Originally Posted by princeofcats67

OK ... Burke!

Prince

and here you are with Rani in Aliens 4 -




- don't you both make a lovely couple?

For godsakes man, the cats can live without you for an hour or so. Unshutter the door and get out, walk around, get some fresh air!

In this thread, boomers and Xers continue to play poorly with each other.

When even attempts at civic discourse fail and devolve in to ad hom and personal attacks, I can only conclude it is the boomers who need to grow up. They've had the longest to do so and can't expect anyone to act maturely if they're the child-like role models.

I'll note that in prior saeculae, prophets were able to channel the righteous anger of the nomads in to something constructive by the time civics were this age. These days, prophets seem content with kicking and poking and prodding from their position of relative security.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

In this thread, boomers and Xers continue to play poorly with each other.

When even attempts at civic discourse fail and devolve in to ad hom and personal attacks, I can only conclude it is the boomers who need to grow up. They've had the longest to do so and can't expect anyone to act maturely if they're the child-like role models.

I'll note that in prior saeculae, prophets were able to channel the righteous anger of the nomads in to something constructive by the time civics were this age. These days, prophets seem content with kicking and poking and prodding from their position of relative security.

ai ai ai ai ai, ai ai ai ai ai ai.

Mea Culpa!

Originally Posted by The Rani

Anyone who feels that it's "callous" to encourage personal responsibility might want to check out this trailer.
These patients obviously feel empowered, not mistreated.

while diet is important, it is not a complete picture of people's health care needs.

vegan diets won't save you if you get shot, or hit by a car.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Here's a Healthcare topic that I find somewhat sewius:

Florida town bans hiring of smokers

Given that Healthcare is now apparently everyone's concern, I wonder how long it will be before "the big-boned" are included in such hiring bans. What metric are they going to use: Size, Weight, % of Body Fat, Etc.?

Can't wait.


Prince

it makes more sense to regulate tobacco than food. tobacco has no nutritional value.

and it's been clearly shown that second-hand smoke hurts health.

but we need food to live.

and i don't think you'd get much political support for discriminating against overweight folks. mainly because there are so many. probably a third of the population.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Here's a Healthcare topic that I find somewhat sewius:

Florida town bans hiring of smokers

Given that Healthcare is now apparently everyone's concern, I wonder how long it will be before "the big-boned" are included in such hiring bans. What metric are they going to use: Size, Weight, % of Body Fat, Etc.?

Can't wait.


Prince

They already are in some cases (try getting hired on at Hooters while being 50 pounds overweight). Of course this sort of "discrimination" brings on law suits because weight discrimination is written into the law now. Of course, intelligent people will notice that "healthy" is not written in law, just weight. You voters must be proud.

Note that I am not advocating sainthood in any way, shape or form (I'm certainly not). I simply expect that people be allowed to make mistakes during their lives and also to pay for those mistakes at the end of their lives.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Of course this sort of "discrimination" brings on law suits because weight discrimination is written into the law now. Of course, intelligent people will notice that "healthy" is not written in law, just weight.

it's unclear to me how you could write something like "health" into law. it's a subjective concept.

You voters must be proud.

clarify, please? was this decided in delray beach by a popular referendum?

Note that I am not advocating sainthood in any way, shape or form (I'm certainly not). I simply expect that people be allowed to make mistakes during their lives and also to pay for those mistakes at the end of their lives.

hopefully people do learn from their mistakes.

but what's fascinating and wonderful about human life is that you *don't* always get punished for them.

have a drink.

i think i'll open a beer.

cheers (or "skoal," "slainte," or "salute" if you prefer).

Originally Posted by The Rani

That's why taxing unhealthful foods is the only legal way to go about it.
But addiction is also considered to be a disability. Perhaps nicotine addicts could make their case.

Well it's me here. I don't have a lot of interest in forcing people to comply via law. I think it's more important that people educate themselves and make their own choices and then own (responsibility) those choices by not expecting others to pay for them. If you want that occasional Big Mac (if that is your thing) then go for it. But eating the Big Mac should be a thing done by people who also choose to exercise regularly and who also don't eat that Big Mac twice a day.

Originally Posted by the bouncer

it's unclear to me how you could write something like "health" into law. it's a subjective concept.

So is "weight" and "law". That doesn't stop anyone from trying though.

Originally Posted by the bouncer

clarify, please? was this decided in delray beach by a popular referendum?

Well that Michgan state law didn't just fall from the sky carved on stone tablets did it?

Originally Posted by the bouncer

hopefully people do learn from their mistakes.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The don'ts happen often enough to question why anyone would think it makes sense to legislate those mistakes.

Originally Posted by the bouncer

but what's fascinating and wonderful about human life is that you *don't* always get punished for them.

Actually humans used to be punished (or at least held responsible) for their mistakes. Now we often expect others to pay for them.

Originally Posted by the bouncer

have a drink.

i think i'll open a beer.

cheers (or "skoal," "slainte," or "salute" if you prefer).

