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I never said this stuff. If you click the little button near the sides of each quote in the post from RomaniGypsy you'll be taken to the original post. None of this is there. Something happened. Someone messed up or words are being put in my mouth.
Most of the stuff whoever this is is talking about seems to be way over my head. These are buu's posts.
You're absolutely right. I apologize. I messed up - whenever I respond to quotes in pieces, I break them up and do a control-C to copy the poster's name so that it shows up as a quote. I copied the wrong name. Sorry, Tony... and I should apologize to bUU as well! (Nobody's perfect.)
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Originally Posted by bUU
Yes it does. ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices.
Let's take a hypothetical gas station where the price of gas is $3.99 per gallon. If someone cannot afford gasoline and a charitable agency of some kind pays for that person to fill up, has the price of gas at that station changed?
No.
It's just that someone else paid the $3.99 per gallon, so the net cost to the person who couldn't afford it is either zero, or at least "substantially less". The price per gallon remains the same.
In the same way, if the price of a doctor visit is $100 and ACA sees to it that $90 of that is paid by the government, the fact that the net cost to the patient was $10 doesn't change the fact that the actual price for the service is $100.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Easy for someone who can afford to pay for their healthcare to say, but it is quite offensive to place money higher in priority than other people's lives.
First of all, I am not exactly able to afford much in terms of healthcare costs. I, too, could be bankrupted by one broken bone or severe illness. I have carried health insurance for exactly one year during the last 11 years, and I never once used it. I have chosen not to carry insurance because I am a healthy man and the cost of insurance would have kept me buried in debt for much longer than I wanted to be. Effectively I rolled the dice, lucked out, and in so doing, saved myself a five-figure sum of money. I knew that I was a very low risk for catastrophic health issues - I don't smoke, drink, use drugs, nor live dangerously in any way. I don't play sports, and I always order my food "well done". I'm fastidious about cleanliness and disinfection, and I was sick so much as a kid that I have built up a robust immunity to a lot of what's out there. I do get sick occasionally but don't we all? Any illnesses I have gotten in the past several years have all been because kids who were sick came to my house for music lessons. Even the least considerate of parents will not bring their kids to my house if they have a severe illness. Hence, I was at very low risk of contracting a severe illness. That's why I felt I could roll the dice and be fine. I put those several thousands of dollars to MUCH better use than they'd have gone to had I carried health insurance for those other ten years.
Secondly, I agree with you completely. So, since it's quite bad to place money higher in priority than other people's lives, why are the prices of healthcare services and drugs so outrageously high in this country? And why are healthcare executives making seven-figure sums of money at the expense of the sick? As I said before, ACA doesn't address these problems. The closest it comes is to demand that 80% of insurance premium dollars be spent on healthcare services... with any leftovers being refunded to the insured people.
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Originally Posted by bUU
The reality is that there are ways to raise the money to cover the added costs. Egoistic right-wingers are fighting tooth-and-nail against such revenue generation.
This may be true, but here's the problem. Tax people more and they'll have less to spend... with less to spend, unemployment goes up and corporate revenues fall. Those two conditions reduce the amount of tax revenue coming in. There is a critical "tipping point" beyond which raising tax rates will result in reduction of tax revenue. Already our economy is in bad shape, and the "recovery" that the media likes to talk about is precarious at best. The slightest nudge in the wrong direction could bring us back to recession. That's why this is not the time to be raising taxes.
However, I do agree that there are ways to save what the government does bring in, and ways to generate more revenue, which would not subject honest hard-working Americans to increased taxation if they chose not to be subjected to it. Make people work for their welfare. Institute a national lottery. Raise "sin taxes". Reduce the perks provided to prison inmates. I don't think that generalized taxes which hit everyone and can't be avoided are a good idea right now. Wait until the American economic engine is chugging along a little faster, before trying something like that.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Those truly concerned about deficits should be criticizing and voting against such selfish perspectives, instead of trying to rationalize advocacy against basic human decency for those who cannot afford healthcare otherwise.
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean here. Criticizing and voting against which selfish perspectives?
