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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: A 2012 US election thread
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Those who think the oil age will never end should remember that the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones. The discovery of the process of smelting ores, starting with copper, ended the Stone Age. (Scissors beats rock!) Any company or country that reduces or eliminates the use of oil will have a tremendous economic advantage as prices go up. There are plenty of people around the world that are investing and researching replacements for oil. I'm honestly surprised (and disappointed) Americans are so indifferent to that race and the potential for discovering the future equivalent of the microprocessor or the steam engine. Whatever happened to Yankee ingenuity?OliviaG
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
^ Yep. The basic fallacy is "current business model currently makes us lots of money, therefore current business model will always make us lots of money".
The smart oil companies are already trying to reinvent themselves as energy companies.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
Actually, I am a real "all of the above" guy. Let's develop new sources of energy. But, let's not invest $500M in [....] companies that go belly up.
Now, where are those dilithium crystals kept?
Yes, good - do not invest in companies which are going to fail.
[ 02. April 2012, 09:42: Message edited by: Clint Boggis ]
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
Actually, I am a real "all of the above" guy. Let's develop new sources of energy. But, let's not invest $500M in [....] companies that go belly up.
Now, where are those dilithium crystals kept?
Yes, good - do not invest in companies which are going to fail.
This is partisan hackery. The reality is that Solyndra stank to high Hell of political cronyism. I'm as Democratic as anyone on this board, but Solyndra was worthy of a full investigation by Congress. There were too many political ties, the reality that the company was foully managed and the likelihood that the company was going belly up had been established and raised as a prominent concern before a massive amount of money was poured into it; etc.
The Republican charge (ironic in the extreme) of crony capitalism is exactly right. While the real concern of Republicans was most likely that the money was not being shovelled at Haliburton, let's not let our political preferences blind us to graft and corruption. It isn't just Republican theft that is an outrage.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
Chemical and plastic feedstocks: IRREPLACEABLE. An integral component of pretty much everything you're looking at right now - your computer, your carpet and paint, the jug your orange juice came in, the dyes in your clothing, the soap you washed with this morning.
Won't petroleum resources be replaced by bioplastics for some of these things?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
This is partisan hackery. The reality is that Solyndra stank to high Hell of political cronyism. I'm as Democratic as anyone on this board, but Solyndra was worthy of a full investigation by Congress.
Tom, do you have a trusted source for that evaluation? I haven't followed the story closely, but it seems to have had rather less of an impact than (say) the Clinton Whitewater affair. If Solyndra were as exceptionally sleazy as all that, wouldn't the Republicans have made more of it?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Won't petroleum resources be replaced by bioplastics for some of these things?
Bioplastics are made from plant sources, and so require arable land. The potential catch is that many of these sources are also important food crops, such as corn, wheat, soybeans and canola. OliviaG
Bioplastics (PDF)
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Won't petroleum resources be replaced by bioplastics for some of these things?
Bioplastics are made from plant sources, and so require arable land. The potential catch is that many of these sources are also important food crops, such as corn, wheat, soybeans and canola. OliviaG
Bioplastics (PDF)
That, and the amount of petroleum-based fertilizer our agriculture takes these days.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
Can I ask a genuine question? I see a lot of talk about the contraceptive pill, what is health insurance's/these people who are so opposed to OCPs position on Viagra?
[ 07. April 2012, 07:05: Message edited by: Evangeline ]
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Well, it looks like Obamacare is safe then. The attack ads (they don't even have to be attack ads, they'd all be 100% true) write themselves.
$20 says Obama will turn to Romney during the debates and ask how Romney could argue against a program he designed and implemented in Massachusetts.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
His argument, so far, has been that it's not government overreach if states do it, but it is government overreach if the feds do it, oh and he wished he'd never done it, but it's the Dems fault. We'll see how well that survives the media cauldron this autumn.
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Ever since Santorum started comparing himself to Reagan in 1976, it's been pretty obvious that he's really aiming for 2016 (since I think he really does believe Romney can't win)--he had to stick it out until Gingrich was definitely gone in order to claim the runner-up and heir apparent slot.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
His argument, so far, has been that it's not government overreach if states do it, but it is government overreach if the feds do it, oh and he wished he'd never done it, but it's the Dems fault. We'll see how well that survives the media cauldron this autumn.
Maryland passed a mandate ten years ago to provide group health coverage on employers over a certain size. That law was struck down in Federal Court as infringing on "Interstate Commerce".
