[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunsh...@... wrote: On Aug 15, 2009, at 11:56 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: snip And, when you think about it, why shouldn't he? He consigned his hopes for health care reform to Hillary, and she went into it in full balls- out confrontation mode, spoiling for a fight, and the result was that health care reform died for eight years. No, she didn't. Totally wrong. Factually, historically wrong. Barry's parroting some Clinton Derangement Syndrome blather he's read somewhere. Actually, more like 16. Also killing it was the fact that nobody could understand what the bleep was in the humongous document she produced describing it. Wrong as usual, Stupid Sal. No larger or more complex or more difficult to understand than most of the big bills that are passed. Nafta and the 1994 crime bill were equally as long. And the competing health care bills at the time were just as complex. Health reform is a complex entity with a great many moving parts; there's no such thing as simple legislation where it's concerned. Just simple people like you who have no clue what's involved but insist on shooting their mouths off and exposing their stupidity. Compromise is inevitable. The Obama-haters on the left who keep accusing him of selling out and watering down the proposed bill And Barry's just as stupid as Sal and just as inattentive to what's going on. His only motivation here is to find a way to dump on Raunchy and me. Same old, same old. No concern whatsoever for the *facts*, which are that a good portion of Obama's strongest supporters are those accusing him of selling out and watering down the bill. are, IMO, cut from the same cloth as Hillary was. She, for whatever reason, was happy with being right and refusing to compromise And more farcical ignorance, more brainless parroting of stupid Hillary hatred. Her team did not refuse to compromise, to the contrary. and ending up with no health care reform as a result. Saints preserve us from such moral absolutists. Unfortunately, it's Barry here who's the moral absolutist, feeling free to preach empty morality without knowing any of the facts. There were many reasons why the Clinton plan failed, some of which were the fault of her team but many of which they couldn't have done anything about. As with the current plan, just for example, the Republicans decided they couldn't let the plan pass no matter how many compromises were made, because it would be a victory for the Clinton administration, and that simply couldn't be countenanced. Do you get the feeling that people like raunchy, like Rushbo, really hope Obama fails? I clearly get that feeling. She keeps saying he's failed even though this whole project is clearly in the beginning stages. No, Stupid Sal, it isn't in the beginning stages, not by a long shot. It still has a ways to go, but the overall shape it's going to take is pretty clear. And for those of us who wanted single-payer, or at least a public option, it's already a failure. Read the progressive blogs, dumbass. If you'd open your stupid eyes and clear your stupid mind and pay a little attention to what's going on, you'd know that if somehow they manage to put the public option back in the bill and get it passed, it won't be Obama's doing; it'll be the progressives in the House who forced it to happen. More likely, the progressives will refuse to vote for the bill without the public option, the Senate will refuse to vote for it *with* the public option, and that'll be the end of it because Obama didn't have the stones to stand up and fight for the reform he campaigned on. Or never intended to in the first place.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: snip I see the eventually-watered-down but *passed* health care bill similarly to how I see the roll- out of new software in a large company. In fact, passing health reform has virtually nothing in common with the rollout of new software in a large company. It's another of Barry's glib, superficial analogies that don't work because he never thought them through. He may know lots about rolling out new software, but he doesn't know crap about rolling out health reform because he hasn't bothered to inform himself. If anybody read Barry's post and didn't instantly recognize what was wrong with his analogy, let me know. I'll be happy to take it apart for you.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, It's just a ride bill.hicks.all.a.r...@... wrote: On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflexdo.rf...@... wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_partisan.cfm And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature creep, leading up to a single payer option. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_England The Brits also have private health care options in addition to NHS. I just wanted to post and say that I agree with you on this completely. Whatever our differences have been in the past, I always read and enjoy your raps about health care, which you seem to have investigated in some depth. I see the eventually-watered-down but *passed* health care bill similarly to how I see the roll- out of new software in a large company. When you first propose a new system, there is always res- istance to it. Some think it's too expensive and (by definition) untested, some fear it because it will cause them to learn something new, others fear it because if the new software does its job well they're afraid their own jobs might be threatened, and still others fear it because it's new and brings change, and their allegiance is to the status quo. So, as a software designer, you propose a Big System to the powers that