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Obama knew millions could not keep their health insurance

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  • GVChamp
    replied
    I'll take that button! But what's the point? You and I aren't policy-makers, just wonks, and there's really not any (social) value in us learning anything if we can't disseminate knowlege...
    I don't disagree that the policy-makers put some thought into this bill. Believe it or not, I supported the bill! The expanded entitlements are dumb, but the cost controls are needed. We're going to get stuck with the entitlements sooner or later, but we won't necessarily get the cost controls.
    My problem is with the idea that the Democrats actually tried to have a mature conversation about this bill. The politicians tried to sell us on the idea that Obama was going to lasso the Moon and bring it down to us.

    They may be a bit more responsbile than Palin screaming "Death Panel," but it's not much. And I agree with you, most of the public isn't interested in extremely nuanced discussions about health care policy, but responding to these tribal, emotional appeals really grates my nerves. For me, the Demorats are more annoying, because I live in Chicago, which is Democrat Utopia.
    At one point in '08, I had a drunken classmate yell at me for supporting McCain (I didn't, and still don't, I think he's dumb), because her cousin was fighting in Afghanstian, and Obama was going to bring all the troops home from Afghanistan.

    How the hell do you have an intelligent conversation with someone who thinks like that? At least in her drunken stupor she didn't pretend to listen and revealed her stupidity. I highly doubt I could discuss ANYTHING about health care with her.

    Leave a comment:


  • astralis
    replied
    GVChamp,

    You're talking about party leaders sidelining extremists in order to pass a bill.
    i'm actually talking more about the wonks whom helped create the bill.

    sure, the politicians have to SELL it, which means making it sound like the best thing since sliced bread. but even acknowledging that the ACA was a huge kludge, there was a lot of thought that went into ways of improving our medical system, such as electronic systems recording and yes, that end-of-life piece.

    I blame the public. They are the ones who fell for the Death Panel stuff.
    frankly how many people are healthcare experts or are even interested in this stuff? most people just want to have healthcare, want coverage to be cheap, and want their insurance to pay for everything, of course.

    that's why obama didn't even want to touch the principle of employer-provided healthcare, even knowing that this is a substandard system. because there's massive inertia involved, and people just want it taken care of for them once they have a job.

    so ultimately debate rests among the elites, ie people whom actually have the time/inclination to get all wonky. i suppose we deserve a button for that.

    Leave a comment:


  • GVChamp
    replied
    You're talking about party leaders sidelining extremists in order to pass a bill. That's not the same as an actual discussion about our healthcare system. Democrats sold the bill as a bag of goodies financed through taxes on Cadillac Health Plans, taxes on immoral employers that don't provide insurance, taxes on rich people, requiring people to pay into a pool if they don't have insurance, and reductions in FraudWasteAbuse.
    There was extremely little discussion about serious improvements to our health system, and lots of horror stories and talks about cost-shifting and the extreme cost of the uninsured.
    Here's a thought: did President Obama tell Americans that they are wasting tons of money on end of life care and that it needs to be reduced? Or did he tell Americans that now they are going to get free birth control and won't be denied for pre-existing conditions? Did the tell Americans that the employer mandate was poorly structured and never going to be implemented, or that the Cadillac Health tax, as designed, would soon tax the majority of health plans in the country?


    I don't directly blame the politicans for this, because they have to sell this crap to the public. I blame the public. They are the ones who fell for the Death Panel stuff.

    Leave a comment:


  • astralis
    replied
    GVChamp,

    the irony being that the policies being passed tilt MORE to the left than would otherwise be the case because Republicans wouldn't play.

    Okay, got a little off-track....my problem with health-care policy is that we can't have any sort of adult, reasonable debate about the topic.
    really, debate between whom? sure, there's a lot of leftists screeching about corporate greed, etc, but note that the ACA pretty much took those concerns and threw them out the window. modern Democratic -policymakers- tend to have a technocratic bent vice a populist one. note the whole "death panel" brouhaha for instance; it was a mild technocratic bill aimed at encouraging people to think about end-of-life options vice an extremely painful and expensive fight to the end, and made quite a bit of sense.

    where are the Republican policymakers doing the same thing from their end? ah, that's right, muzzled in the name of political solidarity. (look how much standing "reformist republicans", which largely comprises of these wonks, have in the GOP today. they did a post-mortem following the 2012 elections and to date, i'm not sure if there's been any progress at all on ANY of their recommendations.)

    the republicans have really been gutting their own technocratic expertise in the name of populism. the once respected Heritage Foundation comes to mind.

