As welfare loving Democrat I've always admired the republicans for their ability to get billions more in government dollars and assistance for their cronies than we could for ours. Big tax cuts and incentives for off shoring corporate headquarters. There isn't a business built or added on to in America today that hasn't gotten some tax increment financing or a government grant or zoning variance. Hell. The government even pays tobacco farmers not to grow tobacco. God forbid the price of tobacco collapse and we have cheap cigarettes everywhere. Plus, government needs the price of tobacco high so it can tax the shit out of the poor that use it to make up for all the tax breaks the rich get.
As clever as these neocon shysters are at getting government largess, for some reason their aversion to national health insurance is mind boggling. These jokers love that government has two occupations going to keep defense contractors busy making government money.. A huge deficit that keeps the Fed from raising interest rates so money is cheap. A Congress over a barrel because they know the economy could collapse without it's injection of billions into the lending system.
For all the government largess they get, imagine how much more they could get if government took over health care and removed that burden from employers. If some health insurance companies go out of business I doubt the righties would lose any sleep because none of them seem to feel any remorse at shipping jobs to China. If you guys think you will miss a few of your buddies at the club, give them jobs as waiters and bathroom attendants to sooth your consciences.
It's always been a sort of joke that "righties hate the poor." But their hatred of national health insurance validates this. They would rather keep the burden of health insurance on employers than see it shifted and all people contribute to and benefit from a national health insurance system. Even though this would be in the best interests of American Business.
Perhaps the wealthy are jealous of social programs that aid the poor. So they use government as a giant social program to aid the rich. Or they're afraid a poor person might get as good a health care as they get. Don't worry my wealthy fellow Americans. Your stuff will always better than the rest of ours.
18 comments:
you are right on the money with this one Truth!! The righties always like to throw in our faces how much they give to charities, yea, that makes them real special. They just love giving to the poor.... and my name is Rockefellar...
Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the "runner-in-chief."
Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the USS Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001.
I was just kidding about all that crap Truth101. Your's is the finest blog on the internet. I don't believe in God but if I did, I would pray that our leaders read your blog and act like you. Praise be to you Truth101. Truth101 Akbar!
Americans depending on employers for health insurance is one of the biggest cons of all time. Do you get your car insurance from your employer? Do you get renters insurance or insure your house from your employer? Do you get your life insurance from your employer? No. Why should you get your health insurance from the guy who signs your check? All insurance should be out the in the market place competing for your business.
One day I hope to be something other than the idiot I have been all these years. I will learn to create my own blog by clicking the icon in the right hand corner instead of posting under several different monikers.
Thank you Truth101 for enlightening me to my idiocy and blind devotion to Cheney, Rush and Glen.
Expand on your ideas Holte. I'd like to see where you'tre going before responding.
The average American worker doing the average job, not talking the professions here, is the most shafted worker in the western world. Work a year before you get 5 vacation days, work 2 years maybe you'll get 10 days, shocking abuse of employer power, the same goes for health insurance. If a person works for 3 years at a company, he has just achieved 10 vacation days and maybe has half way decent health insurance, he is trapped in that job unless he wants to give up vacation time and wait another 90 days before becoming eligible for health insurance at any new job he might take, unless he wants to pay through the nose with COBRA. I am talking from experience.
Where am I going with this? Let everyone buy their own health insurance, get employers out of the health care business and with the money they save, which would be considerable, pay them more. People need to exercise their own ability to make choices on what works for them and their family. It would also give them more flexibility in changing jobs to help them move on to, what could be, a job more suited to their skills and therefore, a happier and possibly a more productive employee.
Third party payer health insurance, makes a person lazy, and uninvolved, if you add your employer into the equation, that makes four entities involved in your health: you; your doctor; your insurer and your employer.
I mentioned vacation time, but that is a whole other discussion, didn't mean to distract from the subject.
Ah, Hotle...
You are dangerous! Oh, and that is a compliment!
