yeah the funny thing is I’ve argued ACA on and off this year and I don’t know WTF it really is other than the vaguest outlines of mandates and subsidized state insurance “exchanges”, which I gather will be a website where one can price plans and enroll.

This month Blue Cross notified it was raising my rates next month for some of the changes they’ve made to conform to the new rules, like ditching the $5M lifetime limit I had.

But the odd thing is that upon further research I see this change wasn’t required until 2014 for group plans, and not required at all for individual plans (which can be grandfathered).

Imagine if an outfit like FOX was actually trying to fight *for* ACA and not try to torpedo it.

The weird thing is that ACA is very very conservative. Like I’ve tried to get one of your trolls to admit, it’s pretty much a repeat of the 1993 Republican plan proposed to counter HillaryCare . . . with such co-sponsors as Ted Stevens, Orrin Hatch, and Bob Dole.

There’s nothing to really object about it, any more than people object to getting cited for not wearing a seatbelt. The mandate is a similar restriction on freedom for a similar reason.

There’s been tons of BS scare-mongering — from both the left and the right — about being forced to buy something, but that’s not really true, the extra tax one pays for not having qualifying insurance isn’t forcing anyone to do anything, any more than me not getting tax benefits for paying mortgage interest or not getting the child credit is forcing me to buy a house or form some babbies.

> And, hmm, “Gotten even less popular.” Kinda hard to
> take that from any of the numbers. Support is actually
> growing, meaning that people are more and more realizing
> the benefits of the plan despite the campaign of lies.

Let me take a stab at it. By your numbers, all supporters have fallen from 56% to 52%. All opponents have risen from 37% to 43%. The grouped numbers show the same trend (oppose 54% up to 59%, favor 43% down to 39%).

What the numbers don’t show is *who* is most enraged by the new law. It’s senior citizens, who have lost Medicare advantage, are facing new Medicare restrictions and soon, the death panels. Senior citizens vote in disproportionate numbers, which is one reason why Republicans were so successful in November.

Did *any* Democrat running in November try to get reelected by pointing to the new law? Hell no–the ones who *didn’t* vote for it were boasting about that.

That’s what happens when you don’t even put major legislation up for a vote and slip it in via a totally partisan, back-door legislative trick. You get a shoddy piece of crap that does more damage than good. Just wait till it actually starts to kick in (if it ever does) and people will *really* hit the roof.

@Geoff: But what do you think is the ideal health care system?

What existing systems that exist out there that you can point to that are better than ours that we should be emulating?

How are you going to save the lives of the 41,000 people that will die this year or any year that the status quo takes place?

Or do those people even matter?

Is it okay that they die needlessly?

Please take the time to express your concern for your fellow citizens that are going to die, instead of your usual expression of your fellow citizens who are fabulously wealthy and going to make more money because of this.

Please do this to prove that you are not a sociopath.

Please prove that you have a conscience that won’t be silenced.

I have never met a person more full of shit that GK.

Medicare Advantage is one of those government wastes that GK rails against, yet he indirectly defends the Republican demagoguery on it here.

Same thing with the “Death Panel” bullshit.

Of course, Medicare Part C was created by the Republican Congress of the late 90s, largely the same Congress that also gave us Medicare Part D’s immense over-spending.

Government isn’t the problem, REPUBLICANS f—ing it up is, and that’s a demonstrable fact.

It’s senior citizens, who have lost Medicare advantage

Speaking of crap legislation Medicare Part C was in fact right up there with Medicare Part D as bloated government giveaways of tax money to private industry.

Good riddance to that.

The Death Panels can’t come soon enough. Old people watch waay too much FOX NEWS.

@Tim Kane

McCain had a pretty good plan in 2008. Basically, it was deregulate the insurance industry, open up interstate competition and freedom to offer new products and eliminate the penalties for buying individually rather than through employment. Basically, the idea is to make insurance a competitive free market. At the same time, encourage things like Health savings plans (like an IRA for medical care expenses).

