If you thought we “conservatives” were bad, wait’ll you get a load of the libertarian complaints with respect to the SCHIP program. Here, for instance, is Jacob Sullum, writing in Reason:
As “a conservative who wants to help restore the limited federal government envisioned in the Constitution,” Rep. Roscoe Bartlett said, he could not in good conscience vote to override President Bush’s veto of a bill boosting federal spending on children’s health insurance. But the Maryland Republican also said he was “proud” to have supported the creation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and promised he would “work to ensure a safety net of health insurance for the children of the working poor.”
The Framers would have insisted on nothing less, as reflected in the Constitution’s Health Care Clause. Oh, wait. The Constitution has no Health Care Clause. Nor does it include any other provision that authorizes Congress to spend taxpayers’ money on health insurance for the children of the working poor, the grandparents of the middle class, the nephews of the super-rich, or the kin of any other socioeconomic group.
Still, Bartlett and Bush deserve some credit for resisting the expansion of a highly popular program that never should have been created to begin with, especially since they knew they’d be accused of being stingy child haters. They would deserve more credit if they applied their avowed principles a little more consistently, in which case the charges of cruel penny-pinching would be less credible.
When Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill, which would have spent an additional $35 billion over five years, he expressed concern about “federalizing” health care. “I believe in private medicine,” he said, “not the federal government running the health care system.” He also worried that opening SCHIP to families earning up to three times the poverty level (about $62,000 for a family of four) would move it away from its original goal of serving people too poor to afford insurance but not quite poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.
It’s hard to reconcile Bush’s opposition to a bigger federal role in health care and his emphasis on strict means testing with the Medicare prescription drug benefit he championed, which is expected to cost $675 billion during the next decade while compelling middle-class taxpayers to buy Lipitor for retired billionaires. More generally, Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” if it means anything, means a willingness to spend other people’s money on sympathetic causes.
No wonder Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) found Bush’s SCHIP veto puzzling. “If we’re truly compassionate, it seems to me, we’d want to endorse this program,” Hatch said. “I don’t think the president is somebody who doesn’t want these kids to be covered.”
If you’re “truly compassionate,” according to this prominent conservative Republican, you support more money for SCHIP. Otherwise, you want kids to die of untreated diseases.
[my emphasis]
Any wonder why so many progressives are suddenly extolling the conservative bona fides of Orin Hatch — and using him as a prop (I think I see a trend developing!) to demonize a heartless President who cares naught for sick children?
Just another useful idiot to them, Hatch is. But to conservatives, he is something more: namely, representative of the kind of “compassionate conservatism” that increasingly is nothing more than a GOP attempt to cash in on the kinds of emotional appeals — and promises of government largess — that have consistently won Democrats elections.
Principle, it turns out, is harder to sell than promises of government favor, particularly to voters increasingly broken down into politically interested identity groups.
And Hatch, you see, is just being pragmatic — as well as discomfitingly opportunistic.
Still, he has a point — and it is one that critics of Bush’s domestic agenda have long pointed to: namely, that once you begin opening the government coffers for spending on social programs that you truly believe in (but which should not fall under the purview of the government), you open yourself up to charges of hypocrisy for not spending on those programs at which you’d like to draw the line.
The basic question of whether the government should force taxpayers to pay for children’s health insurance has not come up much in the debate provoked by Bush’s SCHIP veto.
Well, perhaps not nationally. But here, in the comments, it’s come up quite a bit, despite the inability of certain visiting SCHIP-expansion shills to either locate these arguments or respond to them substantively. Which, I realize, is asking a lot from those whose only rebuttal thus far has been is to accuse critics who find fault with the Democrats’ using a 12-year-old mouthpiece already covered under SCHIP to push for the program’s dramatic expansion (in what its critics believe is a dishonest emotional appeal designed to create a bridge toward national healthcare by incorporating the middle class) of being “hateful” smear merchants, “stalkers,” and “child abusers.”
But ever the optimists, we sally forth…
[…] there clearly is wide disagreement about the program’s details, including eligibility criteria, coverage of adults, and minimum benefits.
The intractability of these disputes is illustrated by divergent responses to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that between a quarter and a half of children covered by SCHIP would otherwise have private insurance. For supporters of “single payer” health care, this substitution of government for private coverage, which would become more common if eligibility criteria were loosened, is a feature, not a bug.
Precisely.
It is a bold attempt to push toward national healthcare — but rather than argue the point on its merits, the Democrats have chosen to give the policy push a tragic face, one who, it turns out, is not at all representative of what it is they are demanding.
Which makes the appeal not only crass and manipulative, but worse — dishonest, or at the very least, poorly considered.
And yes, it is perfectly within the bounds of respectful political discourse to challenge the rhetorical means by which the demand for an increase in spending is being sold to the American people, and to those Congresspeople being asked to override the President’s veto.
— None of which you’d be able to glean from the response of progressives and their MSM enablers, who have purposely (and cynically, in some cases) conflated the merits of the bill (and any subsequent debate on those merits) with the entirely separate observations and arguments about the unprincipled way in which the policy demand is being marketed.
For my part, I don’t accept the conflation — and in fact, I see it for the second-level rhetorical maneuver it is, one that tracks perfectly with other “progressive” attempts to shut off debate by attacking their opponents as haters, stalkers, and cancers on the body politic whose greedy nature keeps them from protecting the Interests of the Children™.
That these very haters, stalkers, and cancers on the body politic tend to be far more charitable than the champions of social justice extolled by demagogues like Paul Krugman is an irony not so much lost on progressives as, well, bracketed.
Concludes Sullum:
Instead of trying to resolve such issues at the national level, why not let each state go its own way, with results that vary depending on local values, the local cost of living, and the local health care situation? No federal money would mean that one state’s legislators could no longer force another state’s taxpayers to subsidize their generous impulses, but it would also mean no federal restrictions.
Permitting a wide range of policy experiments in areas where the federal government has no license to act is not just the law. It’s a good idea.
Such a federalist approach would, of course, put the Blue States in the position to have to put their own money where there “compassion” is — and could potentially show them up to be generous only inasmuch as their policy preferences are being subsidized by the federal government’s redistribution of funds.
Plus, there’s the difficulty of getting taxpayers to agree to an increase in taxes so that middle class families can chose, say, a Chevy Suburban payment over carrying insurance — without having to worry about the nature of the gamble.
As a classical liberal, I happen to support some sort of social safety net — and I am not at all happy with the current state of health care costs. But I don’t think the solution lies in moving toward nationalizing health care.
Instead, I’d prefer we started treating insurance as insurance — to cover the catastrophic — and use the huge drop in premiums such a restructuring would effect to allow people to budget for their own out of pocket health care needs.
This approach begins to reteach the need for personal accountability, which progressives despise, given that, in the long term, such instigation is a remedy for the encroachment of the nanny state they so clearly desire.
How we’d deal with the irresponsible in the meantime — so that, say, children don’t go without routine checkups or flu shots, etc., so that Mommy and Daddy can add the GPS system and the sunroof to the Volvo — would then become a legitimate question of policy, and one that I’d be more than happy to hash out.
But it is not “hateful” to point out that decisions have consequences — and that, in the case of the Frost family, their decision not to carry healthcare before the tragic accident to their children was a gamble they chose. Rather than turn them into progressive martyrs, then, I don’t see why it should be out of bounds to point out, dispassionately and as a matter of exemplification, that their claims to exorbitant health care costs, while true, are nonetheless the product not of Republican greediness or Presidential callousness, but rather of a system that compels people to chose between a new car payment or a monthly insurance premium that, under a more efficient system, might not present such a materialist dilemma.
Yeah, but you can’t drive around an insurance premium to impress the neighbors…
The progressives can’t get Americans to reject individualism as a concept, so instead they just try to make people reliant on government programs. They believe that if you can’t create a intellectual desire to work towards the good of the collective then you can do a poor mans job of it by forming a practical desire to work toward the common good by forcing material dependency.