I really want to see how Romney, and even more importantly the lawyers in the Supreme Court case dance around that one.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
There was a rather prescient column in the Philadelphia Inquirer today discussing Santorum's likely behavior if he dropped out of the race. The writer predicts that it would be out of character if he kindly sucked up to Romney, any more than he did with McCain in 2008. He sticks to his guns. I have to respect him for that, even if I disapprove of many of his views.
[ 10. April 2012, 20:53: Message edited by: Alogon ]
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
There was a rather prescient column in the Philadelphia Inquirer today discussing Santorum's likely behavior if he dropped out of the race. The writer predicts that it would be out of character if he kindly sucked up to Romney, any more than he did with McCain in 2008. He sticks to his guns. I have to respect him for that, even if I disapprove of many of his views.
It's not principle, it's self-interest. If, as the speculation goes, Santorum is angling for the 2016 nomination on the presumption that Romney loses the general election, it won't be any benefit to be too closely associate with the failed campaign. It's much more useful to be an "I told you so" four years later than someone who backed a loser.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
$20 says Obama will turn to Romney during the debates and ask how Romney could argue against a program he designed and implemented in Massachusetts.
25 cents says Romney will simply reply, "Thats the problem with you, Mr. President. You don't understand the difference between a state solution for 5 million citizens and a top down one size fits all debt busting behemoth for 310 million citizens that robs half a billion dollars from medicare and includes an unprecedented and unconstitutional federal demand that people buy a product that they may or may not want."
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
$20 says Obama will turn to Romney during the debates and ask how Romney could argue against a program he designed and implemented in Massachusetts.
25 cents says Romney will simply reply, "Thats the problem with you, Mr. President. You don't understand the difference between a state solution for 5 million citizens and a top down one size fits all debt busting behemoth for 310 million citizens that robs half a billion dollars from medicare and includes an unprecedented and unconstitutional federal demand that people buy a product that they may or may not want."
So is it only unconstitutional if Obama does it? Oh, that's right; when Republicans do the same thing it is awesome.
(And Romney wouldn't say that anyway.)
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1327 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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CorgiGreta
Shipmate
# 443
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Posted
"...robs half a billion dollars from medicare.."
False , according to non partisan PolitiFact.
[ 11. April 2012, 14:02: Message edited by: CorgiGreta ]
Posts: 3677 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
"...robs half a billion dollars from medicare.."
False , according to non partisan PolitiFact.
You seem to be operating under the rather dubious assumption that just because something is false, Mitt Romney won't use it as a talking point.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan Strange:
(And Romney wouldn't say that anyway.)
Actually, he's said pretty much exactly that. I thought that Romney was a genuinely good governor of our state. The most impressive accomplishment of any MA governor in the last couple of decades was the compromise that Romney engineered to get the health care law passed. And, in truth, he accomplished that very difficult feat by bringing the disparate parties together and building a genuine concensus across the various interests in the state, unlike Obama. It was a tremendous accomplishment.
But, the surreal center of Romney's Presidential run is that he has to deny his greatest accomplishment in order to placate the fools in his own party, and pretend that there is a great usurpation of power when the feds do what he did, even though the right-wing think tanks were pushing something very similar for years as the way forward on health care.
I should add that the Democratic surrealism is that Dems are in the weird position of defending a health care act that is wildly inadequate to the problems we face in health care, and virtually every Dem in the country knows it. The big virtue of Romney/Obama care is that it provides health care to the entire country. The big flaw in it is that it doesn't control the run-away costs of health care. Only a single-payer system like Medicare has any hope of that, and it will ultimately necessarily include a limitation on healthcare delivery based on a cost/benefit analysis.
I can envision a system where the uber-rich can buy health insurance to keep themselves alive and tied to machines for a few more months of "life" at a price of millions of dollars. But, personally, I am quite content to let them feed their megalomania in this way while the rest of us go to meet our Maker after long and healthy lives.
--Tom Clune
[ 11. April 2012, 14:11: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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CorgiGreta
Shipmate
# 443
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Posted
My state has been making me buy auto insurance since I first owned a car. Amazingly, my state has yet to force me to buy broccoli.
[ 11. April 2012, 14:15: Message edited by: CorgiGreta ]
Posts: 3677 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan Strange:
(And Romney wouldn't say that anyway.)
Actually, he's said pretty much exactly that...
<snip>
...he has to deny his greatest accomplishment in order to placate the fools in his own party,
OK, I amend my statement to Romney won't say that. He can't go near the subject of Healthcare without risking a mutually-damaging encounter. It would be easier for him to lie that Obama is soft on national security or similar - something he's not had to dirty his hands with.
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1327 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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CorgiGreta
Shipmate
# 443
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
"...robs half a billion dollars from medicare.."
