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Who do you hold at fault for the Govt shutdown?

Who is at fault for the shutdown?

  • Republicans

    Votes: 87 45.3%

  • Democrats

    Votes: 32 16.7%

  • Both

    Votes: 65 33.9%

  • Neither

    Votes: 8 4.2%
  • Total voters
    192
mac said:
The individual mandate, however sensible, was routinely rejected by Republicans due to it's infringement on personal liberty.
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Funny how the Heritage Foundation/Gingrich/Romney not only endorsed it....but implemented it.

Say, do you feel the same way about mandated auto insurance?
 
Mithros said:
This is an excellent example of exactly what is wrong the GOP. I remember reading 1984 for the first time and thinking that this would never work. No one could be so dumb. If you tell people that they're at war with one country, and then suddenly that never happened... well people are going to notice. Apparently that's not true.

The individual mandate and private exchanges were conservative ideas from a conservative think tank. They were first implemented by a conservative Governor. Those are inescapable facts. The "liberal" position is a single payer system, Medicare for all. This was rejected in 92 and could not gather 60 votes in 2009.

You *SHOULD* believe your lying eyes, because they're not lying. And I know that on some level you realize this because your response was a jumble of unrelated thoughts. The PPACA is a mess? Weak candidates? The budget? How does any of this relate to how liberal or conservative the ACA is?
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The Heritage Foundation has long since backed away from that proposal, and the current system actually bears little resemblance to the one they originally proposed. I would also note that despite the desperation of those who wish to spread the responsibility for the current mess, Romney was hardly conservative, and governed the most liberal state in the country. Somehow, 4 million conservatives noticed that and stayed home for the 2012 election. I guess you didn't notice that, either. My thoughts are well enough organized that I can manage to see a much larger picture than you apparently can. If you don't think the PPACA is a mess, you just haven't been paying attention or are willfully ignoring what is painfully clear to the majority in the country. Furthermore, if you can't see that policy is directed by those with the most power in government, then exactly who do you think is responsible? The minority?
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Funny how the Heritage Foundation/Gingrich/Romney not only endorsed it....but implemented it.

Say, do you feel the same way about mandated auto insurance?
Click to expand...

Auto insurance isn't a federal mandate nor am I required to buy it (I can opt out of having a car or drive on private roadways).
 
Mithros said:
I have absolutely no problem with changing the ACA. It needs to be tweaked and we need to have a serious discussion about various aspects. But that discussion has to start with ideas to improve it. And the GOP has a lot of good ideas, but they're unable or unwilling to promote them because that would be seen as an endorsement of Obamacare.
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The only way to change ACA is to turn it into the Heritage version of the program and cut out all the unnecessary mandates, commissions, agencies, etc. In other words, reduce it from it's 2000-page length to one only a little larger than the Medicare bill, which I believe was two pages long.


Also, the public option had more than 50 votes, (I think it had 54) it just didn't have the 60 required. Granted that's not a full up single payer system, but it would have allowed people to essentially buy medicare instead of a private insurance.
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The public option was a good idea, as long as we're talking about the "weak" version, which had to be funded 100% by premiums and which would have ceased to exist had it failed financially. Competition between public and private sector is good. A rigged game though, in which the taxpayers backstop the public option in case of failure, and/or subsidize it(the "strong" public option) would just be a deceitful way to get to single payer.
 
mac said:
Who, in your opinion, is primarily at fault for the shutdown?
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Democrats. No contest. The Republicans are willing to fund the government except for ObamaCare. Democrats are willing to hold the government hostage to their greed.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Funny how the Heritage Foundation/Gingrich/Romney not only endorsed it....but implemented it.

Say, do you feel the same way about mandated auto insurance?
Click to expand...

Mandated auto insurance is optional...you do not have to own/drive a car.
 
clownboy said:
Auto insurance isn't a federal mandate
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I did not say it was, this is straw and an avoidance of the point.

nor am I required to buy it (I can opt out of having a car or drive on private roadways).
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Which is the specious equivalent of putting yourself in a coma.

Listen, it isn't me that made the analogy of mandated auto insurance, Stuart Butler did.
 
mac said:
Mandated auto insurance is optional...you do not have to own/drive a car.
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Not only that, but it wouldn't be constitutional at the federal level. State legislatures are bound by their own constitutions and the Bill of Rights. The federal government is bound by the much stricter federal Constitution, which allows Congress to only legislate on those subjects which it is authorized to legislate on.

