"Let it collapse"

[phrodeau]

I'll bet if you go back and look through the posts about Obamacare since it was passed the usual suspects were pontificating on how wonderful it was and the predictions about its eventual failure were racist.

Obamacare is a disaster. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly the Obama lovers are too intellectually dishonest to admit it was doomed for failure from the very start. Too bad his name is attached to it.

Republicans did everything they could to weaken the ACA, and they also made sure it got Obama's name attached to it.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

It keeps coming back to, "If it's so God Damned great why is it going bankrupt and why does it need to be "fixed"?"

Ishmael

Soc Security Act was amended 20 times over 60 years. The GI Bill was 15 times. The Veteran's Administration Act ... you get the picture.

The needs to be perfecting legislation - forever. That is the way of the world. Things change. and now a-days they change faster than ever. But one group of elitists dug in and were willing to hurt regular people, bankrupt the treasury and lie ... and for what purpose? For a few bucks in their pocket.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Soc Security Act was amended 20 times over 60 years. The GI Bill was 15 times. The Veteran's Administration Act ... you get the picture.

The needs to be perfecting legislation - forever. That is the way of the world. Things change. and now a-days they change faster than ever. But one group of elitists dug in and were willing to hurt regular people, bankrupt the treasury and lie ... and for what purpose? For a few bucks in their pocket.

So I guess I got the last word on this topic.

 

[BotanyBoy]

So I guess I got the last word on this topic.

Not really.

ACA was a piece of shit and the DNC with Obama's blessing sold your ass out.

Maintenance legislation requires good bones/foundation legislation to build on, ACA was fucking pathetic. Maybe you should start holding the (D)'s that sold you out responsible instead of pretending the (R)'s are the only reason you don't have your free shit yet.

 

[Ishmael]

alright then, ish...

but can you not - in the same dismissive breath,
admit that...
now that the populace has tasted the (watered down) kool-aid
of proto-universal healthcare

some form of ... viable "universal" care - be it but over-squeezed pepsodent...
is now the desire of the mostly purple populace?

absolutists on the edges will shrillscream otherwise, but....

obama's most significant contribution to the american narrative has been this very basic challenge to:

a very large commercial enterprise that has become incredibly adept at creating product
and more and more exclusive at providing service.

at what point, if not the innovative healthcare apparatus that only this nation could foster
is not the proper 'taxation' some general benefit to the populace?

it is - despite what you may say - the desire...

and, i will submit...
a universal healthcare - of some fixed sort -
is indeed also an investment in further "exceptionalism"

or more basely...
a fixed aca is now the cost of doing cutting edged business.

fuck!
no one needs a "party win" on this issue now.

Most certainly. It's much like the story of the hogs and "Federal Corn."

They've managed to 'sell' the premise that health care is a 'right.' It isn't. As a matter of fact it comes down to a form of indentured servitude if not out and out slavery. I can expand on that if necessary.

They continually try to sell the notion that health care is good for the nation as a whole, that we'll all prosper from the implementation. If that is so, why aren't those nations that have universal healthcare, and have had it for many decades, kicking the rest of the worlds ass economically? The fact of the matter is is that those nations are mired in mediocrity. Their unemployment rates are perpetually stalled at 10% (+/-). So much of their budget is consumed by healthcare that they are unable to protect themselves, and in the case of those nations that do manage to support a reasonable military the healthcare is so substandard so as to barely qualify as healthcare at all. Further, virtually every election cycle in those nations is consumed in large part over arguments over how to 'fix' their healthcare delivery systems. It becomes a political football for politicians to kick around and argue over how to raid the piggy bank in order to buy votes. And regardless of how egalitarian they advertise their systems as being it always comes down to, "some animals are more equal than others." One case in point is Stephen Hawking. He receives extraordinary care from the UK health system while virtually any other citizen in his condition would have been left to die years ago.

