Well, it sometimes seems like he's willing to compromise some core things he's said he's for in order to just get something done. I tend to think Obama is left of the centrists in the party and right of the liberals.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Modern Man, please don't use the word "Obamacare." I actually enjoy reading your opinions and respect many of them. However, I can't hear Obamacare without envisioning a toothless hillbilly on welfare, decrying all the socialism in the country. It hurts me, because it lowers the level of discourse so much.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
I wasn't aware that liberal/conservative was a binary and opposite. I guess that Republicans were liberals back in the 90s.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
That's a terrible metric with a hyper partisan political system. Right now if anyone says something, the other side is pretty much going to auto oppose it and decry it.
To give an example: Is Romneycare a liberal or a conservative program/idea? Healthcare reform isn't a hugely partisan issue in theory, even the GOP talks up how they want to replace it with something different (with like, 90% of the same stuff, they seem to only want the mandate gone in reality), because they can agree that health care costs are crazy.
edit: More on topic, I find it odd that all my news feeds are talking about Bachmann, and nobody seems to be saying much of anything about Ryan's rebuttal.
kildy on
0
Options
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
This is only a great way to measure something if you want to abdicate the responsibility for all of your critical thinking to the weekly standard.
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
edit: More on topic, I find it odd that all my news feeds are talking about Bachmann, and nobody seems to be saying much of anything about Ryan's rebuttal.
Excellent. (What news feeds are those, generally?)
Much of the fierce opposition to healthcare from the right is because the left is pushing it, and any successful reform will be seen as a huge victory for Obama and liberals in general. The actual provisions of the health care law are very centrist to conservative in nature, as even the most cursory comparison to '93, Romney's system, or Nixon's proposals will show. It's only "liberal" in the sense that any move on this country's health care system is viewed as a move to the left, which speaks more to the skewed nature of our political discourse than it does Obama's political ideology.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
I wasn't aware that liberal/conservative was a binary and opposite. I guess that Republicans were liberals back in the 90s.
When members of the two parties line up pretty much in lockstep pro/anti a particular bill or policy, that doesn't give you an indication on where that bill or policy fits on the ideological spectrum?
Did the fact that all Republicans in Congress backed extending the Bush-era tax cuts, even for the wealthiest, tell you something about conservative views on those tax cuts? Or do you think there was no ideological basis for their support? (and the Dems' general opposition).
And the fact that some group of Republicans supported a similar healthcare bill in 1993 doesn't really tell us much about the GOP and its ideological positions today. Note that after the GOP took the House in 1994, I doubt more than a handful of people in the party supported the bill from 1993. The GOP of today is different from the GOP of the 80's and early 90's. For one, we've held Congress for a good chunk of the period, so we don't need to be Democrat-lite as much as we used to.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
The actual program is one of the most conservative implimentations possible of the liberal policy position that there should be national healthcare. While the actual mechanisms might poll as controversial, the aims of the program have big majorities of public support.
It's been part of the Democratic Party platform for almost a century. It was a central issue in both the primaries and the general campaign. The American people then voted in both Obama and big majorities for Democrats in both houses of congress.
I've never clearly understood the implication that this was somehow an extremist plan secretly foisted on the American people through some midnight chicanery. If this program isn't in the mainstream of center-left policy, I don't know what is.
edit: More on topic, I find it odd that all my news feeds are talking about Bachmann, and nobody seems to be saying much of anything about Ryan's rebuttal.
Excellent. (What news feeds are those, generally?)
Mostly google news aggregates. Top Stories has an entire category to Bachmann for the articles on her (CSM, LATimes, and a video I can't watch right now), whereas the SotU category is nothing but talking up Obama's actual speech. Ryan doesn't show anywhere.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
I wasn't aware that liberal/conservative was a binary and opposite. I guess that Republicans were liberals back in the 90s.
Well, nowadays they pretty much are. A lot of Republicans, particularly Tea Partiers, consider "liberal" to be "anything we don't like," and also "anything we don't like" is necessarily "liberal". It's a little like how some people can't distinguish between a law that is unconstitutional and a law that is just bad.
I suppose the fact that all conservatives opposed the health care bill while all liberals supported it (and not all liberals supported it at all, but whatever) is relevant, but I don't think it says anything about the bill itself. It just says something about the discourse.
I mean, consider that during the course of drafting the bill, Pubs would say "we want this in the bill!" and then Dems would say "okay, we can do that," and then Pubs would respond with "THAT'S A TERRIBLE THING WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO OUR IDEAS GRARRRR STUPID LIBERALS."
