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[B-Dubs]

A state that went blue the last two presidential cycles?

Midterms dude, midterms.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Midterms dude, midterms.

that scott won by the hair on his chin?

scott was doing better in late September in 2010 which was more favorable to republican last time and he just had a giant ad blast which crist only countered recently. If the dems can turn out people the pollsters are missing crist will win

 

[Vahagn]

You can't believe that the liberal policies are so much better and then believe that they're better at politics. If we were better at politics + had better policies, we'd win every election and on nearly every issue.


The fact that we don't have comprehensive immigration with a pathway to citizenship, the fact that we don't have climate change legislation, the fact that we had to settle for the conservative plan for universal health care, the fact that no part of Obama's agenda has been advanced since 2010 should tell you that much.


The GOP is far better at politics, they're just facing an avalanche of shifting demographics and popular ideas that they can't combat in substance. But 100% of their wins, 100%, is due to their superiority at playing the game.


Every arm of the conservative echo chamber spews the same nonsense. They can rile 70 million conservatives up over a latte salute in 36 hours. They can mess with the democratic system and bring in segregation based districts and voter suppression and keep those in play because they're flat out better at politics.


Every conservative state is passing the same laws. Stand your ground, done. re-districting, done. voter suppression done. right to work, done.


While progressives are arguing with each other over finding the perfect antidote, conservatives are changing laws across half the country in a matter of weeks.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

You can't believe that the liberal policies are so much better and then believe that they're better at politics. If we were better at politics + had better policies, we'd win every election and on nearly every issue.


The fact that we don't have comprehensive immigration with a pathway to citizenship, the fact that we don't have climate change legislation, the fact that we had to settle for the conservative plan for universal health care, the fact that no part of Obama's agenda has been advanced since 2010 should tell you that much.


The GOP is far better at politics, they're just facing an avalanche of shifting demographics and popular ideas that they can't combat in substance. But 100% of their wins, 100%, is due to their superiority at playing the game.


Every arm of the conservative echo chamber spews the same nonsense. They can rile 70 million conservatives up over a latte salute in 36 hours. They can mess with the democratic system and bring in segregation based districts and voter suppression and keep those in play because they're flat out better at politics.


Every conservative state is passing the same laws. Stand your ground, done. re-districting, done. voter suppression done. right to work, done.


While progressives are arguing with each other over finding the perfect antidote, conservatives are changing laws across half the country in a matter of weeks.

And liberals are passing gay marriage, non-discrimination laws, repealing the death penalty, DREAM acts, voter expansion, their own redistricting, sick time, etc. you focus far too much on the other side and what they are doing. And a lot of their laws are getting struct down by the courts

 

[Coriolanus]

Collectivists amirite? Everything within the Party, nothing outside the Party, nothing against the Party.

I, for one, eagerly await the "AngryFork was righ!" t-shirts.

 

[Black Mamba]

You can't believe that the liberal policies are so much better and then believe that they're better at politics. If we were better at politics + had better policies, we'd win every election and on nearly every issue.


The fact that we don't have comprehensive immigration with a pathway to citizenship, the fact that we don't have climate change legislation, the fact that we had to settle for the conservative plan for universal health care, the fact that no part of Obama's agenda has been advanced since 2010 should tell you that much.


The GOP is far better at politics, they're just facing an avalanche of shifting demographics and popular ideas that they can't combat in substance. But 100% of their wins, 100%, is due to their superiority at playing the game.


Every arm of the conservative echo chamber spews the same nonsense. They can rile 70 million conservatives up over a latte salute in 36 hours. They can mess with the democratic system and bring in segregation based districts and voter suppression and keep those in play because they're flat out better at politics.


Every conservative state is passing the same laws. Stand your ground, done. re-districting, done. voter suppression done. right to work, done.


While progressives are arguing with each other over finding the perfect antidote, conservatives are changing laws across half the country in a matter of weeks.

This is not an example of being "better at politics." The GOP is clearly bad at politics. It is surviving because of people who vote based on mostly 3 ideas (guns, abortion, religion). No amount of politics can overcome that.

But those issues will matter less over time. And I'd also argue this country, has for the most part, moved further left the past 6 years. Not nearly enough, but it has moved. Some areas are resisting, but it is happening.

 

[Vahagn]

This is not an example of being "better at politics." The GOP is clearly bad at politics. It is surviving because of people who vote based on mostly 3 ideas (guns, abortion, religion). No amount of politics can overcome that.

But those issues will matter less over time. And I'd also argue this country, has for the most part, moved further left the past 6 years. Not nearly enough, but it has moved. Some areas are resisting, but it is happening.

Wait how? The LGBT community has made advancements sure. But Stand Your Ground isn't further left. Citizens United and Voter ID is definitely not further left. Restrictions on birth control and abortion and de-funding of Planned Parenthood isn't further left.

If you take out what Obama did from 2009-2010 when he had a Democratic Congress, a solid majority of the policies that have been enacted at the state and Federal level since 2011 have been more conservative instead of progressive.

Progressive policies win in the end, they always do. But what's happened the last 4 years I don't think qualifies as a Progressive shift. With the exception of the LGBT community making slow gains. .

 

[Black Mamba]

Wait how? The LGBT community has made advancements sure. But Stand Your Ground isn't further left. Citizens United and Voter ID is definitely not further left. Restrictions on birth control and abortion and de-funding of Planned Parenthood isn't further left.

If you take out what Obama did from 2009-2010 when he had a Democratic Congress, a solid majority of the policies that have been enacted at the state and Federal level since 2011 have been more conservative instead of progressive.

Progressive policies win in the end, they always do. But what's happened the last 4 years I don't think qualifies as a Progressive shift. With the exception of the LGBT community making slow gains. .

In certain GOP strongholds, this is true. It's a reaction to their state/localities going further left.

The rest of the country has done things like raised taxes on the wealthy (ie Cali) and moved to more green energy, etc.

Obviously, the Healthcare law is further left than the status quo. You have the end of the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy and a capital gains tax raise! You have environmental policy. Labor Board decisions. Gay rights. Drug policies have clearly moved left (more medical marijuana, two states legalized, less federal enforcement, lower criminal punishment). Other aspects too with reduced sentencing for non-felonies in numerous states. Minimum Wages have risen in numerous states, not a single one has eradicated or lowered it (though there is slack to raising it).

Yes, no every inch of this country is moving left. But I would say the majority of the population in this country live where things have in general moved left. There will always be some issues that don't in any given time period.

But when it comes to tax policy, environmental policy, drug policy, criminal policy, LGBT policy, foreign policy, health care policy, labor policy, general economic policy, etc we are more left today than 2008.

Again, you can find examples of pushback but the overall trend is left and will continue.



edit: If it doesn't seem so, it's because we only really here news about backwards GOP shit in the south or states where the GOP governors took over. But you don't see the stuff most of the country is doing because it's not batshit insane or awful.

 

[Vahagn]

In certain GOP strongholds, this is true. It's a reaction to their state/localities going further left.

The rest of the country has done things like raised taxes on the wealthy (ie Cali) and moved to more green energy, etc.

