Currently the Obama Health Care Plan, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ironically appears to be on life support its very self. (To be perfectly respectful of the acronym PPACA, it should properly be pronounced with its first two consonants stuttered, so that the actual, proper enunciation of it is pah-pah-pah pack-ah.)
However, even though it appears mortally wounded, I will show in this article beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever, that there are more than ample means of not only saving it, but of making a rather successful and highly profitable enterprise of it as well. I will also show how this can easily be done and exactly how the potential results of it will actually far surpass President Obama’s soaring, absolutely brilliant, logically, superior, empyrean very own rhetoric itself. Mind you, no easy task that.
Under this new and improved Obama Administration plan, devised with its super brainiac, progressive-liberal socialists such as Cass Sunstein and Drs. Donald Berwick and Ezekiel Emanuel; in combination with its ultra-liberal, super brainiac Wall Street wizards á là Goldman Sachs and GE, with people who are even smarter and more competent than Lloyd Blankfein, James Dimon, Jeffery Immelt, Timothy Geithner, et al, et al; again, I will demonstrate for an absolute certainty how It will in essence be a “Win-Win Winner.”
Here’s how, but before we begin, let us backtrack just a tad. As I see it, there are essentially three nagging and seemingly insolvable, major issues which just seem to be absolutely impervious and stubbornly resistant to reasonable national discourse and rational debate, and therefore, simple but effective and thoroughly efficacious solutions. Very quickly; constitutionality, overall cost and the utter myth of so-called, supposed “death panels.” Well let us, dear readers, now address these three.
I. Constitutionality
This of course is proving to be a rather sticky issue which is currently slowly wending its way through our judiciary system; and so far with mixed results. It of course will most likely wind up at the doorstep of the Supreme Court, but when is anyone’s guess. So I choose at this point in time not to comment or speculate on its constitutionality and its ultimate fate.
However please, dear readers, allow me to say that I consider this issue to be essentially a matter of basic human and civil rights, and of fairness, human decency and social justice. So therefore I must re-iterate and re-emphasize the point, “Constitution-Shmonsh-titution!” I must also add “death to the greedy, avaricious and selfish, evil capitalist Insurance companies and the even more diabolical pharmaceuticals and the generically even more diabolic “big” corporations, et al, et al, ad infinitum.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Glenn Contrarian
"All sound and fury, signifying nothing."
2 - Irvin F Cohen
Dear comrade, commie-lib/simp, pinko-lefty, commie-Marxist loving Glenn,
Please do not be offended Glenn, but since you've completely persuaded me into becoming a commie-lib just like yourself; by your overwhelmingly compelling, thoughtful and thoroughly persuasive and logical argumentation; I have learned to be absolutely forthright and brutally honest.
And so I am only repeating your arguments in summary as best as I can. I just left out all of your overwhelmingly convincing facts - didn't have room for all that empyrean, protean merde du taureau, mierda del toro, excredementum tauri and kopros taurous.
But please feel free to add your valuable, nay, make that invaluable merde du taureau to the debate.
I sincerely thank you for your kind comment.
I only just hope that this comment of mine will not be deleted in its entirety as two or three of my comments have already been today. Thank you for your interest nevertheless, irregardless; that's I suppose how you might say regardless; of what the Comments editors might do to this comment of mine.
I mean, they would never delete a comment of yours or one in which you are a seminal figure, now would they?
3 - Christopher Rose
Irv, only one comment of yours has been deleted today, in which you repeated the same untrue nonsense about we comments editors you've posted before.
If you actually have a serious issue to raise then, like all Blogcritics writers, you have my direct email - so use it.
If, as unfortunately seems more likely at this point, you are just interested in pointless posturing, then we'll keep deleting all personal attacks against anybody on this site, which isn't censorship of opinion at all.
You seem like a bright enough chap so you ought to be able to understand the difference between censorship and a lack of manners...
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Irv -
I've never seen so many different ways of saying "bovine excrement"! Here's one more: "tae ni carabao" (Tagalog).
I've said before that I'll never have your level of eloquence, that I'm frankly jealous of your ability with the written word. And I mean it.
