Town Hallers: Not Crazy to Be Angry

34 responses so far

• 1 ottovbvs // Oct 26, 2009 at 11:26 am

  ……..Joining Lou Dobbs at CNN are we?………immigration at all levels has a been a key factor in the last four decade’s economic growth and will be for the next four……..this little piece seems to be the usual scaremongering for the elderly about withdrawal of Medicare benefits(standard conservative operating practice even though Republicans including none other than Ronald Reagan fought it tooth and nail against Medicare and predicted the imminent arrival of soviet commissars); and standard Lou Dobbs immigrant bashing which is just adding to hispanic alienation from the GOP.

• 2 dubyaisafairy // Oct 26, 2009 at 11:46 am

  this guy is just another hypocritical republican bathroom stall foot tapper who loves to kiss his buddies on the “down low”.

• 3 Oldskool // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:16 pm

  Those immigrants willing to risk their lives to come here are no slouches. They work harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Certainly much harder than columnists. And let’s not forget agri-business has done nothing to discourage them. Probably the opposite. And don’t forget the huge subsidies those huge businesses get, also at taxpayer expense.

  If there’s a moral argument to be made against immigrants, you should then make it against Europeans who stole this country from the natives. It was long ago, sure, but moral arguments are supposed to stand the test of time, eh?

  And how about the Dell plant in NC that got many millions in tax breaks to locate there only to close five years later to move those jobs to Mexico, which happens every day in this country. Let’s blast them too while we’re at it.

• 4 balconesfault // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:22 pm

  And how about the Dell plant in NC that got many millions in tax breaks to locate there only to close five years later to move those jobs to Mexico, which happens every day in this country. Let’s blast them too while we’re at it.

  Yep – as we discussed in a different thread … these state by state deals to incentivize business sitings are a definite deal with the devil. When a company brings in jobs, they also bring in need for additional services – roads to accomodate new development, water/wastewater/electrical infrastructure, schools, police, fire – and too often the incentives provided to lure a business ends up leaving a state/community short of the tax base needed to pay for the entire tab. Perhaps recoverable over 30 years of a facility’s life … but if the facility closes the doors after a few years, the existing taxpayers are left holding the bag.

• 5 oldgal // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:34 pm

  “The president wants to reduce spending on Medicare Advantage, the privately run plans that offer seniors a better deal than conventional Medicare. Over the longer term, the president aspires to shift Medicare patients to teams of health care providers paid by the year, instead of individual doctors charging fees for each particular service — rather than by the particular medical service they perform.”

  I get my health insurance from a non-profit that is associated with a for-profit medical group who are salaried. As offered by my employer, this insurance is 20% – 50% less than all others offered, yet the coverage is far broader. All decisions are made by my doctors, not insurance administrators. In one instance I booked a same day appointment and was scheduled for surgery the next day – the surgeon, my GP, my cardiologist and my endocrinologist all met that day to make sure there were no undue risks. Last week I needed lab tests and an appointment – I showed up at the lab and was second in line, then I went to the clinic early, and the whole deal was completed 10 minutes before my appointment time. The next day I got an email that my test results were ready, so I got online, reviewed them and graphed them against previous results – this definitely helps formulate questions for my doctor. This is all possible because the insurer has designed implemented and continues to tune a high quality health delivery system – something we have very few of in this country.

  Yes, moving to such a model is scary, but if we want to get costs down this is the best way to do it.

• 6 oldgal // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:39 pm

  “These people cut the lawns of your more affluent neighbors, tended their babies, cleared their tables after their restaurant meals.” Aren’t these the same people you advocate tax cuts for so they can create jobs? So if we give them the tax cuts, will they just import more immigrants?

• 7 sinz54 // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:51 pm

  My position is simple:

  Any health care benefits to illegal aliens should be contingent on them accepting a legal path to eventual citizenship, and working on achieving it. If they aren’t interested in becoming citizens, and just came here for temporary work after which they go back to Mexico, then the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for their health care. Let Mexico pay for the health care of Mexicans traveling abroad.

