Greenspan Chides Republicans For Pushing To Extend Bush Tax

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You should be so lucky.

(And, btw, governments have absolutely no say about access to services in this country. If I treat a Canadian patient, I am free to order whatever tests or therapies that the patient and I consider to be medically necessary. However, with a privately insured, foreign patient, I am often obliged to arrange for pre-approval before undertaking both diagnostic tests and administering therapies. Private insurers do far more to ration services than government ever has.)

The government should provide medical care for our Veterans because they put their lives on the line to protect this country. The fact the Government doesn't do a good job of that means care would probably be even worse for the rest of us.

Insurance companies actually make rather small profits compared to other businesses I believe the total profit is 3 to 4% after you see the expenses vs money coming in. Most businesses have much larger profit margins.

who aside from a medical professional knows every single little misbehaving thing [disease process] which may be lurking undetected within them, but that the insurance companies with diabolical efficiency can root out in the process of cherry-picking?

many americans either are incapable of seeing the rationing, or else rationalize the rationing as necessary to keep the lower classes in their place.

And then there are people that think the worst of people that they have some hatred or whatever for others when they actually don't...

There are a variety of reasons why people lose insurance. If you've never had to deal with it then you are in no place to play blame the victim card. Also, I find it troubling that a great percentage of the social darwinists on this site are either a.) young people who have not been on their own in the real world long enough to experience truly great hardships or b.) fake "self-diagnosed" aspies who have never had the experience of poverty and struggling with employment due to their condition.

if you didn't hate my guts for being gay and poor, then why do you act otherwise [by maliciously supporting various disenfranchising republican schemes]? you are being disingenuous. playing head games with people you consider to be your inferiors is nothing to be proud of.

If that is true than a lot of them must hate themselves as well as they might find themselves disenfranchised by the current system at some point. They don't see the possibilities and don't think it can happen to them. Then when it does happen to them it's too late.

Wha?

I will be perfectly frank and state that I was tempted to write an extremely scathing remark in response to what you said.

Okay first of all the Democrats aren't the friends to the poor and disadvantaged that you make them out to be. If you have received any accomodations while in school for a disability you owe the Republican President George H.W. Bush, whom signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Second, making sure Mickey Mouse and someone whom died 20 years ago isn't submitting a ballot in the voting booth isn't disenfranchisement. Third, a lot of people are having problems with a lack of income right now on both sides of the political spectrum.

I will point out, that I have no ill will towards people whom happen to be poor in fact, I wish I had a full time job right now.

The problem to the situation is that while there are people that legitimately need the safety net, there are a lot of people that are abusing it. For instance, did you know we have people getting welfare that are in this country illegally? I don't blame the children whom were born in the US, but I do blame their parents.

If you have a job and aren't making enough to make a living then yeah I can see Government assisting you and I have no problem with that. If it is due to you being disabled or injured from the job I have no problem with you getting welfare. The danger Republicans see is that welfare can end up becoming a crutch and people end up continuing to rely on it when they can actually do things for themselves. People begin to feel that they are entitled to continue to get the checks, and that isn't good to become dependent on Government.

The situation you aren't taking into account is that the country is broke and even if the Government taxed "the rich" at 100%, it wouldn't begin to cover the garbage that has been pushed through.

You have massive inflation coming down the pike thanks to the Feds, you have a massive debt that we have to pay interest on, etc. We can't continue this direction, driving off a cliff isn't a good idea.

Something you need to understand also is that the Democrats and the mainstream media lied to the American people, instead of focusing on jobs they have focused on left-wing pet projects like Obamacare as well as cap and tax. Then they turned around and lied saying these will save money and create jobs. Did you know the solar power plant in Spain was generating more electricity when it was nighttime in Spain than during the day. This is the very same "Green Jobs" that Obama was touting using Spain as an example. Turns out they were hooking up Diesel Generators and using those to generate the power during the night to make it seem as though they were generating all this power that they weren't. It was a scam.

