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Author Topic:   How Does Republican Platform Help Middle Class?
hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 391 of 440 (613032)
04-21-2011 9:59 AM
Reply to: Message 380 by ZenMonkey
04-20-2011 12:35 PM


Re: Minnesota Care
Not only that, but the programs being cut are there to help lower income people get skills or education so as to be a more productive member of society, better themselves in general or just provide a better life for their family; ya know, get themselves OUT of the lower income bracket. What else would that imply? They get a better job and pay more in taxes. Why is this not good?

"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 380 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-20-2011 12:35 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 392 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2011 1:57 PM hooah212002 has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 392 of 440 (613075)
04-21-2011 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 391 by hooah212002
04-21-2011 9:59 AM


Re: Minnesota Care
Not only that, but the programs being cut are there to help lower income people get skills or education so as to be a more productive member of society, better themselves in general or just provide a better life for their family; ya know, get themselves OUT of the lower income bracket. What else would that imply? They get a better job and pay more in taxes. Why is this not good?
I think conservatives approach poverty-assistance programs like food stamps, unemployment, etc as "free handouts" to people who "don't deserve it" or "didn't earn it." They feel like "I have a job, Homeless Hank over there does not. I pay taxes, and the money I earned through my labor is taken from me by the government and just given to Homeless Hank. It's not fair that I should work for a paycheck, but Homeless Hank gets money to do nothing but (insert homeless stereotypes here)."
I can wrap my head around that, I really can. I can understand why, if the argument is phrased correctly and lots of information is left out or distorted, it can come across as a form of institutionalized "theft" to "force" normal working people to give some of their hard-earned money to people they perceive as simply lazy and worthless, or people gaming the system like the mythical "wellfare queens."
I don't think any of us want to encourage people to be a "drain" on society, to be "lazy," to live off the labor of others. We'd all much rather that everyone got a productive job, paid their own taxes, and never needed or asked for help from the government.
But despite the popular conservative stereotype that liberals are all dreamers and idealists, this is a case where the conservative position is based entirely on wishful thinking.
In the real world, people lose their jobs. It happens. Some of them are fired, some of them get laid off, sometimes companies go under, sometimes people get sick or hurt, etc. Some people with jobs are unable to make ends meet and unable to take an additional job, whether that's due to the minimum wage being too low, having children or even special needs children to take care of, a sick spouse, a spouse who died and left the family with no income, a "deadbeat dad" who isn't paying child support, or a hundred other possible reasons. To get our of that economic pit-trap, you need to get a better education - but you need to pay for that education while still paying to survive and support your family. It becomes a catch-22 - in order to afford school, you'd have to stop paying your living expenses, or get so many jobs you wouldn't have time for school.
One of the major assumptions of the conservative perspective is that being poor is somehow the fault of the poor person. Sometimes this is the case. Not always, or even most of the time. The myth that "working harder" will get you success in life is flatly wrong - I don't work nearly as hard as some people who make half the money I do.
In fact, public assistance in the form of unemployment is what paid my living expenses while I went back to school. The education itself was paid for with student loans, which I have only recently managed to repay.
Which leads into the real point: what does the world look like when we cut or eliminate public assistance programs, and what does the word look like when we keep them or increase their funding? Which of those possible worlds would we prefer to live in? Public assistance made me into a much more productive member of society. I pay a lot more in taxes, I need a lot less help, and I spend a lot more to help drive the economy. Don;t we all benefit from helping people improve their own situations? If our tax dollars help people make ends meet and get better jobs and keep their kids fed, doesn't that also mean they keep spending money in the stores that sell the products that our employers make and so ensure we all keep our own jobs as well?
Reagan had it wrong: wealth don;t trickle down from the rich. Wealth trickles up from everybody else. The fewer poor people we have, the more people in the middle class, the more tax dollars we'll collect, the more consumers we'll have contributing to the economy, and yes, the richer the rich people will get. We all benefit.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 391 by hooah212002, posted 04-21-2011 9:59 AM hooah212002 has replied

Replies to this message:
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hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 393 of 440 (613082)
04-21-2011 2:21 PM
Reply to: Message 392 by Rahvin
04-21-2011 1:57 PM


Re: Minnesota Care
We all benefit.
If by "we", you mean society, I agree. If you include the Republican Party, I disagree. They (as of late) don't bode to well with educated folk.

