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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Jun 17, 2010 - 12:47pm PT
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Fat wrote: but their nations are crumbling beneath their feet and now they are having to give up benefits. It's even happening in Canada.
You are so funny...America crumbled under Bush, two wars, major recession, out of control deficit...pedal you fear somewhere else.
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apogee
climber
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Jun 17, 2010 - 12:49pm PT
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"At least the women in the Bush clan have a brain and a sense of human decency."
Fact is, those Bush women have probably always held such moderate beliefs- they were just required to squelch them by Shrub's political strategist puppeteers. Hell, I'd bet even Shrub had leanings in similar directions- but when he agreed to be a piece of clay to the moldings of the GOP strategists, he subjected himself and his family to conveying themselves as extremists. Ah, politics.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Jun 17, 2010 - 01:29pm PT
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Fatty said The plan that was passed will take us right on the path of Greece/Europe.
This is sort of true, assuming that you ignore the dozen or so posts I've aimed at you over the last year (which it seems you have) as well as Obama's speech last week on the reimbursement system (which it seems you have) where we've talked about the need to massively reform the way that providers and hospitals are paid. Coverage was only half the problem and nobody who actually knows about the issue thinks we are going to simply leave things as they currently are because it's not only too expensive but it's providing crappy care.
Interestingly, you love bringing up Israel when it comes to foreign policy but what kind of health care system do they have? According to wikipedia...
Health care in Israel is both universal and compulsory, and is administered by a small number of organizations with funding from the government. All Israeli citizens are entitled to the same Uniform Benefits Package, regardless of which organization they are a member of, and treatment under this package is funded for all citizens regardless of their financial means. According to a 2000 study by the World Health Organization, Israel has the 28th best health care in the world
So I guess worst case scenario we end up like Israel which is what it seems like you want anyway.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Jun 17, 2010 - 01:36pm PT
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"November can't come fast enough". Why Choppa? You planning a vacation? You might as well since the Repubs and Teabaggers are going to get their keisters handed to them on a tarnished platter when the REAL pulse of the American people gets tallied. Unless of course them good ole boyz of Diebold come to the rescue with massive voter fraud.
Whether they are upset or not on any particular issue or personal agenda item, the majority of sentient Americans are on board with the OBama administration and grateful we are not still being sold down the rabbit hole by BushCo.
There is a difference and has been a change.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Jun 17, 2010 - 01:45pm PT
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Vive' La Difference!
Health care in Israel is both universal and compulsory, and is administered by a small number of organizations with funding from the government. All Israeli citizens are entitled to the same Uniform Benefits Package, regardless of which organization they are a member of, and treatment under this package is funded for all citizens regardless of their financial means. According to a 2000 study by the World Health Organization, Israel has the 28th best health care in the world
Hey, I wanna live there. Is there any room left? You know a nice hillside with a 'killin' view with water and sewage. Do I have to provide my own bulldozer or does the IDF provide them. I'll need good health care since I could get hurt building my new US taxdollar subsidized home. Boy it will be good to get 'settled' in.
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apogee
climber
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Jun 17, 2010 - 01:47pm PT
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Actually, I heard a piece on NPR yesterday about the 'internet killswitch' bill, too. It's probably nothing more than a legislative media stunt designed to get point some attention towards the Senator who created it, who no doubt has some other agenda in mind. The idea that Obama would support and sign such a thing is out there in the stratosphere, where fearmongering blame-gamer Repugs like cchopper can make the most of it.
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Jingy
Social climber
Nowhere
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Jun 17, 2010 - 01:48pm PT
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Because of Repuglicants like this one:
Texas lawmaker accuses White House of BP shakedown
Jun 17, 10:36 AM (ET)
WASHINGTON (AP) - A leading House Republican accused the White House Thursday of a "$20 billion shakedown" of oil giant BP by requiring the company to establish a huge fund to compensate those hurt by the Gulf Coast oil spill.
Rep. Joe Barton made the assertion at the outset of a House hearing where BP's chief executive officer, Tony Hayward, was appearing for the first time before Congress.
Facing Hayward at the witness table, the Texas Republican congressman said, "I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House" on Wednesday. Barton was referring to the agreement that President Barack Obama announced with BP for establishment of a $20 billion relief fund.
Rep. Ed Markey sharply disagreed with Barton.
Markey said the compensation fund was "not a slush fund, not a shakedown. ... It was the government of the United States working to protect the most vulnerable citizens that we have in our country right now, the residents of the Gulf."