This whole health care issue is just a means to that end. This is evident in that the same people who openly promote abortion, which has killed millions of unborn children in the US, gnash thier teeth and cry crocodile tears over “compassion and caring for the children” for socailized health care. I guess killing the children in uetro is ok as long as they have coverage.
I will not buy or even contemplate the Michael Moore version of American health care. I will not give in to the accompanying “crisis” narrative regarding almost every conceivable aspect of US domestic policy.
Public policy based on “it’s nice” is simply lousy policy. Political processes determine policies by definition, but I will not back off shallow entitlement bribery because someone calls me “mean.” Down that road lies programs that literally never end (rice subsidies to “protect” farmers, federal overtime pay for local law enforcement to write tickets to “save” lives, bridges to “connect” Alaskan islands–ad infinitum).
Jeff brings up a very salient point above: Namely, responsible parents look for ways to insure their families. For those that don’t and especially for those that don’t when federal and state programs DO exist to assist them, I have zero understanding or sympathy.
Lefties make really bad adults because they always want someone else to be responsible. I’m tired of picking up the tab.
Hatch is socially conservative but not very much so fiscally. He is like the president in this aspect.
B-b-b-but Jeff, why are you attacking, and visciously I might add, a disabled 12 year old and his hard working parents?
What a hoot… this whole SCHIP thing has gone off the deep end of lunacy.
No facts… just emotional ploys to get folks to vote through their tears.
And oddly, trying to see anything through teary bleary eyes, is an exercise in frustration and short sightedness.
Somebody get me a tissue!
My Pharmacist friend: You could spend all of the world’s resources just trying to save one life.
Q.E.D.
Hatch didn’t really absorb the lessons of what it means when you venture the proposition that you are a man of Presidential caliber and your party says like fuck you are.
I don’t even like paying for my own kids, why do they think I want to pay for someone else’s? Why do they think I care if they like me?
All I want them to do is to leave me alone, but every two years they insist on acting like some kind of overly-emotional kindergarten teacher
First of all, let me say this about Hatch: he recognized the danger in bin Ladin long, long before 9/11. Of course, at the time, we all rolled our eyes and said, “yeah, Orrin, whatevar.” Because he’s always on about something.
Second, Hatch is a moron. He will rue the day he published his fax machine number on his contact page. And the day God invented the PC-fax printer and large typefaces.
How we’d deal with the irresponsible in the meantime … would then become a legitimate question of policy, and one that I’d be more than happy to hash out.
Policy? Should we also make it policy when parents neglect to teach their children to brush their teeth, or when they feed them nothing but Cheetos and pizza, or when they don’t teach them the difference between right and wrong, or when they beat the hell out of them, or when they wage psychological war against their own kids?
You can always protest that children shouldn’t bear the burden of their parents’ stupidity, but if there were no real consequences to that stupidity, there would be no reason for the parents to grow the hell up.
You could also penalize parents for raising/not raising their kids in a religious tradition, if it comes to that, because you can always argue that spiritual health is just as important as physical.
But I totally agree: I’d far rather purchase insurance for the catastrophic and pay out of pocket for everything else. That way, doctors might be less tempted to site their offices in fancy office buildings and economize on the magazine subscriptions and aquarium fees.
haters, stalkers, and cancers on the body politic whose greedy nature keeps them from protecting the Interests of the Childrenâ„¢
Apparently, one of the Interests of the Childrenâ„¢ is to prevent them from ever having to grow up. But that’s a the core of Nannystatism, isn’t it? Peter Pan all around!
Me, I look awful in tights.
True. But at the same time, if a kid is going without necessary medicine because Mommy or Daddy really wants that trip to Vegas, we have to take care of the kid.
And the policy would have to provide the incentive. I don’t know what that might be, but like I said, I’d be willing to hash that out. Maybe the cost is added to the parents’ tax burden. Or they are billed, kind of like federal student aid.
There’s a potential slippery slope there, and I’m aware of that, which is why I said we’d have to hash it out. But there is also a difference between dubious preventative care and care and treatment for the truly sick.
I’m trying to make distinctions, even though I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought just yet.
I think there are a lot of basically healthy people out there that don’t understand how ridiculously, insanely expensive medical care is for people without insurance. For that reason I’m a little hesitant to say to these people “you should have gotten health care before – so screw you!”.
However, I don’t see why the tax spigot should open up to support a lifestyle that’s more lavish than mine. These people should have a net worth of basically zero before the first taxpayer dollar gets spent. Instead of new SUVs they should be driving beat-up ’95 honda civics and living in a rental. Then we’ll talk about tax dollars for your kids. Allowing them to lead a basically middle-class lifestyle on my tax dollar will just entice others to do the same. “Why get health insurance? If something happens the government will pick up the tab.”
“I’d far rather purchase insurance for the catastrophic and pay out of pocket for everything else”
I’ve had this option availible for a couple of years now, it comes with an HSA, a health savings account that you can roll over year to year. The last two companies I’ve worked for have even been willing to pay me over $1000 PER YEAR for joining. The problem with something like this is that people have forgotten how to manage their money, so if they have to pay the Doctor $60 for an office visit, it goes on plastic instead of cash. So they end up with 6 grand in their HSA, but they’ve got $16k of credit card debt they blame on “health care in this country”
I’m pissy today and I’m going to stop now before I start telling everyone how they should do things. Because really, I don’t care how they do things, but I do care if they bitch about it. Especially if they had a choice, and I have to hear it.
No one’s ever paid me for spelling correctly.
– Bush’s massive bitch slap down of the Dimbulb do nothing Congress ought to give the Left a lot of new pages for their coloring books. SCHIP hasen’t just sailed, its gone down faster than the Titanic. Teh children of the Loon-Bat collective will now gather in the schoolyard for an extended round of hair pulling, clothes rending, and screech-a-thons. For once his advisors timed something right.
– Pie anyone?
– And so it starts. “Obama and Cheney found to be distant cousins – Film at 11”….(While watching pay close attention and check for Clintonesta finger prints….)…..
Not for nothing, and this has confounded me as a denizen of a blue state, but the Blue states would be better off with zero federal involvement because they are the states that consistently pay far more to the federal gummint than they get back. Why do NYers want to subsidize Alabama’s poor people when they have enough of their own?
How to deal with the irresponsible? Well, how do we treat parents who fail to feed, clothe, and otherwise take care of their children? Seriously, preferring to spend your money on expensive cars while eschewing steady jobs in favor of part-time, essentially hobby work, is irresponsible in the same way that blowing the money on crack, booze, or lottery tickets.
I am glad you’re thinking about it, Jeff. I thought this was a ‘libertarian’ site judging from much of Scrooge-type reactions to the Frosts. Such as thisJeff brings up a very salient point above:
“Namely, responsible parents look for ways to insure their families. For those that don’t and especially for those that don’t when federal and state programs DO exist to assist them, I have zero understanding or sympathy.
“Lefties make really bad adults because they always want someone else to be responsible. I’m tired of picking up the tab.” (how much is that? I ask)
you contrast that typical reaction with this:
“True. But at the same time, if a kid is going without necessary medicine because Mommy or Daddy really wants that trip to Vegas, we have to take care of the kid.
“And the policy would have to provide the incentive. I don’t know what that might be, but like I said, I’d be willing to hash that out. Maybe the cost is added to the parents’ tax burden. Or they are billed, kind of like federal student aid.”
I am afraid you’ll pay for those ‘moderate’ words from the insanely right-wing. As in the other column of S’chip, I think just using a tax-based system of even proportional funding by all tax payers beats our system. Thus, why no emerging national entities (I mentioned Taiwan for example) want to emulate our privatized health care insurance system with it’s high mark-ups and high administrative costs and Big Pharm spending more on advertizing than research.
When dealing with all the critics of universal health care and believers in private health insurance, I get only name-calling or hear vicious character assassination (as against the Frosts…who’ve received death threats etc.) Often the believers in privatization of health care seem jealous and angry that they pay so much and the uninsured don’t. Is that a form of ‘envy’?
