The Goat Pen

ABC has to pay Trump $15m and Stephanopoulus has to apologize.

That's why the view has to keep making legal notes after they shoot off their yap

Trump is going to get some serious mileage off that apology

'pologize ( ! )

Tree wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2024 12:40 am Trump had an amazing first presidency. Virtually no chance he will do worse than Biden the second time around.

We don't currently have a President leading the executive branch. What we have are un-elected, unaccountable bureaucrats who answer NO questions and are free to set federal policy based on their feelings and emotions. And we have no idea who these people are. But they are the ones making all the decisions at the moment, decisions that Harris agreed with entirely. So yeah, Trump had an amazing first Presidency compared to Biden for no other reason other than Trump's WAS an actual Presidency.

"What we have are un-elected, unaccountable bureaucrats who answer NO questions and are free to set federal policy based on their feelings and emotions."

Excellent description of the current Supreme Court. And Elon Musk and Ramaswami...

hedge wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2024 9:14 pm "What we have are un-elected, unaccountable bureaucrats who answer NO questions and are free to set federal policy based on their feelings and emotions."

Excellent description of the current Supreme Court. And Elon Musk and Ramaswami...

no

We know who ALL 11 people are, the 9 on the court, Elon, and Viveck. We know them. Supreme Court sets no policies, it only rules on whether or not laws are Constitutional. We know what authority the Supreme Court has and Elon and Viveck will have no real authority to do anything. All those two men will do is report back to President Trump and to congress on what our federal agencies are doing with the money we are giving them, they will answer every question asked of them. This is the ONE THING that Tip O'Neal fought until his dying day to make sure never happened: any investigation in the spending of federal agencies. He is rolling in his grave because he knew from day one, these agencies (all of them) are corrupt. And he never wanted them investigated since the people working in them were people he knew.

This may shock folks, but IB’s characterization of the Supreme Court is inaccurate.

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2024 1:39 am This may shock folks, but IB’s characterization of the Supreme Court is inaccurate.

Our legislature creates laws. Thar is their job. At the moment they are not doing their job, but that is their job.

Our Supreme Court then rules on whether or not said law is Constitutional. That is THEIR job. That is why laws like McCain-Feingold are removed from the books, they are determined to be unconstitutional.

There is nothing inaccurate in any of that.

The court rules on the application of federal law apart from constitutional issues, and the court also has original jurisdiction in certain instances. Yes, the court’s docket is loaded with constitutional issues, but the court also hears other issues apart from constitutional cases.

And they are unelected and unaccountable...

By design

Bureaucrats are not the problem since they’re just doing what they’re told by the big money lobbies that put them in place. And if Trump replaces these ppl with loyalists to him, he’ll probably be just as bad as the current neoliberals.

I like the direction this is going

aTm wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2024 10:07 amBy design

Exactly. Same with the others IB is complaining about. Well, not the unaccountable part, but most unelected bureaucrats are accountable for their actions. Congress loves to drag them to the mat for bread and circuses types of "inquiries"...

after that CEO was shot

I've come to support some liberal ideas and I'm sitting in a long boring call that doesn't interest me so I'm looking at this while they drone on some shit about work ethics

I've been converted - not that I probably needed much prodding, Actually most of this I have believed for a long time now but after that kid shot the CEO, seems like America is ready for it.

health insurance companies should be non-profit. The flip side to that is by making them profit, they push to keep costs down but it seems they haven't made much headway in that regard
there are no pre-existing conditions -you just have conditions, its called your health and no one should be discriminated against however I can see a two tier system where your premium is based on projected cost compared to risk (yes I know that goes against insurance profitability - see non-profit ) either you fall into a low risk category or a high risk category - and your premiums are based on that.
dental care should not be separate from health care
out of pocket deductibles should be two tier - minor medical and major medical. Minor medical should be $500. Major Medical should be capped at $5000. This does not go up without congressional vote and your risk category has no bearing on the deductible amount. I have no problem subsidizing any American who doesn't make enough money to cover those numbers.
high deductibles are contributing to the overall decline of Americas health because people will not go see a doctor if they have to pay a huge out-of-pocket expense
Americans should be incentivised to pursue good health habits. Yearly checkups, maintaining weight levels, non smoking, exercise - whatever should all culminate into an incentive check at the end of year equal to 1/3 of the major medical deductible.It has to be enough to motivate people but not so much that it affects insurance company's liquidity.
America DOES not need a single health care system run by our government, unless there are guarantees provided to individual Americans about quality of health care and resources allocated, otherwise you're going to get death panels - maybe not directly but thru sheer bureaucracy and incompetence. Since it would be impossible to guarantee a level of quality to every American citizen in a single payer system, then we must keep the system we have now where Americans can access the highest quality care available and focus on improving everyone's ability to access it.
Big Pharma must allocate 25% of their profits into R&D and accept flat payment to cover any major medical advances. That would continue to encourage R&D, even for the failures, and Americans will be able to purchase medicine globally thru qualified drug distributors.
ban all medical advertising for prescription drugs
there are no in network or out of network doctors. All procedures , testing, treatments etc are paid the same amount. Every doctor gets the same amount from insurance and if they want to charge the patient more than the allowed amount, by law they must discuss that with the patient prior to doing anything with them. They will also be required to post their costs accessible to

Emergency room visits are set cost, where greater allowances are made for the seriousness of the emergency but after the deductible, no one going to an emergency should receive a bill. However Emergency rooms will be held accountable for treating non-emergencies. If it is deemed a non emergency then hospitals are required to turn away a person and send them to a clinic.

