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I'm glad you give that benefit, because I meant it in a sincerely non-acrimonious way.
It is by the people, sadly it's the citizen's united definition of people. That can change and I have faith that eventually it will. Stealing the SC pick from Obama and giving it to Trump probably set back the time frame significantly but we eventually do the right thing in this country (as Churchill said, after we've exhausted all the other options).
I think we disagree on Citizen's United, because I believe it is important for Corporations to hold the same rights as individuals do. It is actually important for our democracy as well as our economy if they also enjoy those protections.
There are things that can be done to lessen the unintended consequences of that, but keep in mind there are lots of good things about it.
This article from the Boston Globe (evaluated by multiple groups as being left leaning) on why corporate personhood is good.
A few selected passages, but there is much more to read and digest there.
Quote:
Corporations are, and should be, legal “persons.” They should be able to claim constitutional rights, at least some of the time. And corporate constitutional rights should be important to you even if you are a progressive, like me.
Quote:
The constitution has protected businesses and groups since the early days of the republic. Some of our most beloved cases limiting governmental power have been brought by corporations. The New York Times and The Washington Post — both for-profit companies — asserted First Amendment rights to publish the Pentagon Papers. Companies sued during the Korean War to stop Harry Truman from asserting inherent presidential power to seize steel factories during wartime. Planned Parenthood, organized as a corporation, won a hard-fought battle in 1992 to have the Supreme Court reaffirm Roe v. Wade. When I helped organize a coalition of law schools 15 years ago to sue the Pentagon over its discrimination against our gay and lesbian students, we formed a nonprofit corporation — an “artificial entity” who represented the interests of “aggregations of people.”
Quote:
We should not exclude corporations from democracy, but inject democracy into them. Corporate governance structures should include representatives of the people who contribute to businesses, and management should focus not only on the interests of shareholders but on those of other stakeholders too.
Some people seem to have a very strange view of what insurance companies do. They point to the problem of people who have a pre-existing condition, trying to sign up for new insurance, only to find the insurance companies won't pay for the the treatment for that pre-existing condition.
Of course they won't. That's not what insurance companies do. Whoever said they did?
{snip}
There are only three states of being, for every American, either...
1) You have been sick in the Past
2) You are sick now.
3) or... you will be sick one day in the future.
The cost of a first world country is taken care of those that can't (or won't in a lot of cases) take care of themselves.
I have already stated that we don't have adequate funding to do so. AND I've explained how European countries collect the funding to do so. They tax regressively, unlike the US which taxes progressively. That means the no/low-income to middle class bear the highest tax burdens, instead of the opposite as it here in the US.
All explained at the link, below, which cites a Washington Post article and includes a link to the research on which it is based. Also, PLEASE read the scatter plot chart and make sure you understand what it tells us about which tax system is most effective at funding collectivist programs like national health care.
I think we disagree on Citizen's United, because I believe it is important for Corporations to hold the same rights as individuals do. It is actually important for our democracy as well as our economy if they also enjoy those protections.
There are things that can be done to lessen the unintended consequences of that, but keep in mind there are lots of good things about it.
This article from the Boston Globe (evaluated by multiple groups as being left leaning) on why corporate personhood is good.
A few selected passages, but there is much more to read and digest there.
Good stuff. Like most things there are nuances. I appreciate a perspective that considers that. Unions were how we democratized corporate structure when that functioned well, but they've been vilified to the point of irrelevance in many industries. They created a less-self serving more community serving attitude in board rooms.
Or if a child is born severely autistic... perhaps when the world's human population reaches 10 billion, it won't be worth trying to fix that heart defect or trying to teach that mentally impaired child to minimally function in our society.
In nature, defective babies would die on their own. It's really quite unnatural to expend so much money trying to fix defective progeny. And those with severe hereditary medical issues shouldn't be making babies and passing along those genes. Just because advanced medical science can fix a medical issue for $300K, doesn't mean that it should be paid for by health insurance.
There is a finite limit to society's resources. Our planet already has several billion too many human beings on it. And if we could go back to the human population levels of the 1950's, we wouldn't need to worry about climate changes and changing over to electric cars. *shrug*
You're speaking truth to power, but don't expect the touchy-feely liberals to comprehend the reality of what you've said.
Humans are NOT immune to the laws of natural selection. It is egregiously arrogant to believe otherwise.
When you asked them why they charged that way, what did they say?
Let me get this straight.
If I drop my insurance, and a year later I come down with some debilitating disease that will require a million dollars in medical treatments, I will be able to afford those treatments BETTER than if I still had insurance?
Please explain?
You bet I called the billing service for the urgent care. Had both bills in front of me.
The rep I spoke with said that was the agreed office amount "for my insurer" and that if I had questions, I needed to call "my insurer."
When I asked why there was such a big difference in price, she again told me to "call my insurer" and said that the $150 was a standard charge via the urgent care for noninsured patients.
So the cost of the visit was 3x as much ... with insurance. And she knew that.
I wonder what others paid with other "insurance." Probably more, probably less.
Glad I pay my premiums every month. Money going to good use and hardly mismanaged.
I'm glad you give that benefit, because I meant it in a sincerely non-acrimonious way.
It is by the people, sadly it's the citizen's united definition of people. That can change and I have faith that eventually it will. Stealing the SC pick from Obama and giving it to Trump probably set back the time frame significantly but we eventually do the right thing in this country (as Churchill said, after we've exhausted all the other options).
What you saw with Obama's SCOTUS pick, was the repubs taking revenge against the dems. Sen. Reid made the historic decision to change the senate rules, implementing the nuclear option to prohibit filibusters, so it only took 51 senate votes to approve the appointment of judges that Obama selected.
The Republicans, who were the minority party then, were furious, since something like that had never been done before. So when the repubs took control of the US Senate, they had their revenge and blocked Obama's third SCOTUS pick. It's just that simple. You can whinge and cry, but it was the dems who started that political war. A war does not end just because the people who started the war, fall back on tough times.
That does not make what the repubs did was right, but neither was it right, what the dems did when they started all of this.
What you saw with Obama's SCOTUS pick, was the repubs taking revenge against the dems. Sen. Reid made the historic decision to change the senate rules, implementing the nuclear option to prohibit filibusters, so it only took 51 senate votes to approve the appointment of judges that Obama selected.
The Republicans, who were the minority party then, were furious, since something like that had never been done before. So when the repubs took control of the US Senate, they had their revenge and blocked Obama's third SCOTUS pick. It's just that simple. You can whinge and cry, but it was the dems who started that political war. A war does not end just because the people who started the war, fall back on tough times.
That does not make what the repubs did was right, but neither was it right, what the dems did when they started all of this.
And that was because McConnell refused to even consider any court pick Obama made. You remember how absurd that was? Good, centralist jurists dismissed because Obama bad. It was his stated policy.
We can go back and forth a long way like this.
I agree though, I knew when that was done that we were on the wrong side of it for the same reason you think so. But remember, we excluded the SC from the nuclear option. McConnell changed that to get even.
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to comprehend the reality of what you've said. 
Corporate Thinking
