Rooster's Advice To cpaptalk Members on Healthcare Debate

Political discussions are fine. Political debate is fine. But politically-motivated verbal malice and disrespect are not. Politics and religion have even more in common when politics become a kind of religion to the fervent few...

Then everybody has to live by a set of ground rules, and I don't see that happening. I'd rather not engage in the meanness that has taken place. However, the spirit of provocation is alive and well, and no one seems to want to be conciliatory. Message boards are great places for bullies, and certain folks keep using that as a "bully pulpit." Ignoring the viciousness does not make it go away, and participating makes one feel less good about the topic at hand. So, it is basically a circular conundrum.

Autopapdude wrote:You can have the word "SCHMUCK" inscribed on your tombstone. It would cost extra, but in your case it would be well worth it.

Autopapdude wrote: I'd rather not engage in the meanness that has taken place.

timbalionguy wrote:This idea will not eliminate private insurance. (Health care will still not be 'cheap'.) But it will lessen the amount of it needed, as prices will drop significantly. And by opening up competition in this arena as well, it will cause them to compete for your $$$, again resulting in lower prices.

I do not aspire to any current or proposed plans on the table. I believe we need Canadian or British style health care. After WWII, so many people were physically damaged in the UK that they had to enact a country-wide health care policy. It was the only humane thing to do. Maybe it's not about 'rights'. Maybe it's about what's ethical. If your son or daughter or mother were in the UK on vacation today and had a terrible accident, they'd be cared for regardless of whether they had insurance in America or not. And they'd only pay what UK citizens pay.

timbalionguy wrote:This will require a new breed of consumers who will have to know what is going on. People will have to educate themselves on health care just as they have to on so many other things. But I think in the end that people would prefer this over a system where the Government calls all the shots.

We are that new breed. People on this forum care enough to learn more about their condition and figure out optimal strategies for living with it.

As part of that new breed, I say the government should call the shots. When the water utility in Atlanta was quietly 'privatized', the cost of water out of the tap sky-rocketed, leaks went un-repaired, the quality of water suffered, and citizens were put out. The private company only cared about return on investment - not about people actually getting clean water. Atlanta had to put the water utility back under public authority. It isn't making a profit, but people aren't angry about water quality or dearth any longer. You want to talk about 'too big to fail'? If something is too big to fail, it should be taken out of the private realm and made into a public utility.

timbalionguy wrote:One comment about drugs. Coming up with one-pill cures is exceptionally difficult and rarely sucessful. Yes, there are a lot of maintenance drugs out there. But these tend to become inexpensive as they become ubiquitious. This can be facilitated by putting hard limits on how long patents can be extended.

Agreed - one-pill cures are rare. I suppose I was collapsing my thoughts too freely. What if we didn't have to take a pill? What if all it took is better education about what to eat or what not to eat? What if we banned the use of HFCS? All it does is make us crave more HFCS and cause tooth decay, weight gain and diabetes. What if we banned plastics with BPA? All it does is mess up our endocrine system, cause early puberty, cancer and a host of hormone related growth problems in all known animal species. These are known facts, yet we still sell more products with HFCS and BPA than any other country in the G8. The current version of the government 'food pyramid' is still nutritionally impoverished. Our public educational system is compromised - yet again - by corporate politics. Any system where ketchup is considered a 'vegetable' serving is just messed up.

timbalionguy wrote:The only place for Government health care is for those who *truly* cannot afford it through some uncontrollable extenuating circummstance. These folks (and they are a fairly small number) would not have to work harder at getting health care than staying as healthy as they can.

That number is growing due to poor environmental choices made by us and our parents. Have you seen the numbers on people with OSA? growing. Allergies - everything from nuts to pollen? growing. Superbugs infections like MRSA and C. difficile ? growing. We can argue forever about the causes of the rises in problems, but the facts are still there: medical problems in the general population are poised for a general explosion, especially in our children. More and more families slip below the poverty line as fewer of us can afford basic health coverage. By the same token, more of us are denied coverage daily. If you lost your job tomorrow, how long do you think it will be before you yourself will not be able to get health coverage?

timbalionguy wrote:As far as those who don't have jobs? They that won't work don't eat. They can be helped by the Faith-based folks, who tend to fix the whole person rather than give handouts.

