71 replies to this topic

[mikeinnaples]

Try not to be too selfish now.

I am not sure how to respond to this or if I should even bother.

Seriously, that was all you got out of it? That was not even the the question...

Then why bother with the stupidity at the end of your post if you want a serious answer? Once I read that, I wrote you off as just being a dick and at the point could only respond in kind.

[mikeinnaples]

Thank you, I was waiting for someone to actually mention low income people.

We all know that what Obamacare really amounts to is medical welfare for the poor. And I think that is absolutely better than no care for the poor. I don't get the level of self centeredness in this community sometimes when it comes to such matters.

In my opinion if LE is to make any sense at all it has to make sense for more than just the ego. It has to make some sort of transcendental sense beyond the self. Otherwise what's the point? Living selfishly is living in a state of denial.

Seriously, how do you make the leap from me being against Obama care because of concerns for quality of care to me being self centered and not wanting health care for the poor? Its f-ing silly and far from reality. I would love for health care to be provided to the poor BUT I believe it can be done in such a fashion that it does not lower quality of care for everyone else. There has to be a better way where the 'few' can be provided for without sacrificing the 'many'. Our government manages to screw everything up at every opportunity because our two major parties are too busy fighting with each other to actually look out for the well being of the American people. Do you really trust them with this? I sure the hell dont.


Here is the view point of a friend of mine who is a doctor....

As a Physician, I am against Obamacare. Why? Because my experiences in the military, including service in Operation Iraqi Freedom, taught me that the Government should NEVER be trusted to conduct ANYTHING efficiently or effectively. It taught me that BIG GOVERNMENT has the mistaken belief that you can make everything better simply by throwing money at it. This only results in more waste and corruption! Also, I worked abroad for the last 4 years, in a country with a socialized system of Health Care, and I came back to the US THANKING GOD even more for the high standard of Health Care we enjoy in the US...and having lived abroad 7 out of the last 10 years I can objectively say that the US has the best health care in the world! Now, that's in danger or going away. Many Americans who embrace Obamacare have NO CONCEPT of what the realities of Socialized Medicine truly ARE - but I've seen them! So get ready America. You want Goverment-run Health Care! BOHICA!!!! (Military acronym: Bend Over Here It Comes Again!)

Not so sure I agree with him about our health care currently being the best in the world .....but I most agree with him otherwise.

[TheFountain]

We all know that what Obamacare really amounts to is medical welfare for the poor. And I think that is absolutely better than no care for the poor.

You have heard of this little program called Medicaid, yes?

Not everyone qualifies for medicaid as far as I know. Besides medicaid has extreme limitations as per the kind of care someone can get. Say someone breaks their nose and it's misshapen. Medicaid will cover non-cosmetic surgery, but if you actually wanted your nose set back right it would be considered 'cosmetic' thus exempt from medicaid. This is just a "for instance" example. I am sure bad nose setting has happened before.

Edited by TheFountain, 03 July 2012 - 05:14 PM.

[nowayout]

We all know that what Obamacare really amounts to is medical welfare for the poor. And I think that is absolutely better than no care for the poor.

You have heard of this little program called Medicaid, yes?

The existence of millions of people who are currently uninsured for economical reasons, involuntarily so, pretty much shoots down the argument that the current Medicaid system is even remotely sufficient.

[nowayout]

Secondly, restoring the Bush tax cuts would more than make up for projected SSI deficits for years to come.

I suppose you mean eliminating the Bush tax cuts.

[TheFountain]

Thank you, I was waiting for someone to actually mention low income people.

We all know that what Obamacare really amounts to is medical welfare for the poor. And I think that is absolutely better than no care for the poor. I don't get the level of self centeredness in this community sometimes when it comes to such matters.

In my opinion if LE is to make any sense at all it has to make sense for more than just the ego. It has to make some sort of transcendental sense beyond the self. Otherwise what's the point? Living selfishly is living in a state of denial.

