As this is written, conventional wisdom says Mitt Romney will emerge as New Hampshire's choice. Attention shifts to see who will come in next and how close to Romney they will arrive. And due to that shift, few if any have noticed that Mitt has done it again, put his foot in mouth twice now in 24 hours.
Sure we all know that his phrase "I like to fire people" referred to his concept of a free market in health care insurance. We know he has expertise there, having crafted the forerunner of Obamacare, Romneycare in Massachusetts. Now he desperately attempts to distance himself from that. And we know that before Romneycare, Republicans proposed the same idea, a government mandated alternative that all must carry health care insurance to what we now call Hillarycare, single payer. And Obama's commitment to health care reform won him Teddy Kennedy's support instead of it going to Hillary Clinton. But!
If the Republicans are successful in replacing Barack Obama and repealing or cutting out from under its roots the mandate for universal subscription to health care coverage by private insurance companies, that second foot in mouth phrase would become meaningless. Romney explains that health care insurance companies have an incentive to keep us healthy and thereby lower their costs. And if we do not like their service, we can individually fire them. Yes Mitt, right you are, but only if we do not have the choice after firing them to do nothing at all. For only if we must have coverage, must we choose another health care insurance company. And absent the taboo on coverage denial for pre-existing conditions, when we become too expensive, the companies will raise rates or just drop us. Then in all practicality, our freedom to choose evaporates together with the incentive health care insurers have to keep us healthy. Only under Romneycare/Obamacare do we have both a right to fire an insurance company and do they have incentive to court our business. And that right underpins a free market system giving us all cause to become a healthier society.
We all need to eat, so we all experience a right to choose our grocery store. And all grocery stores have a right to locate in our neighborhood and there compete for our business. So on behalf of more and more of us who are coming to see the light, from the very bottoms of our hearts, thank you Mitt for stepping in it twice! Romneycare is Obamacare and both have great merit!
Dale Whiting
Chandler
Accuracy posted at 8:34 am on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
“Mormon” Republican or “Mormon” Democrat, what difference does it make? There’s no difference between “Mormon” Republican former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and “Mormon” Democrat Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who was/is the Liberal booster rooster for ObamaCare.
But, among Republican presidential contenders, it's now or never for a candidate wanting to come to the forefront ahead of Mormon Romney, who has already won the Republican primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Arizona Willie posted at 1:42 pm on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
All the right wingers screaming about " Obamacare " are 100% wrong.
What they got was NOT " Obamacare " it was " Bohnercare ".
The law does NOT give everyone coverage under a government insurance program.
The law requires people to BUY COMMERCIAL INSURANCE from a PRIVATE FOR PROFIT COMPANY.
How much more Republican can you get?
Slabside posted at 3:19 pm on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
"What they got was NOT " Obamacare " it was " Bohnercare ".
Oh yeah, sure it is Bohnercare. That is why it was developed behind closed doors by the DemocRATS in the wee hours of the night Willie. Dolt.
truth posted at 3:59 pm on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
When I was working one of my bosses like to say engage brain before mouth. If you don't like our health care system that cost American 2/3 more than the rest of the industrial countries with out Obamacare, what is you solution? besides running off at the mouth.
Accuracy posted at 7:35 pm on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
Arizona Willie posted: “What they got was NOT " Obamacare " it was " Bohnercare ".
-----------------------------------------
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will hear arguments over President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (called “ObamaCare”) overhaul next March. The high court decision could be handed down in June, just four months from election day in November.
Any so-called Bohnercare, by House GOP Minority Leader John Bohner, has nothing to do with the “ObamaCare” that poses an immense threat to our liberty, our Constitution, and the lives of countless unborn babies.
Now is the time to defeat this "ObamaCare" pro-abortion law . . . And the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide if “ObamaCare” is unconstitutional or not.
Conservatives know that ObamaCare creates the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, and uses our U.S. tax dollars to do it. Conservatives know it restricts our liberty by forcing all Americans to purchase a particular good or service – health insurance. It would give Congress nearly limitless power over U.S. citizens lives.
The choice is between further expansion of abortion and government power or a return to the principles of life and liberty established in our Constitution.
Abstract01 posted at 11:19 pm on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
Accuracy,
Where in the first letter is there a reference to religion? Methinks you may not like God?
If you wish to be heeded, stay on topic.
Dale Whiting posted at 3:34 am on Sat, Jan 14, 2012.
Gang,
So, after 19 hours on the web site, it would appear that no one disagrees with my premis. What Mitt Romney said in defending himself on his "love to fire people" as it relates to healthcare insurance law only makes sense if something very close to the Affordable Healthcare Act remains law. A vote for Romney is a vote for Obamacare!
