sheeeit

Super. Completely unrealistic hypothetical partnered with astounding stupidity. But I am stuck at an airport. The simple answer is that you send in whatever entity your community has decided collectively to hire to deal with crimes. No one even suggested that it would be free. The community would fund the entity in whatever manner they want and agree to. Just like we do now with taxes. That entity signed on for the job to enforce the laws of the community. They will just have to do whatever they have to do. Bring in more people temporarily. Get help from surrounding communities force. If they fail or wont do it, then fire them and hire someone who will. And if you and your daughter happen to live in this hypothetical American community where there is a rich criminal marauding man that the local law enforcement can not protect you from, then I would suggest you move.

I am breaking a personal rule by responding to you but sometimes your stupidity and lack of macro thinking skills is just too much. The answer is the same way they provide coverage now. Health insurers would be absolutely delighted at the prospect of providing lifetime health insurance. Surely you know that people already buy health insurance to supplement what is covered by medicare. Health insurers would salivate over the $700B+ spent currently. I think the private health insurers would cut 30% from the total. I am fine with the "govt" paying the premiums. Let the carriers compete on benefits and price and service. I actually have a total overhaul plan for health insurance that would solve virtually every problem, from a cost standpoint, that we have now.

These are good points but only to a certain point. It is disingenuous to list things that the govt does that, by law, the private sector is not allowed to do. Everyone forgets the basic premise that the "govt" is only allowed to do what the people want it to do. The courts only exist because the people in the community decided that it was in the best interest of the community to have a place where disputes can be resolved. The people have given rights/duties to police to enforce the rules that the people want enforced for the good of the community. The people could decide to eliminate the police dept and fire dept and let private companies bid to do those services for a fee. Virtually every thing you guys posted could, in theory, be done privately. Now we, as a community, have decided to let the govt provide those services. But we have absolutely no way of knowing if they are being done as efficiently and as least expensive as possible precisely because there is no competition from outside entities to provide those services. Now I am not at all advocating to privatize most of those things. But I am arguing that in a debate about the efficiency and quality and cost of certain services/industries, that it is ridiculous to suggest that robust competition for those services would not create more efficient and less expensive outcomes.

First, that is not really the truth but lets just agree that it is. Obviously you think that the health and pharmaceutical companies are writing laws that benefit them over the general good of the country and that our elected officials are enacting those laws even though they know they are not in the best interest of the country. Why do you think that is? Think it might have to do with money from those industries PACs that pour in to their reelection campaigns? Serious question, do you think a majority of politicians would vote for legislation that they know is not in the best interest of the country if they, the pols, had absolutely zero personal incentive in the outcome?

Perfectly stupid post that misses the point by a mile. Having the govt act as oversight on an industry to impose safety regulations and practices is exactly what the govt should be doing. Imagine the govt being the only entity that could build and operate planes. How much do you think it would cost to build with no competition? How efficient would the operations be with no competition? How much would tickets cost with no competition? How innovative would airline travel be with no competition? As this relates to healthcare, the health insurance industry is one of the, if not the most, govt regulated industry in the country. Health insurers have to justify every rate increase they get and have to justify when they deny a claim. BCBS, Aetna, Cigna, Unites etc, they all compete for business based on price. They have built in incentives to keep costs down so that they can charge less than the competition and get more business. And like the FAA, if an insurer denies a claim that should have been covered, the govt can and does fine them and restrict their ability to write more coverage. Which is a good thing. The govt oversees their financial balance sheet to make sure they always have enough money reserved to pay potential claims. Another good thing.

