Politics

SpaceNut · 2017-07-06 10:37:41

I will agree that healthinsurance is screwed up and that when I ask for a policy for oneself that you would expect it to cover the person as a whole and not make up rules for pieces of the body for this reason or of others.
The premium for coverage are out of line with what gets paid and the care giver, hospital ER ect.. are still charging to much and are not cost controlled. I would also agree that penalty for not having health insurance should not be but also not giving a rebate or refund not part of a scheduel as a credit for paying the hugh premiums are also not right for those that do get coverage.
So if a base level of coverage is all that is required we start calling for measured health care or what is the realm of the standard HMO....and if so this should be a very low cost to the individual.
So I do not find the request by the RNC asked Hillary Clinton where her health care plan is - and Clinton responded in a Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA)

So lets make health care that is right for all...

SpaceNut · 2017-07-07 19:30:20

I thought that I was being kind with the one liner and image post of the VP at nasa so here is a copy of what was on nasawatch

Vice President Pence Voids NASA Hardware Warranty (Update)
By Keith Cowing on July 7, 2017 3:26 PM. 19 Comments

Keith's update: Official NASA response to the Pence "Do Not Touch" Photo: "The 'do not touch' signs are there as a day-to-day reminder, including the one visible on the titanium Forward Bay Cover for the Orion spacecraft. Procedures require the hardware to be cleaned before tiles are bonded to the spacecraft, so touching the surface is okay. Otherwise, the hardware would have had a protective cover over it like the thermal heat shield, which was nearby."
So in other words "do not touch" means "you can touch". Only at NASA.

I will let those that want to read the comments follow it up....

Mike Pence Was Against Ares 5/Orion Before He Was For SLS/Orion

SpaceNut · 2017-07-08 12:40:44

G-20 summit 2017 protests prompt police to call in reinforcements

Wrong place and time for this as Ivanka Trump sits in for president at G-20 meeting

White House official said that Ivanka Trump’s time sitting in for her father was brief and that the topic under discussion at the time was relevant to her advocacy role on a women’s economic development initiative with the World Bank.

Nearly a year has passed and we are still finding voter fraud as Iowa woman charged with voting twice for Trump pleads guilty for voting twice for Donald Trump

Trump's voter fraud panel to meet as state refusals mount in effort to prove, his unsupported claim that millions voted illegally for Hillary Clinton will convene this month.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-08 18:46:16

The deportation regardless of status in life has been done under a complete blanket and this one is why its not quite right to judge everything based off from entry into this nation especially after sever amesty events and the lack of any US action to further these entries into being put through legalizational status for entry.

Coffee Farmer in Hawaii Loses Deportation Battle, Returns to Mexico

farmer2.nbcnews-ux-1080-600.jpg

The 43-year-old was smuggled in to the U.S. when he was 15 in order to join his mother.

“President Trump has claimed that his immigration policies would target the 'bad hombres,'" Reinhardt said. “The government decision in the immigration case shows that even the 'good hombres' are not safe.”

most crimes have statutes of time of 20 years but this seems to be a never exoiring clock...
The sad part about this is

It could be up to 10 years before Ortiz is allowed back in the country,

His family will be all grown up and gone before he can come back even thou he is legally married...

kbd512 · 2017-07-10 13:50:16

GW Johnson wrote:

I wouldn't count on Mr. Trump's Space Council for anything substantive. To him, the outcome doesn't matter, neither does who gets hurt, or what operations get destroyed. Only that there is a "win" to point at.

Should we just keep doing the same things and expect a different result?

Do you have a crystal ball that the rest of us can look into to tell us what fictional destruction the Space Council has caused thus far?

GW Johnson wrote:

Amazing how quiet this discussion thread has gotten since Mr. Trump has so thoroughly discredited and embarrassed himself (in full public view) in recent months.

It's quiet here because liberals love their echo chambers. After the lies and bloviating were exposed for exactly what they were, I guess the reverberations are all you have left, so we Republicans thought we'd let liberals enjoy their temper tantrums in solitude. I can just as easily respond to any nonsense posted, if you wish. I think the silliness here is mostly a waste of time. Pitching a fit won't change anything.

GW Johnson wrote:

And yet his core supporters still seem to rabidly support him, in spite of the damage he is so clearly doing to them. Until that situation shifts (and sooner or later it will), no punitive actions for Mr. Trump's misbehaviors or his illegalities is possible.
GW

Liberals have already moved on to "punitive actions" for claims made by liberal media propaganda? Who needs a trial? We should just move to the sentencing phase. After all, the media convicted him in the court of liberal opinion. Who needs evidence when liberals will just make things up? What's it like living in a world where no amount of evidence or lack of evidence ever matters?

kbd512 · 2017-07-10 14:17:07

SpaceNut wrote:

The deportation regardless of status in life has been done under a complete blanket and this one is why its not quite right to judge everything based off from entry into this nation especially after sever amesty events and the lack of any US action to further these entries into being put through legalizational status for entry.

