They supported the mandate
Cal Thomas' June 27 column, "A guide for U.S. health under Obamacare" is so unbelievably inaccurate that I thought it was meant to be a joke — with a final ending punch line as he compared the Affordable Care Act with Great Britain's single-payer-based National Health Service.
In 1994, to counter the single-payer system proposed by the Clinton administration, the Republicans proposed continuing funding our system with premiums paid to private insurance companies via an individual mandate to purchase coverage. They recognized then, as is true now, that insurance companies cannot possibly keep premiums reasonable if they are required to accept all potential subscribers, regardless of pre-existing health conditions, without a universal requirement to purchase insurance.
Many Republican presidential candidates involved in the primary campaign prior to the 2008 election, including Mitt Romney, spoke in favor of an individual mandate.
The final paragraph of Thomas' column states that the Republicans have offered market-based solutions to our health-care dilemma, and this is partially accurate. The solutions they proposed in 1994 were a large part of the Affordable Care Act, but the Republicans simply cannot stomach that a Democrat was able to pass into law something they could not.
JAMES McGRATH
Yadkinville
Understand the conditions
These are really tough economic times — I am sure that all will agree with that statement. Each family has to adjust their style of living to compensate. For the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board to request an enormous bond proposal be placed before the people is certainly its right ("School bond idea still on table," June 29). The real question that has never been answered is, "What does this get the children of Forsyth County?" Will little Johnny be smarter? Will Mary make better grades? What will we get for this money?
Looking at past scores released to the public, who knows?
My hat is off to the Forsyth County commissioners for saying no. It is obvious they understand the conditions that all residents see.
The school board saying that it will pursue the bond referendum anyway indicates to me that its members are not concerned about anyone but their "little kingdom."
I certainly plan to do what I can in November. This action by the school board members is a poor example they are setting for the children they are charged to educate.
RICHARD HIGH
Pfafftown
The rising sea
U.S. Geological Survey scientists have determined that the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Hatteras to Boston is rising at a higher rate than the global average. The report "Hotspot of accelerated sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast of North America" by Asbury H. Sallenger, Karen A. Doran and Peter A. Howd, published on June 24 in "Nature Climate Change," warns that sea levels could rise 14 to 20 inches by 2100.
The General Assembly made North Carolina a laughingstock when it introduced legislation that would outlaw "scenarios of accelerated rates of sea level rise." It appears our legislators are unaware that Canute the Great, c.985, commanded the tide not to rise, against the better judgment of his advisers.
Though our legislators eliminated the embarrassing part of the sea-level bill, the result is a bill that represents a serious disregard for science and our coastal environment, and is an unwise use of taxpayer money. The 2009 N.C. Coastal Property Insurance Pool law allows a recovery charge applied to policyholders statewide that subsidizes the insurance for about 3,000 residences worth up to $750,000 each. This is what we pay for whether we live on the coast or inland.
Market stability for developers and insurance companies is what this is really all about, and an acknowledgement of rising sea levels would be a death knell for risky development on the coast. What is needed is a balance between economic stability and environmental protection. The sea is rising and doesn't appear to be stopping any time soon.
LINDA McCORKINDALE
Winston-Salem
Spending record
"Since I've been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years," was the famous quote from President Obama during a Denver fundraiser in May. The Office of Management and Budget informs us that spending has exceeded 24 percent of GDP four times since the Japanese surrender in September, 1945. Look no further than our campaigner-in-chief.
Government spending under Bill Clinton peaked at 23.5 percent of GDP, but fell to 19.5 percent when he left in 2001. Clinton with a Republican Congress cut spending more than any administration in the history of the United States. Sadly, the course was reversed when a weak president was steam-rolled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. George W. Bush capitulated to every bailout and redistributionist idea floated; the $600-per-person tax rebates, add-ons to the farm bills, and the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to name a few.
For fiscal 2008, spending was 20.8 percent of GDP with a current-year deficit headed to $1 trillion. President Obama passed his own $830 billion stimulus with mortgage relief, auto bailouts and Dodd-Frank reforms. Spending became 25.2 percent of GDP.
Fast forward to today, we have a decelerating economy due in part to the automatic (taxmageddon) changes due to begin as of Jan. 1, 2013. We cannot tax or spend ourselves into prosperity — we must learn to compromise.
