Obamacare

Tim Simmons

I think there is an element of I don’t like this person regardless (the left, Warren, etc) and even if they say 2+2=4, I'm still gonna disagree. Ben has always had that huge energy. Thats NR article has it too. Because again, no one is saying murder is ok. People are just upset that empathy isn’t consistent across all murder. 

pjl44

Go Beavers said:

pjl44 said:

Go Beavers said:

pjl44 said:

Tim Simmons said:

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

There doesn't need to be a "but" when you're "condemning" murder

why do we not assign any blame to them?

Well, we do have laws. And the law assigns all the blame to the perp. 

But self reflection by society and its institutions should always be occurring. And that’s what this has seemingly spurred. Hopefully we keep the discussion going. 

A better writer than me summarizes my feelings re Warren and (maybe?) to your point here

With this in mind, what’s your take on the Daniel Penny situation? 

Correct verdict by the jury

So you’re seeing an avoidable killing as justified. 

If you at all see similarities between Daniel Penny and Luigi Mangione it's pointless to have a conversation 

pjl44

Tim Simmons said:

I think there is an element of I don’t like this person regardless (the left, Warren, etc) and even if they say 2+2=4, I'm still gonna disagree. Ben has always had that huge energy. Thats NR article has it too. Because again, no one is saying murder is ok. People are just upset that empathy isn’t consistent across all murder. 

What? I thought it was about the healthcare system.

Tim Simmons

It is. People were meh on this guy getting killed because the HC system is broken and people have gone into debt or died because lack of coverage. That specific reaction to his death seems to have rubbed people the wrong way. So much so people wish they voted for Trump instead of being associated with liberalism and wish that all liberals would be outraged because murder rather than having varying degrees of empathy towards this situation. 

Tim Simmons

But I don’t think we are gonna get anywhere new today. We both agree murder is murder hard stop. I’m just fine with people being thoughtful and self reflective on how we got to this place.

Go Beavers

pjl44 said:

Go Beavers said:

pjl44 said:

Go Beavers said:

pjl44 said:

Tim Simmons said:

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

There doesn't need to be a "but" when you're "condemning" murder

why do we not assign any blame to them?

Well, we do have laws. And the law assigns all the blame to the perp. 

But self reflection by society and its institutions should always be occurring. And that’s what this has seemingly spurred. Hopefully we keep the discussion going. 

A better writer than me summarizes my feelings re Warren and (maybe?) to your point here

With this in mind, what’s your take on the Daniel Penny situation? 

Correct verdict by the jury

So you’re seeing an avoidable killing as justified. 

If you at all see similarities between Daniel Penny and Luigi Mangione it's pointless to have a conversation 

Good that’s not all I see then. What a lot of your comments are about is being disturbed because people are justifying and/or empathizing with Mangione’s motive. So I’m asking do you justify Penny’s actions? 

Gern Blansten

Yeah I don't agree with Luigi's tactics but we've all (most likely) been burned by our healthcare system over the years so we can see the frustration that builds. No different than the racists that kill perceived immigrants because trump constantly says they are murderers and rapists.

OnWis97

The similarity I see with Penny/Rittenhouse/Zimmerman* with Luigi is more cultural than legal. We celebrate killing. As surprised I was was to see the celebration of the murder, maybe in hindsight I should not be. Kyle Rittenhouse is a cult hero because he went out an manufactured self defense so he could shoot people. We celebrate cops for shooting anyone that doesn't comply.

The difference is that this is just a very black-and-white assassination with no grey area.** But in terms of lionizing shooting people, this is the path we were on.

*If Zimmerman's incident had happened five-to-ten years later, I think he'd be every bit the cult hero that Rittenhouse is.

**I actually don't think this is a difference with Zimmerman; that was a cold-blooded murder.

tempo_n_groove

pjl44 said:

Put another way

You can put Free Speech into that theory also unfortunately.

His speech was protected until people started to actually listen and do the things he/she/they wanted.

I'm for free speech until it becomes libel.

Lerxst1992

pjl44 said:

Tim Simmons said:

But it did change something. The day after this BCBS reversed a policy on limiting payments for anesthesia. 

