Health Care Debate

[Rhuarc]

I miss a good debate with all of you. So let's have it out.

Obama/Kennedy Care, for or against?

I'm against the bill as it currently is. I think they're being very hasty in trying to reform the system. To do it properly, it would probably take a few years of study.

What do you think?

[Colleen2]

Oh ok, sure!

100% against all current proposals. I fear that if we compromise by accepting these stupid half-measures and neutered plans in the name of "bi-partisanship" that the whole health care topic will become radioactive for another 10-15 years (remember Hillary-care from the mid-90s?) and there will be further needless death and unwarranted profit from it on the part of the insurance industry. Full UHC or let it die. Fuck the insurance industry - nationalize it all. Medicare and military health care admittedly work great according to every GOP schill asked about them, but only old farts who reliably vote and the military deserve it? Bullshit. I guess I could putz around in JAG for a few years and join the "fuck you got mine" crowd, but I've got better things to do.

How many years of "study" do we need, Rhuarc? Medicare has been going since the 60s and it works great! So great that fucking stupid old Glen Beck worshipers are screaming "keep your government hands off my medicare!!" You're smart enough to catch the problem with that statement, I know. How long as UHC been a resounding success in every other first world nation, Rhuarc? You lived in Spain for many years... you tell me? Was grandma getting euthanized by death panels, were people begging for medical treatment in the streets? You ever get sick over there? Was it the festering death camp that the GOP claims UHC to result in? You lived it dude (and survived, miraculously if the GOP is to be believed), I've just been lucky enough to get decent care through my parents and now through my law school (which mandated government health care for all grad students after one got nailed by a car and had to drop out). That ends in May, at which point I pay though the nose for COBRA (with $120,000+ in loans, hahahahahahaha), hope to fuck I get a job that provides it (hahahahahaha, I work in community justice), or go without. Fuckin' awesome. And if I lapse at all, my problems are all pre-existing conditions and I might as well just take up drinking.

I will further extend the debate since this forum is so inactive these days:
Obama is thus far an unmitigated symphony of failure, a statement at which I'm sure you will be eager to respond with "I told you so!" but to which I would not be very responsive. I never thought he would be anywhere as close to as progressive as I want or that we as a nation need, but I did not expect him to do total 180s on many of his positions and adopt Bush policies/fully about face on campaign promises so readily as he did (DADT, Guitmo, Iraq, DOMA[mostly] government transparency, etc.).

You're no doubt aware of how cynical I can be about politics, but I will admit that I expected better of Obama. I have now been driven to my baseline argument against McCain/any GOP member during the campaign - that Obama would nominate less retarded SCOTUS judges who won't set the country back another 50-100 years like Bush's appointees did. That's it; that's all I have left. And even that is questionable after Sotomayor. And yes, he did pick her just because she was a hispanic woman. And yes, she's still a shitty conservative pick.

I'm done with the democratic party unless they stop being such pussies and start forcing through progressive legislation. The blue dogs need to be thrown to the wolves if they refuse to fall in line. Evil as they may be the, GOP gets shit done. The house democrats are putting up a better fight with regard to health care, but in the end I still don't see it getting us anywhere good. A shitty neutered public option that nobody qualifies for anyway is just as bad as the lack of one that the senate wants.