Really. What’s left to say? When several Republicans are willing to practically stump for Democrats in order to beat back the TEA Party — hell, Tom Coburn doesn’t seem to mind a Democrat Senate, where Harry Reid keeps anything from happening, and the government just keeps on running at a yearly deficit over a trillion dollars and using the “one-time” stimulus money as its baseline for spending, so long as the end result is keeping the club together — why on earth would those committed to constitutionalism and limited government continue to fall in line with the Republican Party.
Losing more slowly is still losing — and it’s clear by now that the establishment GOP believes they have conservatives over a barrel: so long as we can’t vote for leftists, they’ll give us the lesser of two evils, all while the central government grows in scope and power, and we lose more and more of our liberties.
Think about this: Coburn is so out of touch with what’s been happening in this country, punctuated by the 2010 midterms that saw the TEA Party sweep the GOP back into power in the House, that he’s actually backing Manchin, the “pro-life” Democrat who surrendered his supposed principles (and got some nice perks) in order to cast the deciding vote for ObamaCare. This is a man Coburn tells us is “not beholden to short-sighted political interests”? A man who supports tax increases and who has backed most of the Dem’s play — which Coburn evidently must believe is in the “long-term interests of the country” — else why donate $250 to his re-election campaign?
I’ve been saying it for awhile now, but it’s time for the GOP as a Party to die.
And because it won’t simply do so on its own, we need to kill it off ourselves.
(h/t nr)
Feh.
What the hell happened to Alaska?
At some point I’m gonna to be simply feh to the losers in Washington and heh to the people here. Maybe that’s what happened to psycho.
” Sherman Hensley dead at 74″
– Bummblefuck probably would have told him he didn’t move up to the East side, someone else did that.
I think I re-arrive where I typically start. These are our creatures, these institutions: beings of our own creation. They have no lives but what we grant them.
* link *
I’m (not so) seriously considering voting Democrat in November. If Republicans won’t support Republicans, why the hell should I?
The same thing that happened to New York, Illinois, California and Massachussetts: one party rule.
Alaskans arejust more fortunate than the others in that the political machine crony pols running their state don’t have quite as much appetite.
I have a theory that granting a government check to all Alaskans from the deal they cut with the oil companies was not good for the soul of the people.
+ 1
ak is section 8 big time
Gary Johnson is the deal. I love the guy. If NC, where I live, wasn’t such a battleground, I’d vote for him, proudly.
If BO takes NC, it could be near to game over. Hell, the guy’s winning it seems.
To date, in NC, it’s Romney by a pube, but that could go in a minute.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/nc/north_carolina_romney_vs_obama-1784.html
Don’t discount the Bradley/Wilder effect Roddy. In fact, start ignoring the polls. It’ll be better that way.
Anyone know anything in the Constitution preventing Congressmen/Senators from starting another party?
If all of the Conservatives in Congress bail out of the GOP & start their own party, say the “Fuck You, You Commie Rat Bastard Party”, I really don’t see a downside.
Combine that with targeting the safest seats and you’d have the beginning of a coalition majority. Then it’d be game on.
– Well the Reps came out of the Whig party, so its possible, if unlikely.
– The race in Mass shows clearly the Left is going all in to try to hold the Senate, probably brecause they don’t know if Unicorn herder is going to survive.
“Anyone know anything in the Constitution preventing Congressmen/Senators from starting another party?
Though it’s painful to have to explain, the Constitution is silent on the question of political parties.
Why, you might ask? Ask.
Someone here will draw the picture faithfully, I’ve no doubt of it.
However, there is no good reason to associate the origin of a political party with sitting representatives of whatever stripe. Parties are the people’s business (which, as it happens, would itself constitute the better part of the answer to the question posed above).
The only likely thing is our fiscal collapse.
Give me Romney and I’ll take Hail Mary every day of the week.
SDFerr,
yeah, well PW is about all the politics I can handle. I am too disappointed. As a skeptic and pessimist, I ignore polls as a rule because they just confirm how terrible things are getting.
Though it leads to upside surprises, like tonite, when I checked RCP and saw the race was close. I had suspected Romney was really losing by like 10% or so.
we need a new speaker of the house
How the Speaker is chosen
As the highest-ranking member of the House, the Speaker is elected by a vote of the members of the House. While it is not required, the Speaker usually belongs to the majority political party. The Constitution does not require that the Speaker be an elected Member of Congress. No non-member has ever been elected Speaker.
let’s make “history”http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/speaker.htm
I can’t see how polls can confirm anything at all, supposing, as I do, that they are by design entirely untrustworthy. But, not everyone will take this view, I know. However, I’ll continue to commend it to anyone who might be open to the possibility.
– The problem, unfortunately, is far more pervasive than just the parties. The duplicity and desease of Washington immediately infects anyone or any group that comes in contact with it.
