Obama Care vs Republicans

[Lamplighter]

Show me how the Democrats have compromised, lately!

I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours (i.e., how the Republicans have compromised, lately)

*No pilot made to determine the REAL impact of Obama Care

If not "pilot programs" of some kind, prior to passage of the ACA...
...what do you consider the Massachusetts' program under Romney?
...what do you consider the Oregon program under Kitzhabber ?
...there were probably several trial projects in other states earlier under
federally approved variations of their own Medicare/Medicaid programs.

Of course I've not yet seen an opponent of Obama that didn't consider
every situation "not the right way to do it" or "not the right time to do it"
Those are standard bullet points for the GOP.

*No period of study of the regulations (now at 10,000+ pages),
before the bill was passed. It was "Vote for it now, and we'll write up the regulations for it later".

Maybe we can agree that the regulations were probably not "read" by
every Congressman, but the overall plan was discussed for a long time,
with central features being made aware to everyone.
(You've listed a few in the paragraph below...)

Eliminating pre-existing conditions, allowing cross state competition
among health care providers, and passing the 85% efficiency rule,
along with Tort reform, would have been something both parties could have agreed to.

Pre-existing conditions and allowing cross state competition - obvious improvements

The 85% rule is simply one tool to force the insurance companies
and the health care providers to put their $ into delivery of care,
not advertising or CEO salaries or high MD payments or ultra-high cost hardware ?
I assume you are not opposed to all that; but if so, what are your reasons ?

Tort reform doesn't belong in this ACA legislation for several reasons,
Not only because it takes away the rights of patients to seek
recourse in the face of what courts determine to be negligence or malpractice,
but the health care insurer is not (usually) the same insurance carrier
as the "malpractice insurance company" for the medical personnel.
Tort reform did not fly previously, but it had little to do with the Democrats.
It failed to be enacted due to the lawyers in the crowd... many of whom were Republicans.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

Adak, please go and spend some time outside the US. Learn how people live on our planet when they aren't in that 1%. Or just spend some time in rural America, that would also do. You might learn that people have more pressing things on their minds than whether they should be offended that their doctor asks if they're sexually active.

Were the Adak Island geographical facts a thousand miles plus different from your pre-determinded fantasies?

Distance from Anchorage to Adak
Distance is 1926 kilometers or 1197 miles or 1040 nautical miles
The distance is the theoretical air distance (great circle distance). Flying between the two locations' airports can be a different distance, depending on airport location and actual route chosen.

That's more than the distance from Seattle, WA, to Los Angeles, CA, btw. (Adak Island is just a bit closer to Russia than it is to Anchorage.)

It is rather sad when you give advice, that you have NO IDEA what you're talking about.

"spend some time in rural America",

What a laugh.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours (i.e., how the Republicans have compromised, lately)

How about every debt limit being raised since Obama came into office?

The Republicans want generally LESS government regulations and intrusions into our lives. LESS spending by the gov't, LOWER taxes, means less $$$ taken out of our paychecks and wallets.

There was no mandate given by the Constitution, that the House needs to keep funding programs it doesn't like - and that includes raising the debt limit - but the Republicans have gone along with it, several times. WITHOUT demanding any programs be removed from the Democrats.

Now your turn. Name spending cuts (not FUTURE spending cuts that probably will never materialize, but ACTUAL NOW spending cuts), that Obama and the Democrats have supported.

How about them noisy crickets, eh?

If not "pilot programs" of some kind, prior to passage of the ACA...
...what do you consider the Massachusetts' program under Romney?
...what do you consider the Oregon program under Kitzhabber ?
...there were probably several trial projects in other states earlier under
federally approved variations of their own Medicare/Medicaid programs.

But they're a FAR cry from Obama Care, and the Mass. program has practically bankrupted the state - a total failure. The Oregon program CAN'T bankrupt the state, but it's also harsh - nonetheless, I would definitely support this program.

Of course I've not yet seen an opponent of Obama that didn't consider every situation "not the right way to do it" or "not the right time to do it". Those are standard bullet points for the GOP.

