Apparently this was added in at the last minute by an unknown. I heard bits and pieces about this today in between working, but never really got the whole story. Did anyone get the whole story?
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
Rural Development Programs, rural housing services, utilities including distance learning, telemedicine,and broadband program
Bonneville Power Administration
Appropriations Transfer Authority: Department of Energy for `Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy', `Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability', and `Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program'
Financial Services: GSA, federal building fund,energy efficient government motor vehicle fleet procurement
Then we come to small businesses. Economic Stimulus LENDING for small businesses.
Shall I keep going or does everybody get the jist of this so-called stimulus package?
I know some of you don't like Glen Beck, but he has broken it down by the numbers and provides links so you can check the facts yourself. It sounds okay until you get to the heading: "When is the money going to be spent, and on what?"
By Andrea Tantaros
Republican Political Commentator/FOXNews.com Contributor
President-elect Barack Obama is prepping to jam another massive stimulus plan down our throats. Lately the president-elect has been hitting the media circuit to sell this monstrosity and each time he launches into his pitch he proves that what he lacks in actual specifics he makes up for in vocabulary. But is this bloated bill just a ruse for another big, federally funded bailout for struggling states?
Obama
According to Obama, his road and sewer stimulus package would pump billions into things like “infrastructure” and “green jobs.” Wait a minute, nobody is saying that the failure to spend over $700 billion on roads and sewers created this mess, and no one saying that new sewers will get us out of it. Obama has insisted that we must invest in what works. How do we know green jobs will work and provide a return? We don’t. And it’s quite a pricey experiment to find out.
What’s most troubling is the notion that more taxpayer money is heading right for states that are in the red. Just a few weeks ago, governors and mayors made their way to Washington, DC to hound Obama for a handout. Now mayors across America have submitted over 11,000 proposals for some bailout cash including one to fund a mob museum in Vegas. Talk about a real gamble in Sin City. Is Tony “The Ant” Spilotro really our best bet?
Take New York for example, a state that’s in financial ruin. The Empire State is facing a $15 billion budget deficit. Why would we encourage a state that spent itself into disaster to spend more? There are workers already repairing sewers and roads around the Big Apple and America. Will Obama give money that will be spent on existing jobs or hire thousands of new sewer workers?
According to Obama, “only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy…where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.” What our future president doesn’t understand is that the vicious cycles were caused by the government through the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the refusal to regulate, in part because there was a belief that a regulation would prevent the prosperity associated with owning a home. How do we expect government to be part of the solution? According to CNBC we have allocated 7 trillion to fix our economic crisis and there is $300 billion currently left in TARP. Is that not enough?
Obama is refusing to ask the same question that homeowners didn’t answer when the mortgage mess was going on: Can we afford to borrow this money? At some point we are mortgaging our national security by letting developing countries buy our debt. The more we spend the less we have to spend on our national defense. What if China develops a distaste for buying our debt? Maybe refusing to borrow more money might be the best thing for us. Sort of like the way parents cut off a frivolous child’s allowance.
On the campaign trail Obama campaigned for balanced budgets. This might be his first broken promise. While we wait to hear answers about what this massive deficit spending will do to our currency, to inflation and to our national security even Obama admits that his recovery plan alone will not solve all the problems that led us into this crisis. (So why are we doing it??) I’ll tell you what, for a trillion dollars, it better.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/01/13/tantaros_stimulus/
You are completely skipping the part about the stimulus package
It is on his own blog! How is that fair in the least little bit? So because my husband is a white construction worker who has worked hard ALL his life, payed his way through college without taking out loans or borrowing money (it took him six years to graduate because he was working and taking classes) took out a mortgage that he could handle, yet now due to the housing crisis and economic crisis is getting the short end of the stick, just because he is white he shouldn't be included in this package?
And someone attacked me earlier for being racist and saying that maybe he just wasn't the "best candidate" for a position. I think I can 100% say it didn't matter if he was the "best candidate," it mattered that he wasn't a minority.
This is so out of line. There is no such thing as EQUALITY. Never will be.
The real story is that this is supposed to be a stimulus package.
I can see from your post how this would help save states money over time, but how would it help stimulate the economy now? It wouldn't and that's why people are so upset.
The real story is that this is supposed to be a stimulus package.
I can see from your post how this would help save states money over time, but how would it help stimulate the economy now? It wouldn't and that's why people are so upset. Even Obama has said that if it doesn't create a job or save a job, it doesn't belong in there.