You have a substancial percentage of doctors saying they are doing to quit practicing medicine rather than deal with the nightmare of Obamacare. You have groups that pushed for Obamacare's passage getting exemptions. If it was such a good bill they wouldn't be pushing for exemptions.

Also I may have more insider knowledge than you about the Obamacare bill, I went to one of the townhalls in Indiana where my district's Representative was at. He was having problems reading the bill and he was a lawyer and he also had family in the medical profession. He was one of the Republicans whom was against the bill and he actually brought a copy of the bill (well the current one at the time he printed it) this thing was probably about the thickness of an unabridged dictionary.

Also the Republicans had a Health Care Reform Bill, but Nancy Pelosi never let it even be considered for a vote.

It was 219 pages long compared to over 2000 pages.

Actual Bill:
http://rules-republicans.house.gov/Medi ... 3962_9.pdf

Summary if you don't feel like reading 219 pages.
http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Summ ... -04-09.pdf

but you didn't so there is decency in you.



given a choice between half a loaf [democrats] and nothing at all [repubs] why do you begrudge me for knowing which side my bread is buttered on? the repub plan [if enacted] would not have had any assistance for the poor, would not have prevented insurance company misbehaviors such as cherry-picking, gouging, and routinely dropping people who get sick and need the insurance coverage in order to afford any medical coverage at all.
the dems aren't the ones dead-set against the voting rights act. the dems aren't the ones that support the reinstatement of poll taxes and property-owning requirements for voting. the dems aren't the ones who believe only the lower classes should be paying taxes. the dems aren't the ones sticking their bluenoses in my bedroom. the dems aren't the ones denying me my civil rights. the dems aren't the ones trying to force me to pray to their god. the dems aren't opposed to my right to marry another man if i happen to be so lucky to find the proper one. i am going to be loyal only to those people who aren't trying to hurt me all the time. the dems may end up reaming me in the end but at least they will kiss me afterwards.



then why do you continue to support a philosophy which penalizes the poor, including yourself? supporting policies which disenfranchise the poor is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face. this is a puzzlement. why punish a group to which you have claimed to belong? is it because you believe you will leave poverty and the poor behind as you climb the ladder of success? we are not all upwardly mobile, so please don't forget the people you leave behind you.



well, that is something.



we spend more on our military-industrial complex than all other western nations combined. why are foreign misadventures more important than taking care of america's own citizens at home? why is corporate welfare to be preferred over welfare for those lower on the social pecking order? why are misbehaving insurance companies to be trusted over a government system funded by tax dollars?



well, obama's catfood commission broached some interesting solutions.



obamacare is better than no care at all. i have many preexisting conditions that price me out of any but worthless catastrophic coverage. obamacare will severely limit pre-existing conditions clauses. obamacare also provides financial assistance for the lower classes who can't afford the full price of real health insurance. i don't give a hoot in hell how it is implemented, only that there is relief for me and mine. i have every reason to love obamacare, and obama for having the balls to push for it. i have abolutely no reason to support the rightists in their pursuit of the great american banana republic.



nobody with any brains is saying obamacare is perfect. it is a good start. true universal care would be perfect, but americans can't seem to grasp the importance of this and how cold-blooded our national opposition to same looks to the rest of the more civilized world. politics is the art of the possible, not of the optimal, and with united repub opposition the dems were reduced to deal-making alliances which were unsavory in places. i forgive this because the result is what matters to me, not the means to the result.



what i have read of it, tells me that there was-

*NO medical insurance premium assistance for the working poor;
*NO limits on insurance company misbehavior, including gouging premiums and cherry-picking
*NO limits to pre-existing conditions clauses

those are the only things i consider important, and for me, 3 strikes and you're OUT!

I read the bill and it is far more pathetic than even the current incarnation of Obamacare. In particualr, there is no guaruntee that people with pre-existing conditions will have access to even marginally affordable premiums. The only positive thing in that bill is the ability to shop across state lines for insurance. Every other proposal falls short of doing much of anything.

