Well the Health Care Plan/Reform has passed and was properly voted on. So now I’m trying to figure out what the hell it is and what it will do, good and bad. Unfortunately none of the talking heads or our politicians is of any help. Because it seems that everyone has a horse in the race, ideology wise.
This basically means we Americans will have to learn it the hard way. If this is the beginning of Socialized Medicine maybe I should move to a country with Socialized Medicine. At least they have it pretty well figure out even if it may not considered the best. I would at least know what I’ll get and how to get it and what will be coming out of my pocket. Besides I always hear that countries in Europe and Canada have more of a mellow lifestyle than we have in America which if true has to help ones quality of life.
Now the bulk of this does not take effect until 2014. In the mean time our government will begin collecting money from people. Sure it will start with the wealthy and business owners. But it will flow down to the middle class and even lower middle class. I have never known a U.S. Government budget has ever ended up under or even at budget. Typically it ends up way more than the original budget.
Now I listen to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s speech on the floor talking how this is equivalent to the passing of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Really Nancy? How are those programs doing? Not good from what I hear.
Well one thing I do know is apparently America finally has a Queen. She doesn't have to worry about being voted out of Congress and until Republicans regain the House of Representatives no Democrat will stand up to her.
So here's to Her Royal Majesty Queen Nancy I. Just keep spending our money on yourself. No its OK, we really don't mind. We're just serfs working for you. Right?
UR
13 comments:
This is just phase 1 of the nationalization of health care. The current package does not contain a number of things that original proponents wanted, e.g. single payer system and the "public option" are two. Statements of key Obama officials and Democratic congressman make it pretty clear this is just the first phase. There are still 10-15 million uninsured under this program. They will want to include them. Then we we still have 20-30 million illegal aliens in the country and they will want to include them. Look for a big push on "immigration reform" next. This victory will encourage Princess Pelosi and company to go for broke in that area. And if those 30 million are registered Democratic voters, that bloc will be hard to beat in an election. No, this health care bill is not the end, it is just the beginning. They will have to put value added tax on everything besides raising the income tax to pay for now 9 trillion dollars worth of national debt. More to come stay tuned,
Well Gator perhaps it will be proven unconstitutional. Of course that could take a year or two.
Funny thing is the insurance companies stocks are going up and they are planning to raise their premiums. I guess that’s why they were so quiet through all this. I can only imagine what liberals would be saying if it was the Republicans that did it.
Frankly, I am not knowledgeable enough to contribute anything of substance here. But one of the commenters at my blog made an excellent point. I'd be interested to learn what you think.
The_Editrix said...
”Frankly, I am not knowledgeable enough to contribute anything of substance here. But one of the commenters at my blog made an excellent point. I'd be interested to learn what you think.”
I think Bruce made some very good points.
From the The Editrix' Roncesvalles
Bruce said,
“Over the years I'm sure it's been hard for European tourists and business travelers to miss the fact that every city in America has a neighborhood, or entire square miles, of dilapitated housing with inadequate services from the city, and the people there have little health care to speak of, and rely on charity and emergency care.”
Well we do have public assistants programs. Welfare, Medicaid, public housing programs and many others. The problem is that the State and Federal governments’ bureaucracies make it difficult. Some have to be on waiting list. Plus issue with fraud. Some people are kicked out because of fraud and of course they can’t get it anymore and then they complain how the system is leaving them out in the cold.
Fraud is the big problem and there are a lot of people who are on it but shouldn’t be. Some have addiction problems, some have entitlement mindset/lifestyle issues but most are just lazy. They are the ones who are really stealing from the people who really need it. If there wasn’t so many frauds then those who truly need it could get it faster and more of it.
No American I know is against their taxes going to help people who needed it or are down on their luck through no fault of their own. It’s the ones who misuse it, the one that could be working but don’t want to that makes the Americans I know that are angry. We’re not a heartless bunch.
