Jim. It drives me n#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g futs how exposed we are. Big picture is we are forked, little picture is we are forked.

Roll in the high drug use, major addiction, and video gamers reduced from productive society and it is an increasingly smaller pool to provide for the masses.

20TrillBaby in 12 years. Goiing to be 50 trill in the not distant future. The Perpetual Motion machine IS the debt clock.

And we'll be lucky to live through it.

LOL One researcher, a Tulsa geologist, is now suggesting something else may be at work -- the weather and aquifers.

amazing nothing like keeping your head buried in the sand

I am not the one here who has his head buried in only one possibility. And I don't have an ideological investment in any of the possibilities. The cause of earthquakes in Oklahoma is not about the free market.

A free market is not free of government regulation. What it should be free of is regulation which restricts or denies freedom. In order to understand the reason for that in a social compact founded on individual freedom, you have to understand what social and political freedom essentially is. It is not license. It demands that those who wish to be free do not trample on the freedom of others. Interactions must be voluntary and honest. Coercing someone or cheating her is not voluntary interaction. Being cheated is not voluntary, agreed to, interaction. When you coerce or cheat, you are not free because you depend on someone else's involuntary submission to you. In effect, you become a slave to slavery. The slave owner cannot survive without slaves. He is not socially free in his interactions with those he cheats or coerces. His cheating and coercion destroys the intrinsic nature of freedom. Social freedom, in contrast, ensures that everyone is free to depend on his ability to do rather than depending on the submission of others to do for him. It requires the responsibility to assure that all in society are free. It requires the virtue to reign in personal desire to coerce and cheat. And that is the foundation for a truly free market.

License, on the other hand, comes in two forms. Breaking of the social contract by personally coercing or cheating others. Or complicity with government which gives you a license to have legal advantages over others.

So, given that society can impose regulations, what should be the nature of those regulations vis a vis a free market? Such regulations should be of the kind that assures the market is free. Such regulations should, on the one hand, penalize those who distort the market, those who coerce or cheat others. On the other hand, it should not grant license to some giving them advantages over others, and certainly should not give some the legal power or advantage that essentially eliminates competition from others who want to freely engage in the market.

If the people of Oklahoma want to impose regulations for well founded, correct reasons equally on all who want to drill for oil on their territory, they can do so. It can penalize those who violate the regulations. And it must not grant advantages to some at the disadvantage of others.

The health care system has been massively distorted by government regulations. At this point, the regulations have squeezed out competition. They have limited or denied the ability of individuals to freely trade with providers and insurers. They have made the costs for medical devices outrageously expensive. They have made, in general, health care so expensive that individuals cannot afford it. they have driven the system incrementally, and steadily, toward single payer government health care.

None of that is free market. When you blame the free market for those conditions, you have your head buried in the sand that Progressive government constantly throws in your eyes.

It will likely be north of 50 trillion before you and I are gone. Some legacy we are leaving for the future.

That is the thing. At 50 trillion and such, massive debt alternatives are few: economic enslavement within the system or abolishing the monetary system and having Big Gov determine the trading standard.

StarTrek harmony it ain't going to be

And no one is talking about it, because people somehow think that it's not 'real debt' when you're talking about a government. Here in CT, the city of Hartford's bond rating just got lowered to "junk", and the state isn't far behind.

The health care system has been massively distorted by government regulations. At this point, the regulations have squeezed out competition. They have limited or denied the ability of individuals to freely trade with providers and insurers. They have made the costs for medical devices outrageously expensive. They have made, in general, health care so expensive that individuals cannot afford it. they have driven the system incrementally, and steadily, toward single payer government health care.


:bs:


BIG Bad Goverment isn't the Problem Single payer is coming and heath insurance company's will be a memory they have already dug there own Grave with unsustainable rate hikes

health care will still happen hospitals doctors and nurses will still work medications will still be made the share holders will be the entire US not just stock holders look for a profit

John affordable heath car is not possible its lost ..These company's Love money they will never roll back prices .. not different then the airlines charging for baggage extra leg room even picking a seat . or a Hotel that charges you to park or charges you a resort fee cuz they have a pool once they knew they could charge it and get paid they all do it ... there all in on it its baked into the cake

Maybe the government should stop spending $100 million per F35 fighter "redistributed" some of the 57% of our national defense Budget and send a little to health care which is only 5% .... of the Budget

Sadly it is more like 140 million a pop on F35 (more actually as that number does not included engines). I could find plenty of waste in procurement and more than happy top debate the ills of defense procurement and Beltway Bandits.

