Hobby Lobby ruling

[DAC]

LOL!  Obama-care IS the Republican plan.

[Tonik]

Because government already exists explicitly to serve, protect the people. We have a military to fight foreign foes, a CDC and so many other departments to protect common interests, so why not one to "combat" health threats?

Technically it wouldn't have to be government though - it could be any entity operating for the same purpose. It could be a non-profit consortium that delivers healthcare, but it would only be non-governmental in name, so there'd be little point.

Unless you believe profit should be made off the suffering of citizens, then let's just stick with the republican plan.

Do you support the same people that run the VA to run everyones healthcare?

[smccrory]

Do you support the same people that run the VA to run everyones healthcare?

 

Of course not, nobody does and that's a false equality.  I expect you next to tell me how DMV and Post Office workers will be deciding which grandparent dies when their medication gets too expensive.

 

But while we're making comparisons, do you support the same people who drive Merck, Proctor, Kline, Humana, Cigna and UHC earnings statements to run everyone's healthcare?  Because that's what they're doing already by default.

[smccrory]

LOL!  Obama-care IS the Republican plan.

 

True, it was one republican's plan until the dems co-opted it and the repubs couldn't stand to see something succeed with another's name on it.

[Tonik]

Of course not, nobody does and that's a false equality.  I expect you next to tell me how DMV and Post Office workers will be deciding which grandparent dies when their medication gets too expensive.

 

But while we're making comparisons, do you support the same people who drive Merck, Proctor, Kline, Humana, Cigna and UHC earnings statements to run everyone's healthcare?  Because that's what they're doing already by default.

 

Not false equality at all, it's right on the money. The government should run universal health care for everyone, just not our government in its present form. They are corrupt and incompetent because you and the rest of the voters fall for their bullshit. So yea, I would rather for now the insurance companies run it. They are doing a better job than the VA.

[smccrory]

Not false equality at all, it's right on the money. The government should run universal health care for everyone, just not our government in its present form. They are corrupt and incompetent because you and the rest of the voters fall for their bullshit. So yea, I would rather for now the insurance companies run it. They are doing a better job than the VA.

 

Me and the rest of the voters - priceless.  While you in your philosopher's chair sits non-complicit from it all?  Inaction is no solution - it's just as much part of uncreative status-quo that allows things like the VA to occur.

 

Letting prices rise to obscene levels as a result of profit-driven delivery is no solution.

 

Using the VA's incompetence as justification to let privatization rule is no solution.

 

Jim you're so fed up, I get it, but I can't accept that "it's all fucked, and y'all are the problem" as anything except actively-disengaged resignation.

[bloodninja420]

What has the private sector and their money grubbing ilk ever done for humanity? Central Planning by benevolent bureaucrats is obviously the driving force behind the West's prosperity over the last 200 years. Protect us from the Profiteers and their ill-gotten gains!

[DAC]

What has the private sector and their money grubbing ilk ever done for humanity? Central Planning by benevolent bureaucrats is obviously the driving force behind the West's prosperity over the last 200 years. Protect us from the Profiteers and their ill-gotten gains!

Absolutely true! I never understood why the Soviet Union didn't ever just engulf us all! We could all have made friends waiting in line for toilet paper instead of wasting time in these forums!

[smccrory]

What has the private sector and their money grubbing ilk ever done for humanity? Central Planning by benevolent bureaucrats is obviously the driving force behind the West's prosperity over the last 200 years. Protect us from the Profiteers and their ill-gotten gains!

You're under the impression that it's an either-or, and it's not. And that's the same exact argument that Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller used back in the day, so like I said, history is repeating itself. It's awesome really - Convince a bunch of dupes that you either have to have unfettered industrial capitalism or no progress at all.

[smccrory]

Absolutely true! I never understood why the Soviet Union didn't ever just engulf us all! We could all have made friends waiting in line for toilet paper instead of wasting time in these forums!

Yet another straw man - you either have unfettered industrial capitalism or toilet paper waiting lines. Man, you guys drank this stuff up. Where is your memory of history?

Remember when American auto corporations fought to block seat belts and air bags and ABS systems because they would unfairly burden consumers and yet now are enjoying record profits? Remember banking regulators rendered impotent during the 2000s while "financial market innovations" drove massive profits in the banking sector right up until 2008?

I could go on and on and on. Capitalism indeed has produced some of the greatest economic advancements the world has known, but not without massive public cost. The right approach is to place outer guard rails on them so that they play fairly and don't dump their waste and risk and tail of consequences on the public. If they're going to benefit from public infrastructure, then they need to respect the public interests as well.

[bloodninja420]

Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller generated an immense amount of consumer surplus. The personal wealth they were able to capture was a very very small percentage of their economic output. The gains from their enterprises almost entirely accrued to consumer at the time. Look at the historic prices of steel and oil during the lifetimes of Carnegie and Rockefeller.

Those commodities plummeted, driven down by the so-called robber barrens. Why did they work relentless to cut costs? Because they were afraid of competition. The exact thing that isn't allowed to exist when the US government nationalises an industry.

[smccrory]

Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller generated an immense amount of consumer surplus. The personal wealth they were able to capture was a very very small percentage of their economic output. The gains from their enterprises almost entirely accrued to consumer at the time. Look at the historic prices of steel and oil during the lifetimes of Carnegie and Rockefeller.

Those commodities plummeted, driven down by the so-called robber barrens. Why did they work relentless to cut costs? Because they were afraid of competition. The exact thing that isn't allowed to exist when the US government nationalises an industry.

My intent is not to take away from the vast wealth these and many others generated for our country or the world - indeed, we would be a very different nation, perhaps under different rule if the industrial era had not occurred. But don't forget for one moment their often ruthless methods and the environmental disasters and human injury and deaths in those methods' wake. It is a historical fact that they placed McKinley into office to maintain freedom from regulation - something that backfired in them when they slotted Roosevelt in as his VP as a "keep him silent and isolated" strategy. When McKinley was shot, Truman's social equality agent kicked in with force. Seriously, there some heavy parallel to those times and today - don't fool yourself for a moment that there isn't.

All of this has happened before... The debates are the same. Anyone who believes that any fair levels of government regulation (for some, that's any at all) is tantamount to communist hippie vegetarian agrarianism is drinking the barron's kool aid too deeply.

[DAC]

I was kidding earlier about the Soviet thing.  But seriously, any time you put something in the government's hands, it's at best a political football.  At worst a voter bribe. 

 

A favorite quote:

 

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
 - Alexis de Tocqueville

 

I think we're there.

 

Another:

 

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."
 - Margaret Thatcher

 

Before I get blasted for being an old fart, I'll freely acknowledge that those are old quotes and the world has changed.  The bottom line now is money and people move more freely than ever before.  If you punish capital accumulation or personal wealth too severely, it'll happen elsewhere.

[smccrory]

Before I get blasted for being an old fart, I'll freely acknowledge that those are old quotes and the world has changed.  The bottom line now is money and people move more freely than ever before.  If you punish capital accumulation or personal wealth too severely, it'll happen elsewhere.

 

Agreed, there absolutely has to be a balance because pure socialism just doesn't work - humans aren't evolved enough to put out work for such abstraction of reward.  But at the same time, pure capitalism is ruthlessly efficient and cares little about the wake they leave behind, to be burdened by the public.

 

I'm being loud to the point of shrill about this because I think balance, moderation and involvement is what our political theater is missing so much now especially with media wh***s on Fox, MSNBC and their like pushing the pendulum around like a tether ball because they profit from enhanced outrage.