November 5, 2013

"Back during the campaign they lied and said that Mitt Romney cut off a woman with cancer."

"Now they’re lying about the woman with cancer that they cut off. Fraudulent, indeed. But lashing out at critics won’t stop the rot."

"Rot" is a good word. Mitt Romney himself was on TV last Sunday saying: "And whether you like the model of Obamacare or not, the fact that the president sold it on a basis that was not true has undermined the foundation of his second term. I think it's rotting it away."

Meade and I have been catching up on the old TV series "Breaking Bad," and we're somewhere in Season 2. The main character has discovered dry rot in the wood floor of his house and — attempting to fix it himself — he opens up a hole in the floor and then he's down in the crawl space under the house, finding the whole foundation rotten. The oblivious wife and son live in that house that is contaminated and slowly collapsing, while dad is down there, underneath, replacing a timber here and there. At one point, he stumbles over to their breakfast table in his hazmat suit and pulls off his respirator to chomp down a little toast, and their dependence on care from their father figure is such that they never say anything like: "Uh, Dad, if you're wearing that, shouldn't we get the hell out of this house?" They just keep eating their breakfast, like this is home and Daddy will provide. 

It's funny to see the lefties in the mindset of conservatives, attempting to shore up a rotting structure, rebuilding at the same time people are forced to keep using it. This is where we are, and Daddy is fixing it. Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition.

73 comments:

Hagar said...

Obama will forever be associated with the phrase: "If you like your health plan, you can keep it," but let us not forget that it was Harry Reid who wrote actual bill.

MayBee said...

It's funny to see the lefties in the mindset of conservatives, attempting to shore up a rotting structure,

Really? The mindset of conservatives is to shore up a rotting structure?

Tha's the mindset of conservatives?

CWJ said...

I think the metaphor is even more complicated than that, AA.

We had a functioning house that the feds condemned by eminent domain while saying everybody happy with the old house could stay. In the process of haphazardly building the new house, the builders are simultaneously knocking apart the old house. The result is that the old family can no longer live there and the new family can't either.

Heck of a job, Brownie!

As for the conservatives not having a new place ready, I'd say its not yet too late to put the old house back in order.

Matt Sablan said...

Mitt Romney is quite possibly the man most deserving of an "I told you so."

Oso Negro said...

Yes, the situation is funny. A real fanny-slapper! On the other hand, it would seem that we could simply restore pre-Obamacare rules at a starting point. Just think - millions of people who lack insurance now (because the law resulted in its cancellation) could have policies they are happy with!

Matt Sablan said...

Just remember: They destroyed Joe the Plumber. Private citizens are just obstacles.

Meade said...

If you like your hazmat suit, you can keep your hazmat suit.

I voted for the hazmat suit before I voted against the hazmat suit.

test said...

"Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition."

The house we've been living in for 50 years is both (a) still available and (b) better than the "new" house.

Anonymous said...

Re: "Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition."

The Situation Reads to Me as There Had Been a Functioning House That Maybe Could've Used an Extra Room Addition, Some New Plumbing, Maybe. Instead This House Gets Torn Down and Replaced By A Haphazard Building That Will Never Make Code, All Walls and No Doors, Peepholes in All the Bedrooms.

Meanwhile We Are to Accept the Winchester Mystery House Solution: Just Keep Building, Building, Building.

From Wiki:

"A second famed window was designed by Tiffany himself for Mrs Winchester. This window was carefully designed so that when the light hits the crystals just so, the room will be filled with thousands of rainbow prisms. However, due to the poor placement of the piece, this will never be seen. It is located in a room with no direct light and is built facing a wall."

Just Keep Building, Building, Building.

Hagar said...

No the old house is not still available.
I think this Obamacare "roll-out" is more like the start of an avalanche. Once the surface start moving some little place, it is a done thing, the whole shebang is gonna go, and that mountainside will never be quite the same again.

Clyde said...

"eager to rip down the whole house"? No, I can smell the smoke; the house is already burning.

The house, the house, the house is on fire!

Burn, baby, burn!

MayBee said...

Democrats are forever trying to shore up programs that aren't working. Head start, public schools, disability insurance. They aren't working as they should? Throw more money at them!

Anonymous said...

We had a functioning house that the feds

When 15% of the population has no health insurance and annual increases in health insurance for those who do have regularly exceed inflation by a factor of two or three, you don't have a functioning house. The system was already rotting.

