Would your family agenda include gay families? I have many gay friends with children, and they are committed, caring, min-van driving, soccer moms/dads just like the rest of us. Commmon sense economic policies of republicans would get a lot more support from middle of the road democrats if theywould tone it down on abortion and homosexuality and other social issues.

Please date the time you are referring to in your post. Only Democrats are nostalgic for the Carter years.

Fight Obamacare with all they have. We can do betetr an they can lead the way.

Obamacare goes for more access but raises costs and puts the Dc government into every health care system. The US health care system can do betetr than ACA re costs and services.

Oppose Obamacare and promote free marhet solutions over top down ACA for patients who are consumers. We are more powerful as medical consumers than voters. Having insurance companies and states and DC set fees is wrong. We need far more choices for how we pay for and recieve health care. But not government regulation as decider.

Let patients and doctors through markets set fees and determine damand.
Over the years Republicans have offered a few ideas like insurance acorss stste lines and cheap simple basic plans. not a one size fits all as ACA mandates.

Also IPAB a 15 member panel will run Medicare with an eye for costs–careful ration boards on the way?

I don’t think any of those proposals are groin-centric, they are aimed at people in general.

I’ve always found ’50s Nostalgia to be most people’s favorite, and the top bracket was 91% then. That’s the number he’s probably referring to, although it’s worth noting that the bottom bracket was higher too, at 20%.

you really think there are that many people out there who look to the 50s as their idealized time of history? I mean other than lefty morons using it as a strawman?

I had a professor once who defined nostalgia as the longing for a time that never was. I hardly think that the 50s were ideal, but I think its relatively simple to portray them that way.. It’s a Leave it to Beaver sort of thing (or Mad Men, if you prefer a more recent example). The 50s are recent enough to be familiar, but distant enough to be idealized. And yes, I have met (non-lefty) people who think that way.

Personally, I’m susceptible to 40s nostalgia. How weird is that? I know it doesn’t many any sense.

probably talking about the 1950′s. the top marginal tax rate was 91% and there were (gulp) 24 tax brackets. maybe the past wasn’t as simple as it seemed.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2011-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets

You realize that you pay more taxes by being married and filing jointly, don’t you? That is why it is called the “marriage penalty.” The other benefits can be taken care of by power of attorney/trusts/wills/adoption, etc. The only reason for gay marriage is to make a deviant sexual practice “normal”.

If I recall, Sandra Fluke wanted to have her health insurance plan cover birth control without a copay. That isn’t a sex subsidy unless you also think that having health insurance cover cardiology is subsidizing donut shops. Besides, birth control is much cheaper than prenatal care and delivery, and far far cheaper than the societal cost of unwanted children.

euthanasia is cheaper than an ICU. That doesn’t mean the government should pay for it.

I get it. Life is cheap, especially for those unwanted children. So let’s just kill ‘em and be done with it. And throw in those who can no longer take care of themselves due to illness or disability or whatever, young or old, doesn’t matter. We already include those babies who survive abortion. Let them starve. It’s cheaper. /sarc

your debating semantics … conservitas point is that conservative leaders and ideas aren’t resonating with anyone who isn’t old enough to remember Ronald Reagan’s presidency

although, I think Erick is clearly pointing a way toward that end

Republicans (including Reagan and Bush) used to talk about opposition to abortion and homosexuality from a moral and philosophical perspective, but they didn’t actually do much about it. People like me could disagree with them on those issues, respect their opinion, but still vote Republican on economic issues. Now that Republicans are actually enacting policies on these social issues, and making them a center piece of their agenda, a lot of folks can’t stomach that vote. You could get almost all of the blue dog democrats if you would put the socail stuff on the back burner.

One possible solution is to take the government out of marriage. No more marriage licenses from the state. The state would provide a legal relationship outlining the rights of each party and conveying the medical and death benefits currently held by married couples without degrading the sanctity of marriage. Marriage returns to a religious vow made before God as outlined by the church and is no longer tainted by the government. If a gay couple wants to be “married”, then they find a church that is willing to do it.

We’ll pass on your advice, but thanks anyways. we believe character is defined by standing on principles, not running from them for political expediency.

don’t “whatever” me, Scooter, when you obviously are working without clues.

except marriage has never been that. Marriage has always been defined by the government. That’s why you can’t marry your mother or have multiple spouses. What you are proposing is making marriage an arcane ritual rather than a part of society.

sorry if life sucks for you. For most people, the story is just the opposite.

I’m admitting that I’m a fiscal conservative and social liberal. Where is it I should be? Not Daily Kos.

I think the policies of Reagan are closer to where I am than the modern Republican party.

Lefty morons are funny, because they use the 50s as both their “oh, those were dark times” strawman when it comes to the non-repression of communists being outed as communists (and communists did have a hard time in Hollywood for a while, but no worse than what conservatives have to deal with in Hollywood today)…

AND as there “Oh those were great times” thanks to the pointless overly tax rates of 90%, which was a holdover of the WWII era, and which was NOT paid by many because any high-paid person used tax loopholes and the lower cap gains rates to get around it.

