Democrats vs republicans

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I see that you have some concerns about "wealth redistribution" that is such a buzz term and really silly. I happen to also work for Kaiser and have for 13 yrs and love it! We give good care and every one i work with is pretty happy including Dr's. it is not perfect by any stretch but we all do our level best to provide good care. I know alot of people feel differently than I do but the one thing we all have in common is a love of country and other Americans. I would do anything to keep our country safe and living in peace and I just don't beleive the republicans know what they are doing, they are so for the rich and the big business that may give them a great job or something when they leave congress or whatever. The democrats do it too. that is why I went independent. In the end us folks in the middle want to same thing a great place to raise kids and home to live in when old and feeble and healthcare for all. We deserve it and We should really make some hard changes to accomplish these basic care needs. The rich need to have that tax cut ended and our government needs to GET BUSY and get it done.

I agree with much of what you say. To those who say "I don't want to pay for other people's healthcare" - I say - we all pay for each other benefits. If you work for a private company that depends on government contracts (like Westinghouse research or Boeing or Lockheed Martin) then my tax dollars go to pay for your job. If your congressman takes federal dollars back to your district for some project then my tax dollars are being used to help the people in your district and visa versa. That's what redistribution of tax dollars is all about. You have the right to contact your rep if you don't like where your tax dollars are going.

For social security - the deduction you pay now from your paycheck is going to today's recipients and when you retire and receive SS it will come from that time's current worker's contributions. The problem is that when SS was started there were 13 workers for every recipient and today there are 3. Plus only the first $106,000 in wages is taxed. How stupid is that? Why should Bill Gates only pay SS taxes on the first $106,000 of his earnings? Tax 100 percent of earnings. Most people earn under $106,000 anyway so it won't affect them.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

The best fix for healthcare, IMO, still would have been insurance reform. Now I know that because cm thinks I'm a conservative that that means I want no government whatsoever and no government regulation whatsoever. For some reason she can't see that there is a happy medium somewhere along the line. Had we made some strict regulations for ins companies, got rid of the pre existing conditions restrictions, and had some MAJOR tort reform, most of this could have been fixed.

That's what we got. Without the public option we have no real competition and therefore price control. We got rid of the worst insurance abuses. And tort reform won't really lower malpractice insurance premiums. Read the article I posted. Insurance companies need to raise rates to recoup investment losses.

[ariscus99 1]

So, malpractice premiums go up when the insurance companies lose money in the stock market just like the rest of us, but we don't have a way to recoup those losses. They do. It's not because of rising jury awards, which, at least in my state, have decreased.

You don't seem to have a firm grip on all of the repercussions of a lack of tort reform. Doctors don't necessarily charge more per hour or per procedure due to high liability ins cost, but the real cost and waste in money comes from what many have coined as "defensive medicine". Which basically is all the test's that doctors will run that aren't needed just to please a patient who is threatening to sue them. Most estimates have the cost of "defensive medicine" into the hundreds of billion's of dollars a year. Think of the good that could be done with that money. Here's an article that touches on "defensive medicine" and tort reform.

(1) Tort reform: As I wrote recently, our crazy system of casino malpractice suits results in massive and random settlements that raise everyone's insurance premiums and creates an epidemic of defensive medicine that does no medical good, yet costs a fortune.

An authoritative Massachusetts Medical Society study found that five out of six doctors admitted they order tests, procedures and referrals -- amounting to about 25 percent of the total -- solely as protection from lawsuits. Defensive medicine, estimates the libertarian/conservative Pacific Research Institute, wastes more than $200 billion a year. Just half that sum could provide a $5,000 health insurance grant -- $20,000 for a family of four -- to the uninsured poor (U.S. citizens ineligible for other government health assistance).

What to do? Abolish the entire medical-malpractice system. Create a new social pool from which people injured in medical errors or accidents can draw. The adjudication would be done by medical experts, not lay juries giving away lottery prizes at the behest of the liquid-tongued John Edwardses who pocket a third of the proceeds.

