Time For A Little Honesty From Public Option Supporters (Guest Voice)
Time For A Little Honesty From Public Option Supporters
by Jonathan Wells
As the Senate wraps up its business and the House heads home for vacation, the debate over health care reform continues. Central to the Democrats’ selling of their health care proposal is the notion that their “public option” won’t lead to government takeover of health care and won’t lead to the destruction of private insurance.
The only problem is that their own words contradict it.
In a spliced together video, President Obama, Rep. Barney Frank, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky are all caught on tape telling what they hope will happen with health care (Hot Air and Michelle Malkin have it). In a SEIU health care forum, President Obama speaks of not being able to eliminate employer coverage immediately, and in a 2003 speech before AFL-CIO, he says he’s a proponent of a single-payer system. Rep. Frank says a public option is the best way to get a single-payer system, and Rep. Schakowsky practically crows about the fact that a government plan will destroy the private insurance industry (which we pointed out back in May).
Some would argue that none of those goals is a bad thing.
My question is then, why not be open about it?
Why not just come out and say that the plan is move to a single-payer system, to get rid of those evil private insurance companies, and to admit that the model is a European or Canadian one?
The answer is that if that agenda were put to voice, the American public would react with even more vigorous rebuttal than it’s currently displaying. So at the heart of the matter, there is a certain dishonesty in motive and design in selling the public plan, as if a government plan would have no impact at all on employer coverage or on private insurance companies.
This same cognitive dissonance leads to the recent mixed signals on tax increases. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Obama economic advisor Larry Summers (who had just finished Googling the topic of the day) left the door open for tax increases on their respective news shows, leaving it to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to assure the press that, yes, the President would keep his pledge to keep taxes low. The rub is that tax revenues are already declining, and to pay for such a massive increase in the size of government, the funds must come from somewhere, and you can only soak the rich for so much.
It all comes down to messaging. The proponents of the public option can’t be honest and say they hope government runs the private insurers out of town, and they can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that what they’re asking for isn’t cheap and must be paid for. Is health care reform necessary. You bet? But as I’ve stated before, trading a private bureaucracy for a government one isn’t reform – it’s cost-shuffling that doesn’t attack the fundamental cost of care. And, as the President, Rep. Frank, and Rep. Schakowsky state, at some point, perhaps not immediately, but some years removed, it will indeed lead to the single-payer state and the disappearance of private health insurance.
If that’s the goal, and such a noble one, then be honest about it.
Jonathan Wells is a 28-year-old husband and father who lives in Ohio and works in the microbiology field. He plays guitar and wants to write science fiction novels. He notes that he tends “be conservative in most of my views, but by no means do I bare blind allegiance to a political party.” He stresses that he is open-minded and encourages “any civil disagreement (or uncivil agreement) any of you would care to express.” He likes to make people think – and does so on his blog Wellsy’s World. As he does in the above post — which is cross posted from his blog.
59 Responses to “Time For A Little Honesty From Public Option Supporters (Guest Voice)”
Some of us have been trying to make this exact point for quite a while here, but it often either falls on deaf ears or meets flat denials of the obvious. The public option supporters are absolutely looking to destroy the private insurance industry. And when the question of costs is raised, it always comes back to more taxes, though tons of caveats are piled on that to make it look like it “won't be so bad” or it will be “only the rich who need to pay their fare share.”
Thanks for sharing that, Jonathan. Judging by some of the town halls (or “town hells” as some reps are calling them) showing up on TV already this week, people are listening. We may yet dodge this bullet and have Congress come back in the fall to clean the slate and start over on something more sensible and less destructive to an already staggering economy.
The way the US Post office destroyed UPS and Fedex?
Wait, that's not right.
Perhaps if the US insurance industry will be destroyed by a public option it's because they are incredibly inefficient.
I mean seriously Jazz, that allegedly inefficient bureaucratic government run system is going to run those streamlined pride of capitalism insurance companies out of business?
Perhaps they shouldn't be in business in the first place?
Hmmm… I guess if we traded one bureacracy for another, I'd prefer the one whose goal was to provide healthcare coverage to the one whose goal was it more and more exclusive. As for criticizing parties for being dishonest, it's like criticizing a leopard for having spots. It's up to the citizen to discern which lies they like best.