Of course, poor people can’t afford even a competitive private plan. Which is why we *already* have Medicaid. Some people who currently have per-existing conditions (but aren’t poor) might also have trouble getting coverage. Presumably, they can apply for Medicaid also at some point. In any event, destroying and rebuilding the entire medical system just for this small number of special cases is sheer folly.

Obviously, Obama’s goal was not to make Medical care cheaper or better or even more available. He just wanted to *control* it and *own* it as a Democratic issue. For better or worse, he succeeded. But he shouldn’t pretend that this “reform” is in any way going to make things better for most Americans. Their health care will be more rationed, less innovative, worse and more expensive. And they won’t be the ones who choose what they get.

It is true Obama wanted to get this reform done and created as a signature issue.

Medicaid is far, far from a replacement plan. My mom’s on it now and I can tell you it’s utter crap, eg. there are no dermatologists in the entire California central valley that take Medicaid patients.

GK’s charge that the current system is being “destroyed and rebuilt” is utterly bizarre and quite typical of the continuous stream of bullshit he adds to Luis’ comment section (doesn’t he have a life?). The exact opposite is occurring with ACA — more people are being required to buy insurance and there will be subsidies for households with middle-class incomes and below so they can afford this mandated coverage.

There is no destruction going on here, other than to some insurance plans with really shitty overhead and profit margins like the McDonald’s employee plan (even that’s not being destroyed, just waivered until the state exchanges come online).

I don’t think the changes will be that big a deal, though it is true medical insurance WILL get more expensive as more people gain access to insured services.

This is fine by me.

GK has no factual basis for his assertions that we will lose innovation or consumer choice in medical care. The plan that the got through the Congress was highly conservative and differed little from the Republican plan of 1993, back when there was still a twinkling of sanity among the Republicans.

I’ll admit to reading your numbers backwards (who writes dates newer to older, left to right?–you’ve been in Japan too long). But your problem is that you’re just reading the wrong polls.

Try Rasmussen (who has the best track record for predicting Presidential elections of any pollster). His last Poll was 12/27. You can read about it at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law

60% favor repealing Obamacare with 49% strongly favoring repeal. 55% say the law will be bad for the country. 61% think the law will cause health care costs to go up. 53% say the quality of health care will decrease under the new law. 57% say the law will increase the federal deficit, while only 17% expect the plan to reduce the deficit.

Most of those numbers are highs or close to the highest polled.

Finally, 52% of those polled thinks Congress should review Obamacare piece by piece and keep the parts worth retaining. I might even agree with that, so I don’t consider it much of a vote in favor of the plan as a whole.

Don’t like Rasmussen? The ABC News-Washington Post Poll reported similar results. See http://www.langerresearch.com/uploads/1119a2%20Health%20care%20blog%20item.pdf

The fact is, the American people don’t like this law, they don’t trust this law and they don’t believe what Obama and the Democrats are telling them about it. You may think you’re smarter than they are. I know Obama feels that way. But in a democracy, the wishes of the majority are supposed to mean something.

The amazing thing is that GK has the ability to just keep on, avoiding everything that exposes his BS. I’m still waiting for a cite from him that supports his argument that the CBO meaningfully revised the cost of the ACA, so far we’re at a +0.46% revision in cost estimate.

The pathology of his broken mind does fascinate me. We already know he’s an outright liar in his real-world life.

The real scary thing is that GK is not alone in his utter partisanship and commitment to conservatism. 20-30% of the population are along for this particular ride in the US.

I personally think it’s his support of the Jewish state of Israel — that’s his polestar that he has to arrange the entirety of his politics around. (I’m just assuming he’s the typical neocon given his last name)

Other conservatives have their fundamentalist religion compelling them to conform to modern-day Republicanism — the anti-abortion/anti-gay/anti-drugs/anti-feminism stuff.

Then there’s the Goldwater hard-core who believe in the glibertarian stuff.

We do have an interesting fight with them over the next two years. “Fight” is the wrong word, overcoming their continuous BS campaign is more of a challenge. I admire your commitment Luis, it’s more hassle than I can commit to.

