2012 Elections in the USA

Saw this on Fox, a quote from a Republican woman running for the state senate in Illinois. I believe this is the most succinct description of ObamaCare I have seen: simple, easy to understand, and to the point. Enjoy

'Now let me get this straight. We are going to be gifted with a health care plan that we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don't, ' Bellar continues, 'signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke. '

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 427172]Saw this on Fox, a quote from a Republican woman running for the state senate in Illinois. I believe this is the most succinct description of ObamaCare I have seen: simple, easy to understand, and to the point. Enjoy

'Now let me get this straight. We are going to be gifted with a health care plan that we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don't, ' Bellar continues, 'signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke. '[/QUOTE]

She left out the following: "and which happens to be a dead ringer for the plan that Mitt Romney implemented in Massachusetts while he was the Governor of that state."

What is most interesting about Obama-care is how it was based upon the principles long espoused by Conservative Republicans, such as the Heritage Foundation, who originally developed and promoted the concept of the universal mandate as a means of insuring that one's insurance purchase decision would not be subject to moral hazard, and that this concept was implemented the same way in Obama-care as it was by Romney in Massachusetts, and which was also advocated by John McCain during the last Presidential election. But the fact that Obama put his name on it caused all of these Republicans to suddenly run away from their own ideas, simply to attempt to deny Obama any sort of victory for having been the first to implement a national healthcare program for those other than the poor and elderly.

In actual fact, the vast majority of Democrats would have preferred a plan with either the government as the single payer, or the government providing a public option for those who could not afford private insurance. But Obama went with the far LESS expansive, long time Republican-advocated solution. And the lack of popularity of that decision is a result of his NOT doing what Democrats wanted, and seeing that Republicans had no problem whatsoever in abandoning their own ideas if it meant trying to poke Obama in the eye.

Member, she did not leave anything out.

As you allege ObamaCare is 'just like' the bill in Mass, please delineate point by point how it is the same. We should have some fun here considering ObamaCare only mimics the Mass plan in that of universal coverage. Check out the increases in costs of the plan, none of the promised 'savings'.

As you allege ObamaCare parrots a Republican plan, please delineate point by point what Republican plan that might be. This should also be fun since Republicans never proposed anything like ObamaCare.

Obama did not pass the one payer plan because he could not get the votes FROM HIS OWN PARTY! To pass what has become ObamaCare the Democrats and to cut deals with other Democrats to get their vote that if such 'bargaining' had taken place outside the House & Senate it would have been patently criminal. But what is a little criminal behavior among Democrats?

By the way, not one Republican voted for it, but it passed both House and Senate, so if Obama never had a filibuster proof lock on both houses just how did it pass without a single Republican vote?

As a sidebar.

I can predict before the debates even begin, Member, Snake and Esten to name a few will delcare Obama the winner regardless how he does.

[QUOTE=Doppelganger;427180]Member, she did not leave anything out.[/QUOTE]Fundamentally, her complaint was about the fact that Obama-care has a universal mandate REQUIRING her to buy insurance. As I pointed out, and you either failed to read, or ignored, that is a Republican concept. It was developed by the Heritage Foundation and implemented by Romney in Massachusetts. In that glib quote which you claimed was comprehensive and concise, she actually had no substantive complaint about the program, just the people involved - other than the Universal Mandate. Which Obama lifted from the Heritage / Romney plans.

The simple fact is, Obama chose the Republican approach to healthcare - the other approaches would all have been MORE expansive, and MORE expensive. There is simply no way to insure that we cover everyone without incurring costs.

As far as costs go, what were costs doing PRIOR to Obama's program? They were rising at triple the rate of inflation. Take away Obama-care, and again, we can expect that health-care costs will again rise at triple the rate of inflation. The fact is, you cannot claim that costs will be higher under Obama-care, on a per-insured basis, than they were on a trajectory to be without Obama-care. The only added costs for Obama-care stem from more people actually getting coverage and medical care. And that's a GOOD thing.

The only direct cost comparison I can make is for my own health-care costs. And they will be cut in half under Obama-care compared to what I experience under my HIPAA plan that I currently have. They will revert back close to the levels I was paying before I was dropped from my insurer (adjusted for the trajectory that those costs were rising annually prior to Obama-care).