Jazz wrote: “Judging by some of the town halls (or “town hells” as some reps are calling them) showing up on TV already this week, people are listening.”
That sounds just like what Dick Armey would want you to say Jazz.
Here's another possibility… a documented possibility (often called facts):
Jazz also wrote: “The public option supporters are absolutely looking to destroy the private insurance industry.“
PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the “public option”
Olbermann's Special Comment on Health Care Reform: Calling Blue Dogs Out!
Via Crooks and Liars
The naming names and documenting $$$Amounts Received$$$ (those pesky facts again) was my favorite part.
If you want good preview of health care under government control, ready this:
Obamacare for Vets
Of course, you can go to any existing country that already has socialized medicine and read similar horror stories. Socialized medicine does provide for equal access health care for everyone. But just like making college achievable for all, the only way to do that is to radically lower the standards for almost all.
Yes SteveK, people getting fed up and pissed off at the obvious lies and distortions being used by Congress and the Obama administration to force socialized medicine, the porkulous program, the coming tax increases and inflationary bubble, etc., can only be explained by a conspiracy.
And who better as the Messenger that The Olbermann, Mr. Unfair and Unbalanced himself?
Go Behold a Pale Horse, and tell us your other quaint little conspiracies as well.
Obvious lies and distortions?
Are you implying that:
The health and insurance industries are NOT spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the “public option” is a lie?
or
That the names and $$$Amounts Received$$$ from the health industry by congresspersons opposed to rebuilding the health care system is a lie?
Here's the lie:
“force socialized medicine”
“the porkulous program” – there's a lot a pork out there but it's pure BS and a lie to call single payer “porkulous”
“the coming tax increases” when not accompanied with “for INDIVIDUALS making more then $250,000 a year”
AustinRoth wrote: “And who better as the Messenger than The Olbermann, Mr. Unfair and Unbalanced himself?”
Typical 'rightie' reply… avoid the subject attack the “Messenger”. BTW, did you watch Olbermann's comment? Care to rebut any part of it?
AR, don't you know by now that all left wing protests are spontaneous, grass roots demonstrations, whereas any rightwingers who protest are obviously paid shills?
LOL…my favorite part of the 'astroturf' allegations being made against the townhall protests that are springing up is that apparently one group that is helping to organize protesters sent out a memo which quotes “Alinksky's Rules for Radicals.” The reaction from leftie bloggers apparently is that this is evidence that the protests aren't genuine- so what does that say about left wing community organizers who use that book as their guide?
@@The health and insurance industries are NOT spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the “public option”?
or
That the names and $$$Amounts Received$$$ from the health industry by congresspersons opposed to rebuilding the health care system is a lie?@@
Let's concede that on its face for the sake of advancing the argument. So, mein Fuhrer, you have a problem with dissent from your view? I'm ecstatic that they're doing just that. And wait until we make a collage commercial of all these Democrat snippets and run it during prime time tv!
Steve, take a deep breath and reread ARs comment because you're misreading much of it- Porkulus, for example, doesn't refer to the healthcare bill, it's a reference to the nonstimulatory ARRA. The Congressmen who are getting earfuls are from districts where people are responding angrily to their votes for huge, expensive bills which don't deliver what they promise, and which were passed before anyone had a chance to read them.
“AR, don't you know by now that all left wing protests are spontaneous, grass roots demonstrations, whereas any rightwingers who protest are obviously paid shills?”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009…
It's all coordinated by a front group for the lobbyists. The protests are a mockery of the idea of informed citizenry and public interest in politics. It's purely partisan and devoid of any honorable impulses and values.
Give it up – the crowds howling at the townhalls and squealing about the scary bureaucrats are the antithesis of good faith. Just the word “Obamacare” is enough to discredit a person completely, but much of the GOP bandies the word about as if they are clever Wolverines disrupting the Moscow agenda.
CStanley wrote: “AR, don't you know by now that all left wing protests are spontaneous, grass roots demonstrations, whereas any rightwingers who protest are obviously paid shills?”
