Tag Archives: Health care

The History of History


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

Washingto Making History

 I made an inexplicable blunder in this post. The Federalist Papers were, of course, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. My apologies. Tom Paine wrote Common Sense…which I clearly lost here somehow.

There is an immutable fact about history – if you weren’t there, if you didn’t personally know and speak to the history makers, you can have no irrefutable, complete evidence of their intent.  You can know concrete things, like dates. You can read treatises written by the historical participants and get some insight into what they were thinking. “Experts” can fill in some blanks. But at some level you can’t know, beyond a shadow of doubt, everything they thought, and more importantly, why.

Continue reading →


Enslaved to Rand Paul


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

Rand Paul Nekid
“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies,” the senator said. “It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me.”

“It means you believe in slavery. “It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.” – Rand Paul

Rand Paul (R-Craters of the Loon) is a tough man to like, but I have to give him credit for being remarkably consistent, if not wholly, about his Libertarian beliefs. He believes that toilet regulations are an affront to capitalism that will destroy the vaunted American plumbing infrastructure. He similarly believes a human right to health care is slavery.
Continue reading →


The Elephants Eat the Carrot and Beat Obama with the Stick


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

IT'S A DIRTY JOB, BUT WHY'S HE DO IT? - There are no 'mixed signals'. Much of the damage done to Obama was caused by Obama.

There are many things Barack Obama has reneged on during his first two years and as a result the country has never benefited from his promises of change. Instead, he’s become more Bush Lite in many ways.

The War of Error goes on – apparently indefintely. Gitmo is still open and many of the accused are still waiting for counsel, much less actually getting a trial. He’s cast aside promises on gay marriage, DADT, transparency, and limitations on presidential powers hoping some lucky Washington voodoo will somehow resolve the issues for him. On every major issue, he begins compromising before negotiations even begin. But perhaps his biggest blunders are in the way Americans live and work , or often, don’t work.

Obama faces a host of accusations that he’s a raving socialist busily fist-bumping the ghost of Karl Marx. The problem is, the facts don’t fit the accusations and they don’t fit because Obama has perfected that Bushian ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Profits Up, Obama Down
Despite the cat calls, profits at American corporations have steadily risen since that awful commie took office. In fact, they set a record in the Q3. Profits are up, not because Obama opposes business, but because he colludes with them. The CEO compensation juggernaut is traveling like such a runaway locomotive that even the richest of the rich are calling for higher taxes on themselves – yet, Obama is open to the idea of extending Bush tax cuts for the rich before the debate gets underway.

No wonder the head Mertle of the Grand Old Turtles, Mitch McConnell, feels justified in treating Obama persona non grata. He knows The Messiah™ will crack at even token opposition. Obama’s once sterling approval overseas is eroding quickly too, making it hard for him to effect meaningful change on the global stage.

Perhaps the best example of his special talent in taking too long to do too little to benefit the wrong people is his woeful stewardship of flagship issue, health care.

Before the debates even began, Republicans, who trumpeted their alleged bipartisan civility, said the bill was DOA. As Democratic lawmakers ineptly tried to hammer out compromise after compromise, they went all dirty sanchez on every Republican with a case of political hemorrhoids while caving to hundreds of demands and letting Republicans call them uncooperative, hyperpartisan Visigoths favoring the offing of your 90-year old grammy because she has a hangnail.

Grammy’s Hangnail
Hidden among those compromises were plenty for health insurers who are some of the most despicable miscreants in American economics. These are people who literally put grammy’s well being far behind their own. They have a proven track record of rationing health care and reaping the rewards in excessive compensation.

Despite a bill that was popular at the time and is now favored by voters 49-40%, Americans got a huge bill from the insurance companies before almost anything actually took effect. They got that because Obama caved to their demands just as he caved to the neo-tea baggers. In return, he was charged with shameless socialism…by the same Republicans and lobbyists who brokered – if one could call it that – the sweetheart deal. Repblibaggers say they’ll repeal it bit won’t  – unless by repeal you mean rejigger it so the deals get better for the unhealth care giants and their minions in striped suits and whigtips.

