"An ebbing tide strands the yachts first" was the unspoken rally cry.
By the way, I saw it coming:
Consider a spherical, sealed glass container of gas. Further suppose that the gas inside is all the same -like helium in a balloon. Room temperature and stable. Everything equal inside...but it's not. The individual gas atoms in the container have unequal energies because there's a range--a statistical distribution--of energies present: Some atoms move more slowly than others, some more quickly, some much more quickly. Slow atoms may become fast atoms and vice versa through energy exchange. No single atom is "trapped" at low energy.
How can we make things fair? How can we make it such that each individual (atom) has the same energy as its next nearest neighbor? We cannot. The only way to approach that state is to remove energy from the entire system. Cool the economy. Everything slows. Eventually, approaching zero Kelvin, all motion stops. Of course catastrophic things like condensation (downsizing from gas to liquid) and solidification (loss of liquidity) occur along the way. But the goal is achieved: every atom is finally the same (or nearly the same) energy-wise. Link
130 comments:
Hmm, politics as physics.
Where does entropy enter into this analogy?
Mark Steyn has been using the word "sclerotic" for some time to describe the attempts to freeze the economy in some Garden of Eden state.
Feudalism is tanned, rested and ready!
Detroit is the perfect example of this, isn't it?
Everybody... workers, management, retirees, bureaucrats regarded the auto industry as the Goose that Laid the Golden egg.
They imagined that that would last forever, and that the only issue left was how to divvy up the swag "fairly."
Result: GM supports 100,000 actual productive workers and 1 million retirees! City of Detroit looted and bankrupt!
Many years ago a friend ran for mayor of a small California beach town. He was a socially liberal Democrat. He didn't win, but that was not the reason. He let it slip one day at a gathering, that Jerry Brown (in his first iteration as once and future Governor) wanted to replace the State motto, "Eureka," with "End Bothersome Commerce."
That was a very impolitic thing to say, especially around those whose trust funds or real estate holdings allowed them a cold view of "commerce" anywhere near their pretty little town.
A falling tide may strand some yachts, but those in the right sort of marina will suffer no such inconvenience.
I keep wondering what happens when capitalism is sufficiently punished that it can't provide enough revenue so we have to go to a state capitalist economy (what Lenin and Mussolini had).
At that point, what VDH calls "the most comfortable poverty in history", will disappear and the country looks like Russia under Uncle Joe, Cuba under Fidel, or Red China under Mao (Grace Slick will get what she's been lusting for all her life).
Be interesting to see how that goes down.
The democrats have been removing private wealth from people for decades. Not the billionaires - but the smaller sized hundred thousand-aires and smaller millionaires. The are easier to get.
DC is the hunger games.
The democrats shake down large businesses (also called corporations because that sounds so sinister, and why, dont' they deserve it!) and force them to give donations or the dems will sic the IRS after them.
Phil 3:14 said...
Hmm, politics as physics.
Where does entropy enter into this analogy?
It's simple really. Each atom in the vessel can have a range of energy states (wealth) from poor to rich. By restricting the range of available microstates, each atom is constrained to be more or less the same, and to tend towards the lesser state. There is a significant loss in entropy (disorder). It's like asking all the atoms to go stand in one corner rather than let them express the full range.
Living with freedom means living with inequality as a natural state. But equality is today's mantra in all affairs, public and private.
Removing private wealth kills jobs. You know, the only jobs that count are government jobs - so who cares? Meanwhile - look over there - racists! Chris Matthews insists.
A falling tide may strand some yachts, but those in the right sort of marina will suffer no such inconvenience.
They are well offshore already, Tim.
The underlying assumption, that "fair" means all are equal, is never questioned. But given that everywhere and always the natural order is hierarchical and not egalitarian, that underlying assumption is INSANE.
The best you can hope for from the eventual state is Hawking radiation.
Great analogy, chick.
Ed:
"I keep wondering what happens when capitalism is sufficiently punished that it can't provide enough revenue so we have to go to a state capitalist economy (what Lenin and Mussolini had)."
I need to find a Taibbi article, around 2009, I think. He was in regular rant mode trying to get it across that a bill was up for passage into Congress that would give the Executive carte blanche on what businesses could be taken over by the government if the business was in financial straits. I need to find it. Don't know if it passed...Yeah, concerned citizen here, jacking my jaws on the Net. We are being pacified by gadgets and doo-dads while Rome burns.