It's absolutely terrible that breaking the law has consequences. People should be free to do whatever they want, wherever they want to do it, whenever they want to do it, without any consequences whatsoever (unless it offends liberals, in which case we should skip any trial and just move right to the sentencing phase). Snapping back to reality here, if I walk across the border into Mexico, then I'll be put in a Mexican prison if the Federales catch me. We're so "cruel" here in America that we let this illegal alien go back to Mexico (and probably paid to do it) instead of dumping him in a federal prison. Oh, the horror.

Whether or not you're 15 or 51, breaking the law in America has consequences and that should be the takeaway from his ordeal. If Mexico is such a bad place to live that women are smuggling their children into America, then you'd think that eventually the people there would get sick of their government and elect officials who actually care about their own people, upholding their laws, and ensuring the prosperity of their own people. The solution to all of life's little problems isn't running away. That's little kid logic for solving difficult problems. When millions of adults are using little kid logic to solve life's problems, what does that say about the country?

GW Johnson · 2017-07-10 22:57:55

I never claimed any of the things Kbd512 accused me of, in his post 917 above. I am neither a "liberal" or a "conservative" in the sense he uses for those words. I deplore the "echo chambers" that both stereotypes live in. Both groups end up believing in their own propaganda because of the classic "big lie" effect. But, repetition does not confer truth.

Personally, I think it is high time everybody ditched all the ideologies, and just looked objectively at "what is, and what is not" for making decisions. That does require at the very least a recognition that there is only fact and there is lie. There are no "alt facts". They are but lies.

Mr Trump needs no help from anybody else to seal his own fate, whether it be by incompetence or by treason. He will do himself in. I just hope nobody tries to bail him out like the giant banks did in the 90's at his last bankruptcy, because of the damage it will do to the rest of us. They did it back then for their own maximum profit, not any sort of justice. His current bankers are nearly all Russian oligarchs to whom he owes the best part of a billion dollars, or didn't you know that?

Neither does a GOP need any help to destroy itself, when it is self-dominated by its minority extremist "right" wing. Unfortunately, the Dems are no better. Both sold out to "big money" decades ago. They only differ in the ways they try to deny it. I haven't seen anybody worth voting "for" in decades, only "against".

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-07-10 23:10:54)

SpaceNut · 2017-07-14 16:42:17

A statement made by GOP member that he does not care how many die fromTrumpcare as long as its passed is a pretty sad individual....

One another not more smoke out of the GUN Republican donor kills himself after talking about working with Russian hackers to get Hillary Clinton's emails

Peter Smith killed himself days after an interview with The Wall Street Journal in which he said he sought out Russian hackers to try to retrieve some 33,000 deleted Clinton emails and pass them to Michael Flynn, then a campaign adviser to Donald Trump.

Followed the titter rant from Trump I am sure but its means of death that says foul play...

"asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium"

A cause of the rich trying to get richer is that the bottom of the wage earners can no long even keep there head above water... Minimum-wage workers can't afford their 1-bedroom apartments

The percentage of American full-time minimum wage workers who can afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in any U.S. state without being what the government calls "burdened" is so vanishingly small — less than one percent — that it rounds down to zero.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "minimum wage workers tend to be young" and unmarried and often live with parents or otherwise share housing.

How much of the wage is to be used for that rent?

Researchers define "afford" by people's ability to pay 30 percent of their income or less on the cost of housing, which may include their mortgage, insurance and taxes. Those who are severely cost-burdened must use 50 percent or more of their income just to cover housing.
"more than 76 percent of renter households reside in a county or metro area where it takes more than 60 hours per week of full-time, minimum-wage work to reasonably afford even a one-bedroom unit. In California, the nation's most populous state, it would take 92 hours. In Virginia, it would take 109."
The National Employment Law Project reports, "forty-two (42) percent of U.S. workers make less than $15 per hour." The average U.S. renter makes only about twice as much at $16.38 an hour and even at that wage would have trouble affording housing.

http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/Gro … ollars.pdf

Terraformer · 2017-07-15 03:42:29

The percentage of American full-time minimum wage workers who can afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in any U.S. state without being what the government calls "burdened" is so vanishingly small — less than one percent — that it rounds down to zero.