I also question why Health Insurers should be allowed to cherry pick clients and/or deny coverage or charge much more for preexisting conditions…which you agreed with by criticizing the Frosts for not having full coverage before the accident.
Another thing, do people realize that insurance companies can drop coverage at will…meaning all the money that you invested into that policy goes into their pockets for presumed profits at your expense. Or if you loose coverage due to lose of job or income again all the money you put into that policy goes to the profit of people of questionable character. Again, I’d rather give a fixed percentage to the govt. than to corruptable and unaccountable insurance companies. Say what you want about government, but a democratic government is much more accountable via the ballot than a private insurance company.
But then how could they tell the red staters how to live?!
The man has a point. Now, take his wallet.
This is yet another pile of unadulterated doo-doo. There is nothing to suggest that the Frosts were unable to purchase insurance prior to the accident due to price, pre-existing conditions, or anything other than their not making providing for the health and security of their family a priority.
Move to a commune.
You will not hear me ever, ever defend private health insurance companies as they are currently constituted. Their behavior is pernicious to the point of being legalized extortion. I hope all their executives burn in hell.
But I would much rather see a restructuring of the privatized system than turn it over to the gubmint.
Say what you want about government, but a democratic government is much more accountable via the ballot than a private insurance company.
Really? How accountable to voters are the Department of Education, the State Department, the EPA, the FDA, et al.? Elected officials might control who heads the department, but
juggernautsbureaucracies are notoriously difficult to change, and passive resistance to outright defiance often accompany efforts to redirect a department.Theoretically, private companies are accountable to their customers, who can vote with their wallets (and every vote counts!), but with insurance all tied up with one’s employer, it’s very difficult to pressure an insurance company to change its ways.
Let me rephrase that: you can’t pressure them at all. They are impervious to threats of going elsewhere with your business. Is that the same with auto-insurance companies? I don’t think so.
…people of questionable character…
…none of whom are ever found in a government agency, right? If it’s the government, then it’s by the people and for the people and therefore as close to perfection as you’ll get in this life.
I absolutely do not want to put my healthcare into the hands of people who cannot be fired.
the SCHIP debate is farcical – it’s being funded at the expense of 23% of the popluation (smokers) and the majority of the burden is placed on the 2% of all smokers who enjoy premium cigars (hand-rolled, long filler)…i realize tobacco is an easy target, but given that individual states already have an excise tax in place (ranging from 0% (PA) to 148% (CA)) on other tobacco products (cigars, pipe tobaccos, chewing tobaccos) and a separate tax on cigarettes plus smoking bans; the fed will NEVER get the monies they are planning on getting to fund this program….people will find ways to avoid the $3.00 per cigar tax (increased from $.05 per cigar)to pay for this B.S. – can you say internet?? or black market?? i think the idea is a sound one, in terms of health insurance, but the way the good folks in DC want to pay for this simply will not work…see what happens when we vote folks in who have never worked in the private sector?….why not a one cent per minute tax on cell phone usage; or a $100 per abortion charge; or a one cent tax on beer/soda pop??? why not, lobbyists are too strong in these areas…
datadave –
If you spend all your time mischaracterizing other people’s opinions and then asking them to defend your strawmen, it is no surprise that you receive mainly invective in return – what you sow, you reap.
If you really want a discussion, don’t start with an accusation. I, for one, have no great desire to enter into a discussion with someone who starts by insulting me with a hatchet job.
You can start with trying to figure out why
which is a form of saying “you’re greedy because you won’t let me take what you have and use it for my ends,” is about the most grotesque of the common forms of hypocrisy that have fallen to the level of common assumption on what passes for “the left” these days.
I don’t know, Jeff. All kinds of kids live with marginally negligent parents. Define the illness that reaches the threshold. It gets sticky. For example, I know a woman whose only child has diabetes. She feeds him sweets and then gives him an infusion of insulin. Better to avoid sweets, no? His life depends on it after all. Already, the system deals with parents who withhold life-saving care for children. If the only reason they aren’t taking care of their kid is because they bought a Hummer, and their kid is gonna die, then they need the kid taken away. Otherwise, the kid will have to live with a stupid parent. Many of us did and are here to talk about it.
b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but … The healthcare system in Canada, England, Singapore, and Cuba is better than ours. Better, I tell you.
True enough, Melissa. Like I said, I only brought up the contingency because I think it needs to be addressed.
As you know, I’m no fan of the Nanny State. But I can recognize how such an argument would be used to make the case against catastrophic-only insurance. So I think it’s at least worth broaching.
Your answer, and dicentra’s before you, were both good ones. But would you be willing to compromise in order to change the entire culture of the health care industry?
Yeah, check out this story about people doing their own dental work in England. Nice: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=487621&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
“the SCHIP debate is farcical”
can’t agree more. Now, I am realizing why the Republicans want the limelight on the Frosts. To distract us from the fact that Schip is but a modest reform of a really big deal… that health care costs are outta control and that many people, like the Frosts, don’t want, or can’t pay for overpriced inadequate private insurance. I disagree with the violent name calling towards the Frosts as I really think they would have struggled to pay 600 or more a month for nebulous benefits. As a woodworker, myself, I know that self employed people have to keep their ‘fixed costs’ low as income is sporadic. Health care insurance is a very high mark up ‘fixed cost’ being around number three, for a lower middle class family like the Frosts, in largess after the fixed costs of .shelter and transportation. Note, paying insurance isn’t the same as good health. At least with housing and transportation you get what you pay for. But insurance is only a guarantee for payment to the health care industry, which is often of nebulous worth for the consumer.
there are two sides to the tobacco tax question. The higher prices due to taxes have cut down smoking.. a good thing. But if govt. continues to use ‘vice taxes’ (gambling is another)..it’ll end up promoting that which funds it.
Need I mention the Soviet Union and it’s dependence upon Vodka taxes? One of Gorby’s ideas was to cut back on drunkenness…see where that got him.
No one wants to see the Frosts struggle. Mostly it would be kinda fun to see them actually work for a living.
– “Thus, why no emerging national entities (I mentioned Taiwan for example) want to emulate our privatized health care insurance system with it’s high mark-ups and high administrative costs and Big Pharm spending more on advertizing than research.”
– So then you think the British have the right idea, since pliers are so much cheaper than dental insurance?
– I understand you are trying to engage in debate, but its coming across as just the same-ole-same-ole systemic hate by the Left for free enterprize. For all its warts our health system at least provides full service. Thats why some 100 birth-complication mothers had to flee to the US last year because Canada lacks even a single extreme conditions infant clinic.
– I think you, and most of your indulgent Komrads, continue to miss the point. No one is saying the US health care system is great, or even “good”, but a governemetal system is a demonstrable disaster in every case you can site, worldwide. So if you want to propose alternatives or fixes that might force the culprits to deal more fairly with the public, do so, and forget trying to sell Socialized medicine, which is tatimount to proposing burning down the barn to adjust for leaving the door open, in which case both the barn and the horse suffer.
What’s the compromise? To me the answer is high-deductible, catastrophic insurance for everyone. Suddenly, preventative health care gets competitive. The costs will drop precipitously. Doctors will compete on fees. The best docs will command higher fees. As for the parents who neglect their child, the system already deals with it. I haven’t seen a proposal yet that isn’t intrusive either to the parents or the taxpayer. Any ideas?
Merovign
hey, it’s a conservative site, and I am not a conservative. Got plenty of namecalling elsewhere here. But then you’re proof of that vicious name calling syndrome that is sui genus of the right-wing in this country.
alright, I’d like to see why My Money should be going to Eric Prince et al. I’d rather have my federal tax dollar going to health care. But I can guess? You like funding Mercenaries as a Conservative, Mercenary armies are Good, Universal Health care is Bad. A sick argument is made at the National Review about why privatization of the military is good as all those hired goons Won’t be costing Trillions of dollars for veterans’ benefits. Go and read it yourself. That is the typical conservative thought…but what of the injured mercenaries? where do they go after Eric Prince et al disbands them. Someday maybe in 20 years some NPR news show will go on about all iraqi war vets (uninsured filling up hospital beds on the public dime because of irresponsible Conservative thinking of today. Micheal Milken taught a class in this kind of thinking….titled:
“Privatize Profit; Socialize Costs” (that is in fact what private health insurance does)
that is the essence of Republican Greed and Irresponsibility.
