After Healthcare Defeat, Can The Trump Administration Fix America's H-1B Visa Program? (bloomberg.com) 566
Friday the Trump administration suffered a political setback when divisions in the president's party halted a move to repeal healthcare policies passed in 2010. But if Trump hopes to turn his attention to how America's H-1B visa program is affecting technology workers, "time is running out," writes Slashdot reader pteddy. Bloomberg reports:
[T]he application deadline for the most controversial visa program is the first week of April, which means new rules have to be in place for that batch of applicants or another year's worth of visas will be handed out under the existing guidelines... There probably isn't enough time to pass legislation on such a contentious issue. But Trump could sign an executive order with some changes.
The article points out that under the current system, one outsourcing firm was granted 6.5 times as many U.S. visas as Amazon. There's also an interesting map showing which countries' workers received the most H-1B visas in 2015 -- 69.4% went to workers in India, with another 10.5% going to China -- and a chart showing which positions are most in demand, indicating that two-thirds of the visa applications are for tech workers.
more healthcare (Score:4, Interesting)
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H1-b problems doesn't make good news. Health care on the other hand effects average joe. While the purpose of these elected officials are to cover the complex stuff we citizens are board by it.
Why Fox? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fox is wrong as much as the other guys. Sean Hannity was out telling everyone Ryan's healthcare was good. His saving grace is that he also pointed out some of the problems with how it was planned and rolled out. Trying to be in the middle should not be the goal, being right should be the goal. RINOs pushing the bill were not right, and the Democrats putting their heads in the sand and doing nothing except cheerleading after the bill could not get off the ground were not right. Working to fix a horrible
Re:Why Fox? (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't you think that living in a country that has the most expensive "treatment industry", and before Obama basically no "health care" as in the sense of "making it possible for everyone to actually consult a medical" is rather ridiculous?
What is so complicated in simply looking how other countries doe it, e.g. France, Denmark or god forbid China? And copy the good parts?
How one can be against healthcare and claim to live in a first world country is beyond me.
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Cut military spending by 1/3 and we could afford health care without losing any military superiority. Other countries have good health care because that is what their government decided is important. The US government doesn't really think health care is that important, or jobs, or quality of life, etc. The US government is mostly interested in federal programs to the military industrial complex and a few other industries. Toss in a few local issues to keep certain senators in office. They may make it soun
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Don't you think that living in a country that has the most expensive "treatment industry", and before Obama basically no "health care" as in the sense of "making it possible for everyone to actually consult a medical" is rather ridiculous? What is so complicated in simply looking how other countries doe it, e.g. France, Denmark or god forbid China? And copy the good parts? How one can be against healthcare and claim to live in a first world country is beyond me.
Don't worry, we're going to slip into second world status in a few years.
Here's the big problem the Rpublicants have though. Once the Kenyan Terror baby got Romneycare passed and enacted, removing it became very, very hard.
After having 8 years to come up with a better plan, the Republicans not only didn't come up with a better plan, they came up with a plan that was so awful, so jacked-ass evil, that couldn't support it. Those old jokes made years ago about the Republican plan being "Die Quickly Ple
Re:Why Fox? (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you think all of the people wealthy enough to fly to the US from all of those great places you mention do so when they needed Medical care?
The US attracts 60-85k people for medical procedures each year, compared with Thailand that receives 2.8 Million.
750k American leave the US to seek medical services elsewhere, so the free market is speaking loudly and clearly.
Re:Why Fox? (Score:5, Informative)
The Free Market medical system produced the best Medical practices in the world.
It produced average outcomes similar to those of Cuba for orders of magnitude more money. Simply on the basis of economic efficiency, it must be rated a failure.
Re:Why Fox? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, no. Texas tried tort reform and the problem got worse than ever as a result. The other key word in your post is wealthy. U.S. healthcare works for the wealthy and leaves the majority of the country with none but for a few charity teaching hospitals.
Americans are going to Mexico for their dentistry and Singapore for major surgery.
Re:Why Fox? (Score:4, Informative)
Your examples make no sense.
Americans are to poor to fly overseas to get healthcare they can not afford in their own country.