In ANY case, Chris is right about ” the longing for a time that never was” …

I dont see why any conservative would long for an era where half the world was communist, civil rights not yet addressed, big government liberalism and statist ideology was at its zenith (viz Buckley;s “God and Man at Yale”), ’1984′ was a real threat/possibility, and smoking was allowed in workplaces, stinking them up. I would like the way women dressed better then (classier than our current slob-America style, and no tattoos!) but hate most the lack of cell phones, microwaves and the internet etc. The phone was a monopoly! computers were science fiction of clunky calculators at best. Oh, and rock-n-roll, good bad or indifferent – not yet made. hmmmm.

So …. The only thing to be nostalgic about in the 50s is the fact that annoying 60s leftists hadnt figured out how to degrade our culture and politics yet. I guess I’ll take that over the threat of nuclear annilation as a minor preference.

As Carly Simon put it in Anticipation: “These are the Good Old Days”
oh yeah, and check out the 80s pastels, see we dressed better in the 80s … maybe we should look back at the 80s more, good times, good times …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NwP3wes4M8

“I agree that the ACA is sort of a blunt instrument, but it is an attempt at addressing some very real problems”

… yeah, so was Hitler’s agenda, that proves nothing.

ACA is a 19th century old-hat false non-solution that undermines healthcare innovation, healthcare choice and healthcare freedom. It solved nothing but made things worse.

“Free market solutions don’t always work in health care…” WE DONT KNOW UNTIL WE TRY. Allow people to have HSAs, but insurance across state lines, buy lowcost high-deductible insurance, and before you know it – 80% of the ‘access’ problems would go away, and he remaining 20% could be done via much more modest govt subsidies.

How to solve the one legitimate problem ACA claimed it was needed for: Preexisting conditions: donut hole the pre-existing conditions with free market insurance, and let a govt subsidy program cover those who need pre-existing condition care a la SCHIP type coverage – THIS COULD BE DONE AT 1/20th THE COST OF ACA!

The most over-regulated industries in America: Healthcare and education. Funny, but both are rife we excessive costs, monopolistic practices and lack of real choice, consumer and competitive efficiencies … both are ‘problems’. There is a connection!

Is there not an age requirement to post? When a person uses text terms such as “LOL” on an adult site, uses terms like “whatever” and “dude,” they are either losers or a little girl, either way they do not belong here.

stick it out here neolib, you’re not alone in your interest in fiscal conservatism and social liberalism here. Sometimes it feels like being at a party you weren’t invited to, but like you said, where else are we to go? We’re political misfits I guess.

I think maybe “social libertarian” rather than “social liberal” might be more accurate. I just don’t care what gay folks do, or what god people believe in. Trillion dollar deficits, that get’s my attention.

I understand and sympathize with your point, but I just think that that broke ass is going to screw either way.. and the easier his or her access to birth control, the fewer children they’ll have that we’ll end up subsidizing with SCHIP, school lunches, etc.

so you’re of the Freak-o-nomics school?

So to summarize your post, you are a loser who is hell bent on others paying for things for you even if said payment takes this country into a financial abyss. Maybe when you got fat, smoked, quit school, never got a skill, etc (take what applies to you, some or all) you should have thought about the future you were setting up for yourself and the burden you would be on those of us who prepared for our future.

Rewarding bums does not make sense. The possibilities of future problems does not translate into forcing us to pay for another to have sex. Hate to tell you bub, those broke people seem to be able to buy nice food, $200 weird hair crap, cars, gas, nice clothes, and so on so no reason they can not afford a 6 dollar box of condoms. Your argument is simply a red herring, nothing more.

1. Given the prevalence of birth control today vice 40 years ago and the number of unplanned pregnancies over the same period there is no evidence at all that the availability of birth control has any impact on the larger rate of unplanned pregnancies. To the contrary. The correlation is that more birth control = more unplanned pregnancies probably because of basic incompetence on the part of the users.

2. Children of poor parents aren’t doomed to be poor themselves. Implying that poor children are less desirable has sort of a Third Reich/Margaret Sanger ring to it.

3. Using government services is hardly a reason to adjudge someone less worthy of life.

Yeah, and so have I when I tried to visit some dear friends. Life’s tough.
But before I give you the benefit of the doubt, can you list some hospitals that have that policy, or some gays who have been barred from seeing their beloved? Could you guys do that once? Please?

But you will always, always vote Democrat. Always.

You know why? You and your pals can bleat on about how concerned you are with fiscal issues, but the Party Of The Crotch can always rely on your vote, because when its zipper vs. wallet, zipper wins.

Well, twenty-six IS the new thirteen. LOL.

Get over yourself Jack, I require neither your sympathy nor your attention. By all means, conservatives, take this attitude going forward.

Enjoy Hillary Clinton you psycho.