$35,000,000,000 and growing annually is modest? My fucking brain hurts.
That they did not feel like providing for the security of their family makes it our responsibility to do so … why? Additionally, not that it would matter to a fucktard like you, but there is no evidence whatsoever that they were unable to purchase insurance, or that it was cost prohibitive, prior to the accident. I guess buying another car or some commercial property was more important.
Big Bang – I trotting out lies, calling names, and advocating systems that have been demonstrable failures across the globe is called debating, then yes, datadave is debating.
tobacco taxes have NOT cut down on smoking, only on the legal sale of tobacco products (see Oregon 2003 via reduction in OTP tax due to decreasing revenues)…people are finding ways to purchase their tobacco products from other non-taxed sources….in terms of cigarette sales, perhaps they may seem like they are” down”, people are just rolling their own, avoiding the cigarette tax altogether – buying machines, papers/filtered papers and loose tobacco…hopefully smoking by minors is down – that was the whole “idea” of all the civil litigators who got wealthy via the big tobacco settlement….100’s of millions of dollars to individual states to pay for….are you ready….education and children’s health insurance….!!!! two things happen when the economy is good – people smoke and drink…two things happen when the economy stinks – people smoke and drink….
– “that is the essence of Republican Greed and Irresponsibility.”
– No, and much more to the point, what the entire “latest Neo-Marxist collectivism SCHIP scam” shows is the moonbat community continues to believe that the best way to buy desperately needed votes is through disasterous, non-justified, government dole programs.
If everyone in America started taking Chantix tomorrow, or began ordering their cigarettes online from a foreign distributor, how long do you think that the Local, State, and Federal governments could remain operational?
actually Melissa, I was taught that myself by a man of wealth..being that I am of modest means. I just never went to the doctor with my high deductable policy. I never collected a dime in fourteen years for my thousands put into Mutual of Omaha. Now, maybe one executive had a good golfing weekend in Scotland for a weekend on my dime. Probably only cover lodgeing at current rates, my five or six K. But rates were much lower then.
High Deductibles are good for the well off and healthy people that’s why they’ve been popular for trustfunders for a long time. I learned from a Mainline Philly guy that rule of thumb. But those who don’t have the cash to make regular office checkups..in fact, those High deductables cause lower incomed people to get substandard care. For example it costs just for a standard eye exam by an MD. Two Hundred dollars. And you lose time at work to do it.
But M. there are improvements and innovations. A policy for a family of 4 in my state with a deductible of 10K (dollars) did give free office checkups. An improvement. But it costs over 600 dollars a month.
with a deductible that high I wonder what’s the use of having it in the first place? Go w/o and let the devil take the hindmost.
“moonbat”? do I have to go to Wikipedia or can you translate?
Jd. wishful thinking. Perfect policy for Indian Casino’s though, cheaper Cigs, dancing girls, and gambling too. Geromino’s Revenge!
– Its a term of endearment Dave. Trust me on this. Pat, pat, pat……
Moonbat – You are one of them.
Do you even understand what insurance is?
Indian-ist.
Datadave,
Rather than going on about the price of healthcare why don’t you consider the cost? It’s apparent you believe they should always be borne by someone other than the actual consumer.
– Oh, and Wikipedia. Around here Wiki has the political gravitas of the National Inquirer, only about 8 levels lower.
– They blew their cover way back during the 2004 mess by redacting a large part of the Ketchup sluts bio, most notably the fact that her Doctor daddy was one of the founders of the Mozambique Communist party, which for understandable reasons would look a trifle bad on sKerry’s Pres. candidate reume’.
– If you cite Wiki, you’ve pretty much sunk your own swiftboat.
the FDA reported that “premium cigars and pipe tobaccos are not nicotine delivery devices, nor are they marketed toward minors”….premium cigars..not “Black & Milds” not “Phillies Blunts”, but premium cigars (Fuente, Padron, CAO, Torono, Montecristo, Dunhill, MacBaren, McClelland, etc..etc..)…in terms of 2nd hand smoke, there has NEVER been a study on 2nd hand cigar/pipe tobacco smoke…..imangine when 50-60% of the population smoked in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s…don’t recall people dropping dead from inhaling second-hand smoke….why punish (who have already been punished via smoking bans and increased state taxes) the minority for funding 10M kiddos??? the SCHIP program is a joke based on a SMELL that people do not care for and, therefore, want to hammer with a further tax to fund their fat kids??? sorry mom and dad,….why not just have one TV, or no pets, or no X-Box, or a smaller, fuel-efficient vehicle….84K per year for a family and you can’t afford you kids’ insurance??? get real
JD, you’re just namecalling and in all your reactions, not one original thought comes across. Maybe you listen to Rush Limbaugh faithfully every noon to three. I worked with one of you guys. Never could stand contrasting ideas, public radio made him heave. We worked with radio on. Only reads conservative science fiction. And he is a full blown Alcholic. But he was fun to have around just to make a liberal feel superior. And he was a good “demo man”. Liked taking insulation out of ceilings and walls. Didn’t complain about dirt too much. For that, I’d let him listen to Rush 30 minutes a week. He tried to be an insurance salesman once, flunked out of college. We finally fired him as he was too drunk to show up.
datadave – Sorry to disappoint. I do not listen to Rush, read Ann, watch Hannity or O’Reilly. I could not give a flying fuck what those talking heads say. You, I find amusing. Them, not so much.
I am not quite sure what your anecdote proves, other than you are a pompous self-lefteous ass, but maybe that was your point.
I heard there is a Conservative Wiki….only Authorized data allowed.
self-lefteous ass
and lecherous to boot!
price of healthcare why don’t you consider the cost
dude , I a might be a Liberarian. I care about only the Costs. health care’s not my gig.
– How about a “factual” version of Wiki. Hmmmm, no, that would never fly with the Google people.
datadave,
You showed up, called names, then cried and cried because you might have to defend your ideas, then called names again.
You did not and clearly will not substantively address issues, and thus have wasted more than enough of my time.
The sad thing is, everyone INCLUDING YOU knows what you’re doing, and you can’t see “debating” from there. Have fun lashing that strawman, I hear they’re selling them at the dollar store now, so don’t go easy!
If everyone in America started taking Chantix tomorrow, or began ordering their cigarettes online from a foreign distributor, how long do you think that the Local, State, and Federal governments could remain operational?
JD. They will find something else to tax. They always do.
One way to provide insurance to the truly needy would be to issue them a medicare card that is good at any VA hospital. The infrastructure and staff are already in place.
Again. I don’t blame insurance companies so much as trial lawyers. Why should an internist(GP)in Illinois have to pay $40,000 a year in liability insurance? A neurosurgeon, ten times that.
– Well San Fran Nan has responded to Bush’s ass-kick address to the do-nothing Dem led Congress this morning.
– He tore them a new one, reading them a list of the many things they haven’t done, using their time to try to dismantal windmills.
– Her response: “We’re being partisan attacked….. wwwaaaaaaaaaa!!!1111!!one!!
Libertarian. Not even drunk yet. When we going to have a Christian Mercenary column here?
