Common-Sense Questions That Follow Obama's Speech by CrevanReaver

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Common-Sense Questions That Follow Obama's Speech

POSTED BY: CREVANREAVER
UPDATED: Sunday, September 13, 2009 16:45
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Saturday, September 12, 2009 7:14 PM

Wow. Those cowards and idiots in the Republican Party actually managed to come up with good questions to ask commissar Obama.

President Barack Obama: "Our collective failure to meet this challenge - year after year, decade after decade - has led us to the breaking point."
Common Sense Question: If we are at the "breaking point," then why doesn't your government-run insurance plan start until 2013?

President Barack Obama: "There are now 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage."
Common Sense Question: On August 20, you said 46 million Americans were uninsured. What happened to 16 million Americans?

President Barack Obama: "And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage."
Common Sense Question: Does that mean 15 million Americans will lose their health care before your government plan starts in 2013?

President Barack Obama: "We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it."
Common Sense Question: Then why do people travel from around the world to receive health care in the United States?

President Barack Obama: "Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close."
Common Sense Question: Didn't the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office say that the health care plan you have endorsed will add $239 billion to our annual deficits over the next ten years?

President Barack Obama: "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan."
Common Sense Question: If we can pay for "most" of health care reform by controlling waste and inefficiency, then why does a $900 billion health care plan include $820 billion in tax increases?

President Barack Obama: "...no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion."
Common Sense Question: Do you object to House Democrats defeating an amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee markup that would have explicitly prohibited federal funding of abortion under a government-run health care plan?

President Barack Obama: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future."
Common Sense Question: Do you oppose the House Democrat health care plan, H.R. 3200, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said will add $239 billion to our annual deficits over the next ten years and "would probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits" thereafter? If so, which Democrat plan are you going to support?

President Barack Obama: "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan...the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over the next 10 years..."
Common Sense Question: If there is so much "waste and inefficiency" in Medicare and Medicaid - two government-run health care plans - then won't further government involvement in health care lead to further "waste and inefficiency"?

President Barack Obama: "And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen."
Common Sense Question: Will you agree to meet with House Republican leaders to discuss health care reform, as they requested almost four months ago?

http://www.gop.gov/press-release/09/09/10/common-sense-questions-that-
follow

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Saturday, September 12, 2009 8:16 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

It makes me wonder why they bother calling it "common sense", since your questions contain so damned little of it.

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

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Saturday, September 12, 2009 8:50 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by CrevanReaver:
Wow. Those cowards and idiots in the Republican Party actually managed to come up with good questions to ask commissar Obama.

Except they didn't. And they still have yet to offer ANY plan of their own. 45 days ago, John "Boner" Boehner said he'd be bringing forth the Republicans' plan. And he hasn't been heard from since.

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "Our collective failure to meet this challenge - year after year, decade after decade - has led us to the breaking point."
Common Sense Question: If we are at the "breaking point," then why doesn't your government-run insurance plan start until 2013?

Probably has something to do with the endless delaying tactics being used by the Republicans. Personally, I wish the Democrats had just fucking steamrolled them, voted on it before the summer break, and started to put it into effect before the end of the year. As it stands, no matter what happens, Republicans will do everything they can to block, obfuscate, and delay, because when you get right down to it, Republicans actively hate and despise anyone who isn't in their little country club. That's the hilarious part - you have middle-class and lower-middle-class people actually supporting the Republican party (although at an ever-shrinking rate due to the mass exodus of recent years), a party that absolutely HATES those people.

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "There are now 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage."
Common Sense Question: On August 20, you said 46 million Americans were uninsured. What happened to 16 million Americans?

What happened to them was that you apparently forgot how to read. Do you honestly not know the difference between "cannot get coverage" and "uninsured" or "don't HAVE coverage"? Believe it or not, there probably ARE 16 million Americans who COULD get coverage, if they had enough money, but who don't HAVE coverage, because they don't have enough money. What with the wage stagnation and rising prices that the last eight years have left us with, lots of people are feeling the pinch.

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage."
Common Sense Question: Does that mean 15 million Americans will lose their health care before your government plan starts in 2013?

If not more. How many will lose their health care before YOUR plan starts? Oh yeah - you don't have a plan. So I guess it would be more than 15 million.

Or are you arguing that we should hurry up and vote and put the healthcare reform into action? 'Cause if so, I'm with ya; let's hurry!

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it."
Common Sense Question: Then why do people travel from around the world to receive health care in the United States?

