Democrats' Health Care bill has been passed - SCOTUS ruling update

[Biggles]

The point is "Duke" (I love the delicious irony of that name ), you're treating things that happened in the past as "history" - you don't want to open the question of "reparations", but what qualifies as "history"? Something that happened 100 years ago? 50 years ago? 10 years ago? Native land claims have been under dispute & in some cases, litigation, for decades. How do you decide the claims of First Nations against present-day homeowners, or golf course developers, or resource-extracting corporations, when their land was taken from them, often in direct contravention of signed treaties. Whose "rights" have precedence?

When great fortunes were amassed by families from slave-trading & those assets passed on, diversified & increased by succeeding generations, should that "wealth" be sacrosanct under "property rights", even though the wealth originates from the most egregious violations of human rights imaginable? What about the great land-owning families of Europe, who for centuries lived off the labour of the peasant classes? The Russian oligarchs whose fortunes were obtained through theft & corruption? The Colombian drug barons whose wealth was created through intimidation, violence & murder? What about defence contractors or construction company executives who make huge profits by bribes & kick-backs to corrupt politicians? What about big bank executives who make huge salaries & bonuses while knowingly running their companies into bankruptcy. What happens when that wealth passes on to the next generation? Is it automatically protected by "property rights"?

These are not academic questions. There are a million examples of wealth created by small or large violations of other people's basic rights. And they are not in the distant past - the exploitation of the weak & poor by the powerful & rich is happening on a daily basis in different countries all around the world. How does all that figure into your "mathematical" accounting of individual rights?

 

[Omnis]

It's not mathematical, it's logical. I love how you just grab at words like that.

I know you're addressing Duke, but all of your examples occurred, in one way or another, because of the state and its corruptible concentration of power. Unfortunately, I know you won't even try to wrap your head around why that is.

 

[niky]

Not all rich people inherited their wealth, actually, from their gold-mining, land-raping, slave-trading forebearers. The new rich did it by dropping out of college and selling stuff that those people wanted to buy.

Reparation takes place on a governmental level, anyway. (glacial... my Grandmother got hers just a few years before she died... she was in a US concentration camp for a few years). And yes... I agree with Omnis... those abuses take place because of the abuse of power of state.

The State's fundamental military function is to protect its citizens... but the United States has a long, sad history of adventurism... and many military and covert operations in other countries were not for the protection of its citizens. (In fact, except for World War Two and Afghanistan... none of the other modern wars the US has been in were waged directly to protect the United States)

-

I'm not against socialized healthcare... but I've never seen it implemented well... which could be a good reason to go against it.

Hell... even HMOs... which are privatized healthcare run in a similar fashion... have a lot of fundamental flaws. It's often better to just pay for the crap yourself.

 

[Biggles]

It's not mathematical, it's logical. I love how you just grab at words like that.

It was Danof who stated:

Human rights are derived directly from logic (like math).

But I'll avoid using "mathematical" if you object to it.

I know you're addressing Duke, but all of your examples occurred, in one way or another, because of the state and its corruptible concentration of power. Unfortunately, I know you won't even try to wrap your head around why that is.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain to a simple-minded individual like myself, exactly how the state, "in one way or another" was responsible for all these human rights abuses? I promise to make a serious effort to "wrap my head" around it.

 

[Duke]

Native land claims have been under dispute & in some cases, litigation, for decades. How do you decide the claims of First Nations against present-day homeowners, or golf course developers, or resource-extracting corporations, when their land was taken from them, often in direct contravention of signed treaties. Whose "rights" have precedence?

I've already stipulated that this is a difficult question with no easy answer. I have also stated that what I've earned this week is legitimately mine, not stolen from the Lenape tribe that lived in this area 250 years ago or extorted from serfs in my family's baronial past.

Of course, since my great-great-something-great-grandfather came here under an indenture agreement (I have the original 200-year-old document framed and hanging on my wall), it is more likely that we were on the receiving end of any 'extortion'.

