Welcome to the White House/ABC socialist media hour

[Dimmauk]

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

Should have gone in the PETA thread. Man that was funny. LOL @ arm wrestling Obama.

[Gwynplaine]

There's a good article at the WSJ recently about how Safeway was able to make affordable health care accessible to their employees.

While reading this a few things came to mind.

It points out that they offer voluntary behavioral analysis which offers incentive for improvement. As is the case whenever someone else is funding another person's medical care, Safeway wants to have a say in what they're willing to condone. The government itself naturally does the same thing (e.g. smoking, soda, obesity, etc.).

The irony here however is that when insurance companies forge policies that favor healthy behavior it's smeared as "discrimination". Under "mandatory guaranteed issue", "guaranteed community rating", and other such laws the insurance industry has been legally forbidden from telling a safe and healthy customer apart from an intentionally unhealthy customer.

Clearly then what is needed (in addition to other steps) is to get rid of the idiotic laws that wind up bending insurance customers into one indivisible whole. The untenable and immoral new regulations being proposed by the Democrats will only make things worse.

[archibaldcrane]

Clearly then what is needed (in addition to other steps) is to get rid of the idiotic laws that wind up bending insurance customers into one indivisible whole. The untenable and immoral new regulations being proposed by the Democrats will only make things worse.

At the same time however, as long as people with things like childhood-onset diabetes or lupus - conditions completely out of their control - have a next to impossible time getting private insurance, the health insurance system is broken.

I agree that it is frustrating for people who take care of themselves physically to be forced to carry the burden of people who by their own actions jeopardize their health and incur substantial health expenses - but people who take care of themselves and still have health issues completely unrelated to their own lifestyle get thrown under the bus just the same. How do you balance these two issues?

[Gwynplaine]

At the same time however, as long as people with things like childhood-onset diabetes or lupus - conditions completely out of their control - have a next to impossible time getting private insurance, the health insurance system is broken.
...
but people who take care of themselves and still have health issues completely unrelated to their own lifestyle get thrown under the bus just the same. How do you balance these two issues?

I mentioned that earlier but I guess I could give more detail. If someone can't pay for their own medical costs for whatever reason they should get it from charity. Like I said before:

note that immorally government forced charity is still just that, charity. Just as private business' are superior to GSE's, so to are private charities more efficient than government charity which are subject to the whims of every pressure group.

Using someone's example, if you required a bone marrow transplant where the only matching donor was unwilling to cooperate you wouldn't strap him down and take it from him by force. Or if you needed $100,000 for a life-saving treatment but couldn't afford it, you would do everything legal and moral to try to live. You might borrow money from friends and family, ask for charitable contributions, sign up for clinical trials, etc. But you wouldn't hack into your neighbor's bank account and steal that money from his kids' college fund. Or steal $100 each from a thousand neighbors. Or ask the government to take it from them by force.

Most people are reasonable. They understand the unusual circumstances of such a situation and would help out if they can. However their unforeseen circumstances don't give them a right to your savings, time, and life (or a billionaire or someone whose savings amounts to a dollar).

And fortunately, as a rule, by definition people dealing with unforeseen circumstances must be a minority. (By which I mean they're not an overwhelming majority of the population that would be impossible to accommodate)

[Zhais]

If we have so much of this charity just spilling out our rears, why are homeless individuals still left out on the street after the shelters are full?

Why do we even still have the homeless if we have this much charity? I'm sure most of them would gratefully accept this massive stockpile of charity-donated cash, items, etc. to help them off their feet. Safe bet that most humans hate living that way.

I personally do not see this massive outflux of charity you keep spouting on about. Even foundations that are created specifically for charity purposes do NOT have the funds to manage all of this. They have a hard enough time just trying to keep these individuals alive, much less insured. Please, oh please, tell me where this magical charity is coming from, and how these individuals can receive it.

[kuronosan]

I mentioned that earlier but I guess I could give more detail. If someone can't pay for their own medical costs for whatever reason they should get it from charity. Like I said before:



Using someone's example, if you required a bone marrow transplant where the only matching donor was unwilling to cooperate you wouldn't strap him down and take it from him by force. Or if you needed $100,000 for a life-saving treatment but couldn't afford it, you would do everything legal and moral to try to live. You might borrow money from friends and family, ask for charitable contributions, sign up for clinical trials, etc. But you wouldn't hack into your neighbor's bank account and steal that money from his kids' college fund. Or steal $100 each from a thousand neighbors. Or ask the government to take it from them by force.

Most people are reasonable. They understand the unusual circumstances of such a situation and would help out if they can. However their unforeseen circumstances don't give them a right to your savings, time, and life (or a billionaire or someone whose savings amounts to a dollar).

