What do people currently think of Obama?

He is disappointing. Not horribly. But disappointing nonetheless.

Nothing’s changed for me. I’m still as uninspired as I was before.

He looks much more firmly in control after the Christmas incident, and Cheney looks like more of a dick,

@pdworkin zing!

Considering the mess that he started with, he has done okay. If the economy had turned around quickly, everyone would be happy with him. As we know, that did not happen. The banks took the bailout monies and invested them in the stock market, rather than, lending those monies to small businesses etc. Greedy wall street is the problem, and also, played a huge part in starting the problem with our economy. Their lending practices started this mess. People bought homes that they could not afford. Banks knew that….just got greedy!

He appears totally indecisive…completely the opposite of what I expected of him. His inability to formulate a concise timely response to anything is appalling especially when it takes him over 10 days to firmly reply to an attempted terrorist attack in our airspace!! WTF!

I’m disappointed. I still respect the man and his mind, but I am saddened and depressed at the political process.

He may appear to be indecisive, but how can we judge that without having all the information? I say, give the man time. He inherited a terrible mess.

@Cruiser Well it actually took him 3 days to directly respond to it himself. Meanwhile staff members and members of his administration responded within hours. And considering it took Bush 10 days to respond to the Shoe Bomber, and even then only in passing…. Not to mention Katrina…... I’d say he did fine on it.

As per my opinions of him, I think he’s doing alright. Could be better, but alright. I wish he had taken a much more vocal role in the healthcare reform, rather than let Republicans lie about everything and Democrats splinter apart. But I think on the economy he’s doing great, I fully approve of how he’s handling both wars (ending the one we shouldn’t be in and finally getting to business on the one we should be in), and I approve of the large majority of the domestic issues he’s addressed.

7 out of 10

Once again.. Bush gave the banks the bailout money. It happened before the election. Google TARP.

@johnpowell yes he did… the problem was the bailout monies were used by the banks to invest in stocks…not lending to small businesses etc. And, those same bank’s lending practices certainly lead to this economic mess by giving loans to people that could not afford them.

@johnpowell once again, did not see the first comment!

he has no idea what is going on. Certainly it is very tough. I feel like he is finally sitting down and getting to work though. I feel like he was still campaigning 6 months after being elected.

I do like his courage in visiting many different nations and talking to their leaders, leaders which other presidents i.e. Bush, did not even attempt to meet with. This was real ballsie of Obama and I liked his boldness. I feel like he is a peace maker and he wants America to be viewed differently, not being so selfish and greedy….even though this will most likely never change. Who knows, I feel like Obama is hiding something. I really do not know if I can trust him yet

Shit, where the hell are we as a nation if we consider diplomatic visits “ballsie?”

I’ll give him all the time in the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that when faced with having to make a decision, he doesn’t make one.

@westy81585 Then your expectations and mine over what we expect out of the leader of the most powerful nation in the world…our nation differ. This was an all out terrorist attack and none of his of his staffers responses came close to characterizing the treat to the safety and security of our nation that it was and is. If it was obvious to me that very day what it was…it was obvious to at least a good portion of everyone else in this world and to take 10 days to characterize it as such AFTER as you pointed out digressions of previous administrations is just failing to lead when we needed him the most to send that message to us and the rest of the world this was a serious as it was and not just a lapse in airport security protocol. He can talk the talk when it’s campaign time but it’s a bit late to start attempting to walk the walk.

@Grisaille: It’s a good question, but unfortunately it is certainly a good word to describe it

@Cruiser “kinda” like Bush after Katrina! A little late!

@Cotton101: Bush was even on vacation at the time, if I remember correctly…a lot of people have said that if a disaster of that nature were to hit the northeast, people would have been all over it much quicker. I kind of agree

@mass_pike4 I don’t know if you can use that as a good excuse… maybe he shouldn’t have taken so many freaking vacations.

He’s just another president. Nothing special. Though, even as a republican in a democratic world.. I still think he is a pixie sized step up from ole G W.

