If you can bear it, go read Skippy.
health care q & a – holes
Personally I am finding the entire health care kabuki theater to be rather depressing and a reminder of all that is wrong with this country. The entire debate/nondebate/insurance give-away process is bad for my health.
Anyone feeling hopeful? Anyone remember the word hope? The concept?
Tags: health care
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In his first answer to Nate, Markos says “the point of reform isn’t to shovel taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies.”
If the bill “shovels money to the insurance companies”, why are they fighting it? Why are they offering gift cards to Hooters and a chance to win a plasma TV if you’ll send one of their anti-HCR letters to your Senators? Why is the US Chamber of Commerce spending gazillions on non-stop anti-HCR ads on TV? Why?
Seriously, I want an answer from a “kill the bill” person on that. Is it a new trend in advertising? Will Taco Bell be putting out ads saying “Don’t Eat Here, Eat at Wendys”? Will AT&T take out ads saying “Use Verizon”?
Or is this a remake of Groundhog Day except using Opposites Day?? And does that mean “kill the bill” means “pass the bill”?
Oh, and I love this one:
Um, doods, reconciliation can only be used for things that directly affect the federal budget. So, outlawing pre-existing conditions and recission? Nope. Exchanges? Nope.
This really gets to the heart of idiocy:
You see, normally when you draw a line in the sand, you say to the guy on the other side “Don’t you dare cross this line, or I’ll break your nose”. But here they’re drawing a line in the sand and saying “You get your ass onto this side of the line right now! Or, or, or I’ll throw a Progressive
and then you’ll really be sorry!!”.
@ gordon:
Gordon… Gordon…
Any more questions…? Pt. II…
Must see teevee…!
La la la la
I can’t hear you guys! (I need Pellora’s fingers-in-the-ear emotie) I don’t want to get in the middle of this. Except to say that Reconciliation is what Gordon says. It can’t do some of the good that is still possible by outlawing recision and pre-existings. It also closes the doughnut hole, which is evidence that you can go back and fix bad policy.
OK, off to eat my very late lunch and tackle the floors.
Actually, this is the one I wanted to show…!
Go read this.
Strip the bill of the ‘Individual Mandate’ and I’ll suck up the losses… …SP, PO, Medicare for some, ad nauseum…! Otherwise… Kill it…!!!
Texas Betsy wrote:
Excellent, most excellent. We might need to repost the whole thing here.
OK, now I really need to tackle those floors. Mr. Gnome is on his way back from H-town.
You can’t strip the mandate.
If we had single-payer, everyone would pay in through their taxes. If you’re not going to do it through taxes, you have to do it with a mandate. If you don’t, you don’t have universal coverage. And if you outlaw pre-existing conditions and drop the mandate, then ins co’s will sensibly conclude the only reason you’re buying insurance is because you’re seriously ill, and today’s insurance will seem cheap in comparison.
Don’t have time to watch a 1/2 hr vid. Bernie is pushing to make the bill better, but he hasn’t slammed any doors.
Those things aren’t “losses”, because you never had them. They are ponies that Santa didn’t bring. Don’t turn away the mangy looking one he brings, because you won’t get another chance for many, many years. Truman, then JFK/LBJ, then Carter, then Clinton, now Obama. And there’s a steady downward trend in the ambitiousness of those attempts. No one will want to take on that fight.
@ gordon:
…If we had single-payer, everyone would pay in through their taxes… *Gasp* What a foreign concept…!
Either tax the uber-rich, or impose a national sales tax like Canada does…!
@ Texas Betsy:
Yes, that is a good post. And it reminds me of a couple points that some here may recall me saying.
First, this an ideological fight. Win the ideological fight with whatever you can get passed. You can fix it later (as we did with SS, Medicare, Civil Rights Act… pretty much every major piece of legislation).
Establish coverage first. Don’t worry about costs until later. That’s what MA did, and it is working. Politically, you can not take coverage away (that’s the ideological part – right to access). So there will be actual political will to tackle costs. (And since “costs” are the main argument the opposition has – “kill it, it will cost too much”, it is ludicrous for the left to helping them with their argument.)
Oh, that Franken is a refreshing change.
@ CTuttle:
Why are you offering a choice between a progressive and a regressive tax?
But my point is that mandate + subsidies is roughly equivalent to taxes + SP.
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