HIL CASSELL
Lewisville
The good news
It's over. Obamacare is here to stay. There will be problems with it, but we're Americans, and we can fix them when they arise. The good news is that millions more Americans will receive health care.
If Mitt Romney becomes the next president, he may do away with Obamacare, but he'll only replace it with Romneycare, which will be the same thing but will cost a bit more for people in the middle class. Romney or Obama, it'll be the same thing.
I can't believe all the caterwauling going on over this. People are so afraid. The reason they're afraid is that they're listening to the people who had those crazy claims about "death panels." Fool me once …
How many times have we heard, "This will be the end of America as we know it"? It never has been before, and it won't be this time.
JANE FREEMONT GIBSON
Winston-Salem
Ms. Gibson:
ReplyDeleteOne only has to listen to a Canadian tell of the horrors of the Universal Canadian Health System for a few minutes, and know it's not for the majority of Americans.
The majority of Americans are happy with their healthcare insurance. And despite what Obama has 'promised', and we all know how promises go. Yeah, precisely! We will all be forced into a single payer plan eventually.
It's much like gun laws. The majority of Americans can handle guns safely without any problems. Then, you've got the NWs of the world. And you know what happens when a NW gets a hold of something, don't you?
I sure do. What are you up to now, Rush?
A Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday morning indicates that President Barack Obama holds a 54%-34% lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney among non-married voters, while the presumptive GOP nominee leads the president 51%-38% among married voters.
ReplyDelete_________
People that are more 'stable' favor Romney. No surprise to me.
87/90% of African Americans plan to support Obama.
ReplyDeleteObama will not speak before the NAACP Convention today, something about a scheduling conflict. Hmmmmm?
Wow! I hope people are listening. Romney is delivering a powerful speech to the convention!
_______________
Unemployment rates..........are worse in the black community. So much for a brother helping another brother out, right Obama?
Romney just booed when he said he'd appeal Obamacare. I wonder what the liberal press would say if a group of white people booed Obama over a policy issue?
DeleteGood afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: As been noted before, columnists write to invoke a response and Thomas is very good at that since this is the 3rd response in 2 days. Yes, ACA is based on an original Heritage Club/Republican proposal from the 1990's which was implemented by Romney in MA. The R's change of heart is the normal partisan crap that passes for politics today where a proposal by one party is automatically rejected by the other party just because.
LTE 2: Part of being a responsible steward of money is recognizing when it's the best time to spend and when it's the best time to save / pay down. Currently, debt is essentially free which means there isn't going to be a better time than now to take on large capital projects. Each 1% IR increase on $10M means an additional $100k in interest to be paid off. Is it wiser to float the bonds now with current interest rates or wait until rates have increased to the 3-4% range which result in hundreds of thousands if not millions more in interest?
LTE 3: Speaking of economic foolishness, building doomed structures along the shores is about as dumb as it gets. The only 2 things dumber are thinking you can legislate mother nature from doing what she is going to do and subsidizing the foolish building.
LTE 4: There are multiple ways to look at fed spending. Mr. Cassell is looking at it as a percentage of GDP which is certainly valid. Obama is probably looking at it from the year to year delta which is also valid. It would be nice if people would state the methodology used to arrive at their conclusions when making such claims.
LTE 5: ACA is here for the time being. Congress may defund it, or even repeal it depending on its makeup after the elections. Undoubtly in a program this large there will be parts that work well and parts that don't work at all. I have read insurance companies are already implementing parts of it. Should those parts prove popular, they will most likely remain regardless of what Congress does. It is unclear what, if anything Romney would replace ACA with. He speaks of "common sense, market place solutions", but no specifics.
Dotnet........there's no particular format requirement in this forum. Do us all a favor, put some spaces between your paragraphs or sections if you want us to read your nonsense. Thanks, Bucky.
DeleteIn 1954, there were a couple of dozen houses on Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County. After the passage of Hurricane Hazel there were zero houses on the island. Aerial photos taken a few days later show a land untouched by human hand or foot.
ReplyDeleteBy the late 1950s, a few houses had been built there. Throughout the 1960s, Ocean Isle was a great place to hang out. Access for some years was only by a small ferry. Even when a draw bridge was installed, it remained lightly populated. In the 1970s a huge hump backed bridge was built, bringing with it the riff raff.
