Everyone Hates Health Care Reform
Well, not everyone. But according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, a lot more people oppose health reform now than did nine months ago when Congress began to work on the bill. The number of people who support reform, meanwhile, has remained almost exactly the same:
In the survey, only 33 percent say President Obama's health-reform effort is a good idea, versus 46 percent who consider it a bad idea.
That result is essentially unchanged from last month's poll. However, the number saying that Obama's health plan is a bad idea has increased 20 percentage points since April, when the public supported the reform effort by a 33-26 percent margin.
Like a giant wad of grape Bubble Yum, it seems the longer you chew over it, the less pleasant it gets. This, I think, helps explain how Scott Brown came from behind in Massachusetts. And it's presumably why the White House has recently taken to saying essentially that Democrats need to just go ahead and pass the bill so that they can then work on explaining what's in it and why it's so great. Usually it works the other way around, but hilariously incompetent candidates like Martha Coakley desperate times call for desperate measures.
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...the White House has recently taken to saying essentially that Democrats need to just go ahead and pass the bill so that they can then work on explaining what's in it and why it's so great.
I'm beginning to suspect Obama isn't the savvy and formidable political tactician he's been made out to be.
He ain't Bill Clinton, that's for sure.
Which is just another manifsetion of the Democrats perpetual attitude towards the public - that they are too stupid to know what's good for them and the enlightened Dems who do will make sure they get it regardless.
It's interesting. He seems to have learned the lessons of the Clinton healthcare debacle -- that you have to make everyone who could possibly fight the bill happy with it at the very beginning. He gave Congressional Dems complete control of what was going to be in the bill (as opposed to Bill giving Hilary that control), and forged deals with basically every organized interest group with a stake in health care -- the AMA, the drug companies, and yes, the eeeeeeevil insurance companies. But alas, there is more than one way to fail.
The problem ultimately was that there were so many cooks stirring the broth that the process took way too long. When this thing dragged out for longer than a month, it was pretty much doomed. (Note that even if the current bill passes it is an extremely watered-down version of what was originally proposed. Even passage of this bill is actually failure for the administration and Congressional leadership.)
Don't you mean too many CROOKS stirring the broth?
Always fight the last war. The interesting part is that he appears to want to do the opposite of what Clinton did that was successful, too, (the triangulation) at least if these reports can be trusted.
Republicans are pretty good at opposition. Not so much good at government, though. What's wrong with being the Party of No?
I think it's more that a lot people say they are for health care reform in the abstract, but there is not nearly as much support for the particulars of what Dems want to do that they call "reform". It's as if the Dems have set up a roadside fruit stand and people come looking for apples and oranges and such but they find all that's available are durians.
You're absolutely right. I think everyone recognizes our system could be better, but there are ways to make it better with small, incremental changes that will drive down costs. Lowering costs will make health care more accessible and mitigate a lot of the flaws. People think of a thing or two they would change and they say they're pro-reform, but they don't mean pro-overhaul. When a progressive hears "reform" they think it means a huge sweeping change, but a conservative understands that Rube Goldberg machines have multiple points of failure.
Oh, yes, and for the same reason everyone's in favor of every student getting an A, dice unable to come up snake eyes, laws against bad weather and bad luck, perpetual motion, and free lunches.
Only Democrats, however, are stupid enough to run on a platform promising free lunches forever. They never seem to learn how short-lived their spectacular success must necessarily be, nor how reverberating is the awful crunch that follows.
This is why they remain the party of the young, the senile, and those new to democracy.
I think what Zero learned he heard at the retreat with Bill Clinton last fall. He convinced all the Mediacrats they had to pass health care reform or they would be doomed, just like they were in 1994. That he was too stupid or naive to realize that Clinton was just trying to tack on a suspended accomplishment to his bio and couldn't give a fig about the fate of Congress evidently never occurred to him.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CHICKENHAWK!
Ditto - I'm there
I was saying Boo-urns
This puts lie to the Democrats' ridiculous claim that all of their problems are the result of evil Republicans standing in the way of the public good in hopes of hurting Obama.
If only Republicans had the balls to stand together in opposition of popular big government policies. Fat chance. The Republicans are only united against this monstrosity because they know it is unpopular and there is no political downside to voting against it. If it were popular, it would have passed with Republican support a long time ago, no matter how awful and unconstitutional a bill it is.
"""The Republicans are only united against this monstrosity because they know it is unpopular and there is no political downside to voting against it."""
Sure, thrown in the fact that they know once it's passed, they can modify it more to their liking without taking the heat for passing it.
