WatchNo, "intelligent republicans" is not an oxymoron. THere are intelligent republicans. Or at least there used to be.
Here's the question.
Republicans are promising to repeal and redo "ObamaCare," while preserving pre-exisitng conditions coverage, and all of the other favored aspects of ObamaCare, but killing the mandated coverage of everyone (or penalty (tax if you prefer)for not being covered).
Can you explain how this will be paid for or how it even makes sense ?
If there's no mandate but there is preexisting condition coverage, what's to prevent me from waiting until I'm sick to get insurance ? In other words being covered by a subsidy from your insurance.
I don't think being able to buy insurance accross state lines is any great shakes. I'm sure that could somehow be done on top of ObamaCare as easily as it could as part of a redo.
This is a topsy turvy world when republicans are upset by a good, business friendly, conservative policy, just because it was championed by a democrat.
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bob2356 says
Poor seniors qualify for both, and are on Medicaid since it's a better deal.
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In my view there should be a thread titled, "No, "intelligent Democrat followers" is not an oxymoron."
It is ironic to consistantly see how many Democrats fail to acknowlege the rich and manipulative people within their own party, who pocket plenty and prey on the poor and the simpleminded under the guise that they are doing something for them.
Ignorance is sheer bliss indeed.
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Reader says
Kinda lame posting this without examples.
How come every conversation with a Republican is an endless stream of blind assertions?
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Almost 50 people get shot every weekend in Chicago, not one of them pays a dime on their hospitals bills but ObamaCare will magically pay the tab now- not us? I do not want to wait 6 months for an MRI once the system is filled with new people paying that want to get what they think they pay for. They'll be scheduling appointments every few weeks since most rarely work. We need a free market in health care. Insurance should be for major medical not everyday doctors visits. My company's insurance offers a hot line to help plan a vacation and find a dog sitter for you. WTF! Can you imagine the cost of car insurance if they covered routine maintenance like changing wipers then the government mandated and regulated oil change shops making them change out wipers and such like they do in heath care? Why the F*** do you need insurance to get a foot fungus treated? Why the F*** do you need insurance for a yeast infection cream? Government always increases cost all down the line. Look what their meddling did to housing? Look what their meddling in free markets did to higher education? Free markets aren't perfect but it's the best system combined with a charitable society that takes care of their neighbors. Not a centrally planned boondoggle run by bureaucratic idiots who get rich once elected and also bailed out every time at hard working Americans expense!
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A lame post without examples? Hahaha. If you'd get your head out of your 4ss you would'd see a blizzard of examples. But that wouldn't serve your liberal agenda in which big, parasitic, ever growing government = good, and limited, consitiutional government = bad.
Fruthermore, your accusation of "an endless stream of blind assertions" IS a blind assertion.
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CaptainShuddup says
If they are smarter, then they should be able to explain it to anyone.
sigh.
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Delurking says
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we can't go back to "prosperity" at any rate unless the aliens show up with free energy. The "prosperity" of the past was stolen from our future via debt, fossil fuels, and externalized environmental impact.
The "recovery" from the Great Depression was accomplished in a world with a vast, untapped future supply of places to dump the trash, suck out the oil, and borrow people and money from. All that is left from that is more people and fewer resources.
So, my point is that if we are trying to cut taxes or cut services to get "back" to that prosperity, it isn't a matter of cutting or not cutting, because what we thought was prosperity wasn't. It was theft.
The "health" care system is a system of extracting wealth from sick people.
People don't need health insurance. They need to be healthy and useful. They cannot be healthy through paperwork or money. ALL of the arguments about the health care system are about paperwork and money.
In order to actually get people healthier, we have to address their food, their activities, and their environmental conditions, as well as decide what we want people to be useful for in the first place, which requires at least SOME consideration of how many people. If we have to "build prosperity" (a.k.a. "businesses") by extracting resources from the future and polluting the environment, then no amount of stimulating business will result in healthier people or potential longevity for the necessary circumstances of life (clean air, water, and cooperative communities that care for the land to establish sustainable food sources).
Utopian or not, the basis of civilization (freedom) is shared risks. The first step is acknowledging what the risks are.