Heritage Action Scorecard
Manchin – 14%
we’re holding on, hoping to stay alive long enough for a cure to be found. One choice kills us immediately. The other offers a five percent chance of survival.
I had suspected Romney was really losing by like 10% or so.
a enthusiastic boot will collaspe this house of cards
Why do we think about polls in this manner? Because of their predictive value. There are far better metrics than polls this far out if that’s what you’re looking for.
I suggest we worry less about Obama’s future success and more about our future failure. That’s been the pattern.
“Why do we think about polls in this manner?”
heh, last year I think I would have said “Because Carl Cameron.”
This year, I think I’d just say “Because Carl Cameron”, or something like that.
Trained monkeys, is all.
Dr. Coburn never fails to disappoint. Dr. No? Don’t make me laugh.
Since he can’t deliver the goods in DC, he should get his ass back to Muskogee and deliver more chirrun. That, he’s good at.
The Constitution says nothing about forming other parties that I can see. If Congressmen/Senators can go from Democrat to Independent (Lieberman), I see no reason that they can’t form new parties.
Michelle Bachman is my rep. If anyone would be up for the idea, it would be her. Time to “put a bug in her ear”, methinks.
I’m even more cynical, being of the belief that polls are actually meant to influence people, by design.
See above. Also, polls are not predictive, at best they’re a snapshot of the attitudes of the moment, and at worst, well, like snapshots a poll can be composed as the artist wishes…
I shouldn’t leave you with the impression then, Lee, that it isn’t precisely the ‘aim to influence’ that’s the cause of the untrustworthiness of polling, ’cause that’s exactly why I don’t trust a one of ’em. They’re — in the old language — sophistical. In the new language, they’re bullshit.
oh my
Senate Food Workers Vote Not to Unionize
– We’ve come to a point in America where its us or Washington. A screwed up betound belief situation where the more we suffer in the next three months the better the chane we’ll get that 5% possibility of eventual recovery.
– If we have to suffer anyway, let it at least be for a good reason.
Let’s split “polls” into two subsets. (Which I was sorta trying to do by mentioning how far out they were.)
Set 1) Small numbers, strangely arbitrary voter demos, oddly worded questions. These are polls as you guys are using it and as I’m using it at this distance from the election.
Set 2) Sampling appropriate to population like > 1500, registered voters, and ideological percentages. Simple choices between A or B. Close to the election.
Set 1 is exactly as you guys see them. Set 2 is statistics and is normally pretty good.
Given the fact we’re so far from the election and all the polls we’re looking at are garbage there are other things to look to. Jimmy P over at AEI links this stuff all the time.
The actual employment rate and the economy matter. Want to find something to place bets on at this point? That’s all we really have at this point.
Perhaps there’s something worthy of preservation in some corner of the world of modern sociological political science bh, I don’t know. On the other hand, I don’t think anyone should look to me to be among those doing the preservation, as by and large I think the entire enterprise has been an enormous mistake. But that’s likely another question for another time.
Today a President of the United States would have us believe that dream is over or at least in need of change.
Jimmy Carter’s Administration tells us that the descendants of those who sacrificed to start again in this land of freedom may have to abandon the dream that drew their ancestors to a new life in a new land.
The Carter record is a litany of despair, of broken promises, of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten.
Eight million out of work. Inflation running at 18 percent in the first quarter of 1980. Black unemployment at about 14 percent, higher than any single year since the government began keeping separate statistics. Four straight major deficits run up by Carter and his friends in Congress. The highest interest rates since the Civil War–reaching at times close to 20 percent–lately down to more than 11 percent but now going up again–productivity falling for six straight quarters among the most productive people in history.
Through his inflation he has raised taxes on the American people by 30 percent–while their real income has risen only 20 percent. He promised he would not increase taxes for the low and middle-income people–the workers of America. Then he imposed on American families the largest single tax increase in history.
His answer to all of this misery? He tries to tell us that we are “only” in a recession, not a depression, as if definitions—words–relieve our suffering.
Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well if it’s a definition he wants, I’ll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
link
I suppose I view statistics as math rather than social science.
Sure, it’s not math math (in this context because of the fuzzy inputs) but natural science isn’t math math either (for the same reason).
Indeed, statistics is a fine and noble art born of man’s natural desire to wonder about gambling losses the next morning.
Clearly this is the most human of endeavors. Perhaps moreso even than geometry.
Which explains cubes! They’re for tossing!
But yes, the mathy stuff will go on, politics or no politics.
It’s the ruination of the other stuff that I tend to look to (the other stuff being like, liberty and so on).
Let’s split “polls” into two subsets
nah 2010 with vegence
baracky is finis. mittens to lose.
I’m with you that far, however, we run askew from there.
I’m thinking more along the lines of:
set 1) polls
set 2) political polls
Set one may be scientific, and maybe even enlightening. Set two you wipe off your boots before you go indoors…
that’s why “orange man” must go and mitchy too
(I feel like I should mention that sdferr and I trample this ground from time to time so there’s some joking involved beyond the obvious.)