Obama hopes the stimulus package is large How is paying for somebody's birth control gonna produce jobs or a 20 MILLION dollar minor league baseball museum, 20 million dollars at a zoo, OR 1.5 million to reduce prostitution in Ohio? This is nothing but a pork barrel project.........isn't that what Obama said he WOULD DO AWAY WITH? All pork barrel spending? What a joke!
Kinda makes me rethink the whole stimulus package........
Evidently Pickens Plan was incorporated in there..........as much as it was allowed!
With the stimulus package there are built in tax credits for small businesses and SBA...sm
I have worked in retail as an assistant buyer and see their profit margins...and I know there are many legit, honest, mom and pop stores, but they usually make up for it by hiring school kids for slave wages and also family members. I am talking about across the board, in factories, retail, hospitalitiy, techno, every sector, these workers would all be paying more EACH WEEK into the the tax stucture in this country, strengtheing our reserves, becomeing consumers themselves because they can finally afford something....I feel like I dropped from another planet here, or industry in MT is not the norm by far.
I think one provision in there...(sm)
says that for infrastructure money steel cannot be imported, which would support USA manufactured steel.
Most of what is in the package O wants
are for PERMANENT jobs; i.e., those jobs will never go away, but they are for jobs that will not help the average person. We will be paying forever for those jobs.
As I said before, stimulus means jobs, tax cuts, housing fixes, etc. What most of the package contains is stuff that should be in a regular budget. Cut it from 600-something pages down to 4 or 5, or at least 10 at the most, and you have something.
I posted McCain's amendment above.
For the original package...(sm)
but unsure if it will help as it stands. The popularity of the against vote for the bill has been fascilitated by some keen advertising on the pub side. I'm hoping Obama will call the pubs out on tonight's address and point out exactly what it is that pubs want in the bill (more tax breaks for the wealthy that we can't afford), and in particular, which pubs want it. If he does that keep your eye on the polls. People will be outraged.
It's done. He just signed the package.
Got a kick out the guy who owns a small business out there. So young and employs 55 people in 3 years. He mispronounced Biden's name and everybody laughed. I don't think he realized what he did. He was nervous.
I never met a soldier who didn't want a package.
Bringing them home does not enter into this. Yet AGAIN you cannot stop your political agenda long enough to think of just the troops. I know now it is impossible. We all want them home. ALL OF US. It's just that some us would like to make their lives as easy as possible while they are away, and SOME OF US WANT TO SAY THANK YOU.
The O also voted for the bailout package. (nm)
x
I've read too much about this package
and it will not help the people that need help. It doesn't provide help to the regular "joe's" out there that need help. It is all about the greed again. Most of it will only help regular "joe's" by the year 2011, not now. By that time, we will either be down the tubes or everything will have corrected itself on its own.
I don't think government should meddle in ways to try to turn the economy around. It only mkes it worse. Look at all the handouts in the first stimulus package. Did the regular "joe's" get any help out of it? Nope. It will be the same with this one. Did you see Glen Beck's breakdown on the package posted below? If not, I suggest you look at it or else I can post it here.
It goes to show that the democrats don't give a darn about us, just their agenda even though 11 democrats voted against it. That has to say something. Evidently, the democrats (and I don't mean this harshly) didn't get enough calls from their constiuents to knock this package into oblivion. They were in a hurry to pass it? Why? Not because it would help us, but because they wanted it passed before anyone really got a chance to see what it entailed.
Sorry, but I disagree with you whole heartedly. This will not help. It will only hurt. This will take our dollars down to zero and the next thing you know, we will be taking wheelbarrows of money to the store to buy a loaf of bread if you can even find it in the stores.
In fact, 2 years ago, they turned a whole mountain into windmills. Who has those jobs? The company that put them there. Their guys come from another state to maintain and repair them. No locals are employed by that company. Doesn't make sense but that's the way they do it.
False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention.
CAF Senior Fellow Bernie Horn puts it this way: "The American economy is huge and it’s at a standstill. It’s like a motionless 100-car freight train—or one going backwards slowly. A small locomotive simply can’t pull it forward. We need an engine large enough to work, one that can create millions of jobs. If anything, a $775 billion 2-year plan may be too small rather than too big."
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research echoed this same thing on Rachel Maddow's show last Tuesday night. It's got to be big. And it's got to be now. Anything too small—or too late—and the American economy will be at serious risk of stagnating the same way Japan's did in the 1990s.
