ObameconomyFollow

The company pays based on the risk factors of the pool of employees (and spouses, and children) covered. If the total cost of coverage for that pool of people increases, the collective premiums increase.

The problem arises when you increase the size of the pool of people to "everyone". At that point, it's no longer insurance. It's just one big pool of money paying for whatever it is we're paying for.



The company pays this out of their labor budget. It comes out of your paycheck, even if you don't see it. You are paying for it. Each individual employee pays for it. The money doesn't magically appear out of nowhere...

Employers pay for insurance based on the number of people covered. If more people are covered, they pay more. I'm not sure how you think this equates to providing insurance for people who didn't pay a premium. Joe random person isn't covered. Only those listed by employees are covered, and they are charged based on those numbers. Ultimately, the employees do pay for the total cost.



Only if you deliberately twist the meaning of the word around. The mechanism is what I'm talking about. The mechanism of insurance is that someone pays a premium to the insurer. That premium is based on the total risk factor and the cost of whatever actions the insurer may have to take. The employer is insuring a group of people, so its premium is based on the total of those factors, but the mechanism remains the same. Ultimately, those people pay for their insurance.


An employer only does this for people who provide some economic value to the employer (employees and their spouses/children). When the government does this for "everyone", it's not insurance anymore. You get that, right?


Um... You're also getting caught up on the least significant aspect of this. The larger issue is that we shouldn't use insurance for common and inexpensive events. That's what really drives the costs up.

I'm sorry, I'm going to need an explanation on that. How exactly does the government regulate and restrict religion? I'm not saying they don't, I just can't think of an example.

Edited, Dec 9th 2009 8:53pm by Uglysasquatch

They restrict it from being involved in the government! Duh!

Hey, I will claim to anyone that Jesus is my personal savior, am against abortion, dont take any drug stronger than alcohol (and that is in moderation), think that every color has benefits and drawbacks (but will befriend anyone who is human), and I despise hippies because they wont do anything about their values.

But I am Democrat, and am for the people over some corporation any day - and I vote heavily democrat based on this. I guess your assessment on Democrats are, well, horsesh!t.

Demands by Social Liberals to remove religious symbols from government parks (like say a cross on a hill) would be one obvious example.

As the government encroaches on more of our daily lives, the assumption that it can't fund anything remotely associated with religious belief results in a gradual but constant restriction of religion. When parks were largely private land managed via local charities, there was no issue with having a cross or other religious symbol on them. As the 20th century progressed, more and more taxpayer money shifted into the US parks service, which took over control of those parks. The opportunity cost of paying a local charity to manage a park when you're already paying taxes to fund the park service cut into private funding and pushed a lot of parks into the public domain. The result is the gradual removal of those symbols from land they used to stand on.

Same argument can be made for many other aspects of our lives. Schools used to be primarily privately funded, so they might include or not include religious instruction as they wished. As the Department of Education has become bigger and the public school system has grown, the same opportunity cost issue arises. Why pay to send your child to a private school when you are already paying for public school via your taxes?

Charities are suffering the same "de-religionizing". As more government programs are created to do the things which private charities used to do, the private charities can't keep their doors open. Since many of them used to be religious based, this means they are impacted. If one assumes that doing good works is an act of religion, what does this mean?


I'm waiting for the government "social center" houses to open. Funded with taxpayer money, you can visit them and receive free counseling on life issues, morality, ethical choices, etc. They'll also serve as social centers for the people living in the area, and provide regular speeches given by the pastorcommunity organizer. Then we can get rid of those pesky churches once and for all! ;)


That last bit is somewhat tongue in cheek, but there has been a pretty clear progression of government intrusion into what used to be done privately, and the effect of that combined with broad bans and restrictions on government funds to organizations which teach religion has resulted in a negative impact on religion as a whole. Some of you certainly probably think that's a good thing, but if your motivations are anti religious, then you'd be lying to say that the actions taken to achieve those things aren't also anti-religious...

I'll give you the parks, but the rest of that is ridiculous as example os the government restricting religion. Religion isn't told they can't teach, just that they can't teach in public schools.

And since charities get their money from donations from individuals, I'm not sure how duplication of duties that a government department is doing, de-religionizes the charity. They still get their money from people who want to donate.