Way ahead of you. But of course, I also did two hours of cardio earlier today knowing that I might have a martini or two tonight.

Originally Posted by The Rani

As you probably know, I'm right there with you.
But that's not the direction that we're moving in.

No it certainly isn't. But then authoritarians need jobs too (or at least think they do).

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Well it's me here. I don't have a lot of interest in forcing people to comply via law. I think it's more important that people educate themselves and make their own choices and then own (responsibility) those choices by not expecting others to pay for them. If you want that occasional Big Mac (if that is your thing) then go for it. But eating the Big Mac should be a thing done by people who also choose to exercise regularly and who also don't eat that Big Mac twice a day.

wow. disturbing.

health care should be framed in a way that emphasizes how paying for it inconveniences someone else?

really?

do other people agree?

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

No way man; I'm Hicks. Plus, this is Aliens, not some crappy sequel...

H-m-m-m. Aliens was a sequel, albeit well done, but Alien is still the benchmark movie in the series by far.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Oh well don't feel bad. This one was also 100% ignored:


Anyone who feels that it's "callous" to encourage personal responsibility might want to check out this trailer.
These patients obviously feel empowered, not mistreated.

Well, I have a solid excuse. I never repond to or even watch any streaming media insered in a post. I live in a bandwidth desert, and have to get service throgh a 3G hot spot.

Still pics and other graphics are OK, but video? No.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Here's a Healthcare topic that I find somewhat sewius:

Florida town bans hiring of smokers

Given that Healthcare is now apparently everyone's concern, I wonder how long it will be before "the big-boned" are included in such hiring bans. What metric are they going to use: Size, Weight, % of Body Fat, Etc.?

Can't wait.

Prince

You missed the worst case. First, require a physical, then mandate gene squencing prior to hiring. You can't escape that by losing a few pounds or quitting smoking.

It's coming.

Originally Posted by The Rani

That's why taxing unhealthful foods is the only legal way to go about it.
But addiction is also considered to be a disability. Perhaps nicotine addicts could make their case.

I've met more than a few folks who would be impossible to live with if they were forced to quit smoking. It's an addiction that runs deep, and I speak from experience.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

... Actually humans used to be punished (or at least held responsible) for their mistakes. Now we often expect others to pay for them...

H-m-m-m. Punishment has always been arbitrary ... even moreso in the past. We imprison the innocent all the time (estimates are 2% of prisoners are not guilty of the crime that got them sent to prison, and roughly half of those arenot guilty of anything), and even execute a few on occassion. For every innocent convicted and punished, a gulty party is out there somewhere.

From a social perspective, how many people die of cancer at 40 who lived a good and proper life? Plenty. Some die in car accidents causes by others they only met head-on.. In fact, the list is endless.

So life is arbitrary. Enjoy what you get and don't worry about it.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

H-m-m-m. Punishment has always been arbitrary ... even moreso in the past. We imprison the innocent all the time (estimates are 2% of prisoners are not guilty of the crime that got them sent to prison, and roughly half of those arenot guilty of anything), and even execute a few on occassion. For every innocent convicted and punished, a gulty party is out there somewhere.

From a social perspective, how many people die of cancer at 40 who lived a good and proper life? Plenty. Some die in car accidents causes by others they only met head-on.. In fact, the list is endless.

So life is arbitrary. Enjoy what you get and don't worry about it.

Yes. Yesterday my sister would have been 59. She never weighed more than 105lbs except when pregnant. She drank moderately, which meant a few times a month when out with husband. She quit smoking at age 21. She died of colon cancer at age 44.

Certainly there are many things people can do to improve their health. But some of this sounds like blaming the victim.

Originally Posted by annla899

Yes. Yesterday my sister would have been 59. She never weighed more than 105lbs except when pregnant. She drank moderately, which meant a few times a month when out with husband. She quit smoking at age 21. She died of colon cancer at age 44.

Certainly there are many things people can do to improve their health. But some of this sounds like blaming the victim.

I didn't mean it to sound that way, It's something that's hit close to home for me too. I don't claim to know what to do about it either.

In my case, the person was a firend, who was the youngest of four sisters at 28. She had already lost her aunt and mother to breast cancer (both died in their 40s) and one sister was ill at the time I met here. She assumed it was a death sentence, and decided, for reasons of her own, to remove her breasts, and take up extreme sports. I have no idea what the connection was there. She became a really excellent skydiver, which wa amazing since she was under 5 feet tall and wieghed well under 100 pounds. After a while, I lost track of here. I heard she died a few years later, somewhere far away from her Virginia home.

Don't want a national healthcare plan? Would you prefer a state by state approach?

Well, then Ronmy is still not your guy.

Originally Posted by Wonkbook

think Romney wants to make it possible for every state to follow Massachusetts’s example. But a fair read of his policies makes it clear that Romney wants to make it impossible for any state to follow Massachusetts’s example — and perhaps impossible for Massachusetts to keep the very plan Romney passed going.

The key question for any health-care plan is how are you going to pay for it? The Massachusetts plan used three funding sources.

