Today’s must read, Silicon Chasm.
Master and servant. Cornucopian wealth for a few tech oligarchs plus relatively steady but relatively low-paying work for their lucky retainers. No middle class, unless the top 5 percent U.S. income bracket counts as middle class. Silicon Valley is a tableau vivant of what many economists and professional futurologists say is the coming fate of America itself, a fate to which Americans, if they can’t embrace it as some futurologists hope, should at least resign themselves. […]
In other words, what is coming is the “new feudalism,” a phrase coined by Chapman University urban studies professor Joel Kotkin, a prolific media presence whose New Geography website is an outlet for the trend’s most vocal critics. “It’s a weird Upstairs, Downstairs world in which there’s the gentry, and the role for everybody else is to be their servants,” Kotkin said in a telephone interview. “The agenda of the gentry is to force the working class to live in apartments for the rest of their lives and be serfs. But there’s a weird cognitive dissonance. Everyone who says people ought to be living in apartments actually lives in gigantic houses or has multiple houses.” […]
The big names in tech might be awash in capital and might have made their founders billionaires (New Economy founders typically retain large blocks of their own stock), but they employ surprisingly small numbers of U.S. workers. […]
Furthermore, the oligarchs of Silicon Valley seem intent on keeping the social pyramid stacked in exactly the same layers in which it’s stacked right now. After decades of political quietism during which Silicon Valley entrepreneurs expressed libertarian sentiments but mostly voted Democratic and funded Democratic candidates who shared their elite-class social and political views, Silicon Valley has finally mobilized—for immigration expansion. In April Mark Zuckerberg, with help from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist John Doerr, launched FWD.us, a $25 million-and-counting lobbying group aimed at lawmakers in both political parties. FWD.us, unlike other pro-immigration groups, isn’t much interested in amnesty for illegal immigrants or easier border-crossing for lettuce-pickers. Its chief interest is in expanding the H-1B work visa program for “highly skilled” workers that’s mostly used by tech employers to hire temporary guest-workers from foreign countries, usually from East and South Asia. Valley executives have been calling for decades for H-1B expansion (the current cap is 65,000 visas annually, although thanks to loopholes and related programs, it’s actually about double that). During the 1990s the argument was that native-born U.S. programmers were set-in-their-ways oldsters (translation: men and women in their forties) whose brain cells couldn’t make the transition from, say, COBOL to more up-to-date coding languages. The new argument is that tech workers are in dangerously short supply, especially “the best, brightest, and hardest workers,” as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, an H-1B expansion advocate, testified before Congress in February.
FWD.us certainly has allies in the bay area’s substantial Indian community. At a gym in Fremont, a middle-income suburb directly across the bay from East Palo Alto that counts 40,000 Indians among its 222,000 residents, I interviewed 38-year-old Nikesh Kalra, Santa Clara-born of Indian immigrant parents, who, with an MBA from Oxford, is an executive for Equinix, a cloud-storage landlord headquartered in Redwood City. “The perception is that Indians are taking away good American jobs,” Kalma said. “The reality is that you Americans can’t turn out engineers fast enough.”
The anti-H-1B faction has a response to that: statistics. One of them, from an April 24 briefing paper produced by the liberal Economic Policy Institute, is that only one out of every two U.S. college graduates with a degree in engineering or computer and information science is hired into those fields, despite a doubling of the number of homegrown computer-science graduates between 1998 and 2004. Others argue that employers mostly don’t use H-1B workers to fill “best and brightest” jobs, but, rather, relatively low-paying routine programming positions, and that the most avid users of the visas are India-based outsourcing companies that use the visas to provide a few months of U.S. training for their employees, who then return to India.
Most damning of all is that, despite persistent claims of tech-worker shortages, programmer salaries overall have inched only slightly higher from what they were 20 years ago: from $60,000 a year to about $75,000 a year in 2012 dollars, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Engineers fare somewhat better: The average annual starting salary at top valley employers such as Google is about $100,000, with the median for experienced engineers at about $150,000. Even with the stock options many employers offer, that doesn’t go far toward buying even the smallest million-dollar valley house. A group of software engineers has a pending lawsuit alleging that four of the biggest employers—Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe Systems in San Jose—violated federal antitrust laws between 2005 and 2009 by agreeing not to “poach” each other’s employees with offers of higher pay.
On top of those perhaps deliberately depressed salaries and the high cost of existing housing are a raft of California “green” laws—enthusiastically supported, as one might expect, by the valley’s tech elite in a post-manufacturing economy—that make life there even more expensive, and family-friendly housing even less attainable. Renewable-energy mandates drive up utility costs, and environmentally driven land-use restrictions and “smart growth” plans have made the construction of new single-family homes in the valley all but impossible for everyone except those affluent enough to own a large-lot teardown.
*************************
UPDATE: California’s media trying to blow happy happy joy joy smoke about the states so-called recovery
The media erupted with delight last week when the Legislative Analyst’s Office announced that California could expect a $5.6 billion budget surplus by mid-2015. After years of seemingly nonstop fiscal crisis, the LAO’s forecast came as welcome relief. Sunshine and lollipops for everyone!
Until killjoy Mac Taylor went and snatched the lollipops back. “Despite the large surplus that we project over the forecast period,” the legislative analyst said, “the state’s continued fiscal recovery is dependent on a number of assumptions that may not come to pass.”
In other words: first, let’s assume we have an uninterrupted economic recovery. […]
Our unemployment remains persistently and stubbornly above the national average, which was 7.3 percent last month. And most of the new jobs were in government, health, education, and the fairly low-paying leisure and hospitality sectors.
Meantime, the state last month lost another 5,600 high-skilled, well-paying manufacturing jobs. California has lost 618,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. The jobs that didn’t head offshore are going to Texas and the Gulf Coast. Sorry, but that’s nothing to cheer.
Finally, a new study by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis underscores what anyone who’s been paying attention these past few years should already know: California’s recovery, such as it is, is largely a coastal phenomenon. San Francisco and the Silicon Valley cities are riding high, ranking second and third respectively in per-capita income among major U.S. metropolitan areas. Yet California has a worse poverty rate than Mississippi.
This comment is better in this thread.
I’m not sure about the others but Marissa Mayer sucks obamacock like it was a magnum bar
jaysus, griefer, can we go a couple of days without your crude misogyny?
Oy. Maybe instead of the Chinese, it should be the Americans who insist on a timely reading of Tocqueville’s L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution? Hell, if the Chinamen can learn French, why not the ever re-inventive Americans?
geoffb
Yep, entrepreneurial, trades, business people confuse the Royals. Better that they be kept far away and out of sight, least the Royals be made to feel socially awkward by people who can refuse their wonderfulness.
Hating on ClownDisaster for his womanliness just isn’t right.
plus she is a very good programmer
I hate to come to pica-weasel’s defense, but you don’t have to be female to suck a cock.
Think of hellomynameissteve, for example.
Point noted, Richard.
“only one out of every two U.S. college graduates with a degree in engineering or computer and information science is hired into those fields”
In my experience, only about one out of every three of those people can actually write code.
Just sayin’.
The feudal system suits the Elite just fine because they know that it is the Middle Class Mentality that drives the desire for preserving, protecting, and defending freedom and liberty.
Of course, this new feudalism will be modernized. I think their goal is a softer-appearing version of the structure of the society of Oceania.
Those of us in the Central Valley are flyover country for the rest of California.
One of the great things about California is the Coastal Commission. Just like a New York Conservative is a liberal that has been mugged, a California Coastal Conservative is one who ran afoul of the bunch of unelected fascists that sit on the Coastal Commission.
Also: at least in the old Feudal System, many of the Lords and Ladies felt restrained by the Hand Of God. The Modern Feudalists see themselves as gods, believing, as it must follow, that they are wise in all things.
One of our goals in our struggle to restore our freedoms and liberties, it seems to me, is to bring about the destruction of the Elite Establishment, which is like melanoma in it’s insidiousness.
I stumbled across this passage in The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes that may be appropriate in this discussion.
It’s in his chapter entitled The Intelligensia and I certainly think the Elite Establishment think of themselves as Intelligensia:
Bob Belvedere wrote:
Of course, this new feudalism will be modernized. I think their goal is a softer-appearing version of the structure of the society of Oceania.
Something tells me it won’t be very soft at all.
‘Soft-appearing’, perhaps ala Brave New World, but I would not be surprised if you turned out to be right about the Left.
Somehow I can’t see Zuckerberg invoking droit du seigneur in the barrio.
“the state’s continued fiscal recovery is dependent on a number of assumptions that may not come to pass.”
Oh, like when CALPERs, the CA state employee retirement system, revised their projected rate of return downward from an impossible-to-achieve 7.75% to a slightly less impossible 7.5%, and then when the actual rate of return was a more realistic 1%, they shrugged their shoulders and went to the CA taxpayers to makeup the difference.
Like that assumption?
please get on the unicorn fun train h8ters
they pretty much have to now cause of you said please
the unicorn train will take us there with swiss cake rolls on route !!11!!
“Somehow I can’t see Zuckerberg invoking droit du seigneur in the barrio. ”
He’s liable to get his billionaire dick shot off . He’s a creepy dude.
were there trains to auschwitz ?
It’s true. Anatomically, there’s nothing to prevent me from sucking cock.