In the US "Shuck'N'JiveCare" is sucking the middle class dry. They are the ones carrying the unproductive and chronically ill (most of that chronic illness is life choice based) on their backs. The only true beneficiaries of these schemes seem to be the politicians who;

1. Exempt themselves from the very plans that are forced on the citizen.

2. For the past several decades seem to leave office far wealthier than when they were initially elected.

Ishmael

 

[RobDownSouth]

Most certainly. It's much like the story of the hogs and "Federal Corn."

They've managed to 'sell' the premise that health care is a 'right.' It isn't. As a matter of fact it comes down to a form of indentured servitude if not out and out slavery. I can expand on that if necessary.

Feelin' shackled by Medicare? How much freedom have your forfeited by accepting Medicare, slave Ishmael?

They continually try to sell the notion that health care is good for the nation as a whole, that we'll all prosper from the implementation. If that is so, why aren't those nations that have universal healthcare, and have had it for many decades, kicking the rest of the worlds ass economically? The fact of the matter is is that those nations are mired in mediocrity.

Health care cost as a percentage of GDP is far lower in other first world countries than in the USA
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Health_care_cost_rise.svg/750px-Health_care_cost_rise.svg.png
And the USA trails the first-world pack in life expectancy too...
https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/131F9/production/_94792387_chart_life_expect_2030.png
Other countries with socialized medicine have lower costs and live longer...what does this tell us?

Their unemployment rates are perpetually stalled at 10% (+/-). So much of their budget is consumed by healthcare that they are unable to protect themselves, and in the case of those nations that do manage to support a reasonable military the healthcare is so substandard so as to barely qualify as healthcare at all. Further, virtually every election cycle in those nations is consumed in large part over arguments over how to 'fix' their healthcare delivery systems.

<derp snip>l

Health care drives unemployment? That's a stretch, even for you. And other countries don't pretend to be the world's policeman and have substantially lower military costs as a result.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Feelin' shackled by Medicare?

Paying through the nose for nothing?

Pretty shackled, I fucking hate sending that much of my money into a black hole of nothingness. Maybe if I started getting SOME return on my dollar I would be a little more on board but so far all our government has demonstrated is that it can make astronomical amounts of money vanish and in return the people get nothing. All they have to do to get away with it is blame the other team and the partisans toe the line.

Until we fix that all the other buuu shit is irrelevant.

Health care cost as a percentage of GDP is far lower in other first world countries than in the USA

And yet with all that the (D)'s couldn't manage to even get everyone a check up.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Not really.

ACA was a piece of shit and the DNC with Obama's blessing sold your ass out.

Maintenance legislation requires good bones/foundation legislation to build on, ACA was fucking pathetic. Maybe you should start holding the (D)'s that sold you out responsible instead of pretending the (R)'s are the only reason you don't have your free shit yet.

You show a real grasp of public policy. Very eloquent.

 

[zipman]

Soc Security Act was amended 20 times over 60 years. The GI Bill was 15 times. The Veteran's Administration Act ... you get the picture.

The needs to be perfecting legislation - forever. That is the way of the world. Things change. and now a-days they change faster than ever. But one group of elitists dug in and were willing to hurt regular people, bankrupt the treasury and lie ... and for what purpose? For a few bucks in their pocket.

Exactly. Republicans were far more interested in denying/erasing a democratic accomplishment than they were with helping to solve the problems it had. Instead of amending the legislation, they set out to defund and ruin it.

Truly pathetic.

 

[water505]

Republicans did everything they could to weaken the ACA, and they also made sure it got Obama's name attached to it.

They didn't have to do shit. It was designed for failure from the very beginning.

It deserves to have his name attached to it. Would people be less opposed to it if it were just called ACA, even though it isn't affordable?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

That's why he took Kusinich on that flight...



To impart to him that the ACA was a Cloward-Piven strategy that would get him to the single-payer that he was desiring. The people who want single-payer are the only winners in this debate; the Middle Class took it in the ass.

 

[Disgustipated]

They didn't have to do shit. It was designed for failure from the very beginning.

It deserves to have his name attached to it. Would people be less opposed to it if it were just called ACA, even though it isn't affordable?

Do you support the Republican plan, miles?

