Have the Republicans done anything positive for America in the past 8 years?

[O'Hea]

He's talking about the UK. He's still just as wrong, but there's a heads up.

Oh. Well this is awkward...

[removeduser_487563287433]

Challenge: now prove him wrong again on the UK. Go on, do a combo move.

[Gaidin]

Challenge: now prove him wrong again on the UK. Go on, do a combo move.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ferrets54 again.

[Dr Zoidberg]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ferrets54 again.

Can't help you mate.

[Roma_Victrix]

I'm from a liberal democracy where we respond to the will of our people with our referendum, and in that referendum we delivered a new democratic mandate for the existence of the UK state. Our response to the financial crisis was to vote in a Conservative led coalition government that deployed spending cuts, not including the NHS, to manage the British deficit downwards. Right now the UK's economy is the strongest growing not just in Europe but for all G7 economies. We lost our empire some twenty to thirty years before I was born, and it happened because we bankrupted ourselves fighting fascism and developed a generation who realised democracy and imperialism are not compatible. No empire in history has been destroyed with more grace.

All this, and when I went into emergency surgery at 2am on a Friday night two and a half years ago I was safe by 9am the following morning, and I didn't pay a penny. Not a penny. Not for the ambulance, the tests, the consultants, the surgery, the follow up care, the drugs. Nothing. When my grandmother developed breast cancer and need years of care? We paid nothing, she's still with us. When my grandad needed pancreatic surgery? Nothing, still with us.

And you, and yours? Well, through private care, through your terrible state care, through insurance, it doesn't matter. You are still going to pay more than any other citizen of any other developed country.

BWB the nationalistic approach to being ed in a debate is never intelligent, but in this example it's ing masochistic.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ferrets54 again.

Dammit! Next time then. Seriously, though, that was a long, slow-motion verbal backhand.

Just be well aware, though, that Big War Bird will come back to this thread and argue you spent more than a penny on those services provided by NHS. It is publicly funded with taxes levied by the central government. Big War Bird's reply will obviously be a passionate defense on why the private sector can handle health care better than the public. The dismal US health care system, even with the watered down ACA in place, says otherwise.

[Sphere]

The US is mostly responsible for the dismantlement of the British Empire.

At the end of WWII Britain was deep in debt. The economy was in a poor state and heavily dependent on the import of basic goods. But the BoE was very short on foreign currency reserves, especially the dollar, which was needed to buy imports.

Britain asked the US government for low interest loans and investment funds akin to what the Marshall plan would provide ~5 years later. But the immediate post-war political mood in the US was focused on disentangling from Europe. Not only did the US reject this loan request out of hand, it also demanded payment for all the Lend-Lease equipment given during the war which the British military wanted to keep. The British government resorted to destroying all of it's Lend-Lease equipment to avoid a massive and un-payable bill to the US.

In light of this economic situation, foreign currency crisis and the domestic political mood, the Labour government set about dismantling much of the military and the highly expensive colonial bureaucracy. Granting independence to the two most troublesome colonial holdings, India and Palestine, in the year proceeding the shift in American policy signaled by the Marshal Plan in 1948.

When the Conservatives came back into power, they tried to reverse de-colonization in the infamous Suez affair. But had evacuate, tail-between-legs, when Ike not only refused to support the UK adventure, but went so far as to threaten to cut off the US loans which had by now stabilized the UK economy.

In short, the US forced the UK into a place where the Empire couldn't me maintained. Although the British public, still suffering under strict rationing years after the war ended, were not terribly concerned with keeping it either.

[AqD]

For just one example, the coffee fetcher (Bill Clinton's term for the Barrack Obama) recently proposed a scheme to seize large portions of children's college savings, known as 529 plans. Republicans opposition squashed that.

Can you explain this to me? Wikipedia says "529 plan is a tax-advantaged investment vehicle in the United States designed to encourage saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary."

[Border Patrol]

Well when you bring up the government run programs your post reads like it has the unspoken assumption that simply that any "government healthcare" is more expensive than privatized. Which isn't true. The article explains better than anything else anyone has written in the last 10 years WHY American health care is so outrageously expensive.

In short, the structural incentive mechanisms are all eff'd up. That doesn't have to do with Medicare it has to do with our entire HMO based system and how it operates. Our private health care is woefully overpriced as well.

Unless we addressed all the concerns in that article in an innovative way or just did the easy solution every other developed nation does health care is going to be overpriced across the board public or private because the incentives are all wrong.

