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@#18
Leftie/socialists support single -payer healthcare, a signature of socialism. They also are totally focused on wealth redistribution rather than wealth creation, another trademark of socialism. They also believe in the narrative that the wealthy hinder the success of the middle class, and that age and gender gaps are not a good thing.
All these positions are held by the socialist parties of Europe, none of which I subscribe to. Therefore, I resist.
Thanks for the kind thoughts but, you don't have to worry about me as I am safely ensconced in my bunker, clinging to my bible and my DD5V1, communicating with my collective group of unnamed political insiders that are positive the Ruskies are responsible for every election loss the democrat party has experienced over the last 8-1/2 years.
The thought of Mike Pence and Pau Ryan along with McConnell actually doing their degenerate "thing" is even more horrifying than Trump.
Of course I'm discounting his insane handing over the war machine totally to the military which nobody seems to be abe to stop!!!!!
Dianereynolds • 7 weeks 3 days ago
No problem, just tell me how you are going to finance the program. I am on board if you can convince me the existing jobs in the insurance world, the hospitals, doctors, those idiots in congress, and the American public will all be content with your suggestion.
Real numbers not wild guesses based on the babbling of leftie/socialist radio bobbleheads who make their living keeping you ginned up.
Trump Care will pass, causing many supporters to wake up to a cold reality? Too late! He's got what he wants. You are no longer needed. What will the next election bring? A whole fresh string of seemingly sincere promises to suck you back in. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you're a politician.
The more we fail to resist, the more insanity and immorality become normalized: It is the longest war in memory ...and tax cuts for the wealthy elite at the expense of the working poor -- who helped contribute to the fortunes of the privileged few by the sweat of their brow --are right and proper, just the way it should be.
BTW, this may be the YouTube video that ErinRose referenced in that June 23 comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsWE_8ZIPQg
Here's another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JVVhKP9XP4
Or, just listen to Trump speak for one minute on any given topic at any given moment (if you can stand it).
It used to be where a lot of folks would go by the "if it's not broke don't fix it rule". Pretty simple, move on to taking care of other major priorities at hand. If you try to break it, that is called sabotage. Tax cut for the rich who make over $250K in capital gains? Not to mention during longest term of war I can remember. Really?
Yea, yea! From the heart! Keep it real!
The underlying evil is money in politics -- from Russia to the United States and everywhere in between -- and the first-line "evildoers" are the sociopaths and psychopaths, who are incomprehensible to normal people of conscience:
Legend, 2950-10k, stecoop01, ErinRose, Outback, Radical, chuckle8, k. allen (Where are you?) Hephaestus (where are you?), stopgap (where are you?), ikeberltersen (where are you?), johnbest, PhilipHenderson, Riverplunge, Johnnie Dorman, Professor Edward J. Dodson, Bollivar, Ronin, Uncle Draggi, Uncle Ralph, ScottFromOz, historywriter, wmleidy, OldGent, changeX, jibaro01, humanitys team, ChristopehrCurrie, Howard Laverne, Arrgy, Scotty11, twelter001, gloriapower, goducks, randolphgarriso..., tomcalwriter1, commchf, droberson, Willie W, General Detergent, Tonisongbird, mwalkerco, elinor roosevelt, sschniepp ...
... and so many other sincere liberal and/or progressive commenters who have graced these pages.
In the vein of our Founders, each in their own way, they are fighting to break through the thick wall of the modern-day "landed gentry" and the minions of bootlickers, who vociferously despise a true People's democracy.
I would direct "critical thinkers" to ErinRose's June 23 comment #10, which succinctly and elegantly, as in the above post, zeroed in on the crux of the matter.
Although I couldn't find the exact link to the YT video referenced at the end of that June 23 comment, I did pull up this one, which, along the same lines, seems fitting apropos of the dialog between Diane and me (and sschniepp), in response to 2950-10K's posts on the tail-end of yesterday's comment thread (TrumpCare Is Monstrous!"), and which seems indicative of the larger argument and challenge facing progressives in general, as they try to introduce fundamental realities on the internet beyond partisan spin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaNS0jTq32k
To all: Sláinte mhaith!
I don't see our humanitarian approach working with Republicans because THEY HAVE NO COMPASSION !
So, here are my SELFISH reasons for wanting healthcare for all -
1. My kid sits next to other kids in school. I want them to be well.
2. My husband works in an office building and gets into the tight confines of an elevator.
I want everyone in the elevator with him to be well.
3. When I buy food, I want everyone who has touched it - harvesting, packing for shipping, putting it on the display, handling it at the register to scan or to bag - to be healthy people!
Not only do I want everyone to have access to healthcare, I want them to make a living wage that will allow them to take off from work to see a doctor if they should become ill.
Human compassion doesn't seem to sway the other side. 22 million people will lose insurance, elderly will be denied nursing home care, disabled children and adults will be on their own...none of that changes their minds. They are willing to throw 22 million Americans under the bus to provide more money to people who don't need it --they only use it to keep score.
The fact that we aren't looking at single-payer as the upgrade to the ACA proves everything we already know about the Teapublican Party. It's the party of by and for only the billionaires.
