The Tea Party

[AEON]

Work for free and live in equal poverty?

You've went from rational discussion to sounding like a Glenn Beck listener in two posts.

I wanted to point out that there is nothing wrong with a doctor wanting profits and to earn a great living from years of education and remarkable skill. If they weren’t paid well – we would certainly have less of them willing to go through such a tough and arduous preparation.

A hospital I work with here in town has about 60% of their patients covered with insurance. But only looking at a 38% rate of reimbursement for the last several years. That's fucking ridiculous.

This makes me angry also. We agree that changes need to be made. We obviously disagree on the cause and the cure.

 

[AEON]

But tort reform needs to happen separately from health reform.

I certainly agree with this.

 

[anitram]

...someone who would go through 8 to 10 years of schooling/training in order to work for free and live in equal poverty? Hopefully he can find somone like himself to work on him when he gets ill...

Oh yeah, all the doctors I know here in socialist Canookistan are slumming it with their $300K salaries once they're done their residency. Get real.

 

[BVS]

I wanted to point out that there is nothing wrong with a doctor wanting profits and to earn a great living from years of education and remarkable skill. If they weren’t paid well – we would certainly have less of them willing to go through such a tough and arduous preparation.

I don't disagree, that original post was more against "profit choosing care" insurance companies.

 

[U2387]

I agree with all of this. You're a Democrat?


j/k

Registered Democrat from age 18, never missed an election. Check

Independent thinker who knows when the far left or interest groups are wrong. Check.

Though you hear a lot of noise from the extremes(left and right) my views I don't think are that far off from most Democratic elected officials. Especially on the US Senate side of the equation.

If it helps to think of someone in office closest to my views, think Mark Warner from Virginia.

Take what you want from this, but my primary 1 and 2 preferences in 2008 were Biden and Richardson. Obama in the middle(he had to do a fair amount of winning me over), Hillary, Kucinich and Edwards at the bottom.

You don't have to like or agree with Biden and Richardson to know that my preferences did not run with the ideologues!

 

[INDY500]

Oh yeah, all the doctors I know here in socialist Canookistan are slumming it with their $300K salaries once they're done their residency. Get real.

Do they have $60K/yr malpractice insurance premiums (many specialties higher)? About $100K of student loan debts after graduation?

 

[anitram]

Do they have $60K/yr malpractice insurance premiums (many specialties higher)? About $100K of student loan debts after graduation?

Not sure about the former, as I am only familiar with lawyer insurance premiums and have never asked. Definitely yes to the latter, at least in Ontario, since the province deregulated professional tuition fees (medical school, law school, dentistry) some years ago and they were permitted to skyrocket. The current government is holding them to an 8% increase per year I believe, at the moment, but that's really not particularly helpful.

Many of my former law school classmates are in a similar situation.

 

[martha]

Definitely yes to the latter, at least in Ontario, since the province deregulated professional tuition fees (medical school, law school, dentistry) some years ago and they were permitted to skyrocket.

See how deregulation works so well?

 

[BVS]

Do they have $60K/yr malpractice insurance premiums (many specialties higher)? About $100K of student loan debts after graduation?

So after 240,000 a year, if you don't buy the BMW and the million dollar home right away you can pay off that 100,000 pretty quickly.

I thought you were a fiscal conservative? That should be easy for you to figure out.

 

[Irvine511]

See how deregulation works so well?

it ensures equality of opportunity for a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant.

 

[deep]

I have thought that Michael Steele, who is the head of the GOP, would not last much longer, I thought the tea bag portion of the GOP coalition would have his scalp soon.


this may be the last straw

Michael Steele's 'Southern Strategy' Gaffe Might Be Anything But -

 

[deep]

Steele falling behind on pledge to woo more minorities to GOP



GOP wonders why a black man can't attrack more 'darkies' to their party?

 

[BVS]

If anything I think it will win points for the Tea Party portion of the GOP.

 

[deep]

I keep thinking Steele will be pushed out.

They have lost some major donors.

He will probably announce he is choosing to step down for other opportunities; write a book, become a T V commentator, a la Palin.

He may stick it out for the Nov elections, like Rumsfeld did,
but after that, adios amigo.

 

[BVS]

Yeah, it should be interesting...

I see what you're saying, he's suffered some big blows lately, but another part of me believes that if he does step down it will just solidfy the notion that the GOP is party for white straight men. Palin quit, Powell "sold them out", and then Steele quits

I wonder if there are some begging him to stay on just for that fact...