The concern over deficits is conceptually quite simple. If America keeps spending more than it makes, ultimately our investors will call our loan... refuse to loan us more money... and demand repayment. It's pretty much the same as what happens when an individual becomes over-leveraged and no longer able to pay his debts. America over-spends by so much these days that there's no way we will be able to continue this way indefinitely. If those who presently loan us money were to stop doing so (because they feel that we will never actually repay our debts), our federal income will be chopped by approximately 1/3.
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Originally Posted by bUU
The shame of it is that we probably won't bump into each other when it comes time to eat your words.
What makes you think I will eat my words? Remember, I'm a logical thinker. I don't care about anything else. I only follow what makes sense. There are a lot of liberals who favor the "tax-and-spend" approach, and they seem to think that taxing people will make money appear out of thin air. They often fail to recognize that taxing something discourages it. So if you tax income, you discourage earning money. ("Why work your butt off at a job for $40,000 when you're just going to lose nearly half of it to fifty different taxes? You'd be better off on welfare!") You also discourage consumer spending, because first of all the consumers have less money to spend, and second of all they will spend a lesser chunk of the money they do have because they will save more for fear of more taxes in the future or economic troubles or whatever. Discouraging spending leads to a spiral effect where companies don't make as much money, so they lay people off, which leaves those people with less to spend, so less money is spent, which means companies don't make as much money, so they lay people off, etc. The "stimulus" programs of recent years recognized this problem and sought to head it off... they were successful to an extent, except for how they were almost totally funded by deficit spending. The money that was injected into the economy to "revitalize" it was borrowed money... money upon which we must pay interest... money we will have to repay or face economic calamity sometime. It's happened to other countries recently... it can happen to America.
Last edited by RomaniGypsy; 05-21-2013 at 05:59 PM..
Sorry, but no: Let's not pander to your desire to distract attention from points you don't like, please. ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices. It does. Ignore it if you cannot bring yourself to admit it, but please don't deny it.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
First of all, I am not exactly able to afford much in terms of healthcare costs.
This is effectively contradicted by the fact that you're complaining about how the ACA isn't benefiting you. There really is no rational way to deny the fact that there are those who are worse off from you, good folks who generally have suffered great human costs due to structural inequity in our society, a situation that has been getting worse at a shocking rate. You seem to want to claim the "street cred" of struggling to make ends meet, but your claims that ACA doesn't benefit you belie your claim.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
That's why I felt I could roll the dice and be fine.
Perhaps you figured you could just change your spots if something untoward occurred, relying on other folks to be forward-looking and compassionate toward others, to safeguard the safety net that would catch you if the dice rolled against you - the safety net that you choose to attack. It isn't in the public interest to foster having one's cake and eating it too. We're a moral society and morally we won't allow people's poor choices to leave you dying in the street.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
Secondly, I agree with you completely. So, since it's quite bad to place money higher in priority than other people's lives, why are the prices of healthcare services and drugs so outrageously high in this country? And why are healthcare executives making seven-figure sums of money at the expense of the sick? As I said before, ACA doesn't address these problems.
And as I said before, ACA exchanges the human costs of the high cost of healthcare into financial costs that can be accounted for, and constructively used for comparison by reasonable people in determining which way the nation should go with regard to healthcare. There is no way - no way at all - to bring about the kind of changes you are alluding to, with regard to prices, without having first made real to everyone the human costs that have for so long been borne only by the invisible people in our society.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
Tax people more and they'll have less to spend...
It depends on who you tax and for what. Not everyone is spending every last dollar they have. There are actually a quite large number of people and companies who are hording cash these days. Regardless, there are other ways to raise revenues, such as regulating away exploits and abuses that tend to depress revenues. However, you are missing, or deliberately trying to distract away from, the point: Money is not a legitimate reason for engaging in immoral marginalization of people.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean here. Criticizing and voting against which selfish perspectives?
In a nutshell: Money is not a legitimate reason for engaging in immoral marginalization of people. The government is large enough that there are ways to address the deficit concerns without ignoring the human cost of such marginalization.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
What makes you think I will eat my words?
Because you'll likely be wrong about your prediction. Problems will come up, remedies will be applied. Maybe even someday single-payer or some other form of universal healthcare will be passed as part of a repeal of ACA, but there will be no denying that ACA made that progress happen, and foster that forward movement. There's no way we're going to go back to allowing health insurers to exclude preexisting conditions; There's no way we're going to go back to allowing health insurers to sell practically worthless policies providing nothing more than a false sense of security; There's no way we're going to go back to a situation where the working poor have to choose between food and healthcare....