Obviously, the Healthcare law is further left than the status quo. You have the end of the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy and a capital gains tax raise! You have environmental policy. Labor Board decisions. Gay rights. Drug policies have clearly moved left (more medical marijuana, two states legalized, less federal enforcement, lower criminal punishment). Other aspects too with reduced sentencing for non-felonies in numerous states. Minimum Wages have risen in numerous states, not a single one has eradicated or lowered it (though there is slack to raising it).

Yes, no every inch of this country is moving left. But I would say the majority of the population in this country live where things have in general moved left. There will always be some issues that don't in any given time period.

But when it comes to tax policy, environmental policy, drug policy, criminal policy, LGBT policy, foreign policy, health care policy, labor policy, general economic policy, etc we are more left today than 2008.

Again, you can find examples of pushback but the overall trend is left and will continue.



edit: If it doesn't seem so, it's because we only really here news about backwards GOP shit in the south or states where the GOP governors took over. But you don't see the stuff most of the country is doing because it's not batshit insane or awful.

Obama campaigned on Single Payer, he ended up settling for the same conservative plan the Clintons rejected 2 decades ago. Taxes on the wealthy did go up, but not at the thresholds originally planned and there was a sequester with significant cuts in assistance to lower income households and scientific research in the process.

Environmental policy hasn't moved further left. There has been some investment and expansion in renewable energy, sure, but there's also been fracking and drilling of finite American non-renewable energy sources. No significant EPA legislation has passed, and while certain states like California have adopted cleaner environmental laws, I don't think that represents a national shift just yet. There are politicians campaigning on eliminating the EPA and on track to win in the polls as we speak and an "energy revolution" poised to take place that seems to be mostly led by drilling and fracking.

Drug policies have moved further left which is good, but immigration deportations have skyrocketed and local law enforcement has by and large become more powerful and more militarized. Jails are overcrowded as shit, so lighter sentences only exist because more and more people are caught up in the criminal justice system and they don't have the room to house that many inmates. I wouldn't call that a victory for the left. A few states have raised the minimum wage, but on balance, corporate profit sheets are at record highs and wages are depressed. I don't think anyone can argue that the labor force is winning the battle right now.

 

[Black Mamba]

Obama campaigned on Single Payer, he ended up settling for the same conservative plan the Clintons rejected 2 decades ago. Taxes on the wealthy did go up, but not at the thresholds originally planned and there was a sequester with significant cuts in assistance to lower income households and scientific research in the process.

Environmental policy hasn't moved further left. There has been some investment and expansion in renewable energy, sure, but there's also been fracking and drilling of finite American non-renewable energy sources. No significant EPA legislation has passed, and while certain states like California have adopted cleaner environmental laws, I don't think that represents a national shift just yet. There are politicians campaigning on eliminating the EPA and on track to win in the polls as we speak and an "energy revolution" poised to take place that seems to be mostly led by drilling and fracking.

Drug policies have moved further left which is good, but immigration deportations have skyrocketed and local law enforcement has by and large become more powerful and more militarized. Jails are overcrowded as shit, so lighter sentences only exist because more and more people are caught up in the criminal justice system. I wouldn't call that a victory for the left. A few states have raised the minimum wage, but on balance, corporate profit sheets are at record highs and wages are depressed. I don't think anyone can argue that the labor force is winning the battle right now.

You are moving goalposts. I argued we've moved left since 2008 (and even 2010 overall), I didn't argue we moved left from Obama's original plans.

Why lighter sentences exist doesn't really matter (but FTR they're mostly through voting). Corporate profits are irrelevant to gov't policy. That's a different issue. Regarding immigration, there's DREAMers and other things (more deportations is a result of more efficiency not a shift). Labor force isn't winning the battle but it hasn't gone more to the right, overall. EPA passes regulations, they don't just wait for laws (though I agree there isn't some large environmental shift but rather some small gains).

IMO, there are very few areas of politics in this country you could look at and say we're further right on than we were in 2008. It's either unchanged or further left. Sure, in some states there are, but not overall.

Let me ask it this way. Do we have more environmental regulation or less since 2008? More taxes on wealthy or less? More beneficial labor board decisions or less? Lighter sentencing or heavier? More lax drug laws or not? More gay rights or not? More free health care or less? More health care protections or less? Higher minimum wage laws or less? Etc.

I think your issue is we haven't moved left very much and it's going slow, which I agree with. But it's moved.

 

[Vahagn]

You are moving goalposts. I argued we've moved left since 2008 (and even 2010 overall), I didn't argue we moved left from Obama's original plans.

Why lighter sentences exist doesn't really matter (but FTR they're mostly through voting). Corporate profits are irrelevant to gov't policy. That's a different issue. Regarding immigration, there's DREAMers and other things (more deportations is a result of more efficiency not a shift). Labor force isn't winning the battle but it hasn't gone more to the right, overall. EPA passes regulations, they don't just wait for laws (though I agree there isn't some large environmental shift but rather some small gains).

IMO, there are very few areas of politics in this country you could look at and say we're further right on than we were in 2008. It's either unchanged or further left. Sure, in some states there are, but not overall.

Let me ask it this way. Do we have more environmental regulation or less since 2008? More taxes on wealthy or less? More beneficial labor board decisions or less? Lighter sentencing or heavier? More lax drug laws or not? More gay rights or not? More free health care or less? More health care protections or less? Higher minimum wage laws or less? Etc.

I think your issue is we haven't moved left very much and it's going slow, which I agree with. But it's moved.

Do we have more liberal abortion access and rights or less? Is wealth more concentrated at the top or more spread out? Do we have stricter gun laws or more lax ones? Do we have more open and fair voting policies or more restrictive ones? do we have more liberal campaign finance laws or more conservative ones? do we have cuts in social safety nets?

It's great if you're living in California or another liberal state to think that everything is moving further left.

But if you're a black woman, or a muslim, or gay and you live in Kentucky or Texas or Mississippi or Tennessee or Florida I don't think you'd think we're moving further left over the last 6 years.

 

[Aaron Strife]

But if you're a black woman, or a muslim, or gay and you live in Kentucky or Texas or Mississippi or Tennessee or Florida I don't think you'd think we're moving further left over the last 6 years.

Any gay person who doesn't think the country has been moving left in the past 6 years has been living under a fabulously-decorated rock. There were 2 states with legalized gay marriage in 2008. There are now like... over 20. And SCOTUS will probably legalize it nationwide very soon. In fact they already sort of have by partially repealing DOMA. DADT was repealed too.

 

[Black Mamba]

Do we have more liberal abortion access and rights or less?

Probably more. A few states have tried to remove it but I wouldn't be surprised if most people have more access because other states like on the coasts have probably expanded access but no one notices. And in many of those GOP states the Courts struck down rulings.

Is wealth more concentrated at the top or more spread out?

Only because we haven't moved left enough, not because we moved right.

Do we have stricter gun laws or more lax ones?

I don't know the answer to this one. It's the one area we might have moved right on but have there been a move right in states since 2008 or are we at a status quo, here?