I want to be a SOF for Christ!
now, Wikipedia is Better than sliced bread…just look up Joseph Smith and compare the fairness of Wiki as opposed to the antiMormon screed of Encyclopedia Britanica. (btw, I am not Mormon but lived in Utah many a year.
to prove wikipedia is damned good and educational: thus:
VMoonbat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Moonbat (also “barking moonbat” and “moonbat crazy”) is a term often used currently in U.S. politics as a political epithet referring to anyone that is liberal or on the left. “Wingnut” (or “right wing nut”) is frequently preferred as the analogous epithet aimed at the political right.[1]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History of use
* 2 Current use
* 3 Notes
* 4 See also
[edit] History of use
According to an article by New York Times language maven William Safire, the term was first used by the famous science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein in 1947.[1] Heinlein used the term in a 1947 short story, “Space Jockey”, as the name of the third stage of a rocket bound for the moon.
[edit] Current use
According to Safire, “The prevailing put-down of right-wing bloggers is wingnuts; this has recently been countered by the vilification of left-wing partisans who use the Web as moonbats…”[1]
The term has been used by three columnists at the Boston Herald newspaper. Howie Carr uses the term regularly in his columns.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Margery Eagan, another Herald columnist, has used the term several times to characterize some supporters of Democratic governor Deval Patrick,[8][9][10] and Michael Graham has also used the term.[11]
Conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin was quoted by Howard Kurtz as writing, “But now the determined moonbat hordes have exposed multiple instances of what clearly appear to me to be blatant lifting of entire, unique passages by [conservative blogger] Ben Domenech from other writers,” [12] in reference to Domenech’s resignation from the Washington Post over allegations of plagiarism.
[edit] Notes
datadave –
i enjoyed your comments, well written and thought out; i must say, however, if the folks in DC were to increase your business tax, on the products that you sell, by 600%, you would probably sing a different tune – am i correct? would you be willing to go out of business for the sake of 10M kids who may, or may not, need the gov’t to pay for their health insurance…..if the answer is yes, well, you’re a better man than i am….if the answer is no, than you understand where i am coming from…..when you put your life saving into a dream and the Govt wants to tax the heck out of it to the point that you can no longer make it….well, it think you see my point…good comments, though….
a modest reform of a really big deal
The reason the Frosts were trotted out not was not to promote a “modest reform”, but for the simple reason of making being on welfare look respectable. It’s a really big deal to make being unable to care for your family without government aid a respectable thing. It’s a ruinously expensive proposition, actually.
Gov. Moonbeam anyone?
you conservatives don’t have any answers do you? About Health Care nor Blackwater?
Nancy Pelosi is a rich bitch. What more can I say. The Democratic Party is hardly Leftist. Liberal Media and Leftist Democratic Party are the biggest Strawmen ever flatuated out of Reactionary asses like Uselves. There really isn’t much of a “left” in AmeriKa. I am just barely a man of the left.. .not as much as George Orwell. Always a man of the Left ’til his dying day. Anti Stalinist doesn’t mean anti Left. In fact, Stalinism is Rightist. Communists killed the leftists and made deals with the conservatives such as Armand Hammer (90 years ago) and the same today with a Republicans including a conservative dominated Congress (they still have the upper hand with conservative Dems like Morman Reid and Mayor’s daughter Pelosi in command). GWBush ‘s economy is propped up by cheap consumer items from the chicoms and plenty of loans from there too. Oh, I hear they are having private health insurance coming to China. The barefoot doctors aren’t getting paid. Trouble is only less than one percent of China can afford private health insurance. But they are importing our industrial pollution while our cancer rates go down. Their cancer rates are going way, way up. We are in a symbiotic relationship with China. They loan us money so we can stock up on their goods, we cut down on air pollution, they increase theirs, we get less cancer, they get more. Pretty good, eh?
oh, Groan you say, You agree with Micheal Crighton, that Global Warming isn’t a problem, but environmentalist moonbats are. Now, read Rising Sun where he predicted that the Japanese where taking over the USA in the early 80s. Krugman’s a lot more correct in all his predictions than a typical wingnut.
I am not in a symbiotic relationship with China. That’s just unnatural.
Someone needs a refresher course in the first rule of holes.
Or its “Meds Time” again.
Datadave doesn’t understand basic econ enough to differentiate price and cost. He’s not in least bit aware, nor concerned that by shunting massive amounts of wealth into healthcare we may actually suffer more in the long run.
Maybe by doing without such future advances like high efficiency carbon neutral sources of energy, or lower highway fatality rates via safer automobiles made from high tech materials, or greater efficiency and wealth creation through improved communications infrastructure.
Nope, all of that is absolute gibberish to a genius like Datadave.
to all bloggers…thought we were discussing the SCHIP program and its benfits/drawbacks….can we become adults again and engage in a rational debate?? i’m simply against it due to how it is funded and the line it crosses in terms of annual income and age limits….the idea is sound, but the politics are flawed and devisive…to me, a self-addmitted novice, cap it at 21 (unless full time college student up to 25 yrs of age) – with a household income (adjusted for cost of living for different regions) at $60,000…pay for it with a tax on something (no, don’t have the answers on this) that THE MAJORITY of people use/utilize……any thoughts??? can we be adults and be creative and find some solutions?? i think we can…
“a man of the left” … who talks like that?
But then you’re proof of that vicious name calling syndrome that is sui genus [sic] of the right-wing in this country.
Are you serious? Do you really think that there’s a single ideological corner of the blogosphere or meatworld whose inhabitants never, ever name-call?
You like funding Mercenaries as a Conservative, Mercenary armies are Good, Universal Health care is Bad.
A mercenary is a soldier who hires himself out to a country other than his own, mijo. The Swiss Guard at the Vatican are mercenaries.
But then, using the word “mercenary” imprecisely is just as bad as the term “universal health-care.” Because that would mean that everyone gets taken care of. Well, they do, if they don’t die first while waiting in line after the services are rationed to cut costs.
Oh, and the mess that is the VA? You do realize that that’s a prime example of what happens when the government manages healthcare, don’t you?
Please also invest in paragraph breaks, a dictionary, and a style guide (read the section about avoiding thematic drift). Otherwise, you come off as an example of the ranting Chiroptera lunaria that is sui generis of the left in this country.
$60,000 is above the national average. No thanks. This will end up just like the income tax, where a ever decreasing number of people with pay the vast majority of the taxes. Once we get to that point, the only remaining questions will be how big this program will continue to grow.
datadave – Get your scripts updated.
If their education wasn’t so expensive, these doctors, they might have a slightly less refined sense of entitlement I think.
For being such an idiot, who knew he could single-handedly control an economy with a GDP in excess of $11 trillion. That’s some idiot, no?
JD –
the current proposal is $84,000 for coverage under the SCHIP…i appreciate your “national average” idea, but have you ever tried to live in NY or CA or MA w/ $60,000 per year w/ kids?? can you help in terms of a dollar amount that would be acceptable to you? would you be willing to pay a bit extra? if so, on what? soda, beer, cell phone usage, gasoline…oh, sorry, our backsides are already sore from that one…
Brent Dayton
thx for a little kindness. I am all for business. Jobs and Business should be separated from the health care insurance benefit provision. It was a historical lapse of short term benefit meant to solve a short term problem to encourage even sickly people to work around the clock in the war industry during WW2. I don’t think many here know the history of health insurance as having a creeping development with a minimal cost for a benefit to attract workers. After the war, other industries copied the mode and returning vets who had govt. health care would only work for those companies that’d offer insurance. Then it cost maybe 3 per cent of GNP. The other half of the historical drama is Blue Cross/Blue Shield: invented to provide doctors and hospitals income when times were bad for a small fee to be paid by the insured..like 2 or 3 percent of income. That again was for benefit of the provider not the consumer…
Now look where incrementalism and inaccountability has led us. Health care costs for middling improvments in life span and life style now at about 14 percent of GNP. Middle class people if self insured pay up to 35 per cent of income (if they have preexisting conditions and aren’t denied…) and healthy middle class people up to a quarter of income.