The biggest myth about health-care PRIOR to Obama's program is that Americans had good health care. SOME Americans did, but over 50 Million could not get coverage at all. In actual fact, almost every American was at risk of losing their coverage if they got sick. I personally was dropped from my coverage because I was diagnosed as a Diabetic, and a couple of years later, the company I worked for went out of business. As a result, the ONLY insurance I can obtain in the marketplace prior to Obama-care's full implementation is an abysmal HIPAA plan, which is far worse than the insurance I had previously, and would have chosen to continue to have. AND, it costs 3 times what my prior group coverage cost, and had less coverage across the board. And that situation could happen to everyone prior to Obama-care. What we need is a situation where folks can't be easily dropped by their carrier simply because they get diagnosed with a chronic condition. And over 20 Million Americans, including myself, have had that happen, and can finally again get the same coverage I had and paid for before I was dropped under Obama-care.

The fact is, until you tell us what the alternative was for providing coverage for the 50 Million Americans who didn't have access to insurance PRIOR to Obama-care, any anti-Obama-care argument is absurd and irrelevant.

You seem to suggest that it was not only acceptable, but Good that any American could get dropped from their coverage simply for getting sick, or having their employment situation change. Which is, of course, ridiculous, but that was the reality prior to Obama-care.

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 427180]As a sidebar.

I can predict before the debates even begin, Member, Snake and Esten to name a few will delcare Obama the winner regardless how he does.[/QUOTE]And just like nearly everything else you post on this forum, this is simply factually incorrect. I believe Romney won the debate. What remains to be seen is to what extent that matters.

Obama or any President is not going to win an election with 8% unemployment. It's just too big of hurdle to overcome. Romney just needs to keep bringing up the facts.

Romney is very hard to attack because he does not lay out specifics. He is not cutting military, education or medicare. Well what is it he is going to cut and what are the unintended consequences of his policies? He is keeping like I forecast the benefits of Obamacare like preexisting conditions and children covered until they are age 26. Somehow this will magically happen without the tax increase. All the benefits and none of the sacrifice.

When Obama is swinging at Romney it is like swinging at vapor. There is nothing there to hit.

I am fairly convinced Romney wins in November. I do not see how Obama turns this around after tonight's pummeling.

[QUOTE=Big Boss Man; 427186]Obama or any President is not going to win an election with 8% unemployment. It's just too big of hurdle to overcome. Romney just needs to keep bringing up the facts.

Romney is very hard to attack because he does not lay out specifics. He is not cutting military, education or medicare. Well what is it he is going to cut and what are the unintended consequences of his policies? He is keeping like I forecast the benefits of Obamacare like preexisting conditions and children covered until they are age 26. Somehow this will magically happen without the tax increase. All the benefits and none of the sacrifice.

When Obama is swinging at Romney it is like swinging at vapor. There is nothing there to hit.

I am fairly convinced Romney wins in November. I do not see how Obama turns this around after tonight's pummeling.[/QUOTE]At the end of the day, Romney winning a debate still doesn't mean that a voter in Ohio who's job was saved by the auto bail-out will vote for Romney, who has already suggested that those workers SHOULD have lost their jobs as GM was forced into bankruptcy. Romney still can't win the election without winning Ohio. The 8% unemployment number is big, but Romney still has to establish that he'd be the President of the poor and the Middle Class who he has already dissed, and not just the wealthy.

BTW, John Kerry pummeled George W. Bush in the debates 8 years ago. Guess who won the election - because he won Ohio.

Romney looked very sharp in tonight's debate (as he needed to be) and clearly "won" the debate over Obama. Obama looked very uncomfortable up there and really shot himself in the foot by not showing up to the debate fired up, prepared and ready to issue a coup d'grace to Romney. Obama stammered, misspoke, and at times appeared very unpolished and flustered. Romney, on the other hand, spoke eloquently, fluidly and kept an even keel when Obama attacked him. Had Obama outdone Romney tonight he could have sealed the deal but this (non) performance by Obama may have just given Romney a legitimate chance to change people's minds.

Romney did all right. But Doppelganger is correct, I do think Obama won the debate.

As another poster noted, Romney was vapor, promising all good things and not always explaining how he gets it done. He reinforced his image as a guy who will say anything to get elected. He also seemed more agitated while Obama kept his cool.

Romney doubled down on the unpopular Medicare voucher plan. Obama effectively explained how a profit-driven industry could easily make a competing Medicare go bust. Romney continued to not explain how he offsets a 20% across-the-board tax cut without hurting the middle class. Obama countered this fairly tale by noting you can't do that, increase Defense spending, and balance the budget all at the same time, it's simple math.

When it boils down to the specifics, this debate just reinforced positions that have been helping Obama. People think the Clinton years were better than the Bush years, and it's clear which approach each candidate comes closest to. Expect the Obama campaign to continue running on the substantive positions which majorities of Americans agree with.

