Mountain of Debt: Rising Debt may be Next Crisis

[tockit]

Jul 4, 12:36 AM (ET)
By TOM RAUM

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090704/D997DOMG0.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It's the national debt.
The country first got into debt to help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering $11.4 trillion - equivalent to about $37,000 for each and every American. And it's expanding by over $1 trillion a year.

The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.
"Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.
Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services - or a combination of both - may be the inevitable consequences.

The debt is complicating efforts by President Barack Obama and Congress to cope with the worst recession in decades as stimulus and bailout spending combine with lower tax revenues to widen the gap.

Interest payments on the debt alone cost $452 billion last year - the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense. It's quickly crowding out all other government spending. And the Treasury is finding it harder to find new lenders.

The United States went into the red the first time in 1790 when it assumed $75 million in the war debts of the Continental Congress.
Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, said, "A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing."

Some blessing.

Since then, the nation has only been free of debt once, in 1834-1835.
The national debt has expanded during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed sharply - except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated economy.

The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush and now Obama.
The odometer-style "debt clock" near Times Square - put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion - ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past $10 trillion in 2008.

The clock has since been refurbished so higher numbers fit. There are several debt clocks on Web sites maintained by public interest groups that let you watch hundreds, thousands, millions zip by in a matter of seconds.
The debt gap is "something that keeps me awake at night," Obama says.
He pledged to cut the budget "deficit" roughly in half by the end of his first term. But "deficit" just means the difference between government receipts and spending in a single budget year.

This year's deficit is now estimated at about $1.85 trillion.
Deficits don't reflect holdover indebtedness from previous years. Some spending items - such as emergency appropriations bills and receipts in the Social Security program - aren't included, either, although they are part of the national debt.

The national debt is a broader, and more telling, way to look at the government's balance sheets than glancing at deficits.

According to the Treasury Department, which updates the number "to the penny" every few days, the national debt was $11,518,472,742,288 on Wednesday.

The overall debt is now slightly over 80 percent of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.
By historical standards, it's not proportionately as high as during World War II, when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP. But it's still a huge liability.

Also, the United States is not the only nation struggling under a huge national debt. Among major countries, Japan, Italy, India, France, Germany and Canada have comparable debts as percentages of their GDPs.

Where does the government borrow all this money from?
The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills. Even today, amid global economic turmoil, those still are seen as one of the world's safest investments.

That's one of the rare upsides of U.S. government borrowing.
Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.

But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy, helping to force down the value of the dollar, the securities become less attractive as investments. Some major foreign lenders are already paring back on their purchases of U.S. bonds and other securities.
And if major holders of U.S. debt were to flee, it would send shock waves through the global economy - and sharply force up U.S. interest rates.

As time goes by, demographics suggest things will get worse before they get better, even after the recession ends, as more baby boomers retire and begin collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

While the president remains personally popular, polls show there is rising public concern over his handling of the economy and the government's mushrooming debt - and what it might mean for future generations.
If things can't be turned around, including establishing a more efficient health care system, "We are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course," said the White House budget director, Peter Orszag.

Some budget-restraint activists claim even the debt understates the nation's true liabilities.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment banker, argues that the $11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account roughly $45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care commitments. That would put the nation's full obligations at $56 trillion, or roughly $184,000 per American, according to this calculation.

[Archangel]

The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush

This makes me happy, sort of.

It also shows that the tag for this thread ("democrats") is inappropriate, and that tockit is an idiot.

Changed.

[Das Kahlua]

This makes me happy, sort of.

It also shows that the tag for this thread ("democrats") is inappropriate, and that tockit is an idiot.

Changed.

This isn't 'Democrat's debt' or 'Republican's debt,' it's America's debt, and we need to start looking at it like that instead of using it as a tool to blame the other guy, or we'll never fix the problem.

I vividly remember over the last few elections, every person who was campaigning, whether Democrat or Republican, promised lower taxes, reduced spending, balancing the budget, paying down the debt. Surprise surprise, they all fucking lied through their teeth. Those that got elected President did little to nothing to balance the budget and pay down the debt, let along cutting wasteful spending and taxes with it, and those that didn't stayed in Congress or their individual states and didn't do shit about the problem there either.

If insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result," then we must be fucking all kinds of insane if we think that blindly trusting these same politicians who fucked up over in the past to change their ways and fix the problem will work. It is us, or our kids or our grand kids who are going to inherit this problem, if the effects don't come sooner, and we the people have to start acting like this is our problem and stop burying our heads our heads in the sand and hoping that Washington can figure it out before it's too late.[/rant]

[tockit]

This makes me happy, sort of.

It also shows that the tag for this thread ("democrats") is inappropriate, and that tockit is an idiot.

Changed.
I guess BHO and the democratic controlled congress's economic stimulus, bailouts, and nationalized programs, which will double the national deficit over the next ten years, don't have any effect on the "mountain of debt" this article referred to?

Of course, I shouldn't question a man as smart as you are Arch.

[BIG PIZZLE]

Toket is a fucking moron. But this debt is a problem. If you really want to point the finger, it should be at Alan Greenspan. The fed has played too active a roll in the economy. Money was too easy to get and banks became over-leveraged. I think once things settle down, interest rates are gonna go up by at least 6 to 8%. Get it while it's good bitches.

[Das Kahlua]

Toket is a fucking moron. But this debt is a problem. If you really want to point the finger, it should be at Alan Greenspan. The fed has played too active a roll in the economy. Money was too easy to get and banks became over-leveraged. I think once things settle down, interest rates are gonna go up by at least 6 to 8%. Get it while it's good bitches.

Greenspan was certainly a problem for the long-term health of the economy, but one good thing he did accomplish was to make it easier for the average American to get loans to buy houses or set up businesses.

I think a bigger problem was the disconnect with Americans and politicians towards the debt itself. First, you have Congress that learned long ago that by spending other people's money with impunity, that will get them (re)elected, so not only didn't they care how much was wasted, they have a vested interest in doing just that. Second, the American people really don't have the time or knowledge base to recognize exactly how much money is being wasted, where it is going and who is doing the spending, nor do they have the ability to hold said people accountable. Finally, all the focus has been on deficit spending and rarely the debt, and even that is used primarily for political ends by people with an agenda one way or the other. Sure, we'll run multi-million dollar deficits, but that's forgotten quickly, and most people don't realize that those deficits keep accumulating and never go away. We've gotten to the point that the numbers are so high, they don't seem real to people anymore.

[BIG PIZZLE]

Greenspan was certainly a problem for the long-term health of the economy, but one good thing he did accomplish was to make it easier for the average American to get loans to buy houses or set up businesses.

I think a bigger problem was the disconnect with Americans and politicians towards the debt itself. First, you have Congress that learned long ago that by spending other people's money with impunity, that will get them (re)elected, so not only didn't they care how much was wasted, they have a vested interest in doing just that. Second, the American people really don't have the time or knowledge base to recognize exactly how much money is being wasted, where it is going and who is doing the spending, nor do they have the ability to hold said people accountable. Finally, all the focus has been on deficit spending and rarely the debt, and even that is used primarily for political ends by people with an agenda one way or the other. Sure, we'll run multi-million dollar deficits, but that's forgotten quickly, and most people don't realize that those deficits keep accumulating and never go away. We've gotten to the point that the numbers are so high, they don't seem real to people anymore.

He made it too easy. That's why this shit went down. And everybody wants this money. Nobody wants to give it away but the people that are getting it want it. There just not making any noise. There will always be waste. In terms of debt, debt to who? What other countries are in debt, which ones are in debt to us?

[Archangel]

I guess BHO and the democratic controlled congress's economic stimulus, bailouts, and nationalized programs, which will double the national deficit over the next ten years, don't have any effect on the "mountain of debt" this article referred to?

Of course, I shouldn't question a man as smart as you are Arch.

Did you miss the part I quoted?

I know you're slow, so here:

The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush

Debt. Soared. Under GWB. I know your IQ is probably near room temperature in centigrades, but this is pretty clear, innit.

The odometer-style "debt clock" near Times Square - put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion - ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past $10 trillion in 2008.

Last I checked, some asshat cowboy-wannabe REPUBLICAN elected by hicks and dipshits was president when that happened.


Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.

Hmm. I wonder. Who was so far up the Saudis' arses that he sold out the US to them?

Oh, that Republican imbecile the yahoos, the zealots, the Bible thumpers, the gun nuts, the greedy, and the people without a conscience voted for.

But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy

A recession which happened on the watch of BOTH a Republican executive and a Democrat legislature. So how is your debt the Dems' sole fault again?

You dumb fucking proganda victim, you have to realise that we're not all as easily duped as you fucking sheep. Just because that Limbaugh cunt gives you bullet points, does not make it a valid political opinion. I really pity someone as easily manipulaed by DUMB people such as yourself.

Learn to think for yourself, or shut the fuck up.

[Rover]

Hmm. I wonder. Who was so far up the Saudis' arses that he sold out the US to them?Clinton. When he wasn't selling us off to the Chicoms.

You dumb fucking proganda victim, you have to realise that we're not all as easily duped as you fucking sheep. Just because that Limbaugh cunt gives you bullet points, does not make it a valid political opinion. I really pity someone as easily manipulaed by DUMB people such as yourself.

Learn to think for yourself, or shut the fuck up.Lulz.

A right wing propagandist and a european propaganist and never the twain shall meet.

[freegood]

Did you miss the part I quoted?

I know you're slow, so here:



Debt. Soared. Under GWB. I know your IQ is probably near room temperature in centigrades, but this is pretty clear, innit.



Last I checked, some asshat cowboy-wannabe REPUBLICAN elected by hicks and dipshits was president when that happened.




Hmm. I wonder. Who was so far up the Saudis' arses that he sold out the US to them?

Oh, that Republican imbecile the yahoos, the zealots, the Bible thumpers, the gun nuts, the greedy, and the people without a conscience voted for.



A recession which happened on the watch of BOTH a Republican executive and a Democrat legislature. So how is your debt the Dems' sole fault again?

You dumb fucking proganda victim, you have to realise that we're not all as easily duped as you fucking sheep. Just because that Limbaugh cunt gives you bullet points, does not make it a valid political opinion. I really pity someone as easily manipulaed by DUMB people such as yourself.

Learn to think for yourself, or shut the fuck up.

Tocket got destroyed by his own article.

Laura Bush failed in her literacy campaign.

[Archangel]

Clinton. When he wasn't selling us off to the Chicoms.