That said, the fact that your classical education (I'm jealous of that, too) is such that you're able to take language on flights of magnificence...doesn't make your central point right.
Here's a suggestion, and one that will probably strike you as silly beyond words: humility...and gentle humor. If you would write with such - for surely you can - you might find a much more receptive audience.
I do try to do that...but I usually fail. You're more capable than I (and I say that without candor), and I think you'd find a lot more success with your political arguments if you tried.
Why not give it a try, Mr. Cohen? Just once, and see what happens!
5 - Glenn Contrarian
And I do wonder what your writing would be like if you were stoned. Would we have another Hunter S. Thompson on our hands? Ah, I admit I'd like to see what your writing would be after a bottle of absinthe! In a rendezvous with Chaka Khan a stately Wayne manor was decreed....
6 - Clavos
I've said before that I'll never have your level of eloquence, that I'm frankly jealous of your ability with the written word. And I mean it.
You shouldn't be, his "style" is repetitive (unnecessarily so) and boring; I have yet to read one of his screeds in toto, I usually find something more engaging and interesting to do -- like watching the grass in my yard grow.
He makes Edward Bulwer-Lytton look good.
7 - Glenn Contrarian
Personally, I think Irv would be most gifted with whimsy - and to me, that's praise indeed, for there are few indeed who can write whimsy well. I tried...and BC pretty much panned the effort. For good reason, I guess.
8 - Irvin F Cohen
Dear Mr. Rose,
Is that humble and obsequious enough for you? I prefer, well i won't say it because you"ll censor me - does "chilling effect" mean anything to you?
However, unlike you, I admit to when I am wrong and I do not outright lie as to the number of comments you have deleted in a given time period as you have done so on several occasions. But I must admit that I overlooked one comment which had not been deleted which I thought had been (unless you're playing fun and games with me and simply re-instated it, in fact a comment which was rather tame and innocuous).
But yes, I am not perfect and could easily have been mistaken, I readily admit as much. Yes instead of one, I may have counted two. My bad.
But then the question arises is only one fascistic act of censorship better than two? Is only one half as bad as two? Or put another way, the Pathet Lao, the Viet Cong, the Khmer Ruuge and the North Vietnamese communists only killed three million souls in their "glorious peace" - why that's only half as bad as the six million of the Holocaust!
If it's such nonsense, then why did you delete it so capriciously and arbitrarily and now mention it so condescendingly and insultingly and abusively so. If it's such balderdash why are you now finally, after having deleted hundreds of my and others' comments, why do you find it so compelling to reason with me?
I mean if it's such nonsense, that you are not a crypto-fascist, good ol' boy, arbitrary and capricious, Alice in Wonderland, Orwellian censorship thug; why then do you now feel a need to reason with me? Why not do what you have consistently done for my brief history here at Blogcritics since October of 2010, roughly five months or so; and just simply delete my comments as quickly as you are able, one after another in quick succession ad nauseam? Is the leopard now trying to convince me that he no longer has spots?
Or am I being too tough on you here? Is it that you are now sincerely attempting to reveal your good faith here? That you're actually speaking with me rather than resorting to your quick and heavy hand of censorship. But how can I trust you after the hundreds of comments of mine and those of others which you have deleted in their entirety; not to mention the expurgated comments too; and all your threats, veiled and otherwise? How can anyone trust you.
"If you actually have a serious issue to raise then, like all Blogcritics writers, you have my direct e-mail, so use it."
Well, all well and good, sounds reasonable. But again, I must re-iterate and re-emphasize the question, how can I trust you, how can anyone take you seriously and actually trust you? After all this fascistic, Orwellian thuggery and good ol' boy cronyism you have carried out?
Some easy and simple, schoolboy Latin here: Quis custodes custodit? Literally, who is to guard the guards?
Where are the checks and balances? Beyond your arbitrary whims and caprices, social and cultural and political biases, and personal antagonisms, etc.? Where are we to go when you insult and demean us like rain unto water? Who is to delete your lousy, over the top comments, your smears, your threats, your intimidations?
