Health Care Thread II

[chthonic-anemos]

Originally Posted by Zhaun's_Shade

I find it sad that Obama wants the house and senate to get off their asses and do their jobs in a timely fasion with this healthcare shit and they get all upset that their 4th vacation this year may be cut into. Christ.

Why should they listen to him? He isn't even an American citizen.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by chthonic-anemos

Why should they listen to him? He isn't even an American citizen.

You owe me a keyboard and a dry cleaning bill for this shirt. Ass.

[Zhaun's_Shade]

Originally Posted by chthonic-anemos

Why should they listen to him? He isn't even an American citizen.

I lol'd

[chaos]

That was pretty fucking good. Countdown until IRB reads it and responds with a 3 paragraph rant against "Republican dittoheads like chthonic-anemos"...

[Haus]

Originally Posted by Zhaun's_Shade

I find it sad that Obama wants the house and senate to get off their asses and do their jobs in a timely fasion with this healthcare shit and they get all upset that their 4th vacation this year may be cut into. Christ.

The problem is the process they're going through right now, which is using committees an markups is the right process and will eventually produce legislature. You just have to let it actually happen and not give artificial deadlines, which is what these are. Even most of the things in the bills won't be going into effect anywhere near immediately.

Originally Posted by chaos

That was pretty fucking good. Countdown until IRB reads it and responds with a 3 paragraph rant against "Republican dittoheads like chthonic-anemos"...

Particularly funny since it's a group of Democrats actually holding things up on it in the House.

[Snugglebear]

Things don't happen without deadlines in the US Congress.

I'm wondering about Sotomayor's nomination now. The NRA is going to list voting for her nomination as a 'rated' offence, so now you can't get a 100% scorecard from the NRA if you vote for her nomination. Two of those Republican senators (Corzine and Hatch?) who I thought might vote for her are now saying they won't vote for her. I wonder if any blue dog Democrats will get cold feet on the judiciary committee.

However, a recent amendment to extend conceal & carry permits to all 48 states that have c&c was defeated. I wonder if the NRA includes voting against that in its ratings.

[Haus]

I can understand wanting to push for some deadlines, but also putting the deadline ahead of building a consensus on what needs to be done is stupid and results in things like the Stimulus package, which they're now trying to rebrand as the "Stabilization" package or something like that since it's ability to stimulate is being called into question. I believe the current time tables are more because of him wanting to have a big first year, and/or him realizing that it's going to get harder the longer he takes.

But in less than a year to have Climate change, overhaul the medical system, and get a new person on the SCOTUS... That's a more than healthy plate of things to get done.

I also suspect that once this break happens the unofficial campaign season will start for a lot of those who rode in on his coattails. They will suddenly have to *gasp* start listening to their voters more than the party and the DNC doesn't like that idea.

[Zhaun's_Shade]

Originally Posted by Haus

I can understand wanting to push for some deadlines, but also putting the deadline ahead of building a consensus on what needs to be done is stupid and results in things like the Stimulus package, which they're now trying to rebrand as the "Stabilization" package or something like that since it's ability to stimulate is being called into question. I believe the current time tables are more because of him wanting to have a big first year, and/or him realizing that it's going to get harder the longer he takes.

But in less than a year to have Climate change, overhaul the medical system, and get a new person on the SCOTUS... That's a more than healthy plate of things to get done.

I also suspect that once this break happens the unofficial campaign season will start for a lot of those who rode in on his coattails. They will suddenly have to *gasp* start listening to their voters more than the party and the DNC doesn't like that idea.

It is less about the deadlines than it is about "why don't you people get off your asses and get shit done?" With the staff many of these people have, you can't tell me it takes weeks to read a report, form an opinon and have a few meetings on it. That is bullshit. I would say "we shouldn't vote for anyone who goes home for this break instead of putting some work into this thing" but then we wouldn't have a government.

[Frax]

Originally Posted by Ronne

Let's not cock this one up eh?

IRB already posted.

/thread

[Frax]

Originally Posted by Haus

I can understand wanting to push for some deadlines, but also putting the deadline ahead of building a consensus on what needs to be done is stupid and results in things like the Stimulus package, which they're now trying to rebrand as the "Stabilization" package or something like that since it's ability to stimulate is being called into question. I believe the current time tables are more because of him wanting to have a big first year, and/or him realizing that it's going to get harder the longer he takes.

