Tea Party Electee "where's my health care?"
 

Freshman Maryland Rep who ran on anti-gov. health care wants to know "where's my health care"-

Source

To me this is another example of the tea party folks (I'm about to go back to calling them tea baggers) expressing "I want mine, screw you."

His office came out with some excuse that he was just pointing out the government system is ineffective. I don't buy that, do you? He also asked "what's my family suppose to do for the month I don't have health care. This mans ran on a anti-health care platform and doesn't know about COBRA? Don't buy that either. I mean the guy is a doctor and he doesn't know how the system works?

Thoughts

Sounds like something Rachel Maddow MSNBC, would make a big deal about. My response is, what about people against air pollution, but drive? Using her logic they should be riding bikes, oh wait, even people emit global warming CO2. Oh, I guess the point is that if you put enough effort into it, you can always find something wrong with people you don't like very much.

The man campaigned against gov. provided health care and wants to know why he has to wait for his, your response has something to do to with CO2 and riding bikes.

Honestly Ace I try to understand your position but it's getting harder and harder to follow them.

The connection is in the logical (in this case fallacious) argument. Was it really that hard to follow? Is it still not clear, do I need to elaborate?

Tully, I think he means to say that you can oppose something and still be a part of the problem.

It makes perfect sense here.

No it's not clear. If someone campaigned against child porn and then wanted to know how to get child porn it would be just as ridiculous.

---------- Post added at 01:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 PM ----------

Ok, how?

Harris opposed health care reform and now is complaining about not getting his in time (a mere month), when there are people who don't get any at all.

He's opposed to something and he's a part of the problem. He raises a stink over a fucking month, but after that, everything is a-ok for him and his. Meanwhile, there are thousands of kids whose families can't afford basic care.

This is like those who oppose pollution but continue to pollute. They're supportive of something in principle, and have ideals, but they are actually a part of the problem.

As long as Harris gets his, he won't care about others getting theirs.

Yeah, I said it before and I'll say it again. The tea bagger motto ought to be "I got mine, fuck you."

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
—John Kenneth Galbraith

[I recently posted this on Facebook regarding an article about low-income earners in Arizona who now face life-and-death situations regarding organ transplants. ‎(Arizona just cut their budget.)]

Isn't that the motto of most people in general. Warren Buffet is a billionaire, yet talks about how his tax rates are lower than those who work for him, he could give his money to the government, pay his people more, or even lower the prices on the goods and services he sells. Pres. Obama has millions spent on his inauguration with no benefit to poor people but he "fights for the poor". Speaker Pelosi wants to control Wall St. wages but flies in a private jet, has a chauffeur, is filthy rich, takes a government paycheck - and I bet would vote herself a raise in pay.

---------- Post added at 08:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:24 PM ----------

Interesting. Again, I am curious, do you really believe the above quote only applies to conservatives?

When you say Arizona cut their budget, don't you really mean that Arizona cut its budget? Is the suggestion that because there was a budget cut that "Arizona" wants people to die? Is it possible that the state just does not have the money to address all budget items and had to make difficult choices? Is the cut in the AZ budget being off-set by some other source? Is it possible that the costs have gone down, or the need? What will you say if Canada has to make a similar budget cut?

one person, lied about his anti gov healthcare campaign to marylanders, and is now exposed.....how is that 'one more example' of TEA party candidates?

well, i guess a broad brush can be appropriate to some people.

---------- Post added at 02:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 PM ----------

like i said, broad brush and all. :orly:

Not universally, no, but I tend to see patterns.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Not sure. I don't think so.

Maybe, but it doesn't appear that this is the case here. I doubt it.

I usually don't like to do "what-ifs." In Canada, we don't seem to have this kind of shortfall. Our concern is that we often don't have enough organs. Otherwise, I think there is enough funding. We just need to raise more awareness about the importance of organ donation.

I've never heard (read) this quote before. It's quite brilliant. :thumbsup:

I agree. This guy is complaining about the delivery of his employer provided healthcare. The fact that his employer is the government doesn't enter into the debate. He isn't getting government run health care, he's getting health care from a private insurer that is subsidized by his employer.

