Hey: Americans DO agree on some things!

[KilljoyKlown]

Tiassa

A very impressive post. Thank You

[James R]

Michael:

Want to know a secret, I have dual citizenship with your country and know all about the medical system there because I worked in it. I know all about your universities as well.

They're pretty sub-par to be honest. The fact that your Professors don't have to teach their classes boggles most Americans minds given our tenured Professors either teach or don't get paid.

Is this your entire gripe against Australian universities - that some Professors don't teach? Weird. Surely there is more to the quality of a university education than whether you're taught by a tenured Professor or not.

The PBL medical school in AU is one of the worst medical instruction I have ever seen. I won't even begin to tell you how much crap I have seen in the so-called "top" medical schools.

Well, it's always nice to be privy to secret knowledge that supports your conclusions, I guess. How do you expect to convince anybody else, though?

Yeah, AU has one of the best prenatal care in the world. But ALL of the technology is purchased from Japan, Germany or the USA. NONE of it's made in AU. None of the technology is invented in AU. You really don't get it, but the fact is AU is really no different (at the end of the day) then KSA. You have a lot of minerals and you sell them to China and then redistribute those profits to the public. Nothing magical there. I means places like the QVB in Sydney get auctioned off to Singapore and soon you farm land will be sold to Chinese. Hell, Sydney would literally stop functioning if it weren't for Asians. They run almost the entire city.

We live in a global economy. It is not clear to me why you think home-grown technology is best for everybody, or why you don't approve of the sharing or trading of technologies.

I'm also not quite sure what your problem is with foreign investment. I hope it isn't a racist one.

And that Australia you fondly remember from 15 years ago, it doesn't exist anymore.

As the Conservative you are, I'm sure that all change must irk you to the bone.

So, there's no magic formula in AU. Australians don't work harder than Japanese or Germans and they're not inclined to do their very best. If anything it's just do the bare minimum. But, luckily that region of the world has a big wall around it called a "boarder" and "National resources" it can redistribute.

It's a pity that the entire nation of Australia consists of a bunch of slackers, unlike you, you diligent worker you. I'm sure you're right that everybody just does the bare minimum. I can't think of any counterexamples. Oh wait...

By the By, did you know you can buy a 3 story house in Japan near a city a little larger and more prosperous then Sydney for around $400K about 20 minutes drive. What will that get you in Sydney? A 1 bedroom flat in Parramatta? And have you been to the North Shore and seen how they destroyed it with all those cheaply made apts???

This sounds like another personal gripe on your part. Can't afford the house prices in Sydney? Want to live on the North shore but a cheap apartment isn't good enough for you and the houses are too expensive?

Why don't you move to Japan?

Look, I think AU used to be a wonderful country. It's changed a lot and is going to change a lot more. I've had knives pulled on my in broad daylight in Sydney. And that's nothing new. I knew quite a few people who have left and are leaving the city. But, this has all come from commodities and if/when those aren't moving you're going to have a very different population makeup compared to the 1980s. AND I don't find any pleasure in saying so, but those shit hole American cities are coming to Australia. Free medical or not.

All change is bad. Right?

Suppose you were sick, you had a choice. You could rely on Australia medicine BUT ONLY that which Australia produced itself. This mean, not many drugs, no fMRI, no scanners, pretty much nothing. OR you could go to America and use that which the USA produces. Most of the drugs and most of the technology.

So? Which is it?

We live in a global economy.

And, by the way, I might mention that Australia has quite a few top-notch medical research institutions. Indeed, three Australian medical researchers were recently awarded Nobel Prizes.

I'm surprised you're unaware of medical research in Australia, given that you claim to work in the field of medicine and medical education.

Why is it that Australia isn't able to produce any of these advanced technologies? Or any of the drugs? Ever wonder about that? What's your conclusion?

My conclusion is that you need to do some research. See above.

Why is it that the USA does? We led the world in technology and yet now we can't even make the silicon that powers our electronics. Why is that? Japan incidentally makes all of the high grade silicon. Even the Germans gave up trying to make the stuff. Isn't that interesting?

Are these things really a mystery to you, or is this another attempt at rhetoric?

[James R]

Tiassa:

Thanks for your informative post.

As it turns out, if you ask people if they support "Obamacare" or the "Affordable Care Act", they don't. But if you ask them point by point about the features of health reform, they do, in fact, like it.

This suggests to me that people don't know what's in it. And that means that they have either not managed to find the relevant information, or that they have been fed misinformation. Which is a point I made in my first post here.

[James R]

quadraphonics:

Why bother with this contentless personal rubbish you keep trotting out?

Do you imagine that if you keep at this you'll eventually be able to bully me into withholding my opinion on certain topics? Is it not already obvious to you that I will not submit to your authoritah?

You are speaking from the presumption that your own conception of "interests" and their relationships is incontestably superior, and that it only remains for other to recognize your righteousness and fall in line.

Yeah, well when you're right you're right. Shucks.

