Journal Timex's Journal: Big Brother needs YOUR help! 28
From Macon Phillips at The White House:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Kinda sounds like shades of Hitler's Germany.
[Update: 8/18/2009:
Apparently the White House doesn't like getting flack when they get caught doing something this insidious. Attempts to email flag@whitehouse.gov now bounce back with a message saying, "The e-mail address you just sent a message to is no longer in service. We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck."
So... Instead of encouraging people to "snitch" on their friends and neighbors, they're calling critics unrealistic, in need of a "reality check". That's your government at work for you!]
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Did you really take the time to yell at everyone who equated Bush to Hitler? Or do you just bat for one team?
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Are you implying that I'm a hypocrite who supports equating Bush with a Hitler, but not this, (a lie I'd love to see you try and back up), or are you implying that my point is invalid because I haven't identified and scolded every person who's ever made that comparison (a pretty ridiculous position to take)?
Or are you just being passive aggressive toward me because you don't want to chastise your friend here for minimizing Nazi atrocities?
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Well, reading through this drivel [slashdot.org], it looks to me like you're more one of Obama's lemmings than not.
The sad thing is that Obama's lemmings make Rush Limbaugh's "dittoheads" look like rank amateurs.
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Lemmings and dittoheads... Together they add up to 98.6% [wikipedia.org] of the voting public.
I also find that we allow them to have closed door meetings over this particularly disturbing. And especially because these are the same people who pissed and moaned about Cheney's closed door energy meetings. Eh, nothing's going to pass without industry(Hillary's friends) approval anyway.
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I'll bat for your team, sexy man!
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Nazi Germany didn't start off with tens of millions of victims. It started off with limitations on freedom in combination of surveillance by the government and the Nazi party that escalated to a police state that enabled tens of millions of people to be victimized.
I don't think Timex meant to imply that this was comparable to the final state of Nazi Germany, but rather the beginnings that led up to it.
By the way, when the U.S. government runs health care, tens of millions will suffer or even die over the y
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I don't think Timex meant to imply that this was comparable to the final state of Nazi Germany, but rather the beginnings that led up to it.
You've hit the nail right on the head. I was, of course, thinking about the historical facts of the NSDAP's rise to power.
As long as the US Constitution isn't thrown out with the trash, I don't think that our government can really end up exactly like Nazi Germany, largely because there's gonna be a point where people get fed up with it and push it to the courts, where they (hopefully) find the policies unconstitutional and knock 'em down.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
The funny thing about this tagline is that the government seems to on
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By the way, when the U.S. government runs health care, tens of millions will suffer or even die over the years waiting for their number to be called so they can see a doctor.
Yes. Under current plans, the American system could make that a real possibility(with the current HMOs and private insurance doing their best to make it a reality), but under a real, triage based national health care system, that's simply not so. It's just more industry FUD.
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I can tell you this: I have had VA health care in the past, and I have had an HMO in the past (now I have some typical insurance plan). Guess which one served me better? I'll give you a hint, it was not government-run.
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And I can tell you this: A friend of mine, under a good national health system was diagnosed with all the latest, coolest equipment, and a month later was on the operating table for a triple bypass, and is now fully recovered. And I personally had to pay for my dental work because the HMO didn't have the only doctor I could trust on their plan. Anecdotes do not an argument make. I can only hope that people will stop reelecting such crooked politicians some day. Then maybe the VA will be up to snuff.
Pay attention, here (Score:3, Funny)
when the U.S. government runs health care
Repeat after me: not going to fucking happen.
There is no government-run health care option even being discussed. It is off the table, and has been off the table for quite some time. Indeed it is debatable whether or not it was ever truly on the table anyways.
The only people even discussing this option are the conservative talking heads, reading off their talking points. Rather than actually doing their fucking jobs and proposing something, they are just smearing the people they oppose. In this case
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Direct from the Mayo clinic:
http://healthpolicyblog.mayoclinic.org/2009/07/16/mayo-clinic%E2%80%99s-reaction-to-house-tri-committee-bill/ [mayoclinic.org]
Update from the Mayo Clinic:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthpolicycenter/pdfs/perspective.pdf [mayoclinic.org]
Bill:
http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf [house.gov]
See page 26 section 122 for what is covered and what is not. In it is referenced the:
Guide to Clinical Preventive Services,
Reply part 1 Re:Pay attention, here (Score:2)
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/obama-healthcare-mayo-clinic
Seems to be a blog summary of
http://healthpolicyblog.mayoclinic.org/2009/07/16/mayo-clinicâ(TM)s-reaction-to-house-tri-committee-bill/
Which itself is a blog entry from "janej" on July 16.
If we were to take this to be the "official" word of Mayo then the key phrases from it may be
the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients.
Unless legislators create payment systems that pay for good patient results at reasonable costs, the promise of transformation in American health care will wither
The first statement is quite ambiguous, as was the legislative proposal at that time (though it isn't much better right now as there still is a g
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All you have to do is pay attention to the actual bills that are moving through congress. Not one of them has a government-run plan.