Why the do you people keep coming out of the woodworks to try and prove Jin wrong on 'arguments' that he never made? He's posting facts about the US federal budget. He never said anything relating to private vs public healthcare, nothing relating to the ACA, and certainly nothing about how to manage the ever growing mandatory spending. Go beat your strawman somewhere else.

[Carach]

as a Canadian looking to my neighbors to the south I wonder sometimes why all the craziness down there. Have the republicans done anything positive for America in the past 8 years? Why are people constantly voting for them? I just dont understand it.

blocking absolutely everything obama tries to do to the point of holding the nation hostage (in a very real sense - the government shut down of yesteryear is what i refer to). They were blocking the appointment of judicial figures some years ago just because. So the court system was getting ed. That's just one example.

they havent done jack for the country but american politics is so ludicrously idiotic and illogical none of that matters. Case in point is Obamacare - it got watered down so much by constant republican scaremongering that it's now little more than a government insurance policy and STILL it was attacked for being some kind of march to socialism.

The US is mostly responsible for the dismantlement of the British Empire.

they did more to bring it down than anyone else. Special relationship indeed.

[Gaidin]

Case in point is Obamacare - it got watered down so much by constant republican scaremongering that it's now little more than a government insurance policy and STILL it was attacked for being some kind of march to socialism.

I don't think you know what you're talking about. The ACA got made into what it was so the Dem Senators in the Red States would vote for it. The Republicans had nothing to do with it for all their rantings. Yea. You definitely don't know what you're talking about.

[Symphony]

I'm from a liberal democracy where we respond to the will of our people with our referendum, and in that referendum we delivered a new democratic mandate for the existence of the UK state. Our response to the financial crisis was to vote in a Conservative led coalition government that deployed spending cuts, not including the NHS, to manage the British deficit downwards. Right now the UK's economy is the strongest growing not just in Europe but for all G7 economies. We lost our empire some twenty to thirty years before I was born, and it happened because we bankrupted ourselves fighting fascism and developed a generation who realised democracy and imperialism are not compatible. No empire in history has been destroyed with more grace.

All this, and when I went into emergency surgery at 2am on a Friday night two and a half years ago I was safe by 9am the following morning, and I didn't pay a penny. Not a penny. Not for the ambulance, the tests, the consultants, the surgery, the follow up care, the drugs. Nothing. When my grandmother developed breast cancer and need years of care? We paid nothing, she's still with us. When my grandad needed pancreatic surgery? Nothing, still with us.

And you, and yours? Well, through private care, through your terrible state care, through insurance, it doesn't matter. You are still going to pay more than any other citizen of any other developed country.

BWB the nationalistic approach to being ed in a debate is never intelligent, but in this example it's ing masochistic.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ferrets54 again.

Seriously, nothin' but net.

[Big War Bird]

I'm from a liberal democracy where we respond to the will of our people with our referendum, and in that referendum we delivered a new democratic mandate for the existence of the UK state.

I will take that as conceding that the UK as we know it nearly went poof.

Our response to the financial crisis was to vote in a Conservative led coalition government that deployed spending cuts, not including the NHS, to manage the British deficit downwards.

Ponder that for a while and the importance of this nugget might become clear even to you. Just about everything that is government business, even by my tight standards was sacrificed to the NHS. A very quick google search reveals broad cuts to Justice, to police, to the transportation budget, to food safety. Now I am hardly one to moan about a slashed budget to a government department, but it seems to me that most people to the left of me ought be a little more concerned about that. Unless of course one is so consumed with he can extract by by way of welfare (or the NHS as the case may be) that he just doesn't care.

Right now the UK's economy is the strongest growing not just in Europe but for all G7 economies. We lost our empire some twenty to thirty years before I was born, and it happened because we bankrupted ourselves fighting fascism and developed a generation who realised democracy and imperialism are not compatible. No empire in history has been destroyed with more grace.

As I said, the UK traded empire for welfare.

All this, and when I went into emergency surgery at 2am on a Friday night two and a half years ago I was safe by 9am the following morning, and I didn't pay a penny. Not a penny. Not for the ambulance, the tests, the consultants, the surgery, the follow up care, the drugs. Nothing. When my grandmother developed breast cancer and need years of care? We paid nothing, she's still with us. When my grandad needed pancreatic surgery? Nothing, still with us.

Here is the difference between you and me. I could feel no pride in taking what was forced upon me. I think I would be ashamed to write those words in fact. You had no choice.

And you, and yours? Well, through private care, through your terrible state care, through insurance, it doesn't matter. You are still going to pay more than any other citizen of any other developed country.

Indeed I will pay.* I do feel responsible for myself and my family. I think they are worth my care.

BWB the nationalistic approach to being ed in a debate is never intelligent, but in this example it's ing masochistic.

