Just a reminder of who could have been president...

[Deja Q]

[leftstreet]

1. What was his healthcare plan?

:shrug:

[Deja Q]

3. Dunno, but rumor has it President Obama agreed with some of it.

Like I keep up with these things to any serious level; I've got a life to lead.

[VMI Dem]

4. What was his Afghanistan plan?

[leftstreet]

8. He wanted NATO & Pakistan to handle Afghanistan

Essentially.

He wanted the US to stay in Iraq

[VMI Dem]

10. "The President has made the right decision to embrace a counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan "

John McCain.

Heh.

[leftstreet]

14. I meant during the Presidential debates

But then you probably knew that

[bridgit]

12. Think it had something to do with dissolving AARP or members of AARP

I forget which :shrug:

[iamjoy]

20. Don't Get Sick...

That was McCain's healthcare plan in a nutshell.

Let's see -

1) Allow people to buy insurance across state lines.
The Pitch: More competition will result in lower costs.
The Reality: With the federal government doing very little to regulate insurers to expand coverage and prevent policy holders from being screwed, some states have passed their own guidelines. Allowing people to buy insurance from other states could take away the power their state has to regulate commerce within the state. Besides, is that any guarantee insurance companies would want to offer coverage to a person they considered to be risky?

2) Tort Reform
The Pitch: Doctors are paying too much for malpractice insurance - it is driving them out of business. We need to cap the damages some one can get for medical malpractice. This will lower medical costs two ways - lowering "business" costs for providers and reducing costs associated with "defensive" medicine.
The Reality: A cap on damages could result in some situations in which people are grievously injured or killed by an incompetent doctor with no attorney to bring justice to the injured party or family. As for "defensive" medicine, sometimes it saves lives and when it is your life or a loved ones life at stake, you don't want to risk it. There are valid arguments to be made for tort reform, but it is not a solution to the health care crisis.

3) Eliminate the Tax Benefit Discrimination between Employer sponsored plans and individual
The Pitch: It just isn't fair that people who purchase insurance through their job pay premiums pre-tax, and people who buy individual policies pay with after-tax money
The Reality: I'll concede the "fair" point, but that's a tax question, not a solution for health care. Do we know enough about why people buy policies through their employer? Is it just that it is pre-tax or is it that as part of a group plan, a participant has some protections an individual policy holder may not? For people whose employer doesn't offer insurance, is being able to pay premiums pre-tax really what is going to make an individual policy affordable? Sure, it will help people already in that situation, but will it really help those who currently have no coverage? Such a provision would be risky because if it really is only the taxes keeping young, healthy people in their employer-sponsored plans and they drop their current policy to go on their own, the group would be left with an ever shrinking pool of older/sick participants - thus, raising costs for the employer and participant.

[WT Fuheck]

2. Or Kucinich.

no war, real health care reform, real stimulus for Main Street instead of trillions for bankers...

[rwheeler31]

5. Would we ever have health care from John and Sarah?

[timeforpeace]

9. No, and Big Pharma and the insurance companies wouldn't have their huge windfall either.

[grahamhgreen]

6. Deja - he IS President!

[Deja Q]

11. Which one?

:yoiks:



:rofl:

(President Obama, yes, but I was referring to candidate tongue-man over on the right...)

[timeforpeace]

7. Yes, but it's hard to see how Big Pharma and the insurance corporations could have done better with

him instead.

[salguine]

13. That tired old meme needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot, too. I'm sick and tired of

being royally fucked over and being told I should be glad Republicans aren't fucking me over.

[G_j]

15. fail

[baldguy]

16. McCain wouldn't have lasted this long.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. so fucking what?

Obama is way cooler than cramps, but seriously we have a Corporate Republic. We have no representation. It makes no fucking difference whatever which shill gets to sit in the big seat.

[NYC_SKP]

18. They don't care. A few are attacking innocent positive threads...

and disrupting, poorly.

If that's where their heart is, reality isn't likely to bring them around.

:shrug:

[Marr]

19. You know how we make fun of Freepers for voting against their own interests?

Well, this argument is essentially the same thing. 'Ignore the fact that you're being screwed', it goes, 'or this big bad gargoyle will be in charge and who knows what might happen!'.

This is silly. It's kabuki theater-- all of it. It's pro-wrestling in power ties. Just a transparent way of playing divide and conquer, and many of us fall for it just as hard as the Freepers do. It doesn't matter which corporate stooge is in the White House. They take their orders from the same places. Their style may be different but the substance is the same. One will bend you over for Wall Street and talk about Hope while he does it, the other will bend you over for Wall Street and wave a flag in your face. Big damned difference.