 

[Hypoxia]

Feelin' shackled by Medicare? How much freedom have your forfeited by accepting Medicare...?

I'm so NOT shackled by Medicare that when my vision suddenly went to shit two months ago (multiple infections and other damage, possibly abetted by heart meds) I was able to be treated initially at a midwest regional med center (we were traveling) and then more definitive treatment in California.

I've been through almost a dozen med offices for this; had surgery on one eye two weeks ago, on the other yesterday. Yes we have a Blue Shield supplemental and yes I have co-pays and I get to buy the meds. But without Medicare and the supplemental, the costs would have bankrupted us. Or I would have gone blind very soon.

Medicare hasn't shackled me. Medicare has saved me.

It deserves to have his name attached to it.

They feared to call it RomneyCare, the original Guppy version.

 

[OldJourno]

Feelin' shackled by Medicare? How much freedom have your forfeited by accepting Medicare, slave Ishmael?


Health care cost as a percentage of GDP is far lower in other first world countries than in the USA
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Health_care_cost_rise.svg/750px-Health_care_cost_rise.svg.png
And the USA trails the first-world pack in life expectancy too...
https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/131F9/production/_94792387_chart_life_expect_2030.png
Other countries with socialized medicine have lower costs and live longer...what does this tell us?


Health care drives unemployment? That's a stretch, even for you. And other countries don't pretend to be the world's policeman and have substantially lower military costs as a result.

I found the chart on health care costs to be interesting, since the steep rise in the U.S. corresponds to a much higher level of government involvement that started in the mid-60s under LBJ with Medicare.
Anyone else here wonder how much less health care would cost if government sharply limited its involvement?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I found the chart on health care costs to be interesting, since the steep rise in the U.S. corresponds to a much higher level of government involvement that started in the mid-60s under LBJ with Medicare.
Anyone else here wonder how much less health care would cost if government sharply limited its involvement?

I don't.


However, as nice as your charts are, they are not lies, they are not damned lies, they are statistics.


They go nowhere near explaining underlying conditions.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I found the chart on health care costs to be interesting, since the steep rise in the U.S. corresponds to a much higher level of government involvement that started in the mid-60s under LBJ with Medicare.
Anyone else here wonder how much less health care would cost if government sharply limited its involvement?

The cost would be MUCH less, but the tradeoff would be an enormous increase in the mortality rate of those 65 and older.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I don't.


However, as nice as your charts are, they are not lies, they are not damned lies, they are statistics.


They go nowhere near explaining underlying conditions.

red herring, chief.
They weren't intended to "explain underlying conditions".

Your pal Ishmael postured that socialized medicine was more expensive somehow than Murican medicine, I simply showed him a chart that showed the relative cost of healthcare by GDP for first world countries.

Ishmael, lacking courage to admit he was mistaken, attempted to deflect by yammering "but...but...unemployment!".

Perhaps YOU could explain this purported link between unemployment and the cost of health care (hopefully, with actual facts to back up your position) as Ishmael lacks the necessary intelligence and backbone to do so.

 

[Hypoxia]

Bottom line: A healthier country is a happier, stronger, more productive, more prosperous country. (And lower tax rates are associated with lower prosperity, less employment, worse health, more crime, etc.) Those opposing universal health care (anywhere) want to drive their nation into 3rd-world status, with a super-rich elite lording over the sick peasants.

In USA both industry and military have a hard time finding people healthy enough for the jobs. The healthcare crisis carefully nurtured by Guppies is perpetuating a permanent underclass unfit for productive work.

What do we call those trying to destroy their country's health, wealth, and power?

 

[OldJourno]

What do we call those trying to destroy their country's health, wealth, and power?

Socialists.

 

[Ishmael]

Bottom line: A healthier country is a happier, stronger, more productive, more prosperous country. (And lower tax rates are associated with lower prosperity, less employment, worse health, more crime, etc.) Those opposing universal health care (anywhere) want to drive their nation into 3rd-world status, with a super-rich elite lording over the sick peasants.