Yes, employers in fact determine your healthcare! By choosing one plan over another they are in fact making decisions on which doctors you can visit and what hospitals you can be treated in.
If you buy your own insurance then your premiums must be greater than 7.5% of your gross income before you can deduct your premiums from your taxes.
When your employer pays for your insurance they get a full deduction for the expense and whatever you pay for employer provided insurance, if those deductions come out of your pay on a pretax basis then that also benefits your employer because it reduces the amount they pay for their portion of your social security and FICA. Thus insurance is a real benefit to employers.
It also locks employees into jobs and makes them less mobile. Federal law allows employers to charge employees 102% of premiums for COBRA.
Lose your job? Then you are hit with the surprise of what insurance really costs and you also lose your ability to pay the full cost.
Then you have this thing called 'group underwriting' which is where the experience of the group as a whole is used to determine insurance rates....have a bad year or one sick person and it goes through the roof and have a few great years with healthy employees and your insurance costs still go up...
Then send your employees all out to get individual policies and match those up with the total for group insurance and you realize that you can save over $75 a month per person by not offering a group policy but rather reimburse all your employees for their single policies...
Its a con job plain and simple...
Injustice makes money. Even some unions now are more interested in placating employers with givebacks if it means the dues keep flowing. I consider this relevant as HOlte brought up the injustice our American Workers endure.
TAO likes the Swiss system. I like single payer as I've laid out in my plan. Holte's plan looks like it could be worth a try.
This is such an excellent point. American manufacturers claim they are being destroyed by medical costs. I have heard automobile manufacturers claim that medical costs add $1500 to the price of every car made in America. This system is destroying them, and yet they are so blinded by the notion that they don't have to pay their fair share of the cost of keeping this country viable, that they will continue clutching this snake to their chests while it is killing them.
.so true.... a national health care system would indeed be a great relief to small business.... and it is so ironic that so little is ever said about corporate welfare.... i wonder what would happen to corporations that make over 50% of their profits on government contracts if that dried-up and they were cut-off....
i'm in the mood for a little Ayn Rand.... you?
Reading your blog is like going to see a movie by Oliver Stone. I almost wanted to look at the facts and read the document for my own edification, until a little obvious BIAS seemed to show through this guy’s comments. When someone uses diatribe and rhetoric that reeks of bias or favoritism, unless you share that bias it discolors anything they say. It’s a taint that gets associated with the resulting links. Too bad. Truthie Grouchy, for example, only exists to piss people off and argue and has no substance. Entertainment maybe?. When it comes to news, if someone starts fawning over Kerry, or has visceral personal comments about Bush, or claims to fish with Jesus, then hey, it makes me want to change channels.
It is for these specific reasons that I will never turn to people deeply associated with “causes” for news or opinions. I will probably never respect Michael Moore, Al Franken, Alex Baldwin, Barbara Streisand or the others in their rank because everything they say reeks of bias like a plate of day-old sauerkraut (yuck). They seem to bring their radical politics to the table, when we are just there to get entertained. I might go to see them in a movie or listen to their music, but if they start getting all sacrosanct and preachy, then I’m asking for a refund. So to get back to your “kind and gentle” bull-shit. Why not take it to the garbage can and get honest with your readers? You are a typical liberal blood sucking fools. Don’t try to butter yourself up with that “kind and gentel BS, because it just aint gonna fly. Your comments regarding your respect for certain handful of conservatives is interesting, I feel the same about the liberal element that accuses any one who disagrees with them as anti-american – or communist–or someting else nasty.
