New, Improved Obamacare Program Released On 35 Floppy Disks

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Michael, Oct 22, 2013.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes just like Europe, where everyone is covered at half the cost of US healthcare. All this was negotiated by those authoritarian European governments, right?.
    Give me a break!
     
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  3. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Move to Greece and live there then.

    We'll see how well the healthcare systems hold up in northern Europe as their homogeneous hardworking relatively high IQ populations are replaced. Already, their populations are in decline, and demographically, they will slowly be replaced. Without continued immigration, either Welfare services will be cut, or they will work much much much more productively - and for a lot longer. "Free-Shit" doesn't magically appear - people have to produce, and people generally like being paid when they work. If it's highly skilled work, they generally like being paid more than the average schmoe.

    Yeah, I know, in your dream world there's all this free healthcare services just sitting there for the taking.... if only we had the money. In the real world, thanks to regulatory capture, it's a rent-seekers market.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You've been corrected on this before: They aren't homogenous. A lot of them don't even have a universal language that almost everyone speaks, or an overwhelmingly dominant religion, the way the US does. And US citizens work longer and harder hours than any of them.
    Just a little more productively would do fine - the investment in the infrastructure has been made already. Do you think gains in productivity are unlikely, in modern economies?
    In your dream world that's other people's dream world. In reality there's just a bunch of people who would like to not pay twice as much money as other First World countries for lower quality care than those countries regard as standard.
     
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  7. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    They were relatively homogenous. Particularly in countries like Sweden. In addition, northern countries, including E. Asia, had similar selection pressures - primarily a winter. These evolutionary pressures selected for particularly behaviours which are expressed in their respective cultures. Germany and Japan share many similarities.

    If you want to claim Switzerland isn't homogeneous because there's a mix of Catholicism and Protestantism, or because people speak Italian, German and French - feel free to do so. You can think of Switzerland as being multicultural. My guess is, it'll lead you to continuously draw incorrect conclusions. But hey, that's okay, because: Narrative.

    That's why we have empiricism. It doesn't matter what we think. What is, is.

    And you know what empiricism shows? Hyper-regulation across 100 years has led to a culture of rent-seeking and a dependance on regulatory capture resulting NOT in safer more affordable medical care, but astronomically expensive disease care that is likely to kill you. As in, if you don't smoke, the odds are, you will go into a hospital and be accidentally killed.

    Thank you Progressives, another market with a totally distorted price mechanism that sucks. But don't worry, if there's one thing Americans love, it is Statist Authoritarianism and Free-Shit. Which go hand in glove. One day, FREE Government O-Blah-Blah-Care will be as useless as a K-15 functional illiterate and as safe as a Government run ghetto. But, hey, at least it will be free.

    In the meantime, let's watch as another Government run program implodes.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2016
  8. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Bloomberg: Obamacare Is a Money-Loser for Insurers, Who Are Giving Up.
    With almost $2 billion in losses this year, big insurance companies are pulling out of the health-care program
    So, United Health announced they plan to exit 31 of the 34 states where it currently offers ACA policies, Aetna is dropping 11 out of 15 states and Humana is reducing it's offerings to just 156 counties down from 1,351 a year ago.

    Insurers are also hiking premiums by 24%, on average, for the remaining states in 2017.


    If you think Government-Schools or Government-Ghettos are great, just wait until you get to try out a Government-Hospital. In the USA, around 480,000 Americans die from medical error each year. Thanks to the Progressives of the early 1900s (and late 1800s) we have hyper-Regulated healthcare where the price is astronomical (likely to bankrupt you) while at the same time also likely to kill you. This is ONLY possible through Government. The Free-Market would NEVER, EVER reward shit quality with a high price.

    It doesn't happen.

    Government has distorted all aspects of society. It controls our money/fiat currency. It places limits on who can practice medicine, who can qualify practitioners, even who can buy medical devices. Government actually LIMITS access to medical treatments (fMRI for example) on PURPOSE. You know, because the Government is so great at managing all markets - AKA: to ensure the price remains high.

    The Regulatory Capture is so sweet, it's a Rent-Seeker's wet-dream. Ironically, the lure of power and money draws 10s of millions and millions of Americans into Universities in an attempt to pass the magical multiple choice tests to become said Rent-Seeker. Isn't that great? Makes the Universities a shit ton of money. And, in the end, it's really just a kind of lottery. Get lucky, win big and become a Rent-Seeker. Don't, well there's always McStarbucks... never mind the trillions of dollars in 'Government' backed debt / T-bonds sold on the future productive labor of the unborn... no, don't notice that.