Compared to this, everything else is a trivial irrelevancy. Seriously. We need massive deregulation (NOTE: I'm not talking about building code, I'm talking about zoning rules and minimum lot sizes which are designed to make housing and transportation more expensive) to ensure people in the Western world (it's not just an American problem) can afford a roof over their heads, and their families heads. Since the Boomers grew up and bought their houses, things have got massively out of hand, and it's the driving force behind the increased inequality we're seeing. Of course, the required correction would involve very large price drops, so existing homeowners have an incentive to vote against them - never mind the fact that it's screwing over the next generation and wrecking the country. America needs to clone Scalia nine times, put them on the Supreme Court, and have them find zoning in violation of the takings clause.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-15 08:40:57

Really as it is to affect the development and conservation of the land. It is the states that are authorized to adopt laws to protect the public health,safety, morals, and general welfare of the people. Land Use Law Center of Pace University School of Law

Perhaps the most significant land use power that the state legislature has delegated to local governments is the authority to adopt zoning laws. These laws divide land within the municipality into zones, or districts, and prescribe the land uses and the intensity of development allowed within each district.

This is where the troubles start with the inequity of law.... to which "Legal Doctrines That Help Balance Property Rights against the Public Interest "

There are several legal doctrines which protect landowners’ interests by limiting the government’s authority to regulate land use.
Substantive Due Process:
Requires that land use regulations serve a legitimate public purpose.
Procedural Due Process: Requires that the administrative process by which regulations are adopted and enforced must follow the prescriptions of state statutes and meet fairness requirements.
Equal Protection: Localities must avoid improperly discriminating among similar parcels or against types of land users in violation of equal protection guarantees of the state or federal constitution.
Authority: Since local governments in New York can exercise only those powers delegated to them by the state legislature, land use regulations cannot be beyond the local authority.
Taking of Property: Local land use regulations must not effect a taking of private property for a public purpose without just compensation in violation of the "takings" provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
Vested Rights: Limits the authority of municipalities in certain cases to impose significant new regulations on existing investments in land, such as completed structures or projects under construction.

Which means you have the power to change what you do not agree with.

Why is zoning important

The corruption of greed in many of the boards is why you are seeing these events and the trip of power over others....

SpaceNut · 2017-07-15 21:00:11

The current version of the health care will cause less people to be insured and those that do will have a lesser version of quality of care under tiered approach which will be as good as a creation of the death list for some with the chronic health issues.
But no fear to the other issues to come as Social Security on track for 'large, abrupt' cuts in 17 years unless Congress acts

who would have known 2 problems solved by just 1.....

kbd512 · 2017-07-17 20:00:55

SpaceNut,

Americans are not supposed to have minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives. Not attempting to do anything further with one's life is not the fault of the rich, the poor, or anyone else but the people who made the decision to sit on their hands. $7.25/hr is what I would pay a high school student for unskilled labor and oddly enough, my first civilian job after I left the Navy didn't rate much more than that. I think I made between $9/hr and $12/hr stacking fiberglass trays and boxes for shipment in a factory, but it was a computer factory and I was interested in computers. Getting a high paying job doesn't generally happen overnight, but if you're willing to commit your time, your brain, and your money, you can pretty much do anything you want in this country, which is still the land of opportunity. The notion that everyone in America is going to be a self-made millionaire by age 20 is outright laughable, but opportunities abound for anyone willing to do the work and make a few sacrifices. Decide what you want to do with your life and what you're willing to sacrifice to get it.

kbd512 · 2017-07-17 21:49:21

SpaceNut wrote:

The current version of the health care will cause less people to be insured and those that do will have a lesser version of quality of care under tiered approach which will be as good as a creation of the death list for some with the chronic health issues.
But no fear to the other issues to come as Social Security on track for 'large, abrupt' cuts in 17 years unless Congress acts
who would have known 2 problems solved by just 1.....

SpaceNut,

Why do people rely on ANY government to make good decisions with their tax money or their well-being?

Is there any sort of track record indicating ANY government's done a particularly good job in either department thus far?

Those are both serious, non-rhetorical questions I'd like a thorough answer to.

If the Social Security and Medicare multi-generational theft programs never existed to begin with, then the people would be free to take their money to invest it themselves. A dollar devoted to government bureaucracy is a dollar not devoted to savings, investment, or health care.

Obamacare was and is an abject failure on cost grounds and has done nothing, except on paper, to improve health care coverage. The Democrats gave more tax money to the corporations that run health insurance and hospitals to do what they were already being forced to do by law. Apart from preventing insurance companies from denying coverage based upon preexisting conditions, the only other thing the Affordable Care Act bill succeeded at doing was to raise the premiums of everyone else paying for those who can't afford coverage. Those who can't pay sill are not paying. There will always be people who can't pay and the rest of us who do pay will always pay for them. The only remaining question is whether or not we go broke doing it.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-19 17:15:25

It sure would be nice to have 30% plus of my wages back but it would only be robbed from you by those trying to take your money in other ways....

