If there was a theme which unites two of the biggest issues bloggers have been reporting, discussing and debating this week, it would be the projections all too many liberals cast on their conservative counterparts. First, they accused us of backing the “birthers.” Then, they used various slurs to attack our opposition to the President’s proposed health care overhaul.
They accused us of being tools of corporate interests, not being sincere in our opinions and of instigating violence (when there’s far more evidence linking activists supporting the President’s plan to thuggish tactics at townhall meetings) in publicly expressing our opposition to said overhaul. One columnist for a major national daily accused us of “poisoning the political well, [becoming] political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems” without once quoting (save to reference a clever line of criticism) any Republicans opposed to the various Democratic plans.
And then, there’s Paul Krugman, calling us a “mob,” the New York Times columnist suggests that we’re racists with a “substantial fraction” being birthers. You’d think a columnist for such an esteemed newspaper with a Nobel Prize in Economics no less would have the least bit of understanding of laissez-faire economic and its many advocates in the United States. But, you’d be wrong. According to Krugman, “the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the ‘birther’ movement“.
My friend David Boaz, a strong critic of the Bush Administration, will have none of this narrow-minded left-winger’s nonsense. In a must-read post, he takes down Krugman:
Paul Krugman can’t understand why people would oppose government control of health care — or skyrocketing deficits, or a federal takeover of education, energy, and finance along with health care — unless they’re driven by racism.
Like those who dismiss the protesters as astroturf, the Times‘ economist must needs reduce the motivation of his intellectual adversaries to racism. And his ideological allies accuse us of having a narrow view of the world.
But, David isn’t through. He goes on to criticize others who smear Obama opponents with the racism brush, pointing out something which serious students of history know about the idea of liberty:
The classical liberal ideas of individualism, individual rights, property rights, “negative liberties,” and limited government date back hundreds, even thousands, of years. They find their roots in the Greek and Hebrew conceptions of the higher law, the Scholastic thinkers, the Levellers’ ideas of self-ownership and natural rights, the political theory of John Locke, the economic analysis of Adam Smith, and the political institutions of the American Founding. To suggest that the case for freedom and limited government — or the application of that theory to contemporary proposals for the expansion of government — must be attributable to racism is uncharitable, ahistorical, thoughtless, and indeed contemptible.
As with anything by David, just read the whole thing. And while you’re at, buy his latest book. It’s a great read.
I’m not surprised, but am disheartened, at how many comments I see in comment threads saying “Anybody who disagrees with Obama is just angry because a BLACK MAN is in the White House.” It’s remarkable really, how they know what’s in my mind, what motivates me. Huh. Wish I could have that talent.
I attended a street-corner rally yesterday with my kids, some plastic pitchforks, some paper torches, and a sign that says ‘ANGRY MOB’. I got a lot of laughs from drivers going past. People are not fooled by the attempts to label. People know.
Krugman is an idiot. Like most (if not all) leftists, he inserts race into every issue from healthcare to humidity and the heartbreak of psoriasis. I’m bloody sick and tired of hearing about race. The race fascists are tearing this country apart at the seams.
No one on the left has yet to answer the fundamental question: how is government-run healthcare anything less than surrender of our own basic liberty? That alone makes it an awful idea. As others have observed, this is a bridge that, once crossed, will be burned – no turning back.
Obama’s own words confirm that this is a drive to a single-payer system (a Soviet-style system where the anointed class in government will enjoy excellent care while the lumpenproletariat gets left with the scraps).
I’m sorry that Ted Kennedy is suffering with a brain tumor. It would please me to no end if he would retire right now and then, by some miracle, live a long time in comfortable retirement. But I’m pretty sure that if it were me in the same circumstance (76 with a malignant brain tumor), a government plan would tell me to just take some pain-killers and die already… there’d be no surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.
“But I’m pretty sure that if it were me in the same circumstance (76 with a malignant brain tumor), a government plan would tell me to just take some pain-killers and die already… there’d be no surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.”
You are sure of that, eh?
And for what reason, pray tell, have you become so sure of that?
Listening to the lunatic entertainers like Beck or Limbaugh? Or just making stuff up on your own?
WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE SO PROUD TO EMBRACE INSANITY?????
Um, Tano, you attach your comment to a post on our motivations in opposing health care reform. Could you at least address the insanity of someone like Krugman labeling as racists those who disagree with him on this issue.
The only racists that I have seen open their mouths are Obama and his cronies.
“They just don’t get that some people are very deeply and passionately protective of their freedom……and they cannot comprehend people fighting for it… “
As for Tano, perhaps he should consider the words of Ezekial Emmual (Rahm’s brother and a key advisor on ObamaCare on how to set priorities within a government run system:
It sure as hell sounds like they’re saying “Old people shouldn’t get as much health care as citizens we deem useful and productive.”