As I said before, only 'super rich' fly to the USA for treatments. And to be super rich or does not really matter how poor the country is you come from.
The rest of your post makes no sense either. In europe everything is centered around 'health care'. Foreigners flying to europe have by definition no 'health care' but need a private contract with the hospital or doctor they want to seek. Same as if they visit the USA. Why would one fly to Denmark for dental aid? Hu, every country on the world has good affordable dentists, facepalm! I fly to Thailand to fix my teeth, or I could fly to Greece or Tunesia. To combine a vacation with treatment for the same price it would cost me in germany. However: I have a private health insurrance. If
I had a tooth problem, they pay up to $4000 per year. As I take care of my teeth, they never have to pay anything.
The parents of an american friend of mine actually live close to Paris, they are from Camerun. They both get Hepatitis and cancer treatment ... so yes: rich people do fly to Erope to get treatments. ... would have costed less than $1000 in Paris (plus stay and food etc. ofc. in both cases)
The story is quite funny, as she was with her parents she needed a routine operation. As she is from Camerun and her family has 'residentship status' she would be operated 'for free'. But as she was a director of an american mutual-funds bank, her health insurance insisted she flys back to the states. They refused to pay any followup treatments if anything would go wrong in the hospital in Paris.
So she got a first class flight and an operation in Washington that costed far over $10,000
The USA might have a few specialized institutions that are above European level (in terms of quallity of service), but most certainly not in numbers that are in any way relevant.
The first heart transplant was not done in the US ... you are watching to much Dr. House. Do you know where most US soldiers are treated that get severly wounded somewhere on the world?
Hint: not in the USA .... ... should be not be hard to figure which it is.
Answer: In my country
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> despite having one of the most expensive health care systems.
Not "one of" but "the" most expensive healthcare system by 100% increase from the next most expensive. Canada's.
Here's a nice citation: https://www.statista.com/chart... [statista.com]
Sure, if they had the willpower... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I had a team of several million people, I could build a sustainable city on Mars.
As long as I could be totally devoted tot he task, and the willpower to follow through the billions of setbacks you'd hit on the way, especially including my own ignorance.
Trump fixing H1b? It's possible, but similarly absurd to expect.
The Trump coalition isn't the team to fix H1b. They're a wrecking crew, not a construction team. They can foist individuals to make plans, but they're philosophically aligned against, say, the kind of planning that would make a national constitution or something along those lines.
Even if theoretically Trump actually meant the half-dozen things he said on H1b, and DIDN'T mean the several things he said that contradicted that, he'd still need to coordinate with a team that implements it, and a political base to enable a political climate that will make disobeying the rule a bad idea.
Trump could GET folks on board to get all that done... but at this point, he'd really need to construct everything needed from whole cloth. I somehow doubt that enforcing and enlarging H1b rules on the nation's CEOs is going to be a high priority compared to everything else he wants done in the world. It's POSSIBLE, just very unlikely, unless somehow Trump is thwarted on literally every other big thing, and yet not impeached.
H1b is a horrible system. It's virtues are nice - getting qualified folks in to do needed jobs - but that does not justify a system of modern day quasi-indentured-servitude. The way it's used it horrible too, basically used to quash local workers wage increases. Trump speaks against it, but he's exactly the wrong person to choose as a person to crusade against it - he's basically the living avatar of the idea of shortchanging workers using sketchy legal tactics.
Don't expect too much from Trump on this.
Ryan Fenton
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Not hard to fix... (Score:2)
- Limit H1bs per company, preferably limit in proportion to company's US tax contribution (or total US tax contribution of company's employees if you prefer).
- Prioritize people with grad degrees from US universities. (taxpayers often partly subsidize the education of top students in state universities - it makes no sense to not try to keep them afterwards).
- Make H1bs more desirable by making switching company easier, giving dependents work status. Currently the restrictions don't help attracting truly hig
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The problem is that it requires a Republican Congress to vote in favor of something that lets corporations get away with being stingy. Trump might decide to support it because he doesn't like Silicon Valley, but I can't imagine a Republican Congress siding with the little guy when it comes to money.
