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The claim:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_overhaul_savings



A few less optimistic notes:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_overhaul_analysis




Basically the private health insurance providers have said they're willing to work with the government to restructure the system and Obama is implying the he wants to steer away from a nationalized system. At the same time critics say that Obama hasn't explained where funding will come from at this point and that there's no way to be sure either side will see this any farther than this.

I like the adds that are crawling all over the dial these days. The whole right wing push is saying that socialized medicine has left all English and Canadian citizens squirming in agony and dying because government beauracracy and project budgets are being cut. They've even gotten doctors in those countries to join in the fun by providing a platform for those doctors to ***** and moan because they aren't paid as well as doctors in this country who get to benefit from private healthcare.

If you want to see the horrors of de-regulated, socialized medicine of the sort these supposedly horrific governments provide for their citizens, one need look no further than the hundreds of loop holes the private insurance industry in the US uses to deny benefits to millions of paying customers that end up getting sick every month. The laws in the US guarantee medical help to anyone who enters the emrgency room, but refuses to consider the circumstances of their bank accounts. Those same people also seem to stop listening when it comes to the fact that those same poor people now have thousands of dollars in debt, making it even harder for them to live up to the expectations those people have of them.

However, I am squarly against President Obama giving the insurance companies an equal "seat at the table" during the debate over how to go forward with this issue. But, I also realize that there's no national infrastructure in place that could handle the demand is the government removed private corporations from the equation. Too bad, Mr. Obama isn't being a socialist in this case.

Does anyone remember the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact?

Does anyone know how much health insurance CEO's actually make?

How about we reform healthcare by making campaign financing public, making it illegal for any lobbyist to meet with a congressman without their conversations being recorded and broadcast, making private health insurance illegal, taxing the rich at 74%, get rid of medicare and medicaid in favor of a universal healthcare system with Healthcare written into the constitution as a fundamental human right, and open up all of the former insurance underwriter CEO's to civil suits for damages and injuries with massive cash payouts.

Lol.

The thread title has the word "private" in it. That means vagina, cock, and balls. teehee

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Does anyone remember the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact?

Does anyone know how much health insurance CEO's actually make?

How about we reform healthcare by making campaign financing public, making it illegal for any lobbyist to meet with a congressman without their conversations being recorded and broadcast, making private health insurance illegal, taxing the rich at 74%, get rid of medicare and medicaid in favor of a universal healthcare system with Healthcare written into the constitution as a fundamental human right, and open up all of the former insurance underwriter CEO's to civil suits for damages and injuries with massive cash payouts.

So which is Obama, Molotov or Ribbentrop?

Otherwise I agree. Total transparency is essential. Sadly, the expectations of transparency can't be forced only on the government. It would also have to be demanded of the media. This would mean that the media would have to literally become the 4th estate, which would make it subject to the regulation of the government (ie the people), which would mean socialism, dictatorship and all the other tag lines that make the right AND left go ape shit. This is one viscious circle that unfortunately works out only for conspiracy theorists.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Does anyone remember the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact?

Does anyone know how much health insurance CEO's actually make?

How about we reform healthcare by making campaign financing public, making it illegal for any lobbyist to meet with a congressman without their conversations being recorded and broadcast, making private health insurance illegal, taxing the rich at 74%, get rid of medicare and medicaid in favor of a universal healthcare system with Healthcare written into the constitution as a fundamental human right, and open up all of the former insurance underwriter CEO's to civil suits for damages and injuries with massive cash payouts.

You think that the rich people driving your economy would stay if you taxed them like that?

Originally posted by Bardock42
You think that the rich people driving your economy would stay if you taxed them like that?
At that tax rate, hell, even George Clooney and Susan Sarandon might leave.

$2,000,000,000,000 in cuts?

Sounds like a lot of jobs going down the drain to me.

Wow, i'm disappointed. I was hoping that Obama would keep the insurer's claws out of his proposal.

