Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Fascism? You really should check a dictionary before you make a fool out of yourself.

No corporatism or authoritarian policy here folks, move along.

[cmalbatros]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes



Is she one of these?

[D-Mack]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

How about fascism? The government is mandating that I purchase a service offered by a private company.

Our former chancellor Helmut Schmidt compared Obama to Hitler

Helmut Schmidt: Obama like Hitler, Stalin



When asked about Obama's superior rhetorical skills, Schmidt called Obama a "charismatic leader" (Charismatiker) in the vein of Hitler and Stalin, leaders who caused so much destruction (Unheil gestiftet) in the 20th century. Of course, one has to take into account that Helmut Schmidt, who was born in 1918, has seen more than his share of Unheil in his lifetime, and so is skeptical of inspirational leaders. On the show, Fritz Stern quickly comes to the defense of Obama, citing the president's pragmatism as one of his strengths.
http://www.dialoginternational.com/d...er-stalin.html

It seems like passing it without Republicans has been something unusual

Obama's health care reforms show that America has become an 'elective dictatorship'


..

The emergence of elective dictatorship in America — with the President having to use every stick at his disposal to beat his parliamentary party into submission — is surely one of the least attractive aspects of Obama’s Presidency. According to today’s New York Times:

Never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson got just shy of half of Republicans in the House to vote for Medicare in 1965, a piece of legislation that was denounced with many of the same words used to oppose this one. That may be the true measure of how much has changed in Washington in the ensuing 45 years, and how Mr. Obama’s own strategy is changing with the discovery that the approach to governing he had in mind simply will not work.
“Let’s face it, he’s failed in the effort to be the nonpolarizing president, the one who can use rationality and calm debate to bridge our traditional divides,” said Peter Beinart, a liberal essayist who is publishing a history of hubris in politics.

It seems unlikely, to put it mildly, that this is the end of the affair. No doubt the Republicans in the Senate have a few delaying tricks up their sleeves and opponents of the bill, having failed to stop its passage in the legislative branch of the government, will switch their attention to the judicial branch. It will be interesting to see how far Obama can use the powers vested in him as President to railroad through these reforms. An elected dictator? I cannot see a freedom-loving people putting up with such a figure for long.


...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/to...-dictatorship/

How can somebody vote for something and not be for it ?

“Kucinich was adamant that he had not changed his assessment of the president’s health care proposals.”
Obama knew that, if he were to have any chance to pass a private health insurance subsidy bill, he would first have to bludgeon the Left into submission. In the course of a little over a year, he has accomplished that mission.
To drive Kucinich back to the corporate Democratic reservation, the White House let loose the yapping dogs of the Daily Kos and MoveOn, who threatened to back an opposition candidate to Kucinich in his home district. President Obama personally browbeat Kucinich four times in the last several weeks, the last time on Monday night. According to the London Daily Telegraph, Obama threatened to refuse to campaign for any Democratic congressperson that doesn’t back his health bill – an invitation to the fat cats to fund challengers to Kucinich in November.
In a Wednesday morning press conference announcing his surrender to the White House, Kucinich was adamant that he had not changed his assessment of the president’s health care proposals. “I do not think it is a first step toward anything I have supported in the past,” he said. “This is not the bill I wanted to support.” But Kucinich had been given an offer that he felt he could not refuse.It was, said the congressman, “a defining moment.”

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=...nd-health-care

[Slimprofits]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

As I said when the Republican Governor Romney and the Democrat congress here in Mass passed our health care bill, it is economic fascism.

Also note that Presidential candidate Romney calls the Obama bill socialism. Both bills have the mandate. The Mass. bill has a public option though. What does that make Romney, other than a hypocrite?

Economic Fascism

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

So-called "corporatism" as practiced by Mussolini and revered by so many intellectuals and policy makers had several key elements: The state comes before the individual. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized, autocratic government." This stands in stark contrast to the classical liberal idea that individuals have natural rights that pre-exist government; that government derives its "just powers" only through the consent of the governed; and that the principal function of government is to protect the lives, liberties, and properties of its citizens, not to aggrandize the state.

Mussolini viewed these liberal ideas (in the European sense of the word "liberal") as the antithesis of fascism: "The Fascist conception of life," Mussolini wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual."

Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: "The maxim that society exists only for the well-being and freedom of the individuals composing it does not seem to be in conformity with nature's plans." "If classical liberalism spells individualism," Mussolini continued, "Fascism spells government."

[..]

This idea of government-mandated and -dominated "collaboration" is also at the heart of all interventionist industrial policy schemes. A successful industrial policy, write Reich and Magaziner, would "require careful co-ordination between public and private sectors. Government and the private sector must work in tandem. Economic success now depends to a high degree on coordination, collaboration, and careful strategic choice," guided by government.

[..]