The interstate commerce clause is the broadest of those, but has limits. Congress cannot create commerce in order to regulate it, nor can it penalize lack of participation in commerce.
 
mac said:
Mandated auto insurance is optional...you do not have to own/drive a car.
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Again, the concept of financial responsibility is not new, not unique to Dems or the GOP.
 
mac said:
And never made it into the plank. :shrug:
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Ah, but you understand that when things like the ACA appear to be going south somewhat, mumblings and ramblings of miscellaneous "conservatives" are sifted through in order to find a basis for claiming that it was "their - the conservatives" idea. The list of excuses is growing longer with each passing day.
 
francois60 said:
The only way to change ACA is to turn it into the Heritage version of the program and cut out all the unnecessary mandates, ....
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Uh....the Heritage version had the individual mandate.

It is so typical seeing libertarians getting history wrong time and again.
 
mac said:
Mandated auto insurance is optional...you do not have to own/drive a car.
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Agreed. The mandated auto insurance is only for liability. There is no mandate for you to carry collision insurance and there is no mandate that your auto insurance cover gas, oil, tires and maintenance - which is effectively what the ObamaCare program mandates.
 
Again, I will ask.

Isn't anybody here angry that Obama gave corporations a one year pass on the mandate but shut down the governemnt because he didn't want to do the same for individuals?

Individuals, you know the Little people Obama always talks about helping, will have to pay for the whole thing while corporations get to wait a year.

Just before the shut down the two ítems of contention were the one year delay for the individual mandate and having the congressional staff subject to the same Obamacare that everybody else is.

Who can argue that those are unreasonable requests and worthy of shutting down the government on the part of the President?
 
Diogenes said:
Agreed. The mandated auto insurance is only for liability. There is no mandate for you to carry collision insurance and there is no mandate that your auto insurance cover gas, oil, tires and maintenance - which is effectively what the ObamaCare program mandates.
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"The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy."
My idea was hardly new. Heritage did not invent the individual mandate.

But the version of the health insurance mandate Heritage and I supported in the 1990s had three critical features. First, it was not primarily intended to push people to obtain protection for their own good, but to protect others. Like auto damage liability insurance required in most states, our requirement focused on "catastrophic" costs — so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance."

Don't blame Heritage for ObamaCare mandate
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Again, the concept of financial responsibility is not new, not unique to Dems or the GOP.
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So? Mandated responsibility is new.

I suppose you oppose welfare, then?
 
humbolt said:
Ah, but you understand that when things like the ACA appear to be going south somewhat, mumblings and ramblings of miscellaneous "conservatives" are sifted through in order to find a basis for claiming that it was "their - the conservatives" idea. The list of excuses is growing longer with each passing day.
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Personally I think the mumblings are an attempt to shift blame when it all goes pear-shaped.
 
mac said:
So? Mandated responsibility is new.
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No, actually...it is not.....that was the point Stuart made.

I suppose you oppose welfare, then?
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???? that relates to mandated personal responsibility how? If you have a body and you cannot financially fully cover for medical costs.....you should not receive subsidies to do so......but should instead push higher ER costs to the rest of society?
 
humbolt said:
The Heritage Foundation has long since backed away from that proposal, and the current system actually bears little resemblance to the one they originally proposed. I would also note that despite the desperation of those who wish to spread the responsibility for the current mess, Romney was hardly conservative, and governed the most liberal state in the country. Somehow, 4 million conservatives noticed that and stayed home for the 2012 election. I guess you didn't notice that, either. My thoughts are well enough organized that I can manage to see a much larger picture than you apparently can. If you don't think the PPACA is a mess, you just haven't been paying attention or are willfully ignoring what is painfully clear to the majority in the country. Furthermore, if you can't see that policy is directed by those with the most power in government, then exactly who do you think is responsible? The minority?
Click to expand...

Lets back up to your original assertion:
humbolt said:
That could be because the only form of health care discussed was distinctly liberal.
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So even though you acknowledge that the ACA is based on a conservative idea, implemented first by Republicans, you would still argue that the the ONLY form of health care discussed was distinctly liberal? ...sigh
 
mac said:
Personally I think the mumblings are an attempt to shift blame when it all goes pear-shaped.
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It has already happened. Blame is the main game now. Wheel of Blame would make an excellent TV game show.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
No, actually...it is not.....that was the point Stuart made.
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That doesn't make it true. Forcing people to be financially responsible is an infringement on liberty, and anti-American.

???? that relates to mandated personal responsibility how? If you have a body and you cannot financially fully cover for medical costs.....you should not receive subsidies to do so......but should instead push higher ER costs to the rest of society?
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Financial responsibility, more accurately: lack of it, is a major factor affecting those that draw welfare. Are you going to outlaw 20in wheels?
 
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