Using curse words in the place of verbs is always uncouth and in this case make you entirely unintelligible. I wish you had sent me a draft before posting this, I would have happily proof read this for you and saved you some embarrassment.

Can you explain this to me? Wikipedia says "529 plan is a tax-advantaged investment vehicle in the United States designed to encourage saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary."

529's are saving plans whose deposits are taxed but are allowed to grow tax free and can be used tax on college tuition. Obama wanted to repeal that and subject hose plans to taxation. The tax away is that this college savings plan would be ended.

*The complex financial structure of Obamacare subsidies to insurers might make this statement less than fully true.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Oh, BWB. You've never known when to pick your battles, have you? You can literally look at a page of people essentially laughing at you and you wade in for more? Fine by me.

I will take that as conceding that the UK as we know it nearly went poof.



Ponder that for a while and the importance of this nugget might become clear even to you. Just about everything that is government business, even by my tight standards was sacrificed to the NHS. A very quick google search reveals broad cuts to Justice, to police, to the transportation budget, to food safety. Now I am hardly one to moan about a slashed budget to a government department, but it seems to me that most people to the left of would be more concerned about that. Unless of course one is so consumed with he can extract by by way of welfare (or the NHS as the case may be) that he just doesn't care.



As I said, the UK traded empire for welfare.



Here is the difference between you and me. I could feel no pride in taking what was forced upon me. I think I would be ashamed to write those words in fact. You had no choice.





Using curse words in the place of verbs is always uncouth and in this case make you entirely unintelligible. I wish you had sent me a draft before posting this, I would have happily proof read this for you and saved you some embarrassment.



529's are saving plans whose deposits are taxed but are allowed to grow tax free and can be used tax on college tuition. Obama wanted to repeal that and subject hose plans to taxation. The tax away is that this college savings plan would be ended.

Let's not waste time on all the off-topic points. Yes, we had a referendum last year on Scottish independence that resulted in a fresh mandate for the continued existence for the UK, it's got nothing to do with the NHS. Yes, there's been a huge amount of spending cuts in the UK following the financial crisis, and this wouldn't have changed had the NHS funding not been ring-fenced. No, the UK did not trade Empire for welfare, it was going to be lost anyway, and the welfare state was set up long before the winds of change policies were accepted. Fascist states like Portugal were quite capable of losing their empires without a welfare state.

And then the NHS, your strange feeling that it was forced on me, and that I had no choice to use the NHS. I guess you're right in that my illness forced me to seek medical care, although I don't understand what the point was in saying that, but you're wrong in that I had no choice. The UK has a private health industry, and I actually have health insurance through my employer and my parents also have insurance I could use. I went to an Accident and Emergency in a NHS hospital because it was the obviously most sensible thing to do in my condition. And the care I got was excellent and totally free.

At this point I'd say that you, and yours, by comparison, have very little choice. You can only have the care you can afford. I can have the care I can afford, plus the care I can't because... well, NHS. But then again last time you said you were the stay at home husband of a doctor, right? So I guess you can afford to sit here and lecture us because you don't have to face hard realities some other people here might.

And if you don't like me swearing at you? Well, good. Can I send you a draft of some more choice words?

Big War Bird will come back to this thread and argue you spent more than a penny on those services provided by NHS. It is publicly funded with taxes levied by the central government.

Well, he didn't, but it's still something I'd be ready for. Nothing in the world is free of course, but it's hard fact that America's system leaves Americans paying more for healthcare than any developed nation.



Horrifyingly it doesn't even deliver results, with the US trailing on dead babies, Americans living less long on average.

You'd think even the most idiotic yee haw Republican would look at these hard facts and even on a cost efficiently level accept the system was inferior. Sadly the propaganda is just too deep.

[Sharpe]

All this, and when I went into emergency surgery at 2am on a Friday night two and a half years ago I was safe by 9am the following morning, and I didn't pay a penny. Not a penny. Not for the ambulance, the tests, the consultants, the surgery, the follow up care, the drugs. Nothing. When my grandmother developed breast cancer and need years of care? We paid nothing, she's still with us. When my grandad needed pancreatic surgery? Nothing, still with us.

The US is mostly responsible for the dismantlement of the British Empire.

True. The Americans were deeply angered by the British and French Mandates in the Middle East.

It was pretty much betrayal to them.

[Big War Bird]

Oh, BWB. You've never known when to pick your battles, have you? You can literally look at a page of people essentially laughing at you and you wade in for more? Fine by me.

I am used to being the minority, it goes with being right about everything.

