I wonder how many people on DU will come out and admit they were right or wrong about this HCR bill

[still_one]

after it becomes law, and we get to see how bad, not so bad, or good it is?

I am not trying to debate whether the bill is good or bad, but wonder how many of those on either side of this debate on DU will have the guts to admit they were right or wrong about it?

[racaulk]

1. Probably not as many as will come out and say "I told you so!" n/t

[Richardo]

2. this is the correct response.

[still_one]

3. Even I told you so is OK, though I would like to think people here are intellectually honest

to do both

[racaulk]

10. I hope that you're right.

But it is tough for one to admit in general to being wrong, because that requires a bit of introspection and some swallowing of pride. It is much easier to score cheap points for being right.

I hope that those that are "wrong" in this debate, whoever that may be, will have the courage to say so and do their part to make amends. But if history is any indicator here at DU, I don't see that forthcoming. Perhaps I'm just being too cynical here, but I would love to be wrong in this.

:hi:

[kenny blankenship]

4. I admit I was wrong to give Obama's Public Option bullshit a chance.

[still_one]

6. Hypothetically, what would your position be if the bill became law, got amended

and provided a public option or Medicare by in. What would your view be then?

[kenny blankenship]

11. My view would be that you are dishonestly conflating two different acts of Congress

and trying to transfer credit to one, prior bad act from a later, different act.

Amending a law that gives free guns to convicted felons with a later act of Congress that expands aid to underprivileged school districts does not make the first law a good one.

Stuff your spin.

[lame54]

5. I hope I'm the most wrong I've ever been

[still_one]

Good answer /nt

[EFerrari]

15. Ditto. And that would be pretty wrong.

lol

[lame54]

25. Extremely wrong

[EFerrari]

30. I meant me, not you, lame54.

I guess at my age, you start cultivating a degree of affection for your worst f#ck ups. LOL

:hi:

[lame54]

32. I got you - and I meant me

[mzmolly]

7. I feel I was wrong initially. I felt the mandate MUST die without a public option.

I now realize that the mandate is necessary for reform, even IF it sounds bad.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/the_individual_mandate_is_too.html

...If reform simply forces insurance companies to sell to these people, then prices skyrocket for everyone, as the sicker or the older rush into the market, while the young and the healthy hang back. In that scenario, you've not solved the problem of pricing people out. You've arguably worsened it. If you want to solve the problem of pricing out but you don't want an individual mandate, you need to think of an alternative to it.

Moreover, it's simply not true, as Ross says, that the people paying the $750 individual mandate penalty get nothing in return. Far from it, in fact. For one thing, they get access to emergency care, as happens now. For another, they get the chance to come back into the system when they actually need insurance. Someone who puts off purchasing coverage and then tries to buy Aetna's plan the first time they collapse unexpectedly will not be sold a plan. Having chosen not to buy insurance when they didn't need care, they can't buy it now that they do need care. They become the priced out or, in some cases, locked out.

Under reform, these people get the chance to come back into the system when they need coverage. They can't be discriminated against. Indeed, you can argue that these folks, the ones willing to game the system, are the most advantaged of all the groups. It's why the individual mandate should be stronger, not weaker, than it is now....

:shrug:

[still_one]

12. We don't know for certain. We are told that there are certain elements in the bill

that will provide the basis for a public option, and that it can be amended on one side, and on the other side we are told if it can't be done right now, why do we suppose it will be amended to make it better, and that this bill is worse than nothing.

[mzmolly]

23. I don't suppose it's worse than nothing

I now know it is. I'm firm in that belief for many reasons. Medicade has been expanded, people can't be rejected due to pre-existing conditions, there is a cap on cost, insurance companies will have more regulation and so on.

[librechik]

8. the issue is too nuanced--there are good points and bad points about the Senate version

Anybody who is a simple yes or no on the thing is idiotic. So I doubt we are going to come out and announce that either way. All we can do is try to influence our representatives. what does being "right or wrong" have to do with that? The issue is too complex to simplify it in that manner, and it is an unfair rhetorical demand.

[mzmolly]

9. This is true.

Excellent points.

[still_one]

17. You are right, however, the debate centers on two issues as I see it. One is that

this bill without a public option is worse than what we have today. The other side is that this bill provides a basis for a public option, and is better than what we have today.

As nuanced as the issues are, I think we will know which view is more accurate

[librechik]

40. ok--let's make sure the House doesn't back down on that

during the reconciling process. Dust must be kicked up!

[uponit7771]

13. If it stanks and more people are hurt than helped then I'll say I'm wrong then work to make it bette

[still_one]

19. That is the nuance someone pointed out about this discussion. However, having the ability

to amend a bad bill, or starting over from scratch, which is easier?