Any yes, Accuracy, it was Boehnercare as much as it was Obamacare, or Romneycare. It was not Hillarycare. But should John Roberts and the Supremes strike the mandate down, Hillarycare could be the next step.
Here's the ultimate point, a point I have made several times before, but none of you picked up on it. We either take that next step, or we retreat. But if we retreat, it only makes sense to retreat all the way, striking down Medicaid, Medicare, and the several other Federal medical care programs now serving segments of our society. For those of you neo-cons out there who think we have just stepped into socialized medicine, that step occurred decades ago. And many of the steps undertaken since that first one were undertaken with much fan fair by Conservatives.
The political hypocracy surrounding healthcare is astounding!
Slabside posted at 12:40 pm on Sat, Jan 14, 2012.
"So, after 19 hours on the web site, it would appear that no one disagrees with my premis."
Sorry Dale, I quit reading your dribble long ago. I disagreed with Willie's nonsense. Just because no one commented yea or nay on your lame editorial it doesn't mean they agree with it.
truth posted at 2:54 pm on Sat, Jan 14, 2012.
Like usual when asked to come up with a better a system most mouth shut up when they have no solution but to wag their tongues. Facts the U.S. spends 2/3 more on health care than other industrial countries, 40% for adminstration.
k33j88 posted at 3:02 pm on Sat, Jan 14, 2012.
First and foremost, thank you Dale for carrying the torch of the "mental disorder", liberal agenda. I admire your courage, not your logic or wisdom. We all play a part in the "balance of life". Even though Mitt is leading the polls, the "fat lady hasn''t sung yet" and anyway, it's an elector issue, not a popular vote. Does electoral college ring a bell? A sound and healthy capitalist society requires a lean, profitable business environment, free to advance or implode. Firings are a necessity, unless of course we become a communist collective. Romneycare was not the forerunner, Slick Willie tried, but failed. I wonder what happened to that cigar? [beam] 19 hours on the web??? Dale, sounds like you need to hop on a bike or go for a walk. Then again, progressives want an ever-expanding federal govn't to care for those who don't take personal responsibility. Cradle to grave entitlements, they say. Less government intrusion, trim the federal register, eliminate the federal reserve, dump the EPA, Dept of Education, Health and Human sevices, reign-in judicial activism, term limits, etc, etc. Pick up a Constitution/Bill of Rights some time. You'll be amazed at the "out-of-control" power grabs. Take a step further back in time and read the "Federalist Papers". We are rooted in Judean/Christian beliefs and codes of conduct. Progressives (liberals) are a necessary evil, but its' time to limit their influences and agendas. I love my country, november 2012 can't come soon enough. Thank You
truth posted at 3:06 pm on Sat, Jan 14, 2012.
Like usual the tea party facts are wrong on abortions, starting in 2001 abortions have declined in the U.S.acording to the CDC.
Dale Whiting posted at 1:34 am on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
Slabside and k33j88,
Read the last paragraph of my comment. To help focus you I'll copy and paste.
"Here's the ultimate point, a point I have made several times before, but none of you picked up on it. We either take that next step, or we retreat. But if we retreat, it only makes sense to retreat all the way, striking down Medicaid, Medicare, and the several other Federal medical care programs now serving segments of our society. For those of you neo-cons out there who think we have just stepped into socialized medicine, that step occurred decades ago. And many of the steps undertaken since that first one were undertaken with much fan fair by Conservatives."
So are either of you ready to perpetuate socialized medicine? Or in the alternative, are you willing to kiss Medicare and Medicaid good bye? To me, your positions sound like hypocracy!
k33j88 posted at 5:28 am on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
My ability to focus is just fine, thank you. Medicaid is for tax users, you know, the 45-47% that are perpetual tax users(obamas base of support). Social security, medicare, I pay into with my hard-earned taxes. These benefits are similar to a privately defined benefit plan, nothing "socialised" about it. Clinton raided it to balance the budget, tax users of all walks of life(47%) are destroying the rest. The fiduciary responsibility has been abrogated by the "feds". When a beaurocrat decides my choice of doctors, what medicine to take, and what follow-up procedure to close out the illness----that's socialised medicine.
k33j88 posted at 5:35 am on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
Yes truth, the CDC, in all of its infinite wisdom, puts out the "facts" for those that believe all that the "federal agencies" tell them. Keep listening to the network news and you'll be fine. Question: What color kool-aid is the flavor of the day today?