    Leave a comment:


  • GVChamp
    replied
    Originally posted by astralis View Post
    GVChamp,

    to be fair the Dems did bend over because they were -desperate- for even a fig leaf of bipartisanship.

    and what republicans effectively did were to pocket those compromises and then continue a hard-line. which led to the dems scrambling amongst themselves to keep party discipline, which meant more unsavory deals were cut.

    there was a lot of bad faith negotiating going on during that time period.
    I think that's an accurate characterization. That's actually more charitable than the Republicans deserve: they spent their first 2 years hell-bent on styming the Democratic Agenda.
    Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view, I guess. The Democrats landed huge majorities in 2008, and I don't think its a bad thing the Republicans were staunch opponents in order to slow down whatever nonsense came out of the White House. Keep in mind that the original Obama-plan included a public option that was sunk by Centrist Democrats, not radical Republicans.
    Still, Dems got Obama-care, they got Dodd-Frank, they got DADT repealed, they got Sotomayor and Kagan on the Supreme Court, and a few other smaller goodies.
    I think the Republican behavior becomes more problematic with the repeated budget battles, that basically paralyzed the government from doing anything else for several years. But then again, we are recovering from recession and the deficit has dropped dramatically: perhaps that's not all bad.
    Then you have a more activist Tea Party causing problems in the Repulican Cacacus in the last few years, but that's largely stalling an immigration bill, not any other landmark legislation.

    Okay, got a little off-track....my problem with health-care policy is that we can't have any sort of adult, reasonable debate about the topic. From the Democratic side it pretty much all boils down to yelling at insurance companies and pharma companies, because everything is "too expensive," and these things should just apparently operate out of the goodness of their hearts. From the Republican side it all boils down to defensive medicine.
    We can't have an honest discussion about Sovaldi and drug utilization because it'll all boil down into the same stupid arguments. Same with breast cancer screening or Ryan White or BC coverage or even freakin' vaccinations.
    So there's really no good way to solve these problems.

    Leave a comment:


  • astralis
    replied
    JAD,

    When Congress and the President collude to mislead the public on an issue this vast, we have a serious problem. If this sort of thing continues, people will lose all trust in government, not that they had a lot of trust anyway before.
    you're right to pinpoint that lack of trust in the government is very problematic...and especially more so for the party that actually likes government. :)

    but, i come at it from a different angle. how many voters do you think are actually informed as to the -process- vice the result? i'd say voters already have a low trust of government due to historical events (vietnam war, tuskugee experiments, nixon); that's why when the snowden revelations/leaks came up, no one seemed particularly shocked, in the US anyway, over the extent of government snooping and access.

    moreover that doesn't even cover the previous eras where Congress made shady deals left and right to get a bill through.

    what the public wants to see is -competent- government. less concern about how the sausage is made than whether or not the sausage tastes good.

    Leave a comment:


  • astralis
    replied
    GVChamp,

    I think it's fair to say that the ACA wasn't terribly unusual in terms of sausage-making. However, Obama didn't sell himself as "business as usual." He sold himself as "Hope and Change."
    to be fair the Dems did bend over because they were -desperate- for even a fig leaf of bipartisanship.

    and what republicans effectively did were to pocket those compromises and then continue a hard-line. which led to the dems scrambling amongst themselves to keep party discipline, which meant more unsavory deals were cut.

    there was a lot of bad faith negotiating going on during that time period.

    Leave a comment:


  • JAD_333
    replied
    Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
    All so we can look like responsbile technocratic master-minds, while actually we're no different than any standard Political Machine Mob Boss.
    However, Obama's progressive goal, mandate, and selling point was to deliver universal health care cover coverage, and that's what he delivered.
    For those who believe the ends justify the means, a rude shock awaits them. Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. When Congress and the President collude to mislead the public on an issue this vast, we have a serious problem. If this sort of thing continues, people will lose all trust in government, not that they had a lot of trust anyway before.