You raise a point there with the ruinations but let’s remember that while some men just want to watch the world burn, others just want to keep a running tally.
[Edited because my phone is stupid and hates me.]
set 1) polls
propaganda for set 2
others just want to keep a really.
brats are involved no doubt
Absolutely. Is why I qualified with “may” and “maybe”…
Sometimes I’ve encountered maths that, again in the old way of speaking, seem every bit simple ‘goods in themselves’, i.e., good to have or to witness or to solve without the least use in any other endeavor being necessary to fulfill their goodness.
Polls have never struck me this way. On the contrary, polls always seem to have be made for the sake of something else.
been made, is what
I knew your intent. I almost think corrections are unnecessary, but then I remember we live in an unkind world.
I think I see what you’re saying there, Lee. You’re using political as “intentionally false” or “willfully manipulated”, right?
Then, yeah, agreed.
I suppose I only really mean to say that you can learn things about larger populations from smaller samples if you follow very specific rules. They don’t do that very often though and then only very close to the election when they start caring about future credibility.
Sorta like: “if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? /mom
I think ‘willfully manipulated’ pretty much captures what anything political is about, yes.
Future credibility?! These fucks don’t care about current credibility anymore…
Heh.
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As a matter of opinion, thinking on it, I posit ‘willful manipulation’ as perhaps the most poetic description of politics. What say you sdferr?
It’s surely a piece of the ever-mother-lovin’-whole, looks to me, but likely there’s other important parts missing. But yeah, at least there’s always the possibility of one form of manipulation or the other, be it willing or willful. I think somewhere, maybe Feds’t. 51(?) Madison points to opinion itself as sitting at the center of politics, which tends to push knowledge off the table (elbowy little sucker, opinion is). Hence the primacy of rhetoric, I think, from Aristotle’s p.o.v.
Later, fellas.
Stupid clock. Stupid mornings.
Doesn’t it flow from there that opinion is the center of not of the thing itself, politics, but but the bulls eye that politics aims at, for to manipulate it?
“Doesn’t it flow from there that opinion is the center of not of the thing itself, politics, but but the bulls eye that politics aims at, for to manipulate it?”
In theory, I think — that is from Madison’s point of view sort of theory — the aim of politics is to achieve something close to the good for the polity.
There all the opinions pile on, scrambling to assert what the good is, and into the midst of this scrum comes rhetoric, working each against the other to win the day. So the vote is taken, the “day” temporarily won, only to start over the next day, re-writing the meaning of what has taken place only the day before. And away it goes.
Still, drawing breath now and then, people look around and say or think to themselves “This? This is the good? Bullshit it is! We’re going this other way over here for a change.”
K, I get that, but damn we’re a long way from Madison’s theories, I fear.
I think the current aim of politics is accumulating power, and in these days of a global bodies and a global economy, even national sovereignty has lost it’s meaning.
sd,
Apropos of nothing other than you used the word:
I just now noticed that ruination is an anagram of urination.
Coincidence?
I think not.
‘specially since much of the current ruination comes on account of our leaders regularly pissing on our backs (and the Constitution) and telling us it’s raining.
The Manchin thing doesn’t bother me so much. Manchin is very pro Coal and Oil, anti- Obama EPA, and as close to untouchable as a politician can get.
His uncle was a legendary WV politician, Joe was a Mountaineer football player then successful businessman… he isn’t losing to a Republican so you might as well lobby for what favorable votes from him you can get.
From his wiki page.
Manchin has co-sponsored balanced budget amendments put forth by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) , Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Mark Udall (D-CO). He has also voted against raising the federal debt ceiling and advocated for substantial reductions in federal spending.
He was also one of the first to announce he was
boycottingtoo busy to attend the Democrat Convention this year. He is a reasonable dude, as union Democrats go.You want to go after a WV Senate seat, go after that drooling idiot Rockefeller.
So the GOP is possibly going to actually fund Obamacare and some Republicans are backing Democrats for elections in the Senate this year. Barry and Co. had me amped up to vote against them this fall, knowing full well that the GOP alternative was at best incrementally better. Seeing Obama and his wife Michael Dorn’s faces, along with those of the MFM as the returns roll in on election night was enough motivation for me to make certain that I got to the polls this November. Now, though, I’m seriously considering saying “fuck it” and staying home.
protein wisdom: using the “one-time” stimulus money as its baseline for spending
Um, no.
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43274
For me, voting D would mean voting to put blowhard Alan Grayson back in office. No, thanks.
B Moe says July 25, 2012 at 5:43 am
Do a little research (and I say this because I assume you are a thinking person capable of such a thing). Check out the man’s voting record. Manchin is no Zell Miller.
Is there something in that CBO report that magically makes the fact that the government is being run on budgetary auto-pilot, with the stimulus money included in each recurrence, go away?
