[quote=“Dr. McCoy”]12
[/quote]
Change? By sending your daughters to the same elite private schools at $29,000 year that Washington insiders have sent their kids to for years.
Change? By offering 1960s big government solutions such as hiring 600,000 new government workers?
Change? By increasing the number of regulations on the books during a time of economic uncertainty? 
I wonder how many of these new jobs will be for government lawyers?
Yup. Change indeed! Change from what Bush and the Repubiclans were doing over the last 8 years.
this shit right here cracks me up. yeah, the soon to be most powerful man in the world should send his kids to DC public schools.
Are you for real?
Speaking of change, it would sure be nice if some of the sore looooooosers would quit their whining ( :boo-hoo: ) and accept their loss. . . but I guess some things never change.
$29,000 sounds like quite a bit of change to me.
Yes, but his kids need to be treated very very carefully in view of security never mind anything else. I think money wouldn’t be the main point here.
[quote=“Deuce Dropper”][quote=“Chewycorns”]
Change? By sending your daughters to the same elite private schools at $29,000 year that Washington insiders have sent their kids to for years.
[/quote]
this shit right here cracks me up. yeah, the soon to be most powerful man in the world should send his kids to DC public schools.
Are you for real?[/quote]
YOU MUST NOT CRITICIZE THE ONE!
You must give PEBO the same respect that has been given President Bush during the last 8 years.
Do you really believe that the “change” talked about during the campaign has anything to do with where the POTUS sends his kids to school?
If those employees are being hired to implement policies which differ from his predecessors, then change is going to happen.
Increasing regulations is change. Decreasing regulations would also be change.
Sorry, dude. That’s a conservative position. Liberals believe in free criticism.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in learning about Obama’s policy agenda, you can find it here. Obama’s agenda includes detailed plans regarding civil rights, defense, disabilities, economy, education, energy and environment, ethics, family, fiscal, foreign policy, health care, homeland security, immigration, Iraq, poverty, rural, seniors and Social Security, service, taxes, technology, urban policy, veterans, women, and additional issues.
Let’s look at health care:
[quote]The Obama-Biden Plan
On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes – government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that’s why they’ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.
The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors, and plans. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Make Health Insurance Work for People and Businesses – Not Just Insurance and Drug Companies.
Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.
Create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees.
Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees.
Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors.
Make employer contributions more fair by requiring large employers that do not offer coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of their employees’ health care.
Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
Ensure everyone who needs it will receive a tax credit for their premiums.
Reduce Costs and Save a Typical American Family up to $2,500 as reforms phase in:
Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs, and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market.
Require hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data.
Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees.
Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care.
The Obama-Biden plan will promote public health. It will require coverage of preventive services, including cancer screenings, and increase state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.[/quote]
Obama has outlined a new health care policy and explained how he’s going to pay for it. Whether or not you agree with the policy, it certainly differs from the status quo. I realize that actually, you know, educating yourself on Obama’s policies isn’t as much fun as scanning the headlines for thread fodder, but it is more constructive.
From that site:
“Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.”
:bravo:
I’m trying to watch TV here, so excuse me but when the f^%$ did
I mean ffs, what kind of fever swamp do you inhabit to think that a constitutional amendment to ban abortion is ever going to happen.
Also all promises from The One come with an expiration date, all of them.
It shows his opposition to those who would take away our freedom.
But the liberals (freedom-lovers) trounced the conservatives (freedom-haters) this time. America is a center-left country.
[quote=“Gao Bohan”]
Let’s look at health care:
[quote]The Obama-Biden Plan
On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes – government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that’s why they’ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.
The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors, and plans. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Make Health Insurance Work for People and Businesses – Not Just Insurance and Drug Companies.
Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.
Create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees.
Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees.
Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors.
Make employer contributions more fair by requiring large employers that do not offer coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of their employees’ health care.
Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
Ensure everyone who needs it will receive a tax credit for their premiums.
Reduce Costs and Save a Typical American Family up to $2,500 as reforms phase in:
Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs, and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market.
Require hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data.
Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees.
Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care.