I do have to admit, I’m shocked – shocked, I say – as your hatred for silicon valley “job creators”. What’s the specific problem you see with the situation outlined?
>What’s the specific problem you see with the situation outlined? <
did you get aids from baracky's cock or are you a stupid crony capitalist hand warmer?
What’s the specific problem you see with the situation outlined?
It touches on “reality”, a field I knew you couldn’t recognize. Reading is Fundamental.
>as your hatred for silicon valley “job creators”<
wall street "winners" oh you of the 99%
So you’re singling out silicon valley for lobbying? That’s your game?
I think it’s funny that you’re from an age where “sucking cock” is some huge putdown. Like it would be a huge burn to tell a guy, “I bet you eat different pussy every night.”
give hellomynameisofa full metal alinsky
“I think it’s funny that you’re from an age where “sucking cock” is some huge putdown ”
that’s what the girls do girlyLBGWTEFF”
Actually, I think he is mistaking AIDS with syphilis, which could provide a possible explanation for your mental processes, such as they are.
“Like it would be a huge burn to tell a guy, “I bet you eat different pussy every night.” ”
sex is for procreation assclown ax darwin. antiscience loser. gd flat earthers
It’s also jolly great fun, and part of a healthy relationship.
>It’s also jolly great fun, and part of a healthy relationship. <
nah you and the perverts in hollywood selling shit
sounds like someone bitter about his sex life.
“sounds like someone bitter about his sex life.”
nah don’t want to procreate with so many clowns like you around
There is another circumstance, however, that considerably
complicates matters. For many decades, the power ruling society in
the Soviet bloc has used the label ‘opposition’ as the blackest of
indictments, as synonymous with the word ‘enemy’. To brand
someone ‘a member of the opposition’ is tantamount to saying he or
she is trying to overthrow the government and put an end to
socialism (naturally in the pay of the imperialists). There have been
times when this labelled straight to the gallows, and of course this
does not encourage people to apply the same label to themselves.
Moreover, it is only a word, and what is actually done is more
important than how it is labelled.
The final reason why many reject such a term is because there is
something negative about the notion of an ‘opposition’. People who
so define themselves do so in relation to a prior ‘position’. In other
words, they relate themselves specifically to the power that rules
society and through it, define themselves, deriving their own ‘position’
from the position of the regime. For people who have simply
decided to live within the truth, to say aloud what they think, to
express their solidarity with their fellow citizens, to create as they
want and simply to live in harmony with their better ‘self’, it is
naturally disagreeable to feel required to define their own, original
and positive ‘position’ negatively, in terms of something else, and to
think of themselves primarily as people who are against something,
not simply as people who are what they are.
@ page 56 potpl
you know, there are ways to do one without causing the other.
>you know, there are ways to do one without causing the other.<
eff u leave me alone you statists asshat
this whole thanksgiving thing was kind of a dud this year
when your little country is as massively fucked up as our obamaraped one
thankfulness is
it’s kind of a borderline hubristic exercise really
happyfeets glass is 1/2 full of #firstworldproblems
The totality of your presence on this block has been a seemingly endless allegory in cock-sucking.
my shoulders are wide my back is strong
Here. have some of other people’s taunts randomly applied with great laziness and vaguery. Quip Quip Quip. Oh quip. It’s what’s for dinner, with a side of fossilized meme.
>#firstworldproblems<
#thirdworldstupid asshat
how are your knees?
Not near as good as they were 20 years ago. Thanks for asking.
knees are holding their own
i do have a “bony spicule” though
i know
what fresh hell is this
it popped up right when i got back from providence
it hurts like a motherfucker but i got antibiotics and painkillers and punkin martinis
i’m a give it a couple weeks to work itself out then I’ll have to get an oral surgeon to fick it
i never knew about these thingers before but apparently they’re not super uncommon
still
it gives me the wiggins to where I’m no longer considering dropping the health insurances next year
I’ll just use the shit out of it instead
>Thanks for asking.<
too stupid to be an ofa "volunteer". go promote O!care clowndisaster™
>I’ll just use the shit out of it instead<
use it lose it in aca "cuntry"
Bo knows a happy birthday.
america likes to hold you down and fart in your face
you just have to stay calm and politely tell the bitch to fuck off
repeatedly
until it takes
bo sucks baracky cock
alabama is so important a lot of people just have no idea
i wonder if food stamp has any actual discrete memories from when he was in alabama
if he does it’s a safe bet they’re not of him behind the wheel
he’s such a cunt, pardon my crude language
go tribalismmmm
Tonight, Alabama is manic-depressive.
Well, for starters, nobody, neither the author of the Weekly Standard article, nor Darleen, nor any commenter here has in any way indicated any hatred for either Silicon Valley, entrepeneurs, or billionaires.
Except you of course.
The New Feudal Lords…
Long-time readers of these Dispatches know that I usually take a break from serious postings on the Thanksgiving Day Weekend to give both you all and me a few days-off from all the mishegas we have to live with in The Age Of King Barack The Unready, bu…
Scarce California Republican show class, style and leadership.
Rest of states elected pols (Democraps, natch) pretend not to notice…
Second link brought to you by the department of redundancy department…
The only chance the above would have to make sense from the comment you quoted would be if (a) you meant to write “with” instead of “as” and (b) you’re one of those silicon valley “job creators”. If those conditions were true, you’d have to change silicon valley “job creators” to hellomynameissteve and “hatred” to “mild dislike”.
Steve blathered:
I do have to admit, I’m shocked – shocked, I say – as your hatred for silicon valley “job creators”. What’s the specific problem you see with the situation outlined?
Wow, you make up another lie about the people you hate and pretend to be shocked.
That’s not very shocking, alas.
The end goal of Slaphead’s “team” is for there to be nothing left in the PNW but shitty tattoo parlors, coffee shops, and “organic” vegetable farms.
Of course, none of them realize that coffee doesn’t grow in the Willamette Valley, so there won’t actually be any coffee shops, but let’s just gloss over that fora moment.
Bad tribal tattoos, superstition, and illiterate peasants growing vegetables in shit. Their utopia is what the rest of of us call the Dark Ages.
NO NUKES! NO GMO! NO OIL! NO COAL!
The Slapheads of the world just assume that they’re going to be the new lords of the manor in this neofeudal society.
In actuality, there won’t be much demand for marketeers. . Slaphead has bad knees, so he’s no good for stoop labor (like weeding those shit-grown vegetables on his hands and knees, e.g.). He’d most likely get knocked on the head as a useless eater, assuming that the new lord isn’t some fucked-up species of “neopagan” who needs a sacrifice to the Sun God.
Why do I get the feeling hellomynameisthemostgulliblemanintheworld‘s Thanksgiving went very much like the one in the video in the next post?
Did I actually just read Slappy establishing that there’s no problem with him sucking a different cock every night, as though that’s some sort of revalation?
Well. Good morning, America.
I do have to admit, I’m shocked – shocked, I say – as your hatred for silicon valley “job creators”. What’s the specific problem you see with the situation outlined? – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52060#comments
Try reading for comprehension.
“The reality is that you Americans can’t turn out engineers fast enough.”
you American? He was born in Santa Clara and doesn’t consider himself American? Maybe that is part of the problem.
Didn’t we conclude helloournameissteve is a committee?
bgbear, that is the problem.
I’m guessing engineering schools in other states don’t count—especially out here in Flyoverlandia. My son’s (the one who world for the evil coal company) circle of buds from high school all went into engineering with sheepskins from OU, Arkansas and (gasp!) Oral Roberts U.
Of course, they are working in oil and CGI drawing not programming.
This is the more polite, yet still incapable of reading comprehension steve.
He’s used a few Britishishs. If he drops a “whilst” we’ll know fresher.
*fersher* damn you, autocorrect
assuming that the new lord isn’t some fucked-up species of “neopagan” who needs a sacrifice to the Sun God.
I hear Danny McBride is auditioning proles for the part of ‘Sex Slave on a Leash’ for the sequel, so DV has at least a glimmer of hope of being the next Channing Tatum
funny, this kind of manipulation of labor market would usually have the left calling for unionization.
Those wacky Europeans…
That’s strange – based on the highlighted part of the article, it seemed to be indicting valley exec for passing over 50% of the CS grads in ‘merica to instead go through cumbersome Visa application process and bring in people with marginal english an no cultural experience to fill those jobs.
Although I admit, the big “so what” of the article wasn’t really apparent to me.
Why is it so nobel for legislators to work for poverty wages? That just encourages them to rack up “favors” that they can call in once they’re out of office. I’d rather pay them huge salaries, forbid them from accepting any gifts, and publicly fund elections so that they don’t have to spend half their time begging for money.
…And everyone fashions their own dwelling out of hemp and umbilical cords – magical dwellings that stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
You might want to meet my neighbors – liberals with a work ethic and means, working in fields like tech and medicine. They have a little different view on the PNW than the millennial underbelly.
Part of an unhealthy relationship too. And then there’s that nettlesome too much of a good thing thing. But we don’t want to think about that these days, what with everyone tryinig to be sex positive and all that.
liberals with a work ethic
That’s like “crack whores with discretion and tact” or “politicians with humility and personal integrity”. Understanding that a work ethic automatically contradicts anything being proposed by the current crops of thieves so casually referring to themselves as “liberal” (the use of which is another issue you clearly are not capable of understanding, much less discussing intelligently) is necessary to grasping precisely why I am laughing at your idiocies…
Hear hoofbeats, expect horses, not zebras, especially in Times Square.
