And now, on the topic of healthcare reform...

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Comments

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

I love the second one.

I wonder how these conservatives feel about their insurance premium $$$$ going to lobby Congress against reform.

[ragnarok-now.livejournal.com]

Anyone who finds joy at the US losing the Olympics would gleefully give money to ensuring the failure of the president.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

That is patently false.
The Olympics are about spending way too much money on people who are really good at arbitrary physical tasks.
The President's job matters to actual people's lives.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

So American Olympian's lives aren't actual?

I'm agnostic about the Olympics. I think it's not a bad thing to celebrate physical accomplishment, especially in such a multinational way, but I know it rarely makes a lot of money for the host city.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Not all that actual. There's less than a thousand of em.

I agree that the Olympics are fantastic in the sense that they're a multinational media event, and the world really needs to get used to being able to watch stuff together. If only we could drum up this sort of interest in, y'know, human rights or starvation.

As a resident of Vancouver, I've observed some pretty crass behaviour on the part of the city. We've got a real homelessness problem around here, and instead of taking steps to address it in any real way, we've been setting up temporary housing and relocations, drafting "safe streets" bylaws that would have people arrested for panhandling, that sort of thing. Money has been diverted from an already overburdened bus system to pay for the fancy new Skytrain line that goes to the airport. All the billboard spaces in the city have been bought up by the Olympic committee, and apparently there are some deep freedom-of-speech problems in their new advertising guidelines and how they're planning on enforcing them.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

You're laboring under the false assumption that when conservatives cheered Chicago's loss of the Olympics they were doing so out of some deep seeded concern for the taxpayers of Chicago and the costs associated with the Olympics. In reality, they were very clearly cheering the loss of the Olympics because they saw it as a loss for the President. I doubt there are too many cons out there who would shed a tear if Chicago went broke holding the Olympics, they just didn't want Obama to win something.

[jblaque.livejournal.com]

Bingo.

Opiate

[ragnarok-now.livejournal.com]

The Olympics were originally created to give warriors a non-violent area to compete in. A secondary effect was to foster good relations between the city states of the competitors.

Today the real goal is entertainment, with the arena aspect being the official reason. The secondary goal is political, but not necessarily good.

The money is a symptom of the entertainment goals, very little of which directly goes to the competitors. The merchandising & endorsements are outside of the Olympics.

That all being said the President actually has minimal direct effect on my life other than as a news item. And neither of your comments prove my comment false.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I wonder how these conservatives feel about their insurance premium $$$$ going to lobby Congress against reform.

Very good, since the end result, if successful, is better care than the alternative option.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

they're for single payer? Go Tories!

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, I said better results.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Right. That's single payer.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

'Cuz it works so massively suckily for all the other countries that have single-payer, that they all voted it out and are now all paying ultrarich megacorporations for their healthcare instead, and getting denied care and coverage for ridiculous pre-existing conditions that aren't conditions at all.

Oh wait, no they're not, because they're not morons.

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

So you're glad that health insurance $$ goes to propaganda campaigns rather than to, say, this (http://cbs2.com/local/nataline.sarkisyan.CIGNA.2.615167.html)?

That says a lot about you.

But then, we already knew that you value corporations over people.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

There's propaganda on both sides. Both are guilty, but one result is much better for the bulk of us.

As for your last comment, that's a pretty vile lie.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

one result is much better for the bulk of us.

Yes. Single payer.

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

As for your last comment, that's a pretty vile lie.

Prove me wrong one of these days.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

Considering the number of single payer systems that are providing higher quality health care than the US, it must be possible to make it work.

[chasovschik.livejournal.com]

I'd rather have them to pay now than me to pay higher taxes and higher premiums for the rest of my life.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I'd rather they used the fucking money I pay them to take care of my fucking health.

[chasovschik.livejournal.com]

In my case they already do that to my complete satisfaction.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

good thing anecdote =/= data. Because your complete satisfaction is not the be-all and end-all of health-care reform.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

but you know. Way to use the "screw you jack, I got mine" theory of social justice.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Not me. I pay massive cash and my employer pays even more than that, and the company in question is one of the five biggest in the US, and yet when I want to get my annual checkup, the doctor basically takes my blood pressure, listens to my chest, pokes me in the liver and then sends me to a lab, where I have to wait an hour or more and pay another copayment and then wait a couple more weeks to hear the results. Never mind that my doctor has his own lab onsite. This is the same company that wouldn't pay for my wife to have a mammogram citing pre-existing condition. What pre-existing condition, I hear you cry, could possibly be a criterion for deying a TEST to see if you MIGHT have breast cancer or some other problem? Having breasts is a pre-existing condition? And now I find out all this hassle and all this denial of service is so they can save money to lobby Congress and run advertisements on teevee to convince me that everything is fine the way it is. Yeah, fuck no it's not. My daughter *does* have a pre-existing condition so she'll never have real medical coverage in her life, unless there's some kind of plan coming from Congress. And part of the money I pay to my insurer goes to lobby Congress to ensure there will never be a change. Again, y'know what, fuck them and their goddamn advertising and their goddamn lobbying; their job is to, within reason, ensure I get to see a doctor and that I don't die from something stupid. It is NOT their job to make obscene profits and shovel cash into the pockets of shareholders who couldn't possibly give a fuck about some little girl who won't ever have health insurance. So fuck them all to Hell.

[sophia-daniels.livejournal.com]

they blame congress for attempting health reform that the insurance companies have to lobby against.

or actually they blame the damn bleeding heart liberals for bugging congress about all this in the first place...