Anybody up for dead-end discussion of issues with a political slant?
Like saaaaay, how about that health care bill? It seems to be considered a big deal. I don't know the details. Is it a big deal or is it just a point of pointless political parrying?
Comments
Also, it requires insurance companies to do a lot of things that I think are pretty cool. For instance, the new laws prevent insurance companies from denying service to sick clients or those with preexisting health issues. EVERYONE can get health insurance through this new law and at affordable prices.
However, from what I understand, the downside of all this is a question of where the money is coming from. I think I read that this change will cost us nearly a trillion dollars, which will probably be borrowed from other nations and further raise our debt.
So I'm a bit divided. I like what these laws are doing. They fit my overall belief that we SHOULD be trying to help out our fellow citizens in upholding a basic standard of life. But can we afford to at this point? Should we be increasing our debt to get there? Of course, I also wonder if we might pay for this by taking a portion of the defense budget. What IS the defense budget, and what percentage of the defense budget would have to be moved to cover this? Like 10%? Less? How important is it that the armed forces continue to get the same amount of money that HAS been coming to them? Are there other things we could remove to get to this point?
This summarizes what the reform will change and when those changes will take place. Want to get a more personal idea of what it means?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/what-health-bill-means-for-you/?nav=most_emailed
The Congressional Budget Office actually predicts that this will save the US $138 billion between now and 2019. This is assuming all the taxes that are to be put in place actually are.
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=524
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/24/fact.check.pentagon.irpt/index.html?hpt=C2
The defense budget for 2010 is $531 billion, with $708 billion being requested for 2011. To give you some idea of how grossly inflated that is, China's budget for 2008 was estimated by the Pentagon to be between $105 and $150 billion. If we look at our own spending in 2001, it was a (relatively) small $297 billion. People may argue that this spending creates jobs, that to cut spending would cut jobs, and that this spending is ultimately to our benefit. However, if we instead spent that money to promote the creation of jobs in the US, we wouldn't lose jobs, and we would produce something useful. People always seem to encourage the purchase of domestically manufactured goods, why not promote that manufacture?
Fourteen percent of the country thinks Obama might be the antichrist. I don't even think I can wrap my head around their ignorance.
Change is now possible, and more people have the potential to be given access to health care. I'm sure just about everyone here has a family member or a friend who has had to wrestle with insurance companies over payments and services allowed under health plans. In a country that can spend over $700 billion a year (that we know of) on its military, it's beyond inexcusable that we cannot take care of our own people.
On a personal note, I am looking forward to insurance companies no longer being able to drop customers or refuse coverage to those with "pre-existing conditions" (an illness or other medical issue before coming onto an insurance plan). The theory behind this was that if insurance companies did not reject people with pre-existing conditions, then customers would have no incentive to pay for insurance when they weren't sick; they could sign onto a plan a few weeks before requiring surgery, and then hop off when they were cured. Rinse and repeat. This makes sense. However, with the legal mandate that everybody be covered, this should hopefully circumvent this concern.
To look at my odd situation, when I was young I used to have some serious medical issues. However, I was lucky, I was cured, and now I'm fine and dandy. Nevertheless, I have still been paying for health insurance continuously during the two years I've been living in China. Why? Because of the pre-existing conditions clause. I've had insurance since before my health issues, so the insurance company has been forced to cover me ever since. However, if I ever have a lapse in coverage, then when I get re-covered the insurance firms can all claim my health issues as pre-existing conditions, and then subsequently refuse to cover me. So, I'm paying about $2000 bucks a year for US health insurance, despite the fact that I cannot use it in China and that I already have domestic Chinese insurance taken out of my paycheck here every month. And I don't even bother with insurance here for normal stuff anyways, since the last time I went to the best hospital in town and visited an English fluent doctor in their special rich foreigner wing and got western style medication prescribed to me, it cost me a grand total of $40 bucks, uninsured. But because I intend to settle down in the US and raise a family eventually, I have needed to continue paying for it, or else I seriously risk never being able to reobtain coverage when I go back.
Ideally, this law should mean that I can stop paying for it until I move back to the US, then reobtain coverage since I can't be rejected based on pre-existing conditions. Then again, I wonder if I'm still required to pay for insurance by US law despite the fact that I'm not in the US for more than one or two weeks in a year. Hmm...