Sorry, but no: Let's not pander to your desire to distract attention from points you don't like, please. ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices. It does. Ignore it if you cannot bring yourself to admit it, but please don't deny it.
From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
PRICE: 2a: the quantity of one thing that is exchanged or demanded in barter or sale for another 2b: the amount of money given or set as consideration for the sale of a specified thing
There is also:
4 : the cost at which something is obtained
If a doctor's price for an office visit is $100, that is the quantity of money he demands to receive in trade for his office visit services. The price remains $100 regardless of who pays it.
ACA brings down the cost to the patient for those least able to pay the price, but it does not bring down the price. Understand that there is a difference between cost and price. If ACA pays all but $10 for an office visit for a patient, the price is $100 but the cost to that patient is $10. The government, or some government-assisted insurer, has paid the remainder of the price - $90. The cost to the patient is #10, the cost to the government is $90, the price is $100. I hope this is now as clear as a crystal bell on Easter morning.
I was talking about price. ACA does nothing to bring down the base price of healthcare services. For those able to afford it, the price remains astronomical.
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Originally Posted by bUU
This is effectively contradicted by the fact that you're complaining about how the ACA isn't benefiting you.
When did I ever say or imply that? Actually, ACA will begin benefiting me and my wife quite significantly when it kicks into gear, because we don't make a heck of a lot, so we will certainly qualify for substantial subsidies to help us pay for health insurance. Hey, if the government is going to throw money at me, I'm going to take it. I've already thrown it at them under threat of force, so I'll take back whatever I can get.
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Originally Posted by bUU
There really is no rational way to deny the fact that there are those who are worse off from you, good folks who generally have suffered great human costs due to structural inequity in our society, a situation that has been getting worse at a shocking rate.
Again, when have I ever denied this? I understand it to be plenty factual.
I also understand that it is not the government's business to take care of such people. So did President Grover Cleveland, who was a Democrat!
You seem to want to claim the "street cred" of struggling to make ends meet, but your claims that ACA doesn't benefit you belie your claim.
Putting words into my mouth is a very desperate strategy by someone who is obviously on the losing end of the logical debate.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Perhaps you figured you could just change your spots if something untoward occurred, relying on other folks to be forward-looking and compassionate toward others, to safeguard the safety net that would catch you if the dice rolled against you - the safety net that you choose to attack. It isn't in the public interest to foster having one's cake and eating it too. We're a moral society and morally we won't allow people's poor choices to leave you dying in the street.
If I ended up in severely dire straits, I would've started out by asking my family for money. I may not be rich but I have some family members who are at least comfortably well off. Also, I could have asked for charity from the American public. It has always flabbergasted me, what the American people will support in the name of generosity. Let's start with "Octomom", who couldn't feed the six kids she already had and then went and had eight more. To quote Morgan Freeman in "The Shawshank Redemption": "Oh my LORD how the money rolled in!"
If "morally we won't allow people's poor choices to leave them dying in the street", the consequence is that poor choices are not very heavily discouraged. People will do stupid (and costly) things at much greater rates if they know there is a safety net beneath them. Heck, I'd walk on a tightrope if I knew that falling off of it wouldn't result in my death. But without a safety net beneath me - absolutely not!
So my question to you, bUU, is this. Let's take a hypothetical society where all laws and regulations are set up according to your statement of "morally we won't allow people's poor choices to leave them dying in the street". How would such a society effectively discourage poor choices?
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Originally Posted by bUU
And as I said before, ACA exchanges the human costs of the high cost of healthcare into financial costs that can be accounted for, and constructively used for comparison by reasonable people in determining which way the nation should go with regard to healthcare. There is no way - no way at all - to bring about the kind of changes you are alluding to, with regard to prices, without having first made real to everyone the human costs that have for so long been borne only by the invisible people in our society.