Try Rasmussen (who has the best track record for predicting Presidential elections of any pollster).

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2010/Senate/Maps/Nov04-s.html#8

But in a democracy, the wishes of the majority are supposed to mean something.

GK for some reason is really pushing on this demagoguery.

He knows he’s got trillion-dollar forces working his side of the debate on this particular issue. They won in 1993 and they managed to de-fang most of what reform could have been this time around, and now they’re circling back trying to get rid of this new thorn.

Geoff, this is not a government by public poll. This is a representative democracy. As a conservative you should be able to understand the difference, and why the Framers established this system in the first f—ing place.

> Geoff, this is not a government by public poll. This is
> a representative democracy.

This is true. It’s also true that every *other* major piece of legislation that you can name had :

– Bipartisan support from Republicans and democrats
– Majority support from the public
– Increasing support after passage
– Reflected a recognized Public Need

This was true for Medicare, Social Security–even for the Civil Rights Act. It’s not true of Obamacare, which was a partisan power grab. Obama never succeeded in selling it to the public (or the Republicans) but he (barely) had the Democratic votes to pass it, so he did. If that’s how you think Representative Government ought to work, than you have pretty low standards. On the bright side though, there may be a place for you on Pelosi or Harry Reid’s staff.

The Party of No had its effect. It wasn’t for lack of reaching across the aisle.

McConnell spilled the beans about his #1 priority.

As for your points 2, 3, 4:

– Majority support from the public
– Increasing support after passage
– Reflected a recognized Public Need

CNN’s poll above shows the “favor” moving from 39% to 43%. That is increasing support after passage.

What’s with you and your total inability to maintain any connection with any level of honesty or reality? It makes it almost impossible to carry on an intelligent conversation with you.

As for your last point,

“While 85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21poll.html

As for the first, the key problem is the mandate. People are totally unfamiliar with this — and the Federal subsidies that will help pay for coverage — but even so public polling is generally favorable:

“By a 15-point margin, Americans express a favorable view of the new health reform law — 50% to 35% (down from 41% unfavorable in June).”

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2420

“McConnell spilled the beans about his #1 priority.”

As did DeMint with his “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo”

The partisans opposition to what was essentially a warmed-over Republican plan from 1993 is quite stunning.

You continually avoid this central fact of the debate. “ObamaCare” is the opposite of a radical change to the system. It is very conservative and no actual conservative should in fact oppose it, for it does solve the twin vexations of the previous system, adverse selection and moral hazard.

Sen. Orrin Hatch after the Virginia decision on the insurance mandate:

“Today is a great day for liberty. Congress must obey the Constitution rather than make it up as we go along. Liberty requires limits on government, and today those limits have been upheld.”

Orrin Hatch was a co-sponsor of the 1993 Chafee plan, which had . . . mandates.

Either the constitution changed since 1993 or the Republicans are entirely full of shit on this. I suspect the latter.

This is a good opinion piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/business/economy/15leonhardt.html

I’d change the last line from “nine members” to “Justice Kennedy”.

“Because no one can predict when they will need expensive health care — major accidents or unexpected illnesses can strike anyone with no notice — and because federal law prohibits the denial of emergency health care, choosing not to buy health insurance is, in fact, an economic activity that has a major impact on the health care system.

“Therefore, mandating that individuals purchase insurance is a necessary and proper means of achieving a legislative goal that clearly falls within congressional authority under the Constitution.

“Once upon a time, conservative Republicans used to be able to understand that — until it became in their political interest to slander their own idea as a constitutional abomination.”

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/radmacher/wb/271123

@ Geoff:

#1:

I asked you to point to an existing model that we should be emulating, but you did not. Instead you pulled out a theoretical model used by McCain, not an actual real, working model.

So you don’t have one.

