Democrats start to jump ship...

[JLawson]

It's going to be bigger than pocketbooks:
http://nypost.com/2013/11/12/death-by-o ... -patients/
It's going to be having to make serious life choices that you wouldn't have had to make because of Obamacare. It's going to be getting used to a lower standard of care and even a lower standard of living. Worst, this has broken the web of trust that makes everything work.

Bill Whittle's "Web of Trust" essay. Crappy formatting - good ideas.

So when we talk about the entire idea of civilization, a simple glance at history shows we are not talking about race at all. At various times in history the leading civilization has been black, yellow, brown, or white, and the barbarians lined up to tear down those civilizations have been of every color as well. So to make claim that saying one culture is civilized while another is not is somehow racist is patently ridiculous on it's face.

Anyone who claims otherwise is trying to shut down the argument because they know they cannot win it on facts and logic - which to some of these people are also racist. But facts and logic don't give a darn what they think - facts and logic exist whether they like it or not. So do I, and I don't give a darn what such people say, either. This intimidation tactic has silenced benign, well-meaning people for too long. How would a real Nazi respond to being called a racist? Hitler, dude, you're like a total racist! That's a compliment to goose-stepping sons of bitches. That's a badge of pride for them. Only decent people are deterred by such rhetoric - and that is the entire objective. It works. But not here. Not anymore.

It's not the hardware, it's the software. It's not race, it's culture.

That's what I believe.

There is a full-court effort to tear down civilization these days, to make ridiculous even the very idea of civilization, and that is a fight worth rising to. Because the unseen rhizomes of civilization - the impenetrably vast and intricate connections that exist out of our view, beneath the surface of our blinkered daily existence - produce so much that is good and necessary and completely taken for granted that to lose it would be to lose what makes us fully human.

And I don't want that to happen. Do you?

Personally, I'm rather fond of civilization... and distrust those who would tear it down what we have now to replace it with 'something better' without having some sort of proof that you can transition to 'better' without smashing 'good enough for now'.

Obamacare... 'You had to pass it to find out what was in it' according to Pelosi. Well, we've seen what's in it - can we dump the rotting mess now and hose things off, and try to get back to the way things were which weren't perfect but a hell of a lot better than we're going to be getting with the 'better' of Obamacare? I'll gladly give up my pregnancy and birth control pill coverage...

[Schneibster]

The election isn't for a year.

You guys are in deep shit.

[Carl White]

This is going to get very VERY ugly in coming months with
- continued failure of exchanges to work.
- millions losing the insurance they had.
- sticker shock from more expensive policies with higher deductibles.
- low information people showing up at hospitals thinking they have coverage they don't.
- potential for identity theft from exchange site bugs and lack of "navigator" screening.
- people unable to keep their doctor with any approved policy.
- extensive less direct fallout of this "pass something, ANYTHING, while we can" disaster.

Yep, it really sounds like Americans should can the whole rotten system with its parasitic, profit-over-people HMOs and move to single payer, doesn't it.

[Schneibster]

The exchanges work fine everywhere but the thirteen states that refused to implement exchanges.

The teatraitor states.

[Jccarlton]

This is going to get very VERY ugly in coming months with
- continued failure of exchanges to work.
- millions losing the insurance they had.
- sticker shock from more expensive policies with higher deductibles.
- low information people showing up at hospitals thinking they have coverage they don't.
- potential for identity theft from exchange site bugs and lack of "navigator" screening.
- people unable to keep their doctor with any approved policy.
- extensive less direct fallout of this "pass something, ANYTHING, while we can" disaster.

Yep, it really sounds like Americans should can the whole rotten system with its parasitic, profit-over-people HMOs and move to single payer, doesn't it.

Are you kidding? Give the same people who created this screw-up any MORE power over lives. Yeah, right, that will work out real well. Government is not the magic solution for every problem and I haven't seen any example of single payer that are not incredible messes.

