We Are Making Progress

Here.

The rightwing crazies are using this poll to show that Americans are turning into a bunch of Commies, which makes no since, as they also say that Americans hate socialism so much that they are going to repeal Obama’s health care reform.

Really, the poll is not as hopeful as one might think. First of all, capitalism and socialism are not defined. Furthermore, while only 5

This implies that Americans think that American capitalism is not a free market (neoliberal) system, which is preposterous. Instead, 2/3 of Moronicans think that the state and the corporations combine to screw workers and investors (Corporatism?), and this is somehow against free market principles (LOL).

Duh. That’s how society works under capitalism, dummies. Under neoliberalism, it’s the same thing with Premium fuel. You want neoliberalism, but you don’t want all the droppings that come with it. That makes no sense. This shows me that Moronicans are political amateurs who don’t know their political economic asses from a hole in the ground. They can be excused of course, since we have farce for politics, an infernally confusing and dishonest Lying Machine for a media and a culture of stupidity on rocket fuel.

But we don’t even have corporatism here. It would be nice if we did. Corporatism is what they have in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, etc. The state is very heavily involved with the corporate sector and in fact works together with corporations to guide the economy and national industrial policy with a view towards nationalism. It works pretty darn good!

We don’t have corporatism; we have a neoliberal system in which the capitalists run the show, and the state just stays out of the way and lets them run wild, or worse, helps them charge through the streets running over everyone in their path. Then the state comes through, sweeps up everyone who got run over, and puts them in jail or fines them for being in the way or something.

We have a corporate dictatorship enabled by a state in bed with the corporations. That’s not corporatism. In corporatism, the state tells the corporations what to do, and the corporations say, “Yes sir.” Here the corporations tell the state and everyone else what to do, and the state says, “Yes massah, kin I fetch it for you?”

On health care, things look grim, but this is Rasmussen. 5

Anyway, it looks like we have our work cut out for us convincing people that repeal of this bill is not in their best interests and that this reform, meager as it is, is on balance a good thing. If you think it’s creeping socialism, we need to end the conversation and part our ways, but even most Moronicans are not that stupid.

If Moronicans really do want to repeal this bill, I say the Hell with em. It that’s true, then it shows Americans are no good and deserve every shitty thing that is going to happen to them in the future, because they’re supporting it all and egging it all on.

One of the lies about this bill is that it has “cuts in Medicare.” There are no “cuts in Medicare.” That’s just another one of the lies that the Republicans said.

The truth is that it’s the Republicans who want to get rid of Medicare. They’ve hated it from Day One, and they will never accept this great socialist program. In recent years, they have been trying to get rid of Medicare with medical savings accounts, Medicare Plus Advantage plans, etc. When we try to point this out, they accuse of us saying, “Mediscare!” and say that they are only trying to save the program.

That’s like destroying the village to save it in Vietnam.

The purpose of the italicized plans above is to destroy Medicare by removing the healthy people. The resulting program will only have the sickest people in it, and it won’t work. All insurance programs work by having good actors and bad actors. Health insurance works by having both healthy and sick people. You get rid of the healthy people, and the program fails. That’s the GOP project, but they never admit it.

Obamacare cuts the Medicare Advantage plans, which suck anyway. These were sold to moneyed seniors back in the 1990’s via a multimillion $$$$$$ and extremely dishonest ad campaign. I know seniors who signed up for these crooked plans, and they are almost all sorry they did.

The Republicans got the US government to pay elevated rates for these gold plans. For instance, say the Medicare rate is X. The Republicans got the government to pay let’s say X + 1

Well, this bullshit should be cut out altogether. The government should pay X rate for Medicare and X rate, not X +1

Oh boo fucking hoo.

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9 thoughts on “We Are Making Progress”

  1. The opposition among the public will gradually wane I believe after it’s a done deal. We’re still in the acute phase. Once people are used to it, the sour sentiment will vanish. Nobody wants to get rid of social security. We see that as our birthright. Eventually it will be the same with health care.

  2. I kind of like having a national health care plan, although I don’t understand how some aspects of it play out. Like insurers can’t turn people down for pre-existing conditions. So, if I’m concerned about needing dialysis some day and want to buy a plan with good coverage for it, can the people who already need dialysis self-select into the same plan? That would mean there’s no way to insure oneself against a future need because you’d be in the same pool as the 100% risk population.