False , according to non partisan PolitiFact.
You seem to be operating under the rather dubious assumption that just because something is false, Mitt Romney won't use it as a talking point.
Assumption shot down in flames.
Posts: 3677 | Registered: Jun 2001
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
The big flaw in it is that it doesn't control the run-away costs of health care. Only a single-payer system like Medicare has any hope of that, and it will ultimately necessarily include a limitation on healthcare delivery based on a cost/benefit analysis.
Won't it also include a limitation on quality and innovation as well?
Medicare providers are already saying no thanks. Medicaid providers are also more and more difficult to find. When we add 30 million more patients to a system with fewer and fewer doctors it seems obvious that nothing good will happen.
With no financial incentive ISTM that the field of medicine will succumb to mediocrity under a single payer plan, were one ever to be put in place.
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I can envision a system where the uber-rich can buy health insurance to keep themselves alive and tied to machines for a few more months of "life" at a price of millions of dollars. But, personally, I am quite content to let them feed their megalomania in this way while the rest of us go to meet our Maker after long and healthy lives.
The latest power fad, according to the BBC this morning, is "age management", i.e. pumping your body full of testosterone and other drugs to make a 60-year-old look and perform like a 40-year-old. Price of each consultation (before we even get to the substances): $4500. A client said he was glad that not everyone can afford it (what an unusual sentiment for those types), because the aim is to preserve your competitive edge against all those young Turks nipping at your heels.
See, just keep the government from taking over X, and the private sector will develop creative ways of accomplishing it. Even redistributing wealth. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I can envision a system where the uber-rich can buy health insurance to keep themselves alive and tied to machines for a few more months of "life" at a price of millions of dollars.
Reminds me of a story that appeared several years ago in the Charlotte, North Carolina, newspaper about ultra-right-wing senator Jesse Helms receiving a heart valve transplant that would extend his life ten years. The story mentioned in passing that the valve came from a pig heart. I noted to myself that anywhere else except North Carolina, the newspaper headline would have read: "Pig to be sacrificed so that Jesse Helms can live 10 more years."
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
His argument, so far, has been that it's not government overreach if states do it, but it is government overreach if the feds do it, oh and he wished he'd never done it, but it's the Dems fault. We'll see how well that survives the media cauldron this autumn.
Maryland passed a mandate ten years ago to provide group health coverage on employers over a certain size. That law was struck down in Federal Court as infringing on "Interstate Commerce".
I really want to see how Romney, and even more importantly the lawyers in the Supreme Court case dance around that one.
No.
That case was about federal preemption, not Congress' power under the commerce clause. It is irrelevant to the Affordable Health Care Act case.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Reminds me of a story that appeared several years ago in the Charlotte, North Carolina, newspaper about ultra-right-wing senator Jesse Helms receiving a heart valve transplant that would extend his life ten years. The story mentioned in passing that the valve came from a pig heart. I noted to myself that anywhere else except North Carolina, the newspaper headline would have read: "Pig to be sacrificed so that Jesse Helms can live 10 more years."
With Senator Helms, it was just a matter of receiving a heart valve from the same species.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
The big flaw in it is that it doesn't control the run-away costs of health care. Only a single-payer system like Medicare has any hope of that, and it will ultimately necessarily include a limitation on healthcare delivery based on a cost/benefit analysis.
Won't it also include a limitation on quality and innovation as well?
Medicare providers are already saying no thanks. Medicaid providers are also more and more difficult to find. When we add 30 million more patients to a system with fewer and fewer doctors it seems obvious that nothing good will happen.
With no financial incentive ISTM that the field of medicine will succumb to mediocrity under a single payer plan, were one ever to be put in place.
Where are all those disgruntled doctors going to go? If we adopt a single-payer Medicare-type system, it becomes the only game in town. I'm certain we will hear lots of grumbling from doctors and other health-care providers, some legit, some not. Hopefully the more reasonable gripes can be addressed in some productive manner. But the system itself will remain intact if for no other reason than that there will be far fewer places for them to flee to.
[ 11. April 2012, 17:31: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
Won't it also include a limitation on quality and innovation as well?
No. Why should it? The vast majority of medical research and innovation in the USA is done in universities and publically owned labs and funded by the government through taxes. in fact about half or more of the medical research in the whole world is paid for by your taxpayers, and thanks very much for it because we all benefit from it. Very little come out of private business. And that includes the big pharma companies.
In fact research financed by the drugs companies is rather disproportionately European, mostly based in countries with various schemes of universal healthcare finance.
