I've been meaning to talk about this for ages but I never thought of it while I was siting here.

I'd like people to think about the healthcare plans that Obama and Hillary have.

First let me say that I'm very happy that the dialog has moved beyond "is it good or bad?" and is now "we HAVE to do this!"

But there really is a clear difference in the types of plans they are putting forth.

You hear me often say that the media and politicians tell you the opposite of reality and this is another example of that.

In regards to halth care they are saying that "because Obama is not forcing EVERYONE to accept his plan that his plan is bad."

Think about that.

He's allowing people a choice and this is somehow bad?

Let me dig deeper on this because I know many of you live or have lived in washington State and some here live in Massecusetts.

Back in the late 80's or early 90's (it was a blur from rum and music)  the state passed a new law that made it mandatory for everyone to have car insurance. Obviously we hope everyone has car insurance but instead of simply looking at the big idea let's break down the hiden things that go on with this.

When you push for laws that mandate things onto people you have to FIRST think of how it will impact the people and how will it change the way business works within that new law.

In plain English. Washintgon State did not think out their new law and they simply put a date out there and made it a law that everyoine had to have insurance.

If you were to buy car insurance prior to the announcement of the new law you're insurance was $20 per month. If you bought car insurance AFTER they announced it would be a madate on a certain date your insurance jumped up to $40 per month. If you waiting until AFTER the law passed your insurance went up to $70 per month.

Then suddenly EVERYONE'S car insurance went up whether you just bought insurance or had it for 30 years.

When you make something manditory but you don't cap pricing you are asking for big trouble.

The State of Washington (as well as Mass) made a huge error in not being forward thinking. If you don't regulate a ceiling on pricing then the companies in charge of said industry will gouge everyone which is exactly what happened.

Once they gouge then less people can afford it and more people won't have it and you are worse off then before you started. Then typically the Government will try to make up for their mistake by pumping tax payers dollars into it which then drives prices even higher creating the massive snow ball effect we all hate.

I'm glad Hillary has a health care plan but she really isn't doing the long term thinking. If you pick a date and tell everyone they HAVE to have health care by this date (even if you subsidize people that can't aford it) then pricing will escalate and eventually for everyone.

Companies see that the people don't have a choice and when you don't have a choice you can and WILL be taken advantage of and gouged.

Mass just went through this with Mitt Romneys bad healthcare plan. The prices were too high to begin with and then they went up even more. Now you have a state with tons of people without insurance (because they can't afford it) and on top of that they are breaking the law and staring at stiff penalties for not keeping their insurance paid up.

Obama's plan is actually a way way better plan but the media (and Hillary) are avoiding reality and acting like the only way to do this is to make it mandatory which will end up hurting people and costing the Government much more if they try to start subsidizing the rising costs.

Look at the elderly drug bill they passed a few years back.
When the Feds started talking about making everyone buy drugs through this Government plan the drug companies staretd hedging prices upwards.

 Once the feds signed on the dotted line prices shot up big time.

Celebrex went from $18 to $107 in a couple of days.  

The original drug bill was supposed to cost $140 billion but will end up near costing us $1 trillion due to our elected officials not being forward thinking and allowing the gouging from the corporations that own the industry.

PS: The elderly drug bill wouldn't have been nearly as expensive had Republican leadership not inserted a paragraph into the bill specifically giving away all Government control on pricing.  

This type of gouging always happens when policioes are written in this manner and we can't do thids with health care.

Ask yourself this simple question:
If Hillary's plan were better for people and would curb costs (and profits for insurance companies) then why is the insurance industry pumping a ton of money into her campaign?  

and not giving a red cent to Obama's campaign?  

Give people a choice AND push for tighter pricing regulations and you'll see more people have health care.

Once this undermines the industry and prices come back to Earth THEN you can mandate coverage for everyone. Insurance companies will embrace the mandate at that point to simply get more people covered which raises their financial take.

I know that our knee jerk reaction to these types of situations is people think "If I have to buy it then everyone should have to buy it" and "That's not fair that I have to buy it while others don't"  and it makes sense to think like that to a cerain degree but when you think like that you're actually buying into the idea that these corporations want you to think.

They want everyone to be forced to buy their product so the open market goes away and they can charge whatever they want and you can do nothing about it.

I'm not saying healthcare in America is currently a true open market. It's clearly not. But it will go even further away from an open market if we went with a plan like Hillary's plan.

