Repealing Social Security and Medicare

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**Cairnius**

I sent this op-ed piece into the New York Times yesterday:

"I agree with the screaming, justifiably-angry protesters from the town hall meetings across America last week. I want to return to the Constitution. I don’t want to pay 7.65% of my annual income to fund government-controlled, socialist programs.

Let’s abolish Social Security and Medicare.

How do I know that the government isn’t wasting billions of dollars through these programs? How many health insurance companies were driven out of business through lack of access to the tremendous market that senior citizens represent?

How do I know that there aren’t millions of seniors out there who could very well get jobs and receive health care from their employer just like I do but who instead are living off the dole?

My family can foot the bill to let my grandmother live in a private retirement home, so why do we need to pay for programs we have no use for? Between all of us we’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars we pay in Federal taxes to provide benefits to people we do not now and will likely never know.

I stand behind the Americans who invoked the spirit of Freedom as they screamed in the faces of their Congresspeople. Many of these Americans are ready to give up their health benefits in defense of America and to stand against Socialism! They are patriots, all, worthy of our respect and not the mockery and scorn that the liberal media has disrespectfully thrown in their direction!

I call upon the Republican Party to do the right thing and, in the name of their crusade against government-controlled health care, to draft and submit legislation to put an end to Social Security, Medicare, and any other government-controlled plans or institutions which tax average Americans like me to distribute Federal funds for services which could otherwise be purchased through employer-subsidized health care or purchased on the open market without benefit of Federal support, and which cost this country hundreds of billions of tax dollars annually.

Now is the time to seize upon this wave of common sense and to return to the traditional American value of self-reliance. I call upon every American who has protested against the public health insurance option being considered by our liberal President to contact their Congressional representatives and announce their support for this legislation to repeal Social Security and Medicare.

Together, we can kick government out of the health care business altogether."

I sent this out to about 50 friends and family and got 10 or more responses cheering me on...lol...

While this is tongue and cheek, I'm also serious about it. If the health care reform package has no public option, and it fails because Republicans and conservatives are against "government controlled health care" for all their myriad reasons, then I don't want to pay for programs that I have no use for and which will be bankrupt by the time I get old enough to qualify for either of them.

The hypocrisy here is amazing. America never ceases to amaze me.

**warpcrafter**

Medicare and social security are going to collapse like the Hindenburg, within our lifetimes regardless of what any blowhard politicians think. All these advances in health care that make people live longer are to blame. Soon, not even the most socialist programs will have any effect. I recommend investing in funeral homes.

**Belphegor**

The highway and road system should be privatized!

I was thinking how unfair it is when I don't have a car that I need to PAY for public roads!
THEY'RE taking my money, so OTHER people can drive!

If you drive a car you can afford to pay for tolls, don't make me pay FOR you.
It's YOUR choice.

Make our though-fares a competitive market!
Want to get to work fast, pay the high prices.

Someone need to milk THAT cash cow.
Go Go Capitalism!

::flag wave flag wave::
-puke- Wow! That was like pulling the trigger on a night of Jack, milkshakes and nachos.

**Frazzled**

Cairnius wrote:I
While this is tongue and cheek, I'm also serious about it. If the health care reform package has no public option, and it fails because Republicans and conservatives are against "government controlled health care" for all their myriad reasons, then I don't want to pay for programs that I have no use for and which will be bankrupt by the time I get old enough to qualify for either of them.

The hypocrisy here is amazing. America never ceases to amaze me.

Speaking of hypocrisy, what a joke. The Democrats control the Executive. The Democrats control the House. The Democrats control a filibuster proof Senate. You could pass what you wanted in a heart beat. Your politicians are just too chicken

and want a fig leaf to hide under in case it falls apart. When the old fart brigade realizes what you're doing with Medicare, on top of not having COLAs for the first time in, well ever, they might elect the Republican Party for the next twenty years.

Don't blame the Republicans for your own inabiilty to "perform." Blame yourselves.

**Belphegor**

Puzzle for the day:

Democratic Party: [OO]+[O]+[O]
Republican Party: [OO+O]
Independents: [O] | [O]

**sebster**

Frazzled wrote:Speaking of hypocrisy, what a joke. The Democrats control the Executive. The Democrats control the House. The Democrats control a filibuster proof Senate. You could pass what you wanted in a heart beat. Your politicians are just too chicken and want a fig leaf to hide under in case it falls apart. When the old fart brigade realizes what you're doing with Medicare, on top of not having COLAs for the first time in, well ever, they might elect the Republican Party for the next twenty years.