My inclination is to believe we're mostly unchanged on this issue.

Do we have more open and fair voting policies or more restrictive ones?

More open compared to 2008 IMO, despite the best efforts of the GOP.

do we have more liberal campaign finance laws or more conservative ones

This one is weird cuz I'm not sure if either direction on this classifies as "left" or "right."

do we have cuts in social safety nets?

More, thanks to the ACA. But it was somewhat mitigated by the UE extension ending this year. That said, that UE extension was post 2008, so it's not a shift right. It was representing a temporary shit left. Since 2008, we've clearly had more social safety nets (just again, not enough).

It's great if you're living in California or another liberal state to think that everything is moving further left.

I agree, it's great!

But if you're a black woman, or a muslim, or gay and you live in Kentucky or Texas or Mississippi or Tennessee or Florida I don't think you'd think we're moving further left over the last 6 years.

And again, I have said certain parts of the country are fighting back, no one is denying this. I said the general direction of the country at large is left. This doesn't mean 100% in every area and it doesn't mean moving fast or far.

In terms of overall federal policy, we've clearly shifted left from the Bush era. In state politics, we mostly have. Maybe Mississippi hasn't but even then I'd question it. At least as it being more right today than it was in 2008.

 

[Black Mamba]

Any gay person who doesn't think the country has been moving left in the past 6 years has been living under a fabulously-decorated rock. There were 2 states with legalized gay marriage in 2008. There are now like... over 20. And SCOTUS will probably legalize it nationwide very soon. In fact they already sort of have by partially repealing DOMA. DADT was repealed too.

Not only that, but even if you are a gay person in Mississippi, chances are the state is less bigoted towards you than it was in 2008 even if it's not accepting. I'm pretty sure less people discriminate now than back then.

Again, we're comparing to a point in time, not overall policy. The country has moved slightly left but that doesn't mean the country IS left of center. We're still right of center, just slightly less so.

 

[speculawyer]

Edit: for your nightmares

They interviewed him the other day on the BBC regarding the strikes on ISIS. He's as much of a dick as ever. Basically he said it was about time and we should attack Iran next.

 

[platypotamus]

They interviewed him the other day on the BBC regarding the strikes on ISIS. He's as much of a dick as ever. Basically he said it was about time and we should attack Iran next.

Spoken like a natural ambassador

 

[Vahagn]

Yea we're having differences of opinion here. I don't think accepting the traditionally held conservative position is moving us to the left, just because they've abandoned it by moving further to the right.

The Clintons rejected the individual mandate model 2 decades ago, accepting it today isn't a great argument for moving further to the left. Sure universal health care itself is a traditionally liberal idea but the model is a conservative one. If I'm a conservative with any level of intelligence, that's a win for me no matter how much I publicly decry it.


Abortion access is absolutely more restricted than it was 6 years ago. So is the power of unions because of the passage of right to work legislation. And I know you think immigration is more efficient, but knowing liberals who work in immigration law, I can tell you they're pissed that more and more immigrants are being deported for practically nothing at all but no real advancements have been gained for their rights.

I highlighted that the LGBT community is probably the consistent liberal winner here, but it's the only one. On every other issue, whatever liberal gains are made are tempered by more stringent conservative movements on other parts of the country.

If there are states that extend early voting, there are other states that are restricting it and putting in voter ID. If there are states that are passing more environmentally friendly regulations, there are a host of other states that are drilling and fracking at record levels and rolling out red carpets for the oil industry. If there are states that are increasing the minimum wage, there are other states that are passing right to work laws that are depressing wages. At the Federal Level, Citizens United and the repeal of the Voting Rights Act as well as a weakening of affirmative action guidelines are definitely allowing this conservative court to push matters further to the right.

So sure, part of the country is moving further to the left. But post 2010 definitely, much of the country is moving further to the right. That's my point.

 

[Black Mamba]

Yea we're having differences of opinion here. I don't think accepting the traditionally held conservative position is moving us to the left, just because they've abandoned it by moving further to the right.

The Clintons rejected the individual mandate model 2 decades ago, accepting it today isn't a great argument for moving further to the left. Sure universal health care itself is a traditionally liberal idea but the model is a conservative one. If I'm a conservative with any level of intelligence, that's a win for me no matter how much I publicly decry it.

The problem is you don't understand the nature of the debate. The question of whether we're further left today than 2008 has nothing to do with what happened 2 decades ago or whether the ACA should be seen as a win for conservatives.

Current health care law is further left than laws on the books in 2008. There is no argument to the contrary.

Abortion access is absolutely more restricted than it was 6 years ago. So is the power of unions because of the passage of right to work legislation. And I know you think immigration is more efficient, but knowing liberals who work in immigration law, I can tell you they're pissed that more and more immigrants are being deported for practically nothing at all but no real advancements have been gained for their rights.

Only if you focus on a handful of states and not the entire country. The immigration stuff happened before 2008 but now we have the dreamers.

If there are states that extend early voting, there are other states that are restricting it and putting in voter ID. If there are states that are passing more environmentally friendly regulations, there are a host of other states that are drilling and fracking at record levels and rolling out red carpets for the oil industry. If there are states that are increasing the minimum wage, there are other states that are passing right to work laws that are depressing wages. At the Federal Level, Citizens United and the repeal of the Voting Rights Act as well as a weakening of affirmative action guidelines are definitely allowing this conservative court to push matters further to the right.

So sure, part of the country is moving further to the left. But post 2010 definitely, much of the country is moving further to the right. That's my point.

Very little of the country is moving further right. You don't understand movement. You just see things as "is it left or right? If it's right, even if it's less right than before, we're moving right."

With the exception of guns, I really haven't seen anything you've brought up that registers as the country moving right on that issue compared to 6 years ago. In most cases, we're unchanged.

 

[pigeon]

Yea we're having differences of opinion here. I don't think accepting the traditionally held conservative position is moving us to the left, just because they've abandoned it by moving further to the right.

The Clintons rejected the individual mandate model 2 decades ago, accepting it today isn't a great argument for moving further to the left. Sure universal health care itself is a traditionally liberal idea but the model is a conservative one. If I'm a conservative with any level of intelligence, that's a win for me no matter how much I publicly decry it.

I am too sick to respond to this at length, but this yet again fundamentally misunderstands the Obamacare debate. Jonathan Bernstein:

It may not be a "government takeover" of health care or "socialism," but it is a major expansion of government's responsibilities, using regulation, taxes and market structure to transfer resources from wealthy Americans to those less wealthy.

Like it or not, the ACA is a major success for the Obama administration and the historic 111th Congress that enacted it. The law has fulfilled a long-frustrated, high-priority liberal goal.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-24/obamacare-is-here-to-stay

The conservative plan for health care wasn't Obamacare. The conservative plan for health care was nothing, ever. The Heritage Foundation may have proposed something like Obamacare at one point, but not because they wanted it passed, but because they needed something to talk about. This should really be pretty obvious from the fact that conservatives never passed any health care bills and aggressively blocked any health care laws for literally a century. Obamacare is the end of that.