Keep in mind our Government currently spends as much, per capita, as France’s government does for health care, AND yet most of our people are forced to buy over priced crap on a private market through their employers meaning we pay more than twice, per capita what most country’s spend on health care and yet over 50 million aren’t covered and 41,000 will die this year as a result. So if you would have pointed towards France, or Japan’s (which has private insurance) or Germany’s or some other working model then you actually make a debatable point. Theoretical points made from the campaign trail are little more than carbon fiber.

So you don’t have any existing models to point to that work that we should be emulating.

Our existing system is not an answer, it is the problem. Critizing Obama’s solution, which IS Republican care, per Romney and the 1993 Republican party without a real alternative is to concede the point.

#2:
So nothing for the working poor?

As I recall, when I last lived there, to get Medicaid in Missouri you had to make less than $100 a week. In Arizona it is completely collapsing.

So I asked you to prove to me that you were not a sociopath, that you had a conscience and concern for 41,000 of your fellow American citizens who will die next year for lack of insurance.

You say that no insurance plan is affordable for the working poor. In Korea, which has private health suppliers and insurers, my health insurance cost me $45 a month (my employer paid a matching $45). The working poor can afford that. (Koreans are justifiably proud of their health care system). It is a real live system that really insures nearly 50 million people and it works.

You basically threw the working poor under the bus.

Even worse, you concede the point that you are a sociopath.

You even state that the suffering of the poor is not worth changing an entire system. Let me tell you quite bluntly, it is the reason.

Why would working class people fight and die for a country that would rather leave them to die, that won’t provide them with a reasonably affordable health insurance even though countries like Korea prove that it is surely possible to provide?

This why every society with social contracts like the ones Republicans like you suggust have collapsed in history: its the abdication of moral authority. Why would people fight and defend a country that craps on them. Eventually, they don’t. At that point, property rights collapse and what property that exist goes to the more violent. Amy Choi points this out in her book “World on Fire”… where in the Phillipines, Filipino limo driver killed his rich employer, and suffered no legal effect. In middle ages Japan, the entire society collapsed into a dark feudal age of warriors.

The entire Republcan project assumes that people will just automatically respect the property rights of the filthy rich for no reason at all. In medieval Japan, the rich hired people to protect their property rights, but eventually those hired people realized that they could help themselves to their employers property, and did.

The Republicans are building a nation with a social contract that won’t be defended. The day may come when the vast majority of working people welcome the Chinese liberation army on to our borders. That’s what happened at the time of the Islamic conquest in the 6th and 7th century. Only the ruling classes oppossed Islamic conquest, the working poor did much better under their Islamic overlords. In this way Christianity lost the entire western half of the Middle East and all of North Africa (and Spain for 700 years). Thats why I ask you to point out to me work able models that already exist that are worth emulating… because from my eye shot, there are none and you are simply living up to the republican moniker of The Wrecking Crew – destroying our great country and society.

In essence Geoff: you concede point number 1, but even worse though, you concede point number 2 basically declaring that you are a socio-path with no conscience. Never mind that the logical conclussion of your ideals leave to total collapse of society and country (which is why there are no existing models worth emulating, just the theoretical ones in your head).

Your ideas aren’t really worth the effort it takes to write them (or my responses to them) because they lead and have always lead to ruin. It doesn’t matter if billionaires like Murdoch and the Koch family support them… they won’t and have never worked. But that alone isn’t reason for ignoring your ideas and your points.

The big problem is you are a sociopath. You just conceded as much above. The working poor are not disposable. As George Bailey suggest, they do most of the working, living and dying. They ARE America.

Do you realize and understand that because you are a sociopath with no real conscience your points aren’t worth consideration, or reading or responding to don’t you?

Anyway, now you know.

You are a sick puppy. You remind me of Michael Vick who tortured dogs (I believe people treat dogs the way they would treat people if there were no laws).

My father used to say, never argue with a crazy person, people might not be able to tell the difference. Get some help man.

At least know that the thoughts emanating from your head are sick. And per my father, I won’t be responding to your post anymore.

Don’t worry ‘Geoff’, someday ‘you’ will actually pass the Turing Test.

