Yesterday, Sullivan was praising the very serious Ryan plan which drastically cuts taxes and bends the poor, the middle class, the elderly, and the disabled over the edge of the couch and rogers them in perpetuity. Today, a glowing appraisal of a Stiglitz piece from a week or so ago that points out the radical inequality in the United States and how the rich have been having their way with America for quite some time and it is destroying us. Cognitive dissonance, what is it and how does it work?
In other news, Sullivan gets very upset at anyone who points out that what Ryan is proposing is abolishing Medicare and Medicaid. When someone points that out, he labels them “the hard left” and huffs:
I’m not sure if you consider this a “hard left” question or not, but why don’t you plainly state what Paul Ryan is trying to do: abolish Medicare. I’m not saying we can’t have a policy debate about it, but let’s speak honestly and admit that the policy calls for the end of federally-subsidized and guaranteed medical care for the elderly. (Josh Marshall lays this out pretty clearly.) Do you think calling the policy an “abolition” or “elimination” of Medicare is somehow unfair?
And regarding Ryan, it’s pretty amazing that you think he is acting like an honest broker here. The plan simply ignores the CBO budget estimates (which the Republicans insisted were the “gold standard” until they didn’t agree with the estimates) and assert that repeal of Obamacare will reduce the deficit despite all math to the contrary. Also – how is it an act of seriousness that grapples with Bush-era deficit creation to continue cutting taxes for the rich and cutting services for the poor? He doesn”t even recommend getting rid of the Bush era tax cuts.
Since Medicare will abolish itself in its current trajectory, I think the onus is on those who want to do little to rein in its cost. Yes, the pilot programs in Obama’s universal health reform could bear dividends in the future. But I doubt they will be enough. As for the tax cuts, I agree and said so. The Ryan plan could lower tax rates and increase tax revenues, if Ryan wanted to. It’s the semi-religious, a priori refusal to raise revenues that gets in the way/
Frank Luntz, eat your heart out. That was a spectacular display of village sophistry if there ever was one- because Medicare may one day end, you can’t point out that Ryan is trying to end it. Ted Bundy wasn’t killing people, because they were going to die on their own one way or another anyway! He was just offering serious proposals! It’s up to you who wanted his victims to live to come up with a way to save them, or you are the real killer.
I’m sure it is only a matter of time before he links to a very serious analysis from McMegan. Speaking of, remember the last time he was doing his “fuck the poor” Tory end zone dance about SS, Medicare, and Medicaid:
The current math simply demands either massive tax hikes or massive benefit cuts in the future. Adjusting now will make the future, relative suffering less rather than more painful. And like Megan, I’d like to see the cuts focus on those who are most able to afford it. To use the obvious example: why should we be sending Warren Buffet a social security check?
Paul Ryan just proposed sending Warren Buffett a sloppy wet kiss and millions in tax cuts while screwing a hundred million people and starting a generational and class war between the rich and the current elderly Republican voters and everyone else.
And Sullivan thinks it is “serious” and a good starting point and that anyone who points out what it really is should be dismissed as the hard left. Of course, I am sure this is all based on Hayekian conservative principles I just can’t understand.
Southwest of Heaven
Just imagine how excited Sully would be if Paul Ryan had a beard.
BGinCHI
Maybe Sully is just admitting that “hard” left points are too difficult for him to figure out.
Punditing is hard!
John Cole
@Southwest of Heaven: LOL.
MattF
It’s painful to watch. Since he freely admits to being innumerate, Sullivan should stay away from economics– he’s simply at sea when it comes to stuff with numbers. But he just can’t help it– Tory contempt for the poor is deep-seated.
Joe Beese
At this rate, Sully will supplant Jane Hamsher as the subject of the Two Minutes’ Hate.
Ronc99
Sully’s a fascist who always wraps it up in religion, much like his ideological twins in Paul Ryan and Russ Douhat.
Ryan is now calling his budget, the MORAL cause. Huh?
So…like you said, John Cole, this budget breaks the Middle Class and the poor’s backs while rewarding the rich. What religion do these angry men, belong?
Personally, I don’t think these are serious men. I think they are ungodly and should be shunned.
I recommend Sully apply for a job at Bravo as a new contestant on Rupaul’s show, instead of with that other drama queen, Tina Brown at Daily Beast. Glenn Beck should join him. An appropriate way to end the damage these *noisey* drama queens bring to America!
Comrade Javamanphil
Oh, well, Sully doubts it will be enough. That’s all the proof I need!
Garrigus Carraig
Remember that stretch when you used to link to Larison as much as Sullivan? That was good times.
Sullivan is a buffoon.
themann1086
Ronc,
Please don’t slur us godless folks like that, kthnx.
Catsy
When an argument begins with and rests upon a clause that is one hundred percent bullshit, there is no point wasting effort in debunking what remains.
Sully has written nothing of worth on this subject.
eric
I mean what I am about to say in earnest: I think Sully (as a Brit) and Villagers (as Americans) are jealous of the fantasy they have created about the “Greatest Generation,” who stood firm amidst air raids and years of war to liberate mankind from Nazi dominion. (They conveniently ignore the Greatest Generation’s instituional bigotry of blacks, gays and women.)
So they see everything as a “test” of their merits, and the willingness to sacrifice puts them on a par with the Greatest Generation. (Nevermind that they dont really do the suffering.) Sully is more affected and pronounced because he is Brit.
eric
Jesse Ewiak
Let’s be blunt here. The only reason Sullivan isn’t continuing to blow the GOP 24 hours a day is that they think gays are yucky and he gets a little queasy about torture. At his heart, Sullivan is still a conservative who thinks poor people are lesser than him.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Dude, Sully is a free market boggart. He still believes all that oakeshott/hume/hayek/burke fantasy bullsytt that is EMPIRICALLY PROVEN TO FAIL.
I defined him for you.
The boggarts just want a do over. They want to rename free market solutions to something more palatable, and assrape America all over again.
Just like this other free market boggart.
Three-nineteen
Emphasis mine. It’s all about the money with him. Sullivan thinks that the biggest reason people would want no heroic efforts to prolong life because it costs too much. Of course, because money is the most important thing.
EconWatcher
Someone on this site convinced me a while back that Sullivan just takes positions to create tension and drama, because he’s figured out this is how you get links and hits. He basically supported the Democrats on HCR, so now it’s time to burnish those Tory credentials by embracing the GOP budget plan (however silly it might be).
Someone said it more eloquently than I can. But he always wants to be poised in some position of anguished ambivalence, as a Catholic betrayed by his church, a Tory left behind by an increasingly unhinged American right, a fiscal conservative with no real home in any any existing party. Blah blah blah.
I used to defend him, but I’m having trouble taking him seriously any more. His alleged “conservatism of doubt” really seems like a lot of posturing.
