>> ^VoodooV:

I sorta agree with that. But the thing is, he knew he'd get booed. It was a ploy. It's not like he went in there thinking he could honestly convince them that AHCA should be repealed. When he said that, he wasn't talking to the crowd, he was talking to the people who already agree with him.
That's the thing with the degradation of political discourse these days. Very few politicians actually attempt to convince people that their ideas are better, they merely try to rally people who already support them. It's far easier to rile up people who already agree with you than it is to convince someone who doesn't agree with you.
It should be obvious that health care as it is now is in need of reform. We keep spending more but we get less and less in return. We can't keep doing this. It was originally a Republican idea to reform it. I don't pretend to know much about AHCA so I can't really comment much on specifics, but I think everyone even on the left acknowledges it's not a perfect program. So let's correct those issues? My far right-leaning uncle who was a pharmacist complained all the time about the increased paperwork and red-tape because of AHCA. OK...that's a legitimate complaint. Let's DO something about that. Let's actually fix the problem instead of playing political games.
You want to repeal it? fine, but show me a better plan that you want to replace it with instead of returning to the status quo. I haven't seen anyone doing that. I want to move forward, not backwards.
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't think this was a bad moment for him at all. He calmly waited out the booing, didn't back down, and tied Obamacare to his economic message. Overall, I think he handled it pretty well.



Do you buy the liberal talking point that Romney deliberately mentioned he would repeal Obamacare so that it would "jazz up" racist conservatives in the republican base? Because he gave the NAACP the same speech he gives everywhere else, so if you're saying this speech was for someone else, then who, and why is this different in front of a black audience, if you aren't charging Romney with playing to racists?

There is so much divisiveness in this election. It's rich versus poor, men versus women, and black versus white. This country is more divided even than it was during the bush years. I think there is a lot of merit to the charge that since the president cannot run on his record, he is making this election about anything but a referendum on his job performance. Don't get me wrong, because I pray for the president and his family, but this shows such an intellectual dishonesty on his part. For someone who ran on hope and change in 2008, promising to fundamentally change the discourse in Washington, he has shown a willingness to say or do anything to keep his job; in other words, he is no different than any other politician. Washington has become much more divisive and sanctimonious since he took office, and I think this shows a failure of leadership.

I agree with what you're saying about healthcare. We should have some kind of system in place, and if the republicans are going to repeal Obamacare, they should have an alternative idea (preferably with far less government involvement). I don't think it's a bad idea in principle, but honestly I think that a government takeover of our healthcare system is never going to be anything other than a total nightmare. It's projected cost is already nearly 3 times what it was said to be originally, and it hasn't even been implemented yet. It is also going to cut medicare hugely. My mom is going to lose her health insurance directly because of Obamacare. It is a juggernaut and no one really knows how this will all play out. I simply do not trust the government to manage this; I think government management of our lives to that extent is a big mistake, especially for individual liberties. The nanny state will always lead to fascism in the end.

>> ^KnivesOut:

@ReverendTed You're incorrect about what happens in 2014. Here's a good overview of what the mandate actually means: http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2012/06/a
ffordable_care_acts_mandate_d.html
Thanks for the link, KO. That's an excellent synopsis of the individual mandate provisions that I hadn't seen or read elsewhere.



That said, I'm not convinced it makes my statement incorrect.
My employees are not American Indians, prisoners, Old Order Amish, covered by Medicare\Medicaid or undocumented immigrants. They will be required to purchase insurance or pay the penalty tax.
Depending on their salary, even with taxpayer subsidies they will be responsible for devoting (probably) 6.3% or 9.5% of their income to insurance, or be taxed at or around 1%-2.5% of their income.
As I mentioned, we've investigated state-subsidized policies before (which weren't terrible, but weren't "Cadillac" policies by any stretch) and my employees determined it wasn't feasible for them.

One provision I don't understand is the exclusion of "those who earn so little that health insurance premiums, after federal subsidies and employer contributions, would total more than 8 percent of their income." How is it determined that premiums would total more than 8% of income? Doesn't that depend on the type of policy?

(Yes, I appreciate that my comments come across as biased against ACA. I'll admit that I am skeptical and that it runs counter to my personal ideology, but I am genuinely interested in learning more about what it means from a practical standpoint.)

