This is an important step forward. FORWARD!! I love that word

They would much rather see widespread misery, death, and economic destruction in this country in order to bring about their Utopia.

Democrats, they ain't, not even close.

They hate this country, while most Democrats love it and want it to do better.

That's what they'd like to see - and I think they romanticize it.

That's the mindset, they think that they will be one of those in the Vanguard of The New Proletariat telling the proles what to do, and not be one of the burning bodies heaped on the frozen ground.

Coffee-house Revolutionaries muttering in their beards.

I think I just served on a jury about the wrong comment, the one above this came up on my screen.

so really whos being immature?

probably both of ya.

It's quasi-anarchist/quasi-communist college sophomore political "philosophy" taken to an extreme.

And Treestar, you don't have to imagine that they want to see Russia 1917 here: I've actually seen them say that, in those words.

Do you think he is sophomoric? Seriously, you are the one being ridiculous.

Anyone that advocates for the collapse of this nation's political system so that a New Order can rise from the ashes is sophomoric in their thinking if they believe it would happen without massive misery, violence, and lots of dead people as a result.

is probably a victim of brainwashing.

I think Steven Hawking said that.

underscores it! seriesly

The poster was being snarky; it's apparent to anyone who reads not just the entire thread, but the entire board, and takes note of attitudes about certain issues.

Sid

The same folks who started this "Fat Leftists want another Bolshevik Revolution" meme AND the individual mandate meme, too.

Ikonoklast is merely observing where the view of those who are against ACA originates. Basically from a corrupt ideology that the imperfect isn't worthy, and that to lose it all is better than to progress a little, because eventually a perfect "Final Solution" will be the way.

Why do so few people know this?

Except the Heritage Foundation proposed a tax credit while the Democrats proposed a tax penalty. They're different creatures and I have no desire to go into circles with yet another person spouting the Heritage Foundation misinformation bullshit.

Mandates are necessary. Single Payer will require mandates, etc.

I'm so tired of people trying to educate me about mandates even though I've been arguing about mandates for 4 fucking years. God.

A tax credit vs a tax penalty doesn't make them all that different - in fact, a tax penalty is even WORSE.

As for Single Payer, those mandates are a WORLD of difference from the ACA mandate. Single Payer systems like Canada and Britain don't mandate that middle class workers must purchase a private company's insurance plan. Everyone is covered under a taxpayer-funded Government insurance plan.

So now you have been educated about your misconceptions about what Single Payer is. Please enjoy, and have a nice day!

Why would you even say that if you knew single payer mandates were worlds different from individual insurance purchase mandates? The two shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence except as an example of contradictions.

People keep shirking responsibility. There's no way in hell you get to single payer from a point of irresponsible behavior, particularly in our political system.

Insurance purchasing mandates, for example, have one outcome. The people will not stand for it and will petition their states (or the congress) for a public non-profit approach. This will happen.

you really don't understand what's going on here.

A welfare giveaway to corporations is not even in the same universe as paying into a taxpayer fund for a government-provided health insurance plan.

I'm at a loss here how you could manage to compare a dislike for being forced to purchase a private corporation health care plan to being forced to pay taxes to support a public-run health care plan. It boggles the mind.

It's OK to pay into society if it's a low margin public option but because corporations are taking a piece of the pie, it's not OK.

It's a very common argument, yet few bitch about putting money into 401k's or putting money into insurance for rent/car/homes. You basically can't live anywhere without homeowners insurance, for instance, cities mandate it. There's no low margin public insurer for homes or cars, though. You don't have to pay renters insurance, but then, if you lose your home in a fire, you're fucked. But that's OK, right?

It's really about not taking responsibility for ones actions. Most people have health insurance. Most health insurance is shit, but they pay for it for whatever reasons they have. It's the uninsured who are the issue, as with single payer, societies healthy must pay into the system for it to work. The people paying for car insurance who don't get into accidents, the people who pay homeowners insurance who make sure to keep the chimney clean.

