The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Something To Think About

Re: Something To Think About

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Re: Something To Think About

Catlee — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:59:48 -0000

Unfortunatley all that the Healthcare Reform Bill did was to crate a huge mess that we will be dealing with for years. If they did to other industries (say the oil industry-housing industry-automible industry) what they did to the insurance companies it would never have gone very far. Unfortunately most people see insurance as merely a necessary evil. Try going without it for awhile, which many more may have to do now with all the price increases, and i think you may change your mind. KitchenAid Professional 600

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Re: Something To Think About

3rb7r.com — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:57:06 -0000

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Re: Something To Think About

lightmonke — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:52:29 -0000

But still, even without the grand spectacle--why do Dems concede that they need 60 votes to pass something, when they really only need 51? Why not force the filibuster, rather than backing down at the mere suggestion of one? Not being belligerent here, I just really don't understand why the goalpost has moved, when "simple majority" is all that the Senate requires to pass a bill.

Re: Something To Think About

Neil — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:42:09 -0000

I think it's interesting that the fact that the liberals he leaned on were freshman congressmen. It's a lot easier to lean on them than say Max Baucus who is the chairman of the senate finance committee. Not to mention that Baucus has a safe seat and has tons of money after being in the senate for years and being backed by the insurance industry. He had nothing to fear from the White House.

As far as whether Obama wanted a public option, I think the entire question is irrelevant. I don't think he cared much about it. He was baking a cake (health care reform) and the public option was just the icing. Threatening Joe Lieberman's chairmanship probably is something you can only do once. Especially if he doesn't give in, you strip him, and he defects and goes all out blocking all democratic legislation. I don't see how that helps us achieve our goals.

I believe that that's a card Obama intends to keep in his pocket for something else that he views as more important. He still has a lot to go in terms of his agenda.

Re: Something To Think About

BreakerBaker — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:44:34 -0000

I don't think most people who defend the president's position do so out of some sort of love of 'the center.' I think they do so out of a belief that the public option was unattainable, and unnecessary at least in the nearterm. There's a belief that this bill is better than nothing, and an understanding that it's a good as things are going to get given the current atmosphere. It's not a surprise that it's Howard Dean, a world-class demagogue and loser, who has lost sight of the actual goals of reform, has forgotten that it's about helping people, not hurting insurance companies.

Re: Something To Think About

arvay — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:31:50 -0000

Right now, "centrist" is being re-defined as what used to be called "moderate" Republicanism.

The actual Republicans are trying to decide between obstructionism and white race survivalist.

Re: Something To Think About

arvay — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:55:25 -0000

brucds

You've laid out in various postings a fairly coherent defense of the Obama presidency so far, and I wanted to challenge that all in one place.

We can agree that he has a lot on his plate, much of it, including the worst economic crisis since the Depression -- created by the previous administration.However, it's his solutions -- or I'll argue -- non-solutions that are so troubling.

On healthcare, he took office with public sentiment -- not unfair to call it rage -- against the insurance companies. Plus, a large majority that back a public option. But unlike Reagan, who browbeat the Democrats into accepting his revolution, Obama accepted the undemocratic power of the insurance companies as "reality" and proposed a bill modeled on Mit Romney's healthcare "solution" in Massachusetts.

You know the right-wing Republican who went for the Republican nomination.

Starting a negotiation by accepting your opponent's position is either incompetent or signals that you are not opponents, but actually allies.

Unsurprisingly, it's a bonanza for the insurance companies and will herd Americans into compulsory insurance policies. And Obama's ineffective support for the public option has scratched that also. Likewise for the elimination of doctor-testing facility conflicts of interest. We are in the unenviable position, if this bill passes, of hoping that the Roberts Court rules it's unconstitutional.

On Afghanistan, he's choosing the worst option, after having been publicly upstaged by a general who theoretically works for him. This is no Harry Truman.

The Afghan strategy is incoherent, it refuses to recognize that Pakistan will NEVER eliminate the Taliban forces killing our troops until we get rid of the pro-Indian government in Kabul. Hillary can issue all the Condoleezza-like "Pakistan must" statements she wants to, Pakistan sees India as enemy no. 1 -- period. We will waste many lives and much money and merely inflame more people into fighting us.

