Rush Limbaugh Says Tax Money Pays For Students’ and Employees’ Jogging Pants As A Welfare Entitlement
Seriously. In the rambling press release that he self-styled an apology to Georgetown U. law student Sandra Fluke for calling her a slut and a prostitute, Limbaugh groused:
Amazingly, when there is the slightest bit of opposition to this new welfare entitlement being created, then all of a sudden we hate women.
He then explained his position thusly:
I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?
So even as late as yesterday afternoon when he released the statement, he’s claiming that taxpayerswould be paying the part of employee and student healthcare premiums that cover contraceptives. And that taxpayers pay for running pants, shorts and tank tops for employees and students who jog, but don’t pay for the Nikes and Reeboks.
He apparently doesn’t read Angry Bear (see “Will ‘We’ Really Be Paying Sandra Fluke’s Healthcare Insurance Premiums?”, below.) He should, though. Dana Loesch, though, clearly does.
What? You’ve never heard of Dana Loesch? Well, you’re in good company. Mine. I’d never heard of her until this morning, when I read the New York Times articleabout Limbaugh’s statements. The article says:
At least one conservative commentator, Dana Loesch, appeared to back Mr. Limbaugh’s original sentiments, writing on Twitter on Saturday, “If you expect me to pay higher insurance premiums to cover your ‘free’ birth control, I can call you whatever I want.”
So, whatever the merits of her claim to a right to libel anyone whose medical insurance coverage and use raises “her” insurance premiums, Loesch at least does recognize the difference between private insurance premiums and coverage and taxpayer-funded welfare entitlements. Limbaugh does not.
Happily, a mainstream media pundit understands this non-trivial distinction, too, and mentions it. In her New York Times column today, Maureen Dowd writes:
[Limbaugh] said insuring contraception would represent another “welfare entitlement,” which is wrong — tax dollars would not provide the benefit, employers and insurance companies would. And women would not be getting paid just “to have sex.” They’d be getting insurance coverage toward the roughly $1,000 annual expense of trying to avoid unwanted pregnancies and abortions, and to control other health conditions.
So, AB readers, do you think Dowd reads AB? Nah. She probably figured it out all by herself. But Loesch probably reads AB. Okay, or Forbes online. (Thanks for linking to it, Tim Worstall!) For better or worse. I mean, I’d hate to be, say, (as Bruce Webb points out in a comment to my earlier post) a skier or mountain climber who works for the same employer that Loesch does, or at least has the same insurance carrier that she has.
Wouldn’t want Loesch to accuse them of having murdered their mother, or something.
Beverly,
probably at the end of the day i am on your side in this, but i don’t find your arguments compelling. and i certainly don’t find the other guys’ arguments compelling, or anything but nasty. but here is what i come back to.
a thousand dollars a year is a lot of money. but if it is a predictable expense, i don’t see the point of paying for it with insurance unless you figure that people who don’t themselves have that expense should help you pay for it.
there may be a reason why they should, but at least from where i stand, the holier than thou argument that this is either a women’s issue, or a separation of church and state issue, doesn’t even come close to making sense.
and please note, i am not talking about taxes, but just the premiums the rest of us pay for private insurance.
i don’t know what Bruce said about the skiers and mountain climbers, but there are two issues: the first is whether an insurance company can reasonably charge a higher premium for persons who engage in risky activities. and the second is… even if the insurance company is wiling to insure you against breaking your neck, should they be buying your safety rope?
i am very sorry if that sounds to you like the nasty way Rush puts the argument, but I think if you are not going to just try to get away with emotional appeals to the “poor women” and “nasty men who want to control women’s sex lives,” you really do need to address why anyone should help you pay for what is a regular cost that you chose to incur.
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Coberly, just my woman’s point of view.
Reproductive health care is not a choice for any woman. Sexuality is most human need, just like eating and drinking. Why should women pay higher insurance premiums just because all the reproductive risks are left to her. He, the master of creation, has his pleasure and never looks back again. There are lots and lots of deadbeat dads, Gingrich and Walsh, among all the many. Why should they not pay for contraceptives, they enjoyed doing it, or not. Coberly, I do feel a bit satirical about it too, you know I like you.