The key is that people won't stand for corporations taking a piece of the pie. Believe me if another option was available under a super bi-partisan President, I'd be championing it. I live in reality, though, and our President didn't push it as hard as he could have. In the end the corporations will be out of the picture, so we have to suck it up until that time is made, either that, or get the votes necessary to get single payer or a public option.

Hell, back in the 2008 primaries people were bitching about mandates because they didn't want to pay into the insurance companies even though the candidates talking about a mandate wanted a public option. It's a very tired argument. If you're paying for health insurance now, nothing changes, if you aren't, suck it up and be responsible. Society depends on it.

If I don't own a home I don't pay homeowner's insurance. If I don't drive a car I don't need to buy auto insurance. I don't know of any law that mandates I must buy into a 401K plan.

If you don't understand the difference between paying taxes into a PUBLICLY run nationwide medical insurance plan versus being ordered by law to pay for a corporation's insurance product, man, I don't know how to help you.

I'd have to explain to you the overhead of Medicare (and thus Medicare for All) vs private insurance (3% versus 20-30%), I'd have to explain to you the Law of Large Numbers when it applies to insurance coverage and why it favors Medicare for All vs 100 private health care companies, and why it proves Medicare for All is actually CHEAPER. I'd have to explain that everyone paying taxes into and benefitting from Medicare for all ensures a level of voter accountability that is not available when dealing with private corporations.

And the fact that you are making the arguments you are making, inherently says that you need to learn about the subjects in the previous paragraph. It's a lot to choke down, I know, it was a hell of a learning experience for me, back when I once SUPPORTED the individual mandate before 2008 and someone else learned me of my misconceptions... the same ones you're bringing up now.

That is no reason to dismiss the mandate as you do so easily, that is only a reason to push for a public option via your state or via congress. Accusing someone of "not understanding" even when they agree with you and say the same thing is amusing to say the least.

If you don't have health insurance and are sick, you wind up having massive bills. Likewise if you are renting and don't have renters insurance and lose your belongings to a fire, you lose years of capital you've built in your property (furniture, belongings, etc). Both are effectively destructive to your life.

You don't have to have a 401k or have a car or buy a home, that is true. I am merely pointing out personal responsibility people take when they do have a car and pay car insurance, when they do have a home and pay homeowners insurance.

Corporations are eventually rendered irrelevant with a mandate. Without a mandate the entire system comes down on itself, 10-15 years down the road, and it's incapable of sustaining the poor and impoverished that the ACA is currently helping. Go pass an ACA as it exists without a mandate, it'd be unsustainable, and the poor and impoverished would suffer greatly as we wait for the entire health care system to collapse and for a new single payer system to take its place. The grand historical materialism in all its glory, people suffer in the intrim though, and I'm a progressive and despise such a concept. Whatever progress that can be made, I support it.

I just wanted to point out that many bankruptcies happen to people who are insured. If the ACA eliminates this, that is a big step forward. Again, I will state, 99.99% of the ACA should stand.

The ACA can survive without a mandate. It can survive with a tax on the rich. I'd like to see President Obama nix the mandate and replace it with a tax on the rich.

There's a reason why he opposed the individual mandate when he was a candidate in 2008. It's sad that no one remembers now that he opposed it, and why.

Basically it's an improvement because it helps the impoverished but the pre-existing conditions clause means that people don't pay, get sick, then get picked up by the rest of the people in the system. They're effectively leechers. If it wasn't for the fact that 38% of the uninsured make more than the median income for Americans (and I make much less than the median), then maybe I would show some more empathy for those who should start paying. But overall the way they set it up it allows people in 133% poverty to be covered (yes the copays are large, but better than nothing).

A tax on the rich is all well and good, but it was never proposed. And that's just moving the goalposts from "just remove the mandate" to "remove the mandate and add a tax." It's so difficult as it is to pass progressive legislation.

