quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Ultimately I think we need this victory for reform,
I actually don't think it's necessary at all. If it failed completely, then the only real consequence is that we go another five to twenty years with a medical system in progressive collapse and then revisit the issue later once it has cost us trillions more and left us in even worse shape.
All that any 'success' does at this juncture is undercut my time estimate for the inevitability of healthcare reform by making the transition *gasp* less costly and *gasp* less painful.
But we can't have nice things. At least, I don't think so. We're a petulant, recalcitrant country when it comes to things you can tag with the pejorative 'socialism' label.
I think perhaps our definitions of "need" are in slight contradiction.
I need to have my tonsils removed. I can't afford it in the states, so I'm having it done where I live, for next to nothing (of course I pay my health care contributions). That's a pretty nice incentive for me to just continue living here.
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Well, I mean, I would want it. It would save us gobs of cash over the next few decades, save millions of lives from the real and existent death panels, leave our country happier, longer lived, and a wee bit more prosperous.
But that would be the easy way. We can't do this the easy way. I'm just glad I'm so young because anyone who is in their 30's and 40's today are the most likely to get screwed over by our undying aversion to fixing these problems.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm just glad I'm so young because anyone who is in their 30's and 40's today are the most likely to get screwed over by our undying aversion to fixing these problems.
posted
Regarding Medicaid- it should be noted that Medicaid and Medicare both underpay providers for services. This generally means that everyone else who goes to that provider gets charged more; it also means that an increasing number of providers simply aren't accepting new patients under those plans, saying that they can't afford them, that they amount to charity care. And on that note, the number of clinics offering free or pay-as-you-can isn't exactly booming either.
To make the fear of rationing a compelling argument, one needs to recognize that we are, in many ways, in a state of rationing now. There are a very large number of people in this country for whom going to a doctor simply isn't an option. Many of those who are fortunate enough to have insurance pay large co-pays and deductibles, and any procedure that requires a specialist or surgery is usually already going through a string of bureaucrats, just ones for whom profits are the deciding factor. The same goes for prescription drugs; doctors often go into the room knowing that the insurer simply will not pay for certain medications, however more effective they may be.
As Polyanna as the sentiment may sound, a government system at least has some accountability to the people it serves, and has an incentive to make favorable patient outcomes its primary measure of success. For for-profit insurers, favorable patient outcome is only one in a mix of variables leading to success measured in money, and the people it's most accountable to are its investors.
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That just leads us inexorably back to the fact that everything the naysayers (and the crazies) are protesting against the possibility of is already happening to a large number of people. Rationales as to why things should remain this way range from the blatantly selfish: "I deserve what I have, and more importantly *they* do not deserve what I have," to the petulantly contrary: "It doesn't matter that every other industrialized nation does it better than us in one form or another, none of those solutions, or anything like them will work for us, the free market is always better despite all of these very clear examples of that not being the case, and the absence of examples that it *is* the case, and besides Obama is a Muslim."
I'm aware that's a straw man. They are all stuffed with straw, as far as I am concerned. For as many allusions to actual arguments against reform that I've seen so far, I've seen very few actual points, let alone compelling points, against reform.
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And yet despite the lack of new points, this issue warrants another new thread. How many is that, now...? Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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I'm just glad that the argument against health care reform — on this forum as well as off — is ably showing itself to be little more than a hysterical display lacking any measured apprehension of what UHC would be in practice.
You know, as opposed to a sane counterargument or anything with more meat than, say, a newsmax article.
Some days, I don't even have to try.
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Hitler looks so giddy to be meeting him. Too bad Hitler is about to be subject to DEATH PANELS!
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It is very probable that the reason you have not heard a carefully laid out opposing argument against universal health care is because those who are willing to type it out are not willing to waste it on you.
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Uhuh. Where have you typed it out then? Anywhere?
Oh but no, yeah, no, yeah save it from us uncaring cynics- don't waste your reasons! If you use them, they run out!
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It is very probable that the reason you have not heard a carefully laid out opposing argument against universal health care is because those who are willing to type it out are not willing to waste it on you.
This is the quintessential "I can't put up, but I sure ain't going to shut up" strat. Tired allusions towards casting pearls before swine are surely inches behind.
