Arizona Shooting Spree, Congresswoman, judge, among victims...

Let's just come right out with it: dude prefers to live in fantasyland, where he's always right and is backed by the majority. Of course this is silly, and on some level he must know this. I say that because his interactions here are clearly a misguided exercise in externalizing the associated cognitive dissonance. I.e., if he can manage to browbeat some liberal into accepting the basic premises of this worldview, it'll go a long way towards making him feel justified in ignoring that voice in the back of his head that keeps saying "this is all just a bit too convenient to be true, isn't it?"

The downside is that the program he's bought into anticipates that nobody will go along with that, and has a built-in safety net. I.e., the response will be to project his problems onto anyone that confronts him with them. Specifically by insisting that we're all craven partisan ideologues who refuse to deal with reality. Which will be almost as good for him - he knows that there's some variance with reality, so if he can blame it all on the Other he can not only disclaim it, but pretend that he's actively opposing such.

I recommend making popcorn and enjoying the savage mockery as much as possible.

 

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It's their perogative, but that doesn't mean the legislation has a chance of lasting very long once they are out of power.

Which is why when one is enacting such sweeping legislation that has that kind of impact on people's lives then one should not do so with out bi-partisan support.

Which the bill had NOT a single bit of.

Point in fact was the actual vote was that all 178 Republicans opposed it, along with 34 Democrats, which is why the legislation just BARELY passed and is not likely to last much past the next election.

Arthur

 

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The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 55% of Likely Voters favor repeal of the health care law,

Arthur

 

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Except it wasn't a case of legislation not being exactly what Republicans wanted, it was legislation that the Democrat majority couldn't sell to a SINGLE Republican nor to 34 members of their own party.

Big difference.

Arthur

 

Hmmm, surveys...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20029123-503544.html

 

It is interesting that the Rasmussen poll attributed the result to the false belief that healthcare reform law would add to the deficit. And we all know Rasmussen's bias. That is why Fox News is so fond of calling on them.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law

According to the Associated Press poll, only 26% want to repeal the healthcare reform law. It would appear that Republicans/Tea Partiers are trying to cram stuff down other peoples throats.

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Since repeal is clearly not what the public wants.

http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com/pdf/AP-GfK Poll 011411.pdf

And worst of all for Republicans/Tea Partiers is the trend. With each passing week, as people learn more about the healthcare reform law, fewer and fewer people want to repeal the law.

 

I expect Republicans will remember that now that they are the majority in the House.

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Your comment reminds me of somthing my mother used to tell me, "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" Democrats reached out to Republicans and included all kinds of amendments Republicans wanted...much to the chagrin of those outside the Republican/Tea Party. That is why it took so long to get the bill passed into law, and why it was a weaker bill than most Democrats had envisioned and wanted.

Just because one side wants to be an ass and be the party of NO does not mean the other party should be irresponsible and follow suit.

 

Indeed

 

A Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters, conducted Jan. 4-11, says the public supports repeal by 48 percent to 43 percent with 8 percent undecided. (The margin of error is 2.4 points). Support for repeal, according to this poll, is bolstered by independents who want the measure repealed by a 54 percent to 37 percent margin, with 9 percent undecided.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/0...ng-results-on-health-care-law-as-house-readi/

And

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. doctors surveyed fear healthcare reform could worsen care for patients, by flooding their offices and hurting income, according to a Thomson Reuters survey released Tuesday. "When asked about the quality of healthcare in the U.S. over the next five years, 65 percent of the doctors believed it would deteriorate with only 18 percent predicting it would improve,"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41149280/Survey_US_Doctors_Fear_Healthcare_Reform

Arthur

 

The article you cited used Quinnipiac which just happened to asked the broadest of questions in their survey. And even at that, the difference in the Quinnipiac poll was just a few percentage points and when you factor in the margin for error the "repeal" number is far from robust - only 1 or 2 percent greater.

Additionally, your article cited other polling that confirmed the Associated Press Polling which runs counter to your claim and the Republican/Tea Party claim that most Americans do not support the new healthcare law.

And what you have failed to recognize is the trend. The trend as mentioned several times before is not one that favors the Republican/Tea Party position on the issue.

Do physicians fear that healthcare reform would worsen care for patients or do they fear the impact on their paychecks?

Where is the rule that physicians must be paid better than everyone else? Where is the rule that says the American government must act to restrict the supply of physicians in order to keep physician salaries high (act like a union)? Where is the rule that says a physician's paycheck is directly tied to quality of healthcare? These are myths promulgated by an industry to gain financial advantage.

Physicians have artificially restricted the supply of physicians over decades in order to ensure higher paychecks for themselves. And the result is our current system of healthcare. It is inefficient and too costly. The nation can no longer afford the traditional largess given to physicians and the healthcare industry. We need to get our healthcare costs in line with that of other industrial countries. And we need to improve the level of healthcare to boot. The US healthcare system now ranks #37 in quality. And the trend is not up.

