Obama: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.

So lemme get this straight. This financial crisis was NOT caused by the subprime mess the dems forced on us. Neither was the implosion of GM and Chrysler due to the drying up of the credit markets... due to the subprime mess the dems forced on us.

I'm to believe that all these messes (that he inheritted, of course) are due to the failure to make good decisions on HEALTH CARE!?!?! You know how to fix the spiraling costs of health care? Try tort reform. Please don't insult me by telling me this whole damned mess was due to health care.

Idiot.

You'll have to forgive the fucking idiot who is currently our president. Economic theory was not taught during his younger years by Mama and the two socialist hippies he had for grandparents. Neither was it taught when he majored in Socialism 101. As for the continuing fax story about his being a "Constitutional Law professor"....well, oddly enough anything he said or wrote is evidently highly classified and therefore can't be released to Joe Public. But don't think of him as an empty suit with no major legislative or civil accomplishments...that would ruin the image projected by his lackeys in the MSM.

From Obama's long winded reply to Steve Scully:
"So, one option is just to do nothing."

My follow up would be: "Mr. President, based on what I've seen with your policy decisions in the first 120 days of your administration, this is pretty much the safest option for America for the next 4 years."

One wonders why all of these contries that had these money saving National Healthcare systems had their economies crash as well. One could almost think that Healthcare and the current economic downturn are unrelated; but that would mean Obama is wrong and everyone knows that is impossible.
Of course there is the presumption that somehow nationalizing a substantial portion of the economy and then effectively reformatting it to the whims of unelected government administrators will somehow have no negative effect on a shaky economy. I guess the upside is that the government will not have to pay for medicaid if there no healthcare for anyone to buy; a bit like shooting yourself in the foot in order to kill the spider sitting on it.

So I am confused. You are attempting to make the argument that Obama's policy is wrong, but from they way I'm reading this post (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) you're saying this spending HAS made a difference, just that Democrats don't see it. Could it be in fact that we feel the changes are not enough? And spending to save money? Isn't this a similar plan as to "spending in the deficit" which, If I'm not mistaken, saved America from another financial crisis. Could it not be said that spending again on cost cutting strategies can help America in the long run? Just something to think about.

I remember GW Bush in 2005 stating we needed to overhaul the medicare/medicaid systems and the democrats said NO, they are fine. Why would they do that?

Also, I am having a lot of surgical work done that I have needed. A new knee, a rebuilt thumb both damaged from arthritis. I will probably have the other knee done this year before the democrats screw up the system. ww

WildWillie,

I'm not exactly sure what Harry Reid has said about Medicare reforms (outside of the fact that he was automatically against anything proposed by President Bush) but here is what he said about Social Security in 2005:

"Today's report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place -- the minds of Republicans," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come."

It'll be fun reminding Democrats about this when Social Security becomes the next big crisis that requires nationalization as its "only" solution.

It'll be fun reminding Democrats about this when Social Security becomes the next big crisis that requires nationalization as its "only" solution.

The funny part is Medicare/Medicaid and SS are all government run programs that are either extremely inefficient or flat out broke.

We need less government because all the Government health and retirement programs barely work. The Medicaid and Medicare are the programs that have driven up coast in the private health care sector, Just like the EU and Canadian drug pricing mandates have driven up the cost of prescription drugs.
The Government is not into profit and without profit companies cannot expand they cannot hire people or grow the business.

Government programs cannot expand because all government programs are finite and not self sustaining which in the long run means they contract and then care gets rationed.
Bureaucrats love it because it brings them votes and they can manipulate the system to their advantage.

"Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far."

So far.

Is that a threat of more to come? Because I gotta tell ya, "so far", they haven't done so well.

"This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades."

And we just voted in a whole boat load of those who have, "over the last several decades", denied, denied, denied that we faced any kind of crisis.

Gird your loins.

Healthcare reform is a potentially fatal disaster for the American economy that must be rectified immediately, while we still can. We can't simply kick the can down the road again.

No, WAIT! Cap and Trade is absolutely essential to prevent New York from getting flooded with seawater and hungry polar bears! Action and a major spending program is a matter of LIFE and DEATH!

No, WAIT! We simply HAVE to rescue the UAW, er, the American auto industry. After all, it's the fault of the previous administration! A major financial rescue package is absolutely CRITICAL! The auto industry is a core component of the American economy and can't be allowed to fail!

No, WAIT! We simply HAVE to rescue the American Banking Association, er, the American BANKS from the meltdown in the mortgage industry and the credit card business. We need continuing oversight and massive infusions of rescue capital to save us from eoonomic OBLIVION!

No, WAIT! We have to show the other world powers that we're deeply ashamed of our history and want to mend our ways to our global partners! We need major investment in financial aid to Hamas to stop the cycle of violence!

No WAIT! We're OUT of MONEY! We need MORE TAX REVENUES! Every American must pay his fair share! (Well, not EVery American...just those rich fatcat Republican taxpayers who have so much money they won't mind. And if they do, so WHAT - we WON.)