Shit like this is the reason we got our asses handed to us in November.

Yeah, and the goatfucker motto ought to be "Do as you're told because we said so!"

I don't see the issue here. I don't like paying for bureaucrats/legislator's health-care either, but the bottom line here is that in his case, as an employee of the FedGov, the health-care he's asking about is an employment benefit provided by his employer, as opposed to a benefit that someone else's employer is forced to provide for him. It's no different that any other employer-provided job benefit, and nothing like the same as demanding (in goatfucker fashion) that people who are not your employers provide a benefit that your employer declines to, or that employers be forced to provide a benefit that was not part of the originally-negotiated employment agreement.

Somebody really should remind him that he doesn't officially start -being- an employee, and therefore eligible for this employment benefit, until he's sworne in and starts doing his job. He really should have thought of that.

Right, what he's doing is asking where his employment benefits are. How is that any different then what any of us would do? Sure most of us wouldn't be dumb enough to demand our benefits before we even begin working, but never the less it doesn't sound like he's doing anything wrong/hypocritcal.

If he had lost the election and was sitting around his house with a broken arm wondering why the govt won't pay for HIS hospital bills, then you'd have a whole heap of hypocrisy going on. This doesn't really seem like a big issue to me.

Close, but not quite. It's more like "We're trying to make everything better for everyone, including you. This is how [evidence, evidence, evidence, and more evidence]. Please stop standing in the way."

Fixed that for you.

Yeah Dunedan I'm sure the rest of the first world outranking us in virtually every (positive) measurable category really has nothing to do with the fact that literally every one of them is further left than our left wing. The right today is further right than the guy that added "under god" to the pledge, and they're deliberately and voluntarily ignorant enough that they refuse to even believe he was the guy that stuck it in there in the 50's.

Who gets the kids when you divorce yourself from reality?

The fact that taxes are higher in Europe pretty much negates everything else.

That's without considering significantly higher fuel prices. Then there's things like blatant, government sanctioned discrimination against Muslims in France, chronic unemployment among youth in several countries thanks to the way the labor market works. Riots seem to be a way of life in France. Street crime seems to be a major problem in parts of Europe. When I was on vacation in southern Europe I was warned about gypsies and pickpockets. Subways seem to be a major crime problem in some parts of Europe. When I was in Rome, just about every car on one street that looked like it was in a middle class neighborhood had some variation of the club installed. The UK seems to going down the 1984 path with street cameras on every street corner to monitor the citizens.

I spent time in just about every major American city, including spending time in some pretty seedy areas. Even in the seedy areas I felt generally safe and never felt the need to watch out for pickpockets or other street criminals.

But hey, marijuana is legal in Amsterdam. Woo hoo. I think I'll just stay in the US.

---------- Post added at 06:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:18 AM ----------

Maybe you or one of the other socialist types here could let us know how that works. After all, the government assistance programs here in the US for the last 40 or 50 years have hardly been a success.

It's not like one tea bagger had this thought. Miller up in Alaska and Angle in Nevada both received or are receiving federal medical health care and in some cases other federal assistance. So I don't think you can call it a "broad bush" issue. Plus this guy just wants his right now, haven't read any stories where these newly elected anti-governmental health care folks are declining the benefit. I can hear it now "Oh no thanks, I don't agree with the government providing health care to people. I won't be needing those forms. But thanks."

They remind me of actor Craig T. Nelson who once said "I was on welfare, I was on food stamps... no one ever gave me any government hand outs." Hey dumb ass, those are government hand outs.

I thought the tea bagger comments weren't allowed here any more. As one of those who has sort of 'got his' and who has spent both significant amounts of his own money on charity as well as significant amounts of time helping out others, I find that offensive.

I'm willing to help people who are disabled or who are willing to put forth effort themselves. I've helped a couple people with training that helped them get a better job but expected them to do most of the work themselves.

The benefits I get from helping people who expected me to 'give them things'? I had one person tell me that since I had a job and she didn't that it was my responsibility to give her things. I felt like telling her that was fine as long as I started with a good kick to her ass. Another gets quite irate when my wife won't driver her to the grocery store on her schedule, even though she hardly ever offers to pay for gas. These aren't isolated instances, and kind of sour my attitude to helping out people.

