Obama Kills the Health Care Bill

[rushmc 23]

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The human condition is such that people are not born equal, nor do they have equal opportunities. You can say they're born equal...

Why would you want everyone to be equal? Or the same? What a boring, Orwellian world that would be. We should strive to make sure that everyone has equal access to the law, and equal rights, but not sameness. Pointing guns at people to attempt to equalize their situations is just plain evil.

I agree
You do know that was Wendy's post to me, correct?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Bolas 5]

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So you avoid paying out $300,000,000 to 20k people. Which works out to $15k per person. $10k in premiums per person per year for five years totals out $1 billion. It is absolutely idiotic for a business to give up a $700 million profit in order to avoid a $300 million dollar payout.

Exactly. An "evil" corporation will keep people on their health plans as long as it is profitable. While they may deny or make extremely difficult certain care, they are going to want to keep people alive as long as they can pay and not piss them off to the point where they go elsewhere or just drop coverage altogether. It's all about keeping costs low, profits high, and stockholders investing. People may disagree with this motive, but at least behaviors are generally predictable.

A government option has no such predictability as profit (at least above the table) is not a factor. No reason to keep costs low as the "stockholders" have no choice to pay or not. Also since there is no profit to be made, no monetary gains by helping all stay alive.

But there might be power gains by extending the lives of certain vocal groups. People keep commenting that old people will be more likely denied care. Bullshit. The AARP has a very powerful lobby. It's the less vocal, less politically active groups that will have the most issues with coverage denials and rationed care which is ironically the group most targetted for this care.

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It's like the Bank of America bailout. You get billions in aid, payout a few billion in bonuses and then get fined 33 million. Big deal.

Pretty funny what happens when the government gets involved. Rewarding incompetence and even outright misanthropy gets rewarded. And you want them providing our health care?

Yes. We rewarded incompetence. Again. The same thing we've been doing in the airline industry for years. Why should businesses improve or not think short term profits if they know they'll get free money to bail them out?

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[TankBuster 0]

Yeah. I know you better than that. I thought I'd scrolled all the way up but I buffooned it. So I fixed it.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[wmw999 2,452]

Do you really think that everyone will ever, ever be equal? That's not possible, and it's also not desirable.

But where does equality of opportunity start? Just in being human? Hell, children in Darfur are born, does that mean they have equal opportunity to Americans?

Do we have equal opportunity in education if the schools in my neighborhood suck and the ones in your neighborhood are good?

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[TankBuster 0]

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Do you really think that everyone will ever, ever be equal? That's not possible, and it's also not desirable.

OK then we agree.

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But where does equality of opportunity start? Just in being human? Hell, children in Darfur are born, does that mean they have equal opportunity to Americans?

Should they? Actually, if they had a government, whose only function was to protect the rights of the individual, then they would have better opportunity than we have today. Our government has gone way beyond its intended role, and restricts opportunity.

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Do we have equal opportunity in education if the schools in my neighborhood suck and the ones in your neighborhood are good?

Opportunity in education is a job for parents, not government.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[wmw999 2,452]

I find it interesting that all these dog-eat-dog-is-best folks are the same ones advocating for private charity as the best way to deal with those who are unfortunate.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[turtlespeed 221]

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That's a bunch of bullshit.
- Farrakhan is not one of Obama's confidants, any more than you are one of mine.

I also consider you a friend and have, on several occaisions, spent personal time with you discussing everything from politics to mutual friends health and welfare to gereralities regarding your job.

Perhaps CONFIDANT was a poor choice of words, but I believe that the reality is, the relationship STILL exists, just in the background.

Perhaps "Person oif Influence" would have been better.

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Obama specifically distanced himself from Farrakhan after the 2/2008 speech.
- Anyone can be an Obama (or McCain, or Palin) supporter. The recipient of the support doesn't get to choose. The closest they can come is to reject money from that person (which normally isn't done unless it's illegal) or specifically distance themselves (which Obama did).

OH - so I can distance myself from someone and it all of the sudden becomes OK. Right?

I can see how, if a group of gang members gets arrested for a drive by, the driver can distance himself from the rest and he won't be under arrest anymore.

Come on Wendy.

You should be able to figure out, just as much as anyone, the only reason he distanced himself is because of the shit storm that was coming down around him, not because he wanted to, and definately not because of some moral obligation. If the morality of the ties was ever a factor, why did he ever have ANYTHING to do with him in the first place?

