General Political Thread

[IRememberDBoon]

I worked for WIC for a couple of years back in the early 00s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_fomzN6m1Vc


 

[IRememberDBoon]

this is a much better 4 minutes

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/03/hannitys-latest-lie-harry-reid-says-he-wouldnt/196246

Isn't cancer research an unnecessary pork project that the teabaggers would like to permanently defund?





 

[KevinG]

this is a much better 4 minutes

 

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/03/hannitys-latest-lie-harry-reid-says-he-wouldnt/196246

 

Isn't cancer research an unnecessary pork project that the teabaggers would like to permanently defund?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The level of partisanship in the media is outrageous.

 

I love the fact that the GOP is complaining about programs being shutdown, when they themselves causes them to be shutdown. Hypocrisy and hubris at the same time.

[LouieB]

Someone who does something like this has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of left or right or any political opinions.  After all, I'm pretty sure left and right don't exist in outer space.  

As it turned out you are correct.

 

LouieB

[Guest Don Draper]

As it turned out you are correct.

 

LouieB

Well of course.  People don't drive their cars into fences to attack a president unless they are yoohoo.  I mean, yoohoo people also execute terroristic activities to be sure, but their motives are likewise more elaborate.  People who drive their cars into fences and then run from the cops are simply yoohoo.

 

You know, I'm really trying to care about the shutdown but this is was basically amounts to a mass temper tantrum by a bunch of in-fighting, overpaid, bloviating jackwagons.  Everything will right itself in time, and I'm not interested in following the story about a bunch of overgrown children fighting in their playground.  The Democrats are as culpable as the Republicans.

 

(More like Republican't, amirite?!)

 

I just can't get wound up about it.

[IRememberDBoon]

  The Democrats are as culpable as the Republicans.

 

 

please tell me how that is. you think Dems should make changes to a 4 year old law now under the gun? that's not how legislation works.

[Guest Don Draper]

please tell me how that is. you think Dems should make changes to a 4 year old law now under the gun? that's not how legislation works.

They would pull this shit if the shoe was on the other foot.  I can't imagine any reasonable person saying otherwise.

 

Not to mention, if neither party were as stick-in-the-mud as they are, they could actually negotiate and produce solutions on the front end of the lawmaking process.  Party lines rule over reason and compassion.  But that will always be the case, so.

[Atticus]

I produce solutions on my front end

[Guest Don Draper]

You probably make better use of yours than Boehner and Pelosi.

[John Smith]

You say the democrats would do it if the shoe was on the other foot , well it has been at different times in history so maybe a historical example would help illustrate your point. I honestly can't think of a real example and I can't think of a situation where they would pull the same move. Of course we can only speculate about the future that's why a historical example or two would be beneficial.

[Guest Don Draper]

Are you asserting that they have never been petty/unreasonable/locked into the party line?

[John Smith]

no i am asking for a time where democrats held the budget hostage in order to get an already passed law nullified. Heck I'll even take an instance of the democrats not passing a budget to gain political advantage and shut down the government. i'm just not familiar with anything in my lifetime.

[IRememberDBoon]

how does that explain how they are both culpable now anyway?

[Guest Don Draper]

no i am asking for a time where democrats held the budget hostage in order to get an already passed law nullified. Heck I'll even take an instance of the democrats not passing a budget to gain political advantage and shut down the government. i'm just not familiar with anything in my lifetime.

Poor example to be sure, but you cannot say they are not petty/have not pulled stunts/have not been equally as obnoxious.  The GOP obviously has a leg up on trying to treat some Americans as inferior to others, but when Dems are on CNN, when Dems are in the minority, they are just as petty and whiny and party line.  

 

And so: the culpability line is that both parties are doing a fantastic job every year, every session, of demanding what they want and refusing to concede.

 

This is a really effing expensive healthcare bill at a time we're already having enormous (duh) financial problems with the federal government.  Couldn't have found a more reasonably priced healthcare reform?