"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 392 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2011 1:57 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 394 of 440 (613128)
04-21-2011 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 392 by Rahvin
04-21-2011 1:57 PM


Re: Minnesota Care
Don't we all benefit from helping people improve their own situations? If our tax dollars help people make ends meet and get better jobs and keep their kids fed, doesn't that also mean they keep spending money in the stores that sell the products that our employers make and so ensure we all keep our own jobs as well?
Not to mention that it's simply the right thing to do.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 392 by Rahvin, posted 04-21-2011 1:57 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 395 of 440 (613133)
04-21-2011 9:30 PM
Reply to: Message 364 by marc9000
04-19-2011 8:46 PM


marc9000 writes:
Stop. Just stop right there.
NO ONE IS ASKING THE GOVERNMENT TO CREATE A PARADISE ON EARTH. Where do you even get that?
I get it from all these claims that people still get sick, can’t afford health care, get left out in the free market system, and therefore we need the government to take over.
I honestly can't believe that you said that.
Yes, people get sick, can't afford health care, and get left out in the free market system. And you believe that trying to address this evil by making a basic level of health care available to every citizen - just like they do successfully in every other first world country - is tantamount to demanding that government somehow provide everyone with every imaginable luxury. That's ridiculous on the face of it. The two aren't the same at all, and it shows either willful ignorance or utter calculated heartlessness to claim that they are.
marc9000 writes:
If the government can’t perfectly fix these problems, why make changes/give them control of the situation, in a country that really does have good cancer survival rates, and a higher-than-normal amount of technical medical equipment?
So if government can't afford to provide everyone with a brand new BMW, we should stop offering discounted bus passes to the elderly?
So the US has high cancer survival rates. I assume that that's for people who can afford to be treated in the first place. Does that include all the people who go undiagnosed because they can't afford regular check-ups? It's also true that we have a lot of expensive medical equipment in this country. How many people actually have access to it?
The fact remains, in comparison to other industrialized countries, the US spends the most for health care and gets the least for it. We're below just about everyone else in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality, to name two actual indicators of how we're doing in taking care of our citizens.
marc9000 writes:
Is anyone here asking for cable TV and Tivo for everyone, 151 channels? Or free legal counsel for all? Or government laundry services to come to your house and wash your sheets for you? All-you-can-eat ice cream on Sunday?
Not YET. In the 1960’s, it would have been equally laughable for anyone to be asking for free medical care.
Not free. Affordable. There is a difference. And what was affordable for a middle class family 40 years ago can be well out of reach for an equivalent middle class family today. Take a look at the following chart, showing the growth in health care costs since 1960.
Now take a look at the following graph illustrating the change in median real income since 1947.
Now, I'm far from being a mathematical genius, but even I can draw a pretty obvious conclusion when I compare the two graphs. Can you?
Take a closer look at the second graph, and you'll see something that bears directly on the larger topic of this thread. Starting in the 70's and accellerating in the 1980's, productivity has outstripped income in the US. Hmm, a coincidence that this coincides with the start of "trickle down economics?" For 30 years now, people have been working harder and getting less for it in real terms.
So who's benefiting from all that productivity, if the middle class isn't? 58% of real income growth in the US since 1976 has gone to the top 1% of households. What does that tell you about the middle classes ability to get ahead or even keep even in this country?
marc9000 writes:
Remember the General Welfare clause in the Constitution? You could go all the way back and start arguing with Alexander Hamilton about it, but it's well established by now that Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes at its discretion for the purpose of promoting the general welfare of the people.
Rather than try to argue with Hamiltion, it makes much more sense to take note of what prominent founders actually had to say on the subject.
I believe that Dr Adequate has done an excellent job of addressing this particular claim in Message 376. Have you come up with any substantial answer to his evisceration of your assertions? Thought not.
marc9000 writes:
Those should be state issues. The modernization of society shouldn't change the basics in how new issues should be handled.
Sez who? Have any states stepped forward yet to provide universal health care to its citizens? Thought not.
Universal health care falls well within the purview of the federal government. Which do you think would be easier to administer, one central program, or a conglomeration of 50 different programs? Nor do states have the same resources that the federal government does to implement such a program.
marc9000 writes:
In 1783 state of the art medicine in the western world was leech-craft and mustard plasters. Times have changed. Medicine can do a lot more, and health care has gotten more complicated and more expensive. No one is asking for free hair implants and boob jobs on demand.
No one? Have you ever heard a teenage girl in a shrill voice demand that her birth control pills be paid for by her HMO? I have. So you think there’s no chance that any type of cosmetic surgery will ever be publicly paid for in a government run health care system?
