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Thanks, Kend.
Sorry guys I forgot it was thanksgiving up there so happy holidays to all of you.
Palindromedary ~ After Thanksgiving festivities I'm in more than in well enough condition to respond to akunard and Kend; however, you will have to elaborate on what you are trying to say if you want an intelligible response from me.
I think it is a mixture of a corrupt government combined with the capitalist private sector government corrupters that screw us all. re: "Alec wants to kill Obamacare" my post #16
akunard ~ That is absolutely true with anything involving the Military Industrial Complex; but ,really, anything else? The Postal Service is 10 X's more efficient than any other physical messaging service. Medicare is 100 X's more efficient than any private for profit medical insurance, and, quite sadly, the US global spy network is about 1,000,000,000 X's more efficient than any other information gathering operation in the history of humanity; yet, the last thing I see when I look at the BIG PICTURE of government versus the private sector is waste on the part of the government; in fact, all I see is a bunch of BS on the part of the private sector.
akunard ~ What will happen is that Doctors who are motivated by healing people will be given all the time in the world they need to heal people. It is the current system where Doctors are FORCED to cut corners on everything that they do in order to make quotas. Pay the doctor a salary per day instead of per patient is the best way to maximize quality of care. Just look anywhere else in the world that has a Universal Health Care System and you will see the evidence that this is true. Pay for quality and you get quality, pay for quantity and you get quantity; and, the two are mutually exclusive.
akunard ~ I'm sorry my friend, but what you have just written is such a unintelligible clouded mental brain fart that I must conclude that it is the result of too much Champagne mixed with Turkey stuffing. A most Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
Kend ~ With all due respect to you and your Eskimo friends, until they can produce the satellite evidence that contradicts what I've provided your testimonials literally mean less than nothing.
Kend ~ I can honestly say I don't have any idea what you are talking about. Please kindly provide the link to the the scientific data that supports that argument; because, quite frankly, that statement makes no sense to anything I understand happening in the real world.
Aliceinwonderland ~ Now this is the most reasonable and logical explanation of what I have been hearing all night long. I must thank you for that most astute observation. I certainly hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving festivities as much as I. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
www.cryptome.org/2013/11/acahts.doc
http://www.amazon.com/Army-Human-Terrain-System-2008-2013/dp/1491063920
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http://www.policymic.com/articles/74159/5-insanely-wasteful-projects-the...
Thanks DAnne for the info. The problem is the Eskimo's who have lived there for thousands of years say this isnt anything new the ice has come and gone forever. I noticed most of the data is from years ago. Up here the last 3 years have been extremely cold and most of that ice has returned. the earth is tens of millions of years old and been changing tempatures since the beginning. emissions in cars have been reduced to a quarter of what they where 15 years ago . Cars are twice as light yet they are polluting tens times more..?? Something isn't right.
There are a few things government does well and that is waste and fraud, creating them not getting rid of them!
What will happen when your Dr. is on salary? He will cut his patient load. You get paid the same for seeing 20 people a day as 50 per day.
I just try to explain how it works in the REAL WORLD. So quit trying to pull me into a pissing match
Danger and destruction every where? Why are so many banging on the door to get in when they could spend their energy getting visas to the truly great countries where the chance to prosper is not hampered by capitalism?
Marc, your patience is indeed admirable. I could have explained all that to "akunard" but I don't believe he is listening. I just don't think he gives a flippin' damn. He's from the "me" crowd; we're from the "we" clan. Two completely different mind sets. He and his ilk are concerned only about themselves. They are not interested in figuring out how to create a healthcare system that works for everyone, or keeping this planet inhabitable for future generations of humans (let alone other life forms). We can continue repeating this stuff 'til we're blue in the face, but "akunard" and kend will keep asking the same dumb-ass questions over and over and over. And my hunch is, they're not really looking for answers. It's all just rhetorical nonsense. It might extract great blog posts from the rest of us from time to time, but it still seems futile getting through to these guys. - Aliceinwonderland
akunard ~ As I understand it, you are not cutting payments you are cutting funding and for profit administration waste. The cut funding is being earmarked for redistributed to be spent more efficiently. Henceforth, you get a much greater bang for the buck and both the system and the seniors save money; whereas, the seniors also receive better care.
It's the same result you get by designing a car with lighter material--it can carry more passengers, go faster, and get better gas mileage with the same engine. If you then improve the efficiency of the engine you gain that much more performance and savings.
There is too much inefficiency in the current system. Tests and treatments repeated because previous results are not available or shared. Overpriced medication because of unnecessarily high administration costs and lack of centralized care. People getting unnecessarily sick due to poor preventive care or lack of coverage or ability to pay high deductibles and copays. Much of it is due to for profit interference, too much administration costs, and poor communication. That leads to unacceptable preventive care, excessively high drug costs, and unnecessary catastrophic illness treatments. ObamaCare attempts to eliminate these problems by adding services where they are most needed and cutting them where they are not. As the article I posted above laments, the entire approach of ObamaCare is to improve the quality of care for everyone--with an emphasis on seniors.
As far as I am concerned, the plan looks great on paper. How it actually functions in the real world we will all have to wait and see. Personally, I have high hopes. It's natural to be skeptical of any new idea--especially one that affects such important aspects of our lives. However, I remember that same skepticism when Medicare was first implemented. That seemed to turn out just fine, didn't it?
"The ACA will get rid of human old farts," says akunard. "Add more people to the system, cut payments and we get better care?"