Apparently, according to your logic, if I'm on a forum, my mere presence means that it becomes a waste for ANY anti-reform arguers to put up ANY reasoned and sustained defense of their position anywhere on the forum at all in response to ANY prevalence of the issue. Because I'm there. That automatically makes it wasted, because I would then see it. They can only engage in these arguments very very far away where people like me can't see it and they can trust it is not subject to that sort of critique.
of course this is all a sidetrack. What I noted was that while I see plenty of debate happening here, just debate with a massive, MASSIVE quantity of the opposing side lacking a measured apprehension of what UHC would be in practice and they seemingly can't accomplish more than sniping reliant on these amazing leaps of hyperbole and paranoia.
You have so far been no exception, so apparently your stunning finale is to invoke the notion that the only reason why the rallying effort of your side caps far short of a "carefully laid out opposing argument" is because I'm not worth it.
And, by extension, neither are anyone anywhere I'm in any way associated to it via exposure.
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I'm amazed at how much empty talk people can throw up when they are against something they know very little about.
But then, that was Sarah Palin's campaign in a nutshell. It's just pretty remarkable how much and how long people can go on with canned statements and playing a victim when they don't have any substance.
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To make the electorate brain dead, throw anything that will scare them.
When you look at the logic behind Death Panels, End Of Life Mandatory Meetings, and other fear laced objections you realize that they contain more fear than fact.
Its been argued that they will do X where X is bad because it doesn't say they won't do X. Yet the logic behind doing X is not there? Why do they think anyone would do X? Because that is the scariest thing they can think of. Fear kills the thought process. So dead minds don't question, they react.
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It is very probable that the reason you have not heard a carefully laid out opposing argument against universal health care is because those who are willing to type it out are not willing to waste it on you.
If just a few people making derisive comments is now to be considered a good reason for not offering a rational argument at all, the "town hall" meetings really should have stopped weeks ago.
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Apparently now they are telling people that the plan will force people to give the government access to their bank accounts.
Why aren't people on that side doing something about this? There's still got to be a lot of people left in the Republican party who want to have an actual debate about how we move forward here and would be ashamed to use such tactics.
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It could be because a lot of the rational folks in the Republican Party don't like our present health care system any more than the rest of us. They want change, but don't want to speak out in case that would be abused by the Democrats Propaganda machine. The minute they say, "Well yes, our system has its problems..." their friends will attack them and their enemies will gleefully use it as fuel to rush through a system they are not sure is good.
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I'm not talking about that though. What I'm wondering is how they can stand by while the Republican face on this issue is "We will disseminate whatever lies we can to get people to oppose this."
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Because the absurdities of the lies are harder to see when they are on your own side. Even if there are obviously no "death panels", when one is politically aligned with the opposition that generates such lies, one will tend to make some effort to see the absurdity as a reasonable conclusion, even if you don't personally believe it's likely. You start coming up with things like "well there's nothing in the bill that says there won't be death panels!" while ignoring that last month's agriculture appropriations bill ALSO didn't contain any language that promised there would be no death panels
This does happen on both sides and I'm sure I'm not immune, though my trying-to-be-objective self still thinks the republicans are bringing a lot more crazy than the democrats generally do. This might have something to do with the virtual monopoly that conservatives have on charismatic talking heads. Something about the Palins, Glenn Becks and Hannities of the world really resonate with the vocal conservative base.
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Just FYI the Republican Party has shrunk pretty dramatically.
The latest Pew and Research 2000 polls put the party's membership at 22% of Americans, and a WaPo poll found out that only 20% of Americans still self-identify as Republicans.
When you are asking 'how can they stand by while the Republican face on the issue is ...' the answer is that they aren't just standing by. They're actively drifting away from their party because of it. As conservatives they are actually being unfairly represented since their voice has been overcast by the voices that drove them off in the first place. They're not the ones running around calling Obama's plan a nazi hitler death program, but you don't hear them because the ones still in the base are yelling it at the top of their lungs.
quote:Most fundamentally of all, the McCain campaign radically overestimated the importance of appealing to the base. House Republicans may be replicating their mistake. Self-described conservative Republicans represent only about 20 percent of the population. This base is not necessarily becoming smaller; it's still alive and kicking. What is true, however, is that the (1) base has never been sufficient to form a winning electoral coalition, and (2) that there are fewer and fewer non-base (e.g. moderates, libertarian Republicans, Republican leaning-independents). As these moderates have fled the GOP, the party's electoral fortunes have tanked. But simultaneously, they have had less and less influence on the Republican message.
