Obama
 

A debate on Obama policies. Name one and present an argument, so we can debate it. I'll start:

The Healthcare Bill will benefit everyone in America! It will allow everyone to have health insurance.

Re: Obama
 

no it wont , it will allow them healthcare without the need for health insurance

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Healthcare Bill.

Well I'm sure he'll be good for the Wild West.

Re: Obama
 

Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 1

:(

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It won't allow the illegal immigrants to have health insurance, but at least we can agree that the illegal immigrants are "in America."

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Sounds like more bloat to me

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Then why did he win the Nobel Peace Prize? :banana:

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Swedes. Do you need more?

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Obama's Health Care Bill

1. Isn't Obama's (Harry Reed and Pelosi are carrying the water) U. S. presidents don't write legislation.

2. Will probably not result in better health care for anyone, including those without insurance. It is being touted not as a humanitarian act but as one of fiscal prudence to stem the tide of rising health care costs.

3. It currently is currently a 1,700 + page of mish mash that no one has truly read and analyzed. Chances are that there will be many pages added just before the end, many things added, many things changed or deleted on the eve of the vote and then a vote called for with no time to read it. That's the way the Obama administration has done the Stimulus Package and other items. In commerce it is call "Bait and Switch."

The promised transparency has yet to be seen (irony intended).

The proponents of the bill are saying that the bill will drive down the overall cost-curve of health care in the U. S. They indicate they will do this by eliminating fraud in current federal programs and increasing competition in the private insurance market. Both of these are highly unlikely, given government's track record historically.

The only way to put more people in a system as huge as the one proposed and keep costs down is to ration health care.

Re: Obama
 

EXCEPT

for the fact that everyone else has managed to have universal healthcare without the need to recycle pensioners.

You pay the most per head for healthcare in the world.
Yet you stll leave vast swathes of your population "outside the net"
Because of this you look really really weird to the rest of the world

Can you please just adopt universal healthcare, like everybody else, and stop whinning???

Re: Obama
 

You are badly misinformed. There is no one in the U. S. who is outside of the "safety net". It is the law in the United States that no one can be refused health care if they present themselves to a hospital or emergency room.

The health care bill will (by estimate) reach approximately an additional 2% of the population at a cost of 900 billion dollars.

If the U. S. goes bankrupt, which it surely will if it does not do something to curtail its reckless spending, health care here and in much of the world will be adversely effected.

Am I to understand that the British Health Care Service (or whatever it is called) is a smoothly running machine which provides fast and affordable care to all of its citizens? There are no lines? There are no procedures, medications or treatments which are subject to governmental approval? I do not intend to suggest that there are. I do not know what goes on in your system.

I do, however, know that there are large numbers of Canadians who slip over the border in order to receive health care in a timely fashion rather than wait, sometimes with deadly consequences, for their health service to authorize treatment or to wait until the service is available (sometimes months in the future).

I do not argue with the idea that health care should be affordable and available to those who need it. I do take exception to the idea that it is unavailable to anyone in the U. S. I take even stronger exception to the idea that the government can run such a large undertaking more efficiently than the private sector.

There are many ideas which have been proposed which could reduce the cost of health care and thus make it more easily accessed by those that currently have to show up to hospitals or emergency rooms to get treated for ailments free of charge.

It is also not well publicized but true that the poorest in our society already have universal health care. Most of those without health care fall in to two categories, illegal residents of the U. S. who are afraid of being deported if they come to attention of the government (without basis in that hospitals and health care givers are forbidden to inquire about legal status or to report suspected illegals to the authorities) and individuals between 18 and 30 with the means to purchase private insurance who chose not to because in that age group health care is frequently not an issue.

As someone once said "governing is complicated."

Re: Obama
 

The point of any system should be to provide 100% cover (I would not be as happy as you seem to miss 2% of our population, let alone yours).

Your present system is awful - we're not going to debate that.

All this absurd talk (and we heard it by the way, not exactly the best diplomatic move to have your politicians spouting inacurate rhetoric which painted Britain as though it were communist russia ...) about "death lists" and such rubbish is completely counter productive.

The NHS does not have queues for life threatening healthcare. Despite anything you have heard.

Will you please remember that i am further from being a socialist than you are!!

This is why the greatest outrage is
Was my starting point.

So when you say "I take even stronger exception to the idea that the government can run such a large undertaking more efficiently than the private sector" - all i can say is have you looked at other countries?

In addition please be advised that far from being some communist hell, a nationalised healthcare system does not even preclude the private sector!!!

IF you want to you can still buy health insurance and you can do what your suggested Canadians do and "queue jump" for specific things - we have a private healthcare system in addition to our national.

- IF the national system did delay essential healthcare, then our private system would be a damn sight bigger than it is. Instead it is limited to essentially cosmetic procedures.

The fact is was probably a bit kind. Given we know what is going on you actually look a bit barbaric.

