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Posted: 10/16/2009 3:41:08 PM | Hey PH,
Does the republican plan call for the elimination of those state-by-state barriers or the repeal of the antitrust exemption? | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 3:51:53 PM | I still don't know what the United States is doing in the health care business, in the first place. Why shouldn't each state regulate providers as it sees fit, provided it doesn't favor in-state companies so much as to violate the Commerce Clause? Congress could also authorize interstate pacts. One major problem with health insurance that state laws force insurance providers doing business there to cover all sorts of ridiculous treatments.
Whenever I hear a political clamor about something "government" is doing wrong, I suspect the fault's with the people themselves. They get the government they want. A lot of them want to force other people to pay for their free ride, and then when this causes the predictable foul-ups, scream that the government isn't controlling things properly. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 4:02:28 PM | Does the republican plan call for the elimination of those state-by-state barriers or the repeal of the antitrust exemption?
Yes it does.
One major problem with health insurance that state laws force insurance providers doing business there to cover all sorts of ridiculous treatments.
The interstate commerce clause was put in the constitution to PROMOTE trade between states. They often use this clause to over regulate areas the Congress are NOT suppose to be involved with.
THIS IS A CASE WHERE THEY SHOULD GET INVOLVED!
HR 3400 will allow people to buy insurance from other States. I agree that part of high insurance costs are that the States mandate what the policies must cover. If people don't want certain coverage IE drug rehab then they should be able to opt out of it.
Frankly I blame Republicans too for not addressing these issues decades ago. We all paid the price for their inaction. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 6:42:29 PM | Of course the people who are getting these questionable treatments on other people's dime don't *want* anyone else to be able to opt out. That might mean they'd have to pay for the services they're getting.
It shows the moral hazard of making government into a money redistribution center. It makes people more crass. Once some people start pushing and shoving to get their spot at the trough, even the ones who weren't trying to get anything for free in the beginning start to rethink things.
If other people are getting a free ride at your expense, you can at least offset your loss somewhat by putting your own hand out for freebies. Who wants to get played for a chump? It's as insidious as it is poisonous. Giving each person a financial incentive to get theirs, with no concern for anyone else, is a great way to erode the trust and common ground that hold a society together.
If we actually had to steal bills from each others' wallets, not too many of us would. But we've set up a system that accomplishes the same thing, only in a sanitized, acceptable way. Most of us are good enough at finding excuses that we're able to steal from each other this way, and yet convince ourselves that because all those other faceless strangers are doing it, too, we've done nothing wrong. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 10:31:52 PM | Pirate
I read through the Wikipedia article on the 1945 legislation. I'm not exactly clear what difference it was supposed to make.
At the moment, given the state of our government, I do not want more regulation, only less. | |
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Posted: 10/17/2009 11:07:54 AM |
Frankly I blame Republicans too for not addressing these issues decades ago. We all paid the price for their inaction.
I saw a piece on CSPAN a few weeks back where 4 Republicans were in a press conference and they said that they have been putting heathcare reform bills up for consideration since 1995 but the Dems have always shut them down. Polictics as usual.
I'm not sure we can get enough dems and reps out of Washington in 2010 and 2012 to truly make a difference.
I'm afraid that the third party candidates that are cropping up won't have enough support from diehard republicans to get them elected. | |
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Posted: 10/17/2009 2:46:08 PM |
If other people are getting a free ride at your expense, you can at least offset your loss somewhat by putting your own hand out for freebies. Who wants to get played for a chump? It's as insidious as it is poisonous. Giving each person a financial incentive to get theirs, with no concern for anyone else, is a great way to erode the trust and common ground that hold a society together.
A good point and well said. The process also works in the opposite direction. If people expect that their fair share is liable to be withheld regardless of how well they do or how much they strive, they will opt out and may get violent. That's the culture of the ghetto and the reason many blacks and hispanics devalue education. Why bother?
The government need not protect ill-gotten gains. | |
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Posted: 10/17/2009 7:24:30 PM |
A good point and well said.
Thanks. We thought we were planting seeds for herbs to keep pests out of our garden--but what's sprouted instead are poisonous weeds that threaten to take it over.
,The government need not protect ill-gotten gains.
It not only need not protect ill-gotten gains, it *should* never. But that's just what government does now, by letting people vote other people's property to themselves. That was the magic of the 16th Amendment: It made theft legal. And the thieves among us seem to like that more than ever.