GPW,
I don’t think Krugman’s hypothesis is insane. Maybe it is wrong, but it certainly seems like a plausible explanation for a set of truly bizarre attitudes and behaviors.
There are 5 different versions of health-care reform making their way through the various committees. None of them call for the extermination of the elderly. None of them call for the government to take over health care. None of them interpose a bureaucrat between you and your doctor, at least not to any greater extent than there already is an insurance company adjuster between you and your doctor. And even that is only in the public plan, which would be voluntary, and which probably won’t make it into the final bill anyway.
When I listen to the objections to the various bills, it is really really hard to find any serious objections, just a lot of truly insane allegations about what the bills will supposedly do – none of which has any connection whatsoever to reality.
And that demands an explanation. Why has one significant portion of the political spectrum become utterly convulsed with insane, over-the-top rumour mongering. Look at these people at the tea-party events – they are complete nut jobs. I dont doubt their sincerity – they are truly scared out of their minds, and also truly clueless about the facts of the situation. I guess they spend their days glued to the radio, listening to Limbaugh and Beck and the other insane idiots and they end up being completely defined by a frantic fear.
A fear of what? We also do have the birthers, who seem to overlap to some extent with these groups – certainly the tone is exactly the same. There is an effort to define Obama not simply as someone who one disagrees with, but as someone who, on an existential level, is not one of us – he is the Other. A foreigner, a moooslim, an african.
Those who are driving these campaigns seem to be very much interested in pushing this themes – which resonate with the classic themes of America racism.
‘It sure as hell sounds like they’re saying “Old people shouldn’t get as much health care as citizens we deem useful and productive.”
Actually, that comes not from a discussion about how to run a government health system, but rather a general discussion of the ethical issues involved in allocating scarce resources, such as transplants, under any type of a system.
Once again we have this truly bizarre scenario. Someone whispers into the ears of you conservatives some scary over the top scenario, and instead of being a bit skeptical and finding out what the reality is, y’all embrace the rumour for all its worth, instantly promoting it to the status of absolute fact and recruiting all your fear hormones, turning yourselves into zombie nutjobs tasked to go out and spread the rumor further.
Have these advocacy groups implanted some chip in your heads?
BTW, Obama Advisor Emmanuel also says Doctors take the Hippocratic oath “too seriously” and should consider social justice in their treatment decisions.
Tano and others who doubt that the fear is based in reality need only look to Canada and Great Britain for the answer. We won’t make their same mistakes, you say? How, pray tell, will you prevent it? The massive costs of Obamacare alone will dictate rationing of services. In addition, any system that is as politically driven as Obamacare will be rife with fraud, abuse, waste, and graft. The clauses in the current bill call for “end of life counseling” every five years for those collecting Social Security. Why would I want to be counseled on that every five years, unless omeone wants to convince me to “just let go” and slip into a painkiller induced coma from which I will never return?
Lest you say that the Republicans have not come up with any viable alternatives, please read the Patients Choice Act which, while objectionable in some ways, is not nearly as egregious as what the Democrats want. Oh, that’s right, Republicans have been virtually locked out of any meaningful negotiations by leaders of Congress who wish to portray them as the “Party of No.” So, the PCA goes almost unacknowledged.
There are a few simple changes that could be made to our existing health care scenario that would virtually eliminate much of what people find wrong with it. First, make health insurance portable and noncancellable so that pre-existing conditions don’t matter and making insurance compete for customers. Second, give the tax incentives to the consumers of health care instead of the providers giving consumers the incentive to choose their health care more wisely. Third, reform tort cases so that the loser pays, thereby decreasing the number of frivolous lawsuits brought by ambulance chasers (like John Edwards who became obscenely wealthy bringing erroneous cerebral palsy lawsuits). These few changes alone would go a long way towards eliminating some of the more egregious aspects of the current system.
So, before liberals are too quick to say that opponents of Obamacare have no ideas of their own, remember that we are being shut out of the debate. As sometimes used to happen with my kids, I have to yell to be heard over the din of petty arguments and squabbling.
Tano and others who doubt that the fear is based in reality need only look to Canada and Great Britain for the answer.
Exactly. On our side of the argument we have:
1. The example of socialized health care in other countries, where costs explode and care is rationed.
2. The candid comments of ObamaCare supporters that driving private insurance out of business and instituting socialized health care is their end goal.
3. Economics and common sense telling us that the promise of more health care for everybody at lower cost is impossible, despite what the Obamacrats claim.
4. The actual language in the legislation that outlaws private coverage (page 16) establishes mandatory end-of-life counseling, and covers illegal immigrants.
On the side of Tano and the other ObamaCare proponents, they have:
A. Obama’s assurance that he really didn’t mean that stuff about single payer, rationing won’t happen, and through a loaves and fishes miracle he’ll produce better health care for more people at lower cost.