Who decides why and what is moral or not anyway, the pope or some other mega church preacher or the government?
The Constitution speaks of religious freedom of the individual, not a religious institution imposing its moral teachings. It is the woman’s conscience, not the conscience of some celibate male who is not responsible for her. Religious institutions have no conscience, they are not people. The ministers are free to preach but not to impose their religious morals on other people.
A healthy and moral sexual relationship requires love, caring and respect for each other.
Limbaugh and his ilk show nothing of the kind. It is safe to say that Limbaugh is a mental case, he is a drug addict with divorces and maybe some trips to other countries for sex.
The real bizarre thing is the Republicans fear to distance and protect at least a little bit of dignity for the party. What a trashy affair this is.
Sigh, coberly, “you know what your problem is?” You still consider sex to be an entertainment and not a natural bodily function.
This subject reminds me of smoking cost discussions. So I have an insurance policy through work that offers only two options – single and family. I would much prefer to pay for some contraceptives than to see my policy go to cover three or four times as many children. Why? I’m betting it is cheaper to help people plan their families than to help people pay for their unplanned families.
How is hormonal treatment/therapy for birth control any less legitimate as an insurable medical process than is the pharmaceutical treatment of erectile dysfunction? Yes, I know that a broken wand can’t do magic, but if the sexual interaction is mostly recreational in nature, as most Viagra users will not be looking to enlarge their family, then it is not truly a medical necessity.
In addition the insurance companies are willing to cover hormonal birth control because they know it reduces the over all cost of medical care for the population via reduced medical procedures related to pregnancy.
This is a social issue being punted about as a political football. As has already been noted, this is not an issue of religious freedom. It is more an issue of the religious intolerance of requiring others to follow the religious ideology of one’s own faith at the expense of the freedom from such ideology.
Why should a religious organization that participates in a secular activity have the power to reject the needs of others participating within that same activity. Organizing and controlling a school, hospital or other social institution is not a religious activity. These are secular aspects of life being controlled in many cases by people with strong religious convictions. Those convictions are their right, but requiring others who happen to be participants in a shared secular activity to share those convictions is not religious freedom. It is religious dogmatism.
Oh, regarding Rush Libaugh; he is a huckster and his product is bile. It is another sign of the intellectual deficiency that plagues our nation. I understand Limbaugh. He’s in it for the money and he knows that hate sells well to a large segment of the American population. I don’t understand how his listeners can soak up such crap, but I understand even less the deference shown to Limbaugh’s political clout by the leadeers of the Republican Party. He’s an entertainer using the political system as his stage, but making no positive contribution to the political of social descourse of the nation. He is harmful only to the extent that political leaders pay him the honor of respecting and fearing his position. Limbaugh is no better than Glenn Beck, nor for that matter extreme insult comics like Dice Clay.
a thousand dollars a year is a lot of money. but if it is a predictable expense, i don’t see the point of paying for it with insurance
Birth control pills may be a predictable expense (but I would argue not a cheap one to many) but the consequences of not having birth control is neither predictable or inexpensive, and that is the point. There is no real expense to paying for birth control for insurance companies, in part because they get much, much better prices than an individual would get buying the same pills, and additionally because birth control is less expensive to the insurance company than unwanted pregnanacy and potential women’s illnesses that can be either prevented or ameliorated by birth control pills. Insurance companies net costs are positive.
So, when the Catholic Bishops say it impinges on their religious rights to pay for contraception the church isn’t actually paying for contractiption. What they are really saying is the Bisops will pay extra to make sure anyone who works for them will have their health care and religious choices reduced because of the intolerance of the Catholic church, not because of the costs.
Anna
actually “what your problem is” is that you think you can read my mind and that it says the same thing you read in someone else’s book.
i, sigh, am way too old to consider sex an entertainment. that might be why this discussion bores me a bit. since i have already said that in a collective enterprise.. insurance, not necessarily government… there is an issue about what we want to pay for. to keep costs low, some of us would not like to pay for anything that is a “regular… dare i say natural bodily function… expense and should be budgeted the same way you budget food, rent, and maybe regular check ups.