I'm starting to wonder - why does Obama speak in italics? Could it be that he doesn't want to actually pay attention to what he's actually proposing? Maybe Obama should breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes or something...

If you're going to criticize the Barak-dur, then you must make sure your arguments are properly focused. Case in point:

Obama Il Duce's [FTFY-ed] philosophy of "we have to spend money in order to save money" is incredibly dangerous,

In reality, "spend a little now to save more later" is a classic method of improving efficiency. As one major recent example, it was the whole point behind the technology revolution of 1985-95. Money spent on IT doesn't do anything to directly improve a company (unless it's actually an IT company), but it pays off enormously in savings in other areas of the company.

Il Duce's plan is dangerous not because he proposes to spend money, or to spend a lot of money. It's deadly dangerous because he proposes to spend money in ways that we know won't actually help solve the problems.

I'll be happy to accept a government run health care system IF I get the EXACT same coverage as the President, Senators, and Representatives get AND if they(our humble public servents) are at the end of the waiting line for service.

Saving money on health care? Duh... that means people die, right?

WHY do you think they are so big on "automating" medical records? Clearly, if everyone's medical records are online, then it's easy for the Federal Government to quickly and uniformly dictate "standards of care." ...lower and lower and lower.

Socialism = mediocrity in all things... including the quality of your health care. But, BHO is so GOOD. How could he do wrong?

First, let me put on my professional IT hat here. There.

I am a mainframe DBA for a forture 10 company. I have made my living as an IT professional for 28 years, and as a DBA for 20 of those years. I handle databases with Billions of rows of data on a daily basis.

The money allocated to automate the records in the current budget was a drop in the bucket.

20 Billion? Who are they kidding? That project will require regional data centers (probably a dozen of more) with a new faster communications protocal between them. It will require more disk drives then are currently in existence WORLDWIDE. It will require support staff at each location, not to mention power and infrastructure.

We will be lucky if they can do a medical records storage in less then 10 years and 500 Billion $ (Thet's Billion with a "B").

And that is just for record storage!

Why? Because storing one medical scan can consume gigabytes of data. If a scanning device is doing one such scan every few minutes every day - how long before you have terabytes of data? And after a year or so, now petabytes of data - per hospital?

And how much media does it take to do backups? We sometimes have to wait while new tape cartridges are loaded into silos now - what about backing up petabytes?

Electronic Medical Records:

1) There is no dominant and truly effective EMR system that serves all purposes. Some just suck less than others. DoD and VA systems barely talk to each other and are patchworks systems.
2) The cost for automating a private practice is basically prohibitive unless it is a group practice. Start up is huge, and maintenance is costly if done correctly. Only by spreading the cost over more than a few providers, and increasing their "productivity" can a practice afford the costs. Unless you are a high paying boutique practice. Current reimbursement levels do not reflect the needs of a computerized practice. They are based on pen and paper systems.
3) They are a great idea and have the potential to decrease errors and improve quality of care.
4) They are a horrible idea which greatly reduces the privacy of health data and personal data.
5) They do not help speed what a provider does with a patient face to face.
6) They do speed the data storage and retrieval required for billing, quality assurance and records review.
7) They do ease getting data a provider needs (old records, prescription records, lab and imaging reports, consults) to manage patients, and improve adherence to health maintenance protocols.
8) The rush to computerize medical records now makes about as much sense as trying to replace all horses with cars and trucks in 1909. Or cap and trade carbon credits now.

"Well, We are all out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions Weve made on healthcare so far"

Audacious one, thy ineptness knows no bounds..

So let's see if I've got this straight.

In order to save money in our medical systems -
We need to toss the management of same to the government,

... which will immediately implement a record-keeping system which apparently doesn't exist,

... to be run by an agency which would have to be created,

... which would then have to come up with reasonable standards for data storage and transmission,

... which would require software to be written, tested, debugged, and (most importantly) scalable to a point where the ENTIRE COUNTRY'S MEDICAL RECORDS could be kept on it,

... AND create data centers far surpassing Google's in numbers, size, and capacity to hold all this...

... AND make sure it's all backed up frequently,

... AND have the end user client app be workable on a wide spectrum of hardware platforms...

Oh, wait - did I mention it has to be an EXCEEDINGlY SECURE system also?

What does he expect - that all this stuff is just laying around waiting for His Magnificence to pick it up and hand it to his lackeys to assemble?

So - how many trillion is Obama expecting this... this... impending epic fail clusterfuck to save us?

And just how much is it going to go over-budget?

I agree w/Epador's #8 - he's wanting to do something that the tech simply isn't quite ready for... with the added provision that along with replacing horses with cars and trucks in 1909, an interstate highway system be added in to the cost. Not that it couldn't have been done then... but the cost would have been far more than the country could afford, and the benefits nowhere near matching the outlay.

The sad part is - there's chumps out there who STILL believe by spending trillions we don't have we're going to somehow make it all work!

The bottom line is that he knows he's out of money but he wants to spend more.