When I was in high school, there was a group of kids who took the 'high' in high school a little too literally. It was no surprise to find that if they had a job at all after high school, that it was in McDonalds. I see no reason why the government should confiscate money from me to pay people who won't put forth the effort to support themselves.

Finally, I find it interesting that you take exception to someone trying to claim his employer-provided benefits. What's he supposed to do? Go on Obamacare and let the government pay his health care expenses?

I'm unaware of any ban on the term "tea bagger." But I'll look into it.

As for the rest of your post personal experiences are poor inductors as to what's going on in the nation as a whole. Here's a report from the CDC detailing how many US citizens do not have health insurance. Which shows most people do in fact have health insurance but many do not.

From the report-

As to my taking "exception to someone trying to claim his employer-provided benefits. What's he supposed to do? Go on Obamacare and let the government pay his health care expenses?" I don't take exception to them accepting their federally funded health care, I take exception to them fighting finding a solution to provide health care to those who don't currently have it while gladly expecting theirs.

If tea party members call themselves tea-baggers, I don't see why the term should become taboo here.

Well, let's see: This week, I will go to the store and buy Christmas gifts for the 5 orphans I personally "adopted" through Angel Tree for Christmas. On the way, I will pick up the venison from the deer I shot and paid to have processed so the lady down the street will have meat to eat all winter (32 lbs) - her husband left her and she can't afford groceries. Saturday noon, I start my shift working on the Habitat House. Next week, I spend a day working for the United Way to feed people on Thanksgiving. Oh, and then there is that Tea Party meeting at the coffee shop on Saturday morning that I will probably attend. So, forgive me if I tell you both, "Fuck you."

I forgive you, but I expected more from you.

While I commend you and your Christan charitableness in the lead-up to Christmas, I don't see how that applies to the comments you quoted.

I think you've taken it too far out of context and made it personal.

Unless, of course, this somehow ties into how you hope that thousands of children will have access to adequate health care some day soon. Have you looked into charities related to health care?

Fuck me? No thanks, I prefer my sex partners to be less intellectually challenged. But thanks for the offer.

Your personal acts of charity have nothing to do with the overall objectives of the tea party movement.

just curious, but why do you think that the rest of the first world countries outrank us in nearly every measurable category?

---------- Post added at 10:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 AM ----------

like Dune said, other than this guy demanding his federal employee health care benefits right fucking now, he actually is entitled to them by being an elected federal representative. maybe it's people like you and I that are responsible for that.

You guys are so myopic in your views of people who think differently than you that you have chosen, in this thread, to make this guy the poster child for the millions of people who think the government is not the solution to our problems.

You also can't seem to bridge the gap to why my saying, "I probably think a lot like him and I am not selfish, and I don't seek out keeping mine. I just want to give - rather than have it taken" is relevant to you making this guy the poster child for ALL people who think like him (tea part members). Isn't it convenient that "HE" is always the poster child, not the millions of people like me who give far more than most, and happen to share some of his beliefs.

You guys, in your intellectually challenged (sorry, just borrowing phrases here) view of people who don't think like you, probably honestly believe that these acts I have listed are "Christian charitableness leading into a Christian holiday". Being as intellectually challenged as you seem intent on being, it will probably be a huge disappointment to read that my immediately family has logged just over 500 hours of charity work this year - time which was literally STOLEN from your beloved government's opportunity to do its belevolent work - along with...well....let's just say "tens of thousands" of dollars given to charity around the nation and world, including health care for children.

Undoubtedly, in your ignorant portrayal of the "greedy tea baggers", these acts will HAVE to be correlated to...what was it....scrolling..."the lead up to Christian holidays"...as the only reason one of us greed tea baggers would actually do something nice - you know, scoring points for the judgement day and all. But, since I DO believe in the sky ghost, I suppose one could just correlate them to "the Sabbath" and get off the hook. That's it, I'm going to build that house on Saturday as a lead up to my Christian holiday on Sunday.

