Doakes Sunday: Overpowered By Duh
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Senate Republicans caved. House leadership caved. Rationale seems to be that if they don’t cave, people will say bad things about them. And if Republicans don’t work with Democrats to pass laws Democrats want, then Democrats won’t work with Republicans to get laws Republicans want passed in the future. We have to go along now to get along later.
In other words, okay, here, take my lunch money but don’t hit me.
No, you morons, Democrat will never go along with any Republican law, now or in the future. And the media is going to say bad things about you no matter what you do.
You can’t buy your way into friendship with bullies, you have to kick their asses to generate some respect so you can begin to negotiate as equals.
Joe Doakes
It was a frustrating week indeed.
October 20th, 2013 at 10:49 am
Most of the ideas behind Romneycare and Obamacare came from the Heritage Foundation, a Republican think tank, as a response to the proposed Hilarycare in 1993-4. But when Obama embraced it, they had to oppose it — even though it was their idea in the first place. If they had had the courage to embrace their own ideas, rather than surrendering them to the Democrats, they might well control the White House and Congress now.
There are a number of conservative proposals that could improve the ACA. That’s the direction that most thoughtful conservatives believe should have been followed. For the Tea Party to have a 0% chance of repealing the ACA by shutting down the government shows poor judgement. Destroying things is easy. Building is hard. This was an opportunity for Americans to learn something about the Tea Party.
October 20th, 2013 at 11:01 am
QUOTE: “Most of the ideas behind Romneycare and Obamacare came from the Heritage Foundation”
MOST????????? Explain.
P.S. we can have a mandate civilly and without throwing ourselves into the Leftist gulag if we use the Swiss System / Purple Health Plan.
The problem I see is we have socialized so much since 1965 + the guarantee of acceptance at the emergency room, we sort of have to have it, but not Leftist style.
October 20th, 2013 at 12:06 pm
“Heritage Rewrites History”
The think tank proposed the individual mandate years before Clinton took office. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204369404577211161144786448
“An April 2010 Congressional Research Service memo on “The PPACA Penalty Provision and the Internal Revenue Service” makes clear that ObamaCare incorporates every element of the original Heritage enforcement proposal, including the imposition of a “reporting requirement .”
I apologize for not offering more links but the administrator of this site makes it difficult to use more than one web link per comment.
October 20th, 2013 at 12:10 pm
In this 2006 video, near the end, you can watch Heritage’s Robert Moffit close out the proceedings with a full-throated defense of what Romney is doing.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/cable/video_library.asp?id=606
Some excerpts:
“On behalf of my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation, just allow to me express my deep appreciation for your gracious invitiation to be here today. But even more, we’ve been honored by your request — myself and my colleague Ed Haislmaier, who’s done a lot of the work on this bill — to participate in giving our best advice and our technical existence in designing a new and different kind of health insurance market, a market that is patient-centered and consumer-based which will ease access to affordable coverage to thousands of Bay State citizens.
This is new. It is a new market where individuals and families will be able to own and control their health insurance and take it with them from job to job. One of the greatest problems with health care in the United States is portability. This bill solves that problem.”
And then this:
“The real trick is to retain what is best in American health care while correcting its deficiencies and expanding upon its indisputable benefits. Massachusetts has done just that. The applause you’ve given your public officials today is going to echo far beyond the halls of this hallowed place.”
True. It did.
October 20th, 2013 at 12:14 pm
The Heritage Foundation scrubbed their website, so you have to download the PDF document. http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/1989/pdf/ci_0891950494.pdf
October 20th, 2013 at 12:32 pm
Jesus. Unbelievable.
I am starting to think Heritage is a big net minus.
I stopped giving them money after they threw a fit about GOPROUD sponsoring CPAC. I’m not for gay marriage being recognized as the EXACT SAME THING as het marriage, but it’s just ONE freaking policy position.
Let’s look like bigots and have a smaller tent. Great idea.
October 20th, 2013 at 1:24 pm
….the exchanges are poised to push up the cost not only of insurance but also of health care itself. That means, if the history of U.S. health-care policy is any guide, the exchanges’ very “success” will have the effect of limiting access to care for the 30 million people who are estimated to remain uninsured.