The pool would be funded by a relatively small tax on all health-insurance premiums. Socialize the risk; cut out the trial lawyers. Would that immunize doctors from carelessness or negligence? No. The penalty would be losing your medical license. There is no more serious deterrent than forfeiting a decade of intensive medical training and the livelihood that comes with it.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

You don't seem to have a firm grip on all of the repercussions of a lack of tort reform. Doctors don't necessarily charge more per hour or per procedure due to high liability ins cost, but the real cost and waste in money comes from what many have coined as "defensive medicine". Which basically is all the test's that doctors will run that aren't needed just to please a patient who is threatening to sue them. Most estimates have the cost of "defensive medicine" into the hundreds of billion's of dollars a year. Think of the good that could be done with that money. Here's an article that touches on "defensive medicine" and tort reform.

Tort reform is about limiting the awards a jury can give in a medical malpractice suit. This happens after a lawsuit has been filed. How will this impact doctors practicing defensive medicine to reduce the liklihood of their being sued in the first place? And how will it affect malpractice premiums since it has been shown that they are tied to investment losses?

Will a doctor not order a CT scan to look for cancer if he knows a jury can only award $500,000 if he misses the cancer? And what about his reputation once the lawsuit is filed and he has to defend himself in court? And his lawyer fees and time lost? How does tort reform stop all of this?

[ariscus99 1]

Tort reform is about limiting the awards a jury can give in a medical malpractice suit. This happens after a lawsuit has been filed. How will this impact doctors practicing defensive medicine to reduce the liklihood of their being sued in the first place? And how will it affect malpractice premiums since it has been shown that they are tied to investment losses?

Will a doctor not order a CT scan to look for cancer if he knows a jury can only award $500,000 if he misses the cancer? And what about his reputation once the lawsuit is filed and he has to defend himself in court? And his lawyer fees and time lost? How does tort reform stop all of this?

If reasonable amounts of money are placed on individual malpractice suits it will make them not as afraid of their patients, first of all, not as many people will be hopping on the lawsuit bandwagon hoping to be the next millionaire the "American way"(having someone give you the money). Thats not to say that if you go in for a knee replacement and come out with an amputated arm you shouldn't get a healthy amount of money to compensate you. But, frivolous lawsuits are what is doing all this to the healthcare industry. Will a doctor not order a CT scan to look for cancer if he's not as scared? No. Doctors in general love what they do, love their patients and love to beat the illness. Are there some lazy ones who could care less? Yes thats what lawsuits are for. But if a doctor does due diligence and finds nothing, then six months later cancer is found, nowadays, the patient will find some ambulance chasing lawyer to find some minute obscure outrageously expensive test that "could" have been done, and then will sue for 100 million dollars. So, now the doctor will run that test, and every other unnecessary expensive test, in order to not get sued, and they still might miss the cancer. Medicine is a practice. Mistake's happen. They shouldn't be a way for people to become rich.

[sagreenia 0]

Tort reform is not necessary, we have all the rules and regs we need on this subject and if a doc takes off the wrong leg or a wrong kidney is removed, well I think I should have the right to sue his insurance for damage. Limiting people in amounts that they can sue for is just unreasonable, we have a jury who can look at these cases and hand down reasonable pay outs and the ones who have obviously mistreated the public and lied to them, they deserve to be taken to the cleaners, like cigarette companies who spent years decieving the public and big oil lying and paying off government officials to sink poorly designed oil wells etc... sue them til they sink! I am in medicine and have been for 30 yrs as a nurse I have been to 2 depositions, it's sad when people try to launch thier lives on the backs of decent Dr's and health care organizations that don't deserve it,but that is not the norm from what I have seen. If they deserve it they should pay and that is why the insurance companies should be looked at closer, they are often the scoundrels for charging so DANG high all the time.

