Sarah Palin: bat****, or howling-at-the-moon bat****?

[Guynemer]

Do you want to make a bet or no?

[KrazyHorse]

Drake, what are the odds you would be willing to bet at that she will win the Presidency in either the 2012 or 2016 elections?

I would lay you 10-1 a stake of 100$ on your side (1000$ on my side) that she will not.

[Straybow]

Liberals should have responded the way my friend Joe Conason (and a few other non-snotty liberals) did, by pointing out that we already have death panels of a sort: the ones manned by the insurance companies who ration and deny coverage for the sake of their profit margins. Would government rationing be better? It might be less greed-motivated, but maybe not. There at least should have been a discussion of the real issue of health care rationing.

http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrosenbaum/2009/08/28/how-sarah-palin-rope-a-doped-all-too-many-liberals/

I'm glad someone else picked up on this...

Except he's wrong. Yes, insurance companies decide what gets covered based on the coverage the customer pays for.

When a new, expensive treatment comes new policies are inderwritten to account for higher costs, or you can stick with an existing policy and exclude the fancy new stuff. Over time, as the new technology comes down in cost and proves its cost effectiveness in terms of patient survival, quality of life, etc, these treatments become standard in lower cost policies.

[SlowwHand]

No one with say..cancer, would want to try new advances. Aids, no. Heart disease, no.
We'll just take our chances with what has shown to not work. Who knows, maybe we're the lucky one.

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake, what are the odds you would be willing to bet at that she will win the Presidency in either the 2012 or 2016 elections?

I don't think we're in for a double-dip recession, so I would predict that Obama will win in 2012. Have no clue who will win in 2016.

[Straybow]

Are you nuts? With Obama's taxes alone we're in for Carteresque "malaise," if not FDResque extension and deepening of the recession.

[Drake Tungsten]

Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

[DinoDoc]

Are you nuts? With Obama's taxes alone we're in for Carteresque "malaise," if not FDResque extension and deepening of the recession.

I think the best you can say about Obama policies at this point is that they aren't helping matters. I don't think there's real solid evidence at this point to support you contention however.

[Drake Tungsten]

Obama's been very careful to ensure that the tax hikes that will be necessary to pay for his agenda won't kick in until after the 2012 election. The mostly costly parts of healthcare reform don't phase in until 2013 for a reason...

[Straybow]

Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

Deficit almost $2 trillion due to bailout and "stimulus," bond auctions already on the rocks, bond ratings in danger, baseline deficit going up with no end in sight. Tax revenues are falling due to the recession. The tax hikes are coming sooner than that.

[Drake Tungsten]

You're perilously close to a place on my ignore list.

[Wezil]

Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

Deficit almost $2 trillion due to bailout and "stimulus," bond auctions already on the rocks, bond ratings in danger, baseline deficit going up with no end in sight. Tax revenues are falling due to the recession. The tax hikes are coming sooner than that.

You're still paying for a couple wars as well.

[Straybow]

8 years in Iraq ($684B) < 1 year of bailout ($700B+) < "stimulous"
2 years of bailout + stimulus < 4 years of Obama budget deficits
Entire national debt through 2008 < 8 years of Obama spending deficits, projected by CBO

Let's not forget the $600B the Dems want to "transfer" from Medicare to Obamacare, except it isn't there and would have to be covered by more bonds that creditor nations are increasingly unwilling to buy.

Go ahead, Drake, ignore it (and me) if you wish. Won't make the problem go away.

DD, Obama could resist all the rest the Dem's ideas on how to spend our money and he'd still outdo FDR. He doesn't have the political capital to rein in Pelosi, even if he wanted to.

[Wezil]

$684B (and climbing) is nothing to sneeze at since it was entirely unnecessary.

Afghanistan costs are about to soar.

[Kidlicious]

Anybody who thinks that universal health care is a business subsidy, or thinks that the taxes required to pay for it do not reduce economic output should consider replacing health care by something more fungible and seeing what conclusions they reach.

In other words, say that the gov't decides to give everybody in the country 5000$ a year and funds this by applying a surtax of X% on income. Do you think that this universal grant is a subsidy to pay for the first 5000$ of an employee's salary? Do you think employment will be higher or lower with this program in place?

So what? I was talking about the demand for labor you nitwit.