan they want. For or against? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/97 "2009-08-21T16:28:58Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Senator DeMint (R-South Carolina) has proposed giving out vouchers to individuals who can’t afford it to purchase private health insurance. > > What would you think of a bill that incorporated Demint’s proposal alongside a Public Option? Individuals could decide for themselves, instead of relying on employers, what plan they want. For or against? It’d be an improvement , but there are plenty of better options that have already been put out there. A far better and far simpler solution is to involve the government only in catastrophic care (i.e. when a stroke or an accident or some debilitating condition suddenly leaves someone with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills), and 100% uninvolved in routine care for anyone except those already on medicare/medicaid. For medical bills under, say, $50-100,000, I think the government should have no role whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/98 "2009-08-21T16:44:50Z")
> [@furt](#): > > It’d be an improvement , but there are plenty of better options that have already been put out there. A far better and far simpler solution is to involve the government only in catastrophic care (i.e. when a stroke or an accident or some debilitating condition suddenly leaves someone with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills), and 100% uninvolved in routine care for anyone except those already on medicare/medicaid. For medical bills under, say, $50-100,000, I think the government should have no role whatsoever. Your solution is utterly inadequate and does little to address the problem of the 15% of the population that’s uninsured. If somebody can’t afford private coverage for non-catastrophic care, they certainly aren’t going to afford a 50k hospital bill. And the poor with medical problems will still wait and wait until it gets so bad they have to go to the emergency room, then they will be hit with a bill that they aren’t going to be able to pay anyway and the price will nonetheless be passed on to the public. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/99 "2009-08-21T16:51:02Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > I am willing to concede that for every Rush Limbaugh there is a Michael Moore. That for every Michelle Bachman there is an Al Sharpton. That for every lunatic with an Obama=Hitler sign, there was a lunatic with a Bush=Hitler sign. Apples and oranges. On one hand, you’ve got a popular radio personality who hosts a daily show listened to by millions and who has struck the fear of God into his party if anyone criticizes him. On the other, you have a documentary filmmaker who makes a movie once every few years and who has zero power or influence within his party. On one hand, you have an elected congresswoman who frequently and actively speaks for the GOP. And on the other, a non-elected self-appointed spokesman who has very few apologists within the Democratic party. It’s telling that when trying to draw up true comparisons, one can’t. There’s _nobody_ who spreads so much vitriol in such a high-profile venue and has so much sway over the Dems like Limbaugh does. And while I entertain the possibility that there might be a Democratic congressperson who’s as rabidly delusional and inflammatory as Bachman, they certainly aren’t a household name. From [Time](http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1917525,00.html): > [@](#): > > It is a very different story among Republicans. To be sure, there are honorable conservatives, trying to do the right thing. There is a legitimate, if wildly improbable, fear that Obama’s plan will start a process that will end with a health-care system entirely controlled by the government. There are conservatives — Senator Lamar Alexander, Representative Mike Pence, among many others — who make their arguments based on facts. But they have been overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. The philosophically supple party that existed as recently as George H.W. Bush’s presidency has been obliterated. The party’s putative intellectuals — people like the Weekly Standard’s William Kristol — are prosaic tacticians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health-care reform mostly because passage would help Barack Obama’s political prospects. In 1993, when the Clintons tried health-care reform, the Republican John Chafee offered a creative (in fact, superior) alternative — which Kristol quashed with his famous “Don’t Help Clinton” fax to the troops. There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009. The same people who rail against a government takeover of health care tried to enforce a government takeover of Terri Schiavo’s end-of-life decisions. And when Palin floated the “death panel” canard, the number of prominent Republicans who rose up to call her out could be counted on one hand. > > A striking example of the prevailing cravenness was Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who has authored end-of-life counseling provisions and told the Washington Post that comparing such counseling to euthanasia was nuts — but then quickly retreated when he realized that he had sided with the reality-based community against his Rush Limbaugh-led party. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner for President according to most polls, actually created a universal-health-care plan in Massachusetts that looks very much like the proposed Obamacare, but he spends much of his time trying to fudge the similarities and was AWOL on the “death panels.” Why are these men so reluctant to be rational in public? > > An argument can be made that this is nothing new. Dwight Eisenhower tiptoed around Joe McCarthy. Obama reminded an audience in Colorado that opponents of Social Security in the 1930s “said that everybody was going to have to wear dog tags and that this was a plot for the government to keep track of everybody … These struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear.” True enough. There was McCarthyism in the 1950s, the John Birch Society in the 1960s. But there was a difference in those times: the crazies were a faction — often a powerful faction — of the Republican Party, but they didn’t run it. The neofascist Father Coughlin had a huge radio audience in the 1930s, but he didn’t have the power to control and silence the elected leaders of the party that Limbaugh — who, if not the party’s leader, is certainly the most powerful Republican extant — does now. Until recently, the Republican Party contained a strong moderate wing. It was a Republican, the lawyer Joseph Welch, who delivered the coup de grâce to Senator McCarthy when he said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Where is the Republican who would dare say that to Rush Limbaugh, who has compared the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945/100 "2009-08-21T17:41:40Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Your solution is utterly inadequate and does little to address the problem of the 15% of the population that’s uninsured. A majority of those currently uninsured include illegal aliens, those who choose to be uninsured, and those already eligible for medicaid/medicare. I’m not opposed in principle to expanding medicaid coverage to get more of the working poor. > [@](#): > > If somebody can’t afford private coverage for non-catastrophic care, they certainly aren’t going to afford a 50k hospital bill. The vast majority of people would have it through their employers, as they do now. Many more would have it as employers started offering health insurance now that they could afford to. And individual gap coverage policies with deductibles – covering, say, expenses from $1000 to 50,000 – would be quite affordable. A huge portion of our current heath care expenditures comes from a relatively small number of cases where patients incur huge bills; these are also the situations that most Americans worry about. Most people also think that more routine-care insurance should be available to those who cannot afford it The solution, then should do three things: 1. Insure everybody against life-changing catastrophic care 2. Do more to help the ~5% of Americans who want but cannot afford routine-care insurance 3. Do nothing that is going to interfere with the status quo for the vast majority of people who are happy with what they have now and do not want to change it. 4. Create as little new federal spending as possible. Despite protestations to the contrary, I am not persuaded that the “public option” will satisfy either #3 or #4; indeed I think it will fail them dramatically. Every independant analysis I know of (such as the CBO) indicates that is the case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-price-victory/506945.md?page=6)