Krugman nails it!

[Phantasmal]

24 posts and undeniably a pinhead of the first order....
I think Jarhead, Desh, Rana and Christiefan are gonna get some competition for Number 1 idiot of the board....damn, its gonna be close.

Are you voting for as #1, I sure hope so, do I get a badge of honor!

#1 progressive thinker?

 

[NOVA]

Are you voting for as #1, I sure hope so, do I get a badge of honor!

#1 progressive thinker?

Actually, you're running a distant 3rd....but your extraordinary effort is not going unnoticed.....

 

[Canceled2]

You have just described H.R.3590 - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

No, what I described is nowhere near what we have with H.R.359 mandated government idiocy~

That you think/say it is can only be called blind stupidity or "I have nothing of real value to answer you with".

 

[Bfgrn]

No, what I described is nowhere near what we have with H.R.359 mandated government idiocy~

That you think/say it is can only be called blind stupidity or "I have nothing of real value to answer you with".

Yes, it IS. You can argue all day, keep calling me names and repeat all the lies Republicans, Fox News and right wing pundits filled your head with, it still doesn't make their propaganda true.

As a matter of FACT, what Democrats passed in 2010 was almost a carbon copy of what Republican's proposed back in 1993 when they tried to blow up Clinton's efforts to reform health care. That includes a BIG Republican idea...THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE

If I keep showing you that Republicans and Fox are lying, will you just continue to watch and parrot, watch and parrot, watch and parrot?

Full Summary of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act


Chart: Comparing Health Reform Bills: Democrats and Republicans 2009, Republicans 1993


The Thirty Year History Of Republicans Supporting the Individual Mandate

Republican support for the individual mandate policy goes back further than this health care reform discussion. Earlier this month, Julie Rovner profiled a history of the policy dating back to the 1980′s

In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. “It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time.”…

“We called this responsible national health insurance,” says Pauly. “There was a kind of an ethical and moral support for the notion that people shouldn’t be allowed to free-ride on the charity of fellow citizens.”

The policy was originally included in many Republican proposals including the proposals during the Clinton administration. The leading GOP alternative plan known as the 1994 Consumer Choice Health Security Act included the requirement to purchase insurance. Further, this proposal was based off of a 1990 Heritage Foundation proposal outlined a quality health system where “government would require, by law every head of household to acquire at least a basic health plan for his or her family.”

 

[Mott the Hoople]

You know what is so ironic here is that what he really means is death pannels. Denied coverage decided upon by someone other than you...period.

ID you exasperate me. You use these terms with a complete disregard for the reality on the ground as it is NOW.

Let me ask you this. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HMO's ARE?

I mean are you for freaken real? Do you have any clue about this issue? Do you have even the least understanding how our entrepreneurial HMO managed system works in this nation?

Let me explain it to you. The HMO managed system our nation relies on to finance health care works on this basic fundamental principle. The more coverage and access to health care is denied the greater the prophets will be.

That's the fundamental truth of a privitized HMO managed system. The less you have, the more profits they make. In other words you're a clueless idiot if you don't realize that death panels denying people life saving access to health care all ready exist (and have for quite some time)in the guise of HMO's. Not only that, but because they do what entrepreneurial corporations do, maximize prophets, access to health care in this nation continues to decrease as cost continues to rise dramatically with HMO's being the primary beneficiary and not the public. Why? Because for HMO's the reality is, to drive my point home, the more they deny you access and coverage the more they can maximize prophets because their job is to maximize prophets and not to provide you with timely access to quality health care.

In the mean time, because access to health care in this nations continues to decrease for most Americans, in a manner that is inversely proportional to rising cost, health care out comes in our nation continue to decrease to those found in third world nations. An amazing juxtaposition considering we lead the world in the development of medical technology (which, by the way, is overwhelmingly financed by American tax payers). This is all due primarily to the inescapable fact that for HMO's to maximize their prophets they must deny you access to health care while simultaneously increasing what you pay for that declining access to health care.

So remember that the next time you throw out your snarky little comments about "death panels" cause you're only showing us that you don't have the first clue about this topic.

 

[Phantasmal]

ID you exasperate me. You use these terms with a complete disregard for the reality on the ground as it is NOW.

Let me ask you this. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HMO's ARE?

I mean are you for freaken real? Do you have any clue about this issue? Do you have even the least understanding how our entrepreneurial HMO managed system works in this nation?

Let me explain it to you. The HMO managed system our nation relies on to finance health care works on this basic fundamental principle. The more coverage and access to health care is denied the greater the prophets will be.

