Were you born this way (seeing everything in terms of nonsensical and oversimplified metaphors) or did you have to work at it?
What “evidence”? The fact that the healthcare bill includes some version of what Republicans want is irrelevant, because it also includes so many things that they don’t want. Including the kitchen sink doesn’t make a bill more appealing.
Klein’s incorrect points: First, there is a big difference between letting people buy health insurance across state lines, and letting states organize in compacts between each other. Also, Republicans want small businesses to be able to pool together to lower prices, but the Senate bill only allows this through a government-run exchange, and then only for a limited number of small businesses. Another, states are given the option to bow out if they can lower healthcare costs…but there are concerns that the requirements on states are too high, and that they realistically won’t be able to opt out if they can’t satisfy some federal requirement.
As far as I can tell, the Republicans’ position on what they want in healthcare reform is not, “If you add these things to the current bill, we will be happy to vote for it.” They also don’t want a federal mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance, or a huge federal program with an estimated cost of $1.3 TRILLION dollars.
Such as?
You can only suspect that if you ignore all of the things in the bill that Republicans have said they are staunchly opposed to: a federal mandate to buy healthcare (which many believe is unconstitutional); $1.3 trillion in new spending; CBO estimates that premiums will go up; special exemptions and exclusions for specific states as payoffs to get them to vote for the bill…really, if you want to “suspect” reasons that Republicans are opposed to the bill, why not ask them?
No. Hawkeye’s problem is that he’s getting trolled by a twit. Your problem is that you are the twit trolling. And my problem is that I find calling people twits to be highly entertaining.
jeffd
2024
One thing that’s hilarious about you conservatives is that you rail against how awful single payer or any other form of government involvement in health insurance would be. Yet you also claim to want to end recission & bans on pre-existing conditions, but you don’t want an individual mandate.
Private health insurance with community rating & guaranteed issue does not work without an individual mandate. I mean it does work I guess, but only in the sense that an engine will run for a little while without any motor oil. There is probably no quicker way to totally blow up the private insurance industry than to institute this particular combination of policies.
Conservatives have a movement if you don’t count interest groups, people on television, journalists, and bloggers. Media and single-issue groups aren’t what’s important; it’s troops on the ground pushing for a unified vision. We have a wingnut gap!
Obama WAS so liberal during the campaign.
Politicians act a lot more extreme during the primary when they only have to please primary voters. Obama’s positioning was consistently to the right of Clinton and Edwards. To my knowledge the only issue were he was to the left of those three was Clinton, on the Iraq war. Christ, you can make an argument he’s more conservative than Eisenhower.
…therefore, thousands of US citizens should die every year due to no health care coverage.
Well it had to be simplified so even a moron like you could understand what is being discussed here. I dont like having to dumb things down for idiot trolls like you, but here its something that has to done sadly.
And you have now moved the goalposts. You want to argue that the Republicans won’t support the bill because they don’t like it’s tenets, great! I agree, that IS why they won’t support it! But you and they don’t also get to claim the the Republicans won’t support the bill that the Democrats wouldn’t play nice, as you did here:
What major changes have the Democrats made to the healthcare bill to appease the Republicans? They have made it quite clear that “elections have consequences” and that they were not going to make any changes to appeal the more conservative elements in Congress.
They made MANY changes to appeal to the more conservative elements, as Klein shows. You were absolutely flat-out wrong in that statement. Which has been pretty much my entire point.
I absolutely agree that the GOP won’t support the bill because they don’t like it. I said so a while back and you argued with me about it, actually. I disagree with you that they were ever particularly interested in finding a compromise, and I think the evidence clearly supports me in this. Because as soon as the Democrats compromised, the GOP turned into Lucy with the football and said “oh, never mind. We just don’t want to play.”
Aren’t we agreeing at this point? There’s no need for the fussin’ and fightin’. Come over here, man - time to hug it out.
Seriously, though, the conservative movement that you think you perceive isn’t nearly as big as you think it is. By most accounts, I live in the middle of it down here and the only movement going on is a bunch of idiots who don’t understand that declaring yourself a teabagger is just a great way to get attention you don’t really want. I would reckon the number of people seriously participating in that sort of thing is about equal to the number of serious people following environmental issues and stomping around outside the G739 summit or whatever we’re up to these days shrieking about how private jets kill too many water fowl. The Democratic party didn’t help themselves by playing directly into the whole teawhacker (that’s a word, Firefox?) narrative over the summer, but that will all vanish once everybody goes back to work over the next couple of years. My admittedly shallow reading of history makes this feel a lot like the Populist movement to me, probably because it’s deriving its steam from a lot of the same frustrations. In a couple of years I expect it to be a distant memory making very little lasting imprint on the political landscape.
You can end recission without an individual mandate. How do those two conflict?
As for pre-existing conditions, insurers can not currently exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions if you have previously had insurance coverage for at least 18 months, without a break of more than 63 days. It’s called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Conservatives want limitations of how insurance companies can respond to pre-existing conditions, but not across-the-board bans on them.
