Mr Obama, do us all a favor, please......

[Mark Ingram]

Originally Posted by tommy d

Want to save your grand children money? (don't have any) Limit the baby boomers entitlements to what they paid in...

The American Dream dies with the boomers and their personal greed and lack of ethics and nobody can stop them because they have the voting numbers and the sense of entitlement. My only interest is that the worst saving generation ever have at least a little health care and place to live in.

You have a contradiction in logic here, sir: First you want boomers to receive from the System only what they paid in. Then you want to take their hard-earned dollars that they paid in and give them to people who didn't earn them in the form of free health care and free housing. You can't have it both ways. Either you believe that a worker is entitled to benefit from the produce of his efforts or you believe that money must be taken from productive people and given to unproductive people. The real question is whether you really care about those who have less or whether you want to *appear* to care by making someone else pay while you don't. For the record, I gave more that 15% of last year's adjusted gross income to charity. It's not that I'm special - it's just that I put my money where my mouth is.

[hasserl]

Originally Posted by tommy d

Want to save your grand children money? (don't have any) Limit the baby boomers entitlements to what they paid in. That is who will bankrupt the US and they wont leave a crumb on the table for anyone else. If you think the Greatest Generation is expensive just wait until the The Worst Generation Ever starts sucking on the health care teat without insurance and their pathetic personal savings.

The American Dream dies with the boomers and their personal greed and lack of ethics and nobody can stop them because they have the voting numbers and the sense of entitlement. My only interest is that the worst saving generation ever have at least a little health care and place to live in.

You bore me with poll numbers and I told you so. A man will do anything to live a little bit longer, that is just the way it is. Mark my words, when the boomers start to go down as ugly as they should without government help, this country is in for one rough ride and nobody will be spared.

What exactly is your agenda? You seem to be against everything but what are you for? I am sincerely curious. If you had all the power, how would you change things? You talk about freedom but as a lawyer I can tell you your freedom began decaying steadily with the cold war and peaked recently under Cheney. You talk about failed flavors of societies, but which one do you support. It's so easy to destroy, do us a favor and share your vision of what you would build.

I support limited government, I support our government operating within the enumerated powers granted it by the Constitution, not the powers it has usurped through manipulation of the courts.

You're right about the baby boomer generation hitting retirement age and overloading all of the govm't systems, but in that case we're on the same side. You haven't seen me preaching expanded govm't services. So I don't know why you bring it up.

As far as what I would do, that depends on the issue. First thing though, kill all the lawyers.

The thread was started after Obama took office and promptly drove the market down (1100 points on the Dow). The result of a horrendous pork laden stimulus bill that put us another trillion dollars in debt, talk about tax increases, it all worried investors that ran from the market as fast as they could.

What I would have done, as I put it before, eliminate capital gains taxes and corporate income tax. That would stimulate the economy far greater than any spending bill could ever do, and would cost the govm't far less than the porkulus bill they passed instead.

Give me an issue and I'll tell you what I would do if I "had all the power".

BTW, Cheney wasn't the President, he was VICE President. Vice Presidents don't take feedom away. The Cheney as boogie man story is tired and lame. Please do better than that.

[tommy d]

Originally Posted by hasserl

I

As far as what I would do, that depends on the issue. First thing though, kill all the lawyers.

.

You know I'm a lawyer. I'm done with you, there is no reasoning with anyone who resorts to murder first.

[tommy d]

Originally Posted by Mark Ingram

You have a contradiction in logic here, sir: First you want boomers to receive from the System only what they paid in. Then you want to take their hard-earned dollars that they paid in and give them to people who didn't earn them in the form of free health care and free housing. You can't have it both ways. Either you believe that a worker is entitled to benefit from the produce of his efforts or you believe that money must be taken from productive people and given to unproductive people. The real question is whether you really care about those who have less or whether you want to *appear* to care by making someone else pay while you don't. For the record, I gave more that 15% of last year's adjusted gross income to charity. It's not that I'm special - it's just that I put my money where my mouth is.

The first is in repsonse to the saving of money, not a reflection of what I personally want. The second is my personal wish, there is no contradiction because they are different answers to different questions. I placed those ideas against each other to show the effect of throwing the poor to the wind. I will always vote for higher taxes for myself if it means leveling the playing field.

BTW That's great about the giving, last year showed the greatest decline in charitable donations in modern history. Of any year, last year did the most!

[hasserl]

Originally Posted by tommy d

You know I'm a lawyer. I'm done with you, there is no reasoning with anyone who resorts to murder first.

Oh please, Murder? LOL!! You did see the smilie, no? That means "I'm joking", the intent is to add some levity to the conversation. Are you new to the net? Besides, I think your defensive attitude is false, you can't be a lawyer and be so thin skinned.

[Mark Hammer]

Originally Posted by hasserl

It's simple, The government that governs least governs best.

That's a difficult one to swallow. As a federal employee, what I tend to hear most is "How come you guys didn't do anything about......?".

Fact of the matter is that there are more folks who are powerless than who have power. And they expect government at various levels to take care of stuff. To make it the case that there are schools, roads, clean water, someone to come in a helicopter and pluck me off my roof when the floodwater is up to the attic, someone to plough the snow off the highway so I don't freeze to death with my loved ones in a stalled car, someone to make sure that the gauges on the gas pumps actually DO measure 23.6 gallons of gas when they say they do and the butcher's scale is accurate, someone to know when pacific salmon yields are changing in unexpected ways, someone to tell the TV station that there is a tornado to be on the lookout for (did you think media giants provide their OWN weather stations?), someone to actually track employment trends, someone to make sure there is no e coli in my burgers, and nothing in the chemicals I have to use at work that will make my balls and hair fall off.