@bobknight33

So you're conceding? You're admitting that health insurance provided by the Government CAN BE and IS less costly that Private firms?

Because you haven't made a valid argument, just Ad Homs and Red Herrings.

So what if Krugman wrote the article. The CBO's report still shows facts. That Admin cost are less than 2%.

To measure the administrative costs for Medicare, we first turned to the 2011 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds -- the document prepared by Medicare’s fiscal overseers.

The trustees’ summary listed total Medicare expenditures of $522.8 billion for 2010, of which $7 billion was characterized as "administrative expenses." That works out to 1.3 percent

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/30/barbara-boxer/barbara-boxer-says-medicare-overhead-far-lower-pri/


Dude, take off your FoxNews glasses.

Your using Paul Krugman. Really you might as well a tee shirt saying

" I'm dumber that a bag of hammers."


2% administration cost? How is that calculated? Does that include the lovable 16 thousand IRS agents, Like we need more IRS thugs. And if you need 16,000 IRS police to make sure that you pay how many other administration jobs are needed for all the other parts of OBAMA CARE? It just doesn't add up.

Dude take off the rose colored glasses.


>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

@bobknight33
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/administrative-costs/
"However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage."
This shows you don't know or care what the fuck you're talking about.
I've seen you be reasonable about stuff. This one of things you should be reasonable about.
You trollin' motherfucker.

@bobknight33

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/administrative-costs/

"However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage."

This shows you don't know or care what the fuck you're talking about.

I've seen you be reasonable about stuff. This one of things you should be reasonable about.

You trollin' motherfucker.

@lantern53

Hi, old grumpy dude.

1.)
Do you enjoy social security benefits yet? Medicare mayhaps?

You're a socialist.

[I guarantee you would never turn down a social security check if they suddenly arrived in your mail.]

2.)
Congress and congressional lobbyists have the majority of power over policy.

Big business controls the Congress and the Lobbyist. Therefore, Big Business has the majority of power over government policies that affect our lives. i.e. stagant wages; unstable food, housing, and energy; endless war

The President is just a placeholder.

Obama and Romney are just masks for Oligarchs to hide behind.

Seeing this warmed the cockles of my heart. The GSA's shenanigans are an easy target though. This same exact kind of item by item grilling should be repeated for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The Department of Education, The Department of Defense, The USPS, and every single one of the hundreds of agencies and departments in the entire Federal Government and then repeated at the State and then the Municipal level. No exceptions. Bar none. It's easy to just do this one time with one eggregious violation. Now let's do it with EVERYTHING.

My point is in the end, it doesn't matter what the gov't spends borrowed money on in the slightest. I get what you're saying, but the wars, corporate subsidies, etc. happened regardless if you borrow money specifically for that, or don't borrow money and raid the Social Security trust fund. Assuming said wars and corp subsidies happen regardless, which is better, borrow sooner by not raiding the Social Security trust fund which is heading for insolvency anyway and pay more interest, or borrow later by raiding the Social Security trust fund. It doesn't matter once you're headed for a path of unsustainability. Even if Social Security lasted another several decades, it was headed for insolvency. And once the federal government headed for unsustainability, does it matter which folds first - social security or the rest of essential gov't programs? No.

If you raid the trust fund as a tactical mechanism in conjunction with other policies to make the federal gov't and Social Security solvent, it's a smart move because you'll save some interest by not borrowing as much money, or paying down already existent higher interest debt. That's sorta my point - the gov't reversed course under the Bush administration and didn't do that. That's the real problem here, not raiding the Social Security trust fund. Even making some allowances for needing a deficit during the recession, and revamping for intelligence and military apparatus to fight the war on terror, it didn't stop there with keeping the Bush tax cuts, the prescription drug benefit, and opening an unnecessary war with Iraq. But we can agree to disagree.

But honestly, the question about if it was right to raid the Social Security trust fund is moot in the context of this discussion because even without borrowing against the fund, the Clinton administration still ran surpluses during his second term. Republicans, desperate to prove Democrats are fiscally irresponsible, try like heck to say he didn't, but he did.

"But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while...

Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years."

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

The Clinton Administration ran a surplus, period.