Mercantilism and protectionism. Whenever politicians start talking about "collaboration" with business, it is time to hold on to your wallet. Despite the fascist rhetoric about "national collaboration" and working for the national, rather than private, interests, the truth is that mercantilist and protectionist practices riddled the system. Italian social critic Gaetano Salvemini wrote in 1936 that under corporatism, "it is the state, i.e., the taxpayer, who has become responsible to private enterprise. In Fascist Italy the state pays for the blunders of private enterprise." As long as business was good, Salvemini wrote, "profit remained to private initiative." But when the depression came, "the government added the loss to the taxpayer's burden. Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social." The Italian corporative state, The Economist editorialized on July 27, 1935, "only amounts to the establishment of a new and costly bureaucracy from which those industrialists who can spend the necessary amount, can obtain almost anything they want, and put into practice the worst kind of monopolistic practices at the expense of the little fellow who is squeezed out in the process." Corporatism, in other words, was a massive system of corporate welfare. "Three-quarters of the Italian economic system," Mussolini boasted in 1934, "had been subsidized by government."

If this sounds familiar, it is because it is exactly the result of agricultural subsidies, the Export-Import Bank, guaranteed loans to "preferred" business borrowers, protectionism, the Chrysler bailout, monopoly franchising, and myriad other forms of corporate welfare paid for directly or indirectly by the American taxpayer.

Another result of the close "collaboration" between business and government in Italy was "a continual interchange of personnel between the. . . civil service and private business." Because of this "revolving door" between business and government, Mussolini had "created a state within the state to serve private interests which are not always in harmony with the general interests of the nation." Mussolini's "revolving door" swung far and wide.

This is all very much a description of our political system. Have we become the Italians?

[bobola]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I'm fascinated by the fact that nobody is talking about diet and exercise as a way to fix health care...

It's so easy...

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I'm fascinated by the fact that nobody is talking about diet and exercise as a way to fix health care...

It's so easy...

Don't worry, we are quickly formulating our own Volksgesundheit policies.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/loca...d-20100310-akd

In other news today the emergency unemployment assistance act of 2011 passed unanimously, an act which formally outlaws joblessness. Our president congratulated congress for their help and with a brillant stroke of the pen solved the nations unemployment problem.

In related news the BLS was astounded at the sudden fall of unemployment to zero percent. The DOW rallies after hours. More news at 11

[Ghent12]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I'm not sure I'd describe it as a dagger, more like a big warning sign. It's hard to throw daggers from congress when one party is bought and paid for by the FIRE economy.

The insurance companies got a lot from this bill (requirement for everyone to have insurance and the subsidies). But they're on notice to hold down rate increases. If they don't play ball, the direct competition of a public option will be the next step.

My guess is, rates will level out until the insurance interests can reclaim congress this year or in 2012, then rates will start climbing again.

Dodd's finance reform bill that came out of committee yesterday also wasn't a dagger, it's more like a hard slap in the face. Again, unanimous opposition from the FIRE party makes it hard to throw daggers.

This is ridiculous. One party? Maybe historically FIRE has tended towards Repukes, but it has always bought both parties. Check out the latest trend though, it may surprise you. FIRE seems to follow the trends of CONgressional majorities; now that Demoncrats are in charge, they are feeding at the trough more than the traditional biggest FIRE livestock.

A warning? A dagger in the heart of the I in FIRE?
Hardly. They paid for this bill! They turned Obama's ambition into a tool for themselves, as they do so often with so many genuine concerns.

[jpatter666]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I'm fascinated by the fact that nobody is talking about diet and exercise as a way to fix health care...

It's so easy...

Diet and exercise requires discipline and effort.

Haven't you heard those are verboten terms these days?

[bobola]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

We have to get our cars inspected every few years to keep the tag current, why not a body / health inspection as well.

You get fat and out of shape, you pay a hefty fine..

The fatter and more out of shape, the bigger the fine.

Tax fast food based on nutritional value, or the lack thereof. The more fat and sodium, the more it costs.

The more sugar in a soda drink, the higher the price.

Let health care costs get funded by a usage tax.

Tax unhealthy food like cigarettes.

[reggie]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

From where I sit, this legislation is primarily about taking the next step in the evolution of the network centric society (see Clay Shirky, "Here Comes Everybody"). From that vantage point, medical care, dialectical politics and economics are merely convenient talking points for public consumption.

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

We have to get our cars inspected every few years to keep the tag current, why not a body / health inspection as well.

You get fat and out of shape, you pay a hefty fine..

The fatter and more out of shape, the bigger the fine.

Tax fast food based on nutritional value, or the lack thereof. The more fat and sodium, the more it costs.

The more sugar in a soda drink, the higher the price.

Let health care costs get funded by a usage tax.

Tax unhealthy food like cigarettes.

I'm all for voluntarily living a healthy lifestyle. But advocating mandatory physicals and possible imprisonment for being sick reads like a dystopian scifi novel. Perhaps you don't mind being property of the state but many of us would not care for that privilege.

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Propaganda?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28632876/F...are-Bill-Myths

[dutch12]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

The USA spending trillions of tax dollars figting stupid wars klilling 10.000ths of people is something to worry more about I think than the regulation of a basic need that saves lifes.

As a Dutch guy I didn't study to extend all ins and outs, and there will be most certainly much flaws that need to be fixed in the future, but intersting would be a study based on facts how it works out in countries like the Netherlands where the situation is about the same as in the USA afther the mentioned bill.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

We have to get our cars inspected every few years to keep the tag current, why not a body / health inspection as well.

Camel, tent, nose.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Propaganda?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28632876/F...are-Bill-Myths

Here's a link to the Fire Dog Lake article describing that "Myths" document you referenced: Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill.