Obamacare Upheld, Roberts Joins the Left

[Michael]

Michael what exactly do you think your responsibility to the society you live in should be?

You object to taxes
You object to voting
These are the ONLY responsibilities that you have so what should you give back to society for what it gives you?

Well I'm glad you asked 'society' and not "Nation'. That's a start

Well, I do not think taxes are wrong. I think being forced to pay tax on your income is wrong. Most people would have agreed with this position 100 years ago. It was usually only War Tax and then it was supposed to be a fight for survival.

We need roads. Roads need to be paid for. OK, we use fuel to drive on roads. Put the tax on the fuel. Or toll the roads? We have electronic tolls now.

I don't object to voting IF there's a candidate worth voting for on the ballot. I should not be forced to choose the lesser of X number of evils. That just gives the illusion of having a choice and rubber stamps the person elected.


I think a person's responsibility is to try and improve and make society a better place.

You work in the medical field. Why don't you teach yourself the pathways for the cornea reflex and then try and test some of the medical students. I'd be surprised if they even understood such a simply reflect in detail. I make sure the students I have trained not only know the gross reflex, the clinical implications, but they know it down to the molecule. You don't think YOU could give even better advice on that reflect IF you studied it - compared to an MD? And yet by law you aren't allowed to. You mentioned before that the law was opening up to allow you to perform a wider range of services. Imagine if it closed up? Imagine if that was because MDs didn't like to see 'business' leaving them (this just might happen so it's not unrealistic). Would you just default to the Experts? You'd just say: Well, they know best?

I don't think you would - but maybe you would? It wouldn't change the fact that you would be marginalized due to a need to maintain a monopoly and that this would have nothing to do with health and all to do with money.

That's the state of medicine in most of the world.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Yes, it sounded good at first to ensure only properly trained people were allowed to practice. Now we have a monopoly where poorly trained people are allowed to practice. Notice that's not the same as saying all people trained are trained poorly.



Anyway, without going into it, I spend thousands of hours ensuring the students I work with are trained to be the best. And I get to work with some of the very best of the best. These students are clever. But that's not my 'thing'. My thing is medical research. I spend hours and hours training students how to do research. How to use state of the art technology. To think about science and to think scientifically. I didn't get home till 8pm because I was training someone to take out a nerve.

It's true anyone can work hard and clever. AND in a just world, these people would likely to be rewarded while people who do the bare minimum (which isn't everyone, but, enough to make a dent) would be replaced with people who do their best. That can only occur in a free-market as there's no other feed back that works as efficiently. In a socialist country the State uses paperwork to replace the market - it doesn't work efficiently and to make it even partly work the state has to reduce variables - in the real world, those are liberties.

You get the illusion of living in a prosperous country - and so do the people in KSA. Something to think about. Also, everyone points to Europe and how wonderful life is there. Well, I'd keep my eye on Europe. And America as well.

Obamney Care is great for winning the Babyboomer vote. And that's about all it's good for.

[Michael]

In the end, I've found that most people I talk to who whine about taxes don't so much resent the taxes themselves as seethe at the perception that the government is often wasting that money. If they felt they were getting their money's worth, they would bawl about taxes considerably less.

Once you come to understand that forcing humans to carry passports to move freely about the earth, to pay The Government to leave a "country" is wrong - then what burns people is the morality. To be treated like Cattle on a Farm. Tagged. Of course, to do this you have to challenge the notion of the "State" and people don't like to do this. Not when you're defined BY the State. I'm "American".
*mooo*

Once you come to see the mental-contortion that is applied to justify taking money from the worker, taxing their labor, as insane - then what burns people is the morality. When the argument is: Well YOU don't have to work! As if 'working' is a privilege. Ordained by the State. Who wouldn't see that as screwed up? You use the roads! Seems rather pale in comparison to the notion work is a privilege to be taxed. Can you imagine. You PAY the State to labor?! Ooo but you get to use the pot-holed roads. For "free".