In 2009, we borrowed a trillion dollars like “one time” because it was an emergency. As a consequence we ran an annual budget deficit of a trillion plus dollars for the first time evah!.
We haven’t had a budget since. We’ve been running the government off of continuing resolutions since 2010. In each subsequent year, we’ve run annual budget deficits of a trillion plus. The stimulus is built into the baseline, where it will remain until somebody submits, and Congress passes, and the President signs into law, a budget that excises it.
It would be interesting and even novel if Zachriel were to stick around and defend its points in some kind of detail, possibly even in its own words, rather than letting links serve in lieu of arguments.
That kind of behavior reminds me of someone who used to troll here years ago. Semanticleo, I think.
Zachriel is supposed to be the angel of memory. Funny, that.
That was full of awesome, Darth.
More on political polling:
By the by Lee, I checked and see that my Feds’t 51 reference is pretty well incorrect. Looks to me as though a better reference can be found in Feds’t 10, if not elsewhere.
Well I early voted for Ted Cruz in the run-off primary election today.
Jeff G: Is there something in that CBO report that magically makes the fact that the government is being run on budgetary auto-pilot, with the stimulus money included in each recurrence, go away?
If by the stimulus you mean the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), that spending is not part of the budgetary baseline.
Ernst Schreiber: In 2009, we borrowed a trillion dollars like “one time” because it was an emergency.
Stimulus spending was spread out over a decade, with just $114 billion in 2009.
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42682
Ernst Schreiber: In each subsequent year, we’ve run annual budget deficits of a trillion plus.
Current federal deficits are primarily due to reduced tax receipts due to the recession and extensions of the Bush tax cuts. Also, there is increased spending associated with the economic downturn, such as unemployment compensation. That’s what happens when you break your economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932012_global_financial_crisis
So what’s your point, Zachriel? We aren’t really dead broke? It’s all an illusion?
Just around the corner, there’s a rainbow in the sky?
Google ‘when was the last time a budget was submitted by congress and signed by the president.’
Also, ARRA is nothing more than a giant slush fund for unaccountable beltway politicians.
leigh: We aren’t really dead broke? It’s all an illusion?
The U.S. is hardly broke. It’s GDP is $15 trillion. It has assets of ?$200 trillion, and public debts of about $16 trillion. In the short term, the aftermath of the recession and the Bush tax cuts have left the U.S. with a large fiscal imbalance. Once the economy regains normal growth, then this is well within the means of the U.S. to address. Long term, there are ballooning shortfalls in entitlements, particularly Medicare/Medicaid. Again, taking care of its oldest and most vulnerable citizens is well within the means of the richest country on Earth.
LBascom: Google ‘when was the last time a budget was submitted by congress and signed by the president.’
Budget bills are passed into law all the time. A full budget was last signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton. Doesn’t change the baseline budget.
LBascom: Also, ARRA is nothing more than a giant slush fund for unaccountable beltway politicians.
A large portion of the ARRA was for tax cuts.
http://earth2tech.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/stimulus-allocations.jpg?w=472&h=346
CBO estimates that the ARRA had substantial impact on employment and GDP.
Shorter Zachriel: “Remain calm! All is well!!!”
He sounds a bit like Baghdad Bob.
But this is a hoot:
“Ballooning” as in a giant fucking balloon that’s rising us up into the atmosphere, where we’re going to die of asphyxiation.
Taking care of it’s oldest and most vulnerable citizens is well within the means
of their familiesdaddy government, because don’t put that shit on me.Car: “Ballooning” as in a giant fucking balloon that’s rising us up into the atmosphere, where we’re going to die of asphyxiation.
Hardly. The U.S. is more than capable of finding a solution to burgeoning medical costs.
Car: don’t put that s4!t on me.
Apparently, several generations of Americans have had a different political stance, and have voted to support Social Security and Medicare.
The U.S. is more than capable of finding a solution to burgeoning medical costs.
get the us gov’t out of the health business
They’re called death panels.
The solution is final.
” The U.S. is more than capable of finding a solution to burgeoning medical costs.”
Every “solution” so far has resulted in cost increases. Remember when the HMO system was going to solve things?
Zachriel’s all about teh problemz. Solutionz are for others to find.
He’s done his fair share.
An expert on boiler plate and platitudes.
newrouter : get the us gov’t out of the health business
If someone shows up at the emergency room, should they be treated? If so, who should pay?
palaeomerus: Every “solution” so far has resulted in cost increases.
There are multiple reasons why medical costs have increased, including technological innovation.
Ernst Schreiber: Solutionz are for others to find.
Every developed economy has some sort of universal health coverage as most don’t consider leaving people without medical care a real alternative. The U.S. pays much more than other developed economies for comparable results.
If someone shows up at the emergency room, should they be treated? If so, who should pay?
yes. the person being treated.