The array of assurances that the public wants and demands from government is extensive, more extensive than the jingoists and libertarians would think. That does not mean that the government which pokes its nose in the most is the best, or that governments which poke their noses in only a modest well-calibrated amount are poking effectively or competently all the time with every poke. But it does mean that there is an enormous amount which assures the nuts and bolts of a safe and healthy daily life that is courtesy of governments. Too often, people whine about government like its their mom. "Aw man, she makes me go to bed early, and she's always on my case about my room being dirty". Yeah, and she dusts your frigging room while you're out, and washes your skid marks, and makes your lunch, and makes sure you get a checkup, and knows where your vaccination record is, and makes soup for you and brings you popsicles and fluffs up your pillow when you're sick as a dog, and spoke to your principal to get him off your case, and gave you the name of someone from church who might be able to spot you a job,...that scheming manipulative bitch. People only seem to remember what it is they don't like about governments. They never seem to remember just how extensively they rely on them to be there at all times in all facets of their lives.

As for polls, Obama speeches, and such, I'll just say that one should not confuse emerging trends in the volatility of public opinion and financial sectors with the actual long-term effectiveness of a leader. One of the paradoxes of contemporary democracy is that the more input people believe they have in decision-making and the direction of their nation, whether that be through petitions, tweets to CNN, placard-wielding G8 protests, letters to the editor, or e-mails to the White House, the less satisfied they will be with just about any decision being made.

Not that the "ideal" is the complete opposite: no choice and no say. Rather, it is in the nature of human social cognition that we misperceive the degree of flexibility that governments have in their actions, by focussing on our individual expressed view, believing that all input can be responded to, should be responded to, and will be responded to unless there is deliberate hostile and partisan resistance on the part of the recipients. And the more avenues there are for expressing one's wishes to governments and leaders, the more opportunities there are for those expectations to be thwarted.

A recent report I read by a public admin prof who is an acquaintance noted that the Canadian Prime Minister's office received over 3 million pieces of correspondance several years ago, and that the annual volume has likely grown since then. I can only imagine that the White House and somewhere like the California or New York state legislature receives even more, by virtue of scale. On what planet can we expect those folks to respond to our every request, or give even a vague sense that we are being "listened to"? They simply can't. A guy like Reagan, who was dubbed as "the great communicator" was lucky he was in office before the birth of the web (and yes, I know that arpanet and bitnet, yadda, yadda, were around then because I was using them too), because he had vastly lower expectations of "democratic input" imposed on him by the electorate at that time. The guy would have fallen flat on his ass if he was alive to lead the GOP now.

The bottom line is that EVERYONE will disappoint. EVERYONE. Obama, Palin, Merkel, Blair, Putin, Singh, EVERYONE. It is the nature of the contemporary beast. Greater perceived input to the process changes the perception of responsiveness, both the direction of responsiveness as well as perceived immediacy (and by extension, perceived sincerity) of responsiveness.

Changes to the news cycle also has something to do with that. "How come they didn't do anything about XYZ yet?" What defines "yet" is how frequently and how how recently XYZ has been rubbed in our faces by a media industry eager to fill up air time with something that distracts us from their competitor's 24-hr air time.

Finally, colour me stupid because I'm not American and only get to watch you guys 24/7 on TV, and follow you in print and on-line, but I always thought the American Dream was something to be shared, not something to be achieved by individuals at the expense of everyone else. That's not socialism, that's not communism, that's fricking community and nationhood. If you want "I got mine so go f*** yourself", there are some pretty good examples in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe right about now.

[hasserl]

Well Mark, I think your perception is definitely colored by your employment. I suppose as mine is as a tax payer and concerned citizen. And we all have our own situations, backgrounds and experiences that color our perceptions.

You paint a picture of what I would call a nanny state. People relying on the government for all their needs. No need to have a concern in life at all, just let the govm't take care of it all for you. Just like a mommy that does all those things for us you mentioned. Yep, we have entire generations that have never worked a day in their lives. They have families, children, grandchildren, none of them working, all existing on govm't handouts, govm't housing, food, money, and if something nasty should occur, govm't rescue. And should that govm't rescue fail, OMG!!!! We'll hear about it on TV news for weeks or months on end about how the govm't failed.

Give me a break.

Certainly, there are things that we rely on govm't for, things only done properly by govm't resources. But it is my opinion that we need to work diligently to fight against growth of govm't services and govm't largess. Bureaucracies tend to exist to grow themselves. Budgets are entirely spent to avoid cutbacks in the next years budget. Govm't employees form unions that donate money to campaign contributions of politicians, that return the favor by cementing the existence of the bureaucracy, hiring more workers, who pay more dues to the unions, who contribute more money to the same politicians. And on and on and on. All the time govm't grows, consuming ever more resources that are confiscated from the people; setting ever more regulations, expanding their area of control and interest, usurping power that was never intended.

I repeat, the government that governs least governs best. Just because there are certain things that you need your government to do doesn't mean there should be no guard against growth of government.