 

[deep]

I don't think anyone is begging him,

it seems he is fighting to hang on
this is the highest profile position he has had.

where can he get elected as a GOP candidate? please name some black GOP elected office holders? they can't get past the primaries,

of course we should not forget the GOP is the party of Lincoln, but it is a shame when one has to go back over 100 years to find a time when the GOP actually seemed to care about people of color.

 

[Vincent Vega]

of course we should not forget the GOP is the party of Lincoln, but it is a shame when one has to go back over 100 years to find a time when the GOP actually seemed to care about people of color.

In a 1970 interview with The New York Times, Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips outlined the GOP's new strategy: "From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that ... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

That's just 40 years ago and could one be more openly racist? (Not to say they haven't come a long ways from that, at least in my perception.)

 

[BVS]

of course we should not forget the GOP is the party of Lincoln, but it is a shame when one has to go back over 100 years to find a time when the GOP actually seemed to care about people of color.

Or women, gays, poor, the list goes on and on...

 

[deep]

they do a little better on some of those
the party of Teddy Roosevelt, (only a 100 years )

 

[martha]

Or women, gays, poor, the list goes on and on...

It's a "big tent."

I can't remember which GOP campaign used that slogan. I think it was the first time Bush 1 ran for office.

 

[deep]

Bob Dole w/ Viagra

 

[martha]

lol

 

[AEON]

it ensures equality of opportunity for a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant.

Are Democrats giving back their Wall Street donations from the last ten years?

 

[AEON]

See how deregulation works so well?

Our current cycle seems to be to deregulate just enough to cause a problem (yet still keep out real competition) - then come back with much stronger regulations to REALLY keep out the competition.

 

[PhilsFan]

Our current cycle seems to be to deregulate just enough to cause a problem (yet still keep out real competition) - then come back with much stronger regulations to REALLY keep out the competition.

I'd comment on this if I could hear you over the noise of my absurd bills to go to a public university. Over $100,000.

 

[AEON]

I'd comment on this if I could hear you over the noise of my absurd bills to go to a public university. Over $100,000.

Do you think it's possible the rising cost of tuition is connected to vast amounts of low interest, government backed loans that were put into the system the last 10 years?

If everyone in the country has $100,000 to spend on college - then all colleges will charge at least $100,000 to attend (the more select will make the cost even higher.)

Just a thought.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

but that's the thing, not everyone has that much money. people have to borrow it to get a degree which the vast majority of jobs require. so lower and middle class students have to incur vast amounts of debt just to get a job above minimum wage.

this doesn't even mention what can happen if you need more money than the government will loan you so you have to turn to private loans.

 

[AEON]

but that's the thing, not everyone has that much money. people have to borrow it to get a degree which the vast majority of jobs require. so lower and middle class students have to incur vast amounts of debt just to get a job above minimum wage.
.

The vicious cycle of easy lending and the resulting inflation of prices for the product in which the money is leant has already pushed tuition well beyond the normal marketplace conditions. I’m hopeful that one good thing that will come from the recent downturn is that people will take on less debt, and tuition will normalize.

Our society benefits from an educated society – and we should do everything possible to encourage all economic classes to go to college. However, we also don’t want a condition were an entire generation or two of graduates are essentially slaves to the banks.

 

[kramwest1]

The vicious cycle of easy lending and the resulting inflation of prices for the product in which the money is leant has already pushed tuition well beyond the normal marketplace conditions. I’m hopeful that one good thing that will come from the recent downturn is that people will take on less debt, and tuition will normalize.

Our society benefits from an educated society – and we should do everything possible to encourage all economic classes to go to college. However, we also don’t want a condition were an entire generation or two of graduates are essentially slaves to the banks.

I'm totally with you on this one. Banks have had it easy lending to students with the backing of the government. It basically has been an arms race akin to the housing bubble. Demand drives up price, banks lend to satisfy the demand of a "good" college education. Banks and arms dealers are the only ones who profit from that.

I think it's a safe argument to say that higher education benefits you, but it does sound suspiciously close to the mantra that was going on during the housing bubble, "Home ownership is the key to middle-class wealth." So buy a bigger, more expensive house now! What are you, a loser?

It didn't belong, but that's another reason I'm glad HCR passed with the student lending provision in it.

 

[AEON]

Our society benefits from an educated society -

I should have proofread this. I meant to say society benefits from an educated population.