That's the fundamental truth of a privitized HMO managed system. The less you have, the more profits they make. In other words you're a clueless idiot if you don't realize that death panels denying people life saving access to health care all ready exist (and have for quite some time)in the guise of HMO's. Not only that, but because they do what entrepreneurial corporations do, maximize prophets, access to health care in this nation continues to decrease as cost continues to rise dramatically with HMO's being the primary beneficiary and not the public. Why? Because for HMO's the reality is, to drive my point home, the more they deny you access and coverage the more they can maximize prophets because their job is to maximize prophets and not to provide you with timely access to quality health care.

In the mean time, because access to health care in this nations continues to decrease for most Americans, in a manner that is inversely proportional to rising cost, health care out comes in our nation continue to decrease to those found in third world nations. An amazing juxtaposition considering we lead the world in the development of medical technology (which, by the way, is overwhelmingly financed by American tax payers). This is all due primarily to the inescapable fact that for HMO's to maximize their prophets they must deny you access to health care while simultaneously increasing what you pay for that declining access to health care.

So remember that the next time you throw out your snarky little comments about "death panels" cause you're only showing us that you don't have the first clue about this topic.

Insurance companies are the biggest death panels right now.

 

[Canceled2]

ID you exasperate me. You use these terms with a complete disregard for the reality on the ground as it is NOW.

Let me ask you this. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HMO's ARE?

I mean are you for freaken real? Do you have any clue about this issue? Do you have even the least understanding how our entrepreneurial HMO managed system works in this nation?

Let me explain it to you. The HMO managed system our nation relies on to finance health care works on this basic fundamental principle. The more coverage and access to health care is denied the greater the prophets will be.

That's the fundamental truth of a privitized HMO managed system. The less you have, the more profits they make. In other words you're a clueless idiot if you don't realize that death panels denying people life saving access to health care all ready exist (and have for quite some time)in the guise of HMO's. Not only that, but because they do what entrepreneurial corporations do, maximize prophets, access to health care in this nation continues to decrease as cost continues to rise dramatically with HMO's being the primary beneficiary and not the public. Why? Because for HMO's the reality is, to drive my point home, the more they deny you access and coverage the more they can maximize prophets because their job is to maximize prophets and not to provide you with timely access to quality health care.

In the mean time, because access to health care in this nations continues to decrease for most Americans, in a manner that is inversely proportional to rising cost, health care out comes in our nation continue to decrease to those found in third world nations. An amazing juxtaposition considering we lead the world in the development of medical technology (which, by the way, is overwhelmingly financed by American tax payers). This is all due primarily to the inescapable fact that for HMO's to maximize their prophets they must deny you access to health care while simultaneously increasing what you pay for that declining access to health care.

So remember that the next time you throw out your snarky little comments about "death panels" cause you're only showing us that you don't have the first clue about this topic.

Yeah Mott HMO's are a glimpse at what a government ran health care system will look like except there will be no one to regulate the government! Cost via taxes will continue to rise and services via "death pannels" will continue to be cut!

You seem to think profits are the only problem. The reason profits can be so huge and services so expensive is because of the monopoly created by the very things already enumerated...i.e portable coverage; streamlined regulatory laws state to state; buying co-ops; menu shopping for specific types of care and open access for multiple carriers in every state. The very best system would put the emphasis on a consumer driven as opposed to profit driven system. Make insurers compete for our dollar.

Other nations such as the UK do cut services and their system is nearly bankrupt! We have over 300 million people and more pouring in daily from the southern border. We cannot make our people pay more and more of their earnings to support such a system. It's ironic that people such as yourself willingly admit that medicare is not only too expensive, but applaud the idea of cutting services to the very people who have paid into it...but yet think turning all of our health care needs over to the government would be somehow magically better

 

[christiefan915]

Insurance companies are the biggest death panels right now.

Yep and it's just crazy to think otherwise.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Yeah Mott HMO's are a glimpse at what a government ran health care system will look like except there will be no one to regulate the government! Cost via taxes will continue to rise and services via "death pannels" will continue to be cut!

You seem to think profits are the only problem. The reason profits can be so huge and services so expensive is because of the monopoly created by the very things already enumerated...i.e portable coverage; streamlined regulatory laws state to state; buying co-ops; menu shopping for specific types of care and open access for multiple carriers in every state. The very best system would put the emphasis on a consumer driven as opposed to profit driven system. Make insurers compete for our dollar.

