The President is a Slack-Jawed Monkey (NOT a political thread)

[shereads]

The US has two forms of government sponsored healthcare. Medicaid and Medicare. Each are different and funded differently. The basic way to remember is Aid for the poor, Care for the elderly.

Many Medicaid clinics throughout the country take hours to get into. Most are government funded and without sufficent staff. Many times, patients have to return the next day just to be seen for a simple problem.

Will this improve with a National Healthcare system. No. I don't see it. Not as a nurse I don't. I see middle income america dropping they're premiums to come under the taxes they will have to pay for NHS. This will lead to lower care and increased waiting time for those who are already in the Medicaid system and the new arrivals of middle America. Each will now have to wait longer for procedures. Corp. America will no longer offer benefits to Middle America for private healthcare. If they do, it will decrease the income and make Middle America poorer.

Do the pharmaceuticals win by the Canadian law? At this time yes. But that will soon change no matter who is President. No matter who controls the House or the Senate, it should pass by the next legislature. Neither President will veto the bill since it's so popular.

So will National Healthcare help? Well think about this. Here, we all pay taxes on Medicare. Now, Kerry proposes a National Healthcare System. Taxes will increase to cover the poor and the elderly. The poor will have increased taxes on their minimum income to cover their own healthcare. Which they will have at below standards.

We're just lowering the poor to pay for a Kerry system of Healthcare that is going to be below standards. The poor will take home less due to the increased taxes . That will lead to a rise in crime to support families. We all will be making less than with GWB. And this country will be in alot of trouble.

Why are you pretending you know all about Kerry's heath plan and how it might be funded? And in which alternate universe is the country not in a lot of trouble? Where have you been for four years?

 

[shereads]

Re: I hate the feeling that I have to do this.

=======================

I believe Kerry is coherent when he speaks, and Dubya is incoherent. Whatever a politician says, rather, promises, I pay it almost no heed. Does he seem like he's got something in his noggin is important.

Sorry, Dubya hasn't. Other than that, I've seen the fruit that's fallen from his tree, and it is rotten.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm an Independent voter, and haven't voted for a Republican or Democrat in ages. This year, I was going to vote against Dubya because of his rotten fruit, but after that first debate, I am voting FOR Kerry.

He at least sounds like he knows what it's about. Before the debates, I had no idea of what he sounded like. Frankly, I'm impressed. Now what he'll do, God only knows, but right now, I know what God knew before Dubya got the call, and it ain't good.

Sher, I agree with you, unfortunately, when you said that about all the polls showing Kerry better at just about everything, but the idiots saying they were voting for Dubya. Go figure.

mismused

Mis, you're the last best hope. I wish there were more like you, but we both know better. GWB could strangle Laura on live television and his fans would swear he was performing the Heimlich maneuver. Ignorance is bliss, and Bush is a happier man for it.

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

Why are you pretending you know all about Kerry's heath plan and how it might be funded? And in which alternate universe is the country not in a lot of trouble? Where have you been for four years?

I've been in this country shereads. And I'm an independent voter. I'm also a healthcare professional and know how things work. You want me to believe someone like Kerry? lmfao

Please, look at my earlier post and answer each question. What about the draft? How is he going to fund the healthcare initiative he wants? How is he going to raise troops for an all volunteer Army? How is he going to increase funding for the defense? And how is he going to cut taxes at the sametime? 800 million is the highest estimate he can cut from taxes. His budget is 1.2 trillion.

He wants to give an increased 1000 dollars to childcare. He wants to cut taxes for the middle and lower class and raise them for the upper. What is wrong with this mathematical equation?
Then he promises to cut the deficit in half???????????? Yea, sure. I fell off the turnip wagon yesterday.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

At the very best, John Kery represents gridlock. He won't be in any position to try and force through his ultra liberal plans as his party doesn't control congress. By the same token, the GOP doesn't have a sufficient majority to override a veto, so they will have to put their misogynistic, anti-gay, bible based agenda on hold as well. The big winner there is all of us, we are never so well off as when the bozos we have representing us can't do anything to further screw up.

The big problem with W is that he does have a congress he can work with and he will get more done. As much, if not more of it to the common detriment rather than the common good.

No matter who wins, more than half of us loose. It's just a matter of where you want to take your lumps. I honestly can't remember a time in recent history where the choices were so unpalatteable. What you see in these debates tells you only one thing, Kerry is a better public speaker than Dubbya. Well, Duh. Big surprise there. I'm a better public speaker than W and I have SAD and agoraphobia.

No matter who wakes up the winner the day after the election, Iraq will still be there, Afghanistan will still be there, the deficet will still be there, the steady bleeding of jobs to foerign markets will be there, the israli-palestinian conflict will still be there and so will Al Quedia. And the man who is looking out at the next four years will have no effing idea how he is going to fix any of them.

-Colly

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I'd rather pay even higher taxes than I do now, if it meant that EVERYONE would get free healthcare, rather than to have healthcare being only for those who can afford to pay for it.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Being Unpolitical

I love the way everyone avoided the last question. That seems typical for Kerry fans. The same as this thread is labeled NOT POLITCAL. lmao
Wishy Washy again. So pull troops as Kerry says or not? National Healthcare system or not? No draft but more troops? Let's give tax cuts to the middle class and poor and raise taxes on the rich. That gives us how much? 800 billion by Kerry's figures? That still doesn't cover the 1.2 trillion his budget proposes.
Where's he going to get the troops if he doesn't draft? It's an all volunteer army. Where's he going to get the funds for his tax cuts while adding in a national healthcare system, increased troop strength, raising the pay of the military and increasing education.
He's crunched the numbers? With his record I don't trust him to stick with the numbers. He'll turn on the voters the sameway he did with his buddies in Nam and testify against them. He'll change the policys he's running on the sameway he's changed his vote many times in the Senate, when he shows up.
His record speaks for himself. That is his downfall.

Still on my anti-politics sabbatical. And damn has it been making a difference. Better writing, less depression. I highly reccomend it to anyone stressing out enough to...say...go to fisticuffs over two dreampipe health care election promises. As if the HMOs would let any health plan ever make it through congress unscathed. Pshaw.

Anyway, LDW, the reason I'm posting is that I just wanted to tell you sss did answer your question. She left a link on what Kerry's plan is as way of answering. I'm not here to take sides, just telling you that your "no one's answering my question" is faulty.

See you on the poli side on lection day.

 

[Somme]

Wired...........?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1331/

who knows, eh?

 

[Pure]

Colly said,
At the very best, John Kery represents gridlock. He won't be in any position to try and force through his ultra liberal plans as his party doesn't control congress. By the same token, the GOP doesn't have a sufficient majority to override a veto, so they will have to put their misogynistic, anti-gay, bible based agenda on hold as well. The big winner there is all of us, we are never so well off as when the bozos we have representing us can't do anything to further screw up.

The big problem with W is that he does have a congress he can work with and he will get more done. As much, if not more of it to the common detriment rather than the common good.

I think that about sums it up. Kerry will 'gridlock'; Bush, however will continue a rightward drift, e.g., under the Patriot Act; he will appoint SC judges who may give him more a green light to arbitrarily imprison.

Surely--according to one argument-- the reasonable choice is gridlock, for a while, as Americans come to their senses. Ha!

The counterargument is this: The Republicans are in a bit of a hole; the neo cons a little embarrassed, though starting to agitate for action in Syria and Iran. BUT the hole isn't THAT deep; about half the Americans aren't that worried about the US direction. Lots of poor Americans with boys and girls overseas still trust the leader.

Therefore, let Bush and Co go ahead. Run the war through more casualties so there's less support for the war, restrict liberties so that even the middle class feel it. There will be no excuse available since it's a Republican Congress and President. Let the corporate scandals, esp. regarding Iraq, surface, more embarrasingly (Cheney didn't even flinch about the Halliburton issue, in his debate). Let people see that cheaper drugs, including from Canada, are NOT coming, etc.

Conclusion to this argument; vote for Kerry as symbolic, but accept that it's not bad, in the long run, if Bush wins.

----
PS. Colly, wake up. Kerry does NOT have an 'ultraliberal' agenda. He's a millionaire and his wife's a multimillionaire. They own stocks to the eyeballs, and have five houses. In a word, there's no reason to think Kerry is left of Clinton, who, in my opinion was hardly left at all. Do you really think the rich will be beggared under Kerry, and that the Sierra Club and Greenpeace will have cabinet posts?

