Syria, isolationism, and world police?

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Gilgamesh said:
Honestly it's so far changed from what Obama originally wanted, thanks to all the bullshit put forth from the GoP, I don't even think it should be called Obamacare anymore.
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And yet he, Pelosi and Reid are hell bent on seeing it come to full fledged awful "GOP bullshitized" fruition. Frankly, the last couple weeks have been kinda making me regret I didn't vote for Ted Cruz. He's turned out to be not at all the "usual phony" I thought he would turn out to be, actually sticking to his guns that he campaigned on. Not that David Dewhurst, who was the only other big contender in the primary, wouldn't have been a complete and utter phony. Of course, me being who I am, I let John Jay Myers take my vote with him back into relative obscurity.
 
Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh

Yeah, I agree that at this point Pelosi/Reid/Obama are only fighting for it in spirit and not actual functionality anymore. Sadly, in this case, both sides are wrong/stupid.
 
Krisken

Krisken

What we really don't want to see is to have all those bits which were giveaways to insurance companies (such as everyone having to have health insurance) kept while getting rid of all the things people actually wanted (students on parent's health insurance, limit to profit by insurance companies before they have to pay back to their customers).

It's a terrible bill, I'm just not sure we can safely say it's bad parts are worse than the good parts are good.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

I think the goal right now is to pass it as bad legislation and then try to fix it later, when it'll be much harder to destroy the whole program.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Krisken said:
It's a terrible bill, I'm just not sure we can safely say it's bad parts are worse than the good parts are good.
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That depends on whether or not you consider "pretty much a custom tailored silver bullet to guarantee the destruction of the private health insurance industry, acting to usher in the so-called necessity of single payer to fix what socialists themselves broke in the first place" to be a good or bad part.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
That depends on whether or not you consider "pretty much a custom tailored silver bullet to guarantee the destruction of the private health insurance industry, acting to usher in the so-called necessity of single payer to fix what socialists themselves broke in the first place" to be a good or bad part.
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Private Healthcare will never disappear because it's still around in countries with socialist medicine like Japan, England, and Canada. It's just going to become less common. All those people currently handling claims aren't going to go out of work ether... their insurance companies will shift gears and become contractors that process claims for the new system.

Really though, until the government is willing to bargain lower prices on medicine, parts, and services, it won't matter what system we do.
 
Eriol

Eriol

AshburnerX said:
Private Healthcare will never disappear because it's still around in countries with socialist medicine like Japan, England, and Canada. It's just going to become less common. All those people currently handling claims aren't going to go out of work ether... their insurance companies will shift gears and become contractors that process claims for the new system.

Really though, until the government is willing to bargain lower prices on medicine, parts, and services, it won't matter what system we do.
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Umm, WRONG. Private insurance in Canada can only pay for "upgrades" like private rooms (if one is even available) and a few other things on the ancillary of care, the most notable being prescription drugs. That's not small of course, but still, FAR different than it being available. Canada is one of THREE (3) countries in the world where it is illegal to pay for your own care, or get insurance to do so. The other two are North Korea, and Cuba, both obviously paragons of good health care.

You guys need serious reforms down there, but stop comparing to Canada. Ours is severely screwed up. Look to some of the other examples in Europe or elsewhere. All we have up here is the right to die on a waiting list. If the wait is significant for care (which it usually is), the rich buy it in the USA.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Eriol said:
Look to some of the other examples in Europe or elsewhere. All we have up here is the right to die on a waiting list.
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Except not the UK either. It's commonly considered an understaffed circus of callous bureaucratic ineptitude.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Krisken said:
What we really don't want to see is to have all those bits which were giveaways to insurance companies (such as everyone having to have health insurance) kept while getting rid of all the things people actually wanted (students on parent's health insurance, limit to profit by insurance companies before they have to pay back to their customers).