I said several times that the Dems aren't free of guilt. My whole point is that idiots like tockit try to pin everything on them because Limbaugh says so.


But what truly gets on my nerves is that it's been just half a year since Obama took office, and that in the eight years before that, the guy tockit and his ilk voted for was pissing money away like crazy - and that fact gets conveniently forgotten. What? A trillion dollars wasted in Ira... Hey, look, that coloured guy is spending taxpayer money!

I consider people dumb who have no recollection of politics which happened 100 years ago.

10 months, I find REALLY hard to swallow.

[Debo]

This makes me happy, sort of.

It also shows that the tag for this thread ("democrats") is inappropriate, and that tockit is an idiot.

Changed.

Survey says: X

One of Chairman Conrad's charts says "The Debt is the Threat." Let's look at his most misleading chart, which purports to show the Federal debt under President Bush's tenure. Looks pretty bad, no?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_djgssszshgM/R6sCZa6ayeI/AAAAAAAAARU/e0GbV4JXAL8/s400/debt3.GIFThis is easiest to analyze if we look at the simplest statement made by Chairman Conrad: "That is almost a doubling of the national debt on [the President's] watch." The chart above purports to make that same point, as gross federal debt increases from $5.8 Trillion in 2001, to $10.4 T in 2009. (By the way, that's a 79% increase, which is a bit far from "almost doubling". But I'll set that aside.) I'm going to disprove the statement: "That is almost a doubling of the national debt on his watch." I don't dispute the factual accuracy of the numbers, but instead the presentation and the conclusion.
This presentation misleads in three ways.
1. nominal $ vs. % of GDP - You can't compare $1 in 2001 to $1 in 2009, for two reasons. Inflation has made the $1 in 2001 worth less than the $1 in 2009 [actually, it is the other way around, but the basic idea is right - Greg], and economic growth since 2001 increase our economy's ability to carry the burden of any given amount of government debt. What we care about as an economic matter is not our debt, but our debt burden relative to our ability to support it with our income. As an example, someone with $50K of annual income who takes out a $500K mortgage is borrowing 10X his income - that's nuts. But someone with $1M of annual income who takes out the same $500K mortgage is borrowing ½X of his income. That's much more reasonable. Serious analysts look at federal debt over time measured as a share (%) of our national income (GDP), not measures of nominal dollars over time.

2. gross debt vs. debt held by the public - (this is the hard part) What we care about is how much the US Government owes to the American public and the rest of the world (meaning to those who buy Treasury bonds). This is commonly known as "debt held by the public". To this amount, the Chairman adds debt that one part of the government owes to another part of the government, to get what budgeters call "gross federal debt". If you use funds from your savings account to pay down a credit card, you have decreased your "debt held by the public". For comparison, if you borrow from your savings account and put it into your checking account, and leave in your savings account an IOU from you to you, Chairman Conrad's metric would say that you have "increased your gross debt." This is economically meaningless.

3. no comparison to the historic average - It's relevant to compare our federal debt [held by the public] with historic averages, to see if we're in a lot of debt relative to where we've been in the past.

So here's a new graph, using the same data source (OMB's Historical Tables), which corrects for these three problems.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_djgssszshgM/R6sCVa6aydI/AAAAAAAAARM/iLEmWaO-Rac/s400/debt1.JPGhttp://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/02/debt-and-real-threat.html

Read the rest of it if you want more of the beating that he is handing out.

[Archangel]

Wow, colourful charts and a lot of semantics. And?


But sadly, that was not the article tockit quoted, and which I quoted back at him. If he's gonna make a thread about how the Democrats are to blame for everything, maybe he should pick an article that doesn't explicitly say that Dubfuck's antics in Iraq significantly increased the debt.


EDIT: By the way, the article makes me glad that I'm not an economist, and that in my world, common sense dictates that 10.4 trillion is a shitload more that 5.8 trillion, dumb old me.

[Debo]

Wow, colourful charts and a lot of semantics. And?


But sadly, that was not the article tockit quoted, and which I quoted back at him. If he's gonna make a thread about how the Democrats are to blame for everything, maybe he should pick an article that doesn't explicitly say that Dubfuck's antics in Iraq significantly increased the debt.

It discusses why looking at the total amount of outstanding debt in 2001 and comparing it to the total amount of debt outstanding in 2009 doesn't tell anyone anything.

The source of the deficit is a number of things. If we never invaded Iraq, we would still have run a deficit from 2003 until now. The cost of the wars were not even included in the budget. They funded them through supplemental war bills.

[Archangel]

But they certainly didn't help.


Also, there are the ancillary costs of the war in Iraq to consider.

[Debo]

But they certainly didn't help.


Also, there are the ancillary costs of the war in Iraq to consider.

I am not saying that they helped. I am saying that the deficit is the result of us spending more than we make (mostly on social programs).

Blaming Bush or blaming only the Dems is stupid. Everyone, including the voters who want stuff for free from, the government, is to blame.

[freegood]

The source of the deficit is a number of things. If we never invaded Iraq, we would still have run a deficit from 2003 until now. The cost of the wars were not even included in the budget. They funded them through supplemental war bills.

That's one way to look at it. Because the wars aren't included in the budget, the cost of the war is backloaded to years past the Bush presidency.

If we never invaded Iraq, our armed forces wouldn't be overstretched and overburdened, and hundreds of billions of dollars (which we don't have) would not have been borrowed by Congress to pay for it. We'd have the productivity of our soldiers working in the US instead of elsewhere. We wouldn't need to reward contracts to Haliburton, Blackwater, and other contractors. And the oil markets probably wouldn't have popped to the extent it had been from 2003-2007.

Obfuscating the macro effects of the war on our economy, especially a war where no real sacrifice has been asked nor forced upon the American public, is pretty damn disingenuous, but not surprising for someone who worked for the former Bush admin.

We had tax cuts on top of 2 wars, and you expect people to eat Mankiw's spin when the time has come to pay the piper?

[Debo]

That's one way to look at it. Because the wars aren't included in the budget, the cost of the war is backloaded to years past the Bush presidency.

If we never invaded Iraq, our armed forces wouldn't be overstretched and overburdened, and hundreds of billions of dollars (which we don't have) would not have been borrowed by Congress to pay for it. We'd have the productivity of our soldiers working in the US instead of elsewhere. We wouldn't need to reward contracts to Haliburton, Blackwater, and other contractors. And the oil markets probably wouldn't have popped to the extent it had been from 2003-2007.

Obfuscating the macro effects of the war on our economy, especially a war where no real sacrifice has been asked nor forced upon the American public, is pretty damn disingenuous, but not surprising for someone who worked for the former Bush admin.

We had tax cuts on top of 2 wars, and you expect people to eat Mankiw's spin when the time has come to pay the piper?

For the bulk of the Bush years, we were essentially running at full employment. I don't think that deploying troops overseas had any impact on productivity at all.

The super spike in oil was primarily caused by the weak dollar and the Fed's loose monetary policy. Sure, some of it was because of the war but the bulk of it wasn't.

The last war that we made a sacrifice for was WWII. What kind of sacrifices would you like us to make? Should we ration food just to do it? Should we curb gasoline use even though we don't need to?

The problem wasn't caused by the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Spending more than we make is the problem. Mandatory spending on entitlement programs is the first place to look if you want to start assigning blame.

Mankiw did not write it:

An econonerd friend in the White House emails me his analysis of the budget picture:Mankiw is a center-right guy, but he isn't an ideolog like Krugman. The fact that he worked for Bush for two years doesn't make everything that he says wrong.

[Infotainment]

The super spike in oil was primarily caused by the weak dollar and the Fed's loose monetary policy. Sure, some of it was because of the war but the bulk of it wasn't.


Don't forget a huge global demand spike from China and India.

[Debo]

Don't forget a huge global demand spike from China and India.

Demand outstripping supply
Oil demand growth is expected to remain robust throughout the rest of 2007, supported by strong growth in emerging markets, particularly China and the Middle East (see Chart 2).
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2007/RES115A-2.gif But supply has lagged behind and inventories are falling. During the first nine months of 2007, world oil supply declined moderately by 0.1 millions of barrels per day (year on year), reflecting a decline in the output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and limited output growth in oil-producing countries that are not members of OPEC. As a result, commercial inventories in OECD countries fell in the third quarter, a period normally marked by inventory accumulation (see Chart 3).
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2007/RES115A-3.gif Supply is unlikely to catch up with demand growth because of the increasing technological and economic challenges for oil production. As a result, tight market conditions are expected to persist and possibly intensify, assuming strong GDP growth continues in emerging markets
The weakening dollar
The oil price surge is not an isolated event. Many other commodities—including precious metals, industrial metals such as lead and nickel, and foods such as wheat and edible oils—have all set record highs during 2007. Indeed, the dollar depreciation has amplified the oil price surge in dollar terms. While the APSP rose by almost 55 percent in dollar terms during the year ending October 2007, it rose only by about 36 percent in euro terms.
Apart from this "accounting effect," some market analysts suggest that the weakening of the dollar, combined with the financial turbulence linked to the subprime mortgage market in the United States, may have induced investors to diversify away from dollar-denominated financial assets toward commodities as "alternative assets."


http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2007/res115a.htm

[freegood]

The super spike in oil was primarily caused by the weak dollar and the Fed's loose monetary policy. Sure, some of it was because of the war but the bulk of it wasn't.


The weak dollar policy covered up trade deficits and deficit spending. Money spent on Iraq could've been shifted elsewhere, such as the national debt, or a spending program to retool our manufacturing base, or a national healthcare system that doesn't rob people senseless, or repairing our highways, or retooling our energy infrastructure.


The last war that we made a sacrifice for was WWII. What kind of sacrifices would you like us to make? Should we ration food just to do it? Should we curb gasoline use even though we don't need to?

The last war we sacrificed was Vietnam with a draft.

We talk a good game with stars and striped ribbons on the back of our suvs, but no one liked to know where the hamburger was made. Not many Americans outside a military family had to deal trials our soldiers went through. And it was designed on purpose to be like that.


The problem wasn't caused by the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Spending more than we make is the problem. Mandatory spending on entitlement programs is the first place to look if you want to start assigning blame.


Who first suspended Paygo? Who saddled on trillions in future entitlements with Medicare A revisions?

So great, Bush want to keep his tax cut, so he decided to spend even more? And declare 2 wars? Not fucking responsible, fiscal or conservative.

We've had this discussion before. I see a party with empty lip service, and that ticks me off enough to respond.

