Welcome to the White House/ABC socialist media hour

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Do me a favor, look at the post where you cited your "source" of rightwingwatch.org. Now look what word you used in that post. Now, if you still have enough brain cells in storage to function after all that rigorous thinking check out all those political parties your source linked them to on that webpage. LEARN WHAT PARTISAN MEANS WTF YOU FUCKING RETARD OMG.

In the game of semantics, everyone wins!

Exactry. You can pissed at yourself over the embarrassment of calling me out on a statistic I never used, might just want to tone down on posting your self hate on a public forum.

Let me break it down for you:

Use hard statistics not biased statistics to make a point next time. Thanks.

Did you just source a website called "right wing watch" and advocate being unbiased at the same time?

hard statistics not biased statistics to make a point

Did you just source a website called "right wing watch" and advocate being unbiased at the same time?

statistics not biased statistics

Did you just source a website called "right wing watch" and advocate being unbiased at the same time?

biased statistics

There was no advocation of being unbiased, there was dismissal of a rebuttal due to the use of flawed statistics from a biased source. Stop using words you hear big people say. Help me help you.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

People make as much money as they are paid. What the fuck does a carbon footprint have to do with national health care? Greedy companies set the prices and people are forced to pay them because there is no competition driving that price down. That is the fact of reality. Carbon fucking footprints have nothing to do with it, so quit the tree-hugging talk.



Okay, let me rephrase. VERY VERY LOOSE REGULATIONS on medical products. Yes, it does take millions of dollars of research for these drugs. Do I have to remind you of drugs like Herbalife or Oxycut? Or even methamphetamines as an anti-psychosis drug? These drugs may be tested but extensive testing requires years of research. So no, you fucking tool, just because a company gives people a chance to live does not give them the right to charge an arm and a leg to receive that chance and it is not something that people should just "put up with" out of gratitude.

And how the hell is that morally speaking? Morally speaking, the company should charge a reasonable price so that it's accessible to more than just the wealthy. The FDA doesn't really regulate all too well and if you've glanced over their guidelines there are very few things that cause an immediate denial of distribution.

Morally speaking. Jesus christ. Have you ever sat there and watched somebody die because they couldn't afford medicine? Should they be fucking grateful that the company at least discovered it existed? Get the fuck out of here.

Not to mention the fact that they lobby the FDA and government to rush product out the door with minimal testing, make millions only to have the product pulled and have no repercussions.

AWESOME SYSTEM, THANKS BIG PHARMA.

This is not alarming.

[Leif]

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a liberal that people just said "Wow, that guy is really intelligent!" about.

We see it every day. People like Antonin Scalia, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney are strong-willed, powerful, and intelligent people. They completely wipe out the likes of O'Connor, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Joe Biden, and Al Gore who look like a special ed class compared to their counterparts. I am honestly having trouble thinking of a liberal who I truly admire for his or her insight into situations. It's always just "More money for health care! More money for day care! Let's kill babies!.... Justification? Constitution? Wait, the right to gay marriage isn't in the constitution? Wait, giving war prisoners lawyers isn't in the constitution? Well, let's just make it up!"

Let's give a little more weight to these conservative think tanks. At least we know they are actually thinking.

Not to mention the fact that they lobby the FDA and government to rush product out the door with minimal testing, make millions only to have the product pulled and have no repercussions.

AWESOME SYSTEM, THANKS BIG PHARMA.

Come on... You're going to try to set standards for private insurance companies that save more lives than they take... Their repercussions are they don't get to sell any more of the drug, which means they don't get to save as many lives with the next drug.

[Beckwin]

Scalia referenced 24 when talking about justifications for torture; he is not an intellectual heavyweight. Rove and Cheney at best are very competent schemers, but there's nothing particularly intelligent in principle about invading Iraq or getting a dumbshit like GWB elected twice. Managing to pull it off is what's perversely impressive, or from another point of view, very unimpressive form from the American people and media.

[Olo401]

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a liberal that people just said "Wow, that guy is really intelligent!" about.

Obvious ignorance (or flat-out lie) is obvious.

[thatwasnifty]

Okay, let me rephrase. VERY VERY LOOSE REGULATIONS on medical products. Yes, it does take millions of dollars of research for these drugs. Do I have to remind you of drugs like Herbalife or Oxycut? Or even methamphetamines as an anti-psychosis drug? These drugs may be tested but extensive testing requires years of research. So no, you fucking tool, just because a company gives people a chance to live does not give them the right to charge an arm and a leg to receive that chance and it is not something that people should just "put up with" out of gratitude.

Point of order here. The FDA has very loose regulations only for homeopathic/herbal/"alternative" remedies. Real medicine, though, has much stricter supervision that not only take years to approve, but can be subject to politics as well. (The HPV vaccines, for example.) And even for drugs like Vioxx that are later demonstrated to be more dangerous than beneficial, such a discovery wouldn't be made and action not taken without the regulations in place.