#9 – “Have these advocacy groups implanted some chip in your heads?”
No, but I wish someone would remove that Dhimmicrat Entitlement Mentality from your sphincter muscle.
Regards,
Peter H.
Canada and Great Britian????
Thank you for proving my point. You guys have no clue whatsoever about the reality of what is being discussed in Washington these days, do ya? You just have the special interest inspired fear mongerers who play you guys like a fiddle.
THere are 5 versions of healthcare reform that are emerging from the 5 committes in Congress. They will be reconciled down to 2 versions, one from each house, then combined in conference to reach the final version. And they will need some Republican support to get through the Senate.
NONE OF THE VERSIONS resembles in any way, shape or form, the socialized system that exists in Britain. No one, not even the Dennis Kuciniches of the world, is advocating for that – thats zero support – a very long way from a majority.
And yet you people constantly try to scare up horror stories about a British system coming here. And, btw, the Brits dont find their system all that horrible – that would vote, I’m guessing, 95%-5% to keep their system if the alternative were a system like ours.
BUt thats all irrelevant – no British system is under consideration by anyone.
The Canadian system is not quite as extreme, but still, there is no Canadian-type system under consideration either.
Its all fear mongering on your side. Do you know nothing else?
#3: Thanks for making my point: you failed completely to explain why it’s not an awful idea to surrender my basic liberty to the state.
If you think this isn’t a drive to “single-payer” then you’ve not been listening to leaders on your side (Obama and Barney Frank jump to mind).
You say there are five different versions of healthcare “reform” in Congress. At least one of them expressly states that, once enacted, people cannot move INTO a private plan.
So there are five plans, none of which have been read and understood by our illustrious leaders (some of whom have stated that it’s not possible to read and understand them in a couple of days so why bother?). Yet Obama/Pelosi/Reid say this needs to be done RIGHT NOW. If we’re to surrender liberty for “security”, do we not have the right to know what we’re buying?
Finally – what INSANITY do you think we’re embracing? Given the experiences of people in other countries with single-payer systems, aren’t you the one embracing insanity?
I guess they spend their days glued to the radio, listening to Limbaugh and Beck and the other insane idiots and they end up being completely defined by a frantic fear.
Does that include the many Democrats who are opposed to Obamacare and participate in the Tea Parites? Or does that apply to us ingorant, redneck, racist, Nazi, sexist, bigot, homophobe Republicans?
You preach that your comments are based in reality. However you ASSert that people are being paid by the insurance companies and “special interests” to oppose Obamacare. Which insurance companies and “special interests”? What are their names? How much are they paying people? How many people have been paid? Can you provide that information or is it just the usual liberal bullshit? Pick your answer and get back to us.
Tano is right. I’m being played like a fiddle by fear-mongers. Best to just trust the Obama administration and Democrats and not ask any questions whatsoever. Besides, it’s unpatriotic (and now racist) to question the president.
We have enough common sense to realize that you can’t expand health care coverage to millions more people (including illegal immigrants) and lower the cost of health care and have no rationing in the system.
We understanding the basic laws of supply and demand, and we know the history of government profligacy and incompetence (or, how a $1Billion cash-for-clunkers program became a $3 Billion cash for clunkers program in just one week).
Tano does not understand these things. He just has absolute blind faith in the same Democrat party that quadrupled the deficit, bought itself eight private luxury jets while slashing money for combat aircraft for our military, and is… by the way…exempting itself and its union buddies from their wonderful health care scheme.
Krugman was a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. All of us appreciate fine objective writing from either side, but does anyone think his latest column is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize nominee?
The following is from the Pulitzer Prize website on Krugman’s nomination:
“For his prophetic columns on economic peril during a year of financial calamity, blending the scholarly knowledge of a distinguished economist with the skill of a wordsmith.”
“We have enough common sense to realize that you can’t expand health care coverage to millions more people (including illegal immigrants) and lower the cost of health care and have no rationing in the system. ”
There is always rationing. All goods and services are rationed, except those, like air, which are in far greater supply than demanded (although we could talk about polluted air…..). The most common mechanism for rationing is called PRICE. Things, including health care today, are rationed by price – the willingness and ability to pay.
You should take an economics class sometime, you might learn this stuff in the first week or so.
Secondly, it may be “common” sense that you cant expand coverage and lower costs at the same time, but sometimes the sense that is common is incorrect. Because commonly, people are averse to actually thinking about things at anything deeper than a surface level.
So sure, if nothing changed about health care besides the fact that 40 million more people were to get it, then it seems obvious that costs must go up.
But make sure you dont think about too much!!!
Otherwise you might stumble across the fact that those 40 million uninsured are already “covered” for catastrophic illnesses or trauma, in the sense that if something drastic befalls them, they go to an emergency room and will be treated. At our expense. The most expensive type of treatment for a condition which often has progressed to a severe level, because there were never any routine checkups or visits to the doctor when the problem seemed to be, and was, relatively minor.