In short, the only workable definition of liberal these days is "something said by someone the right considers liberal." If Che Guevara's corpse rose up tomorrow and started pushing for tax breaks to fund a war on Iran, tax breaks and war in Iran would be considered liberal ideas.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Much of the fierce opposition to healthcare from the right is because the left is pushing it, and any successful reform will be seen as a huge victory for Obama and liberals in general. The actual provisions of the health care law are very centrist to conservative in nature, as even the most cursory comparison to '93, Romney's system, or Nixon's proposals will show. It's only "liberal" in the sense that any move on this country's health care system is viewed as a move to the left, which speaks more to the skewed nature of our political discourse than it does Obama's political ideology.
Wasn't one of the reasons to oppose the Clinton version of healthcare that if the Dems managed to pass it, they'd solidify power for years through it? Basically not that it wasn't a good idea, but that it would generate too much political goodwill.
Essentially the reason why the GOP doesn't actually want to just repeal the ACA, they want to repeal and in theory someday replace. Because if they just said "see all that stuff that seems sane and good like banning rescission? Yeah, fuck that liberal noise." Instead it's remove Obamacare and replace it with.. Obamacare minus the mandate.
Yes, when members of a party are pretty much lockstep in voting against something, like Pay-Go, it tells us that they're really hypocritical geese who really aren't for any variety of fiscal responsibility.
But wait. I thought Republicans are supposed to be the fiscally responsible party. Oh, woe is me; I'll never understand.
When members of the two parties line up pretty much in lockstep pro/anti a particular bill or policy, that doesn't give you an indication on where that bill or policy fits on the ideological spectrum?
Not really. Nowadays Republicans oppose everything Democrats want, no matter what it is. Like the DREAM Act, where Bob Bennett voted against a more conservative version of a bill he introduced just a few years before.
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
I don't like the bill in its entirety, and would have been happy if it had never passed.
Really? You don't like banning insurance companies from refusing policies based on pre-existing conditions, many of which are invented? You don't like banning various types of fraud? You don't like having more children included on their parents' plans until they find employment? Do you just hate all regulation of business, then?
I wouldn't say all conservatives opposed it. My mom is a life long republican but she supported it because I properly explained what it did and did not do. After what just happened with her grandma she's almost certainly flipped to democrat, because the "death panels" provisions would have saved our family loads of grief if her doctor had talked to her about living wills before her stroke.
Thing is, when conservatives vote Democrat why are they automatically liberal? I was a conservative before 2004, my actual beliefs haven't changed *that* much, it's the political discourse that has moved rightward. I mean sure my idealized beliefs have changed, but pragmatically I understand that my vision of a liberal utopia is unlikely in the United States and sometimes what used to be called conservative thinking works better in the real world.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
You know what, this sort of uncritical thinking is beneath you, MM. Not only does that statement fly in the face of reality (Oh hey, BILL FRIST, of all people, thinks that repealing the ACA is a bad idea! And many liberals grudgingly accepted it as the best that could be had!), it's a ridiculous simplification of what constitutes "liberal" orthodoxy. Conservatives opposed it en masse not because it's liberal, but because Obama and the Dems supported it. It's a common thing among conservatives nowadays to do what they accused John Kerry of, namely condemning things which, in the past, they were proudly advocating. The fact that Republicans and conservatives are flip-flopping on an issue doesn't mean that said flip-flopping defines where on the ideological spectrum the issue rests.
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
I don't like the bill in its entirety, and would have been happy if it had never passed.
I fear getting off topic of the SotU, but explain.
Do you mean you dislike the nature of the changes to healthcare regulation entirely, or do you mean you'd rather it hadn't been done at a federal level.
I can't see many reasons to oppose the nature of a number of the provisions, at all. Unless your position is "if you aren't rich, you run the risk of just up and dying/going bankrupt in our society"
I can see an argument for opposing the idea that it's done at a federal level, even if I disagree with it.
Isn't the mandate bullshit though? Wouldn't be bad to repass obamacare without the mandate really. There could be worse things.
It would basically gut what little cost control there is in the bill, yes. At that point it would just be renamed the Unicorns and Ponies Care Act. But it seems to be the only point anyone can come up with that is actually unpopular. And it's unpopular like taxes are: completely required to make everything WORK, but grumble grumble.
