It’s been sad to watch you go from a veritable Algonquin wit to the chat site equivalent of Raymond J. Johnson.
And yes, I would call the jump from 40% to 49% approval a surge. And approval will only go up as people benefit from Obamacare. Which is the real reason Republicans oppose it: they know it will be a success and that the Dems will get the credit for it.
Really, well you should have been more specific. Don’t mock me because you’re message was so poorly expressed.[/quote]
Get over yourself, dude. Or read more carefully.
Here’s what Mick and I posted:
[quote=“Tigerman”]
[quote=“Rasmussen, on 7 April 2014”][color=#FF0000]
Unfavorable opinions of the new national health care law are at their highest level in several months, while the number who think the quality of care in this country will get worse is at its highest level in over three years.
[/color][/quote]
[/quote][/quote][/quote]
What exactly about either Mick’s or my post refuting Chris’ absurd statement is either insufficiently specific or otherwise poorly expressed? 
I’ll mock you whenever I please…
Homophobic slurs? Again, get over yourself. You’ve known me on this site for years and you know full well that I am not a homophobe. So, either you see homosexual references where there are none, or you are trying to score cheap points in a really slimey manner.
Gosh, I wonder which it is? 
Bah! I have stayed true to my morals… while you on the other hand… clearly have not… so, Algonquin wit? or just bad mannered honesty? I think that it is more of the latter and I will “take ownership” of that. You, on the other hand, need to think seriously about why a change in president has so warped your priorities that you cannot seem to remember what it is that you stand for… in fact, why don’t you sit down…
Seriously? Seriously? With a historical record of 50 years… yes 50 years… Republicans have seen federal program after federal program achieve NONE to FEW of stated goals while VASTLY exceeding predicted costs and you have this to say about Obamacare? Again, I get that you don’t pay any taxes and you don’t expect to at any point in the foreseeable future. I get that you will expect, however, to be taken are of medically and in your retirement financially… so celebrate the leftist credo… but think every so often about what you and others are going to do to the fiscal health of our country. We have grown to $17 trillion in debt because of these “programs” all of which you celebrate as some sort of unerring manifestation of the Holy Grail IN OUR TIME. You have no clue as to how these costs are bankrupting our country, how they are increasing dependency and WHILE THEY MAY HAVE BENEFITS UNDENIABLE ONES, you simply refuse to look at the vast costs, vast bureaucracies and vast inefficiencies that are being created because you literally don’t care… you don’t have to pay for anything so what’s the big deal America??? How can you all be so selfish? IF you believe in these programs so much, return to America tomorrow to get a job and start paying taxes YOURSELF to fund these all-so-important initiatives… but you won’t and we all know that… You still have a right to your opinion but… I think that you know what I mean and I know what you “stand for.”
You cherry-picked the only poll that gets close to looking halfway to good. Look at the average for all polls:
Be fair Fred: there have also been declining tax rates for the rich, and massive military expenditure, over those periods of time.
And the bail out and stimulus package for the massive bail outs after all those geniuses fucked up the economy? They cost a pretty penny.
So don’t be silly and attribute it all to entitlement programs.
Nor can you say they are complete failures. People were housed who would have been homeless, educated that would not have been, treated for illnesses who would not otherwise have been.
So basically, your argument falls apart like a paper suit in the rain.
[quote=“BigJohn”].
Nor can you say they are complete failures. People were housed who would have been homeless, educated that would not have been, treated for illnesses who would not otherwise have been.
[/quote]
The Great Society was one huge failure. Even Bubba Clinton realized this when he undertook welfare reform in the 1990s. It created mass slum housing where welfare recipients would rather spend money on big screen televisions than prevent their kids from wreaking havoc outside. Its increased spending on education created unaccountable public school systems where union leaders held way too much sway and poor teachers were given added protections. Its spending on welfare entitlements created a system of leeches and highly-paid poverty NGOs/officials dependent on that poverty instead of fostering hard work and positive risk-taking. 
Don’t need to get all the answers wrong to fail a test.
Paper suit in rain, eh?
So, let me ask you AGAIN:
- What are the stated aims of any of the following:
a. Great Society
b. War on Poverty
c. War on Drugs
d. Elementary and Secondary Education Act
e. Welfare
f. Public Housing
g. Food stamps
So, subsidies of dysfunctionality resulted in more dysfunctionality, no? more crime, more use of drugs, more use of welfare, food stamps, public housing, failed testing scores with more and more resources devoted to more and more programs with fewer and fewer results… You tell me… I ask only because doing so reminds me of that Art Linkletter show where he asks toddlers what they think of various things and their responses are so cute and everyone enjoys such a laugh over Kids Say the Darnedest Things… Oh hoooo hoooo hahahahahahahahahah Let’s have more!!! Paper suits in rain!!! I LOVE it.