Don't blame the Republicans for your own inabiilty to "perform." Blame yourselves.

Why is it just the Republicans or the Democrats that need to be criticised volved in this woeful excuse for a debate? Isn't there enough politicking and ignorance to condemn everyone involved?

Shame on the paid lobbyists for spreading stupid lies about the proposed program. Shame on the public for believing such nonsense. Shame on the Republicans for playing politicks and using healthcare to try and force themselves back into relevancy. Shame on the Democrats for being so typically disfunctional that they can't pass decent strength legislation even when they control the executive and both houses of congress.

**Frazzled**

sebster wrote:
Shame on the paid lobbyists for spreading stupid lies about the proposed program.
***They are not lies

Shame on the public for believing such nonsense. Its enlightened self interest blow back from a horrendous bill that slams the old and doesn't address the problems.
***Its not nonsense

Shame on the Republicans for playing politicks and using healthcare to try and force themselves back into relevancy.
***Again what part of "Democrats could vote this in at any time" are you not getting? interesting that new polling shows ore convservatives than liberals in the US again.
Republicans are starting to talk about retaking Congress in 2010.
Morte importantly this is what democracy and politics are. its open Warfare on the free speech front. What comes out of it, if anything, will likely be much better than the abortion of what nancy Pelsoi et al proposed.

Shame on the Democrats for being so typically disfunctional that they can't pass decent strength legislation even when they control the executive and both houses of congress.
***They don't want to commit political suicide. Nancy Pelosi's district is safe. Many seats aren't 9evidently including Barbara Boxer now). Love it!

**Frazzled**

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg18-2009aug18,0,6844550.column

Why 'Obama-care' is failing
Jonah Goldberg

Bio | Recent columns
Related
Discuss Jonah Goldberg's Aug. 18 Op-Ed column.
The president and his supporters are blaming the wrong people for his healthcare woes -- they should look in the mirror.
By Jonah Goldberg

August 18, 2009
E-mail Print Share Text size To listen to the White House and its supporters, in and out of the media, you would think that opposition to "Obama-care" is the hobgoblin of a few small minds on the right. Racists, fascists, Neanderthals, the whole "Star Wars" cantina of boogeymen and cranks stand opposed to much-needed reform.

Left out of this fairly naked effort to demonize a great many with the actions of a tiny few is the simple fact that Obama-care -- however defined -- has been tanking in the polls for weeks. President Obama's handling of healthcare is unpopular with a majority of Americans and a majority of self-proclaimed independents.

Focusing on the town halls certainly has its merits, but if you actually wanted Obama-care to pass, casting a majority of Americans as being stooges of racist goons may not be the best way to go.

Imagine if President George W. Bush, in his effort to partially privatize Social Security, had insisted that the "time for talking is over." Picture, if you will, the Bush White House asking Americans to turn in their e-mails, in the pursuit of "fishy" dissent. Conjure a scenario under which then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) derided critics as "evil-mongers" the way Harry Reid (D-Nev.) recently described town hall protesters. Or if then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) had called vocal critics "un-American" the way Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) did last week, or if White House strategist Karl Rove had been Sir Spam-a-lot instead of David Axelrod.

Now I'm not asking you, dear reader, to do this so that you might be able to see through the glare of Obama's halo or the outlines of the media's staggering double standard when it comes to covering this White House. Rather it is to grasp that the Obama administration has been astoundingly incompetent.

Lashing out at the town hall protesters, playing the race card, whining about angry white men and whispering ominously about right-wing militias is almost always a sign of liberalism's weakness -- a failure of the imagination.

The left, broadly speaking, has been attacking conservative talk radio and all it allegedly represents for the better part of 20 years now. When Bill Clinton needed a convenient villain, he attacked Rush Limbaugh. When Bush emerged victorious from the Florida recount, liberals concluded that what they really needed was their own version of Limbaugh. Last March, at the first sign of resistance from congressional Republicans, Obama immediately complained that the GOP was Limbaugh's lap dog, and both the White House and much of the press corps went into anti-Limbaugh campaign mode.