However, I must say that I think this is a side issue. I'm glad to keep discussing it, but perhaps we should carve it out to a separate thread.

theft & corruption
intimidation, violence & murder
bribes & kick-backs
corrupt politicians

I love how you equate these with legitimately-earned or created wealth. Crimes are to be prosecuted and punished.

 

[Speedy Samurai]

I'm not against socialized healthcare... but I've never seen it implemented well... which could be a good reason to go against it.

As a Canadian living in Japan, I would have to say that I have seen it implemented pretty well, twice.

 

[Biggles]

I love how you equate these with legitimately-earned or created wealth. Crimes are to be prosecuted and punished.

I'm not equating at all - no where have I made any attempt to equate these. I'm questioning the assumption that there is always going to be a clear-cut, unambiguous "property right". Where property was stolen, or illegitimately or immorally, or even disputedly obtained in some other way, what is the status of the property rights for future generations? I don't pose this as a rhetorical question, it's a very real issue in countless disputes, both individual & international, around the world. One party sees the dispute one way, the other a completely different way.

Again, to take one example: if "crimes are to be prosecuted & punished", but slavery wasn't a crime in the antebellum United States, does that make the profits of slavery acceptable? Who gets to decide what constitutes a "crime"? The individual slave owner? The slave? Society at large? The Constitution? The contemporary interpretation of the Constitution? The present-day interpretation of the Constitution?

Furthermore, trying to explain every dispute, as being the result of the interference or "coercion of the state", is just crazy in my opinion. It seems, bizarrely, to contradict every principle of "individual responsibility" that Libertarians otherwise espouse - "the State made me do it". It ignores the reality that "bad" people do "bad" things, & that the rights & wrongs of a particular dispute are often seen quite differently by the different parties involved.

If what you & the other Libertarians believe is that under a strict Libertarian philosophy there is always going to be simple, logical resolution of every human dispute or conflict, based on clear-cut principles of "liberty" or "property rights", you are completely delusional in my opinion. If you don't believe that, perhaps you could clearly state that, so that I don't feel like I'm

I think I'm a reasonable person, open to reasonable persuasion, & not necessarily unsympathetic to aspects of Libertarian thought. But the "you're either with us or against us" presentation being made here, where if you don't accept a hardline, fundamentalist interpretation of Libertarian doctrine, you're either an idiot or a dupe of the "State", is not persuading me with it's logic, nor is it making me more sympathetic to the Libertarian cause.

 

[Omnis]

It was Danof who stated:



But I'll avoid using "mathematical" if you object to it.



Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain to a simple-minded individual like myself, exactly how the state, "in one way or another" was responsible for all these human rights abuses? I promise to make a serious effort to "wrap my head" around it.

He stated derived from logic. Math is also derived from logic, but it doesn't mean what we're talking about is mathematical. You know this and you're using it in a mocking fashion.

You're not simple-minded, you've made it seem like you'll do whatever it takes to make sure you're right. You ready?

Slavery - You think an old white guy could keep 20 strongass men without Uncle Sam watching his back?

Serfdom - This is more due to a lack of capitalism. That Lords were often politically connected and no doubt conspired with each other to preserve their estates is an added bonus.

Oligarchs - Same thing. Politically elite string-pullers. Bigger government = bigger dragon on which to ride.

Drug Lords - Again, a lack of capitalism. They're violent and murderous because their product is black-listed. Imagine what would happen if everyone told the government to 🤬 off. Lincoln slaughtered half his people.

Banksters - String-pullers just the same; enabled by the central bank, a product of big government. And the good financiers get dragged down with the assholes, unfortunately. Some of those multi-million-dollar bonuses go to gentlemen who make the company billions and keep it from going belly-up. The media never makes that distinction though.

 

[Biggles]

Slavery - You think an old white guy could keep 20 strongass men without Uncle Sam watching his back?

Serfdom - This is more due to a lack of capitalism. That Lords were often politically connected and no doubt conspired with each other to preserve their estates is an added bonus.

Oligarchs - Same thing. Politically elite string-pullers. Bigger government = bigger dragon on which to ride.

Drug Lords - Again, a lack of capitalism. They're violent and murderous because their product is black-listed. Imagine what would happen if everyone told the government to off. Lincoln slaughtered half his people.

