@ jonathanseer, 6/30 9:06pm:

I'm no expert, but I believe the Fairness Doctrine would not apply to Fauxnews, MSNBC, CNN, etc, because they're *not* using the "Publicly owned airwaves." IIRC, cable [and now satellite] broadcasters -- like newspapers (after a certain court ruling) -- did not fall under the purview of the Fairness Doctrine.

And while I totally agree with you that the corporate stranglehold on the mass media are a very substantial part of why we're in the parlous state in which we find ourselves, I'm not convinced that a "Fairness Doctrine" would be enough to level the playing fields. I *am* convinced that we -- We the People -- do need a corrective for the fact that the MSM are collectively little different from the Ministry of Truth for the Publicans and their corporate masters. But that corrective will have to come in the form of buying at least one major broadcast network and/or a major "national" paper (NYT, WaPo, USAToday, WSJ, something), or building our own from scratch. (And no, the internet isn't quite at that stage yet, and there's no telling how long til it will be.)

@ Conservativeslayer, 7/1 9:01am:

Excellent takedown, worthy of your sobriquet. One little quibble: you (almost correctly) boil l'etat123's "thought" process down to "oh no I might have to pay little more in taxes." L'etat123, as a good Publican, would of course be howling "I'd DEFINITELY have to pay a LOT more in taxes."

S/he'd be equally wrong either way, of course -- because a properly-run health-insurance system would, as we all know, cost *less* than the massively wasteful for-profit abortions we currently have running the show. (Heck this is known even to furriners like Andrew W here, whom we can for these purposes deem an honorary merkin, since he's both from an English-speaking -- ie, civilized -- country, and most likely, of the white race.)

Nor do we have to look as far as the antipodes for concrete evidence of this. The Medicare and VA systems both run at efficiency rates (% of revenue returned as delivery of service) a full order of magnitude better than those of the private insurers (yes, even the "non-profit" ones). IIRC (too lazy to google right now), the admin / marketing / profits of the private insurers take approx 30% of revenue (and that's *not* including the ruinous costs the insurers impose on medical service-providers), while the overhead costs of Medicare and VA are in the vicinity of 2-3%.

Anyone who tries to claim otherwise (ie, every Publican, every wingnut mouthpiece from Gingrich the Newt and your friendly neighborhood pederast-drug-addict Limpbaugh down to the meanest -- and I mean that in all but 1 of the 11 senses of the adjective -- little blogger, and every Village pundit you'll see/hear in the media for as long as this is in play) is lying thru their teeth, a completely misinformed tool, or delusional (and given this crowd, most likely all three).

This is a good summary... I wonder if I can find a Tom Tomorrow from 1994 now.

No one said you don't get to have an opinion, that's just your republican victimhood speaking. What David smith said was you typify the selfish attitude of most republicans. You got yours, the hell with anyone who doesn't. You could care less that 47 million people don't have access to medical care. You got yours, so fuck anyone who doesn't. Oh no I might have to pay little more in taxes, so someone less fortunate can get the medical care they need. That would be the biggest tragedy in the world according to you. FUCK YOU CESTMOI.

Well, screw you too. So, what you're saying is, I don't get to have an opinion. I don't get to say "you know, I don't want to pay more in taxes to support X service." I just have to say "tell me what YOU deem to be an appropriate service offering from government, and I'll open my checkbook and cheerfully pay for it."

Sorry to break it to you, but I get to have an opinion too.

I can confirm the assertion that we think that the US healthcare system is a blight on your great nation. We have a hybrid system that (superficially) seems something like what Obama is proposing: a universal safety net that can be enhanced through additional private insurance.

One thing that I've noticed is that many American commentators -- even apparently sympathetic ones -- talk about "finding a public health system that we can afford". But look at the statistics: the US pays far more for its health per capita than any other country. Public systems are not distorted by the profit motive and their size gives them massive bargaining power with pharmaceutical companies.

Americans need to let go of the dogma that private systems are always more efficient -- in this case they clearly are not. And the inefficiency of your health system permeates through your economy, ultimately impacting upon America's international competitiveness.

Thus it is vital that this unthinking turn of phrase about "a public health system we can afford" cannot go unchallenged. The simple fact is that just about any plausible public health system will save money on the whole.

Morons.

Morons who would rather spend $20 for a privatised beauracracy which will take your $20 for years without telling you aren't actually insured (Oh, and good luck getting your money back BTW) than $10 in taxes where you actually get the service you are paying for.

These are the same morons who act like Global Warming is a conspiracy by the scientific community, and who demand creationism be taught in science classes.

Morons who go on about intellectual elites, like actually studying something and getting a degree makes you less qualified to comment on the subject you have studied. Who are actually proud of being morons and want their kids to be even more braindead than they are.

These are the same idiots who vote people into government, who claim to be philosophically opposed to government, and then act surprised when their government doesn't work.

And hey, it is not like you don't get morons on the left too, but when you get right down to it, shooting for the centre is all about kowtowing to stupid morons whose ideas never, ever actually work.

It is about taking something that is fixable, and undermining just about every attempt to fix it so that it looks like it will never function again.

The American right have nothing to contribute, they just whine for lower taxes and more carcinogens in their kids' drinking water.