Naturally, republicans want republican health care reform. That plays both ways too.
You give them too much credit. Anyone of about twenty different Republican Senators would love to get the media love associated with being bi-partisan and voting for "historic reform". But, they know this bill is poison and anyone who votes for it dead meat. It is pure survival instinct and nothing else.
So tell us what you really think, Mr. Obama?
Sorry that was me. My penance for Trolling.
The Republicans were even opposed to it back when it was popular (or at least not unpopular). At that time it was just a way to show the GOP base that they would fight against Obama.
Now of course the fact that it's unpopular is even more reason for them to oppose it.
Good governance ain't a popularity contest.
Some were. But Snow and a few other RINOs would have sold out if it wasn't anything but pure poison.
If it were popular, it would have passed with Republican support a long time ago, no matter how awful and unconstitutional a bill it is.
Well, yeah, that's pretty much what democracy buys you.
If you want principled government, then you need some other form of government.
But then, that can only work if the principles are right, otherwise it's a worse train wreck than what we have.
We took command of fire long ago. Now somebody let me know when homo sapiens finally comes up with a better way to govern his own collective ass.
Way to go, Congress! You finally managed to band people together for a single and important cause.
If I were prone to conspiracy theories, I'd swear the authors of the healthcare bill were secret libertarian agents who deliberately wanted to turn Americans off the whole idea. Seriously: after all the thousand and one "My sleazy health insurance company screwed me over" stories you read every day, who the hell thought Americans would like a reform package that boils down to "You're required to be that sleazy insurance company's customer whether you want to or not?"
Shhhhhhhh!
Exclamation points are racist.
My comment does not appear to be written in an English script. Please comment in English!
Dammit!
I guess the comment filter is racist too.
Shhhhh. You're going to blow Rahm's cover!
He's not really a ballerina! Shhhhh!!
Lol! Good point!
That and the fact that no one outside of the rankest Democratic hacks really wanted health reform. People didn't vote Democrat in 2008 because of George Bush's failure to get single payer.
Most people are smart enough to know that health insurance is the least of your concerns when you don't have a job. We have 10% unemployment and all Obama can talk about is health care reform. It is amazing how insulated from reality they are.
Are you serious?
Uh . . . Uh?
What if it said Fruit Stripe? That stuff tastes like plastic about 10 seconds into chewing it.
Well, that's the thing, I don't chew on those brands. I used to chew Stride but I stopped after these guys in a van started to follow me everywhere, so I now chew on Orbit because I have a dirty mouth. So I don't know what Suderman is talking about.
What's your address? I'll mail you some grape bubble yum. Free as long as you promise to report back here on your experience with it.
I particularly want to know what you see following you down the street.
I've seen so many reports in the media on whether or not healthcare reform will pass, is it popular, etc. I've seen almost no reports telling me what healthcare reform would do. I'd like to have a clue as to the facts before I decide my position on any issue.
It will fuck up the economy.
How?
Like I said, I'm a big fan of fact-based discussions.
Are you serious? ARE YOU SERIOUS??
Sorry, Duncan, gone for a meeting. Take a look at Cato's analysis of the healthcare debate.
I think that's the worst part of the whole thing. Not even the people who voted for it knew what was in it, aside from a few bribes. They are voting strictly party line, my side/your side.
It's complicated. We don't really know exactly what will happen. Go ask a Congressional leader, or perhaps a well-connected lobbyist, they might have some idea.
We have some idea about various provisions, but everyone keeps swearing to change them.
One brief summary is that to make the bill look deficit neutral over ten years (that's the budget window), they start the taxes to pay for it immediately, but don't start the subsidies until 2013 or 2014. 6 years of benefits averages out with 10 years of taxes to make it look deficit neutral. Other than that key fact, a lot is fluid.
Some provisions, for example, would make it illegal for Flex Spending Accounts to spend money on OTC products. That's to make the drug industry happy.
This three-four years of taxes before the benefits kick in means that the bill is really just a big tax increase (remember, 1 year is an eternity in politics and this is 3, 4 years before the rest of the bill applies) Looked at this way, you could say that the Democrats in Congress didn't want to end up massively strapped for revenue like the big blue state governments in CA and NY, so they pro-actively put together a big tax increase and called it health reform!
"to make the bill look deficit neutral over ten years (that's the budget window), they start the taxes to pay for it immediately, but don't start the subsidies until 2013 or 2014"
No doubt these tax monies will be safely tucked away in a "lock-box" until they're needed, just like Social Security trust funds. Trust these thieves at your own risk.