Why didn't Republicans instead propose their 1990s healthcare plan that was far closer to the current Obamacare without all the extra filler? Why have the Republicans moved to the right since Clinton?

Since no one picked on this silliness, I'll step up. There is no reason to put green jobs in quotes. Solar power, wind power, geothermal power, etc. are real, practical, and money saving solutions to our energy crisis. There are 2 major hurdles against these sources. The first is that it involves a higher upfront cost. You've got the shell out a decent amount of cash build a wind farm or install solar panels. Over time, this investment pays off big time as you can completely eliminate energy bills. Residential customers who use solar panels as their energy source can actually bill their local utility company for the energy the homeowner supplies back to the grid. Other customers choose just to go off the grid completely. Every time a an energy customer finds an alternative supply other than their utility company, the utility looses a customer. Which leads me to the 2nd major hurdle.

Oil and utility companies are big business. The billions (trillions ?) they rake in from profits come from the consumers constant dependency on their supplies. If you take the dependency away, their profits are crushed. There was never anything wrong with the electric car other than the fact that the oil industry couldn't make a buck off of it.

I don't know anything about the particulars about the solar plant in Spain that you mentioned. Maybe it was faulty engineering, or malfunction, or maybe it's just another made up story by Faux News. Who knows, but you certainly cannot take one single incident and apply it against the laws of physics. Green jobs make sense for everyone who doesn't own stock in Exxon.

I find it hard to believe that you have read Obamacare much less understood it even if you have read it. Nor do I believe you have read the Republican Bill which was never even allowed to be put up for a debate.



The fact you are claiming that Obamacare and the Republican Bill in the 1990s is pretty much the same shows me that you haven't read either piece of legislation. Sure there may be parts of Obamacare and the Republican Bill in the 1990s that was the same but the overwhelming majority of Obamacare is nothing like the Republican bill in the 1990s.

@number5

You seem to have missed what I pointed out.

Neither have conservatives such as yourself. You only understand what conservative spinsters have interpreted for you.

I did skim it and the fine print doesn't match up with the "summery" you posted. In the best case scenario people with pre-existing conditions are thrown into unaffordable "high-risk" pools set up by the states.


The republican bill of the 1990s was far more substantial than the big pile of nothing you linked to.

I have actually had a printed copy of the House Bill in my hands. I have actually read through part of it but finally stopped because it was so convoluted, but I could understand why my Representative was disgusted with it.

(My House Representative actually gave my dad a copy of the House Version that he had access to at the time at the end of the town hall).



Again, this was a bill that had never been allowed to be offered up for a debate though what you are saying isn't the entire truth. For starters if someone (whom has a pre-existing condition) has an employer that is getting insurance for their employees, that employee wouldn't be thrown on a seperate "high-risk" pool.

Second, you didn't mention that small businesses would be able to get together and buy insurance with the same purchasing power of a large company which would reduce the amounts these businesses would have to be paying for employee insurance.



If you haven't even read it (and I doubt you have read either), you can't make that claim.

You are making false assumptions. I've had to change jobs quite a few times. Once I laid myself off, because the little practice I was in charge of couldn't support two people, and laying off the person who worked for me wouldn't have been the right decision for the company.

The fact is, if people take responsibility for their situation, they can work their way out of it. Lose your job? Find another one. Those jobs don't exist any more? Learn new skills. Lifetime jobs don't exist; people need to take responsibility for their own careers and do what it takes to stay in the job market.

I've certainly had experience with illness and conditions that handicap me in the job market. I fixed what I could fix and figured out how to work with things I couldn't fix. Sure, it takes me three times as long to find a job as it would a neurotypical - so I spend less and save more when I have a job. It's a fact of life; if you accept it, you can work with it instead of railing against it.

I notice you aren't even aspie/autie - you have no clue what most of the people on this forum have to deal with when working in the neurotypical economy. Yet, it's possible to deal with those issues if one takes responsibility for one's own life.