Other nations such as the UK do cut services and their system is nearly bankrupt! We have over 300 million people and more pouring in daily from the southern border. We cannot make our people pay more and more of their earnings to support such a system. It's ironic that people such as yourself willingly admit that medicare is not only too expensive, but applaud the idea of cutting services to the very people who have paid into it...but yet think turning all of our health care needs over to the government would be somehow magically better

Last I heard that in our democracy there was a system to regulate our government that is all ready in place. It's called voting.

This is no different an issue then education. Would you want our educational system to be wholly dependent on private enterprise??

Look there are some things that we, as a society, value to greatly to leave to the tender mercies of the market place. You would have a hard time convincing me that government could manage health with the same degree of ruthless explotiation as private enterprise and LLC's can because governments have a higher degree of accountability then private enterprise todes.

What we have here is a contradiction where health care is concerned. To allow corporations to maximize profits on the backs of the peoples suffering is not going to improve the quality of our health care system or make it more accessible to those in need or lower health care costs. It will simply make it more profitable for the HMO's.

If we value our educational system to much to permit it to be solely a for profit private enterprise why can't we do the same with health care system?

 

[Bfgrn]

ID you exasperate me. You use these terms with a complete disregard for the reality on the ground as it is NOW.

Let me ask you this. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HMO's ARE?

I mean are you for freaken real? Do you have any clue about this issue? Do you have even the least understanding how our entrepreneurial HMO managed system works in this nation?

Let me explain it to you. The HMO managed system our nation relies on to finance health care works on this basic fundamental principle. The more coverage and access to health care is denied the greater the prophets will be.

That's the fundamental truth of a privitized HMO managed system. The less you have, the more profits they make. In other words you're a clueless idiot if you don't realize that death panels denying people life saving access to health care all ready exist (and have for quite some time)in the guise of HMO's. Not only that, but because they do what entrepreneurial corporations do, maximize prophets, access to health care in this nation continues to decrease as cost continues to rise dramatically with HMO's being the primary beneficiary and not the public. Why? Because for HMO's the reality is, to drive my point home, the more they deny you access and coverage the more they can maximize prophets because their job is to maximize prophets and not to provide you with timely access to quality health care.

In the mean time, because access to health care in this nations continues to decrease for most Americans, in a manner that is inversely proportional to rising cost, health care out comes in our nation continue to decrease to those found in third world nations. An amazing juxtaposition considering we lead the world in the development of medical technology (which, by the way, is overwhelmingly financed by American tax payers). This is all due primarily to the inescapable fact that for HMO's to maximize their prophets they must deny you access to health care while simultaneously increasing what you pay for that declining access to health care.

So remember that the next time you throw out your snarky little comments about "death panels" cause you're only showing us that you don't have the first clue about this topic.

In 1971, Nixon asked Congress to require for the first time that all companies provide a health plan for their employees, with federal subsidies for low-income workers. Nixon was particularly intrigued by a new idea called health maintenance organizations, which held the promise of providing high-quality care at lower prices by relying on salaried physicians to manage and coordinate patient care.

Nixon’s motivation in promoting HMOs — as confirmed by a taped conversation between Tricky Dick and aide John Ehrlichman (transcript condensed to remove cross-talk):

Nixon: “. . . You know, I’m not too keen on any of these damn medical programs.”

Ehrlichman: “This is a private enterprise one.”

President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”

Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. . . . I had Edgar Kaiser come in [and] talk to me about this, and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make.”

President Nixon: “Fine.”

Ehrlichman: “… and the incentives run the right way.”

President Nixon: “Not bad.”

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_%281971%29_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973:

 

[Canceled2]

Last I heard that in our democracy there was a system to regulate our government that is all ready in place. It's called voting.

This is no different an issue then education. Would you want our educational system to be wholly dependent on private enterprise??

Look there are some things that we, as a society, value to greatly to leave to the tender mercies of the market place. You would have a hard time convincing me that government could manage health with the same degree of ruthless explotiation as private enterprise and LLC's can because governments have a higher degree of accountability then private enterprise todes.

What we have here is a contradiction where health care is concerned. To allow corporations to maximize profits on the backs of the peoples suffering is not going to improve the quality of our health care system or make it more accessible to those in need or lower health care costs. It will simply make it more profitable for the HMO's.

If we value our educational system to much to permit it to be solely a for profit private enterprise why can't we do the same with health care system?