No, I haven't had that particular experience. 14 year-olds don't always get what they want, no matter how shrill their voices. Did she? And don't you think that it might be better and cheaper to make contraceptives available to a sexually active teenager, rather than see her get pregnant? Oh, I forgot, the majority of conservatives oppose contraception as well as abortion. Not quite logical, but there you go.
By the way, the availability of universal health care does not preclude anyone who wants from buy as much additional insurance as they like, or paying whatever they want for additional care.
Have you heard of a concept called medical necessity? I have. I'm a medical massage therapist in private practice, and in my line of work I have to document medical necessity all the time. If I can't, then insurance won't pay for it, and my patient has to pay out of pocket. A government-run health care program would work the same way.
Some "boob jobs" are actually medically necessary, reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, for example. Some aren't. In the real world, insurance companies have gotten quite good at denying medical necessity, even in cases where there's an obvious need. I'm reminded of the case I read about recently in which a woman shattered her jaw in a cycling accident. Her medical insurance wouldn't pay for reconstructive surgery, because they claimed it was a dental matter, and her dental coverage wouldn't cover it because, well, you can guess why. She ended up going into something like $30,000 in debt because she had to pay out of pocket to be able to chew again. One of the things that universal health care would benefit us would be reining in that sort of abuse.
Your slippery slope argument doesn't work.
marc9000 writes:
I'll say it again: Insurance companies do not ever provide health care. They are explicitly in the business of preventing people from getting health care.
They’re the same as any other business, they provide a product/service that their customers are willing to pay for. If they don’t honor their commitments, they don’t stay in business very long.
Really? Really? Have you tried to get health care without insurance? Unless you're at least in the top 25th income percentile in this country, you're not going to get very much of it. The way the system is rigged, insurance companies have a stranglehold on the health care market. It's either their way or the highway. They prosper when they prevent people from getting health care. And there's no need for it to be that way.
marc9000 writes:
So the solution to insurance companies taking advantage of people (sorta like how hyenas "take advantage" of baby gazelles) is ... more economic freedom for insurance companies?
Current economic freedom that insurance companies have works. By about 2004/2005, prices started falling again. A thing called competition (free markets) caused that to happen.
It works for the insurance companies, I'll give you that. Not for anyone else.
So rates fell in 2004/2005? How far, in comparison to how much they'd gone up before? And how much have they gone up in the last 5 years?
marc9000 writes:
If two or three companies were competing with each other for the mail transporting business, I’d bet a letter could be sent for still less than 50 cents, with no additional funding required. A lot of interstate mail transportation is currently done by private companies. It’s done that way because it’s cheaper, and more efficient.
I believe that that are in fact already at least two or three companies competing in the mail delivery market. I don't see competition driving prices down to 50 cents a letter. Seems to me that you've actually made a case for government succeeding in making a service much more affordable than it would otherwise be. And no one is forcing you to use them if you'd rather use FedEx instead.
marc9000 writes:
What exactly has the EPA done to you, except try to hold down the amount of acid rain dissolving the forests, to not have quite so many open strip-mines, and to keep paper-mills from dumping quite so much toxic waste in the river?
During the Clinton administration, the EPA looked at the crystal clear blue skies over the Cincinnati area, and told us our air was actually very filthy, and commanded me and everyone else to line up like sheep and pay to have our vehicles tested in order to get our license registrations renewed. Never mind what the fourth amendment says about all encompassing searches.
So you looked out the window, sniffed, and determined that the air quality in Cincinnati was pristine? Do you think that maybe the EPA and NOAA had more accurate means of determining air quality than you did? Do you think perhaps the whole point was to keep the air in Cincinnati clean? Or do you think that we really ought to be choking on exhaust before someone takes action?
Your attempt to equate air quality inspections with warrantless searches is absurd on the face of it. If you want to get worked up about oppressive and abusive search and seizure operations, then spend some time looking into the number of fatal shootings of innocent people have resulted from police "no knock" raids on supposed drug dealers.
marc9000 writes:
Anyone who thinks the government is the only thing that can prevent a complete environmental meltdown has no belief whatsoever in U.S. foundings, or the concept of personal liberty.
How much has the free market actually done to regulate pollution? Exactly nothing. A company will dump as much toxic waste, open up as many strip mines, and deforest as much acreage as it can get away with. Witness what was going on in this country before we started getting some environmental regulation. Witness what China looks like without any environmental regulation.
Yes, government is in fact the only thing with enough authority to prevent at least a few of corporate America's abuses of the environment. As it stands, corporate America has such a grip on government that we don't even have sufficient regulation to stop the severe environmental damage that still goes on every day. BP got away with ignoring a multitude of regulations in its offshore drilling operations before last year's huge oil spill. And you think that the answer is less regulation?
And what is it with this "foundings" thing? Pick either "founders" or "foundations", please.

