[Drlee]

Right, we should turn everyone's health care over to the same government that brought us the Veterans' Administration

.

Get real Doug. I am sorry you believe that you can't control your government. I think we can. But then, I have government health care and it is vastly superior to yours and much much cheaper.

[Doug64]

Well, if they bothered giving the VA proper funding and resources, yes. It is a fail in execution, not idea.

Why do you think the same thing wouldn't happen on a larger scale if we switched to universal government-run health care?

[Drlee]

Why do you think the same thing wouldn't happen on a larger scale if we switched to universal government-run health care?

Oh I don't know. Maybe because if they fucked it up we would kick the politicians who didn't fix it out on their asses?

Yet. That. That is why.

[Doug64]

Oh I don't know. Maybe because if they fucked it up we would kick the politicians who didn't fix it out on their asses?

Yet. That. That is why.

You mean like we have this time?

[Drlee]

You mean like we have this time?

No. Like when people really have a reason to vote.

[Doug64]

No. Like when people really have a reason to vote.

So the serious problems the VA administration has been having weren't a reason to vote? If they weren't last time, why should they be in the future?

[quetzalcoatl]

Right, we should turn everyone's health care over to the same government that brought us the Veterans' Administration.

Speaking as someone who benefited from the VA, I have to say their health care was damn good. There is a big problem due to shortage of doctors, which the GOP has intensified by constantly whittling away at its budget. Now I am benefiting from Medicare, which is literally leagues ahead of any private insurance i have ever used.

But this begs the point Doug is making. He, like all GOP radicals, believes that health insurance in not a right. Yes you can have insurance, if you can afford it. If you can't, then die, motherfucker. This is the Ryan plan it all its glory.

Trump promised that everyone would be covered and it would be beautiful. The GOP, in a truly awesome display of linguistic perversity, simply converted this to everyone would have "access." Access means that you can have insurance if you can afford it. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Pants-of-dog]

Why do you think the same thing wouldn't happen on a larger scale if we switched to universal government-run health care?

Because even developing countries can successfully run public health care systems. Is the US somehow less capable than Cuba when it comes to providing for its citizens?

[Doug64]

Because even developing countries can successfully run public health care systems. Is the US somehow less capable than Cuba when it comes to providing for its citizens?

You mean the system that only worked by paying doctors $30 to $50 per month, and even then only while Cuba was receiving generous subsidies from the USSR? The truths and tales of Cuban healthcare

[Zagadka]

I think that "generous subsidies from the USSR" on the other side of the planet is more than a little balanced by "embargoed by the US, their immediate neighbor"

[Doug64]

Here's this week's round-up of polls. Anyone that wants to check out any possible links over the next week can go to the link to the left. (Anyone wanting more details on a particular poll, just ask):

Finally, the political debate has turned away from gotcha fake news stories to real issues – Obamacare and the biggest proposed cuts in the federal government in decades, to be precise.

President Trump this past week proposed a federal budget that boosts spending on national security but cuts the size of the rest of the federal government dramatically. Lawmakers in both parties are upset, but voters won’t be surprised: They’re well aware of politicians’ unwillingness to reduce government spending.

Voters, on the other hand, think thoughtful spending cuts should be considered in every program of the federal government. But Republicans continue to be defensive about cuts in military funding, while Democrats remain loyal to entitlements.

Republicans are far more supportive of Trump’s budget plan than Democrats and voters not affiliated with either major party are.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republicans favor the proposed major cuts in the EPA. Just as many Democrats (69%) are opposed. But only 21% of all Americans believe federal subsidies to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) should be discontinued.

Voters agree, however, that any new spending approved by Congress should be offset by cuts in other areas of the federal budget.

With Congress debating its future, voters are a little more protective of Obamacare, but most still believe big changes in the health care law are likely in the next few months.

While voters tend to agree that “Obamacare is collapsing,” 52% worry the president and congressional Republicans will change it too much. Thirty-six percent (36%) are more concerned that they’ll change the health care law too little.

The Republicans’ proposed replacement for President Obama’s chief legislative achievement is barely a week old, but voters are dubious about its impact on the cost and quality of health care. Still, the new proposal already earns better marks than the law it’s intended to replace.

Voters feel more strongly than ever that reducing health care costs is more important than mandating health insurance coverage for everyone, Obamacare’s chief requirement.

With the cost to taxpayers steadily climbing, House Republicans have proposed replacing Obamacare’s subsidies to help lower-income Americans buy health insurance with tax credits. Voters are closely divided over whether that’s a good plan, with the usual wide partisan division of opinion.

The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and 42% of voters support the Trump administration’s plan to cut it by over half as a boost to the economy. Just as many (42%) are opposed.