Seriously, how do you make the leap from me being against Obama care because of concerns for quality of care to me being self centered and not wanting health care for the poor? Its f-ing silly and far from reality. I would love for health care to be provided to the poor BUT I believe it can be done in such a fashion that it does not lower quality of care for everyone else. There has to be a better way where the 'few' can be provided for without sacrificing the 'many'. Our government manages to screw everything up at every opportunity because our two major parties are too busy fighting with each other to actually look out for the well being of the American people. Do you really trust them with this? I sure the hell dont.


Here is the view point of a friend of mine who is a doctor....

As a Physician, I am against Obamacare. Why? Because my experiences in the military, including service in Operation Iraqi Freedom, taught me that the Government should NEVER be trusted to conduct ANYTHING efficiently or effectively. It taught me that BIG GOVERNMENT has the mistaken belief that you can make everything better simply by throwing money at it. This only results in more waste and corruption! Also, I worked abroad for the last 4 years, in a country with a socialized system of Health Care, and I came back to the US THANKING GOD even more for the high standard of Health Care we enjoy in the US...and having lived abroad 7 out of the last 10 years I can objectively say that the US has the best health care in the world! Now, that's in danger or going away. Many Americans who embrace Obamacare have NO CONCEPT of what the realities of Socialized Medicine truly ARE - but I've seen them! So get ready America. You want Goverment-run Health Care! BOHICA!!!! (Military acronym: Bend Over Here It Comes Again!)

Not so sure I agree with him about our health care currently being the best in the world .....but I most agree with him otherwise.

Chill out I wasn't talking to you specifically.

But at the same time I can't believe anybody would prefer the poor had nothing instead of something. Obamacare, as flawed as it may be, still amounts to SOMETHING. That's better than nothing till a better schematic is layed out.

[MrHappy]

I think this is worth mentioning:
http://www.forbes.co...oday-halleluja/

Insurance companies are now required to spend at least 85% of insurance premiums on medical care.

[rwac]

You have heard of this little program called Medicaid, yes?

The existence of millions of people who are currently uninsured for economical reasons, involuntarily so, pretty much shoots down the argument that the current Medicaid system is even remotely sufficient.

I don't know. You shouldn't confuse uninsured with untreated. I certainly believe that people are capable of paying for their own treatment when necessary.

[TheFountain]

I don't know. You shouldn't confuse uninsured with untreated.

Sometimes you should.

http://www.allvoices...-in-a-jail-cell

[tunt01]

Would you have felt differently about it if it were an unabashed single-payer system funded by taxes? This is the "free market" solution that was originally proposed by Republicans.

I had to think a bit about whether or not this was good for LE. I decided that anything that nudged the healthcare system toward more sanity was a plus.

1. Just because some crazy republicans endorse an idea does not make it a republican idea in totality, no matter how some DNC marketing dunce wants to spin it.
2. This law is HORRIBLE for life extension purposes. It puts all healthcare directives in the hands of a 15 member presidential appointed panel. Your expenditures for healthcare are now going to be centralized and controlled by the US government.
3. Today's healthcare system is pretty much like anarchy. Mafia-cartels AKA insurance companies control the system. Obamacare is fundamentally socialism. It a trojan horse to a single payer, socialist system. And yes, socialism looks a lot better than anarchy. But it's a sub-optimal solution. Last I heard, capitalism does better than socialism. Once the socialist system takes root, you'll never get rid of it. Everyone is depending on the system. Risk is transferred away from individuals to the broader government.

Obamacare is a unmitigated disaster and will just transition China to an economic leadership role faster, and lower the standard of living in the US. I voted for Obama, and I'm totally surprised at what he did over the last three years. It was a horrible mistake. I got suckered into a marketing scam. Anyone on these forums who votes for Obama this election, you really must have your head examined. The guy is a disaster for the US.

Edited by prophets, 04 July 2012 - 12:50 AM.