Thus the Republicans, arguably, are in something of a death spiral. The more conservative, partisan, and strident their message becomes, the more they alienate non-base Republicans. But the more they alienate non-base Republicans, the fewer of them are left to worry about appeasing. Thus, their message becomes continually more appealing to the base -- but more conservative, partisan, and strident to the rest of us. And the process loops back upon itself.
quote:The moderate Republicans should really speak out against their extremist counterparts.
There's also the element of "don't argue with results." If, for whatever reason, you don't want democratic health care reform, and the lies are causing it to crumble, then why get in the way of a good thing? You don't have any responsibility for correcting someone else's lies, right?
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quote:The moderate Republicans should really speak out against their extremist counterparts.
There's also the element of "don't argue with results." If, for whatever reason, you don't want democratic health care reform, and the lies are causing it to crumble, then why get in the way of a good thing? You don't have any responsibility for correcting someone else's lies, right?
Assuming you care zilch about personal integrity.
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For what it's worth, BB, a lot of us where wondering where "let's not tell blatant lies about things" LDS were during the Proposition 8 commercials.
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I know that the rank and file are feeling pushed out (although it may be more severe than I think). That's why I left the party. But there are supposed to be up and coming Republican "stars" whose image at least is against things like this.
In a way, I'd see it as an opportunity for say a Bobby Jindal. I don't think most of the people who left or whose support is waning because of the Republican's embrace of being liars for stupid people are happy with their options. Someone could pull a Barack Obama by taking the Republican lead on health care reform in an honest, responsible way. It'd be a huge win and an intelligent conservative spokesperson of actual integrity would bring in a lot of the people who the Rush Limbaughs, James Dobsons, and Sarah Palins have pushed out.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: Or you're willing to take a hit on personal integrity for the greater good.
A problem with politics as I see it is that politicians rely on that philosophy far too often.
Perhaps a bigger problem is what it seems to take to get to the position of being a successful professional politician in the first case. You might have real qualms with some of the positions and tactics of, say, certain fundamentalist Christian groups or organized labor groups, but turning down the money and the easy access to a large number of people is really difficult. In the early stages of a campaign, you need to pull ahead of challengers within your own base, at least some of whom are going to be willing to put aside their own qualms; in the later stages, you need to remain in view and on people's minds and tongues on a daily basis. And by then, slamming a door on the groups that helped them out in the beginning makes the candidate seem to lack integrity, even though that isn't necessarily the case.
And of course, somewhere along the way "the greater good" usually seems to get conflated with "what will get me elected", since people who don't believe they personally will be the most effective servants of the greater good don't tend to turn out to run for office in the first place.
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Mr Squicky: I think you will find the videos the LDS church actually sponsored did not tow the line that the videos you are likely complaining about laid out. If you can find one that does not I would be interested in seeing it. From what I have heard (and this is hearsay) there is alot of discussion going on within upper echelons of church leadership taking place regarding the gay issue.
To be honest, though I found myself in the anti-proposition 8 crowd, I don't find much comradery here.
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Sterling: It's certainly a huge problem in politics, one in which I am unsure of the solution. I honestly at one time thought the internet would do away with the need to be plastered all over television and on every city street, and therefore ideas would be discussed rather than the candidate with the best financing winning, but I was naive.
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quote:I think you will find the videos the LDS church actually sponsored did not tow the line that the videos you are likely complaining about laid out.
I thought this as well and even argued that point to a pro-Prop 8 LDS friend of mine in an attempt to get him to acknowledge the falsehoods in the campaign, figuring that if there was no clear link from the church to those videos then he could comfortably disavow them. In response he pointed out a link from the church web site to a site hosting the videos (implying an endorsement of that site and it's content) and even more damning he pointed to a PDF document hosted on the church's web site that repeated many of the same arguments about, for instance, churches being forced to perform gay marriages.
HOWEVER, even if this wasn't the case, the church would have been in the role of the moderate representative of the position which, according to your earlier statements, was obligated to correct the deceptions of the more extreme elements or sacrifice integrity in their silence.