>> ^bmacs27:

@heropsycho
I couldn't disagree more. First of all, interest was still being paid on that same debt. The mechanism of using the social security surplus to finance the general fund was to purchase interest bearing treasury securities with the payroll tax. Now, people like you talk about those securities as though they aren't bonds at all and that interest isn't owed on that debt. That's the problem. The working class bought into a higher tax rate under the auspices that it was a retirement savings plan. Now public perception is robbing them of their interest because of Clinton's biff. If the payroll tax contributes interest-free to costly wars, corporatist subsidies, and theocratic pandering, then fold it into the progressive income tax and we can have a real conversation about paying our fair share.
You can probably smell that I'm a progressive, and thus would be inclined to support the Clintons. I just think this was one move where Reagan's scheming scored one for his team.

>> ^Darkhand:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Now if I could just get my relatives to watch this.

It doesn't matter. I showed this to some people I know are conservative and they've all had the same reaction.
I can't understand why people wouldnt' want to just change everything back tax wise to how it was under the Clinton Administration. The economy WORKED back then you know?
It's like, if I'm wearing a size 9 shoe, and then I switch to a size 8 because they didn't have any size 9's and this shoe is REALLY AWESOME so I'm going to try it! After about a year I'm going to be in agony I'd just go back to only buying size 9!
Why does everyone (conservative) want to re-invent the whole wheel?


We've reached that level of divisiveness and partisanship that it doesn't matter how good things were under Clinton, there is always going to be a large amount of mental gymnastics and false rationalization for some people that will allow them to be "convinced" that things were really quite horrible under his administration.

We're already seeing it now. The only way the republicans are going to get the white house is if they convince enough people of the doom and gloom. It doesn't matter how much good he does. He could single handedly bring down North Korea and Iran and the right will still try to argue that he's the worst president ever. All throughout Bush's presidency, all we heard about was Bin Laden this, Bin Laden that. A Democrat Administration gets him, and the first thing we hear is "pshaw....we don't care about him. He's not important." It's completely insane.

We could have time travel and actually witness Obama being born in Hawaii and it just won't matter, the birthers will still find some "rationalization" of their shit.

Speaking of which, I see that the latest "proof" that the birth certificate is fake hasn't gained any traction.

Hell, we had a sift here recently about a group of people who still think the world is flat and it's all just a huge conspiracy that the world is round. It's fucking 2012 and we have people who think the world is flat.

Part of it is the media's fault, they continue to insist that almost every issue could go either way. so that they can sell the conflict and turn it into ratings. It's one thing to have people who honestly believe that Obama wasn't born here, but it's quite another to have a media that gives them legitimacy for the sake of ratings.

The point is, we really gotta stop worrying about the fringe thinks. We live in a era of where we apparently don't care about what the majority wants anymore. We seem to only pay attention to the vocal minorities. Over half the US is ok with Gay Marriage, but yet it's still this wedge issue, 60-some percent were in favor of Medicare for all...yet we still can't make it happen. Most people ARE in favor of higher taxes for the rich...yet it still hasn't materialized yet. Most people have no problem getting along and living and working with people of other ethnicity, yet we still seem to live in a world where race is still an issue. All because we still continue to pay more attention to what the fringes thing than the majority.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

when Republicans say we NEED to cut Social Security, if you're really listening they're actually saying we wish to liquidate Social Security
I would rephrase this, but only slightly. I wouldn't say "Republicans", because there's plenty of the GOP that are just fine with Social Security as long as they're in charge of it. I would instead say that "fiscal conservatives" wish to liquidate SS. If you phrase it that way, then it would be more accurate.
I'm one of them. The SS program, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, are New Deal boondoggles, and if I was "King For A Day" I would instantly abolish both of them and just let the chips fall where they may. They were terrible ideas when they first started, and they are only even more terrible today. All the arguments made against these programs when they were being debated have all come true with almost perfect accuracy, and if they are allowed to continue they will bankrupt the nation. It is not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. Staunching the bleeding with temporary measures is not going to solve the problem, but only postpones the day. Just eliminate them now. We got by just fine without them before, and we can do it again. Give the money back to the people in wages and lower taxes, and let people save up for thier own retirement and medical expenses. Let the states cook up their own solutions for those that are truly in need, and let's stop making disastrous Federal "One Size" programs that inevitably crash and burn. We aren't doing anyone any favors with these awful systems.