Every developed economy has some sort of universal health coverage as most don’t consider leaving people without medical care a real alternative.
strawman heaven
Zachriel: If someone shows up at the emergency room, should they be treated? If so, who should pay?
How much of your income, assuming you have any, are you willing to give away to pay for medical care for others?
Zachriel:There are multiple reasons why medical costs have increased, including technological innovation.
And government intrusion into the health care market. What role should government play in the relationship between health care providers and health care consumers?
Zachriel: Every developed economy has some sort of universal health coverage as most don’t consider leaving people without medical care a real alternative. The U.S. pays much more than other developed economies for comparable results.
We have Medicaid for the poor, and until now, choice as to when we acquired health coverage, or how much we needed. We don’t leave people without health care, and if some fall through the cracks, that’s what charities are for. Other countries don’t have comparable results to the US which is why, for instance, Canadians come here for procedures that are delayed there.
But don’t worry, that’s coming soon. As part of paradise!
Listen, Zachriel: nobody here is buying what you’re selling. We understand what it is leftwing governments want and we have ample examples of the kind of debt and misery they leave in their wake.
“Universal” health care is rationed, state-apportioned health care — and it uses money from those who don’t need much in the way of health care, statistically speaking (and may wish to opt out of coverage) to subsidize the “universal” coverage that is, itself, not necessary, given that coverage has long been available to nearly everyone who wants it.
Providing “insurance” after something happens is not “insurance.” And we all know it. Even you. So evidently you’re just here to try to hone your propaganda skills.
Not interested.
The U.S. pays much more than other developed economies for comparable results.
That has to do with all the costs of medical advancement and the R&D that goes into developing newer and better pharmacological products and medical tools, machines and delivery devices. Our doctors and nurses are extremely well trained, more so than in any other country.
Canada is moving away from their Universal Care model as are people in the EU who can afford not to use their clinics and public hospitals.
American hospitals have always had a policy of treating all comers. If it weren’t for the ruinious costs of malpractice insurances, healthcare would return to its baseline costs. One cannot have cheap, affordable healthcare without tort reform.
Speaking of which, were you aware that while doctors, nurses and hospitals are to remain liable if there is poor outcome, the federal government is off limits in any lawsuits filed? How is that “fair?”
On the upside, doctors, nurses and hospital staff are unlikely to be targeted when the people finally tire of advancing tyrannical oppression, whereas government functionaries and their lackeys cannot be so sanguine, or perhaps, will be unhappily and unwillingly sanguinary in the hail of lead coming their way. But choices, choices . . . which way to go?
American hospitals have always had a policy of treating all comers.
no there’s a law that says they must treat them
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act
more us gov’t meddling
But choices, choices . . . which way to go?
Heh. I can tell y’all from my catbird’s seat that doctors are exiting as quickly as possible. Medical schools are peeing their pants since enroll meant is trending downward for the first time in ages.
If I were interested in going the MD route, I’d apply to veterinary school instead. Your patients are more grateful and don’t talk back or refuse treatment.
Thanks, nr. That’s what I was alluding to.
In the first place, coverage isn’t the same things as treatment, as sedentary fatties in need of new knees are finding out across the pond. In the second place, nobody is left without medical care –yet. In the third place since medical care/treatment, health coverage, and health care costs are all different things, fuck you and your false equivalencies.
newrouter: yes. the person being treated.
And if they are poor?
newrouter: strawman heaven
Actually, it’s a fundamental issue. Large numbers of Americans lack the means to pay for medical care.
Jeff G: And government intrusion into the health care market.
Then how do you explain that other developed nations, with universal coverage, pay less than the U.S. for comparable results?
Jeff G: We don’t leave people without health care,
Sure you do. You have people who put off care until they require emergency treatment or die.
Jeff G: Other countries don’t have comparable results to the US
By most valid measures, such as life expectancy, they do.
newrouter: more us gov’t meddling
So you disagree with the purpose of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act?
leigh: That has to do with all the costs of medical advancement and the R&D that goes into developing newer and better pharmacological products and medical tools, machines and delivery devices.
Yet, other countries invest in medical research, have comparable results, provide universal care, and for far less money.
leigh: Canada is moving away from their Universal Care model as are people in the EU who can afford not to use their clinics and public hospitals.
They are modernizing their systems, but no, they are not moving away from universal health care.
leigh: American hospitals have always had a policy of treating all comers.
Not always. Reagan signed the requirement into law.
leigh: If it weren’t for the ruinious costs of malpractice insurances, healthcare would return to its baseline costs.
Cutting malpractice coverage would only reduce medical spending by 0.5%, not nearly enough to explain the difference between the costs borne by Americans and every other developed economy.
leigh: Medical schools are peeing their pants since enroll meant is trending downward for the first time in ages.
“Medicine Remains Attractive Career as Enrollment Reach All-Time High”
https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/november2011/266832/enrollment.html
The biggest issue is high student debt for medical school.