So?.. Are you saying that that is what is NOW being done at townhall meetings but it's alright for the right because…
OR
Are you just trying to dance around the issue raised with a non sequitur in hopes that my points regarding:
“The health and insurance industries are spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the “public option”?”; AND,
The most vocal opponents (BOTH right and left) to any reform are bought and paid for by the Health Insurance and Health Care Industries.
casualobserver wrote: “So, mein Fuhrer…”
Guess we've just heard from the “adult in the room”.
If this is acceptable: “The public option supporters are absolutely looking to destroy the private insurance industry.”. And then this is said: “We may yet dodge this bullet and have Congress come back in the fall to clean the slate and start over on something more sensible and less destructive to an already staggering economy.”. It is perfectly logical for me to point out that no, you don't really hope that something sensible is done by Congress, rather that your preference, along with AR and CS is that the status quo be preserved so that millions still won't have decent access to health care. What you and other conservatives are doing is just proving that no legislation that actually has any effect will pass. Something might pass, but it will only be to provide political cover. Relax, you've won. Next to nothing will change and the health care corporations will continue to waste more money than the government conservatives hate so much.
SteveK -
Wow, such a wonderfully, typical Leftist reply. Take the points YOU want to talk to, pretend it is what I was talking about, then attack.
The 'lies' are that we must move SO FAST on this that reading the bill and understanding what we are voting are not options; that it will save<a href=” http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/cbo-healthc…>, won't force socialized medicine, won't raise middle class taxes
And CS is right, I was spelling out a litany of budget related lies when I brought up the Porkulous Bill (the point being that Obama's administration seems to show a pattern of serial lying to accomplish their goals, which means they themselves don't think they can sell their propaganda straight up to the American people).
And why is it 'typical rightie' to criticize the messenger,and point out that that source is FAR from realiable? I mean, all I have read here for MONTHS is attacks on Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Malkin, Rush, Rush.
Now about 'typical leftie. Thinks he can criticize anyone he wants, but cannot stand when it is thrown back in his face.”
Or to put it more succinctly, “leftie doesn't seem to think his sh&t stinks.”
Jim -
AR and CS is that the status quo be preserved so that millions still won't have decent access to health care
So wrong again (there is a pattern here from the left, I am seeing. Ignore what they actually say, attack on what I WANT them to be saying)
What I don't want is this level of health care for everyone at a cost of billions of dollars, more taxes, and more government control over areas of the economy they are unqualified to run:
Obamacare for Vets
Steve, I'm saying that all protest movements have groups which help to organize them- and to date, that's been MUCH more common on the left than on the right. TPM and others who are trying to discredit the protesters with that angle are undermining their own sides' protests as well.
It's not either-or, that either this is lobbyist driven or driven by genuine public opinion. Most of the time it is both, and certainly in this case I can speak from personal experience in saying that is so (people that I know who never in a million years would I have thought of as potential activists are getting involved.)
Even Digby at Hullabaloo, who has spent a great many posts also trying to discredit the protests as astroturfing, wrote this the other day:
As it is, we're losing the war of the words. It's not just the polls — I can even cite my own Friedmanesque anecdote. I was at the hairdresser's on Friday (I'm sure Cokie was at hers too…) and the talk turned to health care. Keep in mind that this is on the west side of LA, not Ben Nelson's home town or somewhere deep in Republican country where every radio is turned to Rush.
Everyone in the place was complaining about the insurance companies and how broken the system was. But they were also convinced that the Democrats are trying to pass socialized medicine. When I asked what they thought that meant, they said, “government takeover of health care.” And they were seriously worried about how that was going to affect them.
I don't know where these people are getting this. They aren't political, they don't listen to talk radio or read blogs. This is just what's out in the ether, what people are saying in casual conversation. The ear worm is “we've got a problem, but the Democrats are going to take over health care and make things worse.” It's not entirely surprising, but it's depressing nonetheless.
Maybe you're losing the war of words because you use most of your words demonizing and putting down your opponents as though anyone who opposes this plan is either driven by greed or ignorance. If the plan is good, then try using your words to tell why you think it will do what we're being promised it will.
Of course it couldn't be possible that it could simply be that while they might prefer single payer they recognize that it can't be done now so they will just do the best they can to improve the existing non-system. No, that couldn't be because all good conservatives know how rotten, sneaky and deceiving the commie-pinko-socialists are and how virtuous reform opponents are.