Is Obamacare the law I'd want if I could choose any law? No. Is it better than the status quo? Absolutely. Does it include things that the insurance companies wanted? Sure, they're stakeholders. Is it good for insurance companies? Not at all, which is why they still opposed it.

Is it working? Yes.

So don't talk about Obamacare as the conservative plan. It's not single-payer, but America wasn't about to pass single-payer. It might be in a few years, though, because of Obamacare.

 

[benjipwns]

The "Heritage Plan" was only the mandate, almost everything else was different except the things you can't have different like it being about health insurance.

You can't believe that the liberal policies are so much better and then believe that they're better at politics. If we were better at politics + had better policies, we'd win every election and on nearly every issue.


The fact that we don't have comprehensive immigration with a pathway to citizenship, the fact that we don't have climate change legislation, the fact that we had to settle for the conservative plan for universal health care, the fact that no part of Obama's agenda has been advanced since 2010 should tell you that much.


The GOP is far better at politics, they're just facing an avalanche of shifting demographics and popular ideas that they can't combat in substance. But 100% of their wins, 100%, is due to their superiority at playing the game.


Every arm of the conservative echo chamber spews the same nonsense. They can rile 70 million conservatives up over a latte salute in 36 hours. They can mess with the democratic system and bring in segregation based districts and voter suppression and keep those in play because they're flat out better at politics.


Every conservative state is passing the same laws. Stand your ground, done. re-districting, done. voter suppression done. right to work, done.


While progressives are arguing with each other over finding the perfect antidote, conservatives are changing laws across half the country in a matter of weeks.

I change some of the words of this and I can find ten thousand versions of it on Red State. I can listen to Rush Limbaugh for two weeks and hear it at least once.

A bit more tweaking and I can find it on Reason talking about the LP of all things.

It's something that's always fascinated me. The delusions of fandom are something else.

 

[PhoenixDark]

I think you guys are overthinking a pretty simple issue. The right's success has little to do with them being better at politics or framing their message better - they simply have a message that appeals to more people naturally. Or at least used to before demographic shifts began changing things. The most successful political messages overall in US history revolve around white resentment and misogyny. "They are taking my stuff," basically. It shouldn't be surprising that a message like that has appealed to the most people in a majority white country with such a disastrous history on race and female rights.

The vast majority of conservative positions boil down to that basic creed. Republicans offer to cut your taxes so your hard earned money isn't wasted by the welfare state, which has always been cast with a black face despite the fact that the majority of welfare recipients are white. Republicans support law and order positions including on guns, once again casting a black face on crime; notice how acceptable it is for conservatives and media hosts to stereotype blacks.

The tax issue also is connected to abortion, where republicans promise to make sure your hard earned dollars aren't being used to commit "murder." And immigration ties into all of this, as an influx of immigrants=an influx onto the welfare rolls.

Those are simple, time tested positions that have dominated politics for decades. And they're very effective to this day, and will continue to be so. Especially as the white population drops. Obama's entire presidency has been defined by the last throws of an angry, white group of people who see their perception of America disappearing. And no, I'm not saying they are all racist.

 

[Vahagn]

I am too sick to respond to this at length, but this yet again fundamentally misunderstands the Obamacare debate. Jonathan Bernstein:



http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-24/obamacare-is-here-to-stay

The conservative plan for health care wasn't Obamacare. The conservative plan for health care was nothing, ever. The Heritage Foundation may have proposed something like Obamacare at one point, but not because they wanted it passed, but because they needed something to talk about. This should really be pretty obvious from the fact that conservatives never passed any health care bills and aggressively blocked any health care laws for literally a century. Obamacare is the end of that.

Is Obamacare the law I'd want if I could choose any law? No. Is it better than the status quo? Absolutely. Does it include things that the insurance companies wanted? Sure, they're stakeholders. Is it good for insurance companies? Not at all, which is why they still opposed it.

Is it working? Yes.

So don't talk about Obamacare as the conservative plan. It's not single-payer, but America wasn't about to pass single-payer. It might be in a few years, though, because of Obamacare.

I've made that same point before. And I think I'm right. But it's only a hypothetical because Clinton didn't take their bluff. If he did, It's conceivable that they would have passed it and then taken credit for it.

Furthermore, if Obama hadn't passed it, it's conceivable that Mitt Romney would have campaigned on it and since he believed it was his proudest moment as Governor, he may even have tried to pass it. Conservatives take credit for all sorts of shit in the past, they'll take credit for this, so it's not hard to believe that they wouldn't have supported a conservative president who proposed it as solving healthcare using "free market" methods.


The ONLY reason Conservatives hated that law is because it was sold to them as something it wasn't to rile up the base into voting. Then the Kochs and others realized that sentiment would last years so they stuck with it to push up voter turnout. Had they been the ones to pass it, or had Obama passed single payer and Mitt Romney campaigned on individual mandate, they would have rallied around it. They're sheep who follow lock step and key to what the talk radio/fox news world tells them to follow.

I think you guys are overthinking a pretty simple issue. The right's success has little to do with them being better at politics or framing their message better - they simply have a message that appeals to more people naturally. Or at least used to before demographic shifts began changing things. The most successful political messages overall in US history revolve around white resentment and misogyny. "They are taking my stuff," basically. It shouldn't be surprising that a message like that has appealed to the most people in a majority white country with such a disastrous history on race and female rights.

The vast majority of conservative positions boil down to that basic creed. Republicans offer to cut your taxes so your hard earned money isn't wasted by the welfare state, which has always been cast with a black face despite the fact that the majority of welfare recipients are white. Republicans support law and order positions including on guns, once again casting a black face on crime; notice how acceptable it is for conservatives and media hosts to stereotype blacks.

The tax issue also is connected to abortion, where republicans promise to make sure your hard earned dollars aren't being used to commit "murder." And immigration ties into all of this, as an influx of immigrants=an influx onto the welfare rolls.

Those are simple, time tested positions that have dominated politics for decades. And they're very effective to this day, and will continue to be so. Especially as the white population drops. Obama's entire presidency has been defined by the last throws of an angry, white group of people who see their perception of America disappearing. And no, I'm not saying they are all racist.

While I agree with the general gist of this message pretty closely, I think there is truth to being better at politics. Being unified and on message and regurgitating the same talking points at every opportunity is good politics. It works. Democrats spend so much of their time attempting to disprove the stupidity of Republicans that the vast majority of the debates are had over their messages. We spend tons of time talking about Benghazi instead of the 39 embassy attacks under George Bush. Liberals are interested in being right, conservatives are interested in having their message penetrate.

 

[benjipwns]

The fact that we don't have comprehensive immigration with a pathway to citizenship,

This alone blows up the theory. Because if you remember just a mere eight years ago, you had a GOP establishment and Democratic establishment agreement with Presidential backing that blew up in the House because voters flooded Congress over it that signaled everyone on the fence to bail out asap.

 

[benjipwns]

With the exception of guns, I really haven't seen anything you've brought up that registers as the country moving right on that issue compared to 6 years ago. In most cases, we're unchanged.

