How come those against UHC never seem to want to compare our system to the german system? I happened to be listening to talk radio on a road trip recently and it seems anything socialist is always met with lol greece rhetoric. But germany is far more comparable to the US in size/population/gdp/natural resources/industry/science-education assets ect,. But conservatives never want to compare a US governmental system (like in healthcare) to a "more socialist" German one... any ideas?

You don't say?

fedor i dont care about upbringing. nobody held them down and shoved a needle in their arms.

nobody held them down and forced them to open their mouths and drink.

they chose to do it. therefore the addiction is on them.

simple solution. want to make sure you dont get addicted dont ever start drinking smoking or doing drugs.

I have this sneaking suspicion that you don't understand how insurance works and I'd like to get to the bottom of that. Only way to do so is by inquiry.

Also, I don't mod this forum, so I'm free to be as crappy a poster as anyone else.

This is so typical of the right. Since the CBO has estimates on the costs of Obamacare that don't agree with their position, it's clearly the CBO that's wrong and not your dumbass beliefs, and to "prove" it, you use websites that are clearly partisan. What a joke.

So the Federal Reserve report that shows the CBO has never correctly predicted a surplus, historically has been wrong, and has historically done worse than random walk means nothing?

Oh, I think that's a little bit of a misleading statement. History has shown that greens are not only allowed but more than willing to break the rules around here.

First, let's be clear that this isn't a "Federal Reserve" report. It's a report by two guys that work at one of the regional banks and it says quite clearly on the first page:

Second it analyzes the overall budget deficit projections and not individual program projections. Why is this important? Because, overall budget deficit projections are extremely sensitive to changing Government policy - in fact that's exactly what they say. This report seems (I just read the first part and skimmed through the rest) to not make any comments on CBO analysis of specific programs.

So, in short, yes your link means nothing. You'd know that if you read it and understood it.

But don't worry, LK. We know you're "one of the good ones."

I did read it. I do understand it. You can feel free to deny the math and continue to argue without any proof or understanding. I really don't care much anymore. Obamacare is going to fail miserably. Our economy is going down the drain. We are going to see a recession like no one has even dreamt in their worst nightmare. There are millions of people trying to tell everyone, and no one cares to listen.

Today, being lazy is a disease.

You clearly can't read or understand what I wrote either. I'm not denying the math - just pointing out that the math is proving something totally different than what you think it is proving.

It proves that speculation by the CBO is no better than random walk. It also proves that anytime the CBO has predicted a surplus, they have been wrong.

What is a disease in your opinion?

No. I already explained this to you.

It talks about the CBO's overall deficit predictions being wrong. Notice that one of the big problems with an overall deficit prediction is that the Government doesn't set and fix their budgets 5-10 years in advance. It's not really surprising that if the CBO predicts a surplus - politicians will turn around and spend that surplus or cut taxes and return the surplus to tax payers.

In fact, it seems reasonable that the CBO's projections will almost always cause changes in policy that will contradict its projections. If it projects a huge surplus - people will want policy changes to remove that. If it projects a huge deficit - people will want policy changes to remove that.

Notice how this isn't an issue when the CBO is taking a single program (which is set) and projects out what effect it will have. There's still tons of uncertainty in their projections but it's a totally different situation than the your paper is talking about.

Also read the article and see how the authors believe there's really nothing the CBO can do better to improve their predictions.

Well that's not the case with where I live. When I wanted a doctor I called the Health Link number and they hooked me up with several in my area, all of whom were accepting patients. When I lived in the US I had six doctors in my neighborhood that I could have visited, but none were 'in network' and I had to drive like six miles get to one who was.

And regardless, if this is your big beef then clearly you're going to be against ANY system that provides coverage for the 40 million who currently can't get it. I guess that's fair enough but it's kind of cold-blooded, seeing as how 25-40,000 of them actually DIE as a result each year. Maybe you think losing 40,000 people is a worthwhile sacrifice so you don't have to (maybe) wait to get your boils lanced, but I really don't. Call me crazy I guess.


That presumes they approve you. Plenty of tests and procedures that are recommended by doctors in the US are rejected by the insurance provider. In Canada that simply.does.not.happen.

Why will it fail, and in what way?

In what way? By most indicators, it appears that we are in a (slow) recovery period right now.

What exactly is going to cause this nightmarish recession? How and why is it going to happen?

dinopoker:

I don't care about your little experiences. My personal anecdotes are the exact opposite - and more importantly the facts back them up. (For example: http://toronto.openfile.ca/toronto/f...through-cracks.).

Great. But you've changed the argument (to one I don't disagree with). This has nothing to do with my point that for many in the US, that have good insurance, its much easier and faster to get access to services.

You seem to take it as some sort of personal insult that there are some specific areas that are better in the US.

Forcing ppl to buy health insurance.

The abstinence only approach, got it.

If there is nothing better they can do, and they are not doing better than random walk, why are we spending 47 million dollars a year on it?

We are going to have more inflation, more banks collapsing, and another credit bubble in addition to even larger trade deficits.

What indicators? Labor and housing numbers that are ridiculously fixed? The dow being at record highs because of 2 trillion added to money supply in last 4 months?


Europe is going to collapse, as US, Japan, UK, and Europe pump more money into the money supply, we will suffer more inflation, much higher prices without any wage increases, higher unemployment, and another credit bubble.

Also of note, crude prices, and god forbid we actually have to go to war in Iran.

I'm not sure why I would answer you when you've twice ignored the majority of my post (which refutes your whole premise) just to take one sentence out of context and respond like you're making some point.

I am not ignoring your post, I just don't want to keep quoting giant blocks of text, being considerate to others. Explain to me how having the CBO benefits us if it is not more effective than random walk.

Please point me to proof that the CBO's cost estimates of a given program are less effective than a random walk (which, by the way, doesn't even make sense when you're talking about costing a new program).

Edit: And to answer your actual question - even though its irrelevant to this discussion - is because their purpose isn't just to predict the actual deficit/surplus 10 years out. It's to give their best guess of what that deficit/surplus will be given the current policies in place to help politicians and the public decide how they want to change those current policies.