If tockit was posting this 4 years ago, he'd have loads more credibility.


Mankiw did not write it:

Mankiw is a center-right guy, but he isn't an ideolog like Krugman. The fact that he worked for Bush for two years doesn't make everything that he says wrong.

This is the thing. If you want to use the Mankiw article, then sure 10 trillion isn't a relative BFD. In fact, 64 trillion in government obligations over decades is no problem. Why? Because even with a 2% growth rate, the US GDP will be several hundred trillion. Is that really the point you're trying to make? Because that sure as hell deflates tockit's original point (not the original article because he didn't take time to know wtf it said).

Common sense tells us debt reduction is good. Bush had far more opportunities than Obama will to do that. Instead of just passing with a below average D, Bush could've soared with an excellent A to B+ by sustaining or making an effort to keep the budget surpluses he inherited. Instead, we get Mankiw defending his ass with a crash course on defining nominal and % of GDP.

[Das Kahlua]

The weak dollar policy covered up trade deficits and deficit spending. Money spent on Iraq could've been shifted elsewhere, such as the national debt, or a spending program to retool our manufacturing base, or a national healthcare system that doesn't rob people senseless, or repairing our highways, or retooling our energy infrastructure.

Except that it wouldn't have been, it would have been flushed down the toilet with more bridges to nowhere, or another political boondoggle, like Medicare Part D.

With the way our government is set up, departments will spend every last dollar of their yearly budgets, whether they need to or not, to make sure their budget isn't cut the next year. All we're doing is ensuring wasteful spending, in fact our entire political and governmental system requires it.

Practically anything can be (and often is) blamed on the war in Iraq, although rarely is the blame accurate or fair. The government found plenty of places to waste money before 2005, and it will find plenty of places to waste it long after. How many billions are we spending every year on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, all programs that the same government officials that continue funding, claim that they're broken? How about we get rid of such 'broken' programs that provide nothing more than a way to waste money, and move on from there.

[tockit]

Did you miss the part I quoted?

Debt. Soared. Under GWB. I know your IQ is probably near room temperature in centigrades, but this is pretty clear, innit.

Is this really the way an administrator should talk in a political debate?

Everytime I engage in a political discussion with you, its like talking with a 10 year old. Very little objective rebuttal, but loaded with personal insults or attempts to discredit the news source.

Its getting really tiring.

I realize that debt went up under Bush, due to the war. Obama and his socailist agenda's are predicted to triple, and possibly quadruple the Bush deficits, making W look practically like a spendthrift.


Obama Has Nearly Tripled Deficit "Bush Left Him" Already (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-has-nearly-tripled-debt-bush-left.html)


"There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. With the deficit we inherited, the cost of the crisis we face, and the long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to ensure that as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this deficit down."

President Obama
Address to Joint Session of Congress:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/02/obama-text-spee.html

Democrats want to push the blame for the enormous national debt on George W. Bush.

But, in reality, Obama and Democrats will likely quadruple the national deficit in the first few months of the age of Obama:

Chart via RedState (http://www.redstate.com/california_yankee/2009/02/25/words-ring-hollow-in-obamas-error-filled-speech/):

http://www.redstate.com/california_yankee/2009/02/25/words-ring-hollow-in-obamas-error-filled-speech/


And, despite the headlines about cutting the deficit (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/23/fiscal.summit/index.html?section=cnn_latest) (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/23/fiscal.summit/index.html?section=cnn_latest)--

They want to spend much more (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/look-out-here-comes-porkulus-2-another.html) money on pet projects (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/9000-earmarks-in-democrats-latest.html).

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/9000-earmarks-in-democrats-latest.html

Democrats have already spent twice as much (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-will-spend-6-times-as-much-on.html)as the cost of the War in Iraq.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-will-spend-6-times-as-much-on.html


They are likely to spend 6 times as much as the total cost of the Iraq War before they are through with their bailouts.

The "deficit they inherited" is a drop in the bucket to what they are doing to this economy.

But, don't expect the media to point this out.

A recession which happened on the watch of BOTH a Republican executive and a Democrat legislature. So how is your debt the Dems' sole fault again?
I've never claimed that it was one party's fault. Both parties are to blame, but now the Democrats are growing the government like crazy, and implementing Carter-like policies that have never work in the past.

You dumb fucking proganda victim, you have to realise that we're not all as easily duped as you fucking sheep. Just because that Limbaugh cunt gives you bullet points, does not make it a valid political opinion. I really pity someone as easily manipulaed by DUMB people such as yourself.

Learn to think for yourself, or shut the fuck up.
Nice try, but I don't listen to Limbaugh. Hes too much in love with himself, and continually spouts the same stuff on a daily basis, much like yourself.

And again, more of your personal attacks. Can't you argue your point without resorting to personal attacks?

Ignore the issue, attack the messenger, straight out of the Democratic playbook.

[Debo]

The weak dollar policy covered up trade deficits and deficit spending. Money spent on Iraq could've been shifted elsewhere, such as the national debt, or a spending program to retool our manufacturing base, or a national healthcare system that doesn't rob people senseless, or repairing our highways, or retooling our energy infrastructure.

The money spent on Iraq wouldn't have been shifted somewhere else. There wasn't any money to shift, we had to borrow all of the money necessary to fund the war. Would we be better off if we borrowed the money and spent it on something else? Are you upset with what the money was spent on or the way in which it was financed?

Are you in favor of Obama's health care plan? The War in Iraq will end one day, but a massive expansion in government spending on health care isn't going anywhere but up.

The last war we sacrificed was Vietnam with a draft.

We talk a good game with stars and striped ribbons on the back of our suvs, but no one liked to know where the hamburger was made. Not many Americans outside a military family had to deal trials our soldiers went through. And it was designed on purpose to be like that. I was talking about economic rationing, not human sacrifice. Obviously every war takes its toll on those that serve and their loved ones. I don't see how we can change that.

Who first suspended Paygo? Who saddled on trillions in future entitlements with Medicare A revisions?

So great, Bush want to keep his tax cut, so he decided to spend even more? And declare 2 wars? Not fucking responsible, fiscal or conservative.

We've had this discussion before. I see a party with empty lip service, and that ticks me off enough to respond.

If tockit was posting this 4 years ago, he'd have loads more credibility. Paygo is a joke. The Dems reinstated it in 2006, but they continue to ignore it on a daily basis.

Medicare D? I was against that so I am not going to defend it.

Nobody, certainly not me, has ever claimed that Bush was a fiscal conservative. My original post was about the notion that the debt sky rocketed under Bush. Upon further examination, the facts do not back up the claim.


This is the thing. If you want to use the Mankiw article, then sure 10 trillion isn't a relative BFD. In fact, 64 trillion in government obligations over decades is no problem. Why? Because even with a 2% growth rate, the US GDP will be several hundred trillion. Is that really the point you're trying to make? Because that sure as hell deflates tockit's original point (not the original article because he didn't take time to know wtf it said).

Common sense tells us debt reduction is good. Bush had far more opportunities than Obama will to do that. Instead of just passing with a below average D, Bush could've soared with an excellent A to B+ by sustaining or making an effort to keep the budget surpluses he inherited. Instead, we get Mankiw defending his ass with a crash course on defining nominal and % of GDP.Are you saying that our entitlement situation isn't a big deal because we are going to grow our way out of the problem? SS, Mcare and Mcaid are going to bring us down. Eventually our currency will be replaced as the World's reserve currency, our interest rates will rise a our total debt outstanding passed 100% of GDP, etc. But hey, everyone will have health insurance...

The budget surplus that he inherited was not sustainable. Did he have the luxury of a peacetime dividend? How about a boom in tax revenue from the internet bubble? Was the House being run by Newt and Armey or Delay (Who loves pork)?

Again, Mankiw simply published some analysis that someone in the White House wrote. It isn't Mankiw defending Bush, it is Bush defending Bush.

[freegood]

The money spent on Iraq wouldn't have been shifted somewhere else. There wasn't any money to shift, we had to borrow all of the money necessary to fund the war. Would we be better off if we borrowed the money and spent it on something else? Are you upset with what the money was spent on or the way in which it was financed?


I already mentioned that we're borrowing the money. The government's accountants can tack what's on the budget and what isn't all they want, but as long as we're in debt, whatever we borrow is on the budget. If the US wanted to borrow 400 billion to repair highways, it wouldn't been the same process, which is more or less what Obama and Congress is still doing.

You mentioned before that the government is trying to fight deflation. Whether you agree or not with its means, the debt issue is harder than it seems. Bush and Obama's situations are not the same.


Are you in favor of Obama's health care plan? The War in Iraq will end one day, but a massive expansion in government spending on health care isn't going anywhere but up.

The War will end, and we'll still have to take care of the vets wounded in action.

I don't know what Obama's health care plan will look like. Ask me in its final form.


I was talking about economic rationing, not human sacrifice. Obviously every war takes its toll on those that serve and their loved ones. I don't see how we can change that.

It would've been nice to have some form of reducing government spending because of the war and the tax cuts instead of increasing discretionary spending. Republicans are all experts when it comes to that.


Paygo is a joke. The Dems reinstated it in 2006, but they continue to ignore it on a daily basis.


Who broke the precedent?


Nobody, certainly not me, has ever claimed that Bush was a fiscal conservative. My original post was about the notion that the debt sky rocketed under Bush. Upon further examination, the facts do not back up the claim.

Let's ignore that Bush backloaded payments and entitlements to future generations, and neglected infrastructural needs for the United States to maintain it's competitiveness.

Bush punted debt and responsibility to his successor. At least he won an argument.


Are you saying that our entitlement situation isn't a big deal because we are going to grow our way out of the problem? SS, Mcare and Mcaid are going to bring us down. Eventually our currency will be replaced as the World's reserve currency, our interest rates will rise a our total debt outstanding passed 100% of GDP, etc. But hey, everyone will have health insurance...


Every other industrialized country has managed to find a universal healthcare system that doesn't cost their GDP in the teens and/or bankrupts them. We have to fuck up spectacularly to bring us down with these changes. These are all projections if we don't fix the system. Do Republicans have solutions to the problem? Or are they assuming that the government will blow SS/Mcare/Mcaid up and have nothing to replace it?

We're already going down if healthcare business as usual. But hey, some people have nice PPOs. It's not that bad when people are bankrupted because they can't afford hospital bills. It's captialism weeding out the weak.


