If Obama went for Single Payer and failed,

and went for a 100% green energy plan and failed,

and reversed all the bailouts so that the economy crashed, the Big 3 failed, and millions more people lost jobs...

Would he get your vote? Would that be considered success?

but as it stands on the healthcare bill I would have been happy with this bill failing. And my reasons for this have been very clearly spelled out on this site.

I would also love to see him fail in trying to get offshore oil drilling.

What is your point?

:eyes:

This "Romneycare" bill is a stinking dog, but at least the health debate is still alive and the stage has been set for more improvements.

NGU.

he has set actual reform back years.

Passing a bill that hands the crooks billions of private and public dollars with no competition from a public option will just keep them going longer. If they had had to compete with a Medicare buy in or even been left to continue on the path they've been on they would have destroyed themselves.

Instead, we get to bail them out without getting guarantees that we will be able to access care. All we get is the same lousy "coverage" they've been selling for years.

away from the issue for the rest of his term something that I don't think either FDR or LBJ would have done. Of course having eight years of Bush didn't help. If our legally elected President, Al Gore hadn't been blocked by the Supreme Court from taking the oath of office, I'm certain it would have been foremost on his agenda as well and we might have had the beginnings of national health care eight years ago because he would have used the surplus for it instead of tax cuts for the rich and war.

or pay fine.

and as this OP is suggesting you make the best of the situation you are presented with, rather than go down in failure fighting it.

Yes, they will now have to make best of this situation; but that's not really an argument on your part. The same argument could be made for anything, war in Iraq, bailouts, financial collapse, etc.

life is rarely fair. All we can do is make successful incremental efforts to improve it.

That's your argument?

I see little point in any further discussion.

The mandate that says they will have to buy $168 health insurance policy that they will never be able to afford to use because of deductibles and copays. Your argument after I pointed this out is "life isn't fair, get used to it". Do you not understand how fucked up it is for you to say something like that because it completely brushes aside the pain these people will face?

You saying you don't want to further this discussion because I'm pointing these things out to you is yet another cop out on your part. You ignore this point about the people that will be hurt every time I bring it up to you.

that's a huge issue you gloss over in your rush to make your case.

After rent, phone bills, car payment, car insurance, water, gas, electric, credit card payments, food, and everything else you need to survive that person has almost nothing left at the end of the month. And the fact you need someone to explain this to you shows how out of touch you really are.

Rent/Mortgage: $800.00
Power: $75.00
Phone: $40.00
Car: $150.00
Car Insurance: $50.00
Food: $200.00

These are only VERY conservative estimates, using what we usually pay each month in our area. That's not adding in ANY incidentals like one's car breaking down, or gas for one's car, or a tune-up for one's car, or needing new clothes, or the washer breaking, etc.

which allows one to afford the insurance and all the other expenses you mention.

And now it is the governments job to tell you who to live with? What if the person likes living alone?

Lets not forget that the government is now telling you that you can't live alone yet this is just so they can afford the monthly premiums. The $1000 or $500 deductible and copays will still be unaffordable so treatment will never be possible anyway.

ALL that dough you save by getting a (potentially psycho) roommate, would go toward the co-pays and deductibles. Not to mention - I don't know about you - but something ALWAYS comes up that isn't planned. Car repairs - we ran over a nail the other day ($$), oil changes, gravel for our road, a broken tooth (just last month). It never, ever fails.

yet people that have no clue and are totally out of touch are giving us financial adivce about how you can really afford all this stuff, you just don't know it yet.

Notice how I didn't get a response and never will before all this gets deleted. Yet I gurantee you our buddy will be repeating the same bullshit next time this comes up as if this discussion never happened.

Jeez, Louise.

and before you reply it's actually one of those rhetorical questions.

What a waste of electrons this sub-thread is.

that's certainly a new one to me

$1,400 a month:

$600 for rent
$150 for car insurance
$50 gasoline
$100 - $200 for car payment (I'll use $100 for the final total)
$50 - Phone
$50 credit card bills (this health bill wont eliminate your previous debts)
$50 - Gas in winter
$50 - Electric
$20 - Water

We are at $1120 with the best scenario and I am totally low balling everything above, in reality most of those bills are much more. And we haven't even included things like food, internet, clothing, leisure, and other basic needs. $10 a day for food and you are left with $80 a month.

Do me a favor, don't bail out on this discussion like you always do. I want you to explain how this person can afford $160 a month for insurance or $60 a month for a fine.

which means using your numbers (which includes a nebulous $50 credit card payment) allows for the insurance mandate.

and thats before leisure, clothing, or other things people like to have.