The question remains, how do we wake up the Fox News sleepwalkers? Who in hell would be against single-payer once they know what it is? The foxmerized need a very simple intervention. Thanks to the Fascists and their foxaganda, many believe that any program not for profit and "government related" is negative.
We need to reverse this falsehood. The founders set things up to make our government a servant for all, not just for the Kochs. Good government is meant to be our servant, as in single-payer, just like the rest of the world already has.
If McConnell and Ryan want to serve only a few wealthy fascists, then they need to go do it in a country like Russia.....get them to hell out of ours.
DianeyWorld -- another reprehensible and baseless lie!
Why do you always seem to need special tutoring to comprehend simple concepts? You have been repeatedly offered the only sensible remedy to most of America's healthcare woes by nearly everyone on this blog yet stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the obvious merits or to research the extensive data from credible sources that exists virtually everywhere. Perhaps have one of your great grandchildren punch the keyboard and lead you through that oh-so bewildering internet wilderness.
Thump, thump ...hello ...anyone in there? Repeated for the umpteenth time: other than tweaks to fine-tune the system to match our particular society, the basic idea is that everybody pays their fair share into the general fund, and everybody is covered, much like FICA taxes. End of story.
There's no reason to have private insurance companies siphoning money out of our primary healthcare services. And there's no reason to have a myriad of separate state programs under Medicaid, or "bronze, silver, gold, platinum, catastrophic" plans, copayments, deductibles, lifetime maximums, blah, blah, blah.
Again, it's called "universal single payer" or simply "Medicare for all." Almost every other developed nation has already figured this out long ago. Why can't so-called "innovative Americans" do so, who pay on average more than twice as much per capita and receive far fewer benefits than citizens of single-payer countries? Our country is also the only one plagued with medical bankruptcies. Why?
The monthly cost to individuals would be drastically lowered because there would be no predatory premiums to private insurance companies, standing between you and your doctor. Medicare takes no profit and thus can run on less than a 3% overhead, as opposed to the private insurance industry that traditionally runs at 30 to 40%. (The ACA capped greedmongers at 20% - still a far cry from Medicare!) Additionally, the cost of doing business would be lowered, because business owners would be relieved from hassling with insurance programs for their employees. That's one of the main reasons Toyota located their plant in Canada rather than in Mississippi or Alabama.
As it does with the V.A., the "evil gubment" can also negotiate lower drug prices, like it should with all other bulk medical services, thereby lowering overall costs throughout the system. Furthermore, Medicare's streamlined infrastructure is already in place and is infinitely less complicated than the deliberately overbearing and overly burdensome maze the slimy for-profit market has to offer. The private insurance industry only exists to extract ridiculously high premiums and to deny coverage to as many people as possible, while seeking to strike the sickest off their rolls and throwing the oldest and most expensive onto the backs of the taxpayers.
So, Mamó, it's not a matter of "how to pay" -- that's obvious; it's a matter of finding the moral courage and the political will.
Get yer feckin' noodle out of yer nappy arwshe, ya gormless eejit! The clueless trolls hanging out around here, whose only raison d'être is to spout gibberish, are the only ones "flummoxed" (or rather, "Foxmerized").
"Duly noted."
}:--)))
I hope they ram it through. Then all of those sactimonious mid-western and southern Red Staters will get a taste of the fruit of their own poison tree. And it might be just the thing to FINALLY wake this country up from whatever fairytale fog it insist on living in. When their own GOP leaders are refusing to sign on to it (Nevada), you know we are on the right track. For decades we have tried to talk to people, show them the facts, try and get them to pay attention, but no, the people of this country had all the answers; and look what that got us. Now, maybe a good crack upside the head will get them to pay attention and wake up! Global warming is NO JOKE. A decade ago, 2500 scientists from around the world agreed that global warming was happening and it was the result of human behavior. At that time, glacier scientists told us about an underwater ice bridge between Antarctica and South America. They said it was beginning to melt. They said when it melts through, it will trigger the next Ice Age; an era that will only take a few years to fully set in... and then we all are toast. The rich fools are looking to try and move to Mars. They've got NASA and other scientists working overtime to see if Mars can be made viable so they can move out and leave all of us here to die the death of ten thousand screams that THEY created. Meanwhile, all the climate deniers are arrogantly telling us we are wearing tin foil hats, but this doesn't account for all the Polar bears that are drowning! Filthy bastards! No, I hope they ram this health care bill right down our throats. THEN maybe this bloody country will finally wake the Hades up and DO SOMEHING constructive with itself. And it isn't just the GOP that has harmed us. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have done more to harm this country than all of the Rethuglicons put together could achieve. No, it's the whole filthy lot of them; both red and blue. We need to clean house and vote the whole lot of them out on their kiesters. And then go after the SCOTUS and end appointments and put in elected terms; either they pass muster and make good law, or we get rid of them, too!
#deepspace: You got that one right, sweet spirit. Cap 'n' bells all way round!