Further, part of his talk is of 'escalating' the war, and 'getting the job done' (setting up a pro-US government?). Many of us on the 'actual' (real) left say. Get out, in a hurry--like a year or two; phased. [A good number of conservative and libertarians agree, and even the Times of London has broached this approach] No conditions. I.e., do not say, we're leaving if the Iraqi security forces can take care of things, or if most of the country is controlled by the good guys, etc.

 

[Pure]

Sher saw 'the President is a slack jawed monkey.'

As a lover of animals, and admirer of primates (including you), esp. the Bonobos, I find this a deeply offensive remark. Animals have a *learning curve*, silly. Even the amoeba.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly said,
At the very best, John Kery represents gridlock. He won't be in any position to try and force through his ultra liberal plans as his party doesn't control congress. By the same token, the GOP doesn't have a sufficient majority to override a veto, so they will have to put their misogynistic, anti-gay, bible based agenda on hold as well. The big winner there is all of us, we are never so well off as when the bozos we have representing us can't do anything to further screw up.

The big problem with W is that he does have a congress he can work with and he will get more done. As much, if not more of it to the common detriment rather than the common good.

I think that about sums it up. Kerry will 'gridlock'; Bush, however will continue a rightward drift, e.g., under the Patriot Act; he will appoint SC judges who may give him more a green light to arbitrarily imprison.

Surely--according to one argument-- the reasonably choice is gridlock, for a while, as Americans come to their senses. Ha!

The counterargument is this: The Republicans are in a bit of a hole; the neo cons a little embarrassed, though starting to agitate for action in Syria and Iran. BUT the hole isn't THAT deep; about half the Americans aren't that worried about the US direction. Lots of poor Americans with boys and girls overseas still trust the leader.

Therefore, let Bush and Co go ahead. Run the war through more casualties so there's less support for the war, restrict liberties so that even the middle class feel it. There will be no excuse available since it's a Republican Congress and President. Let the corporate scandals, esp. regarding Iraq, surface, more embarrasingly (Cheney didn't even flinch about the Halliburton issue, in his debate). Let people see that cheaper drugs, including from Canada, are NOT coming, etc.

Conclusion to this argument; vote for Kerry as symbolic, but accept that it's not bad, in the long run, if Bush wins.

----
PS. Colly, wake up. Kerry does NOT have an 'ultraliberal' agenda. He's a millionaire and his wife's a multimillionaire. They own stocks to the eyeballs, and have five houses. In a word, there's no reason to think Kerry is left of Clinton, who, in my opinion was hardly left at all. Do you really think the rich will be beggared under Kerry, and that the Sierra Club and Greenpeace will have cabinet posts?

Further, part of his talk is of 'escalating' the war, and 'getting the job done' (setting up a pro-US government?). We on the 'actual' (real) left say. Get out, in a hurry--like a year or two; phased. No conditions. I.e., do not say, we're leaving if the Iraqi security forces can take care of things, or if most of the country is controlled by the good guys, etc.

Kerry is the quintesential ultra liberal northern democrat, Pure. No harm no foul, if you want to be successful in politics you appeal to your base and that's what his base wants. I don't see it as any different than the Israli minister insisting that the unilateral pull out from Gaza is being done to forestall peace talks. It looks terible on an international scope, but it's playing to the far right wingers who make up a large part of Sharon's base.

Exactly how much Kerry buys into his own rhetoric is anyone's guess. The point with him is nothing he promises is going to get done without a fight in congress he can't win. His most likely roll will be vetoing the worst of the republican agenda, using executive orders to minimize what he can and moderateing anything he has promised in the hope of getting enough republicans on board to pass it. Possibly appointing a liberal justice or three to strengthen the last bulark we have, the judiciary.

GW hasn't had to seek moderation, he has so far brought enough dems on board to pass whatever the hell he pleases. If he gets a chance to stack the courts, those bills will survive judicial review along party lines, rather than according to their validity within the framework of the constitution.

Four more years of GW is a very bad thing. In that space, even if you ignore the damage he could so legislatively, he could badly skew the makeup of the federal courts with his appointments. Who knows what he is capable of in the realm of foerign adventures, and pressing his far right religious agenda to pander to his base.

Something no one here wants to ackowledge is the fact this shouldn't be a close election. It's in the person of John Kerry that it has become too close to call. He is a Yankee liberal from Mass. with zero appeal in the south, limited appeal in the midwest and great appeal only in the places the Dems were gonna win handily anyway.

Liberal is of course a relative term. Compared to say, Sharpton, Kerry is moderate. Compared to Libermann he's leftist. In your estimation he may not be liberal. In mine he is.