[quote=“fred smith”]Paper suit in rain, eh?
So, let me ask you AGAIN:
- What are the stated aims of any of the following:
a. Great Society
b. War on Poverty
c. War on Drugs
d. Elementary and Secondary Education Act
e. Welfare
f. Public Housing
g. Food stamps
So, subsidies of dysfunctionality resulted in more dysfunctionality, no? more crime, more use of drugs, more use of welfare, food stamps, public housing, failed testing scores with more and more resources devoted to more and more programs with fewer and fewer results… You tell me… I ask only because doing so reminds me of that Art Linkletter show where he asks toddlers what they think of various things and their responses are so cute and everyone enjoys such a laugh over Kids Say the Darnedest Things… Oh hoooo hoooo hahahahahahahahahah Let’s have more!!! Paper suits in rain!!! I LOVE it.[/quote]
They were put in place by the 10% to perpetuate poverty and dependence. Reading these posts is like making love to a 300lb woman. Once she gets on top, it’s over.
[quote=“fred smith”]Paper suit in rain, eh?
So, let me ask you AGAIN:
- What are the stated aims of any of the following:
a. Great Society
b. War on Poverty
c. War on Drugs
d. Elementary and Secondary Education Act
e. Welfare
f. Public Housing
g. Food stamps
So, subsidies of dysfunctionality resulted in more dysfunctionality, no? more crime, more use of drugs, more use of welfare, food stamps, public housing, failed testing scores with more and more resources devoted to more and more programs with fewer and fewer results… You tell me… I ask only because doing so reminds me of that Art Linkletter show where he asks toddlers what they think of various things and their responses are so cute and everyone enjoys such a laugh over Kids Say the Darnedest Things… Oh hoooo hoooo hahahahahahahahahah Let’s have more!!! Paper suits in rain!!! I LOVE it.[/quote]
Your argument about your attributing all the debt to entitlement programs is the papery garb. Could you respond to my post on that please? About the efficacy of these programs, I am going to respond to Chewwy first as he responded first to me. OK?
Let’s hear how the 17trillion in debt was due to entitlements, and not military, TARP etc, and lowered taxes on the rich. Also, the graying of the population, which is not about laziness or flawed spending but about demographics.
[quote=“ChewDawg”][quote=“BigJohn”].
Nor can you say they are complete failures. People were housed who would have been homeless, educated that would not have been, treated for illnesses who would not otherwise have been.
[/quote]
The Great Society was one huge failure. Even Bubba Clinton realized this when he undertook welfare reform in the 1990s. It created mass slum housing where welfare recipients would rather spend money on big screen televisions than prevent their kids from wreaking havoc outside. Its increased spending on education created unaccountable public school systems where union leaders held way too much sway and poor teachers were given added protections. Its spending on welfare entitlements created a system of leeches and highly-paid poverty NGOs/officials dependent on that poverty instead of fostering hard work and positive risk-taking. [/quote]
Well, I am sure that it created some of that. Absolutely. But let’s face it: you’re an ideologue and of course you are going to exaggerate things and look at them one-sidedly. So it is hard to take you seriously. Sorry, that’s not a condemnation of you as a person but rather a logical result of your posting style where you take great delight in baiting liberals gratuitously at every possible chance.
However, on the off chance that you are actually being serious here, I will respond in kind.
In logic, you cannot compare a principle with a result. That is, you cannot say that one principle is better than another when the principle shows a failure. You have to compare a principle with a principle and a result with a result. So, can you show me an example with better results, a nation roughly comparable to the US where the poorer members of society have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and become financially and socially healthier as a result of NOT having generous entitlement programs?
We can look at countries like Brazil and Mexico and see no evidence that this approach reduces slums and laziness. A bad comparison you say? Maybe. But there really is no country comparable to the US. I think the closest ones are the UK, France and Germany, and their social problems are considerably less than the US.
So maybe the US really is unique. Maybe you and (I assume) Tigerman are right and people should be left to fend for themselves. But how do you know that wouldn’t create a dystopic subclass even worse than what exists now? If there is no real basis for comparison then there is no basis for prediction. It could go either way.
Would you be prepared for a radical social experiment based on the confidence of ideology?
As a (self-styled) centrist, I say fine tune the system, don’t throw it away, at least not without a far clearer idea of what would happen.
Dispose of completely useless programs. Toughen up welfare requirements for people who can work. Look for experiments in education. Teach more life skills in high school. Find efficiencies in delivery.
And don’t blame entitlements for the entire debt when there are many other contributing factors.