I don't mind that approach. I also do believe that ACA will reduce the usage of emergency rooms, which should reduce at least some costs. However, I challenge you to name me one time in the last 50 years (or even one time in the history of America!) when a government program of any kind reduced the overall cost of anything to any substantial extent... or when the government actually cared about reducing the overall cost to Americans for anything. (I have plenty of counterexamples. Most, if not all, government programs of late which have achieved that effect on the surface have done so through extreme increases in the national debt. That doesn't qualify as reducing costs for Americans. We will ALL pay dearly if the national debt gets too high. How about another example? The Garden State Parkway in New Jersey was completed in the mid-1950's. My dad was a kid back then, old enough to remember it. They said there would be tolls on the Parkway to pay the cost of constructing the road, and then the tolls would cease. ~58 years later, the tolls still exist. That road, with all of its traffic, has been paid for many times over. What New Jersey has done is effectively reneg on its promise.)
So what's to say the Feds won't do that with ACA? What guarantee, or track record, do we have to go on when the federal government says "TRUST US - this will ultimately reduce costs!"?!? Remember, the vast majority of Americans do not trust the government. It's plenty reasonable to figure that a government where a prominent House of Representatives leader says "we have to pass the bill first so you can find out what's in it" is actively putting up smoke screens in many other ways.
Honestly - what makes you think that the extremely rich and powerful healthcare industry is going to take this lying down? They won't allow costs to be reduced. They're too addicted to huge profits!
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Originally Posted by bUU
It depends on who you tax and for what. Not everyone is spending every last dollar they have. There are actually a quite large number of people and companies who are hording cash these days.
My guess is that they're hoarding cash because they fear the future. Also, this type of taxation is not about bazillion-dollar companies that can afford it. I've asked rich liberals how they can afford to be liberal, and why they are okay with the taxation that often accompanies liberal policies and they say "well, we can afford it". What about the people who can't afford it? What about the people for whom that 2% payroll tax increase at the beginning of this year was a noticeable bite out of the paycheck? Aren't those the very people that the liberals are supposed to be helping?
I've always wondered this about liberals, getting back to hypocrisy. You talk so much about helping out those who have very little. Statistically, ~70% of people with annual income under $30K vote Democratic and ~70% of people with annual income above $30K vote Republican. Let's say these liberal policies work, and they lift the poor up to the ranks of the middle-income or rich. Statistically, they will become more likely to vote Republican, to protect their wealth... which is one reason why so many Republican voters vote Republican. Therefore, if perfectly executed, these prop-em-up liberal policies would turn a lot of Democratic voters into Republican voters. How exactly does that make sense?
It makes sense because, in truth, these policies really don't help people get out of being poor. If Democratic politicians are elected by poor people, they will want to keep the people poor so that they'll keep getting elected. They get votes from people who want handouts, whereas Republicans tend to get votes from people who want to keep what they themselves have earned. If these handout recipients get to the point where they're self-sufficient earners, they're likely to switch sides.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Regardless, there are other ways to raise revenues, such as regulating away exploits and abuses that tend to depress revenues. However, you are missing, or deliberately trying to distract away from, the point: Money is not a legitimate reason for engaging in immoral marginalization of people.
Are you effectively saying that you do not believe people should suffer the consequences of their choices / actions?
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Originally Posted by bUU
In a nutshell: Money is not a legitimate reason for engaging in immoral marginalization of people. The government is large enough that there are ways to address the deficit concerns without ignoring the human cost of such marginalization.
Okay, I agree with this. Essentially, there are many ways to cut corners. I agree.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Because you'll likely be wrong about your prediction. Problems will come up, remedies will be applied.
Like what happened with "No Child Left Behind"? Okay, I voted for Bush 43 twice, but I can call it like it is. Shame on you, Dubya, for supporting this totally rotten piece of legislation. I'm a teacher and I hate it. All of these years later, what has it done? It's stressed teachers out, and made many good teachers quit. It has stressed kids out, with all of this emphasis being placed on passing a stupid test. And, the districts that are at a disadvantage for being able to meet the requirements of NCLB just apply for (and get) waivers, year after year after year. It's like "okay, this is the requirement, but if you can't reach it, it's okay". The Feds said "TRUST US - this will improve education!" And, almost ten years later, it has not. What are we supposed to do - give 'em another ten years to prove it? *yawn*
The "remedy" in this case has been exempting anyone who can't "make the grade". That was exactly what the law was written to prevent - all children would be on grade level by 2014! We see just how well THAT has worked.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Maybe even someday single-payer or some other form of universal healthcare will be passed as part of a repeal of ACA, but there will be no denying that ACA made that progress happen, and foster that forward movement.