I agree, it happens WAY too often. A real distrust and dislike builds up as the lies roll out, however. Lies like the "video demonstration causing the attack", in Benghazi. That was horrible. I can't begin to tell you how much goodwill and trust Obama lost after that fiasco.

Maybe we can agree that the regulations were probably not "read" by
every Congressman, but the overall plan was discussed for a long time, with central features being made aware to everyone.
(You've listed a few in the paragraph below...)

The regulations for Obama Care weren't even mostly WRITTEN when the vote was made. They were passing a law that was totally incomplete.

No, I'm not opposed to them - I strongly support them!

Tort reform doesn't belong in this ACA legislation for several reasons,
Not only because it takes away the rights of patients to seek
recourse in the face of what courts determine to be negligence or malpractice,
but the health care insurer is not (usually) the same insurance carrier
as the "malpractice insurance company" for the medical personnel.
Tort reform did not fly previously, but it had little to do with the Democrats.

It failed to be enacted due to the lawyers in the crowd... many of whom were Republicans.

We need Tort reform. Requiring a surgeon to carry hundreds of thousand of dollars cost, per year of malpractice insurance, is ridiculous, and just jacks up the cost of health care, incredibly. The reform bill don't have to be a part of the ACA - we just need them.

[orthodoc]

All right: you have spent some time on a remote Aleutian island. It has belonged to Aleuts, been visited but not colonized by Russians, and was the site of an American airfield during WWII. It continued as a naval air station throughout the Cold War. It boasted a peak population of 6,000 and as of 2010 had a population in the 300s.

I could ask: when were you there, and for how long?

But your answer would be irrelevant, because your example is irrelevant. I wasn't advising you to spend time in the most remote, uninhabitable place possible. I suggested you get out into RURAL America, where millions of people live and work and give birth and die, and talk to those people - live with them, learn about their challenges, concerns, fears, griefs. It interests me not at all that you spent time on a remote island in the Pacific with no permanent population.

And the 'socialist' epithet ... that's what your political party calls anyone who disagrees with them. They don't have an academic definition of 'socialist', so, given your affiliation with them, your rebuttal is invalid. I said that you were a 'socialist' by your own party's definition.

[Adak]

@orthodoc:

My first president was Dwight D. Eisenhower, so a lot of my older relatives and friends are getting up close to 150 years old now.

Thank God, they never got sick, got married, had children, or died!

[Lamplighter]

Now your turn. Name spending cuts (not FUTURE spending cuts
that probably will never materialize, but ACTUAL NOW spending cuts),
that Obama and the Democrats have supported.

OK simple Google searches, starting with 2009:

The $17 billion would be saved by ending or reducing 121 federal programs.

Mr. Obama listed some of them: a long-range radio navigation system that costs $35 million
but has been rendered obsolete by global positioning systems;
a literacy program that spends half its financing on overhead,
and will be absorbed by other Education Department efforts;
and the position of education attaché to UNESCO,
based in the United States Embassy in Paris.

“None of this will be easy,” he said.

That is certainly true for about half of the savings that administration officials say
will come from military programs. The savings proposals, outlined last month
by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as part of a comprehensive reordering
of military spending priorities, drew howls of protest from supporters in Congress and the arms industry.

Among Mr. Gates’s targets are missile defense programs,
the Army’s costly Future Combat Systems, Navy shipbuilding,
the advanced F-22 fighter jet
and a state-of-the-art helicopter fleet for the president.

In 2010:

President Obama notched substantial successes in spending cuts last year,
winning 60 percent of his proposed cuts and managing to get Congress
to ax several programs that had bedeviled President George W. Bush for years.

Mr. Obama made progress on several other programs that had eluded Mr. Bush’s ax, including a student mentoring program in the Education Department, which went from $47 million in 2009 to zero, and Labor Department work incentive grants, which went from $17 million to zero.

The administration says Congress accepted at least $6.9 billion of the $11.3 billion
in discretionary spending cuts Mr. Obama proposed for the current fiscal year.
An analysis by The Washington Times found that Mr. Obama was victorious
in getting Congress to slash 24 programs and achieved some level of success in reducing nine other programs.