Darius
It’s not just Sully; TIME has an interview with Mr. Ryan that achieves new heights in soft-balling. Sample questions:
“In terms of coordinating your message with outside groups, Tuesday’s roll out seemed to be a great success. What was your process with them?”
“What drove an Irish Catholic guy from Wisconsin to get so involved in this?”
“Will your budget expose a rift between those who really are committed to cuts and marginalists?”
BFR
Maybe he’s just not that bright.
Church Lady
I guess I missed Ryan’s proposal to reduce of eliminate the capital gains tax, because that’s the rate that 99+% of Buffet’s income comes from. On his laughable “salary” from Berkshire, he’s in the 28% bracket.
I think we should eliminate the capital gains tax, and treat and tax all income the same. That might go a long way in leveling the playing field.
agrippa
@Joe Beese:
well, beese you did it again
trolled yourself
you are a self parody
Three-nineteen
By the way, the last WI precinct is in, and it looks like Kloppenburg wins by about 200 votes. Let the recounts begin! The message now should be that Prosser is costing poor broke WI money, because the recount costs will fall to the state.
joeyess
That is simply fucking brilliant, Cole.
eric
@Darius: is it a dessert topping or a floor wax?
or better yet:
One final question Karl and the beautiful lounge suite will be yours… Are you going to have a go? You’re a brave man. Karl Marx, your final question, who won the Cup Final in 1949?
Stillwater
A also like the false dichotomy of either raising revenue or cutting costs to sustain medicare. It seems like the serious and courageous have staked out their battle field – in what clever way can we fuck over the poor and still feel righteous about it? – leaving the question of reducing front-end provider costs on the sidelines.
Or is this outside the art of the possible?
Jim C.
I’m generally a Sully fan overall as one of the few reasonably sane conservative voices out there, but he’s incredibly off base with his analysis here.
He’s praising the GOP for proposing something, ANYTHING, regardless of how radical it is.
This is like my wife and I having a disagreement on where to go on our next vacation and my saying something like, “You know what, I can see we have a difference of opinion here. How about you just let me have that fully stocked harem upstairs that I’ve always wanted?” as my first counter-offer.
It isn’t serious because this is completely dead on arrival and everyone KNOWS it is dead on arrival. GOP is saying, “Okay, the way to solve this is to give us everything we’ve always wanted for the last few decades.” Sully is excited about that because the GOP is coming to the table with SOMETHING…ANYTHING!
Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. A REAL offer might include something like raising the age that entitlement benefits kick in to recognize that people ARE living longer because of breakthroughs in medical research combined with some reasonable cuts in defense and a few tax increases on the wealthiest of Americans.
Or, since the GOP has different priorities than liberals, big cuts in defense and entitlements but no tax increase on anyone. Big tax decreases, no real cuts in defense and complete elimination of an entitlement is not an opening offer.
Southern Beale
This is why I love this place.
SteveinSC
@joeyess: Elegant.
cleek
the same Frank Luntz that i heard defending Limbaugh on the far-left NPR just an hour ago ?
Nellcote
Could someone please explain how this has ever worked in practice or even in theory. It seems to defy common logic though I don’t know about very special math logic.
p.a.
ohohoh! His just posted that Ryan’s budget is important because it encourages REAL DEBATE. I guess ‘respond to my lying, delusional farce of a budget’ is an tremendous incentive to honest debate; this from a Republican party whose response to efforts at compromise have resulted in ‘submit or die’ politics. putz.
licensed to kill time
John Cole that Ted Bundy comparison is classic Cole gold!
freelancer
LOL at this phrase.
He’s been unreadable lately. And yet we keep going back.
Really, Andrew? You just wrote that? I don’t even want to begin to imagine what 20% of the cocktail of script meds would cost someone like me if I contracted HIV and needed them to stay alive. I’d be dead, broke, or homeless in 5 years if not all three.
His glaring privilege on this is not a little disgusting.
John PM
Why is Paul Ryan the go-to guy on the budget and the deficit for Republicans. As far as I can tell, his only qualification is that he has a BA in economics and political science from from Miami of Ohio. As far as I can tell he has published no papers or articles on economic theory and has not worked as an economist or on economic issues in any industry. He is not even a CPA. His entire career has been politics. I wouldn’t ask this guy for advice on my taxes and people are saying that he has a solution to our deficiet and our budget??? You have got to be kidding me! This guy would be laughed out of federal court under Daubert and FRE 702, yet we are supposed to take him seriously.
Dave
Yes yes yes, pleeeeeease keep the fire on Sullivan. He needs to hear it, often, have his nose rubbed in all the rubbish he’s spouted, and there’s no one more credible to do it than you, John.
Mark S.
@Church Lady:
Yes!
But Sully wouldn’t think that was serious. The serious position is to eliminate the tax on capital gains.
Alex
So … you’re still reading Sullivan? Just stop cold turkey. It’s what I did a few years ago. It’s hard at first, but you’ll be much better off in the long run.
jibeaux
O/T but if the recount doesn’t change anything (that is a big if), that Supreme Court election in WI will have consequences.
For the next ten years.
So awesome.
Stooleo
Basically, Social Security and Medicare are the last two piles of money that haven’t been looted by our Galtian overlords. So, you know, shit gots to get looted.
JCT
@jibeaux: Overreach baby — it can bite you on the ass.
Bob
@John PM
Even our patron lady of calculator errors has an MBA! (and no economics degree)
Cole, you’re off base a little….
He linked to Tyler Cowen instead if McMegan…and doesn’t even seem to realize Cowen just made a baldfaced assertion without evidence.
biff diggerence
Why should Sullivan give a fuck about any human being that’s still breathing 10 years from now?
The actuarials tell us that Sullivan will be dead within a decade.
cleek
@Jim C.:
this is pretty much how i see it.
he’s not that crazy about the GOP plan itself so much as he’s excited that someone has grabbed the third rail of entitlement spending and hasn’t yet been burned to a crisp. now, he thinks, maybe other people will see that it’s not really off-limits. that’s all that Sully’s “serious” really means: it means brave enough to suggest that Medi* might not be untouchable. of course he’s one of those people who apparently thinks the Platonic ideal of “lower spending” is a moral good in the abstract and something we should stoically strive for in the imperfect world we actually inhabit. and now we can step that much closer to true union with the “lower spending” ideal.
joes527
@Stooleo:
The looting of social security is already complete. The money is long gone. We spent it on the Bush Tax cuts. The argument now is that the US needs to default on the debts to social security so that it won’t have to … you know … default on stuff.
jaleh
Rep. Ryan starts down this road with zero credibility as a “deficit hawk.” He has supported every deficit-inducing Bush tax cut and tax cut extension, voted for the unfunded prescription drug expansion of Medicare and supported military ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan that weren’t paid for.