In my regular negative way, I think there is a tendency in nature toward 'efficiency.'
via Drudge:
Reid admits Obamacare the first step towards Single Payer.
Single payer - 100% tax payer funded government controlled ask permission first British style crap health care.
About the way things are within that bubble around the Washington beltway:
You would think that in one of the wealthiest areas of the country, and filled with liberals, that we would have no poor among us. In reality, the income disparity is stark, from Northern Virginia to Montgomery and PG Counties to the District itself.
Within D.C. proper, there is official Washington D.C., "our nation's capital," filled with rich white folks, and then there is the District - the real city north, east, south, and southwest of the Capitol - which is filled with black folks struggling to get by. D.C. is 65 percent minority, but to our overlords, they are largely invisible and non-existent. The schools are as segregated today as they were 60 years ago.
Same with other areas of the region. Arlington's got its rich white areas, where the average price for a house is topping a million, and then it has the black neighborhoods and the Hispanic neighborhoods. More recently, there is the transient community, made up of young, well-to-do, whites who come to work in the government for a while and then move on. It is them, this bunch of transients, who are driving the changes and development of Arlington into the hyper-density "urban village" of high-rise concrete buildings, upscale bars and frozen yogurt places, with parking lots for major thoroughfares.
Efficiency. As I understand it April, in Britain you can have private insurance also.
France's system is financially challenged, but I keep hearing how wonderful it is. I mean it is wonderful. It's not like Britain's sad one. You really do get great care, but who is actually footing the bill if it's not solvent?
Britain's much vaunted public medical system, accountable for 82% of all health care spending, according to the OECD, is in shambles.
But it's FREE! so people like it. Fingers crossed they don't get sick.
It is them, this bunch of transients, who are driving the changes and development of Arlington into the hyper-density "urban village" of high-rise concrete buildings, upscale bars and frozen yogurt places, with parking lots for major thoroughfares.
It sounds resentful of me, but they are Obama's "number of jobs created."
Obama depicts large salami in press conference.
Deb- It seems to me, in regards to health care, more competition is better. Obama lied when he promised a vague rhetorical notion of "competition", but a government run system is devoid of all competition. Obama was counting on the blind faithful to not understand, notice or care. Lucky for him, they don't.
We need choice, completion, and medial savings accounts. Less government-- with the a safety net for those who actually need it.
Now congress just voted itself the system I just described, a private system with competition. The government run crap sandwich is left for the rest of us.
The only way to achieve greater income parity in this country is to shrink the economy, downsize it, and deflate it. Well, except for the Washington, DC bubble. That must remain untouched and intact as the new shining example on the Hill of the way things should be.
Interesting you should say that. Thanks to the graft now officially sanctioned by rulings like Citizens United, the government-lobbying industry of D.C. has actually made its regional economy very strong.* The rest of the country suffers but free speech is well paid for by the well heeled, and recompensed well.
*If less vibrant or even sclerotic by normal standards.
The supposed 007 Bond satires In Like Flint and Our Man Flint are stupid. The do the over-the-top (not well - Flint climbs slowly where Bond sprints) but not the engaging humor.
Bond broke the frame a little with quips.
Get Smart (Carell and Hathaway 2008) was great, citing but not satirizing Bond a couple of times, and doing feminist humor on its own.
This is exactly how Obama and many libs think. As Insty says "Everything is proceeding according to plan".
I hear you, April. It's just that forces are now beyond our control. Short of everyone waking up and voting every congressman out of office, what can we do? We are powerless against special interests the way the system is set up now.
Sometimes I wonder if it would work to start a chain message (I send to all the people I know, they send my message to all the people they know). It would have to be concise, convincing, well done. Maybe things have to really hit the fan before this would work.
France's system had been the best as of ten years ago or so when I bothered to look at those rankings, Deborah, and I'd be unsurprised if that's held up since. Of course, it takes so much more micromanagement than the others that I'd also be unsurprised at what you raise as the state of its funding, but America has, interestingly enough, emulated all the best parts while removing the bad ones. Essentially the best reimbursement will now provided when abiding by the best professional recommendations (standardized, evidence-based guidelines that didn't exist in medicine fifteen years ago - it was even proposed to make use of such guidelines tort-proof, but the Republicans balked), inducing the system to provide better care while saving monies that would have previously gone out simply for providing any care, let alone for ordering needless tests, etc.
It's harder to say these are government-made reimbursement schemes, let alone government dictates, when they're only going by what the physicians themselves have finally made official and now recommend themselves.
Just plan on opting out of health care completely.