No, the UK did not trade Empire for welfare, it was going to be lost anyway, and the welfare state was set up long before the winds of change policies were accepted.

The labour party victory of 1945 ushered in the welfare state. I know there was an old age pension plan set well before that I know, but the welfare state as you know came in as the empire was leaving.

, and I actually have health insurance through my employer and my parents also have insurance I could use. I went to an Accident and Emergency in a NHS hospital because it was the obviously most sensible thing to do in my condition. And the care I got was excellent and totally free.

You are the master of your own facts, but from my understanding private insurance in the UK typically does not cover emergency care. Health insurance exist to skip the rationing of the NHS. Good for you anyway.

You can only have the care you can afford.

Indeed, and it feels wonderful.

But then again last time you said you were the stay at home husband of a doctor, right? So I guess you can afford to sit here and lecture us because you don't have to face hard realities some other people here might.

Actually I am working again after so many years in lap of luxury. The world just couldn't get along without me. I work from home at a least a full hour every week day, even on banking holidays. Sometimes. It's terrible. I haven't had a pedicure in a month I've been so busy.

And if you don't like me swearing at you? Well, good. Can I send you a draft of some more choice words?

I couldn't understand what you meant earlier, but you talk dirty to me any time you want!

[removeduser_487563287433]

I am used to being the minority, it goes with being right about everything.



The labour party victory of 1945 ushered in the welfare state. I know there was an old age pension plan set well before that I know, but the welfare state as you know came in as the empire was leaving.



You are the master of your own facts, but from my understanding private insurance in the UK typically does not cover emergency care. Health insurance exist to skip the rationing of the NHS. Good for you anyway.



Indeed, and it feels wonderful.



Actually I am working again after so many years in lap of luxury. The world just couldn't get along without me. I work from home at a least a full hour every week day, even on banking holidays. Sometimes. It's terrible. I haven't had a pedicure in a month I've been so busy.



I couldn't understand what you meant earlier, but you talk dirty to me any time you want!

Naw, you're just wrong on your dates on welfare and empire. Yes, welfare came in with Attlee but these guys had every intention of keeping the empire. Suez was a good few years away, and Macmillan a good few years after that. The loss of the British Empire and the creation of the welfare state simply are not correlated.

So I think we are left where we started? US healthcare is the most expensive in the developed world, the least effective in terms of average lifespan and infant mortality, and the NHS is great, and does not stop British people from having choice with their healthcare.

[Big War Bird]

Naw, you're just wrong on your dates on welfare and empire. Yes, welfare came in with Attlee but these guys had every intention of keeping the empire. Suez was a good few years away, and Macmillan a good few years after that. The loss of the British Empire and the creation of the welfare state simply are not correlated.

You seem a little in the dark on the history of your own nation, but I do now apprehend the source of your confusion as to my position. I wasn't saying the UK went from Empire to welfare state as matter of deliberate policy, though there were some who thought along those lines, and in fact the devolving of empire and the creation of the welfare state was overseen by some of the same people. I merely meant that it happened, the UK lost its empire and "gained" welfare. Or do you deny there ever was a British Empire? Or maybe you think there still is an Empire? Then again you might deny there was created a welfare state? Or maybe is around since Elizabethan times but was just under reported?

Anyway you may want to read this book

So I think we are left where we started? US healthcare is the most expensive in the developed world, the least effective in terms of average lifespan and infant mortality, and the NHS is great, and does not stop British people from having choice with their healthcare.

The life expectancy and infant mortality rates have nothing to do with our healthcare and has everything to do with the fact that Americans are way too often overfeed, trigger happy, boozehounding crackheads.. When those things are normalized we live longer than . . . well I don't want to spoil it for you.

In any event thanks for agreeing to my central point which was that social welfare has captured the center of government business (NHS for the UK, Social Security and Medicare and for the USA) to the detriment of virtually everything else government ought to be doing. And I think you will agree that in your country and mine, we haven't any genuine way to pay for them. Public debt in your your country and mine grow year by year with no prospect of closing the gap.

[removeduser_487563287433]

You seem a little in the dark on the history of your own nation, but I do now apprehend the source of your confusion as to my position. I wasn't saying the UK went from Empire to welfare state as matter of deliberate policy, though there were some who thought along those lines, and in fact the devolving of empire and the creation of the welfare state was overseen by some of the same people. I merely meant that it happened, the UK lost its empire and "gained" welfare. Or do you deny there ever was a British Empire? Or maybe you think there still is an Empire? Then again you might deny there was created a welfare state? Or maybe is around since Elizabethan times but was just under reported?