Anytime you call for national healthcare, you are calling for a liberal agenda. You are basically trying to pander to the poor voter and putting the burden on the backs of the middle and upper class and to some degree the working class. The very people who can afford to see doctors. It's an attempt to socially engineer a more eglatarian society. I can't think of any conservative who espouses this. Obviously it won't succeed. It's a campaign promise and has to be viewed as such, but it's easily in the realm of an ultra liberal agenda by my definition.

-Colly

 

[Pure]

Colly said,

Anytime you call for national healthcare, you are calling for a liberal agenda. You are basically trying to pander to the poor voter and putting the burden on the backs of the middle and upper class and to some degree the working class. The very people who can afford to see doctors. It's an attempt to socially engineer a more eglatarian society. I can't think of any conservative who espouses this.

Well, try the Kaiser in Germany who instituted the first system.
Try Winston Churchill. Try Brian Mulroney, last conservative Prime Minister of Canada, and his predecessor Diefenbaker. Try Wm Davis, conservative premier of Ontario when a national scheme was brought in (supplanting a Provincial scheme).

Health insurance, low premiums, is good for people. Esp. workers. That's why capitalists in most countries favor it. Healthy workers, lots of work, higher profits. Paid for from the national coffers, with no greater burden on corporations, than now; they pay into private schmes and have to keep the HMO profits up.

Both you and Dragon have the belief that working people and 'middle class' will lose; yet they stand to gain. Their high premiums now, simply reflect the US private system.

I'm not sure why you hate the idea of the poor getting health care: after all, one peasant could have a heart attack in front of your car; hitting him, you'll damage the grill. Healthy peasants are less burden on the ERs and other services. They have fewer fleas that can jump off on you, when you brush them in the streets, on your way to grocery store.

By definition, insurance, properly run, can benefit most people.
The really rich don't need it. Incidentally a couple states, iirc, already have moved to a centralized 'state' medical insurance (Vermont?). With good results.

There are many form 'national health insurance' may take. You don't consider this, nor did Dragon wing. Dragon wing thinks she knows what Kerry wants, but it's almost certainly not a 'Canadian' system. There are some limited ways to accomodate some private ownership, say, of hospitals.

Yes, it may take the Americans another 100 years to catch up with 'good business policy' in almost all other capitalist (Western) countries. The 'anti-tax' and 'pay to the corporations' approach has strong appeal, even when the middle class are severely squeezed.

 

[Pure]

Colly said,

It's in the person of John Kerry that it has become too close to call. He is a Yankee liberal from Mass. with zero appeal in the south, limited appeal in the midwest and great appeal only in the places the Dems were gonna win handily anyway.

This is an excellent point. Looking at maps, the 'blue' Dem states are pretty rare.

Kerry is not carrying what Clinton did, in the south, and apparently does not even have New Hampshire or Maine sewn up, as did Gore.

It almost makes you believe the Dems didn't want to win.

If I were God, I'd have chosen Clark or some decorated Southern military 'dove' to run. Go figure. What's his name (JE) will barely get the Dems, South Carolina, if that.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly said,

Anytime you call for national healthcare, you are calling for a liberal agenda. You are basically trying to pander to the poor voter and putting the burden on the backs of the middle and upper class and to some degree the working class. The very people who can afford to see doctors. It's an attempt to socially engineer a more eglatarian society. I can't think of any conservative who espouses this.

Well, try the Kaiser in Germany who instituted the first system.
Try Winston Churchill. Try Brian Mulroney, last conservative Prime Minister of Canada, and his predecessor Diefenbaker. Try Wm Davis, conservative premier of Ontario when a national scheme was brought in (supplanting a Provincial scheme).

Health insurance, low premiums, is good for people. Esp. workers. That's why capitalists in most countries favor it. Healthy workers, lots of work, higher profits. Paid for from the national coffers, with no greater burden on corporations, than now; they pay into private schmes and have to keep the HMO profits up.

Both you and Dragon have the belief that working people and 'middle class' will lose; yet they stand to gain. Their high premiums now, simply reflect the US private system.

I'm not sure why you hate the idea of the poor getting health care: after all, one peasant could have a heart attack in front of your car; hitting him, you'll damage the grill. Healthy peasants are less burden on the ERs and other services. They have fewer fleas that can jump off on you, when you brush them in the streets, on your way to grocery store.

