Youseff wrote:or likely forefinger and thumbing his cock

The goal is high quality, universal health care coverage for a reasonable price.

jerseyhoya wrote:The goal is high quality, universal health care coverage for a reasonable price. The debate is over means and tradeoffs within those three, somewhat mutually exclusive goals. Well, that's not entirely true...there are some people on the right who probably don't think the ideal health care system should cover everyone, but they're douchebags.

The people pointing out Obamacare comes partially from a Heritage idea have a point, and an individual mandate is something I think is probably good policy if involved with a lot of other changes (tearing down state borders on insurance, weakening rather than increasing what must be included in plans, tort reform, overhaul to health care provided by employer tax preferences, etc.). Health care in America should be excellent given what we spend on it and affordable to everyone. I'm not sure getting there is workable or easy, but I don't think we're heading in the right direction. Obamacare does too much to solidify many of the worst aspects of the system without doing enough to improve on its flaws. And it seems to have added the possible outcome of catastrophe and system collapse in the short term that wasn't there with the old, crappy system.

pacino wrote:you want WEAKER plans?

The goal is high quality, universal health care coverage for a reasonable price.

this is everyone's goal?

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The goal is high quality, universal health care coverage for a reasonable price. The debate is over means and tradeoffs within those three, somewhat mutually exclusive goals. Well, that's not entirely true...there are some people on the right who probably don't think the ideal health care system should cover everyone, but they're douchebags.

The people pointing out Obamacare comes partially from a Heritage idea have a point, and an individual mandate is something I think is probably good policy if involved with a lot of other changes (tearing down state borders on insurance, weakening rather than increasing what must be included in plans, tort reform, overhaul to health care provided by employer tax preferences, etc.). Health care in America should be excellent given what we spend on it and affordable to everyone. I'm not sure getting there is workable or easy, but I don't think we're heading in the right direction. Obamacare does too much to solidify many of the worst aspects of the system without doing enough to improve on its flaws. And it seems to have added the possible outcome of catastrophe and system collapse in the short term that wasn't there with the old, crappy system.

I don't get how a buggy website threatens system collapse, but otherwise this is all 1) good to hear, and 2) 100 percent at odds with the actual Republican stance during the 2009-10 legislative process. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe that at least a few of these things--tort reform, selling across state lines--weren't in play in exchange for Republican votes. Instead you had "one-term president" and "Waterloo." But he got it through anyway, and it's very probably a worse piece of legislation for its partisan provenance.

I'll go further: I bet the Rs could get those things *now* if they were willing to accept the basic fact of the law. But good luck getting Rush and Hannity and DeMint not to kill you for that.

The basic premise of Republican policymaking seems to be "we wish Those People would go away." If they're poor, if they're immigrants, if they're non-white, at best the Rs have nothing for them and at worst they're actively trying to stop them from getting health coverage, having unemployment insurance or food stamps, voting, and gaining citizenship. Everyone knows it's a doomed demographic strategy and will make it almost impossible for them to win the presidency--absent a disaster they sometimes try to generate--but it doesn't threaten the House majority or, mostly, governorships, so those pushing it have no incentive to ease off. I'm really not sure how this dynamic changes.

dajafi wrote:Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe that at least a few of these things--tort reform, selling across state lines--weren't in play in exchange for Republican votes. Instead you had "one-term president" and "Waterloo." But he got it through anyway, and it's very probably a worse piece of legislation for its partisan provenance.

cshort wrote:

dajafi wrote:Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe that at least a few of these things--tort reform, selling across state lines--weren't in play in exchange for Republican votes. Instead you had "one-term president" and "Waterloo." But he got it through anyway, and it's very probably a worse piece of legislation for its partisan provenance.

These were absolutely in play. The GOP had their heads buried in the sand, and came to the table very late, but these were offered for at least some bipartisan support (perhaps just the moderates). Instead the Democrats chose the "we don't need you approach", ignored the suggestions, and passed the bill without any GOP support whatsoever. In negotiation, it's generally a good idea to let your opponent save face - this is a textbook example of not doing that.

dajafi wrote:

cshort wrote:

dajafi wrote:Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe that at least a few of these things--tort reform, selling across state lines--weren't in play in exchange for Republican votes. Instead you had "one-term president" and "Waterloo." But he got it through anyway, and it's very probably a worse piece of legislation for its partisan provenance.

These were absolutely in play. The GOP had their heads buried in the sand, and came to the table very late, but these were offered for at least some bipartisan support (perhaps just the moderates). Instead the Democrats chose the "we don't need you approach", ignored the suggestions, and passed the bill without any GOP support whatsoever. In negotiation, it's generally a good idea to let your opponent save face - this is a textbook example of not doing that.

I guess you're saying that the "Republican moderates" offered their support for these components and the Democrats said no? What I meant was that Baucus, who was just in charge on the Democratic side and was desperate for bipartisan cover, offered those things, and a few Rs strung him along until the end of '09 at which point they basically mooned him and the leadership decided to jam through what they could with Democratic votes only, thus ensuring that D-friendly lobbies like the trial lawyers would have goodies.

I never heard anything to suggest Republicans were serious about signing on--and I think any Republican who even indicated they might be open to voting for it, other than maybe the Maine Senators, would have been defenestrated. But if you have any documentation, I'd love to see it.

Nonetheless, Mr. Cantor said, there are areas of agreement that both sides should be able to work on, including coverage for major pre-existing conditions, portability of insurance when workers change jobs, and changes to medical-malpractice laws. But he said Mr. Obama needs to reject the public option and reset the debate to take advantage of bipartisan opportunities.

Enter the same experts, more or less, who warned about rate shock, to declare that Medicaid actually hurts its recipients. Their evidence? Medicaid patients tend to be sicker than the uninsured, and slower to recover from surgery.

O.K., you know what to do: Google “spurious correlation health.” You are immediately led to the tale of certain Pacific Islanders who long believed that having lice made you healthy, because they observed that people with lice were, typically, healthier than those without. They were, of course, mixing up cause and effect: lice tend to infest the healthy, so they were a consequence, not a cause, of good health.

The application to Medicaid should be obvious. Sick people are likely to have low incomes; more generally, low-income Americans who qualify for Medicaid just tend in general to have poor health. So pointing to a correlation between Medicaid and poor health as evidence that Medicaid actually hurts its recipients is as foolish as claiming that lice make you healthy. It is, as I said, a lousy argument.

And the reliance on such arguments is itself deeply revealing, because it illustrates the right’s intellectual decline. I mean, this is the best argument their so-called experts can come up with for their policy priorities?

Meanwhile, many states are still planning to reject the Medicaid expansion, denying essential health care to millions of needy Americans. And they have no good excuse for this act of cruelty.