If people expect that their fair share is liable to be withheld regardless of how well they do or how much they strive, they will opt out and may get violent
Just who are these people? I don't know who or what this is supposed to be withholding anyone's "fair share" from them because of race or ethnicity, no matter how well they do. No one has a fairer break on college grades, and on admission to graduate schools, than racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. The table is rigged to favor them--at the expense of everyone else. If anyone has a legitimate complaint, it's the people in the "out" groups who get rejected even though they're more qualified. We're already discriminating against those people purely because of their race. What more should we do? | |
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Posted: 10/17/2009 9:40:44 PM |
It not only need not protect ill-gotten gains, it *should* never. But that's just what government does now, by letting people vote other people's property to themselves. That was the magic of the 16th Amendment: It made theft legal. And the thieves among us seem to like that more than ever.
The corporatist line says that all the money accumulated through the operation of capital enterprises belongs to the investors and should be distributed on their behalf by the management. To a large extent that's true, but not entirely.
When top-level management compensation is decided by collusive compensation committees, the agency problem inverts the relationship between managers and investors. Managers perceive the money as _theirs_ first, and they use their ability to manipulate wages to compensate owners at the expense of other employees regardless of the long-term health or equity interest workers have invested in the company by virtue of their time.
The fact that their sweat equity is not traditionally compensated through stock does not mean it doesn't exist. In "old school" corporatism, "company loyalty" meant that reasonably good performers could count on a job, and on a retirement, for life. In Japan, where they practice Deming's quality management principles, that loyalty and recognition of responsibility, leads to a more competitive corporate enterprise.
I don't know who or what this is supposed to be withholding anyone's "fair share" from them because of race or ethnicity, no matter how well they do. No one has a fairer break on college grades, and on admission to graduate schools, than racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. The table is rigged to favor them--at the expense of everyone else. If anyone has a legitimate complaint, it's the people in the "out" groups who get rejected even though they're more qualified. We're already discriminating against those people purely because of their race. What more should we do?
I agree that trying to compensate for tragically under-funded schools in "bad" neighborhoods by offering handicaps later on is the wrong way to deal with the situation. Perhaps you have some idea about how to get decent funding for good schools in those neighborhoods that would actually equalize things. | |
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Posted: 10/18/2009 2:48:30 PM | | We can barely keep the monster we have in check, imagine the monster we will get when you can't sue the government. | |
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Posted: 10/18/2009 5:19:21 PM | Ace you must have pajamas with Karl marx's pics on them. Regarding school's, perhaps you could quit telling their pets the money belongs to the government and the "corporatists" have unfairly gotten ahold of it. Teach them to do what i did when young, model myself after sucessful people not a bunch of whine, self loathing lefty, believe any psuedo-scientific shakedown scam corrupt Dem's dream up and not only will they be fine but the society might survive.
Don't believe it? Compare texas to California? similar problems, different results. | |
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Posted: 10/18/2009 5:26:44 PM | Describing what we're up against is different than justifying laziness. I consider corporatist bums deadbeats, not successes. There is a difference between someone who can build a successful organization and someone who can milk one dry.
Sun, google, and other Silicon Valley businesses add value. Nothing wrong with that. There's a reason they're here in CA and not in Texas--though I'm sure you'd find yourself quite at home there. | |
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Posted: 10/18/2009 9:26:25 PM |
When top-level management compensation is decided by collusive compensation committees
Just as there's always some violent crime regardless of the laws against it, there's always some corporate crime. But why should this be any greater a problem now than it ever was?
I don't think the amount of money crooked corporate managers or directors get away with is much more than a drop in the ocean, anyway, compared to the amount utterly wasted by the enormous, inefficient central government we've allowed to develop. Instead of letting our stock of capital grow, we are consuming it in vast social entitlement programs, and in interest on the debt we take on to pay for them.
And then the very fools who threw the sand into the gears stand back and shriek about how poorly the machine seems to be running. If this country had far fewer people lusting after everyone else's property--and far fewer politicians pimping for their votes by assuring them they have to right to steal it--it would be doing just fine. And no one would be asking what the government should do to get us out of this terrible economic mess.
Now, we finally have enough parasites to elect a president who promises them even more. It's the rule of the mob. And most of them don't much care if they ruin this country, as long as they've got their spot at the slop trough. Neither does Mr. Obama--he deeply resents the United States and believes it doesn't deserve to be anything more than mediocre. He seems to think he's been asked to preside over our self-destruction. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 12:03:16 AM | Yep. We've got takers and deadbeats at both ends of the income spectrum for sure, and pols who will whore after them. But focusing only on the one will not protect us from the other, that's for sure.
