emordnilap wrote:Basically, Obama was better media fodder. And it worked!
I don't agree.
There are substantial Policy differences between Obama and Trump.
It's not just about the way they're portrayed in the Media, although I agree that Obama seemed to get an easier ride.
johnhemming2 wrote:I don't think Putin cares about Obamacare.
Care about it? No. But he is very competitive and anything that weakens the USA is good from his point of view. Having healthcare be 16 percent of the US economy and huge chunks of it financed by tax dollars reduces the funds available for out military.
The national Health service has sunk the British navy and a few more years of Medicare, Medicaid and Obama care or whatever replaces it will have the American Navy tied up as rusting hulks at the docks.
As a matter of fact, the earliest roots of the UK's welfare state were put in place as a result of the dreadful physical condition of yer-average volunteer (and then conscript) for WWI. An army can't do much with ricketty half-starved lads riddled with TB.
Given that the UK, like the USA, issues its own currency we could bail-out the NHS from its present financial troubles in a heartbeat. For a fraction of the cost to bail-out the banking sector and all.
I do sometimes ponder the "limitless" nature of healthcare demand (everybody snuffs-it in the end) but there's even a mechanism for dealing with that. The N.I.C.E. specify what new treatments should be made available on the NHS, thus sparing us the really costly stuff.
The thing is, apart from people living longer and having fewer kids, the longer we live the less healthy we are, and the longer we need treatment for chronic diseases. Also, we are much better at keeping sick people alive, at increased expense. That said, a friend of wife's went into hospital with a trapped nerve recently and was dead of cancer in 7 weeks.
I reported a minor infection to my GP a few months ago and now I am in a long series of increasingly invasive hospital tests just to see if I have a condition my dad (probably) didn't die of.
They are not interested in your health, you are a guinea pig. Linus Pauling was ridiculed for his work on vitamin C as he was not a doctor. He did however have two more Nobel prizes than most of his critics, including one on vitamin C. One suggestion he made was all medicines should have a label "Keep this medicine out of the reach of everybody. Use vitamin C instead".
I suggest the reason for poor health nowadays, is the malnutrition as a result of the modern western diet, along with living in an atmosphere which has many more toxins than 50+ years ago when draughts were common in buildings. Now there is a pressure test to ensure there is little ventilation. Vitamin C in large enough doses will deal with the toxins amongst the other things it does.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
johnhemming2 wrote:I don't think Putin cares about Obamacare.
Care about it? No. But he is very competitive and anything that weakens the USA is good from his point of view. Having healthcare be 16 percent of the US economy and huge chunks of it financed by tax dollars reduces the funds available for out military.
The national Health service has sunk the British navy and a few more years of Medicare, Medicaid and Obama care or whatever replaces it will have the American Navy tied up as rusting hulks at the docks.
As a matter of fact, the earliest roots of the UK's welfare state were put in place as a result of the dreadful physical condition of yer-average volunteer (and then conscript) for WWI. An army can't do much with ricketty half-starved lads riddled with TB.
Given that the UK, like the USA, issues its own currency we could bail-out the NHS from its present financial troubles in a heartbeat. For a fraction of the cost to bail-out the banking sector and all.
I do sometimes ponder the "limitless" nature of healthcare demand (everybody snuffs-it in the end) but there's even a mechanism for dealing with that. The N.I.C.E. specify what new treatments should be made available on the NHS, thus sparing us the really costly stuff.
I am glad to see you back on the forum. I think I can speak for all members in saying your insights have been missed.
You are a bit wrong, of course, in your post above, but what fun would it be if you were always completely correct.
Looking forward to much spirited debate.
I really do not understand this belief that vitamin c will cure so many diseases if you simply eat enough of it. Yes our diet and chemical smog environment are poisening us, and vitamin c is an antioxidant that can counteract or neutralise some detrimental biochemical side products , but that is all. No food or medicine is healthy to consume in unlimited amounts. Drinking unlimited quantities of water will kill you just as effectively as drinking none at all. History is full of scientists who are genuinely expert in one area who grow an ego that leads them to over inflated opinions of their own polymath knowledge.
Hmm...I could give references for all 3 of the points I just made but am actually in the throes of writing a steamy short story about a Duchess.
Oh go on then:
1. "Poverty: A Study of Town Life" Rowntree, 1901 gives the gory details of impoverished bodies plus there must be loads in Hansard (written proceedings of Parliament) from about 1915 onwards.
2. Anything by Ken Neal, Positive Money, PrimeEconomics.org, Ann Pettifor etc...
RenewableCandy wrote:And you're spot-on about it being no fun about being right all the time.
At home I'm forever saying "Don't do X, or Y"
"Mu-u-um, Y's happened..."
"That's because you did X isn't it?"...
I can echo vt's welcome, RC. You make being sensible sound like fun!
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Back on topic. Last night four Republican Senators moved to kill (only three needed to do it) the repeal and replace Obama care bill. This drives a knife through the back and heart of the Republican agenda and means the Trump presidency is effectively over.
I see nothing but chaos and ineffective blundering for the next three and a half years.
And no I did not vote for the fool.
He's capable of causing a lot of trouble, whatever about health care.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Mark wrote:Personally, I felt a lot safer under Obama....
Did you really? Then you have no idea. This may be said irrespective of any view of Trump
I can only say what I feel/felt.
Regarding evidence.....
In 8 years of Obama there were no nuclear wars or major conventional wars. OK, there were a few 'skirmishes', but the general thrust was to talk/negotiate rather than bomb...
In a few weeks of Trump, we've already had a major escalation of tension with N. Korea, an 180 degree turn with Russia, sabre rattling with China, a bizarre cosying up to Saudi Arabia and demonising of a relatively liberal regime in Iran.... We'll see, but I can't see it ending well....
It's all warming up nicely....., not long now.....
Little John wrote:Did you really? Then you have no idea. This may be said irrespective of any view of Trump
I can only say what I feel/felt.
Regarding evidence.....
In 8 years of Obama there were no nuclear wars or major conventional wars. OK, there were a few 'skirmishes', but the general thrust was to talk/negotiate rather than bomb...
In a few weeks of Trump, we've already had a major escalation of tension with N. Korea, an 180 degree turn with Russia, sabre rattling with China, a bizarre cosying up to Saudi Arabia and demonising of a relatively liberal regime in Iran.... We'll see, but I can't see it ending well....
It's all warming up nicely....., not long now.....
Afghanistan in 1972, before the CIA empowered misogynistic jihadist groups--exactly the same strategy Obama employed in Libya and Syria.
But, then, I suppose the hundreds of thousands of dead in both of these countries, not to mention the hundred of thousands who are maimed for life and, lest we forget, the many hundreds of thousands of migrant refugees which, in turn, have precipitated a political and social crisis of historic proportions all across Europe - can all take comfort in the fact that Syria and Libya were just mere "skirmishes"....right?
Back on topic. Last night four Republican Senators moved to kill (only three needed to do it) the repeal and replace Obama care bill. This drives a knife through the back and heart of the Republican agenda and means the Trump presidency is effectively over. 
