Syria getting ugly in a hurry

@ToddMcF2002

How can you be so right and so wrong at the same time? You correctly state that: "Bush doggedly ignored facts and pushed his agenda and damaged our reputation for at least a decade" and that "Obama and his cabinet ignored different facts: that the country is politically polarized and paralyzed and he cannot back up his words"
And than, incredibly, jump to the conclusion that: "This is what you get for slamming in a healthcare plan no one wanted".
You mean that this bit about Bush didn't have anything to do with US public lack of appetite for another intervention?

The Bush wars are the reason for the public's reluctance. I agree on that. The political polarization in congress is the consequence of Obamas policies, particularly the Healthcare Act. This is not you average gridlock. Then again it appears Boehner is caving so my comment is probably already out of date.

Regardless of the Bush wars the public is right to not want this war in my opinion. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
 
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The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
That's NOT a definition of insanity. That's a soundbite.
 
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The Bush wars are the reason for the public's reluctance. I agree on that. The political polarization in congress is the consequence of Obamas policies, particularly the Healthcare Act. This is not you average gridlock. Then again it appears Boehner is caving so my comment is probably already out of date.

Regardless of the Bush wars the public is right to not want this war in my opinion. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

Do you sincerely believe that without the healthcare act, the congress wouldn't be so polarized? And I mean sincerely, if you look closely at the voting behavior of the Republican party over the last 4 years?

Since Obama got elected, the primary political agenda of the Rebublican party has been to oppose anything Obama, or the democracts, propose. Even when they would have done the exact decisions themselves, if they were in power. It's very systematic partisan politics, where the primary, over-riding motivation is to not to lead the country for the better, but to try to cripple your "enemy" as much as you can. A lot of very powerful Repulicans have even openly stated that this is their primary tactic.

Republican party wasn't always like this. But nowadays the internal concentration of power on the party is is on the far, religious right. The party has been taken over by zealots, and it shows in everything they do.

Thankfully, a lot of the smarter members of the party are well aware of this internal crisis, and realize the need for a change. They want their party to go back to what it used to be.
 
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Well, he was under quite the buffet of UN sanctions that were supposed to keep him in check when he managed to invade Kuwait. Why would you be so sure the 2nd time around, under the same circumstances?

Just to point out, the sanctions against Iraq were established four days AFTER Iraq invaded Kuwait. They were initially a punishment for the invasion, and we're then kept on place until 2003, to keep pressure on Saddam's regime.
 
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Which missiles you have in mind?
How about these, which couldn't possibly have been built due to those ironclad UN sanctions? Found by bumbling UN inspectors, too.

http://www.iraqwatch.org/profiles/missile.html

According to UN inspectors, available evidence indicated that around August 1991, Iraq started a secret project to construct a surface-to-surface missile called the "J-1," and did so without notifying UNSCOM, as required by UN Security Council resolutions. The liquid-fueled J-1 was based on the Volga/SA-2 surface-to-air missile with certain modifications of the engine and the guidance and control system. No aspect of the J-1 program (design, manufacture, flight-testing) was admitted to UNSCOM until late 1995 – two years after Iraq claimed that the project was aborted. According to Iraq's declarations, prototypes of the J-1 missile were built and six flight tests were conducted from January to April 1993. Iraq claimed that the J-1 had never been intended to reach proscribed ranges, and stated that the longest range achieved during the tests in 1993 was 134 kilometers. UNSCOM inspectors believed that the system was capable of reaching proscribed ranges. Iraq claimed to have halted the project in May 1993.

Iraq masked the J-1 work by telling UNSCOM that the work was being done on the permitted Ababil-100 missile, which Iraq had declared. The masking was made easier by the fact that the J-1 and the Ababil-100 had some specifications in common. Iraq admitted later that it had intended to hide the "covert" J-1 project within "open" work at declared missile sites.
 
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Interesting thread - I'm surprised to see vibrant support still there for the invasion of Iraq. I think I'll never get my head around the hate generated out of trying to create a civilized health care system that doesn't ruin the lives of 'little people' unlucky enough to fall victim to a costly illness, and the insurance company finds legalese small print to say "no, you must sell all your property or die". Or how this issue can spill over and cause cruise missiles to rain down on the Syrians.
 
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The thing is, even if there's a threat to someone…somewhere, maybe, doesn't mean we have the right to go lay the smackdown on whoever we want. That part, honestly I don't mind most of the time (balkans intervention on what's probably the wrong side is another story), but spending a trillion dollars to set up whole new government in yet another wasteland country is not practical. It's just not a sustainable way to run things as you will go completely broke. World police is bad enough but world bankroll is just impossible.
 
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Interesting thread - I'm surprised to see vibrant support still there for the invasion of Iraq. I think I'll never get my head around the hate generated out of trying to create a civilized health care system that doesn't ruin the lives of 'little people' unlucky enough to fall victim to a costly illness, and the insurance company finds legalese small print to say "no, you must sell all your property or die". Or how this issue can spill over and cause cruise missiles to rain down on the Syrians.
Well we call people like that hypocrites. Apparently foreign problems are more important than domestic ones.:) Doesn't help when a majority of politicians fall into that category also.
 
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Interesting thread - I'm surprised to see vibrant support still there for the invasion of Iraq. I think I'll never get my head around the hate generated out of trying to create a civilized health care system that doesn't ruin the lives of 'little people' unlucky enough to fall victim to a costly illness, and the insurance company finds legalese small print to say "no, you must sell all your property or die". Or how this issue can spill over and cause cruise missiles to rain down on the Syrians.

But it's not a civilized healthcare system, only someone from another country could possibly believe that. It's not nationalized healthcare, it's privatized healthcare with heavy government interference that immediately caused price increases, and it's now ten times worse than it was.

Things worked perfect in the 70s, when we have state and county hospitals (very cheap) and private 80/20 insurance. Absolutely perfectly. What ruined it was malpractice insurance, MMOs, and most of all privatized hospitals. Trying to solve healthcare crisis by adding MORE insurance and privatization is the most ridiculous thing in human history. That's where all the money is being leeched out in the first place!
 
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Constitution trumps ANY laws made. Those laws are simply unconstitutional.



There's a requirement for a 2/3 majority to declare any war and that's much stronger. Voting emergency powers with a mere majority is obviously completely unconstitutional as it's a much weaker requirement to give much greater power, let alone giving what amounts to executive war power "just because".

So basically you've just ignored the statement. The President has the authority to deploy the American military without approval from Congress. Congress has the authority to declare war. These are exactly as the Constitution lays it out. Even then, it was not uncommon for the US military to be deployed for to protect American interests where it did not encompass a formal declaration of war.

If all you care about is what the Constitution says, they you should have zero problem with military action initiated by the Executive branch.
 
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Saddam got his ass invaded because he basically taunted the rest of the world. And really he had to. Not defending the guy, but he found himself in a particularly difficult situation. A dictatorship is notoriously unstabble. Its often said that the actual dictator is one of the least powerful people in a regime like that.

So he had two options:

1) Comply completely with the UN resolutions to disarm. In doing so, he makes himself look weak, to enemies both home and next door.

2) Defy the resolutions, at least a little. Dance along the lines where no one is completely sure what he has and what he doesn't. The threat of him having WMDs is enough. He played the west quite well during the 90's doing this. When Bush II rolled in, it was reported that one of his sons (can't remember which) was incomplete disbelief that the invasion happened and remarked that 'Bush is not like Clinton.'

The greatest threat was internal. Whether it was his sons, a general in the army, a powerful imam, if he looked weak, he risks being toppled by them. Hell, the Kurds were all ready running an automamous region in the north.

Additionally, while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait likely weren't going to be invading anytime soon, remember that Iran and Iraq had a very, very bitter war through most of the 80's. Despite sending aircraft to Iran during the Gulf War, don't think that Iran didn't relish the idea of running him over themselves. He also was leary of Syria. They share a long, poorly controlled border, and while they had allied interests, he had to be cognisent of the fact that Syria would love to have more influence in Iraq.

The threat of WMDs was what was needed to stave off those too threats. He and his regime truly believed that so long as they didn't do anything too stupid, the west (particularly the US) just didn't have the stomach for a second middle eastern war, regardless of how much ass was kicked the first time around.

And he was largely right. He just didn't anticipate that national patriotic furer that 9/11 would generate in the US (not saying Iraq was behind that or anything). That changed the game plan and he didn't adjust. To be fair, he probably figured with us bogged down in Afghanistan, we didn't have it in us to take them on too.

Add in some people that wanted the Iraq war to happen for less than honorable reasons and he'd given them the perfect excuse.

For all the bullshit it took to make the Iraq War happen, never forget that without Saddam's games in the 90's, that bullshit never would have had traction.

(and we did find a shit ton of chemical and bio weapons evidence in Iraq, it was just left over, rather than part of a plan to restart their programs).
 