I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 364 by marc9000, posted 04-19-2011 8:46 PM marc9000 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 396 by xongsmith, posted 04-21-2011 11:34 PM ZenMonkey has not replied
 Message 404 by New Cat's Eye, posted 04-22-2011 10:04 AM ZenMonkey has replied

  
xongsmith
Member
Posts: 2578
From: massachusetts US
Joined: 01-01-2009
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 396 of 440 (613149)
04-21-2011 11:34 PM
Reply to: Message 395 by ZenMonkey
04-21-2011 9:30 PM


Zen Monkey notes:
The fact remains, in comparison to other industrialized countries, the US spends the most for health care and gets the least for it. We're below just about everyone else in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality, to name two actual indicators of how we're doing in taking care of our citizens.
The Outrage should be absolutely Visigothian!!!! Attilla!!!
continuing....:
So who's benefiting from all that productivity, if the middle class isn't? 58% of real income growth in the US since 1976 has gone to the top 1% of households. What does that tell you about the middle classes ability to get ahead or even keep even in this country?
YES but this is just statistical evidence that the rich are fucking us over. The BIGGER thing is the MORAL issue. They have been doing this for years, and frankly we have let them do that. The rich are genetically unable to see the moral depravity they operate with. They CANNOT have a sense of shame in what they do. They either learned it all in Business School or had Business School advisors. Business School is the fuck. Business School is anti-American.
It is time to KILL the rich owners and the business schools.

- xongsmith, 5.7d

This message is a reply to:
 Message 395 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-21-2011 9:30 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 397 by xongsmith, posted 04-21-2011 11:41 PM xongsmith has not replied

  
xongsmith
Member
Posts: 2578
From: massachusetts US
Joined: 01-01-2009
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 397 of 440 (613150)
04-21-2011 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 396 by xongsmith
04-21-2011 11:34 PM


oooge
Come to think of it, Business Schools got no reason to live. May they all DIE. They only teach homo sapiens into how to become ASSHOLES. Fuck them. Die. They are morally vicious. Fuck them.