BO may know sports, but politics? Not so much. He has established a firm and repeatable record for setting himself up for the Big Fail. He gives a carrot to the Grand Old Elephants, who throw it a few feet down the road. Trying to be a nice, agreeable guy he bends down to pick up the carrot. Suddenly, the elephant breaks out a huge stick and beats him like a rug. Then, after the beat down, he dutifully hands the carrot back to the elephant who accuses him of being an oafish prick for dropping it, throws it down the road, and starts the cycle again.

For such a smart guy, you’d think he’d learn this is a really mean game of carrot and stick.

Related articles

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Intransigent vs. the Inept


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Bull Pucky

PULLIN' IT OUT OF THEIR ASS - The Republican 'Just Say No' strategy requires little effort or thought. The only thing they need is the ability to form single syllable words and pull crap out of their own asses.

Much has been made about the probability that Republicans will take control of Congress in the fall. The conventional wisdom says yes, but there are a number of Dems who say they can defeat the odds. The truth is, the conventional wisdom is probably right. The open question is whether it will be a Republican blowout or a squeaker.

Clearly, the honeymoon is over, although The Messiah™ does have some residual goodwill in some quarters. Unfortunately, it’s mostly amongst the non-voting public. The G(N)OP would have us believe there’s a massive ideological sea change going on. One in which power is shifting right – waaay right – though polls don’t clearly suggest that. Injecting a little reality suggests that ideological movement is more a case of the tea baggers brewing a nice cup of Crazy Earl Grey and the opposition remaining silent to their lunacy. And, it’s that silence that’ll bite the Dems on their quivering, fraidy-cat asses.

Throwin' in the Towel

SPINELESS ASSES - The Democrats have all the intestinal fortitude of the French army in a firefight.

Seeing Isn’t Necesarily Believing
It’s difficult for the public (and impossible for Republicans) to see– that The Big Guy™ has made some modest progress on his agenda. He managed to push a health care bill through, though it was deeply flawed, and one of the most spineless wins on record. Walking into negotiations already conceding ground isn’t a negotiating tactic that works well. You can say much the same for financial reform. We got something, though not much, and what we did get was preapproved by corporate greedheads so they can continue robbing the country blind.

He’s also lost chances on bushels of low hanging fruit. Gays in the military, offshore oil drilling, and rolling back many of the Bush policies on a range of issues from Afghanistan to Gitmo to portions of the Patriot Act would’ve all been easier than health care, kept his base engaged, and shown independents that he has a backbone.

The one-word strategy of the Republicans is an easy position. Repeating “no” like an idiot savant isn’t hard. It requires no real work or talent beyond the ability to form a single syllable. It’s easy for your base to understand – especially if your base is comprised of fellow savants – and gives you an ironclad response to almost anything. It covers over a lot of bumbling too. Can you say Michael Steele?

Yes is a Hard Sell
Yes is a much harder sell. It’s complicated. It’s sometimes scary. And, it requires voters that understand two or more syllable words. It also requires the ability to legislate without pissing your political pants because the Momma Grizzlies and their fellow-traveling blowhards call you a commie. Or worse yet, a liberal.

Republicans are, if nothing else, consistent to a pathological, almost savage, and bloodthirsty degree. Most of the time you couldn’t pry the fatheads off a position with dynamite and a backhoe. Look at them as the party of the Red Curtain. By comparison, Democrats have all the cohesiveness of a herd of cats. Look at them standing naked in their bathtub, hands over their sex-educated privates, with yellow rivulets running down their wrinkly, ancient legs.

Part of this is the nature of the people that populate the two parties. Conservatives want to drive their Franklin Steamers in reverse all the way back to 1909. Democrats have the car in drive, but can’t bring themselves to get off the brake and hit the gas…and they don’t have a map or destination they can all agree on anyway.