Honestly, I really don't mind the idea of single-payer healthcare or universal healthcare. I just feel that it has to be mixed in proper quantity with "consequences for your poor decisions and actions". Let's face it. We ALL know that smoking is bad for you. Using smoking as an example, what's to stop someone from beginning to smoke, thinking "okay, so I'll get heart disease, lung cancer, and emphysema. The USA will pay for a new heart, cancer treatment and new lungs if necessary. We're all gonna die of something. I may as well smoke!"?
It all goes back to this - how do you have a universal safety net AND consequences for obviously bad decisions at the same time?
(Without consequences for bad decisions, people will make bad decisions more often and that will run up the costs to the system.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
There's no way we're going to go back to allowing health insurers to exclude preexisting conditions; There's no way we're going to go back to allowing health insurers to sell practically worthless policies providing nothing more than a false sense of security; There's no way we're going to go back to a situation where the working poor have to choose between food and healthcare....
Nor do I believe we should.
The "worthless policies" thing is the main reason why I haven't bought health insurance thus far. It's not that I didn't investigate it - I investigated it thoroughly, as I do everything. I discovered that, to get a health insurance policy which would prevent me from experiencing a bankrupting health episode, I would have to pay at least $800 per month... and that was as a healthy 20-something single man, no tobacco use, good BMI! The policies that were in the more affordable $200 - 300 per month range had these huge deductibles and co-pays which made it ridiculous to even consider. Why pay $3,600 per year for a health insurance policy which makes me pay the first $5,000 per year out of pocket and then only covers 80% of costs for "covered services" thereafter, when my yearly average expenditure on the total of my healthcare costs has been below $500 for more years than I can remember? I would not be able to afford even $5,000 for hospital bills! It may as well be $100,000... which would probably exceed some limit on coverage, and force me to declare bankruptcy anyway.
I never said that ACA was all bad. ACA gets a lot of things right. However, as I've said before, the fatal flaw is going to be the failure to bring down the price of healthcare. It may be paid for, reducing the cost to the average American, but when the government has to shoulder the cost burden for all of this healthcare (through subsidies, credits, you name it), deficits will run into the stratosphere and America's impending economic collapse will be hastened.
The main problem is that America has been such a greed-based country for so long that it's nearly impossible to change people's minds. In other countries where greed is not quite so prevalent and greed hasn't been ingrained into people's way of life for decades, it's much easier to stop being greedy. People COULD live with high taxes and the cost of universal healthcare (and all of these other socialist policies that liberals support) in America IF they were not such greedy people. If you tell people that they will have to reduce their standard of living very dramatically because it is no longer sustainable to live the way they've been living, there will be riots in the streets as stock prices plummet, people lose their life savings, etc. We've made our bed by building this house of cards.
ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices. It does. It simply does. No matter how much nonsense you try to spew to distract attention away from a point you don't want to admit, it does.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
I also understand that it is not the government's business to take care of such people.
It actually is. You may want government to be antisocial, but it won't be.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
So did President Grover Cleveland, who was a Democrat!
You do realize that today's Democratic Party is essentially the Republican Party of a generation ago. Over that time, the Republican Party has been taken over by religious reactionaries and egoistic greed-mongers, going so far off to the extreme that it drew the Democratic Party to the center. I myself was a Republican when I was in college, not because I wasn't as intelligent then, but because the parties were different then - the GOP was still moral, still a positive force in society. Now it's rabidly immorally callous and antisocial placing the comfort and luxury of its power brokers over basic decency and the basic needs of others.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
How would such a society effectively discourage poor choices?
By disincentivizing failure to practice the minimum reasonable amount of prudence. Unsurprisingly, that's part of what ACA does.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
That doesn't qualify as reducing costs for Americans.
ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
Honestly - what makes you think that the extremely rich and powerful healthcare industry is going to take this lying down? They won't allow costs to be reduced. They're too addicted to huge profits!
