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#731 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
Buzz, I'm not quoting your post because it's a page or so back, but I totally agree with most of what you say about healthcare. It's screwed up. I don't have an answer. I do know that I think the cost of health care, drugs, rooms, even getting an education that gets you into the industry is incredibly overpriced and rising at astonishing rates. Why? I wish I knew.
I don't have a suggested plan. Universal healthcare? Sounds good. Who pays? We all do with higher taxes. I don't think dismantling what we have without giving the people who rely on it something else is wise. COBRA is laughingly expensive, and that's what many of my friends have had to do before the ACA.
You clearly have a much more intimate look at this topic with a deeper knowledge. I can only speak to what my dozens of laid off friends and family members have gone through. It's been shitty and as you say probably will remain so.
I do know a lot about it, but I don't know everything, and admittedly I have my biases because I see things from a point of view that may not be a popular point of view. Here's what I do know...the government can't do anything efficiently. Ask a veteran about their VA experiences for example. I don't trust them to be able to effectively run healthcare. I know some disagree with that, but I've seen nothing that even hints they can do it.
I think the solution has to start with controlling costs...any meaningful solution at least. The question is how do you do that? There are so many issues between people not having insurance (even when required), malpractice insurance, pharmaceuticals, etc. That's before even getting to insurance contracts with providers. Providers set prices, insurance companies say they'll only pay so much, prices for other stuff goes up, insurance companies say they'll only pay so much, prices go up on other things. The whole system is broken. The problem beyond that is that there's no simple answer and both parties are politicizing this (shocking!) instead of trying to do anything positive for the American public.
#732 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
yup...these people who thing they're above any type of accountability need to be burned at the stake.
Then you'll have to burn them all on both sides of the aisle, which I am all for. Mitch finally said something I can agree with, even though it isn't at all what he thought he was saying.
#733 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
bigbri wrote:I agree it hurt people. How badly and how many I’m sure we wouldn’t agree on. Now, can’t you agree a great number of people were saved because they could get insurance and also that this continual degradation by Trump and the GOP of the ACA without a plan to take its place is not a real solution?
Tell me what plan could be put in place that will not further fuck the working class or the people with preexisting conditions? There's a natural contradiction there in that there's really no way to protect both in the current environment. Now things will be worse as neither side will be protected. But hey, let's blame trump for that instead of Obama for fucking it up in the first place.
I want to go back to this now that I'm on my laptop and not the phone.
Healthcare has been an issue going back to before Clinton. It's never been quite right...there have been issues around costs sharing and premiums for as long as I've been aware that such a thing even existed. I had to declare bankruptcy after a surgery when I was insured and about 20 years old because even with the insurance, I couldn't afford the 30K or so in medical bills I was left with. My wife is a diabetic. I'm more aware than most of the issues with preexisting conditions as well. None of these are things I am not personally concerned about as they affect me directly or they have in the past.
Before Obamacare, I had relatively affordable premiums. They weren't cheap because my wife is a diabetic, so we always paid for the highest premium, lowest deductible/co-pay plan available to limit our exposure to unexpected expenses. Basically we are risk-adverse. Well post-Obamacare, because of the coverages mandated, our premiums have skyrocketed. Now if that was the only problem, that would be okay; we'd survive. No, now on top of skyrocketing premiums, we now have deductibles that have skyrocketed as well so they don't get a Cadillac plan tax. So instead of coverage that was useful, we now have what basically amounts to catastrophic coverage meaning it only covers us if something really, really bad happens. What difference does it make if a preexisting coverage is covered if you don't hit the ridiculously high deductible? Let's start with this as it is the "easiest" thing to fix out there. How do you propose fixing it in a way that doesn't tax people to death?
#734 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
buzzsaw wrote:mitchejw wrote:Right...trump should never have to do anything he doesn’t want to do...because he’s so rich, white and bigly.
You defend his actions and behavior at every turn don’t you? Then in a few posts you’ll claim you’re not a supporter.
There's no action here to defend. He's under no obligation to do something just because people think he should. I didn't and will not vote for the guy, but I don't have this personal vendetta against him like you do.
Every President for nearly the past 50 years has released their tax returns in an effort of transparency. Unlike his claim, Trump is the least transparent president of our lifetime.
FTR, there isn't anything in the 'constitutional' that Obama had to release his birth certificate either, only that a President needs to be born in the US. Trump chose to go full Alex Jones stupid on that one. Now the tables have turned & he's a big fraud.