Ernst Schreiber: nobody is left without medical care
In the United States, many people put off medical care until it is a dire necessity.
I love the smell of morale enhancement beatings in the morning.
ar: don’t put that s4!t on me.
Apparently, several generations of Americans have had a different political stance, and have voted to support Social Security and Medicare.
You mean people vote in support of a pyramid scheme to get free stuff from the government?
Color me shocked.
utting malpractice coverage would only reduce medical spending by 0.5%, not nearly enough to explain the difference between the costs borne by Americans and every other developed economy.
Sure it would. You know who tells you that? Lawyers. You know, the same folks who WROTE Obamacare.
Anyone with any recent experience with a hospital or medical treatment can give you lists of procedures that were done merely to cover their ass.
Zachriel keeps pretending we don’t know things about how and why the WHO reports — which I assume is part of what he considers “most valid measures” — skews data against the US. He also seems to assume we don’t know a thing about Medicaid, which takes up about a quarter of the budget of most states and is specifically intended to provide medical care to those who can’t otherwise (supposedly) afford it (it is, of course, being abused; people refusing to pay out of pocket for things like Tylenol, eg.).
People who put off health care until they require emergency treatment or die are making a choice. They have decided to allocate their resources to other things, be it cable TV or iPhones or SUVs or a slightly larger home, etc.
Zachriel also wants us to bracket the sheer volume of medicinal and technological advancements that come out of the US that we here are forced to subsidize in our medical bills because other countries believe they have the right to immediately copy formulas and produce generic versions of medicines. This isn’t compassion, it’s market jiggering and theft of intellectual property that we then pay for.
Couple that with the ability of other western countries to pour resources that might otherwise go for defense into medicine — on our dime — and we can get a clearer picture of the enormous fraud upon which Zachriel’s entire preferred system is built.
When the sugar daddy goes, the rest falls. Simple as that.
By the way, why no answers, Zachriel?
Let me ask again:
How much of your income, assuming you have any, are you willing to give away to pay for medical care for others?
What role should government play in the relationship between health care providers and health care consumers?
Zachriel: Every developed economy has some sort of universal health coverage as most don’t consider leaving people without medical care a real alternative. The U.S. pays much more than other developed economies for comparable results.
We have Medicaid for the poor, and until now, choice as to when we acquired health coverage, or how much we needed.
“Universal” health care is rationed, state-apportioned health care — and it uses money from those who don’t need much in the way of health care, statistically speaking (and may wish to opt out of coverage), to subsidize the “universal” coverage that is, itself, not necessary, given that coverage has long been available to nearly everyone who wants it.
Providing “insurance” after something happens is not “insurance.” And we all know it. Even you.
Car: You mean people vote in support of a pyramid scheme to get free stuff from the government?
If you mean Social Security, it’s not a pyramid scheme, but a generational transfer program.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm
Zachriel: Cutting malpractice coverage would only reduce medical spending by 0.5%, not nearly enough to explain the difference between the costs borne by Americans and every other developed economy.
Car: Sure it would.
Saying “Is not!” is not an argument.
Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice, Congressional Budget Office 2004.
Budget Options Health Care, Congressional Budget Office 2008.
Jeff G: People who put off health care until they require emergency treatment or die are making a choice.
In some cases, food or medicine.
Jeff G: We have Medicaid for the poor, and until now, choice as to when we acquired health coverage, or how much we needed.
Medicaid does not cover all poor people. The Obama Administration tried to extend coverage to millions of the poor, but the courts ruled that provision unconstitutional.
Jeff G: What role should government play in the relationship between health care providers and health care consumers?
As the vast majority of people don’t think people should be refused medical care, that means some sort of rational universal coverage needs to be implemented by the government. There are a variety of mechanisms for achieving that goal.
Jeff G: Providing “insurance” after something happens is not “insurance.”
Which is why countries without single payer have a mandate. For instance, the Swiss use private insurance coupled with a mandate and subsidies for the poor to achieve universal coverage.
As they should. The overreach of our current President and his Party of far-Left Democrats is unprecedented, and the Constitution not nearly as well defended by SCOTUS as it should be. We are ‘losing more slowly’, and the end result will be loss of this Republic as we know it.
Oh, and it seems that the ObamaCare bill everyone’s read by now is ‘spiked’. Hospitals who serve illegal immigrants will see their Federal subsidies cut in half…
This miserable patchworked law was designed to fail, to usher in more Government meddling in private affairs; Statism over Individualism. That end result is inexorably grinding this Republic to failure.
But I guess we had to pass it to realize that.
Zachriel: Medicaid does not cover all poor people. The Obama Administration tried to extend coverage to millions of the poor, but the courts ruled that provision unconstitutional.
serr8d: As they should.
Yet others on this forum have argued that the poor are all already covered by Medicaid.
Everyone needs food. Why don’t we have Universal Food Coverage?
Why don’t we have Universal Food Coverage?