And fortunately, as a rule, by definition people dealing with unforeseen circumstances must be a minority. (By which I mean they're not an overwhelming majority of the population that would be impossible to accommodate)

I'm just curious, but are you an idealist? I don't know what magic country you live in but while charities exist that do help people out, the people they help certainly are the minority you say they are.

Do you know why? Because the majority of them are dead and the minority are the ones they could afford to keep alive.

Do you enjoy being narrow-minded or are you really that ignorant?

[Beckwin]

I'm just waiting for gwynplaine to make that assertion that if there were no taxes, people would be donating even more to charity- enough to cover all the needs of the unfortunate. I don't mean to sound like too much of an asshole by saying that because I do think that gwynplaine is trying to be civil and reasonable, but the logical conclusion of his argument is going to lead down this sort of road.

[Beckwin]

also note that the whole "unhealthy behavior" thing can and is currently handled by the government in the form of special taxes on things such as cigarettes, alcohol, and increasingly on a state-by-state level, fast/junk food. This is how costs for the results of those behaviors can be accounted for on an individual, consumption based level rather than having companies dictate the behavior of their workers to qualify for healthcare.

[SamanosukeShiva]

what's wrong with socialism really, it's all happy people system

[Plow]

also note that the whole "unhealthy behavior" thing can and is currently handled by the government in the form of special taxes on things such as cigarettes, alcohol, and increasingly on a state-by-state level, fast/junk food. This is how costs for the results of those behaviors can be accounted for on an individual, consumption based level rather than having companies dictate the behavior of their workers to qualify for healthcare.

Honestly I think that's one of the strongest arguments against it, sadly. It's such a strong personal infringement to begin taxing nutrition.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Honestly I think that's one of the strongest arguments against it, sadly. It's such a strong personal infringement to begin taxing nutrition.

Which of those can be considered nutrition? And how is paying a bit more a strong personal infringement?

[Plow]

It's saying if you want to do things to yourself, you have to pay the government.


Which is bad enough as it's done now, national health care with the way Americans live will pretty much have to bring it to pretty intense levels.


It's way too easy to say "paying a bit more" as if it's some kind of argument, when the current items falling in this line of thinking pay considerably more for the taxes than for the product itself.

[guartz]

One could argue that welfare breeds poverty.

[Beckwin]

Honestly I think that's one of the strongest arguments against it, sadly. It's such a strong personal infringement to begin taxing nutrition.

it's called being accountable for your externalities. some would say that things like cap and trade/carbon taxes are infringements, but those people ignore how choosing to run vehicles/smokestacks/whatever contributes to a larger problem that a whole society has to deal with as a result.

I don't consider owning up to your personal responsibilities as infringement.

externalities are perhaps one of the strongest arguments against libertarian views on an array of issues.

[Khamsin]

I find the title a bit misleading. ABC hasn't turned their programming over to Obama, and the media and the government hasn't become one.

ABC is just doing a special where they've invited Obama to discuss his plans regarding healthcare.

The article title makes it sound like the government has taken over the media now.

[kuronosan]

No, Khamsin, that's just how the GOP, Gingrich, and Limbaugh, have been spinning it.

[guartz]

externalities are perhaps one of the strongest arguments against libertarian views on an array of issues.

I'd say it's the only reasonable argument against libertarian views.

[Dimmauk]

Why is the GOP complaining about Obama's stance on the Iran issue? Do they want the US to go in there and World Police that shit? Then in the next sentence they complain about the Health care issue, saying its too expensive. Now that sounds like a very Conservative thing to do. Lets waste more fucking money on more War, but lets not take care of our own people in our country.

[Beckwin]

I'd say it's the only reasonable argument against libertarian views.

I'd have to say that the unavoidable formation of economic classes inevitably perverting the democratic process is quite a reasonable argument as well. would you deny that money talks in a capitalist society of any sort?

[kuronosan]

I think the GOP is trying to appeal to the war-mongering American-security fundamentalist crowd. I mean, it's the only logical explanation for why the rest of the world is pressuring Iran and not us.

I think it's beautiful, really. Obama is downplaying the entire scenario so that if Iran is invaded by everyone else and not us, we will look like the best friends of everyone in that region. It's a big gamble. If the US steps in and says something about regime change or invasion we could further destabilize the entire region. If the rest of the world says something, though, then we won't look like the Islam-haters our government has made us into over the last 20 years.

Of course, those nut-job GOP are trying to spin it in such a way that the radicals believe Obama is in love with Muslims and really is one. They're just trying to regain control of a country moving in the right direction for a change.