I think guns is actually a case where things like the sunset on the AWB hid an earlier shift that was mostly unnoticed by the journalist elite.

Kinda like how there's no going back on abortion and probably no going back on gay marriage once the laws catch up to the culture.

 

[Black Mamba]

I've made that same point before. And I think I'm right. But it's only a hypothetical because Clinton didn't take their bluff. If he did, It's conceivable that they would have passed it and then taken credit for it.

Furthermore, if Obama hadn't passed it, it's conceivable that Mitt Romney would have campaigned on it and since he believed it was his proudest moment as Governor, he may even have tried to pass it. Conservatives take credit for all sorts of shit in the past, they'll take credit for this, so it's not hard to believe that they wouldn't have supported a conservative president who proposed it as solving healthcare using "free market" methods.


The ONLY reason Conservatives hated that law is because it was sold to them as something it wasn't to rile up the base into voting. Then the Kochs and others realized that sentiment would last years so they stuck with it to push up voter turnout. Had they been the ones to pass it, or had Obama passed single payer and Mitt Romney campaigned on individual mandate, they would have rallied around it. They're sheep who follow lock step and key to what the talk radio/fox news world tells them to follow.



While I agree with the general gist of this message pretty closely, I think there is truth to being better at politics. Being unified and on message and regurgitating the same talking points at every opportunity is good politics. It works. Democrats spend so much of their time attempting to disprove the stupidity of Republicans that the vast majority of the debates are had over their messages. We spend tons of time talking about Benghazi instead of the 39 embassy attacks under George Bush. Liberals are interested in being right, conservatives are interested in having their message penetrate.

The GOP lost the 2012 election on a massive scale (losing seats in the House, Senate) and losing the Presidency despite a largely not popular President, shit economy, etc. Mitt Romney made zero inroads in the election. The only reason it wasn't an even bigger blowout was because some people stayed home.

How can you look at 2012 and then look at this year when they're a coin flip to win and argue they're good at politics?

Any political party with half a brain would have easily won in 2012 and would be destroying right now.

The conservative message is not penetrating. Look at all the new voters and how they vote? They're getting crushed! The conservative message is just followed by zealots because of the nature of conservatism.

Conservatives will always be more staunch in their support, not because liberals want to be right, but because of what PD touched on.

Conservatism, at its core, means no change and those opposed to change will always fight louder and harder than those who want change until they are overwhelmed by the numbers. The conservative message is failing miserably but there's still enough soldiers around to keep them alive. But they're dying (literally) faster than they're replenishing.

 

[pigeon]

I've made that same point before. And I think I'm right. But it's only a hypothetical because Clinton didn't take their bluff. If he did, It's conceivable that they would have passed it and then taken credit for it.

Furthermore, if Obama hadn't passed it, it's conceivable that Mitt Romney would have campaigned on it and since he believed it was his proudest moment as Governor, he may even have tried to pass it. Conservatives take credit for all sorts of shit in the past, they'll take credit for this, so it's not hard to believe that they wouldn't have supported a conservative president who proposed it as solving healthcare using "free market" methods.

Okay. So what? It's not a sport. This is a perfect example of how American conservatives have caused people to confuse winning the messaging war with actually passing policy. I think that Obamacare is a good law that improves the health care system and acts as a social program that transfers money from the wealthier to the less wealthy. It achieves my policy goals. This would be true if Romney passed it, too. It doesn't become a "conservative" bill if a conservative politician passes it. It remains a progressive improvement on our previous system. So what's your point here?

 

[benjipwns]

Okay. So what? It's not a sport.

I think for a lot of people that's basically what it is.

 

[PhoenixDark]

The thing I wonder about is the upcoming Hispanic generation and assimilation. In Texas there are plenty of second and third generation Hispanics who are firm republicans, speak limited Spanish, and sure as hell don't identify or empathize with the illegal immigration issue/immigrants. In short, they identify as white.

 

[benjipwns]

The government identifies them as white too.

 

[Aaron Strife]

A new(!) UNH poll is out and Shaheen is up 7. Wow this swung 7 points!

 

[Plinko]

So Ben Carson said he's probably running for president. Still think he's a dark horse for the nomination.

 

[speculawyer]

So Ben Carson said he's probably running for president. Still think he's a dark horse for the nomination.

 

[speculawyer]

The thing I wonder about is the upcoming Hispanic generation and assimilation. In Texas there are plenty of second and third generation Hispanics who are firm republicans, speak limited Spanish, and sure as hell don't identify or empathize with the illegal immigration issue/immigrants. In short, they identify as white.

Do you have any evidence for this or is this another one of you silly theories?

 

[Vahagn]

Okay. So what? It's not a sport. This is a perfect example of how American conservatives have caused people to confuse winning the messaging war with actually passing policy. I think that Obamacare is a good law that improves the health care system and acts as a social program that transfers money from the wealthier to the less wealthy. It achieves my policy goals. This would be true if Romney passed it, too. It doesn't become a "conservative" bill if a conservative politician passes it. It remains a progressive improvement on our previous system. So what's your point here?

I know you're not missing this. This President campaigned on Single Payer. The Clintons stood fast to Public Option 2 Decades ago. We ended up with Individual Mandate despite having a super majority because they're just fucking good at politics.


They've shut the damn govt down by holding one half of one branch of govt which is completely in line with their goals once redistricting protected their re-elections to the House.

When the hell have liberals without holding a single house in Congress or the Executive forced Conservatives to adopt our model for a policy? These guys got Obama to change the Stimulus Bill to include useless tax cuts, and then proceeded not to vote on it. Americans to this day still think it didn't work.


I'm really happy we passed health care reform. and I think considering a conservative supreme court and Mitt Romney as the presumptive nominee way back in 2010 - that passing Romneycare was the politically saavy thing to do. But that's only because passing anything else and they would have demolished it in the courts and in the voting booths.


So either we're left with the idea that single payer and public option are so damn unconstitutional and toxic we're stupid for believing in them for 3 decades, or they're just better at effecting political outcomes.


9/11 Happened on their watch. The economy cratered and we had 2 unpopular wars...and despite all of that, they've managed to win the messaging war and destroy any image of success that Democrats could exude. It's fucking Jedi levels good.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Notorious racist and misogynist sheds light on the 'real reason' liberals like abortion. It kills the poors they don't like. Its eugenics!

I love the intro which reminds the reader Ginsburg is ugly and somehow can't be fashionable . Just like his article on Ferguson opened with comparing a black child to an ape and insinuating he had no father!

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, having decided for some inexplicable reason to do a long interview with a fashion magazine (maybe it is her celebrated collection of lace collars),

The damning quote?

Speaking about such modest restrictions on abortion as have been enacted over the past several years, Justice Ginsburg lamented that “the impact of all these restrictions is on poor women.” Then she added: “It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.”

Modern day hitler!

In context:

Ginsburg:The impact of all these restrictions is on poor women, because women who have means, if their state doesn’t provide access, another state does. I think that the country will wake up and see that it can never go back to [abortions just] for women who can afford to travel to a neighboring state…

Elle: When people realize that poor women are being disproportionately affected, that’s when everyone will wake up? That seems very optimistic to me.