Why don’t people talk about this more?
jibeaux
@JCT:
You have to reach pretty far to bite yourself on your own ass, but it can be done.
freelancer
Why so Serious?!
cleek
@jaleh:
he suggested dramatic entitlement reform! why dig up the past? why can’t you focus on the exciting present ?
Bulworth
Moore Award!! Moore Award!!
Ana Gama
SybilSully ranted twice in the last few months about Ryan being a fiscal fraud.http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/01/fraud/177645/
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/12/paul-ryan-fiscal-fraud/179029/
Nellcote
@Jim C.:
Or you could lower the retirement age, raise the fica tax cap and fix unemployment.
kay
Well, Sullivan is wrong.
Conservatives have unfairly and dishonestly savaged the one aspect of the ACA that actually has the potential to rein in Medicare costs, and that’s the recess appointment of Donald Berwick.
They’ve done that because Congress wants to retain control over “managing” Medicare costs, but Congress can’t do it, and have never done it, because (some) are owned by for-profit health care interests.
In other words, liberals and Democrats HAVE offered an alternative to destroying Medicare, it’s IN the PPACA, and Sullivan is ignorant of the most important part of it, although conservatives have been actively opposing any attempt to take a rational look at cost containment.
So why didn’t Sullivan come out in defense of Berwick?
Sullivan can start reading here, if he honestly wants to know what the Obama people have done to start cutting spending in Medicare, but he better set a whole day aside, because cutting costs without compromising effective care is complicated.
Better to just launch these ill-informed accusations than put some hard work in, right?
Mike E
It’s better to read that Sully stuff in the voice of Lord Farquad: “It’s bad enough being alive when nobody wants you, but to show up uninvited to a [democracy]…”
bemused
@p.a.:
Ha, ha. I wish I had a dollar for every time I hear the flapping mouths on cable news say some bs bill or another encourages REAL DEBATE. It must be code for ‘we know this is crap but we sound so very serious and smart while keeping that paycheck coming’. Or maybe not. They might actually believe it is “real” debate.
Elizabelle
@biff diggerence:
Hate to think about that. Don’t wish ill on Sully, just that he regains what sense he has.
He would have been dead long before meeting and marrying Aaron without generous medical benefits.
Very honestly, any of those of us without insurance are more likely to be dead within the decade. Possibly from something preventable, when caught early.
The math demands it, my ass.
What is liberty without life?
srv
You know, Luntz, Bundy & Oakeshott would make a great name for a Tory band.
Oh, why aren’t we celebrating Beck’s demise?
scandi
Do you think Paul Ryan is uncut? I bet Sully does.
Calouste
I notice that Sullivan still hasn’t been moved to the “Blogs We Monitor And Mock As Needed” category.
sneezy
@freelancer:
“He’s been unreadable lately.”
He’s always been unreadable, and that’s the least of his flaws.
“And yet we keep going back.”
Who’s “we,” Kemosabe? I read Balloon Juice because I think the snark is sometimes very funny. But if I didn’t, I would never have the slightest idea what Andrew Sullivan had to say about anything, and in fact, would probably never even hear his name.
So, speak for yourself. If you read him, that’s on you. But don’t assume there is some “we” reading along with you.
kerFuFFler
So when there is technology that can keep bodies alive indefinitely (with no quality of life to speak of) do we want for everyone to get that “treatment” and spend all our money all our lives saving up for that final medical expense and never have funds to live satisfying lives with our families? It seems to me that that is the slippery slope we are on. Count me out—–uh oh, I can’t opt out of paying for Medicare.
At some point even though medical intervention can keep bodies alive it is no longer worth it. Perhaps the European one payer systems work because there is rationing and they spend a lot less on final days heroics. That is easier to do if you don’t subscribe to six-year old, super-Christy moral thinking——“But how can you think about money when it is a question of life or death?”
We all die. Get over it! I’m all for curing people who can be cured and for improving peoples’ quality of life, but the imperative to do everything to prolong our final days is bankrupting our country and our childrens’ futures.
kay
Here’s Klein on Berwick.
Helpfully, Klein titled this piece “The Conservative Case for Donald Berwick”.
He wrapped it up and handed it to them, but they continued to smear Berwick on “rationing”, because conservatives don’t really want to control costs in Medicare.
If they did, they wouldn’t be lock-step opposing the single best shot at cutting costs in Medicare, now would they?
How can Sullivan not know this?
BFR
@freelancer:
To my earlier point, the simplest explanation is that he’s just not that bright.
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
@Joe Beese: @joeyess: Word!
Barb (formerly Gex)
Whenever Sullivan accidentally stumbles upon a good point, I often find he is just relabeling something center-left as “conservative”. That is in essence his whole schtick.
joeyess
@freelancer:
Why so serious, indeed!
kdaug
@kerFuFFler: Right there with you, chief. Last thing I want is to spend my last 2-3 months in a hospital bed, semi-conscious and racking up huge bills for my family. Best to go quickly, without pain, and cheap.
Chris
I have a serious proposal to solve the deficit: re-institute a 91% marginal tax rate on incomes above $10 million a year, and put in a 60% bracket on incomes above $1 million a year. (With interest and capital gains treated as ordinary income, too. You can index long term gains to inflation if you like. It’s a bit of a Full Employment Act for accountants, but it’s fair to say that if Joe Moneybags bought $700 million in XYZ Corp in 2005 and sold it for $900 million in 2011, that 200 million gain is reduced by whatever dollar devaluation occurred between 2005 and 2011.)
dadanarchist
Well done, John. I just sent Sully an email with the same general question: how can you laud Ryan at one moment while pointing toward Stieglitz in another?
I suppose I should already know the answer: that’s what Sully has always done.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Bob: It’s the right. Bald face assertions are captain of the debate team qualifications.
joeyess
@Calouste: Good point.
cleek
@Chris:
class warfare! job-killing! hurting the productive!
no, the only way to balance the budget is to tax the lucky duckies who don’t make enough to qualify for the lowest tax bracket.
joes527
@freelancer:
I’m with Andy! The key phrase being “the actual cost of the drug.”
What? What? He meant “the actual price of the drug???” IS HE INSANE?
jcricket
Sully is a over-privileged, out-of-touch, hypocritical non-American, racist idiot. He’s virtually never right, until years after it really matters. And in fact, he’s spectacularly wrong so often that I just finally deleted him from my blog feed.
You can write his posts with a post generator/mad lib. What do we learn from reading Sully? You want to learn something from a conservative? Read Frum or Bartlett. They at least put some thought into their posts.
And fiscal conservatism (and conservatism) mean absolutely nothing “fixed”, contra Sully. To me it means paying for the services we decide we want in a nation. It’s absolutely conservative to jack the fuck out of the tax rates for corporations and high-income earners to pay for everything we need.
Sullivan wants to get rid of services for the poor and middle class (he claims otherwise, but when push comes to shove he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but his upper class white friends in Provincetown). He wants taxes to be low, especially for himself. Other than that, it’s all sophistry – “conservatism” means “I don’t want to think through all the issues so I will adopt an attitude of ‘no’ until it’s absolutely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt there’s no other way”. Whatever, fuckwit.
