Harry Boy

Disruption:
The left wing has been doing it for years and they have been praised for doing it by the very people who now condem "the other side"

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Patters

I think there are a lot of motivations:
- There are those still suffering the sting of defeat
- There are those caught up in irrational fears of Obama or liberalism
- There are those who believe this is good for the Republican Party
- There are those who think something needs to be done before America fails completely
- and there are those who really are defensive about their health insurance

Their motives are all slightly different, but mostly skew towards helping the Republican establishment, not the Party. But, the big beneficiary is Fox News, which has seen growing viewership while Republican Party popularity continues to sink.

Nonetheless, this unattractive group of allies has generated more disgust than support at least among independents, who continue to rate the Republican Party well below the Democratic Party. Their current methods can lead to only two results: building up an army of angry people who can do more serious harm or utter failure, but there's no way it will get them popular support.

I think Rush, Beck, and Fox News badly want that army of angry white men. I think it would be enormously profitable for them, in terms of their ego and their wealth. I don't think they'll get it, though. Even the most extreme right wingers here in this forum do not seem enthusiastic about their tactics.

One suggestion I read in Democratic Underground is that liberals should set up tables where attendees can sign away their Medicare rights to show their opposition to national health care. I thought that was a clever idea.

Patsfanin Philly

True but it would behoove you to remember the lessons of 1993 and 1994 when another Democratic President in the wake of a decisive election( a Republican party in disarray) tried to ram through health care reform. By the next year, the Republicans sensing a national anger picked up about 50-60 seats in the House and recaptured both chambers for the first time since the Great Depression. It would be foolish to think that this is a limited anger. Remember that 85% of the American public has health insurance and the vast majority are satisfied with it. Rather than concentrating on getting the other 15% coverage, by affecting everyone, there naturally is fear and suspicion at the unknown and at parts of the bill that look 'questionable'.
Taken with a cap and trade that was passed without full examination (300 pages of amendments were added at the last minute in the middle of the night.)it is understandable why people are angry and protective.

PatsFanInVa

I do not have a "public option" insurer, so this makes no sense. I have a private insurance company just like you... so how does the fact that I work for the government come into it? If you work for let's say Intel, and Intel has an insurance plan (or a number of plans to choose from,) you are in precisely the same position as me. Or for that matter, if you work for your local K-Mart, and they actually have health insurance available (just from observation, a much more likely possibility.)

patsfan13

As a government employee you won't be foreced into a public plan like we will when our employers drop our insurance.

Yourefuse to del with this, you are being dishonest, since we know you are not stupid.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

PatsFanInVa

And 50% are in favor of health reform, versus 45% opposed. Beyond that fact, health care is like unemployment: the more you know a friend, or a friend of a friend, who is dropped from insurance, denied coverage, loses insurance when he loses his job, loses his insurance when the company goes bankrupt, etc. etc. etc., the more you will favor (or downright need) health care reform.

The present bill does not penalize these older ladies and gentlemen, but I hear all about their "legitimate" and "natural" fears.

Well, okay. I understand that if we hold the insurance companies to account, there is a "natural" fear that we'll somehow round up old people and put them before the "death panel." This despite the fact that Medicare is not even discussed in the bill.

Okie dokie. Question: Since the young overwhelmingly favor this reform package, think about the opportunity the middle-age throw away.

an insurance pool is only functional insofar as risk is distributed. We have one that refuses to insure the sick or the bad risks, and in which the young and healthy do not particularly like to participate, at present.

Since the young are disproportionately in favor of more equitable insurance, that is, are willing to join the risk pool even though they are at lower risk, I have a "rational" fear that they will become jaded if health care is once again denied the public. I also "rationally" fear that in the wake of a health care reform failure, the bills for the old -- medicare -- will just seem like too much in 4 or 8 years. I "rationally" fear that doing nothing not only results in "death panels," but actually has a mechanism by which we arrive there: the monumental expense of running a system as a whole without the input of the younger workers over on the private health care end. I "rationally" fear that we will just stop covering anything of value in medicare.

Sure, that sounds good. Now I suppose my role is to go with 20 friends and shout "HEALTH OR DIE! HEALTH OR DIE!" at every Republican town hall. Or more to the point, that I send around e-mails to the local gray panthers who lean leftward.

A fear is only a rational fear if it can be supported within the actual legislation one fears. What is the support? That you have coverage, once every 5 years, if you want to discuss end-of-life arrangements such as living wills. That becomes "death panels."