In USA both industry and military have a hard time finding people healthy enough for the jobs. The healthcare crisis carefully nurtured by Guppies is perpetuating a permanent underclass unfit for productive work.

What do we call those trying to destroy their country's health, wealth, and power?

You're full of shit. That myth has been repeated over and over and over.

If there were any truth to that bullshit the EU, Japan, Russia, and many other nations should be rolling in mountains of gold. Why aren't they? Why does the American poor have more living space per person, and more amenities, like air conditioning, than the middle class European? So much for the prosperity angle.

Happier? Well yes, healthy people tend to be happier. But that is a subjective metric, isn't it? And it's pretty tough to keep a positive attitude when the press, school teachers, college professors, and the democrat party, keep telling you how miserable you are and how you're being victimized. Eventually a lot of folks start believing that bull shit. It's like "A Clockwork Orange" treatment stretched out over years.

Americans are obese pigs. The average American eats shit compared to the European, Asian, Indian. That is a choice! And fat people are mostly unhealthy people. Why should I, or any one else, be paying for poor dietary choices? (Or should congress legislate diets and then commission the "Food Cops" to come around and check up on you?)

Then there's the drugs and alcohol related illnesses. Are we supposed to pay for those choices as well? Why?

As Cleaver pointed out, a large segment of the population has decided to behave like 4 year old's in the grocery store riding in the basket down the candy aisle. "I want that Mommy. Waaaaaa" along with the attendant temper tantrum.

Ishmael

 

[Hypoxia]

Socialists.

Who are rather outnumbered and outpowered in USA by bagheads, corporate greedheads, reactionary propagandists, and the millions they sucker-in with their lies. The anti-social future is feudal, with pissant peasants laboring for the lords, or segregated in red-lined ghettos, or just abandoned in flyover-country hell.

This is what we get from Reagan-Bush1-Clinton-Bush2-Obama corporatism. Trompism runs even further down that path -- or stumbles, so far. It's part of corporate welfare: privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Send as much gov't cash as possible to shareholders and executives. Fuck everybody else.

You'll be much healthier in a social-democracy country.

 

[OldJourno]

Who are rather outnumbered and outpowered in USA by bagheads, corporate greedheads, reactionary propagandists, and the millions they sucker-in with their lies. The anti-social future is feudal, with pissant peasants laboring for the lords, or segregated in red-lined ghettos, or just abandoned in flyover-country hell.

This is what we get from Reagan-Bush1-Clinton-Bush2-Obama corporatism. Trompism runs even further down that path -- or stumbles, so far. It's part of corporate welfare: privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Send as much gov't cash as possible to shareholders and executives. Fuck everybody else.

You'll be much healthier in a social-democracy country.

I'll be as healthy as I want to be.

And given how big government has taken a fucked up health care delivery system and made it even worse with Obamacare, I have to wonder how many more times you're going to argue that big government should be in charge.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Well fear not folks - Mike "Christian, conservative, and Republican in that order" Pence broke the tie and the Senate is moving forward with debate.

I genuinely hope that the GOP passes their tax bill masquerading as the "Repeal and Replace" they promised and Trump signs it.

Water always seeks it own level.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Who are rather outnumbered and outpowered in USA by bagheads, corporate greedheads, reactionary propagandists, and the millions they sucker-in with their lies.

Doesn't realize those are the socialist...LOL

THis is what we get from Reagan-Bush1-Clinton-Bush2-Obama corporatism. Trompism runs even further down that path -- or stumbles, so far. It's part of corporate welfare:

That's all socialism....100% government action against the free choices of the citizens and markets of the USA.

Send as much gov't cash as possible to shareholders and executives. Fuck everybody else.

Isn't government wonderful!! You seem real bent on as much of it as possible.

You'll be much healthier in a social-democracy country.

You mean like Venezuela? LOL

 

[BotanyBoy]

I genuinely hope that the GOP passes their tax bill masquerading as the "Repeal and Replace" they promised and Trump signs it.

I bet....then all those claims that the GOP is responsible for the american HC system (ACA) will finally be true.