Re:Not hard to fix... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pricing is the right approach, although using percentages to alter pricing is risky because you run the risk of "A10" workers being paid even less in nominal terms so that they're still cheaper WITH the added taxation.
I think with a lot of the outsourcing mills that are foreign-owned, you might end up seeing complex compensation systems that involve fractional payment deferred or paid into accounts overseas so that the nominal wage remains competitive even with additional marginal taxes.
I would tweak your plan slightly:
1) H1B workers must be paid 125% of the job's regional maximum
2) H1B workers must be employed and paid directly for the business who is the end beneficiary of their work -- they may not perform any contractual labor
3) H1B workers are fee to switch employers during the term of their visa
4) Violation of these terms is a crime. Employers are subject to a fine of 3x the employee's annual salary and a 5 year ban on hiring any H1B workers. H1B workers are subject to immediate detention and deportation for violating these rules. Employers who violate these terms for more than 1 employee concurrently are subject to criminal prosecution.
(1) Insures they are no longer cheap labor and business-critical innovation geniuses will make this kind of salary anyway.
(2) Prevents them from being used in labor mills or enabling foreign-owned firms from side-channel payments. They must be direct hires.
(3) No indentured servitude. This prevents businesses willing to accept higher salaries but who set extreme working conditions to cost-average their output to local salary levels ($/hr).
(4) Puts teeth into enforcement.
Let's see if I have this right (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, Obamacare is a plague on the nation that must be killed right now. The GOP could do so much better. So they propose Obamacare-lite and can't manage to pass it even while controlling the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office. Let me guess, somewhere in Arkansas the county dog catcher is a Democrat and that gummed up everything.
Slow clap.
Re:Let's see if I have this right (Score:5, Insightful)
Half the GOP wants to replace Obamacare with Obamacare-lite, half wants to completely end government involvement in health care. That was the impasse. Ideally, the moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans would get together and come up with something, giving a middle finger to the hard left Democrats and the hard right Republicans. But the two parties are under the control of the hard left and hard right, and will ostracize any moderates who fail to toe their respective party line.
Re:Let's see if I have this right (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democrats are under the control of the "hard left"? Please, what radicalism has the Democratic party proposed on par with completely dismantling the bulk of our government? By international standards our country has no hard left and the hard right looks downright nutty.
Re:Let's see if I have this right (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming up with something would require planning, negotiation, and "horse trading" skills. Trump is not known for any of these skills.
Oh, come on. I think the President is a buffoon but even I still recognize that if he has one legitimate claim to competence in any field is it "negotiation and horse trading." I have no doubt that he is genuinely good at it.
The real problem, as Trump is painfully beginning to discover, is that running a government involves a kind of negotiations that are exponentially more difficult and unsatisfying than business negotiation. Here's why:
In a business negotiation, one of the most vital factors is the fact that (generally speaking) you can always walk away. You're trying to buy Company X or real estate Z and your negotiating partner wants an unreasonable price or unacceptable conditions that there's no breaking the impasse over? Walk away. No deal gets done, but the world keeps spinning on its axis just fine with no real consequences. (Mostly.)
But in government? You don't get a debt ceiling increase passed, you don't get to walk away while the government stops paying its bills and torpedoes the world economy. You don't get an acceptable deal with Iran over its nuclear program, you don't get to walk away and just let them build nukes. You don't get a Middle East peace agreement that you want, you don't get to walk away and remove the US from the region while wholesale slaughter starts. There are real stakes in much of what the government does and no option to just walk away.
So I think that while Trump is undoubtedly good at negotiations, he's having to do them in a completely new environment with a different set of variables and new stakes. And with a 35% or whatever it is approval rating, he doesn't have as much leverage as he's used to. All in all, it's pretty much a perfect recipe for anyone to fail at being a negotiator even if they're otherwise good at it.
Common goals (Score:3)
Business negotiations often involve motivated parties with shared goals (sell/buy land, widgets, etc). They differ on the terms of the transaction, not the transaction itself.
In politics, you have to compromise on the transaction and its terms and there is often no agreement on the goal in question.
With healthcare, the Republicans couldn't agree on a goal so negotiating terms was much more difficult.