Forgive me, but I can faintly hear: "Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?" Under the robes of Christmas Present I see the forms of 'Ignorance' and 'Want'. Charles Dickens suggests that we who have been fortunate should give back to our communities, yes, but the community of stock-holders in a corporation is so far removed from the community of people where I live, they'll be entirely unlikely to know they took from me what was mine. They would spend it in on themselves because they don't know I even exist. To them I'm a dividend, not a person. In a time when jobs are scarce even for those who really want them, are you sure faith-based initiatives are the way to go? If my job was just yanked out from under me and my house and my health, I'd be inclined not to agree that a faith-based initiative would 'heal my whole person'. To go from good-tax-paying-citizen to pauper can happen in an instant. It's happening more often, and not just to those who seem sketchy in appearance and demeanor. It's happening to those who count themselves as solid citizens -- and their children. I apologize before-hand if this smarts, but the phrase "Let them eat cake" also comes to mind.

timbalionguy wrote:And health care as a right? That is not what the Constitution and Declaration of Independence is about. They are about freedom from tyranny, which is where we are rapidly headed. If you argue that health care is a basic right, then so is an income. Or land. Or a wife/husband and kids, etc. You can see where this kind of thinking results in socialism or totalitarianism.

Rights... freedoms... We really need figure this one out. I'm not asking for handouts. I'm asking for a sustainable system. How many in congress will end up on boards of big corporations when they retire from public office? Should that be a right? Is it the right of corporations to provide poorer services to the public because, a. it costs less, b. it puts more money in the pockets of investors, or c. the risks are acceptable, and it's cheaper to pay a few lawyers to sort it all out on paper than it is to provide clean drinking water, proper health care, or continuous clean power? Is it the right of food corporations to flood the market with nutritionally inferior 'food products' because its cheaper than actual nutritious food? (It's cheaper for a mother to buy fast-but-negatively-nutritious-food from McDonalds - you know that 'super-size-me' place - than it is for her to buy a bag of fresh carrots, peas and a real chicken.) Is it the right of pirates to take money out of my pockets because it was just legalized by a pliable congress? To me, this is tyranny. We're already there. What we have certainly isn't capitalism, and it certainly isn't what original congressional forefathers intended.

Where do the rights of a corporation begin and the rights of a human end? Does a corporation have the right to do something to me just because it's not illegal? Does it have the right to do something to me just because something has been legalized? There don't seem to be any ethical watchdogs for the really big corporations. They obviously cannot be trusted to police themselves -- just look at the housing/banking fiasco. Corporations have no conscience. They just 'do'. We have people coming home from President Bush's war that are suffering from PTSD and far worse. They are foisted on relatives who lose their jobs and their own healthcare because they are compelled to stay home and care for the wounded our government forgot. Is it any wonder we've got citizens 'going postal'? How many more people will have to fall through the cracks in the system before we wake up? "Those that don't work..." ... Sigh....

Our health care system is yet another system that's too big to fail - and it's been designed to fail. We should federalize the system now and get out of the insurance business altogether, or else we're in for another global economic downturn that will make this last one look like a pretty snowfall.

Education is key. Find out what you really believe by doing research. Make sure your local, state and federal representatives know your name and even your face. They may not like you - they don't have to - but they should know where you stand. I've made my representatives aware of my feelings on this matter. They know I want Canadian or British style health care. Regardless of others' points of view or whether they agree with me, I hope others here have done this too. That's part of being in a democracy within a republic.

An American President - (the movie) wrote:America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

Autopapdude wrote:
I'd rather not engage in the meanness that has taken place.

NO sense of humor, Linky? Awwwwwwwwwww. What a tight anus!!

DS wrote:

rooster wrote:

DS wrote:I'm all for a complete (ahem! socialist) takeover of healthcare insurance (not neccessarily 100% "social healthcare" though). The current "government option" is a farce of a disguise for another corporate industry giveaway of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

DS,

If you believe what you just wrote, then how about looking at the Physicians for National Healthcare website and let us know what you think? The video link I gave on C-Span is also excellent.

You seem to have good sense (some days), so I would like to know why you would not support their efforts and reject the current DemoPublican efforts.

So you have taken up after your sidekick Link and started turning the meaning of other’s comments into something totally different?

Of course I believe what I just wrote because I know I have good sense everyday! Well, except maybe when I drop by to read the nonsense threads you start around here. Read what I wrote again … I reject the current "government option" and healthcare reform bill because it is, just as I said, a giveaway of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations … a healthcare TARP or stimulus package if you will.