Besides, I don't know how you guys up north do things, but down here we have a thing known as federalism. The powers and responsibilities of the federal government are limited, and they are enumerated in the Constitution, and all powers not specifically enumerated to the feds are retained to the people and the states. This is another reason for resisting the growth of the FEDERAL government. They are NOT all powerful, there are limits placed on them Constitutionally. Our federal govm't is not supposed to inject themselves in every facet of our lives. Many things are to be left to the people to take care of locally. That is the structure of our government, and just because someone prefers the federal govm't take control of something for the sake of expediency doesn't justify ignoring the Constitutional limits on govm't.

Health care is a good example, there is no provision in the Constitution for the federal government to inject itself into the health care in this country. The only way they do this is by stretching the meaning of the Commerce Clause, which was intended for the feds to regulate INTERSTATE COMMERCE. Which is the same clause they use to outlaw certain drugs. This was never the intent of the authors of the constitution and it is a usurpation of powers that were not given. Stack the Supreme Court with activist judges and you can make anything legal.

As for your last paragraph, the point you are missing is that Americans are people that by and large are self made. They've made their place in life having been given nothing but opportunity, not hand outs. They've also formed some pretty damn good communities, which it seems you've failed to notice. Communities all across this country that pull together to help each other. Americans are by far the most compassionate and caring people in the world. There are no other people that give anywhere close to as much of their money & property away to charities all over this country and this world as much as Americans do. Not even close. But it is VOLUNTARY!!!!!! Get it, VOLUNTARY!!!!!!!! People do it of their own free will, because they WANT TO. If it is a government program using property taken away from The People by force, or threat thereof, it is not voluntary and it is not charity. And that we will fight at every opportunity.

[Mark Hammer]

1) I pay taxes too. All public servants pay taxes, so we understand the perspective of the disgruntled taxpayer, because we are too.

2) We have federalism in Canada too, and although the specific division of authorities entrenched in our constitution is different in terms of details, the constant tug of war between state and federal authorities exists here in the form of provincial vs federal authorities. Money for publicly-funded health care does come from revenues raised by federal taxes (in the form of transfer payments to provinces), but the disbursement of those transfer funds by provinces is a constant area of debate. "Equal access to health care" ought to mean that what I get as a citizen of Ontario on this side of the Ottawa River is relatively comparable to what the folks 6 blocks away on the Quebec side of the river get. If only to avoid the chaos that would ensue if an essential service was available to all in a neighbouring province but not one's own (there are inter-provincial agreements which allow me to use my health card anywhere in Canada such that the province where I use it bills the province of residence).

3) I hear complaints from a real-estate lawyer cousin of mine all the time about "nanny state". These occur in response to things that irk him personally, or obstruct the ease of his profession. And, in fairness, many of the things he complains about are things that make me shake my head in dismay too, often for the same reasons. But the list of irritants pales in comparison to the near endless list of things that people understand NO ONE ELSE COULD or WOULD TAKE CARE OF EXCEPT AT THE FEDERAL OR STATE LEVEL.

Let's take one example. I'm flying down to Nashville on Saturday. So, um, who is going to assure that the flight I take meets safety standards, that the training the pilot has is accreditted, that the fuel used meets spec, that the plane is not overloaded, that there is an airport situated appropriately with enough space for flights to land, enough trained staff to co-ordinate flights, that the airwaves/bands used for flight communication are not shared by taxis and garage door remotes, that there are no highrises in the way, that the meals have no bacteria in them, and so on. Now, do the companies themselves adhere to these assorted codes? Sure, but not without the oversight bodies. Okay, now there has to be a body to co-ordinate all the airports, and somebody has to assure that this body is accountable and adapting its policies over time in a sensible manner that dovetails with other sectors of life (like taxi cabs and garage remote manufacturers). Voila, you now have several hundred thousand federal and state employees gainfully employed.

Another example that I might have mentioned in past. My wife works as a hazardous materials information reviewer. Say you work in construction or in a manufacturing plant. Do you have a right to know if the bottle of crap your supervisor tells you to smear on whatever it is you make or fix will give you cancer or make you go blind? Yes. Can you, or better yet, WILL you trust the company, who makes the stuff and pays executive salaries by selling more of it, to provide you with authoritative and complete information about the hazards that can be expected when using it? Do you expect them to bust their hump testing it every which way from Sunday to make absolutely sure its safe, or at least make absolutely sure that every known risk and hazard has been comprehensively identified? Not bloody likely. So, like any blue collar worker, you will rely on a government agency to hold that company's feet to the fire and present ALL the evidence they have to ANY commercial end-user, and you will expect that government agency to comb the entire research literature regularly (my wife has to oversee this on a monthly basis) to see if any hitherto unknown risks have recently been documented. In other words, you will expect the "nanny state" to assure your safety and make sure you aren't at the mercy of unscrupulous, negligent, or simply sloppy vendors.

There is no end of similar examples. You can complain all you want, but you will live your entire life with the tacit assumption that all of these various things will be taken care of, and ought to be taken care of...unless one makes the conscious decision to live in a swamp amongst snakes and gators.

So many of the nanny-state complainers simply do not realize the full extent of services they depend on to live their lives, and would scream bloody murder about if those services were renegged on.

