 |
Obama's Watergate |
Post Reply 
|
Page <12345> |
| Author | ||||||||||
stratoaxe 
Platinum Member 
And my axe... Joined: 21 May 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 6706 |
 Post Options
 Thanks(0)
 Quote Reply
 Posted: 20 December 2011 at 10:57am |
|||||||||
|
The real argument here isn't the individual points themselves, I'm sure most of them are true. It's how does any of that tie directly to Obama?
Don't forget the Republicans had 8 years to create the utopia many of them believe will exist in the absence of Obama, and yet, here we are. It's my belief that most of the issues with this economy are beyond the partisan squabbles of the last 11 years or so. I think they're deep rooted in several institutions that failed us in sheer foresight and left us with a mess that it's going to take years if not decades to fix. Any and all political bickering is doing nothing but diverting attention from the hopelessness of that fact. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have produced answers, and in fact really the struggle is over whose Band-Aid will cover the most of the wound.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 20 December 2011 at 11:09am |
|||||||||
They don't. And, interestingly enough, a lot of them tend to point to the need for more social-democratic policies, like the issues with medical costs. Also, I'm confused about what the Waltons one has to do with anything. I also don't know why I'm looking for sense in a FWD:FWD:FWD: from Blaze.
|
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
tallen702
Platinum Member
Strike 1 - Swearing on Facebook Joined: 10 June 2002 Location: Under Your Bed Status: Offline Points: 10509 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 20 December 2011 at 12:15pm |
|||||||||
|
double post.
Edited by tallen702 - 20 December 2011 at 12:24pm |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
tallen702
Platinum Member
Strike 1 - Swearing on Facebook Joined: 10 June 2002 Location: Under Your Bed Status: Offline Points: 10509 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 20 December 2011 at 12:22pm |
|||||||||
Yep, and I bet that they spent every single penny of it on social programs. No new jet fighters, no new weapons, no defense R&D, no infrastructure repairs, let alone paying the 2,690,000 full-time Federal employees out there. Yep, they spent it all on Geritol and colonoscopies alright! |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
FreeEnterprise
Platinum Member
Not a card-carrying member of the DNC Joined: 14 October 2008 Location: Trails Of Doom Status: Offline Points: 4711 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 9:19am |
|||||||||
|
You guys have brought up good points...
But, the focus needs to be on selecting politicians not by their political party, but if they are small government people or not. What is their core beliefs. On one hand you have liberals who pretend to be fiscally conservative, but are clearly lying. As their actions when they ran everything was to spend without ever even passing a budget (still haven't btw). Then you have typical republicans who are just the same as the liberals... and all they care about is lining their pockets, and giving "government" money to their voters. Then you have the people actually trying to fix things (guys like Paul Ryan). Who want to CHANGE the programs that clearly don't work. But, the media and the other politicians don't want their apple cart rocked. And yet, many will still vote for an obama again, even though he is a horrible leader and can't stop the spending (he has actually increased it more than any president in history). His healthcare plan that he forced through with zero republican support or input has actually been a massive cost increase, as the cost savings built into it were all vapor, and the biggest one (CLASS) was actually removed as it wouldn't work. So they are accepting that they lied and the cost will in fact go way up... Like they are... Energy costs keep skyrocketing, because of the government picking winners and losers, and the taxpayer gets saddled with the costs. It is frustrating that people who are thinking about starting businesses don't because of the massive amount of regulation and expense from the government. Our country is NOT business friendly, and that has consequences on all of us, as businesses go to places where they are treated right. This president is all about class warfare. Oh and Holder is lying yet again... He is trying to say he didn't pull the race card... http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/2011/12/20/did-attorney-general-eric-holder-play-race-card-his-critics Lets review what he said. In an interview published yesterday, Attorney General Holder talked about his critics. Mr. Holder said he believed the more extreme segment were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand in for him. "This is a way to get at president because of the way I can be identified with him," he said, "both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we're both African-American." Here is the new statement from the justice department on his comments. "That is a complete distortion of the attorney general's comment. His comments both in the article and elsewhere made clear that he believes much of the criticism is launched against him are unfortunately the typical Washington gotcha game. A simple reading of those comments show he was referring to how he is identified with the president given their close relationship and all they share in common including their ideology. The position of the attorney general has been a target for partisan attacks, and given the critical work that this attorney general he is doing at the Department of Justice, it's no surprise that some are engaging in such tactics. His critics rightly view the attorney general is a progressive force, and given our current political environment, there will those who use any opportunity to score political points." Do any of you support Holder after all of this?