This should be interesting...
I'm assuming you've had time to actually read the bill(s) in question? If you HAVE, why haven't members of Congress? They're bellyaching about not having time to read the thousand-plus pages of the health care bill as it is.
How many other bills do they vote on without ever reading?
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Repeat after me: not going to fucking happen.
I didn't say it was going to happen right now, or even at all. And, since you decided to make the discussion uncivilized by throwing round the colorful language, I'll add: so don't put fucking words in my mouth.
Off the table and never going to happen at all? According to whom? 100% of the country has decided that nationalized health care is not an option and will stay that way for the foreseeable future?
All you have to do is pay attention to the actual bills t
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Repeat after me: not going to fucking happen.
I didn't say it was going to happen right now, or even at all
Your statement previously was
when the US government runs health care
That is a pretty definitive statement. You could have instead chosen to say if the US government were to run health care - which would be just as likely of a statement as if the US government were to send Rush Limbaugh to Mars.
And, since you decided to make the discussion uncivilized by throwing round the colorful language
The discussion lost civility when lies started to be propagated as fact.
don't put fucking words in my mouth.
I was responding to what you wrote. I put no words into your mouth. You chose to use those words; if you meant something other than what you said you should have written it diff
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Let's read my statement again: "By the way, when the U.S. government runs health care, tens of millions will suffer or even die over the years waiting for their number to be called so they can see a doctor. Do you really want hospitals to operate like the DMV or Social Security Administration?"
In no place did I say anything about current legislation. In no place did I mention a timeline, I simply said "when".
We were talking about legislation that is being written now.
Again, I was not talking about current
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In no place did I say anything about current legislation. In no place did I mention a timeline, I simply said "when".
So then should we also talk about legislation to allow future president Arnold Schwarzenegger to send Rush Limbaugh to outer space?
In other words, why are you speculating wildly and openly about legislation that is not currently being discussed? We started out by discussing current legislation.
Again, I was not talking about current legislation. In fact, nowhere did I even mention it.
The conversation was started as a discussion of current legislation. The White House is concerned about lies that are being propagated in relation to the current legislation.
Why on earth you decided to deviate
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Why on earth you decided to deviate wildly from the discussion of current legislation into your odd fantasy world of futuristic not-actually-written-or-even-proposed legislation is not clear.
Actually, the discussion was originally about the Obama administration's citizen-watch program for turning in people who are spreading so-called disinformation about "health care reform." Health care reform is a broad topic that does not just include current legislation.
The parent of my comment was a reply to Timex's o
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Health care reform is a broad topic that does not just include current legislation
However the blatantly false information that is being propagated by the right wing pertains to the current legislation. I am not aware of any discussions currently in congress pertaining to legislation they may want to write at some point in the future; they are calling the townhall meetings to discuss current legislation.
The topic was the Obama administration's tattling program.
The "tattling" program as you call it is setup specifically to follow disinformation about health care reform. If you read to the white house blog page that was provided regarding that
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No, it started off with breakfast. Before there were Nazis, there were bacon and eggs.
Bacon and eggs, then horrible death for millions! It must be stopped, before millions more die.
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I mean, with the respect you just showed the tens of millions of victims of Nazi Germany, how can anybody NOT take you seriously?
Did you ever actually attend a history class when they talked about the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany prior to WW2? This sort of statement makes me think your answer to that is "What's a 'history class'?"
Seriously, that was just sick. Absolutely sick.
What are you going to do? Report me to the NSDAP?
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I'm sorry, but you're just too infuriating. I'm not going to sit and argue with somebody who has so little respect for the victims of the Holocaust that he thinks their trials were so minor that they can be appropriately compared to a forwarded email. You don't deserve the attention.
You can complain about this all you want, and there's some merit to complaining about it, but trivializing one of the worst genocides in history by comparing the torture and murder of millions of innocent people to forwarding an
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I'm sorry, but you're just too infuriating.
Don't lie to me. You're not sorry in the least.
I'm not going to sit and argue with somebody who has so little respect for the victims of the Holocaust
You have NO BLOODY CLUE who you're talking to. I dare extend that to say (and mean) YOU HAVE NO CLUE, PERIOD. There isn't a clue bat big enough to knock sense into you.
There are people that are in positions at the federal level of the US government to effectively cause into effect the same sorts of events that brought Hitler to power. Is that making light of the Holocaust? Hardly. If anything, I'm afraid that I would be among those cast into the furnaces,
two things (Score:1)
1. I can understand where they're coming from -- like phishing scams, malicious people can circulate bogus information and an unfortunate number of people will fall for it. But this is highly inappropriate and eyebrow-raising, based on history and given what has traditionally been American sensibilities/sensitivities, to be 1) coming from an official govt. body and 2) directed to the citizenry at large. It's obviously only meant for the socialist types, as traditionalists generally would not be for this gov