US Politics: all assertions sourced, or your subsidy returned

[Mudguard]

Mud, no need to be snotty to those two and I can, and did, clarify for myself.

I was very specific and repetitive there to be sure people understood that I, as a citizen, don't expect one party to simply rest on their laurels because PPACA is the law of the land now. I, as a citizen, expect more from ALL of my politicians, private sector leaders and community leaders.

Right now, as it stands, there are only two players on the field. The GOP and the Democrats. At the moment, the Democrats have gotten something accomplished and the other side, rather than accepting what has happened and governing adjustments and fixes, is more interested in obstructing and misinforming. It is easy to see, to my eyes, that the issue with the current law, and it is a current law, is that the Republican Party would rather take their ball home and not play any longer and I'd be very happy to say that to any elected Republican politician if I ever got the chance, not that I would because politicians interacting with the masses, let alone a non-Republican never would get that chance.

I was drafting my reply before yours posted, so I only saw your reply after I posted mine. I thought my response was pretty neutral and civil. The only thing I did was bold and emphasize the relevant phrase, in a similar manner Shryke used. That makes it snotty?

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

On the fun side of politics, the GOP is trying to teach its members how to talk to women

I doubt that this will help much, and the suggestion they talk to women like a father or husband sounded really condescending to me. The problem I have with them is their supporting anti-women policies.

[Merentha]

On the fun side of politics, the GOP is trying to teach its members how to talk to women

I doubt that this will help much, and the suggestion they talk to women like a father or husband sounded really condescending to me. The problem I have with them is their supporting anti-women policies.

The GOP as a whole is kind of doubling down on the "its not our policies that are the problem, its our branding."

[TrackerNeil]

On the plus side, since Menzoberranzan was a matriarchy, maybe ladies working for a religious organization can get contraceptive coverage, because who wants to run the risk of giving birth to a race traitor just because of a dalliance with your cute, chiseled, but totally disloyal House Weapons Master?

DanteGabriel wins the thread.

[Jaxom 1974]

I was drafting my reply before yours posted, so I only saw your reply after I posted mine. I thought my response was pretty neutral and civil. The only thing I did was bold and emphasize the relevant phrase, in a similar manner Shryke used. That makes it snotty?

It came across that way a little, yes.

[The Progressive]

This was only possible because people decided to let someone else keep their wallet addresses instead of storing them (relatively) safely on their own computer, which is what Bitcoin is designed to do. If they insist on trusting bank-like organisations they should probably use real banks instead of shady websites.

I'm not a libertarian, I'm just bitter that I didn't buy any bitcoins when I first heard about them 4 years ago...

Yeah that's too bad. You could really cash in on the bitcoin hyperbubble as long as you get out before the next sucker. But unlike the tulip bubble of yore, you won't end up with at least a tulip.

How they are gonna turn those millions in Bitcoins into cash is the real question.

It's the real question for anyone with Bitcoins. Doesn't matter how many you have, the ability to convert them into alternate currencies is so constrained and shady their value is ephemeral.

They got a boost last few months with shady dealings in China, until today when the Chinese central banks slammed the door shut hard:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/business/international/china-bars-banks-from-using-bitcoin.html?hpw&rref=business&_r=0

[TerraPrime]

Yes, currency not secured by any sort of government is a GREAT idea...

Or, perhaps, they should have linked the value of bitcoin to gold? :P

[Shryke]

There's a website for that.

I'm sure you are completely shocked.

[TerraPrime]

There's a website for that.

I'm sure you are completely shocked.

Can I find that link from RandPaul.org or AynRandWasGreat.net?

[Jon Sprunk]

It's not capitalism at all.

Capitalism is voluntary exchange, by definition. In this instance, there is coercion of the buyer (the mandate) and coercion of the seller (restrictions on what plans can/can't be offered). It is by definition involuntary.

ACA is government insurance administered by insurance companies at the dictat of Minister Sebelius.

Sorry to go back to page 2 for this, but I just wanted to thank Commodore for completely missing my point and constructing a faux argument in my stead to argue against. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

[Er Rn]

Go to any big city ED and view the parade of drunks, strung out junkies and folks looking for a cold remedy. Cat coverage is affordable for everyone, you can't be assed paying a few bucks for that then suck it up. Exception for kids...its not their fault who their parents are.....besides I'm soft hearted.