be, *knowing in advance* that all this resistance is going to come up. And *most* of the time the powers that be don't sign off on the Big System; they sign off on only a tiny portion of it, as a kind of proof of concept. So you roll out the POC system, and people start using it. And voila...the first thing that happens is that users start *liking* it. It really *does* work better than what they had before. And the second thing that happens? The users start asking for enhancements and improvements to the new system to make it even better. Being a savvy software designer, you refrain from pointing out that everything they are now asking for was in your original proposal. Instead, you take their input graciously and thankfully and go back to the powers that be with it in hand, and they look at the user feedback and *then* sign off on the original Big System you proposed to them six months ago. It's just how things work in corporate software. My feeling is that this is how it works with health care on a national level as well, and that this is exactly the approach that the Obama administration is taking to solving the health care horror. The important thing is to get *something* out there and working, as a proof of concept. Once people start using the new system, *they* are going to be the ones clammoring for feature creep, and to add enhancements to the system to make it work better. Single payer. Negotiated drug prices. Etc. This is the thing that the Gotta go in with a Big System and a big, swinging dick progressives don't seem to understand. That's not the way to affect change on a large scale. The way to affect change that you *know* will provoke resistance is to get a POC system out there and running, and then allow *the very people* who greeted your first vision of the Big System with fear and trepidation to reverse themselves, and ask for the very things you could have given them at the beginning if they hadn't been so stuck in resistance mode. This is pragmatic politics in my opinion. I see it having a much better chance of success than trying to sell a Big System that pushes everyone's buttons.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_partisan.cfm When Obama trots Bill Clinton out to defend a crappy health care bill you know he's getting desperate because Obama's grassroots supporters are not responding. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/health/policy/15ground.html More than a dozen campaign volunteers, precinct captains and team leaders from all corners of Iowa, who dedicated a large share of their time in 2007 and 2008 to Mr. Obama, said in interviews this week that they supported the president completely but were taking a break from politics and were not active members of Organizing for America. Some said they were reluctant to talk to their neighbors about something personal and complicated like health care. And others expressed frustration at the genteel approach, asking why Democrats were not filling the town-hall-style meetings So why is the grassroots to apathetic? We've got a Democratic president who came into office with the wind at his back and the people (and the press) at his feet, and a majority in both houses of Congress, but this is what we have instead, We need to pass a bill [just any old bill]. I would make calls all through the night for Obama if I were calling for Medicare for All. If Obama gave us what the MAJORITY of the people want in a health care bill, the grassroots would have gotten behind him more powerfully than they did for his campaign. Medicare for All would have completely dominated the conversation.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature creep, leading up to a single payer option. TurquoiseB wrote: I see the eventually-watered-down but *passed* health care bill similarly to how I see the roll- out of new software in a large company. There's no 'new software' being rolled out, it's just some reforms of the old system. It's like Windows 7 is different from Vista. So, where are the cost savings? It the Obama Care is like the software industry, why is it than we have to pay more for each 'new' revision but with very luttle improvement? And why is it that I have to pay for your software use? If there's no cost savings, why the reform? I've already got group health insurance, so why would I want to pay for yours? You don't pay any U.S. payroll tax, but I do. Why am I paying your tax? So many questions, so few answers.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
bill hicks wrote: And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature creep, leading up to a single payer option. Are you sure what 'single payer' means, Bill? So, Bill, you're saying that everyone should pay for the public health insurance, there's no way to opt out, and tax is automatically deducted from your paycheck, along with the payroll tax, and all the other taxes. And the U.S. Government pays for all the doctors, all the surgery, all the medications, all the hospitalizations, all the rehabilitation, all the extended care, and the counseling and the hospice care, Every one is on the plan including the elected politicians and the Dear Leader, and a panel will determine eligibility or rationing. And you're saying that young people pay for the health care of the old people, and the old people pay for everyone who has no insurance, like the guest workers. So, what happens when there's more old people than young people? And there are more guest workers than old people? Wouldn't it just be simpler to reduce the high cost of health care so that everyone could afford their own health care insurance? That way, we could all have some choices, and save some money, you know what I mean?
