2008 US Presidential Elections

[AcneVulgaris]

This has already been happening for decades.  My wife's dad was a doctor from the 60's on, and he said the screwing came when they stopped calling it medicine and started calling it healthcare.  The first nail was the malpractice insurance that eats half of what they make, then came the medicare and HMOs that only pay a fraction of the patient's bills....leaving the doctor to eat the rest.

We've already got the disadvantages of a socialized system, and the insurance industry is the one taking all the profit.  We need to either go back to how it was before the insurance companies got their hooks into it, or we need to make the government be the insurer and raise taxes to provide insurance for everybody.  The current system is corrupt and screws everybody but the insurance companies.

Health insurance in a free market system HAS to be corrupt because of the profit motive.  The only thing I would keep from the current system is untaxed healthcare savings accounts, but without the additional catastrophic insurance requirement.  Malpractice suits should pay out only for subsequent medical care to put things right...no more punitive jackpots.  If they want to punish the doctor, suspend his license, but don't make it profitable to sue him.

Nothing will happen though.  The insurance industry owns too much of our government, and they are making bank the way things are.

[technoid]

I think people need more pervention rather than care.

I think most doctors and 'healthcare' professions do emphasize preventive medicine, sometimes even as general as... take vitamins daily, don't eat junk food (salt & sugar), eat fruits & vegetables, go lite on dead barbecued animal parts, exercise, yet don't overwork (or overstress or overexercise), and/or just be plain stupid (kids on the playground getting more than the proverbial knee scrape).  Usually when you heed that advice, potentially a lot of the hypertension, diabetes, obesity, overstressed joints, ad infinitum, can be avoided through life for the general normal healthy population.   But people will always be people.  Not really their fault though, you can't help it when you gotta pay the bills stressing out during long work hours (getting sick from stress, etc), or have rowdy kids (or adults, heh).  Again, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Many other factors contribute to the unwell being. And thus there will always be doctors around.  It's most likely that the general patient population of a medical physician sees him for HPT, diabetes, colds, flues, and the ocassional knee scrape.  And from that he will usually have to dish out the drug prescription.  The drug and pharmaceutical industry is huge ($$$) and is a great factor in all of this, so whatever healthcare reform we are getting from the next Pres, they're gonna be a big part of it as usual.

[bigbadbogie]

Not sure why you think that, doctors move to other states, not other countries.

Wrong. I know of some American doctors who have moved out here to Aus.

[bigbadbogie]

Yeah. And then they grew wings and flew to the moon. 

[cheesepuffly]

*Insert bz2 joke relating to the previous post here*



Yah our health care sucks cheese balls.


One of the things about the two partys is they are too different.


Look at it this way (if you look at facts you know im right)


The democrats are the parents that give their kids everything they want, the dont have to work for any rewards, and they walk all over their parents.

The republicans are the parents that give tough love, really tough love, the kind of people you would ask "You sure he loves his kids? Doesn't treat them very nice", but the parents do it because it will benefit their future.

[Commando]

It doesn't help that some states, especially mine, only allow for the two parties to be on the ballet for the most part.  It is possible for a third party to get added to the ballet, but it takes a very large number of signatures to do so.  I think it is around 100,000 signatures which is a high number for the state of Oklahoma.

[Nielk1]

Democrat: Leans toward socialism, but in a good way. Socialism is the best form of government on paper, and a low lv of socialism that gives everyone what they need but still allows for capitalism on top of that for greater improvements is ideal. That is kind'a what Star Trek is like. Democrats would by literal meaning be "by the people", but the Democrat party's supposed idea is "for the people".

Republican: Wants things back the way they used to be. Strong believer in Capitalism, the Republic (called Democracy), and getting things back to "the good ol' days" where every American had spirit and patriotism. Their ideas have changed to be more liberal that the way things used to be in that they better follow the wording of the Constitution: giving women and minorities EQUAL rights. Leans heavily toward christian beliefs and morals.

Those are what they roughly are supposed to be. Socialism would not be a bad thing, if implemented correctly. The problem is all the plans that get us there are AWFUL. The people don't seem to like this idea, I myself seem to have some sort of repulsion, even though my family would likely gain in the skewed and incorrectly designed Obama plan (actually, all socialist plans so far have been badly designed).

Corruption badly degrades both these sides. Pandering to what the media wants, as that is what sways the people in large number, tends to put both sides into the FAR FAR FAR left. This is damaged by personal agendas and will eventually lead to the collapse of the government or nation as a whole.

The worst part is the skew of the media, Fox News is by no means "fair and balanced", but they are not right wing. They, like the rest of the media, are left wing. Nearly every member of the media loves Obama, and choose to exclude any news that would hurt him or help his opponents. Joe the Plumber is just one example of how the media hurts us. We all should have already known Obama's plans are socialist from his own press releases (as I did) and have thought intelligently about it (as I said earlier socialism is not bad).

