The Next President of the United States of America

[Hygro]

Funny how you chisel its descriptive meaning to fit the thing you don't like.

 

[onejayhawk]

You treat it as a term for anything you don't like.

You need a mirror here. I treat it as a descriptive. You treat is as a value judgment.

Funny how you chisel its descriptive meaning to fit the thing you don't like.

It is true I don't like either the ACA or the way it was enacted. That has little to do with the basic socialist nature of the project and much to do with the direction the project has taken.

There are a lot of things not to like about the ACA. An omnibus bill was stupid. The Republicans were willing to do a deal on the portability, existing conditions and long term care. The Democrats flipped them the bird and used the heaviest handed main force tactics I can remember. Every bridge in site was torched, yet the Democrats try an throw all the blame across the aisl. Not buying that one.

Now we are stuck with an slapped together contraption out of the Mousetrap game. It does nothing well and too many things badly. No one understands now, much less during the debate. It has some good aspects, but as a whole it is a steaming pile. The worst part is its coercive nature. The Libertarians are right about that part.

J

 

[onejayhawk]

Yeah, this I'll agree with. It is socialist. It can be abused (in many places, it shows that pure cash would be superior, but people are paternalistic). The corruption mostly occurs at the rent-seeking stage ("Puhlease, Mr. Senator, put my product on the list of approved products!").

You say it's much abused, but the abuse doesn't cost all that much. All the abuse occurs at the disenfranchised level, and we know that cohort cannot cause much harm.

Hardly all. Not even half by my eyeball estimate and I have a lot of contact.

I also said I would not suggest terminating the program, despite the embarrassingly small portion of the money that benefits children. There is a limit to the amount of seepage that occurs, but we have not reached it yet.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, it's paternalistic enough that a lot of people don't truly mind it. They get irked when people sell their EBT cards at a discount, but that's the main form of abuse. There's not much corruption at the lower levels, because it's not like civil servants are taking bribes to authorize certain accounts ...

 

[JollyRoger]

The worst part is its coercive nature.

J

The "coercive" part is the alternative to pay a higher tax if you don't insure - and this is even less "coercive"than higher taxes if you don't have children or deductible mortgage interest because if you don't pay the ACA taxes, the IRS has none of its traditional tools of enforcement like it has if you tried to treat your tax return as if you had children and a mortgage when you really didn't.

 

[Commodore]

You need a mirror here. I treat it as a descriptive. You treat is as a value judgment.

J

No, you treat it as a term for something you don't like. Especially since you still have not given any evidence at all to show that the ACA fits the dictionary definition you posted for socialism. You simply saying it does over and over again does not make it true.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Have you guys forgotten?

Step 1: ACA is socialist.

Any reasonable definition of socialism will include the ACA as socialist.

Step 2: Try to mangle the definitinion of Socialism so ACA is socialist.

You have social ownership of the means of producing healthcare.

Step 3: Pack your bags, we're going to Loony land!

The Republicans were willing to do a deal on the portability, existing conditions and long term care. The Democrats flipped them the bird and used the heaviest handed main force tactics I can remember. Every bridge in site was torched, yet the Democrats try an throw all the blame across the aisl.