Obama, on Obamacare

Originally posted by sh76
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/08/22/obama_weekly_address_myths_and_morality_in_health_insurance_reform.html

A few observations:

1) He really does speak very well; but we knew that already

2) He's backing off the public option, you can clearly see he is willing to let it go if he needs to. If and when he does drop the public option, I thin ...[text shortened]... clearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/22/obamas_health_care_whopper_is_bigger_97989.html

Have you heard Obama without a teleprompter? Makes Bush sound like a genius. I am not saying the man is not smart. Simply put, he's not the genius he's purported to be. After all, what kind of a dufus compares his plan to the post office and saying private insurance companies have nothing to fear, after all look at FedEx and UPS? Not the stuff of genius. Here's the actual quote:

"They do it all the time," he said. "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. ... It's the Post Office that's always having problems."


How about asking St. Barack that one simple question of how his plan will be paid for and WE THE PEOPLE getting an honest answer? The Congressional Budget Office stated that ObamaCare would cost at least $1 trillion in additional costs. Where is that money going to come from? Another deception came when Barack stated that the introduction of a public option would not drive private insurers out of business:

As long as they have a good product and the government plan has to sustain itself through premiums and other non-tax revenue, private insurers should be able to compete with the government plan, Obama said.

Hah! I love it! Could anyone besides Obama provide so nuanced and deceptive an answer? When the public 'option' drives private insurers from the market, it won't be because the public option has so many unfair advantages to private insurers (being able to both compete with them and regulate them), it will be because of the 'free' market! The final howler:

If you closed down the U.S. Post Office today, FedEx and UPS and other carriers would pick up the slack in very short order. Can you imagine what would happen if private carriers were closed down because the government 'tweaked' the shipping market? Total chaos would ensue. A public healthcare option would not be like having a choice between UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Post Office -- it would be more like adding a huge tax to all other carriers (and people who don't ship any packages at all) in order to support the U.S. Postal Service.

What would happen? People would figure:

UPS = $5 + $25 surcharge
FedEx = $6 + $25 surcharge
USPS = $15 (they can afford to be priced so low because of all the surcharges!)

So you'd go from shipping a package for $5-$6 (with great service) to $15 with lousy service. Genius!

Obama has said a lot of stupid things, but that last line has to be the dumbest. If the Post Office is the President's example of how well government can compete with the free market, he must be retarded. The government can't even manage mailing things, but they can be trusted with healthcare, a vastly more complicated and critical sector of the economy?

The National Association of Postal Supervisors has fired back at President Barack Obama for dragging the U.S. Postal Service further into the health care debate. In an Aug. 14 letter, NAPS President Ted Keating accused Obama of using the Postal Service as a “scapegoat” and unfairly painting it as “an example of inefficiency” during a health care town hall meeting last week. Obama told a crowd in Portsmouth, N.H., Aug. 11 that private health care insurance providers should be able to compete with a government-run public option because “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. … It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”

The open letter to the President is really quite funny, it's so laced with obvious falsehoods. Keating's missive can be found here. The highlight:

Employees of the Postal Service are largely represented by unions and management associations, all of whom strongly supported your candidacy last year. For our support we do not expect any special consideration. However, we would like to be treated fairly and not have our current situation misrepresented, especially by the Commander-in-Chief.

No special consideration? Could Keating actually think anyone will believe that nonsense?

St. Barack threatened to withhold federal porkulus cash from the California state government if they cut back on union workers:

But the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), in exercising political leverage, reportedly is playing a major behind-the-scenes role in holding up billions of dollars set for distribution to that state. The dubious merit of the stimulus plan is a separate issue. Of primary concern here is the 2-million-member labor organization functioning as a de facto government agency under Obama. State officials accuse the SEIU of successfully pressuring the Obama administration into holding up $6.8 billion in stimulus money as an act of retribution for the state's failure to restore a scheduled wage cut affecting unionized employees in the home-care industry.

The USPS is so poorly run that they contemplated cutting back their services.

The U.S. Postal Service may be forced to eliminate a day of mail service because the economic downturn has led to plummeting volume and revenue, the postmaster general said Wednesday.