Duncan, your failure to believe in the Obamassiah and wanting facts instead makes you a nihilist. If you don't believe in The One, then you don't believe in anything.
...and suddenly, I feel so....empty...
I think it was the same with Bush as Obama. All these people want to believe a person is good and always has great ideas--instead of going on a case-by-case basis and deciding where they stand. I was amazed the other night when the CBS evening news actually explained the three different no-fly/terrorist watch lists. I was so confused by see actual facts on the news.
However, the number saying that Obama's health plan is a bad idea has increased 20 percentage points since April, when the public supported the reform effort by a 33-26 percent margin.
More evidence for the General Theory of 33.3. The pro-HCR faction has remained a solid 1/3 throughout. The anti-HCR faction has picked up many people because there has been so much controversy. But when it's done, the three groups will regress to the historic pattern: about a third for, about a third against, and a third not interested enough to have an opinion.
So this bill is so bad that it managed to make everyone who is normally not interested enough to have an opinion hate it. That is a hell of an accomplishment.
The confusing part of why people love or hate healthcare reform is that nobody seems to understand it. I guess that makes people hate it b/c we tend to fear the unknown.
Here's why I hate it: It's patently unconstititional. From the forced purchase of health insurance to the sweetheart deal that makes union members an elite, protected class not subject to a tax.
NOW JUST SHUT UP AND IRON MY SHIT!
Or personal experience that giving government officials a blank check for power is an excellent method to get totally cleaned out.
I guess that makes people hate it b/c we tend to fear the unknown.
And I'm guessing you mean that to be pejorative? We're all a bunch of pussies, huh?
On the other hand, fear of the unknown seems in a lot of cases to be the height of wisdom. Would you inject yourself with an unknown clear liquid, because a stranger with a goofy grin at a rave said it was great stuff? Would you sign a mortgage note with large chunks of the contract hidden in unknown appendices you weren't allowed to see? Would you give away your serviceable if low-mileage car for the unknown prize behind Door Number 2?
Well maybe you would. Fools rush in, et cetera. But for the rest of us, fear of the unknown is another way to say using common sense. Because there's little doubt in many minds that this "health care reform" bill is not a little bit like injecting yourself with an unknown liquid, or signing a contract with unknown clauses, or trading away your working automobile for an unknown prize behind Door Number 2.
I think that there's a lot to the 1/3 D, 1/3 R, 1/3 Independent theory of American politics. The big problem is that 2/3 are so set in their ways while the 1/3 Independents include a large number of the most apathetic and least informed.
But the General Theory of 33.3 has applications far beyond politics. It explains workplace productivity, for example, more completely than the popular 80-20 rule. A third of people like to work, want to keep busy, want to do a good job, get ahead, etc.; a third won't really work under any circumstances; and the rest will work hard enough not to get fired. A smart manager can make incremental adjustments in these figures, but the shape will not change much.
Interesting theory, that's a new one on me.
There's also the 33.3 rule of simplistic theories posted on the Intertubes. A third are pure obvious bullshit, but never truly die because their childlike simplicity encourages repeated rediscovery, a third are just plausible enough to mislead casual thinkers and doom them to years of painful penance and/or loss of savings e-mailed to Nigeria, and a final third are too weird to elicit more than a muffled WTF from the madding crowd.
Let's conduct the same poll, but limit it to people who can correctly list five elements within the bill. I wonder what the numbers would be for the five percent or so who could pass that test.
And don't give me the "it's all a secret" BS. There are plenty of sources of information on both the Senate and House bills, and the differences between them are pretty small.
Yeah because being required to purchase health insurance is just so popular. So is losing medicare advantage (unless you live in Florida). And everyone loves the idea of paying Mutual of Omaha $400 million dollars for Ben Nelson's vote.
Yes Chad if only people understood they would love this steaming pile of shit. Whatever gets you through the night.
I feel so misunderstood.
John, apologize to SPoS for comparing it to Obamacare, you've hurt it's feelings.
1/5 for, 4/5 against.
Most people think that the plans will be about free health care. People who know what's in the plans know that it's about forcing young healthy people to buy insurance to subsidize older, less healthy people.
"Young healthy people to buy insurance to subsidize older, less healthy people." As my Dad pointed out when I complained about this to him, he said it's the same where you work now. You pay the same premiumm as the old guy in the next cube.
At work, you can opt out.
Yeah? So at your company they force you at the point of a gun to buy the same expensive PPO plan as the geezer needs to manage his heart condition? And they won't let you opt out of the health-care plan entirely, pay your own way? Or even quit your job and find another company with a better plan?