  An American on Blue Cross who travels to Mexico doesn’t expect Mexico to pay for his health care while he’s there, right?

• 8 sinz54 // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:53 pm

  oldsk0ol:
  

  If there’s a moral argument to be made against immigrants, you should then make it against Europeans who stole this country from the natives. It was long ago, sure, but moral arguments are supposed to stand the test of time, eh?

  If you remember your history, those AmerIndians fought bitterly against settlers from Europe, burning their houses, and in some cases, killing the settlers and kidnapping their children. I guess they were trying to uphold your “moral argument.”

  Are you proposing that we Americans resist the influx from Mexico in the same way? With violence? There is that precedent, you know. Let the best armed side win!

• 9 sinz54 // Oct 26, 2009 at 12:56 pm

  oldgal:
  

  “These people cut the lawns of your more affluent neighbors, tended their babies, cleared their tables after their restaurant meals.” Aren’t these the same people you advocate tax cuts for so they can create jobs? So if we give them the tax cuts, will they just import more immigrants?

  Illegal immigration is an unintended consequence of minimum wage laws.

  Agribusiness (and hotels too) import illegal aliens, because they’re willing to work at wages and conditions below those required by American law. With unemployment nearly 10%, you would find lots of Americans willing to take those jobs–except they would be breaking the law by taking those jobs.

  Anyway, Japan may be developing the ultimate solution: They’re developing robots that can pick produce in the fields and do the other things we use illegal aliens for. If Obama, technocrat that he is, proposed funding to help American agribusiness automate, that would remove the need for illegal aliens. After all, robots work for zero pay.

• 10 Oldskool // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:08 pm

  The whole “teabagger movement” is a cyncial manipulation of voters by lobbyists like Dick Armey who agitate people who are already under stress. And they’ve been doing it since the 1980’s, upsetting voters in an organized way to create political climates favorable to everyone except the people they manipulate. Working for Bush41, Lee Atwater started this business followed by the Karl Rove crowd and this country is worse off for it.

• 11 balconesfault // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:09 pm

  An American on Blue Cross who travels to Mexico doesn’t expect Mexico to pay for his health care while he’s there, right?

  Not Mexico – because they don’t have a nationalized healthcare system … but if you are traveling in Europe, you will be covered by the NHS of whatever country you’re in, regardless of nationality or residency status.

  FWIW, I believe that if we do get heathcare with a public option, it is only intelligent for us to allow non-residents to buy into it. There is a good chance that if they have major health problems they’ll end up getting treated here anyway, so we might as well take some of their money that they’d be shipping back across the border in order to allow them into our system.

  Illegal immigration is an unintended consequence of minimum wage laws.

  Oh, please. I’d hazard it’s safe to say that most of the jobs being done here in Texas by illegal immigrants are being paid at or above minimum wage. But you’re not going to get a talented stone-layer to work for your home-remodeling company for $15K/year without benefits. Hell, housecleaning services staffed by illegals will cost you at least $20/hour.

• 12 24AheadDotCom // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:37 pm

  1. ottovbvs ignores that what’s happened over the past four decades has been against the wishes of the great majority of Americans, and it’s had huge financial and non-financial impacts. The latter include giving power to foreign countries inside the U.S. and giving power to far-left racial power groups.

  2. oldskool is, in effect, supporting a Darwinistic policy where those who aren’t fit enough to come here die in the desert. See this.

  3. Regarding the meetings, some of those attending were a bit on the nuts side, such as the Randroids (example: peekURL.com/z8o34p9 ). And, the bottom line is that those attending the meetings had little impact. They might have raised the profile of some of the things wrong with the proposal, but UHC is still chugging along.

  The smarter thing would have been to “cross-examine” pols over the flaws in the proposal, using these questions as a starting point.

  No one attending any of the meetings did anything like that, and their leaders were no help. For instance, FreedomWorks just encouraged people to go to the meetings without suggesting what they should do. They should have known (or they did know) that people would simply act out, throw tantrums, and ask things that pols can handle in their sleep. I don’t know whether each individual leader who encouraged people to attend meetings is incompetent or corrupt, but in either case they failed.