Cerulean posted at 8:29 am on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
Jonathan Gruber worked closely with Romney in Massachusetts and with the current administration to put together the health care reform bill. He tells us that we have accomplished a phenomenal task with health reform. He said ‘the real breakthrough came with Mitt Romney in 1976, which took a new approach that had not been tried before. The approach he called “incremental universalism”. ‘ The idea was to try to achieve universal health care in incremental stages using three steps. Step 1; end discrimination in insurance markets. Step 2; set up an individual mandate so that insurance companies could price insurance fairly. And step 3; subsidies so that lower income persons could afford insurance under the new mandate. This is the basis for the Affordable Care Act.
Cost control is a major concern for many people the problem is that we have an $800 billion private insurance industry in the U.S. that want their cut and they had a lot of influence in the final draft of health reform.
“Romney explains that health care insurance companies have an incentive to keep us healthy and thereby lower their costs. And if we do not like their service, we can individually fire them.”
What is that supposed to mean?
Currently the Affordable Care Act allows and encourages competition between health care insurers. States will determine which insurers and/or health exchanges represent each state. In fact each state will hold most of the cards when it comes to effective, efficient health care.
In my opinion Jan Brewer should spend none of our money trying to wage war against health reform and start representing Arizona by spending those resources developing the best interface for effective health care!
Arizona Willie posted at 10:06 am on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
How are you supposed to fire your health insurance company?
Sure, you can drop one ... but you need health insurance so you are pretty much forced to sign with another one.
And they are all the same.
All private insurance companies are in business to take money in ... not to pay money out.
Private insurance companies pay out, on average, only 70% of the money they receive in premiums.
Medicare, on the other hand, pays out 92% of the money it gets.
Which company would you rather sign with?
Private insurance companies are extremely inefficient.
They pay out millions of dollars for advertising to convince you to buy theirs instead of their competition. Their ads interrupt your tv shows all night long.
Medicare doesn't do that.
They have buildings full of expensive lawyers working to find ways to deny your claims.
Medicare doesn't pay lawyers like that.
Private insurance companies even send somone to your home to talk to you and sign you up.
They pay that person too.
Medicare doesn't do that.
So just how can Republicans complain that Medicare is less efficient?
Oh that's right ... they don't.
Just that no one is making a profit from you being afraid you will get sick. Repubs love profit ... you ... not so much.
They scream " socialism " and " communism " to scare you away from the idea of a government quasi-corporation that provides insurance without making a profit from your fear.
truth posted at 10:26 am on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
Just like a Republican if you don't like the CDC facts, look at all the other web sights, the same facts. Like I said give facts to Republican they bury their heads in the sand. If abortions are made illegal in the U.S. how many illegal abortions will we have and how may deaths will that cause?
Arizona Willie posted at 4:19 pm on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
Accuracy, your ideology is showing. Your issue is abortion. That's all you are concerned with. Over and over in your post that was what you mentioned.
It's the law of the land.
Get used to it.
It's not my place or any one else's place to tell a woman what she has to do or not do with her pregnancy.
Would you favor a law that said each woman had to have unprotected sex every month because God gave her eggs and they shouldn't be wasted?
Wasting an egg is virtually the same as abortion. You're killing possible life.
Ridiculous eh?
There are religious fanatics who would probably go that far.
Let 'em ban abortion and contraception would be their next target.
Accuracy posted at 7:29 pm on Sun, Jan 15, 2012.
Not eggs Arizona Willie . . . “Heartbeats” of unborn babies.
Heartbeats can be detected as early as 18 days into a pregnancy - and by six weeks in most cases. And according to statistics from the Center of Disease Control and the Guttmacher Institute, there have been more than 50 million unborn children through abortions in the U.S. since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court (1973) decision that legalized abortion and gave women the right to an abortion until their fetus is viable or able to live outside the womb.
Many Americans have always believed the beating hearts of babies should be protected.
Abortion not only kills heartbeats of unborn babies, it also causes untold harm to women. And many Americans believe their tax dollars should not be used to subsidize Planned Parenthood abortions or any large abortion provider in America.
Dale Whiting posted at 6:06 am on Mon, Jan 16, 2012.
Finally, we have a debate on our hands! Were Sunday's football games that boring?
And Accuracy,
Both you and I might agree that abortion stops the heart beats of unborn babies. But the law does not and never has agreed. When abortion was illegal, it became so to protect not the fetuses but the women seeking abortions. When abortion became demonstrably safe, [using procedures pioneered outside of our borders] a law suit overturned all of these state laws outlawing abortions. Go read Row vs. Wade! But Warning Accuracy, Warning! You'll become educated.