Our (not so) Great president.

TheBrit said:

So providing basic healthcare to the poor who could not otherwise afford it is communism is it?

I'm done with this thread.

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You are citing one mistake, the poor have healthcare, it is the middle class who have been robbed by wall street who need it.

momoceio said:

If you don't like taxes, move somewhere else. Lol, I'm all for taxes. It's the only way things are taken care of. Those doctors DO pay back into the system.

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The problem is not taxes or government, it is taxes spent on the wrong things and bad government. Our government represents the will of our people, lazy and not willing to get involved, thats why our government does not represent the people. The government represents those who get involved, the rich and lobbyists.

Caloy said:

Not too many Americans know the advantages as well as the disadvantages of Socialism to care. Most think it's a bad thing and just dismiss it as such. For me, the benefits out weigh the disadvantages. I think Obama is on the right track for healthcare reform. I believe that the US is not a Government of the people, for the people and by the people, but of the private sector, for the corporation and by the lobbyist.

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Welcome to The United Corporations of America!

Please educate yourself on what the Progressive Movement in America is. Progressivism on both rebublican and democratic sides is running rampant right now and has been for a very long time. Some progressives are not as radical as others but any amount of it being in public office is a bad thing. As Americans we need to start personally taking it upon ourselves as individuals to research out and do our homework on things that threaten our freedom. Too often we hear and then dismiss far out stories, facts and other information that certain news stations may pass off as a conspiracy theory. Always ask yourself, "If there are facts that prove a point that is being called a conspiracy...is it really a conspiracy?"

Being a successful politician is NOT the same thing as being a successful business person. Unfortunately, not many public servants view it as such.

rjoudrey said:

The problem is not taxes or government, it is taxes spent on the wrong things and bad government. Our government represents the will of our people, lazy and not willing to get involved, thats why our government does not represent the people. The government represents those who get involved, the rich and lobbyists.

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Well, I'm glad they don't represent the "lazy and not willing to get involved" class of people. America is lazy and selfish...period. That's why the rest of the world has so much disdain for us. We have everything we'd ever need, yet we bitch about everything we don't have.

reznorfan0 said:

The fact that these people actually believe health care is a right and not a priveledge scare me. Health care, believe it or not takes money to advance. You don't find "miracle" cures by wishing on rainbows or saviours on unicorns, it takes research and engineering of the highest order. Guess what children, that means money, and lots of it.

Producing medicine on a large scale is also not something that your typical 7-11 attendant can manage either, more money, and lots of it.

This happy little dream world where everything is fair and nice and everybody loves each other (you know, the one the big "O" promoted to get elected) is simply not possible. By stripping away the benefits (benefits translates once again into that inconveniant money thing) of advancement in the interest of making things "fair" you eventually kill the chances that anybody will invest anything to advance that industry. Medical industry included.

What exactly do you cut to bring medical costs down as the great one has claimed so elequently that he do. Costs don't just magincally go away, something has to cut somewhere.

Doctor Pay? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea...they are way too rich anyway.

Drug engineering? Hmm, then we start to wine why we aren't curing things...

Less complicated medical machinery? We'll go back to leaches and weekly blood letting, those are cheap treatments....

It's a business people. Once you turn it into a charity for the poor poor downtrodden unfairly treated poor people that get spat on every day as they just try to make a way for themselves in this cruel cruel country (because people are always being turned away in emergency rooms), quality of health care will go right down the toilet. But then, everybody will get crappy treatment....so maybe that is fair, everybody gets to suffer and die at the same earlier time.

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you have bought into a lie my friend. if you think that drug prices are justifiable by these means then you are wrong.

it takes a very long time for for this kind of info to come out so at first some of these dates may seem a little off, but i assure you, nothing has changed.

the top five selling drugs in 1995 were Zantac, Zovirax, Capoten, Vasotec, and Prozac. All of these drugs were the results of research that was documented in 17 published scientific papers and the NIH reported that 16 of the 17 papers came from OUTSIDE the pharmaceutical industry. The Boston Globe reported that of the best selling 50 drugs from 1992 to 1997, forty-five of those drugs had received government funding. In 1998, Health Affairs (a medical journal) reported that only 15% of the the scientific articles underpinning patent applications for clinical medicines came from pharmaceutical industry research, while 54 percent came from universities, 13 percent from government labs, and the rest from other public and nonprofit institutions.