Banksters - String-pullers just the same; enabled by the central bank, a product of big government. And the good financiers get dragged down with the assholes, unfortunately. Some of those multi-million-dollar bonuses go to gentlemen who make the company billions and keep it from going belly-up. The media never makes that distinction though.

The point I was making was about "property rights". Libertarians aggressively promote the sanctity of "property rights" while glossing over the fact that a great deal of the "property" has, historically, & into the present-day, been acquired through questionable, immoral, or illegal means. Which to me, at least, poses the thorny question of at what point does property acquired in this way, deserve protection from the claims of those whose rights were violated in it's acquisition?

What is extraordinary about your response, however, is that while Libertarians constantly tout the concept of "individual responsibility", you seem to be able to sweepingly dismiss ALL individual culpability for wrong-doing of any sort & lay it at the door of the "State". I have absolutely no idea how you can logically justify this hypocrisy, but your willingness to misrepresent & twist any historical fact in order to make it fit your ideological position, comes across quite clearly.

You're not simple-minded, you've made it seem like you'll do whatever it takes to make sure you're right

That's rich coming from the Omniscient Libertarian. Actually, I would never claim to be "right" about everything. I don't espouse a political ideology that claims to be able to explain all human interaction, from the bushman in the Kalahari to the banker on Wall Street, in terms of a single "logical" formula. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I am deeply sceptical of an ideology that, like other ideologies before it, does claim that. And I can clearly see where an argument that claims to be "logical", in reality, relies on a selective reading of history & subjective opinions to draw sweeping conclusions.

 

[Tornado]

That's rich coming from the Omniscient Libertarian.

 

[Rocker]

As a Libertarian myself, I feel I must interject.

The concept of Liberty as a founding principle is simply the idea that all should be free to do whatever they want, so long as it does not infringe on others' rights to do what they want. There is nothing wrong with this concept in itself and I would question the objectivity of anyone who says there is.

The problem with liberal, conservative, libertarian, Marxist, communist, socialist and you-name-it ideology is that the concepts and governments are applied by -PEOPLE-. The problem with people that everyone seems to ignore, is that humans do not comply with absolutes.

That is why governments always fail. That is why Empires collapse, and that is why companies ship materials halfway around the world to fabricate items for a nickel, and ship them back, and sell them for forty dollars, even though their own market will eventually collapse because they are eliminating jobs and income from their own customer base. It is also why answering the question of personal responsibility versus living on land your forbears took from natives by force is such a difficult question. It is also why one side characterizes the other in simplistic and usually disrespectful terms.

Because people do not like a complicated universe, they tend to take simple solutions and principles and then apply them to infinity. Well, there are few concepts I can think of that work in an absolute sense. Governments will always fail, no matter what system is put in place because they are run by humans, and absolutes do not work with humans. There is validity in both sides of the issue, but the question will never be resolved because neither side will budge from their absolute position.

Personally, I believe forcing an individual to purchase a private service is wrong, and it stems from the government having too much power for too long a time. Also, the insurance is too expensive for a myriad of reasons, some are business decisions and philosophy, some are evolutionary, some are strictly from greed. It's complicated, and that is NOT a cop-out on my part.

I conclude that both sides are wrong, despite both having a valid point or two, here and there. It is only the human fear of error that perpetuates the argument. Having determined that both sides are wrong, my fall-back position is that the choice should be mine, because it is less of an infringement on personal liberty.

Rocker

 

[FoolKiller]

The point I was making was about "property rights". Libertarians aggressively promote the sanctity of "property rights" while glossing over the fact that a great deal of the "property" has, historically, & into the present-day, been acquired through questionable, immoral, or illegal means. Which to me, at least, poses the thorny question of at what point does property acquired in this way, deserve protection from the claims of those whose rights were violated in it's acquisition?