It's a terrible bill, I'm just not sure we can safely say it's bad parts are worse than the good parts are good.
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GasBandit said:
That depends on whether or not you consider "pretty much a custom tailored silver bullet to guarantee the destruction of the private health insurance industry, acting to usher in the so-called necessity of single payer to fix what socialists themselves broke in the first place" to be a good or bad part.
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So the left thinks this bill has been turned into a great big gift for insurance corps, and the right thinks this is a surefire way to destroy the insurance corps and nationalize everything? Huh. Guess the bill might actually be more balanced than I thought :p

GasBandit said:
Except not the UK either. It's commonly considered an understaffed circus of callous bureaucratic ineptitude.
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So? Belgium's medical care is an understaffed circus of callous bureaucratic ineptitude, run by a bunch of nepotism-appointed incompetents, underfunded and oversized - and it's still widely considered to be in the top-10, often top-5, best health care systems in the world. If we didn't have such long waiting lists for some specific problems (not enough entirely-free permanent residence houses for mentally handicapped, and some organ transplant lists) it'd be even higher.

Eriol said:
The other two are North Korea, and Cuba, both obviously paragons of good health care.
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NK's a joke, of course, but Cuba actually still does have great healthcare quality. It's stagnated, mostly due to supply issues caused by the US embargo, but the quality of doctors and follow-up services is considered the best of any third world nation.
 
Krisken

Krisken

Bubble181 said:
So the left thinks this bill has been turned into a great big gift for insurance corps, and the right thinks this is a surefire way to destroy the insurance corps and nationalize everything? Huh. Guess the bill might actually be more balanced than I thought :p



So? Belgium's medical care is an understaffed circus of callous bureaucratic ineptitude, run by a bunch of nepotism-appointed incompetents, underfunded and oversized - and it's still widely considered to be in the top-10, often top-5, best health care systems in the world. If we didn't have such long waiting lists for some specific problems (not enough entirely-free permanent residence houses for mentally handicapped, and some organ transplant lists) it'd be even higher.



NK's a joke, of course, but Cuba actually still does have great healthcare quality. It's stagnated, mostly due to supply issues caused by the US embargo, but the quality of doctors and follow-up services is considered the best of any third world nation.
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Essentially, the whole system is broke. Anyone who has seen an ICD-9 (or ICD-10) or CPT medical code book can attest to this.
 
strawman

strawman

Bubble181 said:
Yes it does. 3rd world isn't just Congo and Somalia, you know. Brazil and India are still counted as such as well, and are making very rapid progress.
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Country classification is rarely used anymore in serious discussions due to the limitations of the measurements. If you measured the strength of the political system and the economy, Brazil would be a first world country. If you measure wealth distribution and human development rates it is teetering between second and third world.

I don't think the classification lends much useful data to a discussion on health care.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

stienman said:
Country classification is rarely used anymore in serious discussions due to the limitations of the measurements. If you measured the strength of the political system and the economy, Brazil would be a first world country. If you measure wealth distribution and human development rates it is teetering between second and third world.

I don't think the classification lends much useful data to a discussion on health care.
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Nor did I claim it did. It's just easy to dismiss stuff as "oh, Cuba, that's not saying anything" - handily ignoring that Cuba scores better than the US in a lot of indices concerning health care. (not all - it's far from perfect, nor o do I claim it to be). Since I'm lazy, i'm just going to point to Wikipedia, since any other source I have is either in Dutch or French. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba


Feel free to go read there, but I'll just repeat that, as far as 3rd world countries go, Cuba is pretty much the best. On many levels, its health care can be favourable compared to the US'. Most sections where it's weak are due to lack of access to foreign markets - lack of modern medicines, poor facilities. Also, communism (low doctor pay, lack of patient/doctor choice) :p

I'm not claiming Cuba's health care system is the way to go. Nor Canada's, or Belgium's. I was only arguing that dismissing out of hand Cuba's health care system because it's Cuba is ridiculous, if you consider that, per capita, Cuba has more doctors, more nurses, more hospital beds, better screening for the most common cancers, and more facilities to care for mentally ill or psychiatric patients than the US (not all of this info is on the wikipedia page - but other source is in Dutch.)