I have most of a bookshelf full of titles all about understanding you and your neighbors.
i have a book about this little bull what got kidnapped and forced to go to a faraway city to fight for his life just for sport
well that lil bull wasn’t having any of it
but you’ll have to read it yourself to find out how it ends
…he says, with a straight face, to a man that earns more per year than he does, and in comment to an article about Democratic silicon valley moguls.
The right to a lethal consumer product shall not be abridged – but the notion of a sex life – that we might want a little legislation around – because we know better about freedom.
show mommy how the piggies eat!
There you go again. I count at least four mischaracterizations of what anybody (besides yourself, naturally) has said here thus far.
What’s it like to constantly be arguing with all those cartoon voices in your head?
And all at once too!
Oh, I…,
Could tell you why,
The *urrrrrrrrp*
Maybe if you’d just say what you mean, rather than make a million of your opinions dance on the head of a pin.
More like three mischaracterizations and an pathetic attempt to shame Drumwaster, actually. But it’s all you arguing with yourself.
Especially that straw chamber-of-commerce-Republican you hung a Drumwaster name tag on. Right before you skewered it with that flaming sword of shut-up you conjured for yourself.
Such a waste.
I said what I meant. Sex is just as much a part of an unhealthy relationship as it is a healthy one. Probably moreso. And there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
You’re the one who started spouting nonsense about LAWS.
Which, come to think on it, is kind of funny, given how your entire purpose here seems to revolve around defending unpopular laws.
Not that either or your ilk find them unpopular, of course.
“pathetic attempt” is what Drum’s wife calls him.
It just comes off as a weird sort of moralizing. But I’ll take you at your word that you were just pointing out the obvious, like water is wet and sand is gritty.
Well, we know which master you serve, steve.
Happy, you’ll put your eye out!
“Why is it so nobel for legislators to work for poverty wages?”
Because Alfr*aaaurk*
This James Notcott fella, I like him.
My money is on someone beating slewfoot to the punch.
““pathetic attempt” is what Drum’s wife calls him.”
Yeah whatever. Enjoy being trapped at 13 forever n’ stuff.
steve’s defense of Zerocare is hilarious. Obamacare is good and people want it (even though they don’t) because the alternative is some fictional horror scenario he pulls right out of his ass. Minor things when steve gets a hold of them magically become insurmountable obstacles that require we all hold our noses and stick with a huge incompetently designed mess that hurts people. Steve is trying to sell us on the exciting “new” idea of chamber pots because he’s afraid of the toilet that works much better though it makes a lot of noise and needs a plunger every now and then.
‘
weird sort of moralizing?
You mean like this?
Or this?
Or this?
That sort of moralizing?
That sort of moralizing.
“…he says, with a straight face, to a man that earns more per year than he does, and in comment to an article about Democratic silicon valley moguls.”
He thinks you’re a bullshitter and a childish barely educated nobody trapped in a misguided and fruitless search for easy chances to show off the ol’ e-peen. So do I. So do several others. Imagine that: people somehow not being impressed with the lame and salty crap you post. Gosh.
…he says, with a straight face, to a man that earns more per year than he does
You seem to have our positions reversed… I put it down to your chronic recto-cranial inversion.
And go fuck yourself, you filth-spewing sub-cretinous mass of coprophilia :)
“The right to a lethal consumer product shall not be abridged – but the notion of a sex life – that we might want a little legislation around – because we know better about freedom. ”
Ah. Yet more cheap, stupid, cartoonish straw man talking-point derived bullshit lazily asserted and and substantially connected to nothing. I’m starting to sense a hint of a developing pattern in the shit you throw at the wall. What’s it like to confuse themes with actual thoughts so often?
Now, would you like to start talking about the woman who stole your wife away? (Your mother, I mean.)
How much do you have to pay her before she lets you suck her dick?
My hay fever always starts acting up whenever steve starts blatting.
Hey everybody! steve is handing out valuable free dick-swangin’ critiques to Y Chromosome bearers in his uniquely classic 9th grade locker room style. Gather ye round! He’s like a golf pro only for screwing, and on the internet! Don’t miss this chance y’all!
That guy has so much to teach us! And it changes every time he lectures too! Dynamic living protean knowledge! steve is the new man!
It’s a shame his mother didn’t have access to free birth control…
Why a guy with so much going for him (humor me) chooses to spend his time hanging around people he clearly believes (I won’t say ‘thinks’) are inferior remains a mystery.
Bored now.
“a weird sort of moralizing”
This from a guy pushing Obamacare.
Talk about weird.
“Why is it so nobel for legislators to work for poverty wages? That just encourages them to rack up “favors” that they can call in once they’re out of office. I’d rather pay them huge salaries, forbid them from accepting any gifts, and publicly fund elections so that they don’t have to spend half their time begging for money.”
Myself, I like the way Texas does it. The legislature is in session only four months, and senators make $7200/year.
Tends to attract civic minded people successful in the real world with enough time to take care of the states business but not enough time to mind everyone else’s business. Unlike California, who pays legislators close to 100k/year to dream up laws including everything from how big a cage to put a chicken in to how hotel maids make up beds.
The way to handle corruption isn’t to overpay them hoping to lessen temptation (an idea so out of touch with human nature it actually hurt my brain), but to imprison the people engaged in corruption.
Dog vomit is one stupid progg…also brought to you by the department of redundancy department.
and publicly fund elections
This actually limits participation, by requiring that candidates actually get approval from the system before “qualifying” for office, rather than allowing anyone who can raise the support from his fellow citizens to try and change stuff that isn’t being paid attention to by the gatekeepers.
Like getting rid of the IRS… It’s not like the people whose jobs might depend on it would do anything to influence events “behind the scenes”, and since the people who want the change will never get in, there will be no incentive for the incumbents to look to closely on “minor trouble spots” and “lone operators” (who nevertheless seem to have an awful lot of access to the very highest levels, and who actually gets promoted into a different department as a means of stifling scandal).
If it weren’t for assertions he’d have nothing to say.
Steve says,
“You might want to meet my neighbors – liberals with a work ethic and means, working in fields like tech and medicine. They have a little different view on the PNW than the millennial underbelly. – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52060#comments”
No I don’t.
The ACA is a failure.
You’re defining a system with 40 million people uninsured and people who finally need insurance routinely dropped because they suddenly need it – as modern toilets, and a system that does away with preexisting conditions, lifetime caps, and sets up exchanges where people can (for the first time) comparison shop – as chamber pots. And then you claim that the new system is hard to defend?
You guys are going to have no explanation when mid terms roll around, and it turns out Obamacare has majority support – except to fall back on “asterisk” and “must be cheating”. Now would be a great time to launch your poll unskewing business, because it will be in hot demand.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/27/cnnorc-poll-are-obamacares-flaws-fixable/
When the people in charge legislate corruption, it becomes hard to jail them for it.
Having members of congress spend 30-70% of their time fund raising, and 50% of congress going to to become lobbyists, has deleterious effects too. Remember that this post started out talking about crony capitalism?
40 million uninsured, choosing to be uninsured, being forced to buy insurance they don’t want. For the weird morality.
“Insurance”, being forced to cover pre-existing conditions, and quit being “insurer”s to become a government entitlement program. Pricing 100 million that did choose to buy insurance out of the program.
That’s some weird morality right there…
Having members of congress spend 30-70% of their time fund raising, and 50% of congress going to to become lobbyists, has deleterious effects too.
So guaranteeing them a job for life, because they never have to worry about anything but the most token of resistance (because his opponent will have been pre-selected), is your version of a zero-g toilet?
I suggest you look up Chesterton’s Gate, although I have my doubts you would understand why you don’t scrap the workable to replace it with unworkable. Since you don’t understand simple economics and personal incentive, why should I accept that you understand why you shouldn’t want to take away even more choices from people. (Except for minorities getting as many abortions as possible, how could you possibly describe yourself as pro-choice? And why do you hate minorities so much?)
> Remember that this post started out talking about crony capitalism? <
a much smaller fed gov't would put a crimp on the rent seekers
And when the “uninsured” number jumps from 40 million (laughable) to more than 100 million who have been cancelled, what will your excuses be?
“Oh, those nasty people who have been telling us all along that this will fail are to blame for not cheerleading along with us, and therefore we just need to take over the whole thing, and do it again HARDER!”
(cv “Insanity, Definition Of” )
“You’re defining a system with 40 million people uninsured – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52060#comment-1038263”
The bullshit nature of this number has been addressed multiple times which makes your use of it unpersuasive much like your minimum wage study that turned out to be bullshit when looked up.
“You guys are going to have no explanation when mid terms roll around, and it turns out Obamacare has majority support ”
It has never had majority support and support has been dropping since the “launch: fuckups. The sad attempts to sell it as good anyway or getting better have just alienated more people and sunk Obama’s approval numbers further.
clowndisaster™ news
David Plouffe: Obamacare Will ‘Work Really Well’ By 2017
Sure just suck it up for four years America. You never wanted it but the democrats in congress did it anyway and then exempted themselves and many of their allies from it. Democrats have no credibility on the issue.
No they don’t.
But then, there’s the Republicans on the other hand.