- xongsmith, 5.7d

This message is a reply to:
 Message 396 by xongsmith, posted 04-21-2011 11:34 PM xongsmith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 398 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-21-2011 11:56 PM xongsmith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 398 of 440 (613153)
04-21-2011 11:56 PM
Reply to: Message 397 by xongsmith
04-21-2011 11:41 PM


Re: oooge
Come to think of it, Business Schools got no reason to live. May they all DIE. They only teach homo sapiens into how to become ASSHOLES. Fuck them. Die. They are morally vicious. Fuck them.
Did a business school run over your dog or something?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 397 by xongsmith, posted 04-21-2011 11:41 PM xongsmith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 399 of 440 (613162)
04-22-2011 4:13 AM
Reply to: Message 364 by marc9000
04-19-2011 8:46 PM


Anyone who thinks the government is the only thing that can prevent a complete environmental meltdown has no belief whatsoever in U.S. foundings, or the concept of personal liberty.
This is, of course, not true.
But however much I believe in personal liberty --- and however much you do --- it is simply a fact that free markets don't and can't prevent environmental disasters.
If a man owns a factory on the banks of a river, and discharges waste into it, where is the economic downside? I'll tell you where. It's all downstream of him.
As a result (to take one example) the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire in 1868, 1883, 1887, 1912, 1922, 1936, 1941, 1948, 1952 and 1969. What did the free market do about it? Damn all.
Rivers: they're not meant to do this.
The particular fire in the photograph cost what would be upward of $12 million in today's money --- and not one cent to the people who dumped the waste in the water, because they were upstream of the fire.
Then the government passed the Clean Water Act of 1972, since which time the Cuyahoga River has not caught fire.
If "belief in U.S. foundings, or the concept of personal liberty" really entailed believing that the free market will prevent such instances of environmental meltdown, then history shows this belief to be a pipe dream, because it didn't.
But that is surely not what such a belief entails. The Founding Fathers knew perfectly well that left to themselves some people will enrich themselves unjustly at the expense of others; and they knew that laws were needed to prevent this. They did not (for example) leave it up to the free market to prevent the counterfeiting of US money. How could it? As with pollution, the profit is all to the counterfeiter, the loss is (economically speaking) all "downstream" of him. There can be no economic disincentive to the counterfeiting of money. So what did the Founders do? They passed a law saying that counterfeiters should be hanged, that's what. They did not possess a mystical faith in the ability of the free market and "personal liberty" to sort it all out for them, because they weren't all as crazy as a cement mixer full of weasels.
I think that they knew what they were doing. How about you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 364 by marc9000, posted 04-19-2011 8:46 PM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 413 by marc9000, posted 04-26-2011 9:31 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3425 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 400 of 440 (613164)
04-22-2011 4:28 AM
Reply to: Message 371 by Coyote
04-19-2011 9:52 PM


Re: Bloated government insurance program
Coyote writes:
Defense is one of the few things actually mentioned in the Constitution.
So is the general welfare. Where in the Constitution does it say that defense should eclipse all other spending by many orders of magnitude?

"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

This message is a reply to:
 Message 371 by Coyote, posted 04-19-2011 9:52 PM Coyote has not replied

  
Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3425 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 401 of 440 (613165)
04-22-2011 4:44 AM
Reply to: Message 356 by marc9000
04-17-2011 4:42 PM


marc9000 writes:
I'm fascinated by how so many people think the government will cure all problems if they're just given enough power, no matter how many times history shows how it ends in disaster.
marc9000 writes:
I cry for those that the insurance companies will target, to make up for their losses, just like after 9-11-2001.
I wish that I was surprised at the cognitive dissonance, but alas...