[rwac]

I don't know. You shouldn't confuse uninsured with untreated.

Sometimes you should.

http://www.allvoices...-in-a-jail-cell

Well, according to the rules she should have been treated. But they didn't detect the blood clots. This sort of thing happens all the time, insured or not.

An ER is the appropriate place to go to get an embolism treated, believe it or not. I'd suspect that no amount of preventative care would have prevented this.

[maxwatt]

China is in the process of implementing universal health care. So I guess they are going to go down the tubes like Europe and Canada, and the US. World leadership will surely then pass to a country like Sudan or Congo or Zimbabwe or Kyrgyzstan that has no universal healthcare.

It's generally cheaper overall to treat the poor than to let them fester, which is not only aesthetically unappealing and bad for tourism, but leads to a greater expense disposing of of them when their condition gets worse, or they compromise the health of their betters in society. It seems to me only just in a Dickensian manner that the better-off poor and the middle class slackers be forced to pay for their care, which is what the individual mandate does. Three cheers for the Heritage Society, the conservative think-tank who crafted the plan.

Only when the Democrats adopted it was there an outcry and controversy.

[rwac]

China is in the process of implementing universal health care.

And we should do everything the Chinese or Cubans do, they're just such perfect role models. Lots of third world countries have "Universal Health Care", but it's generally really really crappy.

Three cheers for the Heritage Society, the conservative think-tank who crafted the plan. Only when the Democrats adopted it was there an outcry and controversy.

After a long stretch of America drifting left, finally we're beginning to push rightwards (economically, at least to some extent). This is probably the influence of the tea party. The conservative movement was in a much different place two decades ago...

Edited by rwac, 04 July 2012 - 05:36 AM.

[niner]

After a long stretch of America drifting left, finally we're beginning to push rightwards (economically, at least to some extent). This is probably the influence of the tea party. The conservative movement was in a much different place two decades ago...

I'd say you were joking, but I don't think you are. The rightward drift started in the 1970's. It has proceded to such a point that Richard Nixon, were he around today, would be denounced as a Marxist. Kind of ironic, that, for those who know their history. Ronald Reagan, were he still around, would be denounced as a capitulator and infidel. He used to cut deals with "the other side" in order to get things accomplished. The Right has gotten so unmoored from fact and reality that you are probably looking at the apogee of the pendulum-swing. Either that or we're doomed. Time will tell.

[rwac]

Ronald Reagan, were he still around, would be denounced as a capitulator and infidel. He used to cut deals with "the other side" in order to get things accomplished.

Reagan was good ...for his time. He himself was influenced and limited by the media and Congress of his time. Nixon created the EPA which is one of the things that is choking American prosperity today.

The Right has gotten so unmoored from fact and reality that you are probably looking at the apogee of the pendulum-swing. Either that or we're doomed. Time will tell.

Obama is the apogee of success for the left but I guess you didn't mean that.

It's the Left that's gotten completely unmoored from reality, and refuses to see that prosperity is delicate and needs to be protected from regulations and such. It is not government regulations that make products and wealth, it is private industry. Most regulations make life harder, and the losses due to regulation are often invisible.

[Connor MacLeod]

Obamacare is a unmitigated disaster and will just transition China to an economic leadership role faster, and lower the standard of living in the US. I voted for Obama, and I'm totally surprised at what he did over the last three years. It was a horrible mistake. I got suckered into a marketing scam. Anyone on these forums who votes for Obama this election, you really must have your head examined. The guy is a disaster for the US.

Hmmm. Two questions:

1) When did you become a racist?
2) What is it about torturing puppies that you find so appealing?

[tunt01]

Hmmm. Two questions:

1) When did you become a racist?
2) What is it about torturing puppies that you find so appealing?