2. If we can't afford (insert pet project here), we certainly can't afford this.
Yes, we can. What we really can't afford is a huge recession that undercuts the tax base. That's a vicious cycle that will make it increasingly harder to dig out the longer this goes on. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the current slowdown will cost the federal government $166 billion in lost tax revenues in 2009—a number that could easily get even larger in coming years if we fall into a real depression. If we get on that trendline, we could lose a trillion dollars in government revenues by the end of Obama's first term. We need to invest what we have while we still have it if we hope to have a strong economy going forward.
This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest—a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. So does ensuring that our current failing energy regime is replaced as rapidly as possible with one that's infinitely renewable and that we will finally be in full control of. And so do other kinds of infrastructure investments, which form the footing on which a new round of businesses can rise and thrive.
Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth—which is how they've rationalized their plundering of our common assets. We need to make it absolutely clear that we do believe in the common wealth—and that their assaults on everything that allows America to generate national wealth are going stop, right here and right now.
3. It's more important to balance the budget. Fix that, and the rest will take care of itself.
Read history much? Herbert Hoover is history's poster boy for the idea that balancing the budget during a recession is the best way known to turn it into a full-on depression. And that wasn't a one-off: FDR repeated the lesson in 1937, when he succumbed to the pleas of budget-hawk conservatives and tried to balance the budget—a move that put the brakes on what had, until then, been a solid recovery.
Looking forward, this year's numbers also show the case clearly. Economists are already estimating that spending by individuals and businesses will be off by $300 to $500 billion in 2009. The upshot of this will be millions of lost jobs, which in turn will mean even lower spending and more job losses next year as the country accelerates toward depression.
The only way to halt this slide is for the government to step in and fill the hole with an additional $300 billion-$500 billion of its own spending—and to spend that money on investments that will create as many jobs as possible. The longer we wait, the more government spending it will ultimately take to pull us out of this—and the less able we'll be to muster that much cash.
Balanced budgets are important, but not as important right now as making sure every American has a paycheck they can count on. We can't afford to sacrifice the fate of the entire country to this one economic ideal.
4. The worst thing we can possibly do is raise taxes. Or borrow the money, God forbid.
More misplaced priorities.
As for taxes: Obama's already told us, without apologies to anyone, that he plans to raise taxes on people making over $250,000 a year—the people who've profited most from our current high levels of inequality. Practically, it makes sense to raise taxes on the affluent, since they're increasingly the only ones left who actually have any money. And morally, it's only fair that those who've gained the most from conservative mismanagement of the economy (regardless of their own political leanings) should be the first to pay the bills for it.
As for borrowing: Don't look now, but the whole planet is reeling from financial problems as least as big as ours. Even in the midst of this colossal fiscal mess we're in, if you're an individual, business, or government with excess capital to store somewhere, the USA is still the safest place on earth to park it.
They're so eager for our American brand of low-risk investment that they're even willing to lend their cash to us at interest rates that are very close to zero (and may actually turn out to be less than zero, once you add in inflation). If someone offered you the chance to borrow massive amounts of money without paying interest, you'd do it, right? Well, that money's already sitting on the table, just waiting for us to put it to work jump-starting our economy again. We'd be fools not to take it.
5. When you want to stimulate the economy, tax cuts always beat government spending hands-down.
Another conservative fantasy that disintegrates on contact with reality.
The chart that shows the effectiveness of various forms of government stimulus, based on recent attempts, is here. (Conservatives will be infuriated to learn that food stamps come out on top, generating $1.73 for every dollar spent. Infrastructure investments come in a respectable third. The bottom half of the chart is wall-to-wall tax cut schemes.)
The problem with tax cuts is that people don't spend them in ways that get the economy moving. The Wall Street Journal reports that only 10 to 20 percent of the money remanded to taxpayers in the 2008 tax rebate actually got spent. The other 80 to 90 percent ended up in people's personal savings, were used to pay off creditors, or were simply absorbed by inflation and higher living costs.
Knowing this, we're a bit dismayed Obama is proposing to sink as much as 40 percent of his stimulus package into tax cuts. That's too much, if you ask us. But at least they're targeted at the middle class—people who are more likely to spend that money here in the U.S., rather than ship it off to investments abroad.
6. Large-scale government investment would inevitably turn into an orgy of waste, fraud and abuse.
True—but only if we let conservatives run the show.
