On Deck : Government Universal Health Care

[wmbwinn]

Mavdog:

noonan is always an interesting and intelligent read. not that I always agree, but I always enjoy.

I disagree with her on one major point, the people who are attending these town hall meetings and becoming very agitated are in 2 camps: the first being the right wing who wish for the free market to dispense health care (and could care less if someone didn't get any), and the second is composed of people who have been victim of the campaign to convince the public that the health care plan is something that it isn't (see the claims of "socialized medicine" and mandating a single payer format, both of which are false).

yet I agree with her conclusion. obama would do well to come out and say let's stop for now, let's work to get a better consensus on how to go forward, clearly the public isn't comfortable for whatever reason and we'll wait until they are.

he could then use the time to bring the public into the tent and they will not be so easily fooled by the campaign of disinformation being waged.

I am pleased to jump into this thread in agreement with Mavdog. I am afraid such an act has been rare.

We should stop for now and discuss it in great detail.

I, however, think that doing so will guarantee that what the Democrat Party has currently produced will get shot down. I don't think that information and honest discussion will help Master Obama get what he wants.

I ask you to forgive my titling of the President. I feel that he has exceeded the constitution and the power of any past President. Thus, President is not an accurate title for him. As "Czar" has a bad connotation as does "Dear Mao Obama", I have resorted to Master Obama

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by wmbwinn

Mavdog:


I am pleased to jump into this thread in agreement with Mavdog. I am afraid such an act has been rare.

We should stop for now and discuss it in great detail.

I, however, think that doing so will guarantee that what the Democrat Party has currently produced will get shot down. I don't think that information and honest discussion will help Master Obama get what he wants.

I ask you to forgive my titling of the President. I feel that he has exceeded the constitution and the power of any past President. Thus, President is not an accurate title for him. As "Czar" has a bad connotation as does "Dear Mao Obama", I have resorted to Master Obama

We had a system that worked. We have no program of funneling in large sums of tax money to multiple claimants in the name of a citizen that isn't inefficient and wasteful.

Social Security works as well as it does because it is pretty simple. You contributed x amount, you get x as a monthly benefit and you decide the dispensation. Medicare and Medicaid are horribly mismanaged. It isn't because of anything more than you have claims and payment done.

I really don't see why we don't do tort reform and remove the restriction for national, sales so 1,300 companies can compete. I can buy Geico no matter what state I live in. Why shouldn't the same hold true for health insurance?

I just don't see how setting up another program where civil servants are processing claims and the main motivation is tenure until we eliminate things that are easily done and monitored with minimum of expansion for government overhead.

[dude1394]

Heh...Barry..you keep saying efficiency.. I'm not sure that word means what you think it does.

At his orchestrated townhall event today, President Obama defended the notion that his government-run public health care plan wouldn’t crowd out private insurers by referencing the symbiotic relationship between UPS, Fedex and the Post Office. Bad timing Mr. President.



On Friday, the New York Times Business Section actually called for the privatization of the post office amid staggering losses, and even said it was in “General Motors territory.” So while the President sells you on his “post office” of health care plans, here are some questions to consider:


1.) The U.S. Post Office is the only entity allowed by federal law to deliver first class mail to your mailbox. In fact, Fedex and UPS are strictly prohibited from delivering “non-urgent” letters. If the government can fairly compete and is setting fair rules, wouldn’t the post office be open to competition at your mailbox?


2.) If Americans were offered “free” postage paid for by massive government spending and tax hikes, would Fedex and UPS still exist?


3.) The Post Office is on track to lose a staggering $7 billion this year alone. How will a government-run health care plan manage taxpayer resources more efficiently?


4.) Postmaster General John Potter says he lacks the “tools” necessary to run the Post Office effectively like a business. Would a government-run health care system have the tools it needs to run as effectively as the private sector entities it is replacing?


5.) On the one hand, the President remarks how great his public health care plan will be. On the other hand, he notes it won’t be good enough to crowd out your private insurance, i.e. the Post Office comparison. So which is it Mr. President? Will it be so great that private insurance disappears or so awful that it isn’t worth creating in the first place?


6.) But the most important question is this: if you have an urgent piece of mail you need delivered, life or death, who are you going to call? Everyone saying the government…please raise your hands. (crickets)
The most frightening line from Joe Nocera’s New York Times piece is this: “As for Mr. Potter himself, while he may want more freedom to run the Postal Service like a real business, he, too, seemed surprisingly wedded to outmoded ideas about mail service in America. ‘This country needs to have and to protect universal service,’ he said.”


Protecting universal service at the expense of cost, innovation, and quality of care. Sound familiar?

[dude1394]

I believe this guy has pegged it. Heh....

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/...80756985.shtml

CLARKESVILLE - U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, walked into a North Georgia Technical College auditorium Tuesday evening to a standing ovation, holding three thick white binders.

"Folks, this is Obamacare," he said, holding the binders over his head.

"Let me start this by telling you what I think of this bill and (President) Obama," he said, and slammed the binders on the ground.

With that, Broun set the tone for a town hall meeting on health care reform. The Democrats' proposal is too expensive and will threaten millions of Georgians' jobs and lives, he said.

"This is a stinking, rotten fish, and they don't want you to smell it, and they want to shove it down your throat and make you eat it before you smell how rotten and stinky it is," he said.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I believe this guy has pegged it. Heh....

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/...80756985.shtml

he's an extremist who makes outlandish comments.

At another point, Broun, who last year made national news by comparing Obama to Hitler, called Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Obama's "good buddy."

He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."

Many speakers in the senior-heavy audience honed in on a clause in the health care proposal that would require insurers to cover end-of-life counseling sessions to help healthy patients decide beforehand what types of treatments they want to keep them alive if they are about to die.

"(Obama) is going to let the old folks die, and I don't like that at all," Oconee County resident Gene Aycock said.

Young people who get sick would get preference over the elderly under the Democrats' plan, said Broun, a medical doctor who made house calls in the Athens area before taking office in 2007.

"Eventually, mama will be lying in bed until she gets pneumonia and dies," he said.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

he's an extremist who makes outlandish comments.

At another point, Broun, who last year made national news by comparing Obama to Hitler, called Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Obama's "good buddy."

He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."

Many speakers in the senior-heavy audience honed in on a clause in the health care proposal that would require insurers to cover end-of-life counseling sessions to help healthy patients decide beforehand what types of treatments they want to keep them alive if they are about to die.

"(Obama) is going to let the old folks die, and I don't like that at all," Oconee County resident Gene Aycock said.

Young people who get sick would get preference over the elderly under the Democrats' plan, said Broun, a medical doctor who made house calls in the Athens area before taking office in 2007.

"Eventually, mama will be lying in bed until she gets pneumonia and dies," he said.

Ah shoot the messenger.