    Whatever the Government touches, turns to shit. DiseaseCare is no exception.


    Geee, I guess maybe initiating violence against morally innocent humans isn't all that great an idea after all? But then how are we all going to get Free-Shit? How would Bernie Bean get elected if he couldn't promise to take from someone, and give to you - because YOU deserve it. Well well well, and look, thanks to Progressive Socialism / Fascism we have the Healthcare System that we all deserve.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2016
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Also Islam, and Romanch.

    Which is more homogenous, Switzerland, California, or Texas? How about Canada?
    Or Cuba, Venezuela, Albania, etc.
    Or the US - one language, essentially one short cultural history, one economy. More homogenous than Germany, or Canada, or Switzerland. Right?
    We are all agreed that private corporate capitalist health insurance sucks. Your point?
    Or "Reactionary Capitalism/Communism" - means exactly the same thing, in your posting. Dictionary time.
    That you are probably incapable of posting a correct and factually accurate assertion about any matter of historical or political significance.
     
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  10. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    LOL
    Islam is also present in Japan. So? Are you going to argue Japan isn't a homogeneous culture? If so, then the word 'homogeneous' has no meaning to you. Which is fine, you do like your no true Scotsmen fallacy. Not that clinging to it is going to turn O-blah-blah-could-Care into an economically feasible healthcare program.

    Corporations are legal fictions (creation of the Government) and we do not use Capital (we use Central Banker currency backed, by fiat, through State violence) - so you can thank Government for our utter mess of a society.

    Healthcare is the single most Government-regulated industry in the USA. Running neck-and-neck with Finance. The point is, if we want to have affordable sustainable healthcare then we need to return to a time of sound money, derived through free-market exchange (free-people), laws that protect private property (beginning with one's body) and a return to free-markets.

    Isn't that the great thing about empiricism? Is really doesn't matter. What is, is. And right now ObamaCare is imploding. This is an empirical evidenced based objective fact. As close to truth as we can get locked away in our brains like this

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    LOL

    Limited.

    That's what the Framers intended when they wrote the US Constitution. To limit State Authoritarianism. A lesson that must be learned from time to time. Until then, I guess we all get to enjoy our 24% increased premiums in 2017. How nice for us. Thank the GAWDS for hyper-regulated healthcare. Gee, wouldn't want to let free-market efficiency eliminate shit pedagogy and drive value for money. Not when Government ruined healthcare can out-right kill half a million Americans due to negligence each year.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    No, I'm arguing that Switzerland is not - and was not, when the political base of its current prosperity was set up - an homogenous culture. Few European countries, except fairly small ones, are.
    So now on your planet privately owned corporations are not capitalist but somehow branches of the government, the existence of fiat money means there is no such thing as capital in a given economy, and all these prosperous countries full of prosperous citizens are utter messes.

    And I am the purveyor of the No True Scotsman fallacy?
    Return? To what never existed? Because such circumstances have never existed, anywhere, according to you.

    And why is it that we must realize this simplistic and impossible fantasy first, while others - such as the 33 First World health care systems not the US - manage to provide themselves affordable and sustainable health care in the real world?
    Thereby demonstrating that health insurance cannot rely on market competition to curb costs. Markets don't work, in health insurance.
     
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  12. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Government hyper-regulatory-captured non-free markets do not work. Government monopolies, like all monopolies, end with a shit product (in this case a supposed 'healthcare' system, that [assuming you don't smoke] is the statistical reason you'll die) that cost too much (medical bills are the biggest cause of US bankruptcies).

    Our HYPER regulated DiseaseCare system costs way to much and shits out a low quality product. Not only that, but thanks to Government price distortion, 10s of millions of Americans waste billions and billions of dollars and countless years trying to gain acceptance into one of our Rent-Seeking institutions.

    A classic example of Regulatory Capture and Rent-Seeking.

    A total Government monopoly over healthcare will see costs skyrocket and quality plummet even further - to the point where you'll begin to see Americans flying out of America to obtain healthcare in other countries. And, those with the means, actually do so. Of course, it'll be "FREE" / paid for through the lost prosperity of generations of Americans (see: Today).