Much of the fierce opposition to healthcare from the right is because the left is pushing it, and any successful reform will be seen as a huge victory for Obama and liberals in general. The actual provisions of the health care law are very centrist to conservative in nature, as even the most cursory comparison to '93, Romney's system, or Nixon's proposals will show. It's only "liberal" in the sense that any move on this country's health care system is viewed as a move to the left, which speaks more to the skewed nature of our political discourse than it does Obama's political ideology.
Wasn't one of the reasons to oppose the Clinton version of healthcare that if the Dems managed to pass it, they'd solidify power for years through it? Basically not that it wasn't a good idea, but that it would generate too much political goodwill.
Essentially the reason why the GOP doesn't actually want to just repeal the ACA, they want to repeal and in theory someday replace. Because if they just said "see all that stuff that seems sane and good like banning rescission? Yeah, fuck that liberal noise." Instead it's remove Obamacare and replace it with.. Obamacare minus the mandate.
The GOP loves the mandate. They invented the mandate.
Them complaining about the mandate is just politics - it's a gigantic wad of cash going into the coffers of their donators.
Edit: Just like taxes. The GOP whines incessantly about taxes and Obama has the taxes right now pegged lower than any Republican has in a generation
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
Only when Obama's name was on it.
It's the exact same plan proposed by Republicans in the 90s. It's the exact same plan Romney uses in Mass. It's not liberal or leftist because it forces consumers to purchase goods from private industries.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
Only when Obama's name was on it.
It's the exact same plan proposed by Republicans in the 90s. It's the exact same plan Romney uses in Mass. It's not liberal or leftist because it forces consumers to purchase goods from private industries.
It should be noted that the individual provisions of the healthcare act (save for the mandate) are extraordinarily more popular amongst conservatives and liberals than the healthcare act once you attach obama's name to it.
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
I don't like the bill in its entirety, and would have been happy if it had never passed.
I fear getting off topic of the SotU, but explain.
Do you mean you dislike the nature of the changes to healthcare regulation entirely, or do you mean you'd rather it hadn't been done at a federal level.
I can't see many reasons to oppose the nature of a number of the provisions, at all. Unless your position is "if you aren't rich, you run the risk of just up and dying/going bankrupt in our society"
I can see an argument for opposing the idea that it's done at a federal level, even if I disagree with it.
The bill wasn't presented as a cafeteria option- the final bill was all or nothing. Maybe if I dig through the bill, I can find something in it that I can live with. But that's not reality- the reality was either passing the bill in its entirety, or not at all. Such is the nature of our system, after all.
So, there's no point in discussing the particulars of the bill. I opposed it in the aggregate, and did not want it to be passed. If it had not passed, maybe we could have discussed an alternate bill, but that's neither here nor there.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Isn't the mandate bullshit though? Wouldn't be bad to repass obamacare without the mandate really. There could be worse things.
It's only bullshit if you believe that there's such thing as a free lunch. All that good stuff that people like in the ACA isn't free, you know. Imagine if car insurance worked the way you're proposing. People could buy car insurance, no questions asked, after they have a car wreck, without the insurers charging them more for doing this, and the insurers would have to cover the damages in the car wreck. This would destroy car insurance as we know it and would likely cause the insurers to stop offering, causing the government to set up some kind of car insurance program to fill in the gap in the market.
This is actually why I'm not opposed to ending the mandate. It'd completely kill the private health insurance industry, something that really needs to happen so that we can get on with single payer health care in this country.
Isn't the mandate bullshit though? Wouldn't be bad to repass obamacare without the mandate really. There could be worse things.
The mandate doesn't exist because Democrats think the way to make sure everyone has healthcare is to make a law saying everyone has healthcare.
The mandate exists because the healthcare law made it illegal for insurance companies to deny people coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Which makes sense, because you need health insurance to pay for your treatment if you have cancer.
But if it is illegal for the company to deny people healthcare, then everyone would just never buy healthcare until they got sick. That would put every insurance company out of business because the industry works by having a large pool of healthy people pay in so that when a minority get sick there is money to pay for their medicine.
So the mandate comes in and says everyone has to buy insurance - that way you can make the insurance companies provide service to whoever needs it while preventing people from destroying the insurance industry by not buying insurance until they need it.
And then the government provides money for people to help them cover the cost of the insurance they are required to have if they are low income and couldn't otherwise afford it.