That is not a good way to regulate our governments policies so that we end up getting stuck with them at the whim of voters Mott-to suggest this as some sort of insurance to protect people from mandates; loss of service; and general protection from medial coverage provided by our government is absurd! The old saying putting the fox in charge of the hen house comes to mind! People having to wait to vote and hope and pray things will get dealt with is the most inane suggestion I have ever heard to deal with the immediate needs someone might have in getting medical help! Auto insurance is affordable because it has to compete-

If education were privatized in the sense that people were given vouchers to use strictly for education thereby forcing public and private systems to compete? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY! I do believe that Her Obama himself wants vouchers~

The market place given the consumer tools that have been suggested would be the BEST solution for the reasons already stated-leaving the government to help the "truly" needy and to regulate the proccess.

 

[Bfgrn]

That is not a good way to regulate our governments policies so that we end up getting stuck with them at the whim of voters Mott-to suggest this as some sort of insurance to protect people from mandates; loss of service; and general protection from medial coverage provided by our government is absurd! The old saying putting the fox in charge of the hen house comes to mind! People having to wait to vote and hope and pray things will get dealt with is the most inane suggestion I have ever heard to deal with the immediate needs someone might have in getting medical help! Auto insurance is affordable because it has to compete-

If education were privatized in the sense that people were given vouchers to use strictly for education thereby forcing public and private systems to compete? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY! I do believe that Her Obama himself wants vouchers~

The market place given the consumer tools that have been suggested would be the BEST solution for the reasons already stated-leaving the government to help the "truly" needy and to regulate the proccess.

Privatization is a great idea for some things, and a horrible idea for others.

If a town wants to privatize garbage collection instead of taxpayers funding a fully staffed and equipped sanitation department, great. Let BFI, Waste Management and any other local competitors knock their socks off bidding on collection and disposal of garbage. They will even throw in trash receptacles so they can use one or two man trucks.

You can't harm or kill garbage. But when human life and limb is involved, no market model has the incentives focused on the most important issue. The life, health and well being of human beings, We the People.

Can the current fiasco be made better, yes. But it will never match what every other first world country has for their people.

Keep this important fact in mind. There is no such thing as a free market. All markets are constructed. By law, corporations must maximize shareholder value. 99% of the American people are not shareholders, we are stakeholders.

 

[Taichiliberal]

Krugmans reality-death panels.

Once again, the Ice Dancer demonstrates his/her inability to read carefully and comprehensively. From the link Ice Dancer provides:

PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: If they were going to do reality therapy, they should have said, OK, look, Medicare is going to have to decide what it's going to pay for. And at least for starters, it's going to have to decide which medical procedures are not effective at all and should not be paid for at all. In other words, it should have endorsed the panel that was part of the health care reform.

If it's not even -- if the commission isn't even brave enough to take on the death panels people, then it's doing no good at all. It's not educating the public. It's not telling people about the kinds of choices that need to be made.

Now if Ice Dancer is mentally challenged, then I can understand his mis-interpretation....especially when it's the neocon bootlicking NEWSBUSTERS that are the source of ID's folly. But even the NewsBusters grudgingly admit that it's a stretch to try and say that Krugman is "endorsing death panels":

.... Now, to be sure, Krugman was likely being derisive using that term.

The NewsBusting neocons even have to admit that Krugman saw the neocon spin meiters coming, and posted this:

I said something deliberately provocative on This Week, so I think I’d better clarify what I meant (which I did on the show, but it can’t hurt to say it again.)

So, what I said is that the eventual resolution of the deficit problem both will and should rely on “death panels and sales taxes”. What I meant is that

(a) health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they’re willing to pay for — not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we’re willing to spend for extreme care

(b) we’ll need more revenue — several percent of GDP — which might most plausibly come from a value-added tax

And if we do those two things, we’re most of the way toward a sustainable budget.

By the way, I’ve said this before.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/death-panels-and-sales-taxes/


Like I said, I don't always agree with Krugman, but at least I understand what I do and don't agree with him on.....unlike Ice Dancer.

 

[Taichiliberal]

also, they waited until obama was out of town to publish

I dont' know if that is neither here nor there.....Obama APPROVED of these people.....so it's not as if he was stacking the deck and then getting stabbed in the back. This is just another example of Obama's naive "right of center" over reaching to compromise attitude.

Krugman called it....Obama should have known better, and this groups recommendations are unreal.

 

[Taichiliberal]

Yes, it IS. You can argue all day, keep calling me names and repeat all the lies Republicans, Fox News and right wing pundits filled your head with, it still doesn't make their propaganda true.

