You stay classy, President Clinton:
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Clinton described the ongoing tea party protests against the Democratic agenda as a sign his party was making progress.
Whitehouse quoted Clinton arguing: “The reason the tea-baggers are so inflamed is because we are winning.”
Emphasis mine. I imagine that he has a lot of experience with tea-baggers. Probably under the desk in the Oval Office.
He is more or less making the same point I made here some time ago. They should just pass the bill even if it isn’t perfect and they cannot get bipartisan support. Not passing it just makes them lose political momentum.
Everybody knew the Big Creep was a scum in the ’90s and no-one expected him to change.
godzilla, you have some “mushroom soup” on your dress… and a little on the corner of your mouth.
“Not passing it just makes them lose political momentum.”
Best idea I’ve read all day.
Godzilla, I have a simple question for you. Why isn’t this health care plan madly popular? If as Democrat House leadership claims, it saves money, and reduces health care costs to the point that the deficit falls as well, then surely they could just pass it months ago with zero modification needed. Instead they have compromised on it, empowering the House Republicans. Given that they gained only a single Republican vote by the end of the compromises, I can only assume that they needed these compromises just to get enough Democrats to sign on.
It’s a bill they couldn’t get a seventh of their own party to sign even after they worked on it for months. That tells me it’s bad law.
False consciousness of the proles, Karl… /sarc
Karl:
Because economics is a crapshoot? It is possible both sides in the argument have valid points to support their opinion, but neither can be proven correct. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that governmental healthcare is cheaper (this has been done by comparing expense in % of GDP in several countries). Then someone points out healthcare in the US is better in some metric while others point other countries have better healthcare in some other metric. In the end a lot of people fall back into a position based on their principles. It is also probably a sign that some have not made up their mind about which they think is better and you end up having a rather uniform distribution.
I almost wish someone would call me a teabagger to my face. Never the less, the press would never remind him he’s a sexual harassing adulterer.
Yes, Godzilla(I hope that name isn’t an overcompensation) let’s gamble TRILLIONS of dollars on something we’ve never done and the population is ambivalent about and let’s do it as fast as we can because there isn’t enough time to do it right but there’s always time to fix it later. That makes so much sense. I can’t wait to go to jail for not buying health insurance. As Goldstein says…
Outlaw!!
Whatever Bill. He didn’t force anyone to have sex with him. If there is anything he is guilty of is being stupid enough to lie in court. Not that the leaders of the “outstanding” business community you republicans so love have done any better in the past. At least Clinton wasn’t impeached for bad governance or meddling with the electoral process.
For someone who most likely supports someone who spent trillions of dollars invading a foreign nation on a war of aggression, corn ethanol subsidies, you sure have some nerve saying spending money on social security is bad.
PS: DaveP suck it up.
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that governmental healthcare is cheaper (this has been done by comparing expense in % of GDP in several countries).
Of course. Healthcare is really cheap in Zimbabwe, too. You can always shop at K-Mart for your health care instead of Rolls Royce. Almost as good and a hell of a lot cheaper! Would you like to sign up? Because the more folks like you sign up, the fewer of those of us who don’t actually mind paying whatever it costs to have tip-top healthcare will need to. Go on. You first.
others point other countries have better healthcare in some other metric.
Uh huh. Can you name one? Can you name any disease, congenital condition, type of accident — any reason at all that you would see a doctor — where the outcomes are apples-to-apples statistically better in any other country? Or even as good? Give it a try.
Does the proposed scheme have supply-side competition, for medical institutions, medical professionals and insurers?
Good one, Martijn.
Does the proposed scheme have reasonable malpractice limits for health care providers?
It’s almost like we’re still waiting for health care reform.
Because economics is a crapshoot?
To elaborate, Godzilla, there are a pile of low lying, low risk fruit that Congress could pluck. Yet the House failed to touch most of it in its so-called health care “reform” bill. These things aren’t trillions of dollars gambles.
What that tells me is that we’re not seeing a gamble where there is some chance of gain. Instead, we’re seeing a disaster in the making.
Oh for Christsake. If a business CEO had done that, he would have been run out of town on a rail. He was the PESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and he’s having sex with an intern in the oval office. What don’t you understand about position of power?
“At least Clinton wasn’t impeached for bad governance or meddling with the electoral process.”
“For someone who most likely supports someone who spent trillions of dollars invading a foreign nation on a war of aggression, corn ethanol subsidies, you sure have some nerve saying spending money on social security is bad.”
Health care Social Security
One of these is not like the other. I abhor ethanol susidies. Even the leftists report we’re not to a trillion in Iraq AND Afghanistan. http://www.costofwar.com/
You buy that straw man kit at Walmart? I see you got the non sequitur attachment too.
Sure Carl. Canada, France, Germany and the UK are just like Zimbabwe. The evil bill will forbid you from getting private health care.
The countries of Rolls Royce, Mercedes and BMW have socialized health care. The country of K-Mart is the one with private health care.