It's funny how these supposed champions of the Enlightenment can't grasp that people can disagree with them for honest reasons. Instead, we simply must be Limbaugh's automatons, which is to say racist, fascist thugs.

In addition to the slander, such complaints are monumentally, incandescently lame coming from a party that controls Washington. Indeed, according to liberals themselves, these evil-mongers are a tiny minority, a bunch of "Astro Turf" frauds. So why not ignore them and get on with the work you were elected to do?

Well, because they can't -- or won't.

One of the reasons the term "Obama-care" has become a journalistic convention is that there is no bill. You can't talk about Obama's actual healthcare plan because there isn't one. There are a bunch of competing bills, proposals, ideas swirling around the halls of Congress like flotsam in a sewer. As even Robert Reich, Clinton's Labor secretary, recently conceded, the failure to put forward a concrete proposal allows opponents to pick from a menu of scary ideas and possibilities, all of which can be labeled Obama-care.

Suspicion of bad motives are only reinforced by Obama's determination to steamroll to victory. Indeed, Democratic dudgeon that the town hall protesters don't want the civil debate we desperately need is hysterical, given that Obama wanted this over before the August recess. No wonder the president who thought the time for talk was over long ago now doesn't like the talk he's getting.

Some might say the real story is to be found in the eroding support from independent voters and Blue Dog Democratic congressmen. Or in the panic among seniors that Obama will raid Medicare. Or in his inability to get progressive Democrats to agree to a bipartisan approach. Or maybe the real story is Obama's manifest inability to sell a program he's invested his presidency in.

But no. Obama wants the debate to be about angry white men. And, as lame as that is, that's what's happening. It won't make Obama-care a reality, but it will shift the blame from where it rightly belongs.

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:They are not lies

Yes, they are.

Frazzled wrote:
Its enlightened self interest blow back from a horrendous bill that slams the old and doesn't address the problems.

No, it isn't. They have swallowed nonsense, and are now opposing the bill based on that reasoning. The bill is crap, but the opposition is still pathetically ill-informed. Some people might oppose it for legitimate reasons, but they will always be outnumbered by the majority of people who do not. To pretend otherwise just dishonest. Even the Iraq War was almost always protested based on illegitimate reasoning, and that made me just as angry as this nonsense.

Frazzled wrote:
Again what part of "Democrats could vote this in at any time" are you not getting? interesting that new polling shows ore convservatives than liberals in the US again.

You're discussing this like a war; pushing for the result that YOU want. Regardless of how it affects the larger system. I thought politicians were useless. Why are you no approaching them like Generals?

In any case, I'm fairly convinced that we will only see a public option via a general expansion/reform of medicare/medicaid. Double the FICA ceiling, expand benefits to all citizens (incrementally starting with 55+, lots of people are going to need help after this whole economic monsoon), and insititute national funding for birthing/early childhood services.

**sebster**

Frazzled wrote:***They are not lies

Pick one... there are no lies out there, or there is proposed legislation for death panels.

Shame on the public for believing such nonsense. Its enlightened self interest blow back from a horrendous bill that slams the old and doesn't address the problems.

Slams the old. Slams them it does. Slam doesn't mean anything but it sounds exciting. Which is pretty much the terms this bill has been debated on.

But yes, shame on the public for believing in 'death panels'. Shame on the public for believing the socialist and fascist rhetoric. Shame on them for being that stupid.

***Again what part of "Democrats could vote this in at any time" are you not getting?

When I said 'Shame on the Democrats for being so typically disfunctional that they can't pass decent strength legislation even when they control the executive and both houses of congress' I would have thought it was clear I knew that. You moderate this site, shouldn't you read it?

Perhaps you don't understand how politics actually works. Politics relies on gaining power by having the population vote for you. That's called elections. So when important legislation comes around that the public has a strong interest in, it isn't enough to just pass it, you have to get out and sell it to the population, failing to do so will get your legislation, but cost you your seat down the line, preventing you from passing more legislation. So there is public debate over important issues.

Now, people and political groups have the right to conduct themselves in that political debate however they want. They can provide informed, substantiated points, and engage in honest debate. They can also spread lies and play to the fears of the ignorant. The second is allowed, but most people think it's a crap way to go about politics. It doesn't inform the debate, it doesn't help people reach informed conclusions, it doesn't enhance the quality of the legislation.