After all, no reform opponents distort anything about the proposals.
Jim, are you denying that in their own words, some of the people pushing the public option have admitted that the reason they're doing so is not to 'do the best they can to improve the existing non-system', but to orchestrate the collapse of the private insurance industry so that their preference of single payer will become reality? You haven't seen the clips of Barney Frank and Schakowsky explicitly saying this?
On that point, it's not a distortion to say that some people who support the public option plan do so because of ulterior motives. Direct quotes are not distortions.
YOU are the one who originally replied to my comment not the other way around. AND yes, my comment was based on “points that I wanted to talk about”… you responded to my comment and I replied to yours… who's torturing who here buddy?
What? Who is “he”?.. Who is the “anybody” he's criticizing?.. What can't “he” stand?
FWIW – Would you point out where you feel you were “attacked” by me?
“Why can't you see that ordinary people believe that this plan will raise costs, not lower them, at a time when we can't even pay for everything else we've committed to?”
The latest Economist/YouGov poll certainly backs that up. Asked “When it comes to health care, what do you think is the bigger problem?” 25.8% said the uninsured, 66.8% said high costs.
Goes to show you that one million four hundred thousand dollars a day ($1,400,000 / day) buys a lot of “public opinion”.
Good ol' “YouGov Polimetrix”, eh?.. Douglas Rivers… Hoover Institute. Now that's a people oriented / non-big-business group if I've ever seen one.
LOL. If $1.4M per day could buy you 40 percentage points in the polls, Ross Perot would be in his 5th term as president.
Anyway, Steve, if you don't trust YouGov's renowned weekly survey of industry shills, perhaps you have other data from elsewhere?
Success is all in the image, the wording. To overhaul health care is a feat that requires incredible political savviness. The United States has always been independent to declare that we are going to copy the health system of European nations or Canada. The sad reality is that even if our new health care system is a carbon copy of Canada's, as long as it isn't called that it will be more positively received than if politicians were open about it. It's a PR thing, and its the game of politics. Words and labels are everything. The wise can see through the jargon, but the jargon must be right to succeed.
-Politics.com intern
While the question of cost has been raised, I've always said that it will lead to more taxes; however, it would lead to less money in premiums for an overall savings– just like in other countries who have similar programs. But for some people, the word “taxes” just isn't going to work, regardless of the logic, so I can see why politicians are dancing around that one.
I think the American public as a whole would like to be treated like adults and not four-year-olds. The catch is that when you do that, your opponent will go back to throwing around whatever crap they can come up with to see what sticks, and true or not, the masses will fall for it. Call it mob mentality or whatever you like, but people can be really stupid in large numbers. Just look at all the folks who honestly think that there's a “Kill Granny” clause in the currently proposed legislation. So while debate is good, it can also cause problems when competition is entered into the debate.
And I'd love to believe that public option can work and not eventually lead to single payer, but yes, we all know that's where it goes. That's why the health insurance industry is spending so much money on fighting it, and it's why the GOP does not want the Democrats to take credit for it. The problem is that most people aren't going to be up for a lot of change at once. Gradual change is easier to work into. Folks who were previously antsy about government health care might try out the option and like it and then be more at ease with a single payer system should that be seriously considered. Think of it as a test drive. If it's good, then it SHOULD slowly replace private insurance. If it's bad, then folks will go back to private insurance. It's that simple.
As for horror stories, they're on both sides of the spectrum. Rationing, both sides. Waiting times, again, both sides. The facts are still the same. Americans pay more for health care. We get less health care. Other countries with single payer spend less, are healthier, and live longer. And because that is a well-documented fact, folks have to dig out a one-in-a-million horror story (which is not the norm) to support the facade that government-run is a death trap. (And gee… I wonder if we can find similar stories– and more of them– from folks on private insurance…)
“Steve, take a deep breath and…”
C, take a deep breath and go wash the dishes, the kitchen's starting to smell kind of funny.
Boy, this assuming that you know what someone needs and then telling them what to do is kind of fun… unfortunately it's kind of childish and kind of stupid, too.
I have a perfect solution for this issue. Make public option temporary for four years or so. If the People aren't happy with it in comparison to their current premiums vs denial of services already in place, then we'll revisit it.