Point is that it does more harm than good: nobody is going to be brought around to support national healthcare by such rhetoric, but the spectacle of an arrogant foreigner telling Americans that they're idiots who don't know what's best for themselves is guaranteed to energize opponents of such. So how about you just leave our politics out of your pathetic little ego trips, eh? It certainly isn't like you have anything useful to add, in the first place.

You missed the point that I made in my opening post: it is precisely the fact that people have been brought around to a particular opinion by rhetoric that I commented on. Do you think rhetoric only works to sway opinon if it's Conservative rhetoric? I'm not sure if you understand what rhetoric, stripped of its modern negative connotations, really is, or what it is for.

Also, the Tea Party didn't exist until after the passage of ObamaCare. And they're reactionaries, not puppet-masters here. You'd be perfectly well aware of that, if you had even a superficial grasp on American politics.

So your claim is that the Tea Party and its followers does not try to sway opinion on ObamaCare. Is it? Really?

And right there you advertize your blase ignorance of the debate in the USA, along with an offensively condescending willingess to impute your own ignorance to some kind of national idiocy. You should not be surprised, then, when even Americans who agree with your policy prescriptions on healthcare, and share your frustration at the state of the public discourse on such, find your statements offensive, pig-headed and decidedly unhelpful. With friends like you, who needs enemies?

I think you imagine yourself as spokesperson for some kind of group. Does that give you comfort? You can say "I think" or "I believe", quadraphonics. It's ok. You don't have to pretend you're passing on somebody else's view.

Want to know a secret? The health care debate in the USA is not about finding a policy to optimize the costs and efficacy of healthcare. If it were, there'd be no such debate - the policy merits of single-payer healthcare are overwhelmingly obvious. Rather, the debate is over exactly what the role of scope of government in general ought to be.

Is that a good thing, in your opinion? Or should the debate be about optimising the efficacy and costs of healthcare? And if it should be about that but it isn't, then why is it one and not the other?

I think I'm several steps ahead on you here. As usual.

In general, when one encounters political positions that make no sense to one, yet nevertheless command widespread support from large segments of the electorate, it's best to approach the situation with a certain humility and attempt to figure out just what the hell is going on. Typically, you'll discover that there exists some alternative perspective from which these positions appear coherent and principled, and which you will need to account for and address if you are to have any hope of formulating any kind of effective political rhetoric in response.

Good advice. I agree!

The last thing that is helpful, in contrast, is to speak from a place of arrogance and condescension - to assert the primacy of your own perspective at the outset, and then set about steamrolling anyone who dares question that act of aggression. When operating accross national or cultural lines, there is the additional pitfall of turning the whole thing into a pissing contest. So, those are all things that anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a moderator of a political discussion needs to keep in mind at all times, and tread very carefully around.

Ah, quadraphonics. One has to laugh when you - of all people, again - try to lecture me about arrogance and condescension. Just read your own post through one more time.

[Repo Man]

Tiassa:

Thanks for your informative post.



This suggests to me that people don't know what's in it. And that means that they have either not managed to find the relevant information, or that they have been fed misinformation. Which is a point I made in my first post here.

I'm sympathetic to the viewpoint expressed by this gentleman:

This is America, not Denmark. In this country, tens of millions of people choose to watch FoxNews not simply because Americans are credulous idiots or at the behest of some right-wing corporate cabal, but because average Americans respect viciousness. They are attracted to viciousness for a lot of reasons. In part, it reminds them of their bosses, whom they secretly adore. Americans hate themselves for the way they behave in public, always smiling and nodding their heads with accompanying really?s and uh-huhs to show that they’re listening to the other person, never having the guts to say what they really feel. So they vicariously scream and bully others into submission through right-wing surrogate-brutes. Spending time watching Sean Hannity is enough for your average American white male to feel less cowardly than he really is.

The left won’t accept this awful truth about the American soul, a beast that they believe they can fix “if only the people knew the Truth.”

But what if the Truth is that Americans don’t want to know the Truth? What if Americans consciously choose lies over truth when given the chance–and not even very interesting lies, but rather the blandest, dumbest and meanest lies? What if Americans are not a likeable people? The left’s wires short-circuit when confronted with this terrible possibility; the right, on the other hand, warmly embraces Middle America’s rank soul and exploits it to their full advantage. The Republicans know Americans better than the left. They know that it’s not so much Goering’s famous “bigger lie” that works here, but the dumber and meaner the lie, the more the public wants to hear it repeated.

http://exiledonline.com/we-the-spiteful/

[Aqueous Id]

Health care should be a human right

And it pretty much is, to some degree, with or without the law. That's why county hospitals were taking up the slack.

Because Americans in recent years, cajoled by the Tea Party and Faux News, among others, have in hordes been convinced to vote against their own best interests.

Even halfway aound the world you can see more clearly than the natives, who ought to know better.

Obamas plan wants to allow for about 40 million new people who don't receive any health care benefits now to have them.

Sounds like you've never been in a public hospital before. Just hope you never go broke, or you'll be choking (literally perhaps) on your words.