@ubersiren: I did not say it was a good excuse. Regardless of where he was or what he was doing, he should have acted on it quicker

@mass_pike4 as we know, he took 456 vacation days and spent more money than all the other President combined! Fine it amusing that many blame Obama for this mess… and not saying, that i agree with everything Obama has done, but he is a hard worker…got to give him that!

that many days!?! holy crow! I want that job haha

The thing I admire most about Obama is all his effort to mend fences with countries alienated by the former administration. The US needs all the friends we can get.

@Austinlad ditto!

@Austinlad: That is what I tried to explain. Thank you for making it more clear lol. Definitely agree.

@Austinlad I’m with you on that, too!

@mass_pike4 stand corrected…

Bush Spent 487 Days At Camp David, 490 Days At Texas Ranch During
Jan 18, 2009… Bush Spent 487 Days At Camp David, 490 Days At Texas Ranch During – The Huffington Post. ... his total time spent at Camp David to all or part of 487 days. ... That means he was on vacation for 33% or ⅓ of the time. ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../bush-spent-487-days-at-ca_n_158902.html – Cached – Similar

we are getting off the subject, but anyway…good information!

I don’t think he’s indecisive at all. He’s careful and thoughtful. I would rather he wait several days to respond to the underwear bomber than have a knee-jerk reaction like the last administration was prone to.

I was especially impressed with the way he revised the Afghanistan strategy—both with the decision and the thoughtful way he developed the decision.

So far, his presidency is exactly what I expected and mostly what I hoped for. Thoughtful, relatively centrist with the goal of enacting progressive policies. The only thing I’m disappointed about is that he’s dragging his feet on repealing DODT, though I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the hard politics of it.

@ubersiren and @Cruiser, what decisions do you think Obama hasn’t made, exactly? And if you’re only saying that he’s slow to decide—why is it so important to you that our leaders make rushed decisions? That’s kind of bizarre.

About what I expected, less than I had hoped for, and 100% better than the last 8 years.

After a year, I’m not as approving as I’d like to be. I think President Obama should have done more to push the single-payer health insurance issue and to keep a few more of his more-critical campaign promises. Still, I’m glad we have him in the Oval Office instead of McCrotchety and Caribou Barbie.

@Rufus_T_Firefly Hey Ruf you took the words right out of my mouth!! Atta boy! LOL!

@Qingu HS Dude!! Are you in a bunker some where!! Turn on the TV!! How about the Health care POS!! Even Rufus couldn’t possibly argue over how far this guy has dragged this thing from center of his campaign. <<In his best Obama voice…>>“I promise as your next President of the US of A….I will bring affordable single payer health insurance and ensure that the whole entire process is transparent…I’ll even put it on CNN so we can build a bridge between bipartisanship so you the American people get the insurance and government you deserve!!” <<huge applause>> or something very close to that.

You may enjoy bending over for this guy’s BS not me! I also can’t totally disagree with Ruf’s not wanting Ken and Barbie in office either as they weren’t my first choice either…but I saw though the silver tongue empty promises BS and not at all enjoying riding in the last car of this train wreck either. This just plain sucks for everybody!

@Cruiser, I’m having trouble understanding your post.

Obama never promised single payer in his campaign. I’m also not sure what your point is?

Why do you think the health care plan is a POS, and what do you think Obama should have done differently, specifically? (I would have preferred single payer personally but this was a political impossibility; Obama is not a magic emperor that can wave his scepter and make 60 senators vote for it.)

@Cruiser Obama never promised single payer. It was off the table from the get go, and anyone who was paying attention knew that. His goal was to extend coverage to more people who couldn’t afford it, eliminate pre-existing condition clauses, and prevent insurers from dumping patients, as well as some less spectacular and rather arcane attempts to improve efficiency. Efficiency aside he will likely get all that.

He will get some efficiency. The pilot programs and oversight board are a great idea.

What he won’t get much of is cost savings—that was the point of the public option, to lower costs through competition with for-profit insurers. But the rest of the bill is extremely good (except for Nelson’s abortion crap). And it’s not like we can’t try again with the public option or something similar at a later date. And it’s even possible that this national private-but-non-profit exchange will work the same way the public option was intended to work.

