Letters to the Editor
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And goodbye to you too, Anonymous
Oh if it were only so!
If only you and the other anonymi would grow a pair and actually use a screen name.
Bawling endlessly about Salon's terrible "partisan coverage," but you're too chicken to reveal yourselves.
So you have decided to stop reading Salon and by God you're goint to stop your subscription too? Aren't you going to ask for your money back? That'll show 'em!
"Smoking Gun Quote" people, that's all I'm asking for. Show me the one where JW says, "I'm for Hillary Clinton!"
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Campaign wrap/note to Gary Owen
You might want to say good by to anonymous, but don't use degrading language. It just puts you in a category of not being a very nice person. You get your point across in a different way and less offensive manner.
Everyone has their own viewpoint and is entitled to it. However, the media in most cases has given Barack Obama a free ride while being very harsh on Hillary Clinton. It would be nice if everyone could be objective and fair, but maybe that is asking too much.
My name really isn't arroyocat, but I do have a kitten named Arroyo. However, I don't mind giving my real name if you wish.
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Campaign wrap/note to Gary Owen
You might want to say good by to anonymous, but don't use degrading language. It just puts you in a category of not being a very nice person. You can get your point across in a different way and a less offensive manner.
Everyone has their own viewpoint and is entitled to it. However, the media in most cases has given Barack Obama a free ride while being very harsh on Hillary Clinton. It would be nice if everyone could be objective and fair, but maybe that is asking too much.
My name really isn't arroyocat, but I do have a kitten named Arroyo. However, I don't mind giving my real name if you wish.
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Spin and Counterspin
Joan gets bamboozled by the spin-counterspin. The point is, that's a really nasty ad, friends. A progressive doesn't say that crap. Obama plays up to the right again and again, and nobody gets him for it. His health care plan sucks, but he doesn't care; he's getting the libertarian/Republican "new voters," and he's calling himself bipartisan. Hmm.
The Skokie comment was stupid -- and immediately, on the conference call, disavowed by the Clinton campaign -- because it gives the Obama spinners a way out of a sticky situation. There goes the true face of bipartisanship: I ask you, what's more important to Obama? The Democratic base? The Democratic principles that go back to FDR and before? Or being vague enough about policy that it's attracting young people with his subtle baritone, but shorting them on real ideas?
The Obama campaign has been two parts showmanship and one part Clinton-hatred. Pretty clever, but I don't see a very likable guy there.
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Here's your "hope" for ya
"I am uninsured. And I honestly can't be bothered even to learn what the differences between the candidates' health care plans are, because, even though I have "hope" (as a Barack supporter), I am not so naive as to believe that either plan has a snowball's chance in hell of passing."
Then that's not hope, then, is it? It's just an ad campaign. Vote for him if you want, sucker.
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*Yawn*
Come November when I go to the voting booth I'm just going to flip a coin. This time around I'm not voting FOR anyone. I'm just voting AGAINST! the Reptilapublicans, so there.
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What is 'gaming the system'?
Please forgive me if someone else has discussed this, I didn't get all the way through the letters. A few people have asked what is meant by 'gaming the system' and which people would essentially have to pay back premiums if they decided to try to get coverage under an Obama plan after discovering a pre-existing condition.
It's my understanding that this would encompass a fair part of one of his core constituencies, young professionals under 30. It's not that they can't get health care through their employers, many are offered it. It's that they are currently healthy, the plans offered tend to have deductables of, at minimum, $500 and more often, $1,000, and their calculation is that they will have medical expenses under that amount, perhaps none, and so they don't want to have any amount deducted from their pay to buy the insurance.
Also, they know that if they get the insurance and go to a doctor with it, until they meet the deductable, they have to pay the co-pay, and, if they go back a second time, the doctor will demand payment for the amount that the insurance didn't cover from the first time, plus the co-pay for the second time, before treating them again. In many cases, it's not that they don't have the money. It's that they wish to spend it elsewhere. They 'game' the system by using the emergency room, the most expensive form of health care available, telling the ER they have no insurance and cannot pay. The ER may send them a bill, but, if they come back again, it cannot demand payment from them before treating them again. The cost passes to everyone else in the system. If it goes on their credit report, so what?
Note that I am not talking about people who actually cannot afford insurance and are forced to go to the emergency room as their health providor option. I am talking about a set of people, many of whom are Obama's most vociferous supporters, who have deliberately chosen not to get insurance, don't want to buy it, and use the ERs, driving up costs throughout the system. Then, when they do need insurance, due to a pre-existing condition, it's unlikely they could get it under the current system. You need to be insured already. Under Obama's plan, they could buy in at that point, when they 'gamed the system' before.
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@ conryw
You don't need to flip a coin for that. The Republican nominee will have an "R" by his name, and next to it will be the name of Clinton or Obama, and be marked by a "D." That's the one you vote for.