BTW, why are the insurance companies so worried that the public option will put them out of business? Answer to rhetorical question: Because they know they're bilking the public and will have to lower their rates. “Ruin their industry” means “our top people cannot hire prostitues and do cocaine as often as they'd like to.”…lol…
MedMob, you've had your day in the sun. Time to lower your rates and provide actual coverage. That's how it works in American. Competition is preferable to a monopoly every time and you people have demonstrated exactly why that is true.
People also believe that Obama wants to kill old people and that Medicare is NOT a government run program. I agree it's Obama and co are being coy about raising taxes which will almost certainly happen if the bill passes and that's the main focus of all the conspiracy talk. Better to come out and say it, but sadly our country's Death Pact to Cthulu concerning Taxes makes it impossible.
But as a bit of pushback, let's recall one of Jazz's original complaints. We don't need a party of no ideas. You say the public option will destroy insurance companies and provide expensive, substandard care. I would say why are you so concerned about insurance companies and what do you owe them, and point out that depending where you live in the United States, you're getting substandard, expensive care anyway. But I don't think anyone's arguing healthcare reform is unnecessary. Government is only as “qualified” as much as you're willing to pay for it. If you want a public option and don't raise taxes, then you'll get your substandard system and everyone will be unhappy.
What I don't want is some half-assed co-op plan that ends up funneling billions of our taxpayer dollars into insurance company coffers. And make no mistake, that's what they're lobbying for.
Steve, I guess if there were any justice in this world there would be a president with enormous popular appeal who could get hour long blocks of prime time TV coverage and go before the public to counter the anti-reform rhetoric. It would help if he had a tough chief of staff who could put some pressure on the network owners, just to make sure they understood their responsibility to the public.
It would be best, also, if he could call up liberal bloggers and make sure they were all on the same page (and no, this is too important to worry about whether giving that kind of access in return for favorable coverage is the same kind of ethical lapse that the Bushies engaged in.)
Also, the president should have his own communication directors who could counter any misinformation that is spread.
And the president should be able to hold town hall meetings where he can “randomly call on audience members” who are from groups like Service Employees International Union, Healthcare for America Now, and Organizing for America.
Ah, if only we lived in such a world where the president had a chance to take his message to the public, so that they wouldn't have to listen only to the evil corporate lobbyists.
Boy, this assuming that you know what someone needs and then telling them what to do is kind of fun… unfortunately it's kind of childish and kind of stupid, too.
Sorry if my comment about taking a deep breath offended you- I actually thought that the most charitable interpretation was that you'd gotten a bit heated up by the comment and failed to read it carefully, because the only alternative explanation I could think of was that your reading comprehension is pretty lousy- and I didn't think that was the case. I guess I shouldn't presume to know one way or another in the future.
The hard-core supporters have been corrected by me and by others time after time, and they remain unable or unwilling to be honest or intelligent about this subject. They remain exploitable and exploited; the only question is who is to blame in what proportion, the Dems exploiting them or _themselves_.
Everyone who is honest knows the “public option” is but the latest evasive, euphemistic (in form as well as in words) incrementalist strategy or tactic (depending on the true wishes of those engineering it). As I've correctly stated before, it's an incrementalist maneuver that is a transparent Trojan horse that features brightly lit neon warning signs and beacons, and klaxons and sirens.
Everyone (aided by the media's preoccupation and support of it) is observing the House legislation, while other legislation is being considered in the Senate that revisits another form of incrementalism that has been tried before, raising health care as “public assistance to the poor” to 300-400 per cent of the poverty level. When this was first tried, I and others corrected proponents of it and their misstatements; the same is true now with the “public option” attempt, with even more failure by its proponents or supporters.
What's revealing to the intelligent is the remarkable insistence on this “public option,” more than any of the other concerns the public has, among its most fervent adherents, to a quixotic degree and beyond, in defiance of logic and the truth, and routinely of behavioral and other forms of propriety. Such as:
“So wrong again (there is a pattern here from the left, I am seeing. Ignore what they actually say, attack on what I WANT them to be saying)”
Yes, even though _in_fact_ there is _no_ compulsion by us to pursue federal health care for more people, _at_all_, but that time after time we have not only taken apart the current effort but have listed examples of superior alternative the feds can and _should_ take now rather than stupidly rush this current idiocy, one of the Big Lies (that sputters pathetically) is that opponents of the current effort are simply insisting on maintaining the status quo (which Big Lie should be accompanied by the additional dishonest word, “forever”).
