Tag Archive: Politics


hc-questAs 10 minutes have just opened on my schedule and I didn’t get lunch, I’m taking 10 minutes of a philosophical smoke break. Here is my question:

Obviously I am in support of the ACA from what would be viewed as the left side because I believe in universal healthcare. I’m even more of a socialist here as that I don’t believe that healthcare should be a for-profit business but that is a larger issue. We live in a capitalist society where health care is for the most part for-profit. Doctors pay to be educated (at great expense), Medical innovations cost money, blah blah blah.

Many uninsured folks who had held off medical care until begrudgingly (and without insurance) would resort to emergency rooms will now have insurance so they do not have to wait until emergency care is needed. The offered solution there is to go to a PCP who they are now insured to see.

The statistic I am now seeing is that we as a nation have a dearth of PCPs. In general Primary Care doesn’t pay as much as specialization and even doctors are having problems covering medical education costs as PCPs and thus are choosing specialization.

So even though you now have insurance, there aren’t doctors available to take you on as a PCP and you are left still needing to use the emergency room as a first line of medical care.

While the long range fix I see is like the Peace Corps or the GI Bill where if you do service as a PCP in conjunction with being a specialist, the gov’t pays some of your medical education.

So… My questions to my other “labeled leftist friends”:

Are these statistics and observations accurate or merely more ‘Anti-Obamacare’ rhetoric?

Does this actually form the grounds of a problem with the ACA that does require further intelligent investigation and legislation? (Yes, don’t say it… I’m thinking it too)

Does this run the risk of the ACA actually causing problems that even the left can say, “We need to fix this, too”?

Of course this is a deep post and even putting it on FB and Twitter isn’t likely to get anyone to read or respond to it.

From Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com

Let’s be frank: Norm Coleman doesn’t have much of a future in electoral politics. Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian. He doesn’t have much to lose by fighting this to its bitter conclusion. But it’s hard to envision how he’ll come up with enough ballots to overtake Franken.

YES WE DID

BARACK OBAMA
PRESIDENT ELECT!

Help me remind the USA

I really wouldn’t mind having my servers beaten and this popping up on everyone’s LJ.


copy the code for a post

Karl Rove has called an Obama Landslide.

Rove (the engineer of the Bush campaign) has called a 338-200 EV Victory for Obama, with the junior senator picking up the votes for PA, VA, OH, FL, and NV. Rove hands the dead heat ties of MO, NC, and ND to McCain.

States that he have a within 4% on the polls add another potential (albeit unlikely) 68 EVs. The 1% or less states: ND, IN, NC, and MO are 40 EVs on their own. 378-160 would approach the routing of Bob Dole by Clinton (379-159).

I never thought I’d say this, but thanks to Karl Rove, I’m going to allow myself to be mildly optimistic tonight.

I’ll be leaving the office at 3. People who wish to join our news night feel free to show up any time after (say) 4:30.

I hope that tomorrow I will replace “Yes we can” with “Yes we did”