GOP Amendment: No Viagra for Sex Offenders
David Frum, a conservative blogger and one of Bush's speechwriters, made this post about a week ago.
He was fired the day after. Here's two articles about it. (Props to Ryan for finding all of this)
What do you all think? Is he just a RINO who secretly seeks to tear down the Republican party to allow socialism into our government? Or is he a guy who was cut out of the Republican party for thinking too much?
I'm inclined to agree with him, it seems like the Republican party is being led less by politicians and more by pundits pushing it to irrational extremes. I feel this could potentially continue to the point where enough voters are alienated by their policies that the party will not be able to function as anything more than a minor party. If that were to happen, hopefully a new, less radical party will take its place, because a single-party state can't be good, no matter what party is in charge.
Edit: I suppose another possibility is that the Tea Party could break off into their own party, isolating their bigoted, zealous, conspiracy theorist ideas from what I hope to be a more reasonable majority.
How the GOP Purged Me
The entire entry is pretty long, but here's a selection:
The new big news item is the treaty that Obama wants to get passed with Russia to reduce the amount of nukes we both have. However, to get it passed, it's going to have to go through the Senate, and at least one Republican is going to have to vote for this treaty for it to go through.
Now, I'm not totally knowledgeable about the power dynamics that come with nuclear weapons, but this seems pretty good to me... the two big cold war contenders are getting together and agreeing to reduce their nuclear stockpile.
But, we know how the Republican party has been for the past year or so. So, what do you people think? Will the Republican party shut this one down just because they can? Are they justified in doing so?
I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that the Republicans will oppose it, because they're riding the anti-Obama wave. However, it is important to remind them of the above quote. This flowerpower hippie quote came from Ronald Reagan in 1984.
"Speak softly and carry a big stick"
Reduction is good. The only issue I'd have is that if we got rid of them entirely, there's no threat of retaliation to other countries that might have an unreasonable hate for the US and be crazy enough to use nuclear arms if they got them.
The day may come when we don't need them, and one can only hope they remain all threat and no action until then, but this isn't going to be that day anyway. This is apparently just a reduction.
I'd hate to see the Republican party make up some excuse to oppose this. The "conservative" news sounds suspiciously extreme these days. The way they talk you'd think Obama personally went to each of their houses and kicked their dogs.
But really, I believe that downsizing is a good idea, completely removing it is a bad idea. I think the only function of our nuclear arsenal right now is to scare off anyone who thinks they could get away with launching an attack as us without them (and the rest of the planet) dying too. I'm pretty sure that no one intends to actually use nukes offensively, so I see no problem with getting rid of some so long as its primary function is served.
From my side of the world, this is an area of interest. Japan and South Korea are very interested in keeping America's nuclear umbrella strong. While North Korea only has a couple of nukes at best, China is estimated to have a couple hundred or so, in addition to a very modernized military. And I believe areas of Europe are under the umbrella too from threats from Russia and possibly Iran in the next few years.
The entire point of nukes is to create "mutually assured destruction". Before them, generals and leaders could go to war with other countries under the assumption that they could win without an unacceptable amount of lives lost. Now there is no point in going to war with a nuclear armed country, because they can completely destroy an attacking country within hours.
HOWEVER. The more nukes you have, the higher the chances of one getting into the hands of a stateless group of warmongers (Al Qaeda for example). Because they do not technically belong to any one nation, they do not have to worry about "mutually assured destruction". This is what makes them so dangerous, and that's one of the biggest motivations behind reduction.
As I understand it our current cap on nuclear warheads is 2,200. That cap was set in 1991. The new pact would reduce the cap to 1,550 nuclear warheads. I think that is far more than enough to fuck anyone who tried to start a nuclear war with any of our allies.
And I don't think that anyone is thinking about completely getting rid of our nuclear stock pile anytime soon (if there is they should be slapped). So long as human kind retains the knowledge of how to create a nuclear bomb, then the US will have the need of a nuclear stock pile. And you can bet that so long as it is in the US's power, we will make sure that we have the biggest, or at least tied for it.
Why it's so hard to cut the federal budget