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+--- Thread: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" (/showthread.php?tid=125094)
"The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - Ted King - 10-12-2011
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum
In reference to the GOP debate and how the candidates view Medicare:
1. Health care in general, and Medicare in particular, are bankrupting our country.
2. But government should never try to figure out which treatments are effective.
3. Medicare should pay for any treatment anyone wants, regardless of whether it works or what it costs.
4. If an insurance company refuses to pay for a procedure, that's their right as actors in the free market; if Medicare refuses to pay for a procedure, that's Washington bureaucrats trying to kill you.
5. We need to cut Medicare benefits, because don't forget it's bankrupting our country.
That's about the shape of it: Medicare costs too much, but all proposed cuts to Medicare are a death sentence for seniors. Unless, of course, those cuts are really, really deep and come from Paul Ryan. Don't try to make sense of it. It will just make your head hurt.
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - $tevie - 10-12-2011
(tu)
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - rjmacs - 10-12-2011
I'm afraid that the Democratic Party's approach to Medicare isn't a whole lot more rational than this.
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - Ted King - 10-12-2011
rjmacs wrote:
I'm afraid that the Democratic Party's approach to Medicare isn't a whole lot more rational than this.
Could you elaborate?
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - DaviDC. - 10-12-2011
God forbid we stop waging wars we have no business waging & tend to matters at home.
How would companies such as Halliburton make money if we did that?
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - OWC Jamie - 10-12-2011
DaviDC. wrote:
God forbid we stop waging wars we have no business waging & tend to matters at home.
How would companies such as Halliburton make money if we did that?
Contracting to Exxon to kill fish and fill shale fields with god-knows-what ?
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - Mac1337 - 10-12-2011
DaviDC. wrote:
God forbid we stop waging wars we have no business waging & tend to matters at home.
How would companies such as Halliburton make money if we did that?
Social programs were going bankrupt with or without wars. Show me news pieces that said Medicare is in good financial health prior to Iraq war.
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - mrbigstuff - 10-12-2011
Ted King wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
I'm afraid that the Democratic Party's approach to Medicare isn't a whole lot more rational than this.
Could you elaborate?
He's correct. Remember when the idea during the HCR debate was to allow 55+ to enroll in Medicare? Nooo, the Dems caved on that one right away and from what I read of it at the time, it would have provided a much needed boost to the entire system and solved one of the problems of people w/o insurance who fall between that gap in age. C'est la vie in DC.
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - BCam - 10-12-2011
From today's "Morning Joe" show on MSNBC.
Oil industry/Government accept 1,100 gallons/minute as acceptable rate for cleaning up an oil spill (like last year in the Gulf).
Technology has not progressed for the last 20 years.
X-Prize, and Wendy Schmidt (Mrs. Google) announced a prize for any team that could do better.
The winner is in, and their approach picks up 4,720 Gallons per minute! Their prize? $1.4 M.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_joe/#44873039
That works out to about 1.6% of what the oil & gas companies pay every day to the US Treasury. (according to http://energytomorrow.org/economy/earnings?gclid=CMLq8b7h46sCFRM6gwodTzkmTw#/type/all). So much for R&D.
You would think industry would always be looking for newer and better ways to conduct business, one of which would be to clean up the messes you make. But, obviously, this is not so.
This is a perfect demonstration of what is wrong with US Business right now. Can you imagine Steve Jobs pitching 20 year old technology in his newest computers?
"Today, I want to introduce the new Powerbook 140. This baby is fast! It's got a Motorola 68030 processor running at 16 Mhtz. It can take up to 8 Megs of RAM. It's got a 9.8" monochrome screen, a built in modem so you can plug it right into your phone jack at home, or at work, and it blows the competition outta the water when it runs on OS 7.5!"
To quote Fox Mulder, "The answers are out there." You just have to actually want to look for them!
You want to get America off foreign oil? Have the Secretary of Transportation announce the "Earnhardt Prize". Design a replacement engine for 80% of American vehicles that gets 100 MPG with the power of a V6. It doesn't run on gasoline and doesn't pollute.
The Prize? $10M - tax free.
I'm betting that by Labor Day 2012 we have a winner.
Re: "The GOP's Reality Distortion Field" - OWC Jamie - 10-12-2011
We'd give you a Powerbook 150, but the government wants us to do 6 billion in environmental impact studies, so we'll let Microsoft or Xerox do it first.