Usa Govenment

[JarHed]

Sadly, all the party infighting didn't just start yesterday. They started here even before the constitution was penned. Power and money will always go hand in hand and the rest of us can hold our collective hands on our arses.

 

[Sarg]

But then this goes full circle to SD's remarks that they should hold themselves to a higher standard. Think about the folks here. Lowly airmen like myself, proud Marines, Allied forces brave and truest of true friends. We have honor. Lowly little us have more honor in our little finger than the majority of congressmen.

Honor really isn't that hard to do, all you do is do the right thing! Yeah, I know. Ain't gonna happen.

Sarg

 

[JarHed]

Honor really isn't that hard to do, all you do is do the right thing

Truer words will never be spoken. Semper Fi Bro.

 

[vikingr12]

Marlon Brandon left his island in Tahiti to his son. We can get him to donate it to wounded warriors and run a big donation program.

P.S. Talk about birth rights, yeah my Dad left me this Tahitian island, can only imagine the shit that has gone on there...

Well, Spock, the truth is that Brando's estate owns the island that his son Teihotu, only lives on. He is the sole inhabitant. The estate has not been kind to Marlon's family. They sold a chunk of the island to a private developer and he is building a big resort there, much to Teihotu's anger. Brando never actually owned the island. He leased it for 99 years.

But the idea is good.

As to the politics, I am always late to the game. But Jimmy I think your instincts are right. There are some misconceptions and facts.

I know of no racism against slaves. There is racism against blacks and others of color, no matter what country they come from, or their parents came from.

The race card can be applied to whites as well as blacks.

Illegals and poor people and anyone who is sick enough to go to an emergency room, can get free medical care. That law was enacted by Ronald Reagan. We have Medicaid for poor people who are seriously sick. But there are about 35 million people who can't afford or refuse to get health care insurance. When they get seriously sick, and go to the hospital to get well, the taxpayer pays the bill and increases insurance costs for the others. The ACA was enacted to tax those who refuse to pay (if you are poor, you pay less) in order to fund their health care when they eventually do go to the hospital. And they will.

The issues right now are not one of negotiation at all. Every point that has been demanded by the Tea Baggers has been debated already. The ACA was passed and is the law of the land. What was also debated earlier this year was the ways and means of cutting the deficit, which is the central problem right now. Some people still think the US is on the gold standard. We are not so deficit spending does not have the same onerous issue it does in other countries. We are still the only superpower and have a GDP way higher than the next one down. But we are losing ground when we have these recessions caused by trying to finance two wars, have a grinding recession, and then cut taxes to try and fix it. That was simply stupid. It's what got us into the big trouble that finally bloomed in 2008.

This whole shutdown thing is an attempt to force some kind of issue that was lost already so that they can have something to carry to the next election, which they are likely to lose. They know it with a popularity rating of less than 20%.

This whole time, I have heard more exaggerations, lies, and outright stupidity come from ingenues to the political process, who never studied politics as a science, and who don't know the meaning of the term compromise or representation.

The US is ranked 37th of all countries in terms of health care to its citizens. Not quality of care which is only slightly better. France is number one.

 

[JarHed]

But there are about 35 million people who can't afford or refuse to get health care insurance. When they get seriously sick, and go to the hospital to get well, the taxpayer pays the bill and increases insurance costs for the others.

Hey Vik

Maybe you missed my earlier post. When I got ill, didn't have insurance because I couldn't afford it at $1800 bucks a month no one paid my bill. No one but me. So you need to be clear that no other tax payer but ME was paying, no one, natha. If I couldn't come up with the money they would have put a f*cking lien on my house to get it. So that's a point that many seem to be missing. People in the middle that work and get by but their companies don't offer health insurance. So you're just screwed, as I was when I got ill.

It's the reason that I'm back at the VA, no where else to go except die I guess. Maybe that would have been better for all.

 

[Spock]

...This whole time, I have heard more exaggerations, lies, and outright stupidity come from ingenues to the political process, who never studied politics as a science, and who don't know the meaning of the term compromise or representation...

:rolleyes: Political "science" ~ a term popularly considered an oxymoron but better yet, the best source for "exaggerations, lies, and outright stupidity" are politicians. Again, this is one big ridiculous circle, it is not new and no one owns the argument, they only can offer, at best, their opinion.

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." ~ Plato

 

[Sarg]

Health insurance is why I had to put up with so much shit with my last employer. My wife's diabetes was a very expensive disease. When she had her kidney transplant, she was 90 days in intensive care. I was opening bills that were six digits and was just waving goodbye to everything I owned. Amazingly, after the dust settled, I only paid about three grand.

I might have made more as a foreman or Project Manager with a private firm but no one was offering much in the way of benefits. So, I clung to my public service job. But it all came to a clamoring, clashing, crunching end and they told me to take a walk. My wife took five years to die after that, but I had found out about ChampVA and they paid what Medicare didn't. Pure luck. (Not the wife, the insurance).

After having suffered the VA for forty years, they didn't like the way I talked about them and cut me loose. Completely illegal, of course but then they are the VA. I have since received a letter from the VA inviting me back but after having experienced private care, you'd have to drag me there in chains.