"If, as unfortunately seems more likely at this point, you are just interested in pointless posturing…"
Oh I see, anything which questions or criticizes your behavior, your censorship; whether fascistic or arbitrary or capricious or as a matter of personal animus and antagonism towards myself and a myriad of other writers here; I see that is just mere posturing punishable with deletion and the silencing of one's voice and of one's intellectual freedom to debate and express one's views and opinions on these pages! I see.
Terrible of me, to keep on posturing so. But please pray tell, again, who is to determine who is posturing and who is speaking merely critically and analytically, and who, what very villain indeed, is not? Is it me? Of course not! Is it Allen or Dave; or your cronies, stooges and apologists like Clavos and Dreary and Glenn and Richardson and STM and a host of others? But not them either. For it is only you. You make all the rules yourself, by yourself, for yourself - alone with absolutely no checks nor balances upon you. All decisions are final and without appeal.
And as Alan said and was quickly deleted for having said it, you probably don't even remember it. But after you had deleted my # 30, and Costello's # 31, and Alan's # 32 in quick succession, Alan wrote, and I must paraphrase here cause I was not quick enough to copy and save all but my #30; he said as best as I recall, it is truly sad that someone with that sort of power could abuse it so very much. And guess what you did to that comment within five to ten minutes.
I'll refresh your memory for you, you deleted it. That's what you did! I guess I was "posturing" but what about Allen and Costello, were they "posturing" too? And why were you so damn quick to delete all of our comments so damn quickly? You didn't even give the proverbial ink on the proverbial page enough time to dry before you yanked it off the screen.
Is this the product of a well reasoned, thoughtful and reflective mind? Is it measured in dispassionate, disinterested, impartial, unbiased, and again, highly reasoned and reflective thought; of a mind which is both analytical and critical but reasonable and tolerant in its viewpoints, and perhaps more importantly; in its actions and behavior as well? Or is it reflective of a knee jerk reaction to silence those voices which demur and dissent, or God forbid, actually find fault and criticize the Comments Editor?
So again, I must assume by your line of reasoning that this must be posturing on my part and on anyone else who dares to criticize or demur or dissent with you, who does not conform to your solipsistic arrogance and sense of self-importance and of good ol' boy entitlement. Must be posturing or else:
"…then we'll keep deleting all personal attacks (again, I guess you mean anyone who demurs, dissents, protests, criticizes, does not conform, finds fault, or doesn't roll over and play dead, etc., with and for you) against anybody on this site, which isn't censorship of opinion at all."
No Mr. Rose, it's intimidation and veiled threats, and you're absolutely right, that ain't censorship - that's fascism!
And finally: "You seem like a bright enough chap so you ought to be able to understand the difference between censorship and a lack of manners…"
Oh, I see, it's not my intellectual freedom, nor my dissent, nor my protest, nor my defiant lack of conformity to your rules and your rules alone, nor openness and transparency on your part, no, none of these; it's solely a matter of manners, of bad manners on my part. Not you in the least, just me.
How fucking condescending, demeaning and patronizing can you be? Mr. Rose? Am I some ignorant and stupid six year old child you think you can bully mercilessly and browbeat at will. Who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck appointed you dictator for life of the Comments Editorship? Was it God? My good lord, even I ain't that fucking arrogant.
Now as for "a bright enough chap" - I must admit that I ain't that smart, I ain't like you slimy-limies, I ain't the third smartest person in the world like doctah dreary there. I must admit I'm kind o' slow on the uptake and thick between the ears, not with brains but with meat, which I suppose makes me a real fucking "meat head" - nevertheless I do have a very high IQ, in fack, hundred and ninety-five, that's a negative 195 however, which makes me dumber than a rock, mind you, not just dumb as a rock, but dumber.
Now as dumb as I am, I jess kant figuyour out howl yall in a back, left-handed fashion kin equate censorship witt manners, ozztensibilee good manners at that? So censorship is sort of different than manners, is that it. So if I behave, if I conform to your dictates and roll over and play dead for you, if I have manners as you say, then I won't be censored and deleted? Is that it? Is it as simple as all that?
Geez, like I say, I'm kind of slow on the uptake and still dumber than a rock, mind you, not as dumb as a rock, but in fack, dummer. So I just simply doan understand, isn't that the same as intellectual and philosophic coercion, force and extortion? You know like take this little bribe of mine and behave good or I'll kill you.
