Even the NYTimes calls it that in “Health Reform Myths,” an op-ed by Paul Krugman this morning. The teaser starts out, “Well-informed people are buying into three big myths about Obamacare.”
Mr. Krugman gets it wrong, though. “This is a reasonable, responsible plan,” he writes. “Dont let anyone tell you otherwise.”
I’m here to tell you otherwise and I hope you listen.
“The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.
“Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuarys assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent…
Health care costs more than $6,300 a piece for every man woman and child in this country today. That’s already verging on criminal. Raising that cost, even a measly $63, ain’t a bargain. In the real world we need to cut health care costs in half. ObamaCare doesn’t even pretend to try.
50 percent off? Now that’s a bargain.
Repeal Bush’s Tuxedo Tax Cuts and we’d have plenty of money to fund it.
That said, the plan sucks and we ought to go straight to a single payer plan.
The Bush tax cuts expire Dec. 31, 2010. All the rates go back up. The CBO included this tax hike in calculating the rising National Debt caused by ObamaCare.
And, oh, by the way? A single taxpayer who made $40,000 when Clinton was prez would have paid $7,788 in tax. The same salary after the Tuxedo Tax Cuts paid $6,554 in tax.
Interesting. In your private note to me you suggested I might be “unaware” about the tax rates going back up at the end of the year. I was going to come here to say that I think there has never been an exchange between us regarding politics where you haven’t been a condescending ass. The way you phrased it here was less offensive. But, yes, duh, I know about the tax cut ending. It was an illustration, not a literal suggestion.
I’ll rephrase to see if you can understand this: Tax the super rich and we can pay for any programs the American people want.
Clearer?
Clearer?
Yes. It reaffirms my faith in Liberal understanding of politics and economics. Ronald Reagan, the man who was once a Democrat, said The trouble with our liberal friends is not that theyre ignorant; its just that they know so much that isnt so.
This is one of those cases where Reagan was wrong. Many liberals are willfully ignorant. Of course, they do also know much that just isnt so.
These articles are indeed my small attempt to give readers more knowledge.
Lets absolutely take all the money away from the super rich. In fact, well use Bill Gates as our example, although he is no longer super rich because he, well, gave away a lot of his money to causes you hold dear. Nonetheless, lets take every last penny of his wealth away and distribute it among the 44 million Americans PBS says have no health insurance. In round numbers, Bill Gates is worth $53 billion.
Do the math, Heather. $53 billion divided by 44 million means each an every one of those Americans now has $1,204.55 or enough to pay his health insurance for less than 70 days.
And when that money is gone, there is no more.
Aw, fuckit. I forgot to do the Please add thing and it ate my response. Let me see if I can recreate it briefly:
Reagan is my hero! I’m not kidding. He really understood framing. Of course, he and his ilk used their important knowledge (that the dispassionate view of the mind was wrong) in unethical ways, but, he was brilliant.
Your numbers don’t interest me. I’m not talking about facts because I’m not discussing policy. I’m talking about American values.
Our government is responsible for protecting us. Nixon gave us the EPA and OSHA, for example. They should provide high quality health care for all of us.
My numbers don’t interest you? My numbers don’t interest you? You cannot have values without facts as their basis. Anything else is smoke and mirrors.
And you think you don’t need those facts because you’re not discussing policy. You’re not discussing policy? Governmental protection is specifically policy. Creating the EPA and OSHA are specifically policy. Providing health care for all is specifically policy.
Reagan was indeed brilliant at times. And he was sooooo right.
Yup.
You don’t understand.
It’s pretty amusing, actually.
No, Heather, I understand perfectly.
Heather writes about ObamaCare, “The plan sucks and we ought to go straight to a single payer plan.”
I’ve changed my mind. Heather may be right.
Republican, Democrat, or Independent notwithstanding, we’ve lost control of Congress. What happens if we just throw our hands in the air and let them have what Heather wants? Congress will in a single action put every insurance company out of business. We know they can do it; they practiced on General Motors.
That’s a good result, right? After all, we hate insurance companies. And it’s only a few billions more out of our 401Ks.
With the government setting prices using Medicare policy, docs and hospitals will charge only 23% of what it costs them to provide services. As long as the system lasts pasts 2012, that’s OK, too. And if need be, Congress can always vote a bailout for the medical community.
I’d say this is a win-win.
Nope. You don’t. Understand what I’m saying.
It’s okay, though. You don’t have the right neural pathways to hear me. Just like when you say “ObamaCare” I have neutral to negative associations and I expect you get a little electric jolt of humor/excitement. Different wiring.