You raise an interesting point, which has absoluetly nothing to do with this thread. No one has glossed over this stuff. It has nothing to do with current society and the health care debate. The discussion of reperations is a very large discussion that requires a vast amount of research to work out. And there are so many factors that go into it and proving lineage and direct links to said property and blame for taken property. For example, my grandmother came from Canada, her parents from Germany. Obviously her family did not take any land from Native Americans (her best friend was actually Inuit and their families worked together), nor did they own any slaves. But my father's side of the family came from England a long time ago, moved to Kentucky with Abraham Lincoln's family (some marriage connection to his aunt), and to our knowledge none of them were rich enough to own slaves, but I have zero inherited land anyway. What do I owe to whom? Of course, I live on land owned by my in-laws, whose genealogy I have no knowledge of.

At best, you could say I owe some reperations to some Native Americans somewhere. But how do I know for sure? And to which Native americans? And how much? I haven't inherited anything from anyone. And anyone that says I owe them something will have to prove to me that my place in life was at their expense through a generations old injustice that I currently am unaware of existing. and then there is the discussion of how much, if any, culpability I have for the actions of my ancestors.

See, we aren't ignoring it, but it is much more complicated to discuss than the current actual debate regarding making one group pay for another group's health care through taxes, and others being forced to pay through compulsory health care. Drudging up reperations discussions is ignoring the current issue at hand. You are (purposely?) dragging this discussion off track.

What is extraordinary about your response, however, is that while Libertarians constantly tout the concept of "individual responsibility", you seem to be able to sweepingly dismiss ALL individual culpability for wrong-doing of any sort & lay it at the door of the "State". I have absolutely no idea how you can logically justify this hypocrisy, but your willingness to misrepresent & twist any historical fact in order to make it fit your ideological position, comes across quite clearly.

What's extraordinary is that you are missing the point. When libertarian philosophies are being discussed and they point at how government tends to act all the issues you keep attempting to bring up are examples of why you must keep government in check. That is what Omnis is pointing out. None of these things could have happened, including slavery, if government had been doing its job and not benefiting themselves by benefiting the greedy. Omnis never once dismissed all individual culpability, but he did point out how those individuals were supported by the governments in their actions.

Omins is not the one that is misrepresenting and twisting things here. You are reading that into it, because you already had your mind set that it is what he is doing.

 

[Rocker]

I just realized that I fell into the simplification trap myself. In my conclusion I stated "the choice should be mine, because it is less of an infringement on personal liberty. "

I neglected to factor in that applies only to me, right now, in my current financial state. Any one of a number of things could change, that would move me to the other side of the equation. So, my conclusion should not be applied to all people in all conditions at all times. We should have general guidelines, to the best of our abilities, and realize that there will always be exceptions, no matter what rules are in place.

Incidentally, that makes another argument against compulsory healthcare, because it eliminates the factor of choice, and employs an absolute as a "positive control". I think this is an irrational means.

Attempting to apply an absolute rule of any type to all individuals is an irrational goal. Pursuing an irrational goal will always employ irrational means.

 

[Touring Mars]

The problem with liberal, conservative, libertarian, Marxist, communist, socialist and you-name-it ideology is that the concepts and governments are applied by -PEOPLE-. The problem with people that everyone seems to ignore, is that humans do not comply with absolutes.

Not quite everyone. I do believe this is exactly the point that Biggles and I have been making repeatedly.

 

[Duke]

Have you not been saying that it is a human's absolute duty to help others?

 

[Touring Mars]

Not exactly. While people may have a moral duty to not just look after themselves, I do not think that any individual has a duty to ensure the wellbeing of any other particular individual other than their own direct dependents. However, I do believe that part of the price of citizenship is a duty toward maintenance of society, and realise that this is an integral part of how states come to exist in the first place.

 

[Rocker]

Not quite everyone. I do believe this is exactly the point that Biggles and I have been making repeatedly.

Roger that one. I am making the same point, but it "seems" like everyone because there are so -few-. e.g. you, biggles, myself, out of how many in this discussion now?

I suppose could have phrased more clearly, but to clarify, I am in agreement with you.

 

[Rocker]

Have you not been saying that it is a human's absolute duty to help others?

This is an excellent example. Applying such a rule as an absolute will inevitably lead to irrational and destructive behavior somewhere along the line.