"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

This message is a reply to:
 Message 356 by marc9000, posted 04-17-2011 4:42 PM marc9000 has not replied

  
Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3425 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 402 of 440 (613166)
04-22-2011 4:56 AM
Reply to: Message 352 by ZenMonkey
04-15-2011 9:09 PM


ZenMonkey writes:
Is that the Tea Party theory, that the poor are just lazy and wouldn't need health care if they just went to the gym more and shopped at the organic farmers market?
What's really twisted is that poor people often don't have any of those facilities near them. Gyms? Way too far away and too expensive...parks, too. Grocery stores? Maybe? But usually something that requires a cab ride home (adding to the cost of food) or a "deli/convenience store" that charges twice the cost of goods.
Organic farmer's markets? They are everywhere in NYC but many people just can't shop at them because they are only there during business hours or because the potential shoppers don't live in the "oh I am so organic" target areas that farmers flock to.

"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

This message is a reply to:
 Message 352 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-15-2011 9:09 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

  
Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3425 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 403 of 440 (613168)
04-22-2011 5:37 AM
Reply to: Message 373 by ZenMonkey
04-19-2011 10:31 PM


Re: Minnesota Care
ZenMonkey writes:
marc9000 writes:
The republicans are trying to shut these state programs down. They are working hard to shut down Minnesota Care and Badgercare here in Wisconsin. They want the poor and disabled to fend for themselves
State Republicans, or federal? Chances are I'd disagree with them, but I'd have to see the details of the debate. That's how I would form my opinion, not only by a blind support of Republicans.
So you're saying that if it's a state program, then you'd object to federal officials trying to shut it down? That would be a consistent states rights position, anyway. I suspect, however, that this is a case of state legislative action.
State legislatures are notorious breeding grounds for nut-job legislation, primarily coming from conservatives. Witness Arizona's Republican-dominated state legislature, which when given the choice would much rather ignore their budget crisis and instead spend their time passing laws about 10 Commandments monuments and requiring Presidential candidates to provide long form birth certificates in order to get on the ballot.
Conservatives should actually favor a federally managed heath-care program. If nothing else, it would give them a golden opportunity to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade by making abortion a non-covered procedure.
State legislatures in Michigan have also been stripping localities of existence if they don't participate in the transfer of money from the poor to the rich...I wonder how they file that in their "smaller government is better" pea brained ideology. I guess it only applies when the good ol' boys don't like the really big boy in DC.

"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

This message is a reply to:
 Message 373 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-19-2011 10:31 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 404 of 440 (613173)
04-22-2011 10:04 AM
Reply to: Message 395 by ZenMonkey
04-21-2011 9:30 PM


side-question
I'm a medical massage therapist in private practice, and in my line of work I have to document medical necessity all the time. If I can't, then insurance won't pay for it, and my patient has to pay out of pocket.
Do they have to pay more when they have to pay out of pocket?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 395 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-21-2011 9:30 PM ZenMonkey has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 405 by ZenMonkey, posted 04-22-2011 11:17 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 405 of 440 (613178)
04-22-2011 11:17 AM
Reply to: Message 404 by New Cat's Eye
04-22-2011 10:04 AM


Re: side-question
Catholic Scientist writes:
I'm a medical massage therapist in private practice, and in my line of work I have to document medical necessity all the time. If I can't, then insurance won't pay for it, and my patient has to pay out of pocket.
Do they have to pay more when they have to pay out of pocket?
Of course they do.
I live in Oregon, which differs from many states in that some insurers actually offer coverage for massage here. Many don't. For a typical plan, the patient pays a $25 copay and the insurance company pays me $25, and I have to submit documentation establishing medical necessity about every 5th visit or so. These plans commonly put something like a $1500 annual combined limit on all "alternative care" benefits. There are also plans that pay the same, but for which I don't have to submit such documentation. These typically limit patients to 12 visits a year.
For an hour session paid out of pocket, on the other hand, I charge $75. Make of those figures what you will.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 404 by New Cat's Eye, posted 04-22-2011 10:04 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 406 by New Cat's Eye, posted 04-22-2011 11:38 AM ZenMonkey has replied

  
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