You’re putting so much effort into this, so I’m going to say this one more time:
I am a progressive who loves our country. The government’s job is to protect us. As Nixon gave us the EPA and OSHA to protect us with cleaner air and water and safer work places (back before Reagan’s heroic reframing to the unAmerican values of greed and dishonesty), the government should provide us with high quality health care.
She’s right, Dick. The government job is to protect us. It says so right in the constitution on page 18. Or if you have one of those Big Print copies it’s on page 27.
On pages 19 or 28 respectively it says the the government should also provide us with high quality housing and appliances. On page 20 or 29 respectively it says that the government should provide us with acceptable modes of transportation and enjoyable entertainment devices. I remember reading somewhere in it where the government’s job is also to make sure we have three squares and milk and Oreos before bedtime.
I’m really ticked that it doesn’t mention Viagra.
— George
You forgot the “‘s.”
Heather.
Me relating to you one of my own experiences somehow gets you upset with me, accusing me of being condescending.
You telling people that the problem is their brains are not wired in such a way as to enable them to “understand” you is …
… what?
gekko, I accused you of being condescending? You must mean elsewhere. I don’t know the context so I can’t comment on it.
As for the idea that what I’m saying is condescending, it works both ways. I’m not suggesting anyone is wired wrong. I’m saying different. No condescension. Simply a near impossibility of actual understanding for Dick/Geno and me. Each of us. Not good or bad. Different.
No matter how you phrased it, Heather, you said “You cannot possibly understand.” You provided what you think is a basis for that comment, but that is what the comment amounts to. It is no different from a teacher, telling a small child that one day he will be big enough to understand. The teacher is not telling the child that he is _wrong_, simply that he lacks understanding.
For that matter, you do not really _know_ that Dick or Geno or even Bob do not get you. Perhaps they get you on a level you have not yet gotten; you do not get you. That possibility exists on an equal plane with the possibility that they are “wired” differently and therefore incapable of ever grasping your truth.
Of course I can’t *know* what’s going on in their minds. That’s not the point. The point is, as I said before, Dick (and Geno) are not understanding what I’m saying (as evidenced by their responsethough “evidence” is not something I relate to, I only add that to try and bring it into your frame) and I don’t expect them to. They are not people I would expect have the capacity to understand what I’m saying. And, please read this a few times if you need to: I do not have the capacity to understand what they are saying.
We aren’t hearing each other. They say purple I “hear” triangle. I say pizza, they “hear” king cobras.
This doesn’t hold true for everything, of course. There might be times we understand each other. Odds are, however, as they’ve lived in their frames for as long as they have (and I’ve lived in mine as long as I have) we’ll never speak the same language.
The fact that you continue to hear me as saying “you are wrong” also tells me it’s unlikely you and I will understand each other much, either.
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading my other blog, by the way. :-)
> ‘evidence’ is not something I relate to… They are not people I would expect have the capacity to understand what I’m saying. And, please read this a few times if you need to: I do not have the capacity to understand what they are saying.
“…They know so much that isnt so.” In other words, it is to be expected that one smells one’s own methanous output first. When someone says pizza I generally want lunch and I’m pretty sure I understand exactly what the speaker wants.
A liberal wants a world in which her subjective “truth” is as important as my absolute truth, facts be damned.
A liberal wants a world in which she can say whatever she wants to be true to her beliefs and odylic force will make it so.
A liberal wants a world in which her belief about my wiring puts her on a higher plane.
Democrats say their ObamaCare bill, which their own Congressional Budget Office says will cost $940 billion dollars just in the first 10 years, will magically “pay for itself in the long run.” Im thinking Heather is right. Democrats must be wired differently than people who can actually do arithmetic.
As long as Heather continues to tell Geno that he is wrong, then Geno is content. It is when she might start agreeing with him that would really cause him to begin to examine his opinion.
Basically there is no mandate in the US Constitution that gives the federal government the right to make people buy anything such as, insurance or anything else. Yet this *bill* does exactly that. Most of the people who support this socialized medicine issue have not examined it beneath the harsh light of constitutionality. And those who have, do not care whether it is constitutional or not. That’s why they are leftists (communists, socialists, liberals).
Case in point: “The government’s job is to protect us.”
That is absurd.
— George
I think the bill is for shit. The gov’t shouldn’t tell us we have to buy anything. Totally agree there.
Everything is subjective, Dick. That’s entirely my point.