@Qingu His campaign promises is what got him elected and so far his batting average is horrible! The HC is literally a Titanic disaster just waiting to sink this country into depths of debt that are unimaginable!! Someone…anyone…tell me just how does BO or anyone really truly expect to pay for this gemstone you all think it is??? Don’t we already pay high enough taxes?? Aren’t we deep enough in dept already?? With all the back room pork promise that are being made to “buy” this thing into existence we are so screwed and I mean we not just me who can afford my own overprice insurance.

BTW “August 19, 2008”...

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.

A single-payer system would eliminate private insurance companies and put a Medicare-like system into place where the government pays all health-care bills with tax dollars. ”

@Cruiser The “if” at the beginning of his statement says it all.

@Cruiser Nice cherry picking. I don’t know if it was the same event, but I saw video of Obama saying substantially the same thing. The next sentence starts with “But what we can actually do is more like…..” or words to that effect. So are you cherry picking yourself or do you need to find better sources of information?

I can afford a bit higher taxes. I’m quite certain everyone making more than $250,000 a year can too.

@Cruiser, wow, you took that statement completely out of context. Full quote:

‘If you’re starting from scratch,’ he [Obama] says, ‘then a single-payer system’-a government-managed system like Canada’s, which disconnects health insurance from employment-’would probably make sense. But we’ve got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that’s not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they’ve known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside.’

There’s this thing called “bearing false witness” ... I myself try to avoid doing it.

Also, the Senate bill does not increase the debt. And unless you’re rich, your taxes aren’t going to be raised because of the bill.

I’m sorry if this sounds mean, but you need to become a lot better informed about this health-care bill before you jump into a debate about it.

Actually, here’s the full quote from August 18, 2008 (I had cited something from 2007):

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.

“Given that a lot of people work for insurance companies, a lot of people work for HMOs. You’ve got a whole system of institutions that have been set up,” he said at a roundtable discussion with women Monday morning after a voter asked, “Why not single payer?”

“People don’t have time to wait,” Obama said. “They need relief now. So my attitude is let’s build up the system we got, let’s make it more efficient, we may be over time—as we make the system more efficient and everybody’s covered—decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively.”

I think he’s doing a good job.

It took FDR 2 full terms to bring the US out of the depression…. As in EIGHT years. It took him another 1.25 to settle the world issues at hand.

Now granted our worst recession since the depression, and war on terror, doesn’t really compare to the Great Depression and the spread of fascism/WW2….. But if that took FDR, a man who is generally considered one of the top 5 presidents in US history, 13 years to do… I think we can give Obama a bit more than ALMOST a year to settle this.

@Cruiser Ok, I know is this probably isn’t going to be very popular but…No, we do not pay enough taxes. In 2009, total federal taxes paid as a share of GDP was at its LOWEST level since 1950. In other words, the American people paid far less in taxes in 2009 than we have in nearly 60 years! The United States has lower total tax revenues, as a share of GDP, than 26 out of 30 developed countries.

You want to know why we have such a big budget deficit? It’s not because of new spending under President Obama, it’s largely the result of enormous tax cuts during the past eight years. Those tax cuts, by the way, did not result in any great economic progress. Median incomes dropped, GDP growth was sluggish, and job growth was almost non-existent.

We are not taxed enough, and that is especially true of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars per yer.

michael F$# the federal taxes I pay over 66% of my income to taxes!!! Between Fed, state, local, property, sales and inheritance….WTF!! How ineffective can our governments possibly be to need and waste that much money??? Get off your ass and earn more money and pay more taxes you lard!

@Cruiser You’re either a liar or poorly informed. The highest current US tax bracket is 33%

Oh, and it’s ineffective because the last president decided it would be a good idea to drop a trillion plus dollars into an un-needed war in iraq, whilst allowing the economy to implode… causing us to need both very expensive bank bailout, and very expensive stimulus package to avert the worst economic depression of our history.

@Cruiser – If you’re paying a 66% tax rate while everyone else in the U.S. is only paying a maximum tax rate of 33% or less, you should probably consider finding yourself another tax consultant.

@Qingu – Much as I loathe to agree with Cruiser on anything, the current healthcare bill IS a POS. It has been so heavily diluted and it’s language so heavily affected by the health insurance lobby, that any intention of providing true universal healthcare has completely lost it’s teeth, so to speak. The idea of universal healthcare and of healthcare reform was, in my mind, an effort to place cooler, less-greedy heads in charge of our already failing health system. Instead, it has handed complete control back over to the very same people who caused the problems in the first place. Not to mention providing them over 30 million brand new and very captive customers in the process. That pretty much defines POS to me.