America is the world's dump

Of course that's true of just about any country that borders one that's more miserable. I notice the xenophobes climb out of their graves every election and go terrorizing the streotypical aliens.

Denying access to medical attention is like denying life.

They were killing people...dumping indigent patients on the street. As I recall, it was becoming a national scandal. Obama had a plan. Too bad the neo-cons were allowed to damage it.

Why aren't the frothy right-to-lifers on board this boat?

Because (predominantly white) babies are cute and innocent, and the recipients of public services are stupid, ugly, smelly, dirty <racial epithets deleted>. And trailer trash are just exempt from review.

find a way to penalize those that hire and pay them a substandard wage

Of course the laws are clear to the employers, and the .gov site to check SSNs is a must. In other words, the whole neo-con logic requires us to believe the shady employers would otherwise be giving the <white> folks a fair shake. Wow. That makes me so mad I could vote for Palin.

A proper healthcare plan would reduce costs overall. It's not the same as borrow and spend. It's in fact the opposite.

Yeah, that was in the numbers the Congressional Budget Office ran, comparing indigent patients' reliance on county emergency rooms to the cost of the original plan (which still got hacked down). They neo-cons are still in denial over this, years later.

The American people have never supported ObamaCare.

Only the voters who put him in office, expecting the original plan he campaigned for. If your exaggeration were true the Republicans would be promising to dismantle the County hospitals along with their plan to kill the health care law. Presumably the Tea and Libertarian Parties would also dismantle the government.

We're very suspicious of a large, powerful government whose inept, self-serving bureaucrats squander 80 cents of every tax dollar they collect on their own salaries.

I'm not worried at all about how many workers it takes to run the government. I don't see it as squandering. It provides for families. Besides Government jobs are typically low-paid. Their take home pay is probably mostly quickly recirculated, probably in their local communities. I imagine they put away a fair amount for retirement, lowering their odds of ending up on the dole. But I would say it's not squandered, since these people do a lot of useful things to protect and preserve the interests of all kinds of people who live here. In fact I think the feds need to hire all the folks that are idle. That would proably be be better than all of the bailouts and QE actions they took.

liberals as statist scolds who think everyone else is some idiot who can't be trusted to make his own decisions.

kind of took a you turn when you said

the spectacle of an arrogant foreigner telling Americans that they're idiots who don't know what's best for themselves is guaranteed to energize opponents of such.

You mean Americans like you? The rest of us are glad to hear how so many other countries have tackled the same issues.

Sure, the public is down on "Obamacare". But they also seem to like, for the most part, what's in it.

And the numbers you showed (liking parts of the bill) has been the trend for quiet a while. And as you noted, if the Limbaugh/Hanity/Beck/FOX disinformation fest, Citizen's United and the Tea Party hadn't been stirring the haters up, the numbers would probably be more favorable.

As the Conservative you are, I'm sure that all change must irk you to the bone.

He doesn't seem to understand that Conservatism is a global phenomenon, as is the economic crisis, and, often, immigation/migration issues and unemployment. It was clear to me you were speaking from a well-informed position on the top issues we have in common. I am impressed with policies you and by your support for them.

Do you think rhetoric only works to sway opinon if it's Conservative rhetoric?

It's the overt lies, particularly the nature of the lies, that's the real issue. The Democratic message was hope and change, and the reaction to 8 years of Bushies didn't really need much exaggeration or lies, since they made fools of themselves. People were looking for relief, and for leadership. That was what swayed the voters in 2008.

average Americans respect viciousness. They are attracted to viciousness for a lot of reasons. In part, it reminds them of their bosses, (etc.)

Yeah I was just mentioning the lies and the manner of lies used, which do rely on a glorification of that visciousness. I agree with the guy you cited.

[Michael]

James R,

Some people are quite in love with the illusion. As someone who has worked in the field, I can safely say I've yet to meet a single professor or lecturer EVER who, when I broached the topic, didn't say what a total sham the AU University system has become.

Every single one.
Let me repeat that: Every single one of them. ALL OF THEM

Oh wait, I take the back. there is always the Eduspeak lecturers, for them life is great and getting better. But, I digress. This thread isn't really about AU.

[James R]

Michael:

Some people are quite in love with the illusion. As someone who has worked in the field, I can safely say I've yet to meet a single professor or lecturer EVER who, when I broached the topic, didn't say what a total sham the AU University system has become.

Every single one.
Let me repeat that: Every single one of them. ALL OF THEM

I hear a lot of whining from you, but very few specifics.

In what sense is the university system "a total sham"? To me, when I hear "total sham", I think that means a sham in all respects. That's the meaning of those words on their face. Is it really true that you believe that nothing about the Australian university system is legitimate or worthy?

And is it really true that every single lecturer you have talked to agrees with your view that their own work is fraudulent? I find that very hard to believe.

Another possibility is that when you say "university system", you're using the term in some idiosyncratic way that makes sense to you but makes no sense to me. To me, the teachers are part of the system, along with the administrators and the students. Surely you're not accusing everybody of fraud? Where am I going wrong here?

