You have to be careful though. Other countries have more left-wing systems and they can have lots of complaints about them as well (what system doesn't?). Then you've got prior statements that contradict what Obama promises (no Canadian style healthcare).
They're probably contradictory because he's trying to please everyone and by doing that, you'll contradict yourself.
So many people who live in those other countries that
I've talked to have little to no complaint with their systems-hell, there's people here that could tell you that. They actually laugh at us for seemingly misunderstanding the way their healthcare system works. Of course, no system is perfect, a public option would have its issues just like any other, but seems many I know like their system better than ours
. Guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
I'd like to see that full interview. It's easy to make it seem like that's what he said when you only take snippets of it out of context. Let me see the full thing, and then I'll comment.
Keep in mind, the operative word here is "OPTION". You don't HAVE to take public insurance if you don't want to. But it's there for people who would like it. If we can survive with a public mail system and a private mail system, if we can survive with public schools and private schools, if we can survive with public buildings and private buildings, I don't see why we can't have competing public and private health options.
It just seems like the left wants to simply get their foot in the door and then make changes that will lead to huge expenses that will then have to be rationed with bureaucrats ("death panels"). Now I've met these death panels with my mom and it is uncomfortable. They try and do their best to persuade you to do the easy option possible to control the budget and I can see how many Americans aren't too interested in that path. They aren't vampires with bloodthirst but they are uncomfortable.
What exactly did you encounter with these so-called "death panels"? How in the world are they "death panels"?
I've been in the healthcare situation this year, too, with my dad. The private insurance didn't do squat for us other than add on bill after bill after bill for us to sit there and wonder how the hell we were going to pay it off.
I don't like his energy policies (EPA threats, bullshit green jobs) and I don't like the endless stimulus plans. I'm okay with regulation of Wall Street but not government ownership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'm not interested in his response to BP (what can he do?). I don't care about his personal life, though radical associations are definitely informative.
How are the green jobs "bullshit"? What about the EPA threats bothers you specifically? And didn't Bush propose a stimulus, too? Don't many presidents propose a stimulus? We have to get our economy moving again somehow. What's your plan to solve the problem, if not a stimulus?
If there's regulation of Wall Street the government's already got its hands in the whole thing. There's got to be some control on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-maybe not ownership, per se, but some control. It's sort of like when you give a teenager their first taste of freedom and they go out and blow all their money or crash the car or something. Until they can prove themselves to be responsible again, the parents step in and keep an eye on things. Such is the case here. The financial industry has proven itself horribly irresponsible, so somebody needs to come in and watch them. Not permanently. Just for a while, until they grow up and act responsible. Remember, Obama has said that he has no desire to control everything, he doesn't WANT to sit there and tell car companies or financial companies or whatnot what to do. But right now, he doesn't have much of a choice.
Agreed on BP, there wasn't a whole lot he could do there. Radical associations, however...well, he's long ago distanced himself from Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, and I can't think of any other radical people he's associating with at this time. But even so, you can know or be around radical people and not automatically support what they say or do.
Well presidents don't have as much power as Congress but you must know that ramming a public option through without many people understanding it would piss off not just Republicans.
So make it understandable. That was Obama's problem, he didn't argue his case clearly enough. The scare tactic people took over, and some Americans unfortunately brought into their fearmongering.
But again I expect that both parties will be changing it over decades because the deficit is too big to leave alone healthcare entitlements and social security. At minimum the government will water down benefits and/or raise taxes and at maximum they will cut benefits until the deficit is gone.
The government, even if they stand up there and say they'll cut benefits in healthcare and social security, will never do it. Just like we'll never see cuts in defense, even though we could certainly cut some things there, too. Because for all the crowing and complaining, the fact is, people love their Medicare and their Social Security. Again, remember the nonsensical "Get your government hands off my Medicare!" cry? There's a reason those benefits still exist to this day: because people LIKE them. They provide needed services to people. There'll be changes, you're right, but it'll never be cut. Not unless a president who really wants to see how much he/she can alienate the public comes along with the nerve to do so. I'd say the minimum suggestion would be the most likely scenario.
This is a good point. I would question though whether people really want to pay more taxes (hypocrisy) and is it also good to have so many who don't pay taxes piggyback on the productive ones that do? This is one of the pitfalls of progressive taxation.