I really resent that remark. I voted for the guy and I don't appreciate being called a racist. What he's done is flush a tremendous amount of money down the toilet and now he's going to do it probably 5 fold with obamacare. he wasted $3000 for every man woman and child in the US on a failed stimulus. the healthcare bill is loaded with handouts to pharma, hospitals, and other constituents in the industry, while doing almost nothing on price except through socialist pricing tactics (aka cramdown pricing). on top of this, the guy tripled the number of troops in afghanistan with almost nothing to show for except more loss of life/money.

you tell me? who is the person doing the torturing here? the guy who spends $860 B dollars on stimulus hiring teachers (among other things) that the local government cant afford, then sticks the debt on the heads of the kids. then 2 years goes by, the stimulus money is gone and local/state gov'ts are now laying off said teachers and he actually says, we should just do it again. keep borrowing to hire cops/teachers/firefighters, that the localities cant afford in the first place. it's literally the most insane fiscal policy i've ever seen from a gov't leader and its why the head of germany called his financial plan, "the road to hell". Because thats what it is at the end of the day.

so if you have something intelligent to post, feel free. but you can take your delusional racism insult and shove it.

[tunt01]

China is in the process of implementing universal health care. So I guess they are going to go down the tubes like Europe and Canada, and the US. World leadership will surely then pass to a country like Sudan or Congo or Zimbabwe or Kyrgyzstan that has no universal healthcare.

It's generally cheaper overall to treat the poor than to let them fester, which is not only aesthetically unappealing and bad for tourism, but leads to a greater expense disposing of of them when their condition gets worse, or they compromise the health of their betters in society. It seems to me only just in a Dickensian manner that the better-off poor and the middle class slackers be forced to pay for their care, which is what the individual mandate does. Three cheers for the Heritage Society, the conservative think-tank who crafted the plan.

Only when the Democrats adopted it was there an outcry and controversy.

uh this isn't true at all. the china plan isn't nearly as costly as the american plan. china isn't offering "unlimited" spending on healthcare for its citizens. europe is going down the tubes because its terrible cost structure and poor labor mobility. and finally, plenty of conservatives/libertarians are totally against the mandate and were always against the mandate. the mandate (as proposed by obama/romney) is a ridiculous conflated idea that goes well beyond any individuals proximate cost in the ER and their effect on medical costs for the rest of society at large.

it is a total smokescreen / BS to blame everything on people showing up in the ER, and it's continually peddled as an excuse by pharma and other parts of the industry to explain away a market structure that turns a blind eye to exorbitant pricing that gouges the consumer and american taxpayer.

[Connor MacLeod]

Three cheers for the Heritage Society, the conservative think-tank who crafted the plan.

Only when the Democrats adopted it was there an outcry and controversy.

There are other conservative think-tanks besides the Heritage Foundation. You make it sound as if there was broad Republican support of an individual mandate before Obama. While that may make for useful political rhetoric, I don't think it is very factual or particularly honest. If support among Republicans really was so widespread why wasn't a health care bill with an individual mandate passed in the late 80's or early 90's? Did the Democrats block it? Or maybe, just maybe, it wasn't -- and still isn't -- very popular with the American people. And since we are on the topic of the consistency of our elected officials on policy matters, let's recall that candidate Obama was oppossed to the individual mandate back when Hillary Clinton was touting it. I wonder if political considerations were uppermost in his mind back then when he was against or now that he supports it.

[Connor MacLeod]

so if you have something intelligent to post, feel free. but you can take your delusional racism insult and shove it.

I'm sorry; that was really intended to be a joke. I thought it was pretty obvious, but I guess not. I was just attempting to caricature a type of (harmful) rhetoric that commonly creeps up in political discussions of this sort, and, indeed, has been employed to some degree by some posters in this thread.

I don't think you are a racist. And I respect you for admitting that your support for Obama in 2008 was in your opinion a mistake. It is not often that people will admit to making errors when it comes to political matters.

[TheFountain]

I don't know. You shouldn't confuse uninsured with untreated.