Probably healthcare deserves its own thread. It is a complex and important topic. We should admit to a few right up front if we truly want to have an honest debate about our current system. First, the absurd notion that the US has "poorer" outcomes than other developed countries. This is patently false. Every time someone quotes this it is based on the WHO study from 2000 or so. The rankings were based on a variety of statistics with the greatest weight put on 1) Life Expectancy 2) Infant Mortality and 3) Total Medical Spend. For life expectancy, if you remove murder and suicide and car wrecks from the totals for every country- the US ranks first in the world. Murder, suicide and car wrecks are obviously issues in our society but they have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of our medical care. Total spend, if you remove elective surgeries/procedures and research dollars our spend per person is about equal with other developed countries. When Betty gets a boob job (bless her) it lowers our "ranking" in the WHO study, which is crazy. The US spends more on medical research than the rest of the world combined and, as a result, gets ranked lower by the WHO standard. Infant mortality, even the WHO in the actual report admitted that the only country that provided realistic data was the US. Further, the biggest issue with infant mortality is preemies. Most countries do not even include births that do not reach maturity in the stats. These countries include many that we are currently compared with including Canada, UK, Sweden, France, Germany etc. In fact, there are reports from the National Center for Health Statistics and European Perinatal Health Report that use much stricter definitions and, amazingly, the US ranks 1st by their methodology. Does anyone really think that normal babies born in America have a better chance of dying than other countries? It is absurd. It is also a perfect example of the whole WHO report. A preemie is born in the US with a heart problem. We will deliver the baby, operate on the heart, monitor the baby in a state of art NICU for months and will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Often the baby does die after all of that and, as a result, the "ranking" of the American medical system goes down because we spent a lot of money and our infant mortality rates went down. If we would just tell the parents the baby can not make it we would improve our WHO ranking. Sorry for the long rant, but it is really hard to have a rational debate when we do not use the truth. I think we should assume that the US has the very best medical system in the world. Meaning, if you need medical care for whatever reason- accident, illness, rehab etc.- the US is the very best place to get it. There are, certainly, ways our system can be improved. I am open to ideas where we have more of a national system. However, only if there are adequate deductibles to keep usage under control and only if funded by a national sales tax. Also, the debates between the efficiency of govt versus private are really silly. There is no question that the private sector is more efficient than the govt. The private sector has to compete. Brisket used the term "commodity" up thread and in some ways he is right. But if we admit something is a commodity, then no one should/could argue that tremendous competition for profit among the deliverers of said commodity is the absolute best way to keep costs down.

Never saw that post. Makes sense.

You seem like the type of person that thinks mountains and molehills are the same thing. Also, I have no idea what right hand red left foot blue means?

I wont argue your main point but if he really said "she hit me first" and he is in custody then I think we can make some assumptions and that this deal is not at all like the cases people were arguing about before.

No. We have created a system that puts our elected officials in contrast with human nature. In theory, members of congress are to do what is best for their constituents and the country but we constantly put them in position that forces them to decide whether something is better for the country or better for them personally to get reelected. Human nature says self preservation is going to win out. Ask any honest former congress person what their #1 goal was and the answer is getting reelected. The pervasiveness of money in politics has its roots in funding reelection campaigns which have become increasingly expensive. Example (this is just an example and I do not really care one or the other on the issue), Vegas (who everyone loves) has spent literally $100sM on trying to keep online gambling illegal. It is obviously in their interest to do that. But why does virtually every republican continue to support the current law? In theory, if online gambling were legal and taxable locally, then lots of other states would get revenue. They keep the status quo only because they want a chunk of those $$$ for their own reelection campaigns. It is the same thing with unions, NRA, energy etc. They have influence over pols that have nothing to do with their actual issues but they can influence them through money. If no one in congress was running for reelection ever, then the power that those groups have would be drastically diminished. Pols would vote on things based on merit and not on how it affects them personally. And i fully realize that they should be doing that already which is why I talk about human nature.

I still do not follow. My first point was that making it "illegal" for former congress people to be lobbyists is just silly because they can still provide the same influence even if they are not registered lobbyists. Unless you make some law (that would no doubt be unconstitutional and unenforceable) that former congress people can have literally no contact with sitting members, then they are going to have access and people are going to pay them for that access. If I am a former pol and you make a law that says I cant lobby, then I will just set up a consulting company and hire a hot shot attorney to do the actual lobbying. You simply can not prevent it. So if you can not prevent then you need to control it or, at least, minimize the impact. You can only do this by taking reelection/campaign money off the table. And virtually everyone that goes to congress for something is getting paid to do it. It is best if it is transparent.

How so? It seems you are arguing that a pol getting advice or knowledge on an issue from an expert is a bad deal? You also act as if there are issues where the lobbying only occurs for one side of the issue. How it is supposed to work is that proponents from both sides of an issue come and make their case for the piece of legislation or whatever it is. A smart person listens to both cases, asks questions and then makes a decision based on the information provided. Shockingly, they might even make a few phone calls to people in their district potentially impacted. Understanding the "legislative process" takes about 2 days for any smart person to understand. And if you have genuinely capable people in office then they know full well how to build coalitions and get things done. The problem which you unintentionally exposed is that we are electing people that do not have those basic management/life skills. People in congress are not splitting atoms. It is not technically difficult.