If they can't pay taxes for a specific reason (i.e., disabled and not able to work as a result), that's not really their fault, though. If they have the means to get a job but don't simply because they don't want to, then I see your argument. Course, if people wind up benefiting from the taxes that productive people pay, that may in turn allow them the chance to get jobs down the line so that they're part of the productive taxpaying society instead of piggybackers.
I think people will be happy to pay taxes if they know the taxes will actually go to the right places. Whether it's a big amount or a small amount, as long as they see the benefits from their contribution, they'll be fine with the idea. And if society improved to the point where more people were able to get much better-paying jobs, we wouldn't notice the amount of tax as much.
The majority aren't for Obamacare.
Didn't sound like it from that video. Many polls I saw during the debate stated that Americans were for a changed healthcare system. Obama was talking about universal healthcare pre-election, and obviously that struck a chord with many, because he won.
I don't think Americans were bothered by the idea of universal healthcare. I think if there was any reason for the comedown in support, it was because we got to see the sausage-making process regarding the healthcare bill, and we saw Obama and the Democrats giving in so often to the Republicans and weakening the bill more and more, and we saw the bickering and the scare tactics and the constant re-votes and the back and forth passing between the House and Senate, and we just got burned out on the idea.
Some minority are and some would say the in danger minority have a reason for it. I certainly want all covered but there must be a mandatory insurance system because free riders do exist and it makes the system unsustainable. The Republicans need to know that we can't have people allowed to not be covered and then when an early accident occurs pass it on to the taxpayer. The left has to be honest about rationing (Michael Moore was at least).
You are right, the free ride problem does need to be dealt with. We need a means in place to punish those who use the system, because what they're doing is not fair to the public at large. Just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
There probably will be a bit of rationing, yes. But I'm guessing we'd try and make it so that those who need medical care right away (i.e., life-threatening conditions) can get that taken care of, and then we work our way down from most important to least important. Or, we could set it up so every hospital had its specialty areas, so anyone who went there could go to whatever specific area they needed to get treated, and there's no waiting. Or something like that.
Thank God there was enough opposition!
But how much of that opposition was founded?
Telling people who lost their coal jobs it's 2010 isn't going to cut it.
Well, I'm sure that was the message that was stated when the car industry came into being and the horse/carriage industry wasn't needed anymore. I don't mean to sound so blase or cruel by saying that, because I don't like hearing about people losing their jobs, either. But the fact is, we are ten years into a new century, one would think we would be making some more progress by now. It's like when I heard about that mining accident in West Virginia earlier this year. My mom's first thought (and mine, too) was, "We're still mining? Why?"
Other countries have tried the green jobs move but unfortunately there is a net job loss. This is precisely because green jobs are related to technologies that can't make energy as cheap so prices would have to increase and losing coal jobs won't be replaced one job for one. If green jobs were so good they would automatically get venture capital because they could compete with fossil fuels. I'm all for funding research but if a technology isn't ready yet we shouldn't be using the public as guinea pigs.
And I do agree with you on that-we should make sure the technology works properly first before we put it out there. So let's see if we can find a way to make this new energy in a cheaper way, that way we won't have to increase prices and we can get more money saved up to help get people more jobs in the new industry. They may not be able to replicate job for job, no, but if they can get training in whatever new jobs are available, they may learn new skills or improve on ones they've already had or something. 'Cause I certainly don't want people wandering around jobless, so if we can find a way to keep them working, that'd be great.
Well this is what happens when you're president. He can't do everything so he picks his battles.
Indeed. I'm just saying that if he really didn't care about the other side's complaints, he would've just shoved all his stuff through as quickly as possible, no attempt at compromise, nothing.
Most of the public wanted him to deal with the economy first but he didn't do that. He focussed on healthcare and energy reform. His attempt at the economy (and Bush's) is Stimulus.
And that's probably why he didn't go head first into altering the economy, he just figured he'd continue with and tweak Bush's strategy and while that was simmering, he'd go on to work on something else in the meantime.
