But you can’t afford to take care of you and your family. I mean, maybe you can right this moment, but costs for emergency or chronic care can be prohibitive for all but the most wealthy. Even the poor can afford medical care when they’re not using any.
So, like any sane American who can afford it, you buy health insurance, because you can’t afford to pay for unforeseen medical needs. You are not paying for your medical care. I am (well, would be if I had insurance, and the same provider as you).
Currently, nobody (a vanishingly small minority) can afford to pay for health care out of pocket for more than the most basic, occasional care. A large number of individuals cannot afford to pay for their health insurance either. Private, employer-based health insurance guarantees that only the wealthy and those fortunate enough to have a compensation package that includes health insurance will be able to afford medical care. All others will go bankrupt or into crippling debt if any major needs arise.
In the tofu case the person has the option of going to a store. But rather than have mild inconvenience would rather break their moral position.
As for the person who hates bailouts thinks they are bad policy, they should have no part in them or they should change their position to bailouts, do in fact sometimes help. Otherwise they are hypocrites.
Sometimes being practical involves hypocrisy. The bail-out dude is just being practical. He however, hasn’t amended his stance that bailouts are bad, so he’s a steaming hypocrite. Sorry, but your attempt at splitting hairs here is really bereft of any substance.
I’m kind of torn on this hypocrite concept. I think part of the issue is that there are all sorts of things I might disagree with in a mild way, but if they are the state of things, I go along with. It doesn’t make me a hypocrite, I don’t think, if I don’t ascribe a moral judgment to it. If I think government bailouts are poor fiscal policy, I can still utilize them, believing they’re poor fiscal policy. So, I’ve used a policy I disagree with to further my own needs, but I haven’t done anything that I have said a person shouldn’t do.
On the other hand, there are many instances where people argue against systems that they take advantage of, and the hypocrisy is clear. “I am against government take over of health care because having the government run a service or industry like that is socalist!” “Socialism is bad, anti-democratic, and anti-American!” “Yes, please, give me my medicare, public roads, police, prisons, military, and school systems.” That to me is blind and willful hypocrisy. Taking bailouts while being against them may or may not be hypocrisy depending on the reasoning behind the opinion.
But if you take the bailout, you’re proving that it is a GOOD fiscal policy. If you eat the hotdog you’re proving that it isn’t that unhealthy. So either, the hotdog is unhealthy and you shouldn’t eat it. Or the hotdog is healthy enough to eat and you’re full of shit.
You’ve used this example too many times before. Yes, you are being hypocritical BY PLAYING. If you don’t like the rule, don’t play.
I used to play a lot of co-ed volleyball, then I moved to a new city where all the co-ed leagues had a “girl must touch the ball” rule. The rule was the dumbest fucking thing I had ever experienced, a point I was extremely vocal about. To continue to play in those leagues would make me a hypocrite. Instead, I stopped playing in those leagues, encouraged everyone I know to stop playing in those leagues, and started my own group that didn’t use the rule.
But what really drives me nuts about this debate is having to wait for all these morons to get sick/injured/pregnant before they are able to realize what the fuck is going on. Health care in the US is really fucking cheap when you’re healthy. I’m glad you want to take care of your family, but there is going to be a day when you can’t. At that point, just like the free parking money, you’re going to take the assistance available and be a hypocrite, because I seriously doubt you’ll follow through with your opinion that “poor people should die if they can’t afford health care.”
“Gee, sorry dad, I know a new heart valve would add 15 years to your life, but I have this reputation on an internet message board. And I kind of used your life story a lot about having nothing and working really hard. If I gave you money or let Medicare pay for it it would kind of make me look like an idiot.”
To answer the OP: no, there is no way this can possibly backfire on the Republicans, for the simple reason that US health care is totally fucked. All of the reasons conservatives use for rejecting UHC currently exist in the US. Which means that in a year from now, when things are slightly better, they will still be fucked. But the beauty of working for Fox News that context doesn’t matter. If there is any rationing at all in a year it won’t matter to them that there is rationing now. If there are wait times in a year, it won’t matter that there are wait times now.