In other industrial countries physicians are well paid employees and patients get better healthcare and patients have longer life expectencies. So the evidence/history shows that higher physician salaries leads to lower quality healthcare not better as the AMA and her advocates (Republicans/Tea Partiers) would have us believe.

The nation can no longer afford to keep physicans supplied witn mansions and that latest and greatest luxury cars. They need to earn their money just like the rest of us and give up the special barriers to entry into their profession. They need to compete in an open market.

As a result of healthcare reform there will be more physicians. And more work traditionally preformed by physicians will be directed to Physician Assistants (PA's) and Nurse Practioners. As a result of healthcare reform there will be more patients in doctors offices and their will be more practioners. And the need for emergency room physicians will drop. So there will be a shuffling of staffing in the industry. But it will be for the benefit of patients.

Decades ago I was a corpsman in the Navy, and it did not take me 10 years of education to sew up wounds or conduct sick call and prescribe medication. Corps School was 6 months. I expect that some work now done exclusively by physicians will be done by physician assistants and nurse practioners and that is a good thing. Additionally the industry has five years to staff up.

 

The U.S. healthcare reform law will worsen a shortage of physicians as millions of newly insured patients seek care, the Association of American Medical Colleges said on Thursday.


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68T67120100930

 

It's not a "false belief" to not agree with CBO projections and since they have already stopped the change to cut doctors fees on Medicade that belief is not unfounded. The fact is according to the poll most voters still strongly feel that the health care reform law passed last year by Congress will cost more than projected.

Assuming it's not repealed or changed, only time will tell if they are right or not.

Source to back up this charge?

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/about_us/methodology

Arthur

 

There is nothing new here, shortages have been forecast for some time now. Even before the healthcare law became the law of the land. Did the forecasts for shortages result in seats being added to the nations medical schools? No.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2003/08/25/prsc0825.htm

And what you have consistently failed to recognize is other variables at work which will mitigate any shortages:

Ophthalmologist Paul Lee, MD, who has analyzed work force demand within his specialty, said the report's prediction of a 47% increase in demand for ophthalmologic surgery doesn't necessarily mean that he and his colleagues would become overwhelmed with cataract patients.

"An increase in demand for surgical services doesn't necessarily translate into a shortage of surgeons to do the work," Dr. Lee said.Surgery is a significant part of ophthalmologists' work but not the bulk of their daily routine, he said. One past work force study showed ophthalmologists spend 17% of their time on surgery. An increase in surgery would mean restructuring the work load, he said, and might even include allowing optometrists to take over more tasks." - Amed News

Work will be redistributed - much to the chagrin of many physicians. But that does not equate to less care or less quality of care. The AMA estimates are based on the current patient care delivery structures. As Dr. Lee above noted, they delivery system will change to accomodate the change brought about by the new healthcare law. And no longer will physicians need to spend time arguing with insurance companies who are trying to ration healthcare. That alone will free up signficant time slots if reports from physicans are to be believed.

And your arguements consistently fail to address the issue of cost. That is a critical issue if the nation wants to remain competitive in the international marketplace.

 

Now you know you are lying here. The CBO has stated and is on the record saying that the healthcare law will save more than 100 billion dollars in the first 10 years.

And it is also on record saying that repealing the healthcare law will increase the deficit by more than 200 billion dollars.

Republicans/Tea Partiers are fond of saying, yeah but if you include a lot of stuff that preexisted healthcare reform and had nothing to do with healthcare reform changes it would cost more.

Yeah you can increase the cost of anything by throwing in friviolous non related costs. But the CBO does not work that way much to the chagrin of Tea Partiers and Republicans every where.

Do a little research on your own Arthur. Why is it Rasmussen is always cited by Fox News and Republicans/Tea Partiers every where? Rasmussen is by the way a very vocal Republican/Conservative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Rasmussen#Political_writings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmussen_Reports#Criticism

CriticismTIME has described Rasmussen Reports as a "conservative-leaning polling group".[21] The Center For Public Integrity has pointed out that Scott Rasmussen was a paid consultant for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign.[22] According to Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com, while there are no apparent records of Scott Rasmussen or Rasmussen Reports making contributions to political candidates in recent years and its public election polls are generally regarded as reliable, "some observers have questioned its issue-based polling, which frequently tends to elicit responses that are more conservative than those found on other national surveys."[23]

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo commented on their reliability in a February 2009 article:[24][25]

The toplines tend to be a bit toward the Republican side of the spectrum, compared to the average of other polls. But if you factor that in they're pretty reliable. And the frequency that Rasmussen is able to turn them around – because they're based on robocalls – gives them added value in terms of teasing out trends. But the qualitative questions, in terms of their phrasing and so forth, are frequently skewed to give answers friendly toward GOP or conservative viewpoints. All of which is to say that his numbers are valuable. But they need to be read with that bias in mind.