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- Farrakhan can choose to support anyone he wants to. BTW, Farrakhan is not evil incarnate. I'd take his support in some things, just as I'd take yours, even though we disagree on other things.
- Farrakhan can choose to say whatever he wants to. It's that free speech thing. And people here on dz.com can do the same. Personally, I prefer if they stick to the truth, and include some sourcing, but obviously others disagree.

I hope so - I mean this country hasn't dissolved the right to free speech, well not just yet.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[nerdgirl 0]

Revisiting "the perils of network charts" as illustrative of the problem of making selective connections and inferring correlations.

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A different network chart showing Sen Obama's connections to figures of merit or de-merit. It was partially inspired by one of the links in Mike’s sig line, which I had queried about previously, and more significantly due to being stuck in an airport. All links are true; interpretations less so. Show some different connections … had fun seeing how many I could tie myself into … & I have never met or corresponded directly with Sen Obama.

Underlying the *intentional* hyperbole of my chart & perhaps (?) unintentional hyperbole of others wandering around the internet is the concept of how important context is and how selection bias in choosing the nodes of the network can be used to suggest or imply very different conclusions.

Please read with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

VR/Marg

~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Sen Obama in an interview w/Wolf Blitzer in July. In September, Rice was the highest ranking member of the US since VP Nixon to meet with the Libyan leader. The last SecState to meet with Qa’ddafi was Dulles. Rice is advocating for increased ties for trade, access to oil, and international aid (largely w/r/t destruction declared stockpile of ~16,000 mt of sulfur mustard).

Sen Obama has been getting foreign policy and defense advice from former Sen Sam Nunn, who endorsed Obama in April. Nunn is co-chair and co-founder of the Nuclear Threat Initiative with Ted Turner, who founded CNN, therefore Sen Obama clearly has the support of CNN and Ted’s Montana Grill > and endorses exotic game (buffalo) for dinner.

Sen Obama co-sponsored with Sen Richard Lugar (R-IN) the Obama-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Legislation. President Bush signed it into law in January 2008. Therefore Sen Obama is endorsing the kind of legislation Pres Bush signed into law.

Sen Obama spoke at the Council of Foreign Relations. Robert Murdock is a member of CFR. Murdoch owns The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, thus suggesting that Milyo was correct: the Wall Street Journal is a far left-leaning paper.

Sen Barack Obama is connected to former SecNav Richard Danzing, who is advising Sen Obama on defense issues. SecNav Danzig hosted a long-standing symposia series with Prof Brett Giroir (Texas A&M). Giroir was Chief of DARPA’s Defense Science Office (DSO) from 2004 through early 2008. DSO is DARPA’s (nee ARPA) basic research shop. An ARPA basic research led to the internet (through NSF). So clearly, it is not Sen Gore that should be able to "claim" origination of the internet but Sen Obama.

Sen Obama taught at the University of Chicago. One of the most famous economists from the UoC is Milton Friedman who has widely influenced the campus. Friedman met with, advised, and was an apologist for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, therefore Sen Obama clearly supports (1) radical free-market neo-liberal economics & (2) authoritarian right-wing dictators.

Sen Obama graduated from Harvard Law School as did former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales supported the policies of (now-UC Berkeley Law Professor/then-DOJ lawyer) John Yoo, who was responsible for much of the USA PATRIOT Act’s legislation that is seen as inhibiting civil liberties and wrote most of the DOJ memos supporting use of torture.

And perhaps most indicting or to capture the ‘Paris Hilton-esque’ vote : Sen Obama is a distant cousin of Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt was in Sleepers in 1996 with Kevin Bacon.

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[wmw999 2,452]

You forgot one thing
I went to college with Alberto Gonzales. So I belong on that chart too

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[idrankwhat 0]

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So you avoid paying out $300,000,000 to 20k people. Which works out to $15k per person. $10k in premiums per person per year for five years totals out $1 billion. It is absolutely idiotic for a business to give up a $700 million profit in order to avoid a $300 million dollar payout.

Sorry for the format of the reply but I'm running short on time today so......


"The top priority of for-profit companies is to drive up the value of their stock. Stocks fluctuate based on companies' quarterly reports, which are discussed every three months in conference calls with investors and analysts. On these calls, Wall Street investors and analysts look for two key figures: earnings per share and the medical-loss ratio, or medical "benefit ratio," as the industry now terms it. That is the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits.

To win the favor of powerful analysts, for-profit insurers must prove that they made more money during the previous quarter than a year earlier and that the portion of the premium going to medical costs is falling. Even very profitable companies can see sharp declines in stock prices moments after admitting they've failed to trim medical costs. I have seen an insurer's stock price fall 20 percent or more in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had to spend a slightly higher percentage of premiums on medical claims during the quarter than it did during a previous period. The smoking gun was the company's first-quarter medical loss ratio, which had increased from 77.9% to 79.4% a year later.