By definition, insurance, properly run, can benefit most people.
The really rich don't need it. Incidentally a couple states, iirc, already have moved to a centralized 'state' medical insurance (Vermont?). With good results.

There are many form 'national health insurance' may take. You don't consider this, nor did Dragon wing. Dragon wing thinks she knows what Kerry wants, but it's almost certainly not a 'Canadian' system. There are some limited ways to accomodate some private ownership, say, of hospitals.

Yes, it may take the Americans another 100 years to catch up with 'good business policy' in almost all other capitalist (Western) countries. The 'anti-tax' and 'pay to the corporations' approach has strong appeal, even when the middle class are severely squeezed.

Um, yeah. Here's the thing Pure, I am poor. On disability in fact and collecting just shy of 735 dollars a month to live on in NY. I still have another month or so before I have been disabled long enough to get government sponsored health insurance. And I have had to borrow heavily from my folks to pay for all my recent doctor/dental visits.

I do expect the middle class to loose. Unless you have some fanciful scheme for funding this that dosen't include taxing them out the wazoo? As it stands, medical care is expensive for the middle class, but I doubt most are paying premiums that would be greater than the taxes you would have to levy on them. So you are degradeing the care they recieve, adding long lines, beauracratic red tape and government oversight while chargeing them more out of each paycheck? I don't think too many see that as benefitting them too much.

Quote:
I'm not sure why you hate the idea of the poor getting health care: after all, one peasant could have a heart attack in front of your car; hitting him, you'll damage the grill. Healthy peasants are less burden on the ERs and other services. They have fewer fleas that can jump off on you, when you brush them in the streets, on your way to grocery store.

That was uncalled for and a cheap shot.

My statement was that national healcare is a liberal position. Conservatives do not favor wholesale change to the status quo. Especially when the change can't be proven to make things better and very well could make things worse. Conservatives don't favor broadening the intrusion of government into the private life of citizens. Any form of nationalized healthcare is going to change the current system in a major way. It's also going to broaden the influence of government in people's private lives. Conservatives don't favor this, liberals do.

That was my point, in response to you trying to characterize Kerry as not being liberal.

I have never once voiced the opinion that poor people shouldn't have health care. I have on several occasion voiced my concern over how you plan to pay for it. It is a legitimate concern, one that no one has an answer for because it most likely includes heavy taxation and no one wants to admit it.

I resent your attempt here to characterize me a some sort of barbarian because I tend to look at the fiscal ramifications of such plans and harbor a deep suspicion that you are talking about taxing the living hell out of people to support it.

-Colly

 

[Pure]

Colly said,
My statement was that national healcare is a liberal position.

Well, that's simply incorrect. It's supported by conservatives and conservative parties--indeed, in some cases *instituted* by them-- in several advanced Western countries. It's good for business. (only in the US does 'conservative' tend to mean 'smallest or weakest possible government with fewest services' or does it mean 'the kind of government in the US in 1789'). Conservatives favor *capitalism*; business; private ownership of major sectors of the economy; and a careful approach to social changes where business and liberty would or might be adversely affected.

As to
I have never once voiced the opinion that poor people shouldn't have health care.

Well, then, as you say, "the government" i.e., general revenues from the better off pay for it, correct?

Consider this question then: Which is more viable economically:
Government or any entity issuring all the 'bad drivers' or an entity that insures all drivers? I'd say the latter.

By analogy, government just looking after the medical expenses of the poor is less viable that a universal scheme.

There is no evidence the middle class would paying more under such a scheme (after all, they already pay for the poor, right?).
The average payment of (?) a couple thousand per person per year to private entities is simply rechanelled.

There is evidence, from other countries, that the middle people pay less. IOW, the US working and 'middleclass' people pay (one way or another) among the highest per person for health care, and get very mediocre service except for an upper crust.

----
PS. I've seen no evidence that Kerry favors a completely national scheme squeezing out all private insurers and privately owner 'providers.' Its a political hot potato. Mrs Clinton came close to this approach ("Canadian" or "British" or "German).

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Picking and chooseing random "conservatives" from other countries ignores that other countries have a different history and mindset. When I say conservative, I obviously mean conservtive in the U.S. mold, I am not after all French. Kerry is an American liberal. I am an american conservative. We are talking about american politics are we not? You are going miles out of your way to try and disprove a simple assertion. Kerry is a liberal. An ultra liberal from my point of view. If he weren't a liberal, he wouldn't be the democratic nominee. Is the appellation liberal that distasteful?