When you see the government selling bonds to other "Nations" (aka: tax-Farms) and that 'Bonded Labor' is backed by the productivity of unborn children as immoral - well, you can't really step back from that and say: Well YOU use the roads! No. You think: Something here seems amiss. Then you notice how great the babyboomers had it (the richest generation in history) and how much less opportunity their grandkids have in life (the ones who now have to pay for their grandparents so-called 'free roads' and now Obamacare and all the other goodies - it's pretty easy being Rich when you pass the bill to your kids and grandkids! [see: Obamacare]).

When the stated GOAL of the Central Government is to CAUSE inflation... When this is 'good' ... when destroying the wealth of money is good... when "ending is better than mending" you may want to stop and think deeply about the monetary system and the society you live in/are being farmed on.

When the same Central Government passes 'The Patriot Act' or conducts a never ending 'War on Terror'.... and the people moo moo mooo right along with the generals... not even thinking to question these things .... yeah, you might want to do a double check on what's going on (the war is paid for through bonds and income tax incidentally). I mean, the "Patriot Act".... could you be any more obvious?!? Are people REALLY this gullible?!?!

mooo mooo mooopy mooo.....


Do I worry about paying my way? Do I have a problem paying? Nope. I always have paid my way. I've never not paid a debt that was owed. If times were tight, or (more likely I was disorganized) and I paid late - then I paid on top what was owed. I have NO problem paying. When I buy food - I pay. As a matter of fact, I notice a lot of other people tossing around the "FREE" word quite a bit. Its not ME who has a problem paying. It seems to be others who have a problem paying - they want the "FREE" medical. The "FREE" roads. The "FREE" education. The "FREE" lunch.

Well, someone's going to pay.

Or didn't you notice? Do a search for the word "free" see who wants "free" what and then there's me who says we should organize our monetary system differently and pay affordable health insurance. AND in a prosperous society $140 should be pretty easy to meet. I actually think that "FREE" is just a carrot, sitting on a trap. People can't help but waddle in and bite into it. Before long they're in a stale being milked. But, by then, they've gotten too used to sweet taste of carrots.

What I have a problem with is immorality becoming the norm. You might want to take a look. You have Joe railing on about "corrupt government" while taking a bullet for Corzine who stole $1.6 Billion (yup, up anther $400 million) and just happens to be Obama's biggest campaign contributor. Yet it's just moo moo moove-along nothing to see here.



If we want change, we're going to have to accept REAL change. This means no Obamacare. No more taking from Peter to pay Paul. Serious structural reform. Questioning even what 'money' is. Trying to do what's moral and *gasp* see where that takes us. Even if it seems to contradict how we were taught to think. If anything, THAT might suggest we're thinking incorrectly. OR, we can just keep trying to tax and spend and war our way right into hell. Which is, IMO, what we will do and so really all of this is academic. Hence, I stated: Do what you can actually do and what you actually do have control over. Raise your children peacefully and to think skeptically and rationally. Then, maybe, 120 years, the future might just be bright. Until then, just accept, people are not going to change, do not what change and change is probably that furthest thing from their mind. Most want what the last guy got. They think, oh that's unfair, he/she made money on the boom... what about me me me moo moo moo. Tax him. Tax her. Where's my rental properties. Etc...

....and slowly they couldn't see a difference between the pigs and the humans........

[joepistole]

Why on the Gods Green Earth would you listen to Limbaugh

Why not? He is a major force in Republican politics and sometimes referred to as the defacto head of the Republican Party.

In Japan insurance is $130 a month for anyone employed. A family tops at around $600. There is some co-pay. There's an insurance whereby you can pay $200 a month for full insurance to cover your child and a reasonable amount of this money is given back to you when your child turns 18. I know a family that just got back $36,000 which they'll use for University.

Japan has some of the best healthcare in the world.

Unlike in other countries, it's not subsidized by an oil well etc... for counties that depend on commodities for their 'free' healthcare, there will come a day when that little equation doesn't work. And the appetite for 'free' this and 'free' that will cause politicians to promise more to provide 'service' to the people who elect them. In the USA we see this in War on Terror (which somehow ended up coincidentally including oil-rich Iraq).

Social Nationalism comes with a price whether people understand it or not.

And there are many similarities between Obamacare and the healthcare available in Japan. Japan has a government mandated system of universal healthcare. So why do you remain in opposition to it?