Edited by FreeEnterprise - 21 December 2011 at 9:19am |
||||||||||
|
They tremble at my name...
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
High Voltage
Platinum Member
Fire in the disco Joined: 12 March 2003 Location: 127.0.0.1 Status: Offline Points: 14178 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 9:55am |
|||||||||
|
I don't think you understand what small government means. If you do, then you seem to be using it in a very selective manner.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 10:06am |
|||||||||
|
It's like a shotgun blast formed from the collective mold of e-mail forwards.
|
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Gatyr
Platinum Member
Strike 1 - Begging for strikes Joined: 06 July 2003 Location: Austin, Tx Status: Offline Points: 10298 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 10:13am |
|||||||||
This is true, but I'm wondering if you have in mind the massive amounts of oil subsidies when you say that, or if you are trying only to insinuate that alternative fuel sources are the devil. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 10:14am |
|||||||||
I somehow missed this gem while posting. I'm honestly curious as to how you come to this conclusion. Any part of it, honestly. How have we been on the "march toward socialized medicine" for decades, exactly? We've had exactly one quasi-reform bill pass, and that was two years ago. And that bill, as we've discussed, is about the farthest thing from socialism as you can get. It retains private company ownership, and it mandates purchase and inclusion of service from these private corporations, while the medical side of it - doctors - remain completely private. It maintains the capitalistic market of health care in every form. I'm also not sure, exactly, how Europe is proof that a legitimate socialized system doesn't work? |
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 10:16am |
|||||||||
It's always funny for me to spot the phrases that FE uses but doesn't properly understand how to use. Like talking about the government "picking winners and losers" while bemoaning energy costs. |
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
stratoaxe
Platinum Member
And my axe... Joined: 21 May 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 6706 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 10:20am |
|||||||||
I agree with the first half of your point, but the second half is far too vague a term to keep using in serious political discussions. If you mean candidates that seek to trim government spending, absolutely. But simply saying we want smaller government opens the doors to all kinds of kooks.
Again, agreed. Though I see Republicans as less willing to give government money to voters, and more easily bought out by corporate influence. Though in essence you are correct, they both stem in the same basic two sided political logic of pretending to be for the people when in reality pursuing self interests.
Can't comment with any level of intelligence on this, I barely even know wh Paul Ryan is. Normally I'd make an effort to Google some info up at this junction, but I'm in the middle of something 
Also true.
I'm gonna go ahead and re throw out something I've said over and over on this forum-the race card is just one of a whole deck people with poor argumentative skills are employing. I could pick almost any politician and find a race card, a religion card, a family card, a right to privacy card...really, it's just a sly way of throwing out a red herring, maybe with a little ad hominem mixed in for extra flavor. As far as whether or not I support Holder, no way to answer that question.