The budget surplus that he inherited was not sustainable. Did he have the luxury of a peacetime dividend? How about a boom in tax revenue from the internet bubble? Was the House being run by Newt and Armey or Delay (Who loves pork)?

Who ousted Newt? Who presided over the Housing boom and record highs in the stock indexes?

Peacetime dividend? So you're using Iraq as an excuse for killing the budget surplus when one of my points is how much debt and global economic distortions it racked up.

Okay, sure. George Bush could not keep the budget surplus (let alone that I mentioned effort) because he landed us in a war where it cost us 700 billion on paper, and whateverthefuck billions more every damn year because government accountants won't own up to the true value. This is on top of the VA benefits to those who were killed or injured in action and to their families, and whatever money it takes to pacify Iraq's neighbors while we slowly transition out of there.

That is the peacetime dividend we're shooting for.

[billy1980]

I think we need to turn our prisons into slave labor camps. Those bitches cost 30gs a year or so. Lets work their lazy asses to the bone so they can pay their rent.

Yes this is way off topic, sort of.

[Das Kahlua]

Every other industrialized country has managed to find a universal healthcare system that doesn't cost their GDP in the teens and/or bankrupts them. We have to fuck up spectacularly to bring us down with these changes. These are all projections if we don't fix the system. Do Republicans have solutions to the problem? Or are they assuming that the government will blow SS/Mcare/Mcaid up and have nothing to replace it?

Republicans like McCain did have at least the beginnings of a plan for health care, they were just ignored. Allow tax breaks for individuals to buy their own health insurance so they're not dependent on the government, provide tax breaks or other inducements for companies to provide it to their employees, and allow individuals and companies to shop for health insurance across state lines like you can for car insurance, which would bring the costs down.

As for those people who are uninsured, the 47 million is a made up number, it's bullshit. Take out the 13 million illegal immigrants, take out the 8 million or so young people who choose not to get health insurance, and another 11 or so million or are eligible for current government programs but haven't enrolled, and the number gets down closer to roughly 11 million. If the government were to send a check to each and everyone of those 11 million for say, 5000-7500 dollars a year, the cost of a top notch private health insurance plan so the people could buy it themselves, the cost to the government would be 6-8 billion dollars, much less than we've already given to GM and a far cry from the trillions that the current Obama plan is hitting at.

As for programs like SS, they're dead in the water; there has been no true cost increase to adapt to inflation, and the amount that a person currently gets certainly isn't enough to be a retirement plan as is. Most Americans thinks SS is going to be defunct somewhere in the near future anyway, get rid of that waste of money, cut out loses, and let Americans keep more of their own money to invest as they choose. That is the retirement plan we should be following.

We're already going down if healthcare business as usual. But hey, some people have nice PPOs. It's not that bad when people are bankrupted because they can't afford hospital bills. It's captialism weeding out the weak.

Except that that's just rhetoric and it's bullshit. According to ABC news, 87% of people are happy with their health insurance, and only 3% of claims are denied.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3580676&page=1

[freegood]

Republicans like McCain did have at least the beginnings of a plan for health care, they were just ignored. Allow tax breaks for individuals to buy their own health insurance so they're not dependent on the government, provide tax breaks or other inducements for companies to provide it to their employees, and allow individuals and companies to shop for health insurance across state lines like you can for car insurance, which would bring the costs down.


That Stossel article you posted doesn't like employer provided healthcare. For good reason because it creates haves and have-nots.

That same article is also good at addressing flaws in the system. The same flaws would still be there if consumers (assuming they're smart enough) were to shop around like car insurance. Maybe Obama's plan will have the same flaws. I guess people think the type of healthcare is all or nothing...


As for those people who are uninsured, the 47 million is a made up number, it's bullshit. Take out the 13 million illegal immigrants, take out the 8 million or so young people who choose not to get health insurance, and another 11 or so million or are eligible for current government programs but haven't enrolled, and the number gets down closer to roughly 11 million. If the government were to send a check to each and everyone of those 11 million for say, 5000-7500 dollars a year, the cost of a top notch private health insurance plan so the people could buy it themselves, the cost to the government would be 6-8 billion dollars, much less than we've already given to GM and a far cry from the trillions that the current Obama plan is hitting at.

Your numbers (National Review?) are bullshit

The 'Real' Uninsured
June 24, 2009
Some critics say fewer people lack access to health coverage than official statistics make it appear. We break down the numbers....

http://www.factcheck.org/politics/the_real_uninsured.html


And why shouldn't young people be covered? Their rates would be far lower and it's not like they're invincible until they hit some arbitrary age.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/the-demographics-of-the-uninsured.php

Jun 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
You sometimes hear talk suggesting that the bulk of the uninsured are just young and overconfident people who don’t really want to pay for health insurance. Today’s new report on health care (http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/CEA_Health_Care_Report.pdf) from the Council of Economic Advisers shows that while there are certainly a lot of uninsured young people, this is hardly the whole story:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/uninsuredage.jpg

It’s also worth emphasizing, as this chart illustrates, that for all the scare stories you hear about “socialized medicine” or the government “coming between you and your doctor” it’s not a coincidence that senior citizens are almost never uninsured. There’s a government program which does that. And of course senior citizens have the most health care needs. If a universal system is good enough for grandma, it’s not clear why we’d view it as terrifying for the rest of us.
11 million eligible people have not enrolled in gov. healthcare plan, and you expect all Americans to make the right or rational decisions as consumers? Or perhaps they did inquire about eligibility and the coverage doesn't provide for their pressing needs.

Not all the healthcare plans elsewhere are the same. One proposed method is for the government to provide base services and allow Americans to opt up into different tiered plan by private insurers.

Finally, the rationale behind this point of yours is based upon a ruined system that no one knows for sure how to fix. Adding 5,000- 7500 dollars per person/year might be today's costs, but if we're losing trillions comparitively as it is, then perhaps the average cost per person will rise to 10,000 in 5 more years. Better off spending more to fix the system now and putting the added costs on paper instead of looking back in hindsight to see how much we wasted the year before.


As for programs like SS, they're dead in the water; there has been no true cost increase to adapt to inflation, and the amount that a person currently gets certainly isn't enough to be a retirement plan as is. Most Americans thinks SS is going to be defunct somewhere in the near future anyway, get rid of that waste of money, cut out loses, and let Americans keep more of their own money to invest as they choose. That is the retirement plan we should be following.


Here's another number: Americans lost around 14,000,000,000,000 dollars (http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/11/news/economy/Americans_wealth_drops/?postversion=2009061113) since mid 2007. What do you say to people retiring in the next 5 years?

You suck at investing?

You weren't educated in the principles of finance?

Uhhhhhhh, shit happens, dude. At least you can still get some Social Security if you're 65 maybe 68. Work at Starbucks until then. That's a private healthplan.


Except that that's just rhetoric and it's bullshit. According to ABC news, 87% of people are happy with their health insurance, and only 3% of claims are denied.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3580676&page=1

They are better off than people not insured. And they know it.

Uninsured More Likely to Die From Cancer Following Diagnosis
Report finds they're less likely to get screening tests, so have advanced disease

THURSDAY, Dec. 20 (HealthDay News) -- People diagnosed with cancer who don't have health insurance are more likely to die because they are less likely to get screening tests and so are typically diagnosed with advanced disease, a new study from the American Cancer Society finds.

The finding proffers strong evidence that differences in cancer survival are directly related to lack of access to health care.

"If you are uninsured, and you are diagnosed with cancer, you have a 60 percent greater chance of dying from cancer than if you were insured and diagnosed with cancer," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the cancer society.

This dichotomy is true for all of the 18 cancers the researchers looked at, Brawley said. "There is not a cohort of insured and a cohort of uninsured cancer patients that have the same five-year survival," he said. "It's always the uninsured who do worse."

Part of the problem is that uninsured people don't have access to screenings, Brawley said. "But part of it is that uninsured people don't have access to the best doctors or have access to good doctors who are overwhelmed. The end result is the quality of care the poor folks get is not as good as the quality of care of the wealthier or the insured," he said.

There are also people who are underinsured, Brawley said. While these people have access to care, high co-pays and deductibles make the care unaffordable, particularly high-priced chemotherapy drugs, he noted.
"Where it becomes frightening and morally reprehensible is people who have significant pain and can't get narcotics and other pain medications they need, because they can't afford them," Brawley said.

People don't realize they are underinsured until after they have gotten sick, Brawley said. "There are a substantial number of Americans who don't realize they are a cancer diagnosis away from economic disaster," he noted.

Rest of article....
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Uninsured-More-Likely-to-Die-From-Cancer-Following-Diagnosis-8599-1/

[Hoser]

What is unisured?

http://i41.tinypic.com/sdz04p.jpg

[freegood]

Government standards have fallen with a black President in office.

[Hoser]

Fuck Blackie and his lies and debt and being black and his new puppies and being black.




^5 Tockit/Redsox

[redsox39]

I think we need to turn our prisons into slave labor camps. Those bitches cost 30gs a year or so. Lets work their lazy asses to the bone so they can pay their rent.

Yes this is way off topic, sort of.
To continue this off topic rant, I like it, but...

What about the guy who owns a business in the Private sector that already does the work that those prisoners would be doing?
Can you imagine the signs at the protest?

"I lost my job to a Mexican Rapist"

You have to imagine that whatever work the prisoners would be doing they would be doing it cheaper than the private sector.

[freegood]

You laugh now. Just wait for the day when you call a Customer Service Rep and he's speaking ebonics.

[Tar Heel]

Anyone who thinks social programs are to blame for the ridiculous debt are retarded like Simple Jack. Lots of things cause it. Lots of things raise it. But social programs are pretty much only 1% of the problem. As much as some conservatives love to stick up for Bush, he was not even close to being a fiscally conservative president.

[IdiotBrain]

SS and Medicare are giant fucking Ponzi schemes.

What needs to happen, is these prisons being built for "radicals" and "anti-government right wingers" needs to have a telephone put in every cell, and our House of Representatives, Senate and Congress should be moved there for their own safety.

Also, term limits on every public office everywhere. Period. Two terms maximum for everything.

[BIG PIZZLE]

SS and Medicare are giant fucking Ponzi schemes.

This is actually kinda true. Only it's not for profit.

[hatepoppy]

everything is for profit.

[BIG PIZZLE]

Your mother fucks for fee.

[hatepoppy]

Your mother fucks for fee.
*free

[BIG PIZZLE]

That's what I meant and you know it!