[Gwynplaine]

I do have to say.... I much rather believe measurements directly from the Census Bureau as opposed to a blog post (that does not cite sources) refuting the census statistics. Blog posts are generally just that, blogs. A place to rant and grumble about stuff. Very few are factual/statistical unless they are quite obviously research oriented.

Find some actual findings, statistics, sources, etc. that actually prove the breakdown instead of saying it's false please.

The information cited from that website is directly from the Census Bureau. Read it yourself. P.18 discusses the amount of uninsured all year versus temporarily uninsured. And p.21 discusses income and citizenship data.

Blogs are not an inherently poor source of information just as "bias" is not an inherently damning scarlet letter. The truth or falsity is what's important to consider no matter the person who is saying it or their motivations.

All of this is trivial minutia however as there's simply no justifying what Obama is proposing to do as I've already explained.

[Dimmauk]

Even when we had a Surplus the GOP didnt want Healthcare. I'm not surprised that after they fucked the economy and the deficit, they are now worried about spending money on Health care. Then they will use it against Obama for failing to live up to his promises.

I kinda agree that right now isnt the time for it, but maybe in 3 years from now. I think we should continue fixing the previous administrations fuck ups first, then get to the good stuff.

[Maxxthepenguin]

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a liberal that people just said "Wow, that guy is really intelligent!" about.

We see it every day. People like Antonin Scalia, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney are strong-willed, powerful, and intelligent people. They completely wipe out the likes of O'Connor, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Joe Biden, and Al Gore who look like a special ed class compared to their counterparts. I am honestly having trouble thinking of a liberal who I truly admire for his or her insight into situations. It's always just "More money for health care! More money for day care! Let's kill babies!.... Justification? Constitution? Wait, the right to gay marriage isn't in the constitution? Wait, giving war prisoners lawyers isn't in the constitution? Well, let's just make it up!"

Let's give a little more weight to these conservative think tanks. At least we know they are actually thinking.

We have reached trolling Code Red. I repeat, we have reached trolling Code Red.

[Day]

We have reached trolling Code Red. I repeat, we have reached trolling Code Red.

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Vandalhart]

Why was I under the impression that the Pharmiceutical Companies weren't responsible for the actual research behind the cures for things, but only the marketing and mass production of these products after they have been FDA approved?

[Penthesilea]

Why was I under the impression that the Pharmiceutical Companies weren't responsible for the actual research behind the cures for things, but only the marketing and mass production of these products after they have been FDA approved?

I have no idea why you would think that. But I can tell you it's completely untrue.

[Zhais]

The information cited from that website is directly from the Census Bureau. Read it yourself. P.18 discusses the amount of uninsured all year versus temporarily uninsured. And p.21 discusses income and citizenship data.

Blogs are not an inherently poor source of information just as "bias" is not an inherently damning scarlet letter. The truth or falsity is what's important to consider no matter the person who is saying it or their motivations.

All of this is trivial minutia however as there's simply no justifying what Obama is proposing to do as I've already explained.

and that people have refuted, with more or less no counter-refutation on the, well, more important arguments.

First, since medical insurance is damn near necessary in today's world unless you have enough assets to cover complete costs, why the hell should any middle class or below family/person be without insurance if hospitals won't even accept them without it? Yes, the figures do indeed point to the fact that portions of the 40 million are not always for the entire year. Thank you for the census bureau's actual article on it (was that so hard?). However, medical emergencies can happen at any time. They don't just happen when you are insured. Even being uninsured for a month puts the individual or family at a great risk to financial trauma if an accident were to occur. Solution to this, would be an insurance/health plan that covers individuals year-long guaranteed. Regardless of implementation, I'd hope you agree with this.

Second, How Many People Lack Insurance and for How Long? (Congressional Budget
Office, May 2003) as referenced multiple times throughout the census bureau link.

Excerpt from the link:

[spoiler][quote=Page Two]The Number of People Who Are Uninsured All Year
CBO estimated the number of people who are uninsured
all year using data from SIPP and MEPS, two surveys in
which respondents are interviewed multiple times over
the life of the survey. (Such longitudinal surveys allow
researchers to repeatedly observe a set of subjects over
time.) SIPP interviews people every four months about
their insurance coverage during the preceding four
months (called a “wave”), while MEPS interviews people
every four to five months, on average. By asking people
to remember their insurance status over a shorter period
of time than the CPS requires, SIPP and MEPS should
yield more accurate estimates of the number of people
who are uninsured all year.

According to the most recent SIPP data, 9.1 percent of
the nonelderly population (or 21.1 million people) were
continuously uninsured throughout 1998 (see Table 1).
According to MEPS, the corresponding figures were 13.3
percent (or 31.1 million people). The discrepancy be

[Plow]

the original link all this fighting about is intentionally misleading anyway

it attempts to portray it as if it's including anyone that's uninsured at any point in the entire year, when the reality is that there's theoretically that many people uninsured at any given moment in the year

[Kuya]

It's a shame the media seems to be avoiding single payer healthcare.

