Right On The Right

..recently that one reason why that commie-liberal moonbat Harry Truman's health care plan was shot down was due to Southern Democrats who were afraid that a government run system would be the end of their segregated hospitals. I believe it, but I need to look deeper into it before I run around repeating this as fact.

I'd say we really don't have a free market anyway, with tax-payer subsidies, quotas on imports, government intervention when it comes to bailing out various industries, government protection for intellectual property rights and all that. The government has no problem intervening when it comes to protecting business. Protecting the people, on the other hand... That's socialism.

Anyway, regarding the Mass plan, my looking into it showed it to be a far from good plan. A healthy-mid-thirties man making 35,000 grand a year has a 2,100 annual fee. This is the least-expensive plan, which would mean that coverage is lacking in terms of what is covered and what gets paid for. This plan also has a 2,000 a year deductible, which works out to be 12% of that person's yearly income.

The plans for 18-28 year olds, with relatively fair monthly costs of 106-220 cap benefits at 50,000! How long will a catastrophic car accident or horrible cancer be covered before the 50 grand is spent? A week of a hospital stay? Maybe?

No matter how expensive a plan might be that an employer offers, if the employer makes the offer he is off the hook and the employees aren't eligible for the state-subsidized plan.

And if the employees chose to not sign up to some plan they may not be able to afford, they get penalized. At first they give up the state's 219.00 state exemption, but those grows year by year, until the person is paying half of what the insurance would cost yearly anyway.

And if an employer choses not to offer anything, their penalty is 295.00 per employee. And of course employees can cut worker's hours to less than 35 hours a week to escape the requirement of offering full time workers benefits.

Obviously, the state is putting the onus of coverage on the people and not on business. Which is the American Way, protecting business at the expense of the mass majority.

And unless the government can act as a buffer against the profit-motivations of the insurance companies, I still lean towards a tax-payer funded one-payer system. Let's give up one 3 billion dollar aircraft carrier and get it jump started. The present system is a black hole of monies anyway, with the redundancy of the bureaucracy sucking up 20 cents on the dollar? Something like that? (my memory is off on this part) Which is just a little less of a loss than the government's inability to account for 25% of pentagon spending.

You seem to be leaning towards to side of the angels on this, and for that, I applaud you. For whatever that's worth...

Funny, you delete what you consider to be nonsensical, I just post it anyway ;) . Seriously, though, you are not going to get any disagreement from me on the point that there needs to be some government regulation of the insurance companies. Free market principles and small government philosphy (both of which I, for the most part, do suscribe to) be damned, but somethings gotta give when peoples lives/well being are at stake. This is where I disagree with Justin, I believe. I risk too much presumption, but he seems to be one for free market/small government all the way when it comes to healthcare, I am for free market/small government inasmuch as people aren't dieing/suffering needlessly.

And I will point out one thing about the Mass plan, though I risk sounding the Romney shill. There may have been some major incentives for insurance comapanies, and by itself that wouldn't really be a good thing. But the bottom line is that it was done in a way that resulted in lower premiums and fuller coverage (meaning more people were covered, not that individuals were covered for more things. Though that is possible, I am ignorant on the matter). Thus more people can recieve preventative care, more people in the pool makes it easier and cheaper for the insurance companies to do business (consequently, more people in the pool also provides a buffer of healthy people, so when the truly sick need care, they are not as likely to be denied (theoretically, let's see how it works in practice) since the companies profit margins are buffered by a larger clientel). Really free market principles at work with minor government oversight, which like I said earlier is NOT a bad thing when lives are at stake, since the insurance companies are NOT in it to protect the welfare of the people...period!

This never used to be much of an issue for me. But since becomeing a medical student, my perspective has changed somewhat, and this has now become an intensely personal issue, and one that I take very seriously. So I am willing to hear out anyone who has ideas of how to make it better. But the single payer plan is not the answer, that much has become painfully clear to me.

-You know, I'm more than happy paying for health insurance. But honestly, if this current system is kept in place, some limits and controls have to be put on the insurance companies. Maybe everyone should have free catastrophic event insurance. You can find stories of folks with decent jobs, pay their insurance bills, the daughter becomes paralyzed in an accident and 40 days later, Blue Cross says enoughs and enough. Suddenly nice, decent folks are having their daughter's name and face on a collection jar in their neighborhood gas station. Or there's a charity cookie drive. Or something.

Rates are insane for lots of folks. A family of four pulling in 50 grand a year could faced with a 12,000 grand a year bill for insurance. That's neigh on the silly side.

No system is perfect, be it a one-payer thing or the capitalistic pay-as-you-go thing. The buracratic, for profit cluster-hump that we have currently is about as far from ideal as we are to Mars. In the interest of fairness and justice, the people need to protected from these huge corporations that exist only to suck money out of people and the government.

We need a system where insured and very sick people don't go bankrupt, people don't have to decide between a car payment and a doctor's visit and where people with preexisting conditions (those that they cannot control. F- smokers and people who overeat) aren't raped if they get sold coverage at all.

I think the Hillary plan is a giant giveaway to the insurance companies. Just like the Mass. plan is that her plan is based on. Her original plan in 93 was the same, a giant hand-off of monies to HMOs and whatnot.