In 2000, Forbes estimated that, after plowing $21 billion back in to R&D, the ten largest U.S. drugmakers had $100 billion more in sales than manufacturing costs. In 2001, drug companies gave doctors nearly $11 billion worth of 'free samples.'

In 2001, the drug company Pharmacia spent 44 percent of its revenues on marketing, advertising, and admin versus 16 percent on R&D.

GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer spent $20 million on a deal with the NFL to advertise Levitra.

AstraZeneca spent nearly $500 million trying to convince you simply to switch from Prilosec to Nexium (two competing drugs in the same class).

In 2001, the five highest-paid pharmaceutical company executives received more than $183 million in compensation, not including stock options.

In 2005, twenty chief executives of big pharma took home compensations of more than $1 million. Bristol-Meyers Squibb's CEO took home over $8 million, the chiefs of Eli Lilly and Abbot both took home more than $11 million, and the chief of Pfizer took home $16,419,270.

What reznorfan0 is basically trying to say is that medicine costs money and therefore should only be available to those who can afford it. If that was the case carve out the 70% that the government currently pays for and we would have no R&D.

Some people really need to put down the conservative kool-aid and start checking the facts as vandyblackandgold states.

The first mistake you make is thinking these conservative rich cats actually care about you and will let you in the club someday if "you play by all the rules". Wake up most people who played by all the rules are getting foreclosed on because your friends on wall street decided we didn't really need our retirement funds or our jobs.

rjoudrey said:

What reznorfan0 is basically trying to say is that medicine costs money and therefore should only be available to those who can afford it. If that was the case carve out the 70% that the government currently pays for and we would have no R&D.

Some people really need to put down the conservative kool-aid and start checking the facts as vandyblackandgold states.

The first mistake you make is thinking these conservative rich cats actually care about you and will let you in the club someday if "you play by all the rules". Wake up most people who played by all the rules are getting foreclosed on because your friends on wall street decided we didn't really need our retirement funds or our jobs.

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Stop throwing in random half truths to this argument. If your house gets forclosed upon it is for a reason. Either you lost your job and can't pay your mortgage or you signed for a cheap at first ARM and are now getting screwed because now you can't afford it. This is an unfair world we live in. Let's not start turning this into the tired old, blatantly false argument of "evil conservative white people are stealing peoples homes from them". Part of the problem with this country as a whole is that we are almost trained to NOT look at ANYTHING on the basis of individual responsibility. It's the same thing as the gun argument: guns kill people instead of people kill people; kids do bad in school, so Obama says if it continues the teachers and principles will be fired. I mean come on, when are we going to lay down the cold hard truth to this overly politically correct society of ours and say: You are the only one responsible for your own failures and successes. Not your parents, not your teachers, not your president, not you ancestors, not someone else's ancestors. Geez common sense people.

in response to the OP:

i will agree with you that this can traced back to Clinton's administration, to a point...I dont understand how you can say ALL the blame lies within that eight years. In fact, I dont understand any one person or one party can ever say something of this nature happens within a certain presidents terms...the country doesnt reset itself every 4 years.

so while we can both agree that in order to make our economy prosper and appear to have balanced the budget and create a surplus on paper, the Clinton admin pushed a few things through. the economy didnt fail overnight, it took time. time that flows into W's two terms, yet you fail to mention that.

here in lies a two-fold problem: the banks did not fail simply because of the foreclosures alone...the banks failed because of the money that was supposed to back up said foreclosures was missing. why was this money missing? well, there is a business model out there that Republicans are very very proud of and like to throw around very loosely, free enterprise. the idea that as long as a company is not doing anything that is clearly illegal, they should be allowed to make millions upon billions b/c that is the american way. well the banks got greedy and decided to start trading the credit behind all the inflated mortgages internationally, not the actual money, the credit and proposed interest that would be collected if the mortgages were completely collected on. on paper this made bank's bottom lines look really, really good and every patted each other on the back because of how good their banks were doing. then the foreclosures happened and all of that supposed credit disappeared. well the money that banks actually had was tied up and they had no way to cover their losses since it was all traded in futures and credits.

