Washington Post/ABC poll

Yiannis_Baltimore, MD — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:12:34 GMT

This isn't a new poll these are the numbers from two weeks ago. It is scary how much all over the place polls are especially with Clinton's and Obama's numbers. I suspect it has to do with Obama polling well in the counties close to Illinois...

Eight more debates are enough in my opinion...

Washington Post/ABC poll

AJ — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:50:30 GMT

This is just ABC retreading their numbers from a couple of weeks ago. I realize media outlets need to recoup the costs of polling, and therefore give prferential treatment to their own polls, but this is just silly. Re-running an old poll after two weeks as news is dishonest corporate schilling, not reporting.

Washington Post/ABC poll

Josh Medeiros, Arlington, Virginia — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:14:11 GMT

Little poll pushing here? Funny how we don't see much about the actual latest poll (Hart) that is more in line with other polling.

Always a fine line between reporting the news and creating the news I guess.

Washington Post/ABC poll

unclesmedley, RHode Island — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:34:47 GMT

It'd be nice to see common sense trump common wisdom as interpreted by the MSM. I always suspected that Hillary is a tad too brassy for Iowans. Obama may be exotic, but he's midwestern.

Washington Post/ABC poll

Rupal Sidhu — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:01:24 GMT

Under Senator Clinton's health plan, will I as a taxpayer have to pay
for the health care costs of people who choose to lead unhealthy lifestyles, drunks, druggies, smokers, hedonists, gluttons, risk junkies?

How does she propose to bring down the costs of health care in the United States? She can claim that she will, but I see no even one practical solution to reduce the costs from her.

I do understand that a small percentage of the population has mental health problems or in general a low IQ and therefore cannot take care of themselves or make all good decisions in life, and a safety net is needed for such individuals only. But I do not see the points of the government providing health care to everyone. People should learn to have some responsibility.

It is not that mandating health care for everyone is in any way going to bring down the costs. The only way to do that would be:

1) Bring down the amount of lawsuits so that doctors can stop practising defensive medicine.

2) Bring about a fundamental change in medical school and residency training to reflect the reduced risk of liability once the above is accomplished.

3) Make sure the smartest and best people go into the profession by assuring them adequate rewards for their work and have less incentives to add unnecessary costs and procedures.

Other things like computerizing components of health care, increased public education regarding health care issues, more funding for research into evidence for efficacy / best practices can help bring the costs down, and are already being implemented to some extent, but it will be critical to implement the above three strategies to make a significant dent in the costs and effectiveness of health care.

Another option could be to establish a two tier health care system where the government provides a very basic level of health care safety net for all and anybody who wants more shal have to pay on his/her own.

Regarding SCHIP, I think it is not a very good idea. The responsibility for children should be on the parents and not on the state/government. People who choose to bring children into this world should make sure that they have the means to take care of them before they do so.

Why should I have to pay for the children of stupid idiots who breed like worms and then are unable to take good care of them? I understand that it is not the fault of the children, but I feel their parents should somehow be held accountable. I know that this sounds so politically incorrect in todays environment, but I am fed up of this nonsense. Maybe the "Utopians" had the right idea after all.