Probably for the same reason Americans travel to other countries all around the world to get better health care for less. Here's a "common sense" question for you: If America has the best medical care in the world, as so many Republicans claim, then why is it consistently down in 17th place or worse? And if American medicine is so damned good, why are Americans streaming over the border into Canada and Mexico to get the prescriptions filled?

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close."
Common Sense Question: Didn't the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office say that the health care plan you have endorsed will add $239 billion to our annual deficits over the next ten years?

Cites?

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan."
Common Sense Question: If we can pay for "most" of health care reform by controlling waste and inefficiency, then why does a $900 billion health care plan include $820 billion in tax increases?

Again, cites?

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "...no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion."
Common Sense Question: Do you object to House Democrats defeating an amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee markup that would have explicitly prohibited federal funding of abortion under a government-run health care plan?

Who cares whether federal funds pay for abortions? And don't hand me the "I'm not supporting the murder of innocents" line, because those same anti-choice zealots just LOVE the death penalty (government-sanctioned murder, pure and simple), and they also heavily favor illegal wars in which hundreds of thousands of innocents are murdered in the name of our country, with OUR money funding those deaths. So that sanctimonious bullshit doesn't fly. We fund death all over the world, so why SHOULDN'T we fund abortions here at home? For all of your concerns over medical privacy issues, you sure do want your government keeping track of whether a woman ever has an abortion, don't you? And if they don't keep track well enough, I'm sure your pals Randall Terry and his pro-murder followers will help track their next murder victims down.

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future."
Common Sense Question: Do you oppose the House Democrat health care plan, H.R. 3200, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said will add $239 billion to our annual deficits over the next ten years and "would probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits" thereafter? If so, which Democrat plan are you going to support?

Well, I have to say your honesty on that one is actually refreshing. I notice you don't even bother with the pretense of pretending that there will ever be anything you could consider a "Republican healthcare plan". Don't you guys still have some of those "Purple Heart Band-Aids" that you were so proud of back in 2004? Maybe you can hand those out and claim you're really doing something. I bet there's some Iraqi kids you paid Blackwater to shoot who could use a band-aid about now.

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan...the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over the next 10 years..."
Common Sense Question: If there is so much "waste and inefficiency" in Medicare and Medicaid - two government-run health care plans - then won't further government involvement in health care lead to further "waste and inefficiency"?

So why do Republicans oppose cutting defense spending? Refresh my memory. I mean, if government programs are nothing but waste, then what was the idea behind the massive military buildup of the last 8 years or so? Are you saying you guys, when you were in control, MEANT to waste all that money and all those lives? 'Cause if that's what you're saying, all I can add is, "Mission Accomplished!"

Quote:

President Barack Obama: "And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen."
Common Sense Question: Will you agree to meet with House Republican leaders to discuss health care reform, as they requested almost four months ago?

Will they be bringing THEIR plan to the meeting? 'Cause they've been promising that they had one, but so far, bubkis. Not one single thing has been proposed, except for weak-ass crap like "Stay the Course!" And you'll pardon us if we don't really feel like that's a constructive approach, given where that slogan has taken us so very recently...

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

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Sunday, September 13, 2009 6:10 AM

DREAMTROVE

Mike.

I don't often agree with the Reaver, and I'm not sure that I do here, but he made a sound argument, I think these are common sense concerns. Partisan tirade was not required. There are a lot of unanswered questions about the proposal. I generally support the measure, or at least the idea behind it. But it need a more careful consideration. It seems people are jumping to either fall in line or oppose.

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Sunday, September 13, 2009 12:21 PM

KWICKO

DT: Actually, he didn't make ANY argument. He cut-n-pasted from a GOP press release. Hence the "partisanship", which you then see fit to accuse me of, yet oddly completely miss the "partisanship" inherent in Reaver's word-for-word copying of a partisan press release. See link:

http://www.gop.gov/press-release/09/09/10/common-sense-questions-that-
follow

Reaver even posted the link himself in the original post.

And partisanship isn't necessarily a bad thing. You're into etymology; have you looked up the meaning and origin of the word? I prefer Merriam-Webster's second definition:

Quote:
2 a : a member of a body of detached light troops making forays and harassing an enemy b : a member of a guerrilla band operating within enemy lines
synonyms see follower

I'd say that pretty much sums up my positions and actions over the last several years. Is that a problem?