Yes, it really is. With the banning of discrimination based on preexisting conditions, people could get insurance only when they're sick. That sort of thing would bankrupt the insurance industry, and while that sounds nice in theory since it's built on pain and suffering and denying as much aid to people who need it as fiscally possible, it would just mean that we'd all have to pay all of our own healthcare costs. Which would be bad.
Also, are you physically capable of posting something of more than one line? Or quoting?
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
I don't like the bill in its entirety, and would have been happy if it had never passed.
I fear getting off topic of the SotU, but explain.
Do you mean you dislike the nature of the changes to healthcare regulation entirely, or do you mean you'd rather it hadn't been done at a federal level.
I can't see many reasons to oppose the nature of a number of the provisions, at all. Unless your position is "if you aren't rich, you run the risk of just up and dying/going bankrupt in our society"
I can see an argument for opposing the idea that it's done at a federal level, even if I disagree with it.
The bill wasn't presented as a cafeteria option- the final bill was all or nothing. Maybe if I dig through the bill, I can find something in it that I can live with. But that's not reality- the reality was either passing the bill in its entirety, or not at all. Such is the nature of our system, after all.
So, there's no point in discussing the particulars of the bill. I opposed it in the aggregate, and did not want it to be passed. If it had not passed, maybe we could have discussed an alternate bill, but that's neither here nor there.
So you oppose the entire thing, but you can't be assed to do a little research and find out if there's something in there you can stand. No reading the bill for you, huh?
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
I don't like the bill in its entirety, and would have been happy if it had never passed.
I fear getting off topic of the SotU, but explain.
Do you mean you dislike the nature of the changes to healthcare regulation entirely, or do you mean you'd rather it hadn't been done at a federal level.
I can't see many reasons to oppose the nature of a number of the provisions, at all. Unless your position is "if you aren't rich, you run the risk of just up and dying/going bankrupt in our society"
I can see an argument for opposing the idea that it's done at a federal level, even if I disagree with it.
The bill wasn't presented as a cafeteria option- the final bill was all or nothing. Maybe if I dig through the bill, I can find something in it that I can live with. But that's not reality- the reality was either passing the bill in its entirety, or not at all. Such is the nature of our system, after all.
So, there's no point in discussing the particulars of the bill. I opposed it in the aggregate, and did not want it to be passed. If it had not passed, maybe we could have discussed an alternate bill, but that's neither here nor there.
And you opposed it because:
A) Obama and the Dems were for it actual things that were a deal breaker for you
The thing is, I don't believe you opposed it because of B. You've demonstrated pretty clearly that you will oppose things that Obama is for simply to deny him a victory, even if you mostly agree with his position on the issue.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
It's not national health care. It's a private insurance mandate.
That looks almost identical to the one Bob Dole was pushing the last time health care was debated.
Not exactly. I knew he was a liberal, he just was at least decently convincing during the campaign that he could lean if not right to the middle occasionally. Proved wrong.
I'm afraid to ask this but... what did he do in office that strikes you as hardcore liberal?
Obamacare? No way to sell national health care as anything other than liberal.
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
I don't really know what was being bandied about back in 1993, though it should be noted that after the Clinton healthcare plan was defeated, the GOP did not push forward with any alternate plan.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
Posts
Rigorous Scholarship
so Nixon was a liberal too?
Well yes, if you are dishonest, stupid, and/or completely ignorant of the issue, I suppose you could count anyone who put forward the ACA as a liberal, because giving access to affordable healthcare to everyone is seen as a thing liberals want. On the other hand, if you actually know what the fuck you're talking about and are willing to tell the truth, you'd realize that calling the ACA liberal is a huge lie. It's a slightly modified version of the Republican counter offer to the Clinton healthcare reform bill from the 90s, for fuck's sake.
But, I do know that pretty much every conservative organization, magazine, media and thinktank completely opposed Obamacare.
When pretty much every conservative opposes something and every liberal backs it, it's not going out on a limb to say that the program in question is liberal.
Rigorous Scholarship
Also what are the chances of closing enough corporate loopholes and reducing the corporate tax rate while staying revenue neutral?
Modern Man, please don't use the word "Obamacare." I actually enjoy reading your opinions and respect many of them. However, I can't hear Obamacare without envisioning a toothless hillbilly on welfare, decrying all the socialism in the country. It hurts me, because it lowers the level of discourse so much.
And Bob Dole was a raging liberal.
I wasn't aware that liberal/conservative was a binary and opposite. I guess that Republicans were liberals back in the 90s.