Something had to be done. The Republicans didn't offer anything constructive, other than the plan that we are dealing with now, which is at heart a plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation.

Anonymous said...

They destroyed Joe the Plumber.

In what way was Joe the Plumber (who wasn't even a plumber) destroyed? Last I checked he is listened to more than any other plumber's assistant in the country and is a folk hero of the right. His little dispute with Obama was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Known Unknown said...

Sadly, Freder is right.

The moment you invite a 3rd party into any two-party transaction, calamity inevitably ensues.

Government is a terrible 3rd party.

Henry said...

Interesting analogy.

I'm in the process of slowly fixing up an old barn on our property. We had a contractor friend come look at it. He said, "I'll put a tow cable on it and pull it down. Then you start over." I was game for that until I talked to our neighbor. He said, "Tear it down and you'll never get the permits to rebuild it."

That's where the Democrats are. They have to keep shoring up rot with rot because they've blown their permits to start over.

Anonymous said...

Outsource the Whole Mess to Amazon. If They Can Efficiently Stock, Sell and Deliver Practically Every Consumer Item Imaginable They Could Surely Spin Off the Model to Health Care.

We Can Then Make Doctor Appointments Through the Althouse Portal at No Extra Cost to Us.

Anonymous said...

We Can Even Keep the Letters ACA: Amazon Care Act.

Anonymous said...

Obama on Obamacare: I Didn't Build That.

Clyde said...

Although technically, that should be:

"The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn.

(Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three)

And then there's this, courtesy of Talking Heads:

Watch out, you might get what you're after
Cool babies, strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

Hold tight, wait 'till the party's over
Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house

rehajm said...

Romney makes one talk show appearance and he's all over the news/blogs?

Obama the boyfriend maxed out the credit cards, left the house a mess, and we just bought a pregnancy test. Dreaming about that solid steady guy we really were attracted to helps a little...

MadisonMan said...

Something had to be done

Right.

For the Children!!!

Given a free market, a solution would have presented itself.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Every year the free-market zone of health care shrinks through new regulations. Every year, the remaining free-market zone is blamed for the failures of the whole, which is used to justify further regulation.

Henry said...

Freder wrote: The Republicans didn't offer anything constructive, other than the plan that we are dealing with now, which is at heart a plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation.

You just can't stand to own it.

Weird, isn't it. Here's a plan pushed by the Democrat Party President and passed by Democrat Party Congress over near-universal Republican opposition, and every lefty is desperate for an out. Sure it's a dogs breakfast of recycled ideas, industry payoffs, and pernicious proscriptions, and that's why everyone who wasn't a Democrat flunkey was opposed to it.

But don't blame me, say they lefties, I was really for the public option. I was really for single payer. This bad law was someone else's idea.

Pathetic. You Won. Accept your prize.

Meade said...

"We Can Then Make Doctor Appointments Through the Althouse Portal at No Extra Cost to Us."

Perhaps, but be careful: When you gaze long into the Althouse Amazon Portal the Althouse Amazon Portal also gazes into you.

test said...

Hagar said...
No the old house is not still available.


All it needs is a cleaning. If Dems pass a law tomorrow grandfathering the old policies the same companies that cancelled those policies can reinstate them. We know their enrollment processes work, and we'd be diffusing the workload.

In fact, moving back to the commercial enrollment process is literally the only way we'll be able to enroll everyone effected. Even if the Obamacare enrollment process is largely fixed (a low probability) it has no chance of scaling to accommodate the number of newly uninsured in the remaining time.

Anonymous said...

RE: "Perhaps, but be careful: When you gaze long into the Althouse Amazon Portal the Althouse Amazon Portal also gazes into you."

If I Had to Make a Choice I Would Choose to Give My Private Health Details to Amazon Rather than the Government. At Least Amazon Would Suggest What Others with My Condition Had Bought.

Real American said...

no. conservatives are suggesting we move back to the old place that was pretty good because the "new" one is crumbling to the ground while the general contractor that built the new one is denying that he ever said it was livable.

PB said...

I was still frustrated with Romney when asked about Romneycare he didn't mention that he vetoed a couple of key provisions in the plan (he wanted to allow more choice of plans with low deductibles) and that the starting point in terms of demographics was very different. He also didn't mention that premium prices have risen above estimates and that doctors are leaving.

