Disapointing Town Hall

I really like Joe Sestak, however I watched him in his debate style town hall with Pat Toomey. Even asked a question.

Why do democrats feel the need to repeat the word capitalism and competition 50 times in a debate for the public option. People are not fucking stupid. You can not sell a government plan as capitalistic. I don't know what genius in the DNC or democratic circle thought up this line of defense. What did they think the guys calling you a socialist will suddenly stop when you drop those two words.

What they should be saying is when it has been proven that the private sector has failed government intervention is necessary. We have done this with roads, schools, and the military. Healthcare maybe a sector where some government intervention is required since the system is not serving the public good right now (another interesting concept that needs to be talked about again).

Lastly why aren't we attacking certain aspects of capitalism right now. Unbridled free market capitalism has led to 10% + unemployment, American jobs being sent to China, and people's 401(k)s halving in value. Capitalism has its place in society but it has almost become a religion not an econcomic system. Frankly our defense of our idealogically based economic system mirrors more the Soviet Union than the United States of old.

I'm not saying advocating socialism but absolutism never works.

I could be wrong Americans could really be that stupid and need to live in a black and white world.

Talking about competition is STOOPID They can LEGALLY price fix.

WASHINGTON (Wednesday, March 7) – The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing, “The McCarran-Ferguson Act and Antitrust Immunity: Good for Consumers?” on Tuesday focusing on the insurance industry’s federal antitrust immunity. For more than six decades, insurance companies have enjoyed immunity from federal antitrust investigation and prosecution.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200703/030707.html

Was to allow all the blue crosses to compete with each other across borders.

It would sound great if I didn't happen to work for Lincoln Financial Group for 5 years and know that we were once also a Health Insurance Company.

Lincoln sold its health Insurance operations because they weren't profitable enough and they could not reach the economy of scale desired by management to Cigna and Cigna sold Lincoln its annuities business. They essentially just swapped products they were selling.

I'm a student of business history. The only thing that would happen with Mr. Toomey's solution is intial downward pressure on prices followed by consolidation of the blues to instead of being one state in 3.

The fundamental question is do people have a right to affordable healthcare and no market can answer that question. It is a moral question and capitalism has never been a good decider of moral questions.

...when it has been proven that the private sector has failed

government intervention is necessary.


A great opening for a deeper look at what's wrong with our current system of healthcare.

intervention to us becoming a communist state.

The conservatives resemble the communist in their fear of private sector intervention with their fear of government intervention.

We're always behind the eight ball on this. I read something, by George Lakoff I believe, that suggested that dems think that when you explain the facts to people, they will see the correctness of what you say. Repubs, however, come up with sound bites that appeal to people's emotions, facts be damned. This is a country where almost half of the voting population voted for a man who made decisions based on his gut, not on facts. It's also a country where people are spread so thin in their private lives, that they don't have time to investigate the internet for the truth. If all the info you got on health care, or any issue for that matter, was from the corporate MSM, you can see why so damned many are horribly misinformed & why emotional sound-bites work.