Throughout these years, the island was migrating (legally). The east end was steadily eroding, and by the early 1980s, houses built there in the early to mid 1960s were being swept away.
Meanwhile, the west end was growing. There were huge dunes there and many rare species of birds. Turtles nested on the beach and an occasional dead whale washed up on the sand.
Then the developers moved in. They extended the paved road, but put up a gate to keep all of us riff raff out, and began building very expensive semi-detached houses and condos. I guess the dunces thought that the west end would just keep on growing, because they kept pushing closer and closer to the inlet.
Then, in 2007, almost overnight, about 100 yards of the west end simply vanished, so now the island is migrating inward upon itself. Now the big shots want us taxpayers to spend billions to save their tony resort. Ha, ha…fools!
If you want to see what nature hath wrought, just Google “Ocean Isle Beach” erosion and click on images. You will see a lot of sandbags. Sandbagging should be illegal, because it just makes matters worse.
I believe King Canute demonstrated the futility of the supposedly powerful to hold back the sea. Yes, the story about Canute (Cnut) is probably apocryphal, but the King's point is well made.
DeleteI should mention that now Ocean Isle is migrating back in the other direction...as the west end erodes, the east end grows...no dunes there, though, just a flat stretch of sand where the old 1960s houses used to be. Across the inlet you can see the houses at Holden Beach which are now falling into the sea.
DeleteYou'd think that folks would have learned early on. Verrazano described the banks quite accurately in his 1528 log. By the time Raleigh's people showed up in the 1580s, everything had changed.
A much later National Geographic map shows one of Raleigh's ships, the Tiger, sunk where there is now dry land. Only problem is that it only ran aground, was refloated and captured a couple of Spanish ships on its return voyage to England.
The French had it right all along...c'est la vie.
As always, you-know-who is hearing voices inside the void of his own head...this time Canadian ones. Maybe the Clemmons monkey was from Canada.
ReplyDeleteLet's try a more reliable source...perhaps "The Economist":
"...dependable figures, like, say, OECD statistics. They make plain the fact that for half what we spend, Canada offers insurance to all its citizens and produces better outcomes in practically every category listed: life expectancy at several ages, infant mortality, mortality from chronic conditions, mortality from various other diseases (including respiratory diseases, despite a higher rate of smoking), and so on."
I think you better leave that 'monkey business' alone, or I'll send you scampering under Stab's skirt again if you don't watch it.
DeleteBucky, if I exercise any forbearance at all in this forum, it is not expended on my esteemed relative, our philosophical differences notwithstanding. As for skirts, I may have Scots-Irish ancestry, but I have never worn a kilt. I doubt my war veteran kinsman hides from much of anything.
DeleteHa, ha! Hey Stab, clan Walker has its own crest and tartan, so you could wear a kilt for your wedding…in my experience, women really go for a man in a kilt.
DeleteClan Walker is a sept, or offshoot, of the more powerful and famous Clan Stewart. The Stewarts took the throne of Scotland in 1371 and reigned continuously until Mary, Queen of Scotts, whose son James VI (King James Bible) became king of Great Britain and Ireland in 1603. The Stuarts (spelling change) would reign until 1714.
But the Walkers had their own moment of fame. In the 1700s, Helen Walker walked from Scotland to London to petition for the life of her sister who had been condemned to death for infanticide. Her story inspired Sir Walter Scott to write his epic novel about Jeanie Deans in The Heart of Midlothian (1818). Scott was so grateful for the inspiration that he had a statue of Helen Walker/Jeanie Deans erected at Kirkpatrick-Irongray Churchyard, Kirkcudbrightshire, near Dumfries, Scotland, where it can still be seen today.
BTW, Helen's sister Isobel was reprieved by the Duke of Argyle, who was apparently impressed by the outpouring of sisterly love.
"People that are more 'stable' favor Romney. No surprise to me."
ReplyDeleteStable?
1. Marriage is a dying institution. In another 60-70 years marriage will be as rare as intelligent conservatives are now.
2. For those who do still get married, about half of those marriages will end in divorce. That's pretty stable, eh?
3. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. About 60% of second marriages end in divorce.
4. After two, all bets are off. The more marriages, the higher the divorce percentage.
5. In marriages that do not end in divorce, 20% experience domestic violence on a regular basis.
Proof perfect that married folks are stable, stable, stable, huh?