I have many times in the past and here on this forum iterated my “good sense” that profit should be taken out of the insurance industry. Once profit becomes the incentive for the insurance industry, it loses the reason for its existence … relative security from catastrophic events. Imagine having a for-profit national military willing to do pre-emptive war for the highest bidder … it would be non-sense! There are just some things that nations should prioritize without regard for profit (ie. socialize) and that is military defense, education, and healthcare costs.

What you and your sidekick clown (that is what the “C” stands for right?) don’t seem to understand is that democrats and republicans are two sides of the same coin and that coin is owned by the mega-corporations … unrestrained mechanical beasts with no conscience and a monstrous appetite for profit. A hundred years ago they were beat back into submission with trust busting laws … but now the beasts own our national legislative process and fool the bird-brains into tribal party non-sense.

I’m not against capitalism as you always spin my posts into. I’m against unrestrained mega-corporations … the kind that smothers out competition, the kind that own governments, or the kind that are too big to fail … the root source of our socioeconomic problems.

There, spin that all you want …

There is nothing there for me to spin. I see that the Physicians for National Health Care would like to accomplish exactly what you said and also what the majority here seem to want. IMO, they have a good understanding of the problems and a very logical, practical and simple way to address them. They have impressed me. If you reject what they are proposing, that's your choice and I will leave you alone. But I will not be able to understand why you reject them.

Autopapdude wrote:

Autopapdude wrote:
I'd rather not engage in the meanness that has taken place.

NO sense of humor, Linky? Awwwwwwwwwww. What a tight anus!!

Guess you didn't notice the "lol" face. I was laughing at the hypocrisy in your two remarks, typed just minutes apart. Didn't think it needed an explanation. Guess I was wrong...I overestimated you. Again.

unless you didn't notice the "lol" face. I was laughing at the hypocrisy in your two remarks, typed just minutes apart. Didn't think it needed an explanation. Guess I was wrong...I overestimated you. Again.

The only thing you overestimate is your importance in the general scheme of things. You're the poster boy for birth control.

rooster wrote:

DS wrote:

rooster wrote:

DS wrote:I'm all for a complete (ahem! socialist) takeover of healthcare insurance (not neccessarily 100% "social healthcare" though). The current "government option" is a farce of a disguise for another corporate industry giveaway of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

DS,

If you believe what you just wrote, then how about looking at the Physicians for National Healthcare website and let us know what you think? The video link I gave on C-Span is also excellent.

You seem to have good sense (some days), so I would like to know why you would not support their efforts and reject the current DemoPublican efforts.

So you have taken up after your sidekick Link and started turning the meaning of other’s comments into something totally different?

Of course I believe what I just wrote because I know I have good sense everyday! Well, except maybe when I drop by to read the nonsense threads you start around here. Read what I wrote again … I reject the current "government option" and healthcare reform bill because it is, just as I said, a giveaway of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations … a healthcare TARP or stimulus package if you will.

I have many times in the past and here on this forum iterated my “good sense” that profit should be taken out of the insurance industry. Once profit becomes the incentive for the insurance industry, it loses the reason for its existence … relative security from catastrophic events. Imagine having a for-profit national military willing to do pre-emptive war for the highest bidder … it would be non-sense! There are just some things that nations should prioritize without regard for profit (ie. socialize) and that is military defense, education, and healthcare costs.

What you and your sidekick clown (that is what the “C” stands for right?) don’t seem to understand is that democrats and republicans are two sides of the same coin and that coin is owned by the mega-corporations … unrestrained mechanical beasts with no conscience and a monstrous appetite for profit. A hundred years ago they were beat back into submission with trust busting laws … but now the beasts own our national legislative process and fool the bird-brains into tribal party non-sense.

I’m not against capitalism as you always spin my posts into. I’m against unrestrained mega-corporations … the kind that smothers out competition, the kind that own governments, or the kind that are too big to fail … the root source of our socioeconomic problems.

There, spin that all you want …

There is nothing there for me to spin. I see that the Physicians for National Health Care would like to accomplish exactly what you said and also what the majority here seem to want. IMO, they have a good understanding of the problems and a very logical, practical and simple way to address them. They have impressed me. If you reject what they are proposing, that's your choice and I will leave you alone. But I will not be able to understand why you reject them.

OK, let me put it this way ... I support a "Single-Payer National Health Insurance" as long as it is NON-PROFIT, I always have. Same goes for NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Military Defense and NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Education System.

Why can't we do like the Taiwanese and cherry pick the good parts of other single-payer systems? ... because of the socialism/tax phobia.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... dtheworld/

DreamStalker wrote:
OK, let me put it this way ... I support a "Single-Payer National Health Insurance" as long as it is NON-PROFIT, I always have. Same goes for NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Military Defense and NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Education System.