Geez Mr. Rose yah sure dew got away with words and them thar ideas and deep thoughts n' stuff, get a person ta think ah whole bunch. Har, harr, I know - you must think I just fell off the turnipt patch or truck or whatever the fucking metaphor is, yesterday, that's it. Har, har, harrr, I ain't that fucking stupid, I done fell off the turnip truck the day before yesterday. That's how goddamn smart I izz…can't fool me, har, har, har!
No Mr. Rose I am intractable and as far as I am concerned just as it was high time for Ben Ali and Hosni to go, and is now also high time for Muammar to go right now, as in five minutes ago; so too it is time for you to say sayonara and shuffle off to Buffalo. Once more again, it is high time for you to just delete yourself and or disappear yourself as well and get out of Dodge. Your removal from Comments Editorship would free up Blogcritics to higher, more productive, livelier and freer, truly open debate.
You've done your tour in hell, for good or ill, and now it's simply time for you to move on. Sometimes it takes a lot for a person to recognize and understand that he or she has overstayed his or her stay. So gather up your stuff, cut your losses and just pick up and go, and shuffle off to sunny Buffalo or wherever your liddle ol' heart desires.
9 - Clavos
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes...
10 - Irvin F. Cohen
Dear comrade Nails, el vato duro y doloroso
Very good, in fact I'm quite impressed. Nothing wrong at all with your Latin. A fucking plus in fact. All I would recommend is the word order, you might want to place the verb at the very end of the sentence, so it would read quis custodes ipsos custodiet...which word order is also somewhat similar to a common form of prosody called chiasmus. So again, very nice touch. In addition the reflexive, personal pronoun ipsos (masculine, plural, accusative case) is another very nice touch. And the subjuncective, although not necessary, remember this was supposed to be schoolboy Latin, is by far also another very nice touch.
Well, that means you had to read at least a third of my screed. Or did you just skim this comment of mine in quest of something you could find to play "gotcha" with me?
You're a hard nut to crack or decipher. You're simply a bitter old man like myself, but much more bitter even than I, and you're a hater too. I truly can't understand your bitter animus toward me, what the fuck did I ever do to you?
Could you fill me in please. And please don't turn this into some sort of kinky, weird, sordid love fest, some phony, insincere factitious coming of minds.
Or allow me to address it thusly, why are you such a fucking scumbag, hater and Iago-like schemer? Or what makes you such a snake in the grass viper? Or is that too personal, or just too much information for one night?
Please inform, and oh BTW, have a nice fucking day and a nice fucking life too, what little is left of it for both of us. Alors, tout á l'heure, y vaya con Dios, cause you're gonna need him.
11 - Christopher Rose
Irv, you claim that I "make all the rules yourself, by yourself, for yourself - alone with absolutely no checks nor balances upon you. All decisions are final and without appeal".
This is all incorrect. If you were paying attention to the information I have given you several times now, you would already know that if you have a serious issue to raise, you can raise it directly with me. If you then disagreed with my response, I can refer it up the management food chain for review.
Similarly, I am not making up rules to govern the conduct of anybody, simply following the comments guidelines, which were written by the site's founder.
I've not yet seen you acknowledge your persistent mistakes in this regard, so I'm not persuaded that you do actually admit when you're wrong as you claim.
Given that, you will presumably find it hard to believe that I am not even interested in being right or wrong on a personal basis.
I see mistakes not as embarrassing but an opportunity to learn something, which hopefully I still have the capacity to do. If not, then my future work activities - which have nothing at all to do with my role at Blogcritics - may not do as well as I hope.
I also hope you will think seriously about the difference between censoring opinion and editing gratuitous rudeness.
The former isn't happening, even when a commenter such as the anonymous Person, if I understand their remarks accurately, indulges in such blatant falsehoods as holocaust denial.
You are also mistaken in perceiving my direct remarks to you as being "condescendingly and insultingly and abusively so" or that I am "finally... [trying to] reason with you".
My tone, if anything, is one of frustration, as you have been told all this several times before so, if you are sincere, this would be where you admit you were wrong, which you have no problem about doing, right?
