The libertarian and republican advocates don't hate socialism. They would like you to think that, but the reality is that they dont. The love the socialized tax breaks that they get that the rest of us have to compensate for. They love socialized profits if it benefits their shareholders and CEOs, but also love dumping their losses on the rest of us socialized losses.

The NFL is a prime example of selective reasoning. The main goal is not ticket sales, but selling products like shirts and hats ect. The league has been living tax free since 66. On top of that even if one team has a bad year, the profits from all merchandising is shared. So business does not hate socialism, they hate others competing for government and lawmaking that does not benefit them.

(November 17, 2014 at 11:49 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Money to pay for healthcare is scarce. I can find a doctor at any time of the day or night with no notice.

Your positions assumes that right now in America, enough health care is being produced to meet everyone needs. If this is true then why did we need Obamacare? I don't think it is true. I don't see vast quantities of health care sitting idle. Doctors, clinics, and emergency rooms all seem busy.

If before Obamacare there were lots and lots of people not getting care because they couldn't afford it, then what do you think is going to happen when they get insurance? They're going to try to get care. Providing insurance doesn't magically make more health care to meet the demands of these new customers. All it does is redistributes the existing quantity of care.

Imagine a country with population of 10 people and 8 hamburgers. Every person needs a hamburger. The system is set up so the hamburgers go to the highest bidder. The leftist in charge doesn't like it. He feels the poor are being treated unfairly cause they can't afford to buy a hamburger. So what does he do? He issues vouchers to all ten citizens good for one hamburger and thinks the problem is solved. The problem isn't solved. All he did is redistribute the hamburgers....now the highest bidders don't get the hamburgers and instead the first people in line do. Two people are still going to go hungry despite having a voucher for a hamburger . If he wanted all his citizens to have a hamburgers....the solution involved grilling up some more hamburgers.

^ That is the stupidest, most ignorant thing I've ever heard.

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Let me ask you this Heywood: why is it that every other developed country can provide universal healthcare but that your country cannot?

(November 18, 2014 at 10:56 am)Aractus Wrote: ^ That is the stupidest, most ignorant thing I've ever heard.

That's saying a lot, given the quality of his posts.

(November 18, 2014 at 10:44 am)Heywood Wrote: If he wanted all his citizens to have a hamburgers....the solution involved grilling up some more hamburgers.

Your analogy fails. Doctors aren't eaten. After they treat one patient, they typically go on to treat others.

Healthcare can be had in any city or town in America ... for a fee. The problem is affordability. Insurance companies have made health-care unaffordable, in part because Americans are lawsuit-happy, in part because insurance companies are profit-driven.

(November 18, 2014 at 12:17 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: insurance companies are profit-driven.

It's worse than that.

The first thing I learned in Organizational Behavior class in business school is "don't reward A and hope for B". This common sense advice is sometimes not so commonly heeded in the world, in business or elsewhere. If you're not getting what you want out of your employees (or children or friends or whatever) review what you're rewarding and how. You will get what you compensate for.

Health insurance companies make money when people are denied care. Their ideal business model is to collect premiums every month and never have to provide any health care at all. Yet, we hope that health insurance companies will provide health care to its members?

This is why health insurance companies can be expected to deny care claims wherever they can get away with it, drag out compensation to doctors, make doctors jump through administrative hoops to get compensation, knock sick people off the roles, etc.

Oh, and did I mention that there are only a few companies and the product is something that has no good substitutes and people can't just decide to do without? They can jack up their rates all they like and gouge the hell out of the rest of America.

So not only do we have this useless "middle man" in our health care but that middle man has a vested interest to work against providing health care.

This is like putting foxes in charge of the chicken coup and hoping the foxes will starve themselves in order to take care of the chickens out of the kindness of their hearts. And we wonder why the foxes keep eating the chickens instead?

The way we run health care in America is positively insane.

No wonder we pay the most and get the least for our healthcare in America.





P.S. Obamacare, using my chicken coup analogy, is like trying to regulate the foxes so they can't eat quite so many chickens. It's an improvement but our system requires an overhaul, not a band aid.

(November 18, 2014 at 5:10 am)A Theist Wrote: You're among the 37% minority of voters who approve of obamacare. The problem with you lefties is that you think your elitist minority handful has special entitlement rights to make all the decisions and to impose your will on everyone else, even if your side has to use con and deception to get your stuff past the American voters. The voters finally woke up after six years of obama and the democrats. In both the state wide and national elections the Republicans trounced the democrats in the mid-terms. The 56% majority of voters don't want obamacare.

Uh huh. I live in deep red Kentucky, where Obamacare approval-disapproval rating was polled at 33-57%. Until you take the black man's name off and call it Kynect. Then, rather magically, the numbers become 29% favorable, 22% unfavorable. That's a 35 percent difference.

Racism and stupidity are the only explanations.

Racism: They obviously don't hate having the health care, but they don't like having a black man's name on it. Clearly, that makes an undeniable and huge difference to people here.

Stupidity: As is well-known, red-state voters hate the idea of people getting government assistance, which is why red states almost uniformly get more government assistance than blue states.

You're among the ~60% of the 36% of Americans who voted. You think that roughly 20% is the voice of all Americans. 2016 is going to be such a nasty shock for you.

I hear you, Paladin. My son's mother was dropped from her coverage in 2000 after a breast-cancer diagnosis. The action almost killed her. Thankfully, California had a decent program for people in her shoes and she was, after a fashion, able to fight off her disease ... but only after it metastasized and she was given a sentence. She's been clear for six years now, and though she still has to deal with the results of her treatment -- lupus, mainly -- we're both grateful that there was a safety net for her.

I'm generally libertarian in bent, but I do believe that there are some fields that should not be profit-motivated; health care is one of those fields.

Until that point, as a taxpayer myself, I don't have any problem paying a little more in taxes in order to provide health-care to those who cannot afford it. It's not only humane, it benefits society as a whole.

(November 18, 2014 at 5:10 am)A Theist Wrote: You're among the 37% minority of voters who approve of obamacare.

I'm among the people polled who don't approve of Obamacare. I want Medicare-for-All.

Funny thing happens to that poll when you ask a follow up, "do you think Obamacare went too far or do you think it didn't go far enough?" A substantial number that "don't approve" are people like me who think it's a band aid for a wound that needs stitches.

When you add "didn't think it went far enough" to "are happy with it" you get a majority who don't want Obamacare repealed.

(November 18, 2014 at 10:56 am)Aractus Wrote: ^ That is the stupidest, most ignorant thing I've ever heard.

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Let me ask you this Heywood: why is it that every other developed country can provide universal healthcare but that your country cannot?

We should provide universal health care. We can't because the democrats are in bed with big corporations so instead of providing actual health care....they make everyone buy health care insurance. Healthcare insurance is not healthcare any more than a voucher is a hamburger.

All Obamacare does is redistribute the same amount of healthcare while giving health insurance companies a big fat gift at our expense.