Text Comments Out In YouTube "National Discussion" of Health Care 287
theodp writes "While the White House has invited the nation to Join the National Online Discussion on Health Care Reform, it is currently only accepting 20-30 second YouTube video responses — text comments have been disabled. Which raises a question: Should a video camera be the price of admission for participating in an open government discussion, especially when issues may hit those with lower incomes the hardest? BTW, the response-to-date has been underwhelming — 101 video responses and counting — and is certainly a mixed-bag, including a one-finger salute, a talking butt, a woman "Showing my Apples", and other off-topic rants and unrelated videos."
What A Pointless Story (Score:1, Interesting)
So fucking what if text comments are disabled in this stunt? It's not as if people don't have plenty of other avenues to express themselves, such as writing and/or calling their elected representatives, or even you know vote for them.
This is a nice excuse to get this onto slashdot, but this just isn't news for nerds or stuff that matters.
ummmm....what? (Score:1, Interesting)
Should a video camera be the price of admission for participating in an open government discussion, especially when issues may hit those with lower incomes the hardest?
Since we're talking about health care I can safely say that, in this case, the lower income people are the very people this initiative is supposed to help. It is the rich and possibly the middle class who will have to pay, against their will (through higher taxes), in order to pay for health insurance for others. Those with lower incomes get to sit back and watch the government and/or the rich people pay for everything for them. That is how things work when a Democrat is in office. Daddy gov't will help them by using the money from other people.
Weedout? (Score:4, Interesting)
Raising the technical bar weeds out the sincere from the rest.
At least that was the idea until the talking butt came along.
Re:Opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ummmm....what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Middle class people are the only people that really care about this issue. They are the ones that get screwed over if taxes go up to pay for health care. Rich people already have plenty of health care and the poorest of people either don't have to pay or have nothing to lose if they can't pay.
So, I'd say the middle class folks are the ones most affected by this issue and most, if not all of them, have internet access and some form of camera so they should be quite able to make some sort of reply.
I'm not saying this is the best idea but, it's better than most others and should generate some real discussion between politicians and the public.
Afro-American Racism Against Whites and Asians (Score:0, Interesting)
Note the voting pattern of Hispanics, Asian-Americans, etc. These non-Black minorities serve as a measurement of African-American racism against Whites (and other non-Black folks). Neither Barack Hussein Obama nor John McCain is Hispanic or Asian. So, Hispanics and Asian-Americans used only non-racial criteria in selecting a candidate and, hence, serve as the reference by which we detect a racist voting pattern. Only about 65% of Hispanics and Asian-Americans supported Obama. In other words, a maximum of 65% support by any ethnic or racial group for either McCain or Obama is not racist and, hence, is acceptable. (A maximum of 65% for McCain is okay. So, European-American support at 55% for McCain is well below this threshold and, hence, is not racist.)
If African-Americans were not racist, then at most 65% of them would have supported Obama. At that level of support, McCain would have won the presidential race.
At this point, African-American supremacists (and apologists) claim that African-Americans voted for Obama because he (1) is a member of the Democratic party and (2) supports its ideals. That claim is an outright lie. Look at the exit-polling data [cnn.com] for the Democratic primaries. Consider the case of North Carolina. Again, about 95% of African-Americans voted for him and against Hillary Clinton. Both Clinton and Obama are Democrats, and their official political positions on the campaign trail were nearly identical. Yet, 95% of African-Americans voted for Obama and against Hillary Clinton. Why? African-Americans supported Obama due solely to the color of his skin.
Here is the bottom line. Barack Hussein Obama does not represent mainstream America. He won the election due to the racist voting pattern exhibited by African-Americans.
African-Americans have established that expressing "racial pride" by voting on the basis of skin color is 100% acceptable. Neither the "Wall Street Journal" nor the "New York Times" complained about this racist behavior. Therefore, in future elections, please feel free to express your racial pride by voting on the basis of skin color. Feel free to vote for the non-Black candidates and against the Black candidates if you are not African-American. You need not defend your actions in any way. Voting on the basis of skin color is quite acceptable by today's moral standard.
Who cares what random people think anyway? (Score:2, Interesting)
It sounds to me like the administration is looking for raw material they can put into commercials to run in districts that oppose Obama's plans.
Particularly with the 20-30 second requirement. Who can say anything other than "great plan, Mr. President" in just 20 to 30 seconds? I'd love to add my two cents, but I don't think I could squeeze it into less than a few minutes. Well, let's see...
"This healthcare plan sucks."
Well, that was easier than I expected. I had a lot more to say, but when I write, I try to write things so that the audience can understand what I am saying, and sometimes you know you just can't say anything.
I think we'd be a lot better off to pass a law that medical providers must present the cost of any service or treatment in advance. Any time I ask for prices in advance, I find great deals, like the oral surgery I once needed. I got an x-ray, some time with the doctor when he discussed what he was going to do, then the actual surgery on another day which involved at least 30 minutes of work by the doctor and a couple of assistants, plus some pain drugs, and a follow-up appointment a week later just to make sure it was healing correctly. Total cost: $300
Compare that to some lab work I had done recently which I didn't check the price of because the government was paying for it. (I would have simply not bothered otherwise, which isn't to say it wasn't a real problem, just that long-term chronic fatigue isn't something anyone can afford to investigate without insurance.) I had some blood drawn for some tests, a chest x-ray, and an EKG. Some time later I got a letter in the mail indicating that the government paid $1200 for those services. I was only there for ten minutes. X-rays are just photographic film and an x-ray tube, and an EKG isn't that complex either, both technologies have been around at least a hundred years. ...but the real kicker was that they charged $50 for a venipuncture.
Insurance is just a band-aid. The problem is that people spend without knowing how much, because they accept medical services without asking about the cost, assuming the intake person in the E.R. can even give you any answers. Insurance puts the costs up-front, and to keep premuims low, insurance companies force doctors to not waste so much money, but they also allow people to seek medical care when they really don't need it since it won't cost very much and they've already paid for it anyway, and that raises the costs back to what they would have been anyway. The end result is that your monthy premium costs more than oral surgery and it doesn't even come with a dental plan.
Despite my intense hatred for libertarians, I really think this is one issue where the free market can do a lot of good, if only the rules are changed so that the free market has some means by which to affect people's decisions. Passing a law that requires people to buy insurance only gives them a half-ass solution that was already available to them anyway, and it removes the solution of simply buying insurance for extreme situations and using the "shop around for a lower price" solution for more common needs, which is always going to be cheaper than buying insurance for everything.
As for Obama's fucked up idea of requiring insruance to cover pre-existing conditions, how about we do something sane like require insurance to cover post-existing conditions? If I get cancer while I have medical insurance, it will pay for my treatments, but only as long as I continue to pay the premiums. Imagine if homeowners insurance worked that way. One day your house burns down, which causes you to miss a few days of work, so your boss fires you because he's a prick, and now you can no longer pay your homeowner's insurance. Well, too bad, now they're no longer going to pay the contractors rebuilding your house.
It's retarded. Any illness that occurs when someone has coverage should be covered, no matter how long the treatments take. Insurance companies want it
Re:Sounds bytes (Score:3, Interesting)
If he doesn't do anything, how is "the cause" advanced? You think he'll suddenly legalise pot in his second term?
Sure, his other policies make him the best choice, but on this one, he has no credibility.
If there were any logic, governments would simply exchange all the laws for tobacco and marijuana. Make marijuana legal but discouraged, treat tobacco like a poisonous narcotic.