So all the dems have called me a "radical" for attending a tea party. I guess not wanting to pay huge taxes is extreme..but killing over a dozen fellow soldiers is not. hmm.
Muslim terrorists who are intentionally over-looked BECAUSE they are muslim extremists because of 'political correctness' is the best tool that radical islam has! Honestly if we keep up this stupidity we deserve the term 'infidel' because we're too stupid to see the obvious truth and defend ourselves.
Welcome to the club of "speaking out." Been there, done that. I was called "Unpatriotic" when I protested during the Bush error. I was called many other names as well. It is the times we live in. No one disagrees any more. Now the other side is "extreme", "unpatriotic", etc etc. Political correctness is not a Democrat issue, I was hammered for my views by "RIGHT THINKING REPUBLICANS" . Look at beck and other tabloid commentators on either side of the political spectrum. They are always ranting and raving about some issue. When someone complains about "political correctness", think about people you have disagreed with in the past. How have you responded? Are you part of the problem or part of the solution. The bible counsels to: First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Good advice. To bad people only pay the bible lip service. I have never called anyone names for expressing their political views. I have hammered people for making stupid statements. There is a difference.
I support one's rights to go to the tea parties, even though many who go to them wanted to deny me the right to protest appalling actions that the Republicans took to suppress freedom in America.
I don't understand the newfound republican angst for wasting money. Where was the angst when the republican wasted a trillion dollars?? Both parties waste money at appalling rates, the difference is what the parties waste money on. The democrats waste the money health care and economic stimulus efforts, the republicans waste money on economic stimulus and chasing 5000 people around iraq for 8 years who were not even in the country before we invaded. The republicans also wasted 8 years and billions of dollars on afghanistan with no plan and no exit strategy and totally failed to do the one thing they said they were after when they started: which was get Osama. Total Failure in every aspect of the Afghantan war at the cost of many american lives and billions of dollars. So you will forgive me if I see not a hair's difference in the propensity of the parties to waste money.
The real story is what would you rather waste money on. Killing people or giving americans health care.
Personally I would prefer not to waste money. There are solutions to both problems but you won't hear that on the tabloid press found on the cable stations. Hard work never sells papers nor makes anyone a cable celebrity. It is much better to promote hate and anger. People open up thier pocketbooks and get energized by hate. That is what made Karl Rove effective and at the same time a disaster for american democracy.
When civility dies, the country will not be far behind. We no longer solve problems we simply rant and rave.
We do not have the best health care system in the world. We pay twice as much and our outcomes on almost every disease and condition are worse than in other countries. Our government actually passed a law that said the government could not negotiate prices of perscription drugs. Is that the capitalistic system? It is if graft and corruption are considered just part of the system. The insurance companies legally denied a woman treatement for *** cancer because she forgot to tell the insurance company about acne. The way we improve health care is to get into it and revamp the rules of the game. The insurance companies are doing a lousy job, the healthcare providers are all over the map in pricing. The cost of a medical procedure will be $1,000 at one place and a mile away it will be $4,000. An xray or medical procedure should cost the same anywhere. That way we could tell who is efficient and who is not. The reason it is so insane is because we are not rational about how we deliver health care in this country.
To fix the problem there are hundreds of good ideas and then there is the FOX approach. Show holocaust bodies and link that to the health care bill making it's way through congress. This did nothing but create controversy in order to gain more viewers. That is a travesty. FOX converage has been a travesty. I don't argue with the right for them to have thier say, but it is also my right to point out that what fox does is not news, but tabliod explotation for the sole purpose of creating controversy to make money.
We can make our healthcare system the best and most cost effective in the world, but we have to work on the real issues, not the phony ones conjured up by the tabloid media whether it comes from the right or the left.
ok RR, i have to correct you :-)
Cost does not equal quality.
The United States has the best healthcare in the world by far. We have the best meds, the best technologies, the best trained Docs, the best of everything. If I had cancer, or a runny nose, there is NO other place in the world i would rather be. I have been in the medical system in Europe and it is absolutly pathentic.
There is a distinct reason that we have the best of everything..the free Market.
Do we have the cheapest healthcare??.. that is debatable. You would have to factor in the taxes paid by other nations compaired to our premiums. I think we fare pretty well. But to say that we don't have the best heathcare in the world because of cost is a mistake.
