Re: Fabrications of Health Care Obstructionists And Their Easy Exposure!

On Sep 12, 11:44 am, Neolibertarian <cognac...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<ccf022f3-a2a4-4951-9257-ca1be0ea6...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
 CitizenJimserac<jimse...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 11, 12:14 am, Neolibertarian <cognac...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ok NeoLib dude, good points, let me comment on a few in no particular
order....

I liked and still like Reagan as a person, I like his style and his
old fashioned patriotism,
but it is gradually starting to become clear to me that his
administration became the impetus for a number of things which
actually went quite contrary to what we want and began to undermine
the America that was.

It was Reagan's administration which was instrumental in accelerating
the absurd and costly "war" on drugs

Look, buddy, maybe you need to do some reading.

The War on Drugs was begun under Nixon, and it was necessary at that
time. It probably still is.

And here, old NeoLib dude, we must disagree. Yes, Nixon initiated the
"war" on drugs
and at the time it seemed a noble goal. However the political
infrastructure of enforcement,
and its acceleration from a supported but vague national policy into
the privacy busting, budget killing, human rights and constitutional
rights violating gestapoism that it has become - all THAT happened in
the Reagan era.

What's that you say? You're COMFORTABLE with seizures of private
property from supposed drug dealers?
Are you aware that auctioning of private property is a big money maker
for the police departments?
Yes, the Drug enforcement business is BIG business too! But then,
wouldn't that make it self sustaining sort of problem? Of course the
curiously unguarded borders DO help, don't they?

Re-education CAMPS for teenagers? You're OK with that? Run either by
the government or by private companies that "specialize" in that sort
of thing? And you call yourself a "libertarian?????
Vague with myriad interpretations that can get people sent to jail for
mere POSSESSION of illicit drugs - even when someone else hides them
on an unsuspecting dupe or friend?
Judges on the take from the "CAMP" company? You haven't heard about
that one? Teenagers being sent to camps for minor infractions?

You're OK with all this - well YOU do some reading and you'll discover
that this sort of thing got the green light from the Reagan, NOT the
Nixon era.


Revisiting how we criminalize drugs and drug trafficking is always in
order, but you don't have the foggiest notion of how to address the very
real and systemic dangers.

Criticism isn't an alternative. And you don't have a single damn answer.

Ah but this is still America and criticism is VERY much an
alternative.
We are, apparently living in two different countries.
Please don't insult our intelligence by misconstruing my remarks as
though I condone illicit drug useage,
my comments are indicative, only that excesses have been accelerated
and encouraged since the Reagan era.


Politics is the art of the possible. Reagan didn't just TALK about
reducing the deficits. He left office with several mechanisms in place
to ensure that American government would once again begin living within
its means.

BULL***. Observe the defense budget and the awarding of contracts.
Case closed.


Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was officially killed off in the same bill that
ending up getting GHW Bush, his woefully inadequate successor, fired.


Ah, we agree on the evaluation of Bush. Good.

Later, the Contract with America was a mandate for a Balanced Budget
Amendment that would never come to fruition.

Until Clinton.



It may be simplistic to put it this way, but it seems the political
class in Washington DC would not tolerate such shackles. The political
class still believes your as dumb as a box of rocks, and you keep
proving them right.

The Soviet political class believed exactly the same thing.
Apologists for their system, analogous to your comments about our
system believed their citizenry as dumb as rocks.... until a country
bumpkin named Yeltsin stood on a tank and stated the obvious and in a
single moment, the Soviets, per se, ceased to exist.

Mostly by buying into their narrative over and over and over again.

Like the way you hate insurance companies and their profits, among many
other things.

I have no problem with profits - it is the government creation of a
monopoly, looking the other way at obvious tricks like the prior
condition exclusions, early termination of coverage, terminations and
limitations of coverage in the fine print and the like that I object
to. Did we not see the exact same type of tricks in the fine print of
the Mortgages which lead to our most recent and one of our greatest
financial crises?
Do you STILL argue that unfettered monopolism, government
protectionism and the toleration of lobbyist influence peddling is
beneficial for us?


Like the way you're not demanding a flat tax or a balanced budget
amendment.

I'd LOVE to see both. I support BOTH. And I'll make note that Obama
went to great pains to GUARANTEE, in his health reform package, that
the new government system would be self-sustaining and PROFITABLE and
would NOT take from the treasury. Whether that is doable or not,
however, without other related serious reforms in a wide spectrum of
areas, as I mentioned in an earlier response, is questionable. We
need lobbyist reforms, energy reforms, reforms in our busted defense
contracting industry, education, social security, medicare (which
DOES have enormous amounts of waste and fraud, as you indicated, it
need not be so) etc..