Then start supporting the Physicians for National Health Care proposal which is HR676 (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act). It eliminates all for-profit health care providers except for the pharmaceutical companies who will be tightly controlled by this legislation. All private insurance is also eliminated.

http://www.pnhp.org/
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin ... ih.txt.pdf

The bill is only 26 pages (!!!!) long and can be read and understood in less than 20 minutes.

rooster wrote:

DreamStalker wrote: OK, let me put it this way ... I support a "Single-Payer National Health Insurance" as long as it is NON-PROFIT, I always have. Same goes for NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Military Defense and NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Education System.

Then start supporting the Physicians for National Health Care proposal which is HR676 (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act). It eliminates all for-profit health care providers except for the pharmaceutical companies who will be tightly controlled by this legislation. All private insurance is also eliminated.

http://www.pnhp.org/
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin ... ih.txt.pdf

The bill is only 26 pages (!!!!) long and can be read and understood in less than 20 minutes.

That's a four-year-old version of the bill you're quoting, Rooster. It's a little longer now, but it still doesn't take 20 minutes to see that this is a joke as legislation. It might be considered an outline of a bill, but not a real bill. Look at Section 211 for example, which provides for funding. One of the things it calls for is a "modest and progressive excise tax on payroll and self-employment income." That's it. You can't really change the tax code in ten words with no numbers. The bill devotes two sentences to converting all for-profit healthcare providers into non-profits, with compensation to their owners. That's more than $100 billion worth of companies with probably close to a million employees. Suggesting that people support HR 676 is just throwing sand in their eyes to divert them from an actual bill. There is no single payer plan that can come close to passing, so it is a waste of time to treat it as a competing proposal. The reality is this: the bill that passes will have to be acceptable to the 41st most conservative member of the Senate. The limit of what we are likely to achieve is guaranteed issue, with subsidies where necessary, and coverage for pre-existing conditions. Even with no public option, that would address the problems so many people in this very forum have discussed stemming from their inability to get replacement insurance if they lose employer-based coverage.

LinkC wrote:

I would have thought putting "Healthcare Debate" in the topic title would be a tip-off to the contents--even for Canadians.

Apparently not...

Ya... "even for Canadians" Gee LinkC, I'm sorry that we Canadians are such a stupid bunch. You just lost any credibility that you might have had.

PST wrote: The limit of what we are likely to achieve is guaranteed issue, with subsidies where necessary, and coverage for pre-existing conditions. Even with no public option, that would address the problems so many people in this very forum have discussed stemming from their inability to get replacement insurance if they lose employer-based coverage.

So now you are admitting there is only one advantage to the current bills: guaranteed issue. Now stack that up against all the disadvantages listed in the OP and you have a bill that should not even be discussed.

Take this from the Preamble to the Constitution
” … establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general WelfareThe meaning of the word Welfare in the Constitution is different from its current usage. The constitutional meaning of welfare is: 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. [<ME wel faren, to fare well] …

And this, from the Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

raggedykat wrote:Take this from the Preamble to the Constitution
” … establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general WelfareThe meaning of the word Welfare in the Constitution is different from its current usage. The constitutional meaning of welfare is: 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. [<ME wel faren, to fare well] …

Excellent! Note that the role of Government is to "promote" welfare...not "provide" it. Note also that the phrase before that is "provide for the common defense". If the writers had intended the government to "provide" welfare, they'd have said so.

rooster wrote:

DreamStalker wrote:
OK, let me put it this way ... I support a "Single-Payer National Health Insurance" as long as it is NON-PROFIT, I always have. Same goes for NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Military Defense and NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Education System.

Then start supporting the Physicians for National Health Care proposal which is HR676 (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act). It eliminates all for-profit health care providers except for the pharmaceutical companies who will be tightly controlled by this legislation. All private insurance is also eliminated.


The bill is only 26 pages (!!!!) long and can be read and understood in less than 20 minutes.

Let's see ... you want me to support a dead bill proposed by Democrats, that died in committee way back in 2005, when Republicans were in control of both congress and the white house? What's wrong with that picture?

I suppose if you still can't understand, I'll say it one more time .... I support a "Single-Payer National Health Insurance" as long as it is NON-PROFIT, I always have. Same goes for NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Military Defense and NON-PROFIT Single-Payer National Education System. I just don't know how much more clear I can be ... I'm done.