Edited by stratoaxe - 21 December 2011 at 10:26am |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
FreeEnterprise
Platinum Member
Not a card-carrying member of the DNC Joined: 14 October 2008 Location: Trails Of Doom Status: Offline Points: 4711 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 2:29pm |
|||||||||
that is an entirely different discussion with tons of information that can be discussed. I come from a family of doctors (not me mind you...) But, all I heard growing up was how medicare would destroy the doctor patient system... And today, you have doctors that are forced to take way less for a procedure based on some government person deciding that medicare will only pay THIS much, even though the test costs more... So that person gets it for less, and everyone else pays the additional costs, basically that is why prices keep going up, government pays less for services and the "rich" pay more. At its most basic concept that is socialism. Look at Europe, (or even Canada) where people come to the US to get treatment because their system (the model that is used for much of liberals arguments about medicine and the US) doesn't work well, and people need treatment not lines and wait times... Plus look at all the treatments they don't cover now, they expect you to just go in a corner and die. And the US is following in their footsteps as the breast cancer drug that just got dropped because it "didn't work well" (actually it got dropped because of the cost...) I don't have the silver bullet answer to fix everything, but if you get the government out of it, I know the costs would go way down... Course with all the corruption in our world today... Some people would pay the price with their lives, as some doctors are corrupt... But, I do know that putting the government MORE in charge is just a practice in futility, as they haven't met a single deadline for implementation of Obamacare... Typical government inability to perform, and yet the answer is to give them MORE control over 1/5 of our economy... 90 congressmen have now given a "no confidence" vote for Holder... http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/20/now-90-congressmen-have-no-confidence-in-holder-or-believe-he-should-quit/ Interesting how that isn't a news story on the nightly news, huh...
|
||||||||||
|
They tremble at my name...
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
stratoaxe
Platinum Member
And my axe... Joined: 21 May 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 6706 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 2:56pm |
|||||||||
How do you define getting out of it? What government regulations do you feel are inhibiting financial progress in the health sector? Just out of curiosity. I spent a little bit working with collections on hospital bills, so I have some (not really what I'd call in depth or anything) experience with billing.
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 3:03pm |
|||||||||
While correct, it's extraordinarily silly to point to this as "socialism." Private insurance companies operate in the exact same way. Private insurance companies are not paying the full cost of anything they are billed from the medical provider. When the insurance company gets the bill, they either reduce the costs of procedures through an existing contract with the provider, or they challenge the posted cost of the individual procedure until the medical provider agrees. Same thing with a private, uninsured citizen. If you go to this hospital while uninsured and rack up a $100,000 bill, you'll almost never have to pay a $100,000 bill. You end up spending a month negotiating the price down to something reasonable, after proving that you have no means to pay $100,000 worth of medical bills. It's why hospitals infamously charge $65 for two aspirin — they know that most people don't actually pay that finalized amount. Perhaps Strato can help confirm this.
This happens with everyone for everything medical. Someone with a top-of-the-line private insurance is most likely paying less per-item than someone with bottom-tier discount private insurance. Again, not exactly socialism. At all. It's the private market.
Two silly things about this: 1) Unless you support single-payer health care, or support hospitals being able to turn away those who cannot afford treatment, you're always going to be paying for other people's health care. 2) If you have private health insurance, which I imagine you do, you're already paying for someone else's additional health care costs.
This could not be further from the truth.
It's apparent that you understand "socialism" about as well as you understand "capitalism."
The amount of people who come to the U.S. for healthcare is unbelievably low given the total amount of healthcare use in the country. Not only that, but the same thing is happening in reverse: Americans are going to Canada to get treatment that would bankrupt them in the U.S. Not only that, but the Canadian government - the ones operating this socialized system - pays for visits to U.S. specialistis.
There is more "wait time." It's negligible in almost all situations, and treated by severity of problem. And, interestingly enough, people don't go bankrupt because of their medical treatment. As another point here, you act as if waits don't exist in the U.S. I recently had a bit of a medical issue and had to wait about three weeks to get an appointment with the appropriate specialist — and that was only after two (Granted, one was accidental) emergency room visits.
And this is different than private health insurance how exactly?
