Mar 05 2009
Oh Lord, I Agree With Chris Mathews
While many political watchers are amazed that MSNBC’s Chris Mathews would turn on Obama and the dems for not keeping their campaign promises, I am intrigued about why Obama doesn’t take advantage of this low hanging fruit? Mathews is spot on in the piece below – Obama could easily instill confidence in the administration and the federal process over all by simply sending the Omnibus bill back to Congress with redlines on all the ear marks and pork.
As the liberal media apologists note in defending the indefensible, this is not a lot of money and was left over from the last administration. Two good reasons to use it to political advantage! Obama could blame Bush (again), could pretend to make good on cleaning up DC spending (though much more pork was in the Spendulus bill), and he would steal thunder from the GOP.
So why not do what Mathews says? And that maybe the elephant in the room. The only reason not to have a Sister Soldjah moment with the liberal Congress and gain a lot of PR points with little cost is because Obama is afraid of taking on Congress.
That has to be the answer – Obama has surrendered to the Democrat leaders in Congress. There has been a theory out there that he had the potential to be a weak and ineffective leader because of his lack of experience. The failure to take this easy win-win opportunity probably is the clearest indication to date this is theory is now becoming fact.
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I read a little bit about Daschle’s plan and it is about allocating resources. Such as letting the old folks die even if the family has the money to pay for their care. Or not spending resources on research for certain conditions and instead spending the money on what government deems to be the most necessary areas to cover. And of course, doctors will be penalized if they fail to take guidance from the state in this brave new world.
Health care needs less regulation and more competition.
Terrye:
Okay, that has to be the silliest thing you’ve ever written. Please show me one single part of Daschle’s plan, or ANY plan, that calls for “letting the old folks die even if the family has the money to pay for their care”. Demonize all you want – but don’t insult us, okay?
And gosh, I’m SOOO surprised you couldn’t take the time to read Obama’s speech (especially after very specifically saying you wanted to know what was in his plan). Hey, you don’t need to know anything about an issue to have an opinion on it, right?
And finally, that’s quite the humanitarian attitude you have: shown that half of the people in bankruptcy are there before of health issues, your response is a very Cheney-esque “So?” Are you actually against attempts to improve the current health care system in this country? Or have you just decided that you’re against anything Obama wants to do, no questions asked?
Guy:
No, it is not silly. Look it up yourself, it is in his book, and he used certain systems Europe to support the concept. The idea being that once a person has reached a certain age there is nothing more that can be done but to keep them comfortable. The idea is too much money and resources is spent on elderly people with limited time left. It is about rationing care. That is what the state does. The plan is not about free care, it is about utilizing resources.
And no, I am not going to take the time to read some frigging speech. When and if they actually come out with a real plan, I will read that.
If you want to read a speech, go read Clinton’s speech when he signed the Iraqi Liberation Act and told America that Saddam was dangerous and had to be removed from power. It seems to me that people only read the speeches they want to hear, the ones that can not be proven to be bs. The ones that might shed a little light on real history they ignore. Nooo, they would rather sit gape mouthed and drooling listening to Obama make promises the rest of us will have to keep.
“I am going to tell you something else Guy, I know plenty of people without insurance who could afford it if they wanted it. But they don’t.”
AMEN!
There was once a woman who was going to do some babysitting for me. She was a young single mother with a 3yo. She had no medical insurance. I went online to kp.org and found a plan that had a $30 copay and annual 1500 deductible. The idea being to have coverage in case of a major event like a car accident or something. The cost was under $300 a month and I offered to reimburse her for half the cost as being a single parent, worries about things like health insurance can keep people awake.
She said that if I could afford to pay half of that, she would rather have the money because she had free state coverage (MediCal). She doesn’t babysit for me.
So instead of 50% of something, she got 100% of nothing.
crosspatch:
Terrye was talking about people who didn’t have insurance, but could have. The woman in your example DID have coverage – she just didn’t have the coverage you wanted her to have.
That somewhat invalidates your story. (Plus, did you ever ask if the coverage under Medi-Cal was better than what you were offering?)
Another Obama appointment goes bust:
The Medi-Cal was coverage for the child. I was offering her coverage for both of them. Kaiser isn’t all THAT bad of healthcare.
Guy, you just seem to want to find something negative in anything anyone says. Why all the criticism? I believe that personal responsibility is an important thing. Basically what she is doing by using state healthcare is going door to door panhandling for the money to cover her child. She is placing the burden of her child’s healthcare on her neighbors when she had another option available. But that is only one story. I myself declined health insurance when I was in my 20’s. I was uninsured by choice. Many other people are too.
