and they call us "Astro turfers"

[Aramike]

Here is an idea - reform MEDICARE so you don't waste Billions - show the American people that you can be good stewards of a health care related program - show us that you can create an efficient, government overseen medical program, and THEN start discussing how to use that same success to make health care better for even more people.

But the government takeover of health care can't wait - because its more about a power grab than it is looking out for the American People.

Like August, agreed. Well put and pragmatic.

Haplo, make your mind up.
If you want to try and dodge the issue by claiming its an association and as such not valid, then why on earth do you bring in an association and claim it backs up your point.
In case you don't understand.
AHIP is according to you not a valid example as it is an ASSOCIATION of health care providers.
Yet Blue Cross Blue Shield is a valid example despite being an ASSOCIATION of health care providers.

[CaptainHaplo]

Tribesman - stop playing semantics when you know the difference. Unless of course your incapable of understanding the difference.

AHIP is an association in the classic sense, a group of divergent and INDEPENDANT companies that can speak through the association as a collective, singular voice. AHIP does NOT offer or provide any insurance to individual, private citizens, because that is NOT its purpose.

BCBS on the other hand, is an INSURANCE PROVIDER. While it is made up of members that are under contract - they must conform to the rules laid down by BCBS in the coverage they provide, how they deal with doctors, etc. In essence, to the consumer - BCBS is simply one large company.

The fact you try to confuse on semantics - over a word that both use but that is clearly different in their meaning, shows how desperate you are to NOT discuss the real topic - that reform is supported, but not this massive change everything and let the government run it all plan.

Its these kinds of tactics that make the average american look at liberals in power and shake their head. You can't win on facts, so you try everything you can to keep from having to deal with facts. Argue semantics, try and divert the conversation, call out people for having double standards, regardless of if its true, just to keep from having to deal with the facts. And yet your probably trying to figure out why the independants who elected this Congress and President have backed away from the support they once gave.

You can't answer the issue of "why not reform Medicare first" and show some success and build trust with the American people. You can't answer why it must all be done in one fell swoop via legistlation that none of those that support it have actually read. You don't have an answer for the fact that the people that have read it are against it. All you know is its something put out by "your side" - so reality, fact and honest discussion be damned.

That is why THIS health care reform is unlikely to happen. A much more reasonable, affordable plan will end up with support. Because not everyone is as willing as you to wear blinders and follow with ignorance.

*editted to correct 2 spelling errors.

You can't answer the issue of "why not reform Medicare first" and show some success and build trust with the American people.

Is that because the insurance providers who are pretty much cleaning up with the current Medicare program are spending lots of money to ensure that popliticians either block legislation on reform or only approve "reform" that doesn't actually reform.
Sorry you will have to remind me. Who are the people who are at meetings objecting to reform of Medicare?
You know the "Keep the stinking government out of my medicare" sort of thing.
If I am not mistaken thats some of the teabagging wingnuts isn't it.
But OK every little group has loonies.
So what about the political parties.
Which party has a good number of its politicians taking a stance that Medicare reform is simply not on the table at all?

Its these kinds of tactics that make the average american look at liberals in power and shake their head. You can't win on facts, so you try everything you can to keep from having to deal with facts. Argue semantics, try and divert the conversation

Would that be winning on facts like calling policies nazi and communist at the same time as well as being unconstitutional and even traitorous and talking nonsense about death panels, euthenasia and illegal immigrants?

actually its the whole mess of american political debate that makes the world shake its head.

Because not everyone is as willing as you to wear blinders and follow with ignorance.

Thats funny as throughout the long discourse of the various healthcare topics people who object to any of the current proposed bills have displayed astounding levels of ignorance on the subject.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Who are the people who are at meetings objecting to reform of Medicare?
You know the "Keep the stinking government out of my medicare" sort of thing.
If I am not mistaken thats some of the teabagging wingnuts isn't it.

Ummm no.

Its all irrelevant anyhow at this point there going to vote on it anyhow.

Reid: Senate Finance Committee to Vote on Health Bill Tuesday

Congressional analysts gave a boost Wednesday to the Senate Finance Committee's health care bill, concluding that it would cost $829 billion over the next 10 years -- under the $900 billion target set by President Obama.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...h-care-reform/

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Thanks, Undersea. Trust me, I do understand your reasoning behind preferring a 100% private system, as in a perfect world, I'd agree. The reasons I've decided to be a proponent of some degree of universal coverage is dominated by the fact that we already have a system which unfairly taxes everyone who's actually insured/pays their own medical bills.

The fact is that costs are higher due to adverse government involvement including the Patient Bill of Rights which leads to patient delinquency, lack of an effort to regulate tort, and the astronomical costs associated with dealing with government programs and insurance companies.

The problem arises is that we have a populace that is in no way interested in abandoning the Patient Bill of Rights (not that I think we should) and a government in the pockets of the trial lawyers, who have no interest in limiting damages. Furthermore, insurance companies are really the only act in town, and are able to further manipulate the industry by attempting to deny coverage of people who are likely to require expensive treatments, thereby increasing the cost of delinquencies passed along to the consumer, and moreso to the taxpayer.