I will go further and say that I don't hate anybody participating on this site or bear grudges, so there is no continuing rancour or behaviour directed at you or any other commenter.
In summary, you have been informed how to raise a concern with me; you know who guards the guards; and you know I'm not making up the rules.
I was asked by the original site owners to do this because of my commitment to the comments space, which some here would like to do without, but I value highly.
Having checked, I have the full support of the new management regime too, so we are going to have to find a way to get along, as the way the comments space is handled isn't going to change for the foreseeable future.
In the end it comes down to this: do you in fact "admit to when I am wrong" and move on or are you "intractable"?
12 - Cannonshop
there are articles which remind me of humility-in which, after reading for a bit, I say "(censored) it, I'm a dumb mechanic."
Irv, you are now the most frequent author of such articles. (means: you're hard to follow and take forever to get to your point-and you belabor things as you get there.)
This is probably a result of your being very-well-educated, vs. my being rather poorly educated in the public schools.
Thus, I bow to your superior credentials, if not your superior ability to communicate.
13 - Glenn Contrarian
Irv -
Clavos is indeed a hard nut to crack. To me, he's more enigmatic than you, for though I keep finding round holes to put him in, he still insists on remaining a square peg. You, on the other hand, appear to have fit in that round hole quite nicely (no, that's not meant as a vulgar metaphor).
One more thing - we all bring something different to the table. You bring not only a classical education and a wealth of travel, but also (like Dave and (IIRC) Clavos), combat experience, and yours was as a commissioned officer. But for all your education and experience, everyone else here has some experience you don't have...and their experiences have taught valuable lessons you haven't learned, lessons every bit as important as the lessons you yourself have learned over the years.
14 - Alan Kurtz
Glenn Contrarian (#13), please don't belittle the Sarge. He was an NCO, not a commissioned officer.
15 - Alan Kurtz
I'd like to focus on just one of Irv's observations. In #8, he twice refers to the chief censor's condescension. In #11, the chief censor denies the charge.
Perhaps this exemplifies the cultural gap between Americans and British. I've never been to the UK and am not an Anglophile, so I can only hazard a guess. Maybe the arch condescension that Irv and I smell wafting off the chief censor's comments [Gratuitous vulgarity deleted by Comments Editor] is nothing more than typical British smug superiority and is not specifically intended to patronize Irv and me. Maybe …
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
16 - roger nowosielski
Not if it's a national trait. Then you lack the necessary contrast.
17 - Christopher Rose
Maybe condescension, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder?
All I can do is tell people what I am doing; if they choose to be cynical and imbue qualities into words that weren't there when the words were written, that is their issue and not something I can do anything about.
18 - roger nowosielski
I was only being facetious, Chris. The other day when I said something to this effect, in half jest, Dreadful accused me of racism.
19 - Alan Kurtz
Christopher Rose (#17), what a condescending reply! Thanks for proving my point, you [Personal attack deleted by Alan Kurtz] from that [Gratuitous vulgarity deleted by Alan Kurtz] country across the pond.
20 - Christopher Rose
Is that an Alan Kurtz joke?
If so, the world as we know it really is coming to an end!
21 - Alan Kurtz
No joke, Mr. Chief Censor. I am merely being helpful, censoring my own comments in advance to spare you the bother. Oh, wait, I remember! Censoring is no "bother" to you, is it? Just comes naturally. Like [Gratuitous vulgarity deleted by Alan Kurtz] to a [Personal attack deleted by Alan Kurtz].
22 - Irvin F Cohen
Dear Cannonshop,
BTW, is that your real name or just a blogosphere/internet "handle" sobriquet/whatever? Because believe it or or not it has Anglo-Saxon possibilities as a true surname. There, how does that suffice for beating around the bush and not getting directly to the point?
Actually I wanted to start by thanking you for your kind, quasi, sort of, I think, kind and adulatory comment in praise of me personally and my writing in particular. Again, sort of, I think. That is sort of what you said, no?
To give you a lesson in pure humility and to show you what a truly fucking humble person I truly, really. really am: that's right baby, I'm the fucking smartest, best-est writer in all of Blogocritterland, and that ain't bragging, cause it ain't bragging when it's true, it's just taken you goddamn peasant, yokel, pea-brained, no-talent, intellectual lilliputian, mental midgets forever to find out that irrefutable, undeniable fact.