    If we want affordable healthcare of good quality then we need Government to return to it's LIMITED role of enforcing laws that protect our privacy and private property while free-market trade will derive sound currency and other goods, including healthcare. Is that likely to happen? No, not likely. At least at first. Why? Because the Free-Shit Army wants them sum free-shit. In this case, healthcare. Thus, we will see ObamaCare collapse, it will be replaced with something worse, more Government Regulatory Capture will lead to healthcare claiming the crown of #1 reason you die period - but it will be "FREE" / your kids will pay through the nose by working until they drop dead with a reduced standard of living (as is currently happening to pay for the FREE from decades before [See: Dual income families, oh wait, Millennials/Generation-Screwed can't even afford a family; well, that's okay, we'll import thousands of refugees / *poof* instant herd of adult tax chattel, yes, let's see how that works out for us... LOL).

    Luckily, again, those with the means, will simply leave and watch as the US Welfare State implodes. Which it will do. The Government will continue to grow, like the cancer it is, until it finally kills society (See: Chiraq, Kilwaukee, Detroit, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, or a plethora of other Progressive Socialist Paradises for how the movie ends: Healthcare and otherwise). Who knows? Maybe States will begin to succeed? I hear the New Hampshire Free-State project recently sent out their call to begin migration of 20,000 civil libertarians to live in the State and being to democratically implement total free-market reforms.
    That's pretty cool isn't it?

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    Lead by example. Too bad with our Central Bank in control of our currency - they're f*cked.


    At least it'll make another fun show to watch on our way to Redistributor The Great.
    LOL

    As for our Central Planners at our Central Bank - yes, they have distorted all government-regulated-markets in the USA. They even bailed out the richest, morally corrupt, criminal cronies in modern history - to the cheers of the functional illiterates who wonder why Hope and Change turned out to be More of The Same. My guess is, eventually, the Central Bank will finally destroy our money itself - perhaps ending the Union in the process?

    Would you like to sit back and watch?
    Or are you going to 'do something'? You know, like pull the magic voting lever for more free-shit. Yes, that's the modern American way. Magic Government will provide everything, we just need the right 'Leader' in there carrying the Big Stick of Immorality. That'll fix things.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2016
  13. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    "Medicare Has Controlled Costs Better Than Private Insurance
    .
    Medicare Has Lower Administrative Costs Than Private Plans.
    .
    So-called “competition” in the private health care market has driven costs up.
    .
    • In most local markets, providers have monopoly power. Consequently, private insurers lack the bargaining power to contain prices.
    • In most areas, two or three dominant insurers dominate the regional market, limit competition and make it extremely difficult if not impossible for new insurers to enter the marketplace and stimulate price competition.
    • Medicare Advantage, which enrolls seniors in private health plans, has failed to deliver care more efficiently than traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Both the CBO and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), the commission which advises congress on Medicare’s finances, have calculated that Medicare Advantage plans covering the same care as traditional Medicare cost 12 percent more.
    • Karen Ignagni, who heads America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurance industry’s trade association, has admitted that private plans cannot bargain down provider costs and has asked Washington to intervene.
    Medicare Is Publicly Accountable, Private Plans Are Not
    When it comes to how much it costs private plans to deliver care, or individual insurer innovations that deliver value, the publicly available data are scarce.
    Goodman and Saving present only one study on the ways that insurers try to control costs, and this was published by AHIP. Because Medicare is publicly accountable, it allows us to study what works so that we can improve the health care system.
    .
    • The authors cite a number of innovations that could lower the cost of care, but all of them have been introduced by doctors and clinics, not insurers. Because insurance companies treat their claims data as trade secrets, we do not know if they have adopted such innovations.
    • Even government-funded Medicare Advantage plans don’t release payment and coverage data.
    A closer look at the data shows that, contrary to Goodman and Saving’s claims, Medicare delivers health care more efficiently than private insurers. Medicare’s public accountability and bargaining power give it the ability to drive system change and control skyrocketing health care costs, while profit-driven private insurers have offered no solution."
    http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/
     
  14. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    957
    Note that I post facts with sources whereas you post rants.
     
  15. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    As I stated, we will move from the mess that is ObamaCare towards another Government-run monopoly: GovernmentCare.

    The end result will be overly expensive healthcare that is the #1 reason why you die - outright (instead of #2 where it is now). Then, the days when medical error only killed approximately 480,000 Americans and led to lifelong injury in anther 3 - 5 million will seem like 'the Good Ole Days'. Once we have GovernmentCare, expect those kill-numbers to climb, precipitately. And, to appear perfectly normal. Incidentally, you should also expect your rates to rise, taxes to increase, and expect to pay more of your share of the 'free-shit' / medical care, as you receive less, and of lower quality.