They chose to lose the battle to win the war (Score:3)
I feel that the Republicans chose to deal with the short-term humiliation of being perceived as being unable to repeal Obamacare for strategic reasons.
The folks who hate Obamacare are a loud minority in their party. They can safely be ignored for a while.
The folks who would have lost coverage and been worse of with Obamacare repealed would have fucked them in the next election. As it is, these guys will still vote Republican in 2018.
So they let Obamacare stay. Big deal. They will dismantle regulations, star
45 will NOT fix it; he uses H1B workers (Score:2)
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/2... [cnn.com]
http://thehill.com/homenews/ne... [thehill.com]
You are expecting Trump to fix anything? (Score:3)
If you are in that category I pity you, four years of bitter disappointment is coming.
It took three years to get rid of Nixon over Watergate and Trump is less likely to go quietly no matter what, so he's in for the long haul.
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Informative)
Uhm...he said he did?
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm... Clearly, that don't mean a damn thing.
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Uhm...he said he did?
Is that a reason to believe he gives a shit?
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that a reason to believe he gives a shit?
It's reason enough for me. He seems to be actually trying to pull off his campaign promises. We will see as time goes on.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's reason enough for me. He seems to be actually trying to pull off his campaign promises. We will see as time goes on.
I think we've seen enough already.
None of the crazy pie-in-the-sky shit he promised is ever going to happen. He couldn't even close the deal on his wet dream of wrecking the healthcare system, and that's with a Republican president AND a Republican-controlled House and Senate. He couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Insightful)
He couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
THIS is the exact reason Trump is sitting in the White house. It will of the reasons he will be sworn in, in 2020 for a second term. You constantly underestimated Trump from the time he threw his hat in the ring all the way up to election night. You where so sure that you had this in the bag you where already celebrating while he was mopping the floor with you.
More over you are letting your hatred and bitterness, this oppose Trump at all cost, blind you to what is coming down the road. Everyday people are getting tired of it. Even people like me who didn't vote for Trump, and who didn't think he would have made a good President, are starting to change our minds.
Americans don't like losers, but we detest sour losers. And that is exactly what you are coming off to be. The oppose Trump at all costs, instead of working with him is going to cost you more than the Whitehouse. When the next elections come around Americans are going to remember this, and are going to start removing the obstacles. Meaning Democrats.
Funny thing is, those of us who don't subscribe to any real political party see this. But democrats don't, Other libertarians in my group, we predicted that Trump would win. We are also predicting he will win in 2020.
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Interesting)
The oppose Trump at all costs, instead of working with him is going to cost you more than the Whitehouse.
You mean like the way the Republicans opposed every single thing Obama did, even when the idea originated with them? Maybe that's why Obama didn't get a second term.
Tell me again who's gonna pay for that wall?
We all know the wall will never be built.
We all know coal jobs aren't coming back.
We all know he's not going to "defeat ISIS".
We all know he's not "smarter than all the generals".
We all know he's not going to be able to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
We all know he's not going to be able to "get rid" of the EPA.
He's already broken his promise to "never take a vacation while serving as president."
We all know he's not going to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
He's not going to "Drop that "dirty, rotten traitor" Bowe Bergdahl out of an airplane into desolate Afghanistan without a parachute."
He's not going to bring back jobs from China. Hell, his own shit is made in China.
He's not going to "force Nabisco to once again make Oreos in the United States".
These are just a few of the hundreds of promises he made, all on record.
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No, that is just you being wrong, period. An just like so many others of your mind set when you find someone who won't be beaten in to submission you resort to personal attacks.
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Really? Sock puppets too?
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I believe that is more likely than you have some anonymous band of followers digging this deep in to a thread.
Look you clearly have some kind of mental issue. I'm just going to move on now. You can sit here and stew if you want too. Take care.
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You where so sure that you had this in the bag you where already celebrating while he was mopping the floor with you.
I see this response quite frequently I wonder if it's on the Trump fanboy talking point sheet.