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But it's not a civilized healthcare system, only someone from another country could possibly believe that. It's not nationalized healthcare, it's privatized healthcare with heavy government interference that immediately caused price increases, and it's now ten times worse than it was.

Things worked perfect in the 70s, when we have state and county hospitals (very cheap) and private 80/20 insurance. Absolutely perfectly. What ruined it was malpractice insurance, MMOs, and most of all privatized hospitals. Trying to solve healthcare crisis by adding MORE insurance and privatization is the most ridiculous thing in human history. That's where all the money is being leeched out in the first place!

Actually the three things you mentioned are not big effects. The bigger cost drivers are:

1) Defensive medicine (driven somewhat by malpractice suits for sure) - we spend more than any other country on expensive tests with virtually no chance of detecting anything - just in case.
2) I don't know what an MMO is, HMO maybe? But definitely the shift from insurance being insurance to being 'cover every healthcare cost I have' has caused more bureacracy than anything else, and hence driven expenses up. (it has also caused people to be lest judicious in choosing their healthcare)
3) Medicare/Medicaid - Because of the way that medicare/medicaid reimbursements work, providers have no choice but to overbill private insurers, which then causes more bureacracy as they 'negotiate down', and also allows them to charge more for things than they used to since they can get away with it
4) Big Pharma spending more on advertising than on R&D.
5) Abuse of ERs buy the uninsured and elderly. Its the most expensive form of healthcare you can get and legally they are unable to turn anyone away. Go to any ER and you will see a solid mix of illegal immigrants using it for basic medicine (fever, upset stomachs, etc.) and elderly for attention (you know its a problem when people in the ER know an elderly person on a first name basis). Both of those are of course symptoms of other problems in society, rather than a direct driver of health care costs.
 
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So basically you've just ignored the statement. The President has the authority to deploy the American military without approval from Congress. Congress has the authority to declare war. These are exactly as the Constitution lays it out. Even then, it was not uncommon for the US military to be deployed for to protect American interests where it did not encompass a formal declaration of war.

If all you care about is what the Constitution says, they you should have zero problem with military action initiated by the Executive branch.
You can deploy troops all you want, but obviously you should not be able to do anything that would constitute an act of war without declaring war. It's very simple, you are the one not getting it.

So you could send troops to protect a factory in bolivia own by american interests or send them to france to help if the russians invade, but not send bombers to blow the hell out of a whole city without decalring war.

They have basically just decided aside from US and europe and russia everyone else is just a rogue nation with no rights of any kind that can be turned into hamburger meat just because.
 
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Actually the three things you mentioned are not big effects. The bigger cost drivers are:
Well you're wrong, I guess. My sister runs 5 hospitals and there's loads of doctors in the family. I hear about this crap constantly, and these are the COMPETENT doctors not the 2% who account for 98% of all lawsuits. They want malpractice insurance abolished. Bad doctors and hospitals want right to sue abolished.

1) Defensive medicine (driven somewhat by malpractice suits for sure) - we spend more than any other country on expensive tests with virtually no chance of detecting anything - just in case.
In most countries you just die if you get something serious. Don't buy any hilarious comparisons saying how great medicine is in [fill in the black] country. Medicine is so great in sweden but they have way more actual mortality than spain which is practically third world. Some of that is just genetics but a lot of it is due to lies. They die of heart attacks 3x more for example and it is NOT "environmental" in any way, shape or form.

Every other country is very dishonest about how they perform, and the more state run it is the more dishonest the reporting becomes because they are basically policing themselves! They will point to a slightly higher success rate in heart surgery but fail to tell you if people have risk factors they don't get an operation, and they don't perform the right diagnostics so loads of people die before they have any idea anything is wrong.

Also, this is insurance company propaganda. They want to cut costs, and easiest way it to just not treat people at all. And that's how socialized medicine works. Your whole medical system is one giant HMO and everyone gets the same (terrible) treatment, while at the same time they publish government studies saying how great it is!

2) I don't know what an MMO is, HMO maybe? But definitely the shift from insurance being insurance to being 'cover every healthcare cost I have' has caused more bureacracy than anything else, and hence driven expenses up. (it has also caused people to be lest judicious in choosing their healthcare)
Whoops HMO, the other horrible thing with MO in it. Crushed the quality and driven up malpractice insurance costs.