Or housing coverage? Or clothing coverage? Why, if the springs of co-operative wealth would flow more abundantly, then everything would be fair.
Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!
Pablo: Everyone needs food. Why don’t we have Universal Food Coverage?
Most countries do have a social safety net for food. However, food is quite different from medicine in that the former is a regular and ongoing expense, while the latter often comes suddenly, hence insurance.
Which you don’t have to get, because we’ll just pick up the tab for you. Until it’s useful politically to talk about all the poor folk without insurance, at which point its imperative you have it.
“Nevertheless, it’s a fact that tens-of-millions of Americans do not have health insurance and less than adequate access to basic medical services.”*
Insurance, you see. Because of the ongoing suddenness.
Holy shit! I just realized that I’m hungry. Damn, that snuck right up on me. Whatever shall I do?
Jeff G: Which you don’t have to get, because we’ll just pick up the tab for you.
That’s why countries that use private insurance have a mandate, with subsidies for the poor.
As the vast majority of people don’t think people should be refused medical care, that means some sort of rational universal coverage needs to be implemented by the government. There are a variety of mechanisms for achieving that goal.
Does not compute. This isn’t an “if/then” statement.
f you mean Social Security, it’s not a pyramid scheme, but a generational transfer program.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm
The ONLY qualification it fails, is it’s intent – because it wasn’t intended to be a crime. In every other manner, it’s a ponzi scheme.
Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice, Congressional Budget Office 2004.
Budget Options Health Care, Congressional Budget Office 2008.
CBO works with garbage in/garbage out numbers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125193312967181349.html
Fear of lawsuits leads to defensive medicine, which wracks up the cost with unnecessary procedures.
Car: Does not compute. This isn’t an “if/then” statement.
Sure, you may disagree with the conclusion, but it is not nonsensical.
The vast majority of people don’t think people should be refused medical care … means people want universal health care. The market alone can’t provide universal health care, as there are people who can’t afford the cost of care. Private charities have not been able to make up the difference, otherwise, everyone would already have affordable access. That seemingly leaves the government. That’s the solution every developed economy has chosen, though the implementations vary considerably, from insurance mandates with subsidies, to single payer, to single source.
Car: The ONLY qualification it fails, is it’s intent – because it wasn’t intended to be a crime.
Social Security is not a pyramid as it doesn’t escalate exponentially. Rather, it’s a generational transfer. For instance, if no additional legislation is passed, Social Security payments will continue in perpetuity at 75% of projected benefit levels. That’s not possible with a pyramid scheme.
Car: CBO works with garbage in/garbage out numbers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125193312967181349.html
That’s funny. Your own citation provides a more balanced picture than you suggest.
The vast majority of the people also want a better job, a nicer house and a cooler car.
When do we get those?
Forget it, BMoe.
Zachriel cares more than us. That he does so with other people’s money and liberty is just a side effect of his tremendous caring, and so is to be forgiven. After all, he wants everyone covered — even if that means not everyone can get the health care they want in the timely manner they need it, or that incentive is sapped once price controls set in. Those are also unfortunate side effects of his caring, which is, naturally, the most important aspect of all this. Zachriel cares. You all don’t care as much or as universally. Therefore, Zachriel is a better man than you.
Because of this, what he supports must be good. QED!
But don’t call it liberal fascism. The person who wrote the latest book on that wasn’t credentialed by the right kinds of caring people to be making such an argument. Or to put it another way, his footnotes haven’t been given permission to be correct by the left academics or the editors at, say, Routledge.
Again, we are not those countries. At least, we weren’t.
But we were wealthier and more productive as a nation, save for the occasional auto and camera lens and specialty beer.
Pablo: Lower than the US now.
Which implies that other factors are involved.
Jeff G: I think I know how to make Zachriel happiest and provide the perfect end to his not-really-fascist desires: all money belongs first to the government, which then uses it for all our wants and needs (and by “our,” I of course mean elected officials’).
Um, no.
Jeff G: There can be no differentiation made between basic services meant for infrastructure and security like roads and bridges or fire and police and defense, and other things like paying for the contraceptive usage of your neighbors.
Sure there can be a distinction. More important, there is a distinction between government having the power to tax, and the danger of government taxing people into subservience. But that wasn’t LBascom’s point to which we were responding. He suggested that any coercion was tyranny. But no one seems to be making the former point. Rather, they simply equate universal health care to fascism using a heterodox and strained definition of fascism. Like drawing out “Hoosein”, it substitutes for argument. Godwin was a genius.
Jeff G: And of course, Zachriel wouldn’t get rid of private business or enterprise. He’d just want to make sure it was working closely with the government — through regulation or other client arrangements — to serve the people in a way that is fair and universal.
Actually, markets work best when unencumbered with excessive regulation.
leigh: It’s foolish to compare the USA to European countries. Our country is vast and has hundreds of millions of citizens.