[bigbadbogie]

If I was American, I would vote for McCain because I happen to like the old school style. Social equality is, in my opinion, impossible.

[TheJamsh]

i dont know who id vote for tbh. i think the result is set.

im NOT[/u] racist by any means, but im surprised their hasnt been an uproar in the states about having a black president... although my american history is poor.

[Nielk1]

I think all these polls are wrong. Polls are public, so ppl vote Obama to make others view them in a good light. What happens when the curtain closes?

[† Trinity †]

Obama's tax plan is not socialism by any definition. Get over it. Raising taxes on one part of the population and providing tax rebates to others that qualify might effectively redistribute wealth but it isn't socialism. Seeing as the GOP dogma of trickle down economics has proved to be a failure it might make more sense to try something new.
McCain is a good man just not the right man for these times. Moreover, I don't think he has the temperment to be the leader of the free world... can we get a few more eye rolls and exasperated facial expressions from him  ?
Palin is definitely not the right person. Her presence on the ticket should be enough for most rational people not to vote Republican.

[Feared_1]

Palin is definitely not the right person. Her presence on the ticket should be enough for most rational people not to vote Republican.

What about the unacceptable amount of experience Obama has? Shouldn't that make most rational people think not to vote Democrat, because Obama is running to be the president, not vice president?

[bigbadbogie]

I heard that McCain was a POW in Vietnam for 5 years. He sacrificed 5 years of his life for his country and went through hell.

Even if he is a terrible president, you would only have 4 years of hell! 

Moreover, I don't think he has the temperment to be the leader of the free world...

The free world? I was under the impression that he was going to be the leader of the America.

[VSMIT]

I heard that McCain was a POW in Vietnam for 5 years. He sacrificed 5 years of his life for his country and went through hell.

Even if he is a terrible president, you would only have 4 years of hell! 

You know, a military record does not necessarily mean that he should win the presidency.  Four years ago we dismissed a veteran with three Purple Hearts in favor of the incumbent.  And records have shown that the incumbent usually wins a presidential election with a ratio of (currently) 22:13.  So it would actually be more like 8 years of hell.

The free world? I was under the impression that he was going to be the leader of the America.

We Americans are so arrogant, aren't we?  Damn.  Should have been "We 'citizens of the United States' are so arrogant..."

[Nielk1]

Yes we are arrogant, but we have also become used to "the free world' as a synonym for USA, even if it is not accurate.

Kerry... Don't get me started...

Bush is not that bad. A lot of his 'failures' are things he actually vetoed or the result of policies implemented by the Clinton administration. 90% of the time a good president gets a bad wrap for what the previous one did, and the previous a good for the one before him. Bush has an interesting way of speaking, which makes him look like an idiot. When he forgets something, as many of us do (we call it a 'brain fart' where I live), instead of pausing to remember, or running over it as others do, he makes a humorous situation out of it. You can actually see Bush has a standard pose that he takes in these moments (though he slightly modifies it each time). Hands out, palms forward, head leaning forward, slightly tilted to the side. He made this motion in the "left hand (shows right) doesn't know what the left hand (shows right) is doing" and he did the same but showing his hands the other way because he was leaning on his elbows to one side in the famous "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... I ain't gan'na get fooled again".

Prime example of what I spoke of earlier: Herbert Hoover. Hoover had many failures in trying to combat the Great Depression, ones that FDR learned from, but he also had a number of successes that did not become fruitful until FDR took office (though no act of FDR). Hoover is sometimes even blamed for the depression that happened shortly after he became president! poppycock...

Speaking of the economy, I saw something interesting yesterday (or it might have been the day before). I was watching teh news, the stocks were doing rather well, but then it came time for Obama to speak. Something he said hit some sort of bad cord because suddenly the stock market lost all its gains and went far into the negative. Issues with the economy, though also caused by the companies, are mainly the fault of the people to participate. They panic, sell, panic, sell, panic, sell, panic, sell in an endless cycle (the panic is caused by the media, then they sell, it drops, they panic again, etc etc). The economic difficulties are not Bush's fault.

Once and for all, for the general dissidence:
Bush did not cause 9/11, actions of Clinton helped facilitate it, bu no one could have seen it coming.
Bush did not botch Katrina. The FEDERAL government can not force an evacuation of a city. They told the local government that they should, and even that they must! The LOCAL government did not make it mandatory, and the people themselves, complacent, stayed where they where. Federal aid came immediately once the local government allowed it, and Bush did not visit New Orleans because it would have slowed the rescue work.
Finally, the terrorist ARE in Iraq. They didn't start there, but they went in there when we did, so STOP saying there are no terrorists. We won the Iraq war, its over. Now it is a police action against insurgents.

few... I strayed a bit from the topic but I covered much of what is used against Bush, as the name Bush is used incessantly in this election.