Obama's anti-mandate posturing either came from naivety (most liberal economists pointed out how much more costly it was and how it didn't cover everyone) to pure messaging. The Harry and Louise ads sold really well back then. If you Google my name, 2008, and mandates, you will see me arguing voraciously in favor of them. Krugman was even thrown under the bus for being for mandates. Obama's biggest supporter here, ProSense, and I got into epic, utterly epic 100 response threads over this issue. It really is something I defend because I find the whole idea of health care without everyone signing on to be a total farce. Regardless of implementation.

Mandates with a public option kills the insurance industry quickly, mandates without only does it more slowly as they cash out, but there's only one outcome. The system is unsustainable as it is.

Supposedly the tax penalty is not even enforceable. People here are even saying you can get sick and then go get coverage. This keeps getting repeated yet it is so frighteningly preposterous that I can envision myself being LAUGHED AT for repeating it, yet I see it posted here so often that... well...

Also, when you talk about who this law will affect the most, I see a lot of questions on here like this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=870040

A lot of people in that bracket are going to get bit right on the ass - making too much to qualify for Medicare/Medicaid, but in over their heads with bills, now they have more expenses to pay out. They're the ones that I feel for. I know a lot of people earning $20, $30, $60k a year who are up to their eyeballs in debt payments or whatever and who already can't make ends meet. Now they have to buy health insurance or pay an extra tax that itself is probably much more than they'd pay for Medicare for All.

But wait, rewind that. The law says you pay a tax penalty if you don't buy insurance. Wait, if that's the case, how does this fund medical care? It goes into the Federal version of the general fund.

So now, according to the Individual Mandate as it stands, you have people who will calculate that it's cheaper to pay the tax penalty than pay for insurance. That's still a TON of uninsured folks. How is that helping the ACA? Oh, and it gets more fun, too. Now there are bleeding asstards out there who are telling corporations that it's wiser to pay the tax penalty and not only decline to cover their worker, but worse than that

(WARNING: This might be time for you to break out your blood pressure medicine)

save money by dropping their existing employee health insurance coverage plans.

The individual mandate law as it stands, allows for this insanity.

I am not sure how this is going to help fund the ACA.


Finally, when it comes to the individual mandate, corporations, ON DAY TWO, are already revving up their engines to make this mandate bite us all square on the ass... just as some of us warned on DAY ONE:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=881764

Another awesome DUer made the argument but I can't find their post (I should've bookmarked it). Basically the idea is that if you think you're going to be "penalized" for something, you'll do the "right thing" and pay into it. If you think you're going to be "rewarded" for something then you'll do the opposite and it won't really be a big deal because you "lose out" either way.

For simple math, say I had to pay $1000 a year for insurance to avoid getting a $600 penalty. In theory, I would chose to simply pay the penalty because I save $400. But that's not how people behave, they tend to see a penalty as a choice that they wouldn't want to have.

Think about it this way. Driving without insurance is a misdemeanor, and in many states is a simple $100-200 fine. Bump it up to $400 for towing fees in case you lose your car (that doesn't generally happen in my experience though as I know people who have driven without insurance and they were allowed to drive away). That's still $200 less than if you were to get insurance if your insurance is $50 a month (my insurance is only $15 a month but I've never been in an accident, haven't had a ticket in ages, and drive an old car; but I'm just using that as an example, obviously there are other scenarios where this example doesn't work). People still buy insurance.

And note: in some cases a judge will simply waive everything if you provide proof that you have insurance at the time of judgment (again, personal experience with people I know)! In that case it's just like the argument that healthy people would get insurance when they get sick, right? Except in the case of car insurance there is the perception of a penalty, even if it's super low. If you don't leave that perception, people will game the system, but if they think that they lose something, they will chose the responsible route.

McDonald's and others said they'd just drop their employees, which is why they got a waiver.

When word gets out that the penalties are not as expensive as compliance............ ack.