Now, I have no problem with a company making a buck, not at all. I DO, however, have a problem with a company profiting off of a market that they directly manipulate - in other words, making money just because they said so.

Right now the economics of healthcare in this country is a cluster. We actually have one of the best infrastructures in the world as far as direct care is concerned. However, regulations that most people agree with have removed some of the capitalistic factors from the equations meaning that costs will continue to rise proportionate to the built-in demands for free service. For example, the underpriviliged are filling up hospital emergency departments (some of the most expensive care you can find) for head colds, knowing that they'll never have to pay a dime. The rest of us foot that bill.

So our choices really are as follows.

1: Purely capitalist. Deny care to those who are uninsured and can't pay.
2: Defacto, hyper-inefficient universal coverage (as we have today).
3: Bureaucratic, government run hyper-inefficient universal coverage (as much of the rest of the world).
4: Steamlined, efficient government regulated universal coverage.

Yeah, I know that "streamlined", "efficient", and "government" doesn't go well together traditionally - but I don't think that it's impossible. I think that, with a combined private/public effort, a balance could be achieved. For example, require insurance companies to cover EVERYONE at a certain rate. But, the government can insure that coverage for financially catastrophic cases. Furthermore, require the insurance to be simple and complete. And, benchmark efficiency in costs.

Just a thought.

I had a very well thought-out response to this, replete with an asessment of price controls, but my browser decided to stop working.
Here's the jist of it; price controls= bad, they generate shortages and surpluses, so says some notable economists. The US does not have a healthcare shortage, it has a surplus, and there are more effective ways than state healthcare reform to make it more widely available and more resonably priced.

I'll re-type it all when I have some spare time and will.

Edit- almost forgot, I was going to bash tribesman's last post as well. If someone could do it for me and save me some time, I'd be most obliged.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I had a very well thought-out response to this, replete with an asessment of price controls, but my browser decided to stop working.
Here's the jist of it; price controls= bad, they generate shortages and surpluses, so says some notable economists. The US does not have a healthcare shortage, it has a surplus, and there are more effective ways than state healthcare reform to make it more widely available and more resonably priced.

I'll re-type it all when I have some spare time and will.

Edit- almost forgot, I was going to bash tribesman's last post as well. If someone could do it for me and save me some time, I'd be most obliged.

Haha, I hate when that happens.

I do agree that price controls are generally bad, but I believe we're in a situation where there's already price "controls", except that they are dictated by insurers and the uninsured. Perhaps control is not the best word because its more like a giant, artificially inflated cluster you-know-what.

The problem with universal healthcare has typically been one of rationing (i.e., shortages). The problem with OUR version of universal healthcare (the defacto one we're currently using) has been different - it's the inflation of cost WITHOUT shortages.

Healthcare is about as artificial of a capitalist system as one can find. It is an item that is always in a state of increasing demand by the very nature of a burgeoning population enjoying increased longevity. Hell, even oil, as a commodity, has its competitors. But unlike oil and real commodities, healthcare is far more notional meaning that its specific value can nigh be determined.

So what happens is that even in the private sector bloated bureaucracies form ratcheting up the costs of an already hyperinflated sector. Now people must not only pay for the costs and profit of the doctors, nurses, medical equipment and supply manufacturers, drug companies, etc., but also the costs and profits of the bloated institutions that pay them (insurance companies), and even then only so much. Add to that an out of control civil legal system, and you've got a recipe for an unmitigated disaster of a system which determines its own value by nature of essentially just saying that "this is my value".

Hence my position that a drastic, universal overhaul is needed. But, let me restate - Obama's and this Congress' plan is absolutely, 100% guaranteed to be a worse disaster than what we already have.

[QUOTEUmmm no.

Its all irrelevant anyhow at this point they are going to vote on it anyhow.
][/QUOTE]
Really ?
on which bill?
what verdict did the bi-partisan group give to each of the proposals?

was going to bash tribesman's last post as well.

Don't let your ignorance get in the way.
Come on lance corporl , you raised issues , explore the very issues you raised yourself.
r are you just talking ****e?

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Really ?
on which bill?
what verdict did the bi-partisan group give to each of the proposals?


Don't let your ignorance get in the way.
Come on lance corporl , you raised issues , explore the very issues you raised yourself.
r are you just talking ****e?

Would you mind editing that so it makes a little more sense.

As to your question I provided the link just to kill time I guess.

Would you mind editing that so it makes a little more sense.

Errrr...so sorry if its too hard to understand .
Which of the bills that went to the commitee are they going to vote on?
Simple isn't it.
If you want to make it more complicated ..... what verdict did the committee deliver on those bills they reviewed?
If you want to make it even more complicated ....what verdict did the health care providers deliver on those bills?
if you want to keep it simple ...what do some rednecks say about that bill?