this didnt happen overnight. it was happening while W was in office for 8 years. He did nothing about it either, because lo and behold a republican president is never going to upset the delicate balance of the free enterprise model. so he did nothing, especially his final year office when he did absolutely nothing about anything.

i will agree with you on one more thing....obama has done nothing. i dont understand why people say he has done so much bad for us already. he hasnt done anything yet. he hasnt done good, nor has he done bad.

Crude said:

Everything that's wrong with our economy is the republicans fault and everything right is the democrats fault....

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Invert this and it's perfectly correct

I trust you understood my sarcasm?

Crude said:

I trust you understood my sarcasm?

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Oh yeah I did For some reason last night my comment amused me more than it does today...

Crude said:

What no one seems to understand is that MY money is MINE. I do not want to pay for your health inshurance, your education, your lack of foresight or your lack of ambition. It's not fair that you go to school on my money and become a doctor and then keep all the money you make. If I want to loan you money I will do so on my own merit and you will pay me what I loaned you plus interest. If you want braces then you pay for them, if you want to retire then put money aside until the day you retire.

I do not expect anyone to pay for me and I certainly loath the fact that I am paying for anyone else. If you are an able bodied person you should not be getting a dime from the government.

Why is this so bad? I think it's fair?

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Amen brother

vandyblackandgold said:

In 2001, the drug company Pharmacia spent 44 percent of its revenues on marketing, advertising, and admin versus 16 percent on R&D.

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And how many billions of dollars does that 16% represent? How many new innovations? How much was learned or new drugs developed with that 16%? How much would it be if the government ran the drug companies? 0% of 0 is still 0 so that's how much there would be to spend on it.

I don't see how people in their right minds can think that the government takeover of health care can be a good thing. Do you not see the facts in front of your face? You can see how poorly it has worked in Canada and the UK. Name one government program that works well. Even welfare is mismanaged. They can't even efficiently steal money from the productive and give it to the unproductive without losing 75% of the money by running the bureaucracy.

Outatime said:

And how many billions of dollars does that 16% represent? How many new innovations? How much was learned or new drugs developed with that 16%? How much would it be if the government ran the drug companies? 0% of 0 is still 0 so that's how much there would be to spend on it.

I don't see how people in their right minds can think that the government takeover of health care can be a good thing. Do you not see the facts in front of your face? You can see how poorly it has worked in Canada and the UK. Name one government program that works well. Even welfare is mismanaged. They can't even efficiently steal money from the productive and give it to the unproductive without losing 75% of the money by running the bureaucracy.

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dude....seriously?!!?! you really think that this is justifiable? your point may sound really good in your head, but you are okay with the industry that is supposed to save lives spending almost 3 TIMES the amount of money on commercials than they do actual work!? WOW!

yes you can argue, "and how many billions of dollars does that 16% represent?" man that sounds great, but you have to look at the whole picture here...if that 16% represents 16 billion dollars, then that means they spent 44 billion on marketing!! and you are cool with this?

and in response to your well thought out, deep logic about the government "taking over healthcare," you need to step back and sort out your arguments...while personally i think the core problem behind our healthcare system are the drug companies, the current healthcare reform debate that is at hand is about where you get your insurance from, it has nothing to do with manufacturing, completely separate issues....

but since you think that your argument sounds so good with your 0% of 0 is still 0 bit, i thought i would include a little snippet from post...see below

"the top five selling drugs in 1995 were Zantac, Zovirax, Capoten, Vasotec, and Prozac. All of these drugs were the results of research that was documented in 17 published scientific papers and the NIH reported that 16 of the 17 papers came from OUTSIDE the pharmaceutical industry. The Boston Globe reported that of the best selling 50 drugs from 1992 to 1997, forty-five of those drugs had received government funding. In 1998, Health Affairs (a medical journal) reported that only 15% of the the scientific articles underpinning patent applications for clinical medicines came from pharmaceutical industry research, while 54 percent came from universities, 13 percent from government labs, and the rest from other public and nonprofit institutions. "

i guess you missed over that paragraph in the same post that you quoted from....