When I hired someone, I didn’t put just a man’s take home income and put it in the debit column. I put all the overhead in to. So the average employee really doesn’t know the price of his employment. With health care insurance it’s a huge overhead. I returned to employee status 5 years ago. Two years ago I had two jobs in the same year where I competed with 20 others and got the job. After all that, both those companies failed due to two things: mismanagment and Health Insurance. They were relatively kind bosses (but didn’t like criticism) who offered a stripped down health policy where I paid either 20 percent or 50 percent in the later one. Both companies are gone now .. my two last employers…although now I am a ‘sub-contractor’ self employed (and should have been an employee but the ‘boss’ is too lazy and cheap to fill out the paperwork)…certainly do not have health benefits and they’ve been in business for many years.
The companies with health benefits failed, those w/o are still here. Anecdotal only?
I am also against corporate taxes if that corporation actually is serving the public good….(a little twitch in the law about corporations…they were intended not for private good. .but public good….look how that law’s been changed). I think progressive taxation of income is good but not too high. Present caps ago If we forgo the cap on Social Security and Medicaid. the Really welloff are getting ‘scotfree’ on that one. I am not even ‘against’ people of high wealth as they often give perspective..as patrons of art and culture. but not too many of them and not at lower tax rates than working people (which is the case at the present time.)
the most likely form of reform would be decoupling the health benefit from working benefits with a corollary of making the well off pay a share too. At the present, Health care in the form of insurance is less than one percent of income for really well healed people. Some expanding of Medicaid is likely into a universal program. For middle class people costs could be pushed down but definitly the well-off will pay more as they should. Many people of wealth know this and they donate to their hospitals as a result of charity and maybe a little guilt (and guarantee of good care…at least in NYC).
some here think the poor and rich get the same kind of care……ludicrous. Those who have the gold and the knowledge go here: http://www.wakerobin.com/default.php
I know a benefactress there, She’s nice and her name’s on a wing of the teaching hospital and she still maintains her own rosebushes and doesn’t need a gardener. But it’s about a half million to get in there or high monthly “club” fees…. wish we could all go out like that.
datadave –
i still like ya’, bro, but you’re speaking above my level of competence – you have a grasp on the history of things that is admirable, but were speaking about the NOW….you’re clearly an educated man with a view on how things should be handled…my question to you was not if the rich folks should pay more or if they have it better than most of us (this is not new to anyone, nor has it been for 2000 years or so, no offense intended); rather it was if the Govt were to raise the taxes on the products that you produce and sell by 600% to pay for the health insurance of “children” who may, or may not, need the benefit, would you still be in favor of the program?? your points are well made – HMO’s are certainly far from perfect – civil litigators are crooks, the insurance industry, in general, is a business – they are required to make a profit for their investors/members (mutual companies) to stay in business…not exactly a new concept…but in terms of the SCHIP proposal…is it fair or not in your opinion?? i say no and i said why…..what do you say, my educated friend? and do you have any solutions/ideas to help facilitate it’s improvement/implementation?
datadave-“You agree with Micheal Crighton that Global Warming isn`t a problem, but moonbats are. Now read Rising Sun where he predicted the Japanese would overtake us in the early 80s.” So, what are you saying- that because Crighton might have been wrong in that book- that means your right about your views of health care? You`ve got to be kidding me. And your right- the Japanese sure aren`t kicking our ass in the automoble depatment.
dicentra…blackwater and most of the other mercenary outfits under US aegis contract with foreign nationals besides those from the US to do work in iraq and elsewhere. Chileans are prevalent in the US Mercenary market. And why do they call it: Soldier of Fortune anyway. Same lame right-wing excuses. It’s pretty tiresome. Besides I consider the regular military as mercenary as gold, more often than patriotism, is the motive. Better benefits than Walmart and burgerflipping. The Popular definition of a mercenary is ‘soldier of fortune’ meaning working for whomever, for money. You’re only using an “authorized” definition… authorized by the present Federal Govt.
(this is not new to anyone, nor has it been for 2000 years or so, no offense intended); rather it was if the Govt were to raise the taxes on the products that you produce and sell by 600% to pay for the health insurance of “children†who may, or may not, need the benefit
not sure what you mean.. a narrow tax upon cigarettes. you mean? I didn’t think you were in the tobacco business. I’ll agree the tax should be broader and S-chip is just a patch. Kind of like a nicotine patch!
hey, I need to move stuff for the cleaning lady coming tomorrow. I am a slob. Typing too much. and g/f’s coming the day after… my entertainment here might be on hiatus for awhile.
hey, the Japanese don’t pay their executives so much and have universal health care. But they didn’t take over America as Mr.Propagandist said they would. Anybody who’d kiss up to bankrupt businessman Sen.Inhof of OK and Global Warming deniers is pretty evil…esp. after writing “State of Fear”….enviromentalists as Terrorists. yeah, sure..like they were the ones who bombed Oklahoma City.
datadave –
it so happens that i am in the tobacco business, i own my own cigar/pipe shop….a “narrow increase” in cigarettes?? $0.61 per pack? if that’s narrow i’d like to see your definition – let’s say, in your state that cig’s sell for $4 per pack – a $0.61 increase is greater than 10%!! narrow, eh?? first of all, i do not sell cigarettes, but i do sell premium cigars and pipe tobaccos – the good folks in congress, who already get $.05 per cigar for federal excise tax want to raise it to $3.00 PER CIGAR…….that is what i mean about a 600% increase in taxation to pay for (SCHIP) kids health insurance….what will it do? well, combined with state excise tax – which is relatively low – (17% in Ohio on what i buy each and every day, not what i sell – meaning the state gets their money first – paid monthly – and i have to sell it to get mine) and smoking bans in public places; folks will, and already do, look for other outlets to buy their tobacco products. not to meniton the 3,000,000 workers in Central America and the Carribean who will suffer as a result of the possible increase in taxation…….haven’t been told that by your news source eh? doen’t supprise me….all that anyone has been told by our “detailed reporters” in the mass media is that the SCHIP program is being funded by an increase in cigarette tax – that is plain B.S. – as an educated man, i know this should outrage you….maybe you smoke, maybe you don’t – frankly, i don’t care, but you cannot deny that this is an outrageous tax on a minority of the population to fund a program that makes sense on paper, but will not generate the funds that are predicted because people will find ways, legal or not, to persue their intrests…simply put, that is why i am against this SCHIP proposal…good luck to you and keep up your tenacity and independant thinking…
You mean we’re going to have to do without your incoherent sputtering and insults?
Just stay away for 2 days, 13 hours, 12 minutes. By then I’ll be in Disney World.
thx. Brent. ‘
I’ll admit I get a little shrill here. I have mixed feelings about tobacco. My dad occasionally smoked pipes and cigars and he lives today. My mom was a cigarette addict and died a long and cruel death of gradual suffication due to mix of emphasima and lung cancer. But I try not to be judgemental but recommend that all cigarette smokers cease their habit as my fiancee’s daughter should and at a mere 25 she’s looking pretty old already. Both my aunts (mom’s sisters) died the same way. Lucky for you that you’re in the pipe and cigar business, better than cigarettes. Less deadly and better flavor…Dad liked a pipe too. That’s a great smell whereas cigarettes….pretty bad.
Another weird twist on the culture wars is this. In the US, Leftists tend to not smoke generally as being ‘environmentalists’ and health nuts and granola types…which is all good…but in Europe, smoking was a Leftist thing. Although it’s changed probably. The Nazi’s tried to ban smoking but smoking German soldiers showed that it’s a hard one to break. Euro’s took up smoking to spit in the faces of the health nut fascists who only wanted strong bodies to send off into suicidal war. So smoking in Europe came to be a cultural resistance thing..whereas here it’s sort of conformist for the wrong side of the tracks crowd. ‘course, pipes and cigars are a different story but not too much…more the relaxed ‘elite’ crowd for those. You’re in small business and I know the taxes are tough…plus rent for shop space is a killer. Health care has to be financed somehow….but taxation upon the thin reed of tobacco is not a good place to rely upon. But I wouldn’t lower the present rate as i’ve heard it has worked in reducing teen smoking and the stats prove it.
good night, all
Dave, you’re using the term “mercenary” for its negative emotional impact so that you can feel good about dismissing the motives of those who sign up.