Something for you to think about, just because someone thinks Trump is nutbag doesn't automatically make them a Democrat/Hillary supporter. I'm not even American, nor do I consider myself aligned with either side of politics (each has merits/faults) but I know plenty of conservatives who think Trump is batshit crazy too. Quite clearly half of Trump's own party think he's crazy because they are voting against him.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given his business track record (75% complete failure
Please site your sources on this. I would be interested in where you got these numbers.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Documents 6 bankruptcies, and 13 businesses that closed up shop - at the very least suggests he doesn't know what he's doing
Lets see, in 2005 he paid over 30 million in taxes on a income of over 100 million. He has several properties in down town New York, that is worth several million dollars. You're own link clearly states that bankruptcies are nether a indicator of success or failure. With a income of at least 100M that we know of, and possible billions elsewhere, I believe we can clearly say he knows what he is doing.
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So in other words, you can't.
I asked the original poster to cite his evidence so that I might learn where he got his extra ordinary clam that 75% of Trumps business fail. To date, he has yet to post that evidence. If you have a extra ordinary clam that you clam is fact then you need to be prepared to if someone calls you on it.
You, on the other hand, have no ideal why I asked for that. What you saw is some one that might not have agreed with your view point. Did it not occur to you that I might be
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Then we will just have to agree to disagree. But what is this "gospel of wealth?" You have used that term twice and I'm still unsure what it means.
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It is because of my stunning personality my wit, and charm. It is hard being me but being me has some advantages. I get to move to the front of the line as movies. Specials seats at all the major events. I've been given a special seat on the first mission to mars. There are other perks but I won't mention them.
Yes I'm joking. I really don't what is going any more. The posting at +3 started a few weeks ago. There was issues with my account posting to low. Someone at /. central fixed the issue.
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Documents 6 bankruptcies, and 13 businesses that closed up shop - at the very least suggests he doesn't know what he's doing
While I admit you do have a point but bankruptcies and closing business doesn't necessary mean he doesn't know what he is doing. It could be just the opposite, and show he clearly knows what he is doing.
You have to find out how Trump got into these business and what was happening before hand. Where these business in trouble before he bought them? If so then using the bankruptcy laws to shield himself from debtors while he rearranges the business is a correct and proper business move.
So is knowing whe
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What I find interesting the reaction of some of the other people in this tread. I asked this one person to cite their sources and people are losing their mind. The snoops article that was linked to had some good points and was a good read.
But I'm still not seeing this 75% failure rate. I'm still interested in this evidence.
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Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most politicians try to get past what they say. However the complexity of real life sets in. Most American career politicians try to do what they say but they are confronted by other politicians who say they will do the opposite. So they will either get what they want, fail to get what they want, or what is currently political death sentence a compromise where both sides get a little of what they want but not all of it, thus causing the stupid public to think they were lying vs actually trying to get what they felt was good for who they are representing.
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod up a hundred times. We have too many politicians who are unwilling to compromise to make progress. The only form of government where somebody gets everything they want is a dictatorship.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
And unlike the career politicians he's actually followed through on his promises so far. Failure to repeal Obamacare is not a lie. He made the effort.
WTF?
Obama "made the effort" to close Gitmo throughout his whole presidency, does he get credit for that?
Because a lot of people count that as a "broken promise".
It would be a pretty hypocritical that Trump gets credit for "following through on his promises" by introducing a completely stillborn turd of a bill that his own party wouldn't pass.
Or would you have called Obama a success if instead of he'd introduced a bill to just shut it down while boasting... "I'm the best negotiator, its the best bill you'll ever see, everyone is going to love it."
then two weeks later when its obviously garbage and not going to pass even his own party... he withdraws it and says, "I made the effort. now we're just going to keep it open. So there. Oh... and Mitch McConnell now owns it. It's 100% his problem now."
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I believe an important distinction is that Gitmo was not closed after 8 years of promises and the President leaving office without it getting done. President Trump has been in officer for a hair over 60 days. First try failed, and probably for the better. The replacement Bill put forth by Ryan was horrible.
Do you think President Obama tried only once to get Gitmo closed? It was a broken promise because he never got it done after numerous tries. People claiming doomsday for President Trump are foolish.