Anonymous said...

ObamaCare Guestroom Services: If You Like Your Existing Functioning Toilet You Can Keep It.

PB said...

Lefties seem to be wanting to build a bridge that looks good from a distance but can't carry the designed load.

grackle said...

Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition.

The metaphor seems off to me. Isn't it the lefties that want to "rip down" the whole house? The house being our pre-Obama healthcare system?

And there is certainly a nice(according to the lefties) new place in move-in condition – it's called "single payer" and it's right next door. The lefties have had it ready for occupancy for some time – awaiting the proper crisis.

"Single payer" is a euphemism for "socialized medicine." But too many folks know that and what they need now is an euphemism for the euphemism.

BTW, for me "Breaking Bad" was one of the best things that has ever been on TV.

Anonymous said...

I Do Believe There is a Poll Question Here...

Who Would You Trust Most in Providing Your Health Services:

1. Amazon

2. WalMart

3. McDonalds

4. Federal Government


I'm Sure Ann Could Add Her Own Evocative Choices to the Mix.

Anonymous said...

The problems are going to only get worse. Two that occur to me right now:

1. The same cost accelerants that are impacting the individual market are working through the SB group market.

2. Insurance firms rate increase containment strategy of narrow networks will be a huge story in 6 months.

today, you cant tell what docs and hospitals are found on your Federal exchange policy. After you buy, you will discover your doc isn't covered.

when you get sick and need a hospital, it may be covered but lots of the other folks in the hospital who treat you won't be in your network. The assisting surgeon? Out of network. The anesthesiologist? Out of network. Physical Therapy? out of network...

Anonymous said...

"Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition. "

There's an excellent place in "move in condition", it's called repealing this piece of crap and going back to what we had before.

Anonymous said...

A Quick Clean War, We Annex Canada and then WE Put All Americans onto Their Existing Healthcare System. I Hear Its a Good One So -- Hey -- Problem Solved.

Bob Boyd said...

"Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition."

I would say a more accurate metaphor would be the family has bought a rotten house. One spouse went ahead and signed the papers while over the objections of the other. The lefty spouse loves the cute white picket fence and is carrying the family belongings into the house. The righty spouse is still on the side walk, not carrying boxes and talking about the structural problems and how are we ever going to get rid of this house now without going bankrupt.

Meade said...

"We Annex Canada"

Can't we just annex Massachusetts?

Wince said...

Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.

- Sam Rayburn


Obama is the jackass that kicked-down the barn.

Anonymous said...

RE: "Can't we just annex Massachusetts? "

No, We Sell Massachusetts, Right After We Sell Hawaii. Sell New England Back to England!

Anonymous said...

Blogger Freder Frederson said...

Something had to be done. The Republicans didn't offer anything constructive, other than the plan that we are dealing with now, which is at heart a plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation.

Wow, you keep f*cking that chicken, Freder.

1: So you're claiming that the HEART of ObamaCare is the Individual Mandate? The heart of ObamaCare is a tax increase that can't be big enough to actually force anyone to do anything?

Did you think about that for even a second before you babbled it?

2: We Republicans have lots of great ideas on the subject of health funding reform. You Democrats just hate them all because they involve giving power to individuals, instead of to the government. And you don't like anything that increases individual freedom.

3: McCain's proposal in 2008 was light years better than Obama's crap. Don't know what that was? Then get out of your bubble and look it up.

4: Let's consider some Republican proposals:
Increase HSAs
Allow insurance to be sold across State lines.
Tort reform.

Gosh, nope, those Republicans have NOTHING, so long as you hide in a corner with your eyes closed, screaming "I can't HEAR you!!!"

SGT Ted said...

Single payer will not reduce costs by being more efficient. It will merely shift costs to the rest of us from those that cannot pay. Then it will go broke.

kjbe said...

Breaking Bad - a nice pre-ACA, pre-existing condition story, eh?

In the end though, Walt does provide mom and son with a boat-load of cash. So, there's that.

Cedarford said...

"Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition. "

gregg - There's an excellent place in "move in condition", it's called repealing this piece of crap and going back to what we had before.