Fuck Sully and his ilk (by that I mean the privileged pundit class). Anyone who goes around talking about benefit cuts, given the paucity of our current benefit levels for anything resembling a “guarantee” should not be listened to. Social Security benefits should increase. Medicare should cover everyone. Medicaid should be federalized (at least), or folded into Medicare (public option). It’s going to happen that way eventually. Either that or we simply become a third-world plutocracy, if we aren’t already.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@jcricket: Excellent point. The only value I found (yes, past tense) was his role as aggregator.
Peter J
One (1) positive thing to say about McMegan. She allows readers to comment whatever crap she posts. Sully, not so much.
I wonder if that’s part of his new contract with The Daily Beast?
Calouste
@joeyess:
Specially considering that Politico is in that category. At least they are just cynical Republican operatives instead of being plain dumb.
geg6
@kay:
Oh, kay, you should go over there and watch him flopping around, the flop sweat flying off him, as he tries to justify his unending love for Paul Ryan and his “deficit cutting” budget.
It’s sort of like this:
Reader of indeterminate political leanings: Ryan’s unemployment numbers are ludicrous. They claim we’d be at 2 points less than full employment, an utterly impossible thing.
Sully: Well, that does seem to be a flaw. But it doesn’t matter because he’s totally serious about this!
Reader with liberal/progressive leanings: You could fix Medicare, with no loss of benefits and no privatization, if you go after three things Ryan doesn’t even discuss: 1) the way Americans go about end of life care; 2) drug pricing; 3) the poor care incentives in the Medicare payment system.
Sully: Americans don’t want to pay more to stay alive. I support a co-pay pegged to the cost to the drug. It doesn’t matter that Ryan addresses none of this and I don’t understand your argument well enough to even coherently reply to you.
Reader of the liberaltarian persuasion: Seems to me that “targeting inefficiencies” in the Pentagon budget is more than a little like John McCain’s taking on earmarks. In other words, small potatoes bullshit. And Ryan’s notion of “reforming the tax code” uses the sneaky weasel phrase “consolidate the brackets.” What the hell does that mean? Does that mean that a family with income of $75,000 will be in the same bracket as a family with income of $350,000? Or that a person earning $30,000 will be in the same bracket as one earning $100,000? And what happens to the old people who run out of medical voucher money and are still sick? Or if they choose an option with lots of coverage for hip and joint problems and suddenly develop congestive heart failure of a sort his/her insurance doesn’t cover in large amounts? Are we willing to have old people just dying in the street or will there be another safety blanket for them, which is what Medicare is anyway? Ryan doesn’t answer any of those simple questions.
Sully: It’s all good! This is a serious proposal! We can fix it if it’s fucked up! Really!
I find it a source of great humor.
Stooleo
@Chris:
I think your tax rates are too high. Go back to a Clinton era tax structure. The thing that I’d like to see is the health insurance companies treated like public utilities and have their profits capped at 10% per year.
Nellcote
@freelancer:
I favor the gov. getting part of the royalties on drugs developed from basic gov. research. That money could go into subsidizing prescriptions.
But how often do people refuse generics in favour of name brand drugs anyway?
Emma
At this rate, we’re going to have to perform a Sullivan intervention on this blog. He’s an aristocrat-wannabe who kisses the arses of people who want his kind wiped from the public sphere. WHY are you linking to him?
Chris
@Stooleo: Actually, I think they are too. But to have a Serious Proposal, you have to start with an absurdly exaggerated position, and then scale back to a Reasonable Compromise, you see.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Joe Beese:
.
.
That will never happen here, but should.
.
.
geg6
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
I propose that we simply expand it to the Four Minutes of Hate and give two minutes each to Jane and Sully.
However, I take back that proposal. I find Sully to be an idiot, but a good writer and his evolutions/devolutions to be funny as hell. So I really don’t want to hate on him, just continue to point and laugh. Sadly, Jane has none of Sully’s virtues. And even Sully doesn’t comport himself with Grover Norquist.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@sneezy:
.
.
Sneezy For The Thread Win!
.
.
Sasha
I’ve suspected for some time that Sully’s problem is that he desperately wishes that the nominally conservative party of the US was actually, y’know, conservative, in the mold of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush41. Instead, it’s a mob of lunatic ideologues of every stripe who now define conservatism in America. He still hasn’t accepted the fact that the GOP is not the party he badly wants it to be, that it hasn’t been for a long while, and that it probably won’t be again for at least that much longer. As a consequence, he grasps at any straw that suggests the GOP is finally becoming sane — no matter how futile, feeble, or fruitless.
Basically, Sully’s like a lovesick girl who refuses to accept the news that her crush came out as gay, and she’s hoping that the object of her affection will eventually come to his senses (getting excited at anything that might suggest he’s straight) and sweep her off her feet to live happily ever after.
jaleh
@John PM: Isn’t that interesting that this guy gets this much publicity? @cleek: I hope you are being facetious?
Tuffy
It’s not cognitive dissonance, John. Andrew Sullivan has convinced everyone he’s smart, when in fact he just isn’t.
I mean, he got AIDS. Then advertised for unprotected anal sex on the Internet. What a maroon!
les
Dammit, I was so sure it was Burkean!
Sullivan is a case study in the rational deterioration that follows years of high level cognitive dissonance. He claims to run his non-cliquish life (and to insist that you should as well) by the tenets of Catholicism and conservatism, two groups that want nothing to do with his gay ass, while blathering about why he really does fit in those groups, and we should obey them too. The only consistent guiding principle I’ve seen him display is, “Is it good for Andy?”
Doesn’t help that he’s just not that bright, either.
ChrisNBama
Fucking genius, John! I made the mistake of taking a sip of coke before reading this passage and had to clean up the screen of my computer before the coke damaged my LCD. LOL!
A L
I can understand the attention actually focused on Paul Ryan since he is an actual foot soldier, but why should anyone on this blog or anyone else care about Andrew Sullivan, considering he is but one (rather obscure) of many voices saying the exact same thing?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The first blogmaster that develops a filter that successfully “blocks” troll comments from being seen by anyone else other than the troll who posted it* is gonna make themselves some money. The troll would never realize that his post had been blocked because he still sees it posted even though no one else does.
-*- if the filter could allow all troll posts to be seen by other trolls that would be even better because they would go on and have troll conversations with other trolls while everyone else was blissfully unaware of their presence.
Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama
@Nellcote:
It does defy common logic, but the way it’s sold is that since hard economic times shrinkify the tax base and, hence, revenues, then lowering the tax rates will pump extra money into the economy, creating a nirvana of perpetual boom times, which grows tax revenues.
“We need to cut taxes to increase tax revenues.”