You do realize that under current EMTALA law an ER has no obligation to treat a person for a minor complaint. The patient is entitled to a medical screening exam, and if they're deemed non-emergent they can be denied care. A rundown of the law for those interested: https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EMTALA/index.html?redirect=/emtala/

While most hospitals won't turn away patients because it is a PR nightmare, it is becoming more and more common. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-17/news/35443021_1_emergency-room-patients-david-seaberg-emergency-rooms

And the ACEP position: http://www.acep.org/Clinical---Practice-Management/After-the-Medical-Screening-Exam--Non-Emergent-Care-and-the-Ethics-of-Access-in-the-Emergency-Department/

I think it's terrible for patients, because if they are uninsured they may have literally no other choice than to go to the ER for something like a sore throat. A private office will definitely charge you a fee upfront or may refuse service. I'm lucky enough to work in a government funded health facility and we offer patients, insured and uninsured alike, sliding scale payment plans based on income and family size. We also have a pharmacy that offers assistance in payment for prescriptions through the 340b plan. A lot of areas aren't lucky enough to have services like this available.

Yes, ERs can be overused and abused. But the idea of drunks and junkies getting free treatment for their colds doesn't really fit with this info. Especially when a visit for something like a cough is relatively cheap and quick not the cause of overcrowding in ERs or financial strain on the hospital (see the Washington Post article).

Also, I fail to see how your position of young, healthy people not carrying insurance and then if they do have an emergency, simply bankrupting on that bill, is not in direct conflict with the idea that people with colds not paying are the ones causing the problem. Which visit is going to cost more? The 22 year old injured in a car accident with multiple broken bones and internal bleeding or the 40 year old with an ear infection? If both charges go unpaid, which is more damaging to the hospital?

[Commodore]

Sorry to go back to page 2 for this, but I just wanted to thank Commodore for completely missing my point and constructing a faux argument in my stead to argue against. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

meh, you claimed the ACA framework was capitalism, I argued against this assertion

[awesome possum]

Hey, remember how Republicans have been saying that 80-120 million Americans will lose their insurance because of the ACA? Ezra Klein demolishes that point, which I mean, most of us knew was bullshit anyway and I'm sure our beloved conservative friends will just ignore it, but here it is anyway

it's not exactly the administration's own estimates. It's a Daily Caller interview with Christopher Conover, a research scholar at Duke University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

According to Conover, Rogers, if anything, understated his case: Conover says "at least" 129 million people will lose their coverage by the end of 2014.

How does Conover reach such a startling estimate? By redefining what it means to lose your coverage.

What Conover's talking about here isn't cancellation notices or pink slips, as Rogers says. It's any change to a plan at all. One of the examples he gives is the requirement to cover children up to age 26. Though plans offered by large employers are exempt from most of Obamacare's regulations, they have to abide by that one. And that regulation, popular as it is, costs money. So millions of employer plans expanded to cover older children and, in most cases, raised premiums slightly. According to Conover, all the people in those plans lost their plans because they "no longer have the health plans they used to have."

I know, I'm sure you're all shocked, shocked I tell you, that Republicans would parade as fact a gross exaggeration from a guy who works for a Republican think tank, but there it is. Yet another GOP lie busted for propaganda bullshit.

[TrackerNeil]

Sarah Kliff, as usual, offers a valuable perspective on the federal exchange.

[DanteGabriel]

Somehow, someway, I think that whole Republican "rebranding" effort is going nowhere...call me crazy.

You can't polish a turd, and you can't rebrand a toxic swill of corporatism, bigotry, and decades of dumbing-down in service of the lowest common denominator.

[Jon Sprunk]

meh, you claimed the ACA framework was capitalism, I argued against this assertion

I claimed that people went to the exchanges to buy insurance from private companies. Care to dispute that?

[TrackerNeil]

You can't polish a turd, and you can't rebrand a toxic swill of corporatism, bigotry, and decades of dumbing-down in service of the lowest common denominator.

Also, the problem with the Republican Party and minorities is not branding; it's policy.

I think it's fair to say most Americans don't follow politics all that closely. However, all but the most politically disconnected know the two parties' basic stances on affirmative action, social spending, education, contraception, abortion, etc. They may not be able to name policy specifics, but when one party consistently takes positions unfriendly to minorities, that information eventually makes its way even to low-information voters, who then form a general opinion of that party. Republicans don't like affirmative action, abortion, contraception, laws against discrimination, unemployment insurance, welfare, the ACA, immigration, so it's little wonder voters identify them as the anti-woman, anti-minority party. Speaking more gently to these demographics isn't going to change opinions; changing policy will.