The Republicans have favoured the latter, so yes, shame on them. Like or hate the legislation, it would take a remarkable act of ideology to ignore the way this debate has been conducted.

***They don't want to commit political suicide. Nancy Pelosi's district is safe. Many seats aren't 9evidently including Barbara Boxer now). Love it!

Yay! Now because there was no decent debate on the issue, it might end up failing and costing some politicians their seats. So you get no improvement in a failed healthcare system and you get to replace ineffective politicians with insane politicians! Win Win!

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:
Speaking of hypocrisy, what a joke. The Democrats control the Executive. The Democrats control the House. The Democrats control a filibuster proof Senate. You could pass what you wanted in a heart beat.

He said "Republicans and conservatives." There are conservative Democrats too.

Frazzled wrote:
Your politicians are just too chicken and want a fig leaf to hide under in case it falls apart. When the old fart brigade realizes what you're doing with Medicare, on top of not having COLAs for the first time in, well ever, they might elect the Republican Party for the next twenty years.

Don't blame the Republicans for your own inabiilty to "perform." Blame yourselves.

Always with the 'your'. So sad. The Republicans/conservatives are every bit as complicit in this nonsense as the Democrats/liberals. Instead of openly acknowledging that there is an issue with healthcare in this country, they make every effort to turn a blind eye to the problem. There could be a debate here. One which point out how pork-ridden (not pork as in unnecessary, pork as in ill-purposed) the bill is, and how there are other legitimate options available to us which don't necessarily involve some magical hand. Both tactically, and legislatively. But neither side does any of this, because both sides have spent so much time drumming up buzz-words that the terminology involved simply does not exist. You're defending a system which absolutely broken; feeding into the cycle of apathy, sloth, and anger.

**Frazzled**

[They are not lies

Yes, they are.
****They are not. Its all touchy feely at this point. You have to actually prove something is not in one of the many bills and proposals.

Frazzled wrote:
Its enlightened self interest blow back from a horrendous bill that slams the old and doesn't address the problems.

****Its not nonsense. You just disagree with it. Nothing you said supports anything other than ITS YOUR OPINION.

Frazzled wrote:
Again what part of "Democrats could vote this in at any time" are you not getting? interesting that new polling shows ore conservatives than liberals in the US again.

You're discussing this like a war; pushing for the result that YOU want. Regardless of how it affects the larger system. I thought politicians were useless. Why are you no approaching them like Generals?
****It is a war. What do you think politics and democracy is about? This is brilliant chaos. A war of ideas is being played out in front of us. If we allow it to run its course properly, better bills could be put into play. OT but no I don’t think they are brilliant generals-mouth breathing slicksters maybe…but isn’t “brilliant general” an oxymoron?

In any case, I'm fairly convinced that we will only see a public option via a general expansion/reform of medicare/medicaid. Double the FICA ceiling, expand benefits to all citizens (incrementally starting with 55+, lots of people are going to need help after this whole economic monsoon), and insititute national funding for birthing/early childhood services.
****And these are ideas worth exploring. As are private/public partnerships (Medicare Advantage that the Obama administration is trying to get rid of); nationwide insurance; portable insurance; limits on dropping insurance etc. etc.

Again you heard it here first. The final bill that will be passed will be
---portable state level insurance (I don’t think there are votes for making options nationwide-then you would have serious lobbying against it)
---can’t be dropped for pre-existing condition
---some minor figleaf provision.

**Orkeosaurus**

Frazzled wrote:but isn’t “brilliant general” an oxymoron?

I certainly don't think so.

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:It is a war. What do you think politics and democracy is about? This is brilliant chaos. A war of ideas is being played out in front of us. If we allow it to run its course properly, better bills could be put into play.

But this isn't a war, this is chaos. War isn't chaos. War is organized violence. What we're seeing has to become a war before we can even begin to discuss the creation of better bills. A process which requires planning, intelligence, effort, and numerous other elements.

Frazzled wrote:
OT but no I don’t think they are brilliant generals-mouth breathing slicksters maybe…but isn’t “brilliant general” an oxymoron?

That entire approach to the situation is much of the problem.