    Via WSJ: Social Security, Medicare Face Insolvency Over 20 Years, Trustees Report
    June 22, 2016

    WASHINGTON—Medicare and Social Security will begin to spend more than they earn by the end of this decade, new projections showed Wednesday, putting a spotlight on an issue that has seen scant discussion in an election year—the programs’ solvency challenges facing the next president.

    The annual report card from the programs’ trustees said Medicare’s hospital-insurance trust fund, which provides coverage to more than 55 million Americans, will exhaust its reserves by 2028, two years sooner than estimated last year.

    Medicare’s trust fund is projected to face depletion earlier than was forecast last year due to slight revisions in projected incomes and costs, though falling health-care costs in recent years have provided greater breathing room. As recently as 2009, trustees had estimated the hospital-care fund would be depleted by 2017.

    Social Security faces depletion by 2034, which would trigger a 21% across-the-board benefit cut if Congress doesn’t act. More than 49 million Americans collected retirement benefits through the program last year, and nearly 11 million received payments from a separate disability-insurance program.

    Last year, Social Security beneficiaries didn’t receive any living-cost increase because falling energy prices led to an annual decline in the inflation gauge used to set such increases. Wednesday’s report said it is currently forecasting an increase of just 0.2% in living-cost adjustments at year-end.

    The costs of both programs are set to rise due to the aging of the U.S. population, making it difficult for the government to outrun the solvency problems even by sharply boosting economic growth. Medicare and Social Security accounted for 41% of federal spending last year, up from 36% in 2011.


    --o--
    Government will continue to expand, like the cancer it is, until it kills the host - society. Healthcare is a mess. Education is a joke. The Police State is a reality - complete with the largest PIC in human history, generational welfare and war-torn Government-run ghettos. Not to mention the Nineteen Eighty-Four spying, NewSpeek and MIC with it's never ending phony wars.

    Healthcare is just one in a long list of Government FUBARs. Expect more as we move Forward, Guidanced

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  16. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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  17. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Incidentally, the Tennessee Insurance Commissioner Warns Obamacare "Very Near Collapse" in their State.

    Gee, who'd of thunk that artificially limiting the number of legal practitioners, legal pedagogues, as well as legal services themselves (actually preventing licensed practitioners from buying equipment like an fMRI machines and offering a service) - you know "Central Planning" would result in a reduced supply of healthcare goods and services and increase the cost for the amount that does exist (the whole point of the AMA existing).

    Yes, nobody would have guessed limiting a supply of a good/service generally causes its price to go up. At least no body in Government Schooled-into-Compliance America.... duuuuuuhhhhh..... me vote Left/Right now....

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    Government Schooling - getting one thing right (Cognitive biases and Normalization taking care of the rest

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    )


    Upshot? Centrally Planned Healthcare is now the #2 reason you die - #1 if you don't smoke. Oh, and the Jerbs, let's not forget the Jerbs. Because the AMA used Regulatory Capture to 'regulate' drug use (a very very very lucrative form of Rent-Seeking), the State was able to start the War on Drugs / Civil Liberties.

    How great!

    Think of all those PIC Jerbs!
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2016
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you Ronald Reagan (for the Social Security shortfall, which is actually a Reagan and W administrations's income tax break for rich people) and the free-market, government-hating ideologues in the Republican Party for the Medicare shortfall (they forbade price negotiation by the government in several key areas of medical care).

    The US does not have centrally planned healthcare. Countries that do have better outcome stats, and much lower costs.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, the greatest cause of death by far is from diseases spread by mosquitos in large parts of the world without access to free inoculation.
     
  20. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    LOL
    Healthcare is anything but a free-market. And while politicians may refer to a 'free-market' (Rethuglicans pretending they support it, and DemoCrips pretending they fight it) in the real world, we do not have a free-market. We have a hyper-regulated market with Government approved rent-seekers at ALL LEVELS.

    To practice medicine you'll need a Government licence; not a free-market. Imagine if you were required a licence to log onto the internet, make a webpage, or upload a video - requiring a licence doesn't mean webpages are going to be better, it means there will be less of them to visit. Less competition means the continued improvement stalls. Regulating who can upload stuff to the internet removes competition and transfers an enormous amount of power to the Government Regulators - it instantly turns those who have a licence (usually current market participants) into Rent-Seekers. Of course, to get a licence, you'll need a University "Degree". This then turns Universities and Government Schools into Rent-Seekers. There's no longer a incentive to provide education, but instead into pump and dump degree factories. Because having the licence is all that really matters, a whole industry (including private) spring up to pass the assessments to obtain the limited number of licences. Everything goes UP in price and DOWN in quality.