Mankind simply does not have the absolute knowledge and wisdom to legislate and dictate the infinitude of complexity and human nature and interactions over indefinite time scales.

IMO, It is hubris and deification of man to take such a position.

We need GENERAL rules and to accept that they will not always hold, no matter what rule we try to come up with.

 

[Biggles]

You raise an interesting point, which has absoluetly nothing to do with this thread

I understand that it has nothing to do with this thread. I think the reason we ended up here, is because of the Libertarians' tendency to reduce every argument, including in this case, the health care debate, to the fundamental points of Libertarian philosophy.

What's extraordinary is that you are missing the point. When libertarian philosophies are being discussed and they point at how government tends to act all the issues you keep attempting to bring up are examples of why you must keep government in check.

I'm sorry: ignoring individual responsibility & simply blaming everything bad that happens on the "way the government tends to act" is just a monumental cop-out. It's such a sweeping generalization as to be totally meaningless.

 

[Biggles]

Rocker
The problem with liberal, conservative, libertarian, Marxist, communist, socialist and you-name-it ideology is that the concepts and governments are applied by -PEOPLE-. The problem with people that everyone seems to ignore, is that humans do not comply with absolutes.

Not quite everyone. I do believe this is exactly the point that Biggles and I have been making repeatedly.

Bingo!

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the third President of the United States & unquestionably one of the great minds of his time. He understood, intellectually & morally, that slavery was unjustifiable. Yet he continued to keep a large number of slaves throughout his life. He didn't do this due to the "coercive power of the state" - he could have taken individual responsibility (I can't believe I'm having to make this argument to Libertarians ) in releasing his slaves - he did it due to personal expediency. Even in the case of a great intellectual figure like Jefferson, self-interest trumped principle.

 

[FoolKiller]

I'm sorry: ignoring individual responsibility & simply blaming everything bad that happens on the "way the government tends to act" is just a monumental cop-out. It's such a sweeping generalization as to be totally meaningless.

I challenge you to find where any of us have said not to blame the greedy individuals and only the government. In fact, I recall very early on in this same thread that I pointed out the difference between capitalism and corporatism, where corporatism is government working with individuals who are greedy. No one is saying that the individual is free of responsibility (and if you say it again you had better have an example) but that government allows, and even aids, the individual to do it, and as such shares the blame.

 

[YSSMAN]

In the interest of keeping things on topic, the Health Care bill in the Senate called the "Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act" is available online to read. While I don't have the time to dig through it myself, I'm told that it is not radically different from the House bill aside from rolling back some of the rather stringent limitations on Abortion pushed by the House. About the costs, some of the procedure:

From the Huffington Post

Reid on Wednesday also presented to his colleagues a preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis, which finds that the bill will cost $849 billion over the next decade. It would cover 94 percent of eligible Americans, including 31 million currently uninsured Americans. The bill would also lower the federal budget deficit by $127 billion over the next decade and by $650 billion during the decade after that. Kerry cautioned that the numbers were still being finalized and could change slightly.

By keeping the total cost of the bill under $900 billion, Reid met one of the conditions set by the Obama White House. The bill is also expected to drastically bend the cost curve in the health care system -- another major Obama objective -- by achieving "almost a trillion dollars in cost savings" within the health care system.

Reid will file a cloture motion Thursday, which will be followed by an intervening day, by Senate rules, leaving Saturday for the vote.

They run a very tight risk of not getting this passed by Thursday, but I think that's a risk they're willing to take against the Republicans who are pledging some kind of Jihad against it. The Senate bill sounds quite a bit more realistic compared to that of what was passed in the House, particularly in regards to the rules on Abortion and the Opt-Out issue. Time will tell of course when it goes into committee once again, that is, assuming it passes in the Senate the first time around.

 

[Rocker]

It will pass. Period.

It will also increase and solidify the growing divisions in US society: Half the population will claim it is a glowing victory and a shining example of justice in the world and half the population will claim it is the death knell for human freedom. (not counting conspiracy/apocalypse theorists)

However, based on a simple extrapolation of DC's track record, I predict it will be one of the most monumental and tragic failures in history, but that will not be recognized for many years. However *I* will see the effects immediately for the following reasons:

A) I am currently unemployed and out of benefits. I do not have money to buy insurance with.