• 13 Oldskool // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:55 pm

  “Are you proposing that we Americans resist the influx from Mexico in the same way? With violence?”

  “oldskool is, in effect, supporting a Darwinistic policy where those who aren’t fit enough to come here die in the desert. ”

  That’s news to me. I could’ve sworn I was making a different point, that illegal immigration has a long history, one that we’ve been on both sides of.

• 14 sinz54 // Oct 26, 2009 at 2:38 pm

  oldskool:
  

  That’s news to me. I could’ve sworn I was making a different point, that illegal immigration has a long history, one that we’ve been on both sides of.

  History has many lessons for us.

  You cherry-picked one, while ignoring the others.

• 15 sinz54 // Oct 26, 2009 at 2:42 pm

  balconesfault:
  

  I believe that if we do get heathcare with a public option, it is only intelligent for us to allow non-residents to buy into it.

  With their low wages, they’ll never be able to afford the premiums. At minimum wage, the premiums would eat up most of their wages. Their premiums will end up being subsidized by the taxpayers.

  Subsidizing something causes more of an artificial demand for it. Now sick illegal aliens from Mexico will come here to find work AND generous health care benefits. The illegal immigration problem will get much worse.

  It’s clear why Democrats think this is cool. A vast influx of poor Latin Americans into the United States represents millions of new votes for liberal candidates who got them that health care you want so much for them to have. They will start voting that way after they become citizens. Or, in cities like Chicago, the corrupt Dem party bosses won’t wait for them to become citizens.

• 16 ottovbvs // Oct 26, 2009 at 2:44 pm

  24AheadDotCom // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:37 pm

  1. ottovbvs ignores that what’s happened over the past four decades has been against the wishes of the great majority of Americans, and it’s had huge financial and non-financial impacts. The latter include giving power to foreign countries inside the U.S. and giving power to far-left racial power groups.

  …..actually I said it had had huge economic impact……….and I’ve got news for you………immigration into this country since the 1840’s has alway been against the wishes of the great majority of Americans already here……….Irish, Poles, Italians, Jews, chinese, japanese, hispanics et al were all considered “undesirables”……in the thirties to our everlasting shame we were turning away Jews who wanted to escape persecution because they might contaminate the race while far smaller countries like Britain and France were taking far larger numbers……..in fact immigration into this country over the last forty years has been as instrumental in encouraging economic growth as it was from 1870-1910……the supreme irony in this bit of immigrant bashing from Frum, of course, is that he himself is an immigrant.

• 17 sinz54 // Oct 26, 2009 at 2:45 pm

  balconesfault:
  

  …. be treated here anyway….

  I wish that folks on BOTH sides of the political aisle would stop equating Emergency Room care of urgent conditions with continuing care of chronic conditions. If you have no insurance, it’s easy to get the former, but it’s MUCH harder to afford the latter.

  Illegal aliens who come here now can get Emergency Room urgent care if they suffer heatstroke in the desert or something. But they can’t get chemotherapy for cancer, or dialysis for kidney failure, at an Emergency Room. Those who have no insurance get less of that care. It’s that simple. So you’re giving illegal aliens much more care than they could get now. Right now, if they need dialysis or they have lymphoma, they had better go back to Mexico for their care.

• 18 balconesfault // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:11 pm

  sinz:

  a) making buy-in to a public option available to immigrants does not lead directly to subsidizing their premiums. That is a wholly separate policy decision, and it is illogical to immediately conflate the two things. I am saying that if there are immigrants who are currently sending a significant portion of their earnings back to Latin America, who would be willing to buy into a public option, it would make sense to us to accept their money, because if they have urgent conditions, as you note they will

  b) end up in Emergency Rooms, with no funds to tap into. Add that some forms of continuing care for chronic conditions are essential to keeping some people out of the emergency room with an urgent condition.

  Personally, I’m down with taking their money and providing them coverage for it (which would also give our society a better buffer against epidemics).

• 19 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  Sinz wrote: “A vast influx of poor Latin Americans into the United States represents millions of new votes for liberal candidates who got them that health care you want so much for them to have.”

