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Health Care Reform: Now With PR Gimmicks! We're Doomed.
enlightenedbum
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, as we know, the Senate is trying to do something about health care reform. This has caused some debate!
The players:
Tea Parties! Are crazy, pressuring the Republicans to be even more insane. Huzzah!
Republicans! Are irrelevant.They hate the bill, will do anything to stop it. Believe in death panels, that this is socialist, and a government take over of health care.
Olympia Snowe/Susan Collins! Open to the idea of health care reform, but would really rather take the reform out and just make it you know, a PR stunt. Tend to favor an exceptionally weak trigger for most of the reforms, counting on the health insurance industry to reform itself.
Joe Lieberman! Asshole. Won't vote for anything the Democratic base likes.
Ben Nelson! Gigantic asshole. Won't vote for anything that lets women control their uterus without going bankrupt.
Blue Dogs! Really don't like the idea of not giving corporations a lot of money.
Mainstream Democrats! Are frustrated, think the bill has been watered down rather a lot. But will grudgingly vote for it!
Bernie Sanders! Is not going to take it anymore and is threatening to walk.
The liberal base! Is with Sanders and unproductively bitching (yeah, at least I recognize it).
Harry Reid! Is remarkably ineffectual.
Rahm Emmanuel! Is an asshole. Ignoring the liberal base.
Barack Obama! Where the fuck does he stand? Increasingly seems Rust was right.
Will the bill pass? Will it suck? Will it be good? What about political ramifications? Would you like better strategery? Better policy? Have ideas on how to get the latter? Are you a happy Republican watching the Democrats do our circular firing squad thing? Will it pass before the recess? All this upcoming on Health Care Reform: 100 Man Melee.
The players:
Tea Parties! Are crazy, pressuring the Republicans to be even more insane. Huzzah!
Republicans! Are irrelevant.They hate the bill, will do anything to stop it. Believe in death panels, that this is socialist, and a government take over of health care.
Olympia Snowe/Susan Collins! Open to the idea of health care reform, but would really rather take the reform out and just make it you know, a PR stunt. Tend to favor an exceptionally weak trigger for most of the reforms, counting on the health insurance industry to reform itself.
Joe Lieberman! Asshole. Won't vote for anything the Democratic base likes.
Ben Nelson! Gigantic asshole. Won't vote for anything that lets women control their uterus without going bankrupt.
Blue Dogs! Really don't like the idea of not giving corporations a lot of money.
Mainstream Democrats! Are frustrated, think the bill has been watered down rather a lot. But will grudgingly vote for it!
Bernie Sanders! Is not going to take it anymore and is threatening to walk.
The liberal base! Is with Sanders and unproductively bitching (yeah, at least I recognize it).
Harry Reid! Is remarkably ineffectual.
Rahm Emmanuel! Is an asshole. Ignoring the liberal base.
Barack Obama! Where the fuck does he stand? Increasingly seems Rust was right.
Will the bill pass? Will it suck? Will it be good? What about political ramifications? Would you like better strategery? Better policy? Have ideas on how to get the latter? Are you a happy Republican watching the Democrats do our circular firing squad thing? Will it pass before the recess? All this upcoming on Health Care Reform: 100 Man Melee.
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
enlightenedbum on
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Edit - Though, I guess in its current state it isn't socialist because the medicare buy in and public option are being axed!
You guys really need to stop making up words.
Fine, but I get to keep the flags.
This would be a travesty if it comes to pass.
I thought the neo-trotskyists were supposed to put a stop to that
they tend to wind up with ice axes in their heads
2): There are a shitload of Medicare/aid claims filed every year. There's not enough money to audit all of them. Medicare fraud is also ridiculously easy, from what I understand; just file a fake or exaggerated claim, and poof, here's your reimbursement. It is indeed a serious problem, and increased cost due to fraud is a legitimate concern with UHC in the US. The answer is to mitigate it, not throw out the program because of a tiny percentage of lying fucks.
3): I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about.
I'm asking honestly.
The Senate is really where the problem is.
Our Senate.
Our House has been decent.
Such hot bicameral action.
I... what the fuck. The first minute of this is non-specific prayer. No wait, the bulk of this is non-specific. That wasn't prayer against healthcare reform, it was fucking prayer for, "Hey God, we know who you are."
And I said it in another thread, fuck these people who are all "OH THE LORD" but when it comes to helping others they want to turn away and demonize it.
And things are possible if Reid didn't suck, maybe. Senate rules are confusing.
You forgot the real reason.
the red 21%
What are you talking about, I did not make it up.
Obviously you meant to say the Blue and Green.
Yep, that's why I had to ask. I'm sure that even if there are options to pass something that isn't terrible it won't happen at this point, but that might just be my inner pessimist talking.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
When the house, after months of discussion and debate, finally said "Let's pass the damn bill already!", it passed (albeit with a couple of terrible, terrible amendments).
When the Senate, after months of discussion and debate, said "The house passed it, let's pass it to!" they spent a month... and still going... debating.
This country is trying to do the Charleston on a flagpole with an anchor tied around our necks
I've noticed that after the Senate dropped the ball, some people had enough context to find the House bill acceptable when prior to the Senate having its chance they were going off the fucking wall about how bad the House bill was.
The opposition parties have had two votes on the matter, and have forced the sitting government to basically say "Fuck you, democracy!" - something similar to what a few, key players are currently doing by implying their filibuster threat. I mean in that open vote, you stop people being able to hide behind the idea of the filibuster, they actually have to stand there like a douche in front of the nation and say "I DUN WANNA VOTE NEENER NEENER" - hopefully destroying their chances of re-election knowing the sweeping popularity of this bill.
I was more referring to the House as the congress and the senate, forgive me if my terminology was wrong. The whole legislative process seems bjorked (but that seems true around much of the world right now)
Well yeah we are not the healthiest people in the world for sure, but remember that Europe has its own health problems. Especially that they smoke a lot more than we do and that they drink a lot more than we do.
To a large degree out heath statistics get dragged down because we have a sprawling and ridiculously unhealthy economic underclass that we really don't make any great effort to mitigate.
You flipped it: Congress = both houses, House = House of Representatives (though we call them Congressman/Congresswoman instead of Representative).
Ah no no, enlightenedbum's post was what actually triggered my post (him and Tom's).
When anyone else in NATO is willing to step up with some force-projection power I'll be all in favor of cutting the military budget by half.
Meanwhile as long as we're the only people with the means to get a whole bunch of shit to the other side of the world that isn't really an option.
Thanks for playing though!
Frankly a UHC bill should be structured such that we can completely end Medicare.
If we don't do that, Medicare needs a lifetime cap.
Social Security should really just be taken out back and shot, frankly.
WHY DO PEOPLE PARK ON DRIVEWAYS AND DRIVE ON PARKWAYS.
Mmmmm catfood.
Move in with your kids.
Are...are you kidding? It's only the most successful social spending program the US has ever enacted.
we just spend lots of money on crap