B) I do not fit into any of the favored demographics to qualify for financial assistance.

C) The current bill makes no allowance for such problems, and when I cannot afford insurance, I will be levied a fine.

D) When I cannot afford to pay the fine either, I am subject to a much larger fine, imprisonment of up to 5 years, and forfeiture of my home either directly or indirectly due to financial burdens created by compliance issues.

There is no allowance in the present bill that protects my home from confiscation. Because I do not have financial means, I therefore do not have legal recourse. I will either lose my home or find myself in prison, or both.

IF YOU DISAGREE then simply point to the section that protects me and my property.

I also predict many arguments against my conclusion with no substantive evidence.

 

[Joel]

It will pass. Period.

It will also increase and solidify the growing divisions in US society: Half the population will claim it is a glowing victory and a shining example of justice in the world and half the population will claim it is the death knell for human freedom. (not counting conspiracy/apocalypse theorists)

However, based on a simple extrapolation of DC's track record, I predict it will be one of the most monumental and tragic failures in history, but that will not be recognized for many years. However *I* will see the effects immediately for the following reasons:

A) I am currently unemployed and out of benefits. I do not have money to buy insurance with.

B) I do not fit into any of the favored demographics to qualify for financial assistance.

C) The current bill makes no allowance for such problems, and when I cannot afford insurance, I will be levied a fine.

D) When I cannot afford to pay the fine either, I am subject to a much larger fine, imprisonment of up to 5 years, and forfeiture of my home either directly or indirectly due to financial burdens created by compliance issues.

There is no allowance in the present bill that protects my home from confiscation. Because I do not have financial means, I therefore do not have legal recourse. I will either lose my home or find myself in prison, or both.

IF YOU DISAGREE then simply point to the section that protects me and my property.

I also predict many arguments against my conclusion with no substantive evidence.

That's a pretty awful situation. So let me get this straight. The Democrat health care bill is a bill requiring you to have health insurance, either private or public? If that's true, that's not cool. So it doesn't come through taxes, like OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Program). If so, I can see your issues with it. That sucks.

 

[YSSMAN]

There is no allowance in the present bill that protects my home from confiscation. Because I do not have financial means, I therefore do not have legal recourse. I will either lose my home or find myself in prison, or both.

IF YOU DISAGREE then simply point to the section that protects me and my property.

If I am understanding the bill in the way that it stands...

A) Assuming that the state-by-state "opt-out" becomes a part of the final bill, depending on where you are in the country will largely decide the outcome of whether or not the law(s) will apply to you whatsoever. Down south, you'd stand a better chance of having your state opt out of the program, but that would pretty much be political suicide in a lot of the purple states.

B) I personally am not certain if the legal requirements to have insurance have appeared in the Senate bill (I have not read through it). Aassuming that they are not there, when it goes to its final form, my guess is that it will be stripped from the House version. Possibly. Anyway, more to the point, if it is legally required for you to have private insurance or a government run subsidy, clearly your option would be that of the public nature if you don't have any current income. My understanding is that it will work essentially the same as Medicaid/Medicare, where it doesn't come necessarily with a "bill" in the conventional sense, but from the taxes we (or in this case, the wealthy) pay. So, you're not up a creek without a paddle, you've got options.

C) As for it passing... There is still a significant risk that it won't. There is still enough opposition within the Democratic party that it could prevent the entire thing from happening or cripple it to the point where it isn't worth it. If the Republicans have their way with delaying it significantly (say, summertime), the 2010 elections could play a pretty big role in it not happening as well.

 

[Public'sTwin]

That's a pretty awful situation. So let me get this straight. The Democrat health care bill is a bill requiring you to have health insurance, either private or public? If that's true, that's not cool. So it doesn't come through taxes, like OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Program). If so, I can see your issues with it. That sucks.