@westy81585, @Rufus_T_Firefly try reading my answer fully before commenting, I do pay 33% fica but I was referring to to all the taxes I pay combined!!! Read read read 1st please….
“Between Fed, state, local, property, sales and inheritance taxes…”

Add it all up even you poor people pay a shit load of taxes and these dumb ass politicians spend it like it was tap water. This “Tax” money they spend is YOU money and surely you can’t be approving of the current state of affairs. These knuckleheads now want more!?? Take an economicis class guys….what do people do when they don’t have any money??? They can’t buy anything!!! Why can’t they buy anything?? Because dumb ass politicians can’t figure a way to run their elected offices prudently and efficiently and have to raise our taxes so we have even less to spend!!! A sure fix….LOWER TAXES!!! Guess what??? We as in both you and I, then have more money to spend which means more money flowing into local governments through sales taxes which means more money to spend on things like….hmmm JOBS!!!

@Cruiser – Yeah, Cruiser. I read and re-read it. Maybe if you took a less condescending approach, and double-checked your own facts, others might take at least some of what you have to say a little bit more seriously. And, don’t act as if the total taxes you’re paying are being exacted solely by the federal government. Your state has quite a bit to do with your overall tax balance. Lowering federal taxes IS NOT a ‘sure fix’ and does not directly affect the public’s overall spending habits, nor do they change basic needs. Lower tax rates might significantly affect corporate spending or the spending habits of those making $250,000+ a year, but typically, unless you’re saving more than ten percent of your total taxes, the bulk of tax-paying citizens aren’t going to notice a significant difference. And, any less than that would hardly be noticeable at all.

@Rufus_T_Firefly you are probably right about my condescending approach and it may be time you admit that as well. Try telling your take on spending habits to the travel industry that is dying on the vine as we speak due to peoples change in spending habits. How has BO tried to turn things around??? By forking over cash to US citizens in the form of “stimulus funds” “tax credits” which is nothing more than gussied up tax breaks. Even BO knows tax breaks work he just doesn’t have the guts to make the tough call with real tax breaks that would turn this thing around because that we be a “republican” thing to do! God Forbid!!

@Cruiser Clearly I don’t know anything about your personal finances, but I can still say with absolute certainty that you do not pay two-thirds of your income in taxes.

Let’s run through the numbers to see why. Imagine a single person who makes $410,000. Let’s call him Bob. Bob lives in Oregon, the state with the highest top marginal income tax rate in the country. But Bob does all his shopping in California, the state with the highest sales tax rate in the country. Basically, Bob is subject to the highest cumulative tax rates of anyone in the whole country. And what does Bob pay in taxes?

Well, first let’s assume that Bob is stupid and only takes the standard deduction (with his income, he almost certainly would itemize and get many more deductions). That makes his federal taxable income about $400,000. That taxable income puts Bob in the top income tax bracket (35%). But of course, he doesn’t actually pay 35%, because that’s a marginal rate, not an effective rate. He actually pays a little under $118,000 in federal income taxes (that’s about 29% of his total income). But Bob also pays payroll taxes (1.45% on all payroll income, and 6.2% on payroll income up to $106,000), so that brings his total federal bill to about $131,000 (32% of total income).

Now on to the state taxes. In Oregon, the top rate is 11% (but again, it’s a marginal rate, not an effective rate), so Bob pays about $41,000 in state income tax. So far, his total tax bill is about $170,000 and 42% of his total income.

Finally, let’s assume that Bob spends every penny of his net income (after all these taxes are paid) on taxable goods in California. Since CA has a 7.25% sales tax rate, that puts Bob’s sales tax bill at around $17,000.

All together, adding up federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, and payroll taxes, Bob pays $189,000 in taxes, for a total effective tax rate of 46%. That’s nowhere close to the 66% that @Cruiser claimed, and remember I’ve made some absolutely unrealistic assumptions (like having Bob live in Oregon but spend all his money in California, or having him take no additional deductions or credits beyond the standard one).