Plus our Local, State and Federal Governments have never been known as the best stewards of taxpayers money. A lot of waste and mismanagement. I think it was Cleveland were a city department received its funding and the department spent it on what it need and ended up with extra money and the city told them that they had to spend it or it goes back to the taxpayers, so the this department spent it on things they didn’t need. This is not uncommon tale in many Local, State and Federal governments.
I find all that very interesting and I am trying to learn. I've put up more of this stuff at my blog. Bruce is right. I'm not living at your end and thus over-challenged here.
Bruce said
“I can tell you don't live here. It's disgusting.”
Well, that’s a bit harsh.
“and a fire station that has a sign saying there's a benefit for some family that has a child with cancer. In other words, the family already burned through its health insurance coverage fighting the cancer, and the family is bankrupt, and is in need of a donations from the community so they don't get evicted from their lowly home.”
Look in America it is not uncommon for communities to raise money for people who are going through bad times. Perhaps they still have coverage but one of the parents had to quit working to stay home with the child during this. Perhaps they are raising money for a trip to Disney World or to travel to a cancer hospital in another State plus a hotel room for the parents. I mean who knows why they were raising money.
A co-worker was telling me about the bar they go to, had a benefit for a family whose son died and the family wasn’t even poor the father has a very successful business. This bar has had many benefits for other patrons who have had deaths or illnesses regardless of financial situation. These things can be held in bars, fire station, block parties even our public schools and colleges will hold fund raisers to help people going through bad times. His comment seems to be a general assumption of the family’s situation, which may not be the case.
He said
”since the high earners tended to marry the high earners, making the couple twice as rich, thereby serving to increase the gap between rich and poor.”
Well that has never changed. Nobles married Nobles and Blue Bloods married Blue Bloods. But on the other hand several of the construction guys I have worked with were married to women who made more money than their blue collar husband some of the wives even had college degrees. In fact most of these guys were on their wives health insurance because it was better.
America has never been perfect but I think he is being a little unfair. I know of a British couple who chose to stay in America after the birth of their handicap child because they knew she would have better health care here than in Britain. Many Europeans who I’ve met love visiting America and come back when ever they get a chance.
Does America have bad and run down neighborhoods? Of course but I’ve seen in my life times middle class neighborhoods become poor and seen poor neighborhoods became middle class and some even upper class. There poor in the city, suburbs and in the rural areas.
America was never known for it’s entitlements it was known for opportunities. I will say that it seems in recent years the rules for opportunity are making it more difficult. There was a time in which a person could start at the bottom of a company and work his way to the top but now if you don’t have a college degree you can’t even achieve middle management. Even college the bastion of leftist ideas in America has take advantage of this and keeps raising their tuitions.
He said
"I think that members of Lutheran and Catholic churches especially must admit that there is a long history of antisemitism in those churches, and that not only was this a factor in the Holocaust coming about, but it turned many people who could have stopped the evil into bystanders and even abettors."
I think he is really unfair here when it comes to the Holocaust and people not doing anything to stop it. I think that blame falls more on the Nazi intimidation. From what I hear the Catholic Church tried to help a lot of Jews to hide or escape the Nazis. Of course this has been debated for years. I don’t know about the Lutherans so I can’t comment on that.
There are other generalities he made I could take issue with and perhaps I’ll come over and make them. But he seems to be just letting out frustrations. America is going through a rough time and many are worry about the future but I don’t think America is all that bad.
I am listening and learning, UR. You are most welcome to come over and voice your opinion there. Just one thing:
"I think that blame falls more on the Nazi intimidation."
No. Plain and simple no. I could quote now scientific research that tells us differently and personal accounts saying the same. People gladly complied. There was little or no pressure, they just got the freedom to do what they couldn't have done under the rule of law and they did it, voluntarily and gladly. It was as simple as that.
Editrix said...