RomneyCare was voted in by a lot of Democrats. I guess they're all idiots, too. The Democrats even overrode Romney's veto on very substantial parts of "RomneyCare" that actually legislated running the thing. Basically Romney wanted a tax with no oversight.

Included an individual mandate and predates the Heritage Foundation's idea by about 200 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_for_the_relief_of_sick_and_disabled_seamen

Quite a few other countries also had an individual mandate many years before the Heritage Foundation supposedly was the first to propose it.

This modern mandate obligates you just for breathing. You don't have to do anything to incur this obligation to purchase a private company's services except be alive.

I'm not sure where I'm wrong in pointing out that basic difference.

So it was an individual mandate. This contradicts the assertion that the Heritage Foundation came up with the idea. So does the fact that several countries had an individual mandate prior to the Heritage Foundation writing about it.

If you want to talk about the ACA as implemented, it's nothing like what the Heritage Foundation proposed, and this includes the details of the individual mandate.

However, even if the Heritage Foundation did come up with the idea (and they didn't), the very best you'd have is an ad hominem fallacy.

The Heritage Foundation idea mandates that you pay for health insurance if you are alive. You don't notice the difference between a mandate that pertains to sailors and one that pertains to being alive?

In fact, the individual mandate of the ACA only pertains to a small portion of the (alive) population. So I'm not sure how you're coming up with this.

insurance companies is that we think pUBLIC health care is better than PRIVATE healthcare. The insurance companies themselves (lobbyists) wrote most of the healthcare bill.

That said, I am glad the bill passed because of the lives it will save. It is not a good bill, but I'm very glad it passed.

It has nothing to do with perfect and imperfect. If the insurance companies are able to strip the clause about preexisting conditions, then we are back to 0, maybe worse. They are going to put millions into stripping exactly that clause. There are articles already showing that every single healthcare company is raising its premiums by exactly 9.9% this year. That is because the government is going to audit only those who raise premiums 10% or more.

And because we do not have a public option I think it is a disastrous policy and total bullshit and just stupid. If someone had told me in 2008 that Obama would pass HCR with a mandate I would've laughed and said, "Duh! Without a mandate it costs too much!" If they said Obama would pass HCR without a public option, I would've laughed my ass off and told them they didn't know what they were talking about.

But I suck up the whole idea of the mandate without a public option because, as you said, ACA as a whole is helping people, and I truly believe that the mandate is more necessary than a public option toward bringing us health care for all. The American people aren't going to stand for windfall profits for corporations for long. 5 years tops. Just wait and see. There will be a public option.

I agree with you 100%.
but this week, I am glad it passed. And I am glad for the few people it may help.

treestar

The revolution of 1917, could have been avoided - if enough people had been able, or willing to tell the supreme ruler Tsar Nicolai the 2 of Imperial Russia, that if he do not turn how he does thing, things could be bad, really bad really soon... And in the mid 1800s, some emperors indeed did good work, to reform parts of the system.. But the big reforms, who was underway anyway got a short end when Alexander 2 of Russia was murdered by anarchist, who blow up his carriage and shoot him when he was traveling from a dinner... Some say it was the more conservative groups in the monarchy who decided to blow him up - as he wanted to make the way for a more constitutional government, and replace the absolute rule of the monarc, to a more representative in the form of a Parlament... This was a danger to the powers to be of the age - and with the death of Alexander, it was also the death of the reforms - but one of the things he did manage to do, was to free the peasants from near slavery, who they had endured for centuries under the Romanov's - the peasants in imperial Russia, was more free by the 1200s, than they was in the mid 1800s.. But even if they was made free, the fact was, that they still was more or less slaves of the masters - as they often had debt to the owners of the land...