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

You can't cut the cost of providing medical care by promising to provide a lot more care to a lot more people with no additional supply of providers. And the only way to get more providers is to pump in lots more money. This isn't rocket science and Obama isn't Houdini. The idea that we can expand the government health care system, with Medicare and Medicaid already well on their way to bankruptcy, AND control costs is an outright lie. There's no way it can happen WITHOUT massive controls limiting who gets what care - and even that still won't be enough to contol the cost. This guy is the biggest snake oil salesman in history.

Any cost can be increased but Medicare cost cannot be increased as it is a necessity to the poor people also.

And how much media does it take to do backups? We sometimes have to wait while new tape cartridges are loaded into silos now - what about backing up petabytes?

A teleprompter can be backed up to floppy disk.

NO Wait x 10 ....

Oh, by the way it's only those conservatives who engage in politics of fear. We, the Obama, only engage in politics of hope.

Obama starts EACH and EVERY proposal of his with:
"So, one option is just to do nothing."

and this one was no different. The Democrats get away with saying this because the media refuses to print the other options that Republicans and others offer up.

p.s. a special shout-out to GarandFan for this EXCELLENT comment early in this thread:
"You'll have to forgive the fucking idiot who is currently our president."

while I don't FEEL like forgiving "the fucking idiot who is currently our president", I nonetheless appreciate a well-turned and well-deserved phrase!! :)

The reason that the Obamatrons are going to take over healthcare is to get the general populace to accept rationing of healthcare to seniors. The statistics show that in the last year of life medicare expenditures average five and one half times the average of all other years. If everyone is in the same rationing pool, then the government will be able to sell their wisdom of cutting off care to those persons whose healthcare costs are starting to show the upward spiral that the computerized records indicate the beginning of the terminal year. Then the government's line will be, "It's for the children. Would you take funds from them just to extend a senior citizen's life six or seven months? You heartless bastard?" In reality it will be the government's thirst for dollars for vote buying and cronyism.

Of course the government will not allow their decisions to be litigated. I can see delays taking well past the day of death and the law written that heirs have no standing as plaintiffs.

I read recently that fraud in the medicare system was pegged at 31% of total expeditures. Maybe the government needs to hire some people from those evil insurance companies' audit departments. No insurance company could survive at that rate and the taxpayer shouldn't have to pay that as well as the overhead costs, like all government versus private industry costs are well over what they should be.

Obama's running wild with his government credit card.

We saw that sometimes in the Reserves, when we were issued credit cards that were supposed to be used for deployment only - the member would take the card and get all sorts of crap (up to a new car, in one case), even AFTER they were told that THEY were going to be responsible for paying the card, and any defaults were going to be pushed back to the squadron for 'investigation'.

But some people didn't care - it was 'other people's money' and they didn't think they had to be responsible for what they were doing.

They found out otherwise.

And I think Obama's about to find out his 'credit limit' is just about maxed out. There's no way we can afford this - and rapidly the 'cure' for our supposed 'problems' is getting a hell of a lot more expensive than the problems were in the first place.

As a side issue - anyone else find it amusing that gas prices are going up, that crude prices are going up, and it was the DEMOCRATS who stalled off doing any drilling or exploitation of our oil reerves in the US?

We could be drilling - we could be exploring, but our BETTERS, like Pelosi and Reid, have decided we're not smart enough to do it 'safely'.

These are the people who can't remember what they say five minutes after they say it - who haven't a clue about simple stuff like Ted Kennedy's cancer status - but think they can completely manage and run the most complex economy in history.

We're so screwed.

reerves = reserves.

Dang.

Jlawson
"As a side issue - anyone else find it amusing that gas prices are going up, that crude prices are going up,"

This is by design. Never mind that it is poor people most affected by it. Never mind that poor people arent able to afford new green cars. Never mind that it hurts our economy. All that matters is prices go up so we eventually use less oil.

"These are the people who can't remember what they say five minutes after they say it - who haven't a clue about simple stuff like Ted Kennedy's cancer status - but think they can completely manage and run the most complex economy in history.

"
But they are doing such a great job of running it... INTO THE GROUND. And besides. Liberals never care about results, only the thought behind the effort. THey want to help and if it means that almost everyone is negatively affected the only important thing is they arent negatively affected and they tried to do something good and kind.

Yeah, RM - you can pretty well bet that Pelosi, Reid, and pretty much all of Congress are going to be well-insulated from the effects of their 'programs' and stupidity.

The 2010 elections are going to be a real damn shock to them, especially if there's enough ads showing Dems going "We can't drill our way out of an oil shortage!" when gas is up around $5 a gallon.

Suggested reading on the subject (long but worth every minute):

http://jackalope.blogtownhall.com/2009/05/15/history_always__repeats_itself.thtml

The sad part is - there's chumps out there who STILL believe by spending trillions we don't have we're going to somehow make it all work!

17. Posted by JLawson

I think it is worse than that. I bet half those dummies could care less/or are too dumb to understand how the economics work - they are just standing there with their hand out.

They just want some 'free' shit. Period.

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