Perhaps, but at least now they won't deny coverage to those with preexisting conditions, or apply lifetime caps, or peddle practically worthless coverage selling a false sense of security.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
I've asked rich liberals how they can afford to be liberal, and why they are okay with the taxation that often accompanies liberal policies and they say "well, we can afford it".
I believe you made that up. Are you that hard-up for nonsense to pitch that you make up stories that a reasonable people can readily understand would never happen?
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
What about the people who can't afford it?
And note that specifically those who cannot afford it, in the case of ACA, are the ones who are assisted financially. So your whole line of reasoning holds no water.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
Therefore, if perfectly executed, these prop-em-up liberal policies would turn a lot of Democratic voters into Republican voters. How exactly does that make sense?
Does affluence have to make people greedy? No. You've already admitted that the Democratic Party has many affluent people who still advocate for distinctly anti-greedy policies.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
Are you effectively saying that you do not believe people should suffer the consequences of their choices / actions?
No. What I'm saying is that money is not a legitimate reason for engaging in immoral marginalization of people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
I just feel that it has to be mixed in proper quantity with "consequences for your poor decisions and actions".
You've been utterly vague and danced around whenever you've gotten close to revealing your true inclinations in this regard so Be Very Specific. What consequences would you visit upon those who you deem have made poor decisions? Talk about all the basic attributes: What consequences would they suffer vis a vis their life, their health, basic food, shelter, security, etc. The words you've used could be used to put window dressing over a rationalization for all manner of offensive actions, so unless you are very explicit, I can only assume that your comments are support for such offensive actions.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
Let's face it. We ALL know that smoking is bad for you. Using smoking as an example, what's to stop someone from beginning to smoke, thinking "okay, so I'll get heart disease, lung cancer, and emphysema. The USA will pay for a new heart, cancer treatment and new lungs if necessary. We're all gonna die of something. I may as well smoke!"?
First, Be Very Specific, in the more general contexts I outlined above. Don't just hide behind this one example, because as illuminating as it is, it isn't enough to clearly explain what you really mean by consequences. However, once you've addressed the broader contexts, then feel free to add in the specific consequences you would see visited on a smoker who develops lung cancer - your vagueness here could be interpreted as saying that you would ban any group insurance from treating lung cancer that is possible related to smoking, except if there was a separate group for smokers who smoked the exact amount of years and years ago as the insured, since otherwise covering such maladies would tend to increase the costs of the entire group. Essentially, due to how vague your comment was, you could be saying that smokers or former smokers who develop lung cancer should be left to die, without even treatment for the pain of dying.
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Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
It all goes back to this - how do you have a universal safety net AND consequences for obviously bad decisions at the same time?
There is no such thing as universal anything, but the answer to the basic issue is to recognize that human decency transcends the petty vindictiveness to exact consequences on others, and that such consequences should be limited to matters and comfort and luxury, not basic decency.
There are many things I've wondered about liberals. They seem to operate in contradictions and hypocrisy, and I want to figure out what's up.
First of all, I'm a conservative. However, I believe that most of what liberals support looks good on paper. I think that most liberals have their hearts in the right place, though I question their thought processes.
I'm going to start simple. Liberals like to complain about low wages, low-paying jobs, etc... they support causes such as minimum wage increases, "living wages" in high-cost cities, full employment for Americans, etc. On paper, this stuff looks great. Who wouldn't want to make more money?
But then they buy cheap stuff at the dollar store that is made in China. They buy clothing made in Bangladesh. They buy cars mostly made in Mexico or Korea. They buy cell phones and "consumer electronics" made in China or Malaysia. On and on and on. With their mouths they support high wages and American jobs... with their wallets they support low wages and the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries.
You can see the problem I have with this flagrant contradiction, I hope.
Often there is no choice but to buy foreign-made stuff... but I say that if we demanded American-made goods and refused to buy foreign-made goods, we would get American-made goods. This movement could start in realms where there is still a choice between buying American-made goods or foreign-made goods... but there really is no such movement today. We never hear about it. Even if something American-made cannot be found in stores, SOMEONE can make it... or you can buy something used, such that the damage was already done and YOUR money is not going to some big company that uses darn-near-slave labor in foreign countries.