[Bells]

Challenging the statuesque of the tribe is import Bells. If you don't do that, you become Cattle.

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume you mean "status quo"?

Is that what you are doing?

Or are you being cattle yourself by trying to impose the systems from other countries into ours?

I can live in any of four countries. AND unlike most people, I don't believe in Nations. They're made up. Lines on a map. To me the earth is the earth and humans should have freedom of movement within it.

Don't you mean countries?

There are a LOT of problems with the State run AU medical monopoly in AU. That's a simple fact. I'm happy your health was fine. I know of other's who have had serious injury due to incompetence.

We aren't perfect, but we aren't as bad as you are trying to make it out to be. And Japan, for example, isn't perfect either. Far from it:

Physicians and nurses are licensed for life with no requirement for license renewal, continuing medical or nursing education and no peer or utilization review.[12] OECD data puts specialists and generalists together for Japan[3] because these two are not officially differentiated. Traditionally physicians were trained to became subspecialist,[13] and once they completed their trainings, only a few continued to practice as a subspecialist, and the rest left the large hospitals to practice in small community hospitals or open their own clinics without any formal retraining as a general practitioner.

--------------------------------------------------

Due to large numbers of people visiting hospitals for relatively minor problems, shortage of medical resources can be an issue in some regions. The problem has become a wide concern in Japan, particularly in Tokyo. A report that more than 14,000 emergency patients were rejected at least three times by hospitals in Japan before getting treatment. In 2007, according to the government survey for that year, got a lot of attention when it was released in 2009, and around this time there were several incidents reported in the Tokyo area, such as an elderly man who was turned away by 14 hospitals before dying 90 minutes after being finally admitted,[15] and a case of a pregnant woman complaining of a severe headache being refused admission to seven Tokyo hospitals and later dying of an undiagnosed brain hemorrhage after giving birth.

In the USA you'll get a bottle of 500 for $6.

Isn't that for low-dose aspirin?

Simple enough for you? Do I have to explain it to you again? I know your "tribe" was criticized and that you're feeling butt hurt, but do try to think rationally now and again.

After your performance in this thread, you are in no position to be telling others how to think rationally.

And tribe? Really?

What's going to be next? Going to accuse me of being a spear chucker or something?

When you were sick you were more than willing to utilize medicine from the USA. American medicine and technology saved your life. That is a fact.

Yep. Just as deaf people and people with other illnesses around the world utilise medicines and medical technology from Australia and other countries as well. That is the fact of life.

Very tribal Bells, I find your version of U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! somewhat interesting. But, rather typical TTYTT .....

Ah, accusing the woman with African ancestry of being tribal and then doing text speak. My my, isn't your insanity in fine form tonight..

[quadraphonics]

I don't object to voting IF there's a candidate worth voting for on the ballot. I should not be forced to choose the lesser of X number of evils. That just gives the illusion of having a choice and rubber stamps the person elected.

I'm curious about what exactly is the mechanism you imagine whereby not voting at all causes candidates more to your liking to appear on the ballot in the future?

Obamney Care is great for winning the Babyboomer vote.

Well, that's just silly. The Baby Boomers will all be on Medicare before Obamacare even kicks in fully - they could not care less about it. It doesn't affect them.

[quadraphonics]

This means no Obamacare. No more taking from Peter to pay Paul.

And so we see that you have absolutely no clue whatsoever about what Obamacare actually does. Which was not exactly surprising, given the tone of your rhetoric (which is to say, talk-radio canards and blather, fermented in and filtered through a cravenly reactionary, selfish mind), but still. What a joke - you've had exactly that point explained to you, in detail, repeatedly and recently. But why deal in reality when you can pound your first and damn all the pathetic sheeple?

[Tiassa]

Overlooking Godwin

An interesting situation in Maine:

Maine Gov. Paul LePage raised hackles last weekend for calling the IRS "the new Gestapo." The tax agency earned this comparison to the Nazi secret police, apparently, because it will be charged with penalizing those who do not buy health insurance under Obamacare.