Sometimes you should.

http://www.allvoices...-in-a-jail-cell

Well, according to the rules she should have been treated. But they didn't detect the blood clots. This sort of thing happens all the time, insured or not.

An ER is the appropriate place to go to get an embolism treated, believe it or not. I'd suspect that no amount of preventative care would have prevented this.

She knew something was wrong. She couldn't articulate it but she knew it. But because she is a "low income" type, she was treated like a criminal. Herein lies the fundamental problem in this country.

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't know. You shouldn't confuse uninsured with untreated.

Sometimes you should.

http://www.allvoices...-in-a-jail-cell

Well, according to the rules she should have been treated. But they didn't detect the blood clots. This sort of thing happens all the time, insured or not.

An ER is the appropriate place to go to get an embolism treated, believe it or not. I'd suspect that no amount of preventative care would have prevented this.

She knew something was wrong. She couldn't articulate it but she knew it. But because she is a "low income" type, she was treated like a criminal. Herein lies the fundamental problem in this country.

Check this out this story courtesy of NHS of the UK. The hospitial staff apparently assumed this young man was drunk, when, in fact, he was experiencing delerium due to severe dehydration. Security guards were called in to restrain him. He was then carted off to another room, pumped with sedatives and left to die. What in your opinion is the fundamental problem with the UK?

After his death, while Kane's family held his lifeless body, they were asked by a nurse whether they had "finished" and could she "bag him up now," the hearing at Westminster Coroner's Court was told.

Bag him up. That's a nice touch, eh? Government bureaucracy is apparently no impediment to efficiency when it comes to disposing of corpses. Corpses are nasty things to have lying about.

[MrHappy]

4chan gets it. LOL

[niner]

What he's done is flush a tremendous amount of money down the toilet and now he's going to do it probably 5 fold with obamacare. he wasted $3000 for every man woman and child in the US on a failed stimulus. the healthcare bill is loaded with handouts to pharma, hospitals, and other constituents in the industry, while doing almost nothing on price except through socialist pricing tactics (aka cramdown pricing). on top of this, the guy tripled the number of troops in afghanistan with almost nothing to show for except more loss of life/money.

What makes you think that the stimulus "failed"? Is it because the worst economic disaster in 80 years wasn't instantly erased? I think everyone who thinks the stimulus "failed" ought to take a look at those countries that tried the austerity route instead. You think our piddling single digit unemployment rate is a problem? How's 25% sound? The handouts to industry in the healthcare package suck, but do you think it could have been passed without them? Hey, we're out of Iraq, mostly. Granted, we need to get out of Afghanistan too, but I don't think you're considering the full picture to think we could just walk away from that mess without things getting dramatically worse. I'm a little surprised to hear you talking like this, because I know that you aren't a starry eyed college kid, and that you have a pretty solid understanding of economics.

Everyone who thinks that Obama has been such a disaster should be aware that McCain's economic advisor is on record as saying that had McCain been elected, he would have done the exact same things Obama did, and gotten the exact same results. And with him, we would have had Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency. The cost in lost national stature alone would have dwarfed anything Obama could have blown.

[tunt01]

What makes you think that the stimulus "failed"? Is it because the worst economic disaster in 80 years wasn't instantly erased? I think everyone who thinks the stimulus "failed" ought to take a look at those countries that tried the austerity route instead.

1. The stimulus did not earn its required rate of return. We are borrowing at 2% from China and earning a negative return on investment. Probably for a net spread of -5%, that means we are destroying the wealth of the country.

2. If you think the stimulus was a success, then why isn't it paid off? We borrowed $860 B, why don't we just pay off the borrowed money with all the profits from our successful stimulus? Take a poll of your friends and family, tell them to get out their check books and make out $3000 (about the money owed for every man woman and child in the US) to the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and then have them tell you, "Boy that stimulus was a good deal, let's do that again."