Are there those who join up because of the cash? Sure there are! But risking life and limb in a 140° desert for months at a time and being lied about by your more cynical countrymen is a helluva way to earn a modest salary. Not to mention the part about having to be away from your family, etc.
And that bit about only the poor, stupid, and desperate joining up? Do you think that the military doesn’t keep detailed records about who joins? Don’t you think they know exactly what education level they have, and where they come from?
Why yes, as a matter of fact, they do.
Here’s what they found, if you’re too lazy to read the file yourself.
After 9/11:
Here’s a hint: Don’t make half-baked assertions about something that can be quantitatively proved wrong.
Those people who decline to identify a race better get their shit together.
datadave-“And they did`nt take over as Mr. Propagandist said they would.” That`s right professor, that`s why i basically agreed with you on Rising Sun. But the point was is that is no defense of your view of health care, and it still isn`t. And as far as your “propagandist” is concerned, those things haven`t happened, either. We are all still here, and the sky isn`t falling.
GWBush ’s economy is propped up by cheap consumer items from the chicoms and plenty of loans from there too.
That sound? That’s the sound of all reason and logic being sucked down a gaping black hole of idiocy. Please god make it stop!!
Rusty, it’s actually kinda fun if you imagine every one of datadave’s comments being delivered by Bobcat Goldthwaite. A very serious Bobcat Goldthwaite. With glasses. In a velvet smoking jacket.
datadave is operating on the concept that if one continues to pump out volumes of standard socialist can, that he will eventually wear everyone down into submission.
Personally, I like his attempt to control the usage of language in service to Teh Narrative, in defining mercenaries however he sees fit.
dicentra – Don’t go getting all facty on datadave.
A.Pendragon – Thanks for such a good mental picture. Bobcat Goldthwaite seems like a perfect description of datadave.
datadave is a dick. Carry on.
– Listen, If you went around pumping out the Marxist Uber-speak and attacking Western culture/values/Christians/Joooosss like the current crop of young turk Sec “I don’t believe in anything but the collective” Proggs do, you’d be extremely nervous about people owning firearms too. Mercenaries, the very word, gives them hives. Paranoid is the mind set of seditionists posing as patriots.
This thread is not one that is enjoyable to read.
– How about bunnies Feets…..lots of little fluffy bunnies, hip-hopping around in a field of pretty daisies…. and flutterbyes…..Would that be a more soothing read?
– Except of course if the field was in Afghanistan, which would mean it was lots of poppies instead of daisies, but the bunnies would be very happy at least…..
I like bunnies. How many bunnies do I have? I have two bunnies. Are they big bunnies? No. My bunnies are very small. Where do your bunnies live? They live in a bunny castle that this guy made. Are your bunnies happy? Yes. My bunnies are very happy.
– Poppies take a lot of care to grow, but then its worth it to keep the bunnies happy…..
This thread is already like 150% more enjoyable to read.
– Goldfenkle and PW are nothing if not egalitarian…..
Oh! oh! When does datadave roll out the balloon fence and invasion via shipping container?
Two years ago I had two jobs in the same year where I competed with 20 others and got the job. After all that, both those companies failed due to two things: mismanagment and Health Insurance.
Thanks for the krugman economics lesson.
Most businesses go under because of equal dollops of mismanagment and Health care costs. Sometimes they go under because health care costs overwhelm mismangement. But this phenomenon can be directly tied back as a symptom of mis-management … so technically, in this case, its not more healthcare costs, but really mis-management masquerading as healthcare costs. Either way, when they finnaly do go out of business, the owner/robber barons strip the company of assets and take great pleasure firing employees and kicking thier families to the curb, all while twirling their great big handlebar moustaches, and wingnut politicians purr and rub themselves all over their legs.
Then again, in rare occasions, companies go under because they aren’t generating enough revenue to cover the costs. In these very very rare occasions, the companies usually respond to lack of revenue generation by attempting to cut costs FIRST to keep themselves alive; via layoffs, cutting benfits, etc. However when these measures fail, the company, if in poccession of some jewels attempts to merge or sell itself, and failing this, shuts its doors. Its a fascinating when this situation occurs, kinda like watching the Halley Bop Comet smash into the Moon. I have heard this has actually happened once in a blue moon, but cannot say that I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it myself. Maybe one day. (fingers crossed)
so, something like a Health Savings Account? datadave was touting Singapore’s system last night…. it appears to work by making everyone have an MSA.
“We finally fired him as he was too drunk to show up.”
You fired a guy because he had a disease? What kind of whacked-out liberal are you datadave?
And you have a cleaning lady. Geez datadave, how do you know your cleaning lady isn’t taking the fat check that you give her every month (even though you pick up after yourself right before she comes – to make her job easier) how do you know she isn’t out on the links stiffing 7-irons into diabolically placed pins while smoking El Presidentes all day? How do you know she isn’t hiding her boogers in your peanut butter? She’s like a cleaning mercenary. Do you count your fun-sized Snickers before she comes. Might be a good idea.
Anybody who’d kiss up to bankrupt businessman Sen.Inhof of OK and Global Warming deniers is pretty evil…esp. after writing “State of Fearâ€Â….enviromentalists as Terrorists. yeah, sure..like they were the ones who bombed Oklahoma City.
I wonder which has killed more people: militant anti-abortion activists or militant environmentalists? I’d suspect that the environmentalists are up on the kill total, not even counting the damage to life saving scientific research. And although a good number of Protein Wisdom readers are anti-abortion, I’d wager there are few if any that do not consider bombing abortion clinics terrorism.
“And he is a full blown Alcholic. But he was fun to have around just to make a liberal feel superior.”
(from comment #49 by datadave)
I know what you mean datadave. I know some other liberals like you who like to visit the Conservative amputee ward and show off their fully intact limbs just to feel superior.
“What’s up conservative? Give me five! Oh, sorry. You don’t have any arms conservative. I bet I could beat you at golf, and I hate golf.”
“Hey no-legged conservative, how’s about a foot-race. Oops, I win.”
“God it’s good to feel superior!”
alppuccino, now YOU’re funnnnny!
maggie, never said I was against MSA’s. They are a small, governmental step solutions. Conservatives occasionally have creative solutions. MSA’s certainly are better than private health insurance. But they are only good if you’re healthy, which most of us are. Something like 90 per cent of the costs goes to those unfortunately losing in the health lottery…or are in their last month of life. That’s when a few K in a MSA is useless. Frittered away in about one day of intensive care. A few thousand in the bank won’t get you very far if you get really hurt or sick. Problem is “high deductible’s” have gone through the roof as for price. And lot’s of red tape and legalize meant to provent you from getting care if you do get sick. Note: Singapore just cut the red tape and guaranteed all people there (even foreigners) a right to care in a hospital if they are sick or injured. Cut out the middle men with their little small print clauses meant to keep a ‘claimant’ from collecting services.
damn, the cleaning lady’s coming soon.
a little article to get you all worked up again … very humorous watching the lemmings dancing : ha, attacking a family with brain damaged children seems like a good thing? I’d rather talk about Iraqi’s feeling good, warm and fuzzy about Mercenaries running roughshod over their people …and the US paying through the nose for such jerks! My tax dollars at work!
Return of the Goldwater GOP http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=return_of_the_goldwater_gop
The Republicans who oppose the SCHIP expansion have a faith in laissez-faire ideology that cannot acknowledge the limits of what capitalism can, or even chooses to, do.
Harold Meyerson | October 4, 2007 | web only
Just outside our nation’s capital, in affluent Montgomery and Fairfax counties, they still build public schools when the number of school-age children rises above the number that the existing schools can accommodate. Beyond question, there are parents in Fairfax and Montgomery who could easily afford to send their kids to private schools but who send them nonetheless to the excellent public schools in their neighborhoods They thus increase government spending and withhold revenue from the private-school industry, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about that. A free public education is a right, or, if you prefer, an entitlement in America, because the nation long ago decided that an educated population is a national good.