Over 50 million real Americans without insurance:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/27/uninsured-americans-50-million_n_801695.html

We have formerly middle class people walking around with missing teeth in their heads because of lack of health insurance. You see that in no first world countries. You see that in America.

By definition, you are not middle class if you don’t have access to health care. By definition you are not a first world country if one in six people are without access to health care.

By definition the U.S was once a great country with a great society and is now, today a f.u. worthless, entirely forgettable banana republic.

By definition this country haw been racked and wrecked by the wrecking crew, the Republican party. They took the American century and shortened it down to 60 years. Way to go bushies.

Tim: well said.

But GK is worse than a sociopath, he is a lying sociopath.

Vetting, correcting, and trying to understand his posts is something I enjoy doing, but it is work.

I still would like him to explain how “ObamaCare” is significantly different from the 1993 Chafee plan or “RomneyCare”.

Either he is too stupid to realize he is full of shit, or he is warped enough to not care.

Given that he is a demonstrable liar in his real life (evidence available on request) I’d have to go with the latter.

There’s something he really likes about the Republican agenda. He’s not a Christianist so it’s not the social conservatism per se. It could be the pro-wealthy agenda and the Party’s new Tea Party-driven jihad against paying for government, a return to Grover Norquist’s bathtub strategy of disaster capitalism prompting scaling back government and thus lessening the taxation burden on the upper classes.

It could be that. Like I said above, given his last name, there’s also the possibility that his true loyalties are to Israel and not America. That also comports with the pattern of behavior we see from him here, and explains his dishonesty — willingness to engage in and celebrate misinformation and demagoguery — better.

As for GK’s first point [McCain’s deregulation of the insurance industry], it sounds like an idea worth trying if it would bring about any real competition between insurance companies.

Is federal deregulation the answer? I doubt it. Over time, Americans have seen the insurance industry band together to keep rates high for everyone in order to guard their profits without any serious compromise. I believe most politicians on both sides of the aisle accept enormous contributions from lobbyists to keep things just the way they are. It’s a shame to see a great system of govt undermined by corporate interests year after year.

On GK’s second point,that Obama wants to “control” national health care, I have heard this point before and it has always puzzles me. Why you anyone want to take on something so detrimental to his survival in office? If anything, it shows Obama is willing to follow his own *vision* for a better America, in spite of the risks to his own popularity.

I think it’s quite difficult to substantiate a claim about his hidden agenda. Isn’t it more likely a hidden *paranoia* on the Right that Obama will actually succeed in making America better than it ever was?

My two cents…

[Oops! above post pls change “second” point to “third” point.]
On GK’s second point, I agree with Tim…

Ultimately it is sadism that drives the Wrecking crew: the desire to destroy things, to inflict suffering as a way to comprehend ones own self.

The Republican party is made up of desenters who all want to destroy something that exist in our society, be it civil liberties, civil rights, the new deal, the middle class, and so on…

They aren’t happy unless they are destroying something and/or people are suffering.

These are people who would love nothing more than taking a wrecking ball into the side of the Taj Mahal. Desctruction for destruction’s sake.

Great shining city on a hill? Try smoldering ruin in an ashen pit.

Tim, I completely disagree with that.

Where conservative ideologies come from is a desire to roll back changes that have worsened things, and it’s very easy to look back to the 1950s, 1850s, or 1750s as eras where people were “freer” and times were better.

This is utter crap, but the narrative is internally consistent as long as the avoid the parts that conflict with it — the South’s slavery, New England’s land ownership inequality, the fact that before the 1950s college was only an *upper* middle-class aspiration, etc etc.

Conservatism is an ideology that believes in bottom-up organization and distrusts centralized states telling people what to do and how to live their lives.

I go on about how great Norway is, but it is true that there is much less freedom there, in some areas. An SUV can cost $150,000 because Norway taxes the utter shit out of wasteful vehicles (they want to export their oil and not waste it with conspicuous consumption).

This is not to say that the current Republican party has any answers and is not essentially a front for looters. Economic conservatives are largely stuck with them because there is no other place for them to go.