Ginsburg: Yes, I think so…. It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.

He follows it up with another quote attributed to ginsburg:

In an earlier interview, she described the Roe v. Wade decision as being intended to control population growth, “particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of

That quote in context? She was quoting others

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae -- in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn't really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Interview will elle: http://www.elle.com/life-love/society-career/supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg

 

[benjipwns]

President Walker in a bit more trouble:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower court's ruling halting an investigation into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and more than two dozen conservative groups for alleged illegal campaign activity.

The ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago is a defeat for Walker and conservatives who argued they have done nothing wrong and that the investigation is a partisan witch hunt designed to chill political speech.Walker is running for re-election this fall against Democrat Mary Burke and is considering a 2016 run for president.

Even with the ruling, the investigation won't be able to resume immediately.

A state judge overseeing the probe also effectively stopped it in January when he issued a ruling quashing requested subpoenas, saying he did not believe anything illegal had transpired. That ruling is under appeal.

I know you're not missing this. This President campaigned on Single Payer. The Clintons stood fast to Public Option 2 Decades ago. We ended up with Individual Mandate despite having a super majority because they're just fucking good at politics.
....
When the hell have liberals without holding a single house in Congress or the Executive forced Conservatives to adopt our model for a policy?

 

[Vahagn]

The GOP lost the 2012 election on a massive scale (losing seats in the House, Senate) and losing the Presidency despite a largely not popular President, shit economy, etc. Mitt Romney made zero inroads in the election. The only reason it wasn't an even bigger blowout was because some people stayed home.

How can you look at 2012 and then look at this year when they're a coin flip to win and argue they're good at politics?

Any political party with half a brain would have easily won in 2012 and would be destroying right now.

The conservative message is not penetrating. Look at all the new voters and how they vote? They're getting crushed! The conservative message is just followed by zealots because of the nature of conservatism.

Conservatives will always be more staunch in their support, not because liberals want to be right, but because of what PD touched on.

Conservatism, at its core, means no change and those opposed to change will always fight louder and harder than those who want change until they are overwhelmed by the numbers. The conservative message is failing miserably but there's still enough soldiers around to keep them alive. But they're dying (literally) faster than they're replenishing.

A) You're confusing fundamentals with bad politics. Their base are xenophobic/homophobic/islamaphobic/sexist bigots. That's their most passionate voting block. They're struggling with a way to embrace women's issues and treat black and brown people better to expand their voting tent without alienating their base. This has nothing to do with being bad at politics, it has to do with being stuck between a rock and a hard spot. The smart, saavy conservatives understand this. So do their politicians. It's something Lyndon Johnson famously dealt with and commented on in the 60's.

B) You're seriously underestimating Obama. Obama wasn't a boiler plate boring candidate. He was Reaganesque and Clintonesque in his ability to bring passion and inspiration to his supporters. It wasn't until NSA and "You can keep your doctor" that that lustre faded, it was there all the way until 2012 with his base. If Obama was Kerry or Gore, he would have lost. But he was Obama, and he went up against a Robot with no good ideas.

C) They have nutjob politicians who occasionally say un-electable things. This doesn't make the conservative political class bad at politics. The very fact that any of those crazies get elected in the first place should tell you how good they are at keeping their true feelings hidden.

 

[benjipwns]

 

[Vahagn]

I didn't say their plans were completely identical, i said the model was the same. Single Payer/Public Option/Individual Mandate are the 3 commonly acknowledged models for heath care reform to approach something near Universal Health Care.

Within the models you can do a lot of different things. A US Single Payer doesn't have to resemble Canada's for example.

 

[benjipwns]

The "individual mandate" model wasn't adopted because one paper released by the Heritage Foundation supported it 15 years earlier. That's not why Hillary adopted it as part of her campaign either.

It's because the Democrats needed to get 60 votes in the Senate.

Romney didn't exactly roll into office and implement it by himself either. Mass had a limited time frame to pass something and everybody tried to top each other.

 

[pigeon]

I know you're not missing this. This President campaigned on Single Payer. The Clintons stood fast to Public Option 2 Decades ago. We ended up with Individual Mandate despite having a super majority because they're just fucking good at politics.

We ended up with a moderate social program because America's a moderate country when it comes to social programs. That's democracy. We didn't have sixty votes for single payer -- and despite the GOP's general abuse of the filibuster, single payer health care is something that we could reasonably expect to need sixty votes for. So we got something that the elected representatives of the people were willing to support. Sure, it would've been nice if Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman were willing to put it all out there for single payer (especially since they lost their seats anyway) but in the end, politicians are responsible to their constituents, and I think it's safe to say that the mean American didn't want us to go from basically no health care regulations to single payer.

edit: benji coercively ninjaed my post

So either we're left with the idea that single payer and public option are so damn unconstitutional and toxic we're stupid for believing in them for 3 decades, or they're just better at effecting political outcomes.

Or the American political system is designed to discourage radical change in favor of incremental change, and so we got an incremental change even though we think the radical change would be better. It's not a dictatorship! "Winning" an election means that we got like 10% more support than the other party. That doesn't represent a mandate to uproot our government, and so that's not what generally happens. We got a big step towards our favored policies. We didn't get to make everything exactly the way we wanted it to be.

 

[Vahagn]

We ended up with a moderate social program because America's a moderate country when it comes to social programs. That's democracy. We didn't have sixty votes for single payer -- and despite the GOP's general abuse of the filibuster, single payer health care is something that we could reasonably expect to need sixty votes for. So we got something that the elected representatives of the people were willing to support. Sure, it would've been nice if Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman were willing to put it all out there for single payer (especially since they lost their seats anyway) but in the end, politicians are responsible to their constituents, and I think it's safe to say that the mean American didn't want us to go from basically no health care regulations to single payer.

edit: benji coercively ninjaed my post



Or the American political system is designed to discourage radical change in favor of incremental change, and so we got an incremental change even though we think the radical change would be better. It's not a dictatorship! "Winning" an election means that we got like 10% more support than the other party. That doesn't represent a mandate to uproot our government, and so that's not what generally happens. We got a big step towards our favored policies. We didn't get to make everything exactly the way we wanted it to be.

Except up until that point, the traditional "moderate" plan was Public Option. The Conservative one was IM.

Obama at first tried Public Option, and settled for IM.

I'm not suggesting we do radical changes and get 100% of what we want (that would be SP). I'm suggesting that when a liberal president and a liberal super majority in Congress pass the traditionally conservative model and conservatives are still able to win the messaging and informing war to the point that Americans love the pieces and hate the plan, they're better at politics.

That's kind of what being better at politics means. They're better at winning the messaging war, practically every time. There are issues that Democrats win on at the national level (background checks, raising minimum wage, gay marriage etc.), but they're rarely if ever able to get legislation passed or have the focus of the country on it for longer than a week. When conservatives get a winning message, they hammer it home consistently until they get what they want.


They got together in 2009 and developed a strategy to win back the house in 2010 and limit this president's successes...it's safe to say they've done that.