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com observed that at the end of the 2010 general election cycle, Rasmussen Polls consistently were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points. [26]

I did a quick check on the accuracy of polls from the firm Rasmussen Reports, which came under heavy criticism this year — including from FiveThirtyEight — because its polls showed a strong lean toward Republican candidates. Indeed, Rasmussen polls quite consistently turned out to overstate the standing of Republicans tonight. Of the roughly 100 polls released by Rasmussen or its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research in the final 21 days of the campaign, roughly 70 to 75 percent overestimated the performance of Republican candidates, and on average they were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points. ....it appears as though the worst poll of the political cycle will be the Rasmussen Reports survey of Hawaii, which had the incumbent Daniel Inoyue defeating Cam Cavasso by just 13 points. Mr. Inouye is ahead by 55 points right now. If Mr. Inouye’s margin holds, the 42-point error would be by far the worst general election poll in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls since 1998; the previous record was 29 points.

Rasmussen has received criticism over the wording in its polls.[27][unreliable source?] Examples of Rasmussen's questions with wording issues include:

Agree or Disagree: "Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party. He says jump, and they say how high."[28]
Do you favor or oppose the economic recovery package proposed by Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats?[29]
Suppose that Democrats agreed on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress. Should the Democrats pass that bill or should they change the bill to win support from a reasonable number of Republicans?[30]
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement... it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money?[30][unreliable source?]
Some of Rasmussen polls have contained two different weights for questions, depending on the party of the statesman in the question.[31][unreliable source?] In one example, the first question asks for a job rating for Tim Pawlenty, a Republican governor, using an approve/disapprove scale. The next question asks for the way that Al Franken, a Democratic senator, is performing his role, but uses a Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor scale. Nick Panagakis of Pollster.com has pointed out that, when using the latter scale, "approval is often reported by combining the top two and bottom two scores", including the "fair" score as a "disapproval" vote.[32]

According to Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who co-developed Pollster.com,[33] “He [Rasmussen] polls less favorably for Democrats, and that’s why he’s become a lightning rod." Franklin also said: "It’s clear that his results are typically more Republican than the other person’s results.”[34]" - Wikipedia

 

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub..._rasmussen_poll_results_2010_senate_elections

Seems they do a pretty good job with no obvious bias.

Arthur

 

You are ingoring a lot of arguement and facts here Arthur...which unfortunately is not atypical for Republicans/Tea Partiers. The bottom line here is that healthcare is beneficial to the nation. And as time goes by, more and more people will come to know the truth about healthcare reform and the lies that were spread by Republicans/Tea Partiers and the industry.

 

Misplaced anger based on lies and a sagging economy.

What Do Americans Really Think Of Health Care Reform Repeal?

...The primary problem with polling data on the issue is that surveys tend to oversimplify the debate. Many polls present respondents with just two options: repeal the whole shebang, or do nothing at all. What those polls fail to take into account is the fact that some parts of the law are widely popular, while others are disliked, and still others are unknown or misunderstood.

For example, a CNN poll from December found broad support for the law's main provisions -- except the much maligned individual mandate. Sixty percent of respondents said they opposed the individual mandate, though larger percentages supported the provisions preventing insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions (64%) or dropping coverage for those who become seriously ill (61%.)

All or nothing polls tend to exaggerate support for a full repeal by counting respondents who may only dislike one part of the comprehensive law.

Rasmussen is perhaps the biggest culprit here, as they ask a direct repeal or no repeal question and allow respondents to say only whether they "strongly" or "somewhat" fall to either side. By that measure, Rasmussen pegged support for repeal at 60% in mid December, with just 34% opposing repeal. (Rasmussen has been criticized in the past, notably by Nate Silver, for using methodology that may create biased results.)

When more nuanced wording is used, the picture changes drastically.

As Greg Sargent noted earlier this week, a great example of this is the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, which first asked respondents if they supported or opposed the law, and then asked those who opposed or had no opinion of the law if they favored a full or partial repeal. When the results of that breakdown were factored back into the whole sample, less than one in five (18%) favored a full repeal, while more people (19%) favored a partial repeal.

That poll isn't alone. In fact, two polls have actually found a seemingly counterintuitive result, given the supposed high support for a total repeal.

A recent AP-GFK poll pegged support for the law at 40%, with opposition slightly higher at 41%. But when they asked if respondents would like to expand, trim, or scrap the law, or to leave it as is, a whopping 43% said they'd like to see the law do more to change the health care system. Meanwhile, 26% said they'd want it repealed entirely, and 10% said they'd prefer to see it scaled back. Similarly, when Marist presented respondents with the same options, 35% said they wanted the law to do more, while 30% wanted it repealed entirely.​

 

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Now you are talking about mitigating shortages while a few short posts ago you claimed:

Right.

Clearly you just make this up as you go along.

Arthur

 

Right, didn't have anything to do with their positions.

As to repeal, they had another poll on change vs repeal.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters want to change the law, while only 18% want it left alone.

Those figures include 20% who want the law repealed and nothing done to replace it, 28% who want it repealed and then have its most popular provisions put into a new law and 27% who say leave the law in place but get rid of the unpopular provisions.

It is worth noting that a majority (55%) take one of the middle ground approaches—repeal and replace or leave it and improve.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub.../january_2011/75_want_health_care_law_changed

Arthur