3. Attempting to sit here and tell us that Barack Obama successfully spent $860 B without any regard to the final clean up of the borrowing cost is ridiculous. It's like giving a gold medal to a 21 year old kid who successfully maxes out his parent's credit card on the biggest kegger/beer party ever. He successfully spent a bunch of other people's money. So what? What do we have to show for it?

4. The CBO says that each job created by the stimulus cost $120,000 (approx). Each job created generates about the average salary in the US of $42,000 per year. At the tax basis of 20%, that means the US Gov't wont see a payback for 14 years. It's ABSURD.

You think our piddling single digit unemployment rate is a problem? How's 25% sound?

Comparing the US To Spain, Greece or other countries that bear little resemblance to this country is (as Michael Rae would say) cross-cultural comparative nonsense. Since Japanese people live longer than US and they tend to smoke more, should all Americans start smoking also? Germany didn't do a stimulus, their unemployment is ~5%. why aren't you including that into the mix?

The handouts to industry in the healthcare package suck, but do you think it could have been passed without them?

no and it's a TERRIBLE fucking bill. How do you break a unified opposition to change ? You divide and conquer. pass 1 insurance reform act. pass 1 patient bill of rights act. pass 1 prescription drug/medicare/medicaid pricing reform act. The fact that Obama wrapped this all up into 1 bill and tried to generate this "come-to-jesus" moment where he waves his magic pen and the whole system is now better for all Americans is just laughable. It only shows what an egomaniac he is, to have such poor tact and strategy -- as well as a deluded view of the overall economics of the situation. He has been totally taken in with this MIT econo cultist Johnthan Gruber.

Hey, we're out of Iraq, mostly. Granted, we need to get out of Afghanistan too, but I don't think you're considering the full picture to think we could just walk away from that mess without things getting dramatically worse. I'm a little surprised to hear you talking like this, because I know that you aren't a starry eyed college kid, and that you have a pretty solid understanding of economics.

lol who doesn't undestand the full picture here? The president expanded the war in afghanistan -- tripled the number of troops, AGAINST the strong advice of vice president joe biden who said it was a losing strategy to try to control the entire country and that the US should only focus on counter-terrorism in major Afghan cities. Then if there is a problem in rural areas, you can go into those areas fix them and retreat back to the major cities.

THAT WAS THE RIGHT STRATEGY. But obama went full force with a major surge almost (as it seems) to solely fulfill a campaign promise. Then he pulled the rug out from under the guys who built the surge strategy (patraeus no less) and said no no, we're winding down this surge early into the 2012 campaign. If you read interviews with Patraeus you'll see how pissed he was and it was the closest he ever came to quitting his job.

Everyone who thinks that Obama has been such a disaster should be aware that McCain's economic advisor is on record as saying that had McCain been elected, he would have done the exact same things Obama did, and gotten the exact same results. And with him, we would have had Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency. The cost in lost national stature alone would have dwarfed anything Obama could have blown.

This is not true. Granted I personally lost confidence in McCain and the palin pick was a disaster. But this isn't true and you have to parse the language of what people like Mark Zandi are saying. he says stuff like "the stimulus definitely helped the economy" but you won't see him say, "The stimulus money was spent the best way possible that we could have." there is a difference. He's currying favor in the public media. Behind the scenes... it's not as black and white as you might think.


I voted for John Kerry, George Bush was a failure. But Obama is honestly more of a failure than Bush, if you really understand the economics of what this guy is doing. We are making terrible bad decisions as a country. Way more costly than Iraq will ever be.

[TheFountain]

I don't know. You shouldn't confuse uninsured with untreated.

Sometimes you should.

http://www.allvoices...-in-a-jail-cell

Well, according to the rules she should have been treated. But they didn't detect the blood clots. This sort of thing happens all the time, insured or not.

An ER is the appropriate place to go to get an embolism treated, believe it or not. I'd suspect that no amount of preventative care would have prevented this.