[palladin9479]

This is going to get very VERY ugly in coming months with
- continued failure of exchanges to work.
- millions losing the insurance they had.
- sticker shock from more expensive policies with higher deductibles.
- low information people showing up at hospitals thinking they have coverage they don't.
- potential for identity theft from exchange site bugs and lack of "navigator" screening.
- people unable to keep their doctor with any approved policy.
- extensive less direct fallout of this "pass something, ANYTHING, while we can" disaster.

Yep, it really sounds like Americans should can the whole rotten system with its parasitic, profit-over-people HMOs and move to single payer, doesn't it.

Are you kidding? Give the same people who created this screw-up any MORE power over lives. Yeah, right, that will work out real well. Government is not the magic solution for every problem and I haven't seen any example of single payer that are not incredible messes.

That's because your keeping your eyes closed.

I happen to live in a place where there is a nation health plan, and guess what, it's not broke, not even slightly. The government covers a wide variety (but not everything) of care and sets prices on most procedures and medication. People who are covered then have to pay a small amount for care and the government pays the rest. Works wonderfully at covering the ~90% of care that people need.

Now as to why free market healthcare can't work. For anything to work in a free market supply and demand need to have a natural method to equalize. In commodities this is simple, you vote with your dollar. If something is priced to high you simply chose to not buy it or pay for an alternative. In healthcare there is no alternative to being live. You can't chose to be "discount" alive, or "generic" alive. You have a health problem, you need it take care of. If I'm the provider of that care I can chose to charge whatever I want for that care. Your only choice is to pay me or die. In economic terms this can be expressed as setting demand to infinity. No amount of supply can balance with an infinite demand.

Of course government covered 100% doesn't work either as people abuse the system. You must provide a financial disincentive for them to not use it, which is what the small fee is for. You also must ensure your healthcare providers don't the opportunity to price gouge to maximize their profit margins. You also must ensure that junk lawsuit layers don't take the opportunity to gouge everyone they can touch.

So continue spewing lies. I can stand here, being living breathing proof that it works. Eventually you'll run out of breath from trying to convince me with angry rhetoric. Free market healthcare is about as effective as free market police or free market national intelligence.

[Jccarlton]

This wonderful system perhaps?:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/1 ... ve-it.html
The one that I have been hearing SO many Great stories about, it seems weekly, if not on a daily basis. The system that manage to off it's former director a couple of weeks or so ago. The system that came up with death panels and the Liverpool Care Protocol? The same system that had an IT disaster bigger than the one we are dealing with? The same system that was offering doctors 60 pounds to clear beds, I suppose by offering pensioners the needle? All those great stories from the Times, Mail, Telegraph, and the Guardian. The healthcare system that needs so many administrators that it is the second largest employer in the world, even beating India rail, The US government and coming second only the People's Army? That system? Sorry, but we can't afford it.

[palladin9479]

Nope wrong half of the world. I happen to think that Europe is totally frick.

But hey try again, you got two more attempts. Maybe by then the vitriol would of worked it's way out of your arteries and you might actually talk rather then slinging words like a drunk liberal at the after party of a feminist convention.

[Jccarlton]

Nope wrong half of the world. I happen to think that Europe is totally frick.

But hey try again, you got two more attempts. Maybe by then the vitriol would of worked it's way out of your arteries and you might actually talk rather then slinging words like a drunk liberal at the after party of a feminist convention.

Canada then, the system that's so great that people made movies about it:
http://www.steynonline.com/4221/the-barbarian-invasions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw
I keep hearing stories about that great Canadian health system:
http://www.bdtonline.com/columns/x25203 ... rs-at-work
This stuff is easy to find and points to long term problems:
http://mises.org/daily/3586
Somehow they never seem to end well. Something about shortages, gurneys in the halls, dirty and old hospitals, long waits for things like CT scans and specialists. Over and over, for quite frankly as long as I can remember. Along with Progressives singing the praises of the system, up until they had to use it. And as for as vitriol goes YOU accused ME of lying when all I did was say what I thought. And then you continued when I provided stories to back up what I said. The fact is that by and large single payer doesn't have great record and if you can't admit that, well you only kidding yourself.

[MSimon]

Health care at the point of a gun?

Everything government does is at the point of a gun.