Stupidity knows no boundaries. In the Republican world, any Democrat involvement in healthcare can AND MUST fail. And if you want that put into context, it’s the same way that The Serge had to fail.
It absolutely will. This plan is not perfect, but it will be improved. And once it’s in place, people will see the benefit. Right now, it’s all theoretical. Once they actually get the benefits, and see they were lied to, the republicans will be done.
If the Republicans had let the Dems stumble into saying that health care reform would make everything wonderful overnight, there could be a problem. However I suspect those swayed by the Fox News bull shit think that the minute HCR passes granny will be killed, taxes will double, and you will be yanked away from your doctor. When none of this happens perhaps the more sane of the population will realize that Palin and crew are a bunch of liars. They will also probably know at least some people who will be able to get reasonably priced healthcare where they couldn’t before. Except for those few who think that poor people getting to go to a doctor on our dime is a social evil, most people will think this is okay.
I fully expect for Republicans to switch to the “it passed and death has not been eliminated, so there” track, but they have already tried to blame Obama for Bush unemployment, so this is nothing new.
And then Aslan Obama will lead us all into heaven.
Or, it will not pass, and the loony left will try to blame it on the Republicans, despite the fact that they control the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate–and held a filibuster proof majority in the Senate until recently. Republicans will then chuckle with amusement at the silly liberals, and gleefully vote them out of office in November, retaking the House of Representatives and dismaying many of the usual suspects on this very board.
To get back to the OP, enough with talk of hotdogs and boardgames and such…
So, assuming it passes, I think that it will backfire against the GOP but probably not for many years. And by backfire I mean we will have moved the coversation and the country to the left, pretty significantly (if the claims of healthcare being 1/6 of the economy is to be believed). And then…
This bill will crush the deficit. I don’t believe the estimate from CBO and the left saying it will help the situation; that’s only based against the status quo, which nobody wants, and makes huge assumptions about what we’ll do later. ($500b out of Medicare, and $200b out of DocFix, when both issues have been dodged by Congress consistently, especially the Sustained Growth Rate).
I think of it this way: how can we cover 30m more patients through a huge new entitlement and somehow save money? Most people are in favor of many of the things in this bill. Who would be against covering those who have no coverage? Who would be in favor of denying poor schmucks coverage with a pre-existing condition? But those are emotional responses. The problem is, we’re broke. We’ll borrow the money from China and force our kids’ (and their kids’) generation to pay it back. As Charles points out in the piece:
So, this will work for the GOP in the short term. But once people get used to the entitlement, as some pointed out about Medicare, it will be nearly impossible to save the country’s finances, and our kids will have highly confiscatory tax rates to cover the bill, stifling economic growth. Not enough people will remember, or at least vote based on, who was in favor of it and who was againt. The Short Attention Span theatre that is the American electorate will be talking about something else by then (e.g., how to get Iran to pay reparations to Israel for nuking Tel Aviv, etc).
Ah, there’s an old chestnut, brought back off the shelf. 'Minds me of the Eighties, it does.
It will be just like the Republicans claiming credit for the results of Clinton’s 1993 budget and tax hikes, despite the fact that every single one of them voted against it, won’t it?
But the vegetarian who does consider it a moral wrong to eat meat would be hypocritical, right? There is a big moral difference between health reasons and not killing animal reasons. One hot dog makes you just a bit less healthy - causing even one animal to be killed for your food is closer to lots being killed than none being killed.
If you think bailouts are bad because they increase the deficit, accepting the money would increase the deficit by just a little bit. If you think they are bad because they are socialism, accepting it is endorsing socialism, much worse.
It was a direct response to a question from me. I wouldn’t knock him for it; I think a lot of conservatives think this way, but he was the only one honest enough to admit it.
Not sure what you mean by that, as I’m not currently in government, nor am I a Republican (or even all that conservative). Democrats are in charge of all three branches though. They have the power, the GOP does not… until Nov, when the previously mentioned backlash will probably put a whupass on Dems.
PS It’s not the GOP that’s holding up the bill, it’s the Dems. In fact, the only thing bipartisan about this bill is the opposition against it.