Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[bluetick]

Did anybody else notice that Hack's last post came minutes before the SCOTUS reaffirmed you-know-what?

[Jungle Rat]

Who's Hack?

[Professor Tiger]

Did anybody else notice that Hack's last post came minutes before the SCOTUS reaffirmed you-know-what?

I hope he's alright. This place wouldn't be the same without the ubiquitous "9:1."

[sardis]

Ok, let me correct myself. Only an insane biased individual would consider Eisenhower as an occupying President in the Vietnam War.

[Professor Tiger]

Well, the little yellow bastages deserved it.

[THE_WIZARD_]

EFZ

[THE_WIZARD_]

Jobs report out...once again proving that community organizers have no clue how to create jobs.

Most governors have created more jobs in their single state than this guy has.

Epic. Fail.

[Dr. Strangelove]

High level General in Syria defects.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18741423

[Toemeesleather]

The private sector is doing FINE!!!lll

[Dr. Strangelove]

Ok, let me correct myself. Only an insane biased individual would consider Eisenhower as an occupying President in the Vietnam War.

Could say Truman was the first one to get us involved there as we assisted the French in their colonial war

[puterbac]

Bill Frezza, Contributor

I wonder. What has Bill really contributed? A stem-winder of a rant about now vs. the time of our Founding Fathers.

Bill. Who composed his rant on his laptop, inside his air-conditioned two-story, in the sunroom off of the Ikea-kitchen with the well-stocked fridge. Jonesin' for that pioneer spirit, he is.

"Little by little, the home of the free and the land of the brave has become a nation of rent-seeking dependents.."

Really, Bill? What did you contribute to this land of ours - what makes you the arbiter of propriety and moral turpitude.

Every holiday - without fail - brings out some asshole who considers it his sworn duty to tell us we're not worthy of celebrating ( for shame, reveling in mindless barbeques and fireworks) because we don't share the author's menopausal sense of lost values.

Jesus. Have a hotdog.

Once again all Tick has is some weak ass attempt to attack the author instead of what the author wrote. Its just sad. Tick is like Robin to Talent's Batman (sorry DSL), and without his mentor he flounders about like a fish out of water. Sad.

[puterbac]

Wiz, I am as God made me. I'm a perspectivist.

Job Market Perks Up in June - CNNMoney 7-5-2012 http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/05/news/ec ... aims-jobs/

Really??

Just 80,000 jobs added in June...

One-third at temp agencies...

Unemployment rate for blacks jumps to 14.4%...

Rate stuck at 11% for Hispanics...

WHITE HOUSE: 'NO QUICK FIXES'...

Romney: 'It Doesn't Have To Be This Way'...

Anxiety mounts as economy limps into 2nd half...

DOW PLUNGES...

Team Obama predicted 5.6% today with stimulus...

IMF to cut global growth forecast...

'Tilted to the downside'...

[bluetick]

LOL, you are a piece of work. Eisenhower was against sending combat troops into Vietnam

Don't listen to this tape, Sardis. Keep your fantasies of Ike intact.

http://whitehousetapes.net/clip/lyndon- ... er-vietnam

[THE_WIZARD_]

Romney needs to fire Obama.

[bluetick]

puter, I believe the heat has made you irritable.

Next week temp forecasts are in the 80s!

[puterbac]

puter, I believe the heat has made you irritable.

Next week temp forecasts are in the 80s!

Nah. I've been at the pool 4 out of the last 7 days.

[puterbac]

What Romney Needs to Say About Romneycare

By Mona Charen - July 6, 2012

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 14707.html

Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom's blunder -- telling an interviewer that Romney believes the individual mandate is not a tax -- was politically dumb, if revealing. It suggests that the Romney camp continues to struggle with the ghost of Romneycare. Romney's subsequent attempt at clarification, saying that it's a tax because the Supreme Court said it is, though, "I agreed with the dissent," succeeded only in further confusing matters.

The campaign desperately needs clarity on this issue. It needs also to shake that worrying tentativeness on Romneycare -- a timidity that suggests to voters that Romney has something to hide.