Postmaster General John E. Potter, in testimony before a Senate subcommittee, warned of a possible worst-case scenario: eliminating the requirement to deliver mail six days a week to every address in America.

If the recession continues to hammer at USPS revenue, six-day delivery may not be possible, Potter said. Federal law has mandated the six-day schedule since 1983.

In fiscal 2008, total mail volume fell by more than 9 billion pieces - 4.5% -compared to the previous year, Potter said. And the agency suffered a greater-than-expected net loss of $2.8 billion last year, he added.

Rather than lay off workers, or reign in their labor union demands, the USPS well cut back on services. Yeah, this is a good example of why the government isn't capable of running complex businesses. They don't care about the bottom line. FedEx or UPS would simply make the cuts or go out of business. The problem isn't there aren't enough people who want to use the USPS, it's that the USPS is too bloated to be supported by the needs of consumers. The normal market response would be to trim down the costs of that organization and its size. Instead, the USPS has bravely decided to keep the bloat and give people less.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Have you heard Obama without a teleprompter? Makes Bush sound like a genius. I am not saying the man is not smart. Simply put, he's not the genius he's purported to be. After all, what kind of a dufus compares his plan to the post office and saying private insurance companies have nothing to fear, after all look at FedEx and UPS? Not the stuff of genius the USPS has bravely decided to keep the bloat and give people less.

It's interesting to read you have no confidence in the US armed forces. The last time I checked, they were the most powerful army around.

Originally posted by sh76
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/08/22/obama_weekly_address_myths_and_morality_in_health_insurance_reform.html

A few observations:

1) He really does speak very well; but we knew that already

2) He's backing off the public option, you can clearly see he is willing to let it go if he needs to. If and when he does drop the public option, I thin ...[text shortened]... clearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/22/obamas_health_care_whopper_is_bigger_97989.html

A Mitt Romney man, eh?

Why would Mitt not sponser the states to address the issue like he did as governor verses a federally mandated system? In fact, why is NO ONE talking about letting the states deal with this issue?

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
[b]Have you heard Obama without a teleprompter? Makes Bush sound like a genius. I am not saying the man is not smart. Simply put, he's not the genius he's purported to be. After all, what kind of a dufus compares his plan to the post office and saying private insurance companies have nothing to fear, after all look at FedEx and UPS? Not the stuff of genius. Here's the actual quote:

Well I think the only times we see people do "stupid things" is when the press releases them in the media. In addition, they harp on them and reveal them to the world. So I suppose that is why people never accuse Obama of being stupid because he has surely said many stupid things. In fact, at one point he did not even seem to know the details of the NHC reform that he was pushing but the press really did not make a big deal about it. One thing that saves him, however, is that he is a good speaker. Impressions are everything in regards to getting your point across. So long as you sound intelligent you are golden....unless someone begins to analyze what you are saying. I suppose that is Obama's problem now and it has been a long time in coming.

As for myself, I could care less how intelligent the man is. The public perception of how smart he is does no one any good other than for propaganda reasons. As for his policies, that is another issue altogether. Who cares how smart he is, it is his policies that need to be scrutenized.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
It's interesting to read you have no confidence in the US armed forces. The last time I checked, they were the most powerful army around.

Are you saying they handled the Iraq conflict well?

Originally posted by whodey
A Mitt Romney man, eh?

Why would Mitt not sponser the states to address the issue like he did as governor verses a federally mandated system? In fact, why is NO ONE talking about letting the states deal with this issue?

Well, the states haven't exactly done a great job administering their own programs to this point.

Originally posted by whodey
Are you saying they handled the Iraq conflict well?

I think the armed forces handled it just fine. It was the ruling bureaucracy and strategic planning that bungled it up (to the extent that it bungled).

Originally posted by whodey
Are you saying they handled the Iraq conflict well?

Well, they handled the conquest well. They should have let in UN peacekeepers after that.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo

How about asking St. Barack that one simple question of how his plan will be paid for and WE THE PEOPLE getting an honest answer? The Congressional Budget Office stated that ObamaCare would cost at least $1 trillion in additional costs. Where is that money going to come from? Another deception came when Barack stated that the introduction of a public option would not drive private insurers out of business:

But I'm not sure anyone cares about the cost. After all, all our entitlement programs are going bust and no one seems to acknowledge this fact or even care, so why not heep another on the pile? In fact, I'm not sure sh76 cares. All people know is we want this, that, and the other thing no matter the cost. One thing is for sure and that is that government does not care and we can see the results of that today.