I remember my first job was a gas station attendant earning $2.75 an hour like you said as a kid doing the part time hours to fill in around the full time employee that this was a job and carrier in. There was no high technology just shoe shops, textile mills, brush factories ect...

There is a distortion in what is Working Age Population: Aged 15-64: All Persons for the United States and those that continue to work to supplement there income and just for the sake of working as they enjoy what they do.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-sta … yment-rate which breaks into broad categories the wage earned...

So where do we stand with wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_w … ted_States
To which there is a mix of states equal to the federal rate, some a bit lower, many that are state wage higher than federal and just a few states that have no wage laws at all.

5 facts about the minimum wage

These numbers are under represented for sure... as 205,354,000 are said to be working....

About 20.6 million people (or 30% of all hourly, non-self-employed workers 18 and older) are “near-minimum-wage” workers.
The restaurant/food service industry is the single biggest employer of near-minimum-wage workers

GW Johnson · 2017-07-22 14:24:35

I said everything I wanted to say about Mr. Trump in posts 879 and 895 above. What we see playing out is him hoisting himself by his own petard in extreme slow motion. Note that everyone outside his family who comes to work for him ends up getting his reputation damaged by having to lie to protect a liar (I defy anyone to show me one substantive thing Mr. Trump has said or tweeted that is actually true). Eventually he will drive them all off, one by one.

The possible grounds for impeachment were, and still are, (1) extreme incompetency preventing performance of the duties of the office, (2) obstruction of justice (interfering with the investigations, and note that this interference is ongoing, and getting more frequent as the investigations proceed), and (3) treason by providing aid and comfort to the enemy (Russia) in the form of damaging our alliances, something the Russians have tried to do for 7 decades without success.

The pace of this slow-motion self-immolation is set by how long his support base continues to believe in him, regardless of the damage he does them. There's just no accounting for stupidity, particularly political stupidity.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-07-22 14:24:48)

GW Johnson · 2017-07-22 16:18:02

Trump won't release his tax returns because they will show that most of his business income comes from Russian investors, and that he owes the best part of a billion dollars to Russian banks.

These interests in Russia that support him are the same organized crime that supports Putin because he supports them. Trump's being in such hock to the Russians is why he cozies up to them so closely. Talk about vulnerability to extortion by a foreign power!

No western banks will touch Trump after his 6 bankruptcies where he stiffed all creditors and pocketed the money, especially the last one, where the banks bailed him out only in order to profit from the use of his name.

That's the real danger we are all in: Trump's a Russian stooge, and he really doesn't understand that he is one. That's the stuff of nightmares.

Sweet dreams!!!

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-07-22 16:19:17)

SpaceNut · 2017-07-22 17:30:39

Latest twitter Trump rant is claiming ultimate power to pardon himself for crimes.....
Trump, in angry Twitter spree, declares ‘the complete power to pardon’

RobertDyck · 2017-07-22 18:40:35

I want to see the Cold War end, and stay gone. I live in the crossfire; just 60 miles north of the border with North Dakota. In grade 10 in the spring of 1978, my high school held career day. A young woman represented the Canadian military; nothing like a pretty 20-something woman to recruit high school boys. I spoke to this lieutenant briefly. I raised concern about nuclear war. My city has several "routes". These routes are major traffic arteries, but they were established in the 1950s for evacuation for nuclear war. If an ICBM is incoming, sirens sound, all TV and radio send an emergency signal, and all these routes become one-way out of the city. People today forgot about that, but it was emphasized during driver training in the 1970s. Back then there were regular test of the "emergency broadcast system". The Canadian lieutenant said from the time they confirm a Soviet missile is in-coming, it's only 15 minutes until it would hit Winnipeg. And she didn't think they would send one of their multi-megaton warheads, instead she thought they would send 3 "small" ones. Only 1 megaton each. Today Russia has missiles with 900 kiloton yield. She thought likely targets would be the airport, because our air force base shares runways so that would take out both the civilian airport and air force base. The second target would be Simington Yard, a major rail yard, mainline of one railway passes through, mainline of the other Canadian railway is so close that the bomb would sever that link too, connections to the US for both railways are so close that they would be severed as well. Rail connections to the US would then have to go through Vancouver on the west coast, or Toronto-Buffalo. She thought the third bomb would target downtown, just to cause damage.

Using Google Nukemap, if an 800 kt bomb (current SS-25 in Russian arsenal) hit downtown today (air burst), my house is within air blast radius. My house would be flattened, anything wood would catch fire, and lethal radiation.

And the US built a ballistic missile defence system to protect ICBM silos in North Dakota. Missile defence today only works 30% to 1/3rd of the time, according to tests. In the 1970s they could never hit a missile with a missile, so ABMs back then were built to detonate a small nuclear warhead in an air-burst to destroy the incoming re-entry vehicle. It was designed to detonate high in they sky over southern Manitoba, just 30 miles outside my city. So if I'm not blown-up by a Russian nuke, I'm exposed to lethal radiation from an American one. Congress halted construction of that 1970s system, but all facilities that were completed are still there and still operational.