If you want lower healtcare costs, get rid of medical insurance and rates for things will come down to prices people can afford. Get rid of malpractice insurance and you will see unneeded procedures that also drive costs up going away along with the huge lawsuits that we all end up paying for.
I believe in insurance for catastrophic cases, but it should be against the law to provide health insurance for a working person that has less than a 1000 annual deductible and it should be against the law to provide malpractice insurance for more than a million bucks.
“Guy, you just seem to want to find something negative in anything anyone says. Why all the criticism?”
Thank you for the unintentional hilarity.
(HINT: do you think maybe that question could be directed to everyone here (except myself and conguy) about Obama?)
GayFellow, I shouldn’t do this, but I will. From Dictionary.com, check it out:
fasâ‹…cist
   /ˈfæʃɪst/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [fash-ist] Show IPA
–noun
1. a person who believes in or sympathizes with fascism.
2. (often initial capital letter) a member of a fascist movement or party.
3. a person who is dictatorial
It clearly defines a fascist in 3. as a person who is dictatorial. Seems like it would be fairly easy for a learned person to look up word definitions.
universal health care is fascist, implemented by dictatorial powers.
Terrye,
His speech? Oh please. There is no way I am going to believe some stump speech by Obama.
Obama doesn’t make speeches, he read other people’s words off teleprompters. These are written by his handlers.
OBAMA LIED, THE ECONOMY DIED!!!!
Redteam:
Great minds think alike.
Redteam:
And Dubya wrote every single word he ever spoke in a speech himself.
Are you actually trying to zing me with the oh-so-stunning fact that the White House employs speechwriters?
ZOMG! REALLY!!!!!1111one!!
Insurance really has become something of a racket. Back when people had very little insurance day to day health care costs were much less in terms of percentage of income. It was not free by any means, but a broken leg was not going to cost you 3 months to pay to fix either.
Guy:
Bush did not use a teleprompter for press conferences. Obama is the only president we have ever had who used a teleprompter for almost every public appearance. It is not a question of someone writing speeches for a guy. It is a question of whether or not he has a thought in his head that someone else did not put there.
That is a truly terrible alternate defintion. I had assumed you made it up out of your own stupidity – I never considered the fact that dictionary.com might actually confused “facist” and “dictator” so clearly.
I find it curious that you didn’t leave the whole defintion intact, though:
3. a person who is dictatorial or has extreme right-wing views.
Hmmm… could it possibly be that someone who calls himself “Redteam” might possible hold an extreme right-wing view or two?
And if you are going actually state that universal health care is “fascist” because it’s the government dictating that everyone must have health care, then:
The posted speed limit dictates that you must drive your car under a certain mph. Is that fascist?
The U.S. government dictates that I pay income tax. Is that fascist?
The U.S. governement dictates that it is illegal to consume certain substances. Is that fascist?
What, teleprompters are fascist now?
Seriously – WTF is wrong with you people? Every single President in the modern era has hired speechwriters. Who gives a fuck if the words are on a teleprompter, written down on note cards, or beemed directly into their brains with cosmic rays? What fucking difference does it make?
Redteam, I read a story someplace today that Obama doesn’t go ANYWHERE without the teleprompter.
And GuyF … there is a problem we have where people are deciding that owning a home, having a job, and having medical care are some kind of “right”. They aren’t. Rights are things like being allowed to exist, being a free person where you can choose what job you take (or not) and where you live, and having the right to PERSUE happiness. Happiness itself is not a right. There are no guarantees that any of these “rights” will result in obtaining anything at all.
As for medical care and other things offered by the government for people in need, I believe a person has an OBLIGATION to their community to get off of those services as soon as they are able. Doing otherwise is close to stealing. Also, this notion that people making over $250K are responsible for providing medical care and housing for anyone who can’t otherwise afford it is insane. What incentive would anyone ever have to work hard at getting ahead if they know that they don’t need to do a darned thing? That health care, housing, and protection from poverty is a “right” will guarantee that we will ALL end up without health care, homeless, and impoverished because a shrinking portion of the population will be forced to provide for a growing portion of the population.
It is absolutely insane and completely unsustainable. Nobody has a right to expect anything from their neighbors. The world “owes” you nothing.
“Every single President in the modern era has hired speechwriters.”
True. But most Presidents also knew how to speak without one. This one doesn’t. He doesn’t know his “own” material. If the think blinks up, he goes blank. It is as if he hasn’t even read it before the speech.