As a matter of FACT, what Democrats passed in 2010 was almost a carbon copy of what Republican's proposed back in 1993 when they tried to blow up Clinton's efforts to reform health care. That includes a BIG Republican idea...THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE

If I keep showing you that Republicans and Fox are lying, will you just continue to watch and parrot, watch and parrot, watch and parrot?

Full Summary of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act


Chart: Comparing Health Reform Bills: Democrats and Republicans 2009, Republicans 1993


The Thirty Year History Of Republicans Supporting the Individual Mandate

Republican support for the individual mandate policy goes back further than this health care reform discussion. Earlier this month, Julie Rovner profiled a history of the policy dating back to the 1980′s

In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. “It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time.”…

“We called this responsible national health insurance,” says Pauly. “There was a kind of an ethical and moral support for the notion that people shouldn’t be allowed to free-ride on the charity of fellow citizens.”

The policy was originally included in many Republican proposals including the proposals during the Clinton administration. The leading GOP alternative plan known as the 1994 Consumer Choice Health Security Act included the requirement to purchase insurance. Further, this proposal was based off of a 1990 Heritage Foundation proposal outlined a quality health system where “government would require, by law every head of household to acquire at least a basic health plan for his or her family.”

Historical facts properly applied to current events via critical thinking tend to confuse and anger folk like Ice Dancer....it interfere's with their belief system.

 

[Taichiliberal]

ID you exasperate me. You use these terms with a complete disregard for the reality on the ground as it is NOW.

Let me ask you this. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HMO's ARE?

I mean are you for freaken real? Do you have any clue about this issue? Do you have even the least understanding how our entrepreneurial HMO managed system works in this nation?

Let me explain it to you. The HMO managed system our nation relies on to finance health care works on this basic fundamental principle. The more coverage and access to health care is denied the greater the prophets will be.

That's the fundamental truth of a privitized HMO managed system. The less you have, the more profits they make. In other words you're a clueless idiot if you don't realize that death panels denying people life saving access to health care all ready exist (and have for quite some time)in the guise of HMO's. Not only that, but because they do what entrepreneurial corporations do, maximize prophets, access to health care in this nation continues to decrease as cost continues to rise dramatically with HMO's being the primary beneficiary and not the public. Why? Because for HMO's the reality is, to drive my point home, the more they deny you access and coverage the more they can maximize prophets because their job is to maximize prophets and not to provide you with timely access to quality health care.

In the mean time, because access to health care in this nations continues to decrease for most Americans, in a manner that is inversely proportional to rising cost, health care out comes in our nation continue to decrease to those found in third world nations. An amazing juxtaposition considering we lead the world in the development of medical technology (which, by the way, is overwhelmingly financed by American tax payers). This is all due primarily to the inescapable fact that for HMO's to maximize their prophets they must deny you access to health care while simultaneously increasing what you pay for that declining access to health care.

So remember that the next time you throw out your snarky little comments about "death panels" cause you're only showing us that you don't have the first clue about this topic.

Folk like ID just REFUSE to deal with reality. Hell, the whistle blowing by heavy weights like Potter and Peeno should stifle any of the dreck ID parrots....so much more to pity him and his ilk.

 

[Taichiliberal]

Originally Posted by Mott the Hoople
ID you exasperate me. You use these terms with a complete disregard for the reality on the ground as it is NOW.

Let me ask you this. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HMO's ARE?

I mean are you for freaken real? Do you have any clue about this issue? Do you have even the least understanding how our entrepreneurial HMO managed system works in this nation?

Let me explain it to you. The HMO managed system our nation relies on to finance health care works on this basic fundamental principle. The more coverage and access to health care is denied the greater the prophets will be.

That's the fundamental truth of a privitized HMO managed system. The less you have, the more profits they make. In other words you're a clueless idiot if you don't realize that death panels denying people life saving access to health care all ready exist (and have for quite some time)in the guise of HMO's. Not only that, but because they do what entrepreneurial corporations do, maximize prophets, access to health care in this nation continues to decrease as cost continues to rise dramatically with HMO's being the primary beneficiary and not the public. Why? Because for HMO's the reality is, to drive my point home, the more they deny you access and coverage the more they can maximize prophets because their job is to maximize prophets and not to provide you with timely access to quality health care.