Back to frontier days, but with bleeding cures omitted.
Kroger is opening a clinic next to their pharmacy window (maxipads moved temporarily to aisle 17) that might be cash for service, an out.
Aisle 17 used to be the fourth of July firecracker aisle. I don't know what will happen on the 4th.
Oh, Max.
The profit motive drives innovation and efficiency in all industries save that of health care. The people who choose health care as a profession are disinterested idealists whose only joy is to serve humanity. We should take the health care industry out of the grubby world of profits and losses.
Interesting you should say that. Thanks to the graft now officially sanctioned by rulings like Citizens United, the government-lobbying industry of D.C. has actually made its regional economy very strong.* The rest of the country suffers but free speech is well paid for by the well heeled, and recompensed well.
I lived and worked in the midst of a bubble economy which peak in 2005. Southern California drew nationwide envy and a measure of Schadenfruede when it burst. I'm not convinced that our national media has drawn sufficient attention to the DC bubble, perhaps in part because a good chunk of it is based there.
We should take the health care industry out of the grubby world of profits and losses.
No we should not. And let the government pick the winners and losers? No thank you.
Deb, I hear you. Our congress is out of touch. Once they get in the beltway bubble, they are lost.
Well, William, when other businesses want to subject their practices to peer-reviewed publication and a willingness to see whether their findings match any proclaimed public mission or ethical motivation, then maybe people would be as happy (and as well paid) to work in their industries as they would be to work in medicine.
Kroger is opening a clinic next to their pharmacy window (maxipads moved temporarily to aisle 17) that might be cash for service, an out.
I applaud this. The smallest and most routine care should be devolved to the most affordable and accessible locations. Ideally, it should be fee for services in order to disabuse the notion that taking care of oneself should be "free."
Kroger is opening a clinic next to their pharmacy window (maxipads moved temporarily to aisle 17) that might be cash for service, an out.
...
I applaud this. The smallest and most routine care should be devolved to the most affordable and accessible locations. Ideally, it should be fee for services in order to disabuse the notion that taking care of oneself should be "free."
That kind of common sense should be outlawed!
(I'm joking) I agree 200%.
Chickie - the SoCal bubble (like the rest of the nation's/world's) was real-estate/financial industry-based. But a supposedly overheated D.C. economy will only "burst" if one cares to do anything about graft. There are disaggregated voices for that, but nothing substantial, sustained or effective.
I'm going for a bike ride.
it should be fee for services in order to disabuse the notion that taking care of oneself should be "free."
Preventive care (which one would think would benefit from accessibility) is almost universally much cheaper and more effective in the long-run.
What should be made illegal is government lobbying. Former government elected officials turned lobbyists should be illegal.
I want choice completion and free markets in my health care. NOT the government corruption machine.
(bike ride... )
@R&B: I agree with you mostly except with your apparent insistence that lobbying and graft is somehow a Republican vice.
A few year ago a lot of insurance programs were using the usual, customary, and reasonable approach to medicine. Hospital stays were based on a checklist of standards that would determine how long you would stay, excluding complications that would mean a longer stay. (I guess this is still in place.)
At one time I had to go to my primary care doctor before being referred higher up. About 10 years ago I asked my doc for a referral to get my first colonoscopy, and he said I did not need one, just go to the one I wanted.
Where is the line drawn? If people go to a dermatologist for a simple case of ringworm, that a PCP could have treated for probably half the cost, that is a waste of resources.
I assume the AMA had a part in losing the rule about seeing your PCP first. Is this capitalism? Does it trump efficient use of resources?
Rh deleted one of his comments.
It must have been very good.
It must have been very good.
I can still see it in the follow-up comments. I think he intended that comment for another thread or another blog entirely. Let's just say that it reveals the sorts of other places he frequents.
The analogy makes sense even to me. As a way of counter analogy, do the liberals offer any?
Deborah's question from the other day comes to mind. Is there humor in the bible?
Is there anything resembling "the plan" Obama and his cohorts want to implement, by way of analogy.
Other than command. Thou shall!
(I'll take my answer off the air)
Hi Chickie - (back for now... it'll take me longer to get started w/some errands than I thought).
I don't think lobbying-graft (in the sense of pay-for-play) is a Republican-only vice but do worry that the CU ruling they championed helps sanction that.
OTOH, I'm not as concerned as I was given the way recent elections turned out. It seems that election campaign financing itself can fall prey to a very different if familiar sort of "bubble", whereby greater funding doesn't translate into greater wins.