Obamacare is going to collapse under its own weight in a relatively short time. No one can afford the premiums or deductibles and no one will enroll. Fine/tax us. That’s unenforceable, too. Shove everyone onto Medicaid? No. Doctors won’t take Medicaid patients anymore and they shouldn’t have to.
No one deserves to be robbed of their labor no matter how much the fascists insist on it for the fairness.
You’re defining a system with 40 million people uninsured and people who finally need insurance routinely dropped because they suddenly need it
Will someone let me know when inane starts relating anything closely resembling reality?
Good freakin lord. Left-libs don’t need 5150s any more, they need full-on 1368 hearings.
The Left need to be the objects of late-late-late-late-term abortions.
“And then you claim that the new system is hard to defend?”
Well, let us see…in my neck of the woods, I presently have the choice of over 40 plans that meet my needs, and which are offered by three companies.
Under Obama”Care”, one company offers six plans of the Obumble variety – Bronze, Silver, Gold, Glitter, Twine, and Rhubarb. All of the 40+ plans are cheaper than comparable Omarxistcare plans.
So, yeah, more expensive, less choice, and crappier plans is rather hard to defend.
“You’re defining a system with 40 million people uninsured”
45 million come January 1st. One month from now.
146 million this time next year.
Keep it up, liebot.
So, yeah, more expensive, less choice, and crappier plans is rather hard to defend.
They’ve had lots of practice defending the education system against such charges, up to and including suing the States to force poor families into the fail factories known as Public Schools.
Not that the result is better, but that they still continue to pimp for failure.
And where doctors are rustling feet for profit and ohmygodthetonsilshaveyounoshame???.!
Stop lying, fuckhead.
If we get to March and the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has risen, I’ll eat my words. Cold and in big chunks. However, if the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has fallen, will you eat yours? Didn’t think so.
And… that’s just so much bullshit. But you’ll keep sticking to the story. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/23/the-obamacare-success-stories.html
Uh, yeah. That’s gonna work out real well for you.
“If we get to March and the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has risen”
You don’t get until March, liebot.
5 million are losing their coverage January 1. So far 100,000 or so have “chosen a plan”. Not actually purchased one, mind you.
Ha.
Haha.
Hahahahahahahahahaha.
Wait. That’s not funny.
However, if the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has fallen, will you eat yours?
More than 80 million people are going to be losing their coverage next year. The administration known it.
I’d love to see the numbers spun to explain away the increase of almost an entire order of magnitude, but sure, let’s see the proof of the 40 million first. We need to establish the metrics, and I want to see your proof of a number you keep repeating (despite several of us pointing out that your starting figure is bullshit, so the time for you to prove it is now here).
And since it was the number before ObamaCare start fucking everything up, you don’t get to use any data from the last two months.
It’s December, two months in, and Oregon STILL has not managed to sign up anyone on the Obama Care. California has managed to get a total of – 1,050,000 insured (that’s 1.1 million who had insurance, but have it no longer, versus 50,000 who, I should point out for accuracy, have selected a policy but who do not yet actually have coverage).
Young people are avoiding it like the plague, and the website is STILL down for repairs. Hackers, OTOH, are eagerly awaiting the few who actually do get through, and post all their personal information online in the most insecure site since Obama’s election donation page…
Uh, yeah. That’s gonna work out real well for you.
Why would you say that? It’s not like they would make failure to sign up for that insurance illegal or anything. You assured us that couldn’t possibly happen. And since there is no enforcement mechanism built into the law, other than withholding any refunds, it is child’s play to arrange paycheck withholding such that there is no refund due, and thus, no way to penalize.
Now, would you care to actually think about it before you pick a side on that yes/no question?
From your link, liebot:
Just fuck off, already. Go find some stupid people to lie to.
“More than 80 million people are going to be losing their coverage next year.”
Yes, but as the regime has repeatedly told us, all 80 million plans are junk insurance, and all 80 million of those people were just a bunch of Reubens taken in by the insurers and too stupid to know they should want things they don’t need.
stevie, The Daily Beast is about to go tits up. Why should I believe them and not CMS who are
jamming this down our throatshelming the “planning” of O’care?Anecdotal evidence (which you like) tells the same story of FAIL on an epic scale. Real lawyers, the tax attorney kind not the phony visiting junior lecturers like teh Wan, have said many many times on television and in print (look it up yourself, it’s good practice) that the Feds cannot collect a fine if one fails to comply. They may attach your return if you have one coming, but that won’t work either after I and many others adjust our withholding tax.
Go suck a bag of dicks. You said you like that.
Oh, and the state “exchanges”? They are merely information gathering ‘bots sucking in the gullible (like you) who are willing to cough up SSN numbers, employer numbers, tax returns and voter registration information. A hacktastic dream come true!
Because of the asterisk flinging, cheating accusing right wingers at CBS News.
Pull the other one, liebot. I’m pretty sure you can find it here.
Your destiny is calling you. Go.
Yeah, but they’ll get new insurance coverage that costs more to cover things that aren’t needed, like maternity care for unmarried males, or birth control for post-menopausal women.
That’s called progress.
Nah, they’ll go without like many of them do now.
Why pay premiums for pediatric dental visits for one’s unborn grandchildren? The ROI is too nebulous for any but a Trve Believer™.
“…or birth control for post-menopausal women.”
Ernst, I believe that is FREE birth control after the copays and deductibles have been met.
I like how this Eingang Ausfahrt fellow thinks.
He reminds me of me.
why isn’t there a published price for delivering a baby? it is not a new procedure.
having a baby shouldn’t be covered by insurance.
maybe insurance for complications but not the 9 month thing.
You think the debt just goes away? But please, mess with the IRS. It will NEVER catch up to you.
Now I think you’re not even arguing in good faith. Read a bit farther TLDR. From that article:
Yep. That’s *all* they are. Totally.
That will be great to campaign on – FERTILE WOMEN NEED TO PAY MUCH, MUCH MORE! EVERYONE ELSE? LESS!!! Send me you addresses, and I’ll send you the bumper stickers at no cost to you.
outstanding.
“That will be great to campaign on – FERTILE WOMEN NEED TO PAY MUCH, MUCH MORE! EVERYONE ELSE? LESS!!! Send me you addresses, and I’ll send you the bumper stickers at no cost to you.”
Well, yes, if they intend to become pregnant, thy should, just as drivers with many speeding tickets and accidents on their records have to pay higher car insurance costs than those who don’t.
Insurance is about risk, not you puerile idea of “fairness”. Nice hysterics with the caps, by the way.
Hahahahahahahaha
Love the rebranding effort. And you think you’ll crush in 2014? In other news, you guys declared racism over.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/01/gop-rosa-parks_n_4368211.html
You think the debt just goes away?
You think people engaging in civil disobedience would care about a debt that can never be legally collected? The IRS is not even allowed to send out a “Hey, did you forget?” bread & butter note to ask, under the law as it currently exists, and it’s not like Obama would unilaterally re-write it to benefit him, his cronies and his party. (The actual country, on the other hand? Fuck them.)
But please, mess with the IRS. It will NEVER catch up to you.
You mean they might do what you assured us they would never do? Make it illegal to refuse to participate?
Nah, government throwing people in jail for civil disobedience would never happen, right? Not here in the New World Of Obama and Tolerance. Hope and Change? Nope, you misheard “rope and chains”.
FERTILE WOMEN NEED TO PAY MUCH, MUCH MORE! EVERYONE ELSE? LESS!!!
MAKE THE NUNS AND GRANDMOTHERS PAY FOR MATERNITY COVERAGE!
Doesn’t fit well on a bumper sticker, so you might have a little trouble selling it, especially when you include the fact that “women under 30” are specifically excluded from the requirement to be covered for maternity care – in other words, the very women MOST likely to need it aren’t required to be covered, but the women who would never be able to use have gotta have it…
Yeah, go with that.
“Love the rebranding effort.”
I have noticed in the past few days that you rarely make much sense, but that rather raises your own bar on inanity. However, I am not surprised that you have no clue as to how insurance works, though I would not be in the least surprised you have no problems with smokers paying higher premiums.
Nope, smoking will now be considered a “preexisting condition”.
No, they might just enforce collection of the tax – like with all other taxes. That still isn’t making it illegal to go without coverage.
Golly, just like their property taxes pay for schools. The horrors.
…if they elect to only purchase catastrophic coverage. You left that little bit out.
No, they might just enforce collection of the tax – like with all other taxes.
This particular law actually forbids them from doing so. You mean the IRS will violate the law?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2013/11/16/obamacare-will-lift-tax-fraud-to-a-whole-new-level/
Steve’s fellow clones might count as “neighbors” though I doubt a row of brains in their jars connected to a computer counts as a “neighborhood” in reality.
Golly, just like their property taxes pay for schools. The horrors.
And the difference between taxation and insurance is……?
(Take your time, I could use the laugh.)
inane
When I bought my first car .. a very used car for cash when I was 17 … I didn’t buy collision insurance. There was no way I could afford it and if my car was crunched in an accident, it was cheaper to go out and buy a new junker rather than have it fixed.
I carried the insurance most appropriate for me and my circumstances.
Now why in heavens should I HAVE to carry medical insurance that is NOT appropriate for me?
Oh yeah, cause “insuring” everyone was never the real goal of ObamaCare. Power to redistribute wealth and a Gov take over of 1/6 of the economy was.
