Obama on Letterman....

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

If they just want to subsidize private insurance and make it more cost effective, why even add a public option?

I don't have a good answer for that, I haven't looked into it that deeply because it seems rather intuitive to me.

Private companies have their own interests to worry about. Someone needs to be worrying about people that don't appeal to private companies.

I think this plan isn't going nearly far enough. They're just solidifying the deathgrip that all the wrong priorities have on the industry. Free market Health Care doesn't work in the same manner other free markets do.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Obama: My new plan feeds starving children and rescues them from Tigers.

zuluking: It's not what he's doing it, it's how he's doing it. Seriously, tranquilizing the Tigers instead of just shooting them? Feeding the children hot dogs instead of hamburgers? What a failure!

IFF, false equivalence. I confess I'm guilty of it, too, but you, no doubt, would point it out. How about:

Obama's words: My new plan feeds starving children and rescues them from tigers.

Obama's plan: Euthenize the starving children and then there are none to feed.

Obama's actions: Since no starving children are currently under threat of tigers, do nothing.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

I happen to think many of these people will just pay the fine because they have money and are lazy. I also think this will enable millions of Americans to afford health care - something I consider a basic human right in the richest country in the world. But you keep raging on about lies and deceit from Obama.

I'm ragging on about lies and deceit? I'm actually just asking frickin' questions here.

Oh, and don't give me the Glen Beck BS either. You apparently listen to him more than I do.

I happen to agree that people should be able to afford health care. I just don't agree with the government subsidizing costs and imposing fines to make that happen.

I have pointed out before that there are numerous other ways to lower the costs of private health coverage. But apparently nobody gives a crap about that.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

I don't have a good answer for that, I haven't looked into it that deeply because it seems rather intuitive to me.

Private companies have their own interests to worry about. Someone needs to be worrying about people that don't appeal to private companies.

I think this plan isn't going nearly far enough. They're just solidifying the deathgrip that all the wrong priorities have on the industry. Free market Health Care doesn't work in the same manner other free markets do.

Subsidizing private health care doesn't actually lower the cost. It just misplaces it.

And as a result, the government has to generate revenue somewhere else to pay for it, usually in the form of MORE taxes, or they just borrow more money.

But hey, as long as person X only has to pay $100/month to get health care, when the care he is getting actually costs $600/month, everything is okay.

Outside of course of the fact that the government is already running out of money is paying $300 billion in interest per year already just for all the money they borrow.

There are much better ways to lower health care costs than subsidizing it. But hey, I'm just spreading lies and deceit, right?

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Right.

I happen to think many of these people will just pay the fine because they have money and are lazy. I also think this will enable millions of Americans to afford health care - something I consider a basic human right in the richest country in the world. But you keep raging on about lies and deceit from Obama.

I'm missing your assertion. Millions of Americans will now be able to afford health care due to the laziness of the wealthy and the revenue generated through their fines?

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

I'm ragging on about lies and deceit? I'm actually frickin' questions here.

That pot-shot was uncalled for, I just didn't appreciate the tone this thread started with. No need for me to drag it back down though, sorry.

Originally Posted by Azure

Oh, and don't give me the Glen Beck BS either. You apparently listen to him more than I do.

I actually do listen to Sean Hannity. He isn't full of crazy or hatred, but he has enough of both that everything he says has a taint to it. And this board has the same taint at times.

Originally Posted by Azure

I happen to agree that people should be able to afford health care. I just don't agree with the government subsidizing costs and imposing fines to make that happen.

Empty ideals sound so much better coming from the left wing.

Originally Posted by Azure

I have pointed out before that there are numerous other ways to lower the costs of private health coverage. But apparently nobody gives a crap about that.

I think we're all in agreement about that issue, with "all" including Obama who has addressed that point specifically and repeatedly.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by Azure

There are much better ways to lower health care costs than subsidizing it. But hey, I'm just spreading lies and deceit, right?

Actually, the initial topic was Obama's lies and deceit. It got derailed by government health care.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by zuluking

I'm missing your assertion. Millions of Americans will now be able to afford health care due to the laziness of the wealthy and the revenue generated through their fines?

Millions of Americans will now be able to afford health care.

Fines for the laziness of the uninsured wealthy will result in a infinitesimal revenue stream.

These are not the only two balls in the air.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Monkey_Fracas

Do you understand how politics works? If the being the president was as cut and dry as you make it out to be, Al Gore would've been president for the last 8 years. Obama, if anything, is a brilliant campaigner and knows how to convey his message to the average joe. If Obama is trying to drum up the support of the American people for his healthcare reform, appearing on C-Span isn't going to do it. He has to use popular mainstream outlets to get to the average person so they can understand what he's trying to accomplish. The sad fact is, shows like Letterman, Oprah, The View, etc. are going to allow him to reach a massive audience that otherwise might not watch a news program. If using these outlets are to your advantage, why not do it?

If he makes a few jokes here and there, that's all part of the game. Have you ever had to broker a contract or negotiate a deal? The guys who earn contracts aren't the guys who sit there and go through the motions like a robot, it's the guys who display a bit of personality and know how to grease the wheels to get things done.

