Wordsmoker

I am having a hard time understanding why this particular bill has to be passed in its entirety. I’m sure that there are aspects of the bill that enjoy bipartisan support, not that I give a fuck* about how either party feels about this. For instance, opening the insurance marketplace so that people have equal access regardless of their geographic region.

I understand that the argument against this type of solution is that it will not go far enough to truly help the uninsured, but there is a good chance that this bill will fail on it’s size and scope. The issue with a huge bill is that it gives too many legislators an issue or two under which they can seek political coverage. “I would have voted ‘Yea’ if it didn’t fund abortion,” or “I would have voted ‘Yea’ but it didn’t fund abortion.” It could also be the lack or inclusion of a public option or anything else that Congress fights about. All of these sticking points can be used by either side as an excuse to bail on the overall bill.

@’Ness: Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with far more of what you say than usual.

You made a really good point in the paragraphs that you addressed to me. I was using the interstate market as an example of something that I believed shared bi-partisan report, but it sounds like just another worm can. Perhaps a federal minimum standard? I would be okey with that.

When Obama guaranteed healthcare reform without fail, he committed himself to the surer things that might pass and had to abandon those reforms that he probably felt were right, but had zero chance of passing. Although you and I certainly don’t agree about a single-payer system, I think that anyone could tell that it has no chance of passing in this country. If it didn’t fail to gain a simple majority in the Senate, it would have been shot down in the earlier rounds by any number of moderate Senators who would filibuster.

I don’t agree at all with your smooth transition from the government winning WWII to it essentially making us the greatest nation in the world. The government didn’t lift “tens of millions of families into the middle class.” Corporations did. There are so many non-governmental factors that caused this to happen, it is hardly possible to list them, but here are two:

Europe had to be rebuilt, causing commodity prices to rise. This had the ripple effect of employing more labor to produce those commodities. Wages rise when demand for labor increases.

The country had an extremely cheap labor force to be exploited over the next 35 years in the form of women entering the workplace.

What the government did to cause all of these people to be brought into the middle class is to allow corporations to expand without their interference.

You mention police as one of the factors that made us the envy of the world. As a cop, I can tell you that the modern police department model is broken. That in large part is because of the unions and government management. I can go into this in a lot more detail here or on another post if there is interest.

Like, I said, there is a lot that I agree with in your post. Forcing someone to pay for a bad plan is reprehensible. This healthcare system is broken, but not completely broken. It successfully insures 80% of the population. Is that good enough? Not at all. And, yes, I hate Kos.

This is a side note, but it is related. I am a healthy person with a few bad health habits. I am now seeing stories about legislation for salt bans and soda taxes in NYC. Fuck that. I know that this is an idiotic response, but I’m falling asleep, waking up, typing a few keys and falling asleep. I just love debate that much.

@’ness: I had a shower, so I will try to muddle through my response before turning in.

I’ll concede your points about the history of the middle class for the reasons that my argument is not built upon disproving them and I have no reason to doubt your research.

What I will not concede is the vague “tens of millions” of GI’s that you keep throwing out there. The best estimates that I could find put the US Military at between 10 and 12 million men and women during the Second World War. The total number of vets would be larger with troop rotations and not counting fatalities. However, I doubt that all of the GI’s took advantage of the free college that was offered. I just want you to put a little finer number on this for the purpose of this discussion.

I only watch Beck occasionally to laugh at him, but I haven’t seen anything like what you said about FDR et al. I don’t agree that they were socialists even if I don’t agree with all of the policies from that era.

I don’t expect you to defend corporations, but the deliberate omission of credit for for the growth of America required a comment.

“…to take Social Security to the casino of the “Free Market”.

You are either mischaracterizing this or misunderstanding what the proposal was. The idea was for SS money to be invested in equities, with a guarantee by the US government, much the way that our bank accounts are backed by the FDIC. I will admit that after the banking system became unstable in late 2008, I have reservations about this plan, but it certainly isn’t the roulette wheel that the Left likes to make it out to be. Of course, if the banks collapse, we Social Security money will be worthless.

Consume all the anti-government , pro-corporation propaganda you want to.

This is where you lose me, ‘Ness. Just because I don’t agree with your solution doesn’t mean that I must be getting my information from a faulty source. I work in government. I’ve seen what the government does with our legal justice system. That is my primary source of skepticism. I can also assure you that I wouldn’t be assigned to turn away sick and injured people, because I would resign before that would ever happen.

Like it or not, the war effort to defeat the Nazis and tyranny abroad was a government effort.

I like it a lot. I like that the free people of our free society and the industrial might of our free enterprise economy was victorious in defeating sadistic enemies who were none of those things. Yes our government effort beat their government effort. So, I will agree that we had/have a better government than those of the Nazis and Imperial Japan.

“…we currently have an appalling system of health care rationing in the U.S. right now which is based on ability to pay.”

I completely agree with the above partial quote.

There are also a number of groups people in society that I am more than happy to have my tax money help: the mentally ill, the impoverished, children with poor parents, etc. However, I see government programs failing to help those for whom they were intended, while benefiting others way too often. For instance, we’ve had Section 8 housing developments in our city for years. The abuse is chronic, but what is really tragic is that there is a waiting list to get into those homes. It’s a great idea that doesn’t work. It is very difficult to separate the needy from the not-so-needy. I just don’t see a massive pubic option being impervious to this kind of abuse.

I don’t have a hospital in my city. Like Starbucks until 1996, all of the hospitals chose to surround our city, but not settle inside. I contacted a friend of mine, whose jurisdiction contains two hospitals. The hospitals do employ officers for security details. He said that he knows of cases where people claim that their minor malady or injury is an Emergency, and when told that it is not, have gotten disorderly and have been asked to leave. I suppose the reason that they are there in the first place is because they are uninsured. He did say that it was not that frequent in his experience. I believe it serves your point to a degree.

@MamaP and Gerbils: This text message just in from Natasha:

“Haven’t slept in over 30 hours, and would like to. But I read Wordsmoker, and now am so thoroughly repulsed by the chat about your hot naked body that I can’t close my eyes without getting the spins and nausea. Despair settling in.”

Yeah, Natasha, like it’s my fault that you contracted sexually transmitted ebola and can’t sleep.

@MamaP and Gerbs: My showering is not hot. It usually just entails me wetting down a cake of lava and smearing suds on my body and orifices. Then I towel off with a dirty rug. Shaving on the other hand is a sight to behold.