Also...1/2/3rd world has more to do with the cold War sensibilities than economic worth.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Bubble181 said:
So the left thinks this bill has been turned into a great big gift for insurance corps, and the right thinks this is a surefire way to destroy the insurance corps and nationalize everything? Huh. Guess the bill might actually be more balanced than I thought :p
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Nope. As usual, the left is just wrong.



So? Belgium's medical care is an understaffed circus of callous bureaucratic ineptitude, run by a bunch of nepotism-appointed incompetents, underfunded and oversized - and it's still widely considered to be in the top-10, often top-5, best health care systems in the world. If we didn't have such long waiting lists for some specific problems (not enough entirely-free permanent residence houses for mentally handicapped, and some organ transplant lists) it'd be even higher.
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Also a factor in belgian healthcare: Nobody lives there.



NK's a joke, of course, but Cuba actually still does have great healthcare quality. It's stagnated, mostly due to supply issues caused by the US embargo, but the quality of doctors and follow-up services is considered the best of any third world nation.
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You need to stop watching Michael Moore "documentaries."
 
TommiR

TommiR

On September 11th, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the article, Putin made his case to the American people on a way forward in Syria.

On September 19th, Pravda.ru published an opinion piece by US Senator John McCain in response to the NYT article. In the opEd, McCain hardly addressed any of the points raised by Putin, instead focusing on lambasting the Russian government on issues that have little to do with the Syrian conflict.

Way to go Senator, a brilliant display of statesmanship there. Shame you didn't get to be President of the United States, since that's totally the way to conduct foreign policy :rolleyes:
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
McCain needs to retire. So very, very badly.
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He really does. Prior to the 2008 election, he was basically the one Republican that a Democrat would seriously consider voting for because of his independent streak from his party and fairly impressive integrity. But he was forced to go "mainstream" Republican for the election and he's just never shifted back... to the point where it's actually become incredibly embarrassing.

Why is he still in politics? He already used up his one shot at the presidency and he doesn't have a chance of getting a governor seat. His reputation in the capital is shot. No one wants to work with him. At want point do you finally call it quits?
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
AshburnerX said:
He really does. Prior to the 2008 election, he was basically the one Republican that a Democrat would seriously consider voting for because of his independent streak from his party and fairly impressive integrity. But he was forced to go "mainstream" Republican for the election and he's just never shifted back... to the point where it's actually become incredibly embarrassing.

Why is he still in politics? He already used up his one shot at the presidency and he doesn't have a chance of getting a governor seat. His reputation in the capital is shot. No one wants to work with him. At want point do you finally call it quits?
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See, I see it from another perspective. Conservatives have seen McCain as a RINO for over a decade. It seemed like he never got over being passed over for GWB in the 2000 primary, and decided to spend the rest of that administration siding with Democrats more often than not. Hence, by the time 2008 rolled around and the tea party was really starting to kick into full gear, the Republican base was absolutely disgusted with him and didn't buy his move to the right, and not even trying to woo them with Sarah Palin as a running mate worked. In 2008 millions of Republicans stayed home because they felt there was nobody worth voting for while brainless youths (and not-so-youthfuls) were energized by hopey-changey bullshit. Of course, the Republican leadership didn't learn their lesson either, and in 2012 Republican votes fell by another 3 million when by all previous indications it should have been at least higher than McCain. But that's a different story for a different thread.

