The Health Care Crisis Will Still Be A Crisis No Matter What SCOTUS Decides
by lizard
Health care is back in the headlines thanks to the SCOTUS hearing. How nice to be revisiting the pleasantries of that notorious summer of hate, when people were literally frothing with rage at public forums, while advocates for single payer were promptly shown the door by our very own snickering Max Baucus.
The whole thing is such a mess, I really don’t know what to say about it. With Baby Boomers starting to hit 65 last year, we will have 77 million aging Americans that will shatter what’s already badly fractured now of health care if our politicians don’t get their shit together and actually GET SOMETHING DONE!
This is how Dave Budge over at ECB put it recently:
I’m saddened by the understanding that my kids are strapped supporting the pathetic baby-boom generation with an entitlement state of which they never voted to create and have little voice in changing. I find that aspect of our lives the ultimate in “unfairness.”
Though I’ve been harsh on the Boomers at times on these pages, they are collectively looking at a very grim future, all with the knowledge that what they may break, their grandkids and subsequent generations will have to pay for.
I read a post this morning that I highly recommend reading, titled Who Wants to be an Old Queen? It’s featured on City Lights new blog, and written by Tommi Avicolli Mecca.
Here is a snip that includes some figures that show how LGBT seniors face additional barriers to aging comfortably:
According to studies, queer seniors are poorer than their straight counterparts. With more and more cuts to programs that help them (budgets are never balanced on the backs of the 1%), seniors stand to get poorer and less able to fend for themselves. Queer seniors are half as likely to have health insurance, and two-thirds as likely to live alone, not to mention face discrimination in medical and social services, retirement homes, and nursing care facilities.
As the politics of positioning dominates the discussion of the health care crisis (that will continue to be a crisis no matter what SCOTUS decides) we, as Americans, can probably almost universally agree that we are not getting the representation we desperately need from our elected officials.
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March 27, 2012 at 4:25 pm
As if your post were not ignorant enough, you had to quote Dave Budge as an authority. That really sunk your credibility.
If Budge had done the right thing over the last decade or so, he would be swimming in money by now, so much so that he would not be lamenting the impoverished state he will be leaving his kids in. Instead, they would be looking at a happy and wealthy future. But no, Budge spent his time jacking his jaws on blog sites, pretending to be the Grand High Pooh-Bah of Theoretical Economics and Finance, writing dumb poetry, and baking healthy choice muffins. Cry me a river, Budge. No sympathy from me. If you leave your kids nothing but bills, that is your fault, not the Baby Boomer generation’s fault.
Besides individuals shirking their responsibilities to their offspring, we also have the government Ponzi schemes called Social Security and Medicare, more typical of the scams we find in countries like Albania. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the average Baby Boomer middle-income couple could have easily become millionaires by their late 40’s or early 50’s if they never had to pay into those two funds. The obvious irony here is that not only have Social Security and Medicare prevented people from becoming wealthy and independent, the government now wants to renege on the promised payouts, or at a minimum, dump the losses on the next generation. You have love socialist economics, don’t you?
If you really want to know what is going to take down the Baby Boom generation, and a few million more people already in retirement, read “Retirees the Victims of Federal Reserve’s War on Saving” by James Rickards, published yesterday in US News & World Reports:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/03/26/retirees-the-victims-of-federal-reserves-war-on-saving
As I said in the comments section to that article, “This is a fairly brilliant synopsis of what is happening to American’s hard-earned savings. A copy of this essay should be published in every newspaper and posted on every street corner. Maybe then the majority of Baby Boomers, 75 million of them, will wake up and demand a policy change at the Federal Reserve.”
Ah, welcome to The Debtor Nation. What you and Budge and all the other whiners are complaining about has really nothing to do with healthcare per se. All you are seeing is the culmination of 80 years of government meddling in the economy. All you are seeing is an entire nation going broke.