That was the system of out of control escalating costs, 15% of the country not covered, another 10% with abysmal insurance as working poor or part time workers. A system that created a million medical bankruptcies a year, unheard of in the rest of the civilized world. A system that gave it free to prisoners, illegals, and welfare parasites. (who rightly saw how much healthcare they would lose if they went off welfare and took any job).
A sick system that refused treatment for people with pre-existing conditions...And crazily made insurance bundled to employment in large companies at a time when Republican Free Trade and Globalism and Outsourcing gutted those worker jobs, perhaps forever. A system that favored government flunkies from both parties getting plush, low cost policies while making health insurance for the self-employed and small businesses that create true economic growth more expensive and payable only in after tax dollars.
A system that cost twice per capita what Japanese Germans and French pay, with the world's highest prices for doctors, hospitals, drugs, and medical procedures.

Althouse is correct. That was so bad there is no moving back to that...That house was broke and still is broke beyond repair for most Americans.

Despite some fortunate well-off people with nice affordable plans tooting how
"Amuricca is the best in the Whole Dang World in healthcare!!" And their ideological shills smugly noting wealthy Canadians and oil sheikhs loaded with dollars come here for the best, cost is no problem, care.


Larry J said...

What continues to amaze me is how people can see government's dismal performance time and again, and despite all that think that if we just give them even more control over our lives, things will be better. They're like the little optimistic boy who keeps shoveling shit out of a room because there must be a pony in there somewhere. I still see people advocating single payer not just despite but because of the failure of the Obamacare rollout. That's mind-bogglingly stupid. If they can't create and operate a website, how can they actually run health care for a nation of 317 million people?

Paul said...

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

Yet with Obama they just ain't NEVER gonna learn. Lie after lie after lie.

Ineptness after ineptness after ineptness.

And thus no one believes them anymore but with TB (True Believer) virus.

Cedarford said...

SGT Ted said...
Single payer will not reduce costs by being more efficient. It will merely shift costs to the rest of us from those that cannot pay. Then it will go broke.

==========
The German and French lesson is single payer IS 50-60% more cost efficient than the mess the US had - before the soon to fail Obamacare model was devised.

We have ourselves to blame. For 20 years we knew the whole healthcare large employer based model was becoming unaffordable, uncompetitive with the other advanced nations as a drag on economic competitiveness...and our governance was too dysfunctional and too in thrall to special interests to fix it. Republicans were paid by donors to favor a "do nothing" approach. Democrats tried, but even more than Republicans, had constituencies that blocked true efficient lower cost care.

Anonymous said...

Increase HSAs
Allow insurance to be sold across State lines.
Tort reform


And how will any of those solutions solve the problem of uninsured/underinsured people? The 'across state lines' proposal is certainly strange coming from a party that stresses states' rights. Insurance has traditionally been regulated by the states.

Anonymous said...

God I hate it when I agree with Cedarford. But I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day and blind squirrels do occasionally find a nut.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, if you really believe what you wrote in your last paragraph, I think you need a sabbatical and Meade should take you where you can meet conservatives for real instead of the fake image of conservatives you get from the faculty lounge.

David-2 said...

(Meta comment: betamax3000 is in top form on this thread!)

Hagar said...

No, Marshal,
The personal policies that have been cancelled are cancelled and are not coming back, and the cancellations of the employer paid policies have been programmed in a hundred thousand different bureaucracies and can't be stopped now.

I do not know what the medical insurance world is going to look like in the coming years, and I do not think anyone else does either. But it most certainly is not going to look the way it did before this got started.

cubanbob said...

Freder Frederson said...
We had a functioning house that the feds

When 15% of the population has no health insurance and annual increases in health insurance for those who do have regularly exceed inflation by a factor of two or three, you don't have a functioning house. The system was already rotting.

Something had to be done. The Republicans didn't offer anything constructive, other than the plan that we are dealing with now, which is at heart a plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation.

11/5/13, 8:35 AM

Yes Hillary will run on the platform that she (HillaryCare) is the Mother Of ObamaCare. Yes we had to do something, we had to burn the village to save it. And to prove the imbecility of your remarks you agree with Cedaford who couldn't buy a clue with all of Bill Gate's money.

Scott M said...

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the lefties are in the place of the reactionaries? Not necessarily conservatives, as that word means a lot more these days than "fears change".

Scott M said...

you don't have a functioning house. The system was already rotting

The system DID function for the vast majority of people. Remember, Obama and Carney have said that "only" 5% are being affected by cancellations and sticker shock. Well, 15% is only 3x that many, so we're in the ballpark of whogivesafuckaboutthem.