[ariscus99 1]

Tort reform is not necessary, we have all the rules and regs we need on this subject and if a doc takes off the wrong leg or a wrong kidney is removed, well I think I should have the right to sue his insurance for damage. Limiting people in amounts that they can sue for is just unreasonable, we have a jury who can look at these cases and hand down reasonable pay outs and the ones who have obviously mistreated the public and lied to them, they deserve to be taken to the cleaners, like cigarette companies who spent years decieving the public and big oil lying and paying off government officials to sink poorly designed oil wells etc... sue them til they sink! I am in medicine and have been for 30 yrs as a nurse I have been to 2 depositions, it's sad when people try to launch thier lives on the backs of decent Dr's and health care organizations that don't deserve it,but that is not the norm from what I have seen. If they deserve it they should pay and that is why the insurance companies should be looked at closer, they are often the scoundrels for charging so DANG high all the time.

I don't know what state you’re in, but I've been in emergency medicine for about 8 years in CA and have been called to testify 7 times in 8 years. Never about service's I've rendered one time was a comment that was made in very poor taste by a paramedic from a different agency that I happened to be working alongside. Another was about a doctor who tried to take control of an emergency scene on a traffic collision and refused to release care of the patient and it slowed the patients arrival to the hospital, the other 5 were complete and utter BS, brought by scourge of the earth type people who I'd ran on literally hundreds of times and they were trying to get rich. That’s in 8 short years. Why should we limit them? Well let’s say the doctor does something atrocious. Let’s say you go in for appendicitis and you leave without your foot. Now you sue. And you get an extremely liberal jury who decides that your pain and suffering is worth 250 million dollars. Would you have ever made anywhere near that amount of money in your life? No. Is your pain worth a lot? Absolutely, but 250 mil? Now most likely a judge would throw that out and make his own ruling and assign a more reasonable number. But that is the sort of thing that can and does happen. One of the trials I testified in the person was asking 50 million dollars from the ambulance company because the medic never started an IV or hooked up a heart monitor. Now in this persons past trips they had almost always been hooked up to a heart monitor and had an IV started. They asked the medic why he didn't do it, he told them that the vitals were stable and it wasn't needed. The patient demanded he do what he was told by the patient, and the medic refused. And was being sued for 50 million dollars. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Another was a person who wanted to be seen in the ER they "the fastest" way in was by ambulance complaining of chest pain. However they didn't know that we had a no nonsense medic working with us and a equally no nonsense triage nurse and PA waiting at the ED. So in route the patient was attached to a 12 lead that showed nothing, BP was normal, skin's normal, resp rate normal, the only thing abnormal was the patients pain scale which when we asked they very calmly said it was at least a 10 out of 10. I've never experienced what I would call a 10 out of 10 pain wise but I have been in so much pain I was on the ground in tears, I'd call that about a 9. To have someone look me square in the face and say 10 usually to be honest makes laugh a little inside. So needless to say we arrive at the ED we've already made base contact informed them we would be bringing the patient in threw triage as they were not critical and didn't need a bed right away. The patient felt otherwise and sued the ambulance company, my fire department, the hospital and the doctors group that the PA worked for as well as the triage nurse. And he only wanted a cool 25 million for his "pain and suffering". If we stop these we stop a lot of wasted money. Two examples of my short 8 years in the medical service. There are probably thousands and thousands more.

[sagreenia 0]

Well, I know those kinds of stories happen all the time and you would see it alot more than i would being in CA and ER work. I live in oregon. I just think we should be very careful about cherry picking cases without them being looked at, there are always people without representation that get abused. I just feel that we must preserve the laws that are not being followed and if they don't work fix them. I think people who win thier cheating cases don't get millions even if they ask for millions.

But if I make 50k a year and suffer an injury or get disabled from a malpractice act I should be able to get 10-15 yrs of wages and medical coverage for that and that is just the begininng of the financial damages. then there is the damages that cannot be counted in $ but that is all we have in the way of compensation.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

If reasonable amounts of money are placed on individual malpractice suits it will make them not as afraid of their patients, first of all, not as many people will be hopping on the lawsuit bandwagon hoping to be the next millionaire the "American way"(having someone give you the money). Thats not to say that if you go in for a knee replacement and come out with an amputated arm you shouldn't get a healthy amount of money to compensate you. But, frivolous lawsuits are what is doing all this to the healthcare industry. Will a doctor not order a CT scan to look for cancer if he's not as scared? No. Doctors in general love what they do, love their patients and love to beat the illness. Are there some lazy ones who could care less? Yes thats what lawsuits are for. But if a doctor does due diligence and finds nothing, then six months later cancer is found, nowadays, the patient will find some ambulance chasing lawyer to find some minute obscure outrageously expensive test that "could" have been done, and then will sue for 100 million dollars. So, now the doctor will run that test, and every other unnecessary expensive test, in order to not get sued, and they still might miss the cancer. Medicine is a practice. Mistake's happen. They shouldn't be a way for people to become rich.