Oh wait, I take the back. there is always the Eduspeak lecturers, for them life is great and getting better. But, I digress. This thread isn't really about AU.

What's an Eduspeak lecturer?

Finally, recall that you made this about Australia when you started in on the hyperbolic claims of mass corruption.

[madanthonywayne]

However, our topic poster is clearly playing to his conservative roots. He leaves out some important perspective. As Patricia Zengerle observed for Reuters over the weekend:

Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama's healthcare reform even though they strongly support most of its provisions, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Sunday, with the Supreme Court set to rule within days on whether the law should stand.

Fifty-six percent of people are against the healthcare overhaul and 44 percent favor it, according to the online poll conducted from Tuesday through Saturday.

The survey results suggest that Republicans are convincing voters to reject Obama's reform even when they like much of what is in it, such as allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26.

Strong majorities favor most of what is in the law.

A glaring exception to the popular provisions is the "individual mandate," which forces all U.S. residents to own health insurance.

Sure, the public is down on "Obamacare". But they also seem to like, for the most part, what's in it.

Cherry picking a few elements of the 2000 page monstrosity known as Obamacare and claiming that support for them indicates that the public really supports Obamacare but is just too stupid to realize it is misleading.

It's possible to support an idea in principle and yet not support a particular implementation of that idea. It's also possible that the way Obamacare was passed has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Furthermore, there's the little matter of everything else that's in Obamacare.

Perhaps some people aren't happy about that fact that their "mini-med" plans have been banned under Obamacare (unless you're lucky enough to have been granted a waiver). Perhaps others might be unhappy over the fact that Obamacare has made individual policies for children imposible to get in some states. Others may be unhappy with the government takeover of student loans that was for some reason included in Obamacare. Or the various tax increases that hit some industries pretty hard (medical device makers, for instance).

Or they may be upset to find that Obama's much repeated claim that you can keep your present coverage under Obamacare is not necessarily true. Then there's the new limitations on HSA's that have probably pissed off a lot of people, and the cuts to Medicare Advantage Plans.

Or people may simply feel that the law is too big, too complicated, and gives the government too much control over their lives.

[spidergoat]

Or the public has been propagandized with lies because the Republicans hate Obama, even though the idea was originally theirs.

[KilljoyKlown]

Or people may simply feel that the law is too big, too complicated, and gives the government too much control over their lives.

As opposed to what? Insurance companies. We currently have very little control as it is. I don't see expanding coverage to many that don't have it now as a bad thing or a very big loss of control over what the insurance companies allow us now.

[quadraphonics]

As opposed to what? Insurance companies. We currently have very little control as it is. I don't see expanding coverage to many that don't have it now as a bad thing or a very big loss of control over what the insurance companies allow us now.

Sure, but if the only form of "control" that you are willing to recognize is control by the state, then this makes sense.

What kind of people could possibly fail to aknowledge all the other forms of control, and impingments on freedom, that abound in the world? Simple: rich white people who aren't subject to any other constraints. So it should be no surprise that such are exactly the mainstays of support for the GOP.

[quadraphonics]

Why bother with this contentless personal rubbish you keep trotting out?

Project much?

Do you imagine that if you keep at this you'll eventually be able to bully me into withholding my opinion on certain topics?

As long as you keep posting offensive, counter-productive rhetoric that is driven by your arrogance and offensive national stereotypes, I'm going to continue calling you on such. If you don't like that, well, I can't say that I expect you to.

Is it not already obvious to you that I will not submit to your authoritah?

Again, projecting.

Which is strange: I've been extremely clear with you more times than I can remember of how the approach works: I point out where you're acting out of arrogance and bigotry, you feel insecure at having your authority challenged, and this causes you to lash out with even more arrogance and general displays of pig-headedness. Which display then undermines your credibility and authority, which heightens your insecurity, and so a positive feedback loop is established. It doesn't depend on your silence - rather the opposite. The more you lash out, the more you are defined by that. And you long since ceased to be defined by any other traits.

It's working as well as it ever has here, so I have no reason to stop. Rather, the incentive is clearly to double down.

Yeah, well when you're right you're right. Shucks.

Again, the insecurity and suppressed rage is obvious. No substance, just pure bile and dismissiveness. You really don't see how that undermines your pose, and invites further prodding?

Meanwhile, I note that you are not attempting to refute any of my assertions, nor defend your own. So either you dropped the whole issue in your rage fest here, or you're raging exactly because you know that you've been shown to be talking out of your ass and this makes you feel insecure. Either way, it's a win for my approach as outlined above.

You missed the point that I made in my opening post: it is precisely the fact that people have been brought around to a particular opinion by rhetoric that I commented on.

And you remain unaware that such is no fact at all, but simply the condescending canard I've already informed you that it is.

By all means, though, provide some evidence or other substantiation of your contention of fact, there. But it's very strange to respond to my directly challenging your assertion with an insistence that I missed the assertion in question. What do you think you're talking about?

Do you think rhetoric only works to sway opinon if it's Conservative rhetoric?