But yes, on the basis of money being a form of power, I do worry that funneling unlimited sums of it from private hands into public campaigns might exacerbate the corruption.
Citizens United is just another of the librul's made-up boogie men.
wrong movie title, fixed
"boogie men"?
The analogy of the tide and yachts is backward. The rich don't get stuck high and dry first. They have flotation to spare until most of the poor are used up, which of course puts the rich and poor on the same side ultimately, which is also why class warfare is so stupid a concept in a free market economy. When anybody hurts - rich or poor - it makes everyone a little worse off. We are the tide, all of us together.
"Preventive care (which one would think would benefit from accessibility) is almost universally much cheaper and more effective in the long-run."
Not at all. If you never are threatened with what the preventative care is trying to prevent it was wasted. Like insurance if you never need it. Whether or not preventative care is cost effective depends entirely on how it's done. There are all kinds of treatments and tests that supposedly prevent illness, but don't actually in practice. The real danger here is that this will balloon in cost by a combination of crackpot ideas multiplied by fear and hypochondria. This nation is already overflowing with people who can't control their fears, along with packs of wolves just waiting to feed on them.
We are all the tide together? Sounds kinda like socialism.
We are the tide, all of us together.
You are the tide. I prefer to be in a boat, preferably not a capsized one.
I appreciate your interpretation of the Kennedy (Ted Sorensen's) sentiment in the original.
"We are all the tide together? Sounds kinda like socialism."
If you can imagine the government effectively controlling the tides, then yea, it's the same thing.
Socialism is such a stupid idea. Just look at the people in Congress making decisions. If you really think such clowns and crooks can control an economy the size of ours and decide what products and services will be best in the future, how much they should cost and how they should be made, then you will need to explain just how they know this. The same people who we read about making complete fools of themselves on a daily basis are somehow smarter than all the rest of us put together. These people who mostly have no skills beyond bullshitting, smiling and shaking hands? They are our gods? I can't think of a group of people I trust less who are not already in jail.
So who controls the tides? Should anyone?
Also, if preventative care has proven to not be effective, why the uproar over certain recommendations by USPSTF to decrease the number of mammograms and prostate screenings.
Why is there an uproar? Why does the sun come up? There being an uproar proves nothing. There's an uproar because people enjoy uproars.
I say: Uproars - up yours!
The uproar is by rightists in part. They blame Obamacare.
I don't care who is upset. What's the argument? Do you even know?
I'm absolutely certain that if the U.S. Congress ran my business for 12 months it would go bankrupt. I'm just going by empirical evidence. So lets put them in charge of one of the most complex businesses there is. Now that's a plan.
@bagoh20: Barack's mom died because there was no Obamacare. Have a heart.
The argument is, you are claiming preventative tests are unnecessary. People who are against Obamacare are arguing that health care under Obamcare will be worse and preventative care in general will decrease or be rationed.
So you are in agreement with Obamacare. You have essentially called for rationing of health care, which includes preventative care. I don't believe Obamcare will cause any such rationing of care, but your fellow rightists do.
Inga: Perfect preventative care will not prevent death; even the healthiest person will die of something, and sometimes it will be costly. As a nurse you can look at a dying person and say, "oh, that disease was preventable, what a pity -- we need to expend resources to prevent that." But then the COD becomes something else which may or may not be easy to treat.
Inga said...
The uproar is by rightists in part. They blame Obamacare.
If nationwide hiring is indeed flat because of Obamacare then the cure is worse than the disease. That's a no brainer. Especially since there are no early metrics for measuring the "good" of Obamacare.
Death doesn't have to occur in many cases. If you are arguing for a decrease in preventative medicine, you are arguing for rationing of care, which is what you folks are so worried about under Obamacare. What about those dreaded "death panels". You folks need to make up your minds.
Death doesn't have to occur in many cases.
Death occurs in every case if looked at over a lifetime. You are in effect arguing that you will be able to prevent people from dying if they just take care of themselves. There will be no death because it will be preventable. Or maybe you're arguing that everyone will pass quietly in their sleep at age 90 of "natural causes." Is there evidence for this?
No, that's is not what I am saying at all. Premature death can be prevented in many cases. No one escapes death, but that doesn't mean it should visit our children, or middle aged people, that should be obvious.