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I think you need to go back and look at what actually happened. Obama tried to get those prisoners into the US where they could be interned in a rights-compliant way, given proper hearings and trials, lawyers, due process. He didn't try (and shouldn't have tried) to "close Gitmo" by just releasing everyone, nor did he ever say he wanted to. His attempts to get this done were stymied by others. So from my POV, while yes, that's a failure of Obama's attempt to close Gitmo, it most certainly doesn't lay the bl
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama "made the effort" to close Gitmo throughout his whole presidency, does he get credit for that?
Nope, not in my book, and I voted for him twice. That was a promise he broke.
Now, getting back to President Bath Salts, how many of his promises will he break? How many has he already broken?
I suspect that he'll be running near 100% failure rate at the end of his term.
We all know the wall will never be built. We all know coal jobs aren't coming back.
We all know he's not going to defeat ISIS.
We all know he's not going to be able to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
We all know he's not going to be able to bring jobs back from overseas.
We all know Mexico's not going to pay for the wall.
We all know he's not going to be able to "get rid" of the EPA.
He's already broken his promise to "never take a vacation while serving as president."
We all know he's not going to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
He's not going to "Drop that "dirty, rotten traitor" Bowe Bergdahl out of an airplane into desolate Afghanistan without a parachute."
He's not going to bring back jobs from China. Hell, his own shit is made in China.
He's not going to "force Nabisco to once again make Oreos in the United States".
These are just a few of the hundreds of promises he made, all on record.
Re:Foul, oversimplification (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh. Where do the prisoners go? Not USA, because of Congress. To another Gitmo? Hardly an answer. Go free? That gets way complicated.
Congress blocked the obvious path to closing Gitmo. Remember, Congress can override a veto with enough votes, so the President can't just thwart the lawmakers. He only enforces the laws within the legal framework, and your objections are addressed here.
http://time.com/4178779/obama-... [time.com]
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I don't believe that any one really expected the repeal to get through on the first try. The ACA is 3500 pages that no one person really understands. It honestly wouldn't surprised if it took years to unravel that mess.
Re: Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you serious?!? Republicans have been bitching and moaning and wasting tax payer money on the topic for SIX years!!!
In the end, they have control over both houses in congress, full control of the executive branch, and a weakened judicial....
And the BEST they could come up with was a plan that they weren't even confident enough to bring up to their OWN party after multiple delays and negotiations.
Their next plan is a "wait and see"?! Just how absolutely incompetent does the US governing bodies have to be before the US public atleast stops coming up with excuses for them?
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Lets go ahead and cut to the chase. I'm fond of saying site your sources so let me put up before I have to shut up. Here is the exact text of the ACA, complete with subtext, and related bills. Start reading and tell me you understand all this mess.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/3590/ [congress.gov]
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You are quite correct. I just tossed that one up there because I couldn't find the one I was looking for. You have probably been around a long time so you should know the article I was looking for. It was a manners FAQ that used to circle around usenet.
I remember every September that one would make the rounds.
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This is the internet. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen
Can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Are you serous? You really went there. That is just so, adorable.
Being offended when corrected
Trust me, I'm in way offended by your correct. If you will notice I have correct the reference. Just for future references as you can note I have been on /. for a very long time. Before that I participated in, and even incited, some of the greatest flame wars in the history of Usenet. The great comp.sys.amiga split, scientology vs ars ,alt.flame .. oh those where good times.
Well, where I'm going with this, there is nothing you can say or post that has any chance of annoying me or offending me in any manner. Point blank, its all been said to me in the past.
But thank you for the correction. I will remember it. An thank you for the chuckle. You brought back so many good memories.
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You don't know the half of it. I scored 98 out of 99 on testing for science. Out out 99 on grammar and spelling, I scored 35. My spelling and grammar are atrocious. In my defense I do work at it, but seems I have a lot more work to do.
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One of the things to do to stave off mental rot is to try to take contrary positions and run with them. Turns out, it's also sound policy because the majority are wrong the majority of the time. Gotta stay ahead of the curve :-)
I would argue that, that is the wrong thing to do. I agree with your assertion that mot of the time the majority are wrong on most things. To me the thing to do is to listen to both side, not stating where my option is, then make up my own mind. That is what works for me.
But that is me, you option might work well for you. Barbara, I'm going to do something that I rarely do. I'm going to apologize to you. I'm sorry if my "passive aggressive" stance has offended you.