So for the sake of peace, look at current international affairs from the Russian perspective. All former Warsaw Pact countries other than the Soviet Union are now full members of NATO. And some former republics of the former Soviet Union are now full members too; the Baltic States. Hillary Clinton worked with her husband when he was president in the late 1990s to try to get Georgia to join NATO, or at least ally itself with NATO against Russia. And Russia has accused the CIA of interfering with Ukraine, causing Euromaidan. If Ukraine became a member of NATO, then their only all-weather navy ports would be under control of NATO. That's Crimea. And a region called Donbas in east Ukraine is a major part of Russia's military industry, sometimes called "military industrial complex". The Soviet Union's first ICBM was the world's first, it was built in east Ukraine. Actually, I think that ICBM was built in another part of east Ukraine. But Putin grew up when the Soviet Union spread a lot of internal propaganda about how rich Donbas was, and how everyone in the Soviet Union would benefit. Putin isn't about to let it go. And Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State when Euromaiden happened. Putin is worried Hillary would continue to erode Russian relations with their allies, cut off trade and cripple Russia's economy.

The obvious solution for peace is to treat Russia as a partner, not an adversary. Stop trying to cut off their trade. My solution for Ukraine would be to convince Ukraine to trade with both Russia and the EU. Putin wants former republics of the Soviet Union to join something he calls the Eurasian Union (EAU). Eastern Ukraine wants this because Russia is by far their primary customer. People in east Ukraine are worried for their jobs. But people in west Ukraine don't trust Russia, they remember Holodomor. Fine; my recommendation is Ukraine becomes a full member of EU, does not join NATO, and becomes an associate member of EAU. Not a full member of EAU, but an associate member so they can trade. Yes, this will mean east Ukraine will sell high-tech military systems to Russia.

You can criticize Trump all you want, but I think he's the ideal candidate to re-establish peace with Russia. We had peace after the Soviet Union collapsed, but American military contractors lobbied to stir-up trouble so they could sell more weapons.

I'm not defending Trump, but like it or not he's President. Let's make the best of the situation.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-22 19:08:39

Cold war Détente started back in began in 1969, as a foreign policy of U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. There has been a few difficult periods of conflicts since but for the most part we have been able to keep it going. But that time seems to be growing ney as Russia seems to want to spread its military might and it is creating some of the conflicts that as of recent are most troubling.
All of which still has not reached orbit as of yet and maybe we can keep it that way.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-23 19:01:00

Even with Obama care efforts to close thegap of those that na afford to pay something and getting it from the government there is still a need for the mobile health care vans and RV's that I have seen. One problem is that healthcare is parts and pieces when it comes to insurance that is being bought and that is deceptive to the consumer which thinks that we are buying for the complete body....

When Health Law Isn’t Enough, the Desperate Line Up at Tents

Anthony Marino, 54, reached into his car trunk to show a pair of needle-nosed pliers like the ones he used to yank out a rotting tooth.
Shirley Akers, 58, clutched a list of 20 medications she takes, before settling down to a sleepless night in the cab of a pickup truck.
Robin Neal, 40, tried to inject herself with a used-up insulin pen, but it broke, and her blood sugar began to skyrocket.

What I also see is that after you pay the co pay fee that is charge the insurance is gourged by the provider and then the insurer passes the buck back to the consumer for what they do not pay, Plying all sorts of different rules under many different situation.... All being efforts not to pay....

GW Johnson · 2017-07-24 10:54:55

What do you expect from for-profit operators who DID NOT sign the Hippocratic Oath?

Between that and duplicated overhead, our insurance-mediated health care delivery system is the least cost-effective in the entire civilized world. And for no reason except to toe the line on ideology.

GW

kbd512 · 2017-07-25 08:38:10

Why is it so hard for people to understand that government does not create wealth or prosperity?

When our government consistently spends more money than it takes in, all we wind up with is a mountain of debt that makes our government, and the rest of us by way of extension, beholden to its creditors. Eventually the people can't pay enough money in taxes to fund the spending. That is how government destroys itself, and the governed, economically, militarily, and socially. Take the bottle away from the drunk before he kills himself or someone else.

Paper currency, now electronic currency, monetary systems have value to the extent that people have blind faith in their value. When the people lose their faith in the value of the currency, chaos and destruction always follow without exception. History is replete with examples that only cursory examination is required to find. It's not pretty.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul only works when Peter has something left to take. When you've taken everything that Peter owns and Paul still hasn't learned the necessity of paying his own way through life, then you're left with dependent resource consumers who produce nothing of value to anyone else. We're at lot closer to this reality than any other, presuming everyone involved maintains blind faith in our monetary system.