[hatepoppy]

That's what I meant and you know it!
im actually convinced that you did not in fact intend said sentiment in the aforementioned post.

[tockit]

Anyone who thinks social programs are to blame for the ridiculous debt are retarded like Simple Jack. Lots of things cause it. Lots of things raise it.
8000 earmarks, as contained in that POS economic stimulus package that Obama and the democrats pushed through congress, worth an estimated $400 billion dollars, raise the debt tremendously.

$400 billion dollars is more than half of what we have invested in Iraq and Afghanistan so far combined.

And most of those earmarks are for political pet projects on bullshit like, example: $1.8 million for pig odor research in Iowa. Give me a freaking break.....


I guess BHO forgot that he promised during his campaign that he would end earmarks if he were elected?

Now Biden is talking about a second stimulus package. Insanity.

But social programs are pretty much only 1% of the problem.
I wouldn't go that far. The government can't even run the Post Office. Social Security and Medicare are broke, do you really want them running health care?

As much as some conservatives love to stick up for Bush, he was not even close to being a fiscally conservative president.
You're right.

[Debo]

Anyone who thinks social programs are to blame for the ridiculous debt are retarded like Simple Jack. Lots of things cause it. Lots of things raise it. But social programs are pretty much only 1% of the problem. As much as some conservatives love to stick up for Bush, he was not even close to being a fiscally conservative president.

Huh? Entitlement programs are roughly half of the budget and growing.

Explain to me how they are not a problem.

I will even throw you a bone:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/78xx/doc7851/03-08-Long-Term%20Spending.pdf

[billy1980]

To continue this off topic rant, I like it, but...

What about the guy who owns a business in the Private sector that already does the work that those prisoners would be doing?
Can you imagine the signs at the protest?

"I lost my job to a Mexican Rapist"

You have to imagine that whatever work the prisoners would be doing they would be doing it cheaper than the private sector.

We would put them to work making shitty products that we currently import from China. Win/Win. Or we send the prisoners to work in china and then they dont have to worry about human rights activists anymore.

[Das Kahlua]

That Stossel article you posted doesn't like employer provided healthcare. For good reason because it creates haves and have-nots.

That same article is also good at addressing flaws in the system. The same flaws would still be there if consumers (assuming they're smart enough) were to shop around like car insurance. Maybe Obama's plan will have the same flaws. I guess people think the type of healthcare is all or nothing...

That's such a fucking cop-out, freegood, you're better than that shit. "No plan is perfect, let's just adopt the first one we find, no matter what it is." That is the kind of thinking that got our country into the economic situation we're currently in, and it's the last thing we should be doing right now, especially with a trillion+ dollar plan that will forever change our health care system.

Your numbers (National Review?) are bullshit

The 'Real' Uninsured
June 24, 2009
Some critics say fewer people lack access to health coverage than official statistics make it appear. We break down the numbers....

http://www.factcheck.org/politics/the_real_uninsured.html


And why shouldn't young people be covered? Their rates would be far lower and it's not like they're invincible until they hit some arbitrary age.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/the-demographics-of-the-uninsured.php

Really? I read the links you posted, and all they seem to agree with is a small discrepancy in the total numbers (they complained that Fred Thompson said 45 million uninsured when it's really 45.7 million, petty nonsense like that), but affirmed the main concept, which is the numbers that are bantered around like crazy are bullshit.

My favorite party was when they debated themselves whether a family making over $42,000 a year could really 'afford' health care. If it's a priority in life, you save for it and make it work, even if it means you can't buy a new car every 5 years or go one 2 vacations a year. Where the fuck have the priorities in our country gone? Afterall, these families in question will be paying for it one way or the other, either through premiums or taxes, take your pick.

11 million eligible people have not enrolled in gov. healthcare plan, and you expect all Americans to make the right or rational decisions as consumers? Or perhaps they did inquire about eligibility and the coverage doesn't provide for their pressing needs.

Yes, yes I do. If they are eligible for health care, and they don't enroll, either from laziness or apathy, I don't feel bad for them, and we as a society shouldn't bail them out. If you're too lazy to take care of yourself, you deserve to die and take the burden of supporting you off of all the people in society who are responsible.

Not all the healthcare plans elsewhere are the same. One proposed method is for the government to provide base services and allow Americans to opt up into different tiered plan by private insurers.

Right, not all are the same. Just like not all cars are the same. Does that mean that the government should be providing cars to people because they 'really, really want one'? I work my ass off at two jobs to make ends meet, and I've paid for my own health insurance since I moved out of my parents' house. Why should I have to work any harder to provide for people who are too lazy to be responsible?

Finally, the rationale behind this point of yours is based upon a ruined system that no one knows for sure how to fix. Adding 5,000- 7500 dollars per person/year might be today's costs, but if we're losing trillions comparitively as it is, then perhaps the average cost per person will rise to 10,000 in 5 more years. Better off spending more to fix the system now and putting the added costs on paper instead of looking back in hindsight to see how much we wasted the year before.

This is the dumbest thing I think I've ever heard you say. You think that if the same group of people who can't run Amtrak, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid properly were given control over everyone's health care, that somehow it would be better? Want me to start posting stories of people in places like the UK who are being denied life-saving cancer medication because the government is rashioning it? I'm sure you'd be fine if we did the same thing here, then?

Here's another number: Americans lost around 14,000,000,000,000 dollars (http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/11/news/economy/Americans_wealth_drops/?postversion=2009061113) since mid 2007. What do you say to people retiring in the next 5 years?

You suck at investing?

You weren't educated in the principles of finance?

Uhhhhhhh, shit happens, dude. At least you can still get some Social Security if you're 65 maybe 68. Work at Starbucks until then. That's a private healthplan.

No, never would I trust myself to manage my own money, afterall I've only managed to keep a great credit rating for years, I'd much rather trust it to the government that financially fucks up everything it touches. Great idea!

They are better off than people not insured. And they know it.

Uninsured More Likely to Die From Cancer Following Diagnosis
Report finds they're less likely to get screening tests, so have advanced disease

THURSDAY, Dec. 20 (HealthDay News) -- People diagnosed with cancer who don't have health insurance are more likely to die because they are less likely to get screening tests and so are typically diagnosed with advanced disease, a new study from the American Cancer Society finds.

The finding proffers strong evidence that differences in cancer survival are directly related to lack of access to health care.

"If you are uninsured, and you are diagnosed with cancer, you have a 60 percent greater chance of dying from cancer than if you were insured and diagnosed with cancer," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the cancer society.

This dichotomy is true for all of the 18 cancers the researchers looked at, Brawley said. "There is not a cohort of insured and a cohort of uninsured cancer patients that have the same five-year survival," he said. "It's always the uninsured who do worse."

Part of the problem is that uninsured people don't have access to screenings, Brawley said. "But part of it is that uninsured people don't have access to the best doctors or have access to good doctors who are overwhelmed. The end result is the quality of care the poor folks get is not as good as the quality of care of the wealthier or the insured," he said.

There are also people who are underinsured, Brawley said. While these people have access to care, high co-pays and deductibles make the care unaffordable, particularly high-priced chemotherapy drugs, he noted.
"Where it becomes frightening and morally reprehensible is people who have significant pain and can't get narcotics and other pain medications they need, because they can't afford them," Brawley said.

People don't realize they are underinsured until after they have gotten sick, Brawley said. "There are a substantial number of Americans who don't realize they are a cancer diagnosis away from economic disaster," he noted.

News flash: So are people who live in the UK.

[Claydon]

I have employer sponsored health care, I pay $95 a month for some rather decent coverage.

Three twenty something subordinates of mine do not take the coverage (even though it would be like 50 per month for them), then recently one of them had a bladder infection he waited and waited because "he didnt have the money" until he finally ended up in the ER with a $2200 bill. Yet, this same dumbass blows three times the monthly premium at bars and on bimbos on the weekends. He wouldn't even go to the Urgent Care where it would have cost him like $300 for care. If you want health insurance/health care you can get it. It has always been a priority in my life, but then again these same people say that the government should do it for them. Hell they have children all the time and say how the state of california should pay for their child's health care.

Look where that got us.

[Debo]

I have employer sponsored health care, I pay $95 a month for some rather decent coverage.

Three twenty something subordinates of mine do not take the coverage (even though it would be like 50 per month for them), then recently one of them had a bladder infection he waited and waited because "he didnt have the money" until he finally ended up in the ER with a $2200 bill. Yet, this same dumbass blows three times the monthly premium at bars and on bimbos on the weekends. He wouldn't even go to the Urgent Care where it would have cost him like $300 for care. If you want health insurance/health care you can get it. It has always been a priority in my life, but then again these same people say that the government should do it for them. Hell they have children all the time and say how the state of california should pay for their child's health care.

Look where that got us.

You can't blame people for being morons. Instead, you must blame corporate greed, HMOs and insurance companies...all of them.

[Claydon]

You can't blame people for being morons. Instead, you must blame corporate greed, HMOs and insurance companies...all of them.

George Bush and the republicans!!

[BIG PIZZLE]

I have employer sponsored health care, I pay $95 a month for some rather decent coverage.

Three twenty something subordinates of mine do not take the coverage (even though it would be like 50 per month for them), then recently one of them had a bladder infection he waited and waited because "he didnt have the money" until he finally ended up in the ER with a $2200 bill. Yet, this same dumbass blows three times the monthly premium at bars and on bimbos on the weekends. He wouldn't even go to the Urgent Care where it would have cost him like $300 for care. If you want health insurance/health care you can get it. It has always been a priority in my life, but then again these same people say that the government should do it for them. Hell they have children all the time and say how the state of california should pay for their child's health care.

Look where that got us.

I think your story is a lie to prove a stupid point that people have made before anyways. But aside from that, I dont know how much I pay for medical but paying for medicine sucks. I'm getting worked at the dentist and he doesnt take any insurance. Insurance is stupid. It has ruined the medical industry. I would rather pay my doctor. If I rack up a $1,000,000 surgery, put it on my tab. I'll pay for it over the next 50 years. I'd rather do that than pay insurance. Honestly if you dont wanna play like that, do it like Canada. Canada does it better than the US. Boom. Fuck You. I never had a problem. I've had a harder time getting a decent doctor out here. And the reason Canada doesnt do it WAYYYY better is that there arent enough doctors. Where the fuck do you think all the doctors are? You think the best surgeons in the world are gonna go to Canada? To Mexico? England? No. They'll stay here and live off the teet. Why because americans are consumers of medicine just like they snatch up jonas brothers tour t-shirts. Fuck you claydon you suck.