Among the president’s victories are canceling the multibillion-dollar F-22 Raptor program,
ending the LORAN-C radio-based ship navigation system and culling a series
of low-dollar education grants. In each of those cases, Mr. Obama succeeded
in eliminating programs that Mr. Bush repeatedly failed to end.

Mr. Obama made progress on several other programs that had eluded Mr. Bush’s ax,
including a student mentoring program in the Education Department,
which went from $47 million in 2009 to zero, and Labor Department
work incentive grants, which went from $17 million to zero.

Mr. Obama asked Congress to slash $26 million in funding for the Delta Health Initiative,
arguing that the government ends up paying for equipment or facilities
that should be financed by customers of private health clinics.

Instead, Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi Republican and ranking member
of the Appropriations Committee, inserted an earmark that keeps the money flowing
and raises the level an additional $9 million. Mr. Cochran said in his budget request
that the money will help taxpayers by improving health services in
one of the nation’s most impoverished regions.

Shall I continue ???

[Dagney]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Overheard today:

"My 6-year old is better at handling not getting her way than the Republicans"

There is much much love for this statement in my heart right now.

43 votes to overturn - and they still don't get their way - let's go for 44....because what the hey, we don't have anything REAL to do.

[Lamplighter]

How about every debt limit being raised since Obama came into office?

Ummm....





Of course, Obama had to pay for GW Bush's wars which were run "off budget"
Had Bush/Cheney paid for their own wars, the numbers would be quite different.

[Adak]

I love your graph, it shows how easy it is to get stats to tell a lie. Count the years when the

Republicans were in the Presidency: 16 years
Democrats were in the Presidency: 12 years

4 years less for the Democrats is 25% less, so your "who has increased the debt ceiling the most" graph, is a total misrepresentation. You're treating 16 years, as if it were equal to 12 years. Only a democrat would postulate such nonsense.

Look at it another way - take the red and blue columns as if they were steps, and "walk" up the steps. Even with fighting the Cold War (Reagan), and spending a lot on starting the war against terror (Bush), the big - really big - "steps" in the columns, are all Obama's.

Nobody else is even close.

I'm sure you can point out a hundred cuts to the budget that Obama has made. Somehow, you have failed to point to the thousands and tens of thousands of increases that he's made.

I do appreciate your academic effort in these posts, Lamplighter. You will show better than I have, the lie that is the propaganda Obama spews out, and heretofore at least, the media has lapped up hungrily.

Just not the facts, unfortunately.

[sexobon]

Did you read the fine print? The top bar graph covers from 1980 on. The bottom bar graph covers from 1940 on.

[Lamplighter]

Picky, picky, picky... Adak, this was your challenge was:

Now your turn. Name spending cuts
(not FUTURE spending cuts that probably will never materialize,
but ACTUAL NOW spending cuts),
that Obama and the Democrats have supported.

I did that...

Re the debt ceiling... Your counting of D- and R- years as % is a silly argument.

Your way of looking at the graph is that the debt ceiling stayed constant
only 1 year under Bush Sr and 5 years under Clinton.
Wow ! that's a 500% better record for the D-'s than the R-'s !!!

The real point of the graph is that recent increases in the
debt ceiling are not the province of Obama or the Democrats only.
Looking a the "steps", it appears to me that the debt ceiling has
been increased every year but 6 since the first Bush,
and you remember what the R-'s did to him.

OHTH Carter gave Reagan an enormous surplus, and Reagan
squandered it away during his 8-year term on his 600-ship Navy.
The debt ceiling even had to be raised to accommodate that.

I can accept that both D- and R- presidents have raised the debt ceiling.
Can you ?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Adak

You might go in for a flu shot, but your doctor is *Required* to ask about (and enter data about), your sex life.

Cite please. This reminds me of the arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment. "You don't want equal rights little lady, you could get drafted."

Originally Posted by Adak

Interesting that the House has grown enough spine to tackle this problem. In the past, they've rolled over with meaningless gestures of non-support/non-funding for Obama Care, which they knew would never even get to a vote in the Senate.

You mean that a minority of one chamber wants to blackmail the rest by holding the entire country hostage. That's like admiring someone wearing a suicide vest. You can't fault them for their commitment, but you should certainly deplore their tactics, values, common sense.........