God, inane, you are such a transparent leech.
“And you think you’ll crush in 2014?”
Not me. I think your side has won, and the transformation of America is complete minus a few details. Obamacare WILL be the law of the land, and free enterprise a dim and poorly understood memory.
If it were up to me, I wouldn’t single smokers out to pay more. We don’t single out people for carrying a few extra pounds or liking to heli-ski. The smoker thing is just a limousine liberal prejudice as policy.
I understand exactly how insurance works, but if you carry your logic to its conclusion, and have an insurance system that itemizes every risk, then you end up with an insurance system where the only people who can afford it are low risk and everyone else is either priced out of the market or flat out denied coverage. A goal of nationalized systems is to spread the cost more evenly across the population and not differentiate so greatly in price. It’s a general welfare thing, not an actuarial perfection thing.
“…if they elect to only purchase catastrophic coverage. You left that little bit out. ”
Here is a riddle for you, professor, why under Omarxistcare is someone under 30 allowed to purchase only catastrophic coverage, but a someone 30 or over not ?
BTW … when I had my first child in 1979, my medical insurance covered only 50% of the routine expenses.
And I was very happy to get it. We actually saved, then made payments to practice.
That’s how responsible adults conduct their lives. Something that Leftists like Obama hate.
I understand exactly how insurance works
Really? Can you actually demonstrate that knowledge for us? I have seen no sign of this alleged “understanding” to date.
>outstanding.<
doing something that has been done before isn't what insurance is for. paying for a tat. buying insurance for complications.
No, I mean that if a significant percentage of the population games the system, they should expect the law might get changed. At that point, they might owe several years of back-taxes for being uninsured.
Got it. Put you in the “Fertile women should pay more” category.
inane.
We don’t single out people for carrying a few extra pounds or liking to heli-ski.
You don’t have any clue about life insurance either, do you, inane?
One’s premium is certainly tied to lifestyle… including smoking, motorcycle riding or sky-diving.
sheesh
>A goal of nationalized systems is to spread the cost more evenly across the population and not differentiate so greatly in price. It’s a general welfare thing, not an actuarial perfection thing. <
the good and plenty clause is sited.
Not any more leen. Just smoking.
Got it. Put you in the “Fertile women should pay more” category.
No dear, those that PLAN on having babies should pay extra for a maternity care rider.
Why are you against choice, inane? Why do you think women are too stupid to be allowed to plan their lives without your concern trolling?
>Got it. Put you in the “Fertile women should pay more” category.
inane.<
what exactly is the medium price for delivering an average baby in the usa?
shouldn’t prospective parents know what the cost of having a child are to them?
No, I mean that if a significant percentage of the population games the system, they should expect the law might get changed
So they WILL make it illegal. You could have admitted that earlier. (The rest of us already knew, because tyranny cannot tolerate noncompliance.)
Got it. Put you in the “Fertile women should pay more” category
Why should they get away with not paying at all? Because that’s what 404Care does…
Speaking of inane….
49% of pregnancies are unplanned – a rate that hasn’t changed much in decades.
Not any more leen. Just smoking.
http://www.soyouwanna.com/premiums-up-life-insurance-39452.html
Another lie.
Taxing you for being uninsured, and enforcing the tax, DOES NOT MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO BE UNINSURED. Any more than taxing property, and enforcing the tax, makes it illegal to own property.
This isn’t that hard. Tap your forehead like Winnie Ther Pooh and say, “Think, Think.”
How’s that? If they have catastrophic coverage, and give birth, then they have a big bill. Just like today. Explain exactly how they are “not paying at all”?
Inane, again, why do you think women are too stupid to be allowed to make choices based on their own circumstances?
“A goal of nationalized systems is to spread the cost more evenly across the population and not differentiate so greatly in price. It’s a general welfare thing, not an actuarial perfection thing.”
Spread the cost of what ? Yes, the cost from covering the risk; more risk incurs more cost, hence why people with high risk pay more. As far as your blarney about general welfare goes, in 500 words or less, describe how it benefits the general welfare why a nun in Albany, Georgia, should pay more for insurance so that some clown’s HIV treatments in San Francisco can be less.
Ah. My bad. Thought we were talking about health insurance.
Jesus, dude, I am beginning to doubt whether you know your own name. (This might explain his screen name… just so fucking stupid he literally cannot remember unless he looks inside his underwear.)
You do not understand (including, but not limited to) the law you are defending, any sort of insurance, economics, simple math, philosophy and psychology, history, modern culture, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and common courtesy.
Taxing you for being uninsured, and enforcing the tax, DOES NOT MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO BE UNINSURED.
Writing a law, and penalizing people who violate that law, DOES make it illegal. By definition. See my previous comment.
And ask Wesley Snipes if not paying a tax is enough cause to be jailed.
I have a feeling that a nun in Albany wouldn’t squawk about paying more so that a women in San Francisco can give birth and not file bankruptcy over the costs, as the Catholic church has a long history of providing medical services to pregnant women. But please, go ask some real nuns and get back to me.
Next!
Insurance is insurance, be it for auto/life/medical.
It is about covering RISK.
Having “insurance” to cover flu shots, well checks, and routine car is akin to having “insurance” cover oil changes and tire rotations.
It is stupid, inefficient and expensive when it comes to medical care.
But it is a great way to increase bureaucracy and fundamentally transforming larger swaths of the hoi polloi into Nannystatist dependents.
By your definition, it’s illegal to own property because owning property subjects you to a tax and collection of that tax is enforced.
You aren’t violating any law by being uninsured. You are just subjected to an additional tax – like you are for owning property. Think man.
Newrouter – start here:
http://www.akrongeneral.org/portal/page/portal/AGMC_PAGEGROUP/Price_guide/PRICE_GUIDE3
Bear in mind, though, there are a lot of variables that can make the cost higher or lower – regional differences, local costs, complications or lack thereof, so actual prices can be all over the map. All the prospective parents have to do, though, is go talk to the doc/hospital.
This is ball park accurate:
http://www.parents.com/blogs/everything-pregnancy/2013/07/01/must-read/labor-delivery-costs-hospital-bill/
as the Catholic church has a long history of providing medical services to pregnant women
Which will be the justification for forcing those Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, or lose their tax-exempt status, all thanks to 404Care’s increased scrutiny.
Because PROGRESS.
The Catholic church has a long history of providing medical services to pregnant women.
That is the part of the voluntary, religious, and charitable mission.
And they don’t hold a gun to the woman’s head in the meantime.
Let us not forget the Big Nanny is jealous of independent operators and will eventually force the complete removal of religious affiliated charities.
Not so much any more. Not with healthcare. It’s about moving it toward being an entitlement – like education. Something that is vastly more efficient to have the population fund for the entire citizenry. Hence why other countries pay as little as 1/2 what we pay for better outcomes.
. You are just subjected to an additional tax – like you are for owning property. Think man.
YOU try thinking, inane. Making a tax for NOT owning insurance is like making RENTERS pay a tax for NOT owning a home.
“But please, go ask some real nuns and get back to me.”
Nice dodge to avoid the question, but I suppose I should have known you would take it so literally. Try again with “…a 45 year old auto mechanic in Albany, Georgia…” This time address the real question.
Which is effectively what happens. A home buyer can deduct interest expenses. A renter cannot. So they are, in effect, taxed more for not buying a house.
“Any more than taxing property, and enforcing the tax, makes it illegal to own property.”
This is a little confused. Really it’s like being hit with property tax for NOT owning property. That is being compelled to own property or face a
finetax, and failure to pay thefinetax will result in prison (as Wesley Snipes learned).So, for all intents and purposes, it is now illegal to not buy insurance.
Tell you what, Slaphead: why don’t you just shut the fuck up until ZeroCare actually reaches net positive territory?
Because right now you’re about 5 million in the hole.
You aren’t violating any law by being uninsured.
Then why must I pay a penalty? Be specific.
By your definition, it’s illegal to own property because owning property subjects you to a tax and collection of that tax is enforced
Not at all. I am under no legal obligation to own property (or a car), as I am this forced purchasing of insurance. If there is no obligation imposed, then what is the purpose of the law? One-size-fits-all policies?
You claim that there are problems with the house, and rather than try to fix the problems, Obama has burned down the house, leaving everyone out in the snow, and you are bragging about how great the new house will be once they figure out all the ways that the fire could have been planned better.
Because FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION
steeeeeeve blathered:
Got it. Put you in the “Fertile women should pay more” category.
You categorize the lies you make up?
It’s about moving it toward being an entitlement – like education.
So much for calling it a “right”, and the next step is the nationalization and unionization of doctors and nurses, because there is NO WAY that Big Bubba will allow home-healing.
Hence why other countries pay as little as 1/2 what we pay for better outcomes.
Utter bovine excrement.
Medical care is not a “right.” You have NO right to force the labor of doctors and nurses to ‘serve you.’
Entitlement? How does it feel to be a fascist, inane? Why stop with medical care. Most people only need it a few times a year, but we eat every day. Why should the food chain be subject to market forces? How dare we allow people to profit from hunger! Time for Big Gov to take over all food, from farm to grocery store to restaurant! We’ll make people sign up on exchanges and pay a bronze, silver or gold meal plan tickets (like college food plans).
You think the debt just goes away?