When you say "we got by just fine without" Social Security, who's the "we" you're referring to? There's very good evidence that SS is responsible for the significant drop in the rate of poverty among the elderly over the last half-century. The facts are that when social security spending (per capita) increases, the poverty rate among seniors reliably decreases, and vice versa. Opponents of SS may honestly believe that an increase in elderly poverty is a painful tradeoff that must be made in order to protect the financial future of the country. That is an honest position that can be debated. But at least acknowledge the existence of the tradeoff. The program has had a huge impact in the lives of some our most vulnerable fellow citizens.

The idea that abolishing SS will do no harm because people will be able to invest their own money to protect their future is ridiculous. First of all, investing wisely is psychologically difficult. We are not built to plan carefully for that far in the future. Second, even if you do make the decision to invest sensibly, it is not easy to do, given that the financial system has been set up to prey on small investors for short-term profit, with high fees and fraudulent advice. You just can't expect the average person, who has no idea how or why to invest in a suitably diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds, to successfully invest in the market.

So I think there is very good reason to think that getting rid of SS will have a significant cost attached. Of course, it is also true that SS faces a long-term financing problem, and we need to be having a discussion about how to deal with it. But it does neither side any good to just deny that there are any worthwhile arguments on the other side.

when Republicans say we NEED to cut Social Security, if you're really listening they're actually saying we wish to liquidate Social Security

I would rephrase this, but only slightly. I wouldn't say "Republicans", because there's plenty of the GOP that are just fine with Social Security as long as they're in charge of it. I would instead say that "fiscal conservatives" wish to liquidate SS. If you phrase it that way, then it would be more accurate.

I'm one of them. The SS program, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, are New Deal boondoggles, and if I was "King For A Day" I would instantly abolish both of them and just let the chips fall where they may. They were terrible ideas when they first started, and they are only even more terrible today. All the arguments made against these programs when they were being debated have all come true with almost perfect accuracy, and if they are allowed to continue they will bankrupt the nation. It is not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. Staunching the bleeding with temporary measures is not going to solve the problem, but only postpones the day. Just eliminate them now. We got by just fine without them before, and we can do it again. Give the money back to the people in wages and lower taxes, and let people save up for thier own retirement and medical expenses. Let the states cook up their own solutions for those that are truly in need, and let's stop making disastrous Federal "One Size" programs that inevitably crash and burn. We aren't doing anyone any favors with these awful systems.

"Most economists" did not see the collapse coming, so why believe "most economists" know anything now?

The economic collapse was set in motion with the Free Houses for Poor People Act in the 70s, a liberal creation muscled-up during the Clinton years.

Government "guaranteed" bank loans to people who had no business owning homes, because it's "unfair" that not everyone has a house. So, half-coercion, half promising bailouts with taxpayer money.

Even in decades-old systems like Medicare, where you'd think there would be built-in watchdogs, we lose 60 billion A YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse, so how anyone sane thought a one-time scamulus would be closely monitored for fraud...

A similar Nude Eel scamulus was attempted in the 40s with little to no effect. FDR's bacon was only saved by WW2.


Government: If you think the problems are bad, wait till you see our solutions!

That was a horrendous interview all around, it...went...nowhere... Cenk is getting overtly irate at a Fat Cat Republican Congressmen who says that he read the 2011 Social Security release. Then Cenk has a large problem of "centering" himself, allowing himself to give the man who is talking enough rope to hang himself on it. He almost had him after the first part, but he got SO angry and overzealous in his pushing of the conversation that the conversation drowned in the ramblings of two pride filled men who couldn't stand to allow conversation to be heard or really go anywhere--with some sort of pint or reason.

Cenk needed to get this idiots ideas, all of them, onto the plate before pressing. When I say pressing I don't mean yelling. Cenk needed to allow this Congressmen to bring in his own "proof of fact" (with various sources for them to look at and then take him out strategically if he used them and the source is incorrect, biased, or useless--tell the public why this is so), so that when he said that the surplus was a short fall they could napalm him later for it. Of course a lot of these idiots read a few lines of facts before they go into an interview and try to use them--the fact that Cenk pressed him and he said nothing except to mumble his correctness and sit and smile, just smile when you may have erred--but you can NEVER be wrong. That lets us know that that may have been the case here. You can EASILY look on factcheck.org and quickly find out that Cenk was right, but there was a short fall too. That number was of course still large, but was clearly defined by MANY that it indeed was most likely the result of a terrible economy and recession.