If you really were the curious type, you might try to run the numbers, and realize that in many cases – it is far cheaper to subsidize someone to get good routine care, and solve problems when they are minor, than to pay for that emergency room and intensive care stay – something that can chew up in one week a sum equal to years of routine care.
So you see, the issue is not whether to extend health care to 40 million more people, it is to find a far more economical (and humane) way of treating those people, given that we are not going to let them die in the street (well, maybe thats one of the goals of the next conservative revolution, but it aint gonna happen anytime soon).
“We know the history of government profligacy and incompetence (or, how a $1Billion cash-for-clunkers program became a $3 Billion cash for clunkers program in just one week). ‘;
Huh? How can you spin the CfC program as incompetence. It was designed to boost the auto industry and help to get the economy moving. It worked beautifully. So popular that we decided, based on popular pressure, to expand it to 3billion. How is this a bad thing?
“He just has absolute blind faith in the same Democrat party that quadrupled the deficit”
Ahno. Dearly departed leader has a responsiblity for a very big part of that. You know we had a surplus, from the Democrat years, when he took over, remember?
“slashing money for combat aircraft for our military”
You are not seriously criticizing that, are you? A massive boondoggle representing the worst of the Congress-military industial complex nexus.
The military DID NOT WANT that fighter. The Republican SecDef has been against it all along. It is a paradigmatic example of corruption and waste.
And yet you criticize cutting it, for no other reason than a dem is in office.
#20: as far as the surplues… there was never a surplus. Despite annual operating surpluses at the close of the Clinton years (some credit due to Clinton for this), the truth is that these figures do not include long term obligations (in the neighborhood of $55 trillion for Social Security and Medicare – Congress has no plans to pay for this so why would we consider adding trillions more?).
http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/em1004.cfm
GW Bush and the GOP Congress were undeniably profligate but the numerous fuses on this bomb were lit long ago. The current effort by the Dems to add trillions in debt will be ruinous. There is no other outcome possible.
The bottom line (again) is this: why should I surrender control of my medical care to government? Why are we not taking the “low hanging fruit” like tort reform (among other things)? Why would this work any different here than it has in other countries?
‘why should I surrender control of my medical care to government? ”
Could you expand a bit on how, in your fevered imagination, control of your medical care is going to be surrendered to government? Just keep the insurance that you have. Remain under the control of a profit-making insurance corporation. You will be free to do so.
“Why would this work any different here than it has in other countries?’
What countries have a health care system that resembles what is being proposed by the bills making their way through Congress?
Please give details, because I suspect you may not know what you are writing about.
You are sure of that, eh?
And for what reason, pray tell, have you become so sure of that?
Easy; it’s already happened.
One patient in Oregon got a letter that made this all too clear, when in the same letter rejecting her request for life-extending chemotherapy, Oregon offered her “physician-aid-in-dying”
And next:
NONE OF THE VERSIONS resembles in any way, shape or form, the socialized system that exists in Britain. No one, not even the Dennis Kuciniches of the world, is advocating for that – thats zero support – a very long way from a majority.
I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that Barack Obama’s mouthpiece lies as much as he does.
He also got House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to agree to allow a full House vote on the single-payer reform that more than 85 House Democrats have endorsed.
Congressman Anthony Weiner, D-New York, worked with Waxman to get the deal on single-payer and declared a sort of victory Friday, saying that: “Single-payer is a better plan and now it is on center stage. Americans have a clear choice. Their Member of Congress will have a simpler, less expensive and smarter bill to choose. I am thrilled that the Speaker is giving us that choice.”
You haven’t done anything but spew Obama’s lies, Tano, and we have just confronted them with facts.
Now, spin your little self into a frenzy. Or save us all a step and start screaming how “racist” we are for forcing you to confront the lies your Barack Obama is telling.
If you really were the curious type, you might try to run the numbers, and realize that in many cases – it is far cheaper to subsidize someone to get good routine care, and solve problems when they are minor, than to pay for that emergency room and intensive care stay – something that can chew up in one week a sum equal to years of routine care.
Actually, we already have, Tano.
You see, you tried that spin years ago when you put in place Medicaid, insisting that it would “lower costs” and that people would have more “preventative care”, rather than going to the emergency room.
Turns out the facts are significantly different, as we see on Page 3:
The visit rate for Medicaid patients (82 per 100 persons with Medicaid) was higher than the rate for those with Medicare (48 per 100 persons with Medicare), no insurance (48 per 100 persons with no insurance), and private insurance (21 per 100 persons with private insurance (Figure 3) (27)
So let’s see; those people on the “public option”, despite having the “preventative care” for which they pay nothing, fully funded by the taxpayers, use the emergency room at a rate nearly twice that of the uninsured and nearly four times that of the privately-insured.
