Lucky...

If the government doesn't manage it well, then simply having a government option shouldn't worry conservatives, should it? I mean, since the competing private health insurance companies will be so much better, then everyone will choose that, instead, right? Maybe the government should just protect the public, but that's kind of hard when the main healthcare architect, Democrat Senator Max Baucus has been on the take from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies for years. Wait, gov should protect the people, but you want to provision for REAL HC for people who are indigent or low income. Please, no tax credit rhetoric, people who earn 15k a year don't pay anything measureable in taxes. No matter if it's $2.00, everyone should participate in paying taxes (Unfortunately, it's part of the American system). Getting back to the subject, the government should be protecting people from the insurance and healthcare industry that preys upon the public. Secondly, anyone receiving BRIBES, like Max Baucus, should be prosecuted. It does matter if it's $2.00 or $2k, that's the issue here. And yes, it is unfirtunate it is part of the American system to exclude people due to class. This is the crux of what is the Republican mess. Impeach Clinton, give Libby (obstruction, perjury) a semi-free ride and Larry Craig (shopping cock in an airport shitter/Mr Morality) a totally free ride. Instead of looking at the issue, they look to the person and eventually enough Republicans defected. (BTW, I posted both people to explain the issues: Was it a BJ or a lie). So I don't know of the Payola to which you refer, but it's just typical RW attack everything but the issue politics and I thank you and yours, as that's what's making my party strong. The problem is that they're mostly Republicans and Republican financiers. It's the fox watching the chicken coop. The Republicans have run this country for 20 of teh last 28 years, run it into the ground, they've had their chances to fiz HC several times, esp in 1993 and the all-Republican Congress from 1995 wouldn't send Clinton a bill to sign or veto. Now we have a great man in the WH who is willing to stake his presidency on HC and so we should implement something that will work for everyone. But how about protecting indigent people from insurance companies? They don't need protecting because they don't get to play. This is where the Republicans have shown their classist views; indigent people don't matter.

That's the 2000 report. Now, strip out the "that's not fair" bullcrap which has NOTHING to do with efficacy and look at the responsiveness score - THAT is what shows how well the medical establishment is doing it's job. The rest of their 'statistics' are a smokescreen for pushing socialized medicine. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you didn't read the whole 215 pages. There's no, "that's not fair" bullshit with the WHO, just data. I've read several articles on the WHO and they all use that 2000 data. I'm guessing it's because that's the most recent data that has been assessed and ranked, as there is such a massive amount of data they don't assess it very often. But that is the world-recognized data. If they had some liberal agenda to push soc med, they could have ranked the US lower. It's no mystery that the US distribution of wealth is similar to that of Communist nations and the data and subsequent reports support that. So a liberal agenda, the people in the black helicopters over your house, could be easily enacted by ranking the, 100th. I suppose these people have a liberal agenda too: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings/2009 We're such a peaceful nation, how could they be so liberal as to say we're damn near 100 of 140? All I ask is that die-hard Republicans keep it so they can go teh way of the Whig and we can get a new Republican Party in.

Ok I'll explain it. Heller OVERTURNED a law which was in conflict with the original intent of the 2nd ammendment, gun ownership being an INDIVIDUAL right. No need to defend truth until it's challenged. I don't need it explained. I posted it as 1 of many examples to illustrate that the US Const, or any state const is fluid and prone to slight change or upheaval at any time. Often a case's dissent becomes the new decision, so what is the written constitution? The living constitution is the desired interpretation at that given moment. Truth is subjective opinion. When justices find your version of the truth, they've finally got it right, when justices or judges find a different way that do you, they're activist judges. These decisions are called opinions for a reason; we all have em, and they all stink, they just usually have a different stink to them. To think you have the intent of the constitution down pat insults legal professionals, lifetime judges, justices, etc. It's fine to have your own opinion, it's arrogance to think you have it all figured out when the greatest minds in America are thinking these things thru. Fortunately Heller made the law go my way, but it was a 5-4 decision with liberals coming up to take conservative-filled seats, don't kill yourself if it goes the other way. Remember, 5-4 with a SCOTUS that was 7-2 R appointed, Heller is not even near being long-running stare decisis. Now it's 6-3, if Obama does all 8 I could see the SCOTUS being 5-4 Dem-appointed.

Most predominantly it is applied to distinguish between union closed shop states and RTW where you cannot be compelled to join a union.