Boy do you need a union.
JUST SHUT UP AND IRON MY SHIT!
What Pip said!!
OH GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?
Chad,
I'm not saying that it's a secret, but I am saying that the media has done almost nothing to explain it. Why do you oppose (or support) the healthcare reform bills? I'm not saying an essay, just one or two reasons.
Make the fucker come up with five.
(1) A 40% tax on high-quality health care plans, to be shoveled into the maw of government spending. I pay enough for my damn health care already, I don't need a 40% tax hit on top of it.
(2) Unelected Washington bureaucrats deciding what does and doesn't constitute an acceptable healthcare plan. So I'll have to pay for Tom Harkin's insistence that all healthcare plans cover crystal healing, and to compensate they'll spring for only uncoated (i.e. worthless) stents for my cardiac surgery. I'm supposed to look forward to the same people who run the TSA and "guarantee" my safety on a plane guaranteeing that my health care plan safeguards my health? How delusional does one need to be to believe in that?
(3) A big whack to the only part of Medicare (Medicare Advantage) that seems to work, and provide good access to seniors. Gee, I'd like to retire and not be put on the "Liverpool Path" if I come down with a spot of flu.
(4) An unholy burden on the public finances that will either destroy the dollar or saddle my kids with enough taxes to destroy their initiative and ability to prosper, either way turning them into wage slaves for the Chinese.
(5) Nothing -- and I mean NOTHING -- that government runs EVER runs on time and on budget and without absurd cynical politicization that makes a mockery of the concept of equal justice. Amtrak, the Post Office, Katrina, airline security, immigration and naturalization, the Social Security Ponzi scheme, wars to end all wars, nuclear energy, spaceflight, intellectual property law, and the great "affordable mortgages for everybody" bubble. Nearly everything those anti-Midas psychotic gerbils in Washington touch turns to shit. What drooling maniac would want them touching the decision of what kind of treatment Mom gets for her cancer?
Uh, Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Steel!
Let's do the poll with the people that give back their 33% of their income to this mythical "society" you are so fond of.
Didn't you get the memo? Those idiots don't count.
Remember last July...HCR sailing along on a summer breeze, Obama lining up his pens for a Labor Day signing ceremony...then August recess, angry white people awakening from their stupors, surprised Democrats getting yelled at by the rabble...name-calling, tea-bagging, shell-shocked lefties everywhere...good times.
JUST SHUT UP AND IRON MY SHIT!
But it was just racism. Straight up. And there were guns at those things. And it was all Republican AstroTurf.
Damned dirty apes!
Honest question: I'll assume that my requirement to buy insurance will include their requirement to sell it to me regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Um, is there a limit on what they can CHARGE me for my pre-existing conditions? I mean, can they say "Sure we'll cover you! We have to! That'll be $5,000 per month. And I'll even say please, Bitch!"?
And if I can't afford that, do I get hit with the no insurance government penalty?
Now, that depends entirely on whether or not you chew grape bubble yum.
"The pro-HCR faction has remained a solid 1/3 throughout. The anti-HCR faction has picked up many people because there has been so much controversy." Meaning the lobbyist have had too much influence over the bill but does not define that HCR is not in itself popular. The vast majority want HCR and the only way to achieve it is to cut the health insurance companies out of the deal.
Reform may be popular in the abstract. But in this country, raw and blatant socialism isn't necessarily so popular.
Cutting the health insurance companies out of the deal wouldn't have gotten the Democrats any further down the road than they got.
Cutting the health insurance companies out of the deal is the only way to reform. The insurance lobby won this contest and they will continue to hike rates till the point companies give up paying for employee HC.
The health insurance lobby won???? You mean -- gasp -- all we have to do is blow up all the health insurance companies in America, and Nirvana will follow?
Get a grip.
Ebeneezer Scrooge,nirvana will follow when lobbyist are taken out of the picture (including the segment that is opting out of calling themselves lobbyist) and government does pass HCR.
This is democratic politics we're talking here, you do realize.
Ban them under whatever name you wish, but like weeds they shall reappear.
If you want to ban them you'll have to start by banning democracy and all its near cousins. Until then you're playing with a pipe dream.
Oh come now, faintheart. Follow your reasoning to its logical conclusion. Insurance companies will raise their rates until no one at all can pay them.
Only when they have zero paying customers will their secret plan for world domination be complete.
Carl, are you seriously suggesting that health care rates are not skyrocketing? Btw, the plan ain't that secret.;)
Paul Krugman is saying that this is a referendum, and the public is saying we didn't do enough on the stimulus!