This situation also carries another inherent contradiction. Why do these big companies outsource labor to third-world countries? Because labor is MUCH cheaper over there, and that enables the companies to make more money. Liberals generally distrust or despise big companies, and prefer government to business. Okay, but why purchase the cheap foreign-made goods when doing so will further pad the pockets of the fat cats in the big companies (or their shareholders)?
Effectively, liberals who purchase cheap goods made overseas are saying "I actually do support cheap labor and low-paying jobs" and "I actually do support companies outsourcing labor so they can make more profit"... even though, with their mouths, they'll say "I want well-paying jobs for Americans so they can support their families and not have to struggle" and "I want wealth to be in the hands of everyone, not concentrated at the top in that 1%".
Liberals - WHY do y'all do this?
(Or is there something you think I missed, in my evaluation of the situation?)
Liberals are the only ones out there shopping? I live in a republican part of the town and I see many people buying goods. I am pretty sure that is isn't just liberals! Companies have things made elsewhere so their profits are bigger.
I do appreciate the manner by which the OP addressed the question: It makes clear that there is no pretension of a reasonable discussion, but rather that the OP is just looking to spew pointlessly vacuous nonsense to assuage their frustration that reasonable people disagree with them on fundamental issues.
ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices. It does. It simply does. No matter how much nonsense you try to spew to distract attention away from a point you don't want to admit, it does.
No.
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Originally Posted by bUU
It actually is. You may want government to be antisocial, but it won't be.
You mean "it has become that way". Did you read the article to which I provided a link?
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Originally Posted by bUU
You do realize that today's Democratic Party is essentially the Republican Party of a generation ago.
I do realize this. But is today's Republican Party essentially the Democratic Party of a generation ago? Even if yes, explain the flip-flop, please.
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Originally Posted by bUU
By disincentivizing failure to practice the minimum reasonable amount of prudence. Unsurprisingly, that's part of what ACA does.
How? And what exactly IS the disincentive to practice the minimum reasonable amount of prudence? The only thing ACA disincentivizes is failure to carry health insurance. It does not disincentivize any unhealthy or unsafe living practices.
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Originally Posted by bUU
ACA absolutely does bring down the price for the people who can least afford the higher prices.
No.
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Originally Posted by bUU
I believe you made that up. Are you that hard-up for nonsense to pitch that you make up stories that a reasonable people can readily understand would never happen?
You can believe whatever you want to. I, unlike some people, am not in a position where I have to lie (or fabricate facts) to prove a point.
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Originally Posted by bUU
Does affluence have to make people greedy? No. You've already admitted that the Democratic Party has many affluent people who still advocate for distinctly anti-greedy policies.
Affluence doesn't have to make people greedy, but surely you will agree that the majority of affluent people are greedy. Why else would they (for example) buy gigantic multi-million-dollar mansions in exclusive zip codes when there are millions of people who can't even afford their next meal? Why not live in a reasonable house in a decent area and give the rest of the money to those who aren't as well off?
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Originally Posted by bUU
No. What I'm saying is that money is not a legitimate reason for engaging in immoral marginalization of people.
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Originally Posted by bUU
You've been utterly vague and danced around whenever you've gotten close to revealing your true inclinations in this regard so Be Very Specific. What consequences would you visit upon those who you deem have made poor decisions? Talk about all the basic attributes: What consequences would they suffer vis a vis their life, their health, basic food, shelter, security, etc. The words you've used could be used to put window dressing over a rationalization for all manner of offensive actions, so unless you are very explicit, I can only assume that your comments are support for such offensive actions.
Okay, I'll be very happy to do so. You didn't give many specific examples of what I should attribute consequences to, so I will come up with a few on my own.
-Usage of substances of abuse: No public assistance for the inevitable consequences of that usage. Examples: no publicly-funded healthcare for illnesses related to or aggravated by the usage (for smoking, things like lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, bronchitis, COPD, etc... for drinking, things like heart disease, throat cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, etc.) Also, no welfare of any kind. No situations where their poor choice can be mitigated by the forced generosity of the public.