Anyway, the reforms of the late 1800s, early 1900s, specially after the revolt of 1905, where thousands was killed in cold blood, by the imperial guard, who believed the peasants, and workers of the industry in St-Petersburg was after the emperors blood (some might have been, but for the most part, they hold the emperor in great regards, it was his advisor's they wanted the blood off) and even after promises of more reforms, not much happened before world war two, where the horrible things on the front line, and the totally neglect of the soldiers and the inadequately from the generals side, was showing that the old Russia was in no shape of form, to be an modern nation.. Ten of thousands of russian soldiers was killed, not by the germans, but by illness, and by neglect from the officer, who could not care less for the peasants.. For them they was "cannon-fodder" and was wasted on futile attacks in front of the germans.. The "forgotten front" is it known as - maybe one of the most tragically war fronts of the whole world war one...
It all ended in 1917, after 1916 it was clear that either a miracle, or a wonder was the only thing who could stop the revolution from happening.. The guard, advisor's around the emperor - and the emperor itself was either clear about what was about to happened, and could not care whatever way - or was not able to do anything to hinderer it because of the in adequate of the government... It all ended rather messy in 1917, first the Revolution in February - and then the October revolution the same year - even though the October revolution is more known than the revolution of february, who really ended the Emperor as a monarch. And before 1921, the whole imperial family was shot - in a basement in Catarinaburg... Our King Haakon the 7th, was in fact first cusion of Nicolai 2, and had plans to let the imperial family emigrate to norway in 1916-1917, but Nicolai desided not to travel to Norway.. But how serious it was meant - it would meant that the parlament of Norway had to be in the green about it all and so one... But it could have been pulled off, as it wasen't that long away from St Petersburg to Oslo... And familiy is familiy...

Diclotican

I've seen these posts throughout the years.

I'm sure you can point them out, too.

they have occurred generally throughout the years. Many OPs over time have said things like "why aren't people rioting in the streets?" when something they didn't like happened. So it may not always be a bloody violent revolution, but some sort of disorder they want to see. I think many of the people excited by Occupy thought it was starting - there were posts to that effect that it's starting folks, etc. Others with the general idea that the Democrats can't do enough fast enough, so let's let the Republicans win so they will turn the country into a place so bad that people will rise up. Anyone who has been on DU has seen these ideas.

You don't realize that riots happen over less in Europe, and that is why they have better social safety nets than we do.

Their people are ready to get out and party when the Plutocracy fucks with them. Ask Sarkozy if you don't believe me.

Quickly, do you remember who once said "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable" ?

That likely could be debated. What happened to Sarkozy? Was that a violent revolution? I missed that.

Something like the ACA is peaceful revolution.

Are you advocating riot?

They rioted like crazy over Sarkozy. I can't believe you missed all of the news on that. The French rebelled in 2008 by kidnapping CEOs. You'd never see that here.

You missed the riots in Greece? The riots and strikes in England?

Really, you missed all of that?

But missed out on the big changes in England.

I missed the French Revolution of 2008. Kidnapping CEOs sounds like a crime, not good governance. You don't condone that do you? Or riots?

Which contradicts your position that you were unfairly accused of promoting violent revolution.

I thought in England it was about school tuition, something not be covered any more or something being raised.

And a peaceful protest is enough, not rioting.

BTW: do you know the difference between Molotov cocktails and kidnappings, and a revolution where a whole royal family and tens of millions of people are killed and a Stalinist regime is installed?

Thanks!

But condoning kidnappings is enough. That's evil.

I don't care what any CEO has done. They do not deserve to be kidnapped.

And cops should not be burned, especially not in the US. I've never heard bad of French cops, either.

I'm still wondering if your remember who said that.

BTW the kidnappers didn't kill anyone. I doubt the CEOs were even injured. And when you go out and beat the hell out of protesters you risk getting burned in return. Do you not understand the concept of response in kind?

The potential for violence is there and therefore makes it a serious crime even if "no one gets hurt."

And neither the US nor France prohibits peaceful protest.

And prove the cops are 100% at fault for the case where they got burned. And it is still assault on the cops until you can prove they made an unjustified attack (the same cops that got burned).

You're killing me, dude. Peaceful protesters get the hell beaten out of them all the time in America.

And if it happens, they can sue and the officers are disciplined.