The question is, why do you suppose the Government HMO will be any better than the private? Does it correct any of the problems you identifed above? Nope, just makes them worse.
If it were better, why has Congress excluded themselves from it.
In fact, it makes it even harder for a small business to hire anyone. The fines and penalites issue to small business doesn't make it anymore affordable and you will still have to report acne to get your cancer coverage.
There is no new found distaste for big spending Republican. I lost faith in Bush once he supported the "Bail out" and the fake thing called "global warming". However, dwelling on the Bush administration is going to give you ulcers, while Obama uses the Bush mistakes to drag you closer to Socialism. As long as you are still Distracted buy Bush and Palin, we continues to fuel the move to Socialism.
And for my final point regarding healthcare.. This whole bill has nothing to do with healthcare. It has everything to do with the congress, Republican and Dems alike, moving to take control of the largest chunk of our economy and gives them grounds to dictate things in our personal lives. They want you to get all angry about the provisions in the bill because they want people focused on the bill and not the big picture, which is the move the total government control.
Notice TORT reform is not in the bill...hmmmmm.
We do not have the best health care system in the world if you look at outcomes.
Maybe an analogy will help. The Philidelphia 76'ers had the best player ever to play the game of basketball up to that point. They played the Boston Celtics that had good players, but no one near the ablilty of Wilt Chamberlain. The outcome (ie. Champeionship) did not go to the team with the best player. 11 out of 13 years, the Boston Celtics won the NBA championship because it was the better all around team.
Your mistake is that yes, we have some of the best doctors and hospitals in the world, but the overall system does not produce the superior outcomes you would expect from paying twice the money and having the best players. Other countries are better "team" players and for every 100 people that go into a hospital for a condition, almost any condition, more will be helped in a hospital outside of the US. Sorry, but this is fact. For any condition or disease you can name except for a certain kind of *** cancer, you are better off in many other countries. If you play the odds. If you have government run healthcare like the senators do or a lot of money to go to the right place, then of course you can most of the time find a good place here in the us.
The reason is simple, team play. Perhaps an example. My mother was in one of the best intensive care units in the world, right here in the US. Probably many other places in the world she would have died. They spent hundred's of thousands of dollars to save her life and then almost killed her (Would have if my syster had not taken off work) because they could not convey the simple fact to the nursing home that my mother needed oxygen. It was not that the hospital did anything wrong treating my mother, but the system did fail, but was rescued by my sister's desire to make sure everything was ok. Had she not had vacation and waited until after work my mother would have died that day.
This is a classic story to illustrate why the US system of healthcare is not the best in the world. It could be, but so many people pass around the myth that we are the best, we do not strive to make it so. We simply let it go it;s merry way killing and torturing our loved ones. Let me see. The medical system killed my grandmother -- She did not need a test, she was a complainig old woman! THat decsion lead directlty to her death, from a cancer that is over 90% curable if caught early. They tortured my brother in law by resusitating him long after there was any rational hope of recovery, so his last night was spent being shocked over and over again. My father was not allowed to die a peaceful death, the medical establishment ignored our wishes and so he died an angonizingly painful death. My sister was not given a $1.50 medication and so the system spent $16,000 on a life flight. Of course the oversight ensured she suffered unessesary strokes. Also my sister for a condition that is known to kill swiftly could not see a doctor in the system for over 90 days. We did not accept that so through calling all the specilists in the state, we found one. Had we let they superior healthcare system of the US do it's thang, she would have died 75 days before her appointment. I could go on and on about the lousy system of healthcare, my own experiance of being given the wrong medicine and it ended up costing the healthcare system over $13,000 of uncessary expenses, but I am sure you might be getting the point.
WE have to get past this silly argument about whether or not we are the best and look at it top to bottom, we should have the goal of covering everyone (We do it anyway) and find out how to build the best system that can be built. There are many things we can do if we quit denying the problems. Kind of like the first step of an addict, aknowledgement of the problem.
In a few weeks if we came together we could have a plan of attack. The outlines are clear. It is really an information problem in large parts, something we can solve--unless of course we hide our heads in the sand and tell ourselves there is no problem.