Originally posted by Bardock42
You think that the rich people driving your economy would stay if you taxed them like that?

It always has before Ronald Reagan came in and ****ed up the whole country.

The only places where the rich don't pay that much or close to it are in dictatorships and caliphates.

Under a certain conservative republican named Dwight Eisenhower the tax rate on the rich was closer to 90%!

Originally posted by Darth Jello
It always has before Ronald Reagan came in and ****ed up the whole country.

The only places where the rich don't pay that much or close to it are in dictatorships and caliphates.

Under a certain conservative republican named Dwight Eisenhower the tax rate on the rich was closer to 90%!

I hate when people just start making up numbers and facts.

Yeah, everyone knows that 99% of those type of people are assholes anyway.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
It always has before Ronald Reagan came in and ****ed up the whole country.

The only places where the rich don't pay that much or close to it are in dictatorships and caliphates.

Under a certain conservative republican named Dwight Eisenhower the tax rate on the rich was closer to 90%! That has little to do with what I said. The tax rate being very high after the first and second world war has no bearing on the reactions of people nowadays. And as the world is today, it is more likely that the rich would find other, cheaper ways.

Of course the whole idea is just unfair and silly, but lets just focus on the practical problems, instead.

Originally posted by Bardock42
That has little to do with what I said. The tax rate being very high after the first and second world war has no bearing on the reactions of people nowadays. And as the world is today, it is more likely that the rich would find other, cheaper ways.

Of course the whole idea is just unfair and silly, but lets just focus on the practical problems, instead.

Unfair? Maybe. Silly? Not really.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Unfair? Maybe. Silly? Not really. It is a bit silly.

Originally posted by Bardock42
It is a bit silly.

For a goverment in need of revenue to tax the people most capable of surviving on a fraction of their income?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
For a goverment in need of revenue to tax the people most capable of surviving on a fraction of their income?

To that degree, yes.

Originally posted by chithappens
I hate when people just start making up numbers and facts.


Maybe you should have listened in history class instead of covertly reading the fountainhead.

For those who haven't heard. The health insurance companies are already backing out of the agreement, claiming there was no agreement and promising hikes. So either this was a Obama's way of making them even more unpopular with the public using the same strategy he used on the republicans or he really is stupid enough to think you can negotiate with plutocrats.

Originally posted by Bardock42
To that degree, yes.

Well okay, yeah 90% is absurd. I thought you were referring to non-flat tax systems.

George Bush's fault.

KMC is where I get some of my kick! It's sad, I know.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Maybe you should have listened in history class instead of covertly reading the fountainhead.



And only reading stuff in the classroom is how you start just believing damn near anything. Everyone knows history classes are chicken shit (in the U.S. anyway) up until college and even then it will be guided by your professor's personal beliefs. You can skew loads of things to say whatever you prefer them to say.

Originally posted by KidRock
George Bush's fault.

QFT Brotha!

I like how you made it seem as though you think something that you think the opposite of. *snicker*





Well, it is difficult to conceal facts and context from an inquiring mind. It is completely possible, as you indicate, to spin the information to fit the professor's bias, but any reasonably mature student will be able to fit facts into their own bias, rather than having one passed down. Dismissing all formal education in that area due to one's own ability (or lack thereof) to filter bias seems rash and costly.

I think it's fair to say from his articulation that he seems a bit bias

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
Well, it is difficult to conceal facts and context from an inquiring mind. It is completely possible, as you indicate, to spin the information to fit the professor's bias, but any reasonably mature student will be able to fit facts into their own bias, rather than having one passed down. Dismissing all formal education in that area due to one's own ability (or lack thereof) to filter bias seems rash and costly.


Ain't it cool how "free thinkers" are the most biased, close minded, evangelistic people in the world?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ain't it cool how "free thinkers" are the most biased, close minded, evangelistic people in the world? We are? cry

Originally posted by Bardock42
We are? cry

It's an ironic cycle.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ain't it cool how "free thinkers" are the most biased, close minded, evangelistic people in the world?