Ya'll have your eyes good and fixed on those at one end. Don't be so dismissive about what those of us who are focused on the other end are telling you. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 12:23:44 AM | | I don't dismiss the problem you raise, at all. No one supports corporate crime. I just don't see the evidence it's as serious or as pervasive a problem as you're suggesting. Which makes me wonder why you focus on it. It seems to me sort of like going after the local popsicle vendor for not renewing his business license, rather than concentrating on the gang murders that are happening almost every night in the same part of town. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 7:22:49 AM | | Home come Ace finds the good points in the obvious? if you weren't living out some Eugene Debs, look for the union label, Friends of the Soviet union fantasy you'd realize everything people like you touches dies or moves. of course there are crooks out there, but it makes as much sense to hate business crooks because of business as it does to hate subways because muggers use them to get around. The dem party itself is a criminal enterprise with ACORN, illegal aliens AKA undocumented Democrats and all form of special favors for the financial institutions the Chris Dodd's and Barney Franks and Barbra Boxer's have been in collusion with for decades. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 8:23:47 AM |
When top-level management compensation is decided by collusive compensation committees
Look at these top level theft management failures. The government is the most guilty of what you preach ACE.
Social programs 'historical failures'
By Tom Jeffers
Published: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 2:43 PM PDT
History has taught us that Government Social Programs are almost always unsuccessful. Most of the past social programs have been started by Democrats. They have always had good intentions, but their results have almost always been a failure. Politicians always want to be judged on their good intentions rather than the results of their efforts. Do you need proof? Then let's examine the following historical facts;
The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. The service has had 234 years to improve the program and make it self sustaining. The USPS is broke, heavily subsidized by taxpayers, and comes back to the taxpayers year after year for postage rate increases. They can't compete with private sector mail delivery services i.e. FedEx and UPS services and now the USPS is proposing to close hundreds of offices nationwide to reduce costs. A good example of how the US Government cannot compete with free market capitalist ingenuity.
Social Security was established in 1935 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat) as part of his huge "New Deal" social program package. The Government has had 74 years to improve the program and make it self sustaining. The Social Security system is broke. Contrary to popular belief, there is NO LONGER a Social Security Trust Fund. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat), as part of his sweeping "Great Society" social program, changed the law so that Social Security funds were removed from the independent "Trust Fund." Social Security funds were placed into the General Fund for additional congressional revenue to be used as Congress wishes. Again, the program is broke.
Fannie Mae (The Federal National Mortgage Association) was established in 1938 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat) as a mechanism to make home mortgages available to low income families. The Government has had 71 years to improve the program and make it self sustaining. Fannie Mae is in serious financial trouble as evidenced by the mortgage crisis earlier this year.
Freddie Mac (The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) was established in 1970 by President Richard Nixon (Republican) to expand the secondary market for home mortgages in the U.S. The Government has had 39 years to improve the program and make it self sustaining. Together with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has now led the entire world into the worst economic collapse in 80 years.
The War on Poverty was started in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat) as part of his massive "Great Society" social program package. It was the Governments attempt to reduce poverty from the then 19 percent rate. The Government has had 45 years to improve the program and make it self sustaining. $1 trillion of our tax dollars are collected each year and transferred to "the poor" and yet the national poverty level still stands at 12.8% as of 2007. The program hasn't worked as intended.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat), as another part of his sweeping "Great Society" Social Program. The government has had 44 years to improve the programs and make them self sustaining. Both programs are in serious financial trouble and our government dares to mention them as models for all US health care reforms.
AMTRAK was established in 1970 by President Richard Nixon (Republican) to provide inter-city train service in the U.S. The Government has had 39 years to make AMTRAK profitable but the program has failed miserably. Last year the government bailed out AMTRAK again, as it continues to operate at a loss!
Stimulus Bill of 2009 — This year, over a trillion dollars was committed in a massive political payoff to Democratic supporters. The bill shows NO signs of working as advertised. It's been used to increase the size of state and local governments across America, and raise government salaries. It has yet to create a single new private sector permanent job. Our national debt projections (approaching $10 trillion) have increased 400 percent in the last six months. The Government continues to print money, spending money that we don't have and running America further and further into debt for our great grandchildren and their children. So far, the Stimulus Bill of 2009 is a failure when compared to how it was presented to us. AND, the President is considering another Stimulus Bill to bail out the first one.
"Cash for Clunkers' was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009 — after 80 percent of the cars purchased turned out to be produced by FOREIGN companies, not GM, Chrysler or Ford. Dealers nationwide are buried under a mountain of bureaucratic paperwork demanded by a government that is not yet paying them what was promised.
So with a perfect 100 percent failure rate and a record that proves that each and every 'social service program" started by an over-reaching government turns into disaster, how could any informed American trust our government to run or even set policies for an American health care reform system that will equal 17 percent of our entire economy? | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 8:46:22 AM |
perhaps you could quit telling their pets the money belongs to the government and the "corporatists" have unfairly gotten ahold of it.
Make you a deal. You tell your pets that the military budget isn't for featherbedding with aircraft we neither need nor want--not to mention God only knows what other boondoggles that aren't being publicised, and I'll remind mine that schools are there to help them make something of themselves.
Fair enough?
I don't know what to say about bailouts for the financial system. In my book too big to fail means they should have been broken up under antitrust provisions long ago. But there again, those guys are your pets, not mine. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 9:23:11 AM | Corporate special interest and lobbyists.