    Leave a comment:


  • GVChamp
    replied
    Originally posted by bfng3569 View Post
    and what are the estimated numbers of uninsured U.S. citizens in this country still?
    Better question: why are those people still uninsured?

    Leave a comment:


  • bfng3569
    replied
    Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
    I think it's fair to say that the ACA wasn't terribly unusual in terms of sausage-making. However, Obama didn't sell himself as "business as usual." He sold himself as "Hope and Change." The only real difference is the Herculean Effort of the Leftist Technocracy to perform minor legislative changes in order to have the bill pass certain metrics like CBO cost-neutral analysis.
    All so we can look like responsbile technocratic master-minds, while actually we're no different than any standard Political Machine Mob Boss.
    However, Obama's progressive goal, mandate, and selling point was to deliver universal health care cover coverage, and that's what he delivered.
    and what are the estimated numbers of uninsured U.S. citizens in this country still?

    Leave a comment:


  • GVChamp
    replied
    I think it's fair to say that the ACA wasn't terribly unusual in terms of sausage-making. However, Obama didn't sell himself as "business as usual." He sold himself as "Hope and Change." The only real difference is the Herculean Effort of the Leftist Technocracy to perform minor legislative changes in order to have the bill pass certain metrics like CBO cost-neutral analysis.
    All so we can look like responsbile technocratic master-minds, while actually we're no different than any standard Political Machine Mob Boss.
    However, Obama's progressive goal, mandate, and selling point was to deliver universal health care cover coverage, and that's what he delivered.

    Leave a comment:


  • bonehead
    replied
    Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
    BG: It all depends on where her weaknesses lie.

    She lies, has an extremely leftist view of the world, and she doesn't give a rat's ass if a government official is gunned down by an hours long terrorists attack. Its going to take a miracle worker to overcome all that. But then again all she has to do it look better than whomever the republicans throw against her.

    Leave a comment:


  • JAD_333
    replied
    Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
    Gents

    We'll get to all this in 12 months, but I'm a curious soul. What sort of person do you see as a good VP pick for Hilary? Someone young & dynamic and probably male (no names in mind, but I'm sure they are knocking about); someone to appeal more to the left of the party; a 'minority' candidate; a guy like Jim Webb who appeals to moderates & has a military record (he seems a bit too old - would have been better with an Obama type).

    With the GOP riding high the Dems will clearly be desperate to get that turnout back up for 2016. Assuming Hilary is the candidate, who helps her most?
    BG:

    Well, it won't be a minority or another woman. There are a lot of good fits on paper, but more likely than not she'll look to someone who can help her in whatever region she may need help in, which we don't know yet. Jack Kennedy picked Lyndon Johnson to get the southern vote, although he disliked him personally. It all depends on where her weaknesses lie.

    Leave a comment:


  • JAD_333
    replied
    Originally posted by astralis View Post
    JAD,


    i actually agree with you on the outline that the greater countervailing pressure will be towards conservative ideals, primarily because the current structure of the social state is more or less complete if you look at mainstream progressivism.
    Oh, I think there is a lot more progressives in Congress would do if they could. It's analogous to a factory that has to keep producing to stay in business. But at present, progressives are at the buggy whip stage; their market isn't big enough to sustain their former production. But, since the term progressive is relative, I expect some day we'll see a progressive movement re-bloom. It's the nature of politics that the ascendent political philosophy eventually overreaches and gets the boot.