I notice you did not deny one single thing I said. Next time I would at least try, “I took a real hard look at Mitt (or Newt, or Perry, or whomever) but just didn’t like his stance on (fill in the blank). Then you might convince the weak-minded of your ability to consider all sides.

Again, when you vote based on what you say you believe – fiscal conservatism – just once, let us know. Until then, prepare to be called out.

“Psycho”? Is that and “teabagger” all you guys have? Really?

And I described exactly why it is ridiculed. Zipper wins, always, and you guys expect people with brains to suck up to you.

If a Republican presidential candidate marched down the street with no shirt on and crotchless leather chaps, fondling his boyfriend and throwing condoms and gift cards for abortions to the gathered crowd while posting on Twitter and Facebook, people like you would say “He believes in the second amendment? Ewwww!”

Search no further for the result of not keeping score during kids’ soccer games and awarding a trophy to everyone. See above.

And sorry to ask again, but when did you take a stand against trillion dollar deficits by voting Republican? Or has the cat got your tongue?

And you truly believe there is limited access to birth control in this country? Seriously?

I would say the new 40 is the new 13 in many cases.

Ahh lonely, one day your testicles will drop, you will let go of the “I do not have to follow mommy rules rebellion” attitude, and you too will take a stand on principles. One has to grow up before they are able to muster enough maturity to stand for right even when it is not the “cool” thing to do. Many never grow up, you may not as well, but until then what Jack states is spot on.

So many of you so called republicans who hate values (social stances) refuse to vote for conservatives because you hate “mean ole adults telling you something is wrong” so you send the country down the crapper voting for the POS democrats just because they claim they will join you in making weed available for all the losers in your local grocery store.

And why are you acting like you will not vote for Hilary, she is right down your “no one tells me what to do” juvenile alley.

This has been debunked so many times, it’s just tiring. Yes, it’s true the top marginal rate was 91%, but NOBODY paid that. The ‘effective tax rates’ were far, far lower than they are today. A simple google search can provide you with the details.

I’ve heard that, but as that runs against common law in all states in the union I don’t believe it. If you have a power of attorney a visit to a judge gets you a court order. The only documented cases have been when there is no power of attorney and family objects. I don’t believe a single hospital in the nation would refuse visitation without family objections as there is no medical reason to do so.

Hello everyone, this is my first on RedState so be gentle. Normally I don’t post because I don’t know enough to post but I am by training and profession a Health Economist. Currently the US pays something like 18% of GDP into it’s healthcare system both private and public. The next highest in the world is Belgium, with around 11% of GDP. Effectively the people of the United States pay roughly (These are figures a colleague worked out as estimates) USD$900 billion too much every single year for the entire healthcare apparatus. I know this isn’t going to be popular here but socialised medicine, far from bankrupting European countries, is actually saving their societies as a whole billions every year. I have testified to these regulators (the erroneously called ‘death panels’) on previous occasions and far from killing off old people all the doctors that run them care about is wringing as many drugs for as little cost as they can from billion $ pharmaceutical companies. Like I said it won’t be popular, but think what America could do with USD$ 900 billion a year. That’s a lot of tax breaks and deficit reduction.

Welcome to RedState, overthepond. You bring up a good point about the price of medications. For some reason, the U.S. doesn’t negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. The same pill that cost $1/pill in Canada can cost 50 times that much here. So, in a sense, it seems we are subsidizing the rest of the world. I don’t know if it’s a matter of government corruption (not wanting to take away drug company profits) or if it’s a necessary expense that helps fund R&D that would otherwise not take place. I honestly don’t know, but it’s a good point.

Why should they not? If I can afford more than you, why should I not get it or why should you get it on my dime?

People make choices, choices lead to different levels of wealth, health, etc. If I took the opportunity to study hard, get my masters degree, work hard, make the risky investments, and now am able to provide my family with top notch care and you on the other did not do those things, what makes you feel you are entitled to the same care when someone else has to pay for it.

A person is never entitled to my money even if it is disguised as a tax to pay for entitlements.

Thanks Becky5, I was a little nervous there. Effectively the US people do subsidize medicines for the rest of the world; when a drug company is in negotiation with the British NHS or the German IQWIG they will know that they can offer a lower price to other countries safe in the knowledge that high prices back in the US will nudge the bottom line back up. There’s a reason that almost all drug prices are agreed in strict secrecy with Canada and Europe, and the pharma companies. The problem is structural, because there is only a single payer such as the NHS, the pharma company must agree a deal with them or lose access to the entire British market. In the US there is no such market gatekeeper, merely the FDA that decides on safety only. Something to think about.

Do you trolls all follow each other and “like” each other’s posts? It is more than ironic that all of the trolls have a billion up arrows on a Conservative site. The psychology behind you all is somewhat fascinating and disturbing at the same time. I would not think of going to a Lefty site to troll for hours. I have a life.

Lurkers? Like yourself you mean? What is your goal here? You have been nothing but a shill for Obama and posted the most assenine comments about the ACA. So much so that you had no response when people corrected you.