I understand your humanitarian motives, Inga, and they are admirable. But what I'm arguing is that massively increasing spending on preventative care will not lead to a decrease in end-of-life care because some sort of disease will ultimately manifest itself. Some of these diseases will be old, some will be new, and some will even require developing new treatments. The obvious solution is to end "heroic" end-of-life treatments which don't add many years as we tend to do now. Sucks if you're one of "those" unfortunates. This is what people mean by death panels.
Who is talking about massively increasing preventative care? Will Obamacare make that happen?
Who is talking about massively increasing preventative care? Will Obamacare make that happen?
Inga, if you word search "preventative" in the following link you will begin to get an idea of what is envisioned: link
Chrissakes Chick, IGNORE..IGNORE..IGNORE!!
Preventative care has been shown to decrease healthcare costs down the road. I don't believe the preventative care costs will be massive. Health insurance premiums are going down in New York and California with the exchanges. As the other states implement the exchanges we will see what happens to premiums in general nationwide.
Socialism is such a stupid idea.
I guess if you say so. But being anti-social tends to lead to all sorts of criminality so it's hard to see how that's better.
Preventive care has little to nothing to do with end-of-life care. People die regardless of how well they take care of themselves while alive. And any evidence (beyond the none that I've seen) that preventive care is more expensive than treating a preventable condition would be greatly appreciated.
I'm absolutely certain that if the U.S. Congress ran my business for 12 months it would go bankrupt. I'm just going by empirical evidence. So lets put them in charge of one of the most complex businesses there is. Now that's a plan.
This sounds like an argument for continuing to unnecessarily run up costs by someone who has apparently had the supernaturally good fortune of never having had to pay either a premium, a deductible or a non-covered expense. Turning health care into a luxury market is an absolutely stupid idea, I'm sorry to say, and pretty much the reason why Republicans never had any counter-argument whatsoever to ACA. They even opposed the appropriated ideas that they formerly devised on their own. Because, you know, Obama evil.
If you never are threatened with what the preventative care is trying to prevent it was wasted. Like insurance if you never need it.
Again, this (and the sentences succeeding it) is all nonsense-talk. No one can predict that they will never get ill or injured, nor should they. Life is a disease-liable process and anyone who assumes we fund society's health expenses on the presumption of perfect-health-until-death (except for the "irresponsible") is arguing for just as much waste as has been the case thus far. What's irresponsible is not being insured when America (Republicans included) mandates that everyone showing up at the E.D. be treated regardless.
The facts have been in for some time: America spends the most per capita on health care (by double) and has outcomes below the top quintile. Anyone advocating policy (by running for office) to defend that is incompetent. I guess some people believe it somehow makes us more prosperous and freer to spend double for a mediocre product, but if that's not the most incoherent thought in modern policy, I have no idea what is. It's similarly incompetent to pretend that our economic competitiveness depends on paying double for an inferior service. How can anyone say these things with a straight face?
Health insurance premiums are going down in New York and California with the exchanges. As the other states implement the exchanges we will see what happens to premiums in general nationwide.
They will also continue to go down. Republicans were all for this until The nexus of all evil in the universe (President "Diversity-Hire") actually implemented it.
Ritmo, I could go into detail, but nearly everything you wrote in response to me is just wrong. Everything you assume you know about me is backwards: the assumption you make, bullshit statistic about premiums. It's all 180 degrees off.
I pay premiums for and manage the health insurance for nearly one hundred people and have done so for hundreds of people for decades. You just don't know what your talking about. You read stuff, and if it fits what you want, you believe it. That's about the extent of it.
I have to live with the actual facts, and so do the people that work for me, who are having their insurance and opportunities destroyed. I have to explain it to them, make tough choices, say I'm sorry a lot. You apparently don't. You believe. That must be nice.
There is no sense in arguing with you though. You want to believe too bad. And with information like it is today, you will be able to find proof of whatever you want to believe. You just won't see it in real life, like i have to.
I don't accept studies or statistic that are manufactured now days to justify a desired policy. They inevitably are disproven in practice months or years later. From studies used to justify Solyndra type money pits to CBO estimates that say one thing one day and the opposite 6 months later. Nearly nothing this Administration said would be has actually come to be.
What I do believe is my own eyes, the bills I pay, the access to my doctors that has gone to shit in the last 12 months, the insurance quotes in black and white that my insurance provider has shown me which more than double our previous cost as soon as the ACA kick in. That's what matters, not what some academic guesstimates with their elaborate assumption matrix that we all know are preordained to produce the desired conclusions.