Thanks very much for this, however I have a very good understanding of politics, and I negotiate very large and complex deals on a daily basis, and you know something, its business, at the end of the day the guy with the great personality doesn't get the deal, or loses the deal if nothing happens or gets done. Thats the way of the world.

Right now what we have is really Obama oversaturation. People are more focused on his coolness factor then his actual presidency factor.

To me right now, he's a used car salesman, he's promising a lot, he's really executing very little, and all of these great outlets that to me are a waste of time like Oprah and Letterman because they are the wrong forum for policy speeches because 90% of the audience will tune in and hear his I'm not black joke will respond to the question about what else he said with a "Something about politics"

The good presidents, were effective communicators with great vision and even better implementation skills who didn't need to go on a stupid talk show.

The president has his soap box, he can take control of the T.V. channels and he shouldn't need to be worried about being overshadowed by the wicked bitchin cool performance by Aerosmith, or the fact that Brad Pitts new movie is coming out and we're going to be showing clips.

To me . . . its not presidential, be a president, not a damn pop icon.

Obama to me is a used salesman and things are hard for him now in terms of getting Congress on his side, they're going to get a lot harder if they fail to see him achieving anything.

Somewhere along the line the people that ran Obama's campaign got a hold of John F Kennedy's presidential campaigning for dummies guide went out and found a good looking younger candidate, filled him up with a campaign based around vagarities with very little substance and propelled him to the white house on a vapour ware campaign, and once they got there, they partied for a week and then used twitter and these talk shows to build themselves a rockstar.

But they haven't convinced me that they've built a president.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Millions of Americans will now be able to afford health care.

Fines for the laziness of the uninsured wealthy will result in a infinitesimal revenue stream.

These are not the only two balls in the air.

They'll be able to afford it until the government runs out of money because they can't afford to subsidize private health coverage anymore.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

They'll be able to afford it until the government runs out of money because they can't afford to subsidize private health coverage anymore.

I was a Ron Paul guy, don't expect me to defend America spending itself bankrupt.

But it seems rather silly that Obama (and Bush, so this isn't partisan) would pay billions to wall street but won't spend recklessly on health care for people losing their jobs because of Wall Street.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

I was a Ron Paul guy, don't expect me to defend America spending itself bankrupt.

But it seems rather silly that Obama (and Bush, so this isn't partisan) would pay billions to wall street but won't spend recklessly on health care for people losing their jobs because of Wall Street.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I don't defend Obama's stupidity when it comes to how he dealt with Wall Street. Or Bush's for that matter.

But that doesn't mean that subsidizing private health care is actually a good idea. I would rather add a public option instead, without any subsidizing.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

But that doesn't mean that subsidizing private health care is actually a good idea. I would rather add a public option instead, without any subsidizing.

When you say "I happen to agree that people should be able to afford health care" do you actually mean "I think people should earn enough money to afford health care" ?

[Azure]

Did I just hear right? That Obama was complaining that some people only have 3 different insurers to pick from?

Are you frickin' kidding me? The reason for that is because government regulation prohibits insurers from competing out of state.

I wonder when that legislation is going to be changed? Oh right, it won't. Instead lets just subsidize private health care and add a fallback public option.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by zuluking

IFF, false equivalence. I confess I'm guilty of it, too, but you, no doubt, would point it out. How about:

Obama's words: My new plan feeds starving children and rescues them from tigers.

Obama's plan: Euthenize the starving children and then there are none to feed.

Obama's actions: Since no starving children are currently under threat of tigers, do nothing.

I think we can all agree that Obama isn't doing nearly enough about the Tigers-eating-starving-children problem in America.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

When you say "I happen to agree that people should be able to afford health care" do you actually mean "I think people should earn enough money to afford health care" ?

When I say people should be able to afford health care it doesn't mean that they should be able to afford it at the expense of more taxes, more debt and bigger deficits which result from subsidizing the costs to MAKE it more affordable.

Wasn't exactly that part of the reason the recession happened? Because this seems a lot like another Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac type deal all over again.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

When I say people should be able to afford health care it doesn't mean that they should be able to afford it at the expense of more taxes, more debt and bigger deficits which result from subsidizing the costs to MAKE it more affordable.

What does it mean?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

What does it mean?

That proper reform NOT subsidization, should be introduced to help bring down those costs so that more people can afford insurance.

People have a problem affording health care coverage in the US. That is a known problem. So wouldn't it help if the first thing you did was try to bring down those costs by creating more competition, by implementing tort reform, by introducing regulation that keeps insurance companies from screwing over people they agreed to cover, and SHOULD be covering instead of just using government taxpayer funded money to create the illusion that none of those problems exist because the person directly by the health care isn't paying as much?

And, when that proper reform is introduced, maybe you start looking at a public option.

[Azure]

Oh, and apparently abortion and illegal immigrants will not be covered.

??

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

That proper reform NOT subsidization, should be introduced to help bring down those costs so that more people can afford insurance.

So you strongly support dropping costs but anyone who can't afford it shouldn't get it.

Is that fair?