It doesn't matter whether or not our government runs programs that spend taxes on wars or social services if there is insufficient funding. The social services programs have been run for decades on end, yet there are more people dependent on government assistance today than there were when the programs started. By any objective analysis of what those programs were supposed to achieve with the funding received, if the language regarding the reason for the programs' existence is simply taken at face value, are an abject failure.

There are people here who believe, with the fervor of religious dogma, that they or someone else elected to office are so smart that they can somehow cause the rest of the world to stop functioning the way it always has and start functioning like some sort of utopian fantasy land that doesn't exist outside of their heads, never has existed at any point in time in the past, and likely never will exist at any point in time in the future, absent pure benevolent logical progression in the actions of the government and the governed.

My take on this is rather simple. Our government already has more money and power than it needs. Some simple dollars-and-cents decisions need to be made. We don't need a military presence in nearly every nation on the planet. We don't need government programs that take enormous sums of money from people with blind trust that the money will be well spent. There are too many examples just in recent history where it was not well spent to rely on the say-so of any politician.

NASA, for example, has all the resources required to send humans to other planets, yet it hasn't done so in living memory. Our health care system has more than enough money to provide health care for all of our people, yet that money is largely squandered on systems not actually involved with providing health care to satisfy the dictates of government rule or regulation. Our entitlement programs have not produced a "great society", they've produced a "debtor society". Our military has contributed to the "debtor society", at the behest of our civilian government administrators who have never been removed from office or otherwise held accountable.

The government has one purpose, and that is force. The government has one power, and that is to take from others. A government large enough to give you everything you've ever wanted is also large enough to take everything you'll ever have. Don't act too surprised when it does more taking than giving. With all the destruction our government has caused thus far, does anyone really want to give it more money and power than it already has? If so, is there any reason to expect markedly different results based on past performance? I think you're only fooling yourself if you believe that the results will be different "this time around" because X / Y / Z politician happens to be in office.

Here are some things we've not tried:

1. Stop funding government-mandated health care in all its forms. Even without ACA, there is still MEDICARE and MEDICAID. Give the money back to the people who require health care, which would be all of us, and then change the laws to permit cross-state purchasing of health insurance so there is something approaching an open competition for providing services in order to lower prices. Current health care purchasing laws amount to gerrymandering. If gerrymandering isn't legal in politics, then why is it legal for health care?

2. Demand that our government close overseas military bases in foreign countries and focus military spending projects on clear, achievable goals. If other nations find value in maintaining their own sovereignty, then those nations can afford to pay for their own military. It is not the responsibility of the US to maintain order between all nations and peoples in conflict with each other.

I take no issue with working with our allies to defend their nations from foreign aggressors, but our allies should contribute what they agree to contribute to their own defense. The US military is not a funding crutch for them to use to fund their own internal social programs, rather than pay for adequate military forces to protect their own sovereignty.

Stop selling weapons to nations of questionable allegiance to the US or of questionable behavior towards their citizenry. Arming everyone else in the world is a proven way to encourage conflict by emboldening governments to engage in conflicts that are ultimately pointless and highly destructive. It is long past time when civilians must hold their governments accountable or suffer the consequences of their own apathy and neglect towards their responsibilities. If a nation has had more than one dictator in living history, then they must agree with the rape / robbery / murder that inevitably follows and it is not our job to overthrow their oppressors.

3. Demand that people who receive government assistance and who are not disabled work for what they receive.

We decided a long time ago that there are social and personal benefits associated with helping our fellow man, but there is a difference between "help" and "handout". Whereas handouts have never and will never produce a citizenry who think and work for themselves to maintain a useful level of self-sufficiency, helping someone else should always be done with the end goal of self-sufficiency in mind.

There is no surer way to engender enmity between different members of a society than to force one group to provide for another without receiving any tangible benefit in return. Short of actual physical or mental disability, there is no reason why remuneration for goods or services provided should not be demanded by every so-called "civilized society". Even prisoners should be required to work. The ability to provide for one's self through useful contribution to the rest of society is the only real reform of criminal behavior that will ever take place. When criminals learn the skills required to provide for themselves without taking from others, then you no longer have to pay for their mistakes. Until then, continually paying for their mistakes is the only historical outcome.

In short, a lot of people here and elsewhere need to start making logic-based decisions that take human history and behavior into account. Most of that is plain old common sense that people intuitively know, even if they don't want to accept it. There's no better day than today to start doing that.

GW Johnson · 2017-07-25 13:13:09

Providing health care has nothing to do with providing wealth or prosperity, except the salaries of those working in the field. Government is what we invented to provide those things that private concerns either cannot, or will not, do.