Have a clue. If you is on the same page as some of those rednecks then beware , there is a really valid conspiracy theory that the evil feds is going to burn your home down all the way to the chassis

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Is that because the insurance providers who are pretty much cleaning up with the current Medicare program are spending lots of money to ensure that popliticians either block legislation on reform or only approve "reform" that doesn't actually reform.

Again - a baseless accusation thrown out without fact to back it up. In fact - the whole statement is ludicrous - because PRIVATE INSURANCE companies don't make ANY money on medicare - medicare is administered by firms who deal direct between the government and the doctor - but they ain't INSURANCE firms. Medicare pays doctors for providing care - Medicare IS government insurance. Medicare doesn't pay insurance companys ya goof. The fraud is in the companies that administrate medicare, as well as hospitals and doctors that claim things never done. Neither has anything to do with the "BIG BAD EVIL INSURANCE COMPANIES".

Be careful - your ignorance is showing again.

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Sorry you will have to remind me. Who are the people who are at meetings objecting to reform of Medicare? You know the "Keep the stinking government out of my medicare" sort of thing. If I am not mistaken thats some of the teabagging wingnuts isn't it.

Well you would be mistaken - but thats not a real suprise to most people. The people objecting to reform (and NOT just of Medicare - which you are intentionally mischaracterizing) are those that have taken the time to read some of the proposals. Something which many of the liberal legislators supporting "reform" have admitted they haven't done, using the fact that its to complicated for them to understand as an excuse.
So your logic is that having read something, researched it, and coming to an informed decision that such a proposal is bad for them personally, then choosing to tell the government representative their view, makes them a "teabagging wingnut". Well, here in the good ole USA, we call it exercising our rights and responsibilities as citizens entitled to self-governance - For the People, BY the People. Yes, I know that concept is hard to grasp - but its why we are truly the most free people in some way - in the world.

Originally Posted by Tribesman

So what about the political parties. Which party has a good number of its politicians taking a stance that Medicare reform is simply not on the table at all?

Good question. You infer its the minority party. But yet again you leave innuendo out there - instead of facts. I haven't heard any legislator, on either side of the aisle - say that they are unwilling to look at reform of Medicare - or health care in general. Got a link, or should we again just chalk it up to you making things up?

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Would that be winning on facts like calling policies nazi and communist at the same time as well as being unconstitutional and even traitorous and talking nonsense about death panels, euthenasia and illegal immigrants?

Again with the twisting. Someone brings a swastika sign (with a picture of the President on it) showing their personal comparison of how CONTROLLING government looks to be turning into - and somehow you generalize that to everyone who disagrees. As for "death panels" and the like - if it wasn't really there, how come that language that made people so concerned got stricken? After all - if it wasn't true - no need to remove it. Once again we see the pitiful attempts by the left to smear anyone who actual READS what is being proposed. Instead, leftists like you would rather us just shut up and accept whatever the liberals in power want to do, and our rights be damned. Again - its not happening, and its maddening to those who want to control everything, and can't. So go ahead, insult those who choose to be informed. It shows what the EXTREME left is all about. *I note extreme left, because some liberals actually are NOT whack jobs - just like some conservatives aren't. And some on both sides are. Unfortunately - its the wacko's that got elected, by sounding centrist.*

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Thats funny as throughout the long discourse of the various healthcare topics people who object to any of the current proposed bills have displayed astounding levels of ignorance on the subject.

Ah yes - as compared to those so well informed politicians that support this reform but admit to not even reading it.

Liberal stance - "You have read the proposal - that means your ignorant. If you have no clue what it says, you are educated and nuanced."

That "logic" is what is astounding.

[Aramike]

Good post, Haplo. On the mark! But be forewarned - Tribesman will only come back with some questions that his Google results precipitate. You know, such as: "what did X say about Y"?

Smart people just make the point, but he's kind of, well, not that, so he likes to maintain a sense of ambiguity as to allow spin and retreat. Heh, I always get a little bit of a chuckle when I think about how he confuses "interpretation" with "context", followed with his insults about how everyone but him and his ilk are idiots.

When I was in elementary school, there was a boy in the "special class" who loved to call everyone "retards". The irony was sad then. Now it's just funny.

I'm just warning you, brother...

The people objecting to reform (and NOT just of Medicare - which you are intentionally mischaracterizing) are those that have taken the time to read some of the proposals.

That is a generalisation which you are unable to establish.

Someone brings a swastika sign (with a picture of the President on it) showing their personal comparison of how CONTROLLING government looks to be turning into - and somehow you generalize that to everyone who disagrees.

errrrrr...no , that is you applying a generalisation to someone elses post where there is none.
So is it a case of you making a generalisation and thinking that others are following the same flawed logic that you do and then working your responses from a false premise ?

[magic452]

Have a clue. If you is on the same page as some of those rednecks then beware , there is a really valid conspiracy theory that the evil feds is going to burn your home down all the way to the chassis

They may not burn down my house but they are sure picking my pocket

Heh, I always get a little bit of a chuckle when I think about how he confuses "interpretation" with "context"

I always get a chuckle because aramike doesn't understand what "context" means