Now if she reexamined the plan and first set up new laws that would cap pricing as well as create new companies with low costs to drive overall pricing down which creates true competetion then a mandate might be more acceptable but unfortunately she heading towards the same mistake that Washington State made and the same mistake that Mass made not long ago and the same mistake that many have made over the years.

These political threads have been thought-provoking.  My ideas are still taking shape, but I thought this article was interesting:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1725678,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-nation

Article at time.com: Is Al Gore the Answer?:

Unlike Barack Obama, Bill Clinton does not believe in "the fierce urgency of now." The former President has an exquisitely languid sense of how political time unfurls. He understands that those moments the political community, especially the media, considers urgent usually aren't. He has seen his own election and reelection—and completing his second term—pronounced "impossible" and lived to tell the tale. He remembers that in spring 1992 he had pretty much won the Democratic nomination but was considered a dead man walking, running third behind Bush the Elder and Ross Perot. He knows that April is the silly season in presidential politics, the moment when candidates involved in a bruising primary battle seem weakest and bloodied, as both Hillary Clinton and Obama do now. It's the moment when pundits demand action—"Drop out, Hillary!"—and propound foolish theories. And so I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I'm slouching toward, well, a theory: if this race continues to slide downhill, the answer to the Democratic Party's dilemma may turn out to be Al Gore.

This April promises to be crueler than most. The two campaigns have started attacking each other with chainsaws, while the Republican John McCain is moving ahead in some national polls. At this point, Clinton can only win the nomination ugly: by superdelegates abandoning Obama and turning to her, in droves—not impossible, but not very likely either. Even if Clinton did overtake Obama, it would be very difficult for her to win the presidency: African Americans would never forgive her for "stealing" the nomination. They would simply stay home in November, as would the Obamista youth. (Although the former President is probably thinking: Yeah, but John McCain is a flagrantly flawed candidate too—I'd accept even a corrupted nomination and take my chances.)

Which is not to say that Clinton's candidacy is entirely without purpose now that she is pursuing a Republican-style race gambit, questioning Obama's 20-year relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright. Democrats will soon learn how damaging that relationship might be in a general election. They'll also see if Obama has the gumption to bounce back, work hard—not just arena rallies for college kids but roundtables for the grizzled and unemployed in American Legion halls—and change the minds that have turned against him. The main reason superdelegates have not yet rallied round Obama is that the party is collectively holding its breath, waiting to see how he performs in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana.

He will probably do well enough to secure the nomination. But what if he tanks? What if he can't buy a white working-class vote? What if he loses all three states badly and continues to lose after that? I'd guess that the Democratic Party would still give him the nomination rather than turn to Clinton. But no one would be very happy—and a year that should have been an easy Democratic victory, given the state of the economy and the unpopularity of the incumbent, might slip away.

Which brings us back to Al Gore. Pish-tosh, you say, and you're probably right. But let's play a little. Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let's also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.

I played out that scenario with about a dozen prominent Democrats recently, from various sectors of the party, including both Obama and Clinton partisans. Most said it was extremely unlikely ... and a pretty interesting idea. A prominent fund raiser told me, "Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place." A congressional Democrat told me, "This could be our way out of a mess." Others suggested Gore was painfully aware of his limitations as a candidate. "I don't know that he'd be interested, even if you handed it to him," said a Gore friend. Chances are, no one will hand it to him. The Democratic Party would have to be monumentally desperate come June. And yet ... is this scenario any more preposterous than the one that gave John McCain the Republican nomination? Yes, it's silly season. But this has been an exceptionally "silly" year.

Thanks for the comments Bionicanna.

I've spoken with a lot of people about the Omaba/Reverend Wright relationship and nobody I've spoken with really sees that as an harmful issue. Most people don't agree with everything their religion dictates or everything that a pastor says.

I think we can all agree that most people that have been to church have heard their religious leaders say something that could be deemed extreme. It's sort of the environment ripe for that type of language.

Reverend Wright said the exact same thing that Pat Bucannan says everytime he's on MSNBC "our bad foreign policy caused 9/11 not Muslims hating American freedom"  but I've never seen anyone offended by Bucannan. I think most Americans (some reluctantly) agree with that statement at this point.