It says in the Constitution "provide for the common defense", "promote the general welfare", and "provide the blessings of liberty". There simply is no valid ideological argument either way for private vs public health care providers. It only depends upon what actually works better. That may well change with time.

That being said, this entire American society is an experiment. We are free to try something different, and if it doesn't work, try something else. We actually have a long history of this: enacting and then repealing prohibition because it didn't work, is but one example. Restricting this experimentation ability, for purposes of toeing an ideological line, is utter bullshit! No ifs, ands, or buts about it! No ideology ever made any sense to me anyway. But so many around me, seem to fall for such idiotic bullshit belief systems.

I don't know what the Australians did to control pharmaceutical prices, or to control ambulance-chasing lawyers. I do know they went with public-provided basic health care, mixed with private insurance to cover extras beyond the basics (such as private room instead of basic semi-private room). That mix seems to be unique to them.

However they did it, they get more cost-effective healthcare than we do, their doctors are happy with the money they make, their people are happy with the care quality, and, by any objective measures of outcome, their system just works better than ours. And it is NOT the over-bureaucratized British system that both the UK and Canada use. It is also not what the Scandinavians, the Japanese, or the French and Germans and Spanish use.

It is way past time to ditch the ideology filter glasses, and take a good, hard, close look at what our Aussie friends are really doing with their health care system. We just might want to adopt, adapt, and improve it for ourselves. We don't have to do it their way, but we ought to look at it. But we cannot even look, if blinded by bullshit ideology.

How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving. Applies to both major parties, and all the small fry as well. That problem is bad enough to cope with. We don't need to be saddled by bullshit ideologies, too. From any of them.

As you can tell, I don't at all believe in what the political "right" or the political "left" in this country offer. Their ideologies are utter nonsense. I only believe in what works and how well. And "how well" is an objective evaluation, definitely not a political one.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-07-25 13:23:21)

SpaceNut · 2017-07-26 19:16:37

While "government does not create wealth or prosperity" it does get in the way under the name of protection in all forms which then drives the costs to you for how that is done at all levels there of called government. This cost is why the dream is dropping until you see how bad the other nations are in that only the rich has value and that you life does not. Its value and ethics that drive what will be.

The politicians that are in our congress and senate are there to serve the people so it comes at no surprise, Descending into a deranged Twitter rant, Trump’s Threatening Message After She Rejected Trumpcare The only two GOP Senators that did not vote for the legislation were Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. “The Vice President votes in the affirmative and the motion carries,” Pence said as the motion passed 51-50. Which opened debate on Trumpcare for Republicans to talk about what should or should not be done but instead they tried to drive down a quick vote.. Senate measure to repeal Obamacare fails provision to delay the implementation of a repeal by two years to allow lawmakers to come up with a replacement system, failed 45-55, with seven Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues in opposition.

More on not so ethical laws to make it so that you can not be prosperous or happy....Effect of US military ban on transgender troops remains to be seen This is due to courts finding that insurance that they have will pay for the surgery. So why the Border Wall Tied to Trump Transgender Ban: Report
$1.6 billion for the wall, but even that would only cover 60 miles in Texas and secondary or backup fencing along 14 miles in California. Making this Analysis | Trump’s transgender military ban is another case of political malpractice

RobertDyck · 2017-07-27 00:20:28

You guys talking healthcare? Did I post my experience and how the Canadian system works? When I worked in Virginia for the last half of 1996, I came from Calgary. Alberta healthcare agreed to cover me for up to a year (my contract was only 6 months anyway), on condition I paid my premiums. Normally Alberta healthcare premiums are paid 1/3 by employee, 2/3 by employer, but since my employer treated me as a contractor, I had to pay both. So I paid $104 Canadian dollars per quarter, which using the exchange rate at the time was $75 US dollars. One American co-worker said he paid $75 every month. But today it's much worse.

In 1996 I was 34 years old, single, no children, male, white, no prior health conditions, but I did just start a new job, and did just move to a new state. Using various American health insurance websites to get a quote, using the exact same zip code in Virginia and the age I was then, today the premium would cost between $220 and $410 per month! That's insane!

The Canadian system has limits. If you go to a hospital, you never see a bill. But government health insurance only provides a bed in a ward. If you want a private room, you have to pay the difference. If you want a TV in your room, again you pay for that. Any drugs you get while in hospital are completely covered, you never even see the bill, but once you're out of hospital you're on your own. Outside of hospital, Canadian health insurance does not provide any money for pharmaceuticals (drugs). No subsidy, no co-payment, no nothin'. The Canadian system does not cover dental work at all. Nor vision care; if you have to see an optometrist or if you need eye glasses, you're on your own. It doesn't cover ambulance rides; something most Canadians think should be covered, but isn't.