Frazzled wrote:
Again you heard it here first. The final bill that will be passed will be
---portable state level insurance (I don’t think there are votes for making options nationwide-then you would have serious lobbying against it)
---can’t be dropped for pre-existing condition
---some minor figleaf provision.

God help us if insurance is made state level. It might by enacted that way in terms of immediate control , but the portability part will insure the necessity of federal funding; rendering de facto authority a feature of Washington.

**sebster**

dogma wrote:The bill is crap, but the opposition is still pathetically ill-informed.

Yeah, that's a great way of summing it up. It isn't a good bill, and it does little to address many of the fundamental problems.

If informed and constructive debate had shut this bill down, you could put it to rest and use that debate to set about building a better bill. But it was crazy and stupid that shut this bill down, and you can't anywhere from there.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:****They are not. Its all touchy feely at this point. You have to actually prove something is not in one of the many bills and proposals.

No. That's non-thought. There is no clause in any bill that has a panel reviewing people's eligibility for healthcare. But this has been claimed, and repeated and townhalls.

**Frazzled**

War is not chaos? Er...

dogma wrote:

God help us if insurance is made state level. It might by enacted that way in terms of immediate control , but the portability part will insure the necessity of federal funding; rendering de facto authority a feature of Washington.

I hate to tell you this, but they are at the state level now...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slams the old. Slams them it does. Slam doesn't mean anything but it sounds exciting. Which is pretty much the terms this bill has been debated on.
****Some plans take $400BN out of Medicare. That’s a goddamn big slam.
But yes, shame on the public for believing in 'death panels'. Shame on the public for believing the socialist and fascist rhetoric. Shame on them for being that stupid.
***Other than that was discussed by TWO of Obama’s counselors on the issue right?
o when important legislation comes around that the public has a strong interest in, it isn't enough to just pass it, you have to get out and sell it to the population, failing to do so will get your legislation, but cost you your seat down the line, preventing you from passing more legislation. So there is public debate over important issues.
***They did just that for TARP, the Budget, the emergency stimulus bill, so your argument is flawed by several trillion dollars at this point.

The Republicans have favoured the latter, so yes, shame on them. Like or hate the legislation, it would take a remarkable act of ideology to ignore the way this debate has been conducted.
***You mean like the Democrats who’ve set up snitch lines; demanded passage before there could be a debate; called protesters un-American; and sent out organized counter protestors while disparaged “Astroturf protestors” Yea. They’re a regular Harvard debating team aren’t they.
On the positive. My vote counts. Yours doesn’t. Lets see what happens in 2010.

**warpcrafter**

We just had eight years of crazy stupid mouth-breathing slicksters who gave us such wonders as $4 a gallon gasoline, sub-prime mortgages, a collapsed financial system and a recession that almost became a depression. After that, socialism is just a logical counter-swing of the pendulum.

**Kilkrazy**

The editorial warning that Dr Stephen Hawking would be dead if he was British, because the NHS would have let him die, was a lie.

**Belphegor**

Frazzled: War is not chaos? Er...

Sorry.
War is not chaos.
Drunken amphetamine driven brawls in the middle of an unrelated riot is chaos.

Exhibit A) War is entirely made of: uniformed soldiers and fighters hidden in civilian populations.
Exhibit B) D.A.D.B.i.tM.o.a.U.R.s has but not limited to: raaaaagh! *swing* :stumble: flump-flump-flump @PUNT@ fuuuuuuuuuu! -puke-

The difference is clear.
War /= Chaos

**Cairnius**

Frazzled wrote:The Democrats control the Executive. The Democrats control the House. The Democrats control a filibuster proof Senate. You Your your yourselves.

You do know that there are people other than just Democrats and Republicans, right? I'm an independent.

End of that conversation.

While Republicans tend to move and vote in lock step by and large, Democrats never have and probably never will. The Parties are very different that way. There’s the liberal dems and the Blue Dog dems and the centrist Dems…but this is why I hate the Democratic party and think that liberals ought to just abandon them the same way that moderates should abandon the Republicans and then we can have three parties, right-wing, left-wing, and centrist.

This isn’t just about the politicians. This is also about the idiotic, slowed public. “Death panels.” “The death of private insurance companies.” “You’re going to have to raise everyone’s taxes.” These are all lies fed to the ignorant public by organized Republican lobbyist groups. Republicans should thank their God that so many Americans are so fething stupid to buy into gak like this without looking into it themselves like intelligent people should.