In my state it is not easy to sue for medical malpractice. You have to have a very compelling case or an attorney won't even take it. And even then it might not make it to a trial if a judge deems it to be without merit. And an attorney isn't going to take a case that doesn't have merit because he doesn't get paid unless he wins. So he would have to invest a lot of time and money and he's not likely to do that if it's just a "I want to be a millionaire, I'm going to sue my doctor" baseless case. And lawyers know that in medical malpractice the doctor wins in 85% of the cases, so he better have some very compelling and solid evidence or he's doing more than chasing ambulances, he's losing money.

And again, none of this, nor tort reform, addresses the cost of defensive medicine in our health care nor does it limit those who seek to sue (even if their case never makes it).

Edited August 30, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

This letter writer makes some very good points - some of which I've made before:

SS confusion

In the Aug. 22 Forum piece "Doctrine Heir," columnist Amity Shlaes compiles a disorganized list of irrelevant information that is designed more to confuse than to enlighten.

Social Security is a very simple system. Payroll taxes are collected and go into a Social Security trust fund (now valued at $2.5 trillion). After people retire, they draw a monthly payment from the trust fund as long as they live.

The trust fund is kept in the form of government bonds. The government must eventually pay this money back to the Social Security system, just as it must eventually pay back China or any other creditor.

As things stand, Social Security will be able to pay all benefits until 2037, and after that it will be able to continue to pay 78 percent of benefits. These are undisputed facts from the report of the trustees. And this very far off event can be pushed much further into the future by small changes to the system now, such as having high-income workers contribute a little bit more.

This op-ed is just a small volley in a sustained and determined effort to kill or drastically change Social Security. There are many reasons behind this effort. One is that Wall Street is salivating at the prospect of getting its hands on the Social Security trust fund.

Another factor is that Social Security is a highly successful and popular example of government intervention, and it's one of the few programs remaining from the New Deal. This clear refutation of "the government is the problem" is highly annoying to conservatives.

So the strategy is to obscure and confuse and obfuscate, and this op-ed piece is a perfect example of this.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Newsweek Study: If GOP policies were adopted, we'd be much worse off economically!

Sun Aug 29, 2010 at 02:11:36 AM PDT

Hi.

I'm no diary meistro and don't really care about all that.

But I did want to link you all to a Newseek study, using CBO evaluations of 11 different proposals to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

A GOP vs Obama Administration, economic policies study comparison.

• What they found was that if the GOP was free to apply the policies they have proposed, we would have 2.3 to something like 3.3 Million fewer jobs and a $371 Billion bigger national debt!
  

• 
  They also take down that conflating thing the GOP does non-stop, where they claim if the top tax rate is raised to 39%, it will be a jobs killer. What the CBO found is that only 2% of small business owners fall into the over $250,000 a year income level. So NO! Taxing them will NOT impact small business job creation.
  

Plus a host of other assessments worth slapping your local wingnut with.

Enjoy!

http://www.newsweek.com/...

Here is a slice of the assessment:

On jobs, it's a similar story. So far, Republicans have only said they'd do—or that they would've done—two large-scale things the Democrats haven't: (1) scrap the stimulus, and (2) extend the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 so as not to (in Boehner's words) "impose job-killing tax hikes on families and small businesses."

How would these measures affect employment? Regarding the stimulus, the answer is pretty clear. In a report out this week, the CBO estimates that between 1.4 million and 3.3 million fewer people would be employed right now if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had never made it through Congress. Split the difference, and the pro-stimulus Obama moves ahead of the anti-stimulus GOP by about 2.35 million jobs. (A more dramatic estimate by the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi [a McCain 2008 adviser] puts the number at 2.7 million, but we'll stick with the CBO stats for now.)

The effect of tax cuts on job creation is a little trickier to tally. Extending all of them, according to the CBO, would lower unemployment by 0.3 to 0.8 percent over the next year or so; extending them solely for people making less than $250,000 would produce a somewhat smaller effect, for a difference of roughly 200,000 to 500,000 people.

The problem, as economist William G. Gale of the Brookings Institution has noted, is that "of 11 potential stimulus policies the CBO recently examined, an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts ties for lowest bang for the buck." In fact, he continues, "letting the high-income tax cuts expire and using the money for aid to the states, extensions of unemployment insurance benefits, [or] tax credits favoring job creation ... would have about three times the impact ... as continuing the Bush tax cuts."

In addition, it's unlikely that extending the cuts for the richest Americans would have much of an effect on small-business hiring, which is a claim that Republicans make with some regularity. Why? Because of the taxpayers that report running small businesses on their taxes, only 2 percent fall into the top two income brackets.* The other 98 percent of small-business owners make less than $250,000 a year and wouldn't pay higher taxes under Obama's plan.

History isn't on the GOP's side, either. If keeping the top marginal tax rate at 35 percent—the rate under Bush, and the rate that Republicans are fighting to preserve—spurs so much hiring, why didn't America experience any job growth at all during Bush's time in office?

dailykos

[BJean 16]

Tort reform is a non-issue in fixing the incredibly horrible health care system that we now have. It is something the Republicans have used to divert attention away from the real issues that cause Americans to keep from getting a decent health care system because they stand to gain from taking away patient's right to redress against doctors who do not practice good medicine and who kill or maim their patients.

Malpractice isn't about doctors who are good doctors or medical personnel who are doing their jobs honestly and to the best of their ability. It's about doctors who are harming patients because they are grossly negligent and not performing their jobs in a reasonably safe manner.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Republicans are very happy to have your attention on the mosque issue or immigration in Arizona so that you don't delve too deeply into their plan to dismantle America as we know it.

They want to hand over our social security to the trustees on Wall Street - that should be comforting to all since they did such a good job with our 401(k)s. They want to repeal healthcare. By all means let's go backward on that. Let the insurance abuses continue. They want to cut spending for social programs but not defense. They want to cut off unemployment extensions while going further into debt to extend tax cuts for the top 2% of wage earners.

When we're all riding on unpaved streets in the dark because communities can't afford the upkeep of paved streets or street lights, when grandma is sleeping in your livingroom because there is no more medicaid for nursing home care, when you will have to save big bucks to send your kids to for-profit schools because public schools will be gone, we will ask ourselves how we got there.

And the answer will be because we weren't paying attention to the important issues that will impact our lives every day. And we thought the republicans would have the answers (didn't we see their answers in the disastrous 8 years of bush?) because the democrats weren't able to create 8 million jobs in 2 years. But, hey, I'm sure with all those tax cuts to the millionaires, the jobs should just start pouring in. I mean it's worked so well for the last 10 years, wouldn't you say?

[BJean 16]

Republicans are very happy to have your attention on the mosque issue or immigration in Arizona so that you don't delve too deeply into their plan to dismantle America as we know it.

They want to hand over our social security to the trustees on Wall Street - that should be comforting to all since they did such a good job with our 401(k)s. They want to repeal healthcare. By all means let's go backward on that. Let the insurance abuses continue. They want to cut spending for social programs but not defense. They want to cut off unemployment extensions while going further into debt to extend tax cuts for the top 2% of wage earners.

When we're all riding on unpaved streets in the dark because communities can't afford the upkeep of paved streets or street lights, when grandma is sleeping in your livingroom because there is no more medicaid for nursing home care, when you will have to save big bucks to send your kids to for-profit schools because public schools will be gone, we will ask ourselves how we got there.