Yes, runner12, that is what they do. It is almost comical that they have organized followers who hit the “up” arrow every where they go. They must really be bored and threatened by us to put so much effort into their games. If I were a mod, I would go around banning them based on their up votes alone. Wouldn’t even have to read their comments. LOL

Overthepond, got a few issues with your posts. First, it is quite silly to claim we subsidize pills for other countries. The problem in American has nothing to with your style of care versus ours, it has to do with heavy handed regulation via the FDA. No one here would dispute that there has to be some regulation to avoid fake pills, bad meds, etc entering our system, but you would also not here any arguments that the FDA is a problem and one main problem is not allowing companies stationed outside the US being able to sell the same pills here in the US as the ones made here in the US.

I also find it funny that you claim to be a Health economist yet go on to say that socialized medicine is not bankrupting the countries that use it. Greece is a prime example, long before they folded, health care was unsustainable to the point where a huge advocate for Obamacare, NYT wrote a piece that Greece would have to give up socialized medicine or face a complete collapse of the economy> Guess what occurred. Greece is so far behind in HC payments, they have had to increase their already astronomically high taxes on things such as Booze, tobacco, etc just to try to catch up and it is still not enough.

Germany found itself in so much trouble that they changed their form of HC coverage to sickness funds managed by private firms. even this was unsustainable due to the mentality that everyone is “entitled” to free HC. They are now facing a major problem, going from over 1000 of these privately owned sickness funds to under 250. The cost to cover every single person was so high, few were able to make it even with taxpayer money being put into these funds.

England and France receive yearly payments from us that is used primarily to boost the coffers for their own health care. This is on top of extremely high payroll taxes and tremendously high sales tax. They are going broke. Doctors are leaving to come here, patients have major trouble getting approved for any care beyond minor care and even then they wait for basic procedures, the list goes on and on.

Canada, another country with socialized medicine and it is abysmal. It is so bad one of the major sources of revenue for American doctors in the states that are next to the border is Canadian citizens paying for their own care. It is such a high revenue stream, many doctors only take Canadian patients just so they can make sure they have the room to see them and take new patients. You also should know that the biggest black market product in Canada is not drugs, sex, or booze, it is underground Health care.

I find it quite hard to believe you are an economist in health when you make such uneducated comments. But since you claim to be on, nice to meet you, I am superman.

No kidding.I cannot understand it. I would never go to a Lefty site just
to stir up junk and act like a troll. It just seems immature and like I said, shows an insecurity in their beliefs.

How many new drugs or medical devices or life savings treatments have come from Europe recently? Or ever?

How politically connected are trial lawyers in Europe, and are there any restrictions on trial lawyers?

You had enough free time to be one of the most frequent posters on this thread. I am a healthcare professional and ACA is a disaster fro start to finish. While healthcare reform is needed, I am not for trying something that actually makes the problem worse. ACA did nothing to solve the healthcare issues, nothing. Costs are actually going up, not down.

If you want to really learn both sides, you may want to try not simply posting the Obama talking points. You claim to be a “moderate”, but all of your posts are hard Left and aimed at putting Conservative viewpoints down rather than trying to listen. If you are a Leftist, just say so. You voted for Obama and agree with all he has done. I can be honest about my beliefs, why can’t you?

Dear Lord.

I think you have no earthly idea what you are talking about, and no desire to learn why someone would say that.

For the life of me I don’t understand what is so difficult about this. Republicans need to advocate for a plausible guide for fixing the debt and reforming the tax code that identifies the painful tradeoffs which will be needed, instead of sugarcoating them. For instance a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes in contrast to Romney’s proposals saying that he could fix the tax code and pay down the debt with something like a 10-to-0 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes. If there is one thing voters understand on a day to day level it is that you cannot resolve a debt problem by creating more debt. However much hope might struggle to overcome reason, there is nothing normal or mathematically sustainable about our current economic situation.Talk about it in terms of an average salary that we can all relate to if trillions of new debt to pay off trillions of bad debt makes the eyes glaze over. But stress over and over and over that the problems are close to being unmanageable now. If we stay on the current path, they will wind up being completely unmanageable, culminating in an unwelcome explosion and crisis.

I agree with runner, you are out there and simply acting like a parrot. You have only demonstrated you are a moron who knows very little outside of Obama/leftist talking points.

nobody understand “reforming the tax code” – speak in urban dictionary terms and you might get somewhere. Saying those 4 words people get glassy eyed. I know I do and I’m FOR it.

Well, I would like overthepond to tell me, but apparently the most elementary question regarding whether he is comparing apples to oranges has boggled his mind / screwed up his template / become inconvenient to answer, so we may never know.

Well, I guess so. And it really doesn’t offend me, other than I would like an answer to the question from someone who considers himself so well credentialed, and yet can’t seem to address a couple of basic questions. Interesting.