But in less than a year to have Climate change, overhaul the medical system, and get a new person on the SCOTUS... That's a more than healthy plate of things to get done.

I also suspect that once this break happens the unofficial campaign season will start for a lot of those who rode in on his coattails. They will suddenly have to *gasp* start listening to their voters more than the party and the DNC doesn't like that idea.

I dunno, I think the voters bought into an idea that Obama would somehow magically make things better. I am pretty sure I stated several times that within the first year he'd learn some hard lessons about how congress fucks up the works every chance they get.

Vote your congressmen out, even if its to put someone in you don't like. Congress needs a shakeup worse than a bottle of Snapple that has been sitting in the same spot for 20 years.

[Soriak]

Originally Posted by Haus

I can understand wanting to push for some deadlines, but also putting the deadline ahead of building a consensus on what needs to be done is stupid and results in things like the Stimulus package, which they're now trying to rebrand as the "Stabilization" package or something like that since it's ability to stimulate is being called into question.

I don't believe in looking at short-term trends, but still... percentage-from-peak wise, we're now doing better than the crash of 1973. Also a decent improvement from month 16, when Obama took over.



Seems to indicate that investors believe things are looking up. Job figures always lag behind, so they aren't such a great indicator. Not to mention that the car manufacturers kinda distort jobless claims right now - they're shedding a lot, which isn't necessarily related to the economy as a whole.

I'll also have to defend the Obama admin on the "stabilization" thing. (surprise, I know) They always said jobs created or saved, compared to doing nothing. Losing fewer jobs is an effective response, although it's just about impossible to quantify. I know the free-marketeers hate it on principle, but I prefer economic policy based on peer-reviewed papers than almost religious axioms.

What they probably got wrong was that they focused too much on preventing waste, no doubt for political rather than economic reasons. A stimulus that takes effect quickly and has a moderate amount of waste might have been more effective than one with only little waste, but that takes over a year to get going. I'm all for getting things right and I think a few months delay isn't terrible given that taxpayers get a better return on their money... but of course I can't say I have been affected by the recession. It's a different world for the half a million people a month who lost their jobs.

[Haus]

Originally Posted by Soriak

I'll also have to defend the Obama admin on the "stabilization" thing. (surprise, I know) They always said jobs created or saved, compared to doing nothing. Losing fewer jobs is an effective response, although it's just about impossible to quantify. I know the free-marketeers hate it on principle, but I prefer economic policy based on peer-reviewed papers than almost religious axioms.

There's a problem with this. In all their numbers they came out with when selling the stimulus they used the "jobs saved" bit. They said that if we did nothing we'd be seeing around 9% unemployment, but with their stimulus package we would top out around 8%. Right now we're over 9% and climbing. But now they say that they incorrectly estimated things, but if we hadn't done the stimulus we'd be in even worse shape.

Using this logic there is no way they could have ever been wrong around about it, because no matter what happens they have this magical and mostly unaccountable number of "jobs saved". They can always say "well it would have been worse" but have no way to back it up.



Note the lines in blue are from their own report they put out in January I believe when they were selling this thing.

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by Haus

Using this logic there is no way they could have ever been wrong around about it, because no matter what happens they have this magical and mostly unaccountable number of "jobs saved". They can always say "well it would have been worse" but have no way to back it up.

Just like Republicans will say "we would have done better" with no way to back that claim up either? Welcome to political logic 101.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Everything I'm hearing on all of the news websites is how the housing market is improving, jobless claims are slowing, etc etc.

What excuse will be given when the economy recovers? "It would have done it faster had Obama not intervened!" Prove it.

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

Everything I'm hearing on all of the news websites is how the housing market is improving, jobless claims are slowing, etc etc.

What excuse will be given when the economy recovers? "It would have done it faster had Obama not intervened!" Prove it.

That is the beauty of all the Republican arguments. When their predictions are proved false they do not have to back it up. Talk radio and Fox News understand this concept. That is why they can say the most ridiculous shit to scare and frighten the morons in their party to create a false narrative. They use it to make the morons angry. That is why Republicans tea bag.

"Ridicule" is a very powerful weapon and can not be defended. It is the weapon of choice for the Republican Party.

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. - Sal Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

Rush Limbaugh and Fox News have created media empires with this basic concept of "Ridicule". It is simple yet brilliant.