Re: Obama
 

A rational approach to health care would include some improvements to the current system in the U. S. However, you misunderstood the 2% number I cited regarding the current Democratic health care plan indicated the percent of American citizens who would be added to coverage by the new plan at the expense of 900 billion dollars at a minimum.

The fact is that the Democrat plan is not a serious attempt to improve health care. Nor does it claim to improve health care. It is touted as a method of reducing the cost of health care. However, it ignores several measures which would lower the health care costs to the average citizen which might well lead to a place where a rational universal health care system could be implemented.

As to who is more socialist, you or I. Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn. I am more about what I think would be better for my county than I am about labeling political ideologies.

I have watched politicians of both parties pandering to the American voter for about 5 decades. I have become disaffected regarding parties who are more about being in power and staying in power than they are about doing the right thing for the country.

I see government becoming more powerful and more reckless in the exercise of that power. I see individuals relinquishing more and more of their individual freedoms to the government without seeing an increased sense of duty on the part of that government. I see my government mortgaging the future of the country to China. I see the national debt increasing at a rate that can not be sustained and no real prospect of stopping it due to the lack of political will of either party.

Though many welcome the prospect, the U. S. is proceeding in a direction which will remove it from being a super power. That would not be a problem if Russia and China were not the heirs apparent to the title. I don't believe that the EU has the will to take the reins.

I hope that I am wrong, but i fear that I am not.

Re: Obama
 

OK Gramps

This is a valid fear but I do not see how it makes you anti-universal healthcare.

And by the way, America (more accurately FDR) chose to become World Empire. You chose it, you got it, it has costs.

There are no apparent heirs because what happens when a nation who is world empire stops being world empire is what we call "chaos" (so on the plus side no one can predict the heir :)). But if you imagine that having accepted, chosen, to take on the mantel of World Empire, that you can just step back??? Retire? 'Fraid not.

You chaps will stay in charge until you chaps fall - but god forbid that you ever do fall! Because you'd only take my country with you.

I believe you have a rather charming expression for such circumstances "suck it up"

xxx

P.S. adopt universal healthcare

Re: Obama
 

A man comes up to me and says "you need a new car". He then offers me a Huyndai and wants me to pay him for a Rolls Royce. Good deal? Should I jump on it?

The Democratic health care plan isn't even a Huyndai.

It is generously estimated to cost ONLY 900 billion dollars. $900 billion dollars which we don't have. In the past when the Dim-ocrats put through Medicare their estimate of its cost turned out to be about 8% of what it actually cost.

The Dems are trying to bury about another $240-bilion off the books so that they can then say it is only going to cost $900-billion.

Oh, by the way, between medicare and social security the US already had unfunded liability in the nature of $10-trillion.

The U. S. may well be on the verge of financial collapse. The Chinese are already in possession of enough U. S. debt and U. S. dollars to cripple us if they should decide to do so.

The only way out of it is to be fiscally prudent. We can't raise taxes to a point where we could pay the bills without ending any chance we have of financial recovery and yes we would probably drag much of the world along with us.

Adding another millstone around our neck at this point would be foolish.

Again, as I pointed out before, it is estimated the Obama's expensive "universal health care" would only cover an additional 6-12 million Americans.

Again, I will say that in many respects we already have universal health care.

When I was in the hospital, the man in the bed next to me had been there for two weeks and was expected to be there another two weeks. He was 27 years old and he had a liver and pancreas which were severely out of whack. He was unemployed and uninsured. He told me that he had gotten out of the "gang" and had recently gotten off of parole (god knows what for). This person was being given the same level of care that I was and it wasn't costing him a penny. This is not an uncommon occurrence. IT IS AGAINST THE LAW TO REFUSE TREATMENT TO ANYONE REGARDLESS OF THEIR MEANS IN THE UNITED STATES. How much more f***ing universal does it have to be?

Just because the US does not follow the British, Dutch, Belgian, etc. model does not mean that people are not being cared for.

You may (or may not) have noticed that there are a lot of demographic differences between the US and GB et al. Many of these demographic differences make health care more expensive in the US. There are also other, non-medical issues which effect how expensive health care in the US is. Some states have taken action to deal with some of these issues and reduced the expense. None of these measures are contemplated in the health care legislation currently under consideration. Why, because they would be offensive to some of the Democratic Party's major supporters. The American Trial Lawyers Association being a prime example.

Re: Obama
 

As far as I can see the Chinese have nothing to gain by ruining you. If they did decide to cash their chips, the US would be ruined, but the Chinese would lose a gigantic market, which is one of the main things driving their current economic boom. Plus they have nothing to fear from your military apparatus, because economically you're so dependant on them as they are on you.

I also found this illuminating. Hard facts work much better than gut feelins.

Re: Obama
 

This is probably the problem.

While I find the cold war debate on who should be the next super power should America collapse to debt burden (Italy never collapsed due to excess debt and that's Italy!), which argument implied that there needs to be a third party in "reins" of things in the world? Is this simply a "because we right now provide justice for the world someone needs to, in the future too, but hopefully not the bad guys" -claim or is there some logic to actually back it up? Some people might be inclined to argue, in a similar fashion, that the presence of a "super power that has taken the reins" is actually derogatory rather than beneficial to how things fare at large.