The bottom line is that there is simply no possible way that @Cruiser spends 66% of his income on taxes. If you do, you need to find a new accountant!

@Cruiser – Changing the subject doesn’t change the facts. The Bush administration’s creation of the DHS and it’s unruly bastard child, the TSA, have done a hell of a lot more damage to the travel industry than anything done by the current President. Not only that, but the travel industry makes considerably more than $250,000 a year, which only reaffirms my previous point.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, the health care bill could obviously be better but (1) it gives 900 billion dollars in subsidies to help people pay for health care, (2) it bans pre-existing condition denial and rescision, and (3) it effectively covers +95% of everyone.

Those are huge accomplishments. And it’s not Obama’s fault that there isn’t a public option to round out the accomplishments. It’s the Blue Dogs.

@Cruiser Can you do the math on that for me? 66% seems high, even for total taxes. Maybe you need an accountant or to move to another state. Remember, those property taxes and state and local taxes are deductible on you federal taxes.

@Qingu – I never said it was Obama’s fault, I said that he didn’t push it hard enough, but to blame it all on the ‘blue dogs’ would be wholly inaccurate. What little good the current bill accomplishes is entirely moot since it does very little to reform insurers or to curb the appetite and excesses of the health insurance industry. It only serves to make them richer and more in control and without inclusion of a public option it was very close to worthless from the beginning.

@Rufus_T_Firefly Tell that to the people who can’t afford health care now who will be covered under this bill.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, outlawing rescision and pre-existing condition discrimination “does little to reform insurers”?

Really?

And how would a public option even affect this new regulation anyway?

Here is the bottom line. Can most people get health care? Can most people afford health care? Are people with pre-existing conditions going to get fair access to health care? The legislation accomplishes all three of these.

The rationale for the public option was simply to provide competition with the for-profit model. Please explain, specifically, how lacking this somehow ruins the rest of it.

@Snarp , @Qingu – I AM one of the people, that you speak of, who can’t afford proper healthcare insurance. The current bill has been so watered-down that it does little, if not nothing, to make health insurance more affordable, since it doesn’t and probably won’t cover everything that it probably should. And, if my health insurance will not still not cover everything required to either maintain my present health status and provide preventative treatment, then I’m really not too much better off than I was before. As it stands, the current bill effectively allows insurers to write their own tickets without fear of reprisal. If that is Congress’s and the Senate’s idea of true healthcare reform, then it most certainly wasn’t written in my best interests.

I’m sorry, but we have to face the facts. Insurers have but one function: to calculate costs and allocate premiums and services on the basis of actuarial calculations. Once you deprive the insurers of the right to allocate services based on pre-existing conditions, age or predilection to disease, you have made them supernumerary.

So what this bill does is make the entire layer of insurance companies entirely unnecessary, and then continue to allow them to charge huge sums of money in exchange for serving no useful function . In a real free-market economy they would die off under these conditions, but thanks to this bill, you and I will be paying for their socialization. Have the Republicans no cognitive dissonance about this?

Far better to socialize a single payer system, cut out the waste, and serve people better for half the cost. But, no!

@pdworkin – I completely agree.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, I’m confused as to how you came to those conclusions.

You can’t afford insurance? The bill gives you subsidies.

The insurance companies won’t give you proper coverage? The bill contains much stricter regulation that forces them to.

Again, I agree that the bill could have, and should have, been better. But to pretend it’s not going to help you at all is ludicrous. It’s going to help you a great deal.

The help it provides vs the help it could provide is the difference between lightning bug and lightning.

@pdworkin, that’s such a hyperbole and you know it.

Please explain exactly how a lack of a public option makes $900 billion in subsidies, outlawing rescision and pre-existing condition denial, and 96% coverage as trivial as a lightning bug.

Don’t just say “this bill sucks” or make a sweeping metaphor. Explain to me the mechanics of how those things actually aren’t all that great because there’s no public option.

You are correct. It is hyperbole. I am disappointed, let me vent.

@pdworkin Opens release valve allllll the way!!

@Qingu Just curious: what about the current bill, or current politics makes you defend this watered down thing so strenuously?

The thought of liberals staying home in 2010 elections because of hyperbolic criticism of a pretty decent bill.

