The voice of the American Left? Chillax, life’s too short, you’ll get a heart attack or ulcer or something.
Nobody ever said (well, at least I never did) that nobody would benefit from HCR. I’d love to see the electronic health records, the fraud/waste/abuse cut out of Medicare and Medicaid (although I have serious doubts there’s as much as being represented… that self-licking lollipop pitch has been made many times before, and it’s usually bullshit). I’d love to see something done about forcing the coverage of pre-existing conditions, and increasing the portability of health care in general. I’d love to see far more competition across state lines for insurance plans. I’d love to see something done about all the wasted money through defensive medicine and a lottery-style tort process.
The HCR as envisioned in the Senate, though, I maintain is unaffordable given our current fiscal realities.
From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703514404574587820416102550.html#mod=todays_us_opinion
We’ll have to see what the CBO says about whatever comes out of conference. The previous number was upwards of 1 Trillion dollars. I submit that we simply don’t have the cash.
Oh I’m not upset. Just noticing that when faced with facts and sound rebuttals you turn tail and run.
You are driven by ignorance and the fear to face facts. You are a exactly what poor Cecil has been fighting so hard against. 
sure I do. No facts at all. Watch me turn tail now, I guess. I’ve certainly shied away from engaging such literati as yourself in this debate.
I hope you aren’t American. Or if you are, I hope you don’t have children. Because your allies are writing a check that they will have to cash. Damage to the economy, unbelievably high marginal tax rates, and deficits that will squeeze out both needed defense spending in an increasingly dangerous world, and the social programs I would have thought you’d be in favor of.
You haven’t addressed a single point. You’re an ignorant coward. Too afraid to test your bullshit beliefs.
It will lower the deficit and improve the lives of millions upon millions of Americans. Again, you’re afraid of phantoms and instead of learning the truth you wallow in ignorance and stupidity.
You, yes you, are an example of what is wrong in this country. Instead of answering evidence showing you wrong you change the subject.
Don’t you have a drum circle or AGW protest to attend or something?
Please, educate thyself
And maybe you want to use, oh I don’t know, facts, to support your argument. Else, shush, adults talking here.
Um, excuse, but which exact pile of horseshit on that super stupid blog was supposed to be educating?
Seriously, I don’t see any adults talking there bub, if that’s the best you got, and you think those constitute facts you deserve your ignorance.
Pull your head out of your ass and quit hogging all the stupid!
Nice post.
a) Obama brought up the topic of tort reform as a bargaining point with the Republicans. No deal: the Republican strategy is basically is one of obstruction. (Specifically there is one Republican senator and one Republican congressman whose votes are in play).
c) The hell? The current proposals have a lot of reforms of pre-existing conditions and the like. Perhaps you should reconsider your information sources.
e) This one is key.
We are recovering from the worst financial crisis since the depression. High budget deficits now -over the short run- spur recovery. But over the medium and long run, we need to get the structural budget deficits down.
The current heal care proposal does exactly that. Health care policy experts are impressed at their level of cost controls, as reported extensively by Ezra Klein. Health care economist John Gruber says, "
“I’m sort of a known skeptic on this stuff,” Gruber told me. “My summary is it’s really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here…I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing.” Read the link and note the range of experts praising the effort. Then circle back to a. Republican obstructionism is evidence of that national party’s intellectual and moral collapse. The Republican Party of the 1950s - 1970s was nothing like this: it was controlled by serious people.
And here’s another link: The Biggest Entitlement Spending Cut in History–and “Deficit Hawks” Are Running Away from It - Health-care reform’s grand bargain.
Finally, your question is addressed in #3 here:
IMHO what we are seeing is a combination of vicious and wholly partisan opposition set against a profile in political accomplishment (touch wood). I recognize that such strong language doesn’t help my case, but the hard work being conducted in Washington now is truly extraordinary. The proposals on the table are have more solid policy grounding than one can reasonably expect from any messy system of compromise, never mind current circumstances.
Interesting chart. If it’s based on thin air that’s a problem, right?
And if it’s a problem, you should reconsider your information sources, right? Is that fair?
The chart comes from the Pacific Research Institute. Some think tanks are organized to study poverty or economic growth. Others are given the mission of arriving at pre-determined conclusions. The home page of PRI makes it look like one of the latter.
But let’s look at this scientifically. The original source of the chart is here:
http://liberty.pacificresearch.org/press/chart-the-real-10-year-cost-of-reids-health-care-bill-is-25-trillion
There’s a link to a .pdf which gives… another copy of the chart! Wouldn’t it have been nice if there was a link to the underlying methodology, so that we could evaluate the alleged cost figures for 2020-2023? That way we could understand the argument better right? I mean, that’s what the whole argument turns on after all.
I’m guessing that the author assumes that cost controls won’t work. But who knows? Let me know if you can find their methodology on their website though: I didn’t do a comprehensive search.
Here’s the bio of the guy who authored the chart.
That’s not from wikipedia: that’s directly from the Pacific Research Institute. The guy is a Poly Sci prof who taught at the Air Force Academy, then worked as a speechwriter for Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign and HUD secretary Mike Leavitt of the Bush Admin.
Ok, so the guy is basically a speechwriter. If he wants to be a health care analyst though, I think he should share the details of his calculation with the rest of us. Otherwise, he is just a crank.
This is bad form. Reason Magazine should be ashamed of themselves for publishing something this poorly substantiated.