— Max Bucks
March 27, 2012 at 8:55 pm
please, whatever you do, do not rob me of my ignorance. it is a cherished cloak I hide behind, a security blanket of sorts. do not expose me to the bitter realm you send us wise messages from. 80 years of government meddling indeed, when shall we rid ourselves of this evil entity? I know not whither we shall scurry. O bestow us with the mighty light of your liberty wand, Mr. Bucks. and when you do, I shall flutter like a moth around the burning of your truth until my wings are singed. and like Icarus I will fall, incapable of sustaining the final vision of the utopia that must arise from dismantling the role of government from our lives.
—Willy Skink
March 28, 2012 at 2:00 am
I understand, Willy, why you continue to hope that the entity responsible for all your confusion and pain might still be your salvation. That is the sublime and beautiful irony of it all, to borrow a phrase from Dostoyevsky. Like the abused wife, you look to the man who beats you and expect him to love you again someday.
But even in your puppyish attempt at satire, above, I see the possibility that you know the truth of which I speak: The means to achieve a happy and prosperous life reside within each individual, not in the collective action of individuals aggregated under the banner of Government. For what is Government but the ignorance and avarice of one man multiplied by many men?
You know that. But still you persist in patiently waiting for your government to do right by you, like a loyal dog that sits and waits to be fed while he slowly starves to death.
Look in yourself for solutions. And when you see that you are capable of succeeding on your own, you will stop ridiculing others who have succeeded likewise.
— Max Bucks
March 27, 2012 at 6:30 pm
You really are an obtuse idiot.
March 28, 2012 at 9:55 am
I can’t say I feel sorry for Dave. As a financial consultant he’s handcuffed to the dollar and paper investment vehicles.
Now that everything going to hell in a hand basket every nickel he owns has mountains of transaction documents ripening for confiscation.
March 28, 2012 at 10:52 am
So you are pretty well acquainted with Dave, eh Swede? Since you are considering having feelings for him or not?
Do you guys drink together sometimes?
You are pretty acquainted with his financial situation sounds like. I was wondering. Does he have enough extra cash about so if I asked him to buy me lunch he could actually afford to? (not that I’m going to do that, but it’s good to know, just in case.)
By the way Swede, nickles aren’t paper. Just sayin.
Go Newt! He’s broke or so he says. Don’t let that deal go down, Swede. Time to pony up for Newt!!
Or are you predicting the Mittens Administration will confiscate Dave’s transaction documents he keeps for his nickles?
March 28, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Steve, are you OK?
When is Jet Blue going to let you pilot again?
March 28, 2012 at 4:03 pm
I’m fine, but I’m worried about Newt. Staff cut backs and such.
He’s a staffer short apparently, is what they are saying.
Jet Blue? I don’t understand.
March 28, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Strange, that we have gone from subduing out-of-control passengers to subduing out-of-control flight attendants and pilots.
This must have something to do with a nation on drugs.
— Max Bucks
March 28, 2012 at 11:20 am
I appreciate all of the sympathy but, and average reading skills would lead to this conclusion, I didn’t write about me, whine about what the system means for me, or indicate that I want much from the government.
But for the record, I’m in pretty good shape financially but emotionally I’m wealthy beyond my dreams.
And no, Steve, Swede doesn’t know me… nor does that intellectual cripple Max, nor Lizard, nor most anyone who frequents this blog.
March 28, 2012 at 1:07 pm
sorry Dave, I should have anticipated the obnoxious responses.
March 28, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Now facts are “obnoxious.” Oh boy.
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 11:31 am
Facts aren’t obnoxious. He’s saying your responses are. Deal with it.
March 30, 2012 at 1:08 pm
I see. Obnoxious facts make for an obnoxious response.
Thanks for the lexical disambiguation!
— Max Bucks
March 30, 2012 at 1:39 pm
I say “Facts aren’t obnoxious”, you say “I see. Obnoxious facts…”
Why don’t you get the sleep out of your eyes so you can read what I actually write before you try to think and type. Or maybe you can’t do two things at once.