There are problems with a public option, but these ain’t them. The opposition could at least take intelligent stances in their rebuttals, but when emotional pitches like this take hold among the ignorant there’s no need to construct intelligent rebuttals.

If there's no public option, that's fine - but then I don't want to pay Social Security taxes or FICA or any of that gak. I'll pay for myself, thank you, because luckily I have the money to do so even if I lost my job tomorrow. I'll count my blessings and the rest of the country is on their own.

Or I can pay my taxes to make sure everyone gets the same sort of coverage that the elderly get if they need it and don't have the money, even though the elderly are closer to the grave and really need it less in the long run than young people. LOL

Oh how I wish I could hear a pundit say that on national television. I would piss myself laughing. The liberals really do need their own Rush Limbaugh. I would love to see them on t.v. with a Republican Congressperson whose constituency was a lot of old people, and then ask the Republican whether they were in favor of repealing Social Security and Medicaid, and when the Republican said "No" say "So basically you're full of gak, right?" And then laugh really loudly and impishly when the Republican began losing their cool.

**Orkeosaurus**

I'm all in favor of giving healthcare to young people, and taking it away from old people. We'll save money, and stop overcrowding in Florida!

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:War is not chaos? Er...

No. Its chaotic, but that's not the same thing as outright chaos. Unless you're going to posit that the word simply relates to broad hostility. In which case we're all at war with the world every day of our lives; essentially depriving the word of any useful meaning.

"Where ya goin' John?" "Oh, just off to war." Sounds silly, doesn't it?

dogma wrote:
I hate to tell you this, but they are at the state level now...

I should have said public insurance. State level public insurance is just as bureaucratic, and nonsensical as the current system because Federal funding will necessarily be involved (duplicating the fiscal structure of private corporations). The mode of accountability is simply different.

Frazzled wrote:
They did just that for TARP, the Budget, the emergency stimulus bill, so your argument is flawed by several trillion dollars at this point.

Wasn't there this big political event that happened somewhere in there? One characterized by a whole bunch of people losing their seats? I swear its starts with e, but I could be wrong.

Frazzled wrote:
You mean like the Democrats who’ve set up snitch lines; demanded passage before there could be a debate; called protesters un-American; and sent out organized counter protestors while disparaged “Astroturf protestors” Yea. They’re a regular Harvard debating team aren’t they.

Isn't that all simply part of the war? One thing to remember: political hostility quickly becomes violent hostility. Especially when you start closing the gap between the two via common terminology.

**Ironhide**

I will say this, I have not paid much attention to this healthcare program legislation. In so doing, I don't know what the points of the legislation are. However, all I've heard is how bad it is, but never why it is bad. Am I correct in assuming some things in the media are being over-dramatized? And not all the facts are being given? It wouldn't be the first time. I remember 7 years ago the government and the media were saying how this one country had WMDs, and then we invaded them, and came to find out that they didn't have any WMDs.

I am registered unaffiliated, but I voted for Obama. Why? Because he looked a lot better than what the Republicans were offering. If Obama doesn't work out, then I gues I'll see if the next batch of candidates are better.

BTW, I have seen others country's national healthcare systems and some of them work great. However, the ones that do work usually end up taxing the crap out of you. So I personally don't see how this country can have a national healthcare program without a huge tax increase.

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:The editorial warning that Dr Stephen Hawking would be dead if he was British, because the NHS would have let him die, was a lie.

What? Thats just stupid...doesn't everyone now hawking's BillGate's evil twin? Come on people...

KK check the mod forum for a Japanese item if you would.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Belphegor wrote:
Frazzled: War is not chaos? Er...
Sorry.
War is not chaos.
Drunken amphetamine driven brawls in the middle of an unrelated riot is chaos.

WRONG!!! thats not Chaos, thats justa good party!

Exhibit A) War is entirely made of: uniformed soldiers and fighters hidden in civilian populations.
Exhibit B) D.A.D.B.i.tM.o.a.U.R.s has but not limited to: raaaaagh! *swing* :stumble: flump-flump-flump @PUNT@ fuuuuuuuuuu! -puke-

The difference is clear.
War /= Chaos

Sorry how is that different? Both seem like chaos to me.

