Think of it as a form of foreign aid, the countries involved both taking IOU’s on the deal, and paying selves back by meeting those terms.

Are there examples of foreign investment capital taking those IOU’s ? Health care requires capital investment but the subject of profits or return on investments is a political football.

This is a very different — and vastly larger — country than any of those in Europe.

Michael Moore makes great points, but people here think differently about government. We have to shoot for what’s possible — and that’d be vastly better than what we’ve got now.

Hillary’s cover millions more and works out to $2,700 a year. Obama’s plan comes out to $4,400 a year for those covered.

A cheaper plan that covers more people - Hillary.

But we all know the three issue with Health:

1 Most of the “sick” aren’t

2 Real affliction is indiscrinimate. Therefore an “all fair and equal” insurance system doesn’t work

3 Health is a profit driven industry supporting pill manufacturers and insurers.

What is Mrs Clinton proposing to do about that beyond pretending to subsidise the insurers?

There is a supplimentary issue. This is care. How much care is enough, Susan? Are pills more or less important than care?

Oh hell, we can always get good ol’ Rummy to come to the rescue;) Has he made his bid for the presidency yet?

From the ABC transcript of Sunday’s This Week interview with Hillary Clinton, here are the questions L’li George asked about Hillary’s healthcare plan (begins bottom of Pg 2 and continues to top of Pg 4):
–jawbone

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s look at health care, another contrast between you and Senator Obama. He’s been pressing that case this weekend.

The key difference, as you point out, is you would require everyone to have health insurance. You believe that will get to universal coverage. He would not.

Here’s what Senator Obama said about that in the debate.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
OBAMA: You can mandate it, but there’s still going to be people who can’t afford it. And if they cannot afford it, then the question is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to fine them? Are you going to garnish their wages?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn’t get the chance to answer that question in the debate.

What is the answer to those two questions? Will you have fines for people who don’t buy health care, don’t apply — don’t go by the mandate? Will you garnish their wages? SNIP
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me interrupt you there, because the other night at the debate, you said that you and Senator Edwards bit the bullet on this question…

Part 2, Steph’s questions on healthcare garnishments.

STEPHANOPOULOS: … of mandates, and Senator Edwards was quite clear in his plan. He said if people still didn’t buy the insurance, their wages would be garnished.
And I still haven’t heard, if people can afford it and they don’t buy the insurance, will their wages be garnished under your plan? Will they have to pay fines?
SNIP
STEPHANOPOULOS: But, yet, Senator Clinton, we actually have that mailing and let me show our viewers quickly what you were talking about, because you referred to it.

It says that Hillary’s plan will — excuse me, let me read this again — “forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it. You pay a penalty if you don’t.”

And I want to bear down on this question one more time, because they’re claiming this issue of the penalty. And a lot of independent health care experts, many who worked with you in 1994, say that without these enforcement mechanisms, you simply can’t get to universal coverage, you can’t claim to have universal coverage, so there’s no difference between your plan and Senator Obama’s.

And, I mean, you talked about automatic enrollment. Will you garnish wages of people who don’t comply, don’t buy the insurance?

–jawbone

Sounds like the straw man is being established around the issue of garnishment.

This is being attributed to Hillary, through the other campaign. In his initial attempt to give this traction, Stephanopoulos uses a disingenuous tactic of mentioning other’s opinion and trying to attribute it to her, then blocks her reply to try and insert the same direct quote as a frame of reference - garnishments.

The point being that garnishment entails past medical obligations and debts.

All the plans we’ve seen at this time talk about present/future plans.

Soros could perhaps explain the features of paying or leveraging debt in better detail, but that seems to be a way for big business to back out its obligations, cover its ass for overage billing or inflating stock, and of course for scaring John Q.Public with a word best associated with child support.

Being as the straight marriage party has a thing with candidates getting divorced…

it’s their target market.