Stimulus is just a name for borrowing and spending. There was a funny response from Fred Thompson about "taking a bucket of water from one side of the pool and dumping it into the other side of the pool". Stimulus is to create government spending in government related jobs (like road construction, shovel ready projects, etc). Then these workers who receive their pay spend some money and therefore trickle into the economy. Unfortunately when that money gets to everyone else there is a looming tax bill from all that debt. The government either has to reduce quality of the benefits, inflate the currency (same thing), or increase taxes. Either way the pool is the same size as before and general public (without a government job and pension) has to eat the cost because there is no free lunch.
Then I guess we have to make a choice. Do we lose these nice benefits we enjoy so much, or do we pay a bit more to help keep them going? 'Cause the government can't win either way-raise taxes and people get in an uproar. But when a bridge collapses, or a school can't afford new books, or a road is unsafe to drive on, those very same people are going, "Why isn't this being fixed?" Well... Gotta make up your minds, people.
The actual engine of growth is allowing people to keep a majority of what they make so there is an incentive to work (work is painful)
Work is only painful if you make it painful. Go in with a negative attitude and the job's gonna suck for you. And some jobs can be quite enjoyable in some form or fashion.
Many of the people nowadays who do manage to keep a majority of what they make don't share it and don't work. I guarantee you the CEOs in this financial mess haven't worked a day in their lives for a very long time, if ever. Meanwhile, my parents had some jobs that didn't pay much, but they always, always went to those jobs, no questions asked. They may not have liked every job, they may not have wanted to go every day, but they did. Because they had to support a family. And they wanted to have money to help themselves and others should they need it.
and then the public (if they are even intelligent anymore) saves a portion of that money for hardship and then eventually retirement. If the public loses this healthy habit the government can justify itself to intrude in all levels of our life. It won't happen tomorrow but future generations.
Some of the inability to save is due to people's bad spending habits and lack of intelligent decision-making, but some of it is also due to the fact that no matter how hard they try, they simply can't save, because they blow their money just taking care of the necessities. Add in unexpected medical bills, economic downturns that cause people to lose jobs and have difficulty finding new ones, and things of that nature and it makes it harder for people who truly want to save money be able to do so.
The last part, no offense, sounds slightly paranoid. Of course we shouldn't have the government run our lives entirely, but that's why we have these systems in place, so that people who do hit a bad spot can have some help until they get back on their feet. Our country could do well to learn to help each other out a little more often. We've had Medicare and Social Security in place for years, we've had public schools in place for years, and yet no mass government control over our lives has happened yet. If the government was trying to control us, they wouldn't leave any of this stuff as an option. They'd just say, "You're doing things this way, no questions asked". I'd like to think I'll be able to sense when the government's reaching beyond its bounds to unreasonable lengths. And if I do, trust me, I'll be the first one sounding the call.
Don't forget the campaign. A lot was promised (as usual). Some of the public are too impatient but this looming debt is what is scaring them. They don't want a run on the dollar and they don't want the high taxes.
And I understand the fear about the debt. I'm not enthused about paying off 10 years worth of other people's crap decisions, too. Which is why I wish people had thought about that these past 10 years before they enthusiastically supported all sorts of things, but we can't change that, so hopefully we'll learn from this (though, do we ever?) and learn how to be more responsible with our money.
If we can get someone who knows how to explain economics in simple, easy to understand terms, and have them talk to the public and explain how these ideas will affect the debt and ways to help ease it down, that would certainly help. Not many people out there are financial experts, so they hear all these big numbers and hear all this mumbo jumbo about this and that and how it will or won't affect the debt (and that's supposing that their statement about its effects is true) and they get confused and scared.
Bottom line, math sucks
. It's necessary, but it's a pain in the butt and unless you're a math whiz, it's confusing as hell.
The Republicans feel the EXACT same way about Democrats. You gotta love Democracy.
LOL, indeed. Except I fail to see how they could see the Democrats as mean-spirited and ruthless. In order for the Democrats to be that way they'd have to grow a spine first
.
And holy crackers, that's a long post. Sorry, everyone.
Angela
I'm trying to put a conservative point of view in this thread because if I don't it'll be "crickets and wind blowing with a few darling tumbleweed" passing through the thread. 
whatever. As long as the left doesn't understand why the right can win elections (as opposed to Carville's assertion Republicans would be gone for 40 years) they will be constantly surprised when they get turfed every so often.
bad.