The first — and, in some ways, the most important — was a $385 million annual payment then-Sen. Ted Kennedy had negotiated for the state’s safety net hospitals. President George W. Bush wanted to end the payment. That set off a panic in Massachusetts, and led to Romney and Kennedy going to the Bush administration and making a deal: Massachusetts could keep the money if they put it towards a universal health-care plan. Oh, and they needed to come up with that plan soon.

This was the threat that forced Romney and the state’s Democrats to pass a plan, as not passing a plan would mean losing billions in free federal money.

The state also found two other funding sources. They covered absolutely everyone they could cover in their Medicaid program so they could get the most generous possible match from the federal government. Right now, Medicaid is helping Massachusetts cover kids and adults up to 300 percent of the poverty line — an incredible deal.

Finally, Massachusetts had imposed a tax to reimburse hospitals for the care they provided to the uninsured. Romney took the money from that tax and put it toward the law.

That’s two pots of federal money and a tax. So how much of Romney’s proposal relied on these funds? “100 percent,” says Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who helped Romney design the law. “That was my whole job. Saying whether we could fit what he wanted to do within those three funding sources.”

The legislature ended up adding a bit of general revenue to the law. But the fact remains: The Massachusetts law relies on federal dollars and state taxes.

But Romney’s health-care proposal doesn’t make it easier for other states to follow the Massachusetts example. It makes it almost impossible. He’s not offering states access to federal funds for universal coverage. Here’s what he’s doing:

I would like to take the Medicaid dollars that go to states and say to a state, you’re going to get what you got last year, plus inflation, plus 1 percent, and then you’re going to manage your care for your poor in the way you think best.

That sounds nice, but it’s a cut to Medicaid of more than $600 billion. And that’s before we even get into Romney’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which pushes the Medicaid cuts well above $1 trillion. That means Medicaid won’t be able to offer such generous matches in the future.

Where are those magic ponies when you need them?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I didn't mean it to sound that way, It's something that's hit close to home for me too. I don't claim to know what to do about it either.

In my case, the person was a firend, who was the youngest of four sisters at 28. She had already lost her aunt and mother to breast cancer (both died in their 40s) and one sister was ill at the time I met here. She assumed it was a death sentence, and decided, for reasons of her own, to remove her breasts, and take up extreme sports. I have no idea what the connection was there. She became a really excellent skydiver, which wa amazing since she was under 5 feet tall and wieghed well under 100 pounds. After a while, I lost track of here. I heard she died a few years later, somewhere far away from her Virginia home.

I didn't mean to sound as if I were disagreeing with you. I do.

But how has Utah done what they have done for quite some time - a particularly relevant question given Romney's religious affiliation?

To build on Rani's suggestion to take care of your health. And if your a Boomer, doubly so. I just tried finding a new doctor for my step-mother. Many were not taking Medicare patients.

The following article shows just how vulnerable Boomers are, and will continue to be, in today's health insurance climate.

This article is by Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Turning Health Care Into Corporate Profits

When Obama sold out his supporters to the insurance companies, Obama supporters lined up with the pretense that diverting Medicare money to private profits was an improvement over the current system. Obama supporters have now invested so much emotional capital in Obama’s assault on Medicare that they pretend there is some meaningful difference between Obamacare’s government subsidized private insurance policies and Romneycare’s government subsidized private medical insurance vouchers.

While the two sides yell and scream at one another, the concrete hardens around the new common policy of shorter lives for the elderly and more profits for private corporations.

Although no one in either party can define the US mission in the seven countries in which the US is conducting military aggression, wars of choice that according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have already cost US taxpayers $6 trillion in out of pocket and already incurred future costs, there is no discussion of halting the wars and diverting armaments industry profits to the health care of the US population.

Thus, we are left with Dr. Dotson’s conclusion that Americans are governed for the benefit of corporate profits. Americans’ lives, health, incomes, careers, prospects, none of this matters. Only corporate profits.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/...orate-profits/

Originally Posted by The Rani

Seriously people, take care of your own health and don't rely on the government to do it for you:

Questions for Medicare in meningitis outbreak

That's some pretty silly horseshit. There are about 50 million people on Medicare and it comes down to 21 deaths from a F-up by some pharm company???

This is like attributing drownings to living in California.

Originally Posted by Deb C

To build on Rani's suggestion to take care of your health. And if your a Boomer, doubly so. I just tried finding a new doctor for my step-mother. Many were not taking Medicare patients.

The following article shows just how vulnerable Boomers are, and will continue to be, in today's health insurance climate.

This article is by Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Turning Health Care Into Corporate Profits



http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/...orate-profits/

What the hell is this guy talking about when he says -

.... diverting Medicare money to private profits...

If you're going to post rants, at least you could try posting ones that have a modicum of some facts or logic.

Could someone kindly clear something up for me?

If Mitt Romney does get elected, can he merely issue an executive order nullifying ObamaCare, or would it have to be repealed by Congress?

Certain putative Fox News addicts I have gone back and forth with on facebook and elsewhere seem to think that he can.