Girls girls, you're both beautiful.
“While the question of cost has been raised, I've always said that it will lead to more taxes; however, it would lead to less money in premiums for an overall savings”
Expansion of federal health care will greatly increase the costs because of the increase in the number of beneficiaries, which will easily dwarf any overheard (and profit) reduction that can be claimed to result from any final state of affairs (which we all know is what is desired) similar to the state of Medicare today.
Note that this involves the real costs and real savings, not the bogus dishonestly-bloated savings claims.
(Nor does it include what is assumed among the unconstitutional seizures presumed to be made in the Conyers “Medicare for All” bill, for example, wherein private health care is forcibly converted to non-profit care, specifically without compensation for lost profits — unconstitutional seizure, i.e., deliberate theft).
“Sorry if my comment about taking a deep breath offended you”
The children are especially impatient lately. It makes me wonder what the lib Dems will do next to outdo themselves, beneath and beyond the current health care stupid stampede.
DLS, I agree that people are wanting to rush out something and we should wait. Beyond that, I can hardly understand your post. So again, I'll just say, what are the Republican ideas for healhcare, other than “Go for the Kill” in the immortal words of Bill Kristoll?
@@Make public option temporary for four years or so@@
I knew if you typed out of few more thousand sentences, Sil, you were bound to finally say something I might agree with!
If that was the way it was approached, you might have actually got something out of this exercise in the end.
However, as shown exhaustively above, the Dems have reached way too far, have been way too cavalier in drafting up the bills, and have shown themselves to be verbally deceptive. So, just like with the stimulus legislation, and as a result, they lost the critical swing voter support as they are with healthcare.
As I understand the drafts, these are looking to severely restrict the ability of private insurance plans over the course of a few years to compete using free market principles, but rather compete only if they follow government rules for competition. That is NOT competition.
DLS wrote: “The children are especially impatient lately. It makes me wonder what the lib Dems will do next to outdo themselves, beneath and beyond the current health care stupid stampede.”
[sigh]
“What I don't want is this level of health care for everyone at a cost of billions of dollars, more taxes, and more government control over areas of the economy they are unqualified to run.”
More and more of the public realizes that (in addition to being sloppy and stupid in contriving it, to date) the current health care legislation (the principal object of attention, the House hash) threatens this (as the Dems have acted to do in the economy and society in other ways already), and in addition, the Dems are burned by the failure (and arrogance and conceit accompanying it) of the earlier Clinton effort, which was the main reason for the 1994 election results.
Note that even with the Clinton effort (and so, now) there is no fully-open effort (much less honesty) about what is being done, but to be “safe” is again an _incrementalist_ attempt at federal takeover of health care (that is not only partial rather than complete from the outset, but which feature less-threatening, deceptive and evasive, nomenclature like “option” for market-rigging against the private sector more blatant than much of what Standard Oil did against its competitors in the Gilded Age — incrementalism that is openly methodical — and avoidance of “government health care”; even “public” is “qualified” with the word “option” and even the militants avoid the truth by using the weasel phrase “single-payer” as their favorite defensive euphemism.
It's no different from expanding health care to the “poor” to those 300-400 above the poverty level, and no different than other alternative incrementalist moves I've listed before, such as absorbing Medicaid into Medicare (either whole from the start or beginning with, say, long-term care of the elderly), extending Medicare to children (in the liberal Democrats' case, up to age 25-30 or so), indirectly approaching, in normal practice, all but the mainstream adult-age taxpaying public, to make them want inclusion.
It's _incrementalism_, with the ultimate goal being obviously the complete federal takeover of health care.
It's _obvious_ fact.
Why don't the deceptive, dishonest adherents of this current effort and similar efforts be honest about it?
And about _themselves_?
[glare, scowl]
It's so funny to read the conservative horror stories of “socialism medicine”. As someone that has lived overseas and with “commie-care”, I can say with the knowledge of personal experience that these stories are the exception to the rule.
I wonder if Jesus would be against universal health care?