OR.. someone might argue that given the facts about the way people actually behave, it is cheaper for “us” to pay for birth control than to pay for the “accidental” results of some woman’s not having timely access to… etc. i’d have to see the “way people actually behave” results to know if i’d go for that.
ON the other hand, if it turns out that poor women can’t afford the 15 dollars a month or thousand dollars a year… estimates seem to vary… “we” may want to take on that cost as something like a matter of charity… or national welfare if we are talking about government paying for it.
and yes, smokers should be charged a much higher premium than non smokers.
and if “health care costs” are not going to eat up half or more of OUR incomes (never mind the “government budget”) we are going to have to learn we can’t “cover” every cost we would like someone to help us pay for. should b.c. be one of the costs we don’t cover? i can’t say. but i’d prefer the argument were conducted in full understanding of the costs and who pays for what, and not with hysterical arm waving about “women’s rights” and “separation of church and state.”
Lys
and this is why I despair. I was trying to rescue the conversation from all the moralizing, church hating, women hating, and women’s rights talk.. and all that does is make people hate me.
i don’t decide what is moral. i don’t think the church should either if it understands Christ (you might misunderstand what i just said, I was agreeing with you.)
and if we are to be satirical, i suppose the gent pays for dinner and the show?
and if you are in a healthy moral loving caring and respecting relationship, you could say to the guy, dear, these b.c. pills are not cheap, could you help me out?
no? i didn’t think so. that’s why i said men don’t know where babies come from.
limbaugh is a creep. and the Republican party is insane. so i agree with you there. please don’t lump me in with them.
speaking of Lysistrata… I would think the girls could all just go on strike. “no more, boys. until b.c. is covered by insurance.”
i am sure it would take about five minutes for the congressmen to get enough calls to settle the issue.
but, you know, i’d have liked it if both parties had stopped for a minute and asked if insurance is the best way to pay for this.
as an old fashioned person.. not about sex, but about insurance, i don’t think it is. i could change my mind. but not be being told i am a woman hater. or a sex hater.
jack
all true. but since the R’s give Rush credit for the “republican revolution” we should try to understand why he is so effective. and why it pays him to get our goat.
Jack
let us suppose an “organization” wished to buy health insurance for it’s members, all of whom are sworn to sexual abstinence as a condition of membership.
does that organization have an obligation to pay for birth control?
let us suppose the same organization requires its members to abstain from smoking and drinking and eating too much fat. is that organization barred from receiving a special low rate from its insurance provider?
lets suppose the organization is not a motorcycle gang.
If Ms Fluke wanted to lobby the Jesuits, she would have flown to Rome, not D.C. Yes, there is a difference between the taxpayers directly paying for Ms Fluke’s sexual activity and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it, but that simply removes the issue one degree. The larger point in the “welfare” comparison is this ease with which people force others to foot the bill for their choices.
Agreed, coberly. An elective activity which has a known, expected expense attached to it is not an insurance event; it’s covered by responsible planning and rational budgeting. Purchasing commodities that one wants is one thing, insuring against risk exposure is quite another. That people do not seems to graps this distinction largely explains why there is such price inflation in the health care industry.
Paul
i think i agree about the price inflation… but as you may have noticed it’s a minefield trying to talk about it.
i won’t go quite as far as you do about “responsible planning.” that gets too close to “it’s their own damn fault if they can’t find a job.” maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. but if we want to live in a sane and prosperous society we have to take people as we find them and make the best of it.
if half the women in the country can’t afford b.c. pills or other “family planning”, then we might have to find a way to pay for them. and if the other half of women can’t manage to budget for their own b.c. because on accounta people shouldn’t have to pay for “medical” care… then we may need to pay for them too. even if that doesn’t really fit the “insurance” model that you, me and Worstall all think we are talking about, while everyone else is into, ah, hell, lets throw it all in the same pile and let the rich pay for it.
don’t get me wrong. i’d rather see the welfare solution than the libertarian solution. because the libertarian solution will get us to hell faster than the welfare solution… which will quickly become the libertarian solution when the rich get tired of paying for it.
there is another way to do it, i think. social security pay as you go, insurance paid by the ultimate beneficiaries with real insurance not welfare transfers, and a definite eye out for “the least of these.”
but when we talk about it here, we get hysteria… because it’s all too close to talking about sex.
