2011-06-22, 04:51 | Link #14341 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
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oooOOOooo! get ready for blockbuster scandal not seen since Iran-Contra... and the gun ctrl lobby could be involved!
Mega-Scandal: Was ‘Gunwalker’ a PR Op for Gun Control? Buckle up: An agent testifies that surveillance stopped at the border, meaning the operation didn't actually trace guns to cartels to make arrests. The only conclusion? Law enforcement wasn't the point, orchestrated violence was, and that's a history-making scandal. Quote:
...and some interesting extra links included in the above link Spoiler for ...:
Last edited by flying ^; 2011-06-22 at 05:22. |
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2011-06-22, 06:29 | Link #14342 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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As for Universal Healthcare, every other developed country has it, and every other developed country spends less over all (over 50% less in most cases), then the US. And you may not like the government, but they're a whole lot better then insurance companies... And the framework is entirely there, it would simply involve extending merging medicare and medicaid, and extending it to the entire population. Then, the government could bargain with drug companies to get drug costs way down. Like Vexx said, the reason this hasn't been done is that there's too much money in it for drug companies. For one thing, the entire, very lucrative, and utterly superfluous health insurance companies would get wiped out. |
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2011-06-22, 08:44 | Link #14343 |
Takao Tsundere Cruiser
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Classified
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Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai pregnant
I expect another future Bollywood star from the Bachchan family.
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2011-06-22, 10:22 | Link #14344 | |
Aria Company
Join Date: Nov 2003
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2011-06-22, 10:36 | Link #14345 | |
Senior Member
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Medicare and Medicaid are already swallowing up more and more of the money in this country every single year. Eventually it has the potential to bankrupt us, so using that as a basis to have Universal Healthcare, isn't doing your argument any good. America isn't Europe. We do things very differently than you do, and our Constitution and laws don't allow for the same things that your laws do. |
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2011-06-22, 10:56 | Link #14347 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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FDA concludes silicone breast implants mostly safe
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-22-11-23-56 Quote:
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2011-06-22, 11:36 | Link #14348 | |
Aria Company
Join Date: Nov 2003
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2011-06-22, 16:52 | Link #14349 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Obama to unveil plan for Afghanistan troop withdrawal
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...75L0QD20110622 Quote:
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2011-06-22, 16:56 | Link #14350 | ||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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You only need to compare the costs the US incurs on average to see the American system is messed up. See this graph, the US spends 16% of GDP on healthcare, of which 40%-50% comes from the US government. Every other country spends at least 6% less then that, and 80-90% comes from the state. So the american government is spending about the same amount of healthcare as every other country, and yet only provides 1/2 the coverage. Now look at the UK, the NHS isn't amazing, but it's decent, and they only spend a bit over 8% on healthcare, and the UK is a very free market economy like the US. I don't know the precise reasons why the US has such high costs, but it's circumstances are very similiar to European countries (in fact European countries have much more serious problems, like with aging populations...). So there is no reason that the United States couldn't have the same low costs that every other developed country has. Nowhere else is universal healthcare considered a contreversial idea. In fact, Americans love there Medicare, so what would be wrong with Medicare + -> medicare, but for all stages of life. Hell, healthcare outlays are far lower prior to retirement anyway. The other problem in the US is that you allow drugs to advertised on TV. That's just messed up. Only Doctors should be the ones making decisions about what medecine you take. |
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2011-06-22, 17:30 | Link #14352 | |
Aria Company
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Though seriously, I don't get the right wing nutters. Apparently the US federal government is too incompetent to successfully run a health care system, or regulate anything, but when it comes to underhanded shit, it's all just according to plan.
