The working poor and lower middle class get hung out to dry with this reform bill. The indigent get taken care of, but the people who can barely afford to pay premiums, and cannot afford to actually get sick and use the insurance they’ll be forced to purchase, get screwed. Even the CBO says premiums are going to go up.
And… this bill is modeled on the Massachussetts plan, which people don’t like, and which is a big reason they’re throwing in for a Republican candidate.
Again, I must be a Republican because I speak in anything other than glowing terms right? I guess being a Democrat now = being a lemming and following the rest of you over the edge with a smile on face and a Yes We Can pin on my lapel.
You can want whatever you want. But as soon as someone starts espousing Republican viewpoints, they’re not a Democrat.
I don’t see the extreme left defining anything. I see a mostly centrist Democratic party. The agenda being defined by the people who were elected, presumably including you. And it’s doubtful that those people are wearing Che T-Shirts or live in San Francisco.
No. Being a conservative = ignoring data, evidence and reality so that you can spout nonsense and fabrication.
For instance:
As of September, 2009:
"Boston, MA–A new poll by the Harvard School of Public Health and The Boston Globe finds 59% of Massachusetts residents who are aware of the state’s health reform legislation, which was enacted in 2006, support it. A little more than one in four oppose it (28%), and 13% are not sure. "
I think the question everyone should ask himself is if he thinks he is elevating or lowering the quality of debate when using a given term (in GD). If all you want is a “rah-rah, way to go” from your side of the political spectrum, then it really doesn’t matter, I guess. For me, I often stop reading a post when I see “Repugs” or “forces of darkness” or “wacky liberals” or whatever the current fad is for the partisans who post here.
That was what I was getting at in my first post in this thread. “Teabaggers” has become so mainstream, for whatever reason, that it’s a lost cause at this point (IMO). The rest of the name calling that is routinely seen in GD… not so much. That stuff is what makes this MB much less than what it could be. It’s up to each of us individually to help raise or lower the tenor of debate here. I think we can do much better.
Hentor, you’re a cheerleader for a watered down, impotent, healthcare bill, patterned after Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts bill, which the people of MA don’t they themselves support. Nice. So who’s the REAL Democrat? Come on… defending Mitt’s policies?
I have considered that possibility. Although I’m not sure what a Binky Boo is, I’m fairly confident I don’t want to be a Binky Boo. It sounds a little like Whiny Ass Titty Baby to me.
Dude, some* of those might be defensible positions – some (otherwise ;)) intelligent Dopers do defend them in Great Debates, periodically – but have you ever watched the Tea Partiers at their rallies or at the town hall meetings?! The lot of them deserve nothing but mockery and contempt.
The notion that “the founders of our nation were the most intelligent men to live” is, however, utterly idiotic on its face. Admirable and wise gentlemen, many of them, but no more demigods than you or I.
Hentor’s remarks have been rather more substantiated than yours. But thanks for the link. You’ll note that it doesn’t address whether MA residents support or approve of the health care plan. It’s entirely consistent to support something and not believe that its main outlines have taken effect yet. Of course we could drill down further to the entire set of polls.
I think it can help to distinguish the serious from the loons. That the latter is gaining over the former in conservative circles should be cause for concern.
I don’t have a problem with the term “Commie” either, provided it is appropriately applied. Analogously Frum, Becker, Bartlett and Volock should be called neither Birther nor Teabagger.
A slightly closer, and much more relevant, question would be, which are responsible for more foreigners’ deaths? (LBJ still wins, but by a multiple of only 3 or 4, not hundreds.)