If you take a close look or listen closely, you will find that this a liberal disease. If they cannot baffle you with brilliance–they will most definitely try to…baffle you with huge amounts of BULLSHIT!!! This is AMERICA and we are allowed to disagree with another person including our politicians. We are a nation that is part of the world in chaos. Our main problems stem from, Apathy – Complacency – and Denial! If it is not happening in your backyard, some tend not to care, and bury their head in the sand or up their own butts. If they cannot see it–it is not happening. If your froend Shaw wants to shut us up by deleting our posts the so be it, we just won’t poet at her blog anymore. OR YOURS for that matter. What happens to one–is happening to all of us. Politicians need to remember they are not dictators–they are working for us and it is a temp job at that. We should realize that eventually we will have to answer to a much higher power and we will be held accountable. And if I disagree with any of your or Shaw’s comments, I have a right to say so. You and she have a right to disagree, but I have a right to say, stuff it!
I going to have to disagree with the premise of your post. The Republicans put themselves in a box -- as both parties have. It's called a platform. Republicans are for smaller government. Of course, they don't really believe in that, as the actions of the last president illustrate.
However, now that they have labeled bush a "big government conservative" and jabbered on about how they need to get back to their Reagan small government roots, they can hardly get behind a national health care plan. No matter that Reagan racked up more debt than any all the other presidents before him combined. It's the illusion that counts.
The health insurance cartels don't need THIS help from the government to continue gouging consumers. I outlined exactly what kind of help they are willing to accept with my post "The Republican Plan To Boost Health Insurance Profits".
They may have doublecrossed themselves in regards to getting rid of the anti-trust exemption. That is something I'm sure they would have liked to keep in place, but couldn't justify voting to keep it, given that they supposedly stand for competition. Which is why they never brought it. Buying insurance across state lines and tort reform. Those are the only two ideas I've ever heard from them.
Health Insurance companies going out of business would be terrible! The people processing the paperwork, answering the phone and denying claims -- their jobs can go to India (I imagine a lot of them have). But CEO positions must be protected.
It's class warefare and the Republicans know whose side they are on. The Democrats are supposed to be on the side of "we the people" but they need big money to get re-elected. So most accept the bribes and try to minimize the favors they must do in return. Or not, in the case of the blue-dogs.
A lot of large corporations self-insure. They hire one of the health insurance companies to do the paperwork, process the claims, and take customer calls... but when it come to paying out claims they do so from their own pool of money. Which allows them to keep the profits. Result? Smaller companies are (or should be) in favor of government run health care, but larger companies that self-insure are against it.
According to a Think Progress article, "55% of those who get insurance through private-sector jobs, are covered in self-insured plans".
BTW I'm in favor of the government doing something to discourage smoking. Do high taxes on cigarettes accomplish this or do poor people smoke as much as they would without the tax? I'm against regressive taxes, but cheap cigarettes would definitely encourage more smoking.
Thepremise is mostly that the right gets more government largess than the left, even the right claims to be the party of less government. It spreads a message of bullshit to bigots, idiots and homophobes like the "bash a lib" phony freeper that's been going around. That keeps their numbers high enough so the rest of the greedy, and those blinded by the abortion issue, which in reality, the leadership od the right wants to remain legal even more than the left, to win elections.
I'm not sure what we disagree on WD.
Truth said... the right gets more government largess than the left, even the right claims to be the party of less government.
We are in almost 100 percent agreement. Forget I said I disagree with the premise of your post. I'm only disagreeing that they've "doublecrossed themselves".
They've invented this fiction that they're the party of small government. They've got to stick to the narative. Which I'm certain they're happy to do because it has served them well. If they were honest about what their party stands for only the unethical wealthy would vote for them and they'd cease to exist.
I see. To add to this though, liars lie to themselves also. It's amazing the discipline the right has that they don't doublecross themselves more often.
quoting myself... They may have doublecrossed themselves in regards to getting rid of the anti-trust exemption. That is something I'm sure they would have liked to keep in place...
Scratch that. I just heard rolling back the insurance cartel's anti-trust exemption has been taken out of the bill by Harry Reid at the request of Ben Nelson. Maybe it's the Democrats who are double-crossing themselves?
Well said, great post.
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