Yet the most remarkable aspect of LePage's remarks wasn't the Nazi comparison. It was what he didn't say: Instead of joining Republican governors of six other states in announcing he will refuse to participate in the expansion of Medicaid, he wants to wait and see how the numbers add up.

The likely reason for LePage's reservation of judgment? The Medicaid expansion won't cost Maine's state government a dime — in fact, it should save the state somewhere between $65 million and $118 million over six years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

That's because Maine already offers Medicaid to many of the people who are set to get it under the new law's expansion. As such, it won't sign up as many new members as in other states, and it will start getting a more generous federal match for the people it already covers.

Maine wasn't forced to expand Medicaid in the first place, and if LePage thinks expanded Medicaid is too costly, he can always propose repealing it. If Maine did that, opting out of the Obamacare expansion would save the state money. But expanded Medicaid is popular, and though LePage enjoys a Republican majority in both houses of his legislature, that majority is narrow and fractious. He probably couldn't shrink Medicaid eligibility if he wanted to.

(Barro)

And before people blast LePage for the appearance of hypocrisy, let us consider an alternative:

In Texas, for example, Governor Rick Perry has said he plans to turn down the Medicaid expansion funds. But even using aggressive assumptions about participation, the federal government can be expected to pay 93.2 percent of the cost of expanded Medicaid in Texas through 2019. That means Texas would be turning down $66.6 billion in federal aid in order to save $4.5 billion over six years.

Essentially LePage, unlike Perry, is literate in the writing on the wall. The Maine Republican might not like the policy, but he also sometimes recognizes reality.
____________________

Notes:

Barro, Josh. "LePage probably will work with the 'Gestapo'". Bangor Daily News. July 11, 2012. BangorDailyNews.com. July 11, 2012. http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/1...h-the-gestapo/

[joepistole]

We now have a number of Republican governors promising not to implement Obamacare. It will be interesting to see how long they maintain that position. My guess is not long. I don’t expect this posturing to last more than a few months. After this election cycle the political value, the political value of this deception will have been lost and the economic motivations will kick in.

In refusing to implement Obamacare, states will not recognize the significant savings the law brings them in their current Medicaid expenditures. Additionally, Obamacare ends federal subsidies to hospitals for indigent care since under Obamacare there should no longer be medically indigent people. So who picks up that expense? These Republican governors are going to be experiencing some significant heat from their state medical providers to sign on to Obamacare.

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/100...e-Care-Act.pdf

To place these costs in context, this paper analyzes potential savings states can achieve under the
Affordable Care Act. In sum, we find the following results for 2014-2019:
By eliminating optional Medicaid coverage for adults over 133 percent of FPL, thus shifting
them to federally-funded subsidies in the exchange, states can save between $21.3 billion and
$28.2 billion.
By replacing state and local spending on uncompensated care with federal Medicaid dollars,
states and localities can save between $42.6 billion and $85.1 billion.
By replacing state and local spending on mental health services with federal Medicaid
dollars, states and localities can save between $19.9 billion and $39.7 billion.
A worst-case scenario will thus see states realizing net budgetary savings of $40.6 billion
during 2014-2019. In a best-case scenario, those gains will reach $131.9 billion (Table 1)

So in refusing to implement Obamacare these Republican governors are increasing state expenses and decreasing state funding – that would be typical Republican irresponsible behavior, a repeat of what they did with the federal budget when they were in control of all agencies of government.

[quadraphonics]

[indent]Maine Gov. Paul LePage raised hackles last weekend for calling the IRS "the new Gestapo." The tax agency earned this comparison to the Nazi secret police, apparently, because it will be charged with penalizing those who do not buy health insurance under Obamacare.

Well, you do have to admit that the parallel is extremely striking - the real Gestapo totaly went around levying tax penalties for free-riders on the Nazi healthcare system, didn't they?

Also, it is Nazism how the IRS forces all Americans to take out mortgages via the mortgage interest tax deduction. Likewise, it's digusting how the Reich forces all Americans to donate to charity via the deductions for charitable donations! How much longer will we allow this kind of fascist totalitarian aggression to continue?!?!?