**Belphegor**

Frazzled: WRONG!!! thats not Chaos, thats justa good party!

Excellent!
Next time I'm in Texas I'll look you up so we can join in a good ol' D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.
Chaos does not preclude the existence of a good party.

Frazzled: Sorry how is that different?

The difference between D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s and Wars is that is that people in wars attempt to remain organized.
There is no attempt to remain organized in D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s.
Unless your outside of the D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R. trying to inflict order upon the participants.
(normally in the form of sprays, gases and fire hoses)

I refuse to acknowledge any further attempts to being purposefully and stubbornly falsely obtuse to the fact the War /~ D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s. and thus War /= D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s. and by example War /= Chaos.

**Frazzled**

Belphegor wrote:
Frazzled: WRONG!!! thats not Chaos, thats justa good party!
Excellent!
Next time I'm in Texas I'll look you up so we can join in a good ol' D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.
Chaos does not preclude the existence of a good party.

Frazzled: Sorry how is that different?
The difference between D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s and Wars is that is that people in wars attempt to remain organized.
There is no attempt to remain organized in D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s.
Unless your outside of the D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R. trying to inflict order upon the participants.
(normally in the form of sprays, gases and fire hoses)

I refuse to acknowledge any further attempts to being purposefully and stubbornly falsely obtuse to the fact the War /~ D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s. and thus War /= D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s. and by example War /= Chaos.

Other than I have a puture party guest I didn't get any of that. Was righteously excellent though

There is no attempt to remain organized in D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R.s.
Unless your outside of the D.A.D.B.i.t.M.o.a.U.R. trying to inflict order upon the participants.
(normally in the form of sprays, gases and fire hoses)

**Cairnius**

Here's an interesting little missive from a Princeton prof. on health care:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/18/reinhardt.health.inflation/index.html

Watching the angry outbursts at town hall meetings on health reform and the continuing public ambivalence about current efforts to reform our health system almost makes me wish that the reform effort fails.

Perhaps Americans need to be taught a basic lesson on the economics of employment-based health insurance before they will feel as smugly secure with it as they do now and before they will stop nitpicking health-reform efforts to death over this or that detail.

And America's currently insured middle class will be increasingly desperate if health reform fails. Millions more such families will see their take-home pay shrink. Millions will lose their employment-based insurance, especially in medium and small-sized firms. And millions will find themselves inexorably priced out of health care as we know it.

Milliman Inc., an employee benefits consulting firm, publishes annually its Milliman Medical Index on the total health spending by or for a typical American family of four with private health insurance. The index totals the family's out-of-pocket spending for health care plus the contribution employers and employees make to that family's job-related health insurance coverage.

The Milliman Medical Index stood at $8,414 in 2001. It had risen to $16,700 by 2009. It is likely to rise to $18,000 by next year. That is more than a doubling of costs in the span of a decade!

Since 2005, the index has grown at an average annual compound rate of 8.4 percent. Suppose we make it 8 percent for the coming decade. Then today's $16,700 will have grown to slightly over $36,000 by 2019.

Economists are convinced that this $36,000 would come virtually all out of the financial hides of employees, even if the employer pretended to be paying, say, 80 percent of the employment-based health insurance premiums. In the succinct words of the late United Automobile Worker Union leader Douglas Fraser:

"Before you start weeping for the auto companies and all they pay for medical insurance, let me tell you how the system works. All company bargainers worth their salt keep their eye on the total labor unit cost, and when they pay an admittedly horrendous amount for health care, that's money that can't be spent for higher [cash] wages or higher pensions or other fringe benefits. So we directly, the union and its members, feel the costs of the health care system." ("A National Health Policy Debate," Dartmouth Medical School Alumni Magazine, Summer 1989: 30)

Unfortunately, very few rank-and-file workers appreciate this fact. Aside from their still modest out-of-pocket payments and contributions to employment-based insurance premiums, most employees seem sincerely to believe that the bulk of their family's health care is basically paid for by "the company," which is why so few members of the middle class have ever been much interested in controlling health spending in this country.

The price for that indifference will be high. If efforts at better cost containment fail once again, and health care costs rise to $36,000 on average for a typical American family of four under age 65 -- as almost surely it would -- that $36,000 will be borne entirely by the family. That family's disposable income would be much higher if the growth of future health spending was better controlled. And, as noted, many smaller firms will stop altogether providing job-based health insurance.