It's NOT reform, it stopped being "reform" a long-long time ago and turned into pork, HUGE pork - plain and simple. As Massachusetts showed with Independents and any thinking person, it SUCKS.
The Brown-Coakley election was very much a referendum on healthcare reform. It lost. It lost in MASSACHUSETTS. Polls, including the exit poll, show that more MA voters are AGAINST the healthcare reform bills than are for it -- by 10-15%.
If Democrats have screwed up healthcare reform so badly that they can't sell it in deep blue Massachusetts, the party is really screwed up.
What can Brown do for you?
The WORST things about this bill are:
1. Forcing people to buy health insurance by the same robber baron insurance companies that screwed them.
2. Gutting Medicare (Psst: Medicare is the public option so vilified by the Congressgerbil
3. Taxing employer paid health insurance payouts. What goon thought up that kick in the teeth to the American public?
No wonder "HCR" is so unpopular to the public than it was 9 months ago. It's become even more unpopular since the public option was thrown out.
There is a unity lost between these Governing Parties and what is lost is a moral value to the People.
To see the true Health Care Tax forum you must stop thinking in 3-D,This multi tax forum is against a $100 Trillion Dollar system.. ...
To force pay into another system of failures within Health Care Insurance Groups.
This economy will not balance with this concept of a tax forum against the Health Care System. The issue of how to force pay into this system of Health Care may have worked but I am still troubled over the progressive tax forum within this Bill. It covers so many items and Countries that it only forces the system to adjust itself. In some areas, increases against the people and the troubled economy, and in other areas, less effects will be felt.
But this is my big problem, Government Officials seek help and they are to proud to ask us, "the true working force of Government." It is understandable they have failed the People and within the United States Of America all we ask is to see us as who we are and not try to bring us into this world of the intellectual. I guess our Prime Directive is that of Star Trek, so it must be understood that for millions of people we are just as happy as can be making $13.00 per hour and we have no interest in this world of politics, and how to be a Enstine. Government Officials must understand that there is a level of people within different parts of this Country, that seek to be only that they find to make them happy.
As for this economy well, it is said that the U.S.A. Arms Division has created enough arsenal to destroy every last creature in the world 2 times over,built with tax dollars. This would be funny if not for the irony of it. And now as time has passed Government Officials keep failing. Before 9/11 all the way to today.
As it is in a world of a system, when employees continue to fail, one or two things happen, one; you get fired, two; if you see into a person a good, then it is political correct to implement a penalty or roll back in pay. But this implement of penalty is more favored in the course of action in the Federal Employment World. So how to fix the economy and unite it with the Health Care issue. It would be in the Countries best interest to implement a 10% per cent penalty against every State, County and Government Official within this Matrix of failures. Hey what is that old saying, what is good for the Goose is good for the Gander. I am serous about this, it is past due to show that our Government Officials they have failed, their system failure reaches into this world of warnings that they brush aside as if the information is not worthy noting. From Pearl Harbor to 9/11/2001 to 3/07/2010 of our tax system and Health Care Reform. This 10% per cent penalty should go into the Health Care Forum.
The big problem that Government Officials have is that they have no street credit. President Obama still has some but if he does not take his family and step away from these dueling Parties, that fight over this Health Care Dollar, and stand with Us he will lose all credit from the streets to the county.
President Obama, I would say to you, you have one last chance to regain the hopes and dreams of the American People. To reach out in a concept that states, if there is 250 million people in trouble because of these failures, I would give all my money to them and then I would say to all that I gave money to, "I have no money left, would you all please give me $1.00 back and then I would have $250. million dollars to start all over again."
As for this $100,trillion dollar in site.............
Results 1 - 10 of about 685,000 for net worth of medicine development industry
Just to show how deep this Health Care Tax split petition reaches. The term split petition is used because of the Tax factor plan that is not seen because of the intent not to show a capital Taxing of close to a $100 trillion dollar package, a yearly system income, not profit.....
Some have stated that I clam to have spiritual in site or something of the sort. I assure you this is not true, so when I state that I asked God to help, it is my way of saying hey Bobby show me how to work on theses Chevy engines. But I do thank you for the consideration. Consider me a cross of Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hill Billies with my 10th. Grade education and Vin Diesel from the move Pitch Black.
So drop on by and see page 100 at our site and follow the blue pill link
Health Care within a moral value, is to ,
{ GIVE LIFE TO HOPE WHERE THERE IS NONE }
Henry Massingale
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