I don't want to get sucked into this a whole lot more because it tends to dissolve into political ideologues rather than the true merits of such a system — but that socialised healthcare in itself isn't necessarily in the interests of the general welfare of the nation— is a fallacy based on the presumption of execution.

With this detail revealed—which I wasn't aware of (and thusly more sympathetic to concern)—I can see from a Canadian perspective, that yes, you guys have buggered it up.

You just can't draft this sort of thing up in a year. We may have healthcare, but it took Tommy Douglas 17 years to draft up and execute the plan, and initially at great expense. It took a large short-term sacrifice—and a small long-term one—but eventually become an item of national pride; this only happened through refinement and tailored execution. It has since been neglected and we're currently losing doctors to America (though not for long, ha).

The claims about costliness, to most of us (I'm evoking general national opinion here), are unfounded: as Canada is also waging war in Afghanistan, the amount of money we've spent on the war could have been spent in that time to pay for the University education of every student in Canada. The payoffs of an investment thus requires none too much extrapolation; why our leaders (Canada and America's, respectively) can't see that is beyond me.

 

[James2097]

Lets just say that many very conservative capitalist world leaders, when talking to Obama, have expressed shock as to the pitiful state of the current US health system, and simply can't fathom how a world power, with all the riches and benefits it's citizens otherwise enjoy, fails so hard on an issue so fundamental as providing decent healthcare to it's citizens.

I've heard some hilarious arguments equating good public healthcare to socialism. As an Australian, *only* in America could such a ludicrous statement be made. The fact is - and there is no getting around it forever - to be a truly civilised nation, the USA needs to wrestle itself free from frontier-era scare-mongering and embrace healthcare as a fundamental human right. Its not expensive in the long term. Canada, Australia etc prove this beyond argument. Besides, a healthy population is a productive population.

 

[Rocker]

PublicsTwin wrote:

why our leaders (Canada and America's, respectively) can't see that is beyond me.

There is no reason to assume that those who were skillful enough to get themselves into Congress or Senate are so obliviously obtuse. It is much more reasonable to conclude that their motivations are just ... different than our own.

YSSMan wrote:

I personally am not certain if the legal requirements to have insurance have appeared in the Senate bill (I have not read through it). Aassuming that they are not there, when it goes to its final form, my guess is that it will be stripped from the House version

Seriously. How can you possibly make such a dangerous assumption? I am talking about having my home confiscated as a best case scenario, if I can evade prison, for no other reason than being unable to purchase health insurance. To give money to one of the most heinously corrupt industries in the nation.

Here is an assumption for you: "Honestly Gen. Custer, I'm sure those Injuns just want to talk."

And by the way, COMPULSORY coverage is a MAJOR tenet of the bill. It is a primary objective. Unless you have heard specifically that it has been removed, then you are essentially assuming the gun is not loaded. This is beyond foolhardy, and something I cannot risk.

If it were not so personally threatening, I would spend some time illuminating what a travesty of Constitutional Intent this really is, and add a few Jefferson, Jackson & Adams quotes for good measure. But I see now, that I have barely enough time to prepare my own self for the incoming.

Three lanterns I see.

 

[Public'sTwin]

the USA needs to embrace healthcare as a fundamental human right. Its not expensive in the long term. Canada, Australia etc prove this beyond argument. Besides, a healthy population is a productive population.

The issue as I understand it isn't simply that they're cross with universal healthcare—but that :

-they have no alternative (eg. a two-tier system as provided in Quebec)
-it's taxed similarly to income tax (complete with penalties and jailtime if not paid)

Whereas in Canada (Ontario, anyway) what amounts to the cost of my health-insurance was at most about $9 per paid paycheque; once employment resumed I was not, however, burdened to pay a premium or remainder of dues once I was back to work—if that's what was to be inferred from earlier posts (which I glossy-eyed skimmed over).

 

[Rocker]

James2097 please read up:

The bill they have now FORCES ALL to purchase insurance.

I cannot afford that insurance.

The penalty for not buying the insurance is a fine, for me it will be around $1,650 per year.

If I cannot pay this, I am subject to a much, much larger fine. More than my house. I also face up to 5 years in prison.

NOW lets talk about human rights, ok?