[Debo]

I think your story is a lie to prove a stupid point that people have made before anyways. But aside from that, I dont know how much I pay for medical but paying for medicine sucks. I'm getting worked at the dentist and he doesnt take any insurance. Insurance is stupid. It has ruined the medical industry. I would rather pay my doctor. If I rack up a $1,000,000 surgery, put it on my tab. I'll pay for it over the next 50 years. I'd rather do that than pay insurance. Honestly if you dont wanna play like that, do it like Canada. Canada does it better than the US. Boom. Fuck You. I never had a problem. I've had a harder time getting a decent doctor out here. And the reason Canada doesnt do it WAYYYY better is that there arent enough doctors. Where the fuck do you think all the doctors are? You think the best surgeons in the world are gonna go to Canada? To Mexico? England? No. They'll stay here and live off the teet. Why because americans are consumers of medicine just like they snatch up jonas brothers tour t-shirts. Fuck you claydon you suck.

Perhaps there aren't any doctors there because they aren't doing it as well as you think that they are.

[Claydon]

I think your story is a lie to prove a stupid point that people have made before anyways. But aside from that, I dont know how much I pay for medical but paying for medicine sucks. I'm getting worked at the dentist and he doesnt take any insurance. Insurance is stupid. It has ruined the medical industry. I would rather pay my doctor. If I rack up a $1,000,000 surgery, put it on my tab. I'll pay for it over the next 50 years. I'd rather do that than pay insurance. Honestly if you dont wanna play like that, do it like Canada. Canada does it better than the US. Boom. Fuck You. I never had a problem. I've had a harder time getting a decent doctor out here. And the reason Canada doesnt do it WAYYYY better is that there arent enough doctors. Where the fuck do you think all the doctors are? You think the best surgeons in the world are gonna go to Canada? To Mexico? England? No. They'll stay here and live off the teet. Why because americans are consumers of medicine just like they snatch up jonas brothers tour t-shirts. Fuck you claydon you suck.

1. not a lie

2. canada eh, just saw a cnn report about the wait time for specialists

3. insurance ruined it? or did the attorneys and sue happy patients ruin it?

[Das Kahlua]

I think your story is a lie to prove a stupid point that people have made before anyways. But aside from that, I dont know how much I pay for medical but paying for medicine sucks. I'm getting worked at the dentist and he doesnt take any insurance. Insurance is stupid. It has ruined the medical industry. I would rather pay my doctor. If I rack up a $1,000,000 surgery, put it on my tab. I'll pay for it over the next 50 years. I'd rather do that than pay insurance. Honestly if you dont wanna play like that, do it like Canada. Canada does it better than the US. Boom. Fuck You. I never had a problem. I've had a harder time getting a decent doctor out here. And the reason Canada doesnt do it WAYYYY better is that there arent enough doctors. Where the fuck do you think all the doctors are? You think the best surgeons in the world are gonna go to Canada? To Mexico? England? No. They'll stay here and live off the teet. Why because americans are consumers of medicine just like they snatch up jonas brothers tour t-shirts. Fuck you claydon you suck.

I agree with you about 0.001% of the time, but by God, you're one of my favorite people on here. I will read, religiously, anything you post, because even if I don't agree I will laugh.

[Claydon]

tell you what pizzle, why don't you take a look how government medical coverage fucks over hospitals, doctors, diagnostic centers for a bit.

but then again, you work in an industry that loves to fist fuck people.... so perhaps you may approve of it.

[BIG PIZZLE]

1. not a lie

2. canada eh, just saw a cnn report about the wait time for specialists

3. insurance ruined it? or did the attorneys and sue happy patients ruin it?

I just saw a cnn report about how big a fucking queer you are.

[freegood]

That's such a fucking cop-out, freegood, you're better than that shit. "No plan is perfect, let's just adopt the first one we find, no matter what it is." That is the kind of thinking that got our country into the economic situation we're currently in, and it's the last thing we should be doing right now, especially with a trillion+ dollar plan that will forever change our health care system.

1.6 trillion spread over 10 years (http://forum.gorillamask.net/showpost.php?p=636432&postcount=5). If it's the CBO, add another hundred billion or ten.

We're spending 18% of our GDP on healthcare. It's not the first plan there is. Other countries have their own strengths and weaknesses. You can't let states to their own devices because they don't have collective bargaining power on the federal level.

When we spend 2.4 trillion on healthcare a year, yes I can and will fucking cop out on finding any solution better than the status quo. It turns out that there are solutions out there that have been thought out.


Really? I read the links you posted, and all they seem to agree with is a small discrepancy in the total numbers (they complained that Fred Thompson said 45 million uninsured when it's really 45.7 million, petty nonsense like that), but affirmed the main concept, which is the numbers that are bantered around like crazy are bullshit.

The bulletpoints in factcheck.org are the claims you and your source have made. The analysis section disputes them such as the estimated number of uninsured illegal immigrants (5.7), # of insured who can afford healthcare (what they go through and have to pay is the mitigating factor), substantiated reasons on why youths don't get health coverage, how many among those who are eligible for coverage are children, and it breaks down where the billions of healthcare uninsured people get comes from.

You can read it again and again and that 11 million figure of people who "really need" healthcare you pulled out is still bullshit.


My favorite party was when they debated themselves whether a family making over $42,000 a year could really 'afford' health care. If it's a priority in life, you save for it and make it work, even if it means you can't buy a new car every 5 years or go one 2 vacations a year. Where the fuck have the priorities in our country gone? Afterall, these families in question will be paying for it one way or the other, either through premiums or taxes, take your pick.

Part of it is because for the last 60 years, the employer has picked up the tab for insuring Americans and the government facilitated it with subsidies and tax breaks. Now that multinationals are gearing to be "competitive on the global scale" and shedding "legacy costs", the expected burden is shifted back onto the government.

That is why the system is broken. With boomers getting older, that is why we're (belatedly) talking about it now.


Yes, yes I do. If they are eligible for health care, and they don't enroll, either from laziness or apathy, I don't feel bad for them, and we as a society shouldn't bail them out. If you're too lazy to take care of yourself, you deserve to die and take the burden of supporting you off of all the people in society who are responsible.

If you're a victim of a hit and run, and you're not insured yourself, you deserve to live poor with a bad credit rating from nasty hospital bills? Maybe you can't pay for it. Live with the pain and man up.

A guy smokes several packs/day, drinks all the time, rides a bike and does whatever the fuck he wants that makes insuring him costly. He deserves to die if he gets bone cancer or some random ass totally unrelated disease? As if the dude deserves to die for living the way he wants anyways.

Sounds like you want illegal immigrants to eat shit, so I won't even go there.

This fantasy libertarian utopia has never existed. As long as hospitals are required to give emergency treatment to those in need (damn that Hypocratic Oath), we're not going to see people die on hospital doorsteps...

And that's fucking harsh. It's like some people would rather spend debt crushing amounts of money to "free Iraqis" than lift a finger for their neighbor. He might be idiot or he could be poor with real issues. Let's assume the worst so we don't have to give a fuck.


Right, not all are the same. Just like not all cars are the same. Does that mean that the government should be providing cars to people because they 'really, really want one'? I work my ass off at two jobs to make ends meet, and I've paid for my own health insurance since I moved out of my parents' house. Why should I have to work any harder to provide for people who are too lazy to be responsible?

Off tangent, but we're giving away cars to old people. They get nice cheap pills that help them die slower. Should grandma die because she's a fucking burden to society? At least with uninsured workers, the less days they're sick, they more days they work.

You're not working harder to provide for lazy people. The lazy uninsured who can work are forced to pay for it through taxes. Illegals pay Social Security and haven't collected any of it. They'll probably stick with emergency rooms as they're doing now. All that's left are kids, who get SCHIP benefits already, geezers, who get covered through medicare/medicaid, crips (social security), and the poor.

If you want to equate poor people with lazy, that's a rabbit hole I'm not getting into.


This is the dumbest thing I think I've ever heard you say. You think that if the same group of people who can't run Amtrak, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid properly were given control over everyone's health care, that somehow it would be better? Want me to start posting stories of people in places like the UK who are being denied life-saving cancer medication because the government is rashioning it? I'm sure you'd be fine if we did the same thing here, then?

I'll say it again and again. The system we have now can't last for long. Yeah, let's blow up everything. Blow up Amtrak. Blow up USPS. Shut down Congress because they can't work for shit. It's anarchy with a libertarian twist!

You know what? If you're are totally right, and socialized medicine is a complete failure that bankrupts the US, then we won't have anymore Medicaire, Medicaid, or Social Security. Maybe Bush was onto something when he tacked on trillions in order to give geezers cheaper pills.

And I like how you talked about cars when I mentioned different methods of nationalized healthcare we could adopt. Want to pay for life saving cancer medication? Opt up with a private provider.

Unleaded Supreme baby!

VROOM VROOM VROOM VRRRRRRRRRRVRVRVRRRRRRRRRRRRRVRVRVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR


No, never would I trust myself to manage my own money, afterall I've only managed to keep a great credit rating for years, I'd much rather trust it to the government that financially fucks up everything it touches. Great idea!

I have a great rating too. And I had the cheapest coverage, I could still end up in debt after surgery and total expenses. Ratings rise and fall. It's not the ultimate indicator of financial responsibility, just like those who were making a killing off stocks a couple of years ago weren't necessarily good or decent investors.

I'll give the government a shot. If that amount we spend on healthcare rises to 20% of our nation's total wealth per year, I'll admit I'm wrong and change my mind.


News flash: So are people who live in the UK.

Who's copping out now?

[Das Kahlua]

I just saw a cnn report about how big a fucking queer you are.

Did you record it?

[Claydon]

I just saw a cnn report about how big a fucking queer you are.

bullshit, you were too busy beating off to anderson cooper

[Das Kahlua]

1.6 trillion spread over 10 years (http://forum.gorillamask.net/showpost.php?p=636432&postcount=5). If it's the CBO, add another hundred billion or ten.

We're spending 18% of our GDP on healthcare. It's not the first plan there is. Other countries have their own strengths and weaknesses. You can't let states to their own devices because they don't have collective bargaining power on the federal level.

When we spend 2.4 trillion on healthcare a year, yes I can and will fucking cop out on finding any solution better than the status quo. It turns out that there are solutions out there that have been thought out.