So, you guys put your heads together and spend the next 10 or so posts trying to justify why it is perfectly fair to say ALL people who believe "that government can't and shouldn't solve our all our social problems" are really just greedy people who want theirs and say "Fuck you" to all the rest of the people. Those of us who willingly give as much as we can to help those in need AND believe the government should leave it to us, find your statements offensive and...intellectually challenged.

Am I intellectually challenged or am I ignorant of your position?

I'll take my end of the responsibility, will you take yours?

You are the one that posted the Galbraith quote immediately following, Tully's "fuck you" comment. Clearly, you were concurring that all tea baggers "...got mine. Fuck you." My post was a crystal clear objection to your assertions. So, you can answer your own question as to whether it was willful ignorance or intellectually challenged. From my experience with you, I'd call it the first. However, your persistence at painting such a vividly unfair picture of people with my political views does teeter on the latter, at times.

I am not seeking any sort of validation by bringing up my charity work. I bring it up because, frankly, I am sick and fucking tired of the way you guys speak about "me."

Well, maybe I should clarify then. I posted that Galbraith quote as applying to Tea Partiers within the context of health care.

They want to repeal the health care legislation that was passed—legislation that was aimed at making health care more accessible to those who need it. It was passed because health care was due for a reform. America has the most expensive health care system in the world, and people are going without.

The Tea Party movement wants to repeal it. I haven't heard of what they want to do to replace it. As it is, it's a watered-down version of other health care systems out there—publicly funded systems that grant access to every citizen. As far as I know, the Tea Party movement demonizes this as "socialized medicine" and opposes this.

I see this as selfish. Why? Because this appears to me as a lack of consideration of others (those who can't afford health care) and a concern for one's own situation (the spending of their own personal taxes). I don't see them presenting or suggesting solutions to what is essentially a health care crisis for thousands of Americans. All I see is a libertarian counterstrike to whatever the Dems have done to do something about it.

Now, we can have a discussion about that, or you can continue to take things personally. I don't want to continue the way we've been going because it's counterproductive.

Your initial rebuttal was "fuck you." I think that's actually a retort. Are you willing to move beyond that?

How does any one person's charity define the policies of a movement? Makes no sense.

And if you're tried of the way people are responding to your posts here, Cimarron29414, why keep posting here?

then congratulations are in order, for democrats passed a healthcare reform bill in a nation with the most expensive medical care, that raised healthcare costs.

Well, maybe the focus should then shift to how to reduce those costs.

not to play all hindsight here, but a whole bunch of us mentioned controlling the costs first, before implementing some cockamamie mandatory health insurance enrichment scheme, so maybe that should have been the first focus.

Actually by providing preventive care and standard care, thus keeping uninsured out of the ER for basic health care needs, the HCR reduces health care costs nation wide.

Also-
Source

So, yes- thank-you democrats.

---------- Post added at 11:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:46 AM ----------


I have heard that.. a lot. What I haven't heard is how to reduce those costs.

So what are your ideas?

Not to pull the irony card, but the dude in the OP couldn't even wait a month for his health care.

What do the Republicans oppose more, the access to the health care or the cost of the health care?

Canada's own system went through a number of revisions over the decades.

and i'm not trying to excuse the idiot for that. what I'm NOT doing is portraying him as the poster child for TEA party people or candidates.

you'd have to ask a republican.

what did they focus on first?

---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:06 PM ----------

what should be a logical choice, but won't be for those that think only the government can provide fair regulation, is to remove some of the monopolistic power that state governments have over the medical and health insurance industry. When these companies realize that they would actually have to compete fairly with smaller companies, then these costs will go down.

i'm sure that doesn't work for your ideology though.

I was asking for your observation.

The idea behind our system sprang from a need: Saskatchewan had a shortage of doctors and the province ended up subsidizing the doctors required to fill the gap. This eventually led to the first of several publicly funded universal health care systems in Canada.

The history of our system is based on a number of provinces building public options for health care and then finally receiving support federally to help cover shortfalls. It will be a much different history than what you'll see the States. That's a different creature.

I guess you could say we first focused on access to health care. Once that is out of the way, the ongoing challenge is to manage the costs and the funding, especially with an aging population.