Republican members of Congress in the House and the Senate are packaging a wolf in sheep's clothing. They are doing this to confuse and lie to their constituents. They know exactly what they are doing and do not care because they are morally bankrupt. They also know that their strongest supporters prefer to accept "alternative facts" to the truth. Their constituents are tuned to Fox News and believe everything they see and hear on that cable source; worse they do not trust the mainstream media because they were taught not to trust anyone not on Fox News. This faux fight about the ACA is the biggest case in point. The basic idea and structure of the ACA is a Republican idea. Republican think tanks came up with the idea and tried it out with Mitt Romney in Mass. It worked and Romney used it as his signature achievement. President Obama adopted the Republican idea because he could not imagine that Republicans would fight against their own ideas. Obama offered it as an olive branch. Repubicans would have none of this "nasty" bill now that Democrats were supporting it. The old time Republicans went against themselves to defeat the ACA because they were afraid it would suceed and then would make Obama look like a good guy. Their worst fears came true. The ACA works and helped millions of Americans purchase health insurance. My wife was one of those people. I bet everyone can point to a friend of family member who benefitted. This drove the Republicans crazy mad. They hate Barack Obama more than they love the people of this great nation. These two ideas from the House and the Senate are disgusting. The only thing they have to do with health care is to destroy pieces of the system that are working well. These two bills are not about providing health care they are about taking health care away. At the same time they take away health care for the poor and elderly they give huge tax breaks to the richest Americans. This should be called a tax cut bill not a better care bill. Sick. Sad.
Rumpty Dumpty is a liar/con man/idiot...president? not mine.
I have never been a politically correct writer. Morally Bankrupt is to politically correct. Down right EVIL. Republicans except for a select few, can never ever call themselves...Christian...I know a lot of judge, lawyers that call themselves Christian. Rumpty Dumpty calls himself Christian...It must be noted that Rumpty attempted to grab women's Snapper, but did he ever connect?
At least I won't be headed for the glue factory.
Mr. Ed, you have had your chance to offer suggestions as to how to pay for your version of healthcare and you decided to pass. You being flummoxed on the solution is duly noted.
Never underestimate the depravity of the Republican Party or the stupidity of its base. "Make America Great Again." In Sarah Palin-speak, "So how's that workin' out for ya?"
Since we are now the laughing stock of the world, instead of red baseball caps, Trump's fools should be wearing the court jester's motley "cap' n 'bells."
Quick answer:
Quit watching the Fux Business Channel and take some remedial math courses. For an equation to make sense, it must factor all values and variables.
The U.S. healthcare inflation rate is rising much faster than wages and the CPI (primarily because of excessive profit taking at the top), so if federal subsidies for Medicaid don't keep pace, states will be forced to cut benefits and raise the bar for eligibility to balance their budgets -- reducing doctor and hospital participation, discouraging sick people from seeking adequate care, and kicking poor people to the curb.
Republicans always seem to focus on money for the rich, never on ordinary people, whose labor and spending is the source of all wealth. Is not a healthy population therefore the most cost effective investment a society can make?
Honestly, Diane, in your remaining years on Earth, you still have an opportunity to realize the lasting value of compassion and empathy rather than just the fleeting pleasures of selfish, dead-end materialism. Why waste these precious moments of life? You may end up with a finely crafted mahogany casket, an expensive designer dress, and a large marble headstone, but to future archeologists your decayed bones won't look much different than those of anyone else in the graveyard.
Quick question,
Does the republican healthcare plan cut Medicaid or does it just reduce the percentage of increases in spending over the next ten years?
Ari Fleischer stated it in terms even the dimmest of leftie/socialists should be able to understand,
"Your salary today is $50k. Your boss promises it will be $100k in 10 years. Instead, u get $75k. Did you get a $25k raise or a $25k cut?"
Why are you on RT?
I want to thank Deepspace and John Best for their great comments. I don't think I could have said it anyt better myself.
Diane: We leftie/socialists are all that stand between you rightie/suckers and the fascist/vampires who already inhabit your brains. Look up Democratic Socialism and tell me why that pure form of Democracy would have a negative impact on your life.
In a way I really feel sorry for you. The inability to separate fact from fiction has to be a living hell. You must get taken advantage of all the time.
Deepspace: Thanks for the link, great piece.
Trump's searching hard for someone to bomb and occupy right now. He's Putin's fuse alright. Putin knows he installed a numbnut.
The usual cogent, insightful, and incisive response from the righty/so-called economists like Karl Hayek.
The continuation of Christmas from the usual leftie/socialists. Forgot about the "Russians" already? Take off your foil hats, go into the street, and shout "bring out your dead". The republican snowplows engines are revving.
It's a ploy. They make you think that they can take your life, the, after they got you believing that thw world is about to end, they come out with their real plan that will cost us and arm but not a leg and we will be grateful for it.
Politics in the US is like wrestling. There are the good guys and the bad guys. They meet in what looks like a terrible battle and keep the crowd entertained. When the show is over, the players go out to celebrate together because they are nothing but actors and are mostly friends in their real lives.
It's a show. There are the right wing Republicans and there are the left wing Republicans that we know as Democrats. They meet and have terrible fights and keep the audience entertained but, in the end, they are friends and are just fooling people so that they will fall for their scam.