March 28, 2012 at 1:34 pm
“I’m saddened by the understanding that my kids are strapped supporting the pathetic baby-boom generation with an entitlement state… I find that aspect of our lives the ultimate in ‘unfairness.’”
Not whining, eh, Dave?
I have an idea: Maybe your kids should vent their anger (or is it “oppression”?) on FDR instead of blaming the Baby Boomers like you do. You know, they could do an Iraqi thing—dig up his corpse, light it on fire, drag it through the streets, and then hang it from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Say, what about LBJ? There would certainly be more fat to light on fire.
On the other hand, maybe their father could liquidate some of his “emotional wealth” and give his kids a huge material boost in life, so they do not have to look to the government for college tuition, home mortgages, and healthcare.
— Max Bucks
March 28, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Daves’s quote.
“I’m saddened by the understanding that my kids are strapped supporting the pathetic baby-boom generation with an entitlement state of which they never voted to create and have little voice in changing. I find that aspect of our lives the ultimate in “unfairness.””
Seems like a defeatist attitude devoid of any hope. Somehow I think our children do have options, law abiding ones at that.
March 28, 2012 at 6:57 pm
So what options do they have (or are you simply wishfully thinking)?
March 29, 2012 at 5:51 am
Become a Three Percenter.
What is a “Three Percenter”?
During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King’s tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists. They were in turn actively supported by perhaps 10% of the population. In addition to these revolutionaries were perhaps another 20% who favored their cause but did little or nothing to support it. Another one-third of the population sided with the King (by the end of the war there were actually more Americans fighting FOR the King than there were in the field against him) and the final third took no side, blew with the wind and took what came.
March 29, 2012 at 6:30 am
I don’t think you’re an absolute moron, Swede, but this comment sure makes you sound like one.
March 29, 2012 at 6:52 am
That’s not much, Swede, in the form of “options”. The demographics alone are squarely against the generations behind us. Hell, under your terms I could be called one of your three perncenters insofar as I’ve been screaming from the rooftops for years that our kids are getting screwed by us. From which it seems exceptionally strange that you would infer that I’m a defeatist since a defeatist would rather accept the reality as a given and not lobby for change.
March 29, 2012 at 7:43 am
Really, the Tea party didn’t enact change?
Didn’t effect the 2010 elections? Did force HC into the highest court? Challenge the MSM? Suppress Obama’s poll numbers? Rally the troops?
Sit on the sideline. We’ll do the heavy lifting.
March 29, 2012 at 7:51 am
negation is not solution. and demonizing government, while ignoring the corrupt collusion between government and the private sector plays directly into the hands those who would prefer this country devolve into a third-world atmosphere of labor exploitation and obscene 1% enrichment.
the change your precious Tea Party is looking for is transforming America into a neo-feudal theocracy. if the improbably happens, and Mittens wins, the idiots who think the Tea Party will do any thing positive for average Americans will see exactly what that agenda will mean for their daily lives: misery.
March 29, 2012 at 7:54 am
Who’s sitting on the sidelines, Swede? I don’t see your blog promoting limited government (you know, like some of us have been doing for 10+ years.) There’s plenty of ways to advocate out there and you’re simplistic solution is but one. There are some who were promoting TEA Party principals long before the goddamn TEA Party ever existed.
You’re a bit smug for my taste.
March 29, 2012 at 8:02 am
Swede has been contributing one line troll posts in support of limited govt that makes him a 2% er.
March 29, 2012 at 8:58 am
As smug as Jon Corzine.
Back to my original post Dave, never trust the money changers.
I find it a little ironic that your now concerned ’bout our kids future when just a few weeks ago you criticized Tyler Durden.
I also have a considerable portfolio at risk, but I’ve been a good boy scout. My family doesn’t just rely on a single income stream. Nor would we starve or shiver in the cold.