@Qingu And thus we Democrats shoot ourselves in the foot once again (by staying home.)

@janbb I’m not stayin’ home! I’m voting, and if I have to, I’ll leave all my cookies unguarded!

@Val123 Don’t want to derail this thread, so I’ll jus say I think I can vote on the East Coast and then come to your house and eat all the cookies.

There’s cookies now?

@Qingu – You can call my opinion ludicrous if you like. You’re not the only one with an education and the ability to read. And, after having read the entire bill, it’s nearly impossible for me to believe that this watered-down piece of legislation will come anywhere close to doing what it’s lobbyist-fed proponents have promised. Despite your claims, several facts remain, those wonderful subsidies of which you speak won’t replace all of the monies I will be forced to overpay my provider which will still take food out of my family’s mouths, it will cause me to spend more out of pocket than ever, and this bill still makes a gift of 30 million new customers to the very greedy, controlling and overly-conservative hacks who drove us into the healthcare insurance ditch we’re in today. Stay home? Not me. I’ll be voting, as usual.

@Rufus_T_Firefly HS Rufus!! I completely agree with what you said. All along I have been saying follow the money! You are absolutely dead on with your point about 30 million “new” uninsured in the system. Guess what these are the people unlike you and I who pay dearly for the insurance we have…they couldn’t afford insurance. Hmmmm….30 million new premiums to pay for….if they couldn’t afford it before I wonder who is going to pay for it?? WE are!! Let’s see…. my insurance for my family of 4 costs me about $11,000/yr… that’s $2,750 per person times 30 million….whoa that’s a lot of coin!! Where is all that money gonna come from??? Our cash strapped government??? Doubt it. The insurance companies are licking their chops over this one!!!

@Cruiser – Well, thanks, I guess, but to be fair, you’ve been saying all along that Barack Obama was a socialist and that his proposed public healthcare option was a step towards communism, both statements being completely ludicrous, I might add, so please forgive me if I don’t get all warm and fuzzy from your show of support. True healthcare reform ‘NEEDED* the public option in order to prevent continued abuses to the system by insurance companies and all the other vultures reaping profits from our obviously ailing healthcare system. I wasn’t averse to paying a more for that kind of coverage because it would have been well worth the additional money to be able to cover everyone equally and completely and to provide effective checks and balances against insurance companies. However, that being said, I AM against paying even more for forced and well-diluted coverage without including a public option.

@Rufus_T_Firefly again Rufus your points are exactly what I have been arguing about this HC bill all along. When it was first tabled last year in it’s then proposed form I saw it for what it was as nothing short of a “Socialized” form of health care for our country. You and I differed from a have and have not POV plus I have had to consider what is best for my employees from quality and a cost/value basis.

The HC bill as it was then was a potential huge disaster waiting to happen for all of us here at this company plus the anticipation of high taxes to pay for that then train wreck. As you now have characterized the current incarnation of this bill as “water-down” was from my perspective then and now the only way this thing would ever get passed. This whole process was a collosal waste of time, effort and money. Had BO stuck to his guns and live up to his campaign promis of Change, transparency and lobbyist reform he/we could have “reformed” the health care system through “change” transparency and eliminating the wasteful spending, mismanagement and the rampant medicare fraud that has created this mess in the first place. That would allow for affording to expand Medicare coverage to those who need it and can’t afford it without having to play this shell game of the financing plan proposed to “pay” for this HC Bill. Instead we get this POS that is only going to give the insurance co’s more leverage and gives the Senators who voted for this their little piece of the huge pork pie they helped create.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, have you calculated how much subsidies you’ll be getting? Every chart I’ve seen makes it hard to believe you’ll be worse off. I could be wrong, but if we’re going to debate this, we should start citing data. I’ve gotten mine mostly from 538:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/health-insurance-and-family-budget.html

But I’m glad you won’t be staying home. And I can understand you’re frustration; I was pretty damn frustrated too. But if I am correct and the bill will actually make your coverage more affordable, it seems like the only thing you’re mad about is the idea that the insurance industry could make more profits from the bill.