Something else I believe is not what people say, but what they do' like all the unions, and Congress, and large Obama donors who supported the ACA until they found out what it was, and now want to avoid it at all cost, just like me, just like my employees, just like the ones I did not and will now never hire because of it.
I've had cancer twice, so my survival acutely depends on the quality of my healthcare, and I want my employees to have the best we can afford. I beg them to take advantage of our insurance plan, even though it costs me a lot of money. I care about these people. They aren't statistics or policy pawns or votes to me.
Why is it that so many people like me don't want this for themselves if it's so great? It's vitally important, yet when people find out what it is, they run, beg, threaten and pay to get out of it if they can. Maybe they just don't read the right studies.
Where does entropy enter into this analogy?
Special interests are friction. Everyone has a certain amount of politic friction, which can be smoothed down, or turned rough-side up, depending on how you handle matters, but still - you can't eliminate friction. The more that is done through political means in a closed system, the more entropy leaks into the system. Open-ended systems can export their entropy through predatory economic practices, immigration or emigration, or warfare. But the waste has to go somewhere.
Bag, the studies and numbers aren't "manufactured".
If you want to disbelieve them because of personal anecdotes (which doesn't work in medicine or science, BTW), that's fine. I have plenty of my own personal anecdotes as well that will back them up.
Every situation is different. There may very well be winners and losers (different ones) in either scenario. You believe the previous situation was better - (which fewer people agree with), I can see how the new one is working better. You don't have to make less of me or the experiences of people I know by pointing to your own. That just pits emotion and anecdote against emotion and anecdote, and it doesn't do anything. But if you think there are no such thing as any objective numbers anywhere to be found, I guess that'll have to be the debate we'd be stuck with.
I'm not going to put up personal videos or go into too many personal details or those of people I know or am related to or work with or oversee, but here's a video of a real-life family and what the ACA did for them. You can call it sentimental (it is a personal anecdote, true), but the policy it addresses and corrected is plain and direct. The human life and financial impact on the family concerned is also plain and direct.
I'm sure there are and will continue be many other examples like this. Why not point to each part of the policy and what that specifically addressed instead of painting with a broad brush and saying "ALL BAD"? If a couple of the laws it changed were originally Republilcan ideas in the first place, what would be the harm of that? (Unless it is just some partisanship that one is after?) Is an end to lifetime caps bad? Is an end to pre-existing exclusions bad? Are broader regional markets to access really bad? Come on, Bag - be specific and resist the temptation to broad brush it all.
Also, I think it's only fair to look past a transition period of a law that's implemented in stages over several years to look at the finished product. If, once ACA is completely implemented, you'd like to reauthorize lifetime caps, pre-existing exclusions and regional exchanges to broaden the markets, by all means do so. If you'd like to say the increased access we see coming about is also a bad thing, by all means. It is indeed a serious position of responsibility to have to choose the plans for ones employees. No doubt about that. Their premiums and the quality of those plans should matter - a good employer like you knows that. Respect.
But at some point there have to be some basic quality and coverage measures that are objective and can be used as an effective basis of comparison. The law allows for that, too, with tiered coverage - and if nothing else, there's a framework for saying how coverage is worse or better, that worsened "immediate" access led to death or worsened disease for more employees compared to the number who could now see a physician at all in the first place, etc., etc.
I think there is a way to have an objective conversation on all this. If after complete implementation, less people are covered, outcomes are worse (and not just for one company but for the population... I'm sure JAMA or NEJ will look at it again and if you can't trust the doctors who research this, who can you trust?) then I'll be happy to go back and say, "You know what? This failed. The previous situation, as horrible as it was by consensus to so many, should be reasserted."
But again, I think the only fair way to do that is to look at the entire population's metrics and if you already put that benchmark out of the running by claiming that there are none you will trust, then it's hard to see how we can debate, let alone find agreement on, any of it.
Ritmo - that's Barack Obama dot com propaganda. LOL. Nice try.
That's not an example, it's a professionally choreographed advertisement.
It's also true. But I bet you wouldn't know the difference as you've doubtlessly also declared objective fact to be out-of-bounds.
It's also good to know that you found it funny. I didn't. Especially the supposedly "professionally choreographed" six-month old with a scar running through her solar plexus. That must have been some make-up artist.
Yep, I'm sure people who believe/promote Glenn Beck's Vick's induced "tears" know a good scam when they see one. Too bad this wasn't. But you'd reinstate the lifetime caps for six-month olds even if it was, right?
That's the kind of callousness that earns the GOP the disrepute they suffer when Ron Paul's admirer at the debate screamed out to let the (uninsured) guy die.
