"Turn in your neighbors" - The newest right-wing blog scareFollow

Yes, it is.



So... the government has taken full control of all of these? Really? You're saying that, one-hundred percent truthfully? And their eventual goal is to control "every private industry"? Yeah, it doesn't get much more false than that.



Sooo, unless he changed the rhetoric in the past 7 days, you are again giving false information.


Psssst. End-of-life consultation is preparing for death and drafting a living will. It has nothing to do with hip replacemenets. You mixed up your terms.


This is true. Back during 2008 the Obama campaign estimated it would be $500b-650b. CBO expects it to top $1t. I believe, however, that you are misstating the issue. The CBO focused solely on the cost; the Obama campaign focused as well on savings. I'd look up better sources, but perhaps someone else could as I'm getting busy at work again :-P



No, but it is comparing apples and oranges. More Americans prefer a vast change than are happy with the current system or want a small change. It is not a majority of Americans; I've been seeing figures between 35-49% prefer vast changes. Less than 20% have been happy with the current system in every poll I checked. Which means it is just as accurate to say that "The vast majority of Americans prefer changes to the current healthcare system." It depends entirely on how you present your statistics.



So, most of the things you said were false. Those that were not were portrayed in a way to make your point in a certain light. There's nothing wrong with the second, and something VERY wrong with the first. Collecting rumors and misinformation and tackling them all at once is great on both ends. It corrects the wrong information you've portrayed, and gives a valid opposing view to what is not blatantly false. I agree with the concern that "this is the government saying this!" but... I think it's pretty obvious where the administration already stands on the issue. They're not going to lie either, but they'll portray their views like Varrus does: in a certain light to make things more favorable. It's our job to read between the lines if we want to make an educated decision.

Locked,



Only when Obama speaks to the masses does he back off this statement.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Video-proof-Obama-wants-a-single-payer-system-52699182.html




The Obama administration has taken significant steps to nationalize the auto industry, them mortgage industry, and the banking industry. Now he's doing it with healthcare. So yes saying Obama wants the govn to take over private industry is about as accurate as it gets.

Yeah... he was a proponent... back in 2003. His current healthcare reform system does NOT have that as a part of it. In fact, he has said (in effect) he thinks it would be too much of a shock to the system to put in place right now. Saying that the current health care reform system is pushing a single-payer system is false; saying Obama personally would like to see one some day is irrelevant. And yes, before you argue, it IS irrelevant if he thinks there's no chance of it happening while he's in the government. Whatever he does after, maybe supporting an NGO pushing for it, is speculation and... go figure, irrelevant!





There is no true indication that Obama desires to control every industry and commercial enterprise in America. Heck, there's no indication he wants to control the financial sector (besides shoring up flimsy rules), the auto sector (besides pushing for better economy cars), or the health care sector (besides making it available to almost every American). What he has done is try to get results; not by controlling them, but by giving them an ultimatum. "Your practices have driven your companies into the ground (or in the case of health reform, are on the cusp of it, please see this link). You will go bankrupt without help. We'll loan you money, but you need to shape up. Here are our demands, take it or leave it."

I personally did not agree with bailing out mortgage and financial institutions, but I saw the need for it to prevent a severe depression. The companies were failing because the system was unsustainable and they made bad choices. By all rights they should have failed. Instead they got a second chance, and the Obama administration was able to make the changes to (hopefully) prevent such a disaster from happening again. The price was a TON of our money, but the pay-off was a much shorter and less severe depression than we could have had. But all that is a side note, and not related directly to the topic at hand. The point being the government has a stake in these companies, but does not have full control over them (and they are not trying to control every company in the country, though you stated as much a couple posts back).

It sure sounds like Reagan was arguing against what we now know as Medicare in that 1961 speech. Too bad he didn't make that part of his platform in 1980! I can see it now "Reagan calls for repeal of Medicare, calling it compulsory socialism. Jimmy Carter re-elected in landslide."

If all the Republicans and Blue Dogs who don't like the idea of a single-payer system or even a government alternative to corporate health care would simultaneously call for the elimination of those socialist programs Medicare and Social(ism) Security I'd feel a lot less like they were a big bunch of slimy hypocrites.

Depends, I think. Obama's original health care plan was to open the federal insurance pool to everyone so everyone had the same competitive rates that federal government employees got. I'm personally in favor of a public option -- hell, I'm in favor of a single payer option -- but I never thought that Clinton's plan of a single payer system had a chance and Obama's was much more realistic. If the public option goes off the table and is replaced by a system closer to what Obama campaigned on, I'd be okay with it.

Of course, that might not happen either which would be too bad.

Dunno, what is it like to listen to conservative tripe and believe it?