[KevinG]

no i am asking for a time where democrats held the budget hostage in order to get an already passed law nullified. Heck I'll even take an instance of the democrats not passing a budget to gain political advantage and shut down the government. i'm just not familiar with anything in my lifetime.

 

Here is a list of all of the government shutdowns and why they happened:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/25/here-is-every-previous-government-shutdown-why-they-happened-and-how-they-ended/

 

So as you can see it has been a political football, but mostly coming from the president vetoing the proposed spending bills, or arguing on spending.  

[uncool2pillow]

I consider myself a fiscal conservative.  Moderately conservative, but to the right, nevertheless.  Having said that, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that the ACA is worth all of this.  And the shudown is one thing.  If Congress refuses to increase the debt limit in a few months, they're really going to fuck things up.  I am all for shrinking the debt, but failing to increase the debt limit DOES NOT accomplish this.  The only way to do that is for both parties to negotiate a damn budget!  All failing to increase the debt limit will do is force us to not pay our bills on debt already accrued.  Brilliant idea.

[Guest Don Draper]

I'm pretty left socially, but also pretty fiscally conservative and the cost of the ACA is mindblowing.

[uncool2pillow]

Here is a list of all of the government shutdowns and why they happened:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/25/here-is-every-previous-government-shutdown-why-they-happened-and-how-they-ended/

 

So as you can see it has been a political football, but mostly coming from the president vetoing the proposed spending bills, or arguing on spending.  

Best part of that article: Shutdown #3: The Abortion Shutdown II: Abortion Boogaloo

[uncool2pillow]

I suppose my biggest concern about ACA is employment.  There seem to be a lot of reputable reports of businesses hiring my p/t and less f/t because they don't want to provide the required insurance.  

 

On a semi-related note, I don't know if I've posted it here, but Steven Brill's cover story for Time on hospital costs is required reading.  Health care reform needs to include some transparency in medical billing.  Hospital chargemasters are downright evil.  It's one thing for me to pay $8 for a beer a ball park because I'm a captive audience.  I don't need the beer, and the cost is well advertised.  It's quite another for a hospital to charge me $5 for an OTC aspirin or outrageous sums for other items I could buy in the free market for a small fraction of what I am billed at the hospital.  Of course, no one examines their hospital bills and couldn't make sense of them if they tried because of the unnecessarily complicated coding system all meant to make suckers of all of us.

 

There are some truly disturbing things behind all of this.  1) Uninsured pay the most because insurance companies negotiate down their costs, 2) Medicare (essentially, the biggest medical insurer), has the most bargaining leverage, so they generally get the cheapest costs, (an argument for single-payer, perhaps?) 3) Hospitals devoted to teaching and/or Christian mission work are among the worst offenders of shaking down the uninsured.  In other words, you're not likely to get Christ-like Mercy from a hospital called Mercy.

[Guest Don Draper]

Yup.  I had three ER visits in the past calendar year.  The raw cost of nearly losing a finger in a kitchen accident was $800 ($60 out of pocket), and the cost of talking with a doctor for a medication adjustment at the ER for 5 minutees was a raw cost of $1,000 ($150, because a regular doctor popped his head in to ask if I needed to see the specialist doctor).  

 

For the first, I went home having used stitches, disinfectant, and a bunch of other things I was too woozy to look at.  The second visit, I said, "I think I need to bump this up 20mg, huh?" and the doctor said, "Hmm.  Sounds about right," and I left with a prescription.  (Moral of that story is that apparently some doctors are total idiots and go on vacation without having someone on call in their absence and so don't assume they're not asshats.)

 

And to add to your point, the fact that I was able to shell out $150 (or, at that time, an unknown but likely high figure) to get a meds adjustment was something I was able to do because I have the discretionary income to do so.  Not everyone is in a position to afford that.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

I find it interesting that Republicans keep saying Democrats are/were not willing to compromise. Yeah, actually they did. The ACA is a compromise - many of us on the left wanted single payer.

