Well, it IS. I think the disconnect here is that Rep. Weiner has drawn a line in the sand and decided that health, and health alone is a morally inappropriate demand to satisfy along market principles.

Joe, being a red-blooded American capitalist, sees (perhaps accurately) that there is no particular reason economically speaking why government funding for a doctor's visit and IV tubing should be exempt from the operation of the free market but a chiropractor's visit and glasses should not. Or a visit to a therapist, or fire insurance. Or car insurance.

The fear Joe has is at least nominally a reasonable one. If we're willing to turn this over to the government, there is no clearly discernible end point. What about paramedical services? Nutritionists and personal trainers? Funding those will save the health care system a lot of money, and will only make sense for a bureaucratic health provider. We're now talking about a massive government agency and a tax rate similar to Canada's. Except Canada can afford its health care tax because it doesn't have to pay your defense tax. Joe's concern, and the concern of all non-crazy opponents of the public option, is that this will establish an agency you'll never be rid of that will continue to grow and eat and grow and eat.

Now, I'm Canadian, and I agree with Rep. Weiner --- I think it's morally wrong to withhold lifesaving technology and services from people for financial reasons, and it's within the powers of a democracy to determine that we will collectively assist one another in times of medical need. But that isn't to say that health care isn't a commodity like any other. It is. "What do insurance companies provide?" Insurance in a private system.

That's why Joe doesn't understand the question; if you've been raised on free market principles and you can understand the value of extremely complex insurance arrangements, insurance against expensive treatment has an obvious value. He thinks of health insurance as a way to access services and materials; Rep. Weiner thinks of it as a barrier to services and materials. Neither can comprehend the a priori conception of health care that the other has --- either that it is by default free or by default very expensive.

You have some good points there, but how much money could have been saved by 50 million people having preventative care? I think the problem has been so much money being spent without it having to have been spent.

Also, I don't watch this Scarborough chimp much. Is he always a loudmouth talkbox?

WEINER HAS BIG BALLS

BIG BALLS ON WEINER

Yeah he's your standard issue asshole conservative pundit.

Is it dogmatism too?

I love how he makes it sound like he is covertly being held hostage and that he needs immediate help.

When Wiener was asking what exactly private insurance companies have done to benefit the health care in their country he couldn't do anything except deliberately say "You sound like you want the government to COMPLETELY take over health care." Of course the translation for his viewers is "Go clean your guns and pack your bags."

I should speak less stupidly about this: it's not that companies were legally obligated to be non-profits, but if they wanted to enjoy the tax incentives then offered to them, they had to abide by non-profit rules. Most insurance companies found this an irresistible proposition; then Reagan did away with those tax incentives, and they had no reason not to become for-profits. Once they figured out how to game the system -- refusing to pay on pre-existing conditions, for example -- they completed their transformation into parasites.

In a lot of ways, Obamacare pushes things back to the pre-Reagan model. Under the ACA, profits are capped, there are no more pre-existing conditions / rescission / annual caps / lifetime caps to worry about, and hopefully the exchanges will force the for-profits to compete against the non-profits that offer the best deal.

I used my stars but here are some ghost stars for you ****

Bravo!

Just answer the FUCKING question!!!

And here's a word from our sponsors!

Part two was also worth a million stars as well.

Part two has Joe inviting him back.
Am I being too too cynic if I say he is doing it so he can try again to defeat Weiner?

He has given himself days to come up with the answers he lacked.

Right, Joe isn't a bile-spewing retard, just a completely disingenuous one. He still wants to lie, prevaricate, and mumble out platitudes about small government and free market. He just doesn't get as angry as the Fox News guys. So, hey, Joe's better than Fox News by a small degree. There's something to be proud of.

actually nvm i forgot about penn & teller

I would like to say though that I don't think Joe's totally wrong for thinking health care insurance should be provided by a free market.

It wasn't so much of him being OMG BURNED as it was a difference in philosophy between two guys.

I say we let the numbers decide. Is free market health care more efficient?

Is it so much more efficient that it makes up for the added overhead of profit and marketing? Let's go with what works, screw the ideological arguments.

What I sad above was more of a cheap shot against religion. These people's god would not necessarily agree with the idea of keeping the lower class small by denying them healthcare in order to save money on taxes.

Joke's on you; they did that yesterday. Money well spent.