Outatime said:

And how many billions of dollars does that 16% represent? How many new innovations? How much was learned or new drugs developed with that 16%? How much would it be if the government ran the drug companies? 0% of 0 is still 0 so that's how much there would be to spend on it.

I don't see how people in their right minds can think that the government takeover of health care can be a good thing. Do you not see the facts in front of your face? You can see how poorly it has worked in Canada and the UK. Name one government program that works well. Even welfare is mismanaged. They can't even efficiently steal money from the productive and give it to the unproductive without losing 75% of the money by running the bureaucracy.

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First of all, unlike you have been led to believe the government is not taking over healthcare. The only government run healthcare is the veterans administration. It is providing a framework upon which healthcare providers and insurers must operate under. These rules will dictate things like; you can't drop someone when they get sick, you cannot deny coverage, you cannot have unreasonable high deductibles and individuals must have insurance. It is common sense that if everyone has a policy insurance costs will go down, i.e. the pool is increased. If people have insurance they can get preventative care which will bring health costs down. This is exactly the kind of cost management that businesses use every day. For once our country is trying to conduct sound business practices and the so called conservative pro business agenda is against it.

This is pure politics and don't forget it.
Currently every state mandates insurance requirements this will now shift to the fed which will administer more evenly. Allowing the middle class who do not have health insurance the opportunity to buy into the same group plans as the government will greatly reduce the costs for their coverage.

The bottom line we are all paying for everyones healthcare right now but in a very inefficient way, this will formalize the arrangement. We regulate utilities but not health, why not.

And as far as competition across state lines goes, this is nonsense. Healthcare is cheaper in other states because of the costs in that state. Blue Cross of Georgia is not going to give a better rate to someone in Florida because the rates are indexed based on local costs..

rjoudrey said:

First of all, unlike you have been led to believe the government is not taking over healthcare. The only government run healthcare is the veterans administration. It is providing a framework upon which healthcare providers and insurers must operate under. These rules will dictate things like; you can't drop someone when they get sick, you cannot deny coverage, you cannot have unreasonable high deductibles and individuals must have insurance. It is common sense that if everyone has a policy insurance costs will go down, i.e. the pool is increased. If people have insurance they can get preventative care which will bring health costs down. This is exactly the kind of cost management that businesses use every day. For once our country is trying to conduct sound business practices and the so called conservative pro business agenda is against it.

This is pure politics and don't forget it.
Currently every state mandates insurance requirements this will now shift to the fed which will administer more evenly. Allowing the middle class who do not have health insurance the opportunity to buy into the same group plans as the government will greatly reduce the costs for their coverage.

The bottom line we are all paying for everyones healthcare right now but in a very inefficient way, this will formalize the arrangement. We regulate utilities but not health, why not.

And as far as competition across state lines goes, this is nonsense. Healthcare is cheaper in other states because of the costs in that state. Blue Cross of Georgia is not going to give a better rate to someone in Florida because the rates are indexed based on local costs..

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The minute the GOVERNMENT gets involved - and is the largest buyer - because they're the largest EMPLOYER in the country, well, they've taken it over.
The bills before congress put so many landmines out there that it's scary. Obama says Insurance Companies are evil and operating massive profits at our expense, but insurance industry only has a 2.2% profit margin - that's about 35th in the rank of all industries.

Democrat-socialists DEMAGOGUE everything until people believe it's true -because the media is on their side. The fact is less than HALF of the budget of this country is CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED. The other HALF is entitlement/safety net programs that grow and grow and grow to the point that they cannot be funded... that's where the debt all comes from.

What ever happened to PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY? I am responsible for me, my wife, and my 3 kids with the income I make. Government comes along and, at the point of a gun says 'your insurance is not up to my requirement so you have to give me 3% of your income as a penalty" - I call bull shit, come and get it motherF*ker, and I'll take out 12-15 of your goons as you try.

What I earn is MINE. That which you TAKE from me, without benefit directly to me or mine, is SLAVERY.

