The Many Faces of US Politics...

[whitey]

Healthcare is a total mess. 18% of GDP increasing at 4% per year , way ahead of GDP. . Poor life expectancy. Most spending goes on the rich. Very USA.

It's a clusterfvck..... there is the best care in the world if you live in the right part of the country and have the right insurance.  Outside of that it's probably on a par with Ireland

Actually Ireland is better

World Health Organization Ranking; The World's Health Systems
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 USA
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland

You obviously didn't read (or understand) my post

[omochain]

I believe I did understand your post.
You stated and I paraphrase... that for rich people who live close to MassGeneral or the MayoClinic and the like, the US has arguably the best healthcare in the world, for the rest it sucks ... on a par with Ireland. In fact when you put the good bit and the bit that sucks together, Ireland is better. My point is that Ireland is not on a par with the US but better.
BTW I agree with you the Healthcare system in the US is a calamity.. we spend almost 2 times what they spend in France and the outcomes are worse than Ireland but the disingenuous ignorant attempts at solutions coming from Ayn Ryan / Trump and company are not going to cure anything except the rich people's aversion to paying taxes.
If you want the Healthcare you believe you deserve you might have to start eating "Freedom Fries".
Do me the courtesy of reading that article I posted earlier. Ryan despite his claims of 20+ years of Healthcare sector experience does not appear to have grasped how the Healthcare market works.

[omochain]

Is there any possibility of the choice being made on a county-by-county basis?  Might have to rule out any enclave-type scenario I presume, but what counties currently would have strong majorities one way or the other?

No.

The Good Friday Agreement says it in black and white. It's all or nothing when it comes to a border poll. No more carving up of little enclaves to appease people who can't accept a democratic result.

With these long-winded daily reports we are now getting the above nugget in the United Ireland thread from Eamon is too good not to share.

How are you doing accepting the democratic result in the US election old pal ?? not so good??

I think we all have come to except the electoral college vote. It's you who do not appear to have accepted the democratic result

[DrinkingHarp]

Texted a good friend of mine who is a HUGE Republican

Me....."what is going on with Trump?"

Him....."He is batshit crazy"

Me ......"at least Hillary isn't President, right?"

Him...."That could be debatable in a year"

This guy has voted Republican Ticket for the past 30 years.

[whitey]

I believe I did understand your post.
You stated and I paraphrase... that for rich people who live close to MassGeneral or the MayoClinic and the like, the US has arguably the best healthcare in the world, for the rest it sucks ... on a par with Ireland. In fact when you put the good bit and the bit that sucks together, Ireland is better. My point is that Ireland is not on a par with the US but better.
BTW I agree with you the Healthcare system in the US is a calamity.. we spend almost 2 times what they spend in France and the outcomes are worse than Ireland but the disingenuous ignorant attempts at solutions coming from Ayn Ryan / Trump and company are not going to cure anything except the rich people's aversion to paying taxes.
If you want the Healthcare you believe you deserve you might have to start eating "Freedom Fries".
Do me the courtesy of reading that article I posted earlier. Ryan despite his claims of 20+ years of Healthcare sector experience does not appear to have grasped how the Healthcare market works.

I never said "rich people".......  I said people with the right insurance.  Many people will low paying jobs have great insurance.  The first job I had in 1995, I was making $17,500 per year and I had exactly the same health insurance as the CEO who was making $20M per year.

A buddy of mine in the Laborers Union in Chicago did his knee in and was operated on by the same surgeon who does all of the Blackhawks players

Teachers also have pretty good insurance and I definitely wouldn't categorize them as rich

[omochain]

OK sorry rich people and those with the right insurance.  I did say paraphrase....
My point was that Ireland is not on a "par" with the US but gets better outcomes for less. Just pointing out that you were erroneous.

[whitey]

OK sorry rich people and those with the right insurance.  I did say paraphrase....
My point was that Ireland is not on a "par" with the US but gets better outcomes for less. Just pointing out that you were erroneous.

I take it youve never been to Castlebar Hospital then

[omochain]

Never let data get in the way of your gut feeling.

[Eamonnca1]

Ethically Challenged

• Ex-National Security Adviser Lt. Gen (Ret.) Michael Flynn filed a Foreign Agents Registration Act disclosure yesterday, retroactively applied to $530,000 worth of lobbying work he did during the U.S. presidential campaign that may have aided the Turkish government.
On the day of the election, Flynn (acting as undisclosed foreign agent of Turkey) wrote an op-ed calling for the extradition of Fethullah Gülen to Turkey. Turkey claims he was behind the failed July coup. The DOJ has rebuffed extradition demands it fears are politically motivated by saying Turkey must substantiate claims per the extradition agreement. Flynn's rationale in the op-ed was explicitly political.

• The Office Government Ethics sent a letter to White House counsel and the House Oversight Committee, taking issue with the White House's decision not to discipline Kellyane Conway over her ethics violation when she plugged Ivanka Trump's merchandise during a TV interview. Failure to discipline her, they argue, will incite further ethics breaches.