Now, are there areas that politicians at federal or state/provincial levels poke their noses into that are functioning just fine, thank you? Absolutely. Are there otherwise well-intentioned people who think something which is actually working about as well as it ultimately can needs "improving"? certainly. But that is a question of being better aware of where the current priorities truly are, and how things function, not a question of taking steps to stay hands-off more and more. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the entire meal is disgusting or rejectable simply because one of the peas on the plate is shrivelled or undercooked.

The expansion of services within government occurs partly because of the desire of those within government to expand "empires", though moreso because the kinds of services any nation is expected to provide these days increase in number; generally because they HAVE to and because the public expects them to. I can assure you that a mere 30 years ago, what my wife does for a lving did not exist. Then, folks started saying "WTF? Whaddya mean there's no one checking on whether the WHMIS sheet is valid and complete? You mean there's NO ONE checking to see that my company isn't making me use stuff that will have me s**tting out a tube into a bag by the time I'm 35? NO ONE?!?" And voila, a government department is born. Employers never used to be able to adjust salaries appropriately in the absence of cost-of-living information gathered by the bureau of statistics. Towns could not plan how much sewage capacity they needed, or when a road would likely need replacement, in the absence of the information gathered. And most certainly, cattle-ranchers in one part of the country would have no capacity to stop using feed that had been discovered to be contaminated unless there were folks tasked with keeping tabs on the incidence of livestock illness nation-wide.

I'll repeat until I'm blue in the face, most folks have NO IDEA how many essential services are provided 24/7 by the government they find so intrusive.

[hasserl]

I don't think we're so far apart on this Mark, it's a matter of degrees. I could give anecdotal examples of government excess to counter every one you give of a legitimate purpose. I know you don't think that all government activity is good and proper, that there is some largess; maybe we just disagree on the extent. I still say the least govm't intervention in our lives the better. Perhaqps you'd agree that the most efficient use of govm't services is best?

Perhaps John F Kennedy put it best when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". I'll let it go at that, I'm not going to convince you you're wrong, you're not going to convince me that I am.

Now, can we get back to arguing about deficit spending, debt, crashing stock markets, & failing administrations?

[Mark Hammer]

Originally Posted by hasserl

Perhaps you'd agree that the most efficient use of govm't services is best?

Absolutely. There's too much good that needs doing to piss away our collective resources on stuff that doesn't need doing.

Incidentally, the Canadian response (if CBC forums are any barometer of that) to Congressman Wilson's outburst last night was interesting. The Westminister system of government, adopted in the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Australia, has the Prime Minister as simply one more member of parliament, and who, as leader of the party in power, must defend the government's actions during "question period". The questions are asked to the speaker of the House, and the replies are directed there too. All in all it feels like being in the middle of a parental spat at the dinner table sometimes: "Tell your mother that she can fetch her own damn Fanta from the fridge!". It is customary that when the question asker and the person answering get up to talk, the opposition makes noise in support of their question asker, the party in power makes noise in support of the PM or cabinet minister speaking, and both sides make disparaging noises and comments when the other side gets up. I'm certain you can find many embarrassing examples of our government on Youtube if you search for "question period".

So, given how accustomed we are to seeing the leader of the day razzed as he or she speaks, many found the apology that Mr. Wilson had to offer rather odd. Of course, they don't realize that the American experience does not regularly consist of the president being openly harangued several days a week in Congress or Senate, with hoots and jeering and banging on tables, and that last night's speech was akin to the Canadian Governor General reading the speech from the throne amidst catcalls and heckling. It's not that you folks respect your leader more than we do, we just have different legislative "customs".

As much as Tony Blair did some dumb things in his time, watching him during his question period was always a thing of beauty. like a Jeff Beck solo; no longer than it needed to be, elegant, well-informed, with just enough structure and a beautiful closing riff.

[Bill Moore]

It's interesting that Rep. Wilson so overcome by the blatant lies, was chastised for speaking as he did, as I don't recall any of the opposition party apologizing for their lack of decorum when Prez. Bush had the same treatment more than once while speaking to the congress.

[hasserl]

Just to clarify this a little bit, Congressman Wilson and a few other Republican Congressmen have tried to amend the proposed bill they were working on to add some enforcement measures to protect against services being provided for illegal alliens, such as requiring proof of insurance or ID, and they were rejected by the Dem's. This is why he was upset by Obama's claims.

I have to admit that I was pretty frustrated listening to his speech by all the hyperbole, insults and accusations and other blatant bullshit he kept spewing. I didn't mind one but that he spoke out because I was speaking out pretty loudly at my TV. But in retrospect what he probably should have done was to stand up and turn his back on the Pres, then perhaps walked out on him. That would have made the point very well and wouldn't have got him in hot water for his "lack of decorum".

Obama's speech SHOULD have been an attempt to bridge the gap between the two parties, if he was truly concerned with achieving bi-partisan legislation. Instead it was a partisan hack job intended to persuade public opinion. We'll see how successful at that it was I suppose. But in all, I prefer the kind of "debate" Mark described above, where speakers are actually challenged to back up their position with logic and reasoning, not where they are granted uninterupted time, during prime time viewing hours at that, to spew partisan political crap with no chance for response except the follow up response allowed AFTER the end of the speech. What a crappy way to do things. Let's have the two sides bash it out live time on the floor with no telepromtpers.

