Yeah, we'd better just forget about ever having Universal Health Care in America.

[HughBeaumont]

The War Machine, Inc. and Corporate Welfare NEED those blank checks.

The wealthy NEED higher salaries and corporations NEED infinitely larger profits.

Face it; there simply isn't enough money in this country that we can allocate to making the nation's health situation better. It just isn't possible without throwing the entire country into upheaval.

Your publicly-traded insurers, plain and simple, are the best people to determine and distribute your healthcare; at an exorbitant out-of-pocket cost, of course. After all, this is YOUR health we're talking about, right?

All you progressive la-di-dah pie-in-the-sky dreamers better just get this silly notion that we can provide a human right for our citizens while throwing our beloved productive job creatin' wealthy and War Machine, Inc. to the back burner OUT OF YOUR HEADS.

[HughBeaumont]

1. That awkward moment where, on a board that steadfastly defends human rights . . . .

Last edited Mon Nov 30, 2015, 01:56 PM - Edit history (1)

. . . there are monthly threads on why America CANNOT have a universally declared human right.

[PETRUS]

4. Oh, I don't know.

I think those threads can be very useful. Campaigning for a more just society can be exhausting and depressing. A learned helplessness coach can speed you to the correct conclusion that such efforts are a lost cause, which will leave you much happier. Plus you'll have more time and energy for your essential duties as a citizen, such as creating value for your owners, and admiring the exciting range of options available to consumers.

(PS. Dunno if you've noticed, but Big Brother is kind of a hottie.)

[HughBeaumont]

5. I shouldn't be worried about health for all when futility is a far more attainable goal.

[MisterP]

7. it gives us something to taunt, I presume

but after the condemnation of the "don't touch my junk" as OBVIOUSLY some Paulbot plant to discredit President Baby Jesus we knew that nothing was off the table to the Apology Brigade--not torture, not crushing whistleblowers trying to inform us what was REALLY going on with war, not starting new wars, not TPP

eventually the 90% of us who aren't compulsive flacks, the 70-90% of us who poll FOR peace, schools, and keeping the jobs at home, just can't keep up and just shrug when presented with two upper-class twits at the polls (and then get the blame for politics being nothing but elitist twits ...)

so saying "we can't have Plan E, and opposing Plan E is a winning position" runs on the same mislogic--because
1. the GOP wants NO Medicare and
2. many Americans vote GOP, therefore
3. most Americans are for no Medicare, so
4. a middle position will grab the most votes from both sides of the spectrum--the Dems, who want Medicare, the Pubs, who're against it, and the swing voters, who don't know

[Octafish]

2. You know who wanted UHC back in 1961?

Not Ronald Reagan.



http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10023640501#post52

[HughBeaumont]

3. Crreeeeeeeping (FRIGHT TONES) SOSHULISM!!

On this front, he continued the suckage during his terms, even to the dismay of his own Congress.

The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 furthered the ascendance of conservatism in national politics. The Reagan administration sought to cut taxes, privatize the welfare state, and constrain federal expenditures on domestic programs, all while increasing military spending. Even as the number of uninsured Americans climbed significantly, the administration had no interest in proposals for universal health insurance. It looked at Medicare, as many in Congress did, primarily as a budgetary problem and a potential source of fiscal savings. Nor was the primary concern with system-wide medical spending. That broader focus gave way to a narrower emphasis on how to contain federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid in the context of rising budget deficits. Meanwhile, conservatives promoted pro-competitive healthcare policies that relied on market incentives, consumer choice, and competition between private plans to restrain spending on medical care.