And the answer will be because we weren't paying attention to the important issues that will impact our lives every day. And we thought the republicans would have the answers (didn't we see their answers in the disastrous 8 years of bush?) because the democrats weren't able to create 8 million jobs in 2 years. But, hey, I'm sure with all those tax cuts to the millionaires, the jobs should just start pouring in. I mean it's worked so well for the last 10 years, wouldn't you say?

AMEN, Cleo's!!!!!!! I'm happy to quote you on this. It can't be said too often!

Republicans have been trying to dismantle Social Security as we know it and public schools for 30 years! And they've worked long and hard to keep us from having a decent health care system for all.

Just think what would have happened if Wall Street was in charge of our Social Security dollars in the past 8 to 10 years. Like things aren't bad enough right now for people reaching retirement age! Many of us had IRAs and other accounts that were invested in Wall Street and lost our shirts. If we didn't have Social Security to fall back on, you'd be seeing aging people living on the streets in spite of the fact that they held good jobs and worked really hard all of their lives. Not that Social Security will totally keep us flush, but it might keep people from bread lines and sleeping in cardboard boxes.

I sent my kids to private schools quite a few years but I always supported the public school system. Always. I believe in it and I believe that if people want to send their kids to private schools, they can pay extra to do that.

And we as a nation should be ashamed that we don't have a universal health care system for our citizens. It's obscene that corporations and individuals are making huge profits from people being ill. They are motivated to keep Americans sick and taking every new medication they can come up with. It's a sad, sad situation.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama blasted Senate Republicans on Monday for blocking a small-business assistance bill, calling their opposition "pure partisan politics."

The country needs a "full-scale attack" on economic sluggishness, he said at the White House.

"While we have taken a series of measures and come a long way ... too many Americans are still looking for work, and too many communities are far from being whole again," he said.

The president also said his economic team is "hard at work" on a series of new measure designed both to spark short-term hiring and lay the foundation for long-term economic growth.

Among other things, Obama said the administration will continue to push for an extension of middle class tax cuts, new incentives for clean energy research and development, and initiatives to help rebuild infrastructure.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, released a statement immediately after Obama's remarks criticizing the president and Democratic congressional leaders for dramatically increasing the size of the national debt while doing little to restore stronger economic growth.

"Instead of growing jobs as promised, Washington Democrats have grown the size of the national debt, the federal government and the unemployment rate," McConnell said.

"It's no surprise that most Americans think the country is on the wrong track and that Democrat policies have failed to do anything to fix their top concern, the economy."

Growing economic jitters amid new signs of a slow recovery remain a top political issue in the runup to November's midterm elections.

The U.S. economy sputtered to a near stop in the second quarter, according to estimates from the government released Friday, although the slowdown wasn't as bad as many had feared.

The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, was revised sharply lower to an annual growth rate of 1.6 percent in the three months ending in June. The initial reading had been for a 2.4 percent growth rate in the period.

The bill currently stuck in the Senate authorizes the creation of a $30 billion lending fund. The Treasury Department would run the program, which would deliver cheap capital to community banks, defined as those with less than $10 billion in total assets.

The idea is that community banks are the ones that do the bulk of lending to small businesses and so by pumping capital into them, it will get in the hands of Main Street businesses.

Other key components of the bill would provide $12 billion worth of tax relief for small businesses between 2010 and 2020, according to an estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The bill also increases Small Business Administration loan limits and extends loan sweeteners through the end of the year. It offers several tax cuts for small businesses, to both encourage investment and entrepreneurship.

The legislation also provides $1.5 billion in grants to state lending programs that can't rely on depleted state coffers for more cash.

This bill is paid for and doesn't add to the deficit. The republicans are always yapping about small business but when they have a chance to vote for this bill they don't. More evidence that they just want the economy to get worse to improve their chances in November. How very sad that some will be duped to voting for these people.

And to Mitch - I have this to say: This is the best you've got? Pres. Obama slams you for holding up this bill even for a vote and all you can do is say the democrats have increased the deficit? Hey, Mitch, why don't you tell us how much the deficit will increase with that unnecessary tax cut for the rich you support? Huh? What's that I hear? The silence is deafening.