[Bill Moore]

It would be great if politicians were forced to have footnotes available backing up what is in their speeches. Not only would it help police the lies, and exaggerations, it would contribute to shorter speeches.

[Mark Hammer]

Watching the House during the speech, it was like someone who had a stroke and one side of their body lay limp. The Dems kept standing up and sitting down while the Republicans sat there brooding. I didn't watch the whole thing (it isn't my country after all), but I did see the GOP spring to its feet at one point, en masse, in agreement with something the President said. I seem to recall it was about taxes.

Actually, what I saw of it struck me as a pretty good speech, and was as chock full of common sense, compromise and efforts to be bipartisan as anyone could conceivably adopt in that milieu. Of course, in your system, what happens in Congress is not necessarily what gets brainstormed in the White House. Keep in mind that your Secretaries are plucked from "out there", whilst ours are normally elected members of parliament. The advantage you have is that they can conceivably be subject matter experts in their field. The disadvantage you have is that, as non-politicians, they may be less aware of how to finesse a piece of legislation or policy to make sure it gets through both houses with its major objectives intact. It may not be a long walk, but it can be a very big gulf between the White House and Congress.

Are there ideologues on both sides of the fence in the health care debate? You betcha. But from the get-go, I have never had the impression from his words and actions that Obama's attitude was anything other than "This is just plain stupid that a world power like ours should have so many people whose health and welfare is in jeopardy because we haven't figured out how to get health care to them." I get the sense that, unlike his rather simple-minded predecessor (and one never had the sense that there was a great deal of wisdom there), Obama is able to listen, hear a better plan when it presents itself, and decide that what he had originally thought of came up short in a few respects, in comparison to the alternative. I suppose voters are well within their rights to not like what he proposes at the start, but he's a helluva lot more flexible than many give him credit for. They need to let him bend a bit before deciding to snap him.

[hasserl]

I disagree with your assesment of him (big surprise, huh? ) His flexibility is only around what he wants and what he can get away with. He does not mind stretching the truth or misrepresreting the truth, twisting facts and/or selecting only those that support his position. It is easy to pick apart his reasoning, becuase he's being intellectually dishonest. Such as the situation with Rep Wilson noted above, what he said was partially true, that the plan didn't include illegal aliens; but what he knows very well is that there were attempts to put some teeth into the bill to prevent illegal aliens from attaining services but those measures were rejected, and everybody knows that if the plan is put into practice illegal aliens will of course be included and will receive services just as everybody else will, because there will be no means of excluding them. It is easy to say they aren't included, but that doesn't mean anything if you won't take measures to exclude them. So it's a lie, he knows it, & now you know it. He's a liar, plain and simple.

There are plenty of things that can be done to address the issue and make health care and health insurance more affordable for all, but the Dem's don't want to do any of those things, they just want public health care. That's it, period. So this whole thing is a great big lie, because they could have addressed those things long ago, and they haven't, and they still aren't addressing them now. He's a liar, they're all liars. That's what is so frustrating about it, he stands up there pontificating for over an hour and everything he said is crap. It's all based on lies and deception, and I take offense to it.

[Bill Moore]

Don't forget, the Canadians saddled with their government health care system, come to the US when they need care now, and can't wait. If we end up with the president's plan, the Canadians will have to take a number and wait over here too.
There have been several stories in the news lately about the lack of decent care in England, and their version of the "death panels". It would seem that people would think twice about letting our system come to that. I pay $500 + a month with a very high deductable for my wife and my medical insurace, but if we need to, we can get most anything necessary for our needs. I'm sure if we cut the lawyers out,(tort reform), and allowed us to purchase our policy from anyone in the US,(free and fair competition), we could get a better deal. Already, the local clinics, and hospital, give a 60% discount for self payment. If the Feds would pay the full amount they are billed, for Medicare, and Medicaid, the doctors and hospitals would not have to make up the difference in higher costs to the insurance companies.

[Mark Ingram]

Originally Posted by tommy d

The first is in repsonse to the saving of money, not a reflection of what I personally want. The second is my personal wish, there is no contradiction because they are different answers to different questions. I placed those ideas against each other to show the effect of throwing the poor to the wind. I will always vote for higher taxes for myself if it means leveling the playing field.

BTW That's great about the giving, last year showed the greatest decline in charitable donations in modern history. Of any year, last year did the most!

Thanks for the clarification. Since you have written that you are in favor of income redistribution I wonder how much of your personal income you have given to charities or those less wealthy than yourself. Why wait for the government to force you to do it, if you truly believe it. Personally, I believe in equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome. The effort a person puts into getting ahead (mental as well as physical) ought to be what determines their income level, not the color of their skin or the government's ability to tax more productive people. Welfare checks and other entitlements for people who are doing nothing to improve themselves and contribute to their society only encourages them to remain incompetent and unproductive. It also gives the gov't an excuse to warehouse them in 'housing projects'. 80-100 years ago this was exactly the strategy the American fascists hoped to use to eliminate the 'undesirable races'. These days their idealogical descendants use the same tactics to buy votes.

To reiterate, equality of opportunity is a good thing. Gov't enforced equality of outcomes always ruins a nation as well as the people.

Opportunity + Effort = Productivity = Wealth

Thus endeth today's sermonette.