Advice for the kiddies, nix the philosophy degree and go into lawn service.
March 29, 2012 at 9:17 am
WTF are you talking about? The only criticism I offered on Zerohedge was to warn people about Durden’s frequent hyperbole. Don’t put words in my mouth.
You also insinuate that you’re somehow in better financial shape than me. WTF do you know about me? WTF do you know about my kids?
March 29, 2012 at 10:04 am
Gee Dave, memory failing? You wrote a post all about your personal portfolio at ECW. Rather glowing one at that.
You asked ’bout your kids future and I responded.
You work with the public, right?
March 29, 2012 at 11:12 am
Show me the link, Swede. As a general rule I don’t write about such personal matters but I may have. Still, you don’t know me and so it’s incumbent on you to give me a citation.
Frankly, I think it’s your memory that failing.
March 29, 2012 at 11:29 am
Big Ingy has a blog? Link, please!
March 29, 2012 at 1:04 pm
I’m not spending time going thru your archives.
You bragged you started saving early and now you’ve amassed ’bout 5 large.
Need I say more?
March 29, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Complete nonsense, Swede. I said no such thing. I guaran-damn-ty-it. First, it would be wrong and, second, my personal balance sheet isn’t anyone else’s business.
You don’t know me so quit acting like you do.
March 29, 2012 at 8:49 am
Parties, parties, parties: Vote for the party that will give you the most; vote for the party that will take the least. All wrong. The decline is continuous. Some parties accelerate it, others slow it, but the course is set.
Meanwhile, the worldwide triumph of capitalism is nearly complete. Get onboard. Get rich. Save yourself and those around you. Once you have achieved financial security for yourself and your family, move on to your neighbors and community. And before you know it, politics will not mean a thing.
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 11:30 am
“Three Percenters”, eh? You make a good case for the success of Occupy!
March 29, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Membership in the three-percent club is open to all, even obsessive complainers. The market is a perfect democracy, where all men are treated equally. If you do not like your lot in life, there is nothing stopping you from opening a brokerage account.
Or maybe, if you are a natural-born underachiever, you would prefer to join the five-percent club. You can probably gain membership with only a half million.
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Maybe you should read Swede’s comment, so you’d have a clue about what my reply meant. But that would make too much sense for one who engages in non sequiturs to the degree that you do.
March 29, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Your reply meant nothing, like most of what you write, because you are not a thinking person. All you can do is regurgitate stale slogans and canned ideas way beyond their expiration date.
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 7:29 pm
I don’t expect my replies to make any sense to you. But its nice that you acknowledge your inability to think outside of your own little kitty litter box full of ad hominems and non sequiturs.
March 29, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Golly, I wish I knew Latin.
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Get a dictionary. And then look this up: E pluribum anus.
March 29, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Here is how things actually work:
[Today’s Market Update] Health maintenance organizations rose. Investors are speculating the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn aspects of the Affordable Care Act, benefiting managed care companies, according to Dave Shove, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets. Aetna Inc. added 5.4 percent to 49.01. UnitedHealth Group Inc. rallied 3.9 percent to $57.61
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Yep, stockholders will make money speculating that more people will die as a result of not having health insurance.
March 29, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Yes, and then the stockholders die, and the funeral homes make money.
What is your point, duh?
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Making money off of the inequity of our health insurance system is immoral.
March 29, 2012 at 10:35 pm
So you are a religious nut on top of everything else. That figures.
— Max Bucks
March 29, 2012 at 10:48 pm
So only religious nuts can discuss morality? You really are nothing more than a sociopath.
March 30, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Go ahead and tell us all about your non-religious morality. Tell us where you got it from, its precepts, and when to apply it.
I will try not to laugh.
— Max Bucks
March 30, 2012 at 1:36 pm
There’s a wide-open space between “religious nut” and “non-religious morality.” Where do you fit in?