Anyway, 1,087 likes to 58 dislikes on Obama's "professionally choreographed" example. Because everyone knows life-and-death medical financing tragedies can't occur once Obama's done what he can to prevent them and then, horror-of-horrors, allow that family to tell you they're happy he did. Choreography somehow made it a lie, though - I see.
Bizarro world.
I recall the outrage on the right directed at Kathleen Sebelius over the case of the 10 year old girl who needed the lung transplant. It seems to me that sympathy and empathy is possible by some on the right only when it makes the Obama administration and the ACA look bad. When this young family has stated that the ACA has helped them to get continued coverage for their daughter, nothing but derision. I'm not surprised, but rather disappointed.
I have yet to hear a single real life positive about ObamaCare.
It's telling that the Obama campaign feels compelled to place choreographed advertisements on Youtube.
If the thing is so great, it should speak for itself without advertising.
Where those people actors?
I have yet to hear a single real life positive about ObamaCare.
Well, you saw one right there in the video, but because the Obama campaign dared to highlight the case you have declared it not fit for entry into your understanding of reality.
So basically because Obama said it, it has to be a lie, in your book. Or bubble.
No one claimed it was fake, but again, any facts that Obama or one political party agrees with or advertises automatically becomes myth in your mind because, you know, you hate that candidate or party. Thanks for playing.
Where those people actors?
Of course not. You can see photos taken from a real-life ICU setting and a toddler with a surgical scar running nearly the full length of her upper torso. These do not occur in dramatizations. Just because the lighting was decent doesn't mean it was phony. Anyone who thinks it was a dramatization or acted (which generally requires DISCLAIMERS to that fact - one of the things a lawyer could clarify and would know, incidentally) is putting their partisanship before any interest in facts and reality. I know of no reason why political campaigns would be exempt from those practices, even if one party's political campaigns would apparently be happy to cease abiding by them.
Again, when shamelessness of the sort we saw during Ron Paul's debate reared its ugly head, you know that concern for any real-life people - in that video or elsewhere - is taking a backseat to ideology and cheerleading.
Basically they're upset with Obama for making a good production. The fact that it's so good that they can't tell the difference between documentary and fictional genres speaks to the right's confusion of slickness with truth. It just happens to be a good production as an advertisement, and that makes it seem to right-wing minds like cheating. For it to be also grounded in a reality that also makes use of the affected individuals themselves is not only possible, but obvious to anyone objective seeing it and possessing a rudimentary understanding of production. But apparently some things take political precedence over those things to some.
How many of all y'all favoring the ACA are 65 years old or more?
Have you any experience with the ACA when Medicare kicks in?
Has there been any change.
I'll wait.
There is absolutely no logical reason to believe that the long-serving, sclerotic, corrupt, lazy dopes in the Imperial City could "reform" healthcare into something that is actually good and efficient and effective. Unless, of course, you have unrelenting, blind faith that bigger and bigger government knows best. Which is odd because libruls generally are not people of faith.
I am not on Medicare but I do know my medical premiums for my family and one employee increased by 28% this renewal period. I increased my deductible to lessen the increase as I did not want to ask my employee to kick in any money to her premium.
I don't see what ACA has to do with Medicare as Medicare is simply a program that was and still is available to anyone 65 years of age or older, with its own quality benchmarks, and one that is still preferred over private insurance by any senior citizen I know who's had a choice between the two - which, again, they all do.
One thing that did happen is that the "doughnut hole" that Bush left in drug coverage between certain expenditure levels was closed. So that's a good thing, especially given the dependence of the elderly as a demographic on prescription RXs.
Unless, of course, you have unrelenting, blind faith that bigger and bigger government knows best. Which is odd because libruls generally are not people of faith.
Not blind faith, anyway. But one thing we know is that conservative politicians seem to have an awfully tough time convincing their constituents that Medicare is as horrible as they say they'd like to believe it is, and therefore cowardly shy away from proclaiming it fit for repeal outright. So there's one government program that seems to know best. Either that, or those politicians are what me and Jesus would call "hypocrites".
I would be happy to communicate a contribution from R & B in these pages -- just like they do for PNAS. However, it may have to be self-edited slightly for brevity or would at least require one of those "read more" page break things.
I'd also post glamour shots and selfies from Inga.
What.... you don't think my apple face is cute?