But, it’s not as though Republicans are immune from shitting in their own mess kits. Their sucking up to the tea baggers may end up making them as beholden to The Lipton Tea Men as they are to corporatist Czars like Tony Hayward, the new Potentate of Siberian Crude.

There’s no way to tell what the fall will bring, but if both parties don’t shape up, it’ll be a hell of a ride.

Related articles

Enhanced by Zemanta

Taxation With Representation


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Tea Bagger Douches

DOWN WITH TAXES! UP WITH SPENDING! - No one likes to pay taxes, but we all must. There is no free lunch, there's a tax on it.

There’s an old saying that goes, “nothing is inevitable except death and taxes.” To be more correct, it should probably go, “nothing is inevitable except death, taxes, and bitching endlessly about  them”.

Despite Joe Biden’s notion that paying taxes is “patriotic”, I don’t personally know anyone who wants to pay them – left, right, patriotic, unpatriotic, rich or poor. Of course, I don’t know many people who want to die either so wishing something were true doesn’t change much.

To hear some tell it, taxes used to be high because of phantom welfare queens cruising the streets of the inner city in gold-plated Cadillacs filled to the roof with food stamps and kids. End the waste and fraud was the clarion cry of tax complainers back then.

At the close of the Cold War taxpayers expected a huge peace dividend based on a token military in which waste and fraud were a thing of the past.  How’d the aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan and George Bush work out for you?

Less in, More Out? Wassup With That?
Then came the notion that cutting taxes – i.e. money coming in – was the best way to make more money going out – about as counter-intuitive notion as up is down and down is up.

Today, tax protesters just bitch that government should be a hollow shell from which the only service it provides is a shoe-string national defense apparently funded without taxes. They do this after driving on a federally-funded freeways to attend Town Screed Hall meetings in public schools built at least in part by Federal tax dollars and protected by tax-funded police who will dutifully kick anyone out who dares speak up against the mob.

By their nature, taxes are unfair. Many people jump aboard the tax-the-rich bandwagon provided they aren’t classified rich and the money goes to something they want. Others say tax the poor more, oblivious to the fact that when one has no money you can’t collect much tax.

Besides, isn’t giving the poor more in refunds than they paid in taxes sort of trickle up economics? Doesn’t the theory hold true that if rich people’s money floats all yachts, doesn’t poor people’s money lift all leaky rowboats?

Of all the contentious debates in this country, taxation is perhaps the most disingenuous. Everyone rails that tax cuts solve all unless the proposed cuts are something you like or benefit from. Even if health care had never passed, the Bush tax cuts were repealed, and spending was cut to equal the national budget of Paraguay, we’d still be hard pressed to pay the debt.

Taxation With Representation
US taxes are about average compared to other industrialized nations. The difference is that electorates in those countries have a clearer understanding of what they want government to do and pony up the money to pay for it with less grumbling. In return, they get actual services they want at somewhat reasonable costs. In this country we look at the tax and spend dilemma through glasses provided by whatever advocacy group is best-funded and yells the loudest without much thought to whether we need it or what it costs – Exhibit A, California.

The next time you call a talk radio show, wave your “taxation without representation” sign at the door of your elected representative, or drive on an Interstate highway, remember that taxes are necessary evils levied for the common good. Remember that there isn’t a single paycheck in this country that is untouched by government spending. Without taxes, there is no defense of the nation. There is no TSA to make you remove your shoes because you’re afraid of an amateur videographer in a Pakistani cave. Your kids will have no school. The ambulance won’t take you to a hospital for treatment you can’t get because you lack insurance. You’ll work in a bakery making $12 a loaf bread because you don’t subsidize wheat farmers flooded off their farms by the spring thaw followed by a drought caused by global warming you deny.

Trying to find cheaper and better ways of doing things is great, but be realistic about what that means. Complaining does no one any good. There are no free lunches.

That’s because there’s tax on the meal.

Related articles by Zemanta

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]