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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 23, 2013 - 11:29pm PT
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Around 55% of the homeowners of Beverly Hills CA are medical doctors. Average property value (post housing bubble): $2 million
As you keep insisting from others, would you care to support that claim with some hard data (preferably not from some liberal web site)?
Oh, and even IF it were true (which is unlikely), you have not even STARTED to make any case to the effect that people are not entitled to significant rewards for their efforts.
Talk about self-discipline and delayed gratification! Medical doctors endure a CRAZY hard life for a decade, go astronomically into debt, then start to practice and have to be good business people as well to really make it. The relatively few people that pull it off are flat out entitled to their two-million dollar homes if that's how they chose to enjoy their lives.
And don't try to spew that "they make all this money on the backs of poor people." That is such a ridiculous over-simplification of the issues that it's nothing but blatant classism. The insurance companies are the Great Satan in this mess, not the medical doctors. Careful regulation of THAT industry decades ago would have kept us far back from this present brink.
("Libertarian" government does NOT equate to laissez faire government!)
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 24, 2013 - 12:01am PT
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I balance self-responsibility with compassion
Compassion implies choice. Forced extraction precludes me from being compassionate, AND it forcibly disallows me from selecting my beneficiaries.
And, nobody has yet addressed the fact that if I'm supposedly responsible for all these unsupported kids, then (by basic moral principle) I have a corresponding right to decide who gets to have kids. NOBODY has a right (positive, negative, or otherwise) to just keep poppin' out kids and then demand that I pay for them.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 24, 2013 - 12:05am PT
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Not at the cost of 18% of GDP, they're not. Or is wealth redistribution only OK if it benefits the wealthy?
That statement and question are so laden with presumptions and downright confusion that it would take a book-length reply to systematically dismantle them all.
I'll suffice with this....
* Almost entirely unregulated health insurance companies are the problem with that figure, not the doctors.
* Defend the claim that there's something obviously wrong with that percentage of GDP. And don't just tout European countries as though their lower percentage makes it "obvious" that "something is wrong."
* Defend the claim that a doctor getting paid a LOT, LOT more than a ditch digger is somehow "wealth redistribution."
Let's start with just those points and see if any headway is possible.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 24, 2013 - 12:06am PT
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And, I'm still waiting on the hard data sustaining your 55% and two-million-dollar claims.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Nov 24, 2013 - 01:09am PT
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Got some control issues there madbolter..?
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Nov 24, 2013 - 03:50am PT
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"Forced extraction precludes me from being compassionate"
must be a Christian.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Nov 24, 2013 - 04:29am PT
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Around 55% of the homeowners of Beverly Hills CA are medical doctors.
78.243% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 24, 2013 - 08:11am PT
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The truest words ever spoken.
Double-stampie, no erasies!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 25, 2013 - 12:37am PT
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I'm all for radically reducing insurance company profits. Unregulated insurance companies, imho, have been increasingly the bane of sensible health care.
What's sad to me is that, in typical knee-jerk reaction, we jump straight from lack of regulation to ACA and then to single-payer.
The greed of insurance and drug companies is what has made the "capitalist" approach to health care untenable. But "capitalism" was never supposed to mean anything like unrestricted profits, especially when those profits are derived by outright screwing the customers; this is exactly when it is appropriate for government to regulate to protect the public interest.
But, the bell has been rung, and single-payer is coming. At least that will be better for the middle class than ACA is shaping up to be.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 25, 2013 - 01:37pm PT
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And it’s going to work.
This article was, sadly, hype. It completely failed to address the fundamental problems that have driven millions of middle-class complaints! What does "work" even mean? If you mean "people can sign up," that's a pretty low bar! This article doesn't touch increased premium costs, co-pays, or radically increased deductibles. This article does nothing to convince me that ACA "is going to work" in the slightest.
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Snowmassguy
Trad climber
Calirado
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Nov 25, 2013 - 02:02pm PT
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What does "work" even mean?
It means the Obamacare propaganda machine has found a phrase they can use to create more propaganda bullsh**
See.... Obamacare is just like many of our current presidents policies and initiatives, spin is all that matters. Pubic perception can be altered by positive propaganda.