Evidence from other countries? It's about as useful as a knife at a gun fight. It has no precedence because we are talking about this country. Since you seem to have a plan, lets hear it. If you can think of a way to fund this that doesn't include bleeding folks white with higher taxes, lets hear it.

On second thought, lets don't hear it. My point was it's a liberal agenda. I suppose now I must clarify everyting I say, so it's an AMERICAN liberal agenda, as oppsed to an AMERICAN conservative one.

How Kerry plans to implement it is immaterial, as he isn't getting it through congress anyway. Not without it being hamstrung by AMERICAN conservative congressmen and lobbists.

Quote
Well, then, as you say, "the government" i.e., general revenues from the better off pay for it, correct?

No. No one has yet to prove to me that the government funding it is the best answer or the fairest answer to all. It's an unproven assertion, one that AMERICAN liberals treat as fact and go forward with while AMERICAN conservatives balk at whole sale change to the status quo with no proof it will make things better for the majority.

In the AMERICAN liberal, pie in the sky lexicon, this is the "right" thing to do. The poor deserve health care even if they can't afford it. But when you start talking about paying for it, AMERICAN liberals get very emotional and touchy. Why? Because it most likely will be paid for by taxing the snot out of people who aren't going to be the beneficiaries of the program.

You and I are argueing a basic divide between idealism and pragmatism. You want to give everyone health care. I want to know how you are going to pay for it. You ignore the pragmatic to do what you see as the right thing. I ignore the idealistic to do what I see is the right thing. I'm all for healthcare for everyone, but if the cost is taxing the middleclass till they are indistinguisible from the working class and the working class till they are indistinguisible from the poor, then I am not for it. I don't buy into paupering the majority to serve the needs of a minority, no matter how deserving that minority might be.

I was born into a middle class family. I lived in a lower middle and upper working class neighborhood. While I am not in the middle or working class any more, my sympathies will always lie with them, it's just the way I was brought up.

When people start discussing helathcare for all with all the wonderful little catch phrases and emotional appeals, I feel my bullshit meter going off. To date, anytime I mention the costs I get villified. Afterall, it's a hell of a lot easier to make me out to be an ogre than it is to put forward a plan to pay for it that doesn't include a substantial tax hike, isn't it?

-Colly

 

[rgraham666]

All I can say, is, here in Canada, I've never had to wait for emergency service, never had to wait long for regular checkups and things like that.

And if we didn't have 'socialized' healthcare, I would be dead. In the States I wouldn't have been wealthy enough to afford private insurance. And even if it had, it would have run out long before I was well.

The States spends 14.5% of it's GDP on healthcare and yet has the worst records in every health indicator that I know of in the industrialized world.

Here in Canada, we spend about 9% and are among the best. A major business association recently released a report praising how our health care system constitutes a major competitive advantage.

Sometimes, the marketplace isn't the best paradigm for a public service.

 

[Pure]

Colly, I'm not a liberal, and I'm aware Kerry is a bit vague on costs.

That said, it's not a nightmarish issue. There are problems, but they can be addressed. A number of nations have healthcare, along with healthy capitalism, Norway, Finland, Germany, Britain, Canada. Often the financing is from general revenues. Sometimes premiums (in Canada a one time) or other methods.

What your talk of 'tax hike' obscures is 'total cost' and 'overall benefit.' Americans have this 'thing' that paying Kaiser is somehow NOT like a tax; so if I suddenly pay the Federal Gov INSTEAD of Kaiser, they say 'Tax hike!" "Loss of freedom!"

I know you only want to talk about 'conservatives in the American mode', but the world is a big place, and neither capitalism, nor conservatism was invented in the US, nor is peculiar to the US.

Leaving you aside, it's pretty plain that American self labelled conservatives are a very mixed bag, of religious right, minimum government, imperial dreams (the 'neo' group). They generally don't reflect the common meaning of the term. (And if you're going to say, 'language' and 'culture', that doesn't wash, for Britain had freedom and capitalism AND English language before the Americans. There is absolutely no reason to dismiss British conservatism as somehow not the genuine article.) And this is not a pipedream of mine, you may see it in comparing Bushite, Cheneyite, Religious Right literature with, say, the National Review.