He was elected via his potential, idealism or any other reason that after Nixon, Ford the pardoner, the Dems were walk-ins. Carter would have made a great ambassador, but not a president. True, altho they usually spew hateful vile, you can't dismiss future idiotic things they might say based upon a mountain of previous idiotic things they've said. Russert was the king. He's talking people who hear 1 bad case supported by them, then assume everything they say is BS.

See you busted #'s 5, 10 AND 11.... Congratulations! You just proved you can't debate on facts and have to use insults. The idiots in question are in Congress as are the corrupt people. Did I strike a nerve by digging up that old DZCOM thread where you are insulting forum members, yet claim to hate insulting people in this latest post?

As with most right-leaning propaganda, it doesn't hit the bullet points. I skimmed it and found nothing but theory. Obama gave a proposition with bullet points, I've read McCain give a proposition with bullets, all I ask is that you give me a refined proposition with points. Here's one with my comments in bold: http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/...re_Reform_Republican 1) States, small businesses, and others could group together to offer lower-cost, health care plans. - You must be employed, a lapse in employment = a lapse in coverge if COBRA expires and even then very expensive. 2) Medicaid users could take the value of their Medicaid benefits and transfer them to a private health care plan. - Taking the discretion from the government and giving it to HMO death squads. This one is about as deceptive as the idea to put your retirement into 401k's before the crash. 3) People, especially those in lower income brackets or over 55, would receive incentives to build up health care savings accounts. - Right, IOW's, pay or go without healthcare. 4) Employers would automatically sign up their workers for health insurance, so that employees would have to opt out of coverage if they didn't want it. - Not really a big change from where it is now. The vast majority of employees sign up as it is, they just have $500/mo premium pays. 5) Tax deductions on insurance premiums for people who get their plans individually or from their companies. - And if you make 0, a tax deduction is just what the doctor ordered. This is just another tax shelter for well-off people who buy private ins now. How does teh GOP think we are so stupid? And Tom, where do indigent people get covered here? Yea, that's what I though. I think you just answered the question. BTW, if you care to extrapolate that mess you sent me minus the nationalist bravado in that article, refine what their solution/proposal is, which is probably about like what I posted here, then I will jump back on it.

If the government doesn't manage it well, then simply having a government option shouldn't worry conservatives, should it? I mean, since the competing private health insurance companies will be so much better, then everyone will choose that, instead, right? Maybe the government should just protect the public, but that's kind of hard when the main healthcare architect, Democrat Senator Max Baucus has been on the take from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies for years. Wait, gov should protect the people, but you want to provision for REAL HC for people who are indigent or low income. Please, no tax credit rhetoric, people who earn 15k a year don't pay anything measureable in taxes.

TRANSLATION: you prefer non-scientific methods so you can fill in the blanks. Shall we get 3 hillbillies with coins to flip? Thx for the flying lesson, I don't have a lot of hours but I've been flying w/my dad since I was 5 and licensed at 20. About like the military and Iraq/Afghanistan, a gross wasted expenditure; I guess Republicans find that immune tho. See, when the gov runs something, there's waste, but usually in administrative roles, hiring too many people and just operating inefficiently but that creates jobs. Whne government operations are run by a private corporation, they sometimes run more efficiently and the excess from fewer jobs goes into the corporate coffers. In many cases, fraudulent billings and general corporate corruption often far exceed governmental waste. But to look at a country's medical svs as a business decision choosing who gets what and how much versus everyone gets medical attention is.... let's say, very American of you. Civilized countries don't make that a business decision like we do. I don't want your bannana, but enough of the ghey metaphor You can like your medical coverage the way it is and others still have access; just can't figure out why some Americans want to phohibit other Americans from having access to medical coverage WHEN IT WON'T COST THE PROHIBITING INDIVIDUAL A DIME. EDITED TO ADD: You must have waited a lifetime to find a place to use your sig line in a post.

No, actually it does deal with those people -- they get the same high-deductible catastrophic coverage that everyone else gets. Whether they can afford the expenses up to that coverage is an issue, but they do get that coverage. I think there are has issues, but based on the quoted text, that's not one of them. Wendy P. Touche, but what I'm saying is that it doesn't address the issue with a viable solution, it just ignores it/them.