Which of the rules are you suggesting that I’m in violation of? 13? I honestly do not think I’ve parroted any Democratic talking points. I have only given my own opinions which, incidentally, are sometimes strenuously at odds with the position of the Democratic party.

“Level the playing field between entrepreneurs and corporations”
Actually, I would argue that the tax code benefits many big businesses that pretend to be “entrepreneurs” through the pass-through thingy. That ought to be fixed too.

Sorry Jack, I was in the midst of my commute home. Of the 10 largest Pharma companies in the world 6 are European, they push dozens and dozens of drugs through their research pipelines every year.

Whatever “tone it down” means, given that few have said anything barely as atrocious as Todd Akin.

I think President Bush had it right, and it was: “You know, Bob, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It’s important that we do that.

And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults can live the way they want to live.

And that’s to be honored.

But as we respect someone’s rights, and as we profess tolerance, we shouldn’t change — or have to change — our basic views on the sanctity of marriage. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I think it’s very important that we protect marriage as an institution, between a man and a woman.”

We don’t necessarily have to agree with what’s in the middle two paragraphs, but the first and the last are absolutely right for any values voter/candidate/whatever.

Yes, it’s Alice in Wonderland, unbelievable.

Here’s the report for anyone who is interested:

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf

Also, I should apologize as that came across as pretty smug. You are right when you say that competition breeds lower pricing under normal circumstances, however a pharmaceutical company will have a patent on the medicine they are offering for sale effectively ending any possibility of competition for between 5-10 years. They have a monopoly on the sale of the drug. What socialized medicine does is create a monopoly for the demand. I can only buy from you, and you can only sell to me. So know we have to come up with a new way of determining the price, and the way almost every ‘western’ country in the world does it is by negotiating based around cost effectiveness of the drug or treatment; the less effective your drug the lower price you have to charge and vice versa. This creates huge value for the countries that carry out the practice because the price is very near to the actual worth of the drug to that society in terms of how many people it keeps healthy, how many hospitalizations it prevents, how many hours spent by nursing caring for the sick etc. etc. When the patents expire normal competition takes over and generic medicines are manufactured and the price of drugs will fall through the floor. If the US did this, it would save billions of dollars a year…. I see a tax break over the horizon…

Just one final thing: The 900 billion HAS to go towards economic stimulus and not moonbat liberal social programs. Both sides have to compromise on my masterplan.

I thought I read somewhere that the House GOP was going to require the Senate to actually pass a budget as a condition for raising the debt limit. Also, they were only going to raise the limit enough to last for a couple months. Maybe it is a strategy of death by a thousand cuts (against the Dems)? First, get a real budget on paper, then get some actually cuts. It’s a bit timid for me, but it is more than nothing.

Which issues do you disagree with Obama on specifically? Which areas do you lean conservative? I would also be interested in what you have learned here. Please be specific. If you are honestly interested in dialogue, this would be a good start. Contrary to Leftist belief, not everyone agrees 100% on everything here. But the disagreements should be in good faith and not attempts to troll.

Pardon my skepticism, but when your post receives 18 thumbs up for saying nothing it points to a concerted effort to troll.

This idea of breaking up the banks is so anti-free markets and anti-capitalism that frankly I’m in shock that EE would even propose such nonsense and folks here would champion the idea! Wow, so we’re disgusted with O for doing the same and now some encourage the GOP to do the same via controlling businesses they don’t like, i.e. picking winners and losers. Romney was right- we have bankruptcy rules if any company is too big to fail and let them fall. But the feds decided they had to prop them up with tax $$ and now they really are too big to fail. Never saw that coming.
.
This is a very sad turn of events at RS. How about tackleing the real problem of excessive regulations that lead capitalists to get creative to overcome the regulatory environment to make a buck. Oy vey.

I submit to these so-called ‘death panels’ on behalf of US companies many times a year. What NICE in the UK does is work out how much a particular disease costs society, then works out a price they are willing to pay based on quality of life benefit, number of potential patients and other factors and then submits that price to the manufacturers. If that pharma company meets the price, the drug is purchased. If not, they won’t buy it and the drug is not available to patients. They don’t decide who lives and dies. They decide which treatments are cost-effective. It is brutal, but it works, which is why the NICE system is being copied around the world.

Granted you seemingly know more than I do on bank laws. But, the FDIC was created to protect depositors, not the banks. Without pointing out your contradictions sentence by sentence, you actually validated my point with your opening statement,
.
“But too big to fail (TBTF) banks are a problem because they have an implied subsidy – they are so interconnected with each other and others that the government will bail them out when they run into trouble so that their collapse won’t have a domino effect on other institutions and the economy as a whole.”
.
“Thus, TBTF banks have an incentive to take much greater risks than they otherwise might.”
.
You made my point that the fed has allowed them to be greater than their good and they justify that with inane laws that the feds get paybacks from…that’s the whole idea of cronyism in that the fed decides who should be propped and who shouldn’t. Dodd-Frank is horrible for small banks that actually know their customers and are willing to take a risk due to relationships but can’t due to regulations.