Originally posted by whodey
But I'm not sure anyone cares about the cost. After all, all our entitlement programs are going bust and no one seems to acknowledge this fact or even care, so why not heep another on the pile? In fact, I'm not sure sh76 cares. All people know is we want this, that, and the other thing no matter the cost. One thing is for sure and that is that government does not care and we can see the results of that today.

Entitlement programs cannot go bust anymore than your expenses on groceries can go bust.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Well, they handled the conquest well. They should have let in UN peacekeepers after that.

Indeed, so they can do some things well but not others. In fact, do you remember the banner "W" displayed "Mission Accomplished" after Iraq was "conquered"? That is why government is so dangerous. They focus on one task at hand, such as addressing who pays for medicare, and then step back once it gets passed and raise the banner, "Mission Accomplished". Of course, that is just the beginning of the conflict as we have seen with the last failed entitlement of Medicare/Medicaid and that is what will happen with the proposed NHC.

So do I blame them for this short sidedness and ineptitude? Not entirely. After all, they are busy people with to many problems to count on one hand to deal with as it is. So if they are lucky enough to be able to put together a bill that they can even agree upon, that will be the extent of their abilities. So the question then begs, why not pass the problem to the state and local level where they do not have as many problems to deal with and where they can govern much more effectively and efficiently? In addition, the people will have a greater say instead of aloof Congressmen chiding their constituents at town hall meetings for raising their voice or displaying distasteful signs?

Originally posted by whodey
But I'm not sure anyone cares about the cost. After all, all our entitlement programs are going bust and no one seems to acknowledge this fact or even care, so why not heep another on the pile? In fact, I'm not sure sh76 cares. All people know is we want this, that, and the other thing no matter the cost. One thing is for sure and that is that government does not care and we can see the results of that today.

I care about the cost. But I also know that health insurance premiums have gone up over 50% in the past 5 or 6 years.

I pay $930 for the same policy I used to pay $570 for.

I also know that there's a heck of a lot of wastage in the system. I see the hospital bills the hospitals send to my insurance. They're insane. $5,000 for a few hours of treatment that would cost $100 in the doctor's office. I don't have to pay for it, so I don't complain (and the insurance only pays a fraction of what they ask for). But I recognize that someone with no insurance could be destroyed by that kind of bill.

In any case, the government does end up paying for people who can't afford insurance through Medicaid or simply eating the treatment for people who go to the emergency room but can't pay their bills. (Technically, the hospital eats is, but then they just turn around and bill Medicaid and private insurance more to compensate). But the people with no insurance simply don't get the preventive care that could have saved all this money.

I guess what I'm saying is that the system needs to be changed. If you have a better idea than Romney and/or Obama, I'm all ears.

Oh, and as for the costs, if we really can solve healthcare, I'll take a point of two hit on my Medicare tax to do so.

Originally posted by sh76
I care about the cost. But I also know that health insurance I guess what I'm saying is that the system needs to be changed. If you have a better idea than Romney and/or Obama, I'm all ears.

And this is why I sponser a state solution. After all, if we had a NHC system in place before Romney care, then we would not have had the example to reflect upon would we? That is why I propose having each individual state to implement a policy of their own. That way we can step back and review 50 different plans and see how some failed and some did well. At least, I think that is what the Founders invisioned instead of placing all our eggs in one basket to win, lose, or draw.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Entitlement programs cannot go bust anymore than your expenses on groceries can go bust.

When I say "go bust" I am talking about the government going bust and yes this will be the end game to all this if this is not addressed.

As it is now, the US spends in interest for the ND about the equivalent of paying for two Katrinas per year. Imagine how many people they could help with that kind of money, yet the just flush it down the toilet every year. However, what happens when we are no longer albe to keep up with the interest payments? It happens to a lot of people and perhaps to our government some day soon.