You can see any doctor you want. Any doctor in your province. You can see a general practitioner any time, and as many times as you want, for any reason. No deductible, no co-payment, no cap, no limit. This isn't for any altruistic reason, nor any medical reason, it's just money. This way, people tend to see a doctor earlier, so serious conditions are caught early. Treating serious conditions like cancer is less expensive if caught early. There are hypochondriacs, but they found cost saving from catching serious conditions early saves more money than additional expenses from hypochondriacs. But to see a specialist, you have to get a referral from a general practitioner. It's considered part of the job of general practitioners to weed out the hypochondriacs, so they don't bother specialists. That's part of the cost control.

The federal government kicks in some money, but it's only about 17% of the cost of healthcare. The Canadian federal government spends 4% of GDP on healthcare. The US federal government spends 3.6% of GDP on Medicare, 3.0% on Medicaid, so in total they pay 6.6% of GDP. If America adopted the Canadian system, it would replace both Medicare and Medicaid, so this would REDUCE how much the federal government would spend. Let me put this in terms a Republican can understand: This would reduce entitlements.

Provinces pay the remaining 83%, and each province decides how that's paid. Ontario and Alberta have a health insurance premium. It was charged 1/3 to employee, 2/3 employer, but politicians have messed with it. In 1990 Ontario had a problem that a growing number of employers charged employees both. That was illegal, but employers threatened to fire anyone who told authorities. Even saying that was illegal, but a growing number of employers got away with it. So after an election in 1990, the NDP got elected the only time ever in that province, they replaced all health premiums with a payroll tax. So employers pay 100%. That'll learn 'em! After another election, they brought back the premium, but only employees paid the premium. Employers continued to pay the payroll tax instead of a premium; this way they can't cheat. It still works out to 1/3 employee, 2/3 employer.

In Ontario, they chose to make premiums income sensitive. That means those who earn more, pay more. In Alberta in 1996, it was a fixed amount per person regardless of income. Current Ontario rates, converted to US dollars...
less than $16,000/year: premium is free
$20,000 to $29,000: premium is $240/year = $20/month
$31,000 to $38,600: premium $360/year = $30/month
$39,000 to $58,000: premium $480/year = $40/month
$58,400 to $161,000: premium $600/year = $50/month
$161,400 and over: premium $720/year = $60/month

Yes, those premiums are per year. If you're married and both husband and wife work, they both pay. Yes, your spouse and children are fully covered if only one person works. However, if both work, both pay, and both pay at the rate shown above. And in Canada, in most families, both husband and wife work.

That's not the way it worked in Alberta in 1996. Alberta today is different again. My point is if America chose to adopt this system, each state would have the right to determine how premiums are charged.

I'm sure at this point you're asking why it's so much more affordable. In Canada, your doctor decides if a medical procedure is necessary. No insurance clerk gets any say. However, the insurance system determines how much the hospital or medical clinic gets paid. There's a fixed fee for a regular annual check-up. There's a fixed fee for an additional doctor visit. There's a fixed fee for a chest X-ray. There's a fixed fee for coronary bypass surgery. There's a fixed fee for quadruple bypass surgery, etc. It's illegal for any doctor or medical clinic or hospital to charge you, or even show you a bill. They get paid a reasonable amount, but it's not nearly as high as hospitals in the US. Doctors in Canada are very well paid, but not as much as American doctors. But American corporate owned hospitals deliberately gouge you, they're getting rich off your misfortune.

As an example, recently the company that manufactures EpiPen was sold. The new owner chose to increase the price 5,000%. The previous price was profitable, but the new owner is getting rich. Only one manufacturer makes it, so those who have serious allergic reactions require it. There's no alternative, so the new owner has you by the short-and-curlys.

In Canada, some hospitals and medical clinics are owned by the government, others are corporate owned. Yes, there are corporate clinics in Canada. They get paid the same amount per patient visit, or the same amount per X-ray, etc. Some corporations are able to operate within this system and still make a profit.

I said the Canadian health insurance system has limits, it doesn't cover a lot of things. Although private insurance companies are not allowed to compete with the government system, you can get private insurance for things that government insurance doesn't cover. You could think of government insurance as "basic", and private insurance as the upgrade.

Some Americans have noticed that drugs in Canada are less expensive than in the US. But in Canada, cost of drugs is not regulated at all. The only difference is drug patents have a shorter period. Once a patent expires, generic copies can be made at a lower price. It's call free market competition. In Canada, where free market works, we use it.

A number of years ago, American government officials pressured Canada to increase the period for drug patents. Lobbyists for American drug companies had pressured the US government to do this. Canada partially caved: the Canadian federal government did increase drug patent period, but not as long as in the US.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2017-08-23 13:19:29)

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