CO – I am surprised and disappointed in you.
Make public option temporary for four years or so
And you AGREED with that!! Please, find me the 'temporary' major government spending program that voluntarily shut down when it was obvious it wasn't working. I DARE you.
The reality is the governmental mindset is that if spending $1T dollars didn't fix the problem, that means we should have spent $2T!
Then they do.
Shannon, I'm pleased that you had a good experience with a system that was socialized, but other people tell of their experiences which were/are not good. And people under our system have both good and bad stories to tell. Explain to me why your anecdote should be generalized to a whole system, while other people's anecdotes should not.
As to the Jesus reference, I guess I missed Bible study when they went over the scripture of him giving his opinion on outsourcing our responsibilities to our neighbors to the government. You seem to make the same mistake that we see over and over again here from people who support the public option, of accusing its opponents of not wanting other people to have healthcare.
AR, sorry for failure to elaborate all my conditions……the public option would be specifically sunsetted if it did not show itself to be self-funding during the test period…..yeah, yeah, I know, shame on me.
Your point that we cannot trust legislators to behave honorably is accepted, but I am arguing that the Denmcare's cost logic is so transparently flawed at the outset, that I would love to rub their false knowledge of healthcare finance up their nose.
CStanley…we are the government…that is the whole point of democracy.
Shannon – we are not a Democracy. We are a Republic.
CO -
I know, and was just pulling your leg a bit.
But if you were serious, that is WAY too expensive a lesson for me to support. Kind of like pouring gas all over your house then throwing a match on it to teach you child playing with matches is bad.
” I agree that people are wanting to rush out something and we should wait. Beyond that, I can hardly understand your post.”
What I've posted is all clear. In addition to noting the childishness (and other bad behavior, such as the frequently illogical behavior) of the current effort's proponents, this health care effort is also the biggest, most ambitious, most rushed and sloppily, badly crafted effort to date the Dems have made since the start of the year. The “stimulus” effort (correctly identified as “porkulus” even if some cannot understand the obvious) has been a bust as well as rushed and sloppy; the climate bill has been notorious (the public shut down phones to Congress at one point, it was so opposed to this nonsense), and now the Dems have outdone themselves (as have the die-hard supporters) with the health care effort. More than ever, the public is logically and predictably building its objections as well as its concerns with this effort — and though the worst of the lot out there may not care or may actually _approve_, Obama does himself in particular a great disservice and harm to his reputation if he persists on support of the current legislation in the house, persists with the more silly staged campaign-style circus presentations to the public, etc..
Fortunately there is not only an overdue pause (though this month will be awful with irritating ads by the proponents of the House legislation and on behalf of “heatlh care reform, finally, at last”), but the Senate will no doubt force some reconsiderations — even if some Dems are tempted in the Senate simply to bypass the Republicans (and the mainstream public, effectively).
“I am arguing that the Denmcare's cost logic is so transparently flawed at the outset, that I would love to rub their false knowledge of healthcare finance up their nose.”
Even the liberal media are (rarely) starting to concede the obvious, when it cannot be “explained” away.
“we are the government…that is the whole point of democracy”
The two are separate and distinct, and (as we see currently) often at odds in practice with each other.
Shannon, if “I” was the government, I'd have a lot more money at my disposal and could decide, among other things, to exempt myself from the provisions that I was imposing on other people.
“We” are not the government. We elect representatives, and thankfully we have a method of removing and replacing those representatives at various intervals. Similarly, if there's going to be a bureaucracy making decisions on funding my healthcare needs, I want it to be one that I can replace- which is why I favor reform which will add more competitive pressure on private insurers and allow me to change insurance companies if/when they're not responsive to my needs. There are many, many, things that can be done to facilitate that which don't involve a public option or public single payer plan.
I missed this in my first read and as it's getting late I'll simply invite you to re-read both you and my comments in this thread… I particularly liked:
I will ask you (as I asked AustinRoth) to point out where you think I was, “demonizing and putting down your opponents” I started out in this thread asking two questions and have had to repeat them two times BUT neither of them have been addressed by anyone on the right side of the room (other than co's smartassed Hitler comment). There's more I'd like to say but it's late and from the way this thread has progressed (sic) I don't expect an answer. Enjoy your evening.