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MattP: Maybe so, but I wouldn't give the church extremely high marks for effective use of political weaponry, they simply do not have a lot of experience. I think it would have probably been wise to distance the church from the extremist points being made, but I'm not so sure the church had an effective plan for supporting the legislation. It's not hard for me to imagine the prophet directing the church to support the legislation, but in the execution mistakes were made. Brigham Young directed the saints to move west and to not mix with the other settlers who were also heading west. Some of those members took that to mean they were justified in murdering some travelers at Mountain Meadows.
edit: I have to concede though that to my knowledge the church has also not sought to clarify it's ties to groups that where making some of those inflammatory claims after the fact.
Perhaps in attempting to apply the brakes and temper the overreaching comments, the pro proposition 8 message would have become muddled and the supporters would appear split, and therefore votes for the bill would have been inadequate.
--- I'm not entirely sure why my church is even the topic of discussion on this point. I don't hold my church to a different standard, I would love to have occasion to discuss the matter with somebody in the know.
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quote:Perhaps in attempting to apply the brakes and temper the overreaching comments, the pro proposition 8 message would have become muddled and the supporters would appear split, and therefore votes for the bill would have been inadequate.
I'm sure that was a major issue. A slight variation of the "don't argue with results" principle I mentioned earlier. It's very hard for even the most principled political actors to proactively take steps which might harm the position that they advocate for even if taking such steps might appear to be an ethical imperative.
quote:Perhaps in attempting to apply the brakes and temper the overreaching comments, the pro proposition 8 message would have become muddled and the supporters would appear split, and therefore votes for the bill would have been inadequate.
That's pretty much the point. Even if the LDS Church wasn't supporting these groups and their arguments, which, as Matt pointed out doesn't look like the case, they clearly were willing to let the campaign of fear mongering and lies go on by members of their religion. And this being a centralized religion, it would have been very easy for them to specifically say "Hey, the lying in these ads, knock it off." I can only speculate as to the reason why they did not, but (and this is assuming they weren't happy with and supportive of this effort) I think it's a pretty good bet it was something like what you said.
Which is pretty similar to the case we're talking about here, no?
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quote:Which is pretty similar to the case we're talking about here, no?
Perhaps, but I would not say Proposition 8 is a good indicator of the church's general philosophy on right and wrong.
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Why? Should we not judge the institution, if not the individuals, according to the outer limits of its behavior? I wouldn't know where the moral center of the LDS church is, but I do know that the church encompasses actions I consider to be unethical, and immoral. Perhaps you are right to say that this case doesn't define the church, and certainly doesn't define the moral center of the many people involved in it, but it speaks loudly of the institution that it was unable to muster itself to squash the very dishonest behavior of some of its members, undertaken in its name. The philosophy is of course one thing, and the actual adherence to that philosophy, let's call it the "unspoken" or "working" philosophy of the institution is something else. It's like the priest at my high school who espoused a philosophy of selfless charity and asceticism, but also drove a Lexus. A priest driving a Lexus, I crap you not.
Tell me if you find that to be unfair. It's not an admonition I would apply only to the LDS church. Most or all churches, in my opinion, are corrupt institutions, and the larger and richer they are, the more susceptible they are to corruption. LDS is rapidly becoming a wealthy and influential church, and this is the kind of thing I expect from it.
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Orincoro: By "not good" I don't mean it has no meaning or importance. Rather it's one event, so it does not do a good job of shading the entire church as a whole. The church has been involved in many states all considering legislation dealing with SSM. That, to me, is a better indicator of how the church approaches the subject typically.
Personally I feel whoever the church was relying on for political advice failed them quite significantly.
I don't think you are being unfair, from your perspective I can understand your criticisms of the church. The leadership of the church however do not live very wealthy. While the church does bring in alot of money, I'd wager (ironic choice of verb) the majority of the money brought in is used towards charitable causes.
edit: I don't think we are going to see a sustained increase in the church getting involved in political matters and using church funds to do so.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: While the church does bring in alot of money, I'd wager (ironic choice of verb) the majority of the money brought in is used towards charitable causes.
Is there anyplace you can find out?
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In an effort to be comradely, BB, I am embarrassed by my church's official policy on ssm as well.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: While the church does bring in alot of money, I'd wager (ironic choice of verb) the majority of the money brought in is used towards charitable causes.
Is there anyplace you can find out?