The CBO has already said that Obama's plan will cost at least a trillion dollars, which of course doesn't take into account all the people that will flock to 'free' health care as they do any other government entitlement program, so that number is very conservative. 2.4 trillion is definitely within reach.

The bulletpoints in factcheck.org are the claims you and your source have made. The analysis section disputes them such as the estimated number of uninsured illegal immigrants (5.7), # of insured who can afford healthcare (what they go through and have to pay is the mitigating factor), substantiated reasons on why youths don't get health coverage, how many among those who are eligible for coverage are children, and it breaks down where the billions of healthcare uninsured people get comes from.

You can read it again and again and that 11 million figure of people who "really need" healthcare you pulled out is still bullshit.

Even your precious factcheck said that the illegial immigrant numbers were based on predictions and not necessarily accurate, so please don't throw speculation in my face in place of actual fact.

Part of it is because for the last 60 years, the employer has picked up the tab for insuring Americans and the government facilitated it with subsidies and tax breaks. Now that multinationals are gearing to be "competitive on the global scale" and shedding "legacy costs", the expected burden is shifted back onto the government.

That is why the system is broken. With boomers getting older, that is why we're (belatedly) talking about it now.

Employers never needed to pick up the tabe for 'insurance' beyond 60 years ago, because there was no such thing. Even 60 years ago, it was something few and far between, so please be careful with your rhetoric, I'm still not that dumb. Insurance came into widespread usage within the last 3 decades, before that most doctors took nothing but cash, they still didn't trust things like checks or credit cards.

If you're a victim of a hit and run, and you're not insured yourself, you deserve to live poor with a bad credit rating from nasty hospital bills? Maybe you can't pay for it. Live with the pain and man up.

A guy smokes several packs/day, drinks all the time, rides a bike and does whatever the fuck he wants that makes insuring him costly. He deserves to die if he gets bone cancer or some random ass totally unrelated disease? As if the dude deserves to die for living the way he wants anyways.

Sounds like you want illegal immigrants to eat shit, so I won't even go there.

This fantasy libertarian utopia has never existed. As long as hospitals are required to give emergency treatment to those in need (damn that Hypocratic Oath), we're not going to see people die on hospital doorsteps...

And that's fucking harsh. It's like some people would rather spend debt crushing amounts of money to "free Iraqis" than lift a finger for their neighbor. He might be idiot or he could be poor with real issues. Let's assume the worst so we don't have to give a fuck.

Want me to make up some fantastic examples, too?

How about the crack mom at age 20 who already has 3 kids, doesn't know the father, and pops another one out every 11 months so she gets increased benefits?

How about the drug addict who doesn't want to work, so she/he makes up accidents to get pain mediciations and notes to get out of work?

There are plenty of abuses of the system, one way or the other, and they all will never be solved. The problem is that there are infinitely more cases of thing situations that I cited than that you cited.

You're not working harder to provide for lazy people. The lazy uninsured who can work are forced to pay for it through taxes. Illegals pay Social Security and haven't collected any of it. They'll probably stick with emergency rooms as they're doing now. All that's left are kids, who get SCHIP benefits already, geezers, who get covered through medicare/medicaid, crips (social security), and the poor.

If you want to equate poor people with lazy, that's a rabbit hole I'm not getting into.

Too often poor = lazy, but if you didn't want to get into it, why did you milk it for so long?

I'll say it again and again. The system we have now can't last for long. Yeah, let's blow up everything. Blow up Amtrak. Blow up USPS. Shut down Congress because they can't work for shit. It's anarchy with a libertarian twist!

You know what? If you're are totally right, and socialized medicine is a complete failure that bankrupts the US, then we won't have anymore Medicaire, Medicaid, or Social Security. Maybe Bush was onto something when he tacked on trillions in order to give geezers cheaper pills.

Sure, I'm more than willing to flush my own health care down the drain just to prove a point.[/sarcasm]

Let's see, I was right when I said that all of Obama's programs would fail, and he was wrong the whole time, so why are more people still listening to him than me? Do they want a repeat disaster?

And I like how you talked about cars when I mentioned different methods of nationalized healthcare we could adopt. Want to pay for life saving cancer medication? Opt up with a private provider.

Where I live, one could use his/her Access card (government money) to buy gas and pay for parking meeters. That additional cost is passed along to people who actually have jobs, while at the same time, paying for those douchebags in the first place.

Pardon me if I don't want that in the next emergency room I go to.

[Hoser]

2. canada eh, just saw a cnn report about the wait time for specialists

3. insurance ruined it? or did the attorneys and sue happy patients ruin it?

I love your reports on the Canadian medical system, yet you completely ignore what Canadians have ot say about it.

Quick story.

My Uncle who works all over the US was in CA, he had been getting headaches for about 2 weeks. So he went to the doctor, they sent him for an MRI, cost him something like $10,000 (there was some other stuff done, he just mentioned the MRI) (which his insurance is saying they do not want to pay out). They found a tumor. So he flies back to Canada, has another MRI within a few days, then within a few more has a biopsy. The results came back and he went into surgery. Less then a week later he was leaving the hospital after his recovery.

SO he got the same care here, had a tumor removed and it didn't cost him a penny, yet he still owes $10,000+- , which it looks like he is going to have to pay out of pocket because the insurance companies are giant flaming douchebags.

[freegood]

Even your precious factcheck said that the illegial immigrant numbers were based on predictions and not necessarily accurate, so please don't throw speculation in my face in place of actual fact.

Dude you gave a number of 11 million that doesn't exist, and you hold me to a higher standard than yourself. Not all immigrants in the number are illegal, let alone your casual dismissal of young Americans being okay without being insured.


Employers never needed to pick up the tabe for 'insurance' beyond 60 years ago, because there was no such thing. Even 60 years ago, it was something few and far between, so please be careful with your rhetoric, I'm still not that dumb. Insurance came into widespread usage within the last 3 decades, before that most doctors took nothing but cash, they still didn't trust things like checks or credit cards.

My rhetoric is backed by sources a simple Google search can turn up..
http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm
http://www.slate.com/id/2161736/
Private insurers accelerated these efforts in the 1940s when businesses, seeking ways to get around wartime wage controls, began to compete for labor by offering health insurance. If government regulators had thought to freeze fringe benefits along with wages, we might have avoided making the workplace primarily responsible for supplying health insurance, a role that most people now agree was ill-advised.

The 1942 Stabilization Act incentivized employer provided healthcare. Other actions by the government facilitated it. There's no disputing it.

You give me rhetoric. I give you facts.


There are plenty of abuses of the system, one way or the other, and they all will never be solved. The problem is that there are infinitely more cases of thing situations that I cited than that you cited.

I need sources with numbers.


Too often poor = lazy, but if you didn't want to get into it, why did you milk it for so long?


Because you sound like a cold bastard if you think all minimum wage jobs don't require any back braking work.

What's rhetoric is low paying jobs always being proportionate with intensity of labor.


Let's see, I was right when I said that all of Obama's programs would fail, and he was wrong the whole time, so why are more people still listening to him than me? Do they want a repeat disaster?


Yeah, you're a real 200 day prophet. 2012 is the end times.


Where I live, one could use his/her Access card (government money) to buy gas and pay for parking meeters. That additional cost is passed along to people who actually have jobs, while at the same time, paying for those douchebags in the first place.

Pardon me if I don't want that in the next emergency room I go to.

And yet the emergency room is the healthcare provider of last resort to uninsured Americans. What's your point here besides more rhetoric?

[hatepoppy]

gglz freegood is just fuckin unfair.

[HAWK]

$400 billion dollars is more than half of what we have invested in Iraq and Afghanistan so far combined.

Huh??

More than half would make your figure at about $700-$900 billion.

Do you just shit out figures however and whenever you feel like it? I don't like the stimulus pkg either, but stop kidding yourself about the gross spending that's been apart of this country for a LOOOONG fucking time. Long before anybody knew who the fuck Obama was.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3419840.ece

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/10/iraq.cost.of.war/index.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/stiglitz200804

http://threetrilliondollarwar.org/2008/04/22/the-3-trillion-war/

[atoms]

Ain't statistics great.....My Dad had a book called how to lie with statistics.

The biggest problem is are you talking about direct costs or total costs. Direct costs are the costs appropriated directly for the war in Iraq. That is the cost of the vehicles there, the cost of the ammunition, the cost of getting soldiers there, the cost of housing them...etc. Indirect costs are higher medical responsibilities (now and into the future) and a lot of things like that (sorry beyond the medical, I'm finding trouble with good lists of the indirect costs....however few seem to dispute them).

The other issue is are we looking at total costs to date, or estimated total costs (looking in to the future as well). To date, in only Iraq, the number on direct costs is $600-$700 billion. Total costs estimated by the CBO is 2.4 trillion (this is not just adding indirect, but also future costs, and Afghanistan is included in this number). Total costs estimated by many notable economists, including nobel prize winning economist Joseph Siglitz is conservatively 3.0 trillion.

So basically you both can be right, just by being vague about what you are talking about.

[Desperado]

The CBO has already said that Obama's plan will cost at least a trillion dollars, which of course doesn't take into account all the people that will flock to 'free' health care as they do any other government entitlement program, so that number is very conservative. 2.4 trillion is definitely within reach.
.


So I guess the nationaljournal was a bit jumpy with their numbers?
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/cdp_20090707_8129.php


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/07/cbo-numbers-on-house-heal_n_227301.html

The Congressional Budget Office has not scored the House health care reform proposal, despite reports that it had estimated the plan would cost taxpayers upwards of $1.5 trillion, Melissa Merson, a CBO spokeswoman, told the Huffington Post.
CongressDaily reported earlier Tuesday (http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/cdp_20090707_8129.php) that the package had been scored -- legislative lingo for a cost estimate -- at a figure that would make passage of the House bill in the Senate difficult.
The report caused a stir on the Hill and stoked fears of a setback.
"THERE. IS. NO. SCORE," e-mailed one frustrated committee aide.
Three committees -- Ways and Means; Education and Labor; and Energy and Commerce -- are working on the bill.
Negotiations over the package continue. Democratic staffers are meeting now to decide how to pay for the health care overhaul, said a Democratic aide, with a set of proposals expected later Tuesday or early Wednesday.

UPDATE: In a statement unusual in its harsh wording, all three committees are pushing back against the story.
The Press Offices of the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor Committees released the following statement today in response to an inaccurate report published in CongressDaily asserting that the House Tri-Committee health care reform legislation has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office:

"This report is premature and entirely fabricated. In fact, none of the reporters working on this piece contacted our press offices to fact check their story. The three House committees are still working to develop legislation and have not yet received a score from CBO on the discussion draft. As the three chairmen have made clear, our health care reform legislation will be paid for and we're still considering revenue options."