It only works if it's effective, and telling people that they're brainwashed idiots who would be much better off if they adopted your position is not effective, irrespective of what your position is - or even whether the premise about brainwashing is accurate! You don't sway people by insulting them, even if they are "sheeple." If anything, you need to pander to them a little bit.

I'm not sure if you understand what rhetoric, stripped of its modern negative connotations, really is, or what it is for.

This from the guy who thinks calling people brainwashed idiots is an effective rhetorical strategy... Unless you want to admit that you weren't pursuing any effective rhetoric there, but just looking to start a nationalist pissing contest or somesuch?

So your claim is that the Tea Party and its followers does not try to sway opinion on ObamaCare. Is it? Really?

Nope. The observation is that all of the voting relevant to Obamacare - the issue you raised - occurred before the Tea Party existed.

I think you imagine yourself as spokesperson for some kind of group.

So what? Do you have anything to say about the actual issue there, or are you just going to try to distract with personal attacks?

Does that give you comfort? You can say "I think" or "I believe", quadraphonics. It's ok. You don't have to pretend you're passing on somebody else's view.

I'm noticing that you never bother to really challenge the implication that my statements are accurate reflections of the group in question, but simply go right for the tactic of trying to bait me with empty condescension. So, I'm unimpressed.

Is that a good thing, in your opinion?

The point is that it's a fact that anyone who wants to craft useful rhetoric on the topic is going to have to work in cognizance of. Which is to say that it's counter-productive to go around calling people brainwashed idiots because the debate isn't occuring in your preferred terms.

As to "good thing," I'll point out that many of our systemic problems arise from the absence of consensus on this point. Take the deficit, for example: the left wants a social welfare state, and the right doesn't want to pay taxes. But we haven't squared that circle, so we've just been giving both sides what they want and borrowing the difference. So, any attempt to cope with the deficit - and that includes the question of healthcare - unavoidably comes back to that basic, unresolved question. So it probably is a bigger priority to address that question, than healthcare - it may not even be possible to address healthcare without first addressing the larger question of the role of the state.

Or should the debate be about optimising the efficacy and costs of healthcare?

"Should?" I'll say that I'd like it if we could have a simple policy debate like that. But such presumes a strong consensus on what the role of the state is supposed to be, in the first place. That we lack such is the entire reason that the debate devolves into the latter question.

I understand that this may seem strange or frustrating to people from small countries with high levels of social solidarity (and so, settled consensus on the basic role of the state). In such a scenario, you do indeed get to have a policy debate, and reach a good outcome and move on. Such things are far more difficult here, and your input isn't helping that.

And if it should be about that but it isn't, then why is it one and not the other?

See above.

I think I'm several steps ahead on you here. As usual.

As usual, that's empty condescension.

Good advice. I agree!

Good - now try putting it into practice, and you will stop hearing complaints like this from me.

Ah, quadraphonics. One has to laugh when you - of all people, again - try to lecture me about arrogance and condescension. Just read your own post through one more time.

Did I say or imply somewhere that I'm not arrogant or condescending? Wouldn't my own extensive arrogance make me good at detecting such in others?

Moreover, you're eliding the specifics: I was pointing out that arrogance and condescension are counter-productive when it comes to rhetoric to sway polities that do not agree with you. That's what you are (nominally) trying to do, and why you are failing. But that's not what I'm trying to do: arrogance and condescension are great tools for the strategy I'm using to deal with you - which has nothing to do with any political disagreement - as I outlined above (and mentioned in the material you are responding to). So, maybe try to think a little deeper before going for the first cheap pretext to turn the tables, next time.

[Tiassa]

Cherry picking a few elements of the 2000 page monstrosity known as Obamacare and claiming that support for them indicates that the public really supports Obamacare but is just too stupid to realize it is misleading.

Well, let's think about that for a moment: Why would capitalists be pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a propaganda campaign to misinform people about healthcare reform if they didn't think it was effective?

It's possible to support an idea in principle and yet not support a particular implementation of that idea.

Indeed.

It's also possible that the way Obamacare was passed has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Well, yes. Because, generally speaking, liberals are annoyed that instead of a public option we got the Republican plan that pads the private sector, and conservatives are annoyed that their plan passed at all because it's Obama who managed to get it done.

Furthermore, there's the little matter of everything else that's in Obamacare.

Yes, the Heritage Foundation's propaganda is so reliable that I'm certain you can provide some data of how their argument is reflected in the polling results.

Perhaps some people aren't happy about that fact that their "mini-med" plans have been banned under Obamacare (unless you're lucky enough to have been granted a waiver). Perhaps others might be unhappy over the fact that Obamacare has made individual policies for children imposible to get in some states. Others may be unhappy with the government takeover of student loans that was for some reason included in Obamacare. Or the various tax increases that hit some industries pretty hard (medical device makers, for instance).

I suppose I can imagine conditions in which people might be upset that deliberately inferior insurance coverage might be disrupted in favor of something more useful and comprehensive. I'll leave it to you, though, to explain how that works.