"No. Plain and simple no. I could quote now scientific research that tells us differently and personal accounts saying the same. People gladly complied. There was little or no pressure, they just got the freedom to do what they couldn't have done under the rule of law and they did it, voluntarily and gladly. It was as simple as that."
Well, I'm learning too. This is why I love history. You keep learning things.
But as the war went on in the 40's and things got worse were the German people still happy with the Nazis and did the Nazis start to use intimidation?
I assume the Nazis did use intimidation in Poland, France and other counrties they occupied?
Germans started to be unhappy with their regime when they started to lose the war. Most of the hailed men of the military resistance (Stauffenberg is the most notable example) had been avid followers of Hitler. I respect, but I don't revere them.
Of course the Germans used pressure and intimidation in the occupied countries, but the extent was different as the resistance was not the same everywhere. The valiant Dutch surrendered without having fired a single shot and delivered their Jews free railway platform.
The most gallant (and futile) resistance was that of the Poles whose cavalry perished within hours when they attacked the German tanks. The most quietly heroic where the Danes who didn't surrender a single Jew and saved them all.
The gallantry of the Polish people wasn't just a matter of WWII: Jan Sobieski was looked upon as the saviour of Vienna and the whole Christian Europe. He died in 1696. It is part of the tragic history of the gallant and hapless Polish people that he wasn't able to carry forward a dynasty. Instead by his son Jacob Louis Henry Sobieski, he was followed by the Saxon king August the Strong. 256 years minus 12 days later, Europe refused to honour the huge debt they owed Poland and paid a high price for it.
Thank you Editrix! Very interesting stuff I never knew.
Daniel J. Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" is really worth reading. All of Germany was in a flutter of abused innocence about it. Interestingly, Christopher R. Browning's "Ordinary Men", in which he came more or less to the same conclusions, went largely unnoticed. Goldhagen is a Jew and Browning isn't. Go figure! In his later work, Goldhagen went really over the top. I can understand that the child of Holocaust survivors hates the Germans with a passion, but if one can't keep a distance from the object of one's academic work, one ought to choose a different field.
But back to the topic of intimidation and compliance. I have told the story many times before, but because I think it's emblematic, here it is again: The morning after the November pogrom 1938 (the "night of the broken glass") my grandfather went to a Jewish shop. There was an SA-man in front, watching. He asked my grandfather what his intentions were and he replied that it was to pay his bill. The SA man: "HERE you don't need to pay any bills anymore." My grandfather ignored him, entered the shop and paid his bill. And do you know what happened? NOTHING happened.
So much about "intimidation". There are a lot of legends about the many things Germans "were forced" to do. One of them is ancestry research. One only had to do that for advancement in the Nazi organisation. The list is endless.
Very interesting story about your Grandfather. Speaks volumes about the time.
Editrix, would it be fair to say that part of the reason Germans embraced Hitler and the Nazis in the early 1930’s was due to their fear of the Communist and the German Communist party? Plus the fact that German industrialist and capitalist probably did not like either group but saw the Nazi Party even though socialist as the least of two evils? Did old resentments due to the lost in WWI also push Germans to be attracted to Hitler?
Old resentments certainly. Fear of Communism is a bit more complex. The working classes didn't fear Communism, they sympathised with it. Those in power certainly thought that Hitler and his thugs could get rid of the Communists for them and that they themselves would remain in control. The industrialists knew quite well that they wouldn't have to fear nationalisation á la Communism.
I guess when everything else was said and done, it was that unbridled antisemitism that really won people over. It appealed to the basest and oldest instincts. You see, the discussion at Beak's blog whether Nazis were leftists or rather not is totally futile, because it wasn't a matter of left and right. The physical destruction of the Jewish people was the goal right from the start. Hitler said so himself. Historians say that Germany would have won the war hadn't they used up so many resources for the running of the extermination camps.
The only American author who understands Germany and the Germans is Herman Wouk. I can't recommend his novel "Winds of War" strong enough. It's a great history lesson and a thrilling read.
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