But you do not underscore your seriousness on math or debate when you put out numbers like that : "57% of our national defense Budget and send a little to health care which is only 5% ". Those numbers are false, and at best highly misleading. The only time numbers are close to yours is when you are parsing discretionary spending. See image 1 below from CBO. This has Defense around 45% of discretionary spending and health around 23% (combined national health and Veteran/VA spending). But those numbers don't include most of Healthcare which is Medicare and Medicaid If you look at total budget (3.9 Trillion) then defense is down around 15% and health including Medicare / Medicaid are around 28%.

So argue your point but establish a consistent baseline for your numbers: You can't use gross numbers in one pie and compare to net numbers in the other pie


https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fi...cretionary.png

How Government Regulations Made Healthcare So Expensive

A long article but brief summary of how government intervention incrementally over time helped to create excessively profitable monopolies of doctors, of hospitals, of insurance, etc. Somewhat tough and boring to read, but give it a try if you're interested in a basic understanding of the rise in cost of healthcare:

https://mises.org/blog/how-governmen...e-so-expensive

A very, VERY, important video to watch regarding the high cost of health care, and why "health care is not really that expensive" according to the doctor in this video. And how it would not really be that expensive if health care was truly free market based:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Y8vGuBkrk

Very informative
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you do love your you tube echo chamber


but not to worry Trumps going to blow up the whole thing up!! i hope nobody is buying open market .. He just bit the hand that feeds him

Right off the guys web site https://surgerycenterok.com/?procedu...y=urology#jump In an effort to make care accessible to all of our patients regardless of their financial situation, we’ve partnered with Parasail to find patient‐friendly payment plans Vasovasostomy $5,300.00* Total Knee Arthroplasty (Knee Replacement)i
$15,499*
not sure how thats less than Insurance

If you have nothing relevant to say about the video, why do you bother to reply with stupid, useless, junk?

stupid, useless, junk?

Happy to see that you feel prices from his web site are useless junk?

But your you tube videos are not stupid, useless, junk? produced to generates Views ... and promote his business model .. packaged as a cure for health care ...


nothing relevant to say about the video or do mean agree with the video because his prices are relevant

Recent quote by our President "Take a look at who those insurance companies support and I guarantee you one thing. It’s not Donald Trump.” The Repub. lack of compassion and hate for "those" people is pathetic.
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Have you compared his prices to those that other Hospitals charge insurance companies. Point is that other mainstream doctors and their surgeons charge way more. If you think that insurance makes those surgeries cheaper, you're not considering overall costs. Major surgeries are not something a person has every month. The bulk of the surgeries on his list are once or twice in a lifetime. And many or most people will not require most of those surgeries. Insurance premiums with high deductibles occur every month. And the deductible will occur with every surgery. And the costs get higher every year. The overall cost of healthcare is far more expensive under our insurance/government paid system. We all pay for that. Add up all the insurance premiums you pay in a lifetime for a service and for the great majority of people who live the age of life expectancy will have paid far more in premiums than the actual price you paid for that which was insured.

His point was that health care is way more expensive than it would be in a free market based system. His free market based prices are way lower than the regulated system imposes on healthcare. That is what the debate should be about. Not out of context prices.

You didn't discuss any of that. You showed some numbers without context and made a snarky comment about me and a supposed echo chamber. For me, that was useless junk.

this is great...

Trump Faithfully Executes Obamacare; Media, Democrats Go Nuts

By Andrew C. McCarthy
— October 14, 2017

Why don’t the stories say: “President Trump Faithfully Executes Affordable Care Act”?

In report after sky-is-falling report, the journalism wing of the media-Democrat complex castigates the president over his decision to — as the New York Times put it — “scrap subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out of pocket costs of low-income people.” These subsidy payments are “critical” to sustaining the “Affordable Care Act.” Without them, the Grey Lady frets, “President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement” could “unravel.” To add insult to injury, the paper implies that Trump’s “determination to dismantle [Obamacare] on his own” is a malign attack on the rule of law, coming only after Republicans reneged on their vow to repeal it by legislation.