And yes, I can imagine people being upset that private insurance carriers are behaving in a retaliatory manner. Obviously, Obama could have avoided that by simply not attempting any reform at all.

Indeed, one can be unsettled by the fact that private loan servicers can't get their acts together.

And, yes, we can probably construe some scenario in which boilerplate fears about any tax or fee have already come true, which is why the industry only fears that such outcomes might happen.

These are all legitimate issues, though you haven't managed to present them in any legitimate way.

Or they may be upset to find that Obama's much repeated claim that you can keep your present coverage under Obamacare is not necessarily true. Then there's the new limitations on HSA's that have probably pissed off a lot of people, and the cuts to Medicare Advantage Plans.

Well, we'll just see how accurate the propaganda from the Heritage Foundation and exceptionally wingnut Heartland Institute actually is. If there are problems with medical loss ratios in HSAs, those problems can be addressed.

Meanwhile, I suppose it makes sense that conservatives would not want better care for the poor.

Or people may simply feel that the law is too big, too complicated, and gives the government too much control over their lives.

Which comes back to those capitalists who are mysteriously spending incredible amounts of money willfully misinforming people. Why would they do that if they didn't think it was effective?

[madanthonywayne]

Well, let's think about that for a moment: Why would capitalists be pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a propaganda campaign to misinform people about healthcare reform if they didn't think it was effective?

Perhaps you should ask, instead, why they spent millions to get it passed?

Henry Waxman then announced that he was pocketing PhRMA’s concessions and demanding more, including re-importation. We wrote about the double-cross in a July 16, 2009 editorial called “Big Pharma Gets Played,” noting that Mr. Tauzin’s “corporate clients and their shareholders may soon pay for his attempt to get cozy with ObamaCare.” …

The White House rode to the rescue. In September Mr. Hall informed Mr. Kindler that deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina “is working on some very explicit language on importation to kill it in health care reform. This has to stay quiet.”

PhRMA more than repaid the favor, with a $150 million advertising campaign coordinated with the White House political shop. As one of Mr. Hall’s deputies put it earlier in the minutes of a meeting when the deal was being negotiated, “The WH-designated folks . . . would like us to start to define what ‘consensus health care reform’ means, and what it might include. . . . They definitely want us in the game and on the same side.”

In particular, the drug lobby would spend $70 million on two 501(c)(4) front groups called Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care. In July, Mr. Hall wrote that “Rahm asked for Harry and Louise ads thru third party. We’ve already contacted the agent.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...015843822.html

Well, yes. Because, generally speaking, liberals are annoyed that instead of a public option we got the Republican plan that pads the private sector, and conservatives are annoyed that their plan passed at all because it's Obama who managed to get it done.

I think it was more a matter of things like the Cornhusker Kickback, or the Louisiana Purchase, and all the other bribes and payoffs used to secure passage of Obamacare

I suppose I can imagine conditions in which people might be upset that deliberately inferior insurance coverage might be disrupted in favor of something more useful and comprehensive. I'll leave it to you, though, to explain how that works.

Pretty simple. Deliberately inferior insurance coverage is superior to no insurance coverage or insurance coverage you can't afford.

[Tiassa]

Perhaps you should ask, instead, why they spent millions to get it passed?

In the first place, you're dodging the question.

In the second, I don't know—you tell me: The people are screaming for the public option and we can convince the president to pursue a political outcome that mandates people buy private, corporate policies instead ....

You know, you're right. It's absolutely mysterious why the private sector would spend political money on such an outcome.

I can't believe it took until now for me to recognize the absolute illogic of that move. Thank you so much, sir, for pointing it out to me.

I think it was more a matter of things like the Cornhusker Kickback, or the Louisiana Purchase, and all the other bribes and payoffs used to secure passage of Obamacare

The "Cornhusker Kickback"? You mean that part of the healthcare law that Justice Scalia complained about?

The deal that Scalia was referring to -- legendary in conservative anti-Obamacare circles -- was not a classic "kickback." Nelson negotiated for indefinite, unending Medicaid funding for his state. That ended up as part of the bill that initially passed the U.S. Senate on a 60-40 vote.

Here's the rub: It's not actually part of the law. Democrats removed the Nebraska deal in the final tortured negotiations that passed the PPACA in the House. When it got to the Senate again, Democrats only needed 51 votes to pass it; Nelson, who'd gotten the bad press from the deal AND nothing to show for it, glumly voted no.

(Weigel; boldface accent added)

That "Cornhusker Kickback"? The one that wasn't part of the final law?

The idea that conservatives are still harping on this point only reiterates the suggestion that they are either ignorant or dishonest.

Weigel notes another point that might be relevant to our consideration of misinformation:

In early coverage of Scalia's zinger, the fate of the "kickback" is totally left out. It might be because no one in the room pointed out the mistake. Or it might be that Scalia, and lots of other people, have internalized the conservative case against the law.

The Louisiana Purchase is the result of a drafting error—

However, in November 2011, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) tried to make sense of the legislation, they came up with a much larger number: $4.3 billion. This was, in part, because the text of the law didn’t phase out the adjustment in two years, as originally intended, but rather increased the federal subsidy in out-years.

