Heck, We’ve Socialized Everything Else
President-elect Barack Obama’s plans to overhaul the U.S. health care system would cost the federal government $75 billion but would provide health insurance for 95 percent of Americans, consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said on Wednesday.
Call it a “health-care bailout,” and we have a winner.
Obama health plan to cost $75 billion: analysis [Reuters]
$75b? Is that it? Sign me up.
That’s about the amount of cash Bush lost in Iraq.
That seems like a bargain to me.
@blogenfreude: Really, so little lost in Iraq? I thought it was much more. Are you talking about the cash shipped over on pallets for the CPA to disburse? disperse? (I would love to know just how many young Republicans opened numbered Swiss bank accounts shortly after this cascade of cash arrived in Iraq.) Lost from that batch? those batches?
New Avatar! Yay, I have a new avatar, only in my Prommie form, Promnight will continue to use Ray from Achewood.
Look at my new Avatar, yay!
$75 Billion? Pish-posh, a mere trifle, bring it on, and universal caviar, too, lets go down with style.
Do ya think its possible that Eric Roberts single-handedly created the new hip-hop market for courvoisier? I wonder about stuff like that.
Damn, no new avatar, I want my new avatar so bad.
Well, to see my new avatar, click my name and you will go to my blog, where a big version is posted.
BREAKING News (from, she muttered sheepishly, the National Enquirer via W’ette). Has Cindy McC been a bad girl?
@lynnlightfoot: Yes – the pallet cash. Everyone could have had health insurance … and a pony.
@Prommie: I see it! It is lovely. I love Achewood.
nojo, the masthead, is that a mocking reference to Johnny Earl? that could upset a lot of people, you know. many. not just me. not that i’m upset. not at all. i’m just saying there is such a thing as fairness in blogging. basic decency toward political leaders. he can’t help being cursed with good looks and hair to kill for. that is his cross. to mock him is only to drive a stake through the heart of our once-vibrant democracy.
@Prommie: Whoa there 80’s hair, I can’t believe you chose a female icon that doesn’t show boobies!
@Benedick: Driving a stake is what got Johnny Earl into trouble.
Goodness me, we’re all having quite a busy afternoon, what with one thing and another. I love it! Otherwise it would be a gloomy afternoon, with nearly all the gorgeous October leaves down and weeks and weeks to get through before the inauguration, and can’t go walk in the mall on inclement days because of the furschlugginer Xmas music.
@lynnlightfoot: It was looking like a real slow day an hour ago. Unless you’re interested in squabbling over rumored transition appointments. Everyone right and left is setting up straw men so they can get outraged about them.
@drinkyclown: I am going to spam post all over, so my new avatar is spread far and wide! I miss 80s hair, the kind on the head, too!
Is that how you spell furschlugginer? I always thought it was “meschugginer”. Or is that anouther word? What language am I in?
@nojo: See that’s just what I mean. That kind of remark. He is a father and husband. Perhaps we should all just step back. He can’t help being so cute with that smile and all. Boxers? Briefs? So much to think about.
@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Different word. I think it’s meshugannah. Baked one? And it’s Yiddish.
@Tommmcatt Yet Again: I think that’s how Mad Magazine spelled it in my long-ago childhood. Hey, I think I’ll Ixquick it, for the hell of it. Or look it up in Leo Rosten (but I can’t remember which stack of books it’s in).
@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Research conducted on both Ixquick and Google says that you are right. It’s spelled by most users of it without a “c”. And it’s just as well that I didn’t go looking for the Leo Rosten, since Urban Dictionary says it isn’t really Yiddish, just an imitation of Yiddish.
Speaking of socialization, apparently Paulson just told Congress that–oops!–we’re not buying those toxic mortgage assets after all. Paul Farrell at MarketWatch is my new economic squeeze.
“In a subtle, bloodless coup, the Reaganomics ideology magically pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat in the meltdown. The magic happened fast and quietly, in the shadows, while you were in a trance, distracted by the election drama.
Listen closely folks: You and your government are and will continue being conned out of trillions. Better that we should have taken care of ourselves first and cleaned house, not bailed out Wall Street financiers — let them pay for their sins and feel the pain.
Unfortunately, while you were distracted by the election, Wall Street gained control of our Treasury using a Trojan Horse, Hank Paulson, who filled Treasury with Goldman Sachs alums and pulled off one of the greatest inside heists in the history of the world.
While you were distracted, Wall Street privatized the U.S. Treasury, got the keys to Fort Knox and will be stealing trillions for years to come, through a secret “sleeper cell,” a “virus” installed in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. They’re laughing: All you got was a heavily discounted paper IOU for you, your kids and generations to pay off. The winners: Paulson, Goldman, Wall Street banks and Reaganomics. The losers: America.”
Um, wow. This is getting into Flying Chainsaw territory.
Oh boy, read the comments on the Farrell op-ed if you really like to torture yourself.
I keep expecting one of the wingtard crazees to go apoplectic raving about the new Clinton recession.
Only 75Bills eh?
A trillion spent on propping up Wall St and a few trillion on failed wars.
One wonders why US Americans don’t torch every fucking medical insurance HQ, HMO and RW “tink” tank they can get their hands on.
@Original Andrew: We shoulda known, hell, we did know, but we thought they might for once do the decent thing and save the rest of us while saving themselves. But NO, of course not, Lucy did it again, we poor Charlie Brown schmucks gave her the benefit of the doubt again. Neither financiers nor leopards change their spots.
@lynnlightfoot: But if we poor folk just tried to do even some minor, low-level looting, a TV set or two, and what do you think would happen?
Where’s my avatar, dammit?
@Prommie:
That’s the norm now and has been for decades:
Get caught with a dime bag and brace yourself for the gas chamber.
Bankrupt a pension fund with shadow trades, thus depriving thousands of their retirement income, then prepare for your golden parachute.
Makes you wonder how much longer they’ll be able to create mass public hysteria over pot, sex offenders and marriage-minded homos (Answer: Quite awhile, I expect. It works like a magic formula).
@Prommie: The new avatar looks like as if Dave Mustaine was a chick.
/hung up on Megadeth this week, I guess . . .
@redmanlaw: Uncanny.
@Original Andrew: Until the older fundies are taken on to glory or they are raptured. Unfortunately, home schooling has produced another generation of these people, albeit a bit gentler.
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