Paul
that is just to simple. life is way too complicated for for “make them pay” whether it is make the poor pay, or make the rich pay.
the money sorts itself out in the end. the rich can afford to wait. the poor often cannot.
Paul,
if and when you have a sexual relationship, do you foot the bill for contraception or does she? If you don’t use a condom, who gets pregnant, you or she? Who has to face the consequences, all of them? Do you know of any man who died while giving birth? You had your fun, why should you not pay? And surly you don’t know of any woman getting pregnant against her will all by herself, do you?
The pope and his establishment is in the health care business to make money, the RCC charges the same prices as other health care providers, the church has the same overhead as other providers. Business is business so why special treatment for the pope? We do have separation of church and state and no establishment’s conscience or any celibate men’s conscience is of any concern to us.
If you think it is not fair, let me tell you, life is not fair, deal with it.
Limbaugh and his ilk are not entertainers, they are hate mongers taking cover behind the label. They are skunks and the Republicans are cowardly skunks too.
Coberly,
as you know things have not changed since Lysistrata made the effort.
We have to make do with insurance, it is the best we can do right now.
Jack, you said it.
coberly,
You know we can’t just pick and chose, least of all when it comes to ordinary health insurance. How do we know how healthy we stay for how many years and what could really hit us?
BTW, how would you know they really are living abstinent?
Wow. You’re spot-on that there is a difference between the taxpayers paying directly for Ms. Fluke’s sexual activity and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it. And between the taxpayers paying directly for Ms. Fluke’s, and other students’ or employees’ medical need for oral hormone treatment for. e.g., endometriosis or ovarian cysts, which actually was Fluke’s statement was mostly about, and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it.
A few differences, actually. But a key one is that Fluke and other students pay their own health insurance premiums. Neither the government, as Limbaugh falsely claims, nor the Pope, as you falsely claim, nor the university, does. The students do. And as for employee healthcare insurance benefits, those, too, are paid, either directly or indirectly or a combination of both, by the employee, since, as run75441 pointed out, the benefit is part of the employee’s compensation, in lieu of higher salary or hourly wage. And often these days—probably most of the time these days, in fact—the employee pays some or most of the premium; the amount is deducted from the employee’s paycheck.
Also as run75441 noted, employers, including Georgetown University and including the Pope (y’know, to the extent that he actually contributes to the healthcare insurance premiums for employees in American Catholic universities and hospitals) get tax credits for their expenditures toward employee healthcare insurance. That’s not because they have religious affiliations but instead because they are part of this country’s mostly-employee/employer-based healthcare insurance system.
What Fluke was asking was that the law require contraception prescriptions, whether for strictly medical need or instead for contraceptive use, be covered under privately-paid employer/employee or student-insurance plans, even when the organization offering the coverage as a benefit or instead simply as an option whose premiums are paid entirely by the employee or college student—and that in the case of college-student beneficiaries like her, who themselves pay the full premiums, that the premium price be adjusted accordingly.
Limbaugh claimed repeatedly over a period of several days that Fluke was asking that tax money pay for free contraceptives for college students. That is a clearly false statement. Limbaugh made no comparison with welfare; he said, flatly, and falsely, that Fluke wanted the government to pay for this, using tax money.
But your larger point, as you put it, is that people force others to foot the bill for their choices—by which, presumably, you equate with welfare recipients with people who spend most of their spare time watching television or playing videogames rather than taking long walks, and who therefore are overweight and who consequently have heart condition and diabetes because they increase medical insurance premiums; Ditto for people who, as discussed above, ski or mountain climb, and school kids who play football.
And, why limit this welfare analogy to just healthcare issues? What about people who choose to live in exurbs and drive 80-mile commutes in their cars—or SUVs or pickup trucks—and whose use of a zillion gallons of gas each week raise the per-gallon price of gas for […]
Wow. You’re spot-on, Paul, that there is a difference between the taxpayers paying directly for Ms. Fluke’s sexual activity and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it. And between the taxpayers paying directly for Ms. Fluke’s, and other students’ or employees’ medical need for oral hormone treatment for. e.g., endometriosis or ovarian cysts, which actually was Fluke’s statement was mostly about, and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it.