The answer to the question: "Wasn't Romneycare exactly the same thing as Obamacare?" is, to quote Nancy Pelosi, "Are you serious?" The Massachusetts law contained an individual mandate, which states -- unlike the federal government -- are allowed to impose. But it did not consist of 2,700 pages of new regulations; 159 new boards and commissions; and more than $500 billion in new taxes (and counting); the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a rationing board whose decisions are unreviewable by the courts and practically untouchable by Congress itself; restrictions on religious liberty; Medicare cuts; affirmative action mandates for medical and dental schools; huge new authority over one-seventh of the U.S. economy for the Secretary of Health and Human Services; and open-ended regulations of the way doctors and others perform their jobs.

Beyond that, a glance at the history of Romneycare in Massachusetts shows that Romney's instincts and initiatives were for free-market reforms. An 85 percent Democratic legislature thwarted his best efforts, and a Democratic successor as governor twisted the law's trajectory dramatically.

Before Romney's time, Massachusetts had enacted a number of laws that made its health care system needlessly expensive. All policies offered in the state were required to cover expensive treatments such as substance abuse counseling and infertility. In 1996, the state passed a law requiring "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" -- meaning people could wait until they got sick to purchase health insurance. Naturally, rates skyrocketed. In addition, a 1986 federal law required hospital emergency rooms to treat all patients, regardless of ability to pay.

Romney's idea was to permit Massachusetts insurers to sell catastrophic plans. As Avik Roy explained in Forbes, "Shorn of the costly mandates and restrictions originating in earlier state laws, these plans, called 'Commonwealth Care Basic,' could cost much less. Romney also proposed merging the non-group and small-group markets, so as to give individuals access to the more cost-effective plans available to small businesses." Romney's plan would also have involved a degree of cost sharing so that those receiving subsidies would have an incentive to minimize their consumption.

Romney agreed to the mandate, believing that Massachusetts citizens would get the opportunity to purchase inexpensive, catastrophic plans. But the legislature, together with Romney's successor as governor, Deval Patrick, changed the law to require insurers to offer three tiers of coverage -- all of them far beyond catastrophic care. Perhaps Romney ought to have foreseen what future legislatures and governors would do -- but that's a far cry from the accusation that Romneycare was indistinguishable from Obamacare.

Romney's proposed reforms included fraud prevention measures for Medicaid, requiring the income of both parents to be considered in children's Medicaid eligibility, medical malpractice tort reform, and giving individuals the same treatment as small businesses in the purchase of health plans. He envisioned a system of increased competition and choice.

The bill that passed the legislature contained a number of features Romney couldn't countenance. He opposed the mandate, preferring to permit individuals to post a $10,000 bond in lieu of insurance. The legislature overrode him. He vetoed the employer mandate, coverage for illegal aliens, the creation of a new bureaucracy to be called The Public Health Council, a provision limiting improvements to Medicaid, and one expanding Medicaid coverage to include dental care. His vetoes were overridden.

The health reform law Romney introduced -- as opposed to the one that was implemented by his successor -- stressed competition, reduced regulation and expanded choice for the consumer.

It was a mistake for Romney to sign the bill. As Avik Roy put it, "The individual mandate was a loaded gun that Romney handed to his opponents, who used it to force individuals to buy comprehensive insurance they didn't need." But Romney's bona fides as a free-market advocate and critic of Obamacare are not undermined by Romneycare. He can rightly claim that he foresaw, and attempted to prevent, the consequences of heavy-handed government control of the health care market.

[bluetick]

Hate to break it to Mona but Romney did not oppose the mandate in Massachusetts.

Here is a Mitt-montage of love for the mandate:

http://www.mofopolitics.com/2012/03/27/ ... l-mandate/

"This is AMERICA - we're all about PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!"

[Professor Tiger]

The following is all the criticism Romney can possibly level against Obamacare and the individual mandate:

[sardis]

LOL, you are a piece of work. Eisenhower was against sending combat troops into Vietnam

Don't listen to this tape, Sardis. Keep your fantasies of Ike intact.

http://whitehousetapes.net/clip/lyndon- ... er-vietnam

That actually proves my point.