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2011-06-22, 17:52 | Link #14353 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: East Cupcake
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What's particularly funny about this is the fact that if the Democratic Congress had simply gone with a Universal Healthcare option (which they had the power to pass), there would have been no real grounds for Judicial review (obviously, someone would have still attempted such an action, but even a Conservative Court would have had to support Universal Healthcare under the Welfare Clause). Instead we get an assbackwards approach that only does half the work it should and ends up costing more than a European style Universal Healthcare… That being said, the argument that “We do things very differently…” isn’t very compelling. If something is better, why shouldn’t it be implemented simply because it is “foreign” or different? Patriotism is nice, but in the end doing a good job matters a little more… |
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2011-06-22, 18:22 | Link #14354 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Another part of the resistance to Universal Healthcare is the average income of an American. Using percentages to show how much it costs a Europeans verses and American id not helpful without knowledge of how much money that is. European gas prices are also much higher than American gas prices, but what percentage of eaches income is spent of gasoline each year? From what I remember, The average income is higher in Europe, and thus a higher tax on something doesn't get as noticed. Use the same tax on an American that has a lower average income, and the American will be effectively broke after things mount up.
The other piece of resistance is that Americans do not like being forced into anything. The whole freedom to do as I please thing is strong in places...as is the anti-monopoly mindset from back in the early 1900s. The belief that competition is good and keeps the prices down, is an old economic idea that continues to be passed around the nation. It doesn't work if the companies are all working together anyway to keep the prices up...or if the prices of services are kept high to to fear of lawsuits. Which basically means we need to wipe out the lawyer as a high paying profession. It would get rid of a lot of problems in government and cut the bottom out of the sue you happy culture...as they would be no money in it anymore.
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2011-06-22, 18:22 | Link #14355 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
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these innovative ideas (especially page 2) will make justin's head explode (poof!) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...3053223432.htm |
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2011-06-22, 18:48 | Link #14356 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
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The Bush administration shares only limited responsebility for the financial crisis. They can be blamed for waging two wars on credit and lowering taxes which increased the national debt, but that did not cause the melt down of the financial sector and the resulting recession. The legislation that laid the foundation for the current crisis in the financial sector can be traced as far back as the Reagan adminstration. That is when the whole mess started with the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 and the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. The last major deregulations were completed during the Clinton years with the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. These were all instrumental for allowing financial instutions to merge to become "Too big to Fail" which in turn induced excessive risk taking by their managements at the taxpayers expense. For a while the financial deregulation did seem like a good idea as greater efficiency in the financial system *does* allow the economy to grow faster. Few if any experts at the time realised or appreciated the trade off between faster growth and increased systemic risk. In the end it was a bipartisan effort (backed by some very effective lobbying from the financial sector). Greenspan recently suggested a very old (and effective) medicine, standard oil style breakup of large financial conglomerates. |
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2011-06-22, 18:59 | Link #14358 | ||
blinded by blood
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*facepalm* This is why we can't have nice things. Edit: Quote:
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2011-06-22, 19:31 | Link #14359 | ||||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Also, all goods are cheaper in the US, particularly due to a lack of high sales tax or VAT (in Ireland, for instance, it's ~25%), I'd say provided they got higher social welfare, Americans could easily take higher taxes. And anyway, the point is moot, as Properly implemented Universal Healthcare would not require an increase in taxes (European governments spend about the same raw amount on healthcare as the US), and would save all households substantial amounts of money, as they would no longer need to shell out so much on health insurance or drugs (drug prices in America are also overpriced). Quote:
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The other thing the republican administrations failed to do was tackle the time bomb that is Social Security and Medicare liabilities as the Baby Boomer Generation now begins to retire. They all knew it was going to happen, and they did nothing to try and fix it (in fact Bush II increased Medicare liabilities...). At least Clinton tried to enact Healthcare reform... Quote:
Last edited by james0246; 2011-06-22 at 19:47. Reason: double post |
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2011-06-22, 19:45 | Link #14360 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
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what he did was only pay down the public debt... he paid down the public debt by borrowing more money in the form of intergovernmental holdings ... again, president Clinton did not pay down the U.S. deficit! |
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