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Thread: Was the Medicare Buy-In Just Defeated?

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    Default Was the Medicare Buy-In Just Defeated?

    Let's hope so.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblog...View.asp#14431

    Did the Medicare Buy-In Just Die on Face the Nation?

    On Face The Nation, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson made it pretty clear they weren't inclined to support the Reid "compromise" featuring a Medicare buy-in. Nelson said he thought such a buy-in is a bad idea, and Lieberman noted that on "the so-called Medicare buy-in -- the opposition to it has been growing as the week has gone on. Though I don't know exactly what's in it, from what I hear I certainly would have a hard time voting for it because it has some of the same infirmities that the public option did."

    Reid might be able to arrange to get a jerry-rigged Congressional Budget Office score Monday or Tuesday that seems acceptable (the preferred way of doing this so far has been to have the legislation feature ten years of (alleged) spending cuts and (real) taxes and pay-ins, and then only five or six years of benefits). But it sounds as if Lieberman and Nelson aren't willing to play along with the notion that the way to save Medicare is to expand the number of subsidized, adversely-self-selected people in it.

    But who's going finally to just say no? There must be a dozen moderate and/or red-state Democrats who would love for Reid's bill to die, but it's hard to be the one who definitively goes first. Lieberman and/or Nelson could do it. Or it might be that the easiest way for everything to collapse in the next couple of days would be for a gang of six (or whatever) to emerge--say, Lieberman, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln, and John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Judd Gregg--who would agree to work together in the new year on bipartisan legislative efforts to pass sensible incremental reforms with substantial bipartisan support. Word leaking out of one meeting of such a group would put the Reid legislation out of its misery.

    If moderate Democrats could say in good faith that the failure of Reid's bill now doesn't mean there won't be health care reform this congressional session--and there's no reason they shouldn't be able to say that, as there would be huge pressure on both parties next year to deliver something--then Democrats would have an easier time breaking ranks. Indeed, they could say such an outcome would be more in their party's, and their president's, interest, than jamming though a startlingly unpopular and incoherently bloated piece of legislation on a party-line vote. And they would be right.
    There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

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    Let's hope they tell them to STFU using reconciliation, and then jizz in their faces by lowering the buy in age to 0.
    "Do not think that I came to bring peace... I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34

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    Why are you conservatives so against making sure that the needy get the help they need?
    Peace Love and Light Wanderingbear

    http://www.hippieland.net

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    Quote Originally Posted by wanderingbear View Post
    Why are you conservatives so against making sure that the needy get the help they need?
    I hope that they do and I will donate money to see that they do. But I do not feel that the government should or should be allowed to extract money from its citizenry to spend in this fashion. If individuals feel a moral obligation to others, they will donate money privately to charities that are infinitely more efficient than our vaunted SS system.

    Extorting revenue through taxation to spend on social welfare programs is self-defeating. Since money is being taken from them to spend on these programs anyway, most people will feel (incorrectly) that they need not donate since the government is taking care of the people. Given the mismanagement of government programs at every level, this is a ludicrous assumption at best and will result in the government providing a quality of care to the needy that is less than the standard of care the needy would have received if the whole matter were handled via private charities.

    In sum I am opposed to government spending on social welfare programs for three distinct reasons:

    1) The vast majority of these programs are unconstitutional.
    2) I morally believe it is wrong for the government to extort money from people to spend in this fashion.
    3) I understand that the government involvement in these programs ultimately results in a poorer quality of care for the needy than charity-based aid would.

    A government-run aid system is undesirable because it is (1) unconstitutional, (2) morally wrong, and (3) ultimately more harmful than helpful to those in need. Does this answer your question?
    There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Epicurus View Post
    I hope that they do and I will donate money to see that they do. But I do not feel that the government should or should be allowed to extract money from its citizenry to spend in this fashion. If individuals feel a moral obligation to others, they will donate money privately to charities that are infinitely more efficient than our vaunted SS system.
    Tom Paine said it best:

    There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.
    "Do not think that I came to bring peace... I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34

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    Yes Thomas Paine summed up the state of private charities in the 1700s admirably. Very interesting historical information, Watermark.

    Now, perhaps I missed it, but what is your response to my assertion that modern charities are inarguably more efficient than government efforts.
    There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

    -Oscar Wilde

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    Quote Originally Posted by Epicurus View Post

    A government-run aid system is undesirable because it is (1) unconstitutional, (2) morally wrong, and (3) ultimately more harmful than helpful to those in need. Does this answer your question?

    HaHa, laughable! This is why no serious, enlightened person takes Rontards seriously.

    There’s already something like 80 million people on government health insurance. Are Rontards seriously going to base their campaign and ideology on abolishing medicare, SCHIP, and Medicaid? There’s not a single court in the land that will agree with you’re assessment that single payer healthcare is unconstitutional. To continue to assert it’s unconstitutional makes you look like a fringe Lyndon Larouche whack job.

    Morality? Harmful? Moral healthcare is one that provides decent affordable healthcare to everyone. The most “moral” healthcare systems in the world are in western Europe and the liberal social democracies of the world. Do you have an actual real world example of a nations with this magical healthcare system which based on charity and goodwill?