Blatantly incorrect, or an outright lie on your behalf. The FDA - not Medicare - is revoking approval for the drug because they cannot show any results for the drug. They've conducted numerous tests and cannot find any statistical significance for the treatment of breast tumors. All they can find is increased side-effect symptoms with extended use. The production company also has the ability to appeal and reapply for approval later if they can provide results from more/different testing. Also, as the article states: "Federal officials said on Friday that Medicare would still provide coverage for the drug’s use in breast cancer, though the government plans to “monitor the issue and evaluate coverage options.”
History and economics are showing otherwise. Edited by agentwhale007 - 21 December 2011 at 3:13pm |
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
FreeEnterprise
Platinum Member
Not a card-carrying member of the DNC Joined: 14 October 2008 Location: Trails Of Doom Status: Offline Points: 4711 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 3:19pm |
|||||||||
|
Well, then Whale, what is the solution, more government?
Does it bother you that the government costs per year never stay the same, they always increase? Does it bother you that everything they touch goes way up in costs even though they take the lowest bid whenever it goes out for bid? The system as it is, is completely corrupt, the only ones who benefit are the ones that run the system (notice NONE of them are on the Obamacare plan... and weird how they can use their influence to manipulate businesses while getting in the IPO's that you and I could only dream of getting...) Anyway, like I said, this is a whole different discussion. From Obama's watergate... CNN is now asking questions... |
||||||||||
|
They tremble at my name...
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 3:24pm |
|||||||||
I believe we are plenty capable of forming and executing a proper socialized healthcare system.
No. Because the cost of goods and services go up. That's how markets work. Are you bothered that the cost of a new car goes up every year?
No. Because the things the government "touches" tend to be public goods and services — things that make us a viable first-world country. And, frankly, some things should not be left up to the lowest bidder. |
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 3:25pm |
|||||||||
|
You really should address this:
|
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
stratoaxe
Platinum Member
And my axe... Joined: 21 May 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 6706 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 3:30pm |
|||||||||
|
As far as negotiating bills, we knocked 30% off of self pay if they were paid at once. That's ER bill mind you, I have no idea where the variations start in elective / outpatient procedures.
Medical insurance has a couple of things working against it with the average person- A:) It's hard to understand coverage for alot of people. This is partially the fact the geneal public is surprisingly out of the loop when it comes to insurance terminology, and partially because the more cut rate companies will purposely mislead people on how their policies work. The worst were those discount cards...talk about making my job a nightmare. B:) They simply don't read their policy plans. They assume that because they're paying so much into it, when the time comes they just present the card and walk through the line. That said, healthcare is a whole myriad of issues, and I have no constructive response to any of them. FE is correct in that government interference pays a part in the outrageous hospital prices, at least from an emergency perspective. But that interference is also what keeps people from dying in the lobby. Working in three hospitals, the general problem I saw was a combination of federal law and internal policies with the hospital. Take EMTALA. According to EMTALA, and various internal / federal regulations, a hospital must at least triage and make a determination regarding a patient's well being before discharging them. If emergency treatment is required, the hospital is obligated to give life saving measures. So all this talk about Americans dying in the streets? Yeah, it happens, but it's illegal. There are very strict federal guidelines on how a patient is treated in an ER enviroment. So now you're obligated to see everyone, regardless of complaint. Toothaches? They can be a precursor to a heart attack, or they can be the product of too much meth. Chest pains? You name it. In fact, you name a symptom, there can be a fatal cause behind it. To me, the obvious solution to this is to make a determination at the triage level as to a patient's emergency status. This is where internal conflicts come in. The hospitals would never agree on an actual triage level assessment program beyond the nurse taking your vitals and sending you to a room. So if someone comes in with a toothache, their vitals check out, they're fine, they're still sent to a room and they still incur a doctor's bill. Of course, most of our ER docs were actually contracted with the hospital and not direct employees of it. So alot of them had little to no discretion in treating patients-they