What better example could there be to illustrate the utter worthlessness of conservative ideology? When it comes to basic human needs and how to meet them, these guys are not only completely clueless; they simply couldn't care less.
The same goes for climate change, folks. Anything that matters to survival, to our collective wellbeing, is of no consequence to people whose worldview is so self-centered, so myopic, nothing counts in their realm of reality except power, profit and self-enrichment. They've nothing of value to contribute to the discussion, let alone any efforts at finding solutions to the overwhelming litany of problems plaguing us; problems that they, in large part, have created. Long as conservatives and teabrains occupy seats of power and call the shots, it will continue to get worse until eventually, we all perish. And if Thom's report on the status of methane emissions is correct, this could be sooner rather than later.
I continue visiting Der Spiegel from time to time. Whenever I see an article about climate-related topics, and examine the accompanying blog, I am stunned at how these discussions are dominated by climate deniers, who seem to be the majority of participants, all stridently declaring this one big hoax. I'd bet $$$ at least half these no-count ignoramus quacks are paid shills of the fossil fuel industry.
Conservatism is a hoax; a dangerous, ugly hoax. The evidence of the destruction it causes is all around us. If we can't get enough of these soulless quacks out of Congress, removed from positions of power and influence, there is no hope for us. It's hard to wrap my mind around stakes that high, but this is where we are my friends. - Aliceinwonderland
DAnne:
Add more people to the system, cut payments and we get better care?
To climate change deniers: While there are numerous scientific studies explaining how climate change works and the effects of climate change, I have yet to hear from the deniers exactly how pumping millions, if not billions of tons of pollutants in the the atmosphere every day , effectively changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, doesn't somehow affect the climate? Exactly, how does that work? Nor do I hear from them how does pissing in the backyard pool all the time, eventually, NOT, make it un-swim-able?
Consider this. Our atmosphere is only 7 miles thick. Once you are up 2 miles, there is barely enough oxygen to sustain human life. At about 13000 feet, there is even less. My point is, there is only about 2 miles of air up there that 7 billion people breathe.
We all better get use to "shortness of breath". This may be how our earth cleans itself.
As for "Obamacare", perhaps "democRATs" should have bitched more when raygun made "for profit" health care legal in 1982 and gave all tax payer built and paid for county hospitals to the "for profit" health care cabal for pennies on the dollar. More welfare for millionaires.
Where were the democRATs in 1982? Why did Obama make this a law instead of making "for profit" health care illegal with fines amounting to death for the millionaires that love making money from human suffering?
The democRAts and republiCONs all have the same motive.
FUCK THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER (CHUMP)
Duplicate comment eliminated.
To anyone who is interested, Senator Alan Grayson has sponsored a letter to the President asking to end drone warfare--except for times of actual war. You can add your name here:
http://enddronewarfare.com/?source=E1127NoCuts2013
stecoop01 ~ I think that it is safe to conclude that if some extraterrestrial species is indeed watching us, then they have learned from this mistake a long, long, long time ago. Perhaps the only reason they are watching is to wager on whether or not we will. I wonder what our odds are?
http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-medicare.php
http://verticalize.net/h/healthcare/?results=medicare&rf=ocf
akunard ~ So I see. Is that what you were talking about?
Doomed! DOOMED!!! We are all doomed! And the best part is - we did it to ourselves!
But seriously, we have over-populated ourselves into extinction. If just as little as 75 years ago we would have restricted population growth, we wouldn't be in this mess now. Back when there were less than 2 billion people on this rock, Ole Mother Earth had very little trouble cleaning up after us. But now we number over 7 billion and Mama just can't handle it anymore.
My one complaint about environmentalists has always been that they only look at one half of the problem - what people are doing to the environment, and ignore the other half - how many people are doing it to the environment. The two halves go hand-in-hand.
My hope is that some extraterestrial species is watching us, and learning from our mistakes.
Large cuts in Medicare to help pay for ACA.
Please Thom, I'm more interested in Miley Cyrus, American Idol and Dancing With The Stars. Why do you always have to be such a buzz-kill with your facts and reality?
akunard ~ That sounds like good advice. Good for the planet, good for the body.
akunard ~ Just how is that going to happen? People over 65 will still be on Medicare. Only people under 65 will be eligible for the ACA. Am I missing something? Please don't tell me that at the ripe young age of 64 you think I'm an old fart?
Eat more chicken. Get rid of cows and pigs. The ACA will get rid of human old farts.
The PPACA was negotiated in secret? I seem to remember hearing about the negotiations on Thom's program and elsewhere as they were happening. In fact, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate of the Finance Committee and other committees met 31 times to negotiate the bill and it was only after the individual mandate was added that the Senate Republicans vowed to filibuster it and the Democrats went ahead without them. You've been hearing some falsehoods.
The Democrats did not change the rules to pass it with a simple majority, it passed with a veto proof majority of 60 -39 with 58 Democrats 2 independents for, 39 Republicans against, one RTepublican not voting.
When did the Democrats "lie to the face" of America?
The Democrats should have changed the rules. Should tell Alice's senator if he wants Mr Smith back in Washington he can keep talking like Mr Smith when he wants to filibuster.
That Climate Summit in Poland was a friggin' joke... Climate activists banned from the discussion, while corporate hacks all got seats at the table. Deja-vu! Just like our healthcare debate four & a half years ago. Long as the oligarchs have their say and call the shots, it's all theater. - Aliceinwonderland