Your view is realistic and practical as I see it. If you get thrown off the horse, you get back on

[enlightenment]

38. The last time I was thrown off a horse,

the horse did a fandango on my body. What with the fractured ribs and collarbone, the cuts and abrasions, and the hairline skull fracture, I had a little trouble getting up - much less getting back on the horse.

Still_one, I understand that you've been trying to post reasonable, non-inflammatory questions, but you are being just slightly disingenuous by not disclosing your opinion on the questions you pose. After a while, it starts to feel like you're setting a snare . . .

[Armstead]

14. I have always said I'd prefer to eat crow and be wrong than for my fears about this to come true

I stand by that.

I would be thrilled if this bill leads to actual improvements in coverage and cost within the forseeable future, and paved the ground for further reform and gave the Democrats an electoral boost.

Unfortunatly, I think it is just going to be a repeat of the same pattern of years past (NAFTA, broadcast deregulation, banking deregulation, Iraq) when Democrats are going to be slapping their collective foreheads in dismay saying "What the hell were we thinking?"

But I will be happy if my darker suspicions are proven wrong.

[still_one]

22. That is the way I have always been, and I have been on both sides of this issues, because it

is not easy to decipher through this mess

[AndyA]

16. Add me to the "Hope I'm Wrong" column.

Because if I'm not wrong, Obama is as corrupt as the rest of them.

Time will tell, lots can change between now and the signing of the bill. I'll be happy to admit I was wrong, because that will mean things may actually be better for most Americans. As it is now, I'm not so sure. :shrug: :(

[still_one]

24. I am the same way, though honestly I am just plain confused right now /nt

[grantcart]

18. Prior to actually reading the bill I was against it.

After reading it I was surprised what was actually in it.


Before it was published I said that there were two things that could improve a bill that had no public option, but I wasn't hopeful.


To my surprise both were in it.


So I admit that the harder line against the bill before reading it was wrong but I still feel that the President and Congressional leadership has fallen down in the presentation of it. Had the entire bill been revealed as a total package then people could have made a more dispassionate decision about it. However because people didn't know what was in the bill people were stuck on the one thing that they did know - the Public Option.

[still_one]

26. Is the bill up on the internet now? /nt

[grantcart]

39. here

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/grantcart/256

It has a link to the manager's ammendment, i.e. changes in the Senate bill, and my reaction to it.

[still_one]

59. Thanks /nt

[Egnever]

45. At least you grounded your beliefs inrealism

with no actual bill to read it was hard to draw much of a conclusion other than it stinks, based on the limited information available on it.

But then I always knew you were a fart smeller...Er smart feller.

[Beetwasher]

54. The PO Was A Big Fat Red Herring

The bill sets a solid foundation because the opposition focused on the meaningless PO and not the other substantive elements.

[ElboRuum]

20. Just curious...

What good would it serve if they did, in either case?

Personally, right or wrong, I would hope most people would have the intelligence to realize that your "life score" isn't particularly affected by whether you were right or wrong about something on an internet message board.

For reference:



See, kinda looks like this.

[still_one]

28. Because I think that is how we learn. You are correct, we do not have to voice it publically

that does nothing, but if we at least recognize it to ourselves, not our ego, then we grow

[Armstead]

37. LOL -- Unfortunately I can relate to this, as seen in the stack of unfinished work on my desk

Do I finish my paid work on deadline, or do I spend a "few more minutes" arguing on DU?

[totodeinhere]

21. After it becomes law, some provisions won't kick in for several years.

So we might not be able to say one way or the other just after it becomes law. And this raises a good question, if this is such a good bill why not let everything take effect immediately? Or are they waiting for the GOP to retake power so that they can repeal it?

And don't tell me that we can't afford to let the law kick in immediately. If we can afford a surge in Afghanistan, then we sure as hell can afford quality health care for all Americans right now, not just in three or four years.

[still_one]

29. That is a good point, and also represent a major flaw with the bill itself /nt

[Aramchek]

42. yet many provisions will kick in immediately

[totodeinhere]

43. Why not all?

Obama's Afghanistan surge kicked in immediately. Why not all of the health care bill?

[Aramchek]

44. because some things require that delivery systems be set up

that takes time

[totodeinhere]

53. Maybe a few months but certainly not three years.

Let me continue my Afghanistan analogy. Sending more troops is very complex and requires a lot of planning, yet the first contingent has already arrived. And heck, he plans on sending over 30,000 additional troops then getting them all out again by 2011, and in all that time some aspects of the so-called health care reform bill still won't have kicked in.