As for the rest:
On seven diseases / procedures for which data are available for both countries, Canada survival rates were superior to the U.S. for four (colorectal cancer: 113 Canada vs. 108 U.S.; childhood leukemia: 118 vs.110; kidney transplants 113 vs. 100; and liver transplants 123 vs. 102), about the same on two (cervical cancer: 106 Canada vs. 108 U.S.; and non-Hodgkins lymphoma: 107 vs. 109), and worse on one (breast cancer: 104 Canada vs. 114 U.S.).
*Note: for the purposes of this study, the nation with the worst survival rate was assigned a baseline value of 100.
All figures compare the U.S. and Canada’s relative performance to this poorest-performing nation.
Hussey, P. et al “How Does the Quality of Care Compare in Five Countries?” Health Affairs 23(3) May/June 2004.
Bill:
I merely raised one non-sequitur to yours. As for lying in court, it isn’t anything Bill Gates hasn’t done in the past as well. Sex in the office… Bill Gates married one of his former employees. Bah.
I never said I’m in favor of everything Bill Clinton has done in the past. I think I already stated here in the past that I was against the Kosovo War.
Yep, and Bil Gates wasn’t married to someone else at the time.
No kidding Mike and he wasn’t PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
“I merely raised one non-sequitur to yours.”
Oh really? Where was I not on point?
As an aside, how fast was the “rush to war” with Iraq under the Bush administration? My take is that it was easily seen to be coming more than a year in advance. Many of the recent bills have been similar in scale to the total cost of the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation and rushed through considerably faster. It leads me to conclude that this administration isn’t comparing well to the previous administration.
Whatever Bill. He didn’t force anyone to have sex with him. If there is anything he is guilty of is being stupid enough to lie in court.
I hate that I have to do this, every six months or so, for people so historically ignorant.
First of all, while he “didn’t force anyone to have sex with him,” there was a federal law on the books with which he was perfectly OK that if someone in a hierarchy above a woman, then had sex with them, it was de facto sexual harrassment. If you don’t like that (as he didn’t, but only after the fact) then complain to the Congress and the president who signed it.
If there is anything he is guilty of is being stupid enough to lie in court.
No, beyond that, he is guilty of bribing and threatening (i.e., suborning perjury) witnesses to lie on his behalf as well. These are federal felonies, and appropriately so, since they are the tactics of gangsters avoiding justice.
And he was the man who took an oath to see that the laws of the land were faithfully upheld. Apparently he held his fingers, or silently said to himself, “…as long as they don’t apply to me…”
I really get tired of having to continually correct this continual attempt to rewrite history.
I hope one day you have a daughter Godzilla. You will see the whole affair in a different light. That being said, I think you miss the whole point. Health care is not and should never be made an entitlement. Once we go down that road you are forever beholden to bureaucrats for your health care needs. Ask anyone on welfare if they believe they are in a fair and just system. Ask anyone in line at the post office if they believe the system is fair and efficient. The reason all socialist systems eventually fail is the hard working abandon the system to the mediocre. Mediocre health care my seem fair when you are on the outside looking in statistically, however there is no better care that that provided by those who are being paid fairly for their service.
‘Whatever Bill. [Clinton] didn’t force anyone to have sex with him.”
Oh, really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita_Broaddrick
JJS: In the long run we are all dead and all systems fail. Athenian direct democracy collapsed after centuries of success and was universally disparaged afterwards. Even today it is derided as mob rule because clearly citizens are too stupid to make political decisions and must leave that for the elites to decide.
JJS: In the long run we are all dead and all systems fail. Athenian direct democracy collapsed after centuries of success and was universally disparaged afterwards. Even today it is derided as mob rule because clearly citizens are too stupid to make political decisions and must leave that for the elites to decide.
So what are you saying, Godzilla? That we should help the system fail? And I doubt there was ever “universal disparaging” of Athenian democracy.
Oh no
They say he’s got to go
Godzilla
Blue Oyster Cult
…Canada survival rates were superior to the U.S. for … kidney transplants 113 vs. 100; and liver transplants 123 vs. 102) …
Superior survival rates with kidney and liver transplants for patients who received them and who didn’t die of their conditions before a transplant could be performed. This is a classic example of selection bias. I’ll take our waiting times over theirs, thank you.
The health of the organ donor also seems to be an uncontrolled variable in comparisons such as these, as American donors may be more subject to certain diseases (e.g., hepatitis C) than Canadian donors.
JJS: In the long run we are all dead and all systems fail.
And yet we don’t see you volunteering to commit suicide, even though death is inevitable. How odd …
I would argue that the slow, cowardly death by socialism is no less suicidal.
Buck Dharma (Donald Roesser) is a Conservative Bill. Gojirra would quickly be put in his place by the masters of irony.
Mike G,
I bet the Canadians will only give a Kidney to someone with a higher chance of survival because of their self-imposed scaricity.
The selection bias is more of a de-selection bias.