Really: Ex-VP Dick Cheney Probably Has No Pulse

[zoridon]

Back by Demand: Most evil man since Joseph stallin? Give me facts facts facts.... No you can't do that, instead you call someone evil. I call a spade a spade, you rely on name calling without any substance to your argument. I practice exactly what I preach. If you believe in socialized medicine and the government takeover of industry you are a progressive liberal. Notice I didn't say evil.... Your heart may be in the right place but unfortunatly your policies lead straight to hell. So at least I give a liberal the benefit of the doubt regarding good intentions or maybe even a good person if you meet them. You on the other hand want people to die for daring to disagree on how to govern if it conflicts with your own sense of fairness. Face it you are self absorbed and it's inconcievable to you that someone else may have a different opinion. No they must be the dark lord of death. Do you look in the mirror and just worship your own reflection or something cause obviously everyone else is evil compared to you?

 

[ltgrunt]

Regulas and Zoridon, you both could really benefit from not being so extreme and dedicated to misinformation. The health insurance regulation bill is not socialized medicine, and if you read and understand it, it never can be. There are no death panels, and the only people or groups who will be rationing care are the same ones who have already been doing that: the insurance companies.

You're both ranting about Socialism without demonstrating any understanding as to what Socialism really is or how it really works. You owe it to yourselves and to this country to be more informed, intelligent citizens who use critical thinking instead of relying on fearmongering and sensationalism to decide where to place your votes.

 

[Muffinthundergrunt]

LOL. Some of you should stick to technology issues. Both parties voted overwhelmingly for the wars. We STILL are over there fighting those wars even though we have a new president who opposed the wars, but somehow its the retired guy who was Vice Prez, an office traditionally described as not worth a bucket of warm spit, who is responsible for all the political decisions, past and present, on that subject. But if filling in the blank void of your political knowledge with a grand conspiratorial boogeyman to explain everything puts you at ease, carry on.

Boogity boogity.

 

[falchard]

ltgrunt, do a little research. Healthcare is the 2nd most regulated industry in the United States outside of Finances. The admin fees for most large insurers just to comply with the regulations is 7% of their revenue. For smaller insurers its near 50%. The sheer amount of regulations has pushed any sort of competition in the industry out completely and has helped facilitate inflating costs compared to other industries similar to healthcare.
Where other industries prices lower with newer technology, the price of the same tech has increased several fold in the healthcare sector. This is because of excessive regulation.
BTW, the healthcare bill recently passed is socialist. It mandates American Citizens purchase a private service. It clearly oversteps the bounds of what the government can do in a free society. The fed also controls the means of production, in this case paying the salaries of 40~50% of the healthcare industry.

 

[falchard]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]You are such a fucking idiot, Americans dont do that, they send in the airforce to blast the country back to the stone age before they commit ground troops.Trash-talk all you want about the UK being socialist, seeing as we have a right-wing governmet and you now have a left-wing government, show how much of an ignorant fuck you are.[/citation]
lol I find that funny too. Europe has dropped socialism in favor of Austarity. Good for Europe, they may become an economical super power again at the cost of the US.

 

[Muffinthundergrunt]

Wow back_by_demand. A wiki. You are a real academic. What next? A craigslist posting.

 

[ltgrunt]

Falchard, mandating purchasing a service is not Socialist. It is also not unprecedented, as there are other forms of insurance that most Americans are already mandated to purchase, and other activities like Selective Service that many Americans are already forced to participate in.

Additionally, regulation of an industry is not the same as government control of an industry, and neither of those two things is in and of itself Socialism.

You sound very much like another person who has bought into this new Red Scare without having any functional understanding of what Socialism really is or how it really works.

Provide evidence from reputable sources for your claims about regulations causing higher prices.

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]ibemerson[/nom]Not having a pulse would improve one's aim with a shotgun. In this case I'm not so sure that's a good thing.[/citation]

With any firearm....

I want one of these.

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]I am from England, so using insults like "Liberal" which are used from one American to another dont really apply to "foreigners". And as far as the rest of the world is concerned Cheney is the most evil man since Joseph Stalin.[/citation]

Im Canadian and we like the NeoCons up here...

 

[danlw]

Why waste good technology on science and medicine? We need more VIDEO GAMES!

 

[sneaky jedi]

[citation][nom]Icehearted[/nom]So he really is Darth Vader?[/citation]

so would that make GW the emperor? I think this is giving both of them too much credit...

 

[falchard]

[citation][nom]ltgrunt[/nom]Falchard, mandating purchasing a service is not Socialist. It is also not unprecedented, as there are other forms of insurance that most Americans are already mandated to purchase, and other activities like Selective Service that many Americans are already forced to participate in.Additionally, regulation of an industry is not the same as government control of an industry, and neither of those two things is in and of itself Socialism.You sound very much like another person who has bought into this new Red Scare without having any functional understanding of what Socialism really is or how it really works.Provide evidence from reputable sources for your claims about regulations causing higher prices.[/citation]
Mandating you purchase something from a private company simply for being a living American Citizen is in all intents and purposes unprecedented. With Auto-insurance, you can choose not to own a car or drive a car on public roads. For health insurance you cannot choose not to be alive. Its also different then selective service because you do not pay $300/month into selective service which we will have to pay for health insurance.