Well, you do need to be able to provide proof of where you were born though I do not know who manages the HR or I-9 aspect of the white house, but regardless you're talking to the wrong guy because I never said a peep about that one either. You guys are much better at the nitpicking of things than I am. I acknowledge the flaws of both parties...honestly much more so than I do their strengths. In that way we're not that different. I've said before: you guys get it half right...
It makes no difference what everyone has done or why they've done it. That still doesn't mean he or any other person has to do it. Plenty of people do things I would never do, so I've never found that to be a persuasive argument.
#735 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
I agree it hurt people. How badly and how many I’m sure we wouldn’t agree on. Now, can’t you agree a great number of people were saved because they could get insurance and also that this continual degradation by Trump and the GOP of the ACA without a plan to take its place is not a real solution?
Tell me what plan could be put in place that will not further fuck the working class or the people with preexisting conditions? There's a natural contradiction there in that there's really no way to protect both in the current environment. Now things will be worse as neither side will be protected. But hey, let's blame trump for that instead of Obama for fucking it up in the first place.
#736 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
buzzsaw wrote:mitchejw wrote:Nice pivot...i was talking about tax returns...what are you talking about? I
Is it in the constitution that he has to release his tax return or is that an everyone else jumped off the cliff so he has to do it too thing?
Right...trump should never have to do anything he doesn’t want to do...because he’s so rich, white and bigly.
You defend his actions and behavior at every turn don’t you? Then in a few posts you’ll claim you’re not a supporter.
There's no action here to defend. He's under no obligation to do something just because people think he should. I didn't and will not vote for the guy, but I don't have this personal vendetta against him like you do.
#737 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
Here’s Trump not affecting cost of health care again.
BREAKING: Trump files a brief today going further than ever before to dismantle the ACA in entirety.
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇦 (@ASlavitt) May 1, 2019
This means: pic.twitter.com/rYCYE6Z2lT
[/embed]
Its impossible to have any meaningful conversation on this subject when you refuse to acknowledge how many working people got absolutely fucked by Obamacare and what it did to their healthcare costs.
#738 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 366 weeks ago
Randall Flagg wrote:Don’t you love it when a man who can’t read pretends he can?
Nice pivot...i was talking about tax returns...what are you talking about? I
Is it in the constitution that he has to release his tax return or is that an everyone else jumped off the cliff so he has to do it too thing?
#739 Re: The Sunset Strip » HBO's A Game of Thrones » 367 weeks ago
You know how they got south of the wall, right? I know thinking is hard for you, but try it. Think really hard about everything that happened and what caused it to happen and you'll start to understand. Or you can go read the gazillion pieces of information out there. Or you can just understand that the writing has gone downhill since they ran out of source material.
Regardless of what you do, there's no way in the world I'm wasting any time explaining it to you. There's an episode of the big bang theory that touches on Indiana Jones. It's not exactly the same context, but it can at least get you started down the road of thinking for yourself. Good luck...I think you're going to need it.
#740 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 367 weeks ago
buzzsaw wrote:PaSnow wrote:Military force? Depends. I mean, at some point if they don't have a President or Maduro refuses to leave & takes to violence to stay in office, then yeah we need to step in. Just a quick whoop-ass though, Desert Storm/1991/3 days style.
I understand not having the stomach for a drawn out conflict, but I dont get why we dont have the stomach for this and do things half-assed instead. We have the ability to just go in, do what needs to be done and get out before it becomes a big mess, but we don't want to do it. We twiddle our thumbs until it becomes a big mess, then we get involved. Its totally backwards.
I don’t think a quick in and out is possible. In Desert Storm, we didn’t invade Iraq and we didn’t remove Saddam. We just removed his military from Kuwait and pushed them back. We weren’t occupiers and didn’t destabilize the nation.
Venezuela is a total shit hole. Starvation and lack of medicine is it’s current state, with a leader with total control. Sure we could destroy their military and the small Russian contingent present in 72 hours with total war. But I don’t think total war is an option.
And when we remove Maduro or he flees, then what? If we leave, we just created another Iraq. Sure, there will be a lot less jihadists in Venezuela, but we’ll just get a different ideology connected to communism that all extremist groups in Central America derive from. Communists guerillas in the likeness of Che isn’t any better or different than jihadis. They use the same tactics and kill the same minorities.
We topple Maduro, 2 million migrants head towards greener pastures. We already have over 100k illegals entering our country a month and our immigration system is effectively broken. I don’t want to encourage any activity that will result in millions more of hungry mouths unable to work or communicate, entering our nation.
It isn't possible now because we twiddled our thumbs too long. We could have nipped it in the bud, but didn't. Now here we are...