I agree there needs to be some mechanism for good health care for the poor. But disagree with the Fed handling it. My VA is a classic example of how not to run a healthcare system. I have every reason to believe that they will muck it up.

Answers??? I have none. I don't know the system well enough to give an educated answer. Perhaps they should have the spy contractors run the system, they sure know how to do a number on my computer.

Sarg

Edited to add...Vike, you want to volunteer to run this thing? I'd trust you a hell of a lot better than some Fed.

 

[Spock]

Stunning Sarg and sadly far too common

 

[vikingr12]

Medicare is a better example of medical care. The VA has more to do than just provide medical care as well. I could not agree with you more about the VA and we have shared that opinion many times, Sarge.

The president of United Healthcare made 800 million dollars one year as a bonus. That will pay for a lot of kidney dialysis. He is an example of the waste in private health care in this country. We are the only country that engages in this kind of insanity. Show me one government official who makes that kind of money and runs Medicare in any managerial capacity. It is required to keep its admin costs to below 20% and that is the private insurers portion of the Act: part D. We have the most expensive health care and health care providing system in the world and yet we rank 37th. Almost all other industrialized countries involve the government to prevent abuse such as denying care to those catastrophic illnesses. Just let'em die should be our credo.

It ain't perfect, but neither was SS when it started. And it still isn't. I don't want a perfect world, just a fair one. And all the quotes about political science are really a slam to people who try to make that game fair by studying why and how we get such crud to run a country. And how to fix it. But damn if we don't get more misinformation. The Framers, Thomas Jefferson himself, studied Montesquieu, Locke and Rousseau, all political scientists of their age. We would not have liberty as a central theme of our country without them. And political science is the study of power in history not politics. Quoting Plato to a philosophy major is a bit pedantic.

It is political science that looks at why we have the deadlock we have right now and friends like Jimmy ask why it is: because they have a parliamentarian structure of government where the one in charge is in charge of the party in the legislative body. Decisions are still made with fighting that at times is troubling. But changes are quicker and there is little stagnation as we have now. One party holds one half of one third of the US government and thinks it owns the rest. But to think about it, they probably do, in payoffs and legal bribes by PAC's.

Sarge, I have had some tragedies too as we all have. And I do blame the VA but I don't blame the government is general having worked in it for some time in all its corruption and good deeds. They did occur at least in my experience. And despite having done some shitty things I was not proud of while I was in the military, I did do some good. I did save some lives. I can never make up for those I lost.

 

[vikingr12]

Hey Vik

Maybe you missed my earlier post. When I got ill, didn't have insurance because I couldn't afford it at $1800 bucks a month no one paid my bill. No one but me. So you need to be clear that no other tax payer but ME was paying, no one, natha. If I couldn't come up with the money they would have put a f*cking lien on my house to get it. So that's a point that many seem to be missing. People in the middle that work and get by but their companies don't offer health insurance. So you're just screwed, as I was when I got ill.

It's the reason that I'm back at the VA, no where else to go except die I guess. Maybe that would have been better for all.

Jar, I think you might have misread my post a little but you are still right about it in part. What people do when they are threatened with a lien is just file BK if they can (and that's legal) or get lost. Move. Take the lien and still don't pay. And by the way, most of the time the hospital just walks away. The honest ones like you really get screwed and I certainly did not intend to imply otherwise. I said there were and are many who simply can;t afford health insurance, especially when they have a pre-existing illness. (But no more thanks to the ACA.)

I am sorry for that confusion and sorry it happened to you. It happened to me too but I was lucky to have an understanding wife. Out of work for two years with my legs f*cked up. Could not work and denied disability because they said I "could teach." Could not even drive a car. And the VA of course was a joke.

It's the dishonest people who make the rest of us pay.

 

[Spock]

...And political science is the study of power in history not politics. Quoting Plato to a philosophy major is a bit pedantic...

Telling history to a history major is a bit impudent ~ what a fun game

...It is political science that looks at why we have the deadlock we have right now and friends like Jimmy ask why it is: because they have a parliamentarian structure of government where the one in charge is in charge of the party in the legislative body. Decisions are still made with fighting that at times is troubling. But changes are quicker and there is little stagnation as we have now. One party holds one half of one third of the US government and thinks it owns the rest. But to think about it, they probably do, in payoffs and legal bribes by PAC's....

I had no idea Political Science was the source of these presumptuous observations: quicker is better, clear definitions of fighting and stagnation, and that only one side thinks they "own" government. My bad, I thought it read much like another opinion. How stupid I must feel to now learn it was science. Yet, even after this lesson, I still feel we're in one big ridiculous circle and there is nothing new here. It just resembles the only folks that "present" as well as politicians, the media.

And we were so close to that private island with hula girls only to be sucked into the one reliable black hole that always proves toxic: politickytics. I'm off to take a big shit...

 

[Spock]

I think this is where I follow Jimmy's advice to filter certain threads. Note to self: Avoid threads that deal with "POLITICS." Back to Therapy, Happy, Intros, and the Arts. I miss Sludge & Fargo stories of adventure...