  Aren’t these people a natural constituency for the Democratic party irrespective of whether they get healthcare? And, based on your post @ #7, aren’t you in favor of giving them both healthcare and citizenship, provided they satisfy the legal path to citizenship?

• 20 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:44 pm

  “A vast influx of poor Latin Americans into the United States represents millions of new votes for liberal candidates who got them that health care you want so much for them to have. ”

  Do you expect all of those poor whites in the South and Appalachia who don’t currently have health insurance to become Democrats also?

• 21 24AheadDotCom // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:59 pm

  ottovbvs is engaging in various fallacies, one of which is this.

• 22 LFC // Oct 26, 2009 at 4:00 pm

  The president wants to reduce spending on Medicare Advantage…

  YES! If private insurance is supposed to be so much better than government insurance, why does it cost 14% more than Medicare? I saw studies that said that on average, the additional “value” provided for this 14% was actually less than 2%.

  This is a government giveaway to insurance companies, plain and simple.

• 23 Churl // Oct 26, 2009 at 4:08 pm

  balconesfault says “…but if you are traveling in Europe, you will be covered by the NHS of whatever country you’re in, regardless of nationality or residency status.”

  I just got back from many years working and residing in Europe, and this ain’t so. I (and many of my US colleagues) occasionally needed medical attention, got good care, but paid for it out of our own pockets. Our US insurance carriers later paid up, but we had to put up the cash right away.

• 24 ottovbvs // Oct 26, 2009 at 4:11 pm

  24AheadDotCom // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:59 pm

  “ottovbvs is engaging in various fallacies,”

  ………..so immigration has alway been enormously popular with existing inhabitants of the US?……I’m not going to waste my time arguing about this since a quick trip to any library will furnish numerous histories that prove you wrong…….and the armies of hispanics, indians, chinese, vietnamese, europeans, filipinos, who have arrived over the last forty years are worthless economically……tell that to the US chamber of commerce

• 25 ottovbvs // Oct 26, 2009 at 4:19 pm

  Churl // Oct 26, 2009 at 4:08 pm

  “I just got back from many years working and residing in Europe, and this ain’t so. I (and many of my US colleagues) occasionally needed medical attention, got good care, but paid for it out of our own pockets. Our US insurance carriers later paid up, but we had to put up the cash right away.”

  ………But you weren’t a citizen of an EU country which changes things somewhat doesn’t it?………I lived and worked in Britain and France and encountered the same issues……however UK citizens I know of have been treated for nothing in other European countries when emergencies occurred.

• 26 Oldskool // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:43 pm

  “History has many lessons for us.

  You cherry-picked one, while ignoring the others.”

  Whatever your point was, it’s gone adrift.

• 27 agentprovocateur // Oct 26, 2009 at 10:37 pm

  I wonder how many of these protestors who are supposedly so angry because they find the concept of income transfer to be odious are already recieving some form or another of income transfer themselves.

• 28 sdspringy // Oct 26, 2009 at 11:25 pm

  Bacon loves the public option, wants a Medicare style healthcare option. Yet never mentions that right now Medicare is operating with 38 TRILLIONS in unfunded liabilities. UNFUNDED. Medicare has never managed the care of a majority of Americans and yet is so terribly UNDERFUNDED that it needs it’s own TARP.

  Now the wisdom is to cover everyone. Where is the money coming from? This is absolutely a fairy tale. Currently Medicare reimbursements are so low that medical providers will no longer see them. Those that do pass the cost not covered onto other paying customers. Thats you and me. Wonder why your healthcare premiums go up? Your government has been passing healthcare cost onto your budget for years.

  Average Medicare taxes collected are around $40-50K per person per life time. Average payout to a Medicare patient is $150K lifetime. This is your government managing healthcare, collect $50K and payout $150K. This is the reason for 38 TRILLION in UNFUNDED liabilities.

  This is why Canada and France and anyother nationized healthcare system is breaking under the stress of payment. This is why Massachussets is cutting coverage and raising premiums.

  This is why America is in serious trouble, everyone wants someone else to pay for THEIR benefits.