One wonders what it must be like to live in a state of perpetual ignorance.
I read the The Economist to get the Conservative (Tory) point of view. It tells you how batshit the GOP has gotten now that they're to the right of Thatcher.
DeletePiers Morgan should have known better than to invite Robert Blake in for an interview.
ReplyDelete"We better start talking about the little rascals."
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/07/11/piers-morgan-robert-blake-lying.cnn
Somebody is going to punch Morgan in the mouth. That's what I predict.
This is a good video. If you haven't watch it, you should.
DeleteThird city in California goes bankrupt-San Bernadino. Keep voting Democratic! See where it gets ya!
ReplyDeleteCalifornia may not 'break' off from the U.S. physically, as predicted, but it probably will economically.
So far the three cities in CA that are going under have high populations of illegals. And who said illegals are paying their fair share of taxes?
Hee..Hee....you gotta laugh. Liberals could get hit with a brick wall full of facts, and they would still deny them. I guess most went to Rush's school of 'How to be a NW without really trying'.
The idea that the Dunce is acquainted with "facts" makes as much sense as the idea that Hitler actually "loved" the Jews.
ReplyDeleteAs always his diarrhetic keyboard is blathering about matters that he knows nothing about.
All three of the California cities filing for bankruptcy have a considerably smaller percentage of Latinos than the state average, so that kills one of Dunce's favorite blabbers.
Mammoth Lakes is a tiny city in magical Mono County in the high Sierras known for its ski slopes. It's finances are in fine shape, except for one thing...a ridiculous court judgment in favor of a powerful developer against the city.
Mammoth Lakes' annual budget is about $19 million/year. The court awarded the developer $43 million. The locals are pissed, so rather than ruin the local economy by trying to pay off the judgment, they will just fold'em and start over.
Both Stockton and San Bernardino have non-partisan city councils, so Dunce's "Democrat" comment is, as always, just BS.
Stockton is a dreary bedroom community serving San Francisco and Oakland. Think Clemmons on steroids...a bunch of tax avoiders who severely underestimated the cost of running a city. If Stockton simply shut down, it would be a plus for the entire state.
San Bernardino's problem is quite specific... a decade and a half of fraud. We don't yet know the extent or who is actually responsible...city manager, city treasurer, city auditor or a combination...for reporting annual budget surpluses when the city was actually operating in the red. I'm sure we'll find out soon.
As always, simple-minded people prefer simple-minded answers.
Mono County is indeed magical. And Mono Lake is marvelously eerie. I enjoyed going to a Renaissance Faire in San Bernardino County somewhat NE of the city. The state has been miserably governed for years, but I take no satisfaction in its woes. It was a great place to call home for a time.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget my first view of Mono Lake. We had left Stanford not too long after midnight and drove through Yosemite on the Tioga Canyon road just after sunrise, not encountering another human the whole time...just those little golden rodents...marmots?...and magnificent hawks soaring above, looking for a tasty marmot for breakfast.
DeleteWe found a little cafe right across the highway from the lake in Lee Vining and despite the fact that it was pretty chilly, sat out on the porch and ate pancakes. The lake was covered with patches of mist...it was like being in the pages of some incredible fantasy novel.
Then a spectacular drive south on US 395 along the slopes of the Sierra, past Mammoth Lakes, a quick aside to Convict Lake, which has an extraordinary history, then the first view of the Owens Valley and the steep plunge to Bishop, the cowboy capitol of the world, and its huge sculpture of a beef jerky.
Later in the day, the snow-capped peak of Mt. Whitney, towering above Lone Pine and the blistering heat of Death Valley.
I don't really care all that much about politics...in my heart of hearts I always just miss California, every part of it.
My license plate reads PASADENA. Wave at me when you see me. I echo your last paragraph.
DeleteI could go on and on about Pasadena...unique in the history of man.
DeleteEven though they did their best to kill me, I thank the United States Navy for allowing me many months to explore the Golden State.
I worked in Pasadena and South Pasadena ("Southpass") in my CA. The day always started and ended well with my drive to and from work, driving alongside the San Gabriel mountains on the 210 Freeway, a lot more interesting than a short trip to Reynolds Blvd.
DeleteJJ Jr having 'mood' problems? Who isn't with Obama as president.
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