In short, the numbers indicate that government healthcare RAISES costs, not lowers them. The reason why is simple, welfare boy; right now, you don’t go to the emergency room, because you would actually have to pay for it. But what you and your welfare-addicted Obama want is to be able to go whenever you want and not have to pay for it, and you intend to do so at the expense of those who work and actually pay taxes.
Your lies are unraveling, Tano. No wonder your desperate black thug is exhorting his followers to use physical violence; that’s all you have left.
ND30
“So let’s see; those people on the “public option”, despite having the “preventative care” for which they pay nothing, fully funded by the taxpayers, use the emergency room at a rate nearly twice that of the uninsured and nearly four times that of the privately-insured”
And you think this shows what?
Medicaid patients would be expected to use the ER more often – they are the poorest and sickest amongst us, and tend to be victims of violent crime at a higher rate as well.
Are you trying to imply that if the uninsured were to have insurance, then they would suddenly start using the ER at the same rate as Medicaid patients? Thats totally absurd of course – they are different populations of people.
But I dont really see what your point could possibly be.
IF you wanted to make a point against my claim that the same people, if insured, use less resources than if they are not insured – then you need to find some stats that directly compare such groups. For example – go to Mass. and see if anyone has calculated the societal costs for the newly insured under RomneyCare vs. the costs beforehand.
Or if you cant find data, then at least make a theoretical argument for why it would be that curing a disease in its early stages would be more expensive than a trip to the ER and a stay in IC.
Or that having a young man who doesnt bother with insurance, but has an accident and needs 100K in surgery that we all pay for – why that is cheaper for society than if he is insured all along (paying premiums) and his care is paid in that manner?
Try and take these issues seriously, instead of just using them as a chance to insult people.
they are the poorest and sickest amongst us,
Impossible. The liberals started the glorious “War on Poverty”. We’ve spent 40 years and trillions of dollars to eradicate poverty. How in the ever loving hell can we have poor amongst us?
So, Tano refutes my assertion that he is economically ignorant and has blind faith in the Obamacrat party… by showing economic ignorance and blind faith in the Obamacrat party.
He actually cites Cash for Clunkers as a successful government program. Let’s take a look again at this successful program:
1. Deficit-financed by borrowing money from China; and since 50% of the rebates are going to foreign makes, we’re sending half of it abroad.
2. The program induces people to behavior they would not have otherwise engaged in, which raises the cost to government. Furthermore, in some cases, it induces them to make bad economic choices; trading in a vehicle that’s paid off in return for one requiring a monthly payment.
3. It creates massive waste, since perfectly good vehicles are being turned in to get the rebate. These perfectly good vehicles can’t be resold to people who need them, or even given to charities. By government edict, they must be destroyed.
4. The energy used and the emissions created in their destruction (plus the energy used to build new vehicles) cancels out any environmental benefit of the program.
5. People who made the economic choice to buy more efficient vehicles in prior years are, in fact, punished, because they are excluded from the program, although debt is being contracted by the Government on their behalf.
6. The program is costing three times as much as Congress said it would.
This is Tano’s definition of a successful government program.
BTW: The military didn’t ask for eight luxury business jets to chauffeur congress-oligarchs around either, dumbass.
BTW, contrary to what dumbass said, the USAF has requested additional F-22’s. They have requested a minimum of 243, as opposed to the 187 Obama is allowing them to have.
That aside, it’s interesting that Dumbass treats the $3 billion borrowed and wasted on C4C (as well as the money on Congress’s luxury jets) as legitimate economic stimulus; but money that would actually defend the country is “waste” and a “boondoggle.”
If C4C (paying people to let their cars be destroyed) is a “good” program, then logically, we could achieve infinite prosperity if only we carpet-bombed all of America for the benefit of the countless jobs that would be created in the rebuilding.
In fact – America should be in a war (but carefully, to make it look like we’re the victims). America should always be at war. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. That is where the Democratic, Big Government mentality leads.
“…it’s interesting that Dumbass treats the $3 billion borrowed and wasted on C4C (as well as the money on Congress’s luxury jets) as legitimate economic stimulus; but money that would actually defend the country is “waste” and a “boondoggle.””
First off, why is it that you conservatives are so personally disrespectful? Are you some kind of elitists or something, that you have to insult people and call them names because they disagree with you?
CfC is certainly an economic stimulus, of the kind that the economy needs. Just get down from your theoretical tower and go out in the real world – ask your local car dealers what they think of the program, or some of your fellow citizens. I have heard lots of people – the somewhat cynical, not-overly-political, middle-class, middle-aged folks who are often Republican voters – I’ve heard them call CfC the only good thing the government has done in years.