Sry, but I’m not buying it. I don’t doubt that it can take some time to line up appropriate care, but it doesn’t take months. If any of those men had had a serious enough condition that they needed specialty care that couldn’t have been provided locally, they’d have likely been transferred to a facility that could provide it, or discharged outright.
M4M, thanks for your replies, they are thoughtful ones.
The point I’ve tried to make many times in this thread is that the fraud/waste/abuse savings always seem to get offered up to fund almost every big federal program… and they rarely materialize. This isn’t just moderate me saying this, this is the WaPo in roughly half of their editorials, etc. If it actually exists out there, why hasn’t it been fixed already? Pass those magic bills NOW. They would sail through; after all, who could be against it? Or perhaps one person’s waste is a doctor’s or hospital’s bottom line? One person’s fraud is another person’s claim that they deserve health benefits because -insert sob story here that the WaPo features above the fold-. You get the idea.
No question I didn’t dive into the source on those financial numbers like you did. All I did was see that it was pulled from CBO data. That was good enough for me. It doesn’t matter to me if the author was an AF officer or Poly Sci prof. Hell, they say on talk radio all the time that the head of the UN commission on Global Warming is an economist, not a climate scientist. (then the conspiracy stuff starts, all they want to do is push the theories so they can redistribute wealth, etc). That doesn’t invalidate the message, necessarily.
The point is, this bill will cost a ton of money. Whether it’s $900b over the next 10 years, or $1.8t over the 10 yr period starting 3-4 years from now, we don’t have it. This country has shown that they don’t have the will to get it (through cutting other spending and/or raising taxes). I don’t want to burden my kids’ generation with debt that will cause huge inflation, unemployment, 50% or higher marginal tax rates, and paltry economic growth.
What difference does future debt make? My generation has had to pay for Vietnam, my parents’ generation has had to pay for WWII, Korea and New Deal programs, and so on. If the United States is good at one thing, it’s the ability to shuffle and re-structure debt. And we’re still here.
The country has shown nothing of the sort. The Republican Party has fooled the country using a shell game.
Republicans campaign on promises of reducing taxation and spending. Then, once they enter office, they do reduce taxation - and increase spending. The deficit balloons. Democrats spend as much or more but they increase taxes to pay for their programs.
And yet the astronomical costs of a war in Iraq, initiated based on blatant lies by elected officials seems to sit well with you.
So your grandchildren are willing to pay to kill innocent Iraqi’s but not for healthcare for your fellow citizens?
Again, the ability to think critically not just politically would go a long way to solving some of your problems.
All this talk of the debt is moronic. HCR will lower the debt. The 900 billion or less cost is paid for. Let me say that again, the 900 billion is paid for. They are working within the confines of what we currently have and are paying for the rest with budget cuts and tax increases.
Once again, because Mr. Smashy has trouble thinking straight when his ideological preconceptions are challenged: The 900 billion is paid for and HCR will reduce the debt.
And as an aside, most of Obama’s debt was piled on by Bush. Medicare Part D: Bush, Tarp: Bush, Iraq: Bush.
Obama’s contribution to the debt is:
-
The stimulus package which has made or saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a great depression. That’s not a liberal opinion, it’s a fucking fact. Anyone who disagrees doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
-
The auto bailout, which will end up costing us 30 billion after getting paid back but saved potentially millions of jobs and assisted in keeping the US above water.
So if you’re whining about debt you don’t understand what you’re talking about. If you think the stimulus package was a waste you’re ignorant and listening to people who are trying to deceive you.
Yet you still are as obtuse as ever.
Jesus christ on a stick you’re dense. That is what they’re doing right now. They are cutting costs to pay for the bill. You expect them to cut costs and re-enter that money into the budget, then later build a bill for HCR with that money? Does that sound like something a group of legislators would do? Your argument is moronic.
No, you listened to some unqualified shitbird who told you what you want to hear. You’re being told comfortable lies. That’s the right’s specialty now, comfortable lies that distill complex issues down to bumpersticker slogans that the uninformed can latch on to.
The bill is paid for. The bill is paid for. The bill is paid for. The bill is paid for. Oh, by the way, the bill is paid for.
In fact it will lower the deficit.
Who said that? When the fuck did I ever say that I’m a fan of the war in Iraq, or for that matter, Afghanistan? When did I ever say I hold the Republicans blameless, or ever consider that they were not just as equal to blame as the Dems for our fiscal mess?
I accept your apology in advance, elbows.
No offense, but you don’t know that. Nor do I. You have no idea how the CBO will score whatever comes out of the conference committee.
And MsRobyn, if it were up to me, I’d suggest we need to use any Medicare f/w/a savings plus any non-damaging-to-the-economy tax increases to pay down our monstrous debt first. Not bet on the come with another entitlement.
Again, my opinion here. But if we don’t, when inflation starts kicking in badly, when imported goods cost a mint because the dollar has been beat down, and when mortgage rates spike to 9, 12, 14% making home ownership as painful as the 70s, I don’t want to hear any complaining.
PS **Lobo **you sound like a truly unhappy person, I actually feel sorry for you. You keep calling names (in just your last post, “obtuse”, “dense”, “shitbird”… ) you really should try to take it easy and relax. You are the poster child for the stereotype that liberal arguments are all emotion and personal attacks. Just because it’s The Pit doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use facts once in awhile instead of ad hominem.
Then again, liberals are supposed to be unhappy I suppose:
I’m perfectly happy. I just don’t have a lot of patience for fools and people who parrot outright lies through ignorance.
So don’t feel sorry for me, just stand up and learn something. Every claim you’ve made in this thread has been wrong. Doesn’t that sink in as something you really should change?