Obama Faux Pamas

[squigglequill]

Article on the front page of...was it the Seattle Times or the Post Intelligencer?...detailing the little faux pas of the Obama(nation) Administration trying to backpedal on the unsavory semantics concerning the health care package: ie socializing health care and including euthanasia for the elderly. Oops! Word got out about Mr. Ezekiel Emanual and

Comments

[zephret]

What I don't get is, ok, say this national health care comes into place and these infirm and disabled people don't get free healthcare: what is different? Don't these people still need to pay for healthcare now under the current system?

[sculptruth]

They were supposed to build a few new towers, one of them a tall building as part memorial. It's been hung up in a lot of red tape, and I for one am *very* tired of that hole in the ground. Weary, run down, hopeless; it's the perfect metaphor for our political climate. Whatever last leap of brief and admittedly misguided hope - maybe not faith - was lost by the time March rolled around. I voted for Obama after being highly suspicious the entire time, and while I don't feel like an idiot, I am definitely saddened that it felt like there was a chance and there simply never was. He's a figurehead. But the Presidency is a sham.

I finally remembered something I had long forgotten - it isn't the President who runs our country. It never has been. They just happen to be the perfect face on which to direct all of our hate and blame. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent; it doesn't matter. Our politics are run by a group of people who are likely to never be up for public election.

[squigglequill]

Yeah, this is why I used the term "noisy heads" instead of "stupid people". My view these days is that people are so saturated with bad news and conflicting news everywhere that it's EXTREMELY difficult to focus and be objective and figure out what caused the problem in the first place, what complicates it, what various solutions CAN work (regardless of what people think is needed...if it won't work, it won't work. We gotta find another way), and what obstacles are in the way of those solutions

[sculptruth]

Thank you for being so respectful, I really appreciate it. I absolutely was skeptical of the entire Presidential campaign, the entire thing, all parties, all players; it all felt like some kind of slapstick comedy. Towards the end, something happened and even I started to wonder if it was possible to have an old time politician. After all, politicians in the past have given us hope. Why not now

[squigglequill]

Oddly enough, it was Palin's entrance that secured my belief that Obama IS a media creation and that the election was designed to usher him in. McCain seemed to much like Bush and the only other candidate that was seriously being considered, Ron Paul, was receiving a total media blackout

[sculptruth]

Yeah it's true there is a lot of noise out there. I'm fearful of how much I'm tuning out, but I don't think I can remember a time where I felt this helpless - well there were two. The middle of Operation Desert Storm and 9/11. This feels like that again. I don't know what I can do. (that isn't to say that I don't realise that I can do things, I know I can)

[squigglequill]

I honestly don't know but you may be right. What I'm thinking is that with the new plan, the elderly and disabled may be FOOLED into giving up their insurance, thinking they'll be covered by the state plan, only to find they won't be and won't have the coverage, however pathetic, that they would have otherwise

[sculptruth]

I have to say I agree, the biggest problem is that we have insurance providers, period. If costs are the problem, then we need to examine tort reform and we need to examine what's driving the costs up - I fully believe insurance companies *are* the reason doctors are so expensive. I'm in favour of cutting out the middleman entirely. You're right though, we'd have to have some kind of system to keep doctors and costs in check.

Otherwise, this seemingly impossible, then I do want a fully socialised health program, and none of this halfway shit at all. That's our problem, is trying to accommodate both.

[squigglequill]

Keep in mind what I'm starting to call The Law of Sizing: the larger the conglomerate, the more complicated and less manageable it will be. Doubly true with government, since the element of police force and authority obstructs people's ability to control and change the situation.

A socialized health care would fare better on a state by state level than a Federal level, even better city by city. Less bureaucracy, less chance for much needed money to slip through cracks and benefit those who do NOT need it.

[squigglequill]

Oh, AND on a state by state or city by city level, you can actually create a faux market since, if the system in NY or Chicago is less effective than Seattle or Denver or San Diego, people can just move from one to the other and then the cities that are losing out will have incentive to reform. You won't get that if socialized medicine is implemented at the Federal level.