PS: I never said you were an ogre, you're an articulate, (mostly) conservative, who's incredibly well informed.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, I'm not a liberal, and I'm aware Kerry is a bit vague on costs.

That said, it's not a nightmarish issue. There are problems, but they can be addressed. A number of nations have healthcare, along with healthy capitalism, Norway, Finland, Germany, Britain, Canada. Often the financing is from general revenues. Sometimes premiums (in Canada a one time) or other methods.

What your talk of 'tax hike' obscures is 'total cost' and 'overall benefit.' Americans have this 'thing' that paying Kaiser is somehow NOT like a tax; so if I suddenly pay the Federal Gov INSTEAD of Kaiser, they say 'Tax hike!" "Loss of freedom!"

I know you only want to talk about 'conservatives in the American mode', but the world is a big place, and neither capitalism, nor conservatism was invented in the US, nor is peculiar to the US.

Leaving you aside, it's pretty plain that American self labelled conservatives are a very mixed bag, of religious right, minimum government, imperial dreams (the 'neo' group). They generally don't reflect the common meaning of the term. (And if you're going to say, 'language' and 'culture', that doesn't wash, for Britain had freedom and capitalism AND English language before the Americans. There is absolutely no reason to dismiss British conservatism as somehow not the genuine article.) And this is not a pipedream of mine, you may see it in comparing Bushite, Cheneyite, Religious Right literature with, say, the National Review.

PS: I never said you were an ogre, you're an articulate, (mostly) conservative, who's incredibly well informed.

Sadly, there aren't too many conservatives left who haven't atleast paid lip service to the Neocons. Something that isn't really an issue to most of the posters here, but to me is not only sad, but frustrating.

I recognize that conservative and liberal have multiple meanings, I also realize that within the world community the lines become even more blurred. Within the context of specific campaign promises of candidates in our election, I just don't think blurring the lines is worth the effort. I don't know anyone who defines Kerry as anything other than a liberal, just as I don't know how anyone could dfine bush as anything other than a Neo-con. Certainly I don't think of either as moderate.

I'm not against a plan that gives everyone health coverage, I think it would be great. But you are talking about millions, if n ot billions in annual costs and that money has to come from somewhere. It's just the way our system works that the middle and working class carry the lion's share of the tax burden.

When you talk about universal healthcare, eventually, you have to find a way to pay for it. If the way you do that is by jacking up taxes, you are basically robbing the middle & working class, you just aren't using a black jack or gun, but a piece of legislation. When all is said and done, the middle and working class constitue the majority and decimateing their finanacial freedom with masive tax hikes just doesn't seem fair to me.

Any plan to institute universal healthcare is a pipedream until you provide a plan to fund it. As long as the centerpiece to that plan is jacking up taxes, I just don't agree. There is nothing to show that by jacking up their taxes, you won't force them to use the program and lower the standard of the care they recieve as a consequence as well as depriving them of options they might be able to afford now. Lowering everyone's access to good healthcare, except for the very wealthy, so that you can provide for those who have none just dosen't seem a good trade off to me.

-Colly

 

[LadyJeanne]

I applaud Kerry's effort to at least consider the issue of health care and consider reforms. Bush gives me the impression he has no interest in seriously considering the issue, if he recognizes that there is a problem at all.

Personally, I don't believe health coverage should be connected to employer health plans. That system puts those who lose their jobs in an untenable position as they lose their employer subsidized health coverage at the same time they lose their paychecks.

 

[rgraham666]

Colleen, you hit the nail on the head when you said the taxes fall on the middle and working classes.

In the late '50s/early '60s, those horribly poor and communistic times, the jointly held stock companies carried between 30 to 40 percent of the tax burden, depending on where you lived in the West.

Ten years ago, their share of the burden fell to between 10 to 15 percent.

I wouldn't be surprised to find it's between 5 and 10 per cent now. Haven't looked.

As one of my favourite writers puts it, we're not in a debt crisis, we're in a taxation crisis.

There's that damned sound again. The sound of people knitting with the occasional meaty THUNK!

 

[shereads]

All I can say, is, here in Canada, I've never had to wait for emergency service, never had to wait long for regular checkups and things like that.

And if we didn't have 'socialized' healthcare, I would be dead. In the States I wouldn't have been wealthy enough to afford private insurance. And even if it had, it would have run out long before I was well.