@Qingu – No, I haven’t taken the time to calculate those figures, but truthfully, even though I hold a minor degree in integrated accounting, I have no real interest in doing so. With a practically nonexistent job market and several pre-existing health conditions which limit my effectiveness in acquiring additional income, ANYTHING more than I must spend to maintain my current meager level of comfort is still, ultimately, more than I can afford. I suppose I’ll just have to see what happens from here on out. It’s not like I’m being given a choice.

Just a side note, and something I find ironic. The United Kingdom is typically seen as slightly/somewhat more conservative than the US. They were the first to jump on board to go into Iraq, the last to leave, etc. They typically lean conservative on things….. Well they’ve had a public option health plan for decades. It’s wildly popular, completely self sufficient, and is accompanied by a flourishing private insurance market.

Why can’t we do that here?

Instead we have what we have, and I (a college graduate with a full time job) have no insurance.

@westy81585 I have to say, I have never though of the UK as being the least bit conservative compared to the U.S.

@Snarp Then you obviously know nothing about the UK.

Not that they’re a conglomeration of church going right wing nuts or anything, but they have trended conservative for pretty much the entirety of the last few hundred years.

@westy81585 By their standards, but not by ours.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, it is entirely likely that you won’t have to spend ANY money on health insurance. If you’re poor and have no income, I’m pretty sure the subsidies will cover you.

You should really check on this if your outrage is based on the assumption that the bill is forcing you to pay more. Because I don’t think it is, at all.

@Qingu – I hope you’re right. Unfortunately, right now the only ones who really know anything truly concrete about the implementation of this bill are our Congressmen and Senators. It’s likely to be quite a while before anyone can give the public the 411 on precisely how the details will play out.

You should watch the reconciliation. It’s on CSPAN, just like he promised.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, while the bill isn’t set in stone, a lot of it is, and there’s plenty of concrete information out there for those who care to know.

In both versions of the bill you—based on what you said—will get subsidies to cover your health insurance, and the insurance companies would be prohibited from screwing you because of pre-existing conditions or rescision. If that changes in reconciliation then I will eat my hat—both houses agree on that much.

@Qingu – Sounds good in theory. Please excuse me if I still doubt that the reality of the bill will be anywhere near as positive as you make it sound. I didn’t get real good feelings about the bill when I read through it, but then, I detest governmentese in any form. Recent history has provided plenty of reason to mistrust anything that both houses actually agree on.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, what is your reason for doubting the bills will work as I have said?

Do you have any specific reason to feel this way, based on specific facets of the bills on the table—or is it just general paranoia?

And I don’t know what you are talking about with “recent history”—can you elaborate?

My reasons? Have you been listening to the arguments in Congress and the Senate? No one is thinking about the people. They’re only serving their own interests and those of their party and their powerful and obscenely rich contributors. Call me paranoid if you like, but the days of trusting my government to do the right thing packed up and left for good back in the early sixties. How can you NOT doubt the effectiveness of a bill that was rendered in private (much like the recent and even more sinister Patriot Act, for example); a toothless bill that was purposely watered-down in the re-write by the very same special interests whose profits would have been put at risk from the inclusion of a public option?

@Qingu Can you explain why Obama is not keeping his promise to air the reconsciliation proceedings on CSPAN? One can only assume that the trade-offs are so ugly they don’t want us to know what they are.

@Qingu – I really wish I could explain it. It makes no sense to me, but then Congress and the Senate didn’t promise transparency, Obama sis. It would appear that they don’t want us to know exactly whom is getting what out of their sordid little backroom daisy chain. The only thing I can be reasonably sure of is that we’re probably getting the shaft, in one way or another. However, I’d much rather be wrong about this.

@Rufus_T_Firefly, I believe I asked for specific reasons, not general platitudes about how the government doesn’t work for the people.

I opposed the Patriot Act not because “nobody thinks about the people” but because I could point to actual, specific provisions in it that bothered me. Can you do the same about the health care bills on the table?

@pdworkin, reconciliation will be on C-SPAN. What I think you’re referring to is the negotiations that take place within the Democratic party. The argument here is that since no Republicans support the bill, these negotiations—rather than reconciliation—will end up defining the finished bill, so therefore C-SPAN should cover them too.

I’m not sure how Obama even has the power to mandate that sort of thing. It’s not his branch of government. Remember when Bush was president and everyone bitched about how he abused his executive power and railroaded Congress? Yeah, there’s a flipside to not doing that.