No, it is not a waste when local auto dealers are doing their best business in years, when orders are backing up in factories -and yeah, maybe you dont realize this, but most of the foreign owned brands make most of their cars here in the US.
What makes this stimulus a valuable thing, and the F22 stimulus a waste, is that at the end of the day, under CfC, lots of people have new, and better (and cleaner- operating) cars, while with the F22 stimulus, at the end of the day the military would have a plane that is relatively useless given the security challenges of the 21st century.
Damn, post lost in limbo.
Ok, trying again.
C4C:
1) I have a paid off, fully functional ’99 Ford Ranger. He’s eligible for C4C. If I were dumb enough to trade him off, I get a 4500 credit on a 20-30k vehicle. So I’ve now gained 15-25K debt.
2) I bought Dante (above truck) used in 2002. If I were to turn him in for 15-25K debt, he’ll be destroyed. Because of this, I’m depriving the market of a used car that can be sold for a profit to a new driver or a driver who can’t afford a new car. Thus C4C is causing lasting ripples in the market for used cars.
3) Lets say I was an idiot. Now lets say I was a liberal, but I repeat myself. If I were to let Dante be scrapped for 15-25K of debt, the auto dealership is happy, the loan company is happy. Time Warner isn’t happy (I’ve had to drop down to basic cable and internet) Paizo isn’t happy (I’ve had to drop my RPG subscriptions, denying them about $75 a month) local restaurants aren’t happy, since I can’t eat out. My association isn’t happy since I can’t make repairs as fast as they’d prefer. Jonah Goldberg makes the argument better than I can here.
The other difference, Tano, is the purchase of F22s (which aren’t useless, unless you’re planning to abandon allies around the world, like the current administration seems to want to do) is something the constitution allows. C4C? Not so much.
Tardo is illustrating what is known in economics as the “Broken Window Fallacy.” A baker’s window is broken by a vandal, and he has to pay someone to fix it. From that, people cite the act of vandalism as economic stimulus, since it caused the baker to spent money.
It did no such thing. It only forced him to spend money fixing a window that he otherwise could have spent on some other economic activity; buying shoes, or purchasing materials for his shop. It’s result was not stimulus, but inefficiency.
Livewire,
You do realize, dont you, that CfC is an entirely voluntary program, right? You are not obliged to turn in dear Dante for 20K in debt unless you decide that such a transaction would be to your benefit.
So what is your concern here? Or are you just assuming that your fellow citizens are in the exact same situation as you are, or are a lot dumber than you are in calculating what their financial interests are?
Your second point makes no sense. How are you depriving the used car market of a vehicle (by participating in CfC and thus destroying Dante) when you would otherwise not have sold at all?
Actually, Tano, we’re not all knuckle-dragging idiots stumbling through life in a Limbaugh-induced fog.
In my fevered hallucinations, I see a government-run single-payer system because that’s what the Democrats have said over and over. I know politicians lie and dissemble but, in this case, I take them at their word.
I also see a giant government bureaucracy that determines who gets what healthcare based on various diversity quotas (the framework is in the bill). I see government involvement in who gets to practice what and where – the same government that so effectively runs . I see political influence in allocation on resources (ACORN). I government officials exempting themselves and favored constituencies. I see another open-ended entitlement for anyone who makes it across the border.
I see K Street lobbyists and their rent-seeking corporate clients manipulating the system to direct lucrative contracts this way and that with total disregard for need and effectiveness. Due to the size of the program (300 million patients), it will make Pentagon procurement look like the model of efficiency and frugality.
Again, why don’t we try some simple and basic reforms before turning over the whole shebang to Ma’am Boxer, Henry Waxman, and an unaccountable bureaucracy where we have no recourse?
Why don’t you acknowledge the magnitude of existing liabilities (the $55 trillion); the fact the government always fails to project the actual costs of programs (on purpose… they could get these things through if people knew what the true costs are).
The Waxman bill is here: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
It’s more than 1,000 pages of legislative gobbledygook and I doubt there’s anyone who understands the entire thing. If passed, the 1,000 pages will morph into many thousands of pages or regulation (like the tax code).
Your second point makes no sense. How are you depriving the used car market of a vehicle (by participating in CfC and thus destroying Dante) when you would otherwise not have sold at all?
Um, OK, try this, Tardo. Lower income people depend on the used vehicle market for their transportation. If perfectly serviceable used cars are being *destroyed* because of government edict, then what economic literates call the “supply” of used cars becomes smaller, thus making the prices for used cars higher than they would have been otherwise.
My guess is, about six months from now, we’re going to see another “economic benefit” to the cash for clunkers program… in the repo business.
And my challenge to Tardo to identify the party in charge of Congress when the budgets of FY2008 and FY2009 were written, and to describe what happened to federal deficits in those two budgets, alas, remains unanswered.
“In my fevered hallucinations, I see a government-run single-payer system because that’s what the Democrats have said over and over.”