And my point regarding Romney was about the car bailouts, not banking.

You are one dumb stump are you not? Pharma companies have nothing to do with quality of care. I really do not have the time to go into the quality of output made by these Pharma companies, so I will simply state go look up what countries hold the vast majority of patents for medication and which country applies for the most each and every year. Then go look up what is considered to be the most needed drugs, the top 50 lifesaving drugs, and the top 10 new drugs and then come back and let us know who made ‘em. OK bub?

And oh my gosh, the WHO put us 37th. Guess that must mean our care sucks. Would not have anything to do with other factors many of which go unreported in most countries. Guess I should give up my argument the top care in the world is right here just because the WHO ranks us 37th. Damn you are a moron. Give me some respect bub, do your homework before you just throw out things you heard somewhere.

As to your savings argument, are you hard headed? I have already mentioned numerous time that socialized medicine costs the f’ing country it is used in, how in hell fire is it going to save us money? I also already clearly mentioned that there is a need to remove the numerous regulations set by the FDA and that would lower med cost, but never to the tune of 900 billion as you stated. Nor would some group bidding on meds. We already have that, it is called competition and what would lower it more would be the blocks set up by the FDA that does not allow a foreign company to sell the meds here. But even that still does not save 900 billion as you claim.

You have already been caught in a bunch of lies and your “routed through PA” explanation for one of the lies you were caught in is a joke. You lied about what you do and your education since it is obvious you have no real knowledge about healthcare, you lied about where you live and Bill pointed that out, just be the beat dog you are, tuck tail, and then disappear. You are a proven liar and a joke.

What you described is exactly a death panel. Otherwise, why would you describe it as brutal? No thanks.

If NICE in the UK is so nice, why are they coming over here for treatment?

Until I’m forced to do otherwise, my healthcare/treatment is between me and my doctor, and my family if I so desire. I buy insurance with my earnings to cover what we decide, not some panel of bureaucrats, accountants and government idiots.

I’m with you on crony capitalism being something that the GOP should be trying to eliminate.

i agree with you chris.

The error here is lumping canning into a political discussion. There is “NO WE” when discussing likes and dislikes of technology, canning was once high tech and some will argue it still is. Technology is a tool and a hobby and neither is wrong or right. The issue that we struggle with is liberty. What young person does not want to die their hair purple if they so chose, or put that tattoo where they want to. All of these “young” things are statements of LIBERTY. The young want and crave LIBERTY and the REPUBLICANS cannot figure out how to tell young people that THEY stand for that liberty and the democrats big government removes the very liberty the young hunger for. The restraint needed is on the federal government not so much on the individual. The states are better suited to manage most issues. The federal government is too far removed and a one size fits all is unworkable for most matters. Banks now operate across state lines and most of us like that feature. Therefore that is a venue for federal action and consistent with the constitution. If I am walking through a Montana wilderness and a grizzly comes flying out of a berry patch I do not want to ask myself if it is OK to shoot my rifle, is the bear protected and I am not, and does my clip have enough fire power to stop the grizzly before it tears my abdomen open. I am a law abiding American and have by my birthright the right to own firearms. Just because democrats cannot manage their big cities and lawless abounds does not give the same democrat the preview to trash my constitutional right as an American. It is democrat failure destroying the family that leads to lawlessness in the cities, the GOP needs to point out the failure of the democrat policy destroying families, the churches and American culture not pouring bad law onto previous bad law.. A similar issue can be made in Detroit. If my home is invaded is my clip large enough to defend me against 5 guys breaking into the house is not the argument. The federal government is bound by the ” congress shall make NO law” component of the 2nd amendment. Do they understand the word NO. I suggest they do not.

The issue for me is that Democrats have no, do you hear me NO respect for the constitution or the rule of law that means they have no respect for the “liberty” that the young want so much. They demand that we follow the law but to the democrat the law can be bent, twisted or ignored based on their whims. Obama has NO authority what so ever to unilaterally make law regarding 2nd amendment matters yet he ignores the LAW and does so anyway. I believe the next right thing is that the states tell the federal government that those presidential edicts do not have standing in their state because they were not voted on by THEIR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS sent to Washington to vote on such matters. Their representatives were ignored by the president, make it personal to the states.

So the best course of action for the GOP is to do the next right thing, always stand with the constitution and always explain to the public “articulately” ( G-D if there were only an articulate and intellectually nimble enough republican to do so) why that is the best action.

The Mack Rubio 1% plan is easy to explain and will fix Americas financial issues extending the debt ceiling in trade for a vote in the house and senate on that bill makes sense but standing back and letting the democrats break into the home of yet another generation of the unborn and steal their wealth is insane. It NEVER ends with democrats, never. Do you understand the word NEVER. The second amendment must be adhered to, if democrats do not like it they can try to get the free people of America to go along with an amendment to the second amendment and the GOP MUST tell the American people that is the way to approach the gun issue. They have no standing to just ignore the second amendment. If liberals want more funds for their federal projects that should be tied to generating the public sector GDP to grow the funds for the project. No GDP growth no funding for pet projects. Make the congress students of GDP growth to get what they want and not steal it from the unborn.