Obama and the Left don’t seem to worry in the slightest about the $17 trillion in debt they’ve helped to accumulate, and show no signs of doing anything whatsoever to halt or even slow down the ongoing accumulation of even more debt.
So tell us why we should care one whit about the Obamacare tax/fees hanging over our heads?
Hence why other countries pay as little as 1/2 what we pay for better outcomes.
Once again, you are full of shit. There is no other country on the planet that has a better health care system, when it’s apples and apples, rather than apples being compared to a dog turd. Not one, although Israel comes close.
>Newrouter – start here: <
see i know the price of the oil change down the street $29 or $24 with coupon via pennysaver but birthing a kid where's that price info(buried)? why isn't "common knowledge"?
Which is effectively what happens.
No.
A home buyer can deduct [mortgage] interest expenses.
Not if one doesn’t qualify to itemize deductions. And not on multiple homes and interest deduction is capped.
A renter cannot
A renter doesn’t carry a mortgage, hence a renter never pays interest on it .
So they are, in effect, taxed
No, see previous
Really, is this what passes for thinking in your world?
> And 49% of pregnancies are unplanned. <
so what. why is there not clear pricing from the medical industry about the cost on bearing a child?
I think it’s pretty easy to make the argument that society is better off not crushing new parents under the full cost of childbirth
Then go ahead and make the argument. You have no leeway here, and I do not accept your premise that it is better to make a retired pair of grandparents pay for the birth of the child of someone they will never meet.
Before O’care, being pregnant was a pre-existing condition that prevented you from getting insurance. And 49% of pregnancies are unplanned. Why I bet some of the supre responsible contributors here had some surprises in their midst, in fact.
Then how about you show some of that famous knowledge you claim possession of, and explain why people who are at ZERO risk of adding to the costs of the procedure be forced to pay into the risk pool? If women are of child-bearing ages, then they either get long-term birth control or pay a slightly higher premium, or alternatively, pay into a “catastrophic” policy that will cover pregnancy. It may not be an “existing condition”, but it is also not a chronic one.
It’s more of a right than education. You literally need it to survive. And last I checked, teachers weren’t forced to serve me. They can enter an leave the profession any time they’d like.
So your “forced labor” assertion is just so much bullshit. Again. Seriously Darleen, I though you were one of the smart ones. What happened?
By any measure, our healthcare is the suck compared to other developed countries. The fact that you would assert otherwise just shows how willfully ignorant you are.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/health_stew/2013/07/best_health_care_in_the_world_you_judge_1.html
a chick can go get lasek surgery and get a price child birth not so much. the ask the hospitals for their price speaks monopoly like obamacare.
You literally need it to survive.
You need FOOD more. Answer the rest of my question, fascist.
They pay for the education of that child too. Are you also against public schools? Fess up.
>It’s more of a right than education. <
slapphead a regular confederate enslaving people. you go klanbake. 1924 was fun!!11!!
Because the food chain is actually working. But I guarantee you, if we had 40 million Americans who were starving, you can bet government would get involved in a major way.
So your “forced labor” assertion is just so much bullshit.
Oh? As you know there is already a doctor shortage and it is getting much worse. Doctors are retiring, leaving the profession in record numbers. Others are refusing to accept any ObamaCare insurance.
So what are you going to do to collect on your “entitlement” when doctors don’t want to play?
It’s not like “forcing doctors” isn’t being discussed.
> if we had 40 million Americans who were starving, you can bet government would get involved in a major way. <
to kill them?
Newrouter –
Look at it this way, your oil change will cost $24-29, unless during the change it is found you have a blown oil pump in which case it is now a few hundred bucks. The cost is $24-29 in Port Arthur, and $60-80 in Honolulu. It is $24-29 at Quik-O-Lube, but $150 at the bimmer dealer.
Same thing with pregnancies – an uncomplicated vaginal delivery in Salinas is going to be less than c-section on an eclamptic lady in the Mayo Clinic.
It’s more of a right than education. You literally need it to survive.
So the Government takeover of the Food Industry is next? (I haven’t needed to see a doctor in a hell of a lot longer than I would be able to fast.)
The fact that you would assert otherwise just shows how willfully ignorant you are
Truth sucks for you, doesn’t it? I also specified “apples and apples” and you pull out an apple/pineapple survey (“live births” are just one example, and if you don’t know what I mean, you don’t deserve to), and wonder why I am laughing…
Because the food chain is actually working. But I guarantee you, if we had 40 million Americans who were starving,
Hey dipshit, so-called 40 million w/o insurance is NOT 40 million w/o MEDICAL CARE.
According to Michelle Obama, the food chain is NOT working … or did the phrase “food desert” slip by you? Or the Nannystate interference with table salt, Big Gulps, transfats and severely limiting calories to high school athletes?
> And 49% of pregnancies are unplanned. <
because pills and condoms lavished by the proggtards don't work?
Because the food chain is actually working.
So all those stories of hungry people and soup kitchens are purest bullshit? The fact that more people have gotten food stamps than have gotten a job under this administration doesn’t enter into it? The high prices of meat and bread?
People were getting health care just fine before Obama came along.
“see i know the price of the oil change down the street $29 or $24 with coupon via pennysaver but birthing a kid where’s that price info(buried)? why isn’t “common knowledge”?
Your premise is flawed. That oil change can and does fluctuate. Want their brand oil or Valvoline? Or maybe synthetic? Your car take five quarts or six? Or maybe a diesel that can take like eight? Need a air filter this time? want to replace that burned out headlight?
Yeah, birthing kids can come with variables too, probably the biggest and most obvious being natural or cesarean. There’s also the age of the mother, her general health, family history, all kinds of considerations.
I guess Dog Vomit it thinks everyone should have the same baby bill because of fairness, but then Dog Vomit has the intellectual capacity of a mollusk, so I wouldn’t spend much time dwelling on his thoughts on anything.
>Same thing with pregnancies – an uncomplicated vaginal delivery in Salinas is going to be less than c-section on an eclamptic lady in the Mayo Clinic. <
that's my point you pay for the basics and insure for the outliers.
Say, who is this Eingang Ausfahrt feller and why is he spepping on my shtick?!
stepping…
Dog Vomit has the intellectual capacity of a mollusk
As a Charter Member of the newly-formed Society for the Defense of Mollusk Intellectual Capacity, I choose to feel insulted and demand reparations.
That dude is TRULY unintelligent.
>an uncomplicated vaginal delivery in Salinas is going to be less than c-section on an eclamptic lady in the Mayo Clinic <
how much is the question. your time is worth what? 3rd party systems that is a large variable. obn-gyn can do both i think. that is their specialty.
I was being too generous when I declared him a brain in a jar. A small cluster of neurons processing pre-scripted drivel fits better.
the cost of delivering an average baby should well defined at this point. it is done daily like oil changes. insurance is for the unexpected occurrence like maybe c – section or pre me.
Except it wasn’t. Since 40 million people were uninsured and medical costs were a major cause of bankruptcy and despite paying more, our system delivered worse outcomes.
So no, it wasn’t working just fine, moron.
“Hey dipshit, so-called 40 million w/o insurance is NOT 40 million w/o MEDICAL CARE.”
Alas, I fear that as he seems more dense than a neutron star, the distinction will never penetrate his head, but it is a point that cannot be overstated.
The fact is that the only people in the US without health care are those who do not seek it. In fact, having had people brought literally kicking and screaming into the ER, some get it even without seeking it.
They had bankruptcy care. And it was piss-poor at that. We’ll treat you with stitches and set the broken leg in the ER, but fuck you for any follow ups. So watch a youtube video and take those stitches and cut that cast off yourself.
In 1977 I was working for Hughes Aircraft GSG in Fullerton. I had my choice of 3 med insurances to choose from. I went with the PPO instead of the HMO because I was able to keep a doctor I already had. I chose to spend a bit more on premiums because of that and I compared the maternity care riders offered. I learned just what my co-pay would be (50% of routine care … 20% for complications).
Out-of-pocket, when I became preggers in ’78, was $1500. Heavens, my husband and I had to BUDGET for it! How did we not think it an entitlement where Other People should pay for our child?
So assfart, do you rely 100% on the ER for your medical care?
Geez, dipshit, guess you’ve never heard of City of Hope or St Judes or the Shriners or any number of charity hospitals all over the place
Though the latter is something Obama wants stamped out.
And does the phrase “free clinic” ring any bells?
Gads you’re a twatwaffle of epic proportions.
This is your opposition in action. Once the names of all those who donate to any conservative political cause are to be public this form of “action” will spread. A “new normal” is being baked up for us to swallow.
Yeah. How DARE HE call health care “insurance” after all the Left went through all the trouble to convince everyone that insurance was health care!”
Who the fuck does Eingang Ausfahrt think think he is? Minitru?
Golly, how is it possible that there are so many medical cost bankruptcies with free care everywhere you look?
>So assfart, do you rely 100% on the ER for your medical care? <
only stupid peeps like you and your liv.
I mean seriously, Darleen, if you knew what you were talking about, this would be impossible.
>that there are so many medical cost bankruptcies<
name them don't assert them alinskybot
Except it wasn’t.
Just like the food supply system isn’t working. You really need to keep your lies straight.
Since 40 million people were uninsured and medical costs were a major cause of bankruptcy and despite paying more, our system delivered worse outcomes.