The fact is that all human endeavors—from running a household to running a nation—entail a fair amount of waste, fraud and abuse. Bad decisions get made. Greed gets the better of people. Not everybody is as honest as we'd wish them to be.
But in spite of that truth, nobody in history can top the Americans when it comes to planning and executing successful large-scale investment projects. (A thousand years from now, that's what they'll be saying about us: Not always smart about foreign policy, but man, could those people think big—and they usually pulled it off, too.) In our happier past, good management, careful oversight, and clear accountability have always gone a long way toward preventing really big problems, and ensured that we got the most for our collective buck.
Unfortunately, if we've learned anything about conservatives at this late date, it's that they'll defang or dismantle these mechanisms every chance they get. They think rules are for lesser mortals, oversight is a form of Big Brother-style oppression, and accountability is for people who can't afford lobbyists and lawyers. I don't think anyone would even try argue any more that when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse, conservatives are the hands-down experts.
What's ironic is that they're now offering edifying moral guidance to the rest of us on the subject. All you can do is point and giggle at the stupefying hypocrisy of it all.
7. We need stimulus now—and tax cuts are the only way to get the money out there fast enough.
Not really, no. Much of the infrastructure spending in the recovery package will be targeted at projects that are “shovel ready”—the ones that are planned, approved, and sitting on the shelf ready to go as soon as there's money to fund them. Some of these could start generating jobs as early as April or May.
Some of this money will also be aimed at covering state budget deficits. That money will also be spent immediately on things like health care, child-care programs and other underfunded state services that employ large numbers of people.
That's a lot of direct funding that will put people to work quickly—quite likely, faster than giving people tax cuts and letting them trickle out through the economy.
8. It’s wrong to bail out spend-thrift states. Let them stimulate their own damned economies.
Please. Haven't we all had a lifetime bellyfull of tax revolutionaries and drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub crazies? I swear...can't live with 'em, can't just shoot 'em....
States aren't in trouble because they overspent their allowances. Almost every state constitution in the country requires that the government balance its budget every single year. You want fiscal sanity? Anybody who's put in their time in state government knows all about it. They've made the hard choices, and faced the consequences, too.
The problem is that the recession has undercut state tax revenues to the point where these governments can no longer afford to cover their obligations—some of which (like bonds) were taken on years ago, when times were better. Commitments that were fiscally prudent by any measure back then are wiping them out now. Budgets that were balanced and sound when they were first outlined a couple years ago are impossible monsters today.
And, unlike the federal government, the states can't deficit spend their way out of it. That's why they need federal help.
9. This whole Keynesian thing has been totally disproved. It didn’t work during the Depression. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1980s.
Say what? We know that rewriting history is a favorite conservative pastime. America is Christian country. Slavery was good for black people. Bush was never a real conservative. Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaida. And on it goes.
The campaign to discredit Keynes (which is directly traceable to the Heritage Foundation) is a new and rather audacious fiction—one that leaves both progressive and conservative economists as gobsmacked and sputtering as scientists get when you bring up "intelligent design." And the factual basis for it is, if anything, even more specious.
Paul Krugman addresses both the Depression and the example of Japan in his new book, "The Return of Depression Economics." According to his telling of the tale, in both cases the affected economies strengthened as long as the government continued to infuse capital into them; but bobbled when there was enough improvement that the budget hawks could get some political traction. When the spending flagged, so did the recovery. In Japan, bold steps alternating with repeated failures of nerve created a liquidity trap that stagnated the country's economy through most of the 1990s.
Keynes' prescription has worked everywhere it's been tried—as long as governments acted boldly and quickly enough. It's not medicine that works if you take it in half-doses, or quit before the course of treatment is finished. In fact, doing it with less than full commitment can actually make the situation worse.
10. This is a partisan program that's designed to promote the Democratic agenda.
No. Almost every businessperson in America—including the conservative ones—are stepping forward in support of the stimulus package. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on board with it. So (unsurprisingly) are most of the building trades and engineering groups who stand to prosper with a new round of infrastructure spending. The current economy is hurting everyone, regardless of political affiliation—and most Americans agree that it's time for the government to step in and get things going again.
TAKE ACTION
Write your member of Congress to ask for passage of a bold economic recovery plan now.