Not currently no. The church employs an independent auditing firm that issues reports in conference, as far as I know that firm does not publish its church related work. If you worked from within the firm or knew a former employee they might be able to illuminate your understanding.
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kmbboots: United in embarrassment? I suppose baser emotions have brought people together. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I have people who tell me that they spend over 15 times as much money on building shopping malls as they spend on the poor.
I just want to know more or less what percentage of the money that gets tithed to the LDS gets spent by the church on real estate and other profitable enterprises.
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quote:I have people who tell me that they spend over 15 times as much money on building shopping malls as they spend on the poor.
That may be both true and misleading. The church owns a number of private businesses from which it derives taxable income. Building a shopping mall is very expensive, but the goal is to generate profits which may very well support charitable activities.
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That's rather coy. If the church is continually plunging cash into profitable business ventures, from which many church members doubtless earn their livings, then the incentive is to take the profits and invest in yet more cash businesses. Perhaps a percentage of the profits is going to charitable causes, however this has not be established. I'm not so credulous of the idea that the church has an endgame goal of funding charities, rather than simply building a business empire, of which charities are a nice public benefit. Bill Gates gives to charity, a *lot* and nobody is under the illusion that Microsoft was set up to help the poor.
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quote:I'm not so credulous of the idea that the church has an endgame goal of funding charities, rather than simply building a business empire, of which charities are a nice public benefit.
I'm no defender of the church. I'm not a member and am frequently irked by their activities, but they do have some substantial humanitarian/charity organizations. I don't know what percentage of the budget they represent but if there's a disaster pretty much anywhere it's all but guaranteed that there are a few cargo planes worth of relief supplies (food, clothing, hygiene kits, etc) on the way on the church's dime. This is on top of a number of ongoing charity/humanitarian programs that the church operates.
I'd love to see more transparancy and have little doubt that full disclosure of the church's financial activities would produce some embarassment, but it's hard to argue that they aren't doing a lot of charitable work, regardless of what portion of the total wealth of the church that it represents.
quote:nobody is under the illusion that Microsoft was set up to help the poor.
As is the case with the LDS church (and many others). The church's primary goal, which it doesn't attempt to hide, is to become a bigger church. This is the stated goal of many churches, particularly those with active missionary programs. Charity is a secondary activity, which they hope will support the primary one.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: While the church does bring in alot of money, I'd wager (ironic choice of verb) the majority of the money brought in is used towards charitable causes.
Is there anyplace you can find out?
You can try deciphering their financial statements to the Canadian Revenue Agency.
According to their rough breakdown, roughly 50% of time and resources are spent on buildings, 20% on missionary work and evangelism, and 30% on social outreach, religious fellowship, and auxiliary organisations (which would seem to put an upper bound of roughly 30% on what you and I would probably consider charitable causes).
Other interesting bits are that of a total of 185 million in expenditures, roughly 74 million goes toward supplies and assets, 15 million to salary, 3 million for travel (there is no breakdown for what portion of these amounts are considered charitable programs).
Total expenses before "gifts to qualified donees" comprise about 67% of expenditures. Qualified donees can actually be found in a list which seems to include other LDS organizations which makes it difficult to breakdown how those funds are being used in the end.
Doing the math, it seems like compensation is an average of $5000 for part-time/part-year employees. Full-time employees seem to make an average of $70,000 if you take the total salary expenditure, subtract the total for part-time employees, and divide by the number of full-time employees. The top employee makes some unknown value higher than 119k while the next four make between 80k and 119k.
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The picture may be somewhat different (or not!) with the US finances - the private businesses are probably mostly held by the US organization and the global humanitarian organizations are headquartered in SLC.
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It seems that the investment income that they are reporting are too high to be accounted for by just the amount of short-term investments that they have, but I can't figure out what else (that is recorded on the statement) they have that might return investment income.
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The Canadian disclosure shows $600 million in assets. Estimates of the total church's worth is something like $30 billion, making the Canadian piece relatively small. The percentages may be similar to those for the church over all or they may not be.
In other words, I don't know how informative a financial statement representing 2% of the church's wealth is when trying to determine their overall pattern of spending.
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Um... I missed a few days of this thread.. but how did we go from a discussion of the flag mailbox on health care to a general thread of slamming the Republican party/Sarah Palin and then morph into slamming the LDS church and its finances?
I mean, really -- can we get back on topic, please?
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