But its not even about the how to fix things. Its about seeing this and saying, I understand how a misanthrope came to the decision to do this. Its not right and its not just, but the system which has been broken for sometime, has brought the end all be all worst consequence. Maybe we should attempt to improve society somewhat to prevent this from happening further. This is not a (non) negotiation with terrorists, this is the further eroding of societal balance because of misplaced priorities.

We just disagree then. I completely reject this framing and the ideology that drives it.

As long as money dominates politics, it is extremely unlikely insurance companies will treat customers fairly. Or 

Honest question,  if your job involved putting your customers lives in extreme risk, and others in so much pain their mental health deteriorates...

... would you belive your job was safe or dangerous? 

mickeyrat

interesting....

https://bsky.app/profile/nbcnews.com/post/3ld5jmi762c2f

brianlux

Is this thread still about Obama Care?  Suggestion:  either update the title of this thread or start a general U.S. Healthcare system thread.

Thoughts?

josevolution

While ACA is not perfect it has helped millions of uninsured Americans! Republicans more importantly Trumpolinni don’t have a fucking clue how to create a healthcare plan that can be better than ACA! A concept is nothing more than a thought and millions voted for an idiot that has been promising a better much better plan than ACA since 2016 

Lerxst1992

josevolution said:

While ACA is not perfect it has helped millions of uninsured Americans! Republicans more importantly Trumpolinni don’t have a fucking clue how to create a healthcare plan that can be better than ACA! A concept is nothing more than a thought and millions voted for an idiot that has been promising a better much better plan than ACA since 2016 

It all goes back to Ruppert Murdochs cookies!

Gern Blansten

I just renewed my enrollment for 2025...premiums increased 3.5% from 2024. I can live with that.

Gern Blansten

brianlux said:

Is this thread still about Obama Care?  Suggestion:  either update the title of this thread or start a general U.S. Healthcare system thread.

Thoughts?

you can start a thread if you like

brianlux

Gern Blansten said:

brianlux said:

Is this thread still about Obama Care?  Suggestion:  either update the title of this thread or start a general U.S. Healthcare system thread.

Thoughts?

you can start a thread if you like

I would, but everyone seems to be inclined to stick with this one.  Mox nix.

So anyway, pertaining to the U.S. healthcare system and not really Obamacare, the latest Dan Rather article on the subject is excellent:

Rage Against the System

Murder, money, and Americans who are mad as hell

Dan Rather and Team Steady

Dec 13

Over the course of my career in journalism, I have certainly seen news stories take surprising turns. But the murder of a health insurance executive on the streets of New York is something different. The killing by a coward, ambushing from behind, collectively shocked and disgusted many of us. As it should have.

But what has suddenly grabbed much of the country by the lapels is the support shown not for the victim, but for the man accused of committing the crime. With that support, we are witnessing an undercurrent of anger, even rage, come to the surface. It is directed squarely at an American business model that is, according to many policyholders, screwing us over every single day.

Violence cannot and should not be condoned, especially cold-blooded murder. It should be condemned, and the person who did it made to pay the maximum penalty under law. Period. Full stop. Beyond that, we as a nation, as a society, as a people are forced to recognize this: The lack of sympathy for murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the glorification of his alleged killer has opened a window into the frustrated psyche of the American health insurance consumer. It is a window that we ignore at our peril.

If you haven’t been following this closely, here’s the quick backstory: On the morning of Wednesday, December 4, Thompson was shot in the back and killed in midtown Manhattan on his way to an investor meeting. The shooter inscribed the words “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” on the shell casings found at the scene.

Some of those words appear in the title of Jay Feinman’s book about the health insurance industry, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.” The killer’s etched words have become a rallying cry for many Americans who are hurting — physically, emotionally, and financially — under the current system. In these days after the murder, you can buy online merchandise like mugs and sweatshirts adorned with “delay, deny, depose.”

The man now charged with Thompson’s murder is 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, an Ivy League graduate who allegedly dropped a backpack full of Monopoly money in Central Park as he fled the scene on a rented electric bike, according to police. He was able to escape the city on a bus. Authorities arrested him on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a patron recognized him.

In the ensuing five days, Mangione was vaunted as a modern-day folk hero and a 21st century Robin Hood.

What gives? Americans are good-hearted people. With that having been said, we are now witnessing a groundswell that knows no boundaries. It is red and blue, men and women, coast to coast — folks who have collectively had it with corporate health care.

Much of the online reaction to Thompson’s murder was morbid glee. The UnitedHealthcare Facebook page had to be taken down after a post about the CEO’s death received more than 36,000 laughing reactions, according to The New Yorker.

Things weren’t better on X, where 6 of 10 posts about the crime were in support of the shooter. “Thoughts and deductibles to the family. Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network,” one person posted. “My only question is did the CEO of UnitedHealthcare die quickly or over several months waiting to find out if his insurance would cover his treatment for the fatal gunshot wound?” posted another.

Author Joyce Carol Oates put it well with her social media post. The outpouring of negativity “is better described as cries from the heart of a deeply wounded & betrayed country; hundreds of thousands of Americans shamelessly exploited by health-care insurers reacting to a single act of violence against just one of their multimillionaire executives,” she wrote.

The phenomenon of a person operating outside of the law to deliver justice in what is perceived as an unjust world has been called social banditry. “When people lose faith in the state’s ability to address their concerns and grievances, they sometimes look to outlaws who offer themselves as an alternative,” Joshua Zeitz wrote in Politico Magazine.

In the eyes of many, Luigi Mangione has become that alternative.

This unnerving reaction to Thompson’s murder and murderer was born of unbridled frustration with a failing system. The American health insurance “system” is a misnomer. It implies that it was intentionally designed. In truth, coverage in the United States entails a messy patchwork of private insurance companies covering 65% of those insured and government-funded insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) covering the other 35%.

Senator Bernie Sanders is a proponent of health care for all provided by the federal government. What we have “is a system not designed to provide health care to all people in a cost-effective way,” Sanders said of the current setup. “It is a system designed to make huge profits for the insurance companies, the drug companies, and many other industries within the system.”

Most of those private insurance companies are publicly traded entities whose primary goal is to make money. And boy, do they.

Last year, UnitedHealthcare, the largest private insurance company in the country, made $16 billion in profit. To boost profits even further a company must reduce costs. The easiest way for insurance companies to do so is to deny coverage. UnitedHealthcare, which has one of the highest denial rates in the industry, turns down about a third of all claims.

Shockingly to me, many health insurance companies — UnitedHealthcare among them — outsource the decision-making of approving or denying coverage to third parties that use AI-generated algorithms to make life-and-death judgements. According to reporting by ProPublica, this hidden cottage industry works by a “denials for dollars” model. The more they deny, the more they get paid.

It is no wonder people are infuriated and some are praising a self-styled vigilante who claimed he was trying to do something about it.

A 2023 Gallup poll found that just 31% of Americans trust the U.S. health csare system. One in 4 report delaying or foregoing medical treatment because of cost. While the Affordable Care Act has improved things, adding 45 million people to the insurance rolls, an estimated 23% of these are still underinsured, meaning they don’t have enough coverage.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had politicians who had the guts to do something about this mess? Health care lobbyists have spent more than $150 million to keep Congress in line.

And now we have Donald Trump and his bevy of billionaires, including the world’s richest man, looking to cut costs. Elon Musk says he may consider Social Security and Medicare as possible places to find savings.

The system can be fixed, but it would take elected officials willing to have the government do more, not less, at least when it comes to health care. Anybody think that sounds like Trump, et al.?

If you need a place to vent your frustrations, our comments section is always open. You will find a lot of support here, not from trained medical professionals, but from fellow citizens who have suffered from a health care system that seems designed to deny. You will be heard.

Halifax2TheMax

brianlux said:

Gern Blansten said:

brianlux said:

Is this thread still about Obama Care?  Suggestion:  either update the title of this thread or start a general U.S. Healthcare system thread.

Thoughts?

you can start a thread if you like

I would, but everyone seems to be inclined to stick with this one.  Mox nix.

So anyway, pertaining to the U.S. healthcare system and not really Obamacare, the latest Dan Rather article on the subject is excellent:

Rage Against the System

Murder, money, and Americans who are mad as hell

Dan Rather and Team Steady

Dec 13

Over the course of my career in journalism, I have certainly seen news stories take surprising turns. But the murder of a health insurance executive on the streets of New York is something different. The killing by a coward, ambushing from behind, collectively shocked and disgusted many of us. As it should have.

But what has suddenly grabbed much of the country by the lapels is the support shown not for the victim, but for the man accused of committing the crime. With that support, we are witnessing an undercurrent of anger, even rage, come to the surface. It is directed squarely at an American business model that is, according to many policyholders, screwing us over every single day.

Violence cannot and should not be condoned, especially cold-blooded murder. It should be condemned, and the person who did it made to pay the maximum penalty under law. Period. Full stop. Beyond that, we as a nation, as a society, as a people are forced to recognize this: The lack of sympathy for murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the glorification of his alleged killer has opened a window into the frustrated psyche of the American health insurance consumer. It is a window that we ignore at our peril.

If you haven’t been following this closely, here’s the quick backstory: On the morning of Wednesday, December 4, Thompson was shot in the back and killed in midtown Manhattan on his way to an investor meeting. The shooter inscribed the words “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” on the shell casings found at the scene.

Some of those words appear in the title of Jay Feinman’s book about the health insurance industry, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.” The killer’s etched words have become a rallying cry for many Americans who are hurting — physically, emotionally, and financially — under the current system. In these days after the murder, you can buy online merchandise like mugs and sweatshirts adorned with “delay, deny, depose.”

The man now charged with Thompson’s murder is 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, an Ivy League graduate who allegedly dropped a backpack full of Monopoly money in Central Park as he fled the scene on a rented electric bike, according to police. He was able to escape the city on a bus. Authorities arrested him on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a patron recognized him.

In the ensuing five days, Mangione was vaunted as a modern-day folk hero and a 21st century Robin Hood.

What gives? Americans are good-hearted people. With that having been said, we are now witnessing a groundswell that knows no boundaries. It is red and blue, men and women, coast to coast — folks who have collectively had it with corporate health care.

Much of the online reaction to Thompson’s murder was morbid glee. The UnitedHealthcare Facebook page had to be taken down after a post about the CEO’s death received more than 36,000 laughing reactions, according to The New Yorker.

Things weren’t better on X, where 6 of 10 posts about the crime were in support of the shooter. “Thoughts and deductibles to the family. Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network,” one person posted. “My only question is did the CEO of UnitedHealthcare die quickly or over several months waiting to find out if his insurance would cover his treatment for the fatal gunshot wound?” posted another.

Author Joyce Carol Oates put it well with her social media post. The outpouring of negativity “is better described as cries from the heart of a deeply wounded & betrayed country; hundreds of thousands of Americans shamelessly exploited by health-care insurers reacting to a single act of violence against just one of their multimillionaire executives,” she wrote.

The phenomenon of a person operating outside of the law to deliver justice in what is perceived as an unjust world has been called social banditry. “When people lose faith in the state’s ability to address their concerns and grievances, they sometimes look to outlaws who offer themselves as an alternative,” Joshua Zeitz wrote in Politico Magazine.

In the eyes of many, Luigi Mangione has become that alternative.

This unnerving reaction to Thompson’s murder and murderer was born of unbridled frustration with a failing system. The American health insurance “system” is a misnomer. It implies that it was intentionally designed. In truth, coverage in the United States entails a messy patchwork of private insurance companies covering 65% of those insured and government-funded insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) covering the other 35%.

Senator Bernie Sanders is a proponent of health care for all provided by the federal government. What we have “is a system not designed to provide health care to all people in a cost-effective way,” Sanders said of the current setup. “It is a system designed to make huge profits for the insurance companies, the drug companies, and many other industries within the system.”

Most of those private insurance companies are publicly traded entities whose primary goal is to make money. And boy, do they.

Last year, UnitedHealthcare, the largest private insurance company in the country, made $16 billion in profit. To boost profits even further a company must reduce costs. The easiest way for insurance companies to do so is to deny coverage. UnitedHealthcare, which has one of the highest denial rates in the industry, turns down about a third of all claims.

Shockingly to me, many health insurance companies — UnitedHealthcare among them — outsource the decision-making of approving or denying coverage to third parties that use AI-generated algorithms to make life-and-death judgements. According to reporting by ProPublica, this hidden cottage industry works by a “denials for dollars” model. The more they deny, the more they get paid.

It is no wonder people are infuriated and some are praising a self-styled vigilante who claimed he was trying to do something about it.

A 2023 Gallup poll found that just 31% of Americans trust the U.S. health csare system. One in 4 report delaying or foregoing medical treatment because of cost. While the Affordable Care Act has improved things, adding 45 million people to the insurance rolls, an estimated 23% of these are still underinsured, meaning they don’t have enough coverage.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had politicians who had the guts to do something about this mess? Health care lobbyists have spent more than $150 million to keep Congress in line.

And now we have Donald Trump and his bevy of billionaires, including the world’s richest man, looking to cut costs. Elon Musk says he may consider Social Security and Medicare as possible places to find savings.

The system can be fixed, but it would take elected officials willing to have the government do more, not less, at least when it comes to health care. Anybody think that sounds like Trump, et al.?

If you need a place to vent your frustrations, our comments section is always open. You will find a lot of support here, not from trained medical professionals, but from fellow citizens who have suffered from a health care system that seems designed to deny. You will be heard.

Do “good hearted” people elect someone like POOTWH and his appointees to represent them? Are “good hearted” people generally okay with billionaires gutting and slashing programs and enriching themselves via the tax cuts to come? Do “good hearted” people find the “other” to scapegoat and blame the nation’s problems on? Dan might want rethink what the American people are.

mickeyrat

2014 memo from a member of the billionaire class

https://www.threads.net/@nisabelleblanco/post/DDii1QHRKJl?xmt=AQGz55Ma6c1N7T4FuD8iesK0b2E4kcBRg-NdWL36TZ2gCw

brianlux

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Gern Blansten said:

brianlux said:

Is this thread still about Obama Care?  Suggestion:  either update the title of this thread or start a general U.S. Healthcare system thread.

Thoughts?

you can start a thread if you like

I would, but everyone seems to be inclined to stick with this one.  Mox nix.

So anyway, pertaining to the U.S. healthcare system and not really Obamacare, the latest Dan Rather article on the subject is excellent:

Rage Against the System

Murder, money, and Americans who are mad as hell

Dan Rather and Team Steady

Dec 13

Over the course of my career in journalism, I have certainly seen news stories take surprising turns. But the murder of a health insurance executive on the streets of New York is something different. The killing by a coward, ambushing from behind, collectively shocked and disgusted many of us. As it should have.

But what has suddenly grabbed much of the country by the lapels is the support shown not for the victim, but for the man accused of committing the crime. With that support, we are witnessing an undercurrent of anger, even rage, come to the surface. It is directed squarely at an American business model that is, according to many policyholders, screwing us over every single day.

Violence cannot and should not be condoned, especially cold-blooded murder. It should be condemned, and the person who did it made to pay the maximum penalty under law. Period. Full stop. Beyond that, we as a nation, as a society, as a people are forced to recognize this: The lack of sympathy for murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the glorification of his alleged killer has opened a window into the frustrated psyche of the American health insurance consumer. It is a window that we ignore at our peril.

If you haven’t been following this closely, here’s the quick backstory: On the morning of Wednesday, December 4, Thompson was shot in the back and killed in midtown Manhattan on his way to an investor meeting. The shooter inscribed the words “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” on the shell casings found at the scene.

Some of those words appear in the title of Jay Feinman’s book about the health insurance industry, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.” The killer’s etched words have become a rallying cry for many Americans who are hurting — physically, emotionally, and financially — under the current system. In these days after the murder, you can buy online merchandise like mugs and sweatshirts adorned with “delay, deny, depose.”

The man now charged with Thompson’s murder is 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, an Ivy League graduate who allegedly dropped a backpack full of Monopoly money in Central Park as he fled the scene on a rented electric bike, according to police. He was able to escape the city on a bus. Authorities arrested him on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a patron recognized him.

In the ensuing five days, Mangione was vaunted as a modern-day folk hero and a 21st century Robin Hood.

What gives? Americans are good-hearted people. With that having been said, we are now witnessing a groundswell that knows no boundaries. It is red and blue, men and women, coast to coast — folks who have collectively had it with corporate health care.

Much of the online reaction to Thompson’s murder was morbid glee. The UnitedHealthcare Facebook page had to be taken down after a post about the CEO’s death received more than 36,000 laughing reactions, according to The New Yorker.

Things weren’t better on X, where 6 of 10 posts about the crime were in support of the shooter. “Thoughts and deductibles to the family. Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network,” one person posted. “My only question is did the CEO of UnitedHealthcare die quickly or over several months waiting to find out if his insurance would cover his treatment for the fatal gunshot wound?” posted another.

Author Joyce Carol Oates put it well with her social media post. The outpouring of negativity “is better described as cries from the heart of a deeply wounded & betrayed country; hundreds of thousands of Americans shamelessly exploited by health-care insurers reacting to a single act of violence against just one of their multimillionaire executives,” she wrote.

The phenomenon of a person operating outside of the law to deliver justice in what is perceived as an unjust world has been called social banditry. “When people lose faith in the state’s ability to address their concerns and grievances, they sometimes look to outlaws who offer themselves as an alternative,” Joshua Zeitz wrote in Politico Magazine.

In the eyes of many, Luigi Mangione has become that alternative.

This unnerving reaction to Thompson’s murder and murderer was born of unbridled frustration with a failing system. The American health insurance “system” is a misnomer. It implies that it was intentionally designed. In truth, coverage in the United States entails a messy patchwork of private insurance companies covering 65% of those insured and government-funded insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) covering the other 35%.

Senator Bernie Sanders is a proponent of health care for all provided by the federal government. What we have “is a system not designed to provide health care to all people in a cost-effective way,” Sanders said of the current setup. “It is a system designed to make huge profits for the insurance companies, the drug companies, and many other industries within the system.”

Most of those private insurance companies are publicly traded entities whose primary goal is to make money. And boy, do they.

Last year, UnitedHealthcare, the largest private insurance company in the country, made $16 billion in profit. To boost profits even further a company must reduce costs. The easiest way for insurance companies to do so is to deny coverage. UnitedHealthcare, which has one of the highest denial rates in the industry, turns down about a third of all claims.

Shockingly to me, many health insurance companies — UnitedHealthcare among them — outsource the decision-making of approving or denying coverage to third parties that use AI-generated algorithms to make life-and-death judgements. According to reporting by ProPublica, this hidden cottage industry works by a “denials for dollars” model. The more they deny, the more they get paid.

It is no wonder people are infuriated and some are praising a self-styled vigilante who claimed he was trying to do something about it.

A 2023 Gallup poll found that just 31% of Americans trust the U.S. health csare system. One in 4 report delaying or foregoing medical treatment because of cost. While the Affordable Care Act has improved things, adding 45 million people to the insurance rolls, an estimated 23% of these are still underinsured, meaning they don’t have enough coverage.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had politicians who had the guts to do something about this mess? Health care lobbyists have spent more than $150 million to keep Congress in line.

And now we have Donald Trump and his bevy of billionaires, including the world’s richest man, looking to cut costs. Elon Musk says he may consider Social Security and Medicare as possible places to find savings.

The system can be fixed, but it would take elected officials willing to have the government do more, not less, at least when it comes to health care. Anybody think that sounds like Trump, et al.?

If you need a place to vent your frustrations, our comments section is always open. You will find a lot of support here, not from trained medical professionals, but from fellow citizens who have suffered from a health care system that seems designed to deny. You will be heard.

Do “good hearted” people elect someone like POOTWH and his appointees to represent them? Are “good hearted” people generally okay with billionaires gutting and slashing programs and enriching themselves via the tax cuts to come? Do “good hearted” people find the “other” to scapegoat and blame the nation’s problems on? Dan might want rethink what the American people are.

Well, first of all, less than half of voters voted for the Felon.  So we can't judge by that.

So are people who voted for the Felon "good hearted"? I don't know, but their candidate sure isn't.  Have many of the people who might otherwise be good hearted people but who made a poor choice and voted for 47 because they believed lies and were duped?  Absolutely.

Besides, how long would people continue to read Mr. Rather's comments if he referred to the American people as "evil", "hateful", "cruel", "barbaric", etc.?  Dan Rather does not stoop to the low level and general mood that often characterizes a place like AMT.