It also took exception to the broader assertion by White House that OGE rules did not apply to employees of the Executive Office of the President, calling it "critical to the public's faith in the integrity of government that White House employees be held to the same standard of ethical accountability as other executive branch employees."

Always Have An Exit Strategy

• After digging Kansas into a $1 billion budget hole with his tax cuts, it looks like Governor Sam Brownback will be literally getting the f**k out of Dodge and taking the position of Ambassador To The U.N. Agencies For Food And Agriculture in Rome, Italy.

POTUS

• Was slated to travel to Louisville, KY on Saturday to sell a crowd on TrumpCare. Now Vice-President Pence will be going.
Already lining up scapegoats (Tea Party & Dems), not slapping his name on it, and now ducking out of a sales pitch in a red state he won by 30 points. He knows this is going to fail.

Health Care

• After 18 hours of debate, TrumpCare passed 23 to 16 in the House Ways and Means Committee before dawn on Thursday.

• Dr. Andrey Ostrovsky, the top Medicaid doctor, said today that he can not support TrumpCare because experts, data, and evidence outweigh political messaging.

• Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said today that TrumpCare will not pass the Senate and the House needs to start over again.

• House majority whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) refused to say today whether or not the bill had enough votes to even make it out of the House.

That Is Actually How This Works. That's Actually How All Of This Works

• With bad PowerPoints and rolled-up sleeves, alleged policy wonk House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) gave his capstone presentation on Why Poor People Should Suffer Why The ACA Should Be Repealed. In the middle of it he said that the reason ACA insurance won't work is because there are healthy people subsidizing the treatments sick people are receiving.

You guys... I'm not entirely sure at this point that Paul Ryan understands what insurance *is*.

Hate Watch

• Another bomb threat & evacuation... this time at Jewish Children's Museum in Brooklyn, NY.

EPA

• Administrator Scott Pruitt went on CNBC this morning and denied that carbon dioxide is "a primary contributor to the global warming that we see." This runs counter to not only the accepted scientific consensus but the position of the very organization he's overseeing.

How'd you like to be the EPA staffer that has to give him his morning briefing tomorrow? "And turning to Page 3 you can see that we...we... You don't really care about any of this, do you?"

State Department

• Secretary Tillerson left for Asia on his first major trip. There's no deputy secretary. There are no undersecretaries. Who's minding the store?

Border Wall

• Asked at an interview with Politico today whether or not Mexico was going to pay for construction of the wall on our southern border, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was succinct in his reply: "Uh, no."

War on Terror

• A week of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen eclipsed the annual bombing total for any year during Obama's presidency.

Travel Ban

• Hawaii filed suit to block the revised ban, arguing it will disrupt families, harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.

• Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, & Oregon will be joining the lawsuit.

• The Attorney General of Washington State will ask U.S. District Judge James Robart to extend the current temporary restraining order on the first travel ban to cover the new one.

This has been Day 49 in Trumpistan. Good night!

[Hardy]

The idiocracy gets around to the EPA, as expected.

[seafoid]

The idiocracy gets around to the EPA, as expected.

It reminds me of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAFSrKqIKdc

Scrooge was funny in the 60s because rich people had been neutralised economically after WW2 . The problem now is that the US needs urgent solutions to the systemic problems that plague it. Trump is a piss take

[whitey]

Never let data get in the way of your gut feeling.

I can't remember the technical term, but when dealing with statistics sample sizes need to be somewhat similar in order for comparisons to be meaningful......4M versus 300M???

[J70]

Never let data get in the way of your gut feeling.

I can't remember the technical term, but when dealing with statistics sample sizes need to be somewhat similar in order for comparisons to be meaningful......4M versus 300M???

I doubt that 4+ million people could ever be considered an inadequate or too asymmetric a sample size. You're not talking comparing 5 people with 5000. Random bias is not going to be an issue when you're in the millions. And it also depends on what statistics and methods you're using. In some methods, lopsided samples can cause the result to lean too heavily on the larger one, but that's why software allows you to randomly pull a certain number of cases from the hat to make your sample. I'm sure the statisticians who generate these figures are well aware of these issues.

[whitey]

Never let data get in the way of your gut feeling.

I can't remember the technical term, but when dealing with statistics sample sizes need to be somewhat similar in order for comparisons to be meaningful......4M versus 300M???

I doubt that 4+ million people could ever be considered an inadequate or too asymmetric a sample size. You're not talking comparing 5 people with 5000. Random bias is not going to be an issue when you're in the millions. And it also depends on what statistics and methods you're using. In some methods, lopsided samples can cause the result to lean too heavily on the larger one, but that's why software allows you to randomly pull a certain number of cases from the hat to make your sample. I'm sure the statisticians who generate these figures are well aware of these issues.

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/whom-are-they-kiddingHi

Who rankings are subjective and not solely statistically based

[seafoid]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/10/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-lies-democracy