[Debo]

Ain't statistics great.....My Dad had a book called how to lie with statistics.

This is probably it:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=ILHC45W8WU59K&colid=18NNOUX7H4LY

[HAWK]

Money spent due to the effect of an event is still money spent.

[Archangel]

Ain't statistics great.....My Dad had a book called how to lie with statistics.

The biggest problem is are you talking about direct costs or total costs. Direct costs are the costs appropriated directly for the war in Iraq. That is the cost of the vehicles there, the cost of the ammunition, the cost of getting soldiers there, the cost of housing them...etc. Indirect costs are higher medical responsibilities (now and into the future) and a lot of things like that (sorry beyond the medical, I'm finding trouble with good lists of the indirect costs....however few seem to dispute them).

The other issue is are we looking at total costs to date, or estimated total costs (looking in to the future as well). To date, in only Iraq, the number on direct costs is $600-$700 billion. Total costs estimated by the CBO is 2.4 trillion (this is not just adding indirect, but also future costs, and Afghanistan is included in this number). Total costs estimated by many notable economists, including nobel prize winning economist Joseph Siglitz is conservatively 3.0 trillion.

So basically you both can be right, just by being vague about what you are talking about.

Thank you.

Another ancillary cost of Iraq is people in other countries taking their business elsewhere. Do you think that after Iraq, any Muslim with some money could afford being seen in a Cadillac, no matter how much he liked the new CTS? Do you think France, with its large Muslim population and many state owned industries, wouldn't rather buy from non-American companies after being insulted? You lie to, piss off and fuck over the entire world, there are gonna be economic consequences.

The Japanese fear of losing face is partly rooted in the fact that if you lose face, you also lose money.

A lot of it.

[Yelram]

Thank you.

Another ancillary cost of Iraq is people in other countries taking their business elsewhere. Do you think that after Iraq, any Muslim with some money could afford being seen in a Cadillac, no matter how much he liked the new CTS? Do you think France, with its large Muslim population and many state owned industries, wouldn't rather buy from non-American companies after being insulted? You lie to, piss off and fuck over the entire world, there are gonna be economic consequences.

The Japanese fear of losing face is partly rooted in the fact that if you lose face, you also lose money.

A lot of it.

Oh god you're stupid. I just cant believe you somehow fooled me into believing you were intelligent. I'm sure Cadillac is losing sales because of Iraq, its not like the same company produces all of the equipment used on the ground in Iraq or anything. And you do know that if someone buys a GM built vehicle in France, we dont see a cent of it, and it doesnt get counted in our GDP right?
And here, just to show you where we do export.
http://www.agr.gc.ca/misb/itpd/country/images/where_do_US_exports_go_e.gif

So by the dollars and sense of it, our companies would have much more to gain by supporting the war in Iraq, than feeling bad about offending the 8 radical muslims that no longer want to buy a fucking Cadillac. You seem to hate our foreign policy, but you keep buying ugly sneakers for shocking prices with Iraqi blood and oil all over them.

[Debo]

I love your reports on the Canadian medical system, yet you completely ignore what Canadians have ot say about it.

He should just declare BK. That seems to be what Canadians do:
http://patientsunitednow.com/external_link.php?u=http%3A//www.fraserinstitute.org/Commerce.Web/product_files/HealthInsuranceandBankruptcyRates.pdf&t=u

And your example is vague. What other procedures did he have done?

If he paid $10K, he got fucked:

MRI Price Range




Hospitals (3) - $1750 to $2200
Outpatient Imaging Centers (4) - $700-$1000

http://blog.remakehealth.com/blog_Healthcare_Consumers-0/bid/6658/How-much-does-an-MRI-scan-cost

[Hoser]

I do not know what else was done. I am guessing a hospital stay and some other procedures. And it was around $10K, total, but not sure the exact amount.

If I find out more from him I will update.

Either way, the exact dollar amount wasn't the point of the story, it was more about wait times in Canada, and insurance companies fucking people in the US.

[Debo]

In the meantime:

Canada's ObamaCare Precedent

Governments always ration care by making you wait. That can be deadly.

By DAVID GRATZER (http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=DAVID+GRATZER&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND)

Congressional Democrats will soon put forward their legislative proposals for reforming health care. Should they succeed, tens of millions of Americans will potentially be joining a new public insurance program and the federal government will increasingly be involved in treatment decisions.
Not long ago, I would have applauded this type of government expansion. Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.


My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ629_Gratze_D_20090608173320.jpg (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451570546396929.html) Martin Kozlowski


The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself.


Such stories are common. For example, Sylvia de Vries, an Ontario woman, had a 40-pound fluid-filled tumor removed from her abdomen by an American surgeon in 2006. Her Michigan doctor estimated that she was within weeks of dying, but she was still on a wait list for a Canadian specialist.


Indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery -- described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."


Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.


Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting. The same survey data show, as June and Paul O'Neill note in a paper published in 2007 in the Forum for Health Economics & Policy, that the poor under socialized medicine seem to be less healthy relative to the nonpoor than their American counterparts.


Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction. In 2005, Canada's supreme court struck down key laws in Quebec that established a government monopoly of health services. Claude Castonguay, who headed the Quebec government commission that recommended the creation of its public health-care system in the 1960s, also has second thoughts. Last year, after completing another review, he declared the system in "crisis" and suggested a massive expansion of private services -- even advocating that public hospitals rent facilities to physicians in off-hours.


And the medical establishment? Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon, grew increasingly frustrated by government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room and increased the number of patients on his hospital waiting list. He built a private hospital in Vancouver in the 1990s. Last year, he completed a term as the president of the Canadian Medical Association and was succeeded by a Quebec radiologist who owns several private clinics.


In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments.


In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector.
Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?


Dr. Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451570546396929.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

[Hoser]

Meh, I don't know anyone who has had huge wait times and I don't know anyone who has died from lack of medical care.

[Debo]

Meh, I don't know anyone who has had huge wait times and I don't know anyone who has died from lack of medical care.

Well, I do know Canadians that have had loved ones die on the waiting list. Just because it hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

[tockit]

Meh, I don't know anyone who has had huge wait times and I don't know anyone who has died from lack of medical care.
I can't speak for Canada's health care system, but I know of a couple of people in Europe that have had trouble in the past with having to wait for medical procedures.

One elderly friend of my mother's, had to wait almost two years for a hip replacement, while she was confined to a wheelchair.

I guess the elderly get pushed to the bottom of the list?



As far as the debt goes, I just watched a news report that claimed if all of Barrack Obama's previous and proposed spending proposals are passed (economic stimulus, government bailouts, health care plan, etc, etc), its estimated that they will cost as much as every president in US history has spent combined. From George Washington to George Bush 43.

Staggering.

I also saw an interview with Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Polling, and only 38% of Americans think that the economic stimulus plan is working and 24% polled think it will have little impact on the economy.

Many polled favor ending the spending on economic stimulus right now, with only 27% favoring and 2nd stimulus package and 60% opposing a 2nd stimulus package.

[Hoser]

Well, I do know Canadians that have had loved ones die on the waiting list. Just because it hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

And people die in the US because they do not have insurance and will not be treated. Whats your point?

[Debo]

And people die in the US because they do not have insurance and will not be treated. Whats your point?

People also starve to death on a daily basis. Should we nationalize the food industry and make food free? Maybe we should give everyone a free house so nobody is ever homeless again.

Of course, that would be ridiculous. No?

I am talking about creating the most efficient system for the money. And the government cannot run the most efficient system at the lowest cost. History has proven that it isn't possible. Private enterprise has a much better track record than any government ever created.

So, a better question is: What is your point?

[satandole666]

The health system in the US, in its current incarnation, is the greatest singular example of everything that is wrong with our country. The fact that it is rising in cost at staggering rates really should not surprise anyone.

Anyone who works in the field has some post-high school education. The cost of education is rising quickly and the quality of our school systems has been declining.

Insurance companies have their fingers in every aspect of medical care. Health insurance has gone way up in price and, yet again, the quality of service is declining per dollar spent. There is also tons of insurance bullshit on the hospital's side, such as malpractice insurance which leads to...

...Our litigious mindset as a country. I don't know the numbers, but it has to be a staggering amount of money is wasted on trials concerning the medical field. All of this driving the costs of operating a hospital higher and higher.

Pharmaceutical companies make massive amounts of money selling patented drugs to patients. This wouldn't be a problem, except for quite often the previous generation of a drug is just as good. They'll add some vitamin or extra side effect, pass off a bunch of promo packs (and cash) to the doctor's so they prescribe the latest in greatest instead of the generic (read: cheap) tried and true. Just like every other industry, consumers aren't smart enough to know they are getting screwed.

How can they do that? Lobbyists. Throw money at Congress and get whatever you want. They are just one of many major industries that do this so no one should be surprised.

Then you have normal economic problems like the freeloader dilemma. Non-paying patients use and abuse emergency rooms. Who foots the bill? The rest of us.

The list goes on and on. Every aspect of our society that is a little fucked up is a member of the medical field. If you want to lower the cost of medical care, address the problems above and maybe it'll work itself out.

Will nationalized health care fix the problems? Doubt it, but I can't be sure.

[tockit]

And people die in the US because they do not have insurance and will not be treated. Whats your point?
This is BS, and another case of you talking about something you know absolutely nothing about.

They may die from not seeking treatment, but they aren't denied for lack of insurance.

You cannot be denied medical treatment because of an inability to pay.


My sister died 8 years ago from melanoma skin cancer. When diagnosed, she had recently lost her job and was unemployed with no insurance.

She was given the same treatment protocol as a patient with a top tier insurance policy. We even called the head of oncology at Duke University Medical Center for a second opinion on her treatment regimen before she started her treatments, and he suggested the same treatment she received.


She ended up passing away a few months later because the cancer was really advanced when they found it, but I'm positive she was given the latest, and best treatment available at the time.


After her death, her hospital bills had ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Fortunately, several area churches (whom we weren't even familiar with) pitched in and paid all of her medical bills in full (as we found out later, they do for others on a regular basis).

We lost her to cancer but the Lord blessed us during that difficult time through the financial assistance of those churches.


On another note, my wife has been a nurse in the ICU for many years at one of the biggest hospitals in the country, and they have NEVER, EVER denied a patient treatment due to their finances.