Question about healthcare repealFollow

You know it's not just about the rich, right? I'm not rich. Most people you meet will never be rich, or even close. Aside from the fact that castigating someone for their success is asinine, at what point did we as a society decide that it was ok to steal great giant chunks of the fruit of a man's labor? Most people with comfortable lives are not rich, but through their hard work and perseverance, even luck to an extent, they have made comfortable lives for themselves, not been handed them. What is the motivation for hard work if you take success & comfort from the equation with burdensome taxation?


I appreciate that position, but it's very emotionally based. Measured on any logical standard it has to be flawed, else the actual rights of others must be infringed upon. There have to be losers.

I worded that poorly, but the more money you have the easier it is for you to afford the extra's and get better healthcare.

That's why I tried to move it back away from rich. I don't disagree with what you said here at all. But I have that "more money" from my hard work. It didn't simply fall in to my lap. I work my *** off (relatively speaking) to maintain my job, and perform pretty damn well. I am not doing it for sh:ts and giggles. I do it to provide a better life for me and my family, not to subsidize people who can't be assed to put in the effort.

And yet that, specifically, is among the founding ideals of this experiment we call the United States of America that has has been largely a resounding success for nearly two and a half centuries.

I already pay for my health insurance, and get a portion of it paid for as a benefit of working for the company that employs me. When I talk of subsidizing it is in the form of ridiculously high taxes that prop up the assistance programs.

Aha, I think in that case it has more to do with the programs itself.
Over here everyone has to be insured so there's no need for ineffecient government aid programs.

Absolutely not. To the contrary in fact, as evidenced by my own situation, I am extolling the virtues of having the choice. Being required to deal with the over-arching arm of the Federal government would eliminate that choice for me. It would eat at my liberty (and I don't give a flying f'uck if Jophiel thinks the concept is trivial or not. That mother f'ucker said he'd EAT ME!). Having the option is priceless.

I think that depends on the Tea Party & who wins the GOP primary against Obama. The Tea Party did very well at organizing various grass routs campaigns that funneled a lot of money into various candidates. This worked really well for them at the house level, but may have hindered some of the Tea Party backed Senate candidates (O'Donnell & Angle, specifically).

In those races, the Democrats pulled in lots of "Independent" votes as well as votes against the Tea Party candidate (but too be fair, there were lots of votes against Reid too). Those candidates are polarizing, much like the mama bear of the Tea-OP Sarah Palin.

At this point, I'm fairly certain both Palin & Romney will run for the Republican nomination. I expect the primary to be pretty nasty.

Palin will sure run against the bill, as will Romney, but Mitt's got a problem with healthcare as his state passed, essentially, a version of the national healthcare bill under his watch & with his support (He actually tried to one up the MA Senate's pledge to cover half the uninsured by pledging to cover all. He did veto some of the articles, but most of those vetoes were overridden. It was a great idea though Mitt, too bad it's politically inconvenient nowadays). So Mitt's not going to be too successful running "against" healthcare & will **** off the Tea party for his flip floppyness.

I don't know if Palin can get the GOP nod & she'd have to be a fool to run as an Independent against Romney & Obama. While legislators can surely run against healthcare, besides Palin in a long shot, do you think there are any other potential GOP candidates that can beat Obama by running against it?

What I have learned from these discussions concerning health care over the years is that Republicans desire for what they see as fairness far outweighs any practical or monetary concern. This is completely reversed with their stance on business, in which practical and monetary concerns far outweigh fairness.

In their minds:

(A) It is unconstitutional to pay taxes for the health care of another human. For some, even in the case in which that person would die without it.

(B) It is perfectly acceptable to pay taxes which replace tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks given to giant corporations.

In case (A), it is immoral, in case (B) it is simply practical reality.

It's cool you have to draw the line somewhere between being idealistic and practical. However, this is an odd place to put it since:

(i) tens of thousands of Americans die per year for lack of decent health coverage

and

(ii) comparable coverage is 2-3 times cheaper in other nations.

which is not a really big deal - I will pay for my principles (in some cases even with my life) except that:

(iii) health care costs are about 1/5 to 1/6 of the entire economy.

Moe, for example, is concerned about lawsuits against doctors/insurance corporations. Perhaps we should be worried, but this accounts for about 1% of the total cost of health care. About 1/500 to 1/600 of the whole economy. I am talking about real systems which work well elsewhere and would save 1/5 to 1/6 of the whole economy.

At that point I do understand conservatives love to get what you pay for (and allow those with less money far worse health care) but we simply cannot afford it.

And it goes without saying that I think UK-style health coverage is simply more moral then the US system, or the corrections proposed by, say, Moe in this thread. But even without this we have to change.

You certainly aren't getting that from this discussion. Or, rather, if you are getting that from this discussion perhaps my son's Boynton books would be an easier read.

Taxes are too high because the government operates outside its mandate. Reducing its footprint would require less taxes, eliminating the need for (A) and the "tax breaks" in (B).

Add to the costs of insurance the costs of unnecessary testing, "CYA" procedures, treatments, etc., and the number is considerably more significant.

What we can't afford is the inevitable spiral of costs with a government back & subsidized medical care model. We have seen the lessons learned in other countries that have to ration their services and we do not want it.

If only legislating morality worked as a long term strategy for anything. It simply makes a healthy black market and full jails.

I won't have that problem in Tennessee.