I'm not saying it's easy, but I would say managing the costs and revising the system is a better option than pulling the plug on what's essentially a groundbreaking piece of legislation. It will reduce the deficit while removing millions of Americans from those who remain amongst the uninsured.

Should it be repealed? In my opinion, no.
Is there room for improvement? Yes.

then i'd have to say the cost of healthcare. I can't see any legitimate political party that wants to increase the medical costs of their own constituency.

so if I understand the canadian healthcare dilemma, it started because of a lack of doctors? why?

as large as this bill is, do we still really know whats all in it? I say it should be repealed and replace with a simpler piece of legislation that handles the immediate need of controlling the costs of healthcare.

Sigh. So, one guy who asks a somewhat boneheaded version of "When does my employer's health insurance plan kick in" DOES define a movement - but a guy who believes the government should not be the sole solution provider for our nation's problems and also dedicates a significant amount of time, money, and talent to helping those problems CAN NOT define that same movement. As I've said, that sounds fair. Because if you don't paint the TEA party as hillbilly baby killers, people might actually take the time to listen to their message...and we can't have that!

...and, I'm not tired of the way people respond to my posts. I'm tired of every thread being an unimaginative version of "tea baggers are evil!"

boo hoo, cimmaron.

your political viewpoint is based on an absurd anti-historical division between happy-face markety land and sad-face state-land. you seem to neither know nor care about the history of actually existing capitalism since, say, 1870, which is as good a marker as any for the point where capitalism veered away from the happy-face markety land ideology (by which i mean as an image of what capitalism is) not to speak of reality (1870 marks the creation of the stock market).

it's hard to talk with conservative libertarians beyond a certain point because there is a problem of what counts as historical reality. and this is not simply a matter of discounting what "someone like you" thinks because it's "different"---it's a matter of discounting it because it's factual basis is simply wrong. so it doesn't really matter the edifices that might be constructed from that point. the basic characterization of capitalism since the advent of heavy industry, so from the beginning of what they call monopoly capitalism, is wrong.

that means that the historical account of the development of capitalism as a socio-political order from the late 19th century forward becomes a problem for libertarian positions whereas for other folk it's a point of departure.

if we're in a position such that questions of reference to the empirical world and its system characteristics have to become a variable in order to get to some kumbaya point where any viewpoint, no matter how crackpot its logic and how debilitating its sense of history and the world, has to be accepted simply because it is held by someone, then i don't think we're talking politics at all any more. we're talking religion.


this applies to a much broader swatch of discussion than health care.
the problem seems to me to be that there's no agreement about what constitutes reality because there's no common basis for its historical antecedents.

admittedly this is a place where my academic training as a historian gets in the way of making all nice with people whose viewpoints i take to be whacked out, not because they're stupid or evil, but because their politics force them to play fast and loose with the factual aspects of a very complicated world.

what's at issue here is that you have nothing remotely like a coherent understanding of the intertwined nature of the state and happy-face markety capitalism at this point. you don't know about the last hundred years of intertwining.

that plus by all appearances you confuse ayn rand with a philosopher. that's just nutty.

Saskatchewan is a largely rural province, and was especially so in the '40s. (As a comparison, it is nearly the same size as Texas and has a lower population density than Wyoming.) Doctors needed an incentive to come to certain towns to practice, so the provincial government paid for it. They eventually rolled out a system to cover hospital costs as well.

I'm not sure what the best option is, but I'm doubtful that repealing the bill will lead to another one in the near future. This is why I'd rather see them work with it as a start and make improvements on it. With all the talk of "socialized medicine" and how it's such a bad thing, I think this is the best start we can reasonably expect.

I am no more ready to retract my "rebuttal", than you guys are to admit your unfair portrayal of all people "tea party".

roach -

I'm not quite certain how "I'm tired of you calling me a greedy, evil asshole because it is not true" has anything to do with your history lesson on capitalism, but you've never let irrelevance stand in the way of one of your soliloquies on why the government should own and provide everything to its subjects. I am happy that you were able to use my response as an inspiration, though.