Nah, it would work just fine with a price cap instead of a mandate.
Touchy there aren’t you?
Regardless, I can’t totally blame you for your misplaced anger.
Only if you could recognize that you are one of an army of political nihilists programmed to destroy our nation.
Likely, you don’t even know what you’re doing, and that’s the beauty of it.
Look, you’ve been tricked by much more intelligent people than yourself to betray yourself and your countrymen.
Deviously, they prey on the fact that you are simplistic and weak minded to help to keep you poor in spite of your own needs.
It’s a real shame, but it is damn effective.
Asinine drones like yourself have basically made it impossible to have a rational discourse anymore to solve our problems.
For that, you have my pity.
Hmmm…more responses should be made in verse.
Thousands of people also die every year from starvation, or exposure to the elements, or smoking, or drinking, or drug abuse, or overeating, or driving too fast, or thinking that they are immortal when they really aren’t. And some people can’t get healthcare coverage, or they can but choose not to, or they can’t afford it because they spent all their money on a new car or video games or bad investments. Instead of requiring everyone to have healthcare coverage, we should work on removing the barriers for those people who want it but can’t get it, instead of requiring people to have insurance who don’t want it.
Really? These are the only reasons people can’t afford coverage?
One of the barriers to the people who want it but can’t get it is the people who don’t have it.
Let me see if I can explain this. I suck at explaining things, so maybe this will at least be good for a laugh.
Insurance works a lot like the Social Security system - the healthy people are basically paying for the medical hardship of the unhealthy people. That structure works for occasional critical problems (i.e. you get smooshed by a steamroller all the way up to the hips and need to have all of your bottom stuff put back in). It does not work particularly well for long term chronic problems. I have diabetes. And a bad thyroid. And crazy brains. And soon probably a cholesterol problem. All of these medical conditions require medication that doesn’t come cheap and regular doctor visits. There’s a lot of that going around. In order for an insurance company to exist and be profitable, the amount of money that they take in through premiums (which are normalized across everybody, ideally) must balance out to be a little bit more than what they pay out to take care of all care, both chronic and critical.
The only people who are voluntarily going to forego health care will be those who don’t think they need it (and turn out to be right - the rest will be dead or bankrupt). Taking that money out of the system is like taking the payroll tax out of the Social Security system - you’re removing the underpinning financial base for the entire structure. If you propose that people who want medical coverage should be able to get it - in other words, that sick people ought to be able to acquire an insurance policy - proposing at the same time that people be free not to take it if they don’t want to leaves you with an unsolved problem. It doesn’t even begin to touch the problem that you have to deal with when irresponsible younger people forego taking health coverage and then get smooshed by that steamroller and current law requires that we put all their bones and blood and stuff back into their skin sack instead of leaving them to rot on the side of the road.
This is why we have mandates. It’s no more abusive than my state requiring that all individuals seeking a driver’s license prove that they have automotive insurance.
As Klein claims. As I already stated, of the six changes he listed, one of them is similar to a Republican proposal only on a surface level, four are similar but significantly weakened, and one is irrelevant. That is hardly a shining example of bipartisan compromise.
You were absolutely flat-out wrong in that statement. Which has been pretty much my entire point.
Because the Democrats “compromise” by adding things on to a bloated, expensive bill, instead of by removing things, cutting costs and taxes, and focusing on the aspects that both parties can agree on. Wrapping a bitter pill in sugar is not technically a “compromise,” but it is the MO for most of Congress (on both sides).
Pogo
2038
My problem is that I find reading about people calling other people twits very amusing.
Please man, just stop. You’re really not good at this. Your metaphor sucked. There’s nothing else to it. What’s actually unfortunate is that Tom won’t ban you like OO did.
Actually that sounds pretty good for a compromise. The Republicans weren’t going to get everything they wanted. Also, you are of course ignoring all the stuff that wasn’t on the table at all, because of conservative sensibilities. Like say, the single payer system Obama wants. Why isn’t that being pushed right now? Because conservatives oppose it.
And of course, the Democrats are still trying. Obama’s set up this summit to try and find middle ground! But no, clearly the Democrats are to blame for the complete absence of GOP support.
Because the Democrats “compromise” by adding things
Which the Republicans requested.
on to a bloated, expensive bill,
You don’t get to dictate the facts here. Not everyone agrees that it will actually be expensive.
instead of by removing things,
No, they removed the public option. Again you are wrong.
cutting costs and taxes,
What costs and taxes should be cut?
and focusing on the aspects that both parties can agree on.
What aspects would those be? Seriously, where’s the middle ground? Because every time the Democrats try to take a step to the middle the Republicans dance 5 feet to the right.
The public option is a great example, because it was initially the strongest cost control part of the bill. The Republicans cried “socialism!” until the Democrats caved and removed it. Then the Republicans starting whining that there weren’t enough cost controls, just like you’re doing right now. Lucy and the football.
