Posted on 09/24/2007 8:03:05 AM PDT by Invisigoth
With the ongoing help of the “mainstream media,” the Democrats continue to win the war of words. They stick to their talking points like glue on a rug.
The president has stated again that he will veto the Democrats’ version of the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), but the public rarely hears the reasons. Namely, the Democrats’ proposal more than doubles the cost by expanding eligibility to not just poor families, but to families making $82,000 a year. Some of us call that middle class, which is government subsidized health insurance through the back door.
The liberal Democrats see nothing wrong with subsidizing health insurance for the middle class, just as they see nothing wrong with the Social Security system, Medicare, Medicaid or out-of-control government spending in general. That’s because they see nothing wrong with eventually taxing every dime we earn, or leaving an impossible debt load to our grandchildren.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarwriters.com ...
Thanks for the ping!
Democrats have achieved educational welfare where teachers get more money but their product can hardly read, write, or do math. Once again the Democrats are pushing more welfare in the form of HillaryCare……the product from this huge new Bureaucracy will not really help anyone other than the insurance companies. Ms. Clinton is obsessed with big government and that is Socialism….only the elite will fare well for a short time before this great Nation becomes Third World. What is so hard for the Democrats to see in other failed socialist nations…..they really are……………..
I love to ping!
Thank you, thank you very much.
My response is what has the healthcare system, doctors, surgeons, drug companies, and etc done to reduce the costs. My daughter stayed at a hospital for 72 hours in order to monitor her brainwaves on an EEG machine to catch any seizures. If I did not have insurance, my medical bill would be $ 23,000. Tough to tell Americans that healthcare is really expensive because the costs of bringing it to them is high and the profit margins are VERY tight, thus high costs are necessary, while the announcer is sitting in a glass/steel palatial corporate HQ, or living in a huge MacMansion. The best way to defeat socialism is thru leadership by example and cost reduction by the proponents of capitalism. Keep living in palatial palaces, work in palatial offices, have palatial salaries, and then cry that prices cannot be reduced because the profit margins are too tight, kinda blows the PR campaign down the tubes and give every leftist ammo to destroy the free enterprise system.
So do I. But most of the ones on my ping list never respond. And that hurts me. But if I take them off, they give me hell.
~sigh
Sounds like you bought the Dem talking points. Who do you think makes all this money? What about the lawyers and malpractice insurance costs? What about the costs of technology and medical research? What about the non-insured and illegal immigrants? What about Medicare/Medicaid fraud? Do you know what it costs to become a doctor?
The Left dominates not only the language but other forms of communication such as the arts and news media. The Left will continue to win in these arenas until Conservatives produce more than one philosopher or literary critic a generation.
The Democrats are winning on every issue because of the incompetence of the Republican leadership. Not because of the honesty or validity of their arguments.
With an election for the House and Senate about a year away, and the issue-shaping debates leading up to the primaries and Congressional candidate selections only a few months away, the Republicans have not even defined clear concise positions on the issues.
Unlike 1994, when the Contract With America specifically defined a handful of core beliefs and policies that people rallied around spontaneously, these clowns are wandering around speechless or advocating positions out of sync with their own core.
Don’t you think with all those high-priced consultants and analysts that they could have come up with unambiguous and unified positions on existential issues like the Iraq War, illegal immigration, government spending, taxes, healthcare?
Well, they haven’t.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have taken positions and triangulated the message that they will take to the public which sounds pretty good (if deceitful) to the public.
The fraction of the population that feels this seems to be increasing.
My deadbeat percentage over a 30-year career has risen from 3% to 15%, and I'm glad I'll be out soon.
The most extreme example is people who have booked $25 000 safari trips who walk out of travel clinic when they find out it costs $45.
This is a huge plus for Hillary!, and it will take a lot to beat her.
My husband and I were discussing this entire fiasco last week. We pay a big chunk of change every month for our health insurance even though his employer pays a fair amount as well. If this idiocy comes to pass we will be among those families that changes how we deal with our insurance. We do not make anywhere near $82,000 a year and so would qualify.
As the funding mechanism for this is through tobacco taxes (the increase on RYO loose tobacco is even worse than on premade cigarettes) we will drop our current coverage, just get catastrophic coverage for him and me, an enroll our 9 year old daughter in the SCHIP. If I’m going to be paying for it, I might as well utilize it.
Rather than shooting down Fee’s points you ought to give them consideration and find a way to address his issues which are also the prevailing ones in the public’s mind.
Drop all the textbook stuff about Capitalism and Socialism. No matter what Keynes or Friedman say, you can not defend $20-$40 million dollar payouts to executives of failing corporations who have ripped away jobs, wages, and benefits from the vast Middle Class.
Keep on that track and you will get a lot of attaboys from the country club set, and collaterally a lot of unemployed Republican politicians.
Well, I don't have any of those things - but it doesn't matter, because I am not going to be your slave, no matter what.
There is a shortage of real doctors already. Who's going to do Edward's required checkups? Who's going to work for Hillary?
What's your plan? A draft?
When the English nationalized their system, they were at least smart enough to pay off the doctors. In the words of Ernest Bevin, "we stuffed their mouths with gold".