That's a terrible metric with a hyper partisan political system. Right now if anyone says something, the other side is pretty much going to auto oppose it and decry it.
To give an example: Is Romneycare a liberal or a conservative program/idea? Healthcare reform isn't a hugely partisan issue in theory, even the GOP talks up how they want to replace it with something different (with like, 90% of the same stuff, they seem to only want the mandate gone in reality), because they can agree that health care costs are crazy.
edit: More on topic, I find it odd that all my news feeds are talking about Bachmann, and nobody seems to be saying much of anything about Ryan's rebuttal.
This is only a great way to measure something if you want to abdicate the responsibility for all of your critical thinking to the weekly standard.
What provisions do you think are liberal/bad/whatever?
Excellent. (What news feeds are those, generally?)
What a horrible rebuttal.
Did the fact that all Republicans in Congress backed extending the Bush-era tax cuts, even for the wealthiest, tell you something about conservative views on those tax cuts? Or do you think there was no ideological basis for their support? (and the Dems' general opposition).
And the fact that some group of Republicans supported a similar healthcare bill in 1993 doesn't really tell us much about the GOP and its ideological positions today. Note that after the GOP took the House in 1994, I doubt more than a handful of people in the party supported the bill from 1993. The GOP of today is different from the GOP of the 80's and early 90's. For one, we've held Congress for a good chunk of the period, so we don't need to be Democrat-lite as much as we used to.
I don't like the bill in its entirety, and would have been happy if it had never passed.
Rigorous Scholarship
The actual program is one of the most conservative implimentations possible of the liberal policy position that there should be national healthcare. While the actual mechanisms might poll as controversial, the aims of the program have big majorities of public support.
It's been part of the Democratic Party platform for almost a century. It was a central issue in both the primaries and the general campaign. The American people then voted in both Obama and big majorities for Democrats in both houses of congress.
I've never clearly understood the implication that this was somehow an extremist plan secretly foisted on the American people through some midnight chicanery. If this program isn't in the mainstream of center-left policy, I don't know what is.
Mostly google news aggregates. Top Stories has an entire category to Bachmann for the articles on her (CSM, LATimes, and a video I can't watch right now), whereas the SotU category is nothing but talking up Obama's actual speech. Ryan doesn't show anywhere.
Well, nowadays they pretty much are. A lot of Republicans, particularly Tea Partiers, consider "liberal" to be "anything we don't like," and also "anything we don't like" is necessarily "liberal". It's a little like how some people can't distinguish between a law that is unconstitutional and a law that is just bad.
I suppose the fact that all conservatives opposed the health care bill while all liberals supported it (and not all liberals supported it at all, but whatever) is relevant, but I don't think it says anything about the bill itself. It just says something about the discourse.
I mean, consider that during the course of drafting the bill, Pubs would say "we want this in the bill!" and then Dems would say "okay, we can do that," and then Pubs would respond with "THAT'S A TERRIBLE THING WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO OUR IDEAS GRARRRR STUPID LIBERALS."
In short, the only workable definition of liberal these days is "something said by someone the right considers liberal." If Che Guevara's corpse rose up tomorrow and started pushing for tax breaks to fund a war on Iran, tax breaks and war in Iran would be considered liberal ideas.
Wasn't one of the reasons to oppose the Clinton version of healthcare that if the Dems managed to pass it, they'd solidify power for years through it? Basically not that it wasn't a good idea, but that it would generate too much political goodwill.
Essentially the reason why the GOP doesn't actually want to just repeal the ACA, they want to repeal and in theory someday replace. Because if they just said "see all that stuff that seems sane and good like banning rescission? Yeah, fuck that liberal noise." Instead it's remove Obamacare and replace it with.. Obamacare minus the mandate.
But wait. I thought Republicans are supposed to be the fiscally responsible party. Oh, woe is me; I'll never understand.
Really? You don't like banning insurance companies from refusing policies based on pre-existing conditions, many of which are invented? You don't like banning various types of fraud? You don't like having more children included on their parents' plans until they find employment? Do you just hate all regulation of business, then?
Thing is, when conservatives vote Democrat why are they automatically liberal? I was a conservative before 2004, my actual beliefs haven't changed *that* much, it's the political discourse that has moved rightward. I mean sure my idealized beliefs have changed, but pragmatically I understand that my vision of a liberal utopia is unlikely in the United States and sometimes what used to be called conservative thinking works better in the real world.