saw anything and everything, prescribed it medicine, and in general I found them to be ignorant of the billing process and the actual expense of the treatments provided. What you have is a perfect combination of regulation, both internal and federal, that leads to an ER becoming a no pay health clinic. We can't deny treatment based upon finances unless we can prove that the condition is purely nonthreatening, and the doctors almost always refused to make that call. We were diagnosing and prescribing medicine for STD's, for instance. So the ER is flooded, they're having to increase staff, they need more clerical staff (me) to handle the various types of insurance for the increased patient load, and don't even start on the sheer number of nurses an ER needs to keep around that it wouldn't if it weren't forced to see unsick peoples. Is there a fix for this? I don't see one. But it makes up a large reason as to why healthcare is what it is in this country, and ER abuse is a big motivator behind socialized medicine. The general idea is that you're already paying for peopel to have preventative care, you're just paying for it via the ER. On a good month, we were only 30% in the hole on our billing. Sometimes, it was 80%. On average it was estimated that we collected the $150 ER fee and nothing else..so all those 5,10, and 15K bills you hear about? Nobody pays them. Very, very few bills were paid in full, and usually they were employers who wanted to pay and not bill insurance. Again though, there's really no fixing this problem, and this is just one among a million details that has created the health care crisis we see. That's not even going into Medicaid / Medicare, scamming among private insurances (there was a case where doctors were billing Aetna 30K a pop for MRI's until Aetna finally spotted the scam), etc etc. |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
agentwhale007
Platinum Member
Forum's Vladimir Lenin Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: GNV FLA Status: Offline Points: 11644 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 3:41pm |
|||||||||
I've heard - never really tested - that if you pay with cash you tend to get a pretty decent discount.
From my recent medical issues, I can confirm that this was a royal pain in the ass. The hospital I went to was covered by my insurance - the doctor they had working that saw me was not. So my ER visit was relatively low co-pay, but I had to pay a ton of "out of network" fees for the doctor that saw me while I was in the ER (Even though he stopped in like an Applebees managers stops by your table). I (And by that I mean my insurance, but I asked for an itemized bill for kicks) also payed about $88 for two 10mg Percocet. I've also had to use the ER for routine care before — I made a thread about it back when I was in Ohio. But thanks for the post. That was super informative
 . |
||||||||||
|
"So when Romney wins in a landslide, what will the liberal media do?"
This Ma**edited**hine Kills **edited**as**edited**ists. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
FreeEnterprise
Platinum Member
Not a card-carrying member of the DNC Joined: 14 October 2008 Location: Trails Of Doom Status: Offline Points: 4711 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 21 December 2011 at 4:02pm |
|||||||||
So the first trials that were used for the decision to sell the drug showed a considerable difference to the next trials where A DIFFERENT DRUG was partnered with Avastin... You don't notice that key bit of information? That was the issue all along, they used different drugs for the follow up trials, so of course they got different results, it wasn't the same testing! An initial clinical trial that was the basis for the provisional approval showed that Avastin, combined with the drug paclitaxel, which is also known by the brand name Taxol, delayed the progression of disease by about five and a half months, compared to use of paclitaxel alone. But in subsequent studies, in which Avastin was combined with different chemotherapydrugs, tumor growth was delayed by one to three months. Avastin did not prolong lives at all, nor did it improve quality of life. Many breast cancer specialists say that Avastin does appear to work very well for some patients, and some advocates have said the drug should be left on the market for the sake of those patients. But Dr. Hamburg said there was no way to determine in advance who those patients were, so many women would use the drug. “The evidence does not justify broad exposure to the risks of this drug,” she wrote. So who is spinning the truth? I've read a ton on this drug and the way it has been "pulled" from the market by our government as I have a friend who used it successfully, prolonging her life for a year... A year she wouldn't have had without it. She got to see her daughter married... I think that was worth the $88,000 it cost. Other people who used that drug are now cancer free. That is a fact, and the FDA banned it anyway... |
||||||||||
|
They tremble at my name...
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Topic Options
stratoaxe wrote:|
Post Reply
|
Page <12345> |
Tweet
|
| Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
This page was generated in 0.139 seconds.