(Roy)

—that can easily be corrected by Congress. Meanwhile, we'll all ignore the fact that this is something Republican Governor Bobby Jindal wanted, too, and just blame it on Democrats. (Right? I mean, that's how you conservatives work, isn't it? It's a Republican plan in general, and a Republican supports a specific point; therefore, if one objects to the outcome, it's exclusively the Democrats' fault. Right?)

We might note, on the point of small issues in the law that can be easily corrected, that had Republicans supported their own damn plan instead of trying to destroy it because a Democrat was trying to shepherd it through Congress, perhaps they could have fixed that detail the first time around.

Of course, in a world where unlimited corporate money contributes to all sorts of misinformation about healthcare reform, one can easily imagine how the public can be misinformed.

And to this point we might add the suggestion that pork payoffs are common in federal legislation. Consider the defense budget. Hell, it doesn't really matter these days if something is useful or productive, or not; if it's in the defense budget, you're anti-American if you want to strike it. And yes, I do blame that kind of idiocy on conservatives, because they thrive on it.

Take, for instance, the exemption for non-profit insurers in two states. Why not all fifty? Well, do you blame Obama? Or should we perhaps consider the question of why other legislators did not jump on the bandwagon and demand that all non-profit insurers be exempt from an excise tax?

It's not difficult to imagine that people get disgusted at the pork payoffs required to move legislation, but I also think this whole idea that we should be shocked and outraged by such details in health care reform is wholly disingenuous. No, really. When it comes to building Cold War-era military gear we don't need, people don't seem to object nearly as much. I wonder how much of that is because there aren't corporations lining up to buy political adverts to deceive people into fear and outrage?

Pretty simple. Deliberately inferior insurance coverage is superior to no insurance coverage or insurance coverage you can't afford.

And nobody is really surprised that this is the conservative justification for not providing better insurance coverage.
____________________

Notes:

Weigel, David. "Does Antonin Scalia Know What's in the Affordable Care Law?" Slate. March 28, 2012. Slate.com. June 27, 2012. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/20...care_law_.html

Roy, Avik. "The $4 Billion Typo in Obamacare's 'Louisiana Purchase'". Forbes. March 6, 2012. Forbes.com. June 27, 2012. http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/201...iana-purchase/

[pjdude1219]

More lies. "Down our throats" is a bullshit talking point, they debated it for a year. Obamacare is Romney's health care plan and Massachusetts likes it. People like the individual provisions, but they have been Pavlov's dog-trained to hate "Obamacare". So people are idiots.

not to mention its the name no likes thats to nutters like micheal and mad. all the actual provisions of "obamacare" have positive views

[James R]

quadraphonics:

One correction:

.... [T]elling people that they're brainwashed idiots who would be much better off if they adopted your position is not effective, irrespective of what your position is - or even whether the premise about brainwashing is accurate!

What I actually wrote in my first post to this thread was this:

Because Americans in recent years, cajoled by the Tea Party and Faux News, among others, have in hordes been convinced to vote against their own best interests.

I didn't call anybody an idiot, nor did I mention brainwashing. I said that people have been convinced that ObamaCare is the wrong way to go.

Later in your post, you claim that I provided no evidence for this. But maybe you missed Tiassa's post above where he showed that although people (including Republicans) in general support the content of ObamaCare, they don't support the policy itself when it is named. So, it appears that a negative association exists between the package itself and non-Obama voters.

Oh, and one more thing:

Again, the insecurity and suppressed rage is obvious. No substance, just pure bile and dismissiveness.

You Americans aren't good are irony and subtle humour, are you? Well, some of you. While you, quadraphonics, foam at the mouth, I'm sitting here at my computer having a quiet chuckle at your furious and overblown reactions to my playful provocations.

Regarding your point about ObamaCare being passed prior to the rise of the Tea Party, are you aware that the opening post discussed the opinions that Americans hold now and not then? This is a pretty basic mistake for you to make.

As to "good thing," I'll point out that many of our systemic problems arise from the absence of consensus on this point. Take the deficit, for example: the left wants a social welfare state, and the right doesn't want to pay taxes. But we haven't squared that circle, so we've just been giving both sides what they want and borrowing the difference. So, any attempt to cope with the deficit - and that includes the question of healthcare - unavoidably comes back to that basic, unresolved question. So it probably is a bigger priority to address that question, than healthcare - it may not even be possible to address healthcare without first addressing the larger question of the role of the state.

This is more helpful. Why didn't you just post this kind of thing in the first place, rather than personally attacking me?

Did I say or imply somewhere that I'm not arrogant or condescending?

Sorry. I'm not following. Why is your pride in your arrogance relevant to anything?

Moreover, you're eliding the specifics: I was pointing out that arrogance and condescension are counter-productive when it comes to rhetoric to sway polities that do not agree with you.

Where have I tried to sway any polities in this thread?

[Michael]

It's not free, liar.

I was being facetious.

[Fraggle Rocker]

Of course that's true of just about any country that borders one that's more miserable.