You know what, this sort of uncritical thinking is beneath you, MM. Not only does that statement fly in the face of reality (Oh hey, BILL FRIST, of all people, thinks that repealing the ACA is a bad idea! And many liberals grudgingly accepted it as the best that could be had!), it's a ridiculous simplification of what constitutes "liberal" orthodoxy. Conservatives opposed it en masse not because it's liberal, but because Obama and the Dems supported it. It's a common thing among conservatives nowadays to do what they accused John Kerry of, namely condemning things which, in the past, they were proudly advocating. The fact that Republicans and conservatives are flip-flopping on an issue doesn't mean that said flip-flopping defines where on the ideological spectrum the issue rests.
I fear getting off topic of the SotU, but explain.
Do you mean you dislike the nature of the changes to healthcare regulation entirely, or do you mean you'd rather it hadn't been done at a federal level.
I can't see many reasons to oppose the nature of a number of the provisions, at all. Unless your position is "if you aren't rich, you run the risk of just up and dying/going bankrupt in our society"
I can see an argument for opposing the idea that it's done at a federal level, even if I disagree with it.
It would basically gut what little cost control there is in the bill, yes. At that point it would just be renamed the Unicorns and Ponies Care Act. But it seems to be the only point anyone can come up with that is actually unpopular. And it's unpopular like taxes are: completely required to make everything WORK, but grumble grumble.
The GOP loves the mandate. They invented the mandate.
Them complaining about the mandate is just politics - it's a gigantic wad of cash going into the coffers of their donators.
Edit: Just like taxes. The GOP whines incessantly about taxes and Obama has the taxes right now pegged lower than any Republican has in a generation
Only when Obama's name was on it.
It's the exact same plan proposed by Republicans in the 90s. It's the exact same plan Romney uses in Mass. It's not liberal or leftist because it forces consumers to purchase goods from private industries.
It should be noted that the individual provisions of the healthcare act (save for the mandate) are extraordinarily more popular amongst conservatives and liberals than the healthcare act once you attach obama's name to it.
So, there's no point in discussing the particulars of the bill. I opposed it in the aggregate, and did not want it to be passed. If it had not passed, maybe we could have discussed an alternate bill, but that's neither here nor there.
Rigorous Scholarship
It's only bullshit if you believe that there's such thing as a free lunch. All that good stuff that people like in the ACA isn't free, you know. Imagine if car insurance worked the way you're proposing. People could buy car insurance, no questions asked, after they have a car wreck, without the insurers charging them more for doing this, and the insurers would have to cover the damages in the car wreck. This would destroy car insurance as we know it and would likely cause the insurers to stop offering, causing the government to set up some kind of car insurance program to fill in the gap in the market.
This is actually why I'm not opposed to ending the mandate. It'd completely kill the private health insurance industry, something that really needs to happen so that we can get on with single payer health care in this country.
The mandate doesn't exist because Democrats think the way to make sure everyone has healthcare is to make a law saying everyone has healthcare.
The mandate exists because the healthcare law made it illegal for insurance companies to deny people coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Which makes sense, because you need health insurance to pay for your treatment if you have cancer.
But if it is illegal for the company to deny people healthcare, then everyone would just never buy healthcare until they got sick. That would put every insurance company out of business because the industry works by having a large pool of healthy people pay in so that when a minority get sick there is money to pay for their medicine.
So the mandate comes in and says everyone has to buy insurance - that way you can make the insurance companies provide service to whoever needs it while preventing people from destroying the insurance industry by not buying insurance until they need it.
And then the government provides money for people to help them cover the cost of the insurance they are required to have if they are low income and couldn't otherwise afford it.
That's the heart of the thing.
Yes, it really is. With the banning of discrimination based on preexisting conditions, people could get insurance only when they're sick. That sort of thing would bankrupt the insurance industry, and while that sounds nice in theory since it's built on pain and suffering and denying as much aid to people who need it as fiscally possible, it would just mean that we'd all have to pay all of our own healthcare costs. Which would be bad.
Also, are you physically capable of posting something of more than one line? Or quoting?
And you opposed it because:
A) Obama and the Dems were for it
The thing is, I don't believe you opposed it because of B. You've demonstrated pretty clearly that you will oppose things that Obama is for simply to deny him a victory, even if you mostly agree with his position on the issue.
That looks almost identical to the one Bob Dole was pushing the last time health care was debated.
Are you calling Bob Dole a liberal?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Except every liberal didn't back it.
And those that did only did so because it was the only option left.