She knew something was wrong. She couldn't articulate it but she knew it. But because she is a "low income" type, she was treated like a criminal. Herein lies the fundamental problem in this country.

Check this out this story courtesy of NHS of the UK. The hospitial staff apparently assumed this young man was drunk, when, in fact, he was experiencing delerium due to severe dehydration. Security guards were called in to restrain him. He was then carted off to another room, pumped with sedatives and left to die. What in your opinion is the fundamental problem with the UK?

After his death, while Kane's family held his lifeless body, they were asked by a nurse whether they had "finished" and could she "bag him up now," the hearing at Westminster Coroner's Court was told.

Bag him up. That's a nice touch, eh? Government bureaucracy is apparently no impediment to efficiency when it comes to disposing of corpses. Corpses are nasty things to have lying about.

Could this have had something to do with long QT syndrome? And if so why didn't they diagnose it? Did the man have a history of drug use that could have led to this condition?

The problem as I see it is that society should be treating drug addiction as a medical illness, not a criminal situation. That might be why the above happened.

[Luminosity]

That's all pretty true Maxwatt, except this may actually make health care for low income people much worse while pretending to do otherwise. It may also make everyone's experience more like being on Medicaid due to dilution of resources, Medicare cuts etc.

This is what they would have done if they really wanted to insure more people and cut costs:

Ban tobacco
Legislate drug costs like they do in Canada and most of the world
Ban all you can drink soda fountains
Ban large sodas, upsizing, value meals, etc.
Ban advertising of junk food and fast food to children, as they do in some foreign countries
Ban hydrogenated oil, the single worst food ingredient on the planet, progenitor of heart attacks and so much more
Ban MSG
Move towards organic agriculture
Ban feeding arsenic, routine antibiotics, growth hormones and animal parts to farm animals.
Move towards Integrated Pest Control to reduce pesticide exposures in our homes, schools, businesses and public spaces
Mandate walking paths and bike ways in future construction. Add them to existing spaces whenever the opportunity arises.
Add wholistic medicine and acupuncture as options under insurance and government programs
Encourage midwives and natural childbirth
Move resources from expensive hospital care to hospice and home care type programs--take care of people's human needs instead uselessly intervening for the dollars.
Ban GMO foods
Add special social workers/doctors/nurses to the health care system to give some people the attention and validation they currently get from seeking unneeded tests, hospitalizations, operations, i.e., work with human nature in an intelligent fashion.

After ten to twenty years of this, we could insure everyone we need to with the savings. In the meantime, we could insure a lot of people by:

A) taxing rich people
B) ceasing building highways to nowhere, funding Solyndras, having stupid wars, etc.

If we as a nation had the maturity to consistently fund government health care at a high enough level and not to misuse the power therein, we could eventually persuade people to sign up for single payer system. It must be said that we lack that maturity and that restraint. Always have. Probably always will.

Nevertheless, we could properly take care of everyone on any kind of government insurance or any currently uninsured person by using our resources better. There is enough for everyone. Let your legislators know what you want.

[niner]

What makes you think that the stimulus "failed"? Is it because the worst economic disaster in 80 years wasn't instantly erased? I think everyone who thinks the stimulus "failed" ought to take a look at those countries that tried the austerity route instead.

1. The stimulus did not earn its required rate of return. We are borrowing at 2% from China and earning a negative return on investment. Probably for a net spread of -5%, that means we are destroying the wealth of the country.

2. If you think the stimulus was a success, then why isn't it paid off? We borrowed $860 B, why don't we just pay off the borrowed money with all the profits from our successful stimulus? Take a poll of your friends and family, tell them to get out their check books and make out $3000 (about the money owed for every man woman and child in the US) to the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and then have them tell you, "Boy that stimulus was a good deal, let's do that again."