It would be a major problem for families with an income of less than $100,000 a year. In 2007, only about 25 percent of American families had a money income of $100,000 or more. Close to 60 percent had family incomes of less than $75,000.

Here it must be remembered that the wages and salaries of the solid American middle class have been relatively stagnant in recent years and are likely to remain so for the next decade. Unemployment is not likely to fall significantly soon, regardless of what stock prices do on Wall Street. Indeed, often stock prices rise as firms lay off workers to drive up profits through leaner payrolls.

This prospect -- relatively stagnant family incomes combined with family health-care costs that double every decade -- is what America's middle class should contemplate as it thinks about the imperative of health reform.

It is a pity that this central issue seems to have been shoved aside by mendacious distortions from Sarah Palin, Betsy McCaughey, Rush Limbaugh and other extremist commentators seeking to frighten Americans with their prattle about "death panels" and "pulling plugs on granny" that no bill before Congress even remotely envisions.

**Cane**

People looking to ban medicare and the like; I wonder what their opinions are on military hospitals and government funded/run healthcare plans for government personnel. Whoever tries to remove the healthcare benefits that a lot of active and retired military/government members enjoy will likely be castrated politically.

**Frazzled**

Cane wrote:People looking to ban medicare and the like; I wonder what their opinions are on military hospitals and government funded/run healthcare plans for government personnel. Whoever tries to remove the healthcare benefits that a lot of active and retired military/government members enjoy will likely be castrated politically.

Mend it, don't end it! (always wanted to say that, but agree with the phrase in this case).

**sebster**

Frazzled wrote:****Some plans take $400BN out of Medicare. That’s a goddamn big slam.

No service currently provided in Medicare will be cut. There is $180bn right now being given to private insurers so that they’ll take on Medicare clients. Instead of giving that money away in non-competitive contracts, there is a proposal to have insurers compete for those insurance schemes. That’s the savings that are being discussed.

But it slams them it does. Slams them.

***Other than that was discussed by TWO of Obama’s counselors on the issue right?

What was discussed? That state administered death panels would decide who were the most viable people to receive healthcare. Because that’s the nonsense that people believe. That’s the nonsense you’re doing your best to talk around. So either put up the examples of the Obama people arguing for death panels, or accept that people are believing something that is silly.

***They did just that for TARP, the Budget, the emergency stimulus bill, so your argument is flawed by several trillion dollars at this point.

You understand that the stimulus bill was in response to circumstances needing rapid response. Whereas this is an effort at a long term fix to a decades old problem. The amount of time for debate possible for each is very different.

***You mean like the Democrats who’ve set up snitch lines; demanded passage before there could be a debate; called protesters un-American; and sent out organized counter protestors while disparaged “Astroturf protestors” Yea. They’re a regular Harvard debating team aren’t they.

Snitch lines? In an effort to dispel the rumours going on, the Obama admin puts up emails addresses and a hotline asking people to report all the rumours going around, so they might dispel these rumours. Which is how political debate should happen. But the people who are in the business of creating political fiction call these snitch lines, implying that you can report people opposed to healthcare and what? Obama’s black helicopters will come to your house and take you away? It’s silly, why are you repeating this silliness?

And yeah, when there are letters being passed around talking about how you should spread yourself through the crowd at townhall meetings to give a greater appearance of numbers, to be loud and disruptive and not give the politician a chance to reply… it’s astroturfing. And when there are so many lies out there about what this bill is about, it’s people falling for astroturfing.

But then there’s people like you. You’re not an idiot, but you believe this stuff or talk around it and pretend it’s something it isn’t, because this has been good for your side’s polling numbers.

On the positive. My vote counts. Yours doesn’t. Lets see what happens in 2010.

The positive? The positive is that I have a reasonable healthcare system, while you have a shocker. I have a healthcare system that covers the entire population for preventative and emergency treatment. I have a system where I can choose my private health insurer, not my employer. I have a system that beats yours in all metrics, and it costs less.

You have people turning up to heated political rallies with guns, complaining about socialism. But congratulations that your side has scored some political points and scared the reactionary base into (maybe) voting for you.