Sen. Ted Kennedy is dead.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't really know what to say, this is incredibly sad. I hope that his dream of health care for everyone can finally become a reality, it's a shame he died before he could achieve it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

And people wonder why I'm ashamed of my party...  

This is odd. You're not possibly a Democrat.

Yup, that's it.  You nailed it.  "If you're not a looney left-winger, you're not a Democrat." 

Big tent my ass. 

(back in the 1970s, Congress was practically Marxist)

[Marokai Backbeat]

The Democratic Party is only left-wing in the context of the American political spectrum. When viewed from the larger political spectrum, the Democratic Party largely lands somewhere around the center-right.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Yeah nearly 20,000 people die because of the lack of access to care each year, and we're higher in terms of preventable deaths than other countries with national health care plans, so pretending it's a fringe argument to suggest we're killing people because of the lack of UHC is absurd and wholly disingenuous.

[Marokai Backbeat]

RIP Teddy. The senate won't be the same without its lion. I will admit I teared up when I heard the news. Then I became furious when I saw what fox was doing.

What exactly was FOX doing?

I don't know if he saw anything different, but, when CNN and MSNBC broke to the story in the middle of the night, Fox continue with regular programming for at least awhile.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

It most certainly isn't indeed a bad thing. But then that was not the point of disagreement between EMD and myself.

It probably wasn't, I'm barely paying attention, honestly.