And stop being so bleedin’ ideological!!! :fume:
Time to revive this thread. Elections have consequences, sometimes good consequencies. The recent elections create opportunities to fix many very broken things. This is one of them.
bloombergview.com/articles/2 … s-collapse
[quote]
James Capretta and Yuval Levin have recently outlined what a conservative Obamacare replacement could look like. Their plan involves lower spending, lower taxes, and lower premiums than Obamacare, contains no mandates or essential-benefits package, and offers more protection against catastrophic medical expenses. A similar plan has been estimated to provide coverage for slightly more people than the Affordable Care Act does. And the authors have explained how we could transition from Obamacare to the new system while reducing the difficulty, cost and inconvenience for current beneficiaries.
Republicans haven’t embraced this plan en masse. But the soon-to-be-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin Hatch, has sponsored very similar legislation, and the soon-to-be-chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Paul Ryan, has endorsed comparable ideas.
If Republicans did unite behind this approach, the administration would surely oppose it. But Obama would be in a pretty weak position to bargain. Much of Obamacare would have just self-destructed due to its own design flaws and lack of public support, and Republicans would be offering a way to advance the law’s stated goal of assuring coverage – if not in the highly prescriptive and centralized manner the White House prefers. Democrats’ favored lines of attack on Republicans over health care – that they have no alternative, that they would take people off the insurance rolls – would have been neutralized.[/quote]
Obamacare was the conservative plan. Any writing that doesn’t admit this is deluded or bogus. Take your pick rowland. 
One thing I’ve noticed about people who want socialized health care in the U.S. is that they rarely acknowledge the existence of Medicaid and Medicare. Which my iPad insists on capitalizing and that’s dumb.
Anyway, they act as if all these people who can’t afford health insurance are dying in the U.S. Which isn’t true. The pre-existing conditions trap was a problem but that’s now plugged by the mandates (which Obama has to start enforcing in full sooner or later, or his successor might have to). So, if someone has a high enough income to not qualify for Medicaid and they’re of working age and don’t qualify for Medicare, the only way they are dying without insurance is they had the money for insurance and chose to spend it on something else.
Unfortunately this truth never seems to get taken seriously in the debate. It’s kind of like Ferguson. Plenty of angry people will accuse you of wanting people to die or racism or whatever and pointing out the facts only serves to make them angrier. I can only guess that there must be some agenda here that I am not cool enough to be let in on and it’s important enough to outweigh quaint ideas like honesty and civility.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]Actually rowland, people are signing up, and in greater numbers than expected in many states. This is actually a very good sign as most people were supposed to sign up for state plans but far too many states did not establish a health care exchange despite saying they would (just one of many reasons repubs have no right to gloat over the failures of the ACA).
Several good articles out recently on this. This fat lady (who hopefully has decent healthcare) hasn’t sung yet.[/quote]
Well, now we know that those numbers were inflated. Well, some of us knew from the start… The gullible were, I guess we can now say, Grubered!
And today we see another conservative critic prediction come true:
Affordable Care…
Good thing for 0bama and the Dimocrats that there are so many stupid American voters who fell for these obvious lies!
Healthcare, just as food should not be a commodity. That’s the only reason why people go hungry or can not afford healthcare. It’s all about money, profits, greed. Simple! Even in ‘socialistic’ oriented countries in Europe it’s going that way. People skip on healthcare, dental care. Even in Taiwan. Lots has to do with bad management and taking advantage of the system. Is there a right way? Sure, limit profits and specualtion on foods and healthcare, manage it better on government level, subsidize where needed.
What irony, tigerman? I am wrong about lots of things and freely admit it. I was wrong about the Iraqi war, I was wrong that Obama was a real turn away from the Bush years with respect to torture and surveillance. I was wrong that when the arguments for austerity were proven hollow that government policy would change. I was very wrong that the Repub party was going to be a minority for decades after Bush.
Which doesn’t mean my values change: it means I recognize where my values and what is happening are at odds. You guys don’t seem to get the difference. Because you think the individual mandate is unconstitutional (though i think constitutiionalism is not a value for you but a rhetorical weapon) you think obamacare cannot work. Instead of learning you dig in further. So every large government must be on the road to Greece. Every dollar spent in stimulus is a path to Weimar. Universal single-payer systems can’t possibly give the same great results, with less cost, compared to the US private system. Benghazi was…well whatever you thought it was.
Doesn’t matter that the counter examples suggest otherwise in a very convincing, if not irrefutable, way. You oppose them so it can only be that they just haven’t reached their natural conclusion. You look for end days to prove you right rather than the variety of government and policy experiences around the world as something to study.
So why would I continue to engage you in debate when you can’t distinguish should from must?