The president’s effort to protect the country from potential terrorists has been halted again by a federal judge. At issue is his revised temporary travel ban on those coming from certain terrorist haven countries. Most voters favored the temporary ban when Trump first proposed it.

Voters are more confident that the president has a plan for the nation than they are in either of the major political parties. But voters have more faith than they’ve had in the past that Republicans know where they are going, too.

The president’s job approval rating rebounded slightly at week’s end.

After months of media and Democratic charges that Trump paid no taxes, a leaked copy of his 2005 tax return shows that he paid 25% of his income in taxes, compared to the 19% paid most recently by Obama. But even during the presidential campaign at the height of the false tax allegations against Trump, 85% of voters said a candidate’s policy positions are more important than the amount of taxes he or she has paid.

The president’s shocking claim that Obama had the "wires tapped" at Trump Tower during the heated presidential campaign has once again raised questions about the secret - and potentially illegal political - operations of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters believe America’s intelligence agencies have their own political agenda.

The newest wave of disclosures from the Julian Assange-fronted WikiLeaks shows the sophisticated level of spying the CIA is now capable of, and voters wish they didn’t know.

Forty-two percent (42%) of voters think the country is heading in the right direction.

In other surveys last week:

-- More and more schools around the country are eliminating long-standing systems that rank high school students on the level of their academic achievement including the designation of senior class valedictorians and salutatorians. But Americans aren’t eager to embrace the change.

-- Lawmakers in Hawaii are considering a bill that would require all pregnancy centers to refer patients to facilities that provide abortions, a move pro-lifers say violates their religious beliefs and free speech rights. While most voters are pro-choice, few favor a law like the one in Hawaii.

-- Pope Francis in a recent interview indicated that he is open to the idea of married men becoming priests in order to combat the Catholic Church’s shortage of clergy, and most American Catholics approve.

-- Just 19% of voters think “The Terminator” should run for the U.S. Senate.

[Doug64]

I think that "generous subsidies from the USSR" on the other side of the planet is more than a little balanced by "embargoed by the US, their immediate neighbor"

According to Cuba's Vice Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno in 2011, from Kennedy's imposition of the embargo in 1962 to 2010 a conservative estimate of the damage done by the embargo is $104 billion, which comes out to a bit over $2 billion a year. According to the New York Times in 1988 Cuba was getting $4 billion to $5 billion a year in subsidies from the USSR, according to Choices $6 billion.

[Pants-of-dog]

You mean the system that only worked by paying doctors $30 to $50 per month, and even then only while Cuba was receiving generous subsidies from the USSR? The truths and tales of Cuban healthcare

Why should I consider it a failure if the Cuban system can get doctors for such a low price? Also, your link does not support your claim about subsidies from the USSR. In fact, it points out that the Cubans took care of the kids from Chernobyl because the former USSR could not.

[Zagadka]

According to Cuba's Vice Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno in 2011, from Kennedy's imposition of the embargo in 1962 to 2010 a conservative estimate of the damage done by the embargo is $104 billion, which comes out to a bit over $2 billion a year. According to the New York Times in 1988 Cuba was getting $4 billion to $5 billion a year in subsidies from the USSR, according to Choices $6 billion.

Whelp, can't argue with numbers and I'm not terribly familiar enough with Cuba to argue. Thanks.

[Pants-of-dog]

Except the USSR ended twenty years ago, while Cuba's healthcare system is still better than the US's.

[Doug64]

Whelp, can't argue with numbers and I'm not terribly familiar enough with Cuba to argue. Thanks.

I can't say a whole lot of research was involved, just what I could find when you brought it up. Another point, according to the CIA World Factbook Cuba's estimated 2015 GDP (PPP) is $128.5 billion, which means that ~$2 billion presumably lost to the embargo is less than 2%.

Except the USSR ended twenty years ago, while Cuba's healthcare system is still better than the US's.

It sure is, if you're part of the Cuban elite or a medical tourist -- someone with money or power, which ordinary Cubans don't have. From 5 myths about Cuba, published last year:

1. Cuba’s free health-care system is great.

In a 2014 visit to Cuba, the director general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, declared Cuba’s health-care system a model for the world: “This is the way to go,” she said. And U.S. documentarian-provocateur Michael Moore, in his movie “Sicko,” favorably contrasted Cuba’s system with the expensive, complicated American arrangement.

Yes, there have been health-care advances in Cuba in the past half-century, especially when compared with some of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. According to UNICEF, life expectancy in Cuba is 79.1 years, the second-highest in Latin America. And the country is famous both for training foreign physicians and dispatching its homegrown ones to nations across the region.