Something had to be done. The Republicans didn't offer anything constructive, other than the plan that we are dealing with now, which is at heart a plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation.

False. The Republicans have had a couple of different plans on the table since this fiasco was started. The problem is they weren't "constructive" for the administration or the left's base, so they weren't even discussed.

The Heritage Foundation herring smells worse all the time. It was an idea, not a blueprint for federal takeover of a huge chunk of our economy. Romneycare was intended for ONE STATE, not a federal takeover of a huge chunk of our economy.

Andy Freeman said...

> The German and French lesson is single payer IS 50-60% more cost efficient

Not so fast.

(1) The rest of the world doesn't do much medical innovation (apart from euthanasia).

(2) If you take out accidents, which healthcare, or lack thereof, doesn't cause, US life expectancy is tops in the world.

If you have cancer, heart disease (or a heart attack), etc., and want to live, you want to be in the US, not France, Germany, Japan, etc.

Can we do better? Yes. For example, we piss away 100s of billions on medicare and medicaid scams.

But, we can also do worse, such as in other countries.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/11/23/the-myth-of-americans-poor-life-expectancy/

B said...

I knew without a doubt that once Obamacare kicked off there would be a lot of very pissed off people.

Life experiences should prompt one to make thoughtful decisions based on what is, not emotional ones based on what you would like things to be. It is called being an adult to put it succinctly. One thing about adult liars (specifically Obama but there are a couple of good examples that post here also) is that they do not tell the truth if there is any advantage, no matter how trivial, to lying. If you believe anything they say once you know them for what they are then any downside to believing them is on YOU, not them. Whether you misguidedly want to give them the benefit of the doubt no matter how many times you catch them lying or you simply have so much invested in an outcome that you ignore common sense and believe them despite the evidence - the onus is on YOU.

That is the conundrum now faced by the left and the lazy. They believed Obama and his posse when Obamacare was rammed through despite all the evidence of his and their historical lack of veracity and the evidence that the ACA was ill conceived that was right in front of them. They did so again last fall when they swallowed the media and DNC fables about Romney.

Now they should either have to be adults and admit they were deceived and this debacle is on them - and many are - or continue to be biddable children and blame Obama for lying to them when they should have known better - and some are.

What I did not expect, and should have, was that the left and the lazy would try to avoid responsibility by attempting to morph the facts of the matter into the debacle somehow being the fault of the conservatives/republicans. The idiotic and completely ignorant mention of the Heritage Plan without ever explaining its relevance is one attempt. The equally ignorant observation that Obamacare is just Romneycare on steroids (or even more idiotically the reverse of that that's been put forth by a couple of lightweights here) is another.

Big Mike said...

The Professor's metaphor has been bothering me since I read it, and while I was in the cafeteria I realized why it's wrong. The proper way to metaphorically describe Obamacare using houses is as follows.

We had a house. It wasn't a perfect house, but the occupants were mostly very satisfied. Then the Democrats came along and pointed out its flaws, which, granted, were present. Conservatives argued that the house was basically sound and there was nothing wrong that couldn't be fixed with a few drywall screws and a layer of bipartisan good will.

"Nope," said the Democrats. "We are declaring this house condemned and you must go live in that other house. And we think bipartisan good will is seriously overrated."

"Wait!" say the conservatives. "We haven't had a proper chance to inspect that new house and it may hold serious hidden flaws, perhaps even dangerous flaws."

"Hell no!" say the Democrats. "You only resist because you are e-e-e-vil poopyheads. After we get rid of a few glitches this new house will be perfect, wait and see."


Now people in the new house see that it has rotten foundations and some people are going to die that would have lived, had they been allowed to stay in the old house. But the Democrats are already tearing down the old house, and it will soon be gone with no going back.

Thanks heaps Democrats. One disadvantage of being an atheist is I can't console myself with the notion that you'll someday burn in Hell. But you should. You really should.

Hagar said...

I would say Harry Reid's "obamacare" is more like a Frankenstein's monster that they are trying to hook up to enough electric power to make it come alive and walk and talk, but I think they are more likely to cook him first, and possibly he will explode and make a real mess of the joint. Or maybe the cables will just short out and fry the operators.

Cedarford said...

Andy - BS to most of what you said in your American jingoism.