Nice job!

You are always good for a chuckle. I have to admit that I had no idea what a carriage return was until I googled it. But when I speak into my phone it lets me say period and comma but not paragraph. I wish it would because it is annoying. But as you obviously saw, there wasn’t a paragraph after the sentence that I made the mistake in. Super catch buy you though.

It’s what I get for speaking my posts and not editing.

Is “military grade” propaganda better than civil grade propaganda? Are there other grades? And I do see your point. It is obvious that Facebook disabling some accounts means that Fox News stopped tweeting because they’re about to get ensnared by Mueller.

Well if any of the freshman from Texas had been on every major news program in the country multiple times and were labeled the future of the party by the head of the DNC, then I’d bet we would be talking about them. No one is scared of her and she really won’t make any difference at all. Seems like most people critical of her are just laughing at some of the stupid stuff she says. But I have no problem with her being elected by the people of her district. She took the risk to run and she one. Good for her.

If the moon was made of cheese, would you eat it? It’s a simple question.

ok...?

What will that do? The same person will just facilitate a meeting and leave the room when they start talking shop. The do not have to register as a lobbyist and the same thing happens. There is nothing wrong with lobbying. It is greatly needed. Pols can not possibly have an exhaustive understanding of every issue they face. Lobbyist are there to argue the merits of what they want. The actual issue/problem is lobbyists donating/directing money to campaigns. If the pol is not running for reelection then the lobbyist has little or no power over him except for the merit of his case. And, more importantly, he can not influence other pols that his legislation does not effect.

You just can not help your demented self can you. Considering I openly supported and voted for Beto, your comments seem retarded. What the court found in CU, was exactly what I have been saying on here. No matter what tactic/law/regulation we try to put on campaign finance, the money folks will find a way around it. Dark money has existed in politics forever. CU tried to bring that money to light. I may not like dark money in politics but I realize that it will always be there as did Scalia. Overturning CU (which just is not going to happen) will not actually change anything. At least with the current law, we can track the money.

Great. Then Mueller will nail them.

You kind of have to read what they said. They did not, in any way, admit to any hacking. They are trying a legal argument that the court has no jurisdiction because what they are accusing Russia of doing is protected. It is an interesting legal strategy but they did not admit to anything. I do not know anyone that believes that Russia did not meddle in the elections. The argument is whether they coordinated with Trump et al (I do not think they did) and, to a lesser degree, how much their actions actually influenced anything (i do not think enough to make an appreciable difference).

I am not sure the dems really understand what Citizens United did.

Good thread. Some great ideas. Too many reactionary ideas to the current situation with potus and too many suggestions that have virtually no chance of ever getting done but good thread. The biggest thing we could do that would eliminate almost all of the gripes is to implement 2 things and both have to be implemented for it to work. 1) Strict term limits on congress. 8 years for Senate, 5 years for House. No ability to run for reelection at all. None. No sitting member of congress would ever run for reelection. 2) Triple the salary for members of congress. Virtually everyone agrees/thinks that money has too much of an influence in politics and I agree. But the reality is that there is no set of laws that could be enacted that would effectively restrain it. So rather than try and control something that is uncontrollable, we should limit the effect it actually has. Every politician will admit that getting reelected is their primary concern and that virtually every single decision they make is affected by how it will impact their reelection chances. If you eliminate that you eliminate the effect of money in politics dramatically. Most everyone will admit that a large % of state politicians are unqualified. The reason is that no qualified person wants the job. The pay is terrible, the time requirements are pretty high, the mud slinging is despicable and no single person can really have that much of an affect. It is similar on a national level. We need our best and brightest to run for office. On the EC, getting rid of it is not a good solution imo. making arguments that the popular vote was different is simply a stupid argument. It is an Aggy argument. There was not a contest held to see who could get the most votes, it was to get the most electoral votes. As a result, candidates campaign based on that set of rules. What would make sense, imo, is to do away with winner take all in the EC. Allocate state EC votes in accordance with the % of people that voted for the candidate. We would probably have to change some laws on required %'s to win but we could just adopt the person who gets the most is the winner even if it is not a majority.