You guys have a grand time. I've said all I intended.

typically, cimmaron, you only see what you want to see. it's kinda irritating that no matter what anyone actually says, you manage somehow to superimpose a one-dimensional libertarian la la-land interpretation. except this time you prove my point.

first off, it's clear that happy face markety-land mechanisms, whatever they are, has not, cannot and will not provide adequate health care access for all americans.

access to basic health care is a *political* matter. demands for it are *political.* so they are necessarily directed at the state, the function of which is not to do what libertarian dissociation would have you imagine, that is to "give people stuff" but rather to impose regulations and/or other mechanisms and institutions that change the ways in which economic agents operate. the state can and does control the rules of the capitalist game.

it's far **more** democratic to have the state explicitly occupy such a steering role than not to because the state is theoretically subject to political pressure. private firms are not. corporate oligarchy---which is the actually existing alternative to what actually existing capitalism looks like----is far less desirable and far less free than the current state of affairs---which is already not desirable and already not free.

providing free access to health care is a political goal that the rest of the industrialized world has embraced for 75 years or more in some cases as a way for capitalism to be forced to leave behind the dark ages of the 19th century.

and it was state intervention that has controlled most of the epidemics that used to work alongside capitalism to make sure that the lives of most people were alot more nasty, brutish and short than they are now. think about cholera. think about the health consequences of running water and sewage systems, of infrastructure development that was way outside the scope and vision of those heroic captains of industry blah blah blah.

if you want to argue against the need for state intervention in health care, at least have the integrity to embrace what it really means rather than substitute some absurd libertarian happy-face markety daydream for it.

but i don't think you can do it because if you did so, you'd likely not be able to maintain your own position.

i'm not terribly concerned about your objections to the way in which the tea party people are characterized. personally, i think there's a wide range of people who for whatever reason take leave of their senses and find aspects of tea partyness compelling. the one thing they share is that they're chumps. they're being used by the same old money people who funded the rise of the previous two waves of ultra-rightwing america. it's the same old same old, the principle function of which is to enable conservatives to pretend to themselves that they're somehow not the same old same old, which would require they accept responsibility for what conservatives have done once the american system had the tremendously bad judgment to let them near power.

and it's about to happen again.

so yeah, a whole happy diversity of people and viewpoints, from lots of places, all brought together by their commonality as fucking chumps.

If it were one just guy that would be a different story. But it's not. Rand Paul stated recently, when asked what he'd cut, that he'd cut across the board... except medicare payments to doctors. Seems Mr Paul makes a pretty good living on those payments and he's not in favor of cutting them. Michelle Bachmann has come out and joined the tea party and is calling for an end to ear marks. Well all ear marks except those going to transportation in her state, those ear marks create jobs. Miller in Alaska thought unemployment benefits were unconstitutional yet he and his family have received such benefits. He also thought social security should be phased out... you know after his parent were no longer in need of it.

I've listened to their message. I just don't believe them. I used to vote for GOP and conservative people quite regularly. Having seen what they do with the budget and spending I'm more then a little leery.

And who called TEA party folks hillbilly baby killers?

Plus if you're tried of people calling the TEA Party evil you should be on the other side where everything Obama does is EVIL. Hell he went to a oil spilled beach a few months ago and the clothes he wore were too nice. Had he shown up in shorts and a polo shirt I have little doubt it would have been "My God doesn't this guy know he's the POTUS!

For the most part, they have. Only when you look at verifiable evidence though. If you ignore evidence and only pay attention to political rhetoric, we're living under a black supremacist and social programs are really just a stop on the way to furnaces for us poor white folks.

Which so called tea party candidates have a stance on issues that is substantially different than the republican party? Which tea party organization has a significantly different position on issues than the hardcore republican party?

To be more specific, which tea party candidate or organization explicitly favors cutting entitlements (and no, privatizing social security isn't cutting entitlements)? Which tea party candidate or organization is in favor of reducing the federal government's involvement in the drug war, marriage issues, and foreign wars? Which tea party candidate or organizations have come out against the national security state we currently live in?

This isn't to indict the entire tea party movement. But if the only people who are actually for some sort of actual libertarian reduction of the state are people who attend the rallies but are otherwise absolutely powerless within the movement, then I don't see how the tea party can be seen as anything other than a de facto wing of the republican party. One that wants the same old Bush politics but less compromise.