Cohen is right that there were many people in favor of single-payer 15 years ago; as Extra! pointed out back then (7–8/93), polls consistently found majorities supporting tax-financed national health insurance. And the numbers today? A January New York Times/ CBS poll (1/11–15/09) found 59 percent in favor of government-provided national health insurance. In other words, contrary to Cohen’s claim, people are on pretty much the same page today as they were 15 years ago.

Her suggestion that it was those loud single-payer voices that stymied “reform” is likewise unfounded; as Extra! reported in 1993, corporate media were then solidly behind the Clinton administration’s big insurer-friendly “managed competition” plan—single-payer was hardly discussed in the press. (“The debate over healthcare reform is over. Managed competition has won,” the New York Times had already editorialized on October 10, 1992. “The outcome is as wondrous as it is surprising.”)

And just as big media silenced single-payer back then, Cohen and her colleagues continue the tradition today. In the week leading up to Obama’s March 5 healthcare summit, hundreds of stories in major newspapers and on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBS’s NewsHour mentioned healthcare reform, according to a recent FAIR study (3/6/09). But the idea of single-payer was mentioned only 18 times—and only five of those included the views of single-payer advocates.

And the guy in charge of health care reform, that Baucus guy? Well, he's the leading recipient of campaign money from the health insurence industry. Talk about a conflict of interests, right?

HELENA — As Sen. Max Baucus has taken the lead on health-reform legislation in the U.S. Senate, he's also become a leader in something else: Campaign money received from health- and insurance-industry interests.

In the past six years, nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by Baucus, D-Mont., and his political-action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical-supply firms, health-service companies and other health professionals.

These donations total about $3.4 million, or $1,500 a day, every day, from January 2003 through 2008.

Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee that is drafting a major health-care reform bill this month, insists this cavalcade of money is not unduly influencing his work

The fascinating thing about American pragmatism now a days is that, according to utalitarianism, Americans should be doing what benefits the most people... yet here we are, some people defending the status quo which benefits a very small amount of people.

[oldoldman]

Let me break it down for you:

There was no advocation of being unbiased, there was dismissal of a rebuttal due to the use of flawed statistics from a biased source. Stop using words you hear big people say. Help me help you.

Ok Let me break my last post down for you, you said I was stupid for using the term partisan when you didn't claim political affiliation even though a few posts prior to that you did the same thing. Read that post again, you called "State Policy Network" partisan even though they are not aligned with a party. They happen to "read books and pay attention to the news from multiple sources ( nearly none domestic ) and have ideologies that align with the right, not a political party".

There was no advocation of being unbiased, there was dismissal of a rebuttal due to the use of flawed statistics from a biased source. Stop using words you hear big people say. Help me help you.

What you did was state that someone else's statistics were biased and therefore false without providing anything concrete as to why the statistics were false. You did show that their source was biased but everyone is fucking biased.

Also:

Partisan
1: a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person ; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance

You're right, national health care totally isn't a cause, my bad.

[Kuya]

The proposal in the Senate currently does not have a public plan option, this could change, but it's looking like there might not be a public option:

A Senate source just passed me the latest outline of the Senate Finance Committee's health reform proposal. This is the post-CBO revision. Apparently, after the committee staff received the scores, they dug deep and quickly developed this proposal to circulate among members and then send back to CBO. It was presented earlier today at a closed-door meeting.

Sources say that it's a major scale-back of the outline they had before. Specifically, subsidies have dropped from 400 percent of the poverty line to 300 percent. Medicaid eligibility has been tightened to 133 percent of poverty for children and pregnant women and 100 percent of poverty for parents and childless adults. The plans being offered in the exchange have seen their actuarial values sharply lowered.

Beyond the changes, this is also the clearest look we've had at the specific policies being considered. There's a fairly strong individual mandate, albeit with exemptions for those beneath the poverty line, those who would have to spend more than 15 percent of income for a plan, and undocumented workers. There are a variety of options for an employer mandate, or the absence of one. Sen. Kent Conrad's co-op idea is up for discussion. There's no public plan mentioned anywhere in the document.

[Dimmauk]

It's a shame the media seems to be avoiding single payer healthcare.



And the guy in charge of health care reform, that Baucus guy? Well, he's the leading recipient of campaign money from the health insurence industry. Talk about a conflict of interests, right?



The fascinating thing about American pragmatism now a days is that, according to utalitarianism, Americans should be doing what benefits the most people... yet here we are, some people defending the status quo which benefits a very small amount of people.

I'm sure Howard Dean has said about a hundred times recently, that they arent trying to do Single Payer.

[Kuya]

Single payer and a public option aren't the same thing.

edit: and don't worry, i already knew that most democrats were bending over backwards to the health insurence industries. Single payer healthcare was dead before it was even considered, because in the US government what makes policy is what most benefits the person who pays for your campaigns, rather than what benefits the country instead.

[Olo401]

All apologies, but I wasn't sure if this should go in the Letterman thread or the Obama-PETA thread, so I'm gonna just drop it here in the "socialist media" thread.

Jeff Goldblum on the Colbert Report - June 18, 2009