And Yes. I've written before about the way this kind of investment in the health and well-being of the middle class can, in the end, transform long-held conservative beliefs about how the economy should work. A stimulus package that works will prove that government can do important things that no other entity can do; that it can act effectively in the public interest; and that there's actually such a thing as a national common good that deserves to be protected. In short, it will reaffirm progressive values in a way that's irrefutable, and will earn the enduring respect of the country.
Most of the money will not go to the people. So far, I have not come across anything that deals with foreclosures, etc. The item I posted last night from our local newspaper is the so-called stimulus package that will help foreclosures.
Read the doggone bill that they are trying to pass, please. Then you may see the light of day.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline costs, Exxon Mobil's $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a shameful display of greed that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record) said on Tuesday.
Dorgan said he wants Exxon Mobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation justifies giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.
There can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation which has produced record oil prices is out of control, and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers, Dorgan said.
Dorgan's criticism of Raymond's financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Higher crude oil prices are helping to push of up gasoline costs. The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he was concerned about the impact high gasoline prices were having on families and businesses.
Exxon earned the wrath of many lawmakers when it reported more than $36 billion in profits last year as energy prices paid by consumers soared.
Dorgan said he will push to win passage of his legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and rebate that money to consumers, unless the companies used their earnings to explore for and produce more energy.
I think a sensible public policy would insist that the big oil companies either invest those windfall profits in things that will increase our own domestic energy supplies, or we should return some of that money to consumers, Dorgan said.
Using them to drop $400 million dollars in the pocket of a big oil executive is simply unacceptable, he added.
Exxon Mobil has defended Raymond's retirement package, saying it was pegged to the rise in the company's profit and market capitalization that occurred during his tenure.
He would also have (and likely already has) best healthcare in USA.
I don't consider this a concern. Major factor in cancer is awareness and monitoring, and I'm quite sure he's getting the best monitoring and follow-up care available.
healthcare
Healthcare is already rationed in the US: If you can't afford insurance, you can't get it. If you're sick, you can't get insurance. If your employer enticed you with promises of insurance, but then didn't pay you enough to cover premiums, you can't get it. If you can't afford a procedure, then your long wait just became a lot longer.
Incidentally, what Obama is offering is *not* anything like what those countries you mention have. He's not nationalizing the healthcare system (like the UK) *or* nationalizing the insurance system (like Canada). Read his plan; it's a mixture of public and private plans, with more strict requirements on the insurance companies to cover everyone affordably, rather than gaming the system and cutting out sick people.
Personally, I'd love a nationalized system. Insurance companies are unnecessary middlemen driving up costs. That said, they're not the entire problem with healthcare costs--you can look to pharmaceutical companies for a big part of *that* problem. What happens to healthcare...(sm)
Yes, more people probably will go to the doctor. That means there will be a lot of health maintenance involved, and as we both know only too well, health maintenance is a key issue in preventing major medical issues, hence less surgeries, etc. Check out France's healthcare system. I think main issue we will have is going to be dealing with the drug companies to get costs under control. At this point a lot of people don't go to the doc because they can't afford it, like you said; however, even more don't go because they can't afford the drugs.
What happens to healthcare...(sm)
Yes, more people probably will go to the doctor. That means there will be a lot of health maintenance involved, and as we both know only too well, health maintenance is a key issue in preventing major medical issues, hence less surgeries, etc. Check out France's healthcare system. I think main issue we will have is going to be dealing with the drug companies to get costs under control. At this point a lot of people don't go to the doc because they can't afford it, like you said; however, even more don't go because they can't afford the drugs.
BTW, regardless of Fox's ratings, they are undeniably a right-wing station. That is a fact that is widely known and recognized. Just because you agree with what they say doesn't mean they don't lean to the right. And yes, the same holds true for MSNBC (to the left), but at least they admit it. You also might want to look into exactly how ratings for cable news come about. You might be surprised and what you could learn.
I'm not sure this is a good idea either. Ireland has gov't run medical and those women were waiting years, yes years to get their Pap smears read. They had to be shipped to the US because of a lab closure. Can you imagine wondering if you have cervical cancer for years? No thanks.
universal healthcare
Where are you getting that information about Obama and universal healthcare? The last time I heard him speak about it he wanted universal healthcare for people who couldn't get healthcare but leave the option open to people who could get their own healthcare (as they are doing now) to do so. He also spoke about companies being held more responsible to providing affordable healthcare for employees. I don't remember him ever saying to knock out the entire healthcare system and make everyone have universal healthcare.