    In the real world hundreds of thousands of students waste their lives in an inane attempt to pass assessment items in order to get a licence. Most of these tests actually assess IQ (g) and short term memory. Well guess what? Across a population, some people are genetically more capable of playing basketball, or taking IQ tests and have better short term memories. This then leads to 'affirmative action' and an entire Narrative about Asians 'holding the White Man Down - you know, if you're White, you're probably "Down with the Cause".

    And on and on it goes. ALL levels of society are warped with just ONE SMALL Regulation requiring a licence. ALL LEVELS. The Drug War and PIC (largest in human history) are only possible because of a small regulation requiring a licences.

    Sure, in a monoculture of hardworking, relatively honest, intelligent and genetically similar people - your immoral ideals of State Authoritarianism/Progressive Socialism, works well enough - for a time, perhaps across a couple generations. But the distortion in the price mechanism sets society off a few degrees at the beginning, but over the decades the course society follows is off a cliff. A distorted price leads to behaviours that do not align with reality. If I force the price of blueberries to $0.01 cents a bucket (free) soon there are no more blueberries - that's why we NEED a sound money and a price and even *GASP* profit.

    As an example, voting for a politician who promises a bunch of free-shit, and then not having the children needed to pay for the free-shit in the future, leads to social collapse - and importing a bunch of low IQ people, with a culture of sloth and superstition, isn't going to magically make up the labor difference. Incidentally, this is why we have the Multiculturalism Narrative. How asinine: Unity in Solidarity becomes Unity in Difference. In reality, this is just the Government's way of importing the labor needed to make up the difference between reality, and the subjective desires the painted as reality when they promised free-shit to get elected. While it takes time, eventually you'll end up living in a shit-hole Nation State.

    And this doesn't even begin to address the problem with the Central Bank and how Government uses fiat currency to distort the hell out of the price mechanism - warping society to the point where people actually believe there's such a thing as 'free' University or 'free' Healthcare'.

    And, if you disagree, that's okay: in the end, Empiricism trumps your No True Scotsman fallacy, it trumps the Ghost of Reagan, it trumps B.Sanders - in the end, what is, is. And OblahmaCare is going bust. In reality, Government Schools shit out functionally illiterate graduates at a rate of 1 in 5. In reality, Government starts phoney wars and runs the largest prison complex in human history. In reality, Government-hyper-regulated healthcare, will kill you through medical error, assuming you don't smoke.
    Move to Venezuela or Greece, enjoy all the Socialism you like. Or better yet, move into one of our Government run Welfare Ghettos - enjoy the Socialism right here at home.


    If you think you have a great idea for providing healthcare goods and services in an economically meaningful manner, do it. If you think CEO's are scamming the system - well, the solution is easy. Copy their business plan, reduce your salary, and undercut the price - gaining all that market share. Do it. Go out and work WITH people in society and open a health insurance company.

    Run it as a non-profit. See how well you do working with the American public. If it's true 50% of people support your ideas, then you'll have no problem opening your business.



    In the meantime, we'll watch as another Government-run program collapses in a pile of oxymoron's.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2016
  21. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Just HOW do you think those 'free' inoculations get paid for?

    Democratic Social paradise Venezuela had 'free' healthcare - children are dying for lack of basic medicines.
    Socialist Utopia North Korea has 'free' food - they starve to death.

    You people will destroy all of society with your little meme 'free-shit' virus. You're the reason why "Democratic' Social paradises become autocratic Dictatorial paradises, because you cannot be trusted with the vote. You'll just keep voting for free-shit. Forever. 15 for 15. K-14, no K- 25! Free free free...... In an actual 'democratic' socialist paradise, you'll be given a pretend vote, while the real power will be held by some cabinet somewhere.

    Don't worry, in time we'll vote for our own little Bernie Chavez. Give it time. In the meantime, pull the magic lever for WarHarpy.


    Oh, and the 'free' inoculations are paid for by the remnants of what was capitalism, neo-Fascism/crony-Capitalism. It works well enough, if you don't mind never ending War. The price for the 'free' inoculations in Africa, is our bombing the shit out of other children in oil-rich nations. The ultimate pricing being the Earth's ecosystems themselves. But hey, free-shit shooore is nice.
     
  22. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Number of ObamaCare providers:

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  23. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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