A few differences, actually. But a key one is that Fluke and other students pay their own health insurance premiums. Neither the government, as Limbaugh falsely claims, nor the Pope, as you falsely claim, nor the university, does. The students do. And as for employee healthcare insurance benefits, those, too, are paid, either directly or indirectly or a combination of both, by the employee, since, as run75441 pointed out, the benefit is part of the employee’s compensation, in lieu of higher salary or hourly wage. And often these days—probably most of the time these days, in fact—the employee pays some or most of the premium; the amount is deducted from the employee’s paycheck.
Also as run75441 noted, employers, including Georgetown University and including the Pope (y’know, to the extent that he actually contributes to the healthcare insurance premiums for employees in American Catholic universities and hospitals) get tax credits for their expenditures toward employee healthcare insurance. That’s not because they have religious affiliations but instead because they are part of this country’s mostly-employee/employer-based healthcare insurance system.
What Fluke was asking was that the law require contraception prescriptions, whether for strictly medical need or instead for contraceptive use, be covered under privately-paid employer/employee or student-insurance plans, even when the organization offering the coverage as a benefit or instead simply as an option whose premiums are paid entirely by the employee or college student—and that in the case of college-student beneficiaries like her, who themselves pay the full premiums, that the premium price be adjusted accordingly.
Limbaugh claimed repeatedly over a period of several days that Fluke was asking that tax money pay for free contraceptives for college students. That is a clearly false statement. Limbaugh made no comparison with welfare; he said, flatly, and falsely, that Fluke wanted the government to pay for this, using tax money.
But your larger point, as you put it, is that people force others to foot the bill for their choices—by which, presumably, you equate with welfare recipients with people who spend most of their spare time watching television or playing videogames rather than taking long walks, and who therefore are overweight and who consequently have heart condition and diabetes because they increase medical insurance premiums; Ditto for people who, as discussed above, ski or mountain climb, and school kids who play football.
And, why limit this welfare analogy to just healthcare issues? What about people who choose to live in exurbs and drive 80-mile commutes in their cars—or SUVs or pickup trucks—and whose use of a zillion gallons of gas each week raise the per-gallon price of […]
Eli’s barnyard colleague, the Capitalist Imperialist Pig, put it pretty well
The wimpier Republicans are fleeing Flush Limbaugh’s little adventure in calling a law student who testified before Congress a “slut” and volunteering to set himself up as her pimp. Never fear, though, little Stevie Landsburg Rushes in where logic, taste, and an understanding of the actual question at issue fear to tread.
Go read the comments at Stevie Landsburg’s blog for a taste, but, Eli says, and here Eli is always right, the Pig, and everyone else are missing the real point.
So let Eli tell you exactly how stupid Limbaugh, Landsburg, Lubos and the jackels are: No slut, whore, what have you, uses birth control pills today to let them screw about. Why not? Have the clowns not heard about HIV?? Birth control pills are no barriers to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Birth control pills as birth control are used by women in committed if not married relationships. They are also used to control the pain of menstruation and other conditions. In other words they are pharmaceuticals used to control biological functions. They are medicines. Health insurance covers medicines, and if you are lucky enough to be covered, it even covers some for others that you will never use.
This has been another dispiriting example of the takeover of conservatism by the carrion eaters and our acceptance of their framing.
Besides being vulgar and insulting, the scum’s ignorance is something else. And today he still at it, he is the victim, the poor scumbag.
“And today he still at it, he is the victim, the poor scumbag.”
That’s an insult to any respectable condom.
Wow. You’re spot-on, Paul, that there is a difference between the taxpayers paying directly for Ms. Fluke’s sexual activity and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it. And between the taxpayers paying directly for Ms. Fluke’s, and other students’ or employees’ medical need for oral hormone treatment for. e.g., endometriosis or ovarian cysts, which actually was Fluke’s statement was mostly about, and the taxpayer’s representatives forcing the Pope to pay for it.