    The social state may be complete in terms of some people's aspirations, but thank God not in terms of the classical meaning of socialism. I know this sounds like a contradiction in conservative values, but I expect the social state will be made better in the sense that its inefficiencies will be wrung out. I've observed over a long lifetime that liberals/progressives put more stock in passing social programs than they do in operating them efficiently. But that is another discussion.



    actually i'd give most of the credit to the Fed. the political squabbling simply did immediate economic damage without any countervailing success. had the two sides come to a Grand Bargain we might be talking about "more or less equal credit" for both the immediate economic pain AND the long-term economic gain, but that didn't happen.
    Well, yes. But the Fed also has to react to budget realities. It has to deal with deficits, etc. Those are generated by political interaction. QE has been effective so far. As an investor, I love it, but realistically, the Fed has to take its foot off the pedal sooner rather than later. So far, it seems to be timing things well. Big question: When will the markets pull back?


    of course not, because the financial crisis and the devastating aftermath was caused by under-regulation, not over-regulation.
    You're speaking just of the financial sector. Government regulation is pervasive in other sectors, but I don't want to get into that right now because I'll get off on a rant about how regulation affects my business.


    i'm sure there are areas where de-regulation is a good idea, particularly in the area of business creation. however, if the banking/financial crisis taught us anything, it's that expanding regulatory control over areas which have huge second-order effects is -essential-. in other words, regulate the huge corporations while making it easier on small businesses.
    You can't regulate greed. You can't create a regulatory agency that won't pursue regulatory action where common sense dictates otherwise. We have to stop imposing regulations aimed at preventing every conceivable thing that can go wrong even when it rarely goes wrong. I know I'm taking a populist stance here...:)



    no. this was actually an area where i begged to differ with many of my fellow Third Wayers, but the essence of privatization is to increase risk. that's the essential trade off that the market offers: more risk for more reward.
    Asty, that's a common misconception. There's no more risk in depending on markets to increases retirement payouts than in depending on government, tax-based payouts. Periods of economic downturn and high unemployment affect both, but over time AFPs (the Chilean model) will provide larger payouts than traditional social security.

    i seriously fear what hedge funds (let alone outright scam artists) would do with the huge amount of equity that would land into their hands, especially given how most people lack even the most rudimentary financial knowledge.
    Here we'll have government regulation. Hedge funds and other risk takers will be barred from handling worker's retirement savings, as will banks. The funds formed to handle these savings will be entirely specialized entities that must put up reserves to cover bad years. They'll be regulated by the government as to the types of investments they can buy and the fees they can charge. People will be able to switch funds periodically to insure competition among the funds, kind of like the Federal open-season for switching insurance carriers.


    Millions of Americans lack basic financial literacy, studies show - Los Angeles Times

    this would be the -essence- of privatizing gain and socializing risk.
    If Chileans can learn to understand it, why can't Americans. Aren't we exceptional.:)


    if the goal is to encourage savings and investment, increase the amount that can be stashed away in 401Ks and IRAs, but privatize social security? no.
    The goal is find something better than social security as it is now constituted. Either that or raise taxes. 401ks and IRAs are self-directed with no restriction on what investment vehicles you can invest in. The privatized retirement system we're talking about doesn't let you invest in individual stocks, etc. The dedicated funds, or APFs (as they're called in Chile, Peru, etc) do all the investing according to limitations set by the government.


    indeed so, but i'm willing to put up a very early butter cookie bet to this regard. :)
    I won 20 bucks from an AP reporter who predicted Reagan wouldn't get re-elected. I'm feeling confident. One butter cookie it is.


    the GOP remains a riven mess of internal contradictions, and there's not a lot of time to get its own house in order.

    meanwhile the Dems have pretty much all but anointed a moderate HRC and have favorable Presidential demographics...
    Don't believe everything you read in the news. :) The GOP is far more cohesive than it may appear on the outside. There are some things I like about HRC. She hates debt and she's not shy about dropping F-bombs, but she's a lousy manager and a fibber. Hey, she botched Hillarycare. True, Johnny Gruber wasn't there to show her how to sneak it past the CBO. :)

    Leave a comment:


  • Bigfella
    replied
    Gents

    We'll get to all this in 12 months, but I'm a curious soul. What sort of person do you see as a good VP pick for Hilary? Someone young & dynamic and probably male (no names in mind, but I'm sure they are knocking about); someone to appeal more to the left of the party; a 'minority' candidate; a guy like Jim Webb who appeals to moderates & has a military record (he seems a bit too old - would have been better with an Obama type).

    With the GOP riding high the Dems will clearly be desperate to get that turnout back up for 2016. Assuming Hilary is the candidate, who helps her most?

    Leave a comment:

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