“We need to kill Medicare to save it.”
“We need to quit giving aid to the poor so they can prosper.”
“We need to destroy the village to save it.”
And so on.
Barb (formerly Gex)
Sully will always be on the conservative side because it is the side for men who are obsessed with manliness. Conservatism is the cult of white male supremacy. His only complaint is that they don’t like the gay. He might wish they were less wackaloon so they would stop making him look bad, but he will never leave. Pack animals must not leave the pack and they must always defer to the alpha.
ETA: Consider this the submissive display of his belly to get back in the good graces of the pack.
geg6
@Sasha:
He’s got the exact same problem with the Catholic Church. Why he continues to support and defend that criminal organization that vilifies him and everyone he loves and wishes him dead and burning in hell for eternity, I’ll never, ever understand. And I’m a former Catholic myself, so you’d think I’d get it.
Wolfdaughter
@EconWatcher:
Plus the fact that, if the rabid right had had their way in the 90s, he’d be dead now, as they did everything they could to block the development of the protease inhibitors, among other means to deal with AIDS.
I find Sully somewhat amusing, occasionally helpful, but mostly useless.
Trakker
I read Sullivan because he fascinates me. He’s obviously a compassionate person and yet he’s all wrapped up in an ideology that objects to government safety nets if it requires taxing the rich more than the poor. Any attempt at a progressive tax system is “punishing” the rich for their hard work and success (evidently he doesn’t know many rich people).
jcricket
@Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama: Does this remind you of anything? It’s fucking straight out of 1984.
And speaking of that, Sully suffers from a severe case of doublethink:
Describes him perfectly.
catclub
@jaleh: It is true and boring.
SATSQ
lllphd
@Jim C.:
you make good points (especially the harem analogy; excellent!), but the fact is, sully has been in this sick space for a long long long long time. i battled with him for years on his internal contradictions, especially as his conservative intellect did such damage to his (asserted) christian morals.
i gave up a few weeks ago, realizing it was my head meeting brick walls over and over. i’d stayed with it, like a lot of folks i suspect, because i felt obliged to keep up with someone from the conservative right in order to stay out of the echo chamber accusations.
well, turns out you know, though sully appears to present “the facts” more honestly than most other conservatives (not saying much at all, that), what makes him so infuriating is that he is so intellectually dishonest. he uses that hahvahd education to make the words go where he wants them to, never stopping for a second to appeal to real logic, and forget about depth.
someone here recently pointed out something similar, and i sure wish i could remember the precise wording and who it was; apologies to you.
at any rate, i’ve been lots more sane since removing him from my screen. i do still have some concern about limiting my exposure to only the libs, but the way i see it, colbert was right: the truth does appear to have a liberal bias. and that’s where i want to start and finish, with the truth. disagreement about what that means or what to do with it, great, the more diversity the better. but life is too short to waste it on forcefeeding myself even a side dish of the dish; too much of that content is against my principles, and thus not just unpalatable, but undigestible.
cleek
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
the vBulletin web forum software has a feature called “Tachy goes to Coventry”. if a moderator sets this on your account, you can still post and you will see the other comments on the board as you always have, but nobody else will see your comments at all. you will become like Bruce Willis in The 6th Sense (which is what i would’ve named it, if i’d written that feature). you will have no effect on the board, no matter how hard you try.
jcricket
@Trakker: He’s not a compassionate person. He’s someone who backs into compassion after exhausting all alternatives that let people suffer in the name of “fiscal conservatism”. It’s pathetic, not laudable.
You’d think that after so many times of being proven spectacularly wrong he’d have a John Cole or E.D. Kain-esque awakening. But no, he retreats to the safety of his “core beliefs”.
He’s the worst kind of person – someone who learns nothing from their mistakes.
rickstersherpa
Steve Benen has a little piece about how the tea party freshmen, who all won elections last year beating up Democrats for “cutting Medicare” for “Obmacare” are not to happy with Mr. Ryan’s proposal. Unfortunately for them, I think they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t because Grover Norquist, Dick Armey, and Tea Party groups are going be all in for Ryan’s proposal and will primary any Republican who shows weak knees. This is their biggest wet dream next to Social Security abolishment. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
And as David Leonhardt points out in his column, how long do you think those between 20 to 54 are going to put up with paying taxes and medical care for the folks 55 and older while being expected to save for their own old age and medical care. Old age and ill health should seen as new opportunities to show the virtues of self-reliance and independence!
Meanwhile, this old Confederate apparently did not get the message about 19th century family values.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/virginias-bad-old-man/?hp
Wolfdaughter
@kerFuFFler:
I may be misreading your post, but you appear to think that Medicare is solely useful for prolonging the “lives” of the essentially moribund. If so, you are proposing a false dichotomy and are guilty of black-and-white thinking.
Medicare helps the elderly to cover medical expenses of all kinds, surgeries, major or minor, preventative health care visits, flu and pneumovax shots, prescriptions, etc. It isn’t just for the very end-stages of life.
Of course, the drug coverage is severely fucked, but you can thank mostly Republicans (and some turncoat Democrats from the big Pharma states) for the obscene “donut hole”. I say this as a 65-year-old who is now on Medicare, but who opted not to have drug coverage as I also have Cigna, whose drug coverage is superior. But I know people who are really screwed if they get into the donut hole.
Please don’t keep posting that Medicare is being used just to prolong end of life. Not true. It is true that we as a society really need to discuss end-of-life issues, but that has little to do with Medicare as a whole.
jcricket
@lllphd: man – i could have written this same post, but +1 to you for doing it. I learn nothing by reading him, and all it does is infuriate me. I’d love to have a rational conversation about whether to do cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, or what the right level of regulation of the financial industry is, or what the tax brackets should be and where they should top out.
But all that debate is happening amongst Democrats. The right wing is busy floating unworkable proposals that would quite obviously make everything worse (and are full of lies). When they’re not doing that it’s all kinds of social demagoguery. What’s the effin point of engaging anyone like that? What exactly will engaging with a modern-day Republican get a liberal?
Sully reminds me of me, when I wrote philosophy papers in college and tried to sound really smart. It’s like I had a five-syllable word quota to fill. Top it off with the fact that Sully probably only writes about 1/4th his blog (and yet regularly gets oh-so-tired) and it was all “unsubscribe” for me a week ago. I feel much better.
lllphd
sully:
sul-ly, v. [trans.] damage the purity or integrity of; defile
Bob
@jcricket:
It’s worse than that. Sully loves talking about Orwell, but clearly doesn’t seem to really apply the lessons of 1984 or Brave New World to our current world.
Ugh, to think Ross Douthat at the NYT and others like McCardle were probably in part his doing by linking to them so much.