Well it is gratifying to see a little application of Psy-Ops 101 before the debate worked on some of the liberals on the board to get an honest assessment but not all, Esten still thinks Obama won on substance after Obama had his ass handed to him most of the evening. It must be embarrassing to have to have one of the moderators come to your rescue as Romney thrashes you.

A good debate and it shows without a teleprompter Obama rambles with no real direction. This is supposed to be the smartest guy in the room? For Democrats it must have been painful to watch their guy trot out the same old tired catch phrases from 2008 which don't get any traction today and quite frankly offend most folks intelligence. Of course we can always depend on Biden to help out with the 'middle class got buried' gems. Are you Democrats sure Biden is on your side?

Looking forward to the next debate, Obama found out that just being the Prez does not cut it, rock star status does not translate well in the real world. Obama just looked bad. On the morning news shows all the Obama reps looked as if they had just swallowed a dose of castor oil while the Romney reps look like the cat that got the canary.

Really looking forward to the Biden and Ryan debate, talk about King Kong vs the smurf!

[QUOTE=SnakeOilSales;427190]Romney looked very sharp in tonight's debate (as he needed to be) and clearly "won" the debate over Obama. Obama looked very uncomfortable up there and really shot himself in the foot by not showing up to the debate fired up, prepared and ready to issue a coup d'grace to Romney. Obama stammered, misspoke, and at times appeared very unpolished and flustered. Romney, on the other hand, spoke eloquently, fluidly and kept an even keel when Obama attacked him. Had Obama outdone Romney tonight he could have sealed the deal but this (non) performance by Obama may have just given Romney a legitimate chance to change people's minds.[/QUOTE]Wow! SOS. Good analysis.

I hate to say it but Obama has never been very good at debates. 2008 Democratic primaries or 2008 presidential debates. But there is a reason Obama does not shine in debates. I think Obama is worried that if he says what he really believes. You didn't build that. Obama will reveal his true self.

I will say, if Obama could say it like he sees it, Obama would be an effective debator. However, Obama sees the world through Karl Marx glasses, and Obama cannot let that slip. Consequently, we have Obama looking like Alfred E Newman on a bad day.

[url]http://factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious-denver-debate-declarations/[/url]

Surprisingly, the corrupt media was unable to protect their paper tiger, this time. I wouldn't count them (Obama and the State-run media) out, just yet. Jim Lehrer screwed up with both his format and his inability to talk over Romney and inability to cut Romney off, while offering Obama repeated lifelines.

What we saw last night was the metaphorical fatted-calf (Marxist-based American liberalism) being slaughtered, upon the return of the prodigal son (American virtue, descended, in part, from the Founding Documents).

Until Univision hit Obama with tough questions (about two weeks ago) , this man has never, ever faced tough questions and / or pointed attack within a forum that he (or his handlers) couldn't control or from which he couldn't be rapidly extricated. His failure last night was not due to lack of practice or having Lurch as a debate coach. Obama failed for two very simple reasons: 1) it is extremely difficult to defend abject failure (no matter how good you are with the TV camera) and 2) he is completely out of touch with the facts (as was clearly evident with his fact-less ramblings, last night). The first item is self explanatory: gas prices have doubled, economy has eroded, there are fewer people in the work force than anytime in the last 50 years, healthcare costs have gone up and during a time of economic crisis this president has given trillions of dollars to his cronies and political supporters (need I continue?). The latter (being out of touch with the facts) has more complex roots that have a direct causal relationship to the aforementioned catastrophic failure of his first and hopefully only, term.

Obama is a troglodyte, living in an ideological cave into which no intellectual light ever shines. All of his decisions (the ones Valarie Jarret doesn't make for him) occur within the limited context of an indoctrinated Marxist. So you have someone who is living in a made up world completely detached from the real world practicing and espousing a philosophy that is also made up and is divorced from reality. This is extremely difficult for the human brain to perpetuate on its own because all of the "truisms" and "trans-formative events" of one's existence are made up and are incorporated into one's mind through rote memorization as opposed to becoming intrinsically part of one's being through experiential learning. The problem for someone like Obama is running into someone who has the truth on his side, in a relatively ideologically neutral environment. You see, once you have told so many lies, it is nearly impossible to remember exactly what your version of the "truth" is.