Why are things set to go so badly? Because the architects of the health-care exchanges have relied on three crucial assumptions, all of which are probably wrong.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-06/exchanges-will-raise-u-s-health-care-costs.html
HEY RICK_DFL!!!!!!
October 20th, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Re: Swiss System / Purple Health Plan
Overall, I believe that this proposal is eminently reasonable. It has never been entirely clear why our government-subsidised private health-insurance industry ought to exist. It’s certainly possible to have effective universal coverage based on regulated private insurers, as the Swiss do.
Basically, the Purple Plan takes the ACA and carries it several steps further. Instead of limiting the deductibility of employer-purchased health insurance, it ends it. Instead of providing subsidies to Americans to buy health insurance and then mandating that citizens buy insurance and that insurers take all comers, it provides vouchers and orders insurers to provide insurance at that price.
The reason Democrats decided to pursue health-care reforms based on a regulated private industry was that America’s health-insurance companies have shown they will do their utmost to defeat any proposal for basic single-payer insurance. To do so, they are willing to spend huge amounts of money—money skimmed from the premiums of their customers, money that ought by rights to be paying for someone’s health care or lowering someone’s premiums.
October 20th, 2013 at 1:52 pm
“… the Purple Plan takes the ACA and carries it several steps further. ”
Well, if you say so, but Obamacare is very destructive all the way around, and the other system just destroys government trying to run insurance plans.
“…America’s health-insurance companies have shown they will do their utmost to defeat any proposal for basic single-payer insurance.”
GOOD FOR THEM. WE HAVE BETTER OPTIONS THAN “MEDICARE FOR ALL.”
Health insurance companies need to be regulated utilities, not normal businesses. The Swiss / Purple is a good option outright, and is perfect for the times.
Progressive-ized insurance with fat deductibles. No more mathematically and fraud challenged SEIU government insurance leviathans.
Let the doctors and hospitals be as profitable as they want, too.
October 20th, 2013 at 4:36 pm
What doesn’t ever get covered by the left wing propaganda machine when they rant that Obamacare and Romneycare are the same program, is that they aren’t even close to being the same. Romney explained this several times during his campaign. The biggest difference was that the law was constructed by Democrats AND Republicans, as well as several insurance company representatives. All of them were in agreement before it went to a vote.
Conversely, the extremist left wing nit wits in the District of Corruption crafted Obamacare behind closed and locked doors, with NO GOP INPUT, then rammed it up our asses in the middle of the night. IMO the GOP, at least the ones that didn’t sell out, had no recourse but to fight it at the 11th hour. Like several of the true conservatives indicated; they were just doing what they were elected to do, despite the vilification at the hands of the RINOs.
October 20th, 2013 at 5:13 pm
I could accept the mandate as fair and equitable if insurers were allowed to discriminate on the basis of age. Young people have much lower health care costs, but have many other expenses (children, buying houses, starting careers). Old people have fewer expenses other than healthcare. But Obamacare explicitly forbids discrimination on the basis of age, and limits the premiums that old people can be charged. Does it do so by offering a government subsidy for old people seeking insurance? No, it forces insurers to compensate for underpayment by old people by overcharging young people. Why does it do this? Because by forcing insurers to overcharge young working people, it hides the cost of the program. Obamacare, with its system of subsidies, mandates, and premium limits, is yet another tax on the young working people of the United States, sapping the vitality of the country to pay for social programs for indolent boomers who have never had to pay for the government they vastly expanded, leaving it for the next generation to settle their debts.
I buy health insurance. None of that makes the cynical transfer of wealth from productive young people to well-organized geezers, many of whom could afford to pay their own way. Should granny be spending 30% of her income on health care? Hell yes! The wealthiest demographic in this country is over 65; the poorest is under 18. Way to invest in the future, America! Obamacare makes that lamentable state of affairs that much worse.
October 21st, 2013 at 8:22 am
MUST READ ObamaCare a Planned Disaster for Political Reasons http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/obamacare_a_planned_disaster_for_political_reasons.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#.UmUqMCScm7g.twitter
October 21st, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Relevant to the above link:
http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/01/how-obamacare-burns-the-ships/