When debating with someone with the intention of getting them to agree with you, it seems best to start with the most superficial thesis, and if there is disagreement, move to the closest underlying thesis, and repeat until you find a point of commonality. Then work back up using raw data, interpreting those data as you go, until you reach back up to the original superficial thesis. I'm certainly not skilled in the execution of this process, but I can tell that it's probably the best one to use. Most people end up arguing in circles or digressing sideways through the tree of beliefs. You need to work down to the trunk, then back up to the same leaf.

I'd like to see political debates conducted as if the debators are a two-person legislature, working out a solution together, agreeing on what the problem is, then agreeing on a basic idea, then hammering out details and exceptions to that basic plan.

A.I.W., I don't disagree with you that extending bargaining power to the Medicare Part D program would go a long ways toward helping out with the cost of Medicare. Of course, that's one of the key issues Obama was going to thrash out publicly with the pharmaceutical companies .... before he didn't. So it's not just the Blue Dog Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, the Better Business Bureau, or whomever; even the President is complicit in maintaining the status quo. I'm afraid that we're going to wait a very long time for the reform of BIG Pharma by the usual suspects.

I was simply suggesting that there's one thing that people do have control of, and that's their attitude about how to interface with the system. That little tale I related about my medicare experience had an ending I didn't relate in my post. My doctor wanted to continue running tests, even though everything they'd done had turned up nothing. I declined, as my symptoms had been fleeting and exhaustive testing had turned up nothing. Some people would have probably said "why not, it's virtually free!". My doctor got short changed, unfortunately, as the only way the poor G.P. can make a buck off of a Medicare patient any more is through sheer volume of frequently unnecessary procedures. (He confided to me once that only the specialists, like radiologists, are making any "real money" these days - meanwhile, let's order up another MRI).

If you're interested, here's a link to a pretty cogent assessment of the state of Medicare today:

http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/06/pdf/me...

HalFonts, you wrote that Social security serves as a very efficient stimulus to the economy, and you're right on. Even better, in theory at least, it isn't even "government stimulus" as the funds have been set aside by workers and their employers for decades. And I don't know of many Social Security retirees well off enough that they can afford to stick the money in the bank; it goes out for food, gas, groceries, health care expenses as fast as it comes in. For the wealthier retirees that collect their SS checks and regard the petty cash as additional expendable income, I say "more power to them", as that's still stimulus. Further, it's "their money" and I don't think they should be subject to any "demographic tweaking", if that's where you were going with that.

You also wrote: "MEDICARE is a whole nother story. I've never seen such an abominable mish-mash mess in my entire life." and I'm with you there as well. I had a similar experience to yours a couple of years ago. I was hauled to the local ER with what "could have been a stroke" but apparently wasn't. After a battery of tests including multiple MRI's, EKG's, EEG's, ultrasounds, etc., I was presented with a bill of only a few hundred dollars. The actual bill was staggering and most of it was written off. I was of course grateful for the attention at the time, and like you, I thanked my lucky stars that I have Medicare, but the thought occurred to me that the charges for these services must be grossly inflated to allow this kind of a write-off. That, or the amount of money being collected from insurance companies for these procedures (which in turn is paid by working people with health insurance or private plans) offsets these write-offs. Or perhaps some combination of both. Of course, everyone in the system (except the insured) gets to pad the numbers to pay for their overhead. Pretty soon, nothing is real (like the concept of "trillion dollar deficits").

But from what I've read, the single biggest problem facing Medicare is the number of people soaking up long term terminal care, as in rest home care. It's in this area that we, as a society, need to examine our priorities. If an individual has the personal means to keep him or herself alive indefinitely, and I'm thinking of Dick Cheney, then that's fine, let 'em blow their wad on bionic gizmos. But that's not the natural course of things. Societies right up until recently provided for the dignified departure of their elderly and infirm, and I believe that's the way it should be. Speaking just for myself, I have no intention whatever of living ten or twenty years beyond the point where I have any quality of life. When the time comes I hope I have the capacity to find my way to Oregon or some other state with a civilized view of euthanasia. If not, I've left instructions for my sons to handle it for me (short of breaking the law). But if we could do just one thing to get this Medicare wagon out of the weeds and back onto the road, it would be to give up the notion of living forever and sticking our neighbors and kids with the bill.

like when people are trying to challenge me, and I appreciate that you maintain a fairly active dialogue with your readers. Couldn't agree any more. Your advice is great. does lipozene work

DAnneMarc says: "PALINDROMEDARY! ~ Where is Ugly Fluffy?" And I second that, PD... Bring back Fluffy, please!!

Thom mentioned the great Galbraith quote that

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness

Here's the Jerold Block (podcast name Jack Clark) corollary:

Everything the right-wing does is designed to accomplish one of two things, either:
(a) transfer wealth from everyone else to the already rich, or,
(b) distract everyone else from the fact that (a), that wealth transfer, is occurring

MMmmNACHOS and AliceInWonderland ~ Amen to that!

Best thing to happen in a long time -

Last year I received a $275 refund from my health insurer -- never happened before Obama stepped up to bat against the insurance lobby. As some of you may have forgotten, the law now includes a maximum overhead and profit clause which is why I, and millions of others, got a refund. Is this fair for the companies? Must be, they've been limiting thier home insurance damage payments to include the same overhead and profit limitation to the repair contractors for 40+ years.

Number two benefit - cannot be turned down for pre-existing disease or cancelled for the same reason. I know people who have been mal-treated by health insurance companies for these two reasons. Nice business they had until now -- hey, if you're healthy sign with us, if you're sick, too bad sucker.

Numer three benefit - low income people get decent federal assistance, not that cheap, poorly handled state medicaid garbage.

Number four benefit - the local charity (county) hospital, financed by my property taxes - will be able to actually collect for their services since insurance will be mandatory. Maybe, just maybe, my "hospital district" taxes will stabilize now. No more medical freeloaders.

Number five benefit - as it has already happened, medical rip off schemes will be federally prosecuted becase Uncle sam has a bigger interest in the bills.

Number six benefit - most people apparently have forgotten that the cost of health insurance has been 2-3 times the cost of living averages for ten plus years now. I bet that rip-off crap diminishes with more FBI cases opened for medical fraud as well as with the profit limitation law.

While I can't stomach the Opposition, seems to me as I remember from the Healthcare back room battles, The President was AWOL from the Legislative process. It was a battle of Democrats, with Republications sabotaging the process with poison-pill amendments. After passage there was a period of confusion, as Dems, Repubs and The President considered whether to claim parentage of another bastard camel legislated by committee. Eventually, for different reasons the label "Obama-Care" more or less stuck -- despite the reality of the process.

I wonder how many supporters crying "Medicare Off The Table"-- actually have any experience with it? Ever tried to explain Part-D to Grandma?

Into my 70s, I'm a huge fan of Social Security. Every month the bucks come in; the checks go out, with only some 3% Admin-costs, I'm told. Pretty damn efficient. As I see it, the COLA, and other algorithms are rational and straightforward. It works well, I think.

Consider for example the lines of shopping-carts on every street across the US in the last Recession, were it not for $1000 checks going out to millions of folks every month -- stimulus-money headed immediately to the grocery-store, rent and utilities -- (not off-shore tax-haven bank accounts). Coulda been a hellova-lot worse.

But "Social-Security Off The Table"??? Rational demographic tuning of Social Security doesn't bother me a bit. Let the demographers fine-tune it; while keeping the politicians grubby fingers out of it. Nuff-said on that.

MEDICARE is a whole nother story. I've never seen such an abominable mish-mash mess in my entire life. It is the wost conglomeration of regulatory counter-productive clutter immagenable. Bastardized by every self-interest imagenable, it is utterly out-of-any-control or comprehension by the ultimate consumers, the patients themselves. There is no cost awareness, or cost controls -- other than whatever leaks through the Insurance and Governmental bureaucracies.

Billing is insane. I had some recent cardio tests billed from 5-sources. One bill was over $7,000, settled for $1500, leaving me a $200 copay. So, what did it really cost? What tax-credits came from the $5,500 declined charges? As taxpayer and patient, I have absolutely no idea what my healthcare costs. Or, is Medicare solvent or not?

I hear folks saying "Hey it's free, take the most expensive treatment or device." Well, it ain't free folks. It's a totally incomprehensible mess needing serious overhaul -- but NOT by today's self-serving lying misrepresenting clowns in politics, NO-WAY. And the way it's designed, People (patients) have no control of the process.

I have no idea any real-world answer; but more of the same "Hog-trough Healthcare" ain't the solution. Legislative futzing by Legislators beholden to their corporate patrons can do no good.

I'm lucky I've got access, I just feel sorry for those with none -- sitting in ER waiting rooms is pathetic. A young working couple suffering bankruptcy from a childbirth difficulty -- isn't right in any society. (Have we no shame?). Yet it happens, too much.

Bottom line: US "HealthCare" can generally be good in practice; but our Healthcare Delivery and Finance Systems are an abomination -- and I see no political solutions possible. On the table; off the table; what's the difference? We have no idea what's going on. Like "Defense" -- "Healthcare" is designed for something alltogether different.

Ken Ware ~ I agree we need to defend ourselves. However, leaving our Country to do it is Bull Shit! We must defend ourselves with rationality and not paranoia. We must put ourselves into the shoes of our adversaries and think before we strike. China's military incursions are not aggressive actions; but, reasonable reactions to our provocative behavior. We must remember when we speak of China we speak of the oldest recorded history and Culture on the planet. Compared to their collective Cultural Power we are meniscus overzealous spoiled infants.

China has already proven itself superior to us many times over. Their system supports much more people with living wages than ours. Their health care is extended to everyone and they have managed to beat us in their infrastructure and their GDP. They have no need to defeat us militarily. We have already been defeated economically. All China represents to us is a good example in how to take care of ourselves, how to manage our economy, how to develop our business, and how to "conserve" our wealth.

My wife and I recently tried to purchase some of the local discount Real Estate that was left over after the recent housing market bust. Anything we bidded on was grossly out bidded by Chinese Investors. The Chinese are very smart. They know that it is smarter to invade a country by buying it then bombing it. That way you don't have to rebuild. Just renovate, paint, and flip.

Ken, with all due respect, we've already lost to the Chinese by mismanaging our governance and business. Our Military is not going to stop the invasion. Anything we pump into that dead end is going straight down the drain. The best we can do is follow the lead of our new Masters. Personally, I welcome the Chinese. They know how to get things done without killing people or destroying things. They know how to make money; and, they know how to live on a budget. They also know how to care for their people. We can learn a lot from them. Incorporation of their Culture into our own could advance our people thousands of years in a generation. Personally, I look forward to learning Chinese. Right now, I'm practicing cooking with a wok, and eating with chop sticks. I'll post my tips after I perfect them.

By the way. I'm taking a break from this blog till March 2nd. Look forward to seeing you all then. Meantime, I've updated my HEMP blog with a higher quality version of my banner. You should be able to read this one.

http://thehempsolution.blogspot.com/

Take care everyone. Love ya!

Gung Chow!

Campaign finance reform first

Megalomaniac:You utopian vision of a futre with a perfect Democracy is admirable. But flushing out those behind the (supposed) False-Flag attack of 9-11 won't be the mechanism to achieve it. The ONLY way to regain representative Democracy is to get the government out of the control of the vested interests. The ONLY way to do that is for the politicians to be free of the corruption of campaign donations. Unless and until this is done, NOTHING else will be achieved in regard to nation building unless the major corporates and the 1% directly benefit in the process. Unfortunately this will be a long hard battle as the vested interests will fight like cornered animals to retain control over the government and the politicians will be equally resistant to giving up their lucrative corporate graft.

We are already so far down the path of corruption of our Democracy that it appears unlikely that it can be rescued short of some kind of revolution. Politicians on both sides of the ideological divide are now heavily dependant on big donations to have any chance at re-election. This is evident from both sides trying to appear more "corporate friendly" than their opponents. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem willing or able to tackle the 1% or the large corporations on contentious issues. There was a time when they would, but not any more.

Campaign finance reform NOW.