[glatt]

Originally Posted by richlevy

You mean that a minority of one chamber wants to blackmail the rest by holding the entire country hostage...

I know a handful of federal government workers, and was just talking to one guy this weekend. Whenever there's a threatened government shutdown, it's difficult for them to do their jobs. This one guy works for a financial watchdog branch of the government, and was planning a work trip in October to go do some inspection of records at some place. He's spent the last two weeks preparing for the trip, putting the entire itinerary together and got about a dozen people to change their schedules around to be there for this inspection. (I don't know the details of what he was inspecting.) But he got a call from the OMB to cancel his plans. So that's two weeks of his planning work out the window, and various cancellation fees, and disruption caused in the lives of these other people who changed their plans to meet with him. And this place he was going to inspect is not going to be inspected now. People complain that the government wasn't keeping a close enough eye on the financial industry and that's what got us in this recession, and now they are going to shut down the federal government and do no inspections at all?

On top of that, on a personal level, he's a regular guy who is going to have the uncertainty of whether he's getting paid or not. I realize everyone else has uncertainty about their jobs, but it still sucks when that uncertainty is caused by idiots who are supposed to be running the place but are just playing a game of brinksmanship.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Adak

snip--

...previous warnings about Obama Care are moving from "Republican scare tactics" to reality, the act is moving slowly into the a more unfavorable rating with the public.

This will be a kicker:

You might go in for a flu shot, but your doctor is *Required* to ask about (and enter data about), your sex life.

Do you still remember when Privacy was something that actually existed?

--snip

so, this was your great big scary "reason" for opposing Obamacare. You were asked to provide a citation for such a claim, and you have not provided any kind of citation whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

[citation needed]

cite please

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Nope

debunking cite

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Nope

another debunking cite

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Those 58%, they are against O'care for privacy reasons?

another attempt to keep you honest and on topic--you have a demonstrated pattern of making outrageous claims like this, and while everybody's out dousing the fires of your inflammatory fictions with the cool waters of fact and reason as UT has done, hubcaps disappear. that ain't right.

Originally Posted by richlevy

Cite please. This reminds me of the arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment. "You don't want equal rights little lady, you could get drafted."

--snip

yet another request for your claim. Still you remain stoically silent on this point. Since you can't or won't provide the reason for your claim, I will. I suggest you, the radio dittoheads you listen to, and others as easily panicked are being stampeded by the Brothers Koch in these media misinformation public disservice spots.

Scaring the young women:




Scaring the young men:




There aren't any facts in the commercials, just BOOOOOO! RAAAAAAWR! I CAN SEE YOUR PRIVATES!!!!!! Just be afraid. I'm sick of this kind of attempt to persuade. I'm much more interested in facts, and you are not. That's the biggest reason why we clash here. You make a claim, I'm interested to hear why you support your claim, and it's all frightened bleating. If you want to convince me, you have to interest me. To interest me, you have to stop trying to scare me. So just... Stop It.

[Adak]

I repeated what was mentioned prominently, on the Roger Hedgecock talk show. Roger is a former Mayor of San Diego and lawyer, who knows a LOT about politics, and yes, he's a conservative.

He doesn't give citations for every single thing, (although he does give many). Sometimes he errs, and goes over-board. Sometimes on the road listening to him, and can't get the citations.

My dislike for Obama Care is rooted in the belief that the Federal Gov't should NOT be talking over our health care. I support a national health care plan, but make it run by the health care industry (overall, they've done a good job), instead of by the Feds.

If we increase the health insurers ability to compete (instead of restrict it by law), remove the "pre-existing conditions" rule, and keep the new 85% return to the customers law in place, I think we'll really have something good.

Along with some Tort reform, of course.

The other thing is that practically, you can't have Obama Care insinuating itself into the health care industry, without a substantial cost. You can say "OH NO, it will cut costs...", but that's bunk, and you know it. Before this is over, it will cost us a great deal of money.

If Obama would support drilling for oil and gas, then OK, we could afford to do this, if that's what we wanted. But right now? We don't have the $$$$ for it.