Some comparisons are apt, some not.
leigh: We also have a federalist government, state’s rights and are capitalist and not socialist.
Some European countries are federalist, some not. All developed economies have both strong public sectors and robust market economies.
leigh: We fought a long and bitter war to free ourselves from British rule. Why would we, some 200 years on, want to embrace a failed system?
While the British may still have a monarchy, the political and economic system has changed somewhat in the last couple of centuries. Keep in mind that Western Europe includes some of the most developed and highly technological societies in the world. Just because they are not USA! USA! doesn’t mean the Americans can’t learn from them—from their mistakes and from their successes. It’s always been the strength of the American culture to integrate new ideas as well as innovate them.
Jeff G: But we were wealthier and more productive as a nation, save for the occasional auto and camera lens and specialty beer.
The U.S. is still wealthier overall, but shouting “Number 1! Number 1!” is not a strategy for future success. Otherwise the French, British, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, German, Zulu, Roman, Chinese, Greek, Ottoman and Mongols, would still be Number 1; because they all thought they were destined to be Number 1 and Number 1 forever.
Oops. Most of that comment belongs on the other thread.
Perhaps the better ‘strategy’ for future success would be eliminating tyranny from our shores once again. Li’l tyrant propagandist here most probably won’t like the implications for its designs. But hey, tough! That’s politics.
It’s always been the strength of the American culture to integrate new ideas as well as innovate them.
Zachriel, it has also been a strength of our Americanism to reject what we feel is overreach by government and its agents. Thus, the resistance to excessive taxation and governmental mandates such as the ACA. As it stands today, our government has made a mockery of the very founding documents that made our country great.
Finally, your mockery of the patriotism of our host and fellow posters is unseemly and does nothing to serve your point—whatever it may be. It’s difficult to see behind the smoke and mirrors.
Zachriel: The U.S. is still wealthier overall, but shouting “Number 1! Number 1!” is not a strategy for future success. Otherwise the French, British, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, German, Zulu, Roman, Chinese, Greek, Ottoman and Mongols, would still be Number 1; because they all thought they were destined to be Number 1 and Number 1 forever.
Sure. Everyone knows the appropriate strategy is to stop shouting “Number 1!,” agree that you aren’t really all that exceptional, and then follow the same totalitarian and / or socialist paths other countries did that wound up knocking them out of that top spot, having first (in many cases) been coached by leftist ideology into self-doubt and self-recrimination.
Only by embracing what has been historically unsuccessful can you prove that you are committed to working on a strategy for future success. Because this time it will work, what with good committed people like Zachriel ready to show history how it’s done!
Zachriel Rather, they simply equate universal health care to fascism using a heterodox and strained definition of fascism.
You mean the one where a “penalty” gets passed that is then magically transformed into a tax, and that the specific taxing authorities of Congress, made up by the consent of the governed (in theory), are then used to justify the taxation of a non-activity?
Yeah, who could possibly confuse such a thing — handed down by a judicial oligarchy having first been passed against the will of the people — as in any way fascist? Why, it’s too terribly heterdox and strained to even conceive of such a thing!
Zachriel: blah blah blah
Fascistsayswhat?
Take it elsewhere. We’re about finished here. We know who and what you are and what it is you want. We aren’t in the market.
“It’s difficult to see behind the smoke and mirrors.”
Oh bullshit leigh. It isn’t difficult at all. This moron wants to take your rights, and in many respects, together with its progressive allies in Congress, the White House and the Courts, as well as in State Capitols sprinkled across the nation, already has taken them. It negates the Constitution of the United States, hollows it to utter meaninglessness, then holds up a paper shell for its own protection.
It’s too late for that. The paper shell won’t hold.
I know sdferr.
Doctor Shortage Looms.
“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
– Winston Churchill
Jeff G: Winston Churchill
“Our policy is to create a national health service in order to ensure that everybody in the country irrespective of means, age, sex or occupation shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.” — Winston Churchill 1944
Churchill, what a fascist.
While you are bathing in tyranny and its ever present foamy companion, sophistry — as you mischaracterize other political thinkers — why not be sure to give your stinking mental armpits a good rub-a-dub with some soapy James Madison, or disinfectant Alexander Hamilton, You Tiny-minded propagandist you?
Or better yet, spare yourself the trouble: run along to play with your dictatorial leftist confreres, daubing your brainy anus with marvelous French scents, how’s about, to leave us great unwashed to ourselves? We’re quite capable of summoning you when we have need of your perfumed and powdered person.
Well said, my friend.
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” – George Washington
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson”The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”– Thomas Jefferson
Gee, is that what NHS is providing? The best and most up to date medical services? Aaaahahahaha!
Some of us patrons would beg to differ, Pablo.
“And how we burned in the camps later,
thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he
went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return
alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass
arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the
entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror
at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but
had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the
downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or
whatever else was at hand? . . .”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn