wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] chestine from NY September 17, 2007 - 10:21AM

  re: Schumer's OK for consensus "rating" of the justice dept. nominee - I remember when Georgia Sen. Fowler had to show state loyalty, which eventually cost him his seat, when Clarence Thomas needed approval, so maybe state loyalty is something normal and can override party loyalty.

  
  
• [2] Nick Lento from NJ September 17, 2007 - 10:36AM

  Single payer is the most rationale/efficient and EFFECTIVE plan out there.

  The ONLY reasons we don't have it now is that the existing industry stands to lose hundreds of billions of dollars in profits and because of the way we finance our political activity with legalized bribery.

  The only way we'll ever get single payer will be if/when scores of millions of educated/motivated citizens demand it.

  Politicians only do what's right at the point of an electoral gun. They need to be more afraid of the voters than they are of the "contributors".

  
  
• [3] P from Brooklyn September 17, 2007 - 10:40AM

  I'm sick of the political pundits you bring on the show that constantly want to judge policy on a left-right scale. It's a false criterion.

  Haven't the spectactular wrong judgements of Mark Halperin disqualified him from being deemed as an 'expert' yet?

  "If I were them [Democrats], I'd be scared to death about November's elections."

  -- Mark Halperin, director of ABC News' political unit, June 22, 2006

  
  
• [4] Robert from NYC September 17, 2007 - 10:42AM

  Seems to be there is a lot of blah blah blah about this over many decades. All we Americans ever do about this, and many other problems, is talk about and "debate" them and never DO anything about them. Inspired by Democracy Now this morning I say our problem is Kensian economics cum politics. Money counts and that's all that counts.

  
  
• [5] Norman from New York September 17, 2007 - 11:24AM

  WRONG ABOUT MEDICAID

  Brian just told the caller that if he was earning $12,000 a year, he would probably be eligible for Medicaid.

  The eligibility for Medicaid in NYC is about $7,000 a year. The only people who are eligible for Medicaid are the indigent, not the working poor.

  That's the fundamental problem with the Clinton plan. It would only work if it gave *adequate* subsidies to everyone who could not afford to pay, including the working poor.

  If you want to see whether the Clinton plan works, make realistic calculations of how much the 45 million uninsured could reasonably afford, how much their insurance would cost on the free market, and calculate the total for all 45 million. If the Clinton plan doesn't pay enough to subsidize them all, what happens to the people who can't afford it?