[Mark Hammer]

1) The Canadian system has its shortcomings (whose doesn't?), but it works well. If you're in discomfort, you likely WILL wait a bit (and pain makes any wait that much less tolerable), but if your life is in jeopardy, you go to the front of the line and you get the same quality service you'd get for top dollar state-side. Canadians don't go to the U.S. to "receive care". They go because they have money and are impatient. Sometimes they go because certain treatments are prohibitted here. Mostly they go because they are affluent farts who think that because "it's American" it's better..

2) Vast regions of Canada are...vast...and if we left it to insurers to provide care, basically there would be a sizable chunk of the country that would receive absolutely NO health care because it would not be worth any private sector individual's time and money to provide service. So, government-overseen care is an absolute necessity here, given our geography. The same way that a wife doing all the housework because her husband is in a wheelchair would not be sexism or chauvinism, making sure people in remote areas of a huge and underpopulated country have health care is not socialism; it's simply what you gotta do. Just like providing roads so people will want to live there and can trade goods and services there.

3) Industrialized nations make a HUGE sucking sound with respect to the health profession. The west has all but drained Africa and the Philipines of health professionals, and the U.S. has had a similar (though certainly not nearly as great, nor as pernicious) effect on Canada. We have longer lineups partly because we have fewer health care professionals, and we have fewer of those because many go south to earn private-sector money. It takes a lot to create qualified health professionals, and even countries with top-notch education can easily produce less than they need. We don't need to be poaching from each other.

4) During this period of introspection, many are beginning to admit that the cost of health care in the U.S. is often influenced by the large amount of unnecessary tests that get run, and that a major motive for running them is to avoid litigation. Where the argument tends to stop a little short is in asking why the threat of litigation is there in the first place. Having just come back from 5 delightful days in Nashville, I can say that there is nothing about Canadians that makes them less vindictive than Americans. Rather, in Canada, if you have lost your job, you do not lose your insurance coverage. This means you do not need to sue anyone to recover costs, in perpetuity, for whatever health problems may arise. Yes people here sue for damages, and for pain and suffering (my own family doctor got successfully sued for a "wrongful birth" by a family whose risk for having a child with muscular dystrophy was not accurately identified), but they don't have to score a couple of million just to be sure that, now that they are unemployed, they can continue to cover health costs. We run unnecessary tests here too, but it seems like its more to avoid scandals in the newspaper than to avoid malpractice suits. Essentially what I'm saying is that a portion of the existing high cost of medicine in the U.S. is because of how the risk of non-coverage increases tendency towards litigation.

5) I would think that at the present time, with an increase in unemployment, it would dawn on Americans that tying one's health care to being employed, and one's employment opportunities to the employer's capacity to insure, is particularly risky. In the first place, if you become ill during a period of unemployment/non-coverage, your capacity to return to the workforce is jeopardized, and certainly your ability to contribute to the economy is undermined. Additionally, the biggest source of employment is small businesses, and I am sure that there are many who might make use of their entrepreneurial spirit, but for the fact that they cannot afford to start up a business AND insure their employees at the same time. Hell, in some instances, they might have a great idea for a small business, but stick it out in a lower-paying job precisely because they cannot afford to cut the strings to their current employer's health plan. In other words, the current state of affairs with respect to U.S. health care is undermining your economy at a time when you need it to be on your side, not being dead weight.

6) While no nation should be obliged to take on the social program burden of other nations who haven't got their act together, and I can't imagine any western or other leader who would deliberately seek out to take on such burden, I find the resistance and vehemence regarding providing health care to "illegal aliens" to be stupid. There WILL be people coming into the country illegally, and the rest of us can eat salad 365 days a year, and sit in a shopping mall food court without garbage everywhere, because of it. The question is whether you want your lettuce and strawberries to be picked by someone who gets free flu shots or someone who has to choose between spending the $25 at Walgreen's for a flu shot or buying food for their family. Do you want to ride the bus with people who are contagious? Do you want to drive on the freeway alongside someone who is stretching out their prescription or managing an untreated heart condition? I'm not tryng to paint illegal aliens as disease-ridden. Rather, the health of ANY constituency in a densely-populated country impacts on the health of everyone else. You can't close your eyes and not be affected. So, painting things as if sealing off health care to illegals will make everything fine and dandy is naive. If you can stop the influx of illegal aliens civilly, more power to you. But unless you can do that, you WILL have to contend, as a society, with their health too. You're grownups. Figure out a way to do it.

7) Americans don't realize how much your health care system finds its way into things like labour law. I find it ironic how loudly some people object to "government impositions" in their lives with respect to health care yet American employers have successfully argued in State Supreme Courts several times over that they can make it a condition of employment that you NEVER smoke (and never have)...anywhere...because it would be an undue harsdship on them as employers to pay higher insurance premiums if they had smokers on the payroll. Such invasion of one's right to kick back and have a Marlboro in your own living room (and yes these same employers have snitch lines) is completely unheard of in Canada, simply because the employer is not carrying the load as provider of health benefits.

8) There is no reason for any nation on earth to copy the Canadian system, since it evolved in its own context, as an adaptation to it. But the current state of affairs in the U.S. is just plain dumb, and needs modification. It is inequitable. It is costly. And it poses barriers to progress in so many other areas. Is the current Obama plan the precise plan to do that fixing? Can't say because I don't follow it that closely. But I do know that a lot more people have to start being part of the solution than simply yelling at him or other representatives. A little bit of "That's well-intentioned, but this would work a little better in the long run" would be good right about now.