You would not be afraid to protest in the US. I would not. It is nothing like doing so in say, Egypt or Libya a while ago.

Ever heard of North Korea? Try protesting there.

If you had, you would not be saying
"And if it happens, they can sue and the officers are disciplined."
or
"You would not be afraid to protest in the US."

And no, I don't want us to become like North Korea.

Lemme guess, there's no way you'll ever figure out who wrote "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable", right?

do have legal remedies if police acted towards them improperly?

Police brutality rarely ever gets punished. Like the cops who shot that guy in New York 40+ times just for pulling out a wallet.

You totally fail history.

even though I can't point them out either but they are out there......and I have been here since 2006, and there is always a fringe of the DU family that will argue about anything and everything....so I am just stating what I have personally seen....but I love all my DU brothers and sisters.....if I agree with them or not...

you expect these claims to be believed?

which Zalatix himself has proven below where he actually praises the kidnapping of CEOs!

You may have missed them.

they'll just claim they were trolls, reichwingers, etc.....

I just remember them, and don't remember the specific posters, concentrating on content rather than on poster name.

They could well be right wing trolls though. Right wingers will post as parodies of left wingers - their ideas of rabid left wingers. That is what some of the left wing extremism appears to be. But then they would claim not to be trolls and to be sincere!

Here is an attempt to find some with the DU Google

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1982958

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2027213

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1192659

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12523123

That stuff you're spouting sounds like rabid righti-wing red-bashing.

You're not a Democrat and "hate this country" if you're not cheering for half-baked health care reform? Take a deep breath.

Must have touches a nerve.

There are posters here hoping for this country to fall into chaos, they post about it all the time, and they don't care who dies in the process.

That "half-baked health care reform" is being cheered by ACTUAL Socialists, not the garden variety anarchist-leaning types like we have here.

It says a lot about politics in this country that this is being hailed as a great victory. Get back to me when we have universal health care and no parasitical insurance companies.

Just sayin'

of the politics and culture of this country, you cannot simply enact and implement single-payer or universal healthcare. You have to do it gradually, in increments, otherwise it just ain't happening. I know that sucks, but it's the way it is. One of the reasons we progressives don't seem to get anywhere is that too many want it all NOW, AT ONCE, and it just doesn't work like that in this country.

It took decades to fully implement social security the way it is now (including disability, ssi, etc.). It took forty years before the time was finally right for Medicare and Medicaid to be voted in and many more years for them to be fully implemented. It's the same way for this.

It didn't happen overnight.

So many wanted perfection in a health bill, or nothing.

Perfect, enemy of the good, and all that is lost on them.

Or not.

Our health"care" system is unique.

But the main advantage appears to be a parliamentary system. Those countries that have that were able to get health care through. Once a government is elected, it can do what it wants. We have the House and Senate (and the filibuster) and Presidents can be of opposing parties to Congress. So nobody gets what they want until there is a supermajority of citizens willing to have it.

But like it or not, we are kindred in many ways. By the way, Stephen Harper shows the Canadian halo is not as bright as it used to be.

was possible but we didn't think it would be bargained away by our leaders (with a new and powerful mandate for change) before the negotiating even started. The way forward was through a public option. The insurance cartel understood this and cut the deal with our party leadership to scuttle it. The result is the insurance cartel remains the only game in town because it has no competition. Status quo preserved. Meanwhile, the insurance companies continue to undermine and capture the government agencies who are supposed to enforce the new regulations put on them. How government enforcement agencies are faring in the modern U.S. these days? They are the weakest they've been since the 1930's.

However, given that McDermott and Sanders will introduce legislation making it possible to use ACA funds for state single payer, that is reason enough to support it for the time being.

The USA is far different from when it consisted of just the 13 colonies (states).

--from Wall Street?

I replied on the issue that changes occur that improve.

That is fundamental, and incremental improvements are irrelevant. I don't WANT to improve a system that requires us to buy pension plans from private companies--I want to abolish it.