Since we are now at 45 million (with more than 80 million more to be added soon) are NOW uninsured, and the people who would even be able to pay for the insurance can’t get through, and are being forced to pay for services they will never ever be physically capable of using, with jail terms on the horizon for anyone who refuses to play, those are better outcomes?
So assfart, do you rely 100% on the ER for your medical care?
Certainly a lot more will now, especially that it’s “free”.
“So assfart, do you rely 100% on the ER for your medical care?”
Ah, one so loves the liberal civility.
“They had bankruptcy care. And it was piss-poor at that. We’ll treat you with stitches and set the broken leg in the ER, but fuck you for any follow ups.”
Actually, hotrod, I was working in the ER, and contrary to your claim, the care was the same as for anyone, and everyone was scheduled for follow up. I will grant that the amenities in the city hospital were not as nice as the university hospital, but as the attendings were attendings at both, the level of care was the same. It was not “bankruptcy care” (whatever that is) as many of the brought in didn’t have any bank to be rupt.
As an aside, not to be a grammar Nazi, but as you purport yourself to be a being of great erudition, you might take note that gentlemen and ladies do not begin sentences with conjunctions.
Golly, how is it possible that there are so many medical cost bankruptcies with free care everywhere you look?
Golly, how is it possible for so many people to have had the policies they were perfectly happy with cut out from under them, everywhere you look? And the Democrats voted lockstep to make sure that the basic promise on which is was sold would be broken for as many people as possible.
The only explanation was that it was never about health care, but control. Pro-choice, unless it’s about schools, religion, health care, light bulbs, showerhead water pressure, toilet tanks, automobile mileage, and soon to be a jailable offense for refusing to buy insurance.
I need to go argue with my auto insurance provider about the co-pay on those new windshield wipers…
>NerdWallet estimates that households containing 1.7 million people will file for bankruptcy protection this year.
Even outside of bankruptcy, about 56 million adults—more than 20 percent of the population between the ages of 19 and 64—will still struggle with health-care-related bills this year, according to NerdWallet Health. <
stevey some heavy bs from nbc. you folks lie why?
Newrouter, it wasn’t the cost of an “average” baby that mattered, it was the insurance you had.
When I had my kids, I was in the UMWA and they didn’t cost me a penny.
If I would have had them five years ago, when I had my small company employers coverage, each would have cost me a 4k deductible plus 20% of the total, however much that was.
Now I’m on my wife’s city government plan, and I don’t have a clue how much it would be, but likely somewhere between the other two.
What Dog Vomit seems to push for is everyone gets the same policy, and the price is on a sliding scale depending on how much you earn. It all sounds very noble and moral and I’m sure he feels like Jesus among the sinners here advocating for it, but unfortunately he doesn’t understand human nature or know the history of the failure of socialistic schemes in times past.
It’s ‘cuz of the mollusks pity his poor intellect is why. (for Drumwaster, newly ordained member of the Society for the Defense of Mollusk Intellectual Capacity)
olly, how is it possible that there are so many medical cost bankruptcies with free care everywhere you look?
Geez, why are there so many unplanned pregnancies and single moms when condoms are everywhere you look?
Responding only to the bolded bit, even though the last sentence is actually the most interesting part:
Since one isn’t required to buy an Obamacare plan, and may not even have to pay the taxalty levied by the IRS for not buying such a plan, but can, all the same, buy at a latter date, AFTER a condition like cancer or diabetes, etc., arrises, and that coverage can’t be denied, or price in the cost of the pre-existing condition, what exactly, pray tell, do you think is going to happen to prices and coverage?
>Newrouter, it wasn’t the cost of an “average” baby that mattered, it was the insurance you had. <
that is my point. the insurance should not kick in until something extreme happens. a c-section for obn-gyn should be in the tool box. if you want to have kids pay for them like your car. having children is what couples(different sex) used to do.
“As an aside, not to be a grammar Nazi, but as you purport yourself to be a being of great erudition, you might take note that gentlemen and ladies do not begin sentences with conjunctions.”
As A major offender, I would just like to say in my defense that ordinarily, writing an essay or story or some such, I would never. But here in comments I write as in conversation such as shooting the shit in the drawing room over cigars and brandy where the laws of literature would be stiff and unsociable.
Fascist.
additionally states license doctors including obn/gyn. why wouldn’t the state dictate that those doctors be able to handle 80% of child births? we need to get away from blaming ins. cos. for the statists power grab.
It’s a general welfare thing, not an actuarial perfection thing.
You obviously don’t understand the concept of “promote” versus “compel”.
And since you are now arguing that “policy should be set to cover the majority, not the outliers”, should we presume you are now against the recognition of same sex marriages?
“having children is what couples(different sex) used to do.”
Used to when? Like I said, I had mine built into my employment benefits package 35 years ago.
Equality of opportunity isn’t the same as equality of outcome, as we true constitutionalist all know.
I take it back. That’s the most interesting comment of the night.
Do you suppose stevie will see it as his patriotic duty to volunteer for the ice floe when the state determines that’s the best outcome for the state, or is he going to have to be shoved?
Herr Bascom,
I can see my mistake was stating “…ladies and gentlemen…” The comment was not directed to any of the actual ladies and gentlemen here, and the individual to whom it was directed is neither.
Newrouter –
I am not sure what you mean here:
“additionally states license doctors including obn/gyn. why wouldn’t the state dictate that those doctors be able to handle 80% of child births?”
If you mean licensed OB/GYNs should be able to handle 80% of births, they can. If you mean all docs regardless of specialty, no, absolutely no. The trick is to be able to tell when the normal birth is going south, and you don’t want an immunologist who hasn’t done a delivery since med school delivering your kids.
Something that is vastly more efficient to have the population fund for the entire citizenry. Hence why other countries pay as little as 1/2 what we pay for better outcomes.
I still think that they will be using the same apologies for education that they do for health care…
We currently spend more than any other country on the planet to educate kids who cannot read their own diplomas, even assuming they are among the 50% to make it that far.
“We just need to spend some more money on it!”
>If you mean licensed OB/GYNs should be able to handle 80% of births, they can. efficiently< unlike 3rd or 4th party peeps. subsidiarity
See? This is the problem with our cousins on the Left. They literally think there’s no problem of the human condition or bane of our existence that can’t be solved if (a): the right people (themselves, naturally) are put in charge); and, (b) enough money (other peoples’ –also naturally) is thrown at it.
Including the problem of mortality.
You know, I’m kind of sorry I watched The Mentalist tonight. Stevie’s mental gyrations have been much more entertaining.
In societies under the post-totalitarian system, all political life in the
traditional sense has been eliminated. People have no opportunity
to express themselves politically in public, let alone to organize
politically. The gap that results is filled by ideological ritual. In such
a situation, people’s interest in political matters naturally dwindles
and independent political thought, in so far as it exists at all, is seen
by the majority as unrealistic, far-fetched, a kind of self-indulgent
arne, hopelessly distant from their everyday concerns; something
admirable, perhaps, but quite pointless, because it is on the one
hand entirely utopian and on the other hand extraordinarily
dangerous, in view of the unusual vigour with which any move in
hat direction is persecuted by the regime.
Yet even in such societies, individuals and groups of people exist
ho do not abandon politics as a vocation and who, in one way or
another, strive to think independently, to express themselves and in
some cases even to organize politically, because that is a part of their
attempt to live within the truth.
@ page 49 potpl
It is more of a right than education. You literally need it to survive
DV is a prime example of how easy it is to survive without any sort of education.
Although I have a problem with something being a “right” based on “need”.
People need housing, too, but we are still languishing from government’s efforts to make sure that everyone has their own house, aren’t we? Of COURSE we want to place our very lives in their capable hands…
“…It is more of a right than education. You literally need it to survive…”
However, it will be rationed, even if you need it to survive. I never cease to wonder at the internal contraindications with which liberals live.
As a matter of fact, I am. Mostly because the teacher’s unions and the school administrations collude to run the schools for their advantage instead of for the benefit of the chldren they’re alleged to educate.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one can’t wait to see what hospitals and clinics look like after the same kind of entitlement mentality takes hold in the health professions.
But then, I live in the upper midwest, so I can kind of afford to see what unfolds now, can’t I?
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one can’t wait to see what hospitals and clinics look like after the same kind of entitlement mentality takes hold in the health professions.”
I have seen it in other countries, interestingly enough, all of them with “universal health care”, and most of them, were they schools, would make our schools look like Oxford. The NHS is only a mild example of the genre if you want a quick reference. OTOH, in the upper midwest, find a Canadian…
Its power,
therefore, does not reside in the strength of definable political or
social groups, but chiefly in the strength of a potential, which is
hidden throughout the whole of society, including the official power
structures of that society. Therefore this power does not rely on
soldiers of its own, but on the soldiers of the enemy as it were – that
is to say, on everyone who is living within the lie and who may be
struck at any moment (in theory, at least) by the force of truth (or
who, out of an instinctive desire to protect their position, may at
least adapt to that force). It is a bacteriological weapon, so to speak,
utilized when conditions are ripe by a single civilian to disarm an
entire division. This power does not participate in any direct struggle
for power; rather it makes its influence felt in the obscure arena of
being itself. The hidden movements it gives rise to there, however,
can issue forth (when, where, under what circumstances, and to
what extent are difficult to predict) in something visible: a real
political act or event, a social movement, a sudden explosion of civil
unrest, a sharp conflict inside an apparently monolithic power
structure, or simply an irrepressible transformation in the social and
intellectual climate. And since all genuine problems and matters of
.• critical importance are hidden beneath a thick crust of lies, it is never
. quite clear when the proverbial last straw will fall, or what that straw
will be. This, too, is why the regime prosecutes, almost as a reflex
action preventively, even the most modest attempts to live within the
truth.