[Diablo]

Mark Hammer, thanks for spending the time on that well-reasoned post. So much of the health care debate has turned into a bumper-sticker debate. One stupid slogan follows another.

[Bill Moore]

The problem is, there is no actual bill, the president let the dems in congress write the versions that are being bandied about, and of course, they are thousands of pages long. Buried inside, people who can read, are finding all sorts of crazy stuff, (as your bumper sticker comment suggests). If you have a democrat congressman,(as I do), he'll argue that black is white all day long, and "just trust us". and there is no death panels provision, "but we took them out anyway". Plus govm't employees, and labor union health insurance will not be affected
Even as the congress chastised Joe Wilson, they and the president say they are now actually writing the bills to require proof of citizenship. (Who is the liar?) However, the president now says we should legalize all the illegals, so they will also be covered.
This whole boondogle needs to be scrapped, and reasonable people should take some time and figure out what is really needed, to get the most people covered for the least cost, and the most benefit.
Mr. Hammer, I know you're a foreigner, and shouldn't be expected to know a lot about our system, but employer supplied health insurance came about due to the govm't meddleing in the wage structure. In order to attract employees employers had to come up with other incentives, such as health insurance, vacation, sick pay, etc.
When I opened my business in the early 90's, I asked my insurance agent why the price was so high. Ten years earlier, while laid off I purchased a $1M policy, $100 deductible for three months for myself, and family, 1/3 the cost of what I was paying for my employees in 1992. He said the AIDS epidemic of the 80's almost broke the insurance companies, and they had to charge more to cover losses. It seemed funny, that I was being charged more because I smoked cigarrettes, but others engaged in behavior that carried considerable risk to themselves,(and a possible higher cost to the insurance company), couldn't even be questioned.
The bottom line is that our system needs to be tweaked, but it doesn't have to be tomorrow, let everyone input into the decision, and keep the political paybacks out of it, make the feds pay what they already owe to medicare, and medicaid, and all the other unfunded mandates. We just might get something that (most) everybody can agree on.

[hasserl]

Bill is right about how & why health insurance became connected to employment. Employers got around the technicalities of a wage and price freeze by offering health insurance. Then as the wage & price freeze was ended people realized that it made a nice income tax shelter. You are taxed for income, but health insurance is not figured as income, so you are not taxed on it. So it makes a nice little tax shelter.

This has lead to many of the problems that proponents of universal care complain about, non-portability of insurance, refusal of insurance due to pre-existing conditions, people stuck at jobs because they don't want to loose their insurance for the above reasons, restrictions on choice of insurance provider and type of insurance (your only choice is what is offered by your employer), etc. These things are easily dealt with by simply getting rid of the tax shelter. NOT by taxing insurance as income, but by providing a tax credit for the cost of insurance, allowing individuals to deduct the cost of health insurance from their gross income before taxes. There you go, you instantly solve many of the problems and all it costs the government is the loss of some taxes they would have collected. But that loss of taxes is many, many times smaller than the cost to government of taking on the responsibility of providing heath coverage for everyone. It's so simple, yet so effective.

Once the cost of health insurance is deductible companies would no longer need to be in the business of providing health insurance to their employees. Instead of spending the money on health insurance for their employees they would instead give it to the employees in the form of increased wages/salary. This would result in savings to companies that would no longer havre to employ additional human resource employees to deal with health insurance issues, thus improving efficiency. Companies after all are in the business of providing good or services for sale, they are not in the business of providing health insurance to their employees, and doing so constitutes a drain on their resources.

This makes things much better for the employees also, who could then shop around for insurance providers that better match their wants and needs, they would no longer be limited to the choices provided by their employers. Of course, this would require govm't to open up insurance industry to competition, something they have resisted doing. Insurance is mostly governed by individual states. The PROPER use of the Commerce clause is for the fed's to regulate interstate commerce, this would include insurance. So it would be proper for the feds to force the states to open up their regulations to allow competition among insurers. See, THIS is the proper use of constitutional power and responsibility, taking control of health care IS NOT!!!! That is usurpation of power not granted.

Break up the connection between employment and insurance, open up the industry to competition, and let the forces of a free market take over. THAT is the solution we need, not government monopoly. If they want to reform something reform tort law. If they simply did these things it would correct the overwhelming majority of the problems we have with health care in this country. And again, it would cost the govm't very little to do so.

If Congress is determined to get involved, so they can say they've doen something, they can investigate what other causes are that lead to higher costs of heath care. Mark mentioned illegal alliens, there is a good cause of increased costs. The fed's have failed at one of the few things they actually are charged with doing, securing the borders. Consequently, due to their failure to do this, we have a problem of millions of people that are here that aren't supposed to be, and they are a huge drain on the health care in this country. There you go, THAT is an area the feds should get involved, that is their PROPER role. Secure the borders, and be responsible ofr the costs that their failures cause. Instead of requirimg health providers, hospitals, etc, to provide un-reimbursed health care, which ends up spreading htose costs out on the rest of the hospital patients that they can charge, instead of that, the feds should cover the costs. They've failed to secure the borders, that the illegals are here is their fault; and they've required hospitals to provide care, THEY should foot the bill. That is fair and proper. There you go, ANOTHER way to reduce the cost of health care in this country.

