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[filkertom]

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, George W. Bush accused Al Gore of treating Social Security "like some kinda federal program."

That incisive intellectual style lives on with the aptly-named Arthur Laffer, bloviating on CNN this morning:

If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

And, for the record, the Post Office does a pretty fucking good job.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Obama even called out one of these last week: "I got a letter the other day from a woman; she said, I don’t want government-run health care, I don’t want socialized medicine, and don’t touch my Medicare."

*wham*
*wham*
*wham*

Gah. My grandfather's words, as usual, are right. "You keep making the same mistake time and time again. You think logic matters."

[maiac.livejournal.com]

My doctor has told me that he has patients ranting to him about "socialized medicine". He responds by pointing out that they're on Medicare. Somehow they don't think of Medicare as a government program, even though it's paid for with tax dollars and administered by, you know, the government.

I think this shows how successful Grover Norquist and his ilk have been in redefining "government" to mean "anything bad". If it's something desirable and well done, it can't possibly be the government. ::headdesk::

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

I can't stop laughing.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I'm immensely amused by the right-wing folk on my LiveJournal friends list who, in friends-only posts, alternate between arguing that the government should stay out of everything... and complaining that their unemployment checks are being held up.

[patoadam]

From Paul Krugman:

At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”

Also from Paul Krugman, re your Barack Obama birthday post:

Only 47% of Southerners say that Barack Obama was born in the U.S. 30% are unsure, and 28% think say he was not born in the U.S.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

And despite the repetitive jokes, the DMVs of a lot of states have gone out of their way to shake the bad reputation they have. In a lot of places it's one of the most efficient bureaus of the state government.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

We can only hope and pray that someday we'll have health care that's as efficent, cheap and well run as the US post office. God knows it's way, way, WAY worse than that now.

I love how they say that this will make health care be run by "a bunch of bureaucrats." Who do they think runs it now? The difference is, the bureaucrats that are running it now have a personal monetary interest in boning you as bad as possible. Personally I'd rather have the government providing the care.

Yeah, free market, etc. Health care in the US right now is NOT a free market. Nowhere near one.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Word. The Secretary of State office I go to in Ann Arbor has completely reorganized over the past year, and it's a lot more efficient, open, and friendly.

[dlobok.livejournal.com]

"And, for the record, the Post Office does a pretty fucking good job."

This is the only time I've ever disagreed with you - granted, it comes on the heels of getting back over 20 damaged orders that never even left the local post office (With those wonderful, "Sorry we destroyed your mail" letters).

[jenk]

Ah, but don't you see? Real Americans [tm] don't actually have experience with Medicare and Medicaid and thus fear them. But when private insurance is banned people will be FORCED to use them!

Or something.

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

Of the Southern 'Birthers,' I have to wonder how many of those understand that he was born in Hawaii, but don't understand that it's part of the US.

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

I rather enjoy hearing similar rants from patients waiting to see their doctors ... at the VA hospital.

[gorgeousgary]

I was also going to comment that Mr. Laffer is getting his levels of government somewhat confused. (Federal agencies/programs versus state agencies.)

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

As I've told other people:

"The government is beholden to me. The free market is beholden to no-fucking-body. Call me a control freak, but..."

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Tom, please steal my icon.

For all you people who think the Post Office sucks, the Royal Air Mail is more expensive, slower, and known to steal things.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Arthur Laffer? That's the guy with the economic theory that's holy writ to Libertarians and trivially devoid of content to anyone who's taken enough geometry to know how many curves can be drawn between two points?

[valsadie.livejournal.com]

My Twitter status a few days ago:

Disagree with @whitehouse strategies - but keep the science fiction ("END" of life care, birth cert nonsense) down to a minimum please? Thx!


It drives me absolutely crazy that the bigger and more outrageous the lies, the more some people are believing it! I thought it would be as bad as it could possibly get during the campaign. But the way it's continuing and fomenting and building is downright scary. And what makes me craziest is the sheer ignorance (and unfortunate gullibility) displayed by these people. Not knowing that Medicare is administered by the U.S. Government is just the tip of the iceberg. If nothing else, the complete perversion of the concept of socialism is unforgivable.

[shadowofsummer.livejournal.com]

The Post Office arbitrarily raises its rates while reducing the services it provides. That's a fantastic model for healthcare.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I was going to say the same thing; the DMV here in Texas is nowhere near as bad as I'd been led to expect. It is true that the waiting line for DL renewals at the office nearest us (which is in the middle of the city) can get pretty damn long -- but other offices aren't like that, and the one in Huntsville (about 1½ hours north of us, on the way to Dallas, a route we end up driving very frequently) generally has no line at all. So that's where we go to do our renewals!

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

The Post Office is no longer run by the Federal government, either. It's a separate (dare I say "privatized"?) entity, and has been since sometime in the 1970s.

[caindog.livejournal.com]

For less than 50 cents, a nice lady will drive to my house in Texas to pick up an envelope and a few days later that envelope is hand-delivered directly to the house of my friend in Portland, Oregon. Is the USPS perfect? Heck no, but they're delivering over 200 billion pieces of mail a year. Find me any other system of any kind that processes 200 billion anything physical and I'll bet that the USPS error rate is better. Also, look up how the USPS is actually funded. I can tell, you'll be shocked and amazed.

Normally, the free market rewards success when you build something better or provide a better service at a better price. But in health insurance, their profits increase when they don't provide the service you're paying them to provide. There's a reason the US is #46 on the CIA World Fact Book's rank of countries by infant mortality rate. We're behind most of the free world. We're behind Slovenia. Even Cuba checks in at #44. Cuba! Can we honestly say our healthcare system is working when we lag behind Cuba in infant mortality rates?

[ericcoleman]

as I said elsewhere in response to this quote ... I've been a driver for 34 years, and I have never found the DMV to be anything less than efficient in Iowa or Illinois.

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

"And, for the record, the Post Office does a pretty fucking good job."

Not in MY neck of the woods. I can't tell you how many times I've traded mail with either the next door neighbors or the guy on the next street over. Same number completely different street name. The winner, though, was the letter with the same house number, but different street name that was from so far on the other side of Indy that the letter had a different zip code. Until I moved to my current location, I had very few problems with the Post Office, so it's gotta be the local branch.

[karjack.livejournal.com]

I'm baffled by the people who don't want government controlled health care because they don't want their health care in the hands of an apathetic bureaucrat. As opposed to an insurance company employee who has a vested interest in making sure you are never provided with the service for which you're paying? I'll take the apathetic bureaucrat, thanks.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Amen to the Post Office comment.