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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Several posters seem to be saying, "All or nothing; my way or the highway; 'compromise' is a 4-letter word." Am I misreading something? |
Yes, you are misreading. I for instance am for a single payer system. I think it makes the most sense, is the most efficiency way to handle health care costs for a nation, and is in the best interests of our citizens. A non-profit public option is a compromise -- a huge compromise -- for people such as myself. The public option is and always was the compromise. Going further than that isn't compromising, it's selling out and failing to institute reform (and in this case, actually almost assuredly making things worse in the progress).
There reaches a point where instead of compromising, you are simply giving in. That's essentially what's happening here. No, it's worse than that; not only are the Democrats giving in, but they're actually moving our system away from genuine reform rather than closer to it. High cost patients will be cared for at tax-payer expense, and low-cost patients will be forced to hand money over to the insurance industries to bolster their profits. People who can't afford to hand over money to the insurance industries will be given taxpayer money to give to the insurance industry. This bill cements insurance industry profits as an inalienable right.
This isn't compromise, it's pathetic, utter, corrupt failure. |
If the Dems are struggling to pass even mild reform, how do you propose they achieve the single payer system, which both of us support? In real practical terms, how does Congress get this through? Keep in mind that the '60' Democrats are really 58--and only 55 when you subtract Nelson, Lincoln and Landrieu (who are fine on other issues but very conservative on this one). Would you prefer a Purity Test like the GOP?
Everyone wants their druthers, but we all can't have 'em at the same time if we're going to continue to live in a democratic republic.
Unlike on TV, all plot threads are not happily resolved at the end of the hour in real life. Take the best you can get today and go back to work on the next step tomorrow. The only alternative is to take your ball and go home--and hope a bird doesn't poop on your lower lip. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| If the Dems are struggling to pass even mild reform, how do you propose they achieve the single payer system, which both of us support? |
By ceasing to be sellouts, frankly. Although Republicans aren't helping, this ultimately is not a case of Republican obstructionism. This is a case of members of the Democrats' own caucus choosing to support business interests over the American people.
You ask if I'd like a GOP-style purity test, and no, I wouldn't. There is plenty of room for a wide range of ideas in the Democrat party. When it comes to the really big, really important things that are vital to the American people, however, it's time to close ranks. The more conservative, business-oriented Democrats shouldn't be opposing a public option, they should be helping to make sure the public option is an effective force in the market that increases competition and brings down prices without becoming a Medicare-style mess. That's how they can use their ideology to serve the American people best. They aren't doing that, though.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Take the best you can get today and go back to work on the next step tomorrow. |
I agree, it ultimately comes down to this. There's a very real possibility, however, that the best we can get today is nothing, because some of the suggestions that are not just floating around are actively harmful if passed without other measures to go along with them (e.g. insurance purchasing mandate without non-profit public option). Sometimes, the compromise can actually worsen the problem you were trying to solve. In such a case, it's better to forget it. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 3:34 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| By ceasing to be sellouts, frankly. Although Republicans aren't helping, this ultimately is not a case of Republican obstructionism. This is a case of members of the Democrats' own caucus choosing to support business interests over the American people. |
Oh, pshaw. You're starting to sound like a tea bagger-type screaming, "Appeasement! Appeasement!" any time someone mentions negotiations instead of bombing. You're better than that. The Dems have been working hard, not over in the corner playing tiddly winks. If there was some way to achieve single payer, they would have found it by now.
What they have found is:
a) a way to expand Medicare (which is ultimately what we want). If there are problems, suggest reforms. And this one will go into effect next year. That's much better than 2014, or whatever they were talking about before.
b) a reform that requires the insurance companies to spend 90% on benefits instead of their current 67 cents (or whatever it is). This is MAJOR. It's not as good as abolishing private insurance, confiscating the bank accounts of the CEOs and hanging a few of them for unconscionable behavior, but it's a big step in the right direction.
It isn't good enough just to say, "Work harder!" That's just lazy. And rather cynical, if I may say so. If you want a better bill, please suggest a policy that has a chance of gaining enough support to pass.
There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Possibly the biggest mistake us single-payer types made this year was not staging some massive public demonstration late last January laying out a list of things we progressives wanted done and rallying public support. I think we sat back on our laurels of winning the election and thought things were finished. It's the squeaky loons that get the oil, and god knows, the loons have been making far more noise than we have. (Just take a look at the topics available on this site.)
If any reform is passed, a governing coalition will be formed. If the progressives hang in there as a part of the coalition, we'll have a left-leaning governing coalition for 30 or 40 years. If the thing falls apart, we'll get a deadlocked government for 2 years and then the very high possibility of a radical right victory in 2012. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:11 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| By ceasing to be sellouts, frankly. Although Republicans aren't helping, this ultimately is not a case of Republican obstructionism. This is a case of members of the Democrats' own caucus choosing to support business interests over the American people. |
Oh, pshaw. You're starting to sound like a tea bagger-type screaming, "Appeasement! Appeasement!" any time someone mentions negotiations instead of bombing. You're better than that. The Dems have been working hard, not over in the corner playing tiddly winks. If there was some way to achieve single payer, they would have found it by now.