I missed a jump somewhere. Care to explain how 'freethinkers' = Christians?

(See what I did there?)

But really. I may be biased, close minded, and evangelistic, but it isn't because I am a free thinker. If anything it is because I'm an overbearing prick that has to be right in every aspect of his life. But that's just me.


Would you like a turn to talk now?

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
I missed a jump somewhere. Care to explain how 'freethinkers' = Christians?

(See what I did there?)

Oooooooooooooooooh, snap!

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
But really. I may be biased, close minded, and evangelistic, but it isn't because I am a free thinker. If anything it is because I'm an overbearing prick that has to be right in every aspect of his life. But that's just me.

It was more of an observation that most people who self identify as free thinkers also think everyone should fall in line and agree with them.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
Would you like a turn to talk now?

Me?

Originally posted by chithappens
And only reading stuff in the classroom is how you start just believing damn near anything. Everyone knows history classes are chicken shit (in the U.S. anyway) up until college and even then it will be guided by your professor's personal beliefs. You can skew loads of things to say whatever you prefer them to say.

Okay smartass, prove me wrong.

Correction: Looking back at it I WAS wrong. Eisenhower didn't tax the rich at near 90%, he taxed them at 92% until 1954 at which point the top tax bracket was lowered to 91%. That's income. Capital gains tax was at 91%, right now it's 15%.

I agree. That's too much. But 74% isn't.

Direct correlations between those very different situation are not even fair without loads of context beforehand.

It's just not a good comparison as presented.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Correction: Looking back at it I WAS wrong. Eisenhower didn't tax the rich at near 90%, he taxed them at 92% until 1954 at which point the top tax bracket was lowered to 91%. That's income. Capital gains tax was at 91%, right now it's 15%.

I agree. That's too much. But 74% isn't. That depends really, personally I think any tax is too much, but, at least to me, it is very weird, this idea that rich should be taxed much more percentage wise, just seems very ungrateful.

But again, wages are allocated in a messed up way anyway. Athlethes get millions while teachers, for example, get not even a reasonable fraction of that.

We have discussed this a long time ago so it's not worth going over again.

Originally posted by Bardock42
That depends really, personally I think any tax is too much, but, at least to me, it is very weird, this idea that rich should be taxed much more percentage wise, just seems very ungrateful.

This is how a society functioning in a position of scarcity works. There is a contract between people and government and people wherein people pay government taxes and in exchange government uses those taxes in order to protect people from enemies foreign, within, and systemic. A secondary function of taxes is to discourage behaviors which are detrimental to society and pay for their consequences. These can include drugs, wealth concentration, and consequences of human industry which in an ideal monetary based society is equitable and demonstrates the need for sales and progressive income tax, especially when it supports social programs. The third function of taxes, which is met by both the income and the inheritance taxes is to prevent detrimental wealth concentration and the creation of plutocratic dynasties which the founders condemned in the federalist and antifederalist papers and which the Indian School of Economic Thought (which is being embraced more and more) holds to be responsible for most if not all economic downturns/collapses/recessions/depressions, not to mention classism.

You're assuming that the rich create more of a benefit than a detriment to society which yes, they create jobs and economic stimulus and a certain limited technological development but only when it suits their desire to accumulate profit since that is the driving force in a monetary system. Unfortunately, the drive to accumulate wealth forces those who control the means of production in any monetary system, be it capitalism, communism, socialism, or fascism to destroy the environment, hinder technical development, subvert or replace government, exhaust their workers physically or mentally, hurt their consumers through accidents and poor quality control, influence nations to go on murderous campaigns for them, and hinder science and the goal of all society in the long run which is to end scarcity and the needs for government, money, and finance in the first place that gives the wealthy their power.

Essentially every consumer owes a debt to everyone and the planet in a scarce monetary system but that debt should logically be based on how much they consume which makes the wealthy the most culpable.