In my view, conservative principles, stated articulately and adhered to, always win. They are timeless, proven, and effective, an integral part of the founding and success of this country, and demonstrably better than the socialist alternatives, top to bottom.

We have people leading the GOP right now that are incapable of framing a conservative viewpoint in a manner that is understandable. They are also taking the golden opportunity of a lifetime – the complete failure of the Social Democrat model to solve any of the nation’s problems – and turning it into a disadvantage. Incredible, and impossible to parlay that into electoral success.

Charles Krauthammer, who I have disagreed with recently, wrote a brilliant article for Fox a day or two ago laying out how you handle being in charge of only 1/2 of 1/3 of our government. I highly recommend it to everyone.

There cannot be an adjustment in principle. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be principles.

The lending issues you raise are different from the TBTF issue and apply to most or all banks, not just the largest ones. Erick’s article cites a speech by Richard Fisher, President of the Dallas Fed, who has been warning against TBTF for a number of years. It is a good read on the TBTF problem.

TBTF might be an area for bipartisan cooperation. If House and/or Senate Republicans take it up, Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat, would be someone they could work with to craft a bipartisan solution. Brown has also been outspoken on the TBTF issue.

“No access to birth control? Are you insane? Have you been out of your house in the past ten years?”
Jack, we know the score… that’s been a phony liberal talking point from the KoolAid drinkers for the past 18 months, ever since Stephie asked his absurd question to Romney. Never mind that there has been legal access to birth control for 100 years, its cheap (how much are condoms these days anyway, Chris?), and the whole issue is a strawman designed to gull low information single women … well, it worked, but now we are stuck with REALLY getting screwed by Obama’s trillion dollar deficits … and I dont think there is a pill for that.

Do you think poor children are better off dead?

“We’ve done better in the House and the Senate since 1994 than we did between 1932 and 1994.”

While I generally agree with your point, that 1932 to 1994 was a Democrat majority built on a coalition that included conservative southern Democrats. When the Democrats moved to the left in the 1960s and 1970s (McGovern) they abandoned part of their coalition. This means we have a Congress more liberal now than in the 1930s/1940s/1950s, even if Republican. (Certainly the Senate if not the House is more liberal than ever.)

The lack of Republicans in the northeast and CA, NY and IL is a threat to our majority, as we are now in a similar but different situation from the New Deal era. What has happened is that GOP has lost ground in urban areas. Unless and until we get that back (not parity but get to 40/60 instead of 20/80 in big cities), we are at a disadvantage.

I also dont agree that recent votes prove conservatives cant win. we didnt even run conservatives! Run Gov Bobby Jindal in 2016 and lets see.

Tell me again why a new, Conservative American party doesn’t deserve to have the support and focus of all conservatives who are being ignored and under-represented by the GOP….? It is time for a wholesale change – stop electing professional politicians and start electing conservative representatives.

Not sure if that was directed at me, but if it was your attempt at wit or sarcasm it failed on both points.

Obama has “allied himself with the rise of singles”? Well, I’m single and he isn’t doing anything to help me! This is one place where we do need changes in our tax code – singles who live alone have most of the same expenses of married couples, yet our standard deduction, for example, is only half that of married filing jointly. Then they still get the “personal exemption” amount for each person in the household (while we, of course, only get it for one). On top of that, the families are the only ones getting the tax credits. Perhaps there is still a “marriage penalty” when compared to people living together unmarried, but singles living alone are the ones who get screwed on taxes. I can’t even file as “head of household” because I have no dependents – I’m the only one there, so if I’m not the head of my household, who is? Then there are the middle-class families who get “refunds” larger than the amount they paid in via withholding because of all of the tax “credits” available to them. I’m tired of paying to raise other people’s kids, those who are generally responsible as well as those who are bumming around and collecting welfare.

I do have a libertarian streak, but then I see a ‘libertarian’ politician like Ron Paul espousing something like the gold standard, and that turns me off of libertarianism. And note that for every instance I disagree strongly with the Democratic party, there’s another where I disagree with the GOP (often on social issues, like you noticed). I basically see Obama as well-intentioned but ineffective.

I think Eric Fehrnstrom referred to social issues as ‘shiny objects’, distracting from serious economic issues. I’m not sure I agree with him entirely, but like his phrase. I think gun control is a shiny object, distracting people from seeing that, as they bicker about magazine sizes and what makes a rifle an ‘assault’ rifle, the FBI can read all their emails and knows what books they’re checking out of the library. To say nothing of the growth of corporate power, which scares me as much as government power.

