So, you're supporting the lowering of health care costs by creating worse healthcare system? That is quite an admission.

"allows more" means "not all of them" and means "veterans are still at the mercy of our decisions"

And it was in direct response to the outcry from the public after the politicians didn't do anything other than lip service to the problems being exposed.

The fact is, the VA system still sucks, still has inordinate wait times for those that do not have the "get out free" card outlined in the news account you gave.

My actual solution would be to require congress to use the VA as their sole service provider. THEN you'd see real improvement.

Do not put words in my mouth. Government can do things right. Just not nearly the amount of things people want government to do, even if it is the worst possible thing.

The whole VA thing can be fixed, simply, by allowing Veterans to get treatment in a normal hospital. But that doesn't allow our Politicians to "look" into the abuses and "fix" the problem with ... more legislation!

Which is why the municipality should own the last mile infrastructure, just like it owns roads. Building a COLO is like having a highway to the city, where UPS, USPS, FedEX and private taxis can all use the same roads.

Fiber isn't Telco. Comcast can't have it both ways, say it is Telco and not Telco at the same time.

I agree that fiber is not Telco, it is data network. A municipality that says "we're building our own infrastructure" and allow any service to run across that infrastructure (think Roads and trucks), would win. Just build the damn last mile out right and solve the problem.

Reality on the ground can change, if enough people actually want it to change, and there is leadership strong enough to walk it through to the end. I'm offering my solution, it is cookie cutter easy, it just takes one city to set it up to prove it works. And it will work, because it is simple fix. Build the fiber out to every home, to a COLO. The rest can be handled by fees of those that use the service, and the providers.

Last mile is not a natural monopoly. Last mile is just like streets and sewers (municipal), and solvable without Federal legislation. You bring fiber to the house, municipally, you solve the problem. Don't let a private enterprise have exclusive rights to the municipal infrastructure.

It is solvable. I have a plan that works. It is just that nobody wants to even try it.

No, when liberals want laws to prevent corporatation X from doing business thing Y, it is the start of the process that allows Corporation X to petition government to prevent Corporation Z from doing things that Corporation X doesn't like.

Libertarians realize that most of those laws, restricting otherwise legitimate business practices simply because "I don't like what they are doing" allows for all sorts of interference into the free and open marketplace.

Mind you, there is no need for Net Neutrality laws at all, if you solve the last mile problem, and give people a real choice. In addition, you're also opening up the market to new products and services we can't even imagine.

Solving the problem where it is, always works best. The problem isn't national problem, it is last mile (in this case)

Again, the problem is that you have people passing laws trying to solve problems at the Federal level that can easily be fixed with some foresight at the local level. Yeah, it isn't uniform there, but rather than having "one size fits all" that doesn't work the same in NYC as it does in Casper WY.

This is why Libertarian view of the world is best, because we don't get crappy laws that hurt everyone, simply because a few people want them. Bullshit laws are created by the same process that Net Neutrality laws were, and they interfere with businesses all the time. And often because someone said "I don't like what ________ company is doing*, we must have a law to stop them".

*Anti competitive Comcast vs Netflix

I don't like what Comcast did to Netflix anymore than the next guy. I just hate what government does in response worse. Fix the damn problem where it exists, in the last mile, and solve the problem forever, without a single federal law, rule or regulation being created. Laws that will remain on the books, long after their usefulness ends.

VA is symptomatic of government run healthcare, where the patients have no choice. The problems at the VA are not unique to the VA. It is what I call "Universally Bad Healthcare".

Um, that is exactly where the problem arises from, federal regulations. Have you looked at the diagnosis codes for things? There are millions and millions of them.

" V97.33XD: Sucked into jet engine, subsequent encounter. "

Yes, that is a diagnosis code. Seriously, they have one for every random act of god that has ever happened. If it happened once, it gets a code.

But here is the thing, they have these codes, so that the Feds can track EVERYTHING about you, already. This is nothing more that Metadata, and with enough Metadata you can figure out just about anything you want.

Why should congress fix last mile. Your municipality could do it without interference at all. Which is why we should fix it there,because if the locals screw something up, at least we have a chance to actually fix it.

Yes, exactly!

However, Government can screw this up, and inevitably will. But unlike Comcast, I'll never be able to rid myself of our friendly helpful bureaucrats.

I am a libertarian, and I like "net neutrality" in concept. However, I believe that once Government gets involved, no matter how noble in purpose at the start, it won't end up that way.

And rather than actually FIXING the problem, the FCC rules will effectively kill off smaller shops (which is the goal, IMHO) that offer better service and support (like Netflix once was).

And they are solving the wrong problem. The real problem is back at the last mile, where there is NO CHOICE. Fix the problem here, build out Fiber backhaul to a COLO facility where the end user can actually choose their content, from Comcast, TimeWarner, Netflix, ATT or whomever. REAL competition will solve the problem of Netflix vs Comcast (and anything resembling it). In addition to this real problem solving, you'll have the sudden appearances of real innovation as companies search for differentiation among themselves. Christians can get Porn Free wholesome cable, and those that want all porn all the time can get that as well.

What I don't understand is why we keep trying to solve the problem at the wrong place. We don't need nationalized Internet, yet that is exactly the path I see some wanting us to go.

As opposed to what happened at the FCC, where a bunch of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats just made up a whole bunch of new rules?

I mean if you want to frame the argument in hte worst possible light concerning how shit gets done, at least congress is electable. Which is a far cry from what the FCC is. Even if you like what the FCC did here, it should scare the shit out of you, assuming you care about preventing tyrannical bureaucracies.