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

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Sunday, September 13, 2009 4:45 PM

DREAMTROVE

Mike

Quote:

DT: Actually, he didn't make ANY argument. He cut-n-pasted from a GOP press release. Hence the "partisanship", which you then see fit to accuse me of, yet oddly completely miss the "partisanship" inherent in Reaver's word-for-word copying of a partisan press release.

Sorry, didn't read the press release, not really spending any time reading GOP press releases or any other.

You do tend to use the following rhetorical devices: "accuse .. of" and "yet oddly" <-- these will not win friends. Just saying is all.

The reason I talk to you at all is that I think that most of you is above this sort of thing, whether they're the words of the GOP or not.

But the reason I bother to post:

1. You sometimes post stuff, rather than engage in the pointless warfare. When you do, it's interesting.

2. Partisanship is necessarily bad, yes, since the nature of the political structure is divide and conquer and if you're caught up in that game, it's as bad as any other addiction.

3. There's little point if anything to rebutting anything said on the grounds of it's political content (see: "someone is wrong on the internet") But a posts in excess of 1300 words, even if it's 1/2 quote.

My point: Spend your time doing something constructive.

For example, and I mean no offense here:
"Who cares whether federal funds pay for abortions?"

Answer: No one, not even you. So why waste the time?

It just looked off-hand as if a conservative posted an argument, and you attacked. Why even bother? If there's room for debate, debate, but the whole pitfighter thing is totally pointless.

Let me give you a little thing I learned from my time in the looney bin, from one of the psych books:

Mental illness doesn't defeat you by making you do things which damage you, it can't kill you, it can only do one thing: Waste your time thinking about it and fighting it.

Okay, now apply that to politics, as if politics were a mental illness, not that I'm saying it's not.

I'm pointing this out as a friend, and yes, I've watched your posts over the last 4 years, and you used to hold firm to the "never get involved in a partisan argument." Your attitude was "I just jump in now and then to poke them with a stick."

Sure, I can see flaws in the GOP argument above. I didn't think you shot those down, but if this is practice for you, then go ahead, but I suspect it's a waste of time.

Frem uses time here relatively efficiently. I'll admit Pirate News does also, even if his information strategy is less effective. But attacking the conservative counterpoint to the plan regardless of source convinces no more people than the points themselves do, and by reacting to it (at all, but my apologies for saying this, but I think it's true: in a less calm manner than they were stated in the first place) isn't likely to help.

I do resent your insinuations that I'm a one sided critique of political commentary. Sure, I'm a conservative and an eternal skeptic of everything, especially govt. but I'm pretty fair and balanced here.

It may seem that that my comments, or geezers, which used to generate no hostility at all, are suddenly finding themselves under attack because now the forum is overwhelmingly liberal, due to the un-mourned loss of Auraptor, Finn and the like.

Not a lot of serious criticism from me on Obama's healthcare plan, a debate I'm trying to avoid, because it will directly impact my life, in a potentially catastrophic way, so I might not be objective, but I will point out a few things just in general that I've noticed on the forum:

1. Since the democrat take over, the dems have become the show-you-down rabid dogs that republicans were before. Just in general, not specific to this post.

Remember, you won't always have the majority, you don't want the left to be remembered the way the Bushies are remembers (we shout, then if you don't submit we reach for our concealed weapons...)

2. Isn't this sort of thing just a collosal waste of time?

There are topics here to be debated that are interesting and maybe we can do something about?

3. You know what the republican input into this healthcare plan is? Zero. Because they have no power. The input of FFF into it? Much less than that.

Just saying is all. Pick your battles, and after you do, skip them all. There's nothing here worth fighting for. Democrats and Republicans are two brand names for the same corporation. If you fight one against the other, you're just wasting your own time.

Just to credit the thread:
The essence of the GOP argument are two fold:

1. Don't act like this plan won't cost money because it will, it's a spending bill, they cost money.

2. Why delay this plan until after your term? Oh yeah, because then it won't interfere with your budget. Isn't that a little self serving and hypocritical if you want to help the uninsured?

That's fairly valid. My recommendation to the uninsured is relocate to some state with insurance

Now this post may not have been worth the time unless something got through: It's not worth the time to argue the details of things you cannot effect.

EDIT: I wouldn't say this if I hadn't seen you increasingly drawn into partisan arguments which you yourself swore off years ago. And please, stop blaming me for being some sort of one sided propaganda machine, it's getting a little annoying. I clearly don't even read these partisan posts, an indication of how much I care. I wish you would extricate yourself from this quagmire and discuss meaningful stuff again.

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