Oh, and don't be too tongue and cheek, we have "social centers" here. Typically funded locally, but there. although, not sure they're ever called "social centers".

I'm not big on banning religion from schools. I am big on not providing prayer time though. If the kids want to pray on their own time (recess) so be it. Just so long as no adults are leading it, unless those same adults want to lead a prayer group for every religion practiced at the school.

Uh, as far as I know students are allowed to make prayer groups all they like. Officials in the school can't coordinate it, though.

It's not about teaching though. It's about students choosing to pray on their own. I could link several cases of High School students being punished for organizing prayer groups at their schools, even though the "rules" allow for it as long as a teacher isn't leading them. They're usually suspended for disrupting the other students or something, but if you define "praying on school grounds" as disruption, then you can't also claim that you allow them to express their religion as long as a teacher isn't leading it.


Also, many schools interpret the "can't lead them" to mean that official clubs at publicly funded schools can't be religious in nature at all. So you can have a club for anything at all, but *not* one that is religious in nature. That kinds flies in the face of "treating religious groups the same as all others", doesn't it?


Another common tactic is to require that groups comply with non-discrimination rules in order to get recognition, funding, or whatever. Which of course means that they can't consider homosexuality a sin (which I find amusing since "sin" is a purely religious concept anyway, but I digress). So effectively the rules are that you can be a religious group as long as you don't actually follow your religious positions on some things. Well. That's not infringement at all!



Except that the number of people who donate will tend to drop as the government funds more charities itself. Look up "opportunity cost" if you're unsure why. Basically, if you're already paying taxes which fund that soup kitchen, then you'll be less likely to *also* donate money to a private charity which provides food and shelter to the homeless.

So as we increase the number of government programs and continue to require that the things funded by those programs cannot include any sort of religious components, we absolutely reduce the rate at which those things can exist in our society. It's not "free" or "fair". It's a systematic reduction of religion from our society.

Again. Some are free to argue that this is a good thing, but that only strengthens the point. Secular charities can (and do) compete just fine with religious based ones and allow each person to choose where their donation goes and how it is spent. It also ensures that those in need may receive it without being preached to if they want (at least about religion that is). But when the government takes my money out of my pocket and my control, it eliminates that freedom. When it then requires that any spending of that money must not go to an organization which preaches religion, then we can say that it's infringing on freedom of religion in direct proportion to the relative amount of money it controls.




Yup. It's interesting that it's perfectly ok for me to take government funds and "preach" to people. As long as there's no divine or mystical elements involved. I can preach to them about the value of abortion, or the benefits of government health care, or use the money in any way I want to influence or indoctrinate people to believe as I do. But just not about God, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster...


Strange isn't it? Secular teachings tend to include just as much "faith" as religious ones. And quite honestly, I'm less worried about a set of teachings in which the existence of a divine being and afterlife are the articles to be taken as faith then a set which teaches blind acceptance of the virtues of socialized medicine, global warming, the need of inequal laws to create equality, the idea that "freedom" doesn't really have to do with liberty, but with lack of need, etc.

You know. Cause as a rule, people's belief in a divine being doesn't hurt me much. Their belief in those other things does every single day. I'm just curious why it's ok to teach one set of things in our public schools, but not the other? If we're on the topic of what should and shouldn't be subject to public funds, that is...


Of course. The correct answer is the same one us conservatives give every single time. Don't put government funds into those areas in the first place. The problem doesn't exist then, does it?

Why should allowances be made for people's religious beliefs but not their personal ones?

No one's preventing students from creating a "GLBT club". And I'm betting they wouldn't allow a religious person who disagreed with their lifestyle to be a member. See how that works? Where does one persons opinion become oppression of another person?


Heck. Let's test this:

Would it be ok for a group of high school students to form an "atheist club", in which kids would be taught that religion is silly and should be avoided? In what way is this less discriminatory towards religion than a religious club might be towards homosexuality? Can this be allowed? What is the justification? Can teachers participate and lead discussion? Why? Why not?


Interesting, no?


Edited, Dec 9th 2009 6:49pm by gbaji

Maybe, but it isn't what I want to talk with you about, or I would have asked you a different question.