In the mean time, because access to health care in this nations continues to decrease for most Americans, in a manner that is inversely proportional to rising cost, health care out comes in our nation continue to decrease to those found in third world nations. An amazing juxtaposition considering we lead the world in the development of medical technology (which, by the way, is overwhelmingly financed by American tax payers). This is all due primarily to the inescapable fact that for HMO's to maximize their prophets they must deny you access to health care while simultaneously increasing what you pay for that declining access to health care.

So remember that the next time you throw out your snarky little comments about "death panels" cause you're only showing us that you don't have the first clue about this topic.

Insurance companies are the biggest death panels right now.

Yep, just ask Potter and Peeno.

 

[Taichiliberal]

In 1971, Nixon asked Congress to require for the first time that all companies provide a health plan for their employees, with federal subsidies for low-income workers. Nixon was particularly intrigued by a new idea called health maintenance organizations, which held the promise of providing high-quality care at lower prices by relying on salaried physicians to manage and coordinate patient care.

Nixon’s motivation in promoting HMOs — as confirmed by a taped conversation between Tricky Dick and aide John Ehrlichman (transcript condensed to remove cross-talk):

Nixon: “. . . You know, I’m not too keen on any of these damn medical programs.”

Ehrlichman: “This is a private enterprise one.”

President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”

Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. . . . I had Edgar Kaiser come in [and] talk to me about this, and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make.”

President Nixon: “Fine.”

Ehrlichman: “… and the incentives run the right way.”

President Nixon: “Not bad.”

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_%281971%29_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973:

That sound you are hearing are the heads of all the neocon parrots, teabaggers, oathers, bithers and Libertarian heads exploding.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

That is not a good way to regulate our governments policies so that we end up getting stuck with them at the whim of voters Mott-to suggest this as some sort of insurance to protect people from mandates; loss of service; and general protection from medial coverage provided by our government is absurd! The old saying putting the fox in charge of the hen house comes to mind! People having to wait to vote and hope and pray things will get dealt with is the most inane suggestion I have ever heard to deal with the immediate needs someone might have in getting medical help! Auto insurance is affordable because it has to compete-

If education were privatized in the sense that people were given vouchers to use strictly for education thereby forcing public and private systems to compete? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY! I do believe that Her Obama himself wants vouchers~

The market place given the consumer tools that have been suggested would be the BEST solution for the reasons already stated-leaving the government to help the "truly" needy and to regulate the proccess.

If the market place is working so well then why are we in the current predicament that we are in? Why do we pay twice as much per capita for substandard outcomes? That's not the governments fault. I've watched my insurance coverage decline radically and with it my access to health care. 20 years ago my insurance had a $200 annual deductible then paid 80/20 until I met $500 out of pocket annual limit and then it covered 100% with a $1000 total out of pocket. Now I have to pay a $1500 annual deductible before it pays 80/20 with a $3000 annual limit that with a $9000 out of pocket limit and that's just for me. That doubles to $3000/$6000/$18000 if I add my family to it. How many working class families do you know who can afford that for preventative care, early detection, pre-natal care, out patient care and primary portal services which is what really drives outcomes in health care? What our current system means is that most working class and middle class people have to wait until a health care issue has become a health crisis before they seek care, which drives up cost even further. So what's private enterprise solution to this problem other then to charge us higher rates for coverage while denying us more and more access?

and let's not change the subject to vouchers another incredibly stupid idea. To even suggest that it would foster competition is laughable. As Uncle Jed would say "Don't piss up wind and tell me it's raining".

The only purpose for vouchers is to force working class people to subsidize the private educations of affluent peoples children while their children would still be denied access to those same private schools. The only purpose vouchers would serve would be to undermine public education. It's one of the dumbest ideas ever suggested. If you want to send your kids to a private school fine, you pay the tab. Don't free load on me.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Privatization is a great idea for some things, and a horrible idea for others.

If a town wants to privatize garbage collection instead of taxpayers funding a fully staffed and equipped sanitation department, great. Let BFI, Waste Management and any other local competitors knock their socks off bidding on collection and disposal of garbage. They will even throw in trash receptacles so they can use one or two man trucks.

You can't harm or kill garbage. But when human life and limb is involved, no market model has the incentives focused on the most important issue. The life, health and well being of human beings, We the People.

Can the current fiasco be made better, yes. But it will never match what every other first world country has for their people.

Keep this important fact in mind. There is no such thing as a free market. All markets are constructed. By law, corporations must maximize shareholder value. 99% of the American people are not shareholders, we are stakeholders.

Exactly! No one is trying to demonize private enterprise or corporations. Their goal and mission is to maximize profits and not to look after the public good. That is a role we delegate to government.