A few differences, actually. But a key one is that Fluke and other students pay their own health insurance premiums. Neither the government, as Limbaugh falsely claims, nor the Pope, as you falsely claim, nor the university, does. The students do. And as for employee healthcare insurance benefits, those, too, are paid, either directly or indirectly or a combination of both, by the employee, since, as run75441 pointed out, the benefit is part of the employee’s compensation, in lieu of higher salary or hourly wage. And often these days—probably most of the time these days, in fact—the employee pays some or most of the premium; the amount is deducted from the employee’s paycheck.
Also as run75441 noted, employers, including Georgetown University and including the Pope (y’know, to the extent that he actually contributes to the healthcare insurance premiums for employees in American Catholic universities and hospitals) get tax credits for their expenditures toward employee healthcare insurance. That’s not because they have religious affiliations but instead because they are part of this country’s mostly-employee/employer-based healthcare insurance system.
What Fluke was asking was that the law require contraception prescriptions, whether for strictly medical need or instead for contraceptive use, be covered under privately-paid employer/employee or student-insurance plans, even when the organization offering the coverage as a benefit or instead simply as an option whose premiums are paid entirely by the employee or college student—and that in the case of college-student beneficiaries like her, who themselves pay the full premiums, that the premium price be adjusted accordingly.
Limbaugh claimed repeatedly over a period of several days that Fluke was asking that tax money pay for free contraceptives for college students. That is a clearly false statement. Limbaugh made no comparison with welfare; he said, flatly and falsely, that Fluke wanted the government to pay for this, using tax money.
But your larger point, as you put it, is that people force others to foot the bill for their choices—by which, presumably, you equate with welfare recipients people who increase medical insurance premiums because they spend most of their spare time watching television or playing videogames rather than taking long walks, and who therefore are overweight and who consequently have heart disease and diabetes. Ditto for people who, as discussed above, ski or mountain climb, and school kids who play football.
And, why limit this welfare analogy to just healthcare issues? What about people who choose to live in exurbs and drive 80-mile commutes in their cars—or SUVs or pickup trucks—and whose use of a zillion gallons of gas each week raise the per-gallon price of gas for […]
touche
I would note that supporters of various strands of Right Economic Theory are more than happy to pull out “total labor compensation” including health care coverage when it suits them to argue for wage tradeoffs. Yet when it suits them all the incidence of those costs fall on the employer.
You might almost think they were deliberately using their economic theory in cynical attempts to reinforce current pricing power imbalances between capital and labor.
But as Steve Martin proved in old SNL skits: “naaaaaaah!”
Seriously if you with a straight face argue there is an undistorted relation between marginal labor productivity and total labor compensation as determined by infinitely efficient markets (and most freshwater types adopt stronger or weaker forms of this) and so that any variation from market set distribution of gains are “redistribution” tout court, then you have logically conceded Beverly’s argument here. And crowded out all room for your conscience exemption. At least on economic grounds.
Now there are other models for labor compensation that admit power relations for example “those who don’t work starve” and it’s sugar coated cousin “take this job at this wage or I’ll just find someone who needs it more” but that blows a huge hole in the whole marginal productivity/labor compensation argument. Which then admits the issues of equity, social justice, and morality into the discussion.
Which since EMH types don’t want to go there leaves them trying to shove equilibrium ship morning lines through logical fine sewing needle eyes. That is while the implied sociopathy is deplorable the blatant logical inconsistency is somewhere between maddening and laughable. Do you think opponents are not examining your premises?
Bruce:
Thanks . . .
Bev:
The lever so to speak for forcing employers to pay for healthcare is the tax exemptions for it. When you apply it across the board, even the President of the company or university will find himnself in dire straits being himself denied coverage or having to pay (through the company of course, some exorbitant amount because it is not longer a pool of cooverage covering hundreds or thousands. Take the tax exemptions if need be as this has “nada” to do with religion and all to do with coverage.
Jack:
perfect
Well it is an economics site. And Dan is dying to get serious right econ folk commenting here. I don’t mind setting my self up as a piñata out of reach of the Glibs but ready for whacking by Freshies and Real Libertarians who actually take their theories seriously.