"It's BP's spill," the Massachusetts Democrat said, "but it is America's ocean, and it is America's citizens who are being harmed. ... No, this is not a shakedown of the company."
"This is, in my opinion, the American government working at its best."
Isn't it obvious by now that the republicants true colors are showing.... They don't like people. The human people are second on the republicants list of priorities. That and the fact that they, the repuglicants seem to get into office only to mismange it, only to show that it is being mismanaged... by all the others, not them.
Lame ducks, the lot of them
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Jingy
Social climber
Nowhere
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Jun 17, 2010 - 01:58pm PT
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..........as I was stating..
BP, Massey, Toyota and the Failure of the Regulatory State
24 Corporate Crime Reporter 23(12), June 9, 2010
Massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Twenty-nine coal miners dead in a Massey Energy mine in West Virginia.
Eighty-nine people dead as a result of Toyota sudden acceleration crashes.
Why?
The regulatory state is in shambles.
That’s the take of Rena Steinzor.
She is a Professor at the University of Maryland School of Law.
And she is President of the Center for Progressive Reform.
She is also co-author with Sidney Shapiro of a new book – The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public – Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
Why is the regulatory state in shambles?
“The agencies have drastic shortfalls in funding,” Steinzor told Corporate Crime Reporter last week.
“Take the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They don’t have enough inspectors to visit all of the workplaces in the United States more than once every 130 years.”
“The shortfall in funding is a huge problem.”
“The agencies don’t have sufficient legal authority. So, for example, the Food and Drug Administration cannot order that products be seized off the shelves if they are dangerous. They have to depend on voluntary action by industry.”
“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been captured by the automobile industry. They didn’t have anyone working on what is called drive by wire – the trend toward converting all of these automobiles into computerized systems to control steering and acceleration.”
“And that is now thought to be one of the major culprits in the sudden acceleration of Toyotas.”
“We’ve had eight million cars recalled. And recently, a story came out estimating that as many as 89 people may have died in those accidents.”
Steinzor says that people within the regulatory agencies are demoralized.
“People in the agencies are demoralized because for years, Congress has been bashing the bureaucracy,” Steinzor said.
“To give you an extreme example, Tom Delay compared the EPA staff to Nazi Gestapo.”
“They’ve been kicked around the block, accused of being incompetent, of goldbricking on the public’s dime. And that has been demoralizing. Many of the most qualified people have left.”
“There was a steady drumbeat saying in effect – we don’t need more regulation, we can trust industry to take care of these problems.”
“This assertion is now being disputed every day. I hope we have a reexamination of that whole idea. But we’ve been hearing it ever since Ronald Reagan was President.”
“So, there is a lot of ingrained muscle memory to overcome.”
What to do?
“We need to give these agencies more money. I would hasten to add, it’s not a lot more money. If you add up the budgets of all of the health and safety regulatory agencies, it comes down to .1 percent of the federal budget.”
“They can leverage relatively meager resources through very strong enforcement. That gives a strong deterrent against bad conduct. That’s why the emphasis on criminal prosecution is important in that regard.”
“We need to stop bashing the civil service. Some of the most expert of the civil servants don’t get paid even close to what folks get in the private sector.”
Steinzor says that with BP, Toyota, and Massey Energy, the tide is turning.
She predicts that BP and Massey executives will go to jail.
“Even though we haven’t seen major American corporate executives in jail for these kinds of disasters – since when?”
“The straw has broken the camel’s back,” she says.
[For a complete transcript of the Interview with Rena Steinzor, see 24 Corporate Crime Reporter 23(12), June 7, 2010, print edition only
what was that old repuglicant line... defund the left?
Didn't they realize that the left is the only connection to government people have?
Meanwhile, you have entire sections of society sucking the system dry by way of welfare. Yes....... get rid of welfare in Utah.. and you may be able to do something about the deficit (chuckle).
.....shameful is the lot of them
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Jun 17, 2010 - 02:31pm PT
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Obama and the Democrats are done. But only a cannibal would stick a fork in them. Any garbage can is a suitable resting place.
Hussein's advisors and priorities failed him badly, and his lethargy and indifference took a correctable situation and made it a worst case scenario.
History will refer to it as Obama's environmental catastrophe.
Books will be written with pictures of oil soaked pelicans and his face sharing the cover.