As for McCain... I guess you like the economy and the war. He's not going to change anything if he's elected.
European healthcare
Its not all cracked up as it sounds. I use healthcare right now in Sweden and its horrendously bad. I had to fly home to the US to get my breasts examined for lumps that were found because they have the "if it isn't broken, bleeding or obviously damaged, then go home and take an aspirin" mentality. They found the lumps and we were still waiting for a mammogram over a month later because they don't want to do testing and because they have a don't care attitude when it comes to everything here. Don't rush them. its amazing. Its at least 6 months waiting list (if your lucky) to see the dentist unless you are under a certain age as a youth. You can get private healthcare here but the cost of labor is such that its hugely expensive. I don't know about other places because I have only lived here and in the US. We have great healthcare in the US and we have never chosen jobs where we weren't going to have some kind of coverage, but I would never give up my doctors and my insurance in the US for this garbage social junk.
McCain's healthcare tax.
I posted this further down but there are apparently a lot of people who are still confused about how McCain's tax on health insurance works.
So, here you go:
Say you pay 14% income tax based on your income.
And you receive $10,000 worth of health insurance from your employer.
The $10,000 is taxed separately at the 14% (your tax bracket). That comes out to $1,400.
McCain gives you a $5,000 tax credit.
$5,000 less the $1,400 -
YOU'RE AHEAD $3,600.
:)
Alternatively, you can take the $5,000 tax credit and purchase your own insurance (like I do). I pay $250 a month.
Nearly half the respondents in a survey of U.S. primary care physicians said that they would seriously consider getting out of the medical business within the next three years if they had an alternative.
If you Google "CBO stimulus package family planning waiver" you'll find new articles with references to those same figures found in the CBO report.
The stimulus was this big because it has to be BIG.
The reason it has to be BIG is because there are a lot of things that need MONEY!!! It needs to be big to get back on track, and if this doesn't work, your grandchildren will be eating dirt, everything is just that BAD!!! HE HAS TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY!!! That's the predicament we're in because of the last 8 years. Taxes cut for the rich with 2B going to Iraq every week, we're still paying Iraqis to not shoot us at $250 a week per family, 700B a year for oil, and nothing for us. So goes the Bush agenda which did very well for the rich, but not for you nor me, now we PAY! You can't fight wars, deregulate the banks, cut taxes, etc., and expect it not to bite you in the a@@, and that's where America is now, broke and beaten to a pulp. The gift Bin Laden never thought he'd receive.
I found something interesting about US healthcare.
Because I am infinitely quizzical about most things and the rising cost of healthcare was on my mind, I did a little browsing and came across this document:
Now keep in mind this is information compiled is from a think tank funded by some of the biggest corporations, including insurance corps for the betterment and furtherance of the regressive conservative ideal, so I was rather surprised to see these numbers so beautifully printed in black and white.
It shows exactly how much we are paying for healthcare in the United States and it is rather astounding. Far more of our GDP, about 15.5% (the highest in the world) goes to healthcare. Almost double that other industrialized nations that have socialized healthcare.
I think this is a pretty good argument against a free market healthcare system being the most efficient and the best, it is just the most expensive and at the rate it has been exploding, it is going to increase the number of uninsured.
Why is it so expensive? Because the insurance companies are pacing the market. Some things should just NOT be included in the free market enterprise, and healthcare is one of them. We get sicker and the insurance companies get fatter.
and in France and England (several times in France) and I have to say that national healthcare over there works wonderfully well.....costs are minimal (though taxes are high) and all rxs in England cost the same and I was treated fabulously (married French) at American Hospital in Paris and Gap Hospital in France in 1980.....I did England in 71-72 and again, got treated well and for less than $40. I believe national healthcare can work but the govt and medical professions here in the states don't want it - because they, the MDS, will make less. But know this, that I saw the life of a doctor in France and his family in Michael Moore's movie SiCKO and they are living like kings, well not kings, but living VERY VERY WELL.
So, based on my own experiences in Europe - and the experiences to date of my in-laws over in France - I have to say the healthcare over there is FAR better and FAR LESS EXPENSIVE than over here but again, their taxes are somewhat higher.
Hillary screwed it up once before, I don't want to give her a second chance regarding healthcare.
I would like to see more affordable healthcare for all Americans, but really if kids got free or very affordable healthcare I would be happy. We spend outrageous amounts of money on the space program, the war, gourmet food for Congress, etc. I don't agree with the hoards of money going to those things, but I would think we could ALL AGREE on money being redirected to provide healthcare to all American children, because that is obviously a good and just cause.