How Progressive to favor brute force as an operating principle.

It is a very old problem. Lots of people want a King.

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.

Over two thousand years and nothing has changed:

http://www.examiner.com/article/liberal ... ctatorship

[mvanwink5]

Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela is our savior as he reminds fools with no memory of the true results of socialism. It is an economic road map of O's vision. However, the power of propaganda is impressive...

[JLawson]

CNN, that noted right-wing bastion of epic rightwingedness rightwingery lying liars, has this to say about Obamacare:

Obamacare Numbers are Embarrassing.

Obviously they're 'embarrassing' because they're so epically AWESOME!!11!

Obamacare Enrollment Numbers Brutally Low

On Wednesday, the Obama administration finally released its first numbers for Obamacare health insurance exchange enrollment dating from October 1 to October 31. The numbers were not pretty: just 106,185 people “selected a Marketplace plan” using the exchanges, after the administration predicted that 494,620 people would do so.

Liars! /Schneibs

Even the Associated Press was forced to lament the “dismal numbers.” The federal health care exchange signed up less than 27,000 people. Meanwhile, nearly 7 million people are expected to lose the insurance plans President Obama said they could keep. So far, five million have lost their insurance.

Liars! /Schneibs

The state numbers were far from encouraging. Overall, the states signed up 79,391 people. California led the way with 35,364 people who have selected a plan (as opposed to 1 million who have lost a plan); New York came in second at 16,404 (at least 100,000 New Yorkers have lost their insurance); Washington came in third at 7,091 (290,000 have lost their insurance in Washington); and Kentucky came in at 5,586 (280,000 lost their insurance in Kentucky).

Public college cites high cost of Obamacare in canceling students' health plans

Officials at one one of the nation's oldest and most elite historically black colleges are citing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as the reason they have cancelled a school-wide affordable health care plan they had offered students.

The official website for Bowie State, a Maryland public school less than an hour's drive from Washington D.C., explains that Obamacare's new regulations would force the cost of the insurance to rise from $50 to $900 a semester.

Liars! /Schneibs

How Obamacare is Hurting Bowie State Students
Liars! /Schneibs

Barack Obama: "You Can Keep Your Health Care Plan" Lie Montage

Barack Obama: 'What We Said Was, You Could Keep' Your Health Care Plan, If - Organizing for America

The internet never forgets... much as a liar might want it to. All the high-sounding rhetoric from a politician, all the promises, all the 'love' for a cult-of-personality figurehead will not change reality one bit.

[choff]

My reading of the situation in Britian is that the Conservative government brought in an upper class hard core self declared lifetime Marxist to run one of the hospitals. He immediately set about to wreck everything, that's when the people started dying. Cameron stands behind him 100%, and the staff that were forced out had to sign non disclosure settlements. The Brits are scared the Conservatives want to bring Obamacare to England now, they were content with the NHS before.

As for the Canadian system, you won't find anyone here who wants the American system from before or especially now, people vote with their wallets. One aspect you need to look at is how American business is packing up and moving to countries with lower healthcare costs.

[mvanwink5]

lower healthcare costs.

I thought quality was the imperative Which end of the field will they run to next? Forrest Gump should be consulted.

[Diogenes]

This wonderful system perhaps?:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/1 ... ve-it.html
The one that I have been hearing SO many Great stories about, it seems weekly, if not on a daily basis. The system that manage to off it's former director a couple of weeks or so ago. The system that came up with death panels and the Liverpool Care Protocol? The same system that had an IT disaster bigger than the one we are dealing with? The same system that was offering doctors 60 pounds to clear beds, I suppose by offering pensioners the needle? All those great stories from the Times, Mail, Telegraph, and the Guardian. The healthcare system that needs so many administrators that it is the second largest employer in the world, even beating India rail, The US government and coming second only the People's Army? That system? Sorry, but we can't afford it.

My recollection is that this character lives in South Korea. I'm thinking he is part of the US Army contingent over there, but I could be mistaken.


He is a ~Libertarian with a capital LIB.

Someone that just hasn't quite grown up yet.