We've got a month, insurance shills. You have a month to state your case, such as it is. The clock is ticking.

Thus far you've said, no, shouted absolutely nothing, and shouted it at the tops of your lungs, intending to not have the debate.

Well, as everything, the effect on the fringes is not that important. The effect on the Center is very important.

If we get health care reform worthy of that phrase, the right will be running very, very scared: not of "socialism," but of the success of this administration, and the sure knowledge that most Americans' impressions of our health system will be of a vastly improved system (only the "gold plated" care will be dented... which is not what most Americans have.)

The challenges we're looking at are big, whether we're talking the economy (which has been a must-fix left by the last tenant,) health care, or in the future -- whether by Obama or the next guy -- medicare and social security. The bills are coming due from this 30 year orgy of Friedman/Laffer/Greenspanism.... i.e., deregulation as some sort of idolatrous god. Oh and while we're at it, it may be worth mentioning the longest and most costly war in american history.

Am I against dissent? On the contrary, I value it. It's especially valuable when a competing idea is offered... it may give me pause, were the Republicans, their masters in big business, or their shills here or in town hall meetings ever to offer such a thing as a new idea.

This mob attack is symptomatic, in this case, not of a phantom "repression" by the party in power, but of a bankruptcy of ideas in the face of change by those who face no such deficit.

And yes, it does remind me of the Dems in the late 70s. The reforms the Dems embraced had outstripped the country, which went running like a bunch of scared little *****es to the fearful reagan end of their spectrum. Well, that's the country's perogative... but many of the Reaganites are dead, and the rest have had second thoughts about the big-hearted, always-right, infallible free market buddies who are going to trickle down their wealth to the masses. They're trickling all right, but that ain't wealth, and we're all now painfully aware of this fact.

Now the country's caught up to the idea of a social safety net, not coincidentally just as everybody and their brother knows somebody who is served by one.... or saved by one. All those federal dollars the grandstanding govs fight against and squawk about... and then accept; all those extensions to unemployment benefits, in dire times; all those plants that don't close for auto workers and suppliers.... people, even those whose plants or companies have closed, see a government that cares, a government that does all it can to lessen that pain.

Is the calculation really that "most" people hate the government for trying to keep people employed and healthy?

Is the calculation really that "most" people are convinced they "should" hate the government, based on this priority to serve the public wellbeing rather than big business???

2010 will be interesting. Namecalling ("socialist" seems to have lost its lustre, so now it's "nazi," nonsensical as it would seem) can only go so far. I think we just saw that in 08... The bloom is off the rose for the administration, but the damn GOP looks intent on putting the bloom back on it.

The tactics here just seem unfathomable, outside of the specific interests of the insurance lobby (do something that makes you look dumb for the money, spend the money on the ads, win the election...) It sure ain't "making friends and influencing people.")

patsfan13

Of course the majority are against Obamacare....we know gov employees and congress pols and their staffs don't want to live under Obamacare.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

Patsfanin Philly

Then you haven't read my postings because I've stated repeatedly two things that are needed, actually three that would help reduce costs.
1) Require insurance companies to enroll all people regardless of pre-existing conditions, leveling the field
2) Allow insurance companies to write policies across state lines increasing competition. Look what happened to internet access costs with competition.
3) Tort reform which is never mentioned in the reform bill,not once on any of the 1100 pages.
I think I've been restrained and calm in this debate especially a few back and forths I had with Patters yesterday.
Perhaps you've mistaken me for someone else...

PatsWSB47

You know that would speak volumes if as a group they said they would relinquish their cushy comprehensive plan for the new one being proposed. Isn't it true that they get free health insurance as a benefit while in office and it continues on that way even after they retire?

These loud mouth hypocrites have no business telling me their views on what regular Americans health insurance should be like. How dare they? That makes me bitter and I don't need any fringe right wing group or insurance company to rile me up about that.
You see libs, some people can actually think on their own. Do not marginalize me.

Seriously I’m not smart enough to know what the outcome of government health care will be. All I know is that everyone in congress that thinks they do know what’s best for us better be damned willing to give up their golden plans(that we pay for BTW) and walk in the same shoes they want us to walk in. It's easy to be a "do gooder" when you have nothing to lose I guess.

Patsfanin Philly

Oh really, do you have a link to back this up?


National (US) Poll * August 5, 2009 * Scrap Health Care Reform If It - Quinnipiac University – Hamden, Connecticut
The Quinnipiac poll from Aug 5, shows the young 18-35 opposing how President Obama is handling health care by 48%-44%