I am something of an economic conservative, actually, and am not a big fan of much of what government has done the past 100 years — examples where it has done more harm than good are everywhere.

There is a case to be made for conservatism. GK here with his lies and reflexive repetition of propaganda does a really bad job at it, but its core of does have some truths to learn and honor.

> Given that he is a demonstrable liar in his real life
> (evidence available on request) I’d have to go with the latter.

Ok, I’m requesting. I’ve never met you and have no idea how you would even *know* of my real life much less point to any lies. Nor am I aware of anything that constitutes a lie. So pony up you slanderous A__hole.

> Do you realize and understand that because you are a sociopath with no real conscience your points aren’t worth consideration, or reading or responding to don’t you?

> Anyway, now you know.

> You are a sick puppy. You remind me of Michael Vick who tortured dogs (I believe people treat dogs the way they would treat people if there were no laws).

See, this is the reason why Conservatives hate discussing things with liberals. If you don’t embrace a huge Government solution, you’re slandered with crazy ad hominum attacks that make no sense. People need houses, food and clothing too. Should Obama’s next project be to make sure that the Government provides *these* to everyone also? How much wealth will he have to “spread” to accomplish that? Not forcing people to buy Health Insurance = torturing puppies. Sure, if you say so…

I think Chaffee and, to a lesser extent, Romney are RINOs, and “Romneycare” is a disaster that proves he is unfit to be President. So no conflict for me there.

I’m sorry, but not supporting the Government takeover of Health Care doesn’t make me a Sociopath. It makes me someone who prefers individual choice and individual responsibility to Government control and Nanny States. Maybe some people will make bad choices and suffer for them. At least the choices will have been their own.

and “Romneycare” is a disaster that proves he is unfit to be President.

“As it happens, there’s no simple answer on the question of the law’s impact. It has unarguably raised the number of Massachusetts citizens with health-care coverage, and has reduced out-of-pocket costs for many. But it hasn’t reduced overall costs, and in a lengthy series for CJR, Trudy Lieberman has raised questions about the law’s impact on small businesses and low-income workers, among others.”

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/is_romneycare_a_success_or_a_failure.php

“To compare it with the national situation, we can look at the Kaiser Family Foundation’s survey of mean — not median, so these aren’t directly comparable — employer premiums. Check page 32 for the data. Growth rate from 2007 to 2009? About 10.4 percent. The mean-to-median thing makes the two less than comparable, but it certainly looks like the introduction of Romney Care marked a cost slowdown in Massachusetts and potentially slower growth than in the rest of the nation.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/romney_care_contd.html

“The plan’s popularity also remains quite high: The Urban Institute study found approval at 67 percent in fall 2009.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/the_massachusetts_plan_is_work.html

but not supporting the Government takeover of Health Care doesn’t make me a Sociopath. It makes me someone who prefers individual choice and individual responsibility to Government control and Nanny States

Actually it makes you an intellectually dishonest little shit more interested regurgitating propaganda and beating on any number of logical fallacies like excluded middles and strawmen.

The reason you’re a sociopath is because you’re dishonest, Geoff. You’re defending a system you’ve abandoned since 1995. Unreal.

So pony up you slanderous A__hole.

What legal journal were you “managing editor” of at your law school?

Actually, that’s a type that has somehow crept into my resume. I was Managing Editor of the Boston College Third-World Law Journal (which focused on International Law), not their main Law Journal. In fact, I have a published article there on (then) recent changes to Mexican Trademark law. That article has actually been cited in legal cases, so anyone with access to my resume/real name could easily find references to it.

Before labeling someone as “a known liar” (actually “a known lying sociopath” in this case), it’s useful to verify your facts. So you don’t come off looking like an uninformed, libelous jerk.

Geoff K :
So you don’t come off looking like an uninformed, libelous jerk.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA… Pot Kettle etc.

I didn’t want to make this personal — so peace, GK.

I won’t necessarily stop calling you out on your BS here but I will drop this personal side of it.