• 29 balconesfault // Oct 27, 2009 at 5:50 am

  Bacon loves the public option, wants a Medicare style healthcare option.

  Actually, Medicare style in terms of how healthcare is provided. Funding would be via premiums paid directly to the government, rather than to private insurers.

  Yet never mentions that right now Medicare is operating with 38 TRILLIONS in unfunded liabilities. UNFUNDED.

  How’s that math work? Is it based on the assumption that everyone under 65 becomes immediately and permanently unemployed, and the system is left to care for those currently on Medicare, as well as future Medicare beneficiaries as they age into the system, with no future revenues to support it?

  I guess that is possible … in some kind of sci-fi movie where a plague mutates to only kill the under 65 or something.

  Wonder why your healthcare premiums go up? Your government has been passing healthcare cost onto your budget for years.

  Really? That’s the only reason healthcare premiums go up … because Medicare negotiates better rates with providers?

  Average Medicare taxes collected are around $40-50K per person per life time. Average payout to a Medicare patient is $150K lifetime.

  And RNC Chairman Michael Steele wrote the following in a Washington Post OpEd recently:

  Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care. We also believe that any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation’s senior citizens.

  It is the policy of the Republican Party that nothing be done to cost-control for Medicare and reduce that imbalance you cite.

  This is why Canada and France and anyother nationized healthcare system is breaking under the stress of payment.

  You realize, I hope, that on a societal basis Americans are paying far more per capita in taxes for health insurance.

  Canada spends about $3,600 per capita on health insurance, France about $4,600.

  Right now when you total all the ways tax dollars in America are collected to pay for health insurance (excluding the military system, for argument) – Medicare, Medicaid, CHIPs, VA benefits, healthcare benefits to federal, state, and local employees (including firemen and policemen, etc), healthcare benefits to teachers, healthcare benefits to federal pensioners, and tax credits to businesses to pay for employee healthcare – we’re spending around $6,000 per person in publicly financed healthcare.

  In other words … societally we’re already spending more in tax dollars than those countries.

  This is why America is in serious trouble, everyone wants someone else to pay for THEIR benefits.

  I thought we were in serious trouble because a lot of financial players played a high stakes gambling game over the last decade with derivatives and credit swaps and other financial products that were all pegged to the concept that housing prices in America would never flatten or decline – building up debt to capital levels of 70-1 in our major financial institutions.

• 30 Reason60 // Oct 27, 2009 at 2:34 pm

  “This is why America is in serious trouble, everyone wants someone else to pay for THEIR benefits.

  I thought we were in serious trouble because a lot of financial players played a high stakes gambling game over the last decade with derivatives and credit swaps …”

  So you two agree- America is in trouble because the Wall Street players screwed up and now want someone else to pay for their benefits.

  Kumbaya at last.

• 31 SFTor1 // Oct 28, 2009 at 1:11 am

  According to a recent report on NPR Mexican illegal immigrants arrive in the United States in very good health, and return to Mexico with health problems. It appears that it is in fact we who place burdens on whatever medical services available in Mexico, not the other way around.

• 32 BoolaBoola // Oct 28, 2009 at 3:56 am

  David, it is very dishonest of you to present the tea-partiers as serious in any way. They are a mix of agents-for-hire, and, morons who could no more understand the relationship between Medicare and immigration than they could understand the decline of the Roman Empire or the price of gold.

• 33 sinz54 // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:11 am

  BoolaBoola:
  

  David, it is very dishonest of you to present the tea-partiers as serious in any way. They are a mix of agents-for-hire, and, morons

  Gee, whatever happened to “Dissent is Patriotic”?

  Now that you lefties have taken power, you feel the need to disparage grass-roots protesters.

  Tell me the difference between “agents-for-hire” and “community organizing”. You don’t think the pols in Chicago pay their organizers to do organizing? They sure do. They don’t turn out in droves just out of idealism. They get paid.

• 34 LFC // Oct 29, 2009 at 1:56 pm

  Gee, whatever happened to “Dissent is Patriotic”?

  “Coherent dissent is patriotic.” Fixed.

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