I think its immoral to hit someone up at their most vulnerable time in their life with some crazy ass bill.

if they did all that, I would be OK with making insurance mandatory, again, subsidized for people who can't afford it.

Damn, what happened to blow it all up? But don't worry, Trump will fix it. He's got a concept of a plan...

there is a difference between government and insurance.

and if government was out of insurance altogether , we wouldn't have nearly as much problems with it as we do now

but that genie is out of the bottle, so I'm looking at it from a pragmatic standpoint while trying to have some human compassion.

but I'm also ok with shooting a few bastards now and then to keep them in line

It's like every regulated industry, all economic incentive becomes either flipped or misaligned.

Take United Healthcare, who is their customer? You the policy holder? Theoretically, but in actuality the policy holder is an afterthought. United Healthcare's customers are corporations that are buying the insurance for their employees. So the policy holder is really a non entity. United Healthcare markets and tailors its product to fit the needs of big corporations with lots of employees. The employees themselves don't even have a choice with what they get. So, if there's ever new regulations or new healthcare law, its lobbyists representing corporations vs lobbyists representing insurers that decide what goes in those bills. And the more regulation there ends up being, the fewer choices there are. What Obamacare did is force there to be marketplace of plans to a certain standard at a certain price for everyone who's company wasn't already deciding for them. But then it also, made the employer plans all have to fit a certain template. It in absolutely no way helped anybody get "healthcare." All it did was force everybody to get more "insurance"

United Healthcare doesn't want to pay for a person's healthcare. They have premiums that they get by schmoosing corporations, and they have costs that occur when the faceless masses of no-name employees try to make claims. The corporation may care about your healthcare, probably in an inverse relationship to the number of employees they have. But at the biggest levels only their shareholders matter, so it only matters that they are competitive on recruiting and retention and that its costs the least in premiums.

I'm no expert on healthcare, but what I suspect is probably the best/simplest thing the government could do to improve it would be just to outlaw insurance paid by the employer as compensation (unless its just a stipend or something and the insured person chooses the insurer and the policy) and have insurance that is much more similar marketing wise to what exists for like car and homeowners insurance, sought out by the individual and tailored to the individuals needs.

what pisses me off about Obama is this idea that people shouldn't be allowed to have a "cadillac plan".

If that isn't some bullshit - basically in one sentence, he took away HMO's for the middle class and gave subsidized health care to the lower quintile without any regard to its affordability. He fucked 280m people to make sure 44m people were able to get catastrophic coverage.

Obamacare forever changed any Americans chance at having good insurance. I won't say affordable - it wasn't affordable before Obama, but at least you what you paid was justified in the coverage you received. Now you just pay the same, have one crazy ass deductible and hope it doesn't go up again next year (which it will) - and for it, you get a well being physical and birth control included.

hedge wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2024 2:41 pm

aTm wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2024 10:07 amBy design

Exactly. Same with the others IB is complaining about. Well, not the unaccountable part, but most unelected bureaucrats are accountable for their actions. Congress loves to drag them to the mat for bread and circuses types of "inquiries"...

Lets be clear.

All bureaucrats work for the executive branch. Mayorkas is an unaccountable bureaucrat. He does not need to answer any questions posed by congress. As long as Biden is the figurehead POTUS, he will be in his job as only Biden can fire him. All congress has the authority to do, is shame the living fuck out of him, in 5 minute increments. He must sit there and be humiliated, 5 minutes at a time, by each and every Senator who chooses to humiliate the man. For this "bread and circus" of which hedge speaks, the bureaucrat gets 4 years of do-nothing paychecks and he is free to enforce only the laws on the border that the mysterious, anonymous team that is running the country wants him to enforce. And as a result, we have a border crisis as the mysterious, anonymous team that is running the country, they do not want any federal immigration laws enforced. At midnight on Jan 19th of 2025, he will resign as his pride will prevent him from allowing Trump to fire him.

Judges are not bureaucrats. They don't work for the executive branch the way bureaucrats do. They are judiciary and can not be fired by anyone. But they are accountable as they could be impeached from the bench from legislature. We don't typically do that but Article 1 of the Constitution, permits it. Its very rare.

Unaccountable bureaucrats do not work for legislature BUT they are created BY legislature. All our agencies are spun up and funded by congress and our tax dollars. And congress does this because they are pussies. They are too pussy to write actual fucking LAWS to regulate things out of fear that any bill they write that is signed into law might alienate some percentage of their voting base which would (in turn) jeopardize their re-election. Pussies, all. So, spin up an agency and let them regulate whatever they want on the fly and their "policies" would then become "LAW" as long as they are in their jobs.

That is the system working as designed so long as everyone in elected government are on the same side. OOOOOOOPSSSS!

At the moment, liberal democrat congressmen are horrified by what they created in these federal agencies because Trump has this Project-2025 sitting in his hands. And according to this document, Trump (and only Trump) will have the full authority to basically fire anyone he wants in these fucking agencies because for the 4 years he is President, they all report to him and ONLY him. He doesn't just have the authority to whack the agency directors. He could basically whack everyone. LOL. We have never had a President do that but of course, the writers of the Constitution never actually envisioned the bullshit that is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. So there is nothing in the Constitution preventing the POTUS from firing basically, everyone he wants that works in bureaucracy.