Remember last week when he demanded people take positions on things, even if they didn’t know all the facts or had any expertise in the field? The problem really is the opposite. We have too many people taking opinions that have no expertise..with information overload as the result. But he’s in the opinion journalism industry..so assholes etc
@Peter J:
McMegan’s comment board is infested by the same 10 people though, all blithely trying to ignore anything inconvenient and pleasing their mistress Ayn Rand. Oddly it’s how the real bio of Ayn Rand worked out.
The type of people that just assume charity will take care of Medicare/Medicaid patients kicked out.
scarshapedstar
I’ve long lacked the ability to be shocked or even annoyed when Andrew “Fifth Column” Sullivan stoops to hackery like this. His periodic bouts of being-on-our-side end as predictably as a plan to quit smoking by “cutting back”.
jcricket
@Bob: Sully only sees “totalitarianism” on the left (i.e. language clauses in college or hate crime statutes are his big bugaboo). Despite the fact that it’s his former colleagues who have cornered the market on insanity right now.
Douthat I find stupid, but engageable and willing to admit he was wrong. He’s useless, like all Republicans these days, but at least he’s not infuriatingly dishonest.
McCardle’s the economic version of Sully. It’s just that relying on “math” makes her so much easier to disprove. Again, someone who’s been wrong about everything, yet never changed their fundamental approach. Plonk.
dadanarchist
Not to mention that he suffers from the same disorder as all conservative appreciators of Orwell: they ignore that Orwell was and remained a committed Socialist. And not some mealy-mouthed one either, but one who advocated “expropriating the expropriators” as the phrase used to go, using tactics a bit more hard than higher marginal tax rates and watered-down financial reform.
Mako
“To Rodger” usually implies some pleasure, so maybe it’s best to stick with american slang, ie “cornholed into perpetuity”.
Bob
Douthat is a mass of contradictions, and I think at heart, he knows he’s wrong about most everything, and ends up punting on issues by citing Catholic faith (first principles!) on lots of issues.
I don’t see how that’s really any different from Megan and Sully honestly since he always resorts to the core values argument without really examining whether the core values are worth retaining. He’s just a lot sadder because every time he posts a column about women and gays, the aftermath is like watching a puppy getting kicked.
Tim, Interrupted
As for why JC continues to link to Sully: I have long suspected they are chummy email pals behind the scenes.
TROLL!
Tim, Interrupted
@Mako:
Sounds good to me. Cornholing is fun! I don’t know why you people continue to malign this perfectly delightful activity.
Elizabelle
All this whining (for good reason!) about Andrew Sullivan.
David Brooks is smiling somewhere.
Pupil, meet master.
jcricket
@Elizabelle: FTW
mclaren
Sully:
No, the current math simply demands that we slash our crazy unsustainable 1.45 trillion dollar per year military spending.
Cut our 1.45 trillion dollar per year military spending by 80%, and America’s annual deficit goes away. There’s all the money you’d ever need to pay for medicare.
Why can’t Sully admit this?
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
“Does Donald Berwick have a beard? No? Then fuck him.” — Andrew Sullivan
Polar Bear Squares
@Southwest of Heaven: Beat me to it! Was just about to say that. Lol. Now that’s funny. I don’t care who you are.
Gawd my heart jumps everytime John talks shit about Sully. I respect him. But you have his blind spots dead to rights.
Bob
After Death Panels, I’m pretty sure no Democrat is gonna bother publicizing a plan anyway.
Just Some Fuckhead
I have no problem with getting rid of Medicare as long as they do it to the current recipients first. Then by the time I’m eligible you better believe it will be back in place.
This bullshit with protecting the GOP’s target demographic from the consequences of their voting is repugnant. If Sullivan had an ounce of integrity he’d be all over this, but he doesn’t, so he won’t.
piratedan
@John PM: because the rest of them stop caring about economics after getting the Bush Tax Cuts extended. The rest of this is just Kibuki, those bastards have no interest in getting the deficit addressed except as a means to dismantle programs for other people.
cleek
damn, Sully has really lost it on this one. his latest is entitled “Ryan And The End Of Republican Dishonesty”.
words fail
freelancer
@cleek:
He doesn’t get to make anymore Lucy and the Football metaphors. Ever.
les
Well, Andrew is getting closer to honesty. I e-mailed suggesting Reagan tax rates plus defense cuts as a solution to the fed budget troubles; he answered(!):
As if the two were different–vouchers will give us rationing by a top down insurance co. bureaucracy. Shorter Sully: healthcare for the wealthy only.
And as if this were actually a budget proposal.
Trinity
@les: I simply don’t understand why “we have to ration healthcare”. Why?? What the hell is wrong with these people??? The callousness of so-called “Christians” is staggering.
kerFuFFler
@Wolfdaughter:
Duh.
I discuss the end of life care because that is where there are really high costs that do little to “save” lives or increase quality of life. These are some of the expenditures that could be cut back on to insure that there is enough money to continue providing the healthcare and preventive measures that do so much to promote enjoyable living for seniors and the next crop of seniors. My concern is that when people get a mindset that says it is immoral to even consider pulling a plug on hopeless cases, then we will waste valuable resources.
At some point we can actually save more lives by making roads and cars safer, improving food quality (and increasing access to quality food), spending more on clean energy, educating people about gun violence…..the list goes on. It may seem crass to discuss money and medical care but the fact remains that a lot of the money spent on medical care could be spent in these other areas and could save more lives.
les
@Trinity:
I don’t get it either; as wealthy as this country is, I can’t really imagine any necessity that would “have” to be rationed. The unspoken part of that line from Sully is, “if me and my friends get to have all the toys.” As I’ve said before, Sully’s only constancy is his self interest.
lllphd
@jcricket:
wow, thanks, but your thoughts easily eclipse mine; kudos. appreciate your putting so specifically the problem, that of actually not being able to engage in any reasonable debate. what counts as fact and what counts as reasonable (even moral), all that’s just out the window, and they make up new rules as they go along.
i’m constantly reminded of that quote from ron suskind (that we all know for sure was none other than rove) about creating reality before we could catch up with their next installment. words to that effect.
i mean, what kind of evil even thinks that way?? sully may eschew that sort of philosophy, but he clearly does not see how much he falls for it (don’t think he actively promotes it) and then participates in the evil plan by parroting the predictable “conservative” ideology, completely without reflection.
i want none of it. and like you, and much happier without it. call me biased and partisan, but if that means what we’ve decided it means, i make no apology.
mclaren
@Trinity:
If we don’t control health care costs, eventually we’ll have to ration health care.
There is not infinite money to pay for health care. At a cost increase of somewhere around 4% in real terms (i.e., after inflation), this makes a doubling time of 17 years. That means that 17 years from now health care will take up 32% of the budget, 34 years from now health care takes up 64% of the budget, and 51 years from now health care takes up 128% of the budget.
Guess what?
Health care can’t take up 128% of the national budget. That’s impossible.
So either we control costs, or we ration care. Obama’s HCR non-reform does nothing to control costs, so rationing care is in the cards somewhere down the road.