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort Finally, someone who understands. And, when you think about it, why shouldn't he? He consigned his hopes for health care reform to Hillary, and she went into it in full balls- out confrontation mode, spoiling for a fight, and the result was that health care reform died for eight years. Compromise is inevitable. The Obama-haters on the left who keep accusing him of selling out and watering down the proposed bill are, IMO, cut from the same cloth as Hillary was. She, for whatever reason, was happy with being right and refusing to compromise and ending up with no health care reform as a result. Saints preserve us from such moral absolutists. Obama seems to understand that the real task is to somehow fight through the obfuscation and the lies and the *monumentally funded* opposition to health care reform and get *something* passed, something to start the ball rolling and show people that things *can* be different. Once that happens the details will start to fall into place and inequities caused by the first compromises can be addressed. My take on the man is that he cares less about how history will see him personally than he does about *doing something* with the time he's been given as president that will actually help some people. As far as I can tell, the left-wing Obama-haters want real health care reform even less than the right-wingers do. They criticize him for not going in with guns blazing, waving his dick and refus- ing to even think about compromise. To them, that is just the way one does things. But that way of doing things has been the very thing that has prevented health care reform from happen- ing. Bill Clinton understands this. It's just a pity that Hillary didn't, or we might have seen health care reform eight years ago.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
On Aug 15, 2009, at 11:56 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort Finally, someone who understands. And, when you think about it, why shouldn't he? He consigned his hopes for health care reform to Hillary, and she went into it in full balls- out confrontation mode, spoiling for a fight, and the result was that health care reform died for eight years. Actually, more like 16. Also killing it was the fact that nobody could understand what the bleep was in the humongous document she produced describing it. Compromise is inevitable. The Obama-haters on the left who keep accusing him of selling out and watering down the proposed bill are, IMO, cut from the same cloth as Hillary was. She, for whatever reason, was happy with being right and refusing to compromise and ending up with no health care reform as a result. Saints preserve us from such moral absolutists. Do you get the feeling that people like raunchy, like Rushbo, really hope Obama fails? I clearly get that feeling. She keeps saying he's failed even though this whole project is clearly in the beginning stages. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of It's just a ride Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line- On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflexdo.rf...@... mailto:do.rflex%40yahoo.com wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti san.cfm And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature creep, leading up to a single payer option. Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition? Depends upon how we would have paid for the additional coverage. Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 of Adjusted Gross Income. The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security). Lowering the age would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding would have to be increased.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, It's just a ride bill.hicks.all.a.r...@... wrote: [snip] No one but the inexperienced Obama, who got his experience doing community action work, would have tried to do so many things at once, and I give him credit for whatever he gets out. [snip] I want to throw up when I read stuff like that. Firstly, he wasn't a very successful community organiser. Secondly, his type of community organising consisted mostly of knocking on the doors of various levels of government with his hand outstretched asking for money. I can only imagine that after years of this and the frustration of NOT getting the money he asked for was that the main thought left in his head was: Boy, just you wait until I'm on the other side of that door...I'm never going to deny anyone the money they're asking for. And now we've got as of the end of July 2009 (half of the year gone) a deficit of $1.3 trillion. Do you have any idea what kind of money that is? I suggest you take out your calculator and divide 300 million -- the number of people in the United States -- into that figure. The only problem is, your calculator won't GO that high (seriously)! This guy is spending like a drunken sailor. He and his Democratic Congress are spending us into a debt that we probably will never get out of. And don't tell me that Bush got us into this mess...we voted for Obama, NOT Bush or McCain. And he told us it would be change we could believe in, not DEBT we could believe in.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 1:32 PM, shempmcgurkshempmcg...@netscape.net wrote: Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 of Adjusted Gross Income. The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security). Lowering the age would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding would have to be increased. The Medicare tax rate is 2.9% for the employee and the employer. You will withhold 1.45% of an employee's wages and pay a matching amount for Medicare tax. There is no wage base for the Medicare portion of the FICA tax. Both the employer and the employee continue to pay Medicare tax, no matter how much is earned.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
shempmcgurk wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of It's just a ride Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line- On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflexdo.rf...@... mailto:do.rflex%40yahoo.com wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti san.cfm And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature creep, leading up to a single payer option. Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition? Depends upon how we would have paid for the additional coverage. Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 of Adjusted Gross Income. The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security). Lowering the age would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding would have to be increased. How about a 1% tax on stock sales? Let Wall Street foot the bill. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: shempmcgurk wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer rick@ wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of It's just a ride Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line- On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflexdo.rflex@ mailto:do.rflex%40yahoo.com wrote: I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode. -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti san.cfm And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature creep, leading up to a single payer option. Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition? Depends upon how we would have paid for the additional coverage. Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 of Adjusted Gross Income. The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security). Lowering the age would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding would have to be increased. How about a 1% tax on stock sales? Let Wall Street foot the bill. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. How about a 5% minimum tax on the income of everyone in the lower 50% of all taxpayers who pay less than 3% of all income tax collected? Leave the poor, downtrodden, exploited, and overtaxed Wall Street millionaires and billionaires alone, please.