The utter abortion that is US health insurance restricts innovation and limits the freedom of private businesses to conduct research. Because if you supply anything other than the standard procedures or treatment for any condition then the insurer might refuse to pay, and if anything goes wrong you will be sued from here to Antarctica. So all too often American physicians are reduced to applying vast batteries of expensive diagnostic tests - for which you pay two to four times as much each as people who live elsewhere, and yet you take more of them than anyone else - then ticking to boxes and applying the standard off-the-shelf treatment for whatever condition seems to be indicated.
OK, that's very much what doctors do in other countries much of the time. But they do it faster and cheaper than in the USA, and they don't waste anywhere near as much of their patient's money on admin, lawyers, and insurance.
And most innovation in healthcare, especially prevention, comes from outside the USA which is if anything a bit backward in some fields, prefering to prescribe drugs after a problem happens rather than help people improve their chances of not getting sick in the first place.
You do an awful lot of basic medical and biological research - again, thanks, its great - but you are slow to apply it in practice. And as I said most of it is in the public sector, paid for by the Federal government, out of your taxes.
quote:
With no financial incentive ISTM that the field of medicine will succumb to mediocrity under a single payer plan, were one ever to be put in place.
Like it has in Sweden or Germany or Switzerland? Yeah, really.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
]Won't it also include a limitation on quality and innovation as well?
Medicare providers are already saying no thanks. Medicaid providers are also more and more difficult to find. When we add 30 million more patients to a system with fewer and fewer doctors it seems obvious that nothing good will happen.
With no financial incentive ISTM that the field of medicine will succumb to mediocrity under a single payer plan, were one ever to be put in place.
re: innovation: about 58% of medical research $$ comes from private industry, 27% from the NIH, the rest from charitable foundations presumably, according to
this article
There'd be no reason for the NIH and charitable organizations to lessen their funding under a single payer plan. Whether private industry does or does not probably has to do with how pharmaceuticals are funded/ reimbursed. But even if it does, that's not likely to change our health outcomes. A large percentage of that 58% of private industry isn't about curing tragic diseases, but just about marketing-- about trying to find another product to cut into a competitor's business-- e.g. a new boner pill to compete w/ Viagra. iow, solving problems that have already been solved.
re: quality. Given that the actual health outcomes for countries with single-payer systems are as good or better than the US, no reason to expect our quality to decline. Under the current system, the average American physician spends more than half his/her time not on medical matters, but on running a small business, in large part due to the complexities of dealing with multiple insurers, each with multiple plans, each with differing forms & reimbursement procedures. (I have mentioned before that my son's pediatric opthamologist's practice requires only 2 medical professionals but 5 billing clerks). After the initial pain of the switch over settles down (which will no doubt be quite painful), doctors will find that they are able to do what they actually trained for-- provide medical services. Whether they will count that a fair bargain is not for me to say, but I think it will be for the consumer.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
cross posted w/ ken to say much the same thing.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
With no financial incentive ISTM that the field of medicine will succumb to mediocrity under a single payer plan, were one ever to be put in place.
This statement presupposes the current American medical system is superlative. It is not. It is average, at best, unless you are rich.
Medical tourism from the US to other countries is big business because Americans can get equal or better care in other countries for less money.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
partial x-post with cliffdweller.
I blame the iPad
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
With Senator Helms, it was just a matter of receiving a heart valve from the same species.
That's an insult to Sus domestica
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
cross posted w/ ken to say much the same thing.
But note that much of the business-funded research is clinical trials, product testing, and marketing, which are really part of the cost of production of a drug and ought not count as "research" in the same sense as basic science.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
cross posted w/ ken to say much the same thing.
But note that much of the business-funded research is clinical trials, product testing, and marketing, which are really part of the cost of production of a drug and ought not count as "research" in the same sense as basic science.
Idiot that I am. Scratch that word "but". It makes it sound like I think I am correcting you in some way. I mean of course I agree with what you wrote:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
A large percentage of that 58% of private industry isn't about curing tragic diseases, but just about marketing-- about trying to find another product to cut into a competitor's business-- e.g. a new boner pill to compete w/ Viagra. iow, solving problems that have already been solved.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
Medicare providers are already saying no thanks.
Because Medicare is underfunded. This hardly argues your point.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
Medicare providers are already saying no thanks.
Because Medicare is underfunded. This hardly argues your point.
And, again, because doctors have the option of cherry picking patients with insurers who pay more (I'm guessing the same doctors eschewing Medicare may also eschew HMOs). When that's no longer an option, the power dynamic will change.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
Any thoughts on how Obama/Mainstream Media (yup: pretty much one and the same ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ) will attack Romney's faith? You know it's coming.