His Nobel speech, aimed at us rather than the people in the room, combined the intellectual reach of George W Bush (sometimes, force is necessary --- DUH!) with the increasingly laughable American triumphalism that looks better on the History Channel than in real discourse with other nations.

His financial "reforms" will be carried out by the same people, in large measure, who created the crisis. The Citibank bonanza is an apt metaphor for how that will go. Wall Street is already launching new derivatives, and know they will be rescued again when the next bubble goes bust. And it will.

Added to his foreign policy flubs was that humiliating climb-down from his settlements policy. Now, he either didn't realize that the Israeli lobby would react to that -- which means he's naive -- or he's actually unable to resist them politically.

Just imagine how that looks to other world leaders -- here's a leader who can't control a client state that depends on the US for its existence.

Hey, we can roll this guy!

And all those people encouraged by his Cairo speech are probably noy going to pay attention to anything else he says about the Mideast.

My conclusion: most likely Obama never intended to make any basic changes in our financial system, or healthcare system, or aggressive, interventionist whack-a-mole foreign policy. If you read his speech in Ghana, in between his "pull up your socks" lectures, we was singing the praises o f the new "African Command."

Somalia, anyone?

The other possibility is that he's very, very far over his head.

Neither option is very reassuring.

Re: Something To Think About

arvay — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:42:07 -0000

YES

The bill, as gelded by Lieberman, is a total sellout to the insurance companies, devoid of anything remotely like reform.

First of all, frog-marching people into compulsory health insurance is outrageous and possibly unconstitutional. Count on lawsuits to test that.

And the insurance premiums people will pay are a TAX, whatever they are called. A substantial tax in an ongoing economic slowdown.

Brilliant.

But the insurance companies are compelled to insure everyone, right? Yes, but at up to triple the cost for those with pre-eisting conditions. Here's the kind of rationale that's behind that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWo-vDVajns&feature=related

And does anyone believe that these companies, infamous for dragging their feet on paying claims and trying every trick in the book to disallow them -- will change their behavior?

Remember the provision that doctors be prohibited from sending patients to testing facilities they own or invest in? Nah, forget that, certain conflicts of interest are supported by the "change" administration.

I haven't read the entire bill, but after the Lieberman comedy (notice, no one in the Democratic party dares to attack him, Dean is fair bait, however) I have ZERO confidence that there's a single worthwhile thing in it.

I'm reluctantly starting to conclude that I vote for an administration that is not only as warlike, as tied to Big Money as the Bush administration -- but is actually as incompetent.

Failure of this bill could be Obama's Katrina.

Re: Something To Think About

arvay — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:41:33 -0000

YES

The bill, as gelded by Lieberman, is a total sellout to the insurance companies, devoid of anything remotely like reform.

First of all, frog-marching people into compulsory health insurance is outrageous and possibly unconstitutional. Count on lawsuits to test that.

And the insurance premiums people will pay are a TAX, whatever they are called. A substantial tax in an ongoing economic slowdown.

Brilliant.

But the insurance companies are compelled to insure everyone, right? Yes, but at up to triple the cost for those with pre-eisting conditions. Here's the kind of rationale that's behind that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWo-vDVajns&feature=related

And does anyone believe that these companies, infamous for dragging their feet on paying claims and trying every trick in the book to disallow them -- will change their behavior?

I'm reluctantly starting to conclude that I vote for an administration that is not only as warlike, as tied to Big Money as the Bush administration -- but is actually as incompetent.

Failure of this bill could be Obama's Katrina.

Re: Something To Think About

arvay — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:40:10 -0000

YES

The bill, as gelded by Lieberman, is a total sellout to the insurance companies, devoid of anything remotely like reform.

First of all, frog-marching people into compulsory health insurance is outrageous and possibly unconstitutional. Count on lawsuits to test that.

And the insurance premiums people will pay are a TAX, whatever they are called. A substantial tax in an ongoing economic slowdown.

Brilliant.

But the insurance companies are compelled to insure everyone, right? Yes, but at up to triple the cost for those with pre-eisting conditions. Here's the kind of rationale that's behind that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWo-vDVajns&feature=related

And does anyone believe that these companies, infamous for dragging their feet on paying claims and trying every trick in the book to disallow them -- will change their behavior?

I'm reluctantly starting to conclude that I vote for an administration that is not only as warlike, as tied to Big Money as the Bush administration -- but is actually as incompetent.

Failure of this bill could be Obama's Katrina.