    There are two other concerns that may or may not work out badly, but I’m not optimistic:
    1) Revenue-neutrality. President Obama promised us that certain cuts would automatically kick in if the program started losing money. I don’t believe it. The problem with Congress has always been that you get more votes spending money on your favored constituents than cutting on others, so it’s in the nature of democratic government to expand.
    2) Enforcement. Libertarians are claiming this bill represents the first time that government mandates buying something. (There’s a false analogy with having to buy car insurance; you have the option of not buying car insurance by not driving.) I think this could be a useful tool for removing the “welfare subsidy” for employing illegals (i.e. they don’t pay as much in taxes as the consumer in services). But I’m expecting some federal entity to rule that Constitutional protections against self-incrimination will prevent this from being enforced against the very people on whom it should be. So illegals now get taxpayer-subsidized health insurance because they can’t be forced to pay into it.

  3. Dear Robert
    I really don’t now the ins and outs of the new bill, but every American should know a few basis facts.

    1 – American health care is the most expensive in the world by far, but Americans don’t seem to live longer than foreigners or enjoy better health.
    2 – Most seniors seem to be satisfied with Medicare. They are not pressuring the government to abolish it, no more than they are lobbying for abolition of Social Security.
    3 – The American government already subsidizes private insurance by allowing companies to deduct health insurance premiums as an expense but not demanding that employees report them as income. This also creates an incentive for employees to take more insurance than they would if it were considered part of their income, which of course it is.
    4 – If there are long waiting lines in some countries, then the cause is a lack of doctors, not public health insurance. Suppose that in a certain country there is only one doctor per 2000 people, then many people in that country either will have to wait long for a doctor or not see one at all, regardless of whether there is public insurance or not.

    One thing that amazes me about many Americans is that they will at the same time ardently support any war that the government chooses to fight and distrust anything that the government does at home. The conclusion must be that the American government is highly competent and moral abroad but totally incompetent and corrupt at home.
    Also amazing is how many American conservatives will proudly state that the US is the greatest country in the world but also believe that liberals are basically stupid and/or evil. In other words, the US is the greatest country in the world but about half of its citizens are contemptible. Hmm.
    Somebody once said of de Gaulle that he loved France but despised most Frenchmen. Many Americans seem to be like that. They love America but hate or despise the large number of Americans who hold different political or religious views. Ann Coulter is a perfect illustration of that. She professes great love for America but hates liberals, who are about half of the American population. Go figure.

    Have a good day. James

    1. What about cost controls? Does this bill do much to control actual costs of health care? We get raped by the big pharma. I admit, I do have some problems with government forcing people to buy insurance even if they want it. But then we also are forced to pay for roads through our taxes even if we don’t own cars, and we forced to fund schools even if we opt not to have kids. We are forced to pay for the National Parks even if never visit them. So…

      Without cost controls that regulate the actual price of health care and without a public option, I’m not sure this bill will do all that much. But I’m willing to give it a chance. *Something* had to be done.

  4. It says on your ‘about’ page that you ARE a Communist, we all know the end result of the “Utopian LIE:”
    DEATH and genocide.
    Some ‘patriot’ you are.

  5. I like to believe Bob is a gentler, kinder
    National Communist/Bolshevik work in progress.

    Do you really believe under the economic malaise and with the disparate forces and ethnoforces operative, many of which you depict fairly accurately, that the health care bill as it stands will be improved on, toward the public-option, even single payer plan the arch-progs desire?

    I believe polarization will prevent it until collapse.

  6. No, the health care bill is even worse than your current set up. So what if nearly everyone is legally compelled to insure? What about those that can’t afford health care now? At least they’ll only have to pay the fine, or do jail? What about the co-pays ( I roughly get the gist of what that’s about), and the stuff you’ve got to pay yourself before you’re eligible for payment? If you can’t pay now, you sure can’t pay for all this stuff – so all you get out of this is a fine or jail. I understand ( who understands? – there’s thousands of pages of it) that there are no controls on the prices insurers can charge ( for what I’m not sure, off hand), and that there is no enforcement and scrutiny built in. I’ve heard that some states have laws which make it illegal already to deny insurance because of a pre-existing condition but the insurance companies ignore it and there’s no enforcement mechanism. The health care bill is a crock of shit, a complete red herring – for years pr decades now you’ll have the circus of debates about whether this or that little amendment is going to sort out this or that, while the insurance companies jut go on raking in their direct taxation and there’s even less people getting healthcare than before – medicare and medicaid decimated – and the media lying black is white, and the lefties lapping it up and crowing about their ‘big win’ – pass the sick bag. The morons are right to reject this shit – they may be stupid but they’re not crazy. Well, they probably are actually, but you know a stopped clock is right twice a day.

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