The media made this Reverend Wright issue a story to get Hillary back in the game hoping to pressure the super delegates into giving her the nod so she'll then go on to lose to McCain.

Obama beats McCain whether reverend Wright is a factor or not.

The people in the RNC I've spoken with have a love/hate with Hillary now. They want her as the opponent and are pushing Republicans towards voting for her in open primaries because they fear Obama but they are pretty angry with her that she brought out the Reverend Wright issue instead of them being able to use it during the general election.  

Some inside the RNC say that the Reverend Wright issue was the only hope they had of beating Obama in November and now because of Hillary that issue is old news.

Look at the shady preachers that McCain runs with. This is going to come out in the general election as well.  Some of them want to nuke all Muslim states. The one cat that recently endorsed McCain said Katrina was a message from God that homosexuality is evil and New Orleans is full of sinners.

here is one that the media has never spoekn of in America.

Think back to when Bill Clinton was in hot water for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Guess who he called into the picture for photo ops and "spiritual advice?"

Reverend Wright.

The Clintons invited him over to the White House dozens of times.

One other glaring discrepancy is that the media and right wingers on TV and radio continue to say the "two candidates are attacking each other" but the reality is that Obama hasn't attacked Hillary at all even though attacking would help him at this point.

He's corrected some of her BS but he hasn't lied about her like she has about him and he hasn't taken any low blow shots like she has to him.

About al Gore....

He's not going to be on the ticket no matter what. The party is only splintered because Hillary has ran fear campaign ads that many democrats see as unpatriotic and she's been quite dishonest about Obama's faith and experience. This will pass once a candidate is selected (I would say elected but I don't se it playing out that way)

By not endorsing Hillary Al Gore has in fact endorsed Obama.

The media has never connected the dots for the masses to understand it but it's quite simple when analyzed a bit.

Keep in mind that Al Gore loves Bill Clinton and I'm sure he still feels horrible for turning his back on Clinton when Al ran in 2000 but we sure haven't seen the quick Hillary endorsement that everyone expected.

 
Take care 

Too bad the Republican scammers aren't letting the Conservatives have a voice.  If Clinton does win, conservatives might want to consider supporting a political party that was at least able to balance the federal budget.  Then again, what do Democrats and Liberals stand for?  They continue to do little more than point out Republican excesses.  It's no wonder talk radio can badger them into submission.  I'll just be glad when (and if) Bush finally leaves the White House.  Obama '08!!

if anyone had any doubts about our media and corporations owning and controlling this country, your doubts should be over after watching last nights democratic debates.

 Those corporate whores went down the list of irrelevant Fox News right wing talking points and never even got to the issues people care about.

That was the most obviously right wing debate in the history of our Nation.

Folks, I've warned you now 100 times...because of how the media controls the talking points (which controls our opinions of the candidates) John McCain will be our next president.

He's off the radar, the media is all positive about him and the media is bashing both of the dems into oblivion.

Liberal media my ass.
 

TheREALkiller206:

if anyone had any doubts about our media and corporations owning and controlling this country, your doubts should be over after watching last nights democratic debates.

 Those corporate whores went down the list of irrelevant Fox Newsright wing talking points and never even got to the issues people care about.

That was the obviously right wing debate in the history of our Nation.

Folks, I've warned you now 100 times...because of how the media controls the talking points (which controls our opinions of the candidates) John McCain will be our next president.

He's off the radar, the media is all positive about him and the media is bashing both of the dems into oblivion.

Liberal media my ass.

no shit!  i only saw part of it, but i thought the moderators were horrible and the questions focused on the most trivial topics.  worst debate in this election.  the dnc should chose their own moderators and should produce the debates themselves. 

SoFarAway:

...might want to consider supporting a political party that was at least able to balance the federal budget.  Then again, what do Democrats and Liberals stand for?  They continue to do little more than point out Republican excesses.  It's no wonder talk radio can badger them into submission.  I'll just be glad when (and if) Bush finally leaves the White House.  Obama '08!!

Come on now SFA,

The budget has been balanced ONCE in your lifetime and who was the Ptresident who did that?

Bill Clinton.

I'm not saying I want Hillary over Obama (I don't) but lets not bash the dems over the stuff they've actually done well at.

Dems and Liberals stand for a lot of things it just doesn't make the news like the right wing agenda does.

The true right wing agenda doesn't actually make the news but their "wag the dog" issues do.