What's going to happen here when 25% of the doctors quit?
If they are winning the war of words, why is it the congress has historically low poll numbers under Democrat control?
Nothing, and why should we?
The amount, quality, and effectiveness of what's available, compared with 30 years ago, has exploded. Demand is virtually unlimited, primary care types are working 70-hour weeks, plastic surgeons cannot be trained fast enough to do all the boob jobs that are demanded (which nobody minds paying cash for).
Why on earth should we spend a second on cost reduction?
Your point is askew. Fee was whining about a $23,000 bill IN A HOSPITAL and then Fee complains about capitalists.
Do you know the medical care industry is one of the most regulated in this country ? And that the compensation of an exec in Mobil Oil Co, for example, has absolutely no relationship to a hospital bill ?
Yep, health care is a right, dontcha know .... Why should anybody have to actually pay for it ? /s
“Namely, the Democrats’ proposal more than doubles the cost by expanding
eligibility to not just poor families, but to families making $82,000
a year. “
Obscene.
And my understanding is that program is so freakin’ expensive because
SOME states extended this coverage not just to CHILDREN in poor families...
but gave it to ADULTS as well...totally against the mandate of the program.
As messed up as we are here in Missouri, my understanding is that
we are one state that didn’t give coverage to adults under SCHIP.
But instead pander to an obviously idiot public who believes if the rich sell their mansions, that one will suddenly be able to demand their neighbors or their employer pay for ones health insurance?
I didn't cite any "textbook stuff about Capitalism and Socialism." I don't run the corporations, the stockholders do. Therefore, I don't have to defend the payouts. It is a red herring. If the corporations and the stockholders don't decide on the payouts, who does? The federal government?
“I don’t run the corporations, the stockholders do”
If you really believe that, you have never been to a major corporation’s stockholder meeting.
They are not Town Hall operations. The CEOs and Directors have pretty well wired the bylaws to guarantee any insurrection will be smashed down.
How do you think clowns with failing records (Home Depot, General Motors, Enron) get those fabulous payouts - by a direct vote of the stockholders?
If you believe that stockholders have control of the corporations, propose at the next meeting that all compensation decisions be subject to a direct vote of the stockholders - see how far you get with that.
LOL. So the stockholders are powerless? Please. If the company starts losing money or sales, they will lose stockholders and go out of business. You make it sound like the CEOs and Directors are conspiring against the company. Why and how are CEOs and Directors fired?
If you believe that stockholders have control of the corporations, propose at the next meeting that all compensation decisions be subject to a direct vote of the stockholders - see how far you get with that.
If I could get a sufficient number of stockholders to go along with me, I could. How do you think hostile takeovers come about?
Republicans act like well mannered children at times, which means to be seen and not heard.
IMO that is their biggest weakness.
bttt
FMCDH(BITS)
Got your ping & I’m here, Gorgeous! ;^)
I wonder what they’ll do when these extra taxes they’re proposing to dump on our (smokers) doorstep doesn’t cover the cost of their little socialist programs?
Will these people ever learn?
I wonder too. They are looking a gift horse in the mouth and should be happy for all the taxes they do get!
I roll my own and Gabz told me yesterday that they are going to raise loose tobacco up to $10 dollars a pound.
I haven't heard anything yet, but I am livid!
“Who do you think makes all this money? What about the lawyers and malpractice insurance costs? What about the costs of technology and medical research? What about the non-insured and illegal immigrants? What about Medicare/Medicaid fraud? Do you know what it costs to become a doctor?”
I agree with you on those points, but if you claim these factors are making it very hard for you to make a decent profit, then start looking like it. If I told you that I am very tight financially, and times are very tough, please give me some money, and then get into my new BMW (and I own five of them) and drive home to my gated MacMasion. Kinda of tough to sell. By the way most Medicare/Medicaid fraud is committed by patient with doctor’s help.
Who is the "I" in this case?
Thank you, thank you oldbill. My leadership approach was shaped by the military service and study of great military leaders. The first thing you learn as a 2LT is that one may have the rank, but you must earn the respect of the men you lead. You do that by leading by example. Many civilians do not know that officers eat last in the chow line. Officers may sit in separate tables then the men to avoid the issue of fraternization, but they eat the same food as the men. You sleep in the field with the troops, share their discomforts, risks and etc. The consequences is the men will follow you into hell and back because the officer may be their leader, have certain privelages and more pay, but he is one of them in many ways. I do not see this in the free market proponents. They see the world from an individualistic viewpoint only. Maximum personal profit that is legally permissible and the market can bear, is their motto. Sadly they do are not able to see that this approach is providing ammunition to their opposition to win public opinion. The other dangerous axiom is make fast money before it becomes a problem, and hopefully I made my clean get away before the whole scheme collapses (i.e dot.com bubble, housing bubble, and now subprime bubble). We see this attitude in politicians when it comes to government finances, and we see this attitude in elderly when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. They all know what they are doing in the long run will collapse, but they figure that they would be long gone when it does happen and leave it to the future generation to clean it up. And if the future generation can not and end up suffering from it, they simply don’t care because they got what they want out of it.
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