John

Caloy said:

Not too many Americans know the advantages as well as the disadvantages of Socialism to care. Most think it's a bad thing and just dismiss it as such. For me, the benefits out weigh the disadvantages. I think Obama is on the right track for healthcare reform. I believe that the US is not a Government of the people, for the people and by the people, but of the private sector, for the corporation and by the lobbyist.

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So you'd rather have the government knock down the door of your :"better off" neighbor because he has something you don't? I say F u asshole. Earn what you NEED and WANT and keep your hands out of my wallet.

Your life is the result of the choices and decisions that you make. It is not my responsibility to compensate you to be equal to me because of some bad choice or decision you made, and it's not YOUR RIGHT to force the government to take from me to make you EQUAL.

This is a country of Equal Opportunity, not Equal Results.

John

momoceio said:

Well, I'm glad they don't represent the "lazy and not willing to get involved" class of people. America is lazy and selfish...period. That's why the rest of the world has so much disdain for us. We have everything we'd ever need, yet we bitch about everything we don't have.

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Would you prefer that we become like other countries? Let's become China. We're selfish? Why do we donate more things to more countries around the world than any other country? (That is probably the result of sticking our noses into other people's business too often, but there it is.)

You have no concept of what selfish is when in places China, the government will come and burn your house down for any reason and no one will say a thing about it. Rush Limbaugh will not rant that random black people came and burned down your house in Obama's America. Steven Colbert will not make fun of CNN's tendency to "leave that there" when they don't cover an arbitrary decision to destroy your home. Your neighbors won't even let you sleep on the couch. No one will care because it isn't happening to them.

The rest of the world disdains us? That is just too bad. The UK didn't care when people questioned them about removing the holocaust from history books so as not to offend their muslim citizens. Another country has tried to make it illegal for women to wear the burka as it degrades them, while butt-floss bikinis are OK. That country did not give a damn what anyone else thought. We're all different and if other countries can't look past that, they are just as bigoted as they accuse us of being.

We don't have everything. We have the potential for everything. We're complaining because too many people waste it.

There are two types of people in the world, those who like Obama and everyone else.

3devious said:

The UK didn't care when people questioned them about removing the holocaust from history books so as not to offend their muslim citizens.

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Huh??? Sorry to interject but seriously....where did you get this pearl of wisdom from???

Slug said:

Huh??? Sorry to interject but seriously....where did you get this pearl of wisdom from???

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It isn't wisdom, I would say it is anything but.

First from the other side of the ocean:

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims | Mail Online

There were similar stories in the Register and the Guardian.

Then, there was a huge row about it in the New York Post, but they are about as reputable as the Washington Post. Later, it was "debunked" as a hoax which isn't too far fetched as the bulk of those articles came out around April Fools' Day.

Boycott Watch - UK Holocaust Curriculum Removal Emails Are False

While it was not a sick joke, it was the spin put on an issue by self interested groups that play upon the sympathies of others. I fell for it as many others do in cases that pertain to our actions as well. I am not sure which is worse, a tasteless joke or rampant hyperbole meant serve someone's political agenda.

It is as bad as those who say people who reject our current healthcare bill don't want health reform or for people to get reasonable health care. I also could not find the Guardian, Daily Mail, either of the Posts (but the Washington and New York Posts suck anyway) offering a retraction.

Then, to add more sludge to the pond, 6 months later:
Boycott Watch - UK Schools and the Holocaust Curriculum - Boycott Watch President Fred Taub Analyzed The Origin Of The Story

So now it isn't the UK government, it is an insidious attempt by subversive educators to bury the issue? It certainly seems that the apple hasn't fallen too far from the tree. We haven't gotten any better at this horrible game, either.

So Slug, I don't know.

3devious said:

So Slug, I don't know.

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No probs, just so long as it's clear this isn't a nationwide policy but rather a few misguided and misinformed individuals causing more trouble than if they'd left well alone.

I don't know what the political climate over there is like to even be able to begin to speculate why the media would jump on it like that. Was some administrator up for re-election or something? That is usually why stories like that blow up over here.