You want to be sarcastic, but you end up being accurate. It is a fevered hallucination. In the real world there is a Congress, accoutable, to some extent, to the people. Given the level of support for a single payer system in the Congress (probably about 25% maximum), everyone has known, since the beginning of this process, that a single payer system was simply not going to happen. It has been officially “off the table” all along.
Obama has stated how, in a fantasy land where one could simply start over from scratch, he would be for such a system. But in very next sentence he acknowledges that in the real world, that simply will not fly. Which is why he never campaigned for a single payer, and why he stated explicitly all along that it was not under consideration.
There are 5 versions of healthcare reform making their way through the committees in Congress. The final bill will be some amalgam of those 5. None of them have anything close to a single payer system.
THis is a total red herring.
As are the long list of other things that “you see” in these bills.
“I doubt there’s anyone who understands the entire thing”
There are plenty of people who understand the damn thing. These issues have been argued and debated for decades. Its not like someone just up and started to write something de novo, and didnt stop until they had 1000 pages. THere is not a single provision in there that hasnt been argued to death by people interested in policy.
Just because you and your fellow conservatives are new to the game, have only been paying attention since Rush and Glen have started talking about the issue (I’m kinda joking there,,,,,,kinda), doesnt mean that everyone else is in the same boat.
V the K,
You talking to me?
Don’t expect a response until you learn how to speak like a grown-up, with at least a minimum level of respect for the one you engage with.
Tano – there’s no chance I will change your mind and I’m not inclined to change mine.
As far as no one understanding the legislation… just quoting John Conyers.
It occurs to me that you might be right in one respect – providers will remain in the private sector. The reason for this is that the tort bar (major Democrat donor base) has to have targets. Once hospitals, doctors, and nurses are put on the federal payroll, who would the lawyers sue?
Medicaid patients would be expected to use the ER more often – they are the poorest and sickest amongst us, and tend to be victims of violent crime at a higher rate as well.
Wrongo, silly boy; you see, according to the leftist rhetoric, the uninsured are the poorest and sickest, since they can’t afford insurance AND allegedly have no “preventative care”. Yet they are visiting the emergency room half as often as those on Obamacare.
And also, what did you say above about “preventative care”?
If you really were the curious type, you might try to run the numbers, and realize that in many cases – it is far cheaper to subsidize someone to get good routine care, and solve problems when they are minor, than to pay for that emergency room and intensive care stay
Which Medicaid does — and, in return, has a rate of emergency-room visits TWICE that of the uninsured, who supposedly are even poorer and sicker, and FOUR TIMES that of the privately-insured.
You are completely lying, Tano, and that’s no surprise; your black thug Obama teaches you to lie.
Also, Tano, you are a cowardly fool, given that you seemingly have nothing to say about the PROOF provided you above of how Obama Party “single-payer” plans are telling people to commit suicide rather than pay for chemotherapy and how your Obama Party is pushing for “single-payer”. But then again, we don’t expect a troll like yourself who supports the black thug Obama to do any differently.
Given the level of support for a single payer system in the Congress (probably about 25% maximum), everyone has known, since the beginning of this process, that a single payer system was simply not going to happen. It has been officially “off the table” all along……
There are 5 versions of healthcare reform making their way through the committees in Congress. The final bill will be some amalgam of those 5. None of them have anything close to a single payer system.
The lying Tano troll is caught again.
He also got House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to agree to allow a full House vote on the single-payer reform that more than 85 House Democrats have endorsed.
Congressman Anthony Weiner, D-New York, worked with Waxman to get the deal on single-payer and declared a sort of victory Friday, saying that: “Single-payer is a better plan and now it is on center stage. Americans have a clear choice. Their Member of Congress will have a simpler, less expensive and smarter bill to choose. I am thrilled that the Speaker is giving us that choice.”
Your Obama Party is BRAGGING about its single-payer bill. Your Obama Party is pushing your single-payer bill for a vote. I have sources and links that prove it and yet you sit here and try to lie to me about it.
You are spoken to like a child, Tano, because that’s what you are; a lying, spoiled brat of a child who thinks it can lie to adults with impunity and force us into doing your bidding with screaming temper tantrums, just like your Obama does.
ND40,
Where do you get this silly idea that the uninsured, as a class, are poorer and sicker than Medicaid recipients? You are just making that up, then trying to leverage your silliness into an argument.
Medicaid exists for the explicit purpose of providing health care to those who are in the most desparate financial shape.
THe uninsured include people too “well off” for Medicaid (which doesnt take much) but still poor. It also includes people who are too sick to get insurance under present underwriting policies.
But the uninsured also include many young people who are healthy and relatively well-off – but who force all of us to pay for their huge medical costs if and when they get into a terrible accident, or get some unexpected grave illness.