 

Clearly, multiple parties are complicit in making health care pretty much unaffordable for the average person and totally out of reach for the poor. The pharmaceutical companies make a killing, many doctors are ridiculously wealthy, the insurance company execs make millions, and, as uncool2pillow noted, the for-profit hospital system is not exactly "merciful." Health care should not be a "for-profit" business in the first place.

 

I had my appendix out last year, and the bill was $35,000. This is a 45-minute laparoscopic procedure. I have health insurance through my company, and I still got stuck with a bill for $8,000. I will be paying that off at the rate of $50/mo. for the next 20 years. I think it's safe to say our system is broken, and the ACA is simply a bridge between the existing extortionate system and the necessary single-payer system we will need to adopt just like every other civilized industrial nation in the world.

 

I might also mention that it wasn't always this way. When I was a kid, I fractured my skull in an accident (hold the jokes, I've heard them all). I missed 14 days of school, so I'm guessing I was in the hospital about 2 weeks. My parents had insurance, which at that time was called an "indemnity plan," before the days of HMOs and PPOs. Their total out of pocket cost was ZERO. The insurance covered it...which is what is should do now, except that they are too busy screwing people to pay for shit these days.

[John Smith]

The list of shutdowns is pretty illuminating, but it seems like they are generally budget issues and not once did one party agree to pass a budget in exchange for tanking an already passed law. I too am a fiscal conservative however I differ from almost all other fiscal conservatives in that I am not against having the military/ security budget examined from top to bottom, however that is political suicide in today's environment. Also if the cost of the ACA is staggering then why do republicans include savings from it in their budgets? Something does not make sense. The true staggering cost is political they have poo pooed it for so long that they have to kill it in its entirety lest people find out that they like it.

 

Also the ACA is a compromise the general outline of the plan comes from the heritage foundation. A few years ago a hard R friend of mine had some hospital issues and was stunned t how much the raw un adjusted bill was. He complained that all these things cost so much because the uninsured can't pay and their costs get passed on to everyone else. He wished there was a way to get people to buy insurance. Today he is against that notion. Oh well.

 

If the ACA is truly going to be a disaster the republicans should let it go and be fully implemented. Then when it fails they could very well be set for a generation or two when anger at the dems costs them control universally across the board. After all they Seem willing to tank the worlds economy and default on the debt so what's stoping them from letting the ACA fail too?

[KevinG]

I'm pretty left socially, but also pretty fiscally conservative and the cost of the ACA is mindblowing.

 

In what way is the cost of ACA mind blowing?  Is it the cost of the insurance?  The cost to the taxpayer?  I don't understand the statement 

 

You later story about your finger, points out that the outrageous costs of our current health care system.  Your 800 dollar bill was not actually for just you but I am sure it paid for the drunk without health insurance, who got bitten by a raccoon, and skipped out on his bill.  The same with the 5 dollar aspirin, etc.  OUr current health care system is the very definition of socialism.  Those that have are paying for those that don't.  ACA makes everyone pay.  

[The High Heat]

What would be the effects of no longer requiring employers to provide healthcare insurance, letting people get it through the exchanges, and raising minimum wage to $12 per hour; so the ACA no longer effects how many hours people can work or full-time/part-time status, number of employees, etc.? I'd like to see corporations no longer using healthcare costs/ACA as an excuse to stifle all labor costs. Getting them to pay higher wages could be a lot easier if they could be divorced from requiring private insurance for their employees.

 

Of course, I understand that if we had a single payer plan, this wouldn't be a question.

[Tweedling]

Who brought us HMO's?

If there is no profit in health care what do we suppose will happen? It's a business, let's face it.

As soon as you take the profit away your bright young students will chose to go into something other than medicine. Leaving us with doctors from foreign countries who are happy to make much less just to be living in our great country. Working in and around hospitals for about 20 years it is staggering to see the difference in doctors educated in the US and those outside of this country. Unfortunately it's true and I see it almost everyday.