The present trend of civilized society is to make people sicker, make decisions with money, and let the bullies decide who gets to be bullied.
The argument between Republicans and Democrats is just arguing over the color of the paint lines on the parking lot for the Humvees. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are in any position to discuss the future of human beings on this planet. Their parties have become slaves to the money and rhetoric of personality cults.
Too many actually believe government should be run like a business. That would mean externalizing risks. The WHOLE POINT of having a government is to determine risks that must be faced and to distribute the costs of those risks for the FUTURE people, not to satisfy the fickle desires of present people. The key to democratically electing people to do so is to have an educated public with some sense of decency.
Competition and advertising are all about ignoring common decency and future needs. The current electoral system is all marketing. It has nothing at all to do with the real needs or possible solutions to problems.
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iwog says
I hate to tell you, but the ACA is basically Bob Dole's healthcare plan from the nineties. Parts of it were written by none other than Newt Gingrich.
That's the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about.
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Obama aren't Democrats anyway. That party ceased to exist as of 1968. Today's Democrats are Greens, with their embrace of rabid environmentalism, endorsement of legalized perversion, the right to kill unborn babies and general hatred of most everything those of us who grew up in red state America know to be wholesome and decent.
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rootvg says
Obviously you don't watch The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, or Real Time with Bill Maher. All three have discussed that in detail for the past two years. In fact, all three have pointed out the utter hypocrisy of the Republican Party by stating that the individual mandate was insisted upon by Republicans as a way to pay for HilaryCare, but now they don't want it because Obama is for it.
rootvg says
rabid environmentalism - The desire not to completely destroy the ecosystem of the Earth rendering it inhospitable to human life just to make some short-term profits (and major long-term loses).
endorsement of legalized perversion - I.e., not killing homosexuals, but instead treating them equal under law because there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for making consensual sex between adults illegal. In fact, all anti-homosexual laws in American history were nothing more than the Christian equivalence of Sharia Law. Regulations are for banking and financial institutions, not private bedrooms.
the right to hill unborn babies - The dirty little secret that both sides of the abortion debate won't admit is that the fertile cell only gradually becomes a human being. To state that pro-choices are in favor of baby killing is as disingenuous as stating that pro-lifers are "anit-choice" women haters.
most everything those of us who grew up in red state America know to be wholesome and decent - examples below
You "red state" people have been on the side of evil in every conflict between good and evil in America for the past 300 years. You red state people have always been the most vile and evil people in America committing acts of slavery, genocide, racial terrorism, segregation, lynching, assassination, false imprisonment, execution of innocent people, and condoning the rape of black women.
So don't even think about pretending that red state people are "wholesome" or "decent". You red state scumbags haven't even admitted that the whole slavery and civil war thing was wrong. Instead you keep waving that Confederate Navy flag because it was adopted by the KKK to indicate that they were keeping the civil war going. And throughout the 20th century, red state folk have done nothing but rape, kill, and threaten anyone who wasn't both their sister and daughter at the same time.
The north has done some bad things, but nothing compared to the south. And the blue states sure as hell don't glorify the mistakes and injustices of the past. So fuck red state moral pomposity. History has shown that the red states are morally inferior to the blue states by any rational criteria. "Decent and wholesome" my ass.
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I do not call myself a Repub, but a conservo. And I happen to think the entire notion of wealth transfers is unAmerican. I happen to think that the free care / reduced price care needs should be met by public owned facilities that are staffed with fresh students that attended school on a gov loan.
Public purchaced drugs, ok.
Public supplied rooms and beds and lights and water and monitoring, ok.
But, the public should not be paying whatever amount a med supplier dreams up. It is time for the care providers to react to local market conditions and price their product to their customer base. Having a system where the bill is paid by forced wealth transfers is not right. Gov needs to step away, outlaw all forms of non-catastrophic insurance, and force the docs and pharms to adjust their prices to an amount their customers can afford.
I don't like the slide we have been in since 1964. The path back to "normal" might be very bloody. Sooner or later, the normal folks will have enough or this progressive socialist leftest liberal silliness, and the first thing to go will be lawyers, then judges, then the ACLU, then prisoners on death row, then invaders and their spawn, then the EPA, then the IRS, then the Dept of Education, then some State rights will be ironed out, then California will be forced to stop spending beyond it's means ... and that cuts the welfare and silly public spending, and THAT will begin our trek back to normal.