But I have no desire to argue morality with you as you are not capable of dialectics. I don’t have to “win the debate” in order to have principled conversations with intelligent people.
But you can try and validate your ideology if you want. Not that most people around here would care–your attitudes speaks volumes about what sort of moral basis you ascribe to.
March 30, 2012 at 4:09 pm
I do not subscribe to any moral philosophy, so I have nothing to explain.
You are the one prancing around on your high horse, proclaiming what is moral and what is not. So tell us, what is the basis of your morality? Tell us where you got it from, its precepts, and when to apply it.
Oh, wait. I get it now. Your morality is so sophisticated, so complex, so, so dialectical! that no one with less than 140 IQ could possibly comprehend it. Yes, that’s it!
Haha-haha. That is so totally lame. And completely cowardly.
I have another idea: You are ashamed to articulate your moral beliefs because you will sound like a religious nutcase reciting the Ten Commandments.
— Max Bucks
March 30, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Here’s one: in a country as rich as this, no one should die because they lack access to health insurance.
Agree or not?
March 30, 2012 at 7:45 pm
First, that is not an affirmative statement of your moral beliefs. Your statement merely implies that it is immoral to allow someone to die for lack of health insurance, but you are not saying why that would be immoral.
***What moral law or rule is being violated, according to you, if someone in America dies for lack of health insurance?***
It is OK to say, “I believe I am my brother’s keeper,” or “We are all God’s children,” or something to that effect. But, naturally, I will have to ask you where you got that from. In the end, you will find yourself actually explaining the basis or genesis of your moral beliefs, which is the goal of this exercise.
On the other hand, you can continue to evade explaining the source of your moral beliefs, but that will mean either: (1) You really have no idea why you believe what you believe, which implies you are a class-A moron; or (2) you are so embarrassed by the source of your moral beliefs that you would rather not say anything.
— Max Bucks
March 30, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Why do you find it so difficult to answer a simple question? Because you’re embarrassed of you answer, maybe?
March 31, 2012 at 9:52 am
When you develop enough courage to plainly state the basis of your moral beliefs, come on back for some more smackdown. Until then, please spare us all your nonsense about what is moral and what is not.
— Max Bucks
March 31, 2012 at 10:07 am
Like I said, I feel no compunction to debate the basis of my moral beliefs with a sociopath.
You don’t rule this blog, so quit making demands that nobody cares about.
As to courage, obviously you have none, as you have yet to state any basis for your amoral ideological posturing.
I at least am willing to state moral principles that I follow. And until you either state that you have a moral basis for your ideology, or acknowledge your sociopathic amorality, then there will be no debate.
Grow up and debate the issues like a man, or go back to your cave.
March 31, 2012 at 11:58 am
It sounds to me like you have attention deficit disorder on top of all your other problems.
Either that or you are nothing more than an argumentative adolescent who has deluded himself into believing he so clever that he can talk his way out of every absurd pronouncement he makes.
— Max Bucks
PS: I am still waiting for you to state the basis of your moral beliefs, little boy.
March 31, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Ok, I gave you a chance to have a real discussion, and you are unable to do anything but make childish demands of me, and resort to ad hominem. So we’re done here. Don’t expect me to try and have an honest debate with you. Obviously it isn’t possible.
March 31, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Off topic ad hominem attack was deleted
March 31, 2012 at 7:03 pm
!
March 30, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Sociopaths usually aren’t constrained by any moral value system, MB. That’s part of what makes them sociopaths.
So it’s not surprising that you have no moral value system.
March 30, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Well, Steve, you better elaborate on your moral value system, if any, before you are declared a lifetime member of the sociopath club.
Got a moral value system, Steve? Let’s hear about it!
— Max Bucks
March 31, 2012 at 7:17 pm
I believe in being kind. I feel it is an imperative imparted to me by consciousness.
You don’t have a moral value system but you can learn to fake it, I’ve heard.