The difference in per-capita GDP is greater between the USA and Mexico than any other two adjacent nations on earth. Of course they're catching up. In one generation they've developed a huge middle class, lowered the birth rate, etc.

I'm not worried at all about how many workers it takes to run the government. I don't see it as squandering. It provides for families.

But a job is supposed to be a transaction. You produce something to advance civilization and civilization pays you for it. Giving families money to cover their expenses and not expecting anything in return is just charity, and no economy can survive by making charity its centerpiece. Who produces the goods and services that these people are going to consume? And once we find them, how do we explain that they have to work their butts off while the govvies just sit around in pointless meetings accomplishing nothing for weeks on end?

Besides Government jobs are typically low-paid.

We must be talking about two different countries. I was a civil "servant" for more than twenty years. I made more money than almost everyone I knew, even though we all had basically similar educations and skills, and they all worked harder. There were entire years in which I was not able to accomplish anything. You do that for a few years and you start to see it coming. So then there were entire years in which I didn't do anything. Nobody noticed or cared. By then I began to regard myself as a parasite and I couldn't stand it any more. I took a 30% pay cut and ventured out into the private sector. In the last 17 years I've been unemployed for a total of five and I've never recouped my old astronomical salary rate.

There is absolutely no question that "working" for the government was more lucrative, more secure, and waaaay easier. But at least I have a clear conscience. Mrs. Fraggle is not happy with the reduced standard of living but she's glad I'm not depressed all the time any more.

Ironically since Backward Baby Bush pushed us into the Great Recession I've had to leave her at home and relocate to Washington DC, the only place where there are still jobs. And half the time I'm working for consulting firms doing government contracting. Life is never perfect, unless you get a really big kick out of irony.

I imagine they put away a fair amount for retirement, lowering their odds of ending up on the dole.

I honestly have no idea what country you're talking about. U.S. federal, state and municipal government employees have the most generous retirement plans of anyone in this solar system. They don't have to think about managing their own money. Which is great, because none of them has any idea how to do that.

You can tell by the way they manager our money! Social Security was supposed to be an investment fund, run by highly qualified government experts who, with such gigantic sums, could negotiate much safer and more profitable returns than any private citizen could. Instead, they just spend the money on whatever the hell they feel like this year, and Social Security has become nothing more than the world's biggest Ponzi Scheme. They got away with it when there were 100 people at the bottom of the pyramid for every one at the top. But now it's only three to one and the whole pyramid is collapsing.

But I would say it's not squandered, since these people do a lot of useful things to protect and preserve the interests of all kinds of people who live here.

Oh yes indeed. One bureaucracy metes out tax money in subsidies to corporate tobacco farms, while another metes it out to advertising agencies to mount anti-smoking campaigns.

And do you want to talk about their utterly inept response to 9/11? An attack that was 100% planned, 90% financed and 70% carried out by Saudi Arabians, so they decided to retaliate against Iraq, the only secular pro-Western country in the entire region? The first war in U.S. history that was not at least partially financed? No war taxes, no war bonds? They just borrowed the money from China!

And even though in this century terrorists have killed exactly the same number of Americans as peanut allergies, we've turned over all of our rights to the Homeland Gestapo, and now it takes so long to get through an airport that it's no longer practical to fly home for a weekend?

Oh yeah, and the subprime mortgage fiasco. At the time I was working on a contract for the Controller of the Currency. You know, the presidential appointee whose sole responsibility is to make sure the banks are run soundly? He sent out an apology to the entire staff, for not having ordered his auditors to look into the subprime phenomenon a little more carefully so he could have stopped it. Duh? My wife has a degree in ENGLISH and she understood that you can't let people buy houses they can't afford to pay for, on the premise that the price of houses will continue to rise out of proportion to the rest of the economy FOREVER! What did this guy think his job was? Don't answer, I worked there. It was to keep an enormous staff busy going to meetings.

My assignment was to develop a new project management methodology for his IT staff. When I got to the section on time management, a couple of the managers came to me sheepishly and warned me not to plug in numbers that wouldn't work in their environment. I told them not to worry, I wasn't born yesterday. I know that no one can possibly devote eight hours every day to a project. There are too many overhead items that eat into that time. Six hours is much more accurate, and I even suggested that in a government environment it could be as little as five. They both looked at their shoes and muttered to each other before one guy looked me straight in the eye and said, "Our people attend so many meetings that there are always one or two days in every week during which they spend zero hours on their projects."

My own contract manager finally told me to leave out the entire section on time management. Huh??? If you can't manage time, you can't manage anything! That pretty well summarizes government in America.

In fact I think the feds need to hire all the folks that are idle. That would proably be be better than all of the bailouts and QE actions they took.

European governments don't bail out failing corporations. They let them fail so some new company with new ideas can take over. Of course European governments provide the employees of those companies with training so they're qualified to do the new kinds of jobs. That way their people stay employed, rather than outsourcing all the jobs to China, so nobody can afford to buy the shoddy, poisonous Chinese crap our stores are full of.