At least Dems aren't all over the map like conservatives (support the death penalty and oppose abortion/ hate welfare for American people but support corporate welfare/claim to love God but ignore the well being of Gods planet)

We certainly support our troops having benefits when they get back home.

We certainly don't like the idea of half of America not having healthcare.

 We care dearly about keeping our Constitution intact.

...and we certainly don't support stupid backwards thinking plans like using Ethanol asa  fuel source which is driving up food costs globally and starving hundreds of thousands of people as we speak.

I'm with you....We need people that are progressive thinking and Obama is our only shot at piecing this mess back together.

I can't belive how idiotic this game is. They first laid claim that Obama was a Muslim then turned right around and criticized him for his Christian preachers viewpoints on our foreign policy.

The more right wing tactics Hillary against Obama the more she loses the voters with brains that function. 
On the Dem side that's over 50%.

Have you notices this trend on TV over the past couple of months?  

Anyone on TV that supports Hillary is white and anyone they put on that supports Obama is always black.

This is a subliminal tactic to create a "us against them" racial mentality.

When you combine that with the chatter about Obama's preacher being "radical" then you start creating a vision in white America's minds of Black Panthers wanting to take over.

Now combine that with the endless banter about "Obama carrying the black vote" and "Obama needs the black vote" and you get a recipe for white people becoming scared to vote for him.

Never in the news have I heard anyone mention that Obama has won states that African Americans don't live and don't even drive through like North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, etc...

All I know is Hillary was 32 points up in Pennsylvania a few months back and now it's dead even.

She'll win Pennsylvania barely and then she and the entire media will act as though the "come back kid pulled off a miracle" and "Hillary defied all odds and has now proven she should get the nomination."

They are simply tenderizing our brains to the idea that this final talley will be super close so then the super delegates can use that wiggle room to give her the nod.

Solitude:

So glad our primary is over.  I have never had so many political phone calls in my life!!! 

No doubt!

The only real winners in these elections are the networks who make the big bucks from all the ads running day and night.

Lindsey started getting political calls to her cell phone. That's BS!

My home state is next (Indiana)

More later..... 

We're off to the Shark tank for tonights game.

Go Shark's!!!

TheREALkiller206:

SoFarAway:

...might want to consider supporting a political party that was at least able to balance the federal budget.  Then again, what do Democrats and Liberals stand for?  They continue to do little more than point out Republican excesses.  It's no wonder talk radio can badger them into submission.  I'll just be glad when (and if) Bush finally leaves the White House.  Obama '08!!

Come on now SFA,

The budget has been balanced ONCE in your lifetime and who was the Ptresident who did that?

Bill Clinton...

Killer, I'm gonna have to agree to agree with your comments.  Guess I could have been more clear that my point was that conservatives should vote for Clinton, because it was the demoocrats that balanced the federal budget.  I'll reserve my opinion on how that happened in the interest of staying on point.  The republicans are likely to give the election to Hillary to maintain the 'status quo,' to continue the current insidious devaluation of the dollar, undermining of all organized political opposition, and to blame all the problems they created on a one-term democratic president.  Sorry, but I truly feel that Hillary is on a glory trip and a willing servant to the gods of power and greed.  Oh, and thank you W for giving us money to pay more to the oil companies as we buy their FN $4/gallon gas.  As for worrying about W leaving office, remember Hilter was elected.    (btw, I'm not comparing the two people...only the fragile situation that could exist - unbrideled fascism). 

Welp.... It's finally over.

Of course Hillary hasn't actually thrown in the towel yet. I guess she's waiting for a possible boulder to rip through Obama's House.

Seriously...

This was nothing short of a miracle and every American regardless of who you voted for should be proud.

The "little guy" pulled off a huge miracle.

The media hasn't uttered a single word about how HUGE of a miracle this is but it really was. They don't want any of us other "little guys or girls" getting any bright ideas, especially the younger generation who might be inspired by this and might want to be an honest elected official some day.  

This should inspire everyone around the World and certainly will inspire the loyal base for other "little guys" like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.

How cool was it that Obama got up and said he' will continue not to take any donations from lobbyist and PAC's and not only for his campaign but now for the entire DNC.

That's one of the strongest moves away from our current fascists system as imaginable from a guy who hasn't even been elected yet.

I'm bummed that Hillary has taken the low road over and over even after he reached the magic number.