And I had a whole media tier candidate paragraph here, but I've deleted it 'cuz it was very uncoherent. I am enjoying this back and forth with you.

you make some compelling points. But I still disagree. It's easy to say that the best way to delegitimize a candidate is to simply not talk about him. This is indeed what we see with Ron Paul, just to cite an example. The difference is that Romney would have found a way to get known with or without the media, that's just the way he plays. This being the case, the media had to try and define him before he was wable to define himself. thus most of his media is either flat out negative (minority) or subtly suspicion inducing and full of all kinds of "code", to convince the reader/viewer that all of MR positive traits (looks, persuasiveness, managerial prowess, organizational skills, hard working, concensus building, etc.) are actually negatives ("slick", "smooth talking (ala used car salesman)", "cut-throat", "un-feeling", "power hungry", "blows-with-the-wind", and don't forget the illustrious "flip-flopper"). And let's not leave out the constant reminder that "hey, did you know he is Mormon? Many americans are suspicious of mormons, did you KNOW?" So I disagree with you, I think they do fear him (not for the reasons you mentioned maybe, but he would be a very solid nominee for the Rep. party, but it is no secret the the media (or at least the main stream, with the exception of Fox and the WSJ) have little love for the republican party. You can disagree, but you'd be wrong ;) .

And in regards to the health care issue, "communistic" and "socialistic" may be "scary words" to most people (rightly or wrongly), and are obviously employed by those who oppose a single payer system (with both good and bad motives), that doesn't make the terms wrong or misplaced. And you are right, most people if asked casually about whether or not they would be in favor of the government picking up the tab for their hospital visits, they would jump for joy. But it would be out of ignorance, IMO. So maybe people use "scary" terms to keep people from buying into an idea that they see as disastrous, but that doesn't mean they don't have good motives, and that doesn't mean they are wrong. Single payer systems are littere with problems, and the ones most affected are the ones who are truly sick. If you explain the realities of this type of system to these same people who thought it was "a good thing" when it was casually presented to them, most, I think, would say "fogedaboudit" (or their regional equivalent). And if you think that Hillary's health plan isn't just a stepping stone to a single payer system, you've really been drinking too much wine ;) . It isn't just Dennis who is enamored by this idea, it's practically becoming an position of the democrating party platform.

---I've got a bottle of wine in me, and perhaps I should wait until tomorrow to respond...but that's no fun.

Im not saying he doesn't deserve to be in the top tier, I'm just saying that he gets talked about and treated as a serious candidate because the media, and by media I mean the owners and CEOS and major stockholders, don't consider him any sort of threat and know they can do business with him (in terms of a government headed up by him and 'administrated' by him).

I think Romney is very handsome, and his being a Morman is fantastic. If we're going to have a president who'll illustrate the 'dream' of America, I'd be thirlled with a black, woman, gay or Morman in the role. Rather than the norm of a white, straight, male catholic/christian/episcopalian millionaire.

I don't know where else to go with this. I would think if Romney wanted to destroy for-profit health care, or wanted to regulate media ownership (say by dailing back the Clinton era deregulation), or wanted to dismantle the black hole of the Pentagon-business tax-payer swindle, he would not be talked about, or put forth as a serious candidate. I daresay most Americans, when not swayed by fear or trick questions, would agree with Ron Paul when he says that the actions of the American government and intelligence services in the middle east over the last 60 years have angered alot of people over there. If they are given the true history of US foreign policy as it as played out, they would come to these same conclusions. And most Americans would agree with little Dennis' domestic ideas, such as a single-payer health care system, when they aren't swayed and scared by tricky wording using termed like 'communistic' and 'socialistic'. But if candidates have these unfortunate ideas, which conflict with the current establishment, they are treated as curiosities in a campaign, or are just put on the sidelines by not being mentioned as much or attacked (treated) like a real player.

I have the silly notion that anyone who wants to be a President or a Senator, should immediately be disqualified on the grounds of wanted the position in the first place, so perhaps I should just shut up and wallow in my wine.

Anyway, enjoy! I realize in my wine-induced haze, I may not have actually responded to anything in your post, but perhaps you can find something in here to bounce back on.

I think it is rather simplistic to chalk Romney's success up as a media driven "appointment" to the top teir, don't you think? I mean, love him or hate him, you've gotta admit the guy runs a great campaign, and has been working probably harder than any candidate I've ever seen. I mean, he is one efficient animal! And he gets media attention BECAUSE he is viable, as well as being seen as viable because of the media attention. It goes both ways, and it snowballs. I think he understands how it works very well, and has been using it to his advantage. Tancredo, Hunter, Brownback, etc., as well as those on the other side, Dodd, Richardson, various also rans--these people just havn't learned how to dance the campaign-media-Tango. Romney has. I don't think it is unfair in the least. Of course, I support Romney, so why should I complain? ;)

The fact that they might be attacking Romney means they are giving him attention, by giving him attention, they are treating him as a 'real' candidate and by treating him as such, they are putting him in the top tier.

The pundits are a part of the media.

The candidate most attacked by the media and the DNC (same thing?) is Romney, and he is clearly in the top tier. Even Huckabee, who stands strongest for the most despised leg of the GOP is now being talked about as a possible top-tier candidate. Overall, its the pundits and the figures that determine who is in the top tier.