Poor people should not have LEISURE activities!!11!! :eyes:

Of course doing the math would show that your arguments are idiotic so I'm not surprised that you can't be bothered.

Like I said a complete waste of electrons.

thats what he does time and time again. Then he acts as if this discussion never took place, repeating the same bullshit later.

If a single adult makes $14 an hour and the cheapest acceptable plan costs $200 a month, that would exceed 8% of that person's income. Therefore, he/she would be exempt from the mandate and the fine.

If a family of 4 has household income of $14 an hour, they'll be eligible for Medicaid.

Still unaffordable. And lets not forget that this $14/hr person will still be left without insurance.

Source: http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

Crippling "trade deals", bankruptcy "reform", welfare "reform", unraveling the New Deal, all these and so many more were done with numerous do-overs.

...then he could have fallen back to a public option. But he didn't, and that sucks, but at least he won something, which means the debate is still alive.

NGU.

If you make $14 /hr the government will mandate you to spend over $200 a month on insurance you won't be able to afford to use anyway or fine you for it.

So yes, he won something, but many americans will end up losing as a result of this bill.

...for another 20 years.

:eyes:

NGU.

It's nice for you to sit there on your high horse while expecting reform on the backs of single middle class americans.

...will now be covered that you wish this bill would have failed? Why don't you tell the people who couldn't get coverage in the past because of pre-existing conditions that you wish this bill would have failed? Why don't you tell all of the advocates who are working hard to actually get Medicare for All passed that you wish Romneycare would have failed and their work would have been set back two decades?

Semantic games. Is that all you've got?

NGU.

on more than one occasion from what I recall.

Your argument is that it's ok to hurt some people to help some others. That's not a logical argument. If we took unemployment benefits from 40% of the unemployed and gave the savings to the other 60% using your logic that would be a good idea because it would help more people. It's not a logical argument, and this has been pointed out to you in the past.

And, according to your logic, your argument is that it's okay to continue hurting some people -- and give up hope of helping any of anyone for decades -- in order to spare others.

Nice try.

NGU.

to help others. Lets just help those others without pissing on those people. Sorry that's such a hard concept for you and our government to understand.

And yes, my unemployment analogy is exactly what your argument boils down to. It's okay to hurt some people as long as you help some others.

...a larger agenda. As in Medicare for All, where no one gets hurt. And I'm sorry that the process of doing that isn't all pretty ponies and lemonade, like you obviously wish it was.

NGU.

You said it's NEVER okay to hurt some people (you claimed this was my logic, no its not, it's your logic). The operative word here is NEVER. Yet in the very next sentance you seem to be advocating that it's okay to hurt people to advance an agenda.

Otherwise you would not support this bill, yet you do.

Yes, medicare for all is a great concept, this president has shown we will never get it (or atleast not for a very long time). So you are distracting from the main issue (which is affordibility of the mandate) by saying we will advance single payer (we wont).

Let's see, I called it "a stinking dog" and "Romneycare" in this thread. Did I call it any other names? Perhaps you can have a looksee, Fonz, while you're desperately trying to find a place where I said I support this bill.

We all want pretty ponies and lemonade, Fonzie...

:rofl:

NGU.

If you think it should have failed then my apologies; thats not the impression I got from your posts. But if you think it should have passed then you are making the argument that its ok to hurt those people to advance an agenda, no way around that.

The status quo hurts a lot of different people a lot of different ways.

The difference is that passing Romneycare keeps the debate alive, which means there's still hope of taking away everyone's hurt -- and not having to wait a quarter century to do so.

It's not pretty. It's not ideal. It's the way it is. And we need to keep moving forward, otherwise all this concern for hurt people is just semantics.

NGU.

Hope has nothing to do with this. As it stands many people will be hurt. And you are ok with that as long as it keeps the debate going, a debate that probably won't lead to anything good since we are up for losing seats in November.

So again, you think it's ok to hurt people to advance the democratic agenda.

:rofl:

NGU.

your use of the "rofl" smilie doesn't make up for the fact that you are ok with hurting people to advance your agenda.

By your own logic.

NGU.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I will check it out the next couple days.

obtained ONE of their votes.

Oh, wait...

Even with trying to curry their favor with the worst of their ideas Obama and the democrats were still spit upon...sometimes not so metaphorically.

At the end of the day we won but what did we win? A bill with enough GOP-brewed poison pills that it may have all the medicinal value of hemlock in 2012.