BTW, when Republicans say we NEED to cut Social Security, if you're really listening they're actually saying we wish to liquidate Social Security (slowly though, so you don't rebel all at once). I would assume anyway. After all, if we wished to really solve the problem we could SLOW DOWN life for ourselves. Work only 6 hours a day and only 4 days in a week. We get One month off in the summer, the nation splitting that break into groups the size of thirds or fourths of all of us. The Federal system could limit certain types of inflation and interest (and maybe one-day we could almost entirely kill off interest, but probably not rich men need their golden swimming pools). We could start to shape the way we pay people (as I assume most of you want your grocery store as much as your doctors and so forth). To move so much money from a business to help to pay people between a certain age range. Teenagers may have to take the bullet of the lowest wages, but it may secure their futures in the process. Then we could talk about re-managing the entirety of the Federal Budget and maybe one day we could get away from spending for a war machine that HAS NO WARS. BUT, this is crazy talk.

Instead... Are FICA and SS minimums will go up, thus we make even less, and our taxes will as well--unless you're rich. Your life will stay about the same and your affect upon the middle and lower classes will show your indifference to their demise or situation--unfortunately this seems to be something you learn by going through, what you know nothing of--it is the power and the price to having true empathy. Houses will tend to cost as much as a top scale middle-American could pay for one in half their lifetime. Gas will cost more, as hybrids get more efficient--until you never by it again they will try to make sure you ALWAYS pay the same amount. You work 8 hours a day but overtime is nearly mandatory everyday, somedays can get up to 10 hours, if you're a blue collar it might even go around 12. Then they want you to retire at 72. Medicare and Medicaid barely get you along, you HAVE TO buy a "jacket" plan now (such as AARP), this says nothing of dental or other medical concerns.

Or we stay a lot like it is now. I hope not, because I always hope for a brighter future.

I'll be blunt the Republicans are taking us FAR from that idea and Cenk doesn't help here. His audience must eventually try to grab every ear it can IF it, if we, are to be successful. Otherwise, a revolution may be coming--not now, but someday off in the future--maybe in my lifetime. I'm 35 and paid into SS.

/oops longer than I meant, hopefully not too much dystopia or utopia -- things in reach, for worse or better...

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^ghark:
Some incorrect information near the start where he says "the vast majority of expenditure goes to medicare, medicaid" etc.. More than half of each tax dollar is going to the military/defence, certainly far and away more than health expenditure.
http://videosift.com/video/53-of-each-American-tax-dollar-going
-to-the-military

Not to totally sidetrack things, but that number requires a lot of dubious decisions about what "counts" as spending.
Since I had this argument not all that long ago with blankfist, here's the thread where I did all the research & response to it.
Basically the short version is to get military spending above 50% you have to a) not count social security, medicare, or medicaid outlays as "spending" and b) count the entire interest payment on the national debt as "military" even though our present debt mostly comes from Reagan & Bush tax cuts.
Too much of our taxes goes to defense & war, but it's more like 20% than 50%.


i'll check that out when I get some time, cheers.

>> ^ghark:

Some incorrect information near the start where he says "the vast majority of expenditure goes to medicare, medicaid" etc.. More than half of each tax dollar is going to the military/defence, certainly far and away more than health expenditure.
http://videosift.com/video/53-of-each-American-tax-dollar-going
-to-the-military


Not to totally sidetrack things, but that number requires a lot of dubious decisions about what "counts" as spending.

Since I had this argument not all that long ago with blankfist, here's the thread where I did all the research & response to it.

Basically the short version is to get military spending above 50% you have to a) not count social security, medicare, or medicaid outlays as "spending" and b) count the entire interest payment on the national debt as "military" even though our present debt mostly comes from Reagan & Bush tax cuts.

Too much of our taxes goes to defense & war, but it's more like 20% than 50%.