    No?

    Then it sounds like you pulled it out of your ass. There's no such thing in the real world. It only exists in the imaginations of affluent, white, sheltered Rontards. The only healthcare systems that are based on charity and good will are probably in the world’s worst hell holes, like Somalia and Bangladesh.

    Nice work Rontards!

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    Quote Originally Posted by wanderingbear View Post
    Why are you conservatives so against making sure that the needy get the help they need?
    Because they ain't that needy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Epicurus View Post
    Yes Thomas Paine summed up the state of private charities in the 1700s admirably. Very interesting historical information, Watermark.

    Now, perhaps I missed it, but what is your response to my assertion that modern charities are inarguably more efficient than government efforts.
    Thomas Paine was not talking about the efficiency of charities.

    Whatever your argument about efficiency, I am sure it is from some right wing source the massively distorted the facts. And even if your massively distorted "facts" were true, the answer would not be to abolish government charity, but to make it more efficient.
    "Do not think that I came to bring peace... I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    HaHa, laughable! This is why no serious, enlightened person takes Rontards seriously.

    There’s already something like 80 million people on government health insurance. Are Rontards seriously going to base their campaign and ideology on abolishing medicare, SCHIP, and Medicaid? There’s not a single court in the land that will agree with you’re assessment that single payer healthcare is unconstitutional. To continue to assert it’s unconstitutional makes you look like a fringe Lyndon Larouche whack job.

    Morality? Harmful? Moral healthcare is one that provides decent affordable healthcare to everyone. The most “moral” healthcare systems in the world are in western Europe and the liberal social democracies of the world. Do you have an actual real world example of a nations with this magical healthcare system which based on charity and goodwill?

    No?

    Then it sounds like you pulled it out of your ass. There's no such thing in the real world. It only exists in the imaginations of affluent, white, sheltered Rontards. The only healthcare systems that are based on charity and good will are probably in the world’s worst hell holes, like Somalia and Bangladesh.

    Nice work Rontards!
    Cypress, you yourself are a "white, sheltered" individual. It's continuously hilarious to me and everyone else to see you lambasting this term around as an insult, particularly when you know nothing about me or where I've been.

    As for the constitutionality argument, virtually every court and president prior to 1933 agrees with me. The fact that we have departed from our principles in the last seventy years does not excuse continued departures from them.
    There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

    -Oscar Wilde

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    The Hamiltonian definition is completely and totally valid. If the courts were to suddenly start disagreeing with hundreds of years of precedent, the appropriate response to would be to amend the constitution to fix the error. State based medicare would be retarded.
    "Do not think that I came to bring peace... I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34

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    Quote Originally Posted by wanderingbear View Post
    Why are you conservatives so against making sure that the needy get the help they need?
    We're not, we're just against the same government that is stupid enough to continue the "War on Drugs" after such a terrible result (claiming "victory" sometimes from minuscule percentage changes in use) to have any say whatsoever over our actual health care.

    Help the people lost in the donut hole, and work on solutions for cost, but do not become the provider because government is absolutely stupid and incapable of such direct action v. results examination.

    We watch as the liberals passing the law say directly that this is the "first step towards single-payer" systems and are supposed to cheer this on? Gawd no.
    Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
    - -- Aristotle

    Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.
    - -- The Buddha

    It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
    - -- Aristotle

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    Quote Originally Posted by Damocles View Post
    We're not, we're just against the same government that is stupid enough to continue the "War on Drugs" after such a terrible result (claiming "victory" sometimes from minuscule percentage changes in use) to have any say whatsoever over our actual health care.

    Help the people lost in the donut hole, and work on solutions for cost, but do not become the provider because government is absolutely stupid and incapable of such direct action v. results examination.

    We watch as the liberals passing the law say directly that this is the "first step towards single-payer" systems and are supposed to cheer this on? Gawd no.

    Right on. Because everyone on Medicare hates it and the VA system constantly ranks above private healthcare providers in patient satisfaction because it sucks so hard.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NigelTufnel View Post
    Right on. Because everyone on Medicare hates it and the VA system constantly ranks above private healthcare providers in patient satisfaction because it sucks so hard.
    It does?

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    Quote Originally Posted by NigelTufnel View Post
    Right on. Because everyone on Medicare hates it and the VA system constantly ranks above private healthcare providers in patient satisfaction because it sucks so hard.
    This ignores the fact that Medicare is supplemented by the private companies as they pay only 75% of the cost. Increasing this only increases the cost of care for everybody else. And lastly, when the sole provider becomes the government your health care becomes even more of a political foot ball than it is now.

    It is a means of control that we are so willing to give up for a false "security"... all while ignoring the "awesome" results of other government programs, like the previous "War on Drugs" we've spent far more of a treasure on and lost more lives to than Iraq while ignoring all the negative results.

    The government is the last group I would trust with such a private and important thing as health care. And the VA system that I know and love and hear the guys talking about at the VFW outpost certainly isn't getting glowing reports.
    Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
    - -- Aristotle

    Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.
    - -- The Buddha

    It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
    - -- Aristotle

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