3. Attempting to sit here and tell us that Barack Obama successfully spent $860 B without any regard to the final clean up of the borrowing cost is ridiculous. It's like giving a gold medal to a 21 year old kid who successfully maxes out his parent's credit card on the biggest kegger/beer party ever. He successfully spent a bunch of other people's money. So what? What do we have to show for it?

4. The CBO says that each job created by the stimulus cost $120,000 (approx). Each job created generates about the average salary in the US of $42,000 per year. At the tax basis of 20%, that means the US Gov't wont see a payback for 14 years. It's ABSURD.

National economies are not the same thing as corporate balance sheets or household budgets. You simply cannot apply the same calculations to a stimulus as to a corporate investment. It wasn't meant to earn a particular rate of return or buy a particular number of jobs. It was meant to breath life into a dying economy. And where in the world did the CBO get those job numbers? Did they count the jobs that weren't lost? It's just nonsense to use a bogus "jobs created" guesstimate and then try to do calculations with it. We don't have a time machine that will let us look at the alternative universe where the stimulus didn't happen, so we're either going to have to listen to the kind of economists who understand this stuff, or look at other developed nations for clues as to how things might work out. I don't know how else to decide if it was the right thing to do or not. You might be right, but I think it was a good thing to do.

I voted for John Kerry, George Bush was a failure. But Obama is honestly more of a failure than Bush, if you really understand the economics of what this guy is doing. We are making terrible bad decisions as a country. Way more costly than Iraq will ever be.

Iraq was probably a three trillion dollar error, if you don't put a value on geopolitical screwups, loss of national prestige, lives lost, pain and suffering, and the like. If we are going to declare Obama to be a worse failure than Bush, then we should add into the equation the cost of the Medicare drug benefit and the deficit spending induced by the Bush tax cuts. We might want to add the cost of incorrectly prosecuting the Afghan war early on to the Bush side of the ledger, not to mention the cost of the financial crisis that didn't just happen on Bush's watch, but could have been prevented if he hadn't followed the policies he did. If you honestly want to say that Obama is "worse for America tha Bush", then I think you are miscalculating.

But, whatever, because in the end, we have two choices: We either elect Obama to a second term, or we elect Romney. By my calculation, Obama is better than Romney's Trickle-Down-Retread plan. We have run that experiment, and the data is in. It doesn't work.

Edited by niner, 06 July 2012 - 03:29 PM.

[niner]

Ban tobacco
Ban all you can drink soda fountains
Ban large sodas, upsizing, value meals, etc.
Ban advertising of junk food and fast food to children, as they do in some foreign countries
Ban hydrogenated oil, the single worst food ingredient on the planet, progenitor of heart attacks and so much more
Ban MSG
Mandate walking paths and bike ways in future construction. Add them to existing spaces whenever the opportunity arises.

Wow Luminosity, I can't believe you could be this culturally insensitive. Tobacco, large sodas, junk food, hydrogenated oil and MSG are favored by low income single mothers and other protected communities. It's totally racist to deny them the expression of their awesomeness by forcing your White Suburban Bourgeois values on their unique and valuable culture.

Not to mention fascistic. Chairman Mao would be proud.

Edited by niner, 06 July 2012 - 03:46 PM.

[Mind]

I disagree, side with niner here: When Social Security was enacted the life expectancy at retirement age was about five years. It is now more than double that. Raising the retirement age to track greater life expectancy, or having a rapidly increasing population of young workers would easily solve that actuarial problem......

If Bernie Madoff had a rapidly increasing population of "new investors" he wouldn't be sitting in jail right now. The U.S. Social Security is a ponzi scheme. I don't like saying it Maxwatt. I am just going by the definition of a ponzi scheme.

Also, wouldn't you agree that it is a perverse incentive for having kids, increasing the population of an already burdened and polluted planet, just to keep alive a failing and seriously flawed "retirement system"? If we want to be more sustainable, we should encourage systems like exist in Chile and Australia. The U.S. faces tough choices, but we should be thinking about the future.