Anyway you may want to read this book







The life expectancy and infant mortality rates have nothing to do with our healthcare and has everything to do with the fact that Americans are way too often overfeed, trigger happy, boozehounding crackheads.. When those things are normalized we live longer than . . . well I don't want to spoil it for you.

In any event thanks for agreeing to my central point which was that social welfare has captured the center of government business (NHS for the UK, Social Security and Medicare and for the USA) to the detriment of virtually everything else government ought to be doing. And I think you will agree that in your country and mine, we haven't any genuine way to pay for them. Public debt in your your country and mine grow year by year with no prospect of closing the gap.

BWB there is no question that Britain had an empire and developed a welfare state in the 1950s. Well done on saying something happened, regardless of the topic or what we were discussing.

Life expectancy and child mortality have a lot to do with healthcare. Ask your wife when you're cooking dinner later today, if you don't believe me. According to UNICEF most child mortality is caused by one or more of the following five reasons; respiratory infections, diarrhea, measles, malaria, malnutrition. All of these, excepting malnutrition, can be combated by effective healthcare. Indeed measles can be eradicated due to healthcare so long as anti-vaxxers don't ruin it for everybody. So you claim that the NHS is of detriment to the UK, yet the NHS provides better results, cheaper, in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality than the US system. This is demonstrable fact. Indeed, I've sourced it.

Would you like to talk more about the Empire? Maybe you would like to prove the NHS isn't more cost effective than the US system by talking about the Romans next?

[Big War Bird]

BWB there is no question that Britain had an empire and developed a welfare state in the 1950s. Well done on saying something happened, regardless of the topic or what we were discussing.

Some one must have hacked your account then, because I could sworn in post 100 you disputed the fact that Britain "traded empire for a welfare," when you responded to O'hea post's by saying,

He's talking about the UK. He's still just as wrong, but there's a heads up

According to UNICEF most child mortality is caused by one or more of the following five reasons; respiratory infections, diarrhea, measles, malaria, malnutrition. All of these, excepting malnutrition, can be combated by effective healthcare.

As you say, those are the leading causes of death - in the world. And those things are mostly non issues, or secondary issues in the developed world. First though there does have to some correcting of the data in the way that infant mortality is counted. In the US any live birth that then dies is counted as an infant death. Not so else where. Death of extreme premature babies are counted as miscarriages. When this is normalized the US infant mortality rate drops to 4.2, about the same as the UK's. And in fact the US neonatal death rate is better paragon Norway. It is when babies go home that the problem really happens.

All of that being said what are the leading causes of infant death in the US?

1. Serious birth defect caused by alcohol, drug use, diabetes, overweight mother, poor nutrition and smoking
2. Premature birth - caused by much the same things as birth defects
3. SIDS - Catchall term for unexplained deaths
4. Maternal complication such as anemia, gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, urinary tract infection
5. Injury


I still must point out that you haven't confronted my main point for this thread - Welfare programs are displacing basic governmental services such as functioning courts, police forces, military protection and infrastructure.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Some one must have hacked your account then, because I could sworn in post 100 you disputed the fact that Britain "traded empire for a welfare," when you responded to O'hea post's by saying,






As you say, those are the leading causes of death - in the world. And those things are mostly non issues, or secondary issues in the developed world. First though there does have to some correcting of the data in the way that infant mortality is counted. In the US any live birth that then dies is counted as an infant death. Not so else where. Death of extreme premature babies are counted as miscarriages. When this is normalized the US infant mortality rate drops to 4.2, about the same as the UK's. And in fact neonatal death rate is better paragon Norway. It is when babies go home that the problem really happens.

All of that being said what are the leading causes of infant death in the US?

1. Serious birth defect caused by alcohol, drug use, diabetes, overweight mother, poor nutrition and smoking
2. Premature birth - caused by much the same things as birth defects
3. SIDS - Catchall term for unexplained deaths
4. Maternal complication such as anemia, gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, urinary tract infection
5. Injury

The UK didn't trade empire for welfare. That implies it was an intentional, transnational affair, which is indeed what you were arguing originally. And it's just nonsense.

On infant mortality, are you saying now that healthcare does influence this rate, or no? Or did you mean to say healthcare doesn't have any effect on this in America, and that the fact America loses more of its babies than other developed countries is down to another factor? And what would that factor be, BWB?

I might water torture you on the facts here: http://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanm.../article2.html

"Women on Medicaid, for example, are more likely to deliver preterm, as are women in lower income brackets."

Literally that - women enjoying the choice of having no choice but to be on Medicaid are more likely to suffer the thing you identify as the second most prolific cause of infant mortality in the USA.