Do we have a list of 51 names in support of single payer?

Just remember: the rules are that guests have to show their hands to all the other players. I don't think you'll have any problem with that.

which he had support from the american people and the votes for. He chose not to even do that.

So what does history have to do with this?

But he didn't and that sucks, and no amount of kvetching is going to change that. Now let's get going on passing Medicare for All on a state-by-state basis.

NGU.

I live in Virginia, where our esteemed Attorney General Ken Cucinneli is SUING the Federal Government. Even if Deeds had won the Governor's race last year, he said he would probably 'opt out' of any public option if possible.

I honestly don't see that happening here - at least, not until we're long dead.

if things were better right now more states would do it sooner.

they will take it on and spend the year or so to see it through. If it fails Congress will not try again. Some of it will be that they feel it will fail again and the other is the American public hates failures so many of those congress people will be voted out.

...how about getting on the bandwagon and calling it Medicare for All, which is a frame that the American public understands and likes?

NGU.

...you make a superiority argument.

Don't put on those water skis, Fonz!!

:rofl:

NGU.

without thinking how I phrase something. Sorry that offends you so much.

...for instance, "Sorry that I chose the wrong words," or "Sorry that I inadvertently hurt the cause."

So don't act so coy about "not thinking how you phrase something." You obviously think very deliberately about how you phrase things.

;rofl:

NGU.

The big headline would be: Obama and the Dems have failed and his presidency is over. Try getting something done in that atmosphere!

Oh... waitaminnit...

:eyes:

NGU.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

It's just a pile of baseless assumptions and false dichotomies.

well done

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I think it's a valid one. What counts as success for us, and what counts as failure. Are we more concerned with appearances or results?

...that sounds bad. But most things do when you assume failure. Difficult /= failure

AND he could legitimately blame the Republicans for the failure.

I've observed over the years that ordinary people feel ignored and shoved aside and that they LIKE strong, plain-speaking politicians. This liking seems to be irrespective of ideology. The Republicanites have a lot of forceful, plain-speaking pols these days, and your average uninformed voter gravitates toward that. It doesn't matter if what the pol is saying is nonsense. It's the energy that counts.

If Obama had come out for single-payer, mobilized his army of election volunteers to work on this issue, and conducted a carefully targeted PR campaign (explaining the system in no more than five sentences), and sending out the Dems' best talkers out to the talk shows to body-slam the naysayers, he may well have succeeded.

Even if he failed, he would still have my respect (and the respect of others) for TRYING.

Because he would have been working to move the best ideas for the nation forward.

Sure, he would have been called a socialist, and he would have lost republican support in Congress.

Don't you think it would have been worth it?

Kucinich any time he chooses to run again. He stands for the FDR Democrats which is hardly all or nothing. However, I'm certain he will not run against Obama in 2012, however, we might see him in 2016 again.

I would rather see someone fighting for what was right, then implementing what is wrong, just to "win"

I don't have a BIG problem with the big three getting bailed out.
Chrysler was a waste of time to bail out but that's another story.

I'd much rather he bailed out the big three and made them promise to not move production to Mexico.


I didn't vote for Obama in '08. I figured he was a corporatist and surprise surprise...I am right.

bailouts (which did nothing to fix the underlying problems with the economy) saved a damn thing.

Idiotic question fail.

That's like saying you have no respect for the person that saves another's life by performing CPR because they didn't address the underlying heart disease that triggered the cardiac arrest.

and the underlying problems with the economy STILL haven't been fixed. But to go along with your asinine analogy, I wouldn't respect a doctor who treated the symptoms while ignoring the underlying disease either.

and he campaigned accordingly to increase the Democratic majority this year, rather than constantly adopting defensive positions (as was the case until the last week of the HCR debate), I do believe people would vote again the same way they did in 2008: for change.

However, what if he went for single payer, green energy and control of the banks and actually got them, or some of them? What if the economy didn't crash, but on the contrary began to transform in the way we need to survive the next century ecologically?

Wouldn't this be a great thing regardless of later election results?

I guess it's about whether the issues of single payer, green energy, and ending the bankster tyranny and blackmail are more important to you than having your favored political hero score "wins."

But I do believe:

Who dares wins.

:toast:

And you wonder why "Democrat" has become such a derogatory label...

You act as if we were republicons, unable to comprehend and observe with no background knowledge, and with no motivation other than fear.

"The smoking gun may well be a mushroom cloud.":nuke:

It was simply a yes or no question. I'm not judging anyone just trying to understand everyone.

are "defensive"? Try again.