You might think that the same logic would apply to providing children with health care, that the gains to the nation from having a healthy population would outweigh those of bolstering private health insurance companies in the name of laissez-faire ideology. According to President Bush and the hard-right wing of the Republican Party, though, you’d be sadly mistaken. Bush fears that expanding health care for children from uninsured families who can’t afford to buy insurance on their own (it costs about $11,000 a year for a family of four) would enable some families, as he put it at a news conference last month, collectively to “move millions of American children who now have private health insurance into government-run health care.”
Nine million American children have no health coverage, a figure that rose by three-quarters of a million last year as the number of employers who offer health insurance to employees and their dependents continued to shrink. Congress has placed a bill on the president’s desk that would expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover most of those children, but Bush argues that it could benefit some people who would otherwise stick with private insurers. By the same logic, no more public schools should be built in well-off communities. But public education is the American way, while publicly subsidized health care for children is creeping socialism.
The unacknowledged ideological secret of American life is that we have any number of somewhat socialized systems that flourish in plain view. The health-care system for veterans, which most analysts consider about the best America has to offer (and no, Walter Reed was not a VA facility), is socialized medicine pure and simple. Medicare is not a socialized system — it pays for private medical care — but is a single-payer system. Like education, these aren’t parts of the economy that were wrested from the grasp of a covetous private sector. They address needs — insuring all seniors, covering the costs of veterans, educating all children — that private companies chose not to meet because these enterprises, however necessary, weren’t profitable.
So it is with health insurance today. We have a massive, competitive private sector that has decided it cannot turn a buck on millions of Americans of modest means or uncertain health. If there were a private-sector solution to the problem of 9 million uninsured American children, the private sector would have found it.
But the president and those Republican members of Congress who join him in opposing SCHIP’s expansion have a faith in laissez-faire ideology that cannot acknowledge the limits of what capitalism can, or even chooses to, do.
We hear a lot from Republicans these days, presidential candidates most especially, that they want to return their party to its roots, to make it once again the party of Ronald Reagan. Problem is, they’ve overshot Reagan and seem bent on reinventing the GOP as the party of Barry Goldwater. Reagan’s conservatism had wind in its sails: The stagflation and drift of the Carter years provided an opening for Reagan’s limited rollback of government. What Goldwater personified, however, was the triumph of ideology over experience. He opposed Social Security and Medicare and voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the name of property and states rights. The needs of seniors, the claims of African Americans to equal rights, ran counter to Goldwater’s theology of markets over people. Today’s Republicans seem determined to re-create that magical Goldwater self-marginalization. Opposing the provision of health care to children because it conflicts with one’s faith in an economic future (capitalism insures everyone) that capitalism itself does not really share (or it would insure everyone) is the same kind of theological nuttiness that led to the Goldwater debacle. In the name of attacking socialism, what Republicans are really doing is affronting the empiricism and the pragmatism, not to mention the decency, of the American people. At, one need hardly add, their own risk.
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Comment by A. Pendragon on 10/17 @ 7:36 pm #
Rusty, it’s actually kinda fun if you imagine every one of datadave’s comments being delivered by Bobcat Goldthwaite. A very serious Bobcat Goldthwaite. With glasses. In a velvet smoking jacket.
OK. Now it makes sense. Do you think he hopes if he keeps talking there’ll be a point in there somewhere?
“True. But at the same time, if a kid is going without necessary medicine because Mommy or Daddy really wants that trip to Vegas, we have to take care of the kid.”
No, we really don’t.
Where do you think these people come from? Socialist inspired sense of entitlement! This is a problem born from treating the symptom! It’s cause is the solution! Take away the solution and you wouldn’t have a 12 year old without health care! If you did, it would be temporary, and eventually: social darwinism would take care of that problem!
The only difference I see between a twelve year old dying with cancer, and a 20 year old dying at war, is the 12 year old got out early without having to put in that 8 years for nothing.
People die. That’s life. You can bury as much gold with the dead as you want. They won’t stop dying. That considered, I don’t think a human life is worth ANY price on it’s own merits. If it doesn’t serve a function, let it do as nature intended, and if it serves a function, then the person who values it can take care of the problem.
“The only difference I see between a twelve year old dying with cancer, and a 20 year old dying at war, is the 12 year old got out early without having to put in that 8 years for nothing.”
Unless, of course, that 20-year-old died throwing himself on a grenade to save your grandfather’s life and thereby preserving your lineage so that one day you could write something like that for all of us to read and say “wow.”.
“I am realizing why the Republicans want the limelight on the Frosts”
It was the Republicans that put the kid on the radio to be the face/voice of SCHIP?
Do you think he hopes if he keeps talking there’ll be a point in there somewhere?
Comment by Rusty on 10/18 @ 4:09 am
You gotta think that the point to datadave is as Harvey was to Elwood P. Dowd – he believes it’s there, even if no sane or sober person would ever be able to perceive it.
Datadave,
Most people of a young age are healthy. It isn’t until our early 50’s that people pay the consequences for hard livin’. The number one risk for younger, healthier people is a car accident. In that case, car insurance should cover the cost of medical care. If people live too hard, they will be paying their deductible for care. If they make it alive, they’ll collect Medicare and Medicaid.
It is simply my personal belief that health insurance, like all insurance, should be catastrophic. It encourages personal responsibility. It also forces negotiation. Right now, insurance pays for knee and back surgeries that have no evidence to support their efficacy. If a person had to cough up $5000 before getting those surgeries, he would probably reconsider, given the evidence. People who have generous insurance use care unnecessarily. That would happen exponentially under a Nationalized system. And then the people who really need the help would be on a list behind everyone else.
If we get rid of insurance as it exists now and convert everyone to high deductible insurance. Little clinics will pop up (it’s already happening) to serve people. People will increasingly go to Wal-Mart to get an antibiotic for a Strep throat infection. For the bigger health issues, people will count the costs.
Like now, people with chronic health issues who can’t work will be declared disabled and draw social security.
Finally, an uninsured mother of two friend of mine just had a health crisis. She needed brain surgery. She’s 28. Is she S.O.L. forever? No. Here friends and co-workers are having a benefit concert (she’s a ballerina). She will be OK financially and health-wise. It’s called charity. And that dries up, too, when the government gets involved.
YOU STILL PURCHASE PRIVATE INSURANCE WITH AN MSA!!! it’s just it’s for catasrophic coverage, so it’s CHEAPER! for minor things you pay out of the account. so if your health does take a turn for the worse, YOU’RE COVERED!
okay, okay, folks, I’m done. I suggest someone pony up to the bandwidth fund or can we please, please, please bring out the ban hammer?
I’m sure it would. I’m saying it shouldn’t.
I don’t blame the kids for the mistakes of their parents, and I’m not willing to stand by and let them die for mistakes if there exists a remedy. Even if that remedy is private charity. There are ways to bring back incentives to take care of your children properly other than “let the kid die, that’ll teach ’em!”
Yes, people do die. Pointing that out in the way you do, however, doesn’t make you a pragmatist. It makes you more a fatalist — and worse, a rather eager one. Just my two cents.
Apparently, the only time that datadave shuts up is when his maid comes to visit.
“Apparently, the only time that datadave shuts up is when his maid comes to visit.”
I’m guessing a stout German frau with the hands of a blacksmith scolding, “Achtung! datadave, you haf left your poo-poo undies on ze floor for ze last time! You vill pay!”
I was thinking more along the lines of an illegal immigrant. I mean, if the illegal immigrants only perform the jobs that Americans will not do, wouldn’t datadave’s maid be the absolute personification of that kind of job?
But al’s idea is far, far, far more humorous.
Now that the veto has been upheld, apparently Nancy rushed to contact the President in order to request a meeting where they could hammer out a compromise.
Is it only me, or does this portend that the final agreement is likely to be a big increase, instead of a ginormous increase?
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