To help meet Wall Street's relentless profit expectations, insurers routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick. Insurers have several ways to cull the sick from their rolls. One is policy rescission. They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment. Asked directly about this practice just last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers refused to end the practice of cancelling policies for sick enrollees. Why? Because dumping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line. Ten percent of the population accounts for two-thirds of all health care spending. The Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation into three insurers found that they canceled the coverage of roughly 20,000 people in a five-year period, allowing the companies to avoid paying $300 million in claims.

They also dump small businesses whose employees' medical claims exceed what insurance underwriters expected. All it takes is one illness or accident among employees at a small business to prompt an insurance company to hike the next year's premiums so high that the employer has to cut benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering coverage altogether — leaving workers uninsured. The practice is known in the industry as "purging." The purging of less profitable accounts through intentionally unrealistic rate increases helps explain why the number of small businesses offering coverage to their employees has fallen from 61 percent to 38 percent since 1993, according to the National Small Business Association. Once an insurer purges a business, there are often no other viable choices in the health insurance market because of rampant industry consolidation.

An account purge so eye-popping that it caught the attention of reporters occurred in October 2006 when CIGNA notified the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust that many of the Trust's members in California and New Jersey would have to pay more than some of them earned in a year if they wanted to continue their coverage. The rate increase CIGNA planned to implement, according to USA Today, would have meant that some family-plan premiums would exceed $44,000 a year. CIGNA gave the enrollees less than three months to pay the new premiums or go elsewhere."

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/potter_testimony.html

[TankBuster 0]

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I find it interesting that all these dog-eat-dog-is-best folks are the same ones advocating for private charity as the best way to deal with those who are unfortunate.

Wendy P.

Unfettered capitalism doesn't promote canine carnage. In fact, it is the absence of force among free men. I have a product or service you want, you buy it. Your choice to buy, mine to provide. You have a business that I can contribute to, I take employment. Your choice to provide the opportunity and conditions, mine to work. Both situations are mutually beneficial, and accentuate a positive, a reward for our behaviors. The only righteous function of any government is to protect the right to operate as free men. Period. Anything government does is by force, which is necessary to counter force against my rights, but should be used for no other reason. Government operates through the use of a negative, a threat of force or punishment.

So, if you advocate the use of force to require me to contribute to your charities, you are nothing more than a thief, a looter. You just hire/elect people to do your bidding. To use your words, you elect dogs to eat my dog. And what interests me is that you are glad to hand over your money to people who have proven time and again they will waste it or steal it. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson. Tom Delay. The list is endless. How could you be so heartless? The fruit of my labor and intellect is going to be needed to give my children and grandchildren education and to pay for the health care they'll need. Someone may come to my church tomorrow with a need. They often do. Why do you send thugs to force me to pay it to your charities?

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[rivetgeek 0]

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If you want health care to be provided to you at no cost I have an excellent way you can achieve this.

Of course you would have to work and take orders.


Then maybe take some lumps as well.

Risk your life, kill perhaps, maybe even contemplate not being a hand wringing liberal.

Been there, done that. Bought the t-shirt.

You gonna shut your incessantly whining mouth yet?

~Bones Knit, blood clots, glory is forever, and chicks dig scars.~

[redlegphi 0]

The thuggish dogs that you see in our government are elected by our nation to carry out the will of our nation. Nations are formed on the premise that many working together toward one goal can get by a lot better than the same number of people striving independently.
It's pretty much the same concept the insurance companies use to sell insurance. You can gamble by yourself without insurance, and maybe you'll be fine, or maybe you'll get an expensive disease and be completely fucked. OR, you can sign up for insurance and your risk and the risk of thousands of others is spread across the group, so that the expensive disease of one effects all in a minor way instead of one in an excessively major way.
Unfortunately, the cold, hard realities of life and capitalism have made it so that not everybody can afford insurance, meaning there are those out there in our great nation who are forced to go it alone, walking the high wire without any of us to catch them if they're unlucky enough to fall ill. So now, our government is trying to come up with a way to allow the risk of the uninsured millions to be aggregated by somebody (potentially the government, though not necessarily depending on what they finally put in the bill), so that the overall risk of medical issues is further spread out among our nation and so we can all move forward together better than we could individually.
That doesn't sound especially awful, undemocratic, or outside the scope of a government established to "promote the general welfare" to me. What you have described, on the other hand, sounds pretty close to anarchy, which is not a state of government that I'd like to live in.