Oh, I'd love a single-payer system. This isn't it. You could have said the same thing when Clinton proposed healthcare reform 15 years ago; "a single-payer system is at stake if this fails!" Well, it did fail, and go figure, the idea never went away. It's no more at stake now than it was in 1994... you going off about it is, as you put it, an irrelevant sidetrack. You can't debate the proposals on the table, so you launch into fears about what "might" happen decades in the future. It's cool, we get it, you don't have a leg to stand on so you wave your arms in the air and go "OMG! 'Ware the future!"

Why do you think that?

In all the countries that I've worked in that have a free public health system, there has also been plenty of options for an individual to pay for private healthcare.

In fact most of the doctors I work with in NZ divide their time between the public and the private sectors, with a few notables doing volunteer (hospice or as my wife does, rape crisis counceling etc).

While free public health service for all does indeed have its shortcomings, and I am one of the first to point them out, the unrealistic idea that private health insurance is the best and only option for all, fails to take into account the rest of the people who make up the society that we choose to live in and enjoy the benefits of, and on an econimic level fails to acknowledge that 'private health providers' are there primarily, not to make you well, but to provide profit for the shareholders.

Treating health care as a commodity that some can afford and others cannot based on profit motive and the ability to pay, rather than 'need' is the most inhumane form of rationing, and in a country such as the USA, with the resources you guys have availiable to you, just smacks of a selfish and even uncivilised attitude.

I think she's too busy trying to get back on American Idol.... >.>

Post office and Fedex? Libraries and Barnes & Nobles? Public schools and private schools? These are neither obscure occurrences I had to google to present as examples nor are they small and insignificant incidences. Seems your idea that a public option would push private companies out of the market is poppycock.

Furthermore, do you believe we would benefit if these public options were removed? Would we be better off will only private postal carriers? Would we be better off without public libraries and instead only bookstores? Would we be better off without public schools and instead entirely private education?

Conservatives are at least honest about what they believe in and what they do. We don't have to constantly insist that we're not really trying to do X, all the while arguing about how great X would be if only we had it... Oh. But that's not what we're doing. Really!




Yes. But it kinda rings false when you want a single payer system, yet instead of defending single payer when people oppose it you bend over backwards to insist that what you're doing right now isn't single payer. It reminds me of a child who wants to sneak cookies out of the jar, convincing his mom to move the cookies from the top shelf to the bottom, but not so it's easier to sneak cookies, but for some other seemingly reasonable reason. Um... Yeah. We see right through that...



Huh? We did say the same thing. But you've got it backwards. When Clinton proposed nationalized health care, everyone opposed it because it was "nationalized health care". It wouldn't just lead to single payer, it *was* single payer. Not if it failed, but if it succeeded.

We prevented it from succeeding. Maybe you need to learn some history here.




Yes. It's just as bad an idea today as it was in 1994. You seem to be arguing that since we opposed it and defeated it back then, for some reason we should just give up and not oppose it this time around? Um... What kind of moronic argument is that?



The proposal on the table is the result of that earlier failing. The Dems realized that they couldn't sell a single payer system to the public directly. So they've come up with a way to get us there without telling anyone that's what they're doing. Why is this even remotely confusing to you? You know it's true. You presumably support the "public option" exactly because you want a single payer system and know that it will help us get there. Right? So let's stop pretending that anyone doesn't know this, or that it's wrong to judge the current ideas on that grounds.


It's not a slippery slope to observe that the current proposal will lead to single payer, when a large number of those supporting said proposal have said they want it because it'll lead to single payer. It's a step in the "wrong" direction and that is certainly sufficient reason to oppose it.

While I would massivly dispute your '1 or 2 %' figures, the reason most people dont use it, is because they DON'T NEED TO. Why? Because the health care they get from the public system, you know, the one we all pay for and all benefit from, is in most cases superior to the private one. The one difference being is that by paying to go private, you get to feel that you have a bit more say about when you get treated. Oh, and of course the food is better than in public. Oh yeah, one other thing. The staff in private hospitals tend to fawn over the clients more than in public. Thats pretty much it actually.


(I wont go into my experiences whilst working in 'private', the corner cutting, and sub-standard procedures that are used to keep costs down, but believe me they are standard everywhere I've worked, wich is why i dont do it anymore).

In fact the public systems, certainly in Australia, UK, and New Zealand are the place to go if you have some major, or minor, health issue. You may start off in a private hospital, if you have the insurance for it, but when the shit hits the fan, you will be be pretty rapidly carted off to the nearest public centre of excellence.

Other than what you've read, from wherever the hell you're getting your 'facts' do you actually know anything at all about how public health sevices work?

Dont bother to answer that, I already know the answer.