Bladerunner,
How do you defend the position that the majority of Americans favor the plan being put together in the House and that Obama would sign sight unseen? Since the healthcare debate started his approval ratings have dropped to 47% according to Rasmussmen from the mid to high 60s. His trustworthy numbers are down to 49%. 57% of Americans say they would rather see no healthcare bill rather than what the Democrats are brewing in the House. And I could go on and on. It is absurd your assetion that 70%+ people want the public option. It is also blatantly obvious that the only purpose for the public option is to get to single payor.
This said, how the heck do you defend the below:
<<<Obama says the healthcare plans being pushed by Democrats in control of the U.S. Congress would ultimately reduce the U.S. budget deficit while at the same time improving health insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
But so far that argument has not taken hold and is proving to be a big challenge for Obama, as he looks ahead to a debate on the issue in autumn -- when Congress is also supposed to take up climate-change legislation.
Since Obama has offered few of his own legislative proposals, he has been left to comment on the ones circulating in congressional committees. Left open has been how to fully fund the $1 trillion, 10-year program.>>>
How does Obama add over a $1 trillion in spending (and Medicare, for example, adjusted for inflation, is presently more than 9x mor expensive then predicted) when the national debt estimates have just been increased to nearly $10 trillion and we know that is lower then it will be, and the deficit for this year alone will probably come in at nearly $2 trillion.
But no problem, what is another trillion here or another trillion there.
What people see is an out of control deficit that will turn this country into, literally, a banana republic, whose strings are held by the debtholders (ie, China), for a plan that will not make the 85%+ of people surveyed who are happy and satisfied with their current insurance plan any happier, or save them any money, or give them additional benefits that they desire (in fact all the plans would outlaw my medical savigns account - but that is another discussion) and the plan will still not cover the majority of the "estimated" 40 million + of people who are presumably without insurance. Of this number 20 million or more have incomes in excess of $60K a year and are young and choose not to be covered, 15 million or more are illegal immigrants, leaving 5 million or so who are uninsured because they are legal and too poor.
We can retract the "stimulus" plan spending (since less than 10% of that has been spent) and pay for insuring this 5%, heck pay for the estimated cost of the entire plan, just out of that stimulus money.
And why is tort reform not even under discussion when there is so much talk of defensive medicine being such a problem?
Really, I would like an answer because the CBO sees this $1-$1.5 trillion in costs and the administrations and Congress's estimates of deficit neutral as absurd.
That is the reason why the healthcare bill is being slaughtered, instead of answering the straight-forward questions they turn around and personally attack the people asking the questions, and they are good questions. The reason these people are attacked is because there are no good answers from the perspective of the proponents of this bill in the House.
So I suggest stopping with the charade, the spin, the blame game, and start directly answering the straight-forward questions for a change.
Tinker
AI