Point is, nobody has been happy to see McCain in a dozen years who didn't live and/or work inside the beltway. All that keeps him there is the same incumbency inertia that keeps sending guys like him, Reid and a score more out of touch fogeys back every 6 years just because they're a fixture. Heck, remember Strom Thurmond?
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
See, I see it from another perspective. Conservatives have seen McCain as a RINO for over a decade. It seemed like he never got over being passed over for GWB in the 2000 primary, and decided to spend the rest of that administration siding with Democrats more often than not. Hence, by the time 2008 rolled around and the tea party was really starting to kick into full gear, the Republican base was absolutely disgusted with him and didn't buy his move to the right, and not even trying to woo them with Sarah Palin as a running mate worked. In 2008 millions of Republicans stayed home because they felt there was nobody worth voting for while brainless youths (and not-so-youthfuls) were energized by hopey-changey bullshit. Of course, the Republican leadership didn't learn their lesson either, and in 2012 Republican votes fell by another 3 million when by all previous indications it should have been at least higher than McCain. But that's a different story for a different thread.
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Espy

Espy

Ugh.

"RINO".


GALDAMMIT NO ONE CAN DISAGREE WITH OUR MOST RIDICULOUS MEMBERS OR ELSE THEY ARE FAKES AND LIARS!

If we had more politicians willing to cross the aisle and work together things might not* be as horrible as they are now.

*of course, they might still be so you know, fuck it.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Dei said:
No thanks, Obamacare. I'll pay the penalty
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/20/news/economy/obamacare-penalty/

And therein lies my biggest problem with Obamacare.
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If you can't afford 100$ a month you either have terrible priorities or you would qualify for medicaid/subsidies. From the article it says that anyone earning less than 400% of the poverty level will get subsidies. That's like half of america.

Man, I must be one of the only people left that still wants to see Obamacare through. And I'm not even really liberal.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Necronic said:
If you can't afford 100$ a month you either have terrible priorities or you would qualify for medicaid/subsidies. From the article it says that anyone earning less than 400% of the poverty level will get subsidies. That's like half of america.

Man, I must be one of the only people left that still wants to see Obamacare through. And I'm not even really liberal.
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It's not binary. At 400% of the poverty level (which works out to be $44k/yr for one person, or $62k for a married couple, or $94k for a family of four), that's when your subsidy turns to 0. As you go under that, you get a (no pun intended) progressively larger subsidy. It's not, "I make 40k and live alone, BAM, subsidy time!" The subsidy's trigger is, apparently, that you're not supposed to pay more than 9.5% of your income to the insurance.

Ok, I actually just ran this calculator and it said 35k was over 400%, so I dunno whose figures they are using to calculate poverty level, but it's a lot lower than I thought. It said an age 21 individual making 30k/year could expect a $24 (that's twenty four dollar) annual subsidy on a $2500 yearly bronze level premium.
 
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strawman

strawman

Necronic said:
If you can't afford 100$ a month you either have terrible priorities or you would qualify for medicaid/subsidies. From the article it says that anyone earning less than 400% of the poverty level will get subsidies. That's like half of america.

Man, I must be one of the only people left that still wants to see Obamacare through. And I'm not even really liberal.
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There's a gap due to the way the affordable health care act works. The subsidies don't cover 100% of your healthcare costs. They may cover one of the lower plans fully, but you still have to pay up to 40% of your care as the plan only covers 60%.

There are various tax rebates that are supposed to help, and in theory the insurance company is supposed to handle most of them so you shouldn't have to pay out of pocket, but a lot of people are expecting that you either need to have no income at all to have free healthcare, or you need to jump up to nearly poverty level before you can afford the costs and out of pocket expenses you'll have to cover since you are making some money.

In theory this gap should be covered by medicaid, but there's still a lot of problems with the two programs so that they don't match up enough to provide a smooth transition between the two, leaving spots where you may actually face the problem without having terrible priorities and still not qualifying for medicaid and so forth.

It's quite messy and complicated, actually. An intelligent person with a lot of time could probably figure out where they can change things so they fit into the appropriate spot and get the coverage they need at the level they truly can afford, but with so many interacting pieces it's not trivial.
 
strawman

strawman

I'm sure that polluting 2/3rds of the surface of the earth with chemicals toxic to most life forms on our planet will have no repercussions.
 
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