It appears the best way the Obama camp sees to getting votes on the swing voters in the primary(mostly the male voting bloc) is to bring up a phrase best associated with payments due divorce and child support, etc.

Traditionally within the Democratic race, the swing voters from other sectors of the party register. With Sen.Clinton and Sen. Obama each capturing strong portions of the internal party voting pillars, they’ve had to target core votes as their sales pitch to turn the votes their way.

Hillary, due to the track record of negative perception sent her way during the year her husband was in office, has to find ways of reassuring the base in spite of rather mainstream and nominative positions as a Senator.

Barack, due to the shift in emphasis his campaign did leaving New Hampshire, to focus on South Carolina votes. The Pyhrric victory painted his own perception to a corner, and he was needing to play the victim card if for no other reason, to try and rob Hillary the same kind of traction.

Plus, his campaign shift was able to connect and energize a different donor base than the bundler/corporate sector that forms the major part of his campaign apparatus.

The negative connotation of the garnishment term aside, the fact this is bringing such a phrase up seems to indicate big business wants to make this part of the new model, as a way of covering its tail on past obligations.

Bringing the topic up as a defeat tactic of an opponent then allows you to take on the mantle of the same cause in bringing both sides together again.

Thus the reform model of most post modern New Deal programs has been established in like fashion.

Attach a stigma to the underlying demand, this denies consensus, and from that point direct the solution to the original positions you already had as part of the vested money base policy.

That was part of several modern policies, privatization in spheres of service industries, education, corrections, even the CHAMPUS/Tricare policies that steer customers to specific businesses(Wal-Mart pharmacies, for example).

Krugman himself could later focus upon the entire garnishment comparisons thrown about, and discuss a health care plan that is in effect retroactive off the pay scale side of the business model. There’s some positives to be considered in terms of how we’re able to address the payment side of provider care. It has to come after this particular debate, for reasons being it’s pretty fluid a talk, and not one given to the black/white stands we want made as a form expectation for a said candidate, party, or platform policy.

This could could increase an obligation but mitigate its overall expense in time, by allowing deferments as part of a payment plan along the lines of traditional debt relief. As these obligations are met the plan itself becomes more affordable, matched with improved cost management associated with preventive care returns on investment.

That of course would be under different nomenclature as the language of implementation is by all means necessary in the sphere of political action and policy.

Still, the idea of a Soros styled public backing of private debt made part of the plan is a way of perhaps enabling us to make good a values exchange model, not unlike what we’ve seen prior with the personnel aspects of service exchange, as in the Peace Corps.

Not just with the people, but with material finance and actual currency. As the market sector gets established to more full a measure, the actual means of exchange can be made in forms of new contracts for service(exchange students, internships, and even loan/USAID packages shaped by the use of these packaged debt obligations specifically in use from that field of practice) all can be acted in ways that benefit strategic means.

Think of it as a form of foreign aid, the countries involved both taking IOU’s on the deal, and paying selves back by meeting those terms. You cannot put a price on mind power, on service from the best and the brightest.

America gets its business in line for taking care of its own, and then models this as a way to help others. Then we’re back to a path of making the most of our moral resources, and enabling capacity abroad to do likewise.

We can’t solve all of our foreign policy problems without help, it is time we consider doing the same thing with domestic policy. Fuel imports are more what I had in mind for that being the best immediate benefit.

I don’t command any space on the New York Times oped page, but for those of you want to know the truth about the health-care plans of Obama and Clinton — rather than the rather lopsided arguments Paul Krugman keeps making in his column on that page, as he did again today — please see my blog (below) for January 13, 2008,
“Democrats Should Stop Squabbling Over Healthcare Mandates.”
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/

The health care package will be a synthesis once Congress gets involved and will bear faint resemblance to what the candidates are fronting at this stage. Useful or FUBAR, it’s not in your hands.

Express your rage if you will: It’s just another replay of King Lear.

So what’s the real message?

Krugman has identified for you one group that is employing Obama as a useful idiot.