3) Medicare/Medicaid - Because of the way that medicare/medicaid reimbursements work, providers have no choice but to overbill private insurers, which then causes more bureacracy as they 'negotiate down', and also allows them to charge more for things than they used to since they can get away with it
But you said that insurance wasn't the problem. Medicaire IS insurance. This is exactly how insurance, or the way insurance is now, has messed everything up. They cut backroom deals about prices and it makes everything out of whack. Insurance should be a percentage paid. Right now you will pay say 1000 to a doctor for a procedure then find out they only reimbursed him 200, giving him a total of 1200. So you paid 200 a month and after 5 years you get reimbursed just 200 to the doctors. Plus for big expenses they cap the amount they will pay so it no longer is useful for serious catastrophes like cancer or car accident, which is the entire point of insurance in the first place!

So what was the point? But if you don't have insurance they charge 10k. This price discrimination needs to be made illegal and then everything will sort itself out.

4) Big Pharma spending more on advertising than on R&D.
That doesn't really matter. The real problem is they are trying to force grandfathered medication to become patented and renewing patents. Nobody is forced to use patented drugs, though. If you don't have people pay for new drugs and pay a lot, they don't get developed.

If we took attitude of euros and didn't let them charge, all research would grind to a halt.
5) Abuse of ERs buy the uninsured and elderly. Its the most expensive form of healthcare you can get and legally they are unable to turn anyone away. Go to any ER and you will see a solid mix of illegal immigrants using it for basic medicine (fever, upset stomachs, etc.) and elderly for attention (you know its a problem when people in the ER know an elderly person on a first name basis). Both of those are of course symptoms of other problems in society, rather than a direct driver of health care costs.
But all these costs are BS anyway. They just make up whatever prices they want based on the previous stuff mentioned, back room deals etc.

It still only costs 50 bucks to have a patient looked at by a doctor, no matter what the hospitals say.
 
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And let me restate for everyone in europe etc. (and the more gullible americans) Obama care is nothing to do with socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is bad enough, obamacare is practically speaking an insurance company plot to wring more money out of everyone while providing less.
 
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You can deploy troops all you want, but obviously you should not be able to do anything that would constitute an act of war without declaring war. It's very simple, you are the one not getting it.

So you could send troops to protect a factory in bolivia own by american interests or send them to france to help if the russians invade, but not send bombers to blow the hell out of a whole city without decalring war.

They have basically just decided aside from US and europe and russia everyone else is just a rogue nation with no rights of any kind that can be turned into hamburger meat just because.

Actually you are the one incorrect. Just look art the actions of the US navy in the 1790s. Among other engagements they took on the British navy for boarding us merchant ships illegally and pressing us citizens into service. All done without a formal declaration of war, though it was considered beefier the Jay treaty smoothed things over a bit. No one questioned the right of the president though to engage our forces. Same with our victory at Tripoli.

History is simply not on the side of your interpretation.
 
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Well you're wrong, I guess. My sister runs 5 hospitals and there's loads of doctors in the family. I hear about this crap constantly, and these are the COMPETENT doctors not the 2% who account for 98% of all lawsuits. They want malpractice insurance abolished. Bad doctors and hospitals want right to sue abolished.

Doctors generally don't know shit about how to run a business. As for your sister,I seriously doubt she runs 5 hospitals and if she does that sound like problem number 1.
Malpractice insurance rates have definitely gone up, but the effect is far greater on the take home of doctors (leaving many to exit private practice), but the effect on actual cost of treatment has very little correlation.

In most countries you just die if you get something serious. Don't buy any hilarious comparisons saying how great medicine is in [fill in the black] country. Medicine is so great in sweden but they have way more actual mortality than spain which is practically third world. Some of that is just genetics but a lot of it is due to lies. They die of heart attacks 3x more for example and it is NOT "environmental" in any way, shape or form.

Every other country is very dishonest about how they perform, and the more state run it is the more dishonest the reporting becomes because they are basically policing themselves! They will point to a slightly higher success rate in heart surgery but fail to tell you if people have risk factors they don't get an operation, and they don't perform the right diagnostics so loads of people die before they have any idea anything is wrong.

Also, this is insurance company propaganda. They want to cut costs, and easiest way it to just not treat people at all. And that's how socialized medicine works. Your whole medical system is one giant HMO and everyone gets the same (terrible) treatment, while at the same time they publish government studies saying how great it is!

And don't confuse me with someone that is a fan of socialized
Medicine. Not at all. That said, defensive medicine (along with the American obsession with prolonging life at any cost,), it's a huge problem.