 

[Aaron Strife]

http://www.wral.com/new-ad-emphasizes-tillis-work-on-autism/14008389/#LmdMJFhyXsfshS93.99

An independent spending group is on the air Tuesday with a new television commercial that praises state House Speaker Thom Tillis' work on autism legislation, despite the Republican's inability to win final passage of the bill.

hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha

 

[benjipwns]

Except up until that point, the traditional "moderate" plan was Public Option. The Conservative one was IM.

No, it wasn't. HSA's and other tax code fuckery were the conservative plan.

I'm suggesting that when a liberal president and a liberal super majority pass the traditionally conservative model and conservatives are still able to win the messaging and informing war to the point that Americans love the pieces and hate the plan, they're better at politics.

You can't call an Individual Mandate the "traditionally conservative model" because of a Heritage paper and Romneycare anymore than you can call single payer the "traditionally conservative model" because Nixon (and Teddy Roosevelt) backed it.

That's kind of what being better at politics means. They're better at winning the messaging war, practically every time. There are issues that Democrats win on at the national level (background checks, raising minimum wage, gay marriage etc.), but they're rarely if ever able to get legislation passed or have the focus of the country on it for longer than a week. When conservatives get a winning message, they hammer it home consistently until they get what they want.

This is always the excuse, Democrats especially love it because of that book I can't remember the title of, but Republicans and Libertarians do too. Everybody loves us, but we just aren't saying it the right way!

 

[Vahagn]

No, it wasn't. HSA's and other tax code fuckery were the conservative plan.


You can't call an Individual Mandate the "traditionally conservative model" because of a Heritage paper and Romneycare anymore than you can call single payer the "traditionally conservative model" because Nixon (and Teddy Roosevelt) backed it.

Yea, I'm going to disagree with you there. In modern american politics, that's exactly how those 3 plans line up. Also, Teddy Roosevelt wasn't really a conservative.

This is always the excuse, Democrats especially love it because of that book I can't remember the title of, but Republicans and Libertarians do too. Everybody loves us, but we just aren't saying it the right way!

I don't think everyone loves us. But I do think they're winning the messaging war and have been for a long time.

 

[benjipwns]

Johm McCain 2008:

HEALTH CARE
"We will not replace the current system with the staggering inefficiency, maddening irrationality, and uncontrollable costs of a government monopoly." Make insurance more affordable and more secure, and give employees the option of owning coverage that is not tied to their job. Every one should receive the same tax benefit as those who are insured through work, whether through a tax credit or other means.

MEDICARE AND MEDICAID
Revive Medicare by rewarding quality care, promoting competition, eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, and giving patients and providers control over treatment options. Give Medicaid recipients more health care options: "We envision a new Medicaid partnership with the states, improving public health through flexibility and innovation."

2008 GOP platform:

Radical restructuring of health care would be unwise. We want all Americans to be able to choose the best health care provider, hospital, and health coverage for their needs. We believe that real reform is about improving your access to a health care provider, your control over care, and your ability to afford that care.

We will continue to advocate for simplification of the system and the empowerment of patients. This is in stark contrast to the other party's insistence on putting Washington in charge of patient care, which has blocked any progress on meeting these goals. We offer a detailed program that will improve the quality, cost, and coverage of health care throughout the nation, and we will turn that plan into reality.

Patient Control and Portability

Republicans believe all Americans should be able to obtain an affordable health care plan, including a health savings account, which meets their needs and the needs of their families.

Families and health care providers are the key to real reform, not lawyers and bureaucrats. To empower families, we must make insurance more affordable and more secure, and give employees the option of owning coverage that is not tied to their job. Patients should not have to worry about losing their insurance. Insurance companies should have to worry about losing patients' business.

The current tax system discriminates against individuals who do not receive health care from their employers, gives more generous health tax benefits to upper income employees, and fails to provide every American with the ability to purchase an affordable health care plan. Republicans propose to correct inequities in the current tax code that drive up the number of uninsured and to level the playing field so that individuals who choose a health insurance plan in the individual market face no tax penalty. All Americans should receive the same tax benefit as those who are insured through work, whether through a tax credit or other means.

Individuals with pre-existing conditions must be protected; we will help these individuals by building on the experiences of innovative states rather than by creating a new unmanageable federal entitlement. We strongly urge that managed care organizations use the practice patterns and medical treatment guidelines from the state in which the patient lives when making medical coverage decisions.

lol:

Building a Health Care System for Future Emergencies

To protect the American people from the threats we face in the century ahead, we must develop and stockpile medicines and vaccines so we can deliver them where urgently needed. Our health care infrastructure must have the surge capacity to handle large numbers of patients in times of crisis, whether it is a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, a flu pandemic, or a bioterror attack on multiple cities. Republicans will ensure that this infrastructure, including the needed communications capacity, is closely integrated into our homeland security needs.

2004 GOP platform:

True Solutions for Affordable, High-Quality Health Care

The cost of providing health care for employees is a major burden for American businesses. Health insurance costs for employers have been rising every year since 1996, causing businesses to hire fewer new employees and too many families to go without insurance. Studies show that 60 percent of uninsured Americans either work for a small business or are dependent upon someone who does. The way to alleviate that burden is to bring down the cost of health care in America. Shifting the cost-burden onto the federal or state governments – costs that will ultimately be borne by the taxpayers – is not an effective solution to the problem. We must attack the root causes of high health care costs by: aiding small businesses in offering health care to their employees; empowering the self-employed through access to affordable coverage; putting patients and doctors in charge of medical decisions; reducing junk lawsuits and limiting punitive damage awards that raise the cost of health care; and seizing the cost-saving and quality-enhancing potential of emerging health technologies. It is also important that we reaffirm our Party's firm rejection of any measure aimed at making health care a government-run enterprise.

Association Health Plans (AHPs)

We support legislation to enable small employers to pool together to offer health insurance options to their employees. The legislation, already passed by the House, gives small businesses the same purchasing power currently enjoyed by large employers and labor unions. This will go a long way toward providing health care coverage for America's uninsured, 60 percent of whom are estimated to work for or be dependent on someone who works for a small business.

Medical Liability Reform

The medical liability system is harming our medical delivery system. Doctors are afraid to practice medicine. Frequent, unwarranted, lawsuits force doctors out of certain specialty areas and geographic regions. The most dangerous result of this is the declining availability of emergency trauma care and women's health services. In many cases, costs are so prohibitive that many obstetrics/gynecology practices are scaling back service or choosing not to practice altogether. Junk lawsuits add at least $60 billion to health care costs in America because doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine, ordering extensive, unnecessary, and expensive tests and procedures to keep trial lawyers at bay.

