Stop this Malicious E-mail

CBO's term was 'deficit neutral' -- my mistake.

CBO Scores Confirm Deficit Neutrality of Health Insurance Reform Bill July 17, 2009
http://speaker.house.gov/blog/?p=1872

Washington, D.C. - The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released estimates this evening confirming for the first time that H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act, is deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window - and even produces a $6 billion surplus. CBO estimated more than $550 billion in gross Medicare and Medicaid savings. More importantly, the bill includes a comprehensive array of delivery reforms to set the stage for lowering the future growth in health care costs.
....snip
Net Medicare and Medicaid savings of $465 billion, coupled with the $583 billion revenue package reported today by the House Committee on Ways and Means, fully finance the previously estimated $1.042 trillion cost of reform, which will provide affordable health care coverage for 97% of Americans.

The estimates also cover important reinvestments in Medicare and Medicaid, including phasing in the closing of the "donut" hole in the Medicare drug benefit. The bill's long-term reform of Medicare's physician fee schedule to eliminate the potential 21 percent cut in fees, and put payments on a sustainable basis for the future, will cost about $245 billion. Those costs, however, are not included in the net calculations above, as they will be absorbed under the upcoming statutory "pay go" legislation that is pending in the House.
_______________

The numbers are changing week by week but, in spite of the insurance industry lobby, they are making progress toward passing a 'public option'.
Dennis Kucinich is leading a group of House progressives threatening to vote against any bill without a public option.

According to recent Congressional Budget Office estimates, the public option is, worst case, 'revenue neutral', but most likely will generate $150 billion in savings over 10 years. When you consider that our health care system is twice the cost of the other Western nations' single payer health care systems, it shouldn't surprise anyone that converting from private insurance health care will save a lot of money.

Just because a single payer health care system cuts health care costs, it doesn't follow that the government should 'run everything'. Why should the government 'run everything' if private enterprise is already getting the job done efficiently?
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Government does some things well and the private sector does some things well.

Unfortunately, our private insurance health care system has evolved into an extortion racket and we have no choice but to fix it.
It's pretty clear that single payer health care is the only way to bring costs under control.

If single payer health care doesn't perform as advertised, we keep working on it until it does perform.
Something you conservative libertarians don't seem to understand is:
WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT!
Fortunately there are other functioning single payer health care systems on the planet, proving that single payer works.
There's no reason why the new American health care system won't be the best.

The reason you can't persuade me that private insurance health care can be made to work is that it's already a proven failure, there is no functional example and you have no honest arguments.

CBO's term was 'deficit neutral' -- my mistake.

CBO Scores Confirm Deficit Neutrality of Health Insurance Reform Bill July 17, 2009
http://speaker.house.gov/blog/?p=1872

Washington, D.C. - The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released estimates this evening confirming for the first time that H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act, is deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window - and even produces a $6 billion surplus. CBO estimated more than $550 billion in gross Medicare and Medicaid savings. More importantly, the bill includes a comprehensive array of delivery reforms to set the stage for lowering the future growth in health care costs.
....snip
Net Medicare and Medicaid savings of $465 billion, coupled with the $583 billion revenue package reported today by the House Committee on Ways and Means, fully finance the previously estimated $1.042 trillion cost of reform, which will provide affordable health care coverage for 97% of Americans.

The estimates also cover important reinvestments in Medicare and Medicaid, including phasing in the closing of the "donut" hole in the Medicare drug benefit. The bill's long-term reform of Medicare's physician fee schedule to eliminate the potential 21 percent cut in fees, and put payments on a sustainable basis for the future, will cost about $245 billion. Those costs, however, are not included in the net calculations above, as they will be absorbed under the upcoming statutory "pay go" legislation that is pending in the House.
_______________

The numbers are changing week by week but, in spite of the insurance industry lobby, they are making progress toward passing a 'public option'.
Dennis Kucinich is leading a group of House progressives threatening to vote against any bill without a public option.

Two things:

1) The conservative position already has been discredited -- except among the conservatives themselves. That was made clear with the results of the last two general elections, with which they're still in some denial.

2) Conservatives for the most part hold that everyone thinks and acts the same way they do, for the same reasons, regardless of ideology. In other words, if we're doing it they must be doing it too -- and they insist this without a shred of evidence. Besides, there is no hard-core liberal movement analogous to the conservative movement, and anyone who says there is is either lying or deluded.

Because your questions were not really germane to the discussion, which isn't health care. The real issue is that health care is being used to attack what is considered liberal ideology, the real target of the e-mail campaign, and by inference President Obama.

See my post two above this. IMO, you are projecting your MO on the actions of "the other side," which may or may not be (and in this case probably is not) accurate, and in the absence of any proof that it operates that way it's best that you not even go there. To equate the Daily Kos or the Democratic Underground to the right-wing anti-Clinton/Obama media campaign is disingenuous because the former groups have never had that kind of reach. Besides, Obama actually does have a lot of enemies, especially in the health insurance industry (which will lose a ton of money if he gets his plan through). Even some people I know have posted on Facebook that they want to see Obama impeached -- for getting elected in the first place.