Why was Solzhenitsyn driven out of his own country? Certainly
not because he represented a unit of real power, that is, not because
any of the regime’s representatives felt he might unseat them and
take their place in government. Solzhenitsyn’s expulsion was something
else: a desperate attempt to plug up the dreadful wellspring of
truth, a truth which might cause incalculable transformations in
social consciousness, which in turn might one day produce political
debacles unpredictable in their consequences. And so the posttotalitarian
system behaved in a characteristic way: it defended the
integrity of the world of appearances in order to defend itself
Yeah. Tell. me. all. about. it.
The point which I wouldn’t want to be lost on stevie being, is that all this non-weird non-moralizing sex-positiveness is sure as hell costing us a lot of money.
And we were assured that non-judgementalism (q.v.) was going to be cheap, like grace.
public schools touch children in very very inappropriate ways
Time to bail.
Appreciate your comments Eingang. I hope you continue to make them as/if you’re able.
Bis spaeter
>public schools touch children in very very inappropriate ways<
Public Education News Updates
Vielen Dank, Ernst – tchuss
” Except it wasn’t. Since 40 million people were uninsured and medical costs were a major cause of bankruptcy and despite paying more, our system delivered worse outcomes.
So no, it wasn’t working just fine, moron.”
This “40 million people were uninsured” number is just as misleading as the last time you ignorantly used it and the time before that aa well. It is highly misleading since over half of them were not chronically uninsured but temporarily uninsured usually because they were between jobs(thanks Obama), and about a quarter of them were illegal aliens who did not get insurance for fear that it could be used to track and deport them. Another five percent just didn’t want insurance or think they really needed it.
This has been documented multiple times. The 40 million figure is bullshit and using it is a form of bullshitting.
And worse, THAT is unrelated to THIS ” medical costs were a major cause of bankruptcy”
Also we do not have more people insured now that we did before, nor are medical costs less a part of major causes of bankruptcy than before which means that even without the skewed numbers the policy is a huge failure of its stated aims and enormaously unpopular. What we had before was not enormously unpopular the way what we have now is.
Understand yet idiot?
“Society for the Defense of Mollusk Intellectual Capacity”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R2zvE615dM
“why is he spepping on my shtick?”
Wow. Yiddish slang seems to get more and more complicated the more of it I hear. It’s quite the rabbit hole. Oy vey it leaves me all furtummelt. It’s a shanda bubby.
“Hence why other countries pay as little as 1/2 what we pay for better outcomes.”
Countries that are half as big as us and thus pay half as much (but are still deeply in debt trying to support their mandatory guaranteed outcome pensions and entitlement state ) getting better outcomes primarily through skewing of collected metrics like calling infant deaths that occur before five days “still births” so the infant death figure is smaller? Wow.
As usual, steve knows fuck all about his talking points.
“If we get to March and the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has risen, I’ll eat my words. Cold and in big chunks. However, if the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has fallen, will you eat yours? Didn’t think so.”
Did you predict the fucked up roll out or not steve? did you predict it still being fucked up a month later? Your predictions carry no weight.They are idiotic pie in the sky stupid wish-casting and nothing more.To me, they just look like you covertly making excuses for being wrong as fuck the last three or four times you tried to tell us how stuff really works while clearly not knowing hos stuff really works.
“If we get to March and the percentage of the population that’s uninsured has risen, I’ll eat my words. ”
The funny part is that Obama wants to delay the employer insurance changes until after November’s election next year, because they will see far more people lose their insurance, and quite possibly their jobs or benefits altogether, to be stuffed into the highly insecure mess that is the exchanges. Those people will not be angry.
So, march makes a pretty stupid and feeble deadline for a prediction anyhoo. Remember when we could all relax because Obama was going to have it fixed by Nov. 30 and had top experts on the problem? TOP EXPERTS.
If you really knew how to eat crow you’d have choked on feathers by now.
Something that is vastly more efficient to have the population fund for the entire citizenry – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52060#comments
Said without a hint of irony.
Doesn’t seem to be working out in a “vastly more efficient” manner.
The reason why? The mechanisms employed are inherently inefficient. Any fool who had taken econ 101 can see that. Which is , no doubt, why there is so little participation.
You really see this as a start of a brave new world?
You and your “liberal neighbors” are delusional.
Aaaaahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! Drop dead, liebot.
I’m thinking “SOCIETY SHOULD PAY FOR YOU TO HAVE ALL THE BABIES YOU WANT!”
That should sell.
A nun in Albany would certainly help a pregnant woman, as Catholics do have a long history of helping people with medical services.
You’ll notice that I mentioned neither taxes nor government in elucidating that truism. Would that nun like to hand ever increasing amounts of her meager income over to the government for them to redistribute as they see fit? If so, it wouldn’t be because God calls her to do it.
Starting down the Liverpool Care Pathway. Baby-steps first.
“Aye, aye, the Liverpool Shuffle.”
I’m going to throw the bullshit flag on 40% of personal bankruptcies being over medical costs/fees.
Over the years when I was in big ticket sales, most persons who had experienced bankruptcy had done so in the midst of messy divorces. Or just from being unable to manage their money in a responsible manner, e.g., over obligated to creditors, leaving them with an inability to service their debt.
Not unlike our massive deficit.
What we have here is members of a cargo cult wanting to run Air Traffic Control better because they build much better air strips, even if the planes never seem to land on them.
“When I was young, my father had a serious heart attack. He survived, but we lost our house and car. Under the Canadian Medicare system, though, we would have kept the house and car and would have just had to pay the inheritance tax.” — Emo Philips
helloiamamotherlessfish says December 2, 2013 at 7:05 am
“Aye, aye, the Liverpool Shuffle.”
– See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52060#comments
Yer justa special snowflake, ain’t ya.
Over the years when I was in big ticket sales, most persons who had experienced bankruptcy had done so in the midst of messy divorces. Or just from being unable to manage their money in a responsible manner, e.g., over obligated to creditors, leaving them with an inability to service their debt.
Yes, but if you were leveraged to the hilt, having spent half a million you didn’t have on stuff you didn’t need, and then you fucked up your knee on an Aspen ski trip, your bankruptcy gets counted as “medical-related” because there was a hospital bill among your other liabilities.
I will grant that a lot of people do wind up in bankruptcy because of unforeseen medical bills, but that’s usually because they have no safety net against any unforeseen expense. And you’re considered a heartless monster if you observe that without the $10 a day cigarette habit and the $50 a week lottery ticket habit, they might have built up a few thousand dollars to see themselves through the tough spots. But then, personal responsibility and deferred gratification and planning for the future are fairly monstrous habits in their own right.
Squid, I worked for Jaguar in the mid 80’s when leasing was really getting hot as an alternative to purchasing vehicles you could actually afford. This way, you could be the envy of your friends while being two paychecks away from bankruptcy. Banks were buying paper like it was confetti on New Year’s, so as long as you owned (ha!) your home, had a job and made your payments on time: you were a driver. Leasing is fantastically expensive to the lessee while being incredibly lucrative for the dealer. Jags were sure to put dollar signs in the eyes of the dealer (me) because we refused to negotiate on the price and leasing required a lot of money upfront. One car over the curb equaled $3K for me and that was just the commission. The backend monies: financing and maintenance that had to be done at our shop were gravy.
But, I digress. The whole point of the story is that if you live beyond your means and do not save it will end up biting you in the ass. And you will have no one to blame but that guy in the mirror.
The whole point of the story is that if you live beyond your means and do not save it will end up biting you in the ass.
Yes, and if you have a single $50 medical bill outstanding, the scorekeepers will chalk you up as another unfortunate citizen undone by the Evil Insurance Companies.
Because they know how far they’d get if they had to argue that “We need socialized medicine so that the irresponsible among us can go bankrupt for non-medical reasons from now on.”
Dubya tightened up the rules about declaring personal bankruptcy in his first term, iirc. I was against it at the time, but only because the rules were not applied equitably to the irresponsible who run Big Corporation (cf: The Big Three).
Bankruptcy is still that thing where all the bills you racked up but couldn’t pay for get wiped off your slate, right?
The horror!
Indeed. It’s not as if you’re doomed to a life of living on the dole, eating canned ravioli for Christmas dinner. Creditors have a loss margin built in just like any other business. Once the bankruptcy is discharged (three-six months or so if uncomplicated) and you’ve homesteaded your home therein protecting it from confiscation, well! Bob’s your uncle!
New credit cards are all yours at higher rate for a period of time and then after 7-10 years, the BK itself becomes irrelevant to your credit history.
Bankruptcy is still that thing where all the bills you racked up but couldn’t pay for get wiped off your slate, right?
The horror!
You wouldn’t be so flippant if you understood that bankruptcy is pretty much like being forced to live within your means for the better part of a decade. I’m pretty sure that’s an Eight Amendment case just begging to be brought before the Supremes.
Special.
$6.99 a pound.
Today only.
i would like four pounds please