In fact, health care is already being rationed right now in Massachusetts in the plan on which Obama based his national HCR non-reform.
Source: “Massachusetts Health Care Reform is Failing Us,” Suzanne L. King, Boston Globe, 2 March 2009.
In fact, as Dr. King points out, low-income sick people in Massachusetts who used to get free health care are now forced to buy for-profit health insurance with co-payments they can’t afford, so even though they have health care, they can’t use it because they can’t afford the co-payments.
Welcome to rationing of health care: going on now in Massaschusetts, coming soon to your neighborhood courtesy of Barck Obama’s HCR non-reform bill which does nothing to control skyrocketing health care costs but does force people to buy unaffordable private for-profit health insurance.
arguingwithsignposts
Hey, dumbass, we’ve always rationed healthcare. It’s called by various names like “lifetime maximum” or pre-existing condition” or just “individual coverage premiums.”
That is some weakass firebagger fu there dr. Doom
jefft452
“Since Medicare will abolish itself in its current trajectory, I think the onus is on those who want to do little to rein in its cost”
Halprin just pulled this crap on Mathews show
To his credit Tweety called him on it
(paraphrased)
CM: Why is it inevitable that Medicare has to end?, What politician think he can get reelected on a platform of breaking the promise we made to seniors
MH But Ryan’s plan exempts those over 55, every one who was promised Medicare will still get it
To Tweety’s discredit, he didn’t call him on this
A 55 yr old who started working at 16 has been paying into Medicare for 39 yrs and for him it is a sacred promise that must not be broken
The lazy 54 yr old bum who started working at 16 has merely paid into Medicare for a paltry 38 yrs, what nerve he has to think he was promised Medicare too
lllphd
@rickstersherpa:
thanks for the benen link; need to get to that. at the risk of repeating him or appearing ignorant thereby, i’ll say this much.
go to digby and see her analysis of the purpose of ryan’s nonsense. in a nutshell, it serves to make the previously presented nonsense of the B-S commission plan, look oh so reasonable and “serious.” with the added benefit that obama called this commission, so gosh, it’s the repugs giving in to the dems yet again, blablabla. you get the picture.
then again, this notion may be giving the repugs way too much credit. first, how could they convince anyone, including ryan – who’s been threatening just such a budget nightmare for months/years – to play the decoy on this? i’ll be eagerly watching his poll numbers daily now, given he is an irish catholic from wisconsin, after all (i’m sure i don’t have to point out the coincidental timing with yesterday’s elections there, correct?).
second, there appears to be a great deal of messaging confusion all over the repug map, from bachmann now telling her “shut her down” teabaggers that oh no we don’t want a shut down because the dems will blame us (wonder why??). boehner is so all over the place it’s impossible to determine what he’s going to do. and clearly those teabaggers have him by the short & curlies, which equals essentially veto power over his party. who’s he gonna save, the party or his speaker ass? you only get one guess.
so this whole ryan poop jar may well end up being a nice fertilizing gift for the dems, if you’ll forgive the image. but the leadership (under pelosi’s steely spine, i’m so glad folks are remembering) is pretty much saying hell no to the very idea, and interestingly a sizable chunk of the villager voices are daring to call this poop jar just what it is, a very naked poop jar (with a tiny tiny peepee, to boot).
okay, i’ve worn out the toilet talk. apologies for any offense, but good golly miss molly, these repugs just bring out the worst in me and sometimes i fail to inhibit.
jcricket
@kerFuFFler: Partisanship in defense of sanity is no vice, that’s what I always say.
You know why it appears we so vociferously disagree? Because we fucking do, that’s why.
I am 100% opposed to the GOP line on healthcare, abortion, birth control, immigration rights, educational system/reforms, unions, national parks, science funding – and so on. You’re goddamn right I’m gonna be angry and make it clear.
Ever notice how only liberals take the blame for being “partisan”? Not the people trying to send this country back to the 1700s (or further).
Fuck that.
In Defense of Partisanship.
lllphd
@mclaren:
actually, he has. i will give him this. he does state – tho only when cornered – what his bottom line is. and that includes drastic military cuts. and he – very grudgingly (why punish success, bwawawa) – admits we need more taxes on the higher earners. but he is so damn hung up on cutting “entitlements” the very word offends the life outa me, unless it’s applied where it belongs, to those who have finagled corporate welfare or off-shore havens.
and as far as i know (which ain’t much), he’s never explained what he means by entitlements, nor has he addressed the fact that each of us has paid into these “entitlement” programs, so they are more like insurance programs to which we are, by god, entitled! thank you very much.
rikyrah
1. is Sully an American citizen
2. how does he get his healthcare?
cause no mofo who’s had to deal with the American Health Insurance industry could be spouting this bullshyt.
lllphd
@les:
i got the same sort of response to a very similar question at least a year ago. the man is obsessed with the “entitlement” thing; it just irks folks like him to no end to even suspect/perceive that anyone might get something for nothing (forget about the fact that we all pay into these programs, making them essentially insurance). forget about his supposedly christian morality, all that “least among us” crap. he’s got the authoritative answer. just like the pope.
i’ll try to find the response he made to my hitting him with that one. it was something like “jesus would never want me to submit to government dictated wealth spreading,” or some such tripe. i mean, there it is; so easy to make the words – even jesus!! – say what he wants to hear. zero integrity; zilch.
lllphd
@Trinity:
especially in the face of the fact that healthcare is already being rationed!! i mean, i don’t know what else to call this denial of healthcare to the poor, even when they pay their premiums, but rationing.
maybe we should ask guv brewer to explain the distinction for us.
Mnemosyne
@lllphd:
Just a slight correction — what the media loves to characterize as the commission’s plan is, not, in fact, the commission’s plan. It’s a PowerPoint presentation that B&S put together on their own to undermine the real report.
You can read the real report here (PDF). I wouldn’t want all of the recommendations implemented, but it’s not even close to what B&S were selling in their PowerPoint presentation.
jcricket
@lllphd: I also like the fact that the two “entitlements” are totally different and unrelated and in no way have the same issues.
SS – raise or eliminate wage cap, throw in an extra % for people earning more than 250k, problem solved forever.
Medicare – big problem, but same problem all healthcare system is having (cost inflation).
And fucking with (i.e. reducing) these entitlements does not make the underlying problem these two solve (financial and health security for seniors) go away. You make SS give less money out, people just get poorer and suffer. You make Medicare shittier, and people just get sicker and die faster/unnecessarily.
I’m all for real reforms, but to me that means making the programs stronger and maybe even more generous/comprehensive through much higher taxation on upper income earners, financial firms, oil companies, GE, etc.