But you said that insurance wasn't the problem. Medicaire IS insurance. This is exactly how insurance, or the way insurance is now, has messed everything up. They cut backroom deals about prices and it makes everything out of whack. Insurance should be a percentage paid. Right now you will pay say 1000 to a doctor for a procedure then find out they only reimbursed him 200, giving him a total of 1200. So you paid 200 a month and after 5 years you get reimbursed just 200 to the doctors. Plus for big expenses they cap the amount they will pay so it no longer is useful for serious catastrophes like cancer or car accident, which is the entire point of insurance in the first place!

So what was the point? But if you don't have insurance they charge 10k. This price discrimination needs to be made illegal and then everything will sort itself out.

I never said health insurance wasn't three problem, I said the three things you largely point out starting with malpractice insurance weren't that large contributors. I also said that the evolution of our insurance to a cover all is a big problem.

And the price that the hospital charges is rarely collected. So the 10k you use as an example is a bit of a straw man. I do agree that there should be standard billing rates though. A huge problem though is that hospitals have the worst billing systems on the planet. They are wildly inaccurate. My favorite example comes from my father. He had what we thought was a heart attack. After going to the hospital, where he stayed for less than 10 hours, he got his bill. Since he was on a high deductible individual plan, he scrutinized it. The most glaring problem was the amount of medication they billed him for. They said he had been given something like 10 20m tablets. Well, if he had been given that many tablets in a 10hour period, he'd be dead about 3 times over! When he called to straighten it out, they ended up just dropping his entire bill because their records were so bad. That is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. And an insurance company would have just paid their negotiated rate on all of it and never known any difference.

That doesn't really matter. The real problem is they are trying to force grandfathered medication to become patented and renewing patents. Nobody is forced to use patented drugs, though. If you don't have people pay for new drugs and pay a lot, they don't get developed.

Its an issue, and a big one for sure. For one thing, it forces the problem that you brought up, the renewing patents (or where they add something that doesn't do anything just to get a new patent) because they don't have much choice, else their profit margins fall, the stock gets punished and the C level executives are out finding new jobs. Restricting the amount they can spend on advertising would have a measurable effect on reducing the costs of drugs.

If we took attitude of euros and didn't let them charge, all research would grind to a halt.

I don't disagree. I have no issue with companies recouping their R&D costs and making a nice profit on top too boot.

But all these costs are BS anyway. They just make up whatever prices they want based on the previous stuff mentioned, back room deals etc.

Not really sure what that is supposed to mean, but the cost of medication is most definitely a problem in the cost of healthcare.

It still only costs 50 bucks to have a patient looked at by a doctor, no matter what the hospitals say.

What makes you say that? It sounds like a pretty arbitrary number you just pulled out of your ass.
 
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Doctors generally don't know shit about how to run a business. As for your sister,I seriously doubt she runs 5 hospitals
Well, she does.

and if she does that sound like problem number 1.
Each hospital has a bunch of managers, she is their manager.

Malpractice insurance rates have definitely gone up, but the effect is far greater on the take home of doctors (leaving many to exit private practice), but the effect on actual cost of treatment has very little correlation.
They pass the savings along to you, and of course the big cut in quality of care. And they get forced into HMOs and a dozen other bad things because they can't afford insurance. And quacks can maul people in plastic surgery cases, have the insurance pay out, and bring the rates up for everyone. 50-60k+ a year is pretty insane amount to pay for insurance, especially since most doctors never have a case that pays out.

And don't confuse me with someone that is a fan of socialized
Medicine. Not at all. That said, defensive medicine (along with the American obsession with prolonging life at any cost,), it's a huge problem.
Like I said, this is some propaganda that has been creeping out lately. Medicine itself is defensive, and that's the overwhelming difference between state-run (or HMO-run) and private healthcare. Which also affects the stats they like to wheel out to a great degree. Problem is if you have something unusual or you have extra complications you're dead.

It can cut costs to eliminate more tests but the real savings is the people who don't get treated. That's why amoral insurance companies (who also ruin healthcare by interfering with the rules and regulations) are trying to drum up support for this lunacy.

Other change is they regulate price of medicines heavily. Like I said that's negative, too, at least it is when done at the extremes they do it in europe. And you have a lot harder time getting the medication you know you need because of this, and might have to try 3-4 in the meantime, as your health is going downhill or you have to deal with unbearable symptoms.

OTOH if you wanna save a buck and some ridiculous expenses, get rid of organ transplants for people over 40 and anyone with risk factors. if some 60 year old wants a kidney let him fork out a million bucks of his own money for it.
 
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You won't say that when you're over 60!! :)
 
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I am probably older than you think ;)

You have to make room for the next guy some day, and if you have organs failing, especially from your own misuse of them, maybe God's telling you it's that time.
 
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