I think you for the correcti
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That is a tough one. You can't be on the internet as long as I have been and not heard the suicide story a dozen times. The old internet adage is this is nothing more than a cry for attention and to ignore them. I've never been comfortable with that adage. It seems just to cold, even for me.
I have no advice to give you on this. I won't tell you not to worry about it because I know first hand this never works. I hope you hear from her soon and she is okay.
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In the course of full disclosure then I'll admit that I'm very bias against the ACA. I had a really bad experience with it.
I probably erred when I said no body understands the full law. What I should have said is while people know what the law says and what they expect it to do. They do not know or understand all the ramifications that come in to play down the road. I believe that with the way things are turning that my assessment in this case is correct. We know how the law was supposed to work
Parity? Really? (Score:3)
Do you think the lawyers reading the ACA legislation and the children reading Harry Potter are equal?
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By trying (and failing) to pass what can only be described as Obamacare-lite?
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He said a lot of things many contradictory. Because we elected a pathological lier. And we were too stupid to realize that.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, he said he cared about cleaning up Wall Street.
But then he picked Steven Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary and Jay Clayton for leading the SEC.
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Uhm...he said he did?
Lol, oh my dear child....I have some bad news about Santa Claus for you...
Re: Uhm... (Score:2)
Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent?
Re: Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent?
When you send that question through a capitalist's mind, it becomes "Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent per dollar spent?" Guess what the answer will be.
Don't forget who pulls the marionette's strings.
Re: Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
But that capitalist has been conditioned to only consider short term benefits, so in his head the question really is "Do you believe that H1-B workers are the best talent per dollar spent this quarter?"
With the news about AT&T, Disney, and others forcing their existing domestic tech workers to train the H1B replacements, the true purpose of the program has been revealed: replace expensive domestic workers with cheaper foreign labor. That's why the H1B program won't get fixed: it does what it's meant to do.
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Except that the modern capitalist is concerned only with costs, so all he actually hears is "Do you believe that H1-B workers are cheap?".
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According the trickle down capitalism, if we let the millionaires save millions of dollars by hiring immigrants, those savings will trickle down to the unemployed americans! You know, the white middle class unemployed americans, not those other ones, the ones on welfare.
It isn't their savings that trickles down. According to Reagan's trickle down economic (not capitalism) theory, the wealthy were supposed to take the extra money garnered from the tax cuts they received and invest it, creating jobs by doing so.
The reality is that the rich just saved it – they put it in the bank. They never invested it. No jobs were ever created by tax cuts for the rich. Why? The rich like seeing their wealth grow, not shrink. They hardly ever want to spend it on risky ventures like s
Re:You're wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's capitalism right there. If it's cheaper to poison the water, poison the air, have the laborers work in unsafe conditions, cut medical benefits, cut education costs, etc... for the next year, then the decision is automatic.
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Melania came over on an H2B visa, and Trump recruits 100's of seasonal workers at Mar-a-Lago through H2B
Personal behavior and political beliefs are two separate things. When I do my taxes, I take advantage of every available loophole and write-off, but that doesn't mean I support those loopholes as a matter of policy.
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Informative)
Or do you really think there was spy tech in his microwave, he won the most electoral votes since Reagan, his inauguration had the biggest crowd of supporters in the history of inauguration, the murder rate is at a 45 year high (stated in early February, when in fact the US murder rate is half of its 1980 peak), he only lost the national popular vote by over three million votes due to massive organized voter fraud, Kuwait has the same kind of Muslim immigration travel ban as the one he supported, the federal court block of his travel ban means any traveler can enter the US whenever they want with no screening, etc... etc... etc... etc....?
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People lying in order to advance their interests is an issue; but hardly unexpected or particularly abnormal. People who can't stop lying even when they'd be trivially better off keeping their mouths shut are a different matter. Something like the inagural crowd size thing: that's an idiotic lie. Trivially verifiable, hilariously petty; and completely unnecessary. He didn't
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Logical argument is for people in the middle. I hate Hillary Clinton. I think she's the flag bearer for corruption in the Democratic Party, and cares almost (but not quite) nothing for the middle class and working poor. I think her string of expensive speeches to Wall S
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Is there any reason to suppose Trump gives a shit about this issue?