[rushmc 23]

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If you want health care to be provided to you at no cost I have an excellent way you can achieve this.

Of course you would have to work and take orders.


Then maybe take some lumps as well.

Risk your life, kill perhaps, maybe even contemplate not being a hand wringing liberal.

Been there, done that. Bought the t-shirt.

You gonna shut your incessantly whining mouth yet?

Oooohhhhh, strike a nerve??

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[StreetScooby 5]

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To win the favor of powerful stock analysts, for-profit insurers must prove that they made more money during the previous quarter than a year earlier

This is an issue that I see with our current implementation of capitalism. It's ridiculous. Maybe they should only be allowed to issue bonds, not stocks. Not sure about that, but it's the thought that crossed my mind when I read this.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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The only righteous function of any government is to protect the right to operate as free men. Period.

+1

We are all engines of karma

[kallend 2,027]

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You forgot one thing
I went to college with Alberto Gonzales. So I belong on that chart too

Wendy P.

I went to college with Stephen Hawking, who met with Obama just this month, so I belong on the chart too.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[wmw999 2,452]

Unfettered capitalism combined with human nature does. Not that we can deny human nature, but making it to where the more venal elements of human nature inherently have more power than the more altruistic ones is likely to lead to a dog-eat-dog world.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[1969912 0]

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Unfettered capitalism doesn't promote canine carnage. In fact, it is the absence of force among free men.....

+1

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[TankBuster 0]

Well, you're either FOR individual liberty, or you're not. There's not a whole lot of grey area. I have a right to be totally selfish or totally altruistic. It's for no one to decide but me.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[TankBuster 0]

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The thuggish dogs that you see in our government are elected by our nation to carry out the will of our nation. Nations are formed on the premise that many working together toward one goal can get by a lot better than the same number of people striving independently.

You need to take a grade school civics and history course. Our nation was FOUNDED on the principle that individual liberty rose above all else.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

We've gotten so far from it, it's really sad. Anyhow, nations formed to carry out someone's will often end up in corruption and evil. The only goal a nation can legitimately have is to protect it's citizens from anything that separates them from their rights as free men, to conduct their individual lives as they see fit, and to strive for excellence in their own realm. Robin Hood was as vile as any storybook character ever created, and if you promote that type of government, you are a thief, just like he was.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[Bolas 5]

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The thuggish dogs that you see in our government are elected by our nation to carry out the will of our nation. Nations are formed on the premise that many working together toward one goal can get by a lot better than the same number of people striving independently.

Key word. Very few want to do that and why should they as we've shown time and time again they'll be taken care of.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[riddler 0]

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Well, you're either FOR individual liberty, or you're not. There's not a whole lot of grey area. I have a right to be totally selfish or totally altruistic. It's for no one to decide but me.

You're joking, right? Every government on the planet trades individual liberty and societal benefit to various degrees, and most people are perfectly happy with that. The only alternative is 100% anarchy (with a lot of really well armed people). Are you an anarchist?

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[riddler 0]

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You still don't get the point. Who cares if he busts on the USPS. Its the fact that he's trying to sell this major government program for how EFFICIENT it will be, and in countering the competition argument, he emphasizes the INEFFICIENCY of another huge government program, which actually handcuffs it's competition. Is that not political bufoonery on the scale of Joe Biden?

It's funny how I think you missed the point as well. Obama is promoting a second option for health coverage. In addition to our current private insurance, he is advocating a government-coverage option.

His argument is that private insurance companies will have nothing to fear from the government program, any more than FedEx and UPS fear the Post Office (I work with both of them, and trust me, they don't fear the Post Office). At the same time, individuals will have the option of a lower-cost, and almost certainly a lower-quality government healthcare program. The Post Office analogy is a good one because the Post Office is almost always cheaper, and most people feel that the service isn't nearly as good.

So, to me, everybody gains something. There will be a lot more Americans with healthcare, because now people that couldn't afford it will get something, which is better than nothing. At the same time, if you have the money, or a good job, you can get better healthcare from a private insurance company, which will likely lower it's rates to compete with the government option. The only downside is more of our tax money will be used for the government option, but that's good too, because we'll need to rethink our priorities.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[lawrocket 3]

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Obama is promoting a second option for health coverage.

Will I have the option to pay into it? Or will I be subsidizing it through my taxes?

[Reply]His argument is that private insurance companies will have nothing to fear from the government program,