[awesome possum]

Speaking more gently to these demographics isn't going to change opinions; changing policy will.

The problem for the GOP, however - and its a problem I'm glad they have - is that they don't see it that way. The problem as many of them appear to see it is that they just haven't been able to convince enough Americans that their policies are the right policies for the country. Not when Obama and the lame-street media are always demonizing those good, wholesome policies to the American people.

I'm ashamed to say that I still have not gotten off my ass and figured out how to sell anti-Obamacare rocks to credulous elderly Teahadis online. Easiest marks ever.

Ooh, that's easy. Everyone knows that global warming is a hoax but what they don't know is that all these new electric and hybrid cars are part of Obama's evil mind-control agenda. See, these cars don't really run on electricity but on a special type of sludge made in Kenya and when it runs through the car it emits mind-control powers that makes people think positively of Obamacare. But these special rocks were recently found near Mt. Vernon and local legend has it that George Washington personally imbued these rocks with the American spirit on his deathbed because he knew one day the Anti-Christ would be elected president and they would be desperately needed to save America's soul from Kenyan Socialism.

[DanteGabriel]

Rick Santorum proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he's a grade-A dickhead by saying that Republicans struggling against Obamacare is just like Mandela struggling against apartheid.

I suppose if he were active 30 years ago, Santorum would have been a good friend or even a paid shill for the apartheid government, like so many other leading lights of the Republican Party:

Some of today's most recognizable political operatives also played a role in pushing the apartheid government's agenda. In 1985, following his term as national chair of College Republicans, Grover Norquist was brought to South Africa for a conservative conference, where he advised a pro-apartheid student group on how to more effectively make its case to the American public. While there, he criticized anti-apartheid activists on American college campuses: Apartheid "is the one foreign policy debate that the Left can get involved in and feel that they have the moral high ground," he said, adding that South Africa was a "complicated situation."

A young political operative named Jack Abramoff was also involved. From 1986 to 1992, South African intelligence services spent $1.5 million per year to fund the International Freedom Foundation, a lobbying group championing South Africa where Abramoff served as president. One of the group's missions was to delegitimize Mandela's ANC by linking it to Soviet communism. It was Abramoff who oversaw the full-page newspaper ads taken out by the organization attacking Mandela and who helped organize House committee hearings on the dangers of the ANC. When a 1995 Newsday investigation revealed the South African intelligence backing for the operation, Abramoff and advisory board members -- including Sens. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and James Inhofe (R-OK) -- pled ignorance.

But those who came closest to open support for apartheid were televangelists from the religious right. The socially conservative policies of the Afrikaans regime made South Africa a special cause for many televangelists. Jerry Falwell praised the "Christian country" for its abortion policy in the 1980s, and after his 1985 visit, called for "reinvestment" by U.S. companies and urged his followers to buy Kruggerand coins to help boost the South African economy.

Jimmy Swaggart, another popular televangelist, told his viewers that the conflict in South Africa was nothing less than a struggle between Christian civilization and the Antichrist. In his presidential campaign in 1988, televangelist Pat Robertson called advocates for sanctions the "allies of those who favor a one-party Marxist Government in South Africa." After his race ended, he became even more direct: "There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now," he said in 1992. And in 1993, he said on his show, "I know we don't like apartheid, but the blacks in South Africa, in Soweto, don't have it all that bad." At a time when the Dutch Reformed Church, the traditional theological backer of apartheid, was reversing its position, the American religious right provided new religious cover -- and they made the case to millions of Americans who tuned into their shows.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/18/apartheid_amnesia_gop_nelson_mandela?page=0,0#sthash.QMzHKMFT.dpbs

Link is an article documenting the cozy relationship between the Sainted Ronald Reagan, his Republican contemporaries, and the white supremacist regime that imprisoned Mandela. More useful stuff to bring up when the Commodores of the world try and quote cherry-picked facts from the 1950s as evidence that the GOP is actually the party of civil rights.

[Shryke]

Hey AP, you are being less sarcastic then you thought!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy

An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels – casting them as "freeriders" – in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, the Guardian has learned.

Over the coming year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will promote legislation with goals ranging from penalising individual homeowners and weakening state clean energy regulations, to blocking the Environmental Protection Agency, which is Barack Obama's main channel for climate action.

Details of Alec's strategy to block clean energy development at every stage – from the individual rooftop to the White House – are revealed as the group gathers for its policy summit in Washington this week.

Renewable energy is for chumps!