His heart may be in the wrong place, but yes, I'd say that he cares.
Nothing scares him more than brown people coming over to the United States.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Interesting)
He's obsessed with winning, but losing doesn't affect him. It's always someone else who caused that, so he never really loses. Trying to get Trump to admit defeat (or anything else) is like trying to get water to stick to a duck.
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Just pointing it out or showing clips of himself describing his future self as a loser won't make it stick. We have to create a narrative, just like he does.
A narrative about Trump the loser. The biggest loser. Losing bigly. The kind of loser who can't even make a deal with his own party. A whiney loser who blames everyone else, like a child.
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We have to create a narrative, just like he does.
Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
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Trump was adamant that there should be a vote yesterday, presumably because it was the ACA's anniversary.
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And few people have noticed that Trump masterfully defeated Ryan
Only wishful thinkers among Trump supporters. Trump was calling all the shots during this past week; he was the one who insisted on a showdown vote yesterday, to put all the Freedom Caucus members' votes on record. Of course, it was cancelled when they saw they were going down in flames.
and is letting the fuse burn down to the Obamacare implosion.
More wishful thinkers, but this time including the President.
Re:And masterfully so (Score:5, Insightful)
Obamacare isn't imploding though, for the most part it's working much better than anything that can't before it. So many people are now invested in it, reliant on it.
Trump is losing hard. His two flagship policies are on the rocks. The Muslim ban he promised isn't a Muslim ban any more and even then gets stuck down again and again. And now Trumpcare, because he sucks at making deals and massively underestimated how complex healthcare is.
Don't forget that he promised to defeat Isis by now too. He's a used car salesman who promises to fix everything, tells you it's going to be the best wagon you every owned...
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Don't forget that he promised to defeat Isis by now too.
ISIS? They're Junior Varsity, nothing to worry about.
Obamacare will need to be fixed before too long. Pelosi designed it to bankrupt the insurance companies and it's doing exactly that. What happens next is anyone's guess, but it can't go on the way it is.
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He actually put the blame on the Democrats for his own inability to close the deal with GOPs.
That was a real funny one. It's like he thinks the Democrats have magical powers.
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It's funny that the lines politicians use keep working for centuries.
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It's funny that the lines politicians use keep working for centuries.
Some of the nastier ones seem to get resurrected from time to time too.
By any means necessary
Heute Deutschland, morgen die Welt!
Carthago delenda est
Safety First
Re: Premium processing has been canceled this year (Score:2)
So you think H1-B is fine, except for all the problems with it. Got it.
Re: Premium processing has been canceled this year (Score:5, Funny)
The H1-B program is a mess, but when I look around my office:
1. There is a small group of H1-Bs who are actually competent and probably help keeping us profitable
2. There is a bunch of H1-Bs who are useless, underpaid fucks who make the codebase worse
3. There a small group of citizen programmers who are actually competent and probably help keeping us profitable
4. There is a bunch of citizen programmers who are useless, overpaid fucks who make the codebase worse
Revoking for citizenship of group 4 seems the best plan. Then we can work on group 2.
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And when you get to age 50 and your boss decides that you're incompetent as a way to dump you because you're causing his insurance rates to rise, we can also remove your citizenship? Goody!
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Re:Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
and suddenly when they are in a position of actually enacting a repeal and replacement bill into law they came up with nothing.
It's even worse than that. They've had how many years now to sit down and think about a replacement plan, to go through the details, crunch the numbers, and get their party on board with a plan so that when they eventually could put it into action they could succeed. Instead they did nothing and tried to push out a cobbled together mess that they couldn't even get enough of their party behind to hold an actual vote on it.
Both of our major political parties are completely dysfunctional at this point. The Democrats spent all of their effort trying to push their anointed party insider candidate who needed significant party help to make it out of a primary against a fringe candidate no one was talking about seriously in the lead up to the election and the republicans had such a weak and unappealing array of candidate that a loud-mouthed bozo that was a complete outsider (he'd only changed to a Republican in 2011, but had bounced back and forth between the parties before) practically take over the party.
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