The obstructionists
would rise up as one if all of them were proposed at once but that,
essentially is what we need and President Obama is the closest we have
right now to head us in that direction.

Putting your hopes in any politician is your first mistake. They won't
change the direction of anything.

The existence of Napoleon, Hitler, Washington, or Lincoln indicates
otherwise.


They didn't create the health care system, they're not doctors or
nurses, and they don't even know how to run a business.

Not knowing how to "run" a business is an advantage.


Health insurance companies run off a 3.3% profit margin. Often, there is
no profit from the premiums at all, their profits are sometimes wholly
derived from financial investments. Yet you're SURE they're screwing you.

I'm sure their SCREWING EVERYONE. If you can't figure that out from
reading of the horror stories of people with cancer whose coverage was
dropped, or of the blatantly obvious bankruptcy figures that show
health care expense, EVEN FOR THOSE WITH HEALTH CARE INSURANCE
"COVERAGE", was the leading cause of personal bankruptcy, or of the
situation of people denied drugs they needed because they were
"unusual" or non-standard or whatever excuse the health insurer used
to avoid paying for the patients treatment, then something is wrong.

There is a fundamental conflict, in my opinion, between the motivation
of profit for the health "insurance" company and the necessity of
public benefit. That's why, after witnessing the current mess unfold
over a period of 30 or 40 years, I am convinced that ONLY a government
option is the optimal solution. And yet I'm still a big supporter of
free enterprise. That's the way the cards fall and that's the way I
call it. Simple.

You, like the President, have never run a company of your own, but I
assure you you'd not make a go of it, whatever business you were in, if
the profit margin were only 3.3%.

Our government does not and should not guarantee profit margins. THAT
is the responsibility of the corporation or business to maintain.
What spoils this is that we no longer have a fully free enterprise
system but instead a system with massive government controls,
interferences, and unintelligible laws whose net effect is to de facto
reward influence peddling.

The problem with health insurance is it removes you from the cost of
what you buy. There's several ways of addressing this without the
government PERMANENTLY removing you from the supply and demand equation.

Good point except my conclusion is that the government MUST
permanently remove us from the supply and demand equation in that
instance.

I realize you must be tired of making your own decisions and living with
the consequences.

Nah, I just don't like to see YOUNG COUPLES BEGGING FOR MONEY AND
HOLDING CHARITY BENEFITS SO THEY CAN GET THE NEEDED MEDS FOR TO SAVE
THE LIVES OF THEIR CHILDREN, NOR DO I LIKE TO SEE PEOPLE WHO SPENT A
LIFETIME WORKING AND/OR RUNNING A BUSINESS, BANKRUPTED BY SOME CHRONIC
ILLNESS.


We all are. It's a tough old world out there.
No! It's a tough government out there. The world is just fine.


But thinking a stranger who manages to win some sort of weird popularity
contest once every two, four or six years is gonna make BETTER decisions
than you, or that by turning over your destiny to them that you somehow
will no longer have to live with the consequences...well, that's just
insane.

Or childish.

Or both.

Indeed so - which is why, as I mentioned, some REFORMS are needed such
as:
1. The expansion of the Supreme court to 20 or 30 places instead of a
mere nine, which was fine in the 1830's but is now woefully
inadequate. This power to expand the number of judges is reserved for
congress, not the president. Why is it never discussed? The
judicial branch would become more powerful, would be able to block and/
or override more quickly any anti or unconstitutional initiatives
passed hastily by congress, as is their wont. The domination of the
Supreme Court by one or another ideology would be permanently stopped.
2. The ABSOLUTE NECESSITY of establishing a system of recall elections
such as they have in Europe is badly needed in the U.S.. Bush #2
would NEVER have completed his 2d term if this had been in place.
3. The ABSOLUTE NECESSITY of finding some rational basis for re-
districting congressional districts that DOES NOT allow games to be
paid, in which established interests reserve entire sections of a
state with targeted voters which virtually guarantees power
concentration in special interests and the near impossibility of
voting certain incumbents out of office.
4. ABSOLUTE LIMITS on terms.
5. Drastic reduction in congressional salaries and benefits.

These are just some of the reforms that are needed.

Citizen Jimserac

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