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I just saw a bumber sticker that went,
"Are You Losing The Debate? Just Shout Racist And You Will Silence The Opposition."
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Bap33 says
Does that include the transfer of wealth from employees to employers?
If an employee produces $400 of wealth in a day, but receives only $100 of wealth in wages and benefits combined, then his employer is effectively taxing him at 75% before the government even steps in.
Now, some taxation by employers is necessary to pay for buildings, electricity, advertising, etc. But those CEOs aren't getting $100 million a year from that. Most of the richest 0.1% don't produce wealth, but tax their employees at 50% or more for the "privilege" of working.
Is that kind of wealth transfer un-American? I think so, and it's by far the largest wealth transfer that goes on. Fight the biggest evils first for they do the most damage.
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Bap33 says
Why stop there? Why not repeal the 15th Amendment? Isn't that what you really want?
Bap33 says
Are all those terms synonymous to you?
The progressive movement gave us the 40-hour work week, safety standards in factories, outlawed child factory labor, and gave women the right to vote. Exactly which of these do you want to see undone?
Liberalism is the philosophy that the primary purpose of government is to protect people's rights and liberty including the right to life, speech, privacy, and justly acquired property. You cannot be both in favor of curtailing liberty and having small government as they are mutually exclusive and opposing goals. A government that interferes in the personal and sexual lives of its citizens is not a small, unobtrusive government.
The largest social program in America is the military. It is a massive jobs program that wastes over 50% of the federal income tax dollars and over 50% of all federal discretionary spending. It is also mutually exclusive with small government.
Also, what exactly do you have against the ACLU? Other than being pro-choice, which of the following accomplishments of that organization bother you?
They all seem pretty damn noble and American to me.
Bap33 says
Are you including defense spending cuts in your "public spending" cuts? If not, then you aren't even making a dent in the deficit.
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Reader says
False accusations of racism and false accusations of race baiting are easily disproved through transparency.
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CaptainShuddup says
You do realize he's not on your side right? He's ripping your side a new one.
No person runs away from a logical discussion faster than a Republican. You proved that when you vehemently refused to say what Romney would do better than Obama.
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Bap33 says
Well I guess that would make many of the red states unAmerican:
States Receiving Most in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:
1. D.C. ($6.17)
2. North Dakota ($2.03)
3. New Mexico ($1.89)
4. Mississippi ($1.84)
5. Alaska ($1.82)
6. West Virginia ($1.74)
7. Montana ($1.64)
8. Alabama ($1.61)
9. South Dakota ($1.59)
10. Arkansas ($1.53)
States Receiving Least in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:
1. New Jersey ($0.62)
2. Connecticut ($0.64)
3. New Hampshire ($0.68)
4. Nevada ($0.73)
5. Illinois ($0.77)
6. Minnesota ($0.77)
7. Colorado ($0.79)
8. Massachusetts ($0.79)
9. California ($0.81)
10. New York ($0.81)
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html
I have never heard a Republican Governor campaign on I will reduce the amount money our states gets from the federal government because we are a drag on the country and we get more then our fair share.
Maybe we should start calling these red states the 'welfare states'
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Auntiegrav says
I disagree. We create *way* more wealth than we consume. Problem is the 1% have their parasitical taps on everything.
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Ruki says
I know you, you'll neither listen nor comprehend.
For starters "yet the Supreme Court has now declared it to be one big tax program." This is propaganda. They said if it is construed to be a tax, then it is clearly constitutional.
But let's for the sake of argument say that if you want to consider a mandate that everyone pays for health insurance a tax, then fine, call it a tax. The actual tax as far as I can see is actually the penalty paid if someone doesn't buy health insurance of some kind. This starts out at $95 per year and goes up to $600 or so eventually. (the biggest tax increase ?).
MAybe later the fine would have to be more, if people are treating the penalty as a cheaper way of being insured.
So okay, call it a tax if you wish.
