The Liberal Thread #2 - No Debate Please

[punkin]

As you can read in my earlier post, I didn't say she campaigned.

I never said you did. I believe I asked Honu that question originally. Still waiting for an answer.

 

["Got Disney"]

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009854582

what are you trying to explaine please?

 

[NewJersey]

I happen to like Obama. I just prefer Hillary. I also don't feel the need to exaggerate, sling mud, or outright lie about him.

And how am I doing any of the three?

Let it go Tim. When someone resorts to calling names, that's all they've got.

I guess the one good thing coming out of this is that there is actually a choice this election for the Democrats.

 

[punkin]

Florida decided to move it's primary date knowing this and Clinton campaigned there knowing this.

Just in case anyone missed it.

So far, it seems that Only Obama campaigned in Florida before the primaries.

 

[NewJersey]

[QUOTE="Got Disney";23041812] what are you trying to explaine please?[/QUOTE]

I thought punkin was saying she didn't attend fundraisers before the primary, which yes I know was allowed.

Another bad decision by the DNC IMO - take away their delegates but still allow them to be used as an ATM. The DNC is a joke.

 

[JARNJ3]

I happen to like Obama. I just prefer Hillary. I also don't feel the need to exaggerate, sling mud, or outright lie about him.

QQ - I keep hearing that MD is Obama country. What's your experience?

 

["Got Disney"]

I'm still waiting for a responce about Obama mandating to age 25...why Clintons plan to mandate is terrible but okay for Obama because he is not everyone just under 25...mandating is mandating and 25 year olds are Adults...not kids..

 

[JARNJ3]

I thought punkin was saying she didn't attend fundraisers before the primary, which yes I know was allowed.

Another bad decision by the DNC IMO - take away their delegates but still allow them to be used as an ATM. The DNC is a joke.

On that we can agree!

 

["Got Disney"]

I thought punkin was saying she didn't attend fundraisers before the primary, which yes I know was allowed.

Another bad decision by the DNC IMO - take away their delegates but still allow them to be used as an ATM. The DNC is a joke.

Yes I agree even if Obama had von there it is still a joke and if I lived in Florida I would not be a happy camper...IO would fight it also...even if they decided to split the delegates that would be fair.

 

[punkin]

QQ - I keep hearing that MD is Obama country. What's your experience?

I wish I knew. It seems to break about evenly around here, with Obama having a slight edge. However, MD is not uniform. I am in a close in DC suburb with highly educated, highly political residents. I'm not sure we're representative of MD as a whole.

 

[punkin]

And how am I doing any of the three?

Really, I am not trying to single you out. However, you cannot disagree that there are some Obama supporters (and I have met them IRL as well as on the boards) who seem to think that Clinton is the Devil incarnate.

 

[JARNJ3]

[QUOTE="Got Disney";23041851]I'm still waiting for a responce about Obama mandating to age 25...why Clintons plan to mandate is terrible but okay for Obama because he is not everyone just under 25...mandating is mandating and 25 year olds are Adults...not kids..[/QUOTE]

Ooh - a posted an article about that on that particular thread! It was by Paul Krugman from the NYT.

 

[NewJersey]

QQ - I keep hearing that MD is Obama country. What's your experience?

My prediction is Hillary takes MD and VA and Obama takes DC - she'll carry the DC suburbs by large margins but Obama will carry Richmond and Baltimore.


[QUOTE="Got Disney";23041851]I'm still waiting for a responce about Obama mandating to age 25...why Clintons plan to mandate is terrible but okay for Obama because he is not everyone just under 25...mandating is mandating and 25 year olds are Adults...not kids..[/QUOTE]

It is mandated for those under 18. For those under 25, they have the option of using their parent's plan. The reason I think he allows the option is that there are a lot of students who are in grad school or college that have no insurance. I believe NJ also extended the option to age 25 last year.

To be honest, healthcare isn't my forte - and also not my key issue in the race so probably someone else would understand better.

 

["Got Disney"]

Ooh - a posted an article about that on that particular thread! It was by Paul Krugman from the NYT.

I was just reading that...here it is....

Analysis by Paul Krugman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/op...=5070&emc=eta1


Quote:
The principal policy division between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama involves health care. It’s a division that can seem technical and obscure — and I’ve read many assertions that only the most wonkish care about the fine print of their proposals.

But as I’ve tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches. And new research, just released, confirms what I’ve been saying: the difference between the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short.

Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost.

Let’s talk about how the plans compare.

Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone, regardless of medical history. Both also allow people to buy into government-offered insurance instead.

And both plans seek to make insurance affordable to lower-income Americans. The Clinton plan is, however, more explicit about affordability, promising to limit insurance costs as a percentage of family income. And it also seems to include more funds for subsidies.

But the big difference is mandates: the Clinton plan requires that everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn’t.

Mr. Obama claims that people will buy insurance if it becomes affordable. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise.

After all, we already have programs that make health insurance free or very cheap to many low-income Americans, without requiring that they sign up. And many of those eligible fail, for whatever reason, to enroll.

An Obama-type plan would also face the problem of healthy people who decide to take their chances or don’t sign up until they develop medical problems, thereby raising premiums for everyone else. Mr. Obama, contradicting his earlier assertions that affordability is the only bar to coverage, is now talking about penalizing those who delay signing up — but it’s not clear how this would work.

So the Obama plan would leave more people uninsured than the Clinton plan. How big is the difference?

To answer this question you need to make a detailed analysis of health care decisions. That’s what Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T., one of America’s leading health care economists, does in a new paper.

Mr. Gruber finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.

That doesn’t look like a trivial difference to me. One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured.