Well, some of the policy we're discussing here is still (as we can see) contentious Pollo, so if you think that would work without getting internet tomatoes thrown at me then so be it... with a page break. Or we might want to just upload a straight-science post since Freeman seems to be in a pacifying mindset and somewhat vindicated in her observation that those posts have been a good neutral and camaraderie-buidling zone.
I have a feeling it is true that I can self-edit straight science posts for brevity and also (and perhaps because of this) for goofy lay analogy.
Inga said...
What.... you don't think my apple face is cute?
It looks a bit "prolapsed."
Just noticed, I meant to say,"were those people actors"? As for Medicare, I'd love to see the Sturm und Drang should it be privatized, not by the lefties, by the Tea Partiers themselves.
Well, Chickie, as long as my uterus and bladder are still riding high and tight, I'm happy.
@Inga: I'm glad you clarified that because I thought you were speaking in some hip street slang asking where commenters were.
I say it would be fascinating to see posts by Jay Retread and Ritmo.
I'd be happy to submit posts for uploading but under the stipulation that they be cited under the author name "Grok the Magnificent" and directly reflect my need to see all technological innovation and scientific discovery in relation to fire. Sort of like "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" but with a Mr. Wizard feel.
Neanderthals sometimes have good insights.
One currently unresolved issue among anthropologists is Neanderthal mating patterns. It's unknown whether they were strictly doggy-style or experimented with the missionary style brought to the Bonobo chimps by Franciscan monks. Further, the level of complexity as it pertains to courtship patterns is also unknown. Some speculate that fruit baskets were gathered and offered as dowries by the She-Neanderthal's family. Others believe it was as simple (and crude) as when Broud gave the hand-sign for mating to Ayla before forcing himself on her Clan of the Cave Bear.
With Mr. Pollo's generosity, it is possible that these and other issues will be resolved by Grok in a future post.
Actually, a lot of the answers to these pressing questions might be produced through casual observation at the next Burning Man festival.
The Obama infomercial speaks! Brought to you by the same cranks who insist Romney gave your wife cancer.
Despite what the perpetual campaign depicts on the youtubes, the facts on the ground tell a different story.
People are losing their jobs, and many more are losing access to health care and access to their doctor. Just about everyone is paying higher premiums. Affordable Care Act it is not. It’s only going to get worse as the government takes over and competition in the marketplace shrinks. No worries, right? Just raise taxes again. In any case, once price controls kick in, the whole private health insurance market will collapse. Sadly, that’s what the progressive socialists want.
Congress just told us they don’t want Obamacare for themselves or their highly paid 100K+/ year staffers.
Too bad Ayla was more advanced than Broud and knew how to use a weapon, what was it a slingshot? But hairy men are sort of sexy.
People are always losing jobs, April Apricot. I'm just glad they're not losing jobs like they were in November 2008. Thankfully, House leadership has seen to it that any economically deleterious practices in place then re: Wall Street have been removed! Otherwise, I'd be wearing a hair shirt, and you know what that does to Inga.
Time will tell April.
Congress just told us they don’t want Obamacare for themselves or their highly paid 100K+/ year staffers.
No crap! They want the public plan that the GOP nearly shat their pants about when Obama offered the same thing to the public at large. It was called "The Public Option". You might have heard about it.
People are always losing jobs, April Apricot. I'm just glad they're not losing jobs like they were in November 2008.
We're still five million full-time jobs short of where we were in 2007. In the meantime we've added about 13,000,000 people to the working age population. This is success to Obama voters.
Well, you somehow managed to skip an entire year or two there, Icepick, but yes, it's better than it was then (7.5% - the laid-off state/muni employees is better than 10% unemployment). All that needs to be done is for Team Tea Party to pass the Wall Street reforms that everyone else wants and I'll be happy - as will a whole lot of the rest of the country. Maybe not all of them will be as politically popular as they are now, but we'll be happy, and with a better economy.
But I understand if the employment of congressman in the House is more important. Politics is like that.
Since Inga is Inga Apple, I'll take April Apricot. Thanks, Ritmo Rhythm and frogs.
April, I'll give you my apple face, I'll find a new avatar tommorow:)
Is there a link somewhere to this Obamacare video?
I'll need an Apricot, Inga Apple.
No more apples for me.
Work or earn more - make less! only in Obamamerica.
Nope I like this one better, feel free to take the apple April.
The ACA keeps getting better and better.
Is that Darrel Hannah? or?
No apple, thanks.. It's got bitter beer face. I'd like the apricot.
Oh just poking few Neanderthals around here, April Apricot, lol.
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