The point is that we are moving forward. And we get the things that everyone wants:
*Preexisting conditions covered
*no lifetitme caps including no caps on medications to seiors (the so called donut hole)
*nobody get's kicked off health insurance for being sick
Everyone wants these things. Obama Care delivers these and attempts to pay for them with the mandate.
Republicans say they can magically deliver these things without a mandate.
What Obama Care has in common with health care systems that all other developed countries is the concept that health care is something we should all be entitled to, and that we should all pay in to.
Yes, I know it's shocking, yes SHOCKING, that we should move in this direction of communist wealth distribution. It's the worst and most un-American development for the people since social security and medicare.
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Dan, you seem kinda bitter, so I'll just ask one question:
Dan8267 says
I am pretty sure those came from organized labor ... are you saying that organized labor is a progressive thing?
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Dan8267 says
I was pointing my comment at State spending for Cal, not fed defense. Sorry for any confusion.
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@evil monkey, how can Cal be on the list of the lowest takers when the State is living off of the welfare tit from DC at this very moment?
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Bap33 says
Because they are only living on the "welfare tit of DC" in your head. For every dollar CA sends to DC they get 81 cents back and that is a fact.
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Bap33 says
No, I'm just trying to see how you rectify the contradictions in your philosophies.
Bap33 says
Yes,
There is both good and bad in the history of unions. However, as long as capital is organized, labor must be as well. Otherwise the power is concentrated all on one side which exploits the other side including the use of violence and murder, even the murder of children. Yes, the murder of children is what you get when capital is left completely unrestrained. This is not an exaggeration of any sort.
But if you want to know the real impact of the Progressive Movement and why it was necessary for what we now call civilized life, start here...
Bap33 says
Alright, but the question is still valid. You have clearly advocated reduced federal spending, as have I. Given that over half of federal discretionary spending is in the defense industry and that we spend over 10 times as much as China the next largest spender on defense, can you really hold the position of spending less without drastically cutting defense spending?
evilmonkeyboy says
True. From http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/what-states-are-leeching-off-the-taxpayer/question-2475027/
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Dan8267 says
Its a pity that the above still are happening in Africa... systematic and on a massive scale for the past 30 years.. You will not find it happening in the USA.>
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Delurking says
Actually, it's more fundamental than that. The wealth flow is an extractive one, not a generous one. In other words, it consumes the resources it will need to create wealth in the future, rather than working to create more resources that will be needed.
The flow of resources (human labor and creativity is really the only thing we contribute) is in the wrong direction. Instead of humans being useful to their future, they are entertained by it: keeping them detached from responsibility for their own offspring's needs.
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thomas.wong1986 says
No, but you will see the hand of Capitalism involved. U.S. companies 'develop' infrastructure in Africa, causing population explosions and migration off the land to the cities. When the factories or mines are terminated, the people have no way to create the money to buy imported food, and the land (being neglected for a generation) is no longer able to grow food (dryland farming requires continuous care to keep the soil from turning to brick).
When the people become desperate, U.S. companies encourage racism among people of the same race (as the Belgians did in the Congo), then sell them weapons to fight off the "Evil Communists", escalating into wars on terror that threaten "our" resource base.
No, we don't see it in the U.S. so much these days. Efficiency has demanded that we externalize those costs.
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate my country. I think it is a grand experiment which will determine the success or failure of the entire human race and whether or not Intentionality actually exists. I just think that the strength of a society lies in its ability to be honest with itself and take responsibility for its actions, not in any "national security" secrecy and fascism (corporatism).
Every dollar has a price in resources. For the last 100 years, the resource that made the most dollars available was oil (replacing labor). Now we need to be creative in how we reverse that and make dollars without oil through creative labors as well as physical labors. Otherwise, we will see nothing but conflicts, and those conflicts will not stay outside our borders for long.
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evilmonkeyboy says
really? so, how can a state running a deficit in the millions (or is it billions) be sending any money any where? I am pretty sure Ca took out some Fed Gov loans to operate .... lots and lots of money - from a pile created by the nations taxpayers and prinitng presses - or am I mistaken? If Cal is not budgeted millions in the whole, and is clicking along just fine, then I retract my question. And I then want to know why so many State jobs in prisons, law, schools and such have been chopped .... it just don't add up "in my head".