But while Cuba made great gains in primary and preventive care after the revolution, advanced health care is flagging. In the famously closed country, reliable statistics and rigorous studies are impossible to come by, but anecdotally, it appears that the health system used by average Cubans is in crisis. According to a report by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, hospitals “are generally poorly maintained and short of staff and medicines.” The writer visited facilities in Havana such as the Calixto García, 10 de Octubre and Miguel Enrique hospitals and describes them in an advanced state of neglect and deterioration. In the 10 de Octubre, “the floors are stained and surgeries and wards are not disinfected. Doors do not have locks and their frames are coming off. Some bathrooms have no toilets or sinks, and the water supply is erratic. Bat droppings, cockroaches, mosquitos [sic] and mice are all in evidence.”

One reason Cuba still sends doctors abroad despite findings like that: Its foreign medical program is a huge moneymaker, bringing approximately $2.5 billion per year to the cash-strapped government. With more than 50,000 Cuban health professionals working in 68 countries other than Cuba, the doctor export program has created a shortage of medical practitioners in Cuba.

And then there's Politifact's rating of Senator Harkin's claim that Cuba has a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than the US as Half-True. Whether or not the Cuban government is actively promoting the use of abortion to keep its infant mortality rate low, the people themselves may be -- at almost twice the US abortion rate the Cuban rate is the second-highest in the world (only Russia is higher), with a national Total Fertility Rate of only 1.71.

[Pants-of-dog]

I can't say a whole lot of research was involved, just what I could find when you brought it up. Another point, according to the CIA World Factbook Cuba's estimated 2015 GDP (PPP) is $128.5 billion, which means that ~$2 billion presumably lost to the embargo is less than 2%.


It sure is, if you're part of the Cuban elite or a medical tourist -- someone with money or power, which ordinary Cubans don't have. From 5 myths about Cuba, published last year:

1. Cuba’s free health-care system is great.

In a 2014 visit to Cuba, the director general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, declared Cuba’s health-care system a model for the world: “This is the way to go,” she said. And U.S. documentarian-provocateur Michael Moore, in his movie “Sicko,” favorably contrasted Cuba’s system with the expensive, complicated American arrangement.

Yes, there have been health-care advances in Cuba in the past half-century, especially when compared with some of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. According to UNICEF, life expectancy in Cuba is 79.1 years, the second-highest in Latin America. And the country is famous both for training foreign physicians and dispatching its homegrown ones to nations across the region.

But while Cuba made great gains in primary and preventive care after the revolution, advanced health care is flagging. In the famously closed country, reliable statistics and rigorous studies are impossible to come by, but anecdotally, it appears that the health system used by average Cubans is in crisis. According to a report by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, hospitals “are generally poorly maintained and short of staff and medicines.” The writer visited facilities in Havana such as the Calixto García, 10 de Octubre and Miguel Enrique hospitals and describes them in an advanced state of neglect and deterioration. In the 10 de Octubre, “the floors are stained and surgeries and wards are not disinfected. Doors do not have locks and their frames are coming off. Some bathrooms have no toilets or sinks, and the water supply is erratic. Bat droppings, cockroaches, mosquitos [sic] and mice are all in evidence.”

One reason Cuba still sends doctors abroad despite findings like that: Its foreign medical program is a huge moneymaker, bringing approximately $2.5 billion per year to the cash-strapped government. With more than 50,000 Cuban health professionals working in 68 countries other than Cuba, the doctor export program has created a shortage of medical practitioners in Cuba.

And then there's Politifact's rating of Senator Harkin's claim that Cuba has a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than the US as Half-True. Whether or not the Cuban government is actively promoting the use of abortion to keep its infant mortality rate low, the people themselves may be -- at almost twice the US abortion rate the Cuban rate is the second-highest in the world (only Russia is higher), with a national Total Fertility Rate of only 1.71.

None of this contradicts the fact that Cuba can deliver a public health care system wth better results than the US. If a developing country with dirty hospitals can do it, why can't the US?

[quetzalcoatl]

that ~$2 billion presumably lost to the embargo is less than 2%.

According to Schumpeter IIRC, the difference between the US and Mexico is a cumulative 1% annual growth rate over a century. This is one reason why punitive economic measures so frequently lead to wars (without the Treaty of Versailes, Hitler would have never happened). Economic sanctions (whether against Russia, Cuba, or Israel) rarely have a positive effect, and often lead to severe negative outcomes. This is one weapon that should be removed from the arsenal of civilized nations - it's nearly always the population that suffers, not the governing elites.

[mikema63]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... rack_mar24

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove.

Even Rasmussen has him underwater by 12 points now.

[Doug64]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_mar24



Even Rasmussen has him underwater by 12 points now.

That's for a single day. Trump's latest weekly average:

Total Approval: 48.00
Total Disapproval: 52.00
Strong Approval: 32.40
Strong Disapproval: 42.60
Approval Index: -4.00
Strong Approval Index: -10.20

Still underwater, but not by 12 points.