@Qingu – Sorry, I just don’t feel a need to jump through hoops simply because you demand that I do so. Read the damned bill for yourself. It’s written in extreme governmentese. If you can read the bill and not come away with at least some of the same reservations that I have, you probably haven’t read it thoroughly enough.

@Rufus_T_Firefly Would you send me your link to the bill?

I actually have trouble believing you sat down and read a 2,000 page bill, frankly.

Nor do I understand what special knowledge you think that doing so would grant you. If you know something in the bill that contradicts my assessment of it—admittingly filtered through media summaries—then cite it. Otherwise you’re basically just playing the “I have magic evidence that I can’t show you” card.

@Qingu I took a stab at reading the then-proposed bill last summer. If you just kind of scan, rather than trying to actually read it word for word, it’s amazing how much you can catch, how much jumps out at you.

@Val123 – http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:2:./temp/~c111bCJTem::

@Qingu – I really couldn’t care less whether YOU believe me or not. If you haven’t read it, you have no basis for your argument. If you have read it, then what the hell are you arguing for? I didn’t answer this question just so I could argue semantics with you. There’s the link to the current text of H.R.3962. Read it for yourself, wise-guy.

I skimmed it a while ago and found it impenetrable and pointless.

And I think if you’re going to complain about something, you should be able to elucidate what bothers you. That’s not semantics, that’s having a basis for a position.

@Rufus_T_Firefly I got this….. “Please resubmit your search
Search results are only retained for a limited amount of time.Your search results have either been deleted, or the file has been updated with new information.”

@Qingu – It’s precisely that vagueness that bothers me. How did you not get that out of our previous exchange? As I said before, we’ll just have to wait until it is enacted to see if it does what they promise. Have you ever had a hunch about something, but just couldn’t put your finger on what it was? A feeling deep in your gut… telling you that something just wasn’t right? Trust them if you like, I cannot bring myself to do so.

@Val123 – Try this one. I had no problem getting the link to open.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3962:

Got it.
Guys! If you copy and paste the PDF file into a word document, you can do searches by keywords.
If you can give me a keyword, or a specific concern to help me out, I’ll start looking…..

What vagueness? The vagueness I was talking about was referring to your position on the health care bill, which is based on a hunch rather than something specific in the bill.

But whatever. I’m not even sure what we’re disagreeing about anymore. I think I’m just less pessimistic than you.

@Qingu – I wish I could be more optimistic at this stage.

Say, what do people currently think of Obama? Anybody know?

@Rufus_T_Firefly, you know, the book that singlehandedly turned me from a cynical curmudgeon pessimist into a… well, a cynical curmudgeon optimist… is Nonzero by Robert Wright.

It convinced me that things really are getting better and will probably continue to get better in the long term and in broad strokes, with the occasional setback here and there.

@pdworkin He’s gay, the kids aren’t his, and he and Michelle are getting a divorce. I saw it on the front page of the National Enquirer, so it must be true.

@Qingu I like this, from the bill that was passed in the house.

“SEC. 211. PROHIBITING PREEXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS.

A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any preexisting condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A) of the Public Health Service Act) or otherwise impose any limit or condition on the coverage under the plan with respect to an individual or dependent based on any of the following: health status, medical condition, claims experience, receipt of health care, medical history, genetic information, evidence of insurability, disability, or source of injury (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence) or any similar factors.”

Ammericans I know best think he is terrible leader. Nurse say his new health care cause some people stay at hospital often when can no longer have medicines they need, nearly kill some people, is horrible.

@Shinimegami Well, you and Nurse might want to do a little more reading; most of the provisions aren’t even in effect yet.

@ janbb Nurse see people at hospital, not need read anything, this begin 2010, nurses and doctors know this true. Is horrible anyone try deny Barack Obama nearly kill USA citizens when deny them medicines they need. You behind times. Is obvious Barack Obama win elections of 2008 and 2012. Such events of 2010–2013 certainly his fault, is futile try deny it. Doctors and nurses know more of it, you know little, have bias deny Barack Obama ever wrong. Patients have proper medicines before 2010, cannot blame George W Bush.