Sully can DIAF already.
lllphd
@mclaren:
um, fwiw, i’m on the MA healthcare plan, and could not be more grateful. that’s likely a function of the fact that i am currently destitute, but at least i am not in TN or AZ and just tossed to the winds of fate.
that said, of course it’s not enough. and of course HCA is not enough. the repugs refused to allow anyone to discuss doing enough. we settled for what we got, which got us on the road to better. which i have a suspicion may be more possible sooner than we might have thought, if the repugs continue down this road of just over-reaching beyond everyone’s belief or tolerance.
no question – if i’m reading between your lines – universal healthcare is the only way to go. it’s all that makes any sense. i mean, here’s an ad for you:
that same couple sitting at the kitchen table struggling with finances. in walks a nice lady who asks how much they pay for health ins., and they say for their family of four around a grand a month (very conservative estimate), and of course that doesn’t count co-pays and deductibles, etc.
so the nice lady asks how they would feel about a tax hike of 6 grand a year. they of course freak. but then she says, but wait, here’s the deal. you pay that much more in taxes, but you no longer have any – ANY – health insurance premiums. and, no co-pays, no deductibles, you see whatever doctor you want, and you and your kids AND your parents are covered forever.
a savings of 6 grand a year, and everyone’s covered. if you want more, call lloyds of london. and all those insurance jobs? this new program is going to need not only staff and administrators, but newly trained professionals. as for the management? we’ll show them about the same consideration they showed their clients over the years.
ah, that felt good.
now, back to reality. that rationing thing? it’s already going on in a big way, hadn’t you noticed? just ask guv brewer in AZ who gets to decide who gets organ transplants and who doesn’t. she does, but only if you don’t have the money.
that’s of course how it works.
lllphd
@Mnemosyne:
point well-taken, but i didn’t want to get that deep into the details. neither version is worth a damn, tho you’re right that the public is only aware of the PP version, which is far far worse.
lllphd
@jcricket:
couldn’t agree more, especially on your final point.
and i fail to get the reason we have these runaway healthcare costs. everyone treats them as if it’s just like japan’s nuclear meltdown, completely out of control and untouchable. the fact is, if we had a congress (cough republicans) who actually intended to do right by their citizenry instead of screwing everything in their path to eternal power, we could actually regulate medical costs. it’s not impossible, and only “hard” because there are more lobbyists than reps in congress by orders of magnitude (forget how many; irrelevant, any number is obscene in that slot).
the only solution is universal healthcare. so we should all be watching and rooting for VT to get their program up and running asap so we can watch and see how well it does. i have high hopes. again, the MA plan gets a lot of bad press, but we all know where that likely comes from. i’m telling you, i’m here, i’m on it, and it is more than wonderful, it is so close to the way it should be. they just need to take the insurance companies out of the picture, and it’s golden. hoping that might actually come up in the legislature soon, given what’s happening in VT.
Calouste
@jcricket:
__
Feature, not bug.
Unless you belong to the upper class, you’re just suppossed to die when you’re too old or too sick to work. Those pension premiums you pay during your working life to support you in old age really belong to the factory owner.
jcricket
I’d say we’re in for a two-tiered system in the next decade or so. Gov’t option for all the peons, and super fancy medical care for the ultra-rich and upper-middle class (of which I am a member).
Gov’t provided universal healthcare is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for driving down costs. Unfortunately the runaway costs of equipment and specialist salaries will have to come way down (and that’s super tricky to do).
It’s like the mortgage deduction. Try going after that. You’re nuts.
But the most realistic path, assuming the ACA stays the law, is stuff like the deepest blue states enacting single payer or something like it. Then we’ll have some messy path towards universal coverage – but no messier than the systems we have now where if you live in a nice state you can have nice things, and a shitty state you get shitty things (although Democratic governors are doing their best to turn nice states into shitty ones).
Hang on to your hats, it’s gonna be bumpy.
jcricket
@Calouste: I know – we just need to say it more. Grayson was right.
Let’s stop being afraid of seeming intemperate. You know what’s rude? Making it so the death panels we designed into the ACA don’t even have a chance to get to you because you die before that due to lack of medical care.
I mean c’mon – we designed those things (death panels) so carefully.
Jo
I wonder if Sully will wonder what happened to Medicare when he hits 65 and can’t get his AIDS meds anymore because he’s now off whatever corporate insurance he was carrying and is now on “voucherized” profit-driven medicine.
And when in the fuck has there been a documented instance of lowered taxes and increased revenues as a correspondent result? Ummm, never?
Mnemosyne
@lllphd:
No worries — I’ve seen a lot of people on the left confuse the real commission’s report and the B&S PowerPoint, so I wanted to point out again that they are not the same thing for anyone who hasn’t seen me ride that pony into the ground yet. :-)
lllphd
@jcricket:
dem guvs turning nice states into shitty ones? really? shumlin in VT? patrick in MA? dayton in MN? brown in CA? you say this in the face of what scott in FL, walker in WI, lepage in ME, daniels in IN, kasich in OH, and snyder in MI are doing??
please tell me that was a typo and you meant to write “repug” instead of “dem”.
agree the fastest way to lowered healthcare costs is universal healthcare costs. as for the speed and messiness, a lot of that depends on that ol’ political will, and the public doing their job of holding the reps’ feets to the fires.
jcricket
@lllphd: Don’t get me wrong – the Republicans are way, way, way worse. I will never vote for them. I will never stay home, no matter how much apathy my local Dems generate. The alternative is awful.
But plenty of Democratic governors, like Gregoire in my state, are adopting a defensive crouch that will do no good. Gregoire’s budget is just fucking awful. To be sure a “real” Republican would be far worse, but Democrats aren’t helping their cause by being such pussies about the issue of taxation.
lllphd
good to hear; i’d hoped that was the case.
i have a slight bit of sympathy for the defensive crouch, in that it was a rather large message sent last nov. that the dem way was not so great, however misguided and misreported. plus, gregoire barely won. so i really have to give her a bit of a pass in being cautious.
as with obama, when you’re elected by a majority to lead a whole population, you really have to tack to the center and represent all your citizens. which means a lot of compromise.
of course, what counts for the center these days has been so skewed by extremist repugs, it does feel as if dem principles are all but abandoned.
if you need hope on this, just look at what is happening in VT, and in WI despite all the repug bullying there. and watch pelosi steel some dem spine on the hill in the face of all this current ryan/medicare nonsense.
wish it could happen instantly as we want, but there are so many misled sheep out there. speaking of which, that’s where the pivotal problem lies, with the misleading ‘free’ press. ben franklin understood that without a real free press, we have no democracy. we therefore have to make liberating our free press a top priority (look into the national media reform conference in boston this weekend; should be exciting).
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@geg6:
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True.
False.
False.
Beyond stupid. For example, Grover Norquist, President Obama, Jane Hamsher, Andrew Sullivan, Angry Black Malady, and myself all agree that 2 + 2 = 4, among other things. We all “comport” to some degree, balloonbagger.
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