The uninsured also consist of a lot of people who have lost their insurance because they were laid off, or their employer decided to stop providing insurance as a benefit. These people also represent a potential drain on the rest of us when they need expensive care.
But both groups also tend to lose all thier own resources first -so they get wiped out, and then make demands on the rest of us.
As long as you have a society in which there seems to be a moral consensus that we are not going to let people die in the streets, but will treat them, then there really needs to be universal participation in insurance. Otherwise we continue the practice of today where some rip off the rest of us, either willfully, or because they cant get/afford insurance.
ND40,
As to the vote on single-payer, my original statement was correct. THere are 5 versions of health care reform that are in the committees, and that will be put together to form 2 versions, one in the House, one in the Senate, and then put together into one final bill, sometime in October in the conference committee. None of the 5 bills has anything to do with single payer system.
As you can tell from the article you linked, the 80 or so Dems who prefer a single payer (which makes 25% of the House, just as I said), managed to convince Pelosi to give them a vote on their plan – which is NOT part of any plan under consideration in the 5 committees, and will NOT be part of any consensus bill or conference committee. Its a feel-good vote which is bound to lose by 340-80 or something like that.
As everyone has known all along that it would, which is why single payer has never been part of any real discussion.
“Which Medicaid does [have preventive care] — and, in return, has a rate of emergency-room visits TWICE that of the uninsured, who supposedly are even poorer and sicker, and FOUR TIMES that of the privately-insured.”
As I noted above, Medicaid patients are poorer and sicker than the uninsured, not the other way around. THat should be obvious.
That is why Medicaid recipients end up in the hospital more often than the uninsured, and much more often than the relatively healthy general population of insured.
It really isnt so complicated if you actually try to understand the world, instead of fishing around for isolated statistics that you can cram into your bitter, angry narrative.
And whats with your constant repetition of “black” thug? You got a problem or something?
Where do you get this silly idea that the uninsured, as a class, are poorer and sicker than Medicaid recipients?
Because, Tano, your Obama Party constantly blames the cost of health care on uninsured people being sicker and using the emergency room excessively because they have no “preventative care”.
If you really were the curious type, you might try to run the numbers, and realize that in many cases – it is far cheaper to subsidize someone to get good routine care, and solve problems when they are minor, than to pay for that emergency room and intensive care stay – something that can chew up in one week a sum equal to years of routine care.
Of course, when the facts are shown to you — that people on your Obamacare Plan already use the emergency room twice as often as the uninsured — you start spinning and babbling about how the uninsured really aren’t sicker or poorer.
Also, your “population” argument is hilarious. You would expect Medicare to have a sicker population than Medicaid, given that Medicare covers senior citizens and Medicaid covers on average people who are much younger, yet Medicare recipients use the emergency room half as often as Medicaid members. Meanwhile, you still haven’t explained why people on what you consider awful private insurance, rather than your perfect Obamacare Plans, have a quarter the number of emergency room visits.
Meanwhile, your lies about “preventative care” have already been blown up by facts — which you, being an Obama shill, completely ignore.
Otherwise we continue the practice of today where some rip off the rest of us, either willfully, or because they cant get/afford insurance.
No, right now we have the practice where Barack Obama steals from honest and hardworking people to reward criminals like his illegal immigrant aunt, who gets health care, subsidized housing, and fat welfare checks so that she can make contributions to his campaign.
And as for why Barack Obama is called a black thug, that’s what you call a man who whines and screams to his supporters demanding that they get up in peoples’ faces, that they punch them twice as hard, that they use their elbows, and who sends goon squads of union thugs to go beat up and throw racial epithets at black conservatives.
Why do you support Barack Obama’s call for violence, thug Tano?
As to the vote on single-payer, my original statement was correct.
Wrong.
NONE OF THE VERSIONS resembles in any way, shape or form, the socialized system that exists in Britain. No one, not even the Dennis Kuciniches of the world, is advocating for that – thats zero support – a very long way from a majority.
You lied, Tano, and now you’re trying to backpedal to cover up your lies.
The reason your leftist hate party wants “single-payer” is obvious; it gives you the capability to take trillions of dollars in cash from working American citizens and give them worthless IOUs that you don’t have to actually fulfill later — while channeling cash and fat checks to people like Kevin Johnson, the Obama supporter and criminal who was caught massively misusing Federal money, or to Obama’s criminal aunt.
Edumnds CEO Jeremy Anwyl on Cash for Clunkers:
I note the Republicans proposed a Federal Income Tax holiday as an alternative to the bloated, corruption and payoff-ridden Spendulus the Democrats passed. If the government handing out money to bribe people to buy cars many of them would have bought anyway was such a great idea because it “stimulated” consumer-spending, why was it such a bad idea to have a more broad-based consumer spending incentive?
The tax holiday would have cost less, deficit-wise, too.