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RE: Africa,
Right now the Christians are being murdered by the IslaMuslaists on a grand scale --- but, somehow, the media missed the story ...
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Bap33 says
California pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. Most blue states do.
California's internal books are separate from the federal budget and California does not get money directly from the fed to balance its books.
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iwog says
Replace Republican with a wildcard.
Its like a daily catharsis for you, to blurt out "GOP bad, at fault, all worlds problems" and then you can go about your day, wealthy on unearned income, and feel good about it. Hilarious.
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Mick Russom says
I can answer his question if he's willing to listen.
Conservatives are driven. We're doers. We don't sit around and discuss things and wait for the right words to be said and absorb them in some cathartic exercise like warm water rolling down our back or watching a sunrise. This is why we don't see too many libs in cockpits. (It's also why we don't see too many Elementary Education or Sociology or Social Work majors, either.) Up there, even if you're relaxed you're alert. If you're not, you could die.
Conservatives are the cave men, going out every day to kill something for everyone at home to eat. Liberals are the ones at home taking care of the young, scared of their own shadow and frightened to death that they might offend somebody.
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rootvg says
That would be funny if you didn't actually believe it.
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tatupu70 says
I know a lot of people who believe it. Where the fuck do you think I got it.?
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rootvg says
From another like minded individual who makes up shit about "liberals" so he can feel better about himself...
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@iwog,
how is the money being poured into California backed/accessed/ whatever the correct term is, without the FedGov (not "the fed") playing a roll and covering the debt? I may be missing the correct vocabulary, but I am pretty sure you know the issue and point I am speaking of. Please expand on my point in your response so I can follow along a little better. In other words, play my side of the ball a little bit so I can see where I am wrong. Thanks.
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Bap33 says
Mostly through bond measures voted for by Californians.
Unfortunately for decades most California voters have said yes to every bond measure delivered to them by our awful initiative process. As a result we have a huge amount of bond money loaned to the state and a very burdensome debt payment.
The federal government has not bailed out the state. California does receive federal money for highways and other things, but it is LESS than Californians pay out in federal taxes.
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rootvg says
It's very sad that you believe this. Democrat Bill Gates and most other tech billionaires would disagree with you and prove you wrong in the process.
Also the fact that Obama carried the richest states in the USA indicates that none of this has any basis in fact. University towns (the doers in society) are overwhelmingly liberal.
The conservatives I know are like George W. Bush. Destroyer of corporations, intellectually dead, and carried by his name his entire life. Trust babies are overwhelmingly conservative since they depend on low taxes on their inheritance to get by.
More examples? I have hundreds. Do you even have one?
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Bap33 says
The entire CA budget is on line. http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/
I'm sure with minimal effort you could get a list of CA bonds.
Why would you think that the federal government funded CA bonds? States, counties, cities, towns, independent authorities all issue bonds in their own names.
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iwog says
I'm curious as to how you personally vote for bond measures.
Personally, I always vote against them, irregardless of what they are for.
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marcus says
What's shocking, I think, is that the 'leaders' couldn't find the fortitude to stand up to the corporations. What we ended up with is a tax that is laundered through corporate offices, rather than simply processed through the government. Instead of working to make government work like it was designed to work (with checks and balances), they (elected representatives) allowed corporations to buy all three branches of government. By voting the law to be constitutional (funny, that, since our constitution was specifically written with an anti-East India Tea Company bent), Justice Roberts did exactly what George Bush did with wars: taxed the shit out of people to ensure corporations continued making profits, whether or not we choose to pay them or whether we can afford to pay them.
The very first step of our representatives should not to be talking to economists or insurance experts. They should be talking to functional medicine doctors about how to develop health in people, rather than subsidizing cheap, crappy food and then subsidizing drug and surgery corporations to 'cure' people and cut them up in luxurious hospitals placed where people who can't afford cars can't wander into the emergency rooms.
Since we exported all of the useful jobs making money overseas, the corporations figured out how to make money by extracting the health of the country's citizens. It's just like drilling for oil. They know it's gonna end, but "not on our watch", so money is just money, and profits belong to the profiteers.