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I also found it interesting.

However, in the context of the discussion about Obama's policy. None of those ideas seem to be included in the 2,000+ pages of the current proposal. There are, however, more than 100 new regulatory commissions, agencies, etc. to be put in place to oversee it. The growth of bureacracy seems to be much more of an objective of the legislation than actually doing anything to make health care better.

Re: Obama
 

I don't believe that super-powers are super-powers in orde to provide justice for the world.

However, the U. S. is (or perhaps has) abdicating the role. It is becoming increasingly clear that the U. S. has neither the resources nor the will to intervene in all of the hot spots on the globe. I don't know if any other country truly has the resources or the will to intervene. However, it seems likely that someone will try. If it turns out to be Russia or China, the results might be worse than those screw ups master minded by the U. S.

I worry.

Re: Obama
 

1) boo bloody hoo
2) Pax Romana
3) Can't abdicate, can't resign

xxx

Re: Obama
 

I don't worry. None of this answers the question what originally justifies US, Russia, or China, or anyone for that, to push influence over other nations' internal policies. Russia (or earlier Soviet Union) and China have been doing this in an extent ever since World War II or so, Russia especially - and so far it's yet to result in disasters any greater than what's happened in Afghanistan (mind you, which was meddled by Soviet Union too) or Iraq. It doesn't really answer either, why it'd be necessary, for a Western-minded country in particular, should hold such a role in the global community over other entities (be that UK, China, or Russia).

Re: Obama
 

Good. As long as no one worries things can only get better, right?

There is no justification. However, this doesn't stop it from happening and who is in charge does make a difference

Re: Obama
 

1. There may well be good reason to cry.

2. Pzx Romana wasn't that paxfull.

3. Can collapse and fall.

Re: Obama
 

And when someone as great as the Americans worries things will get better!

Indeed. And why is it that someone else but Americans doing it is outright disastrous? Because USA are the glory of what's just and right in the world, right? Need to start discussing say case Bolivia? You've done a lot of good to help (wait, endebt to multinational corporates) South America, for example. Well played.

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The United States is not perfect. No argument there. However, it still begs the question, what is the alternative at this time?

Yahwe is correct when he says that America took on the mantle of empire under FDR. Largely because others had abandoned it and Germany and Japan seemed like bad alternatives. Self-interest driven. Yep. So what?

Give me a realistic alternative. Who will stand up to Russia or China if it becomes necessary? No one even wants to stand up to Iran. (That includes the U. S. currently.)

Time will tell. If the U. S. does not change its course it will go bankrupt in the next 5-10 years. That may sound good to many, but, then, many would be wrong.

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I think the talks of national bankrupts are exaggerating it. Not many people so far have managed a bankruptcy - despite their best efforts, not Italy, not Belgium, even Finland didn't go under with payments that multiple times exceeded the gross domestic product post war. Despite the naysayers, calling that China could or would simply out of malevolence drive the dollar dead in a George Soros -like fashion is a bit of an oddball. Seriously, I shot your feet lol, omg, hit my own face too.

Remind me again why we're supposed to be standing up to Iran (for similar reasons we were supposed to be standing up to Iraq or Afghanistan, a bearded guy in a bunker?).

Re: Obama
 

this was the post i was going to write after i read dda's.

(Although i like to think mine would have had my certain "i don't know what")

Re: Obama
 

I quite like Obama, he has a good tan.

Re: Obama
 

It looks like the current US healthcare is disastrous. Can demographic differences really explain how you spend something like more-than-double the UK's per capita amount? (in 2004, according to WDI database).

If the figures I've read are right, you also have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, a lower proportion of critical care beds, more time spent ill etc.

That's a miserable failure of a system; you'd probably be much better off copying countries that work better. (yes, even the UK).


All the news articles I found in a 2min google were vague, or tl;dr. Anyone fancy summarising the key bits of Obama's reform?

Re: Obama
 

In essence, the reform is an evil plot by nasty communists disguised as democrats. It doesn't change anything in terms of the actual system, but it adds multiple different government institutions (hereby referred to as "shadow-KGB") into the country. In future, these shadow-KGB faculties will be used to breed communism into free America and destroy it from the inside.

The aim of this plot is to reduce freedom, capitalism, hope, glory, and remove the United States from the steering wheel of the world politics in order to allow communist China and/or the Soviet Union to take over the global descision making.

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Aha, so it's the same thing as evolution, global warming and the liberal media!

Gotcha.

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I'm glad Yahwe still posts on here.

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It is unfortunate.

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Hey Yahwe,
An American I know who lives in Germany was recently diagnosed with cancer. Can he move to England and get free medical care?

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why not? everyone else does!!

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advise him to move back to america and see which insurance company is willing to insure him