And by the way, why would banning exclusions for preexisting conditions require setting up any delivery systems when clinics and hospitals all already in place?

IMO, this is just a smoke screen to cover up the fact that this is not real bona fide health care reform. It's just a charade.

[AuntPatsy]

27. I still don't know whether the bill will be good or simply all we can do because

according to them, it is not yet done...so in that respect, I can be neither be right nor wrong about the bill, just about what I "think" the bill represents towards change and at this point it is hard to maintain one single thought since it seems to keep changing....

I wish some would quit viewing this very important issue as nothing more than a game without regard to the fact that in losing good HCR, we all lose...no one wins, no one except those in the upper one percent...

[still_one]

33. I like that way of looking at it /nt

[damntexdem]

31. OK, I admit it: I was right and wrong about this HCR bill.

And I promise to be right and wrong about issues in the future, as well. ;-)

[still_one]

34. LOL /nt

[EFerrari]

35. LOL.

Nice.

[ElboRuum]

41. It's good to see continuity in one's personal habits. n/t

[HughMoran]

36. We shall see

I'm sure that right or wrong, there'll be a lot of "told-ya-so" posts though. I don't do that because I know nothing is perfect and that facts are often biased based on the source used.

[apocalypsehow]

46. I predict that in two years the Anti's will be insisting they were for HCR all along and will squeal

to high heaven about how "unfair" those of us who've bookmarked some of their more egregious predictions are being when we remind them of it.

Most of the Anti's are simply intellectually dishonest posters, about any topic. I caught one the other day lying about what he'd previously said on another topic. He swore he had never posted anything of the sort. I then posted a link to the post he'd made that said exactly what I claimed he'd said from several weeks before. His reaction? He accused me of "smearing" him - that's right, "smearing" him with his own words!

That's how willfully dishonest most of the Anti's are, intellectually and in nearly every other way.

[quiller4]

47. I'll come out right now and say that this bill is better than anything

I thought could pass even though it is less than I wished for. I applaud the expansion of Medicaid and the ubsidies to the working poor. No more denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, no more chargin women higher premiums, limiting the amount of premium surcharge for age to 3:1 (when the current average is 5.5:1), mandating that insurance companies pay our 75-85% of revenue in medical claims payments.

I think I was wrong 2 months ago when I said if a bill didn't have a public option it wasn't woth supporting. I gladly support both house and senate bills. I've emailed both my senators and my congressman and thanked them for voting for these bills. I've gone through my whole address book and sent emails to all encouraging them to support these measures, too.

[dcsmart]

48. The truth will set you free....I will...

[depakid]

49. If anything other than increased prices for poorer overall coverage

for the majority of Americans over time results, I'll admit that the existence of the Easter bunny is a possibility.

What you're going to find is an accelerated trend toward high deductible, high copay junk insurance (along with poorer health outcomes associated with barriers and disincentives to primary and preventative care).

Heck of a job.

[stevenleser]

50. There is a unifying point here that I think is being missed.

After it is passed, 100% of DU will want it improved. Perhaps that is on what we should focus.

[apocalypsehow]

51. Except, the Anti's don't *want* "improvement" - they want the talking point. "Stuff your spin," as

one of them put it above in this very thread while pissing all over the suggestion that the bill could be improved after initial implementation.

Afraid it's just not going to work that way, though I wish it would.

[stevenleser]

52. Well, that is because they want the bill killed and it isn't going to happen, so they are mad.

Even so, they ought to have a plan B.

[depakid]

56. There's logical disconnect among those who support these dysfunctional policies

On the one hand, they will argue that we have to do it immediately (and not via reconciliation- cutting put the root of the problems) because if we don't it will be another decade before we can get anything at all!

On the other hand- they claim that "we'll get back to and fix the glaring problems in due course."

Really?

Well, if the latter's true- why not deal with them now- rather than waste time during the next several sessions of Congress?

Nope- what happening here is that folks (through one process or another) have become unwitting allies of the health insurance industry- and are putting a stamp of approval on many of their most egregious abuses- as well as condemning many more Americans to increasingly expensive, high deductible, high copay junk insurance that they can't afford to use- and that will not prevent them from going bankrupt in the event that a family member is injured or falls ill.

[niceypoo]

55. Have to see what is left when the smoke clears

[DFLforever]

57. Well I'm on the record (somewhere) predicting a bill would pass

...but that no one would like it.

I think that means we probably got the best bill possible under
present conditions.

[sandnsea]

58. It could be a 95% success, and they'll focus on the 5%

that doesn't work so they never have to admit they're wrong.