That's the philosophy. The historical justification is that economies, especially the US grow and profit the most when capitalism is regulated, workers are well paid, have health benefits, and a method of collective bargaining, small businesses are able to compete, a very small people are wealthy and poor with a broad majority of the population being middle class and taxes are progressive, meaning the more you earn/own, the greater your burden.

I understand why people think taxes are a good thing, but I don't agree with it. For one, there is no such social contract. The ownership the government assumes over you from birth, is just there without two parties agreeing on it. And I am not saying it is necessarily a bad thing, lots of good does come from having a structured government, we should just call it what it is, which is oppresion by force. Either way, Capitalism itself is not a do as you please ideology, to be a true capitalist society there would need to be checks in place anyways.

Anywho, once more you did not reply to what I said, I didn't state that I think that an increasing tax rate is a bad thing, I said, I find the mentality of some people that the rich should just pay, basically everything, very selfish (not in the good Ayn Rand sense, know what I'm saying) and ungrateful.

I'm sure I didn't reply to all your points, but I really don't want to write an essay about half a sentence I wrote, that seems to have been misinterpreted anyways.

Originally posted by Bardock42
we should just call it what it is, which is oppresion by force.

Perhaps to you but a lot of people consider it oppression by choice. Besides, it's not as though you wouldn't be forcibly oppressed without a government, the opressor would just be more blatant about it.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Perhaps to you but a lot of people consider it oppression by choice. Besides, it's not as though you wouldn't be forcibly oppressed without a government, the opressor would just be more blatant about it. They may consider it that, but it isn't actually, ultimately it is backed by force.

wait, Ayn Rand did something good?

Originally posted by Darth Jello
wait, Ayn Rand did something good? Ayn Rand is quite excellent.

Well let's see, she started a cult of personality based on human greed and selfishness and her ideas were used as the partial justification for the biggest swindle in human history (American domestic and foreign economic policy 1979-present). Oh, and in terms of talent, she gives the Marquis De Sade a serious challenge for the title of history's shittiest author.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Well let's see, she started a cult of personality based on human greed and selfishness and her ideas were used as the partial justification for the biggest swindle in human history (American domestic and foreign economic policy 1979-present). Oh, and in terms of talent, she gives the Marquis De Sade a serious challenge for the title of history's shittiest author.

Dude, what's your beef with the Marquis de Sade now?

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Well let's see, she started a cult of personality based on human greed and selfishness and her ideas were used as the partial justification for the biggest swindle in human history (American domestic and foreign economic policy 1979-present). Oh, and in terms of talent, she gives the Marquis De Sade a serious challenge for the title of history's shittiest author.

You don't like Donatien?

He sucked at writing. I don't mean content wise cause yeah, he was into some twisted things. If you've ever actually tried to read something like The 120 Days it's a really dreadful read because of his style.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
He sucked at writing. I don't mean content wise cause yeah, he was into some twisted things. If you've ever actually tried to read something like The 120 Days it's a really dreadful read because of his style. You think? I didn't mind it, only problem I had is with the truly sick stuff never been finished.

Ayn Rand's writing, I find quite good actually, quite inspiring, too.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Wow, i'm disappointed. I was hoping that Obama would keep the insurer's claws out of his proposal.

That you're disappointed is likely a foregone conclusion. You've been espousing your disappointment since before the election.

However, your disappointment that President Obama brought the Drug and Insurance companies to the table should only come as a suprise to those who were not payng any attention to the campaign. A campaign that rarely mentioned Mr. McCain's commitment to such issues, I might add; other than saying everything about healthcare being controlled by the insurance industry and the doctors who are bought off was totally cool and productive. President Obama mentioned a number of times that he would bring the current providers to the table with the propositions that we can only hope will some day replace them for the better of all of us. Don't feign outrage when everything that you're outraged about was mentioned before-hand.

Try not to get outraged over what does not merrit outrage.