These are simple, rational, common sense answers. They are difficult to come to. We can do many things to correct or improve the situation. What we DON'T need is to have the feds come in and take over control. They've screwed things up, they CANNOT and WILL NOT make them better.

[Mark Hammer]

1) I was fascinated to learn about the origins of employer-provided health insurance. And thanks for the info. However, regardless of its origins, the fact still remains that labour law and health care are intertwined in a way that they aren't here, precisely because of who covers the cost of care.

2) As I am fond of pointing out ad nauseum, drafting solid policy and legislation is hard work. Probably too complex to be left up to the legislators themselves, who too often know what they want but don't know how things actually work. I'm not suggesting to give the bureaucrats free reign (that'd be trading one hell for another), but rather don't be shocked by the clumsy attempts by legislators to come up with ideas.

3) Hasserl suggests that one should "Break up the connection between employment and insurance, open up the industry to competition, and let the forces of a free market take over. THAT is the solution we need, not government monopoly." Unfortunately, that would mean attention to only those illnesses/conditions/costs that are common and cheaply dealt with, and inattention to whatever is not particularly cost-effective. Insurance companies are in the business of making money. That does not make them evil, but it does mean their decision-making will not often be directed by what is most humane. That has been a problem for a lot of people, even those who ARE insured.

4) I had the pleasure of spending part of my week in Nashville with folks from Customs and Border Protection. They are busting their hump to provide quality employees at the border. Of course nothing will provide greater protection at the Mexico-U.S. border than having economic opportunity in Mexico, something that no amount of money or people at the border can accomplish.

5) I urge yo folks to find out more about health coverage in other nations, just to see what sorts of variations or options could work well for you in your context. What you have now is unsustainable. Gotta be something better out there. Your nation is chock full of ingenuity. Put some of it to work. You have a president who actually listens to people, and is humble enough to admit when he's got it wrong. Take advantage of that.

[hasserl]

You have a president who actually listens to people, and is humble enough to admit when he's got it wrong.

You see, I disagree with this assessment. He only listens to people to figure out their strategy and how to circumvent it. He isn't humble, he's arrogant, and he's coniving and a master of of word twisting and truth stretching. His goals are not those of the American public and so he works behind the truth to trick the public into supporting him so he can attain those goals. This is easily observed if one takes a pragmatic view of his past and his associations. He is not a trust worthy individual. He says one thing while doing another. As Bob P pointed out earlier in this thread, you cannot listen to his words you have to look at what he does. He will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear, being careful to mold it with things he's said in the past. I pointed this out during the campaign, as he speaks he never speaks fluently and confidently, he speaks haltingly putting together two or three words at a time while he's busy formulating his lies to make sure they line up with what he's said in the past and what he wants to say in the future. These are the not actions of an honest and trustworthy man.

[Mark Hammer]

While it is prudent to have a healthy degree of skepticism about any leader (helps to keep them honest), from your comments your own criteria are so stringent that I doubt any leader would ever meet them. Certainly none that I have seen in action in either your country or mine during my brief 57 years.

From what I can tell, you have started out assuming that Obama is simply not trustworthy, and only notice behavioural data that is congruent with your a priori beliefs. Now I would be dishonest if I said that I did not engage in some of the same thing when looking at candidates from "the other side". But as I say, your criteria are so stringent that if the guy was struck by lightening, locked in a room with the ghost of Milton Friedman for a weekend, and marooned on a desert island with Lindsay Graham and Mike Huckabee for a week, you still wouldn't give him any leeway to show signs of adopting a broader perspective.

I guess the question you have to ask yourself is what your criteria would be for ANY president to show emerging flexibility in their reasoning. I always start out assuming that people can always be "rehabilitated". So what would prove to you, or at least get you to consider the possibility that the guy IS sincere, honest, or whatever other qualities you consider important? Or would you consider any change in direction from any leader Machiavellian in nature?

[Tele-Cat]

Originally Posted by hasserl

...SHUT UP!!!!! You're killing us man, just STFU!!!! you ignorant bastard. Every time you open your trap the market declines even farther. There is a wise old saying that goes: It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.

Seriously, you dumb asses that voted for this ignorant rube, thanks a lot. Thanks for putting into the highest office of our land this dweeb who has no effin idea what the hell he is doing, and giving him the Pelosi-Reed congress to help him drive this country to ruin. This is pathetic, absolutely efffin pathetic. This guy is going to make Jimmy Carter look like a freakin genius. We're going to be wishing for days like we had with Carter, which were so bad we had to coin a new phrase for the "misery Index".

All you guys that criticized GW for deficit spending, hope you're man enough now to criticize Oshama for the absolute worst deficits by any measure in our history, deficits that promise to expand several fold, and mounting debt that makes any previous debt look like chump change we wouldn't bother to bend over a pick up, like a penny in the gutter.

This is serious folk, real serious. Change we can believe in? You've got to be kidding me. Change that equals devastation of our economy and our heritage of individual liberty.

We're screwed.

I knew there was a reason I put you on my TGP ignore list. Now, I remember.

[hasserl]

Originally Posted by Tele-Cat

I knew there was a reason I put you on my TGP ignore list. Now, I remember.

Maybe you should ignore me here too. That's the easy way out. You're incapable of forming a rational argument in support of whatever position you have, so rather than try to follow reason you should just ignore it and go blindly about your life in blissful ignorance.