Obama has done a terrible job so far.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

There in lies the problem with Obama's and the liberal governments ideals, they want to create a generation of people who are completely reliant on the government rather than being self reliant because it makes us as a people easier to control as they take away the freedoms that we enjoy. I am sure that sounds a bit conspiracy theorist but it is what I believe is happening, slowly by slowly as to not piss off any group of people enough that riots might happen.

And I suppose you also buy into the hyper-conservative rhetoric that "they're coming for your guns!" and "re-education camps" or whatever Michelle Bachman is going on about these days. Look, you can't draw a straight line between funding social programs (many of which you've probably directly or indirectly benefitted from, personally) and some sort of totalitarian regime. Shit, if you were worried about government taking away your freedoms, where were you when Bush was recinding habeus corpus? Warrantless wiretapping?

Silent, just like all the other blowhard conservatives who are now beating so hard on the war drums. So spare us the hyperbole.

This government run private sector health care idea for instance is just one more example of this. How can a government entity enter into a competitive market such as health care, and offer rock bottom prices while never being able to go bankrupt due to it being a government agency, and expect the thousands of other health care businesses to remain intact?

Because there are still people who think that privately-run health care offers better care, and will continue to pay for it. You, yourself, have said that public plans in other countries cause some sort of sub-standard level of care (waiting for care, etc). What's wrong with a little competition? I thought that's what the market was all about.

And there's no way of telling exactly what the public option will cost at this point--it's all conjecture. So to say "private insurance will fail!" is abstract at best. And what's the alternative? Private insurance and medical care that keeps increasing exponentially? Do you even HAVE health insurance right now? I do, and as expensive as it is for both my wife and I, there's no end in sight to it's rising cost. Each year, more and more of my paycheck goes directly to Blue Cross. And even with that, I have to fight to get any of my money back out of them.

I'm not saying a government-run public option will be light years better, since you're just trading one beaurocrat for another, but at least the public one would be somewhat beholden to the American public, instead of just trying to raise the bottom line for his own stockholders.

So the government is willing to sacrifice thousands if not more of jobs in order to provide health care to people who don't work and chances are are on welfare to provide cheap health care to America? Sorry but I honestly don't buy it, nothing our country has done has been successful lately, especially monetarily.

If you do pay for health insurance currently, you're ALREADY paying for those who can't afford it. Every time someone without insurance goes to the emergency room, who do you think foots the bill? The people WITH health insurance--our premiums go up. And it's not just about the public option--Obama's already stated that one of the big measures he's pushing is preventative care. If you can stop someone from getting sick early on, the cost is much less than if you allow that person to deteriorate to the point that expensive procedures are needed.

The fact that we both drill and refine oil in my state, have one of the larger ports in the United States, and have a ton of really large energy companies in Houston alone means that we are almost in a bubble that protects us from the economic and employment problems that are currently plaguing the rest of the nation. So although maybe gas and oil are not long term solutions to energy dependence, I don't see the problem with going ahead and tapping this resources while we have them, and while developing more advanced technologies.

Because oil companies in the US don't have enough current capacity to handle the needs of the entire US. Currently, the US imports roughly half of what it consumes. So let's drill offshore, you say! Tap into the ol' Alaska preserves! The problem with that is that for your distrust of the Obama government, I distrust oil companies even more. They don't give a shit about you or I, and haven't really shown that they care about other technologies.

For the past ten years (as much as I can remember caring about it--they've probably been doing it for longer) oil companies have been saying "Don't worry! We're working on other things! But in the meantime, here's some oil!" And we're still at square one. Not to mention the fact that when oil drilling/transport goes bad, it has a tendency to fuck up entire ecosystems. "But they clean it up/pay for it!" Not necessarily. And while they may eventually make some headway at cleaning up, they successfully fuck up an entire ecosystem in the process. And if they get fined, they just hire lobbyists to knock down their fines. (Happened not so long ago in Alaska, actually.)

So yes, there is a problem with oil. I'm not saying to abandon it altogether, but the "Drill, Baby, Drill" chorus is full of assholes who tend to not think about reprocussions.

What is the point of going on a crusade against oil and gas companies, large car/truck/suv making companies, and tons of other fields by appearing to be on the side of Al Gore and his cronies.

The Al Gore argument is tired.

[Exalt]

That's fucking racist, man. - Conc

[kthx]

Too long to reply tonight, ill do it tomorrow.

[saetep]

"What's wrong with a little competition? I thought that's what the market was all about."

Ok, so explain to me this. Why do it at all?

If it is worse than private run health care then no one will switch.

If it is the same then why do it?

If it is better then private health care will start to dwindle as people either switch to the public one for cheaper costs/better health coverage or demand that their current provider starts to charge the same as the public option. So either the insurance will be exactly the same, or both the government and the private sector will lose money. And since the private sector actually wants to make money, the second option wont happen. So then again, why do it? I honestly doubt the government has thought of something to save money and provide better health coverage than the private sector, and if they have, why not just place regulations on the private insurance companies. Regulate the prices they can charge and the types of insurance they can offer. Why go through something as needless as this? It would probably even get less of a "SOCIALIST, COMMUNIST, DICTATOR" cry from Republicans.