It’s ironic. Notwithstanding the many outrageous, mendacious things the president says and tweets, the press is aghast that his “fake news” tropes against mainstream-media stalwarts resonate with much of the country. Well, if you want to know why, this latest Obamacare coverage is why. What Trump has actually done is end the illegal payoffs without which insurance companies have no rational choice but to jack up premiums or flee the Obamacare exchanges. The culprits here are the charlatans who gave us Obamacare. To portray Trump as the bad guy is not merely fake news. It’s an out-and-out lie.

Which is to say: It’s about as honest as the Democrats’ labeling of Obamacare as the Affordable Care Act.

The subsidy payments to insurance companies may be “critical” to sustaining the ACA, but they are not provided for in the ACA. The Obamacare law did not appropriate them. No legislation appropriates them. They are and have always been illegal.

These payments are blatantly illegal. The federal district court in Washington so ruled last year. For what it’s worth, I believe Judge Rosemary Collyer was wrong to grant the House of Representatives standing to sue the Obama administration. The Constitution gives Congress its own powerful tools to confront presidential lawlessness; the Article I branch does not need the Article III branch to do its heavy lifting. That said, Judge Collyer’s decision on the merits is unassailable.

The media-Democrat narrative that President Trump is imperiously flouting the rule of law has it backwards. In cutting off the insurance-company subsidies, Trump is enforcing the ACA as written, consistent with his constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully. It was President Obama who usurped Congress’s power of the purse by directing the payment of taxpayer funds that lawmakers had not appropriated.

Finally, the claim that Trump is “unraveling” the ACA would be laughable were it not so cynical. You can’t unravel something by honoring its terms. Obamacare is unraveling because it was designed to unravel. This is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Just because the sky may not be falling on you or I. Means nothing to those who the sky is falling on


President Trump's decision Thursday to end subsidy payments to health insurance companies is expected to raise premiums for middle-class families and cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars.

"Ending the CSR payments is another sign that President Trump is doing what he can to undermine the stability of the individual market under the ACA," wrote Tim Jost, professor emeritus of law at Washington and Lee University

The decision will most directly affect middle-class families who buy their own insurance without financial help from the government. Consumers who earn more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level — an individual with income of about $48,000 or a family of four that makes more than $98,400 — will likely see their costs for coverage rise next year by an average of about 20 percent nationwide.

Ironically, the decision to end the $7 billion-a-year cost-sharing payments is likely to cost the federal government more than making them — nearly $200 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.




this guy was making sense until he went all conspiracy theory " The Democrats grasp this. They know they can accomplish The Grand Plan only by inuring the public to it incrementally. That is what Obamacare is built to do. It is intended to unravel, only gradually and with the right villains taking the blame, while the government — having actually caused the problems — emerges as the savior."
Each juncture of the ACA’s inevitable collapse is orchestrated to highlight greedy insurance companies who opt out, or ruthless Republicans — and now, of course, the monstrous Trump — who cut off desperately needed funds. The idea is that when the system finally implodes, the public will be so contemptuous of the insurers and the GOP, they will see the government — the Democrats’ panacea of “free” universal health care — as the only viable option.

This is why the role played by the Democrats’ media allies is so vital




.. this guy was making sense until he went all conspiracy theory ^^^^^ He thinks Democratic were that smart to plant this seed 8 years ago to get single player LOL

Quote:
Originally Posted by wdmso

Democratic were that smart to plant this seed 8 years ago to get single player



I think devious and dishonest would be more accurate....it's been pointed out that this was the intention and purpose repeatedly over the past 8 years..that the Democratic continually lied through the entire process was yes, an indication that their motives were not necessarily true or honest.....

Neither side is true or honest. Get a grip
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no argument with that I am just saying the (Dems ) are not that forwarded thinking .. to hatch such a plan as the article suggest

ps why whole quote was "He thinks Democratic were that smart to plant this seed 8 years ago to get single player LOL" The author of the article

so much for being "progressive"...huh?

Obamacare was supposed to lower health insurance costs by $2500 a year on average.

You were supposed to be able to keep your plan.

You were supposed to be able to keep your doctor.

Liberals say if we repeal Obamacare, a million zillion jillion people will die as a result. If that's true, how did these people survive without Obamacare before it was signed into law? Where were all the dead bodies of the people who died for lack of Obamacare, before it became law? You'd think we all would have noticed the stench?

Healthcare is a stinking, Godawful mess for too many people. Obamacare accomplished very little of what it was supposed to, clearly it isn't the answer...I'm not saying I know what the answer is, but it's not the ACA.

They're forward-thinking for the good things, but incompetent at being manipulative...