Goddamnit, I've been here an eternal, unending whole five fucking months, and to mean to say, you're just learning how fucking brilliant I am? Geez, give me a break, cut me some slack will yah! A whole fucking five months and you're learning just now how fucking brilliant I am. You know, you can't begin to realize how disappointed I am in all of you.
Wait a minute, I have to look at and admire myself in a dozen or so of the 143 mirrors I have set up in my condo, and light a few votive candles in a humble offering to my true greatness, and ineffable, truly blinding and unspeakable, just, just, just brilliant, great and talented, liddle ol' moi, me myself and I. Mumh, mumh, mumh, mumh. I kiss the hand which touches my elbow and caress the shoulder which is attached to that arm which is attached to that forearm and wrist and hand…muh, muh, muh, muh I kisss myself, my brilliance, my overwhelming greatness…oh my God, I think I am going to pass out.
I'm just too smart and brilliant for my brains…which geez, that would be a fabulous lyric for a song, a gold, platinum song gone viral throughout the world, make me a ton of money, a gazillion dollars.
But enough of me.
Back to you…what did you say your name was…you said it was Cannonshop…as in little people, inconsequential, insignificant little people? Oh yes, now I remember.
Look here, Cannonshop all the former, well I just couldn't help myself, cause I was having too much damn fun putting down myself and everyone else too.
But let's get something straight here, I too am a product of the worthless and abominable public schools which set me literally ten years back. I didn't start college in earnest until I was 28 years old, and after having experienced an odyssey through life in that ten years which many if not most people do not experience in a lifetime. But all well and good, and whoop-dee-do.
The point is I often read your comments Cannonshop, and they make a lot of sense to me. They're well written, say a lot and are easily understandable, unlike yours truly who is often opaque and overly employs subordination and sentence complexity to the point of maddening distraction.
I haven't seen any articles by you, but so what? If you can write a decent comment which you more than often do, then you can write a decent article for these clowns, yours truly included.
And as for your, our, worthless public school educations, don't let that keep you back or set you back as it did me. Formal education is important, but only up to a point, what is truly most important is your desire to learn. Not one single day should pass without having learned something worthwhile, nor without having made an effort toward that noble goal.
You know the great autodidacts, almost to a man, from Frederick Douglas to Eric Hoffer to Malcolm X all said that learning to read is the easy part, took them no more than six months or less; the truly difficult part was learning what to read, and they all agreed, that was a lifetime process.
So yeah, go out and formally study a little Latin and French or German, and a little Calculus and Physics and Chemistry and a whole bunch of history and literature, and uggh a little, a very, very little of the phony balognee, so-called, supposed social sciences. But I also assume you're still a young man but are beyond going to one of our extremely overpriced, worthless Marxist bastions of so-called, supposed higher learning.
Well if you can't or you just simply do not want to, then don't. But I do enjoin you herein, whether you go back to college or you pursue your life on your and its own terms; I do hereby enjoin you to read, and to read assiduously, to read a whole, fucking library, and then when you're done with that library. read another fucking library. And read, read, and read some more. And only stop reading when you ain't breathing no more! Then and only then, you can stop reading.
So again, thanks for the kind comments.
But to stay in character and to keep up my 'creds' as an extreme asshole - please have a nice fucking day and go fuck yourself too.
23 - Christopher Rose
Thanks, Alan, much appreciated!
24 - Irvin F Cohen
Sorry folks, got to take a time out - in order to breath, take my medicine, rest and so on.
But will be back soon, and will address all you worthless motherfuckers as is humanly endurable.
25 - Alan Kurtz
Christopher Rose (#23), please let me add that not all vulgarity is gratuitous. Sometimes well-placed vulgarity expresses with precision and conciseness exactly what the author is trying to communicate, with the added benefit of being more colorful and accessible than the stuffy, censorious, veddy proper prose cranked out by [Gratuitous vulgarity deleted by Alan Kurtz] hacks such as [Personal attack deleted by Alan Kurtz].