The Obama-Biden plan will promote public health. It will require coverage of preventive services, including cancer screenings, and increase state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.[/quote]
Obama has outlined a new health care policy and explained how he’s going to pay for it. Whether or not you agree with the policy, it certainly differs from the status quo. I realize that actually, you know, educating yourself on Obama’s policies isn’t as much fun as scanning the headlines for thread fodder, but it is more constructive.[/quote]
How does the legislation plan on covering the rapid cost that private insurance companies are going to face when they are forced to take everyone and can’t deny anyone? The reform effort may cover the governmental increase, but will it also give subsidies to the health care industry? And what is a fair and stable premium? Isn’t that the role of the market to decide? A fat ass on the couch should have to pay more if he is at a high risk for diabetes, stroke and heart attack while I should have lower premiums for keeping myself in good physical shape.
What is quality data? Health care cost I can figure out, they want to see if hospitals are charging more in certain areas, but what is quality data? How is that not going to run afoul the medical privacy laws that we have?
Why should a company be forced to offer health care? If they don’t want to, then quality employees will go elsewhere and the ones who don’t care about health care being offered will stay. The only big companies that I know of that don’t offer health care for employees are the ones that hire part time or minimum wage employees.
There are about 300 million people in the US. That’s 300,000,000 people. The text says it will cost a total of 65 billion. That’s 65,000,000,000 US. It also says you may save as much as 2,500 per year. So correct me if I’m wrong but:
300 Million X 2500 is more than 65 billion. In fact is is 750 Billion dollars, so that can’t be right. The only average amount I can get is $216.66 cents per person. ($65 billion / 300 million people). Can anyone explain where I made a mistake? Later on the website says its for a family of four, so even dividing the end by 4 is still around 180 billion dollars coming from somewhere.
Increasing the amount of generic brand drugs might help, but then where does the incentive go for Big Pharma to develop new drugs if the generic versions that come in from overseas undercut their profit margins? R&D for new drugs is expensive, especially for cutting edge stuff like cancer treatments.
How do you reduce the cost without subsidizing the treatment (for the employee)?
That will be horrendously expensive. If 30% isn’t insured because it’s too expensive for them, that’s going to be a lot of coin the government will have to pay.
All good questions, lbksig, and I imagine that those and more will be raised when the new POTUS tries to implement his policies. But the question posed by Chewy was “Is Obama really about change?” The answer is obviously yes to anyone who has bothered to read his website or listen to him speak over the past couple of years. He has lots of ideas for change. Whether or not those ideas are feasible will be tested in the next 4-8 years.
True, Chewy was stirring the pot. I can pretty assuredly say that the DC schools are not set up to handle the kind of security that the First Daughters will need. I can also say if I was a parent at a DC area school, I wouldn’t want the extra negative attention that would come as a result of having the girls at the same school as my child or children.
That aside, there are a lot of things that he wants to do in the first year while he has momentum. I was really surprised about his comment on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
[quote]
Barack Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. Obama will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.[/quote]
DADT is a federal law, not a military policy. You have to get Congress to repeal it before the military can start to change it.
I’m sure they’ll work out the legal details, but the following is a sentiment I fully agree with:
Ha, the fever swamp that is the constituency of the Republican party. Republicans are constantly dreaming up ways of trampling on the Constitution and infringing on people’s liberties.
time.com/time/politics/artic … 14,00.html
factcheck.org/askfactcheck/d … tions.html
medicalnewstoday.com/articles/81772.php
medpagetoday.com/Campaign08/Campaign08/7602
atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/ … st=s_cn_hl
redorbit.com/news/politics/2 … index.html
And, surprise surprise, even [color=#FF0000]Sarah Palin[/color], who opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest has said she would support a Constitutional amendment banning all abortions.
tw.youtube.com/watch?v=0WmpBvVursM
Change?
Of course it’s about change. And or course, the more it changes, the more it is the same.
But yet again: no two leaders are faced with the exact same sort of challenges.
It’s more a question of reaction.
Which indeed takes time.
Let’s give the chap some.