I didn't allude to it being the red threat. The red threat is dead and gone proven to be a disaster. I am alluding to the thought you can fix the problems of socialism. You can't fix the problems of a fundamentally flawed socio-economic structure, yet we seem to be trying. Its the combination of many aspects on why we in the US are now considered a form of socialism. Although controlling the means of production is the purest form of socialism, the general though among progressives is that a few intelligent people can control the problems within a complete system better then millions of individuals.

 

[Debeucci]

That's a silly argument falchard. That's like saying it's a choice to get sick or need emergency medical treatment. You WILL need it at one point in your life. However, people who do not have it not only stress the system, it hurts everyone. Having responsible heatlhcare should be a requirement.

 

[Guest]

NHS is fantastic!!!

UK is fantastic!!

No Pulse, simply the best party trick in the world!

 

[cobra5000]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I like Dick Cheney. Alot on the left use him as a scape goat but he is one of the few people who walk the walk. Fiscally conservative and practicioner in his roles where he had a say in the matter. Socially liberal promoting the freedoms and equality under the law of all people. I don't think people realize just how much they align with Dick Cheney on the issues.[/citation]
Shut your pie hole!

 

[mrecio]

[citation][nom]LeJay[/nom]I'm pretty sure god has nothing to do with it.[/citation]

Im pretty sure of that too, god would of put him into the ground by now. At least he is nothing more than a medical experiment for new heart technologies.

 

[samadkins29]

So does this mean Jason statham wont be playing the lead roll in CRANK 3?

 

[improviz]

Clearly the guy had hist first warning at 37, but refused to make the lifestyle changes to improve his cardiovascular health. Sounds like it's time for a "3 strikes" approach - stop eating the ribeyes and scotch 3 times a day, or no more surgery!

 

[improviz]

How many people here complaining about "socialism" and "government takeover" of healthcare are willing to NOT use Medicare/Medicaid now or when they qualify? What do you think that is? And how many are willing to tear up their Social Security checks? That even has the word "social" in it! Not having universal health care costs everyone billions of $$. If you DO have insurance, next time you get something done and you get the list of charges that was billed to your insurance, look at it carefully. You'll see things like $30 for 2 Vicodin. $300 for 1 liter of sterile saline, or a sterile drape (basically a dishtowel). The hospitals jack up the prices they charge to insured people, to offset the cost of treating uninsured people who will never pay their bill. And emergency rooms are used by 1000's of uninsured Americans as their primary source of treatment. Which means, they don't even go until things are really, really wrong with them. Hence, harder/more expensive to treat because the disease (diabetes, high blood pressure, or whatever) is more advanced. Who do you think eventually pays the (wildly exhorbitant) bill for all of that care? We all do, through taxes. Better, then, to have those taxes go for preventive medicine and general healthcare to prevent disease and keep people out of the most expensive treatment options, the ER's. And since people earning in the lower tiers can't really afford premiums if they want to eat and keep a roof over their heads, then we have to provide it somehow. Employers are not about to offer it because it costs them money. Never mind that a healthy workforce is more productive and doesn't miss work as often. So where does that leave us? Obama's plan isn't perfect, but it's a start.

 

[ltgrunt]

Falchard, there are provisions for the unemployed and otherwise impoverished to not be required to buy health insurance. Keeping that in mind, everyone who chooses to successfully participate in the capitalist workforce is choosing to pay for health insurance. It's just as much a choice as auto insurance.

And no, you don't have to pay for Selective Service. It's just a random chance that you might get called up to go die on some God-forsaken rock you may not have ever heard of before for a cause you may or may not even agree with. Sure, that's much better than having to pay for health insurance.

Now you're talking about secret agendas by groups of people, which is veering off farther into conspiracy theory territory. Your definition of Socialism also hinges on only one facet and completely ignores a host of other components, many of which are not only already present in American government and economics, but which have been core American ideals since the inception of our nation. Equality before the law, universal suffrage, rights of individuals and government beholden to the people are all key tenets of Socialism, and these have always been core values to American culture. The people controlling the means of production is one of the key economic components of Socialism, but then so is cessation of class warfare, the dissolution of socioeconomic classes, and minimizing the outlandishly large pay gaps between certain prestigious careers and more mundane ones.

 

[improviz]

And since when do we have selective service again? The draft was discontinued before the end of the Vietnam war. It's an all-volunteer army now. Which has lead to a disproportionate number of people serving being poor, black, and Latino/Hispanic because there are not as many viable economic options for them, thanks to crummy educational systems in major urban areas. Also an alarming number of ex-Felons, people convicted of drug charges, etc.