The false narrative that has been playing in the press (I. E. Romney's campaign is failing, Obama has it in the bag, etc) are just a continuation of the practices that have allowed this completely unqualified buffoon to occupy the most important, secular position on earth. While it appears that some of the varnish is finally coming off, allowing the viewer to see the cheap scrap wood hidden under the finish, that too is part of the false narrative of the press. The American people started to see the error of their ways, shortly after selecting this moron to further destroy the economy. The monumental awakening that occurred last night was not that of the American people, finally seeing past the flimsy veneer, it was the forcible enlightening to the media that not only does the emperor have no clothes but also, a plurality of Americans have known it, for some time.

It is way too early to call this race. Unfortunately, there is time, motive and opportunity for Obama and his minions to foist an October surprise (my money is on bombing aspirin factories in Libya but, it could be any number of things) on us. There already are plenty of signs of the old Democrat-voter-fraud-machine working in high gear: military absentee ballots are down something like 80% from '08 (which I highly doubt is due to a lack of interest on behalf of the military) and legally instituted voter I'd laws are being cast aside by unelected, unprincipled folks.

However, I have to hold out the hope that the electorate can properly see the stark differences between the paths and chose the one that is uniquely American and reject the one rooted in Marxism, racism and class warfare.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye; 427206]Surprisingly, the corrupt media was unable to protect their paper tiger, this time. I wouldn't count them (Obama and the State-run media) out, just yet. Jim Lehrer screwed up with both his format and his inability to talk over Romney and inability to cut Romney off, while offering Obama repeated lifelines.

What we saw last night was the metaphorical fatted-calf (Marxist-based American liberalism) being slaughtered, upon the return of the prodigal son (American virtue, descended, in part, from the Founding Documents).

Until Univision hit Obama with tough questions (about two weeks ago) , this man has never, ever faced tough questions and / or pointed attack within a forum that he (or his handlers) couldn't control or from which he couldn't be rapidly extricated. His failure last night was not due to lack of practice or having Lurch as a debate coach. Obama failed for two very simple reasons: 1) it is extremely difficult to defend abject failure (no matter how good you are with the TV camera) and 2) he is completely out of touch with the facts (as was clearly evident with his fact-less ramblings, last night). The first item is self explanatory: gas prices have doubled, economy has eroded, there are fewer people in the work force than anytime in the last 50 years, healthcare costs have gone up and during a time of economic crisis this president has given trillions of dollars to his cronies and political supporters (need I continue?). The latter (being out of touch with the facts) has more complex roots that have a direct causal relationship to the aforementioned catastrophic failure of his first and hopefully only, term.

Obama is a troglodyte, living in an ideological cave into which no intellectual light ever shines. All of his decisions (the ones Valarie Jarret doesn't make for him) occur within the limited context of an indoctrinated Marxist. So you have someone who is living in a made up world completely detached from the real world practicing and espousing a philosophy that is also made up and is divorced from reality. This is extremely difficult for the human brain to perpetuate on its own because all of the "truisms" and "trans-formative events" of one's existence are made up and are incorporated into one's mind through rote memorization as opposed to becoming intrinsically part of one's being through experiential learning. The problem for someone like Obama is running into someone who has the truth on his side, in a relatively ideologically neutral environment. You see, once you have told so many lies, it is nearly impossible to remember exactly what your version of the "truth" is.

The false narrative that has been playing in the press (I. E. Romney's campaign is failing, Obama has it in the bag, etc) are just a continuation of the practices that have allowed this completely unqualified buffoon to occupy the most important, secular position on earth. While it appears that some of the varnish is finally coming off, allowing the viewer to see the cheap scrap wood hidden under the finish, that too is part of the false narrative of the press. The American people started to see the error of their ways, shortly after selecting this moron to further destroy the economy. The monumental awakening that occurred last night was not that of the American people, finally seeing past the flimsy veneer, it was the forcible enlightening to the media that not only does the emperor have no clothes but also, a plurality of Americans have known it, for some time.

It is way too early to call this race. Unfortunately, there is time, motive and opportunity for Obama and his minions to foist an October surprise (my money is on bombing aspirin factories in Libya but, it could be any number of things) on us. There already are plenty of signs of the old Democrat-voter-fraud-machine working in high gear: military absentee ballots are down something like 80% from '08 (which I highly doubt is due to a lack of interest on behalf of the military) and legally instituted voter I'd laws are being cast aside by unelected, unprincipled folks.

However, I have to hold out the hope that the electorate can properly see the stark differences between the paths and chose the one that is uniquely American and reject the one rooted in Marxism, racism and class warfare.[/QUOTE]Break it down for us simple folks, my head is spinning. (3 smiles)

"Trickle down government" that about says it all. Explains why we are all hurting. Government is not the answer to our problems. Government is the problem.