Les Jones

Of course the government can’t balance its health-care books, it provides health care for people who can not afford it. Duh.

It’s the private health care system that is failing. The private system is based on employer-provided insurance, but employers have worked diligently over the past couple of decades to escape that obligation. The market has not stepped in with any affordable alternative, so the pool of private-health failures continues to grow.

So the government steps in out of compassion because, you know, we live in a society founded on Christian principles and shit, and people like you blame government for creating the mess it is only trying to clean up.

Your stance boils down to “If we ignore the solutions, the problem will go away.”

I thought you were being optimistic when you said: “Once people realize how financially unstable the current government health care system is they won’t want another.” Then I read the first comment. Yep.

See, it’s not the government’s fault; it’s the greedy corporate capitalists’.

Persimmon: that compassion’s great right up until we have to turn out the lights because there’s no more money to pay for the compassion. Then what?

If the lights go out, it won’t be compassion that got us there.

I know you guys like to fancy yourselves defenders of the taxpayer, but the Bush years have exposed the lie. All this talk about bankrupting the government is just an a way to avoid speaking the truth, which is that caring for the poor and the sick is simply not a priority for you. Spending a trillion exacting bloody revenge on cave-dwelling holdovers from medieval times doesn’t bother you, but spending a fraction of that to repair our failing health care market gives you fits. Obviously the money is not the real issue.

Well, I’m not sure who “you guys” are. Is it people who always voted for Democrats (and Ralph Nader in 2000) and who only voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in 2004?

Anyway, here are the numbers:

- $1 trillion for the Iraq war (your number)
- $2.3 trillion unfunded liability for medical and disability benefits promised to civil servants and military personnel who retire (some fraction of which is related to Iraq, but not that much)
- $4.6 trillion unfunded Social Security liabilities
- $10 trillion national debt
- $33.4 trillion unfunded liabilities for Medicare

So how is Iraq bankrupting us relative to the rest of that stuff?

I’ll define “you guys” as those who say the government ruins all it touches, therefore we can’t let the government solve our problems (never mind the false dichotomy between “government” and “our”).

My point is not that Iraq is bankrupting us, but that “you guys” are hypocrites. There has never been a more blatant example of a government program riddled with graft and corruption than the invasion of Iraq, but government-health-care whiners have had little to say regarding that huge waste of lives and dollars. What is really bankrupt is the philosophy that underlies your obstructionism.

If you are going to rail against government waste, rail against it, but don’t do so only as a smoke screen to hide your more selfish motives.

Persimmon, it isn’t waste per se that concerns me. Sure, there was waste in Iraq, and in SS and Medicare, or any government program.

The problem with Medicare isn’t waste. It’s that even without any waste the program is going to cripple the economy. Does that not worry you in the least? You’re A-OK with this country going bankrupt?

Compassion is great, but to paraphrase Lloyd Bensten I can create the appearance of compassion all day long if you let me write rubber checks.

I am not OK with health-care costs crippling the economy, but people are going to have heart attacks and strokes whether we have private health care or public health care, and prejudices that dictate up front that government can’t solve the problem are less than worthless. What we are witnessing is a failure of private-market solutions, specifically employer-based health care.

Your approach offers nothing but allowing the problem to fester under the current flaws so that it grows ever harder to solve.

“Reducing Social Security payments doesn’t seem like an option - the government has made express commitments of specific dollar amounts upon retirement. It would undermine credibility in the government to reduce those payments.”

Credibility?!?

HAhahahahaha! That was funny Les.

“prejudices that dictate up front that government can’t solve the problem are less than worthless. What we are witnessing is a failure of private-market solutions, specifically employer-based health care.”

Yet there is no proof of this, is there?

The USA is approaching bankruptcy

As hard is it is to believe, the US may have to default on it’s debt. Public debt has grown by more than 100% with all the bailouts. We currently have a debt level 3 times what the European Union allows it’s members. We are financially in far worse debt as a percent of GDP than Italy. Unfortunately, our Social Security Trust Fund is financed almost entirely by special bonds. Our government loaned themselves the money in the Trust Fund and spent it like drunken sailors at a strip club. We are left holding what may be worthless pieces of paper to guarantee our Social Security checks.

ASIA - UNITED STATES
U.S. debt approaches insolvency; Chinese currency reserves at risk
by Maurizio d’Orlando
In a few months, America’s public debt has grown to more than 100% of GDP. Fear of a valuation crisis for the dollar, with tremendous consequences for Asian countries, major exporters to the United States.

Milan (AsiaNews) - In the United States, the danger of debt insolvency is growing, putting at risk the currency reserves of foreign countries, China chief among them. According to new figures published by Bloomberg in recent days (Nov. 25, 2008 [1]), the American government has employed a total of 8.549 trillion dollars to stop the financial crisis. This means a total of about 24-25.4 trillion dollars of direct or indirect public debt weighing on American taxpayers. The complete tally must also include the debt - about 5-6 trillion dollars - of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are now quasi-public companies, because 79.9% of their capital is controlled by a public entity, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which manages them as a public conservatorship.

In 2007, public debt in the United States was 10.6 trillion dollars, compared to a GDP (gross domestic product) of 13.811 trillion dollars. Public debt in 2007 was therefore 76.75% of GDP. In just one year, direct and indirect public debt have grown to more than 100% of GDP, reaching 176.9% to 184.2%. These percentages exclude the debt guaranteed by policies underwritten by AIG, also nationalized, and liabilities for health spending (Medicaid and Medicare) and pensions (Social Security)[2]. By way of comparison, the Maastricht accords require member states of the European Union (EU) to reduce their public debt to no more than 60% of GDP. Again by way of comparison, in one of the EU countries with the largest public debt, Italy, public debt in 2007 was equal to 104% of GDP.

In 2007, 61.82% [3] of America’s public debt was held by foreign investors, most of them Asian. So the U.S. public debt held by nonresident foreigners is equal to about 109.39% (113.86%) of GDP. According to a study by the International Monetary Fund, countries with more than 60% of their public debt held by nonresident foreigners run a high risk of currency crisis and insolvency, or debt default. On the historical level, there are no recent examples of countries with currencies valued at reserve status that have lapsed into public debt insolvency. There are also few or no precedents of such a vast and rapid expansion of public debt. Link here.

The United States of America is approaching bankruptcy