It’s not necessary and just adds a bunch of crap to what should be Luis’ comment section.

“not supporting the Government takeover of Health Care doesn’t make me a Sociopath. ”

True, enough.

But indifference to 41,000 of your fellow Americans dying each year, and advocating for that system, does make you a sociopath.

We have spent,rather poorly I would add, roughly 3 trillion dollars related to avenging the deaths of 3,000 citizens on 9/11.

If we could flip a switch and implemented, say France’s vaulted health care system (as an example), tomorrow, 41,000 American lives would be saved – and our taxes WOULD GO DOWN because France spends less per capita on health care then we currently do. For those people who receive a health care insurance benefit, that benefit could be monetized, an the resulting increase in purchasing power would have us out of the recession in a fortnight.

Instead, that purchasing power goes to insurance companies where it surpresses demand, chokes our economy and meanwhile our citizens are dying, needlessly.

We’re paying more, getting less. Why because the health insurance companies are holding our society hostage through their lobbyist.

This is what you are for. What you are not for is the 41,000 fellow Americans – people you expect to follow the laws, pay taxes and if necessary fight and die for the country – or the 50 million Americans that don’t have access to affordable health insurance.

If you are for Americans, than you cannot rest until this problem has been fixed.

Only a sociopath would have a blind eye to the suffering of their fellow citizens. These are people who do work for a living. Providing them insurance at $45 a month is only a political stroke away… Korea does it now. In Taiwan the system is even more efficient and would cost only $16 a month (if employers pay half). This is not a free ride. People work and they pay and so they are insurred – so your premise doesn’t hold up… if you cared about suffering Americans.

Republicans want only one thing, to protect the corporations interest in the current system… that’s pathological.

Apparently, sociopaths cannot imagine pain, unless they are experiencing it themselves.

Okay. See. Your thoughts are sickly inhumane. Enough with you, already.

I know you won’t believe it, even if you were visited by the ghost of Christmas past, present and future, (that only works because Scrooge had a conscience they could appeal to). I see little humanity in anything you write. Actually, none. Zero. Zip. To me, that’s sadistic. That’s sick. Very sick. To you, it’s normal.

Tim, I disagree with that to a large extent. The costs of healthcare cost more that $45 per person per month. Somebody has to pay this bill.

I agree that GK’s demagoguing about “government takeover” of health care is unhelpful and part of his larger problem with reality, but it is also true that health is a very big expense in everyone’s life and if we were all rational actors we would devote much more than $45/mo to it.

GK’s ideology either does not admit or wishes to obfuscate the fact that there are immense economic rents available to the providers of health care, since health is everyone’s most important asset. Indeed, without health one truly cannot have any wealth at all.

GK’s conservative ideology is perfectly accepting of a two- or three-tiered system of haves and have nots. Those who cannot pay for their health care fall into the helpless category and they will have to get by as best as they can.

Of course, most of the 20th century featured popular activism against this status quo of the laissez faire and rugged individualism. From Bismarck’s reforms of the late 19th century to the progressivism and later liberalism of the New Dealers, we tried to establish a new, self-funding system of health care that broke the guilding and rent-seeking that is inherent in health care.

As I mention here often, I believe that at the end of the day all taxes come out of rents. I think we need state intervention in mandating essential savings — health care, education, and retirement, so that we peons don’t have to knuckle under to landlords extracting every last penny out of our pay packets, and that we middle-class types don’t sacrifice our savings to bid up the cost of land and houses (for it is only natural that houses will always be just as expensive as we can barely pay for them, given their limited supply and the greater demand for them in most areas).

An honest conservative really can’t defend his laissez-faire ideology wrt health care. There is no historical example of this working, only fiction of libertarian paradises. We do have, however, the important examples of the European, Canada, NZ, and even Japan & Korea.

One of the central failing of the modern neocon / movement conservativism is the abject unwillingness to admit there are both GOOD and bad things to learn from other national experiences. They only want to focus on the bad things in their attempt to obfuscate reality.