I think that my comments regarding income and birth control were entirely misunderstood. I specifically stated that I was not making the Freakonomics argument. I was not talking about abortion at all, I was talking about the advantages of cheap birth control versus the expenses of children. There are lots of studies showing that, for example, one of the clearest predictors of lifetime poverty is getting knocked up as a teenager and never finishing high school. When I was pointing out that unplanned children can be a financial burden, I was NEVER suggesting killing them, I was suggesting not having them in the first place, until you’re ready. To be frank, I don’t think its possible to reasonably argue that abortion isn’t murder.. which is why I think birth control should be as easy to obtain and as cheap as possible.

There are too many posts in this thread now for me to go through and look at exactly what I wrote elsewhere. In case I was unclear earlier, let me be clear now. I do not support, in any way or manner, anything that approaches eugenics. I do not like abortion in any circumstance.

Too much faith in one’s own beliefs has led many more than a million men to ruin…

Just a fair warning.

When someone – anyone – gives me any factual data to refute my beliefs, I will change them.

I recall saying to my wife four years ago, “If the policies we are about to embark on work out, then everything I have read, everything I know, and everything I believe is wrong.”

I feel very comfortable continuing to believe what I believe.

“you guys”?

I’m not gay, dude.

Hmmm…I don’t know about that. There are too many variables unaccounted for in a simple “pass-fail” assessment to actually be relatively correct to the individual assessments of each policy–or for an overall assessment to be truly realistic. It’s just too simplistic.

The economy and the stimulus is by far the best example:

I’m sure a lot of Republicans believe the stimulus was a total
and utter failure altogether–but I decided to take a deeper look and found some interesting facts. The Obama stimulus actually worked in some places: Aiken, S.C., where they had the Savannah River site, got $1.6
billion in funding for an area that only had tens of thousands of
people. The unemployment rate went down from 10.2 percent to 8.5 percent, hotels were booked up, apartments were full, and the city saw its hotel tax not only get back to where it was before the
recession, but it went up 10 percent above that (that’s an AWESOME sign of recovery). There were multiplier effects
for real that can’t be dismissed as simply luck at all. But in most other places, the money was spread so far and wide
you really couldn’t notice.

So the stimulus as an idea itself wasn’t a terrible idea, per se, because its principles actually worked…it just didn’t seem to work much at all because we didn’t see the effects on the large scale economy. And that’s a correct assessment of it’s overall effect–but certainly not the philosophy behind it.

Another notable reason it didn’t work was that the banks stopped lending, so huge majorities of the massive sums of money we gave them just sat there. The point was to get investment moving again (as C+I+G+Nx = GDP), but that failed–and that’s not necessarily Obama’s fault since it can’t possibly be said that he has power over the banks. That’s just not true… And it’s not right to say this fact doesn’t matter either. That would be against the principles of GDP growth as we know it. Reagan himself proved them to work!

Then there’s fiscal policy vs monetary policy, and stuff gets even more complected from there. All in all, the policy itself was both good and bad, and it’s execution was stunted by all sorts of variables (structural ones of its own creation, and uncontrollable ones as well). Thus it’s just really hard to say whether or not it was right or wrong holistically. Had the banks lent more from the get-go, or if the stimulus were better prepared, we could very well have been back on our feet by now. I wouldn’t rule that out as a possibility, or the idea that we dodged a financial bombshell. It’s just too hard to say given the circumstances…

I’m no Keynesian, but I believe that this is at least worth looking back on. Again, that’s just one example, and I’m sure there are many more…

All was saying is that it isn’t always wise to have such confidence in one’s beliefs. I’m sure you’re sensible enough to realize when you’ve crossed the line, but a reminder to watch out can’t ever hurt.

So you’re claiming it’s never happened, then, I take it.

Uh huh. here’s where your argument falls flat on its face:
“… a pharmaceutical company will have a patent on the medicine they are offering for sale effectively ending any possibility of competition for
between 5-10 years. They have a monopoly on the sale of the drug. What socialized medicine does is create a monopoly for the demand…”

Your statement is a bit information light – pharm companies do not simply ‘offer medicines for sale’, as though these spontaneously appeared in their factories. As a health care economist, you are of course aware that in the U.S, for every 10,000 compounds entering preclinical trials, only 1 drug makes it to market; that the average cost of developing a new drug approaches $500MM; and that the process itself takes between 8 and 12 years.

The ‘monopoly’ on the sale of the drug is a simple recognition of that reality – companies must be allowed to earn a return on a huge preproduction investment; the expense of factory buildout, distribution, and marketing; and provide for sufficient future R&D to It’s the US market that provides the returns to drive that innovation, globally. Socialize this market, and the rate of new drug introductions will fall through the floor. Moreover, the skew of drugs will increase towards widespread conditions, requiring continual treatment and away from devastating illnesses of lower incidence. The world needs an effective treatment for ALS, not another, slightly more useful allergy pill.

So sure, we might save some money under your model. But its not just a matter of effectiveness, as you pretend; its a matter of the drugs that will no longer be pursued, and the suffering that will continue on that basis.