[parmalee]

No, no, crime hunger and death are caused by parents who smack their children. Socialism just creates incurable diseases. Obviously.

Bah! I beg to differ:

Before the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, researchers who attempted to count the number of people killed under Stalin's regime produced estimates ranging from 3 to 60 million.[91] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of the execution of approximately 800,000 prisoners under Stalin for either political or criminal offenses, around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulags and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – with a total of about 3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[92]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_stalin

There--irrefutable proof that Socialism causes death. No mention of sadness, crime, or hunger above, but I suspect the victims were undoubtedly sad and hungry as well. So Socialism also causes sadness and hunger... In addition to cancer.

[parmalee]

Oh yes, and then there's this:

Tax on trees is a tax imposed in USSR by Joseph Stalin on fruit trees and even shrubs.

This has the cobra effect, namely the mass felling of trees by Soviet farmers, which subsequently led to shortage of fruit.

Some say that the idea proposed by the Minister Arseny Zverev. Stalin also did not see in this any hidden dangers.

The tax was repealed in 1954, by Malenkov, when taxes were reduced by 60 per cent for farmers. [1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_on_trees

So plenty of stealing (aka crime, aka taxes) in the USSR as well.

[joepistole]

Politifact Lie of the Year 2010:

"ObamaCare is a "government takeover" of health care. -- Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio; Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla.; the Republican Party of Florida; Lt. Gov.-elect Rebecca Kleefisch, R-Wis."

[spidergoat]

Taxes aren't stealing. Paying taxes is patriotic.

[Michael]

I'm curious about what exactly is the mechanism you imagine whereby not voting at all causes candidates more to your liking to appear on the ballot in the future?

Without a mandate the election is invalid. Imagine if only 5% of the public voted in an election - that election would not have a mandate and new candidates would need to run.

Assuming Representative government works as it's supposed to work.

In the super state that's become the USA, I often wonder if it wouldn't work better run by an outright aristocracy versus the oligarchy that presently runs it. At least aristocrats would have a rational reason for not selling the people off to the Chinese.

[spidergoat]

Bah! I beg to differ:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_stalin

There--irrefutable proof that Socialism causes death. No mention of sadness, crime, or hunger above, but I suspect the victims were undoubtedly sad and hungry as well. So Socialism also causes sadness and hunger... In addition to cancer.

That only proves that Stalin causes death.

[parmalee]

That only proves that Stalin causes death.

You're missing the context here, Spider.

[spidergoat]

Money itself is socialism, did you know that? It has no inherent value except what we collectively assign to it. It's maintained by central institutions for the good of all.

[quadraphonics]

Without a mandate the election is invalid.

The fact that some portion of the electorate doesn't care enough to vote doesn't undermine the mandate of the results, though.

Imagine if only 5% of the public voted in an election - that election would not have a mandate and new candidates would need to run.

Maybe where you live. Where I live, that's only true if there's some interference preventing lots of people who wanted to vote from doing so. If 95% of people don't care who wins, then not voting at all is exactly a legitimate expression of their political preferences, and the whims of the remaining 5% thereby have a valid mandate.

The exact level of turnout, on its own, is not an issue.

Assuming Representative government works as it's supposed to work.

Representative government doesn't require high turnout to "work" in the sense of producing a government with a legitimate mandate to govern. If a lot of people just do not care, then their failure to turn out is exactly a valid expression of their political preferences.

In the super state that's become the USA, I often wonder if it wouldn't work better run by an outright aristocracy versus the oligarchy that presently runs it. At least aristocrats would have a rational reason for not selling the people off to the Chinese.

I'm left to wonder what you think the difference between aristocracy and oligarchy is? And how that relates to nationalism, apparently?

[quadraphonics]

That only proves that Stalin causes death.

Sure, but socialism causes Stalin. And poor parenting causes socialism.

The real mystery is what causes poor parenting...

[Michael]

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume you mean "status quo"?

And you get a big star for noticing an auto-spelling correction and not addressing the argument.

Only the State could waste 24 million on a bridge to nowhere. Like the one built in Ipswich.

It cost $24 million to build, but a bridge across the new Ipswich Motorway leads to nothing more than a patch of grass.