Cancer and heart disease treatment and survival rates are comparable in the US, France, Germany...and slightly better in Japan.

Life expectancy, accounting for accidents, is better in all three countries I mentioned than the USA.

"Innovation" is code for the right wing logic of the same treatments, procudures, and same drugs costing 50-60% more in the US. And more and more, we see the "innovations" coming from abroad. And given 70% of med research is a tab picked up by taxpayers and the US government...it doesn't justify the obscene cost differentials.

CWJ said...

Big Mike,

I agree Big Mike. Of course I would since I wrote basically the same metaphor in the third comment of this thread.

Karen said...

Actually, isn't it the wife and child that represent the lefties? Completely oblivious to the rot and expecting someone else to take care of it or them?

Unknown said...

Cedarford, Andy provided a citation and you didn't. Provide data & sources or you're just some guy on the Internet.

Lydia said...

The German and French lesson is single payer IS 50-60% more cost efficient than the mess the US had

Neither of those systems is pure single player. I don't know about the Germans, but 92% of the French also have private supplemental insurance. So that cost efficiency obviously means less-than-stellar care, as well.

Andy Freeman said...

Speaking of cites, here's the background work.

http://www.aei.org/files/2006/10/17/20061017_OhsfeldtSchneiderPresentation.pdf

Note that demographics matter. Americans of Japanese ancestry live longer than Japanese in Japan. The same is true of pretty much every other ethnic group.

As to "cost more", the US has more money (per person) to spend. While we want to spend efficiently, why shouldn't we spend more?

Andy Freeman said...

> And given 70% of med research is a tab picked up by taxpayers and the US government...it doesn't justify the obscene cost differentials.

The only definition of "med research" for which that is true is one doesn't include the vast majority of costs associated with getting a drug to market. Either that, or you're being disengenuous.

The vast majority of costs associated with getting drugs to market are the clinical trials, which are almost completely company funded.

Lots of things work on lab animals that don't work on people.

If you think that you can do a better job than pharma, why aren't you doing it? If you think that there are people who can do a better job, why aren't you funding them? Either way, you'll get rich and drive big pharma out of biz. That's as close to a moral imperative as one can get.

The only way you get to "taxpayers paid" is by saying that money that taxpayers spent on drugs that pharma kept for costs is "taxpayer money".

Which reminds me - "taxpayers and US govt"? The US govt minus taxpayers doesn't pay for anything. The US govt is merely a funnel for taxpayer money.

If you want to argue that pharma is also a funnel, the 70% claim is wrong, the number is 100%, and meaningless because everything is taxpayer funded by that definition.



khesanh0802 said...

@ Gregg

Bravo!

ken in tx said...

If the French system is so good, why do doctors and nurses there go on strike almost every year.

jr565 said...

For liberals, is there such a thing as a rotting structure?

jr565 said...

Re: "Meanwhile, the righties are the radicals, eager to rip down the whole house even if there's no new place in move-in condition."

I think the republicans would say we've already mortgaged the house to the hilt so that we have to take out ten credit cards a month just to pay our mortgage payments and mommy just decided to build another extension on the house that will cost millions we don't have. Even though she promised that it would cost nothing and we'd actually save money by doing so,we're now getting the bill and it's a lot more than before.
Also, the house is for two people yet we've added wing after wing including a soup kitchen and homeless shelter even though we aren't getting reimbursed for the services.
And mommy can't stop buying shoes. She has a bigger collection than Imelda Marcos.
So, it's not a question of tearing the house down. It's We can't afford the house so stop putting more money into it for crying out loud. We don't want the bank to reposess it!

jr565 said...

Cedarford wrote:
"Innovation" is code for the right wing logic of the same treatments, procudures, and same drugs costing 50-60% more in the US

Why do they cost more in the US? Because our drug companies subsidize them so they pay less for their drugs on our dime!

Big Mike said...

@CWJ, the plagiarism was inadvertant, but I apologize for it nevertheless.

wildswan said...

I think its like the slum improvement plans where they tore down bad housing and put up worse - where they put up all those places like Pruitt Igoe in St Louis or Cabrini-Green in Chicago. In the end they had to blow those places up. And they should have done that in the beginning and so similarly we should get rid of Obamacare. It will just get worse until we finally do get rid of it. It's no use waiting and talking about "my good intentions"