What they have found is:
a) a way to expand Medicare (which is ultimately what we want). If there are problems, suggest reforms. And this one will go into effect next year. That's much better than 2014, or whatever they were talking about before.
b) a reform that requires the insurance companies to spend 90% on benefits instead of their current 67 cents (or whatever it is). This is MAJOR. It's not as good as abolishing private insurance, confiscating the bank accounts of the CEOs and hanging a few of them for unconscionable behavior, but it's a big step in the right direction.
It isn't good enough just to say, "Work harder!" That's just lazy. And rather cynical, if I may say so. If you want a better bill, please suggest a policy that has a chance of gaining enough support to pass.
There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Possibly the biggest mistake us single-payer types made this year was not staging some massive public demonstration late last January laying out a list of things we progressives wanted done and rallying public support. I think we sat back on our laurels of winning the election and thought things were finished. It's the squeaky loons that get the oil, and god knows, the loons have been making far more noise than we have. (Just take a look at the topics available on this site.)
If any reform is passed, a governing coalition will be formed. If the progressives hang in there as a part of the coalition, we'll have a left-leaning governing coalition for 30 or 40 years. If the thing falls apart, we'll get a deadlocked government for 2 years and then the very high possibility of a radical right victory in 2012. |
Your man Obama has lied about everything and you're still lapping it up. He is a liar, a traitor, a hypocrite, and a complete failure as a president. Even die-hard Democrats on here are shaking their heads. You're all alone in your delusion. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:27 am Post subject: ... |
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Well...
I don't recall this being his hot campaign topic. Moreover, with the economy where it is, it boggles my mind as to why he led off with this.
The one thought that makes sense to me is that the GOP tirade was anticipated and his goal was simply ground.
He moved healthcare forward. When it still blows, future white houses can address it as inadequate.
On the other hand, you can only storm town hall meetings crying socialism once. 3 years of it will be very yawnable.
A great many flags have been flown. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:27 am Post subject: |
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| Your man Obama has lied about everything and you're still lapping it up. He is a liar, a traitor, a hypocrite, and a complete failure as a president. Even die-hard Democrats on here are shaking their heads. You're all alone in your delusion. |
Ummm, if you stopped gazing at your navel long enough, you would have noticed that for some reason or other, Korea is a magnet for dysfunctional Westerners. No one has adequately explained why this is so, but it is. Hint: belly button lint is not a psychic worm-hole into the heart of the universe. You should re-think your approach to figuring out how reality works. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Oh, pshaw. You're starting to sound like a tea bagger-type screaming, "Appeasement! Appeasement!" any time someone mentions negotiations instead of bombing. |
This is silly. There's a difference between being against compromise or negotiation, and being against compromising so far that you begin to give up what you were trying to get in the first place.
Take a look at the Max Baucus thread posted today. This is just one example of the type of person who we're "compromising" with here. If you consider him an upstanding individual who just has a different ideological slant and should be compromised with, great. I consider him someone who sold out his constituents, his party, and America.
I'm a reasonable man, but this nonsense has gone on far enough. The nature of the people obstructing this process from within the Democratic Party is absolutely clear. This isn't about ideological differences, it's about people having taken sustantial money from business interests working for those interests to America's detriment.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| The Dems have been working hard, not over in the corner playing tiddly winks. If there was some way to achieve single payer, they would have found it by now. |
There is some way to achieve single payer: by the entire caucus voting in favor of it. They can overcome a Republican filibuster. The only impediment to single payer is themselves. Unfortunately, some people within their caucus have sold out to business interests, and won't vote in favor of it. Okay, so we can compromise a bit with these "principled" individuals, and go with a public option instead. No, no, that's not good enough, because it doesn't make their corporate sponsors happy. So they'll make demand after demand, and twist the bill as much as they can into not reform, but an insurance industry bailout.
Maybe this will yet be avoided. I'm not optimistic. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Oh, pshaw. You're starting to sound like a tea bagger-type screaming |
This is silly. |
Some time in the near future a memo from the DNC will be discovered. It will expose the top-down effort to get partisan drones to refer to all dissent from their messiah as "tea baggers".
If you ever have the stomach to read the hyper-partisan dem blogs (or tv shows) like Yglesasis, Krugman, Olberman et al they've been beating that drum for a long while. It is a statement, when used, not of meaningful argument but of the vapidity of the individual making it.
Again, ya-ta, cut out the middle men and just start reading dnc press releases. Go to the source. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:52 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| There is some way to achieve single payer: by the entire caucus voting in favor of it. |
How do you achieve this?