[saetep]

I mean after all, we all know how well Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are doing, amirite? The government just loves creating programs that lose billions of dollars.

[kthx]

Sigh.. I was just going to wait but Saetep is right so I decided to chime in.

Because there are still people who think that privately-run health care offers better care, and will continue to pay for it. You, yourself, have said that public plans in other countries cause some sort of sub-standard level of care (waiting for care, etc). What's wrong with a little competition? I thought that's what the market was all about.

And there's no way of telling exactly what the public option will cost at this point--it's all conjecture. So to say "private insurance will fail!" is abstract at best. And what's the alternative? Private insurance and medical care that keeps increasing exponentially? Do you even HAVE health insurance right now? I do, and as expensive as it is for both my wife and I, there's no end in sight to it's rising cost. Each year, more and more of my paycheck goes directly to Blue Cross. And even with that, I have to fight to get any of my money back out of them.

I'm not saying a government-run public option will be light years better, since you're just trading one beaurocrat for another, but at least the public one would be somewhat beholden to the American public, instead of just trying to raise the bottom line for his own stockholders.

Well first off, my company offers extremely cheap health care to me which I have, and extremely cheap dental also. I have Aetna for my dental and Assurant for my health, it isn't hard to find a job that offers it cheap, and in fact that is one of the questions I ask before I accept a job. My girlfriends job even goes as far as to offer FREE health care and dental, and ironically enough she works for an energy company that engineers oil well repairs and builds in the Gulf of Mexico. Neither of us have jobs that require a four year college education and we both have jobs that give us great health care, are you telling me that you honestly have to pay out the ass for yours since I am assuming that you are older and therefore are done with college? Do you or your wife have any diseases or preexisting conditions to explain this or were you that ignorant when you accepted the job to not ask a very simple question about it.

And there is no such thing as fair competition when the government comes into play because it literally can't go out of business, look at the Post Office, it has terrible customer service, every time you go in you wait in line for 30 minutes to drop off a package, every year it loses billions of dollars while companies like UPS and Fedex manage to do well thanks to better policies, and the only thing they do is raise the price of stamps to try to make more money.

How do you not understand that that is the exact model that government run health care is going to take, it is going to literally insure everyone, hospitals are going to either

1. refuse to accept government health care because they will never see the money.

2. be FORCED to accept it by law and therefore lower the quality of care to the rest of the citizens who actually pay for it, lowering America into a downward spiral of medical attention until we are no better than a third world country.

The private sector can't compete with the government here, it is like a mom and pop store going up against wal-mart, they are obviously going to lose because walmart can offer cheaper prices because they have basically unlimited money. So everyone switches over to government health care because it costs I don't know.. 500 dollars less a year, the government loses money on it, private companies can't keep up with the price war because they actually have to stay positive unlike the government, they go out of business. Eventually everyone switches to the governments brand, the government is losing billions a year trying to take care of everyone in America, they just decide to...

1. raise the prices of their health care to the wealthy because they can afford it (just another attack on the wealthy who actually did something to deserve that money)

2. lower the quality of care once again.

Eventually the government will basically control the health industry so will be able to put salary caps on doctors, the best doctors will leave to countries that don't have salary caps, and the doctors that remain will be the second rate doctors who are just happy to have jobs and couldn't give a shit less about their patients and are too dumb to become the specialists who have left the country to make the money they deserve.

It is a stupid ass idea, it will fail, and it will literally be the death of America's standing as one of the world leaders in medicine. On top of this it will just further the stranglehold of governmental control on yet another former private sector.

[kthx]

Just to drive my point home, lets look at why I believe the US based free market, private sector health care is so much better than the socialized medicine that is practiced in Europe and Canada.

http://hospitals.webometrics.info/top1000.asp

PS: I am very proud that Texas actually has quite a few up there in the top 20, including #1, and I believe that MD Anderson is fairly famous no matter where you live for world class cancer care.

[kthx]

bye concrete ^-^

see you tomorrow! :bye2:

[Lock]

Can you secede from the forums? That would be cool.

They should change Republican to Southican.

[kthx]

Can you secede from the forums? That would be cool.

They should change Republican to Southican.

Location: Arizona

You live in Arizona.. dipshit.

[Vihta]

God bless America! Hallelujah brother.

[kthx]

I like what you gays are doing over there, having a cologne based off of a gay finlandish comic book character. So progressive. I would rather be fat than gay,.

[Lock]

I was obviously mocking the fact that the majority of the south is Republican, including AZ, and I am not.

[Vihta]

I'm not surprised in the least that kthx knows about gay comics.

[kthx]

Lock - It is a good thing that you're vote is largely useless due to more intelligent people.

Vihta - Actually I just googled Finland Faggot and that was the first thing to pop up, you see the terrible country you live in isn't important enough for me as an American to really care about or know stereotypes for. I am sure you don't have to google American stereotypes because you probably read about my country in your news, the only time I have ever seen a Finnish flag is when I drive by the only thing successful that has come from your country, IKEA. You should be proud that you're terrible country can build cheap ass furniture and sell it for dirt cheap, truly a claim to fame. It's a good thing that you don't have any dangerous wind patterns there, or else your balsam wood IKEA houses might blow away.