I can see the attraction of such a plan. It won't eliminate the reliance of the poor (including now the elderly who were on Medicare and the really poor who were on Medicaid) on handouts for care, but it would provide a fairly clear target for most households. However, a couple of questions. - Where would the universal catastrophic insurance come from - Any idea of what the deductible would be? - and I'm assuming that medical savings accounts would be able to be carried over from year to year. I really hate the way they can't be now -- that's incredibly lame. Wendy P. The biggest thing is that it doesn't address the 47M people w/o coverage. It continues to treat them as 2nd class citizens and, let's face it, that's the way the GOP looks at them. Could you imagin 47M people getting HC after not having it for decades? Think of the polling possibilities when about 100M people show up now, 52% voted for Obama anyway, now another appreciative 40+M come along.... I'm smelling roses for several elections to come.

In your opinion. And in the opinion of voters over the last 2 elections. DOn't make me research the list of idiots, I have done waaaaay too much research lately. It's kinda moot at this point, the idiots sit on the right side of the isle, but after they fix things and corrupt, which is inevitable, then they will collect on the left. But for now....

No one's talking free, just gubbment provided if a person is w/o insurance. As with most right-leaning propaganda, it doesn't hit the bullet points. I skimmed it and found nothing but theory. Obama gave a proposition with bullet points, I've read McCain give a proposition with bullets, all I ask is that you give me a refined proposition with points. Here's one with my comments in bold: http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/article/Health%20Care/Health_Care_Reform_Republican 1) States, small businesses, and others could group together to offer lower-cost, health care plans. - You must be employed, a lapse in employment = a lapse in coverge if COBRA expires and even then very expensive. 2) Medicaid users could take the value of their Medicaid benefits and transfer them to a private health care plan. - Taking the discretion from the government and giving it to HMO death squads. This one is about as deceptive as the idea to put your retirement into 401k's before the crash. 3) People, especially those in lower income brackets or over 55, would receive incentives to build up health care savings accounts. - Right, IOW's, pay or go without healthcare. 4) Employers would automatically sign up their workers for health insurance, so that employees would have to opt out of coverage if they didn't want it. - Not really a big change from where it is now. The vast majority of employees sign up as it is, they just have $500/mo premium pays. 5) Tax deductions on insurance premiums for people who get their plans individually or from their companies. - And if you make 0, a tax deduction is just what the doctor ordered. This is just another tax shelter for well-off people who buy private ins now. How does teh GOP think we are so stupid? And Tom, where do indigent people get covered here? Yea, that's what I though. I think you just answered the question. BTW, if you care to extrapolate that mess you sent me minus the nationalist bravado in that article, refine what their solution/proposal is, which is probably about like what I posted here, then I will jump back on it.

Just that one side is hoarding....BIG TIME. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures http://costofwar.com/ Here, here; couldn't agree more. Yea, really. http://costofwar.com/

Because otherwise it's 2.5T and only some people get a little bit at the discretion of the ultimate death squad: HMO's. BTW, that's 850B over 10 years. So we have to be extremists? Why not get the 2009 Camaro? Tom, do you have a problem if a poor person is w/o medical coverage and has illnesses, has to wait until he/she is near death before they go to the emergency room and then die or become wards of the state disability system? Hope I get an answer.

Let's just use current data, and BTW, it was real hard to look up WHO. http://www.who.int/research/en/ It's a bitch to use, have fun with it. Here's an easier one: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf Page 164 states we are still 37th, as we were in 2000, this data is data 2008 I believe. Overall distribution and fairness we rate with Turkey and really horribly, taht's the theme, we have the ability to provide, just that greed drives the system. Actually after looking at that data I think this may be a 2000 chart that was written about in 2008. The data is massive, but do you think HC has gotten better since 2000? By that I mean better for everyone, not just the elite. Here's a cool video describing it and a ton of data extrapolated from the WHO. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/14/paul-hipp/rocker-viral-video-mocks-us-37th-best-health-care-/ Watch the vid. Wait, if you don't have the data, how can you figure that? Summarizes that healthcare availability and quality suck.

And that could be a byproduct of our gross classism; young intercity girls from poor homes make crappy mothers. If our social system was better they might make better mothers knowing they could rely on the gubbement. We can both conjecture, but even if we weren't bad at that, we have a myriad of other things we do poorly. No doubt the Domestic courts AFU'd unless you are a woman in virtually all cases. But that isn't the biggest issue here.

Yea, we'll follow the GOP approach, we'll give em 5 years and then the trigger kicks in.....of course they have the safety on, that being the safety of hoping in 5 years they can have the WH back or at least get a majority in 1 or both chambers of congress.