Does not matter if it works as long as people think it works. Got it?
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Nov 26, 2013 - 08:19am PT
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A good synopsis of a possible post anti-biotic future. If it came to pass it would make all of this political scorekeeping BS laughable, which is maybe why this might not be the best forum to post this link. But f*#k it, this article is sobering.
https://medium.com/p/892b57499e77
Penicillin-resistant staph emerged in 1940, while the drug was still being given to only a few patients. Tetracycline was introduced in 1950, and tetracycline-resistant Shigella emerged in 1959; erythromycin came on the market in 1953, and erythromycin-resistant strep appeared in 1968. As antibiotics became more affordable and their use increased, bacteria developed defenses more quickly. Methicillin arrived in 1960 and methicillin resistance in 1962; levofloxacin in 1996 and the first resistant cases the same year; linezolid in 2000 and resistance to it in 2001; daptomycin in 2003 and the first signs of resistance in 2004.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Nov 26, 2013 - 10:46am PT
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The greed of humans is what has made the "Libertarian" approach to anything untenable. But "Libertarianism" was never supposed to mean anything like unrestricted choice, especially when those choicesare derived by outright screwing the rest of the population; this is exactly when it is appropriate for government to regulate human behaviorto protect the public interest.
Fixed it for you. Extreme -isms of all kind are fundamentally flawed. I call for moderationism in all things.
Pragmatically, any attempt at improvement to the current state is welcome. I don't want to subside anyone else's poor choices either, but that's exactly what I'm doing right now. I don't know that ACA will fix or improve it, but I'm willing to give it a chance.
TE
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 26, 2013 - 11:48am PT
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That's actually a pretty reasonable re-casting, TE. I mean, what I wrote is also true, but I'll grant your version as well.
Of course, I'm not a political libertarian either. Philosophical libertarianism only sort of maps onto parts of political libertarianism. And, I'm with you insofar as I don't believe in unrestricted liberty or "freedom of choice." However, without a clear understanding of, and discussion within the context of, negative and positive rights, it's pretty hard to think this stuff through without distortion.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Nov 26, 2013 - 12:02pm PT
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Who cares what color? If someone is hungry give them food. I'm happy to help pay. Same for health care.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 26, 2013 - 12:12pm PT
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If someone is hungry give them food. I'm happy to help pay.
Cool!
Society is (increasingly) gonna hold you to that, as are millions of the middle class that are being literally taxed to death.
You know, if my company could get a tax break, we could actually hire another person. But, I guess it's FAR better to have one more person out of work (and not enjoying the health care package my company provides); and it really doesn't matter anyway, because we've got such generous spirits on the taco stand that will pick up the (ever increasing) slack.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Nov 26, 2013 - 12:29pm PT
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I do get taxed and bought food for hungry people this weekend and still manage not to be "taxed to death."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 26, 2013 - 12:50pm PT
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literally taxed to death
Actually, yes. It's a process. For example, people that had health coverage that lost it to ACA; then don't have coverage to go to the doctors that were working on their cancer; then can't afford the "affordable" coverage "offered" by the ACA; then are, yes, LITERALLY dying because of the snafu. And that's just one sort of example. When you tax the middle class as is now happening, the implications are many and negative.
ACA IS a tax; that's how it (barely) got past the Supreme Court. So, yes, as we see the implications play out, you are going to hear more and more stories of people LITERALLY taxed to death in the short term, and with implications killing people over the long term.
As much as I hate saying it, I'd take single-payer tomorrow (paid for by sales, luxury, and vice taxes) if it would immediately undo the ACA.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Nov 26, 2013 - 01:58pm PT
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So it appears that Norton was indeed deep sea fishing his last claim of "Whitey Tidey" being the worst abusers of "Assistance" in America, outta his ass.
factually true, chief
care to dispute that?
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Nov 26, 2013 - 02:02pm PT
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Regardless of one's views on contraception, the issue before the court is weather a for-profit corporation can exclude itself from the requirements of a federal statute for religious reasons. This is the lunacy Citizen's United has wrought.
And if it were me, I'd be giving my employees all the contraception they want and more. Insuring pregnancies, paying for mandated maternity leave, etc. is far more costly.
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