wrote in message
...
On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 10:41:51 -0800, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

What??? Bush bankrupted the economy and you're blaming Obama????

The thing that really is going to bankrupt the country is the
entitlements.
That was an 80 year process where nobody was willing to say no and
nobody was willing to actually pay for it. They just passed the cost
on to the next generation. Minor stuff like the 4 or 5 wars were
trivial since they have an end. There is no end to the entitlements
and they will gobble up an ever increasing part of the GDP until we
fix the problem or until the country actually does bankrupt itself.
This medical insurance boondoggle is just more grease for the slippery
slope. To start with, does anyone really think congress will actually
make the Medicare cuts part of the "savings" are based on?

I think you're right in the long run... entitlements need to be dealt with
appropriately. That doesn't mean ending them, ala GWB moving them to the
stock market.

The "cuts" are mostly for waste and fraud, and I think some of them, perhaps
even a significant portion of them will be acted upon. One can take the
extremely pessimistic view that they won't be of course.

Do you think the insurance companies won't restructure the "Cadillac
plans" enough by 2018 (the current "cut in" data) that they avoid that
tax?

I'm not a big fan of the current bill in it's entirety, but portions of it
are good and it can be fixed, much like other programs are fixed after the
initial legislation passes.

Do you think they will actually raise any of the taxes necessary to
fund this?

On the rich, I hope so. They can afford it.

If so, you have been living in a cave for the last 40 years.

No... mostly nice houses.

All the spending is immediate and the funding is years down the road.

Well, that's an exaggeration. Much of the funding of many programs is
collected as taxes yearly. It's "down the road," but not necessarily years
down the road.


There is also no restraint on what insurance companies will charge,
only the mandate that they have to cover more people. They would do
that tomorrow ... if we were willing to pay for it. This bill makes
sure we will. You will see this October when the new policies come
out. The election in November. Any questions about how that will come
out?


Yes, we need to regulate them. This is one item that needs to get fixed via
legislation. However, if a public option was included, we wouldn't need as
much regulation. It's wildly popular with the public, but for some reason
the Dems in the Senate are afraid of doing what's popular (and right).

--
Nom=de=Plume