Obama let his country down. He out-Bushed Bush. His lethargic, indifferent conduct will thankfully help lose his party the elections in 2010 and probably in 2012.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 17, 2010 - 02:33pm PT
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Like you and your right wing buddies give a sh#t about the environment, Cornsh#t.
Hypocrite. You idiots fight science and every common sense environmental regulation kicking, screaming, and whining about socialism. So STFU, lying sack of sh#t.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Jun 17, 2010 - 02:35pm PT
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History will refer to it as Obama's environmental catastrophe.
Assuming you go to school in Texas, this will be correct.
Obama let his country down. He out-Bushed Bush. His lethargic, indifferent conduct will thankfully help lose his party the elections in 2010 and probably in 2012.
The RNC: The party of shifting responsibility.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 17, 2010 - 03:43pm PT
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Since we're recalling posts, I posted numerous times on this thread that the Democrats' health care bill, in all its varying forms, would not lower costs, although it might shift a few. I also pointed out that the CBO estimates were gamed to understate the cost the bill. My posts were anywhere from several days to several months before the bill's enactment. Only now, it seems, have those "responsible journalists" in the MSM begun to bother telling the public these things.
Where were they, and where were all the Democrats, while this bill was being debated, pray tell? Or perhaps only after seeing Greece and Spain and the spectre of European insolvency (I guess Donini would say enlightened insolvency) did they begin to realize that actuarial insolvency has bad consequences.
John
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apogee
climber
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Jun 17, 2010 - 03:51pm PT
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"I also pointed out that the CBO estimates were gamed to understate the cost the bill."
"Where were they, and where were all the Democrats, while this bill was being debated, pray tell?"
At the risk of be accused of Skip-style-channel-changing...
You mean like the way Shrub & co. didn't include the costs of the Iraq war in the deficit projections? Where were the Repubs to cry foul when these budgetary smoke & mirror games were going on?
Egregiousness of the understatement of costs aside, I still sleep better at night knowing that those funds just might go towards a critical domestic issue, rather than an imperialistic, quixotic, neocon agenda. But that's just me.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 17, 2010 - 03:53pm PT
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The difference, Apogee, is that the Iraq war wasn't presented as a cost-saving measure. The supporters of the health care bill claimed it would lower the deficit. A competent press should have belied that claim while it still mattered.
John
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apogee
climber
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Jun 17, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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John, a 'competent press' (and the Repub-lead Congress) should also have pressed the Bush administration for the real costs of the war, both in terms of $ and lives. The hair-splitting differentiation in issues (healthcare vs. wars) is virtually moot when the overall goal of the former is to help people (esp. in the US) and the latter is aimed at death and dismemberment of thousands for no tangibly good reason.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 17, 2010 - 04:08pm PT
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The CBO is about as respected an institution as there is in Washington, not so? That is, impartial and independent analysis of current and proposed government spending, based on best information and practices?
As for the compromises built into the health reform legislation. Well, given general steady increases in health care spending, it may be very difficult to separate out increases (and decreases) directly resulting from the legislation. More importantly, the compromises were forced by special interests (the health care and insurance industries), and right-wing, Republican and tea-bagger irrationality. It's abundantly clear that a single-payer system, with appropriate checks and balances, would have ended up costing less, probably much less. That was the preferred choice, but it seems that the Democrats were willing to settle for half a loaf rather than none, presumably hoping to repair the thing later.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 17, 2010 - 04:10pm PT
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The difference between war and any other spending is that war necessarily involves destruction, death and loss. It can also eliminate more of the same. Had the western democracies dealt with Hitler when he occupied the Rhineland, they would have been criticized as warmongers, and spending treasure on war rather than to help people when, in fact, they would have saved the lives of millions.
It's always that way with war. It is the most evil thing humans do, but sometimes is the only way to stop even greater evil.
Again, though, the war was not offered as a cost savings. The health care bill was.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 17, 2010 - 04:12pm PT
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Anders, I greatly respect the CBO, but not the rules Congress insists they follow. The issue wasn't what the CBO did, it's what they were told to do -- and the press's failure to tell the truth.
John
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 17, 2010 - 04:14pm PT
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Jeff, you may like to believe that, and spout it as disinformation. And no doubt there are exceptions that "prove" whatever you want. But the facts are that Canada has an equitable and effective health care system, which costs us about 75% (per capita) of what the US spends, and leads to better results. We also have reasonably honest debates about it, in particular things like increasing costs, rationing mechanisms, special interests, etc.
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