Great post piglet. I so agree with what you all had to say in support of changing our current system. Canada probably has the worst universal healthcare system, and yet the average Canadian lives 3 years longer than the average American. People always point to the flaws in their system and just assume that we will make all the same mistakes. Of course their system has flaws, just as our system has many fatal flaws. England and France actually have great universal healthcare systems. Here is an article I found about France's successful program:
"France's model healthcare system By Paul V. Dutton | August 11, 2007
MANY advocates of a universal healthcare system in the United States look to Canada for their model. While the Canadian healthcare system has much to recommend it, there's another model that has been too long neglected. That is the healthcare system in France.
Although the French system faces many challenges, the World Health Organization rated it the best in the world in 2001 because of its universal coverage, responsive healthcare providers, patient and provider freedoms, and the health and longevity of the country's population. The United States ranked 37.
The French system is also not inexpensive. At $3,500 per capita it is one of the most costly in Europe, yet that is still far less than the $6,100 per person in the United States.
An understanding of how France came to its healthcare system would be instructive in any renewed debate in the United States.
That's because the French share Americans' distaste for restrictions on patient choice and they insist on autonomous private practitioners rather than a British-style national health service, which the French dismiss as "socialized medicine." Virtually all physicians in France participate in the nation's public health insurance, Sécurité Sociale.
Their freedoms of diagnosis and therapy are protected in ways that would make their managed-care-controlled US counterparts envious. However, the average American physician earns more than five times the average US wage while the average French physician makes only about two times the average earnings of his or her compatriots. But the lower income of French physicians is allayed by two factors. Practice liability is greatly diminished by a tort-averse legal system, and medical schools, although extremely competitive to enter, are tuition-free. Thus, French physicians enter their careers with little if any debt and pay much lower malpractice insurance premiums.
Nor do France's doctors face the high nonmedical personnel payroll expenses that burden American physicians. Sécurité Sociale has created a standardized and speedy system for physician billing and patient reimbursement using electronic funds.
It's not uncommon to visit a French medical office and see no nonmedical personnel. What a concept. No back office army of billing specialists who do daily battle with insurers' arcane and constantly changing rules of payment.
Moreover, in contrast to Canada and Britain, there are no waiting lists for elective procedures and patients need not seek pre-authorizations. In other words, like in the United States, "rationing" is not a word that leaves the lips of hopeful politicians. How might the French case inform the US debate over healthcare reform?
National health insurance in France stands upon two grand historical bargains -- the first with doctors and a second with insurers.
Doctors only agreed to participate in compulsory health insurance if the law protected a patient's choice of practitioner and guaranteed physicians' control over medical decision-making. Given their current frustrations, America's doctors might finally be convinced to throw their support behind universal health insurance if it protected their professional judgment and created a sane system of billing and reimbursement.
French legislators also overcame insurance industry resistance by permitting the nation's already existing insurers to administer its new healthcare funds. Private health insurers are also central to the system as supplemental insurers who cover patient expenses that are not paid for by Sécurité Sociale. Indeed, nearly 90 percent of the French population possesses such coverage, making France home to a booming private health insurance market.
The French system strongly discourages the kind of experience rating that occurs in the United States, making it more difficult for insurers to deny coverage for preexisting conditions or to those who are not in good health. In fact, in France, the sicker you are, the more coverage, care, and treatment you get. Would American insurance companies cut a comparable deal?
Like all healthcare systems, the French confront ongoing problems. Today French reformers' number one priority is to move health insurance financing away from payroll and wage levies because they hamper employers' willingness to hire. Instead, France is turning toward broad taxes on earned and unearned income alike to pay for healthcare.
American advocates of mandates on employers to provide health insurance should take note. The link between employment and health security is a historical artifact whose disadvantages now far outweigh its advantages. Economists estimate that between 25 and 45 percent of the US labor force is now job-locked. That is, employees make career decisions based on their need to maintain affordable health coverage or avoid exclusion based on a preexisting condition.
Perhaps it's time for us to take a closer look at French ideas about healthcare reform. They could become an import far less "foreign" and "unfriendly" than many here might initially imagine."
I have visited and used both the British and French national healthcare system and I must say I was treated very_well in both countries.....and I think it is a great idea for THIS country now, having had first-hand experiences in Europe..
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