Bottom line, your hypothesis doesn't square with reality.

It is a fact that liberals will go to Amazon and pretend to be a
conservative (and pretend to have read the book) and write a negative review.
It is a fact that rights activists have defaced their own property. That
isn't my MO.

Oh, I seriously doubt the former because most conservative books are so
godawful (some I've tried to read I had to put down after just three pages due
to their angry invective and falsity) that they're actually repulsive. Not
only that, but they're also predictable -- you almost don't need to read most
of them to get the drift.

As far as Daily Kos and DU, they have more active participants than that
"anti-Obama media campaign", and certainly more active participants online,
and plenty of people who would be willing to perpetrate a hoax.

That is a bald-faced lie -- where is the "lefty" equivalent to, say, the Fox
News Channel or the Weekly Standard? Right-wing hysteria is actually
mainstream today.

Your serious doubts are a poor gauge. Scarcely any one-star review of
Levin's book offers any indication of the reviewer having read the book, and
some claim to be conservatives which, if you read their other reviews, makes
no sense.

Or maybe it means they actually have read the book and found it wanting.
Perhaps it's poorly thought-out and incoherent and, like many other
conservative books, based on invectives rather than serious inquiry. Which
wouldn't surprise me -- many books sold through the CBC are just that, more
for the sake of volume than anything else. You also forget that not all
conservatives think alike (though its brain trust certainly does) and no
longer feel the need to support the cause without thinking.

MSNBC and The New Republic.

Wrong. I read The New Republic fairly regularly and it's nowhere near as
one-sided as conservative opinion magazines -- in fact, it does have a
conservative write in from time to time.

I don't see how the existence of The Weekly standard makes me a liar if I
note that liberals have a stronger online presence. HuffPo is the number one
blog in the world. Dailykos is 15. Think Progress is 27. The highest rated
conservative blog is the Corner, which is at 39.

Perhaps that's a function of the actual number of conservative blogs that are
out there, which I would suggest is far higher than "liberal" blogs. Besides,
you still don't give any evidence that the folks who wrote the anti-Obama
screed that was the heart of the post in question are in fact liberals -- nor
can you.

Two things:

1) The conservative position already has been discredited -- except among the conservatives themselves. That was made clear with the results of the last two general elections, with which they're still in some denial.

2) Conservatives for the most part hold that everyone thinks and acts the same way they do, for the same reasons, regardless of ideology. In other words, if we're doing it they must be doing it too -- and they insist this without a shred of evidence. Besides, there is no hard-core liberal movement analogous to the conservative movement, and anyone who says there is is either lying or deluded.

Because your questions were not really germane to the discussion, which isn't health care. The real issue is that health care is being used to attack what is considered liberal ideology, the real target of the e-mail campaign, and by inference President Obama.

See my post two above this. IMO, you are projecting your MO on the actions of "the other side," which may or may not be (and in this case probably is not) accurate, and in the absence of any proof that it operates that way it's best that you not even go there. To equate the Daily Kos or the Democratic Underground to the right-wing anti-Clinton/Obama media campaign is disingenuous because the former groups have never had that kind of reach. Besides, Obama actually does have a lot of enemies, especially in the health insurance industry (which will lose a ton of money if he gets his plan through). Even some people I know have posted on Facebook that they want to see Obama impeached -- for getting elected in the first place.

Bottom line, your hypothesis doesn't square with reality.

It is a fact that liberals will go to Amazon and pretend to be a
conservative (and pretend to have read the book) and write a negative review.
It is a fact that rights activists have defaced their own property. That
isn't my MO.

Oh, I seriously doubt the former because most conservative books are so
godawful (some I've tried to read I had to put down after just three pages due
to their angry invective and falsity) that they're actually repulsive. Not
only that, but they're also predictable -- you almost don't need to read most
of them to get the drift.

As far as Daily Kos and DU, they have more active participants than that
"anti-Obama media campaign", and certainly more active participants online,
and plenty of people who would be willing to perpetrate a hoax.

That is a bald-faced lie -- where is the "lefty" equivalent to, say, the Fox
News Channel or the Weekly Standard? Right-wing hysteria is actually
mainstream today.

Your serious doubts are a poor gauge. Scarcely any one-star review of
Levin's book offers any indication of the reviewer having read the book, and
some claim to be conservatives which, if you read their other reviews, makes
no sense.

Or maybe it means they actually have read the book and found it wanting.
Perhaps it's poorly thought-out and incoherent and, like many other
conservative books, based on invectives rather than serious inquiry. Which
wouldn't surprise me -- many books sold through the CBC are just that, more
for the sake of volume than anything else. You also forget that not all
conservatives think alike (though its brain trust certainly does) and no
longer feel the need to support the cause without thinking.

MSNBC and The New Republic.

