Originally Posted by Malorn
That's Obama doing damage control for the inevitable strikedown of the most ridiculous bill in our nation's history.
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It's really not that ridiculous. Massachusetts has had a similar system in place for a while. The big disagreement seems to be should it be a state or a federal initiative. You have some people that prefer state laws as they are perceived to be more local and customizable. The whole concept of the current health system is that you want people to pay for their own health, however not everyone can pay. Then you have to decide what level of health people that can't pay get. Currently in most states non-emergency health is often denied except through loopholes. (Quitting your job to fall within certain criteria for aid among other things). The whole requiring people above a certain income to purchase insurance is a novel idea, but coming from the federal level it's sometimes viewed as going too far. Either way if you have the money to buy insurance and choose not to then you are taking a calculated risk. It is then argued that you shouldn't then be able to buy insurance when you are sick since it breaks the insurance system thus no pre-existing conditions. The system is idealized sadly for healthy people. If you want insurance but can't get it then you need extra systems in place. Which Massachusetts was forced to create when it realized a lot of people didn't have insurance, not because they didn't want to get it, but because they were denied coverage for previous illnesses. (I believe according to a conservative website I read they listed Massachusetts as already having 94% insured before the bill was passed so the system was really only designed to affect 6% of the population). On a national scale you're looking at 16.4% not having insurance which is a huge difference. (That's assuming everyone has insurance that would meet the requirements, which they might not).
Why we're messing around with this compromised solution seems a waste of time. I along with most of my friends are waiting for the Republicans to crack and allow a federal single-payer system. Both the Republicans and Democrats agree that healthcare in the US is too expensive and needs more oversight to control prices. (Currently insurance companies deal with hospitals on a one on one basis to decide costs. It's a fairly insane system which has been broken a lot). However, both parties seem to disagree with how to fix the price in healthcare or to even agree on what a single-payer system would look like for the US and how it would affect the current medical system. The Republicans have a pessimistic view that it would lower our quality of care severely leading to long lines. The Democrats are usually optimistic stating that early screening and actually allowing people to not delay problems, because of fear of costs, would lower costs. I think this is also where the separation between state and federal is distinguished. I'm not sure if the Republican state idea comes into this. There's always the tendency for them to say that states can manage things better at the state level. Which could be true. Though they might want to control how the system would be implemented which would be a disagreement.
I digress. I think I went into that too far.
Originally Posted by Malorn
Obama - "I'm still digging us out of Bush's mess, it was so bad it took me 4 years to turn it around! Republicans dont' care about people! they want old people to die and children to go uneducated, while they line the rich's pockets (with the money they earned themselves) and Romney is an out of touch rich guy who can't relate to the american people!"
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And yet he extended the Bush Tax Cuts for another two years. It does make one question his decisions about undoing what Bush did. Not sure where the children going uneducated comes from. I must missed that article. As far as not taxing the rich it's a problem that goes hand in hand with the Bush tax cuts. The
Buffet Rule is a very very small step in the right direction. (Still have capital gain taxes to deal with since that system has been exploited to death by now).
Originally Posted by Malorn
Romney - "Obama is a reckless spender that will drown our children and grandchildren in debt that will lead to financial collapse, and an incompetent president full of broken promises"
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There's a fun site for tracking that stuff here. Generally it's been fairly easy to track some of his broken promises back to congress's inability to compromise. There are some promises he should have never made since it was obvious he couldn't do them. Like closing Guantanamo Bay among other topics.
Regarding debt I hope the Romney doesn't keep lying. That stuff is getting pretty tired. I talk to a tea party member sometimes (60 year old guy really into politics) and he's getting pretty mad at that kind of stuff since and I quote "anyone can go online and verify this stuff. He's just making Republicans look bad".
That and assuming Romney will win is a bit early. The few republicans I've talked to want a brokered convention.