-Failure to eat properly / maintain good physical condition: This generally results in obesity, high cholesterol, etc. Consequences would be things like: no public assistance for healthcare related to that failure. If you are 500 pounds and you have a heart attack, and there's no medically documented evidence that you tried to any reasonable extent to lose the weight, well, no healthcare for you unless you can pay for it yourself or unless your insurance premiums have been paid entirely out of your own pocket with the insurance company being fully aware of your obesity and failure to do much (if anything) about it.
-Failure to study hard and work hard in school: Receipt of Fs on the report card, requirement to repeat the grade. None of this "credit recovery" garbage, no "alternative paths to passing" which are in any way less challenging than the normal path taken by most students.
-Failure to work as much as possible as an adult, which results in poverty: Requirement to work some sort of public service job in return for receiving welfare. (Effectively, that employs you.)
To generalize, since I don't have a lot of time left, I expect that all people should enjoy the benefits of their good choices, and suffer the consequences of their bad choices, without the public being involved. If you make a good choice and benefit from it, you should not be required to share the benefits with others who didn't earn them by making similar good choices. If you make a bad choice and suffer consequences, nobody else should be required to come to your rescue on their dime. If anyone does rescue you from a consequence of your own stupidity, let it be from their own personal generosity and sense of charity... or let there be a substantial bill for their services after the fact, which you cannot discharge through bankruptcy.
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Originally Posted by bUU
First, Be Very Specific, in the more general contexts I outlined above. Don't just hide behind this one example, because as illuminating as it is, it isn't enough to clearly explain what you really mean by consequences. However, once you've addressed the broader contexts, then feel free to add in the specific consequences you would see visited on a smoker who develops lung cancer - your vagueness here could be interpreted as saying that you would ban any group insurance from treating lung cancer that is possible related to smoking, except if there was a separate group for smokers who smoked the exact amount of years and years ago as the insured, since otherwise covering such maladies would tend to increase the costs of the entire group. Essentially, due to how vague your comment was, you could be saying that smokers or former smokers who develop lung cancer should be left to die, without even treatment for the pain of dying.
Smokers should be required to pay for their own health care as it pertains to smoking, either by private pay or by paying for insurance 100% out of their own pockets with the insurance companies being 100% aware of how much they smoke and how long they've smoked. (Any discrepancy or dishonesty in statement of how much smoking is done would result in immediate cancellation of the policy and revocation of benefits. Let's face it... a simple blood nicotine content test could estimate quite closely the amount of smoking a person has done recently.)
And yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. They should be left to die. It has said, on every pack of cigarettes that has been sold for the last ~40 years and on every cigarette advertisement that has been posted anywhere over the last ~40 years that smoking is very bad for you. Therefore, anyone who smokes is intentionally ignoring that fact... choosing to accept the health damage associated with smoking... and when it comes around to affect them, as it will for almost all smokers, they should be left to die from it (if they cannot privately afford their own healthcare to treat the illnesses that smoking caused) because that was the choice they made by smoking for that long and refusing to quit.
If you think that's callous, I don't care. Numerous psychological studies have shown a detrimental effect on people when the possibility of consequences for their poor choices / actions is removed. Basically, it is good for us to suffer when we make a bad call.
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Originally Posted by bUU
There is no such thing as universal anything, but the answer to the basic issue is to recognize that human decency transcends the petty vindictiveness to exact consequences on others, and that such consequences should be limited to matters and comfort and luxury, not basic decency.
So you do believe that people should not suffer consequences for their actions. At least you answered that question.
But that brings rise to another question. It is the human nature to enjoy risk, and risk requires there to be the possibility of consequences to balance the possibility of benefits. If you don't think it's human nature to enjoy risk, you've never been to a casino. How does the removal of consequences for bad decisions work with, and uphold, our human nature?
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Originally Posted by Donna-501
Liberals are the only ones out there shopping? I live in a republican part of the town and I see many people buying goods. I am pretty sure that is isn't just liberals! Companies have things made elsewhere so their profits are bigger.
I agree. And everyone shops. I was asking about why liberals, who rail so strongly against the labor practices that bring us cheap foreign-made goods, would support the other side of the argument by purchasing those cheap foreign-made goods.
There are many things I've wondered about liberals. They seem to operate in contradictions and hypocrisy, and I want to figure out what's up.
If you honestly wanted any kind of answer you should have dispensed with the flaming.
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