It's my contention that that is what compromise is all about--finding some configuration that all 60 (and in an ideal world, even some Republicans) can vote for.
| Quote: |
| Some time in the near future a memo from the DNC will be discovered. It will expose the top-down effort to get partisan drones to refer to all dissent from their messiah as "tea baggers". |
Hence, the RNC purity test. Do you really think the DNC will go down that path? I don't.
| Quote: |
| hyper-partisan dem blogs |
You mean like Tom Hayden, not the list of traditional liberals you listed. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:20 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| There is some way to achieve single payer: by the entire caucus voting in favor of it. |
How do you achieve this? |
How does who achieve this? Me? My involvement is limited to the involvement of my representatives, and my representatives -- Feingold and Kohl -- are for reasonable reform.
What's left is to look at the individual Democratic senators who oppose reform, and ask why their constituents continue to vote them in?
You want to know how to get to 60? By voting out people who oppose reform. That's how. Not by letting them twist reform into a handout to the insurance industry. Not by letting them hold the system hostage via threat of a filibuster. By simply voting them out.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| It's my contention that that is what compromise is all about--finding some configuration that all 60 (and in an ideal world, even some Republicans) can vote for. |
When corrupt representatives are what stand in the way of progress, the ideal answer is removal of those representatives. Further compromise only ensures "reform" will be a mockery.
The presence of individual representatives in the Senate is not a simple fact of reality. People can be voted out, and people should be voted out. |
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kotakji
Joined: 23 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 10:32 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
The presence of individual representatives in the Senate is not a simple fact of reality. People can be voted out, and people should be voted out. |
Fox, do you know for a fact that the dissenters within the Democratic Party are simply corrupted by corporate interests? Isn't it possible that at least some of them are simply voting based on their own educated opinion?
Despite being a moderate who has voted Democrat more often then not, I oppose both the public option and single payer systems. I just dont believe health care is a human right, nor do I believe a public system offers a pragmatic solution. If a Democrat is elected chiefly on an issue unrelated to the issue of health care (and perhaps in a state whose constituency opposes the plan), why should he be bound to vote against his own beliefs? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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| kotakji wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
The presence of individual representatives in the Senate is not a simple fact of reality. People can be voted out, and people should be voted out. |
Fox, do you know for a fact that the dissenters within the Democratic Party are simply corrupted by corporate interests? |
Yes. Corporate donations are easily tracked. It's no coincidence, for instance, that Max Baucus -- a Democrat who came out strongly against a public option -- also receives a huge amount from the health care industry. Senators, like all humans, are incentive-based creatures.
| kotakji wrote: |
| Isn't it possible that at least some of them are simply voting based on their own educated opinion? |
No, it's not.
| kotakji wrote: |
| Despite being a moderate who has voted Democrat more often then not, I oppose both the public option and single payer systems. |
That's fine. I'm not going to tell you to go vote Republican. I'm not even going to condemn you. I'll just point out that if the finalized reform bill ends up being an insurance industry handout rather than real reform, voters such as yourself will be partially to thank. If it's a good bill that really does make things better, then you'll have plenty to be happy about. And if it's a terrible bill that makes things worse, well, I'm sure you'll have justifications.
| kotakji wrote: |
| I just dont believe health care is a human right ... |
Why not?
| kotakji wrote: |
| ... nor do I believe a public system offers a pragmatic solution. |
Why not? |
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kotakji
Joined: 23 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
Yes. Corporate donations are easily tracked. It's no coincidence, for instance, that Max Baucus -- a Democrat who came out strongly against a public option -- also receives a huge amount from the health care industry. Senators, like all humans, are incentive-based creatures.
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OK fair enough, though I would suspect that at least some of the people voting in favor of the public option are also getting donations from the insurance industry. Similarly, a savvy senator who doesn't favor a public option may coax donations for something he was going to do regardless.
| Fox wrote: |
That's fine. I'm not going to tell you to go vote Republican. I'm not even going to condemn you. I'll just point out that if the finalized reform bill ends up being an insurance industry handout rather than real reform, voters such as yourself will be partially to thank. If it's a good bill that really does make things better, then you'll have plenty to be happy about. And if it's a terrible bill that makes things worse, well, I'm sure you'll have justifications.
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On the contrary, I am no more happy about this apparent compromise. I hope the bill is killed in any form. (Or rather any bill that attempts to expand insurance coverage to those who cant afford it or dont want it at the expense of other citizens).
I am of the school that maintains that all natural rights are inherently negative. IE, you have a right not to be killed by someone but you do not have the right to force someone else to save you. Health care as a "right" would obligate others to provide the service.
As for public health care as a pragmatic solution- IMO I think the average American citizen has an unreasonable expectation towards the quality of service. If a public option only covered basic low-level care and individuals were on their own as far as expensive procedures were concerned, then maybe it would be workable.
As far as reform is concerned. I would begin simply by eliminating punitive damages from civil courts all together (not just limited to health care). Moreover, limit damage awards to a reasonable rate (we absolutely can put a price on life) and state that you only receive those awards as a result of criminal misconduct or gross negligence. Essentially limit malpractice awards to those kinds of cases that the insurance wouldn't pay out anyways. These types of reforms would hopefully reduce the cost of medicine without requiring others to pick up the tab. In the end, there will always be some who cannot afford the services and will have to go without. |
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