As with any economic analysis, Mr. Gruber’s results are only as good as his model. But they’re consistent with the results of other analyses, such as a 2003 study, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that compared health reform plans and found that mandates made a big difference both to success in covering the uninsured and to cost-effectiveness.

And that’s why many health care experts like Mr. Gruber strongly support mandates.

Now, some might argue that none of this matters, because the legislation presidents actually manage to get enacted often bears little resemblance to their campaign proposals. And there is, indeed, no guarantee that Mrs. Clinton would, if elected, be able to pass anything like her current health care plan.

But while it’s easy to see how the Clinton plan could end up being eviscerated, it’s hard to see how the hole in the Obama plan can be repaired. Why? Because Mr. Obama’s campaigning on the health care issue has sabotaged his own prospects.

You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.

If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.

If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here’s what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we’ll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won’t happen.

 

["Got Disney"]

My prediction is Hillary takes MD and VA and Obama takes DC - she'll carry the DC suburbs by large margins but Obama will carry Richmond and Baltimore.




It is mandated for those under 18. For those under 25, they have the option of using their parent's plan. The reason I think he allows the option is that there are a lot of students who are in grad school or college that have no insurance. I believe NJ also extended the option to age 25 last year.

To be honest, healthcare isn't my forte - and also not my key issue in the race so probably someone else would understand better.

Yes but on the parents plan it is mandated by the parents...

 

[NewJersey]

Really, I am not trying to single you out. However, you cannot disagree that there are some Obama supporters (and I have met them IRL as well as on the boards) who seem to think that Clinton is the Devil incarnate.

Oh totally, and who knows if that will play out if Hillary is the nominee - this is a fierce battle and some on both side are really for their candidate.

My grandmother voted for Hillary yesterday and will vote Republican over Obama - so there seems to be some of it on both sides but I think a lot of that is due to the fervent support they both have.

 

[JARNJ3]

Ooh - a posted an article about that on that particular thread! It was by Paul Krugman from the NYT.

So what did you think of the explanation? Did it answer your questions?

 

[punkin]

Ooh - a posted an article about that on that particular thread! It was by Paul Krugman from the NYT.

I read that. Interesting analysis. I am not sure what the fuss is about mandates. Mandates are what make the entire plan affordable. Everybody (regardless of insurability) pays.


OK, good night people. I am going to bed.

 

[MyManGoofy!]

I got the standard 'Send us more money' from the democratic party. I sent a response saying I would IF they would guarantee me that Florida and Michigan's delegates WOULD NOT be allowed to count. Senator Clinton can't go back after agreeing NOT to campaign there (as did the other Democrats) and then change her mind and want them counted since she needs the delegates. Sorry, Hillary, that's NOT playing fair and I'm not having any part of it.

Florida was nothing but a popularity contest and Hillary has the name recognition. But actually, he won the vote of those who made up their mind 3 days and sooner to election day. She overwhelmingly won the early vote like in CA.

I will be OUTRAGED if they sit MI and FL - especially MI where she kept her name on the ballot and the fact that 41% of MI Democrats came out just to vote uncommitted says a lot!

Because that was their penalty for doing so, they did it anyways....

The whole Michigan/Florida thing is a complete debacle.... Hillary was the only name on th Michigan ballot, and, she was the only one that went, coincidentally the night before Florida's primary for a Fundraising event & her plane's tires landed as soon as the primary was over..... But, regardless, neither could accurately convey their messages, and it's a detriment to both of them.... It shouldn't be counted as all candidates were led to believe that to be the truth.... what's the DNC going to do? Say, OOPS, didn't mean that, all you other candidates (and there were more at that time), but it counts afterall?? Talk about splintering the party....

Floridian chiming in here.

Sounds to me like a lot of people have no idea what they are talking about here.

Florida has an overwhelming Republican majority up in Tallahassee. They were the ones that put through a vote to change our primary date and we the people of Florida HAD NO SAY in the matter what so ever. When the DNC said that we had X number of days to move it back - I just about fell over. Our state Dems were going to get the Republicans to make that change why? They had a very vested interest in keeping the primary where it was - not just for Florida to have a larger say in the nomination (why does NH and OH matter that much again? I think we should be fighting for a single national primary - but I digress) but a chance to screw the Dems? Hey they were all over it.

Hillary DID NOT campaign here at anytime. Neither did Obama. However - both of them had fundraising teams here - make no mistake. They were allowed the fundraisers by the rules the DNC set down. Coming to the state after the primaries were over does NOT constitute campaigning.

Finally - how dare you all? Really - how dare you all so casually dismiss me and my vote? Not just mine but a record number of voters on both sides? (The Republicans lost half their delegates due to the date change.) This was done to us by a stubborn state legislature and a wrong headed DNC. I cannot believe that my fellow Americans are not only not standing up and echoing my voice but they are actually part of the move to stifle it. Actually, it seems to be an Obama supporter thing more than a general opinion. Funny things is - I voted for Obama in the primary. But the words and actions of his supporters combined with some other misgivings that I have had, moved me firmly into Hillary's camp.

I am not going to post on this thread anymore. I thought that this thread would be a place to work things out and find common ground. I was stupid enough to think that the need to be right over need to do right was restricted to the other side. I hate that I feel so wrong.

You all talk about Hillary's divisiveness - but she is not creating this divide, is she? So go ahead and tear me up. I am going back to my fluff.

 

[JARNJ3]

My prediction is Hillary takes MD and VA and Obama takes DC - she'll carry the DC suburbs by large margins but Obama will carry Richmond and Baltimore.

Aw - c'mon - this is that Obama technique of lowering expectations...... isn't it?
<- said tongue in cheek



Everything I've heard since this morning is that Obama is invincible and will win the next 7 contests (most of which are caucuses....)