The President has proposed, and the Republican House of Representatives has passed, reforms that would speed compensation to injured patients, reduce health care costs, and improve Americans' access to quality health care. Shamefully driven by the powerful trial lawyer lobby, Democrat Senators have repeatedly thwarted the efforts of the Republican majority to deliver meaningful medical liability reform. They have employed their obstructionist tactics three times in the current Congress alone. The Republican Party reaffirms its commitment to putting patients and doctors ahead of trial lawyers. We will continue to battle for litigation reforms that help keep doctors in practice, adopt reasonable caps on non-economic awards in medical malpractice suits, and ensure that Americans have access to quality affordable health care. Health Information Technology

Estimates indicate that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors, while as much as $300 billion is spent each year on health care that does not help patients – unnecessary, inappropriate, inefficient, or ineffective treatments. This is absolutely unacceptable. High costs, medical errors, administrative inefficiencies, and poor coordination are all closely connected to our failure to use health information technology as an integral part of medical care.

Republicans support President Bush's goal of ensuring that most Americans have electronic health records within the next 10 years. He has requested funding for demonstration projects for broader adoption of health IT systems in communities and states. Already, the use of health IT in the Veterans Administration has shown improvements in the quality of care and reductions in the cost. The Administration is working with private sector innovators to develop reliable, secure methods of storing personal medical information that will broaden the benefits of health IT. Privacy is paramount, and participation by patients will be voluntary. These electronic health records will be designed to share information among and between health care providers only when authorized by a patient.

Advances at the nexus of science and technology raise serious moral and legal questions. For example, although medical conditions have been linked to certain genetic markers, there is no certainty that many of these diseases will actually develop. There is growing concern that employers and insurance companies will use genetic information to discriminate by denying jobs or insurance coverage to individuals who have predictive genetic markers for certain diseases. We support efforts to enact genetic discrimination legislation that is fair, reasonable, and consistent with existing laws to prevent discrimination.

In addition, we must take action to allow doctors and hospitals to review best practices without fear of litigation. By sharing information, health professionals can determine ways to avoid errors and complications. These efforts are blocked, however, because good-faith efforts to improve quality and safety are targets for lawsuits based on new information that is made public in the review process. We support the work of the President and Republicans in Congress on legislation to make it possible for health professionals to work together more effectively to provide the best possible care for all patients.

2000 GOP platform:

We intend to save this beleaguered system with a vision of health care adapted to the changing demands of a new century. It is as simple, and yet as profound, as this: All Americans should have access to high-quality and affordable health care. They should have a range of options and be able to select what is the best care for their individual and family needs. The integration of access, affordability, quality, and choice into the nation's health care system is the goal that brings together all of the following proposals. In achieving that goal, we will promote a health care system that supports, not supplants, the private sector; that promotes personal responsibility in health care decision-making; and that ensures the least intrusive role for the federal government.

Affordable, Quality Health Insurance

"We will not nationalize our health care system. We will promote individual choice. We will rely on private insurance. But make no mistake: In my administration, low-income Americans will have access to high-quality health care."
— George W. Bush

Let's give credit where due: More than 100 million American workers and their families have sound health insurance through their places of employment. The job-creating dynamism of our free economy has thus done more to advance health care than any government program possibly could. The tie between good jobs and good insurance coverage is the single most important factor in advancing health care for those who need it.

That's why the Republican party remains determined to change federal law to give small employers the liberty to band together to purchase group insurance for their employees at reduced rates, thus providing them that important security. The tragedy is that this urgent expansion of coverage has this far been blocked by veto threats. With a Republican president, that will change.

Uninsured Americans do not have a single face. Their situations vary tremendously, with changes in family status, age, and income. It makes sense to let them decide what kind of coverage best suits their needs. To give them that power of choice, we propose an unprecedented tax credit that will enable 27 million individuals and families to purchase the private health insurance that's right for them. We also support full deductibility of health insurance premiums for the self-employed.

Truly positive market forces occur when individuals have the ability to make individual marketplace decisions. We therefore strongly encourage support of the emerging concepts of defined contribution plans and medical savings accounts. Individuals should be free to manage their own health care needs through Flexible Savings Accounts (FSAs) and Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). These initiatives make a government takeover of health care as anachronistic as surgery without anesthesia. We will make these accounts the vanguard of a new consumer rights movement in health care. Individuals should be able to roll over excess FSA dollars from one year to the next, instead of losing their unspent money at the end of each year. MSAs should be a permanent part of tax law, offered to all workers without restriction, with both employers and employees allowed to contribute.

Still, more needs to be done. A major reason why health insurance is so expensive is that many state legislatures now require all insurance policies to provide benefits and treatments which many families do not want and do not need. It is as if automakers were required by law to sell only fully equipped cars, even to buyers who didn't want or need all the extras. These mandates, extending far beyond minimum standards, increase costs for everyone, price low-income families out of the insurance market, and advance the interests of specific providers. They have no place in a health care system based on consumer rights and patient choice.

One area of health care that is sadly ignored is the role of primary and preventive care. This is particularly important in our inner cities and rural communities, where the emergency room may be the only avenue for assistance. People in rural and underserved areas need access to critical primary care. We will boost funding for community health centers and establish stronger public-private partnerships for safety net providers and hospitals in rural and underserved communities.

When Congressional Republicans established the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) program in 1997, they enabled us to secure health insurance coverage for approximately 8 million youngsters. Republicans want to ensure that children have access to quality health care, and that states have the flexibility to innovate, expand family coverage without interference from the Health Care Financing Administration, and reach out to eligible households that are currently not enrolled in a health insurance program or in Medicaid. In a Republican administration, the first order of business at the Department of Health and Human Services will be to eliminate regulations that are stymieing the effectiveness of S-CHIP program and to stop imposing unwarranted mandates, so states can make sure children who need health care can get it. A streamlined enrollment process and energetic outreach efforts will finally fulfill the promise of S-CHIP. All it takes is caring.

 

[pigeon]

Except up until that point, the traditional "moderate" plan was Public Option. The Conservative one was IM.

Obama at first tried Public Option, and settled for IM.

No, it wasn't. We just talked about this! The conservative plan for health care was to do nothing at all. When challenged on the topic, conservative think tanks produced white papers that talked about the individual mandate. But no conservatives actually attempted to get the individual mandate plan implemented at any point, because it wasn't their real plan. It was a blind to protect them from the accusation that they had no plan.

The fact that conservatives talked about the individual mandate does not make it "the conservative plan." Again, any plan at all was progressive compared to the status quo. They're all shifts to the left. You're talking like the passage of a health care bill was an inevitability and it was just a question of which one we did. But that's not accurate. As Teddy can tell you, it took literally a hundred years to pass health care reform.

 

[benjipwns]

"Conservative" health care reform was tax credits, tax credits, tort reform, health savings accounts, tax credits, and tax credits for health savings accounts. And one or two smart roll backs of dumb regulations.

 

[pigeon]

"Conservative" health care reform was tax credits, tax credits, tort reform, health savings accounts, tax credits, and tax credits for health savings accounts. And one or two smart roll backs of dumb regulations.

I'm comfortable with my summary of that as "nothing at all." Basically, their plan was to claim that the tax cuts they already wanted to do would fix this problem just like they would fix all the other problems. But it's good to have a little more detail!

 

[benjipwns]

How dare you forget non-specific tort reform. You want me to post the whole three page long section on it from the platform or something?