Abuse of power

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by TheSpecialist

Why do you guys bother , it's like talking to a wall.............

Where is that "someone is wrong on the internet" JPEG.

[Slipknot]

Originally Posted by TheSpecialist

Why do you guys bother , it's like talking to a wall.............

yes it can be
some people care about their country and hate to see it struggle

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by PaulS

BC, it was HIS admin. who provided that intelligence for congress to vote on.

Sort of like it was Obama's admin. who must therefor have been responsible for the bad intelligence regarding the threat to our embassy in Benghazi.

Again, I'll ask -don't you think people are more justified about getting us into a war based on bad intelligence (and I think it went beyond that to some lies and some ignoring anything that didn't fit in w/the what the admin. wanted) and trying to provide health insur. for people who don't have it?

Hmmm. Comparing war to health insurance. Yeah . . . I can see some similarities. Winning a war would probably insure better health for the victors than the losers. On the other hand, abandoning the victory and letting enemies gain strength would probably threaten one's health.

But there is also another type of health that is affected by the innocent sounding "trying to provide health insur. for people who don't have it". The nature and method of the attempt was not just getting some uninsured folks insurance, but transforming the whole health care process for everybody, and creating a whole new power for government, enabling it for the first time to tax the people for not buying something. In other words, fundamentally changing the relationship of the individual to the government. And in such a way that it would have absolute power over the people rather being limited to power consented by the people. Now here, indeed, there might be a closer comparison to war. Rather than some admirable little attempt to get some folks insured, it turned out to be a war against liberty in the name of good.

I suppose there might also be a comparison with the nature of the "intelligence" gathered to justify a particular war or a particular health insurance. You believe that the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war was bad. And even manipulated to make it even more justifiable. So, then, how about the validity or truth of the "intelligence" justifying this insurance? Does the name Jonathan Gruber ring a bell. Were the lies told about what the ACA really was and how it worked and what its impact would be comparable to the lies that you imply the Bush administration told?

And how about a comparison of the results of the war and the insurance.

Yup. Thousands died and were maimed in Iraq. That is the nature of war. And justifying an offensive war to a free people, certainly to the people of this country, has always required some manipulation. Starting with the American revolution and with every offensive war we entered after, there was always needed some "twisting" or creating of facts and necessities. I'm not going to judge that here, though you probably do. It is hard to tell what was achieved with victory in Iraq, since we've tossed the victory out. Briefly, there was a retrenchment of the bad guys and the possibility of the growth of a more Western type of secular government, if we had stayed.

The ACA was supposedly for the purpose, as you say, of getting some people who had none, insured. That is, apparently happening. But the need for that was, supposedly, to take the burden off of the rest of us who were paying for the health care those same people were getting without insurance. And the rest of us would still, then, be able to keep the insurance we had, but with the lowered costs due to not having to pay for the other uninsureds. As it turns out, we indeed will still be paying for the previously uninsured, at an even higher rate than before. And in the process, we have become vulnerable, in a way never before imagined, to some further government demand that we must buy what it considers a necessity, or be taxed if we don't. It all may not seem to be much of a price to pay to get a few folks who could not afford insurance great health care, but it is huge in the annals of American individual freedom.

It is, of course, a huge step into socialism. Added to the other steps we've been taking. The problem of insurance for the few who didn't have it but deserved assistance could have been provided in a far less intrusive and liberty destroying way.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

And then you should read this...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...e-amicus-brief

Spence, do you really support corporate welfare . . . crony capitalism . . . ?? And I thought you feared too much centralization of business. That you didn't like corporations getting too big. Too powerful.

Geeze, whoda thunk that the biggest healthcare corporation would actually like everybody to be forced to buy their stuff. And if they couldn't afford it, the government would subsidize or pay for it. And that the big corps. wouldn't mind at all if a bunch of their previous clients had to pay more and/or have higher deductibles, so long as they were forced to do so. No skin off the corporation's back, and more money, guaranteed, in their pockets.

It seems to me that the concept of insurance is changing. It used to be an advantage for the client to have insurance over those who didn't. Which made it worth buying. Just seems that when insurance is universal, mandated, there is no advantage to having it since everybody does. And it seems that for those who don't get subsidies, the insurance has now become a disadvantage.

[detbuch]

Just an afterthought to the above. The biggest change in the concept of insurance, it seems to me, is government's increasing intrusion in and control of, various types of insurance. The overall effect is the continuing growth of government power over our lives. It is that growth which is being insured, or, assured.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

I think the idea our "policy" creates a large draw is overstated.

Our non or inadequate enforcement of "policy" permits the "draw."

The US economy has improved but the job market is flat.