Wrong. I read The New Republic fairly regularly and it's nowhere near as
one-sided as conservative opinion magazines -- in fact, it does have a
conservative write in from time to time.

I don't see how the existence of The Weekly standard makes me a liar if I
note that liberals have a stronger online presence. HuffPo is the number one
blog in the world. Dailykos is 15. Think Progress is 27. The highest rated
conservative blog is the Corner, which is at 39.

Perhaps that's a function of the actual number of conservative blogs that are
out there, which I would suggest is far higher than "liberal" blogs. Besides,
you still don't give any evidence that the folks who wrote the anti-Obama
screed that was the heart of the post in question are in fact liberals -- nor
can you.

I was suggesting the possibility. It seems fishy to me.

It's as I was saying -- many conservatives don't want to admit that they've
poisoned the political discourse and thus try to avoid responsibility by
saying, "Well, they're doing it too." That's what this is about and
it's frankly juvenile, not to mention beside the point. They should thus take
their medicine.

Why would you suggest this? It certainly doesn't gel with demographic
information about those who utilize social media, nor does it accord with the
success of Democratic candidates in using social media. Your suggestion
doesn't make any sense.

Conservatives have been at it longer and have always had more media at their
disposal. In fact, this is the first "liberal" blog I ever heard of.

I was suggesting the possibility. It seems fishy to me.

It's as I was saying -- many conservatives don't want to admit that they've
poisoned the political discourse and thus try to avoid responsibility by
saying, "Well, they're doing it too." That's what this is about and
it's frankly juvenile, not to mention beside the point. They should thus take
their medicine.

Why would you suggest this? It certainly doesn't gel with demographic
information about those who utilize social media, nor does it accord with the
success of Democratic candidates in using social media. Your suggestion
doesn't make any sense.

Conservatives have been at it longer and have always had more media at their
disposal. In fact, this is the first "liberal" blog I ever heard of.

I haven't received the email. Why would people bother making this stuff up? (I guess it's easier than doing research). There are plenty of true anecdotal stories from every health care system around the world that could be used to show why that particular system doesn't work. Anecdotes, like Garith's commentary below, are fun and useful in swaying emotions, but they don't substitute for data.

I think you missed the point -- the e-mails are meant to sway emotions to oppose Obama. In that context data are beside the point.

I haven't received it either, but I saw that snopes.com had debunked it a few days ago. Here's another link you can reply to the e-mail with:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/seniorde...

I'm surprised anyone still believes any e-mail they get about President Obama or his proposed policies. The most recent rumor previous to this was that he issued an executive order apologizing to Great Britain for the Declaration of Independence.

You have 'revenue neutral' in quotes. Where did the CBO use this term? I
see the left-wing blog sites using it, employing a bit of fuzzy math by
using the $600 billion in new spending as a form of cost offset to achieve
neutrality. But yes, the bill is revenue neutral so long as you don't count
the spending.

According to recent Congressional Budget Office estimates, the public option is, worst case, 'revenue neutral', but most likely will generate $150 billion in savings over 10 years. When you consider that our health care system is twice the cost of the other Western nations' single payer health care systems, it shouldn't surprise anyone that converting from private insurance health care will save a lot of money.

Just because a single payer health care system cuts health care costs, it doesn't follow that the government should 'run everything'. Why should the government 'run everything' if private enterprise is already getting the job done efficiently?
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Government does some things well and the private sector does some things well.

Unfortunately, our private insurance health care system has evolved into an extortion racket and we have no choice but to fix it.
It's pretty clear that single payer health care is the only way to bring costs under control.

If single payer health care doesn't perform as advertised, we keep working on it until it does perform.
Something you conservative libertarians don't seem to understand is:
WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT!
Fortunately there are other functioning single payer health care systems on the planet, proving that single payer works.
There's no reason why the new American health care system won't be the best.

The reason you can't persuade me that private insurance health care can be made to work is that it's already a proven failure, there is no functional example and you have no honest arguments.

it was an attack on Obama
Yeah, I get that. As I said, I didn't miss the point of the commentary or the email. I made a related point about email forwards.

Yes, there are a lot of ugly things all over the Internet. Snopes is also frequently checked in my house.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't actually coming from conservative quarters. After the Obama is a Muslim thing (which did come from a conservative), it occurred to me that a great way to discredit the opposition would be to suggest that it is distributing a wildly inaccurate e-mail campaign.

If you Google phrases from this e-mail, you get Craigslist postings in NYC, Seattle and Chicago, and Democratic Underground. Further down the list are the cuckoo conservative sites that fell for it, which indicates that they likely (though not certainly) posted about it after it was posted on Craigslist in those cities.

Wouldn't be a bad trick.

To discredit the conservative position. It is easier to attack strawmen
than it is to take on serious arguments. If you favor Obama's brand of
healthcare reform, then why not work to make the opposition look stupid?

Why do members of rights groups sometimes defile their own property, and
blame the defilement on others? Are they hoping to inflame outrage amongst
bigots? Of course not.