I don't think Carter was presidential, he would have been a better diplomat. Of course after the Nixon/Ford mess the next Dem was a shoe-in. Ford may have been a good president too if he hadn't sold his soul to the devil known as Nixon.

He's gone back and forth on that issue. Remember that he was the Libertarian Party's candidate for President in 1988. Remember he ran in the Republican primaries last year????? Ron Paul is as much a Republican as he feels like being at the moment, but it's hard to totally disconnect. Tom, you guys need to flush and start over; start by seeing what would appeal to this current society. I want the Republcians to be a better party than the Dems, then I will vote for them again. Politics are best when parties compete for success, rather than refuse to change an wait for the other side to implode.

Right, they need to be preventative. And the fools think Reagan's entry into office is what caused the release of the American hostages in Iran. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis Algerian diplomat Abdulkarim Ghuraib's negotiations between the U.S. and Iran resulted in the "Algiers Accords"[106] of January 19, 1981. The Algiers Accords called for Iran's immediate freeing of the hostages, the unfreezing of $7.9 billion of Iranian assets and immunity from lawsuits Iran might have faced in America, and a pledge by the United States that "it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." The release of the hostages came a day after President Carter's term ended. While Carter had an "obsession" with finishing the matter before stepping down," the hostage takers are thought to have wanted the release delayed as punishment for his perceived support for the Shah. The release was all about the Algier Accord, which coincidentally happened the day before Reagan took office. Boobs will claim and brag that the fear of old diapers Ronnie and the entire Republican Party scares the world into submission, I guess the bombers of the Beirut Barracks didn't get that memo and didn't feel the pinch, as Reagan did nothing to retaliate or find the purveyors of said horrible event. And then with 911 that clarifies the world is not affraid of the Republican Party as is advertised by its followers. Does this require any comment? Liberalism can radical and people in their 20's can be radical, they just have to follow that path. I prefer a little bit of radical or the ability to be. Yea, but I would define it as simple ignorance under the guise of hatred. Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hate. Yep, people cherry-pick an ACLU issue and run with it as if it represents all ACLU actions, then decry US COnst infringments, for which the ACLU defends. Guns are guns and nuts are nuts. Put em together and what do we have? Gun nuts. I refer to seperate the two and dislike nuts, love guns. Just because they should their objectivity by laughing at anything liberal as a way of honest news reporting? You must be unAmerican. The media is more valuable than the ACLU or even our Bill of Rights. And that's because the left will talk your ear off, the right will slam the door and call a person stupid that doesn't agree with them. The right is an ideology that is an inflexible state of being, the left is a very flexible set of ideals that can be molded.

As opposed to your "The Dems are great and the Reps are a bunch of bloated plutocrat" posts? Why should she be held to a higher standard than you hold yourself? I may post my opinions, but I post a citation to support it, a concept foreign to you. Our opinions are fine, but unless we support them they are just that.

Wow. Just wow. In the face of that, I got nuthin'. Explains quite a lot, doesn't it? Are you saying the US Const isn't fluid and constantly having decisions rewritten to opposing / dissenting ones? It flip-flops based on who installs justices, so it's just a standard by which justices maneuver around.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/wilson-reprimanded-but-still-smiling/?feat=home_headlines Why I would be glad to. In an unprecedented but toothless reprimand, the House on Tuesday voted to condemn Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, for exclaiming, "You lie," during President Obama's address to Congress in a vote that highlighted how fractured debates have become on Capitol Hill So this is the first time the House has done this, meaning it crossed a line. And if that's not good enough, here's this: http://usgovinfo.about.com/blhousecode.htm Rule #1 kinda brings it home... 1. A Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives shall conduct himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives. ...unless calling the person holding the highest office a liar is your idea of credible. Which ones were they? Could there have been Repubs booing too? I mean Republican Jeffords showed what he felt of Bush and the party, so could it have been Republicans, you just assumed it was all Dems. Get the video/audio and make yiur case. No, no, it's ok, I'm used to you cherry-picking and not citing any sources.

Wow. Just wow. In the face of that, I got nuthin'. Thx for stoppinjg by then. Appelate judges, SCOTUS justices, etc decide what they want to do and use, twist, maneuver the US Const in a way to justify their decision. Explain cases like DC v Heller where they, for the first time said that a person has personl gun pwnership rights. WHat took em so long to come to that, or is the US Const fluid? Get what I'm saying?