And Worstall deserves credit there as does Biggs back when he was responding on Social Security pieces. In what may be a direct quote from the Siteowner: “More and better conservatives!”. Hopefully with their game on.
Lys
see Dan’s post today. I have capitulated entirely.
Lys
same way “people” have always told.
But again, see Dan’s post today. I have been won over to the good guy’s side.
I would leave my post to Jack as something to think about. And urge my friends especially to remember that I don’t know what I am talking about, and often pose questions just to see if the other side can explain it to me better.
Bev
you make a good point and then bury it with the same kind of garbage Rush does, only from the other direction.
leave it at “the worker pays for his own health care” even when it is called “employer provided benefit.” and the actual care should be private between patient and dr.
it happens that Dan, today, has answered the “cost” question to my satisfaction.
I think there is a way to conceptualize “insurance” so this issue, and others, disappear.
But yes, this non drinking, non smoking, non about everything modern people do, and i walk a lot, and have no medical bills, so far, is not really happy about being asked to pay five thousand dollars a year… or more… to suppoprt you in the style to which you have become accustomed.
on the other hand, it beats the draft.
run
a good point… if you make it clearer. we are all covered, with our unknown personal risks. once we start deciding that some risks are more equal than others, we may not be able to afford insurance because there will be no “pool”.
which still leaves me wishing you would get more exercise, and go easy on the burgers and fries. not to say smoking and drinking.
Bruce
mooring lines for those who don’t recognize the typo. mooring being about as far from most people’s experience as camels.
you are right the bad guys argue it both ways according to the convenience of the moment. and it gets too hard to keep track all the time.
still, i, at least, need it brought down to concrete, this time, language. that way, sometimes, i can convince myself that you are right. as i have. once we stripped away all the man hating and religion bashing.
which i merely find “not useful.” Rush’s friends find it threatening and they vote against you.
oh, Lys
when I am on your side, why do you force me to disagree with you.
Life is not fair. Women have a harder part to play in the child creating business. Deal with it.
no. I am not such a bastard. but every society i know has gone to great lengths to “level the playing field” between men and women on this matter. Rush and friends are defending one of the ways that evolved over about twenty thousand years.
They do not trust government mandated “equal opportunity” to do the job nearly as well.
I can rationalize the government mandated etc to myself. I have been waiting for someone on the right side here, to do it as well. So far all I see is emotion and arm waving and spittle spewing on both sides.
I know you don’t want to go back to Father Knows Best, especially if you see “father” as Limbaugh type. And I am willing to take the new days as i find them. But I am not at all convinced “we” or “you” have your own best interests clearly in mind.
Meanwhile, given the way things actually are, I am “for” paying for b.c. Happy?
Coberly,
I was sure with a little tweaking and a few minor misunderstandings along the way our thoughts would meet.
You are just not nearly a man like Rush, I remember you have a daughter you love and care for.
Coberly,
I fully agree with you “Women have a harder part to play in the child creating business
We do deal with it every day, what else can we do? That is why we don’t let the men of the hook to pay at least a few $$$ more in premiums to help cover contraceptives.
Coberly, yes to happy.
Bruce:
I would love to see the counter argument. Labor Costs are my gig.
Politely, can “we” please stop using the word “sl*t”
I think each time this word is repeated, despite the context or intentions of the author(s) , the use of the word is good for Rush, because it lowers the tone
I mean, if rush had used the “N” word, I think many bloggers would find a euphemism
Also, those of you who don’t degrade yourselves listening to right wing radio – Rush’s mealy mouthed non apology was no worse then Sean Hannity , or Sean’s guest last night, D Trump
They are still saying (5 seconds) I apologize, then (1 hour) what about all the liberal bad words……
I would also say, I have listened, to my horror, to rush over the last two years, and he has really, really gone downhill; two years ago his show was much better (seriously); not that he had any facts or logic, but he had a lot more quotes, and new stuff; now he just rants old stuff.
no wonder hte advertisers are leaving
c. b.,
Maybe you have become just a bit less ignorant and left Rush behind with his audience of fools. His diatribes were never of any value. He panders to the ignorant who are easy to fool, rather than the intelligent who require more facts and substance to be convinced of anything.