Letters to the Editor
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@RBL
I just saw Tim Russert play video of her saying that "many of you wish you could vote for both of us. You may get your wish." And she went on to say he would make her ticket a dream ticket.
well, if so I agree with you 100% that it's horrible for the aforementioned reasons.
1) Obama as President if something happened to her is positively frightening.
2) It rewards the worst and most rabid campaign I have ever witnessed while penalizing people who came back into the Democratic fold after 20 or 30 years of absence as civil and respectable adults as opposed to vulgar children.
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@ ShawnWM
Do you disagree that insurance companies are making record profits? Do you think government refusal to pay inflated prices is equivalent to insurance companies refusal to cover health care? Do you think insurance companies would lose money if there is a government mandate to buy private insurance? And if your answer to the last question is yes, then why do these companies donate to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns?
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On thin ice, but ...
It's dangerous to disagree with Joe Conason on a matter concerning presidential scandal. Conason's long career doggedly hunting down threads of rumor and excavating topics otherwise unmentionable in polite journalistic circles puts any critic on on very thin ice indeed.
Nevertheless, Conason does his own argument a disservice by not presenting the flip side in his article. Cooperation with the Starr investigation did nothing to mitigate it — in fact the more Ken Starr's demands were met, the more demands he made. Democratic politicians have that lesson burned into their collective psyche — if you start giving away information when it's innocuous then the demands will only increase until something not so innocuous comes out.
It may not be a sound strategy in the long run but it's not hard to understand why Democratic politicians would want to keep their cards close to their chests.
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Shawn
Your argument would have a lot more validity if the US health insurance industry didn't make a record profit last year.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/353558_insuranceed.html
All while the rest of the country was and still is making horrible recession noises.
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@RBL
Do you disagree that insurance companies are making record profits?
Yes.
Do you think government refusal to pay inflated prices is equivalent to insurance companies refusal to cover health care?
You don't know what you're talking about. I do. Private insurers reimbursement rates to providers are far higher than the governments and it has nothing at all to do with "overinflated" prices since private insurers have pre-negotiated contracts with the providers and healthcare outfits as to what they will cover. Furthermore the federal government , the largest payer by far, aka Medicare, pays lump some amounts for various diagnosis and associated complications and it is not at all generous.
Worse, each year Bush has been in office funding for medicare has fallen by at least 190 millon dollars.
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Sorry, but not true
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/353558_insuranceed.html
Excuse me, but you do recognize that is an OPINION column you are citing. There are some insurance providers that are doing well and others that are struggling to stay in existence.
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Well Kids
Candidates aside, it looks like supporters on both sides have their share of zealots and fanatics. If we generally get the government that we deserve, then God help us all.
On a lighter note, here is actual video evidence that a world where the Clinton and Obama camps can come together in one big kumbaya is possible. And kind of fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkLCvu4
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not interested
sorry 3 months later I'm decidedly uninterested in "coming together" with the slimey Obamateur, much less his positively unhinged supporters.
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@ ShawnWM
You consistently refuse to address what I actually write. I was not comparing government's reimbursement rate to industry with that of insurance companies. I was suggesting that refusing to pay inflated prices, which is what government does, is all together different from private insurance companies' unwillingness to actually cover care at all.
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The Naked and the Dead and the Stupid
Coming to a theater near you, starring Barack Obama as Idi Amin, Hillary Clinton as Mother Teresa, and Shawn the Pawn as David Duke. Or Patty Duke. Works either way. Watch out for them Africans, Shawn. kisses, tommy
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@atliberal - my questions start where factcheck.org leaves off
At your suggestion, I did go to Factcheck.org on the Rezko real estate transaction and they conclude that the Obama's paid a pro-rated price for the land they purchased. That doesn't seem to me to address the real world real estate questions at all.
Sorry - I am not a journalist and not located in Chicago where the real estate market and zoning rules would determine the answers - just felt mine were fair questions to raise.
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@RBL
I was suggesting that refusing to pay inflated prices, which is what government does, is all together different from private insurance companies' unwillingness to actually cover care at all.
And I inferred, by doing so you demonstrate your ignorance. What the government will pay is already arranged by pre-determined diagnosis categories which has nothing at all to do with "overinflated" prices you pull out of your hat as if it meant something more than the emotional rhetoric it is. If most hospitals had to survive on what the government reimbursed without the subsidation of private insurers, particularly smaller hospitals with no economy of scale, they'd all be shutting their doors. Many in fact are.
So in short, either avoid entering domains where you are uncredentialed, or avoid being angry if those of us who are refuse to entertain you.
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Inferred by a Turd
Health care costs swing wildly- rather like our friend Shawn- depending on region, health plan, demographics, and other factors. In our area, the prevailing copay for a doctors visit is ten dollars. Do you think the physician lives on that? The prescription copay is five bucks. Don't think Phizer is raking the dough from that transaction. What the insurance industry does, nationwide, because of government's timidity and ineptitude, is lower their risk and raise their rates. Thus , the exclusion of pre-existing conditions, ramped up costs for older folks, and the usual Snidely Whiplash approach. Don't bother with your drooling rebuttal, Shawn; I worked in a hospital for twelve years, was involved in arranging health care coverage, and all the irrelevant stuff. Sounds like you've been into the Butt Lite already, Shawn. Worshiping at Our Lady of the Malted Grain, eh? kisses, tommy