That is a strange "improvement" indeed. The greatest number or percentage not participating in the work force in mucho time, yet they can't find a job in the improved economy. And a 4 trillion dollar federal budget requested by POTUS. And food stamps distributed in far greater numbers than ever. And national debt keeps soaring. Hey, but big health insurance companies are going to make even more than ever. And much of their expanding "earnings" will be through mandated client participation, (very helpful when government herds people into your store) and at higher rates and or deductibles for many in order to help defray the cost to other newbies. Or simply donated by the government--to be paid for in higher taxes by regular people ("folks,as Obama might say). Folks, who, btw, were supposed to be relieved by the ACA of the cost of the uninsured "folks" who had been free riders. Oh well, sometimes, often, always, things just don't work out as promised. Just one of those unforeseen and unfortunate consequences--oh wait, it WAS foreseen, just, somehow, didn't come out of the President's mouth in the right string of pretty words when he promised how wonderful the ACA was going to be. There seems to be this rather socialistic trend of job growth or economic "improvement" by government fiat or influence. Sort of like the government is the third party employer or stuffer of dollars into the pockets of the big money folks. I can see, by this formula, how an economy can get "better" (pumping money which has no relation to the market into Wall Street and mandating that "folks" buy stuff, even "subsidizing" the ones who can't afford it) but employment can remain "flat."

The birth rate in Mexico is declining while their economy is improving. It's just not as an attractive proposition as it once was.

You make that sound like a winner. Birth rate goes down as the economy improves. Sounds like that addition by subtraction stuff. Maybe we should try some of that. White "folks" seem to be doing their birth-rate part. And their immigration numbers are kept lower even though there are many on the waiting list. But somehow our population rises beyond that demographic . . . oh, yeah. There's those millions of illegals. And their birth rate here is higher than white folks. Hmmph. Might be part of the cause of that huge number not participating in the work force. But wait . . . the ACA mandates paid for birth control. And planned parenthood has certainly been doing yeoman's service in that area. Just can't seem to keep up with that pesky, unproductive, production of babies some folks just seem to want to participate in. Don't worry, the government will figure a way to make folks have only their limited fair share of children. Worked out well for China. We'll, no doubt, do it better.

The surge in unaccompanied minors from Central America has shown to be due to regional violence, not a pull towards the US.

Funny, I thought that regional violence has been going on for quite some time. How come those unaccompanied minors took so long to figure out it was good to surge? Maybe they recently heard about the success of the surge in Iraq. But the "pull" thing, though, that's a little trickier. In some respects, it was more like a "push." The unaccompanied minors from Guatemala or Honduras, forget which, weren't allowed to stay in Mexico (even though the economy was getting better there--well, all the more reason to keep the population down). It seems that the Mexican government was expecting them. Gosh I wonder how they could have been so prescient. We certainly weren't prepared. Well, that's right, our intelligence community just doesn't seem to get it right at critical times. And so the Mexican authorities put them on trains and directed them to the American border. It seems, though, and that's the trickier part, that there were some signals being sent that the unaccompanied minors would be welcomed here. Maybe why the parents of the unaccompanied minors weren't so worried as parents usually are of sending their unaccompanied minors unaccompanied to far off foreign lands with no certainty of how they would survive when, or if, they got there.

I'm not sure if they're more prolific, it's likely about demographics. The white population is aging and the birth rate is slowing.

Gee . . . it sounds like the demographics, indeed, say that their birth rate is more prolific than the white folks.

The rise of minority growth is a mega trend, policy isn't going to stop it.

Aw shucks! I thought that maybe the free birth control and planned parenthood and better economy would stop it. Well, if we are doomed to be defeated by the latino mega trend (I can relate--the Lions use the megatron, Calvin Johnson, to defeat their enemies) it might be a buffer against any mega trend by Muslim demographic war.

I'd say "a reason" versus "the reason" and according to that article the health industry reports that the ACA is indeed reducing demand on the ER. This doesn't mean you have to subsidize illegals, they'd just be likely behave in a consistent manner.

OK. Now you really got me. WTF is "a consistent manner"? If you don't want them going to the ER, and they don't make enough money to pay for health insurance, and they are not subsidized, in what consistent manner must they behave in order to stay out of the ER? Consistently not get sick?

This may be a bigger issue if the illegal population was growing dramatically, but I believe the net number of illegals is stable and predicted to remain flat.

Predicted!?! If that's the clincher, then we can rest assured that the number won't "remain flat." Anyway, the illegal population, has already grown dramatically. We don't even know how much. Since the last immigration "reform" the illegal population has grown by estimates anywhere from 11 to 30 million, or more. And if no more illegals were to come here, those millions already here will give birth at higher rates than other folks. And, either the job market will have to dramatically expand, or there will have to be a huge amount of "subsidization" on top of the already huge amount. I guess that just isn't a "bigger" issue. Certainly won't impact things like the Social Security bubble in the future if the demographic and government dependence trends continue. Just a teeny one that the proper "policy" can take care of.

I think we'd all like to see bi-partisan reform but until the tea partay phenomenon fades I doubt there's much chance...

What . . . you mean like the previous bi-partisan reform that did nothing to "fix" the problem? Bi-partisan=good? Bi-partisan can be, and usually is, more chitty than gridlock. Gridlock is good. When the parties get together, they just seem to conspire to keep taking us down the road to some cliff or other. Gridlock, as the Founders meant, prevents a lot of crap.

On the other hand, if it were a bi-partisan reform agreed to by truly opposing parties, such as the Democrats and the Tea Party, there might actually be some reform that got to some actual "middle" ground. There might actually be a halt to the constant drift to total government control. Maybe even a reversal if the Tea Party gained the political power that the Democrats and the Democrat lite Republicans have.