I don’t want to get into a pointless flame war on a baseball blog, as I know there is no way either of us come out of this with our mind changed. Yes, I rec’d the picture because it is funny and serves a valid point.

Please see the attached image for a comparative look at the Bush v. Obama deficits. Bush was in no way a good conservative, but it doesn’t take a genius to look at the chart and see a bad trend. A lot of us have been asking questions for the past 8 years, too.

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

There is no other possible way to describe Obama’s proposed health care system other than “Socialist”.

When someone is pushing this hard for 1/6th of the US economy to be nationalized, I think socialism is an appropriate descriptor.

if i get laid off. that’s all.

So, I cant get into specifics about who these people are, but I have had two conversations with the Pres of Merriyl Lynch division(division not named on purpous) and an exec at Ernst And Young… Agian, I dont want their opinions to be specifically known and come back and hurt them in their careers…

1. You cannot make the numbers work with JUST a government plan… If all you do is open up the governments health care plan to the public, you will push the private sector out of reasonable affordability…

2. Consumers want options, not just affordability…

Solutions…

**Not the White House plan, but the current Senate bill has the following additions to the plan…

- Cost cutting measures that were agreed upon at the “summit of health insurance” companies that Obama hosted last month…

- Stipulations on who can buy into the plan, such as maximum income limits… Their is also a proposed stipulation that would limit citizens who have the option for AFFORDABLE health care through a current employer that they wouldnt be able to apply to get the governments insurance…

- Insurance companies, actuaries, health officials, all will tell you that the United States does NOT have the best health care in the world… Why? Its not the private markets fault, they do what they should in trying to insure all that can afford it and set up companies with affordable benefits options for their employees…

The issue lies for the 10%+ that DONT have health insurance… What happens when they go to the Emergency Room with no money, no insurance? If its a private hospital, they either send that patient to the local county hospital or they treat them, pay for it , and spread that cost amongst their other services… At the county hospital, they treat the patient, and then take the money out of the City and state budget which means you, the tax payer, pay for it… Ever wonder why your property taxes and/or sales taxes are so high? This is a HUGE reason why…

How do you fix this problem? Work on immigration, establish an option that allows for some medical coverage for those who have no employment and cant afford private insurance, and force the current private establishment to cut costs, and take steps to reform their current insurance practices, which to their credit most companies pledged to do already…

Health Care reform is going to happen, no doubt about it… Will we have a national plan next year? Probably not… In the next 5 years? Probably… Do we need to do something about this? Yes…

Whats more important, that you keep your insurance just as you want it, or that all HUMAN BEINGS are covered, that your fellow man has the same right to quality health care as you do… Doctors, and the entire health care system has forgotten what its job is… Not to make money as a high class doctor, but rather to serve the common man, to keep us safe and healthy… We must find the middle road between this basic belied, and where we are now…

And Obama is not a socialist, he actually is fairly conservative as far as “lefties” go… He was handed a bag of shit, and is making brownies the only way we as Americans know how.. Spend. Do you think John McCain would have just stood by and not sponsored any spending for the entire banking industry as it folded, or the auto industry? If he did the same thing, would he be a socialist? Me thinks not… I dont worship Obama, but all the problems he deals with he didnt start, he was handed…

And to the post above about 1/6th of the economy being under government control.. Wow. Actually, just less than 1% of the US economy is government owned… So, we get a way to go before we got socialism…

people wanting “options” some people have no option. they can’t afford it. would like the option

for an industry that profits by denying customers the very service that they paid for when they need it most. they profit from letting us die. i just don’t think that a socially responsible moral nation would allow people that get sick to stay sick. would bankrupt people trying to care for their cancer stricken kids.

my grandparents live in germany. they are both over 70. they had decent jobs, are now retired. paid a lot of taxes, but they certainly have a good quality of life. they get the care that they need. my grandmother gets the surgeries on her legs and shoulders that she needs. there is no horrible waiting. if you NEED the care that your doctor prescribes you get it. my grandfather is diabetic and my grandmother has many illnesses that go along with getting old. they don’t worry about losing their house or cars or property. my mom had a cousin over there that had some polio like illness. he eventually died, but he lived into his 20’s with a disease that he was born with. didn’t bankrupt his family.

we get horrible stories all of the time about long waits and care that isn’t good. i’m inclined to believe that most of that paid for by the health care industry. they will try and scare seniors into think that “obama care” will euthanize seniors because they are old. try and scare religious groups that “obama care” will push abortion as being just another birth control. try and scare people that they will have long waits, because you know, i would like the other 50 million to have health care but if it makes me have to wait a little longer for a checkup then they can just stay sick.

i am lucky, my job has a health plan. our deductibles went up, but my premium is the same. my wife’s job has a health plan too. her deductibles went up too and her premium slightly. we are on separate plans because, believe it or not, it’s cheaper that way. both our plans are about $60 a month ($120 combined for 2 people). if i were to add her to my plan it’s actually over $200 a month. lord help us if either one of us lost our job. and cobra is a joke.

i’m not gonna feel sorry for big pharma companies that wanna charge me $300 for a prescription if i’m uninsured. if i can get the same meds in canada or any other country for cheaper, i should be allowed to. i’d imagine if you bring down prescrip costs a little, insurance costs would go down too. i’m sure pharma pays more in advertising than they do in R&D. why? why would you advertise prescription medicine to individuals w/o medical knowledge?

anyway, point is that medical costs are way way way way too high. it’s immoral. the costs are going up way faster than inflation. and i generally want to promote the public welfare. this is not the same as giving people food stamps. this is not the same as paying people that can’t find work. this is about taking care of people that are sick.

I didn’t even see this thread till just now, and I don’t think I can recall a thread so dominated by two people before. This is beyond Josey vs. X territory.

Not that it was as mindless as those debates, but damn.

…but this whole birther thing is laughably ridiculous.

The American People are pretty conservative by world standards. There’s no way in hell a socialist would ever get elected to a high office.

LBJ was more liberal than Obama is, and LBJ’s presidency was consumed by fighting off communism in SE Asia. FDR was more liberal than Obama, but I don’t hear many people calling him a socialist and from what I’ve read only his fiercest political opponents would ever insinuate such an allegation. Carter is at least as liberal as Obama, and it was his adminstration that pulled the strings on some trouble in Kabul, leading to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which many consider to be a major factor leading to the downfall of the USSR.

Bill Clinton was so moderate he’s spoiled you “true conservatives”. Most Democrats look more like Obama than they do Clinton. Deal with it.

I thought it was a picture of Jon Daniels the for the longest time