(If I were Romney I'd merely point out that Smith HAD to have a sense of humor - see 'Moroni'. ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) )
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
Any thoughts on how Obama/Mainstream Media (yup: pretty much one and the same ) will attack Romney's faith? You know it's coming.
I think it's extremely unlikely that Obama will do anything of the sort. It isn't a matter of being too high-minded, but it would be hard to do without inspiring a bigger backlash, thus being self-defeating. But, if Obama delves into such waters at all, it would undoubtedly be to "defend" Romney from some dingbat right-wing attack on his faith. A well-worded defense should remind everybody that Romney wears funny underwear and baptizes dead people against their will.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
Any thoughts on how Obama/Mainstream Media (yup: pretty much one and the same ) will attack Romney's faith? You know it's coming.
No need to. Stand back and let the fundamentalists and evangelicals do it for them. They no longer have a horse in this race. All they need is a few journalists to ask a few preachers what they really think of Mormon religion. Might work with the Catholics as well - though they are usually more guarded about what they say in public about other religions.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
I thought all the media-based religious attacks were directed at Obama's alleged closet Muslimness (past right-wing fauxrage at his attendance at a predominately black United Church of Christ, and fairly regular current attendance at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Park notwithstanding.)
Not sure why he'd want to open up that can of worms by doing the same thing in Romney's direction when Romney has plenty of political liabilities to criticize.
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan Strange:
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
$20 says Obama will turn to Romney during the debates and ask how Romney could argue against a program he designed and implemented in Massachusetts.
25 cents says Romney will simply reply, "Thats the problem with you, Mr. President. You don't understand the difference between a state solution for 5 million citizens and a top down one size fits all debt busting behemoth for 310 million citizens that robs half a billion dollars from medicare and includes an unprecedented and unconstitutional federal demand that people buy a product that they may or may not want."
So is it only unconstitutional if Obama does it? Oh, that's right; when Republicans do the same thing it is awesome.
(And Romney wouldn't say that anyway.)
Much as I find it odd to support romanlion, it's clear that the distinction is state vs federal, not republican vs democrat.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
Not so clear as all that, I think. There was a time when support for an individual mandate was an entirely respectable Republican position - in fact it was promoted by conservatives as an alternative to the specter of the dreaded Hillarycare in the early 90's. In its 1989 report Assuring Affordable Health Care For All Americans the conservative Heritage Foundation made the argument for the individual mandate:
quote:
This mandate is based on two important principles. First, that health care protection is a responsibility of individuals ... Second, it assumes that there is an implicit contract between households and society, based on the notion that health insurance is not like other forms of insurance protection ... A mandate on individuals recognizes this implicit contract. Society does feel a moral obligation to insure that its citizens do not suffer from the unavailability of health care. But on the other hand, each household has the obligation, to the extent it is able, to avoid placing demands on society by protecting itself.
At the time, many conservatives saw this as a key element of a market-oriented alternative to single-payer plans proposed by the left; it certainly wasn't seen as an obvious imposition of federal tyranny - at least, not until the Democrats adopted it. Now it seems the Republicans have shifted so far to the right they can't even bear to recognize and appreciate their own ideas.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
That's why I think Og: King of Bashan missed the point.
Maryland passed a mandate that employers over a certain size provide health insurance. This was overturned in federal court as conflicting with the federal ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 1974).
There was no federal mandate to provide insurance, the Federal Court said that employee health benefits were "interstate commerce". You can't pre-empt unless federal act is a legitimate exercise of federal power.
That case strongly points to the fact that health insurance is interstate commerce.
Maryland Fair Health Care case
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
At the time, many conservatives saw this as a key element of a market-oriented alternative to single-payer plans proposed by the left; . . .
No, it was seen as a legislative strategy to craft an alterative proposal, thus dividing support for any health care plan the Democrats came up with, which would ensure that neither plan was enacted. The number of times the Republican party has executed this maneuver on health care reform would indicate that this is a deliberate procedural strategy rather than a good faith effort at reforming the American health care system.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Signs of a campaign in trouble:
quote:
Five Republicans have filed the necessary papers and $500 fee to qualify for the June 26 Utah presidential primary election, but with Rick Santorum dropping out of the race Tuesday, only four will be on the ballot.
Or possibly three.
Newt Gingrich’s check bounced.
Is there still any sense in which the Gingrich campaign can be considered "serious"? Not being able to come up with $500 to get on the ballot in Utah seems like a major fail for a Republican candidate.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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