These developments produced two consequences for Medicare. First, driven by budget deficit politics, the 1980s saw the adoption of major new cost containment policies for Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. Those policies had bipartisan support from Republican presidents (first Reagan and later George H. W. Bush) and Democratic Congresses seeking budgetary savings. Second, the posture of Medicare advocates—both inside and outside Congress—became understandably defensive. Their goal was to protect Medicare against excessive cuts and efforts to privatize Medicare insurance. In 1988, the Reagan administration and Congress did agree on bipartisan legislation that produced the largest expansion in Medicare benefits since the program’s enactment (though the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act was repealed in 1989). Yet at no time during the 1980s did proposals to expand Medicare substantially to new populations—let alone to create national health insurance—have any chance of becoming law.

[Octafish]

6. Think of the TRILLIONS in savings!

Think of the MILLIONS in lives that could have been saved. Especially that poor kid with cancer they had a fundraiser for the in the paper tomorrows. Or my cousin.

[HughBeaumont]

8. I've donated to three such crowdfundmes for people's out of pocket medical bills.

And it makes me absolutely SICK that I have to do that when it doesn't have to BE this way.

So for some supposed "Democrat" telling this board, repeatedly, that Universal Health Care in the United States of America is a costly pipe dream (essentially carrying the water of the GOP) when it should have been done 30 years ago and nations not even as remotely well off as ours can somehow do single or multi-payer plans . . . yeah, I'm just not BUYING it.

Once or twice is "concern". Month after month of this "we cannot afford it" crap is an agenda.

[hifiguy]

9. Hey, Hillary's bankster/MIC BFFs NEED that money.

You think it's EASY keeping up six houses and twenty cars? Million-dollar bathrooms don't buy themselves ya know!

[HughBeaumont]

10. Hush money, however, buys a LOT.

[hifiguy]

11. Indeed it does.

Nixonesque is the only appropriate word I can find for HRH.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. For the forseeable future, yes you should.

Before you can think about free-at-point-of-use health care in America, you need to retake Congress.

Before you can even think about retaking Congress, you need to redraw the congressional boundaries.

Before you can redraw the congressional boundaries, you need to retake state legislatures.

And right now things are moving in the other direction.

The most the Democrats can hope for at the moment is to hold the presidency, and position themselves to retake the Senate in 2018 (or conceivably to retake it in 2016, although that seems unlikely).

The stakes at the moment are that if you win, nothing much will change, and if you lose, things will get worse. Making things significantly better isn't likely to be possible any time soon, because of the way the numbers work out.

[Octafish]

13. What's weird is we DEMOCRATS had all that in 2009.

So what did we do? Took Single Payer off the table -- and that was before handing over discussion to the corporations.

[HughBeaumont]

15. "Democrats" . . . used loosely and facetiously, of course.

With "Democrats" like Max Baucus and Joe Lieberturd, who needs Republicans?

[HughBeaumont]

14. And before we retake state legislatures . . . .

. . . we need to magically reverse 45 years of Red-baiting, victim-blaming, fearmongering hate-radio programming targeting white rurals, suburbanites and elderly that made the current electoral climate possible. Oh wait, that's right, we CAN'T.

Take, for example, Ohio. The Republicans (for the most part) have controlled the State Legislature for two decades, with just a minor loss of the Representative control in 2009, which they quickly regained. Now why do you think that is, despite Ohio being one of the hardest hit states in the Great Recession, their manufacturing base all but decimated and lagging behind in the post-G.R. economic recovery? How, exactly, do "we" (as if my vote's going to matter) overcome the long odds that led to gerrymandering and retake this mess?

Think What's the Matter With Kansas, substitute "Ohio" and it's pretty much the same thing.


This nation has no political will to provide for it's citizens and all the political will on the planet to provide for the people and entities that least need it, and it's high time America starts to bite some bitter goddamned pills and own up to our unevolved and self-consuming future.

[Scuba]

16. If we can't afford to educate our children, to heal our sick or care for our elderly ...

... just what is it the defense budget is defending?

[think]

17. +1

[Phentex]

18. sigh...

so true.

[KG]

19. c'mon man, forcing americans to buy overpriced insurance corps is the best we can hope for...

because obama!