Social special interests and lobbyists.
We as the American WORKING people who are the back bone of both finical money pits need to find a way to put both in check.
The entire system of checks and balances has gone out of whack. What I have been trying to think of is an idea that will put these entities in check as well as our government with out violating the Constitution. (unlike Bush and Obama I care if it violates the Constitution) | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 9:45:44 AM | Ace free your mind, too big to fail means it's government subsidized. It's impossible to gain sufficient market share without assuming marginal inefficiencies with growth with the possible exception of technology breakthroughs in which case even there people will look to substitutes which becomes a self-governing mechanism on monopoly pricing.
Re: the military it's you Dem's problem now. The problem in military budgeting of course has always been weighing the cost of spending $5 too much compared to the unimaginable pain of spending $5 too little. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 10:40:51 AM | One way would be for Congress to remove jurisdiction over certain questions from the federal district courts. In theory, the Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court can act as trial courts, but in practice they couldn't even begin to take over the load. And although state courts could still decide matters of federal law, that probably wouldn't work very well, either. If a law that's being misused--for spending, silencing critics, or whatever--can't be enforced, it's meaningless.
What good would it do to resurrect the "fairness doctrine," for example, if its targets were free to defy any effort to enforce it? Better yet, Congress could gut or outright repeal harmful laws. But first, the voters need to clean out the stables. Once the electorate's been corrupted by handouts of other people's money, though, that can be very hard to do. Voting someone else's money to yourself is a lot easier than getting off your backside and earning your own.
I think this administration and Congress have done quite a few things that are unconstitutional--forcing out the CEO of GM and taking it over; appointing so-called "czars" and giving them the powers they have; Congress' delegation of its spending authority to the Executive in the "stimulus" act; and the failure of every one of its members to read that act (meaning that it wasn't properly legislated), for starters.
And Mr. Obama's failure to act on military requests by field commanders in a shooting war, two and one-half months after they made them, is close to dereliction. How many U.S. servicemen have died already because of his dithering? It's all the worse that he told the country, in late March, that he'd completed a review of our policy for Afghanistan, and announced a course of action. I suggest he wasn't telling the truth, in order to make himself look good. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 11:01:34 AM | I just caught a news segment which presents a teachable moment for our economic education deprived posters (and you should know who you are lol). The President of Mexico just privatized (my term) the government run/too big to fail subsidized government electrical utility. The impact was to reduce the employee count from 42,000 union employees to 8,000 (they did not specify what the status of the 8,000 were).
Catch this, the total cost of running this government monopoly was TWICE the revenues of said government monopoly. This couldn't hurt the standard of living of regular citizens. This couldn't have been a competivitive disadvantage in mexico's business sector. This couldn't possibly have created a two-tier working class pay environment to the detriment to all but the fortunate 42,000.
There are no free lunches libtards. You must learn. When the old hippie spiritual guru asks you for the $10,000 to go sit in a tin shack sweat-hut in the Arizona desert in 130 temps to achieve spiritual enlightenment, just ask yourself before you whip out the Greenpeace Platinum Visa card "what would old Golfcoast say if he were here?" | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 11:41:07 AM |
Re: the military it's you Dem's problem now.
Just as I thought. You're having too much fun baiting the left to do anything constructive or confront your own pets. Typical. | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 11:43:26 AM |
There are no free lunches libtards. You must learn. When the old hippie spiritual guru asks you for the $10,000 to go sit in a tin shack sweat-hut in the Arizona desert in 130 temps to achieve spiritual enlightenment, just ask yourself before you whip out the Greenpeace Platinum Visa card "what would old Golfcoast say if he were here?"
Why, he'd say, "Go right on in friends. No need for health and safety regulations or the interference of any sort of government at all. It's the free market at work and let the buyer beware. Oh, and BTW, good riddance." | |
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Posted: 10/19/2009 12:14:42 PM | LOL a rare moment of agreement Ace, 60 dopey left-wing whack jobs educated beyond their capacity full of self-loathing searching for meaning and willing and able to be punished by someone with a semblance of survival skills asking them to go sit in a tin shack and parboil themselves for the Earth lol it gets no better.
Asking people who actually are at one with the universe, at peace with themselves and knowing the world is better for their existence having to pay for a bunch of slugs who are unable to pay their own way in the end...nightmarish.
The entire story brings to mind the token libtard chick in my office a few years ago whining about how she could not afford healthcare without a subsidy, one day she comes in all joyful saying they had saved her cat....she spent $14,000 on some radiation treatment for the old tabby. So shes basically saying she can buy a new car, save a 15 year old cat, live in abeachfront apartment, go to Europe for a month every few years but paying for her own healthcare is out of the question. How very typical. | |
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