If any political candidates want to know how to guarantee that you won't be the Vice President it's to follow the plan Hillary has chosen this past week.

Geeesh, she tries changing the rules several times, she tries making the entire election about the popular vote (which didn't matter, and she only lead because of 610,000 Republican Limbaugh fans voting for her to keep Obama out) she didn't admit defeat on Tuesday and the nail in the coffin was her eluding that her base of voters are holding Obama hostage until he choses her as VP.

If any Hillary voter is mad at Obama for anything, you need a lobotomy because your brain is dead and if any Hillary voters think that voting for McCain will some how be a good thing in any way should also get your head checked.

 
The media is acting like Hillary voters might not vote for Obama but what would they do? Vote for McCain? No way. Stay at home and watch another 4 years of Bush come to life? No way.

 
The media as usual is completely trying to make the opposite of reality seem true.  

If any voters should be mad it's Obama's voters at her.

Naively, a lot of Hillary voters think Obama had something to do with Florida and Michigan not counting but those moves were made by local Government officials (mostly Republican) who's primary agenda was to undermine the entire democratic party in the eyes of the voters in those states because BOTH will be vitally important come November and the republican Party will do anything and everything to ensure victory.

He didn't even criticize her during this campaign.

She made all kinds of crazy accusations and wasn't even honest about him being Christian (as opposed to being a Muslim) 

If anyone is actually buying into this corporate media pressure  that Obama needs her as VP to win needs to only think about one speech Hillary gave (of many) where she commented that she would be strong on national security and has experience, John McCain would be strong on national security and has experience and Barrack Obama has a speech."

There is no way in hell he can pick her after that comment. Not because he can't forgive her because nothing rattles that guy but because this would be the number 1 talking point for John McCain in a head to head show down with Obama and it would work like a charm.

I can see it now....."How could Hillary respect a guy that she doesn't think is qualified" and "Even Hillary says Obama has no experience."

and they would run the video of her saying that over and over and over and a lot of naive Americans would buy into it.

The RNC will still run the video's but the effect will be minimal if she's NOT the choice for VP.

PS: Obama has been involved in amny bills since joiing the Senate, His years in elected office was higher than Hillary and he's sponsored more Bills than Hillary even though she got into the senate before he did.

Obama wrote the Obama Lugar Bill (rounds up loose nukes globally) which is the most important security bill ever written of passed in the history of the planet and it not only helps keep America safe it helps keep every person on Earth safe.

THIS is how you win the hearts and minds of the World.

and he got that passed as a junior Senator and one whom the RNC swore would never pass that Bill because they knew it would be a feather in his cap if and when he ran for higher office.  

He not only wrote the bill, but he pushed the bill perfectly to both sides and he got a well respected Republican, *** Lugar to disobey direct orders from the Republican leadership and he signed on as a co-sponsor.  

Getting that passed without having 60 Democratic Senators and without a Democrat President was a miracle.  

THAT was strong beyond any leadership we've seen in our lifetime.

My prediction....

If Obama lives to see November he'll beat McCain by 30 points. 

Now I pray that he lives..... 

It's sad that we are discussing a possible assassination but if we ignore it then we might as well be accomplices.  

 Think about RFK. He was only against the Vietnam war and vowed to stop it and got assassinated. If he would have lived to become President it would have saved at least 27,000 soldiers lives but it would have cost a lot of contractors a lot of money.

Obama is not only going to stop the war in Iraq (which is way way more contractor driven) but also speaking out against corporations and their lobbyist in DC which is enemy number 2 in America.  

The secret service took over his security detail which means he has zero control of his own destiny.

What's interesting about it is we have a long long history of assassinating leaders and our Government even brags about killing foreign leaders but naively most American never give the idea of the US Government killing one of their own much thought.

You really can't get much more naive than that.  

Obama is favourite and has been for a long time but i still believe that when the day comes, the middleclass white American masses will reject him for being too different. The need to be able to identify with the person leading them shall help McCain and hinder Obama. It's not because of politics, it's because of human nature. I gave up discussing politics with REALkiller a long time ago because it was like conversing with a deaf evangelist (sorry but that's the best analogy I could think of) and I stand a big chance of being proved wrong but this post is not really about politics - it's more psychology.

I'm taking a big risk with this post - God I hope I have time to edit it before anyone brings it up if Obama wins!