The States spends 14.5% of it's GDP on healthcare and yet has the worst records in every health indicator that I know of in the industrialized world.

Here in Canada, we spend about 9% and are among the best. A major business association recently released a report praising how our health care system constitutes a major competitive advantage.

Sometimes, the marketplace isn't the best paradigm for a public service.

Thank you, RG, for providing some factual balance to the disastrous scenario painted by U.S. conservatives whenever the idea of socialized healthcare is raised. As with so many issues here, fear is the favored weapon of entrenched interests who benefit handsomely from the status quo.

Would I be willing to compromise my own excellent, insured health care so that everyone could be covered? Yes, I would. For the same reason I don't mind paying taxes when I know that a portion keeps somebody's kid from going to bed hungry. I don't want a world where my comfort depends on ignoring the misery of my neighbors.

 

[shereads]

I've been in this country shereads. And I'm an independent voter. I'm also a healthcare professional and know how things work. You want me to believe someone like Kerry? lmfao

Please, look at my earlier post and answer each question. What about the draft? How is he going to fund the healthcare initiative he wants? How is he going to raise troops for an all volunteer Army? How is he going to increase funding for the defense? And how is he going to cut taxes at the sametime? 800 million is the highest estimate he can cut from taxes. His budget is 1.2 trillion.

He wants to give an increased 1000 dollars to childcare. He wants to cut taxes for the middle and lower class and raise them for the upper. What is wrong with this mathematical equation?
Then he promises to cut the deficit in half???????????? Yea, sure. I fell off the turnip wagon yesterday.

That I'm having this conversation with someone as disingenuous as you turned out to be, is evidence of either masochism or an inability to accept the obvious. Once more, and then I'm not going to waste any more energy on this:

Four years ago there was a record surplus and now there's a record deficit, fueled in large part by the tax cut your boy gave himself and the richest 1% of Americans while taking the country to war.

He was begged not to insist on the 2nd tax cut by his own Secretary of the Treasury, a lifelong conservative named Paul O'Neill, who was fired by Dick Cheney for almost talking the president out of it. Cheney said at the time, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." That being the case, we can not only finance national healthcare, we can buy a heart transplant for every man, woman and child in the USA, and spend an open-ended amount of money on the war. It doesn't matter. See? That's the logic you're buying when you reelect Bush-Cheney.

If it weren't so frustrating and the consequences so dire, I could enjoy the irony here. Consider this: you express incredulity at the idea that another president might undo a portion of the damage yours has done. You're right, Dragon, tax-and-spend liberalism is irresponsible. Spend-and-don't-tax is the more sensible policy, as long as the spending isn't on socialist stuff.

As for your being in the healthcare field and therefore knowing how Congress might fund any one of a hundred different heathcare scenarios, that's a bit like me being in advertising and saying I know the recipe for printer's ink.

Questions based on that kind of logic don't merit answers. And you have some nerve challenging me to answer them, when I wasted so much time on this discussion already, at your request. The fact is, every one of the issues you raised in your list of questions has been addressed and dissected and debated in the political theads in this forum. The draft, fiscal policy, who's more guilty of "flipflops," the atrocities in Vietnam, etc. You typically duck out when you're confronted with things you don't want to know, so you missed them.

Read The Price of Loyalty, and I promise you will not be able to reelect Bush/Cheney and live with yourself. Or don't. 'Bye.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

I have been touring some of the blogs for their reaction to "Son of the Presidential Debate."

The consensus seems to be that Bush was too visibly angry in the second debate; talking too loud, gesticulating wildly and steam rolling over Charlie Gibson — the moderator — to reply to Kerry’s shot that he had supported Bush I’s war done properly with a real confederation of allies.

One group is considering what term to use when marketing Bush’s anger, a la the Dean Scream. So far, the leading contenders are Ballistic Bush and Furious George. My vote is for the latter.


Also, Wonkette! has a minute-by-minute breakdown of the debate that is pure Wonkette!. You can find it listed as: Town Hall Debate: Sort of Half-Assed Live Blogging

Happy Surfing . . .

... and don't forget to ask yourself ... "What would Poland Do?"

 

[shereads]

Wired...........?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1331/

who knows, eh?

There you are! Where have you been, Somme? Thanks for the link. Would you mind babysitting my despair for a few minutes?

 

[shereads]

Wired...........?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1331/

who knows, eh?

What is that thing, really? I could swear I see strings from above the stage.