georgerussia

You should understand that there is a difference between someone who is legally not required to pay federal tax, and someone who just does not want to pay federal tax because they want to spend money on new iPhone instead. My understanding is that healthcare bill should deal with healthcare issues. Dealing with illegal immigration should be another issue. A lot of people already complain about 2,000 pages bill - do you really wanna it to come to 5,000? However I'm open to hear your ideas how would you implement providing service to everyone but illegals? Share your wisdom please. They ARE competing with the USPS. For example, this year I only used USPS for all my deliveries (using standard rate priority box), while last year I mostly used UPS for the same stuff. Well, if you claim that public option would set up government hospitals, which employs doctors who would be government employees on government-regulated salaries, I would challenge you to find such provisions in the bill. If not, please explain what you mean by "private HC providers". Is CIA? Is SSA? Is FCC? Is FTC? They are all pretty much same independent agencies as USPS is. That's another option. Like health insurance - if you want good quality, pay more. If you want it cheap, pay less - you'll get lower quality. And not everyone strives for quality - my kids, for example, go to public school. Please remind me whether is it the same AMTRAK the government had to take over from private railroads when they bankrupted, while those private industries should have been much more superior to lousy government management? Now let's compare the numbers before government takeover, and we will see! Sorry, I do not believe in facts when they are introduced as "widely reported" or "someone said". Such arguments are only useful to fox "news" viewers, and probably not even to all of them. I didn't know the healthcare bill supposed to provide free healthcare to everyone in the US. Are you claiming that? If so, could you please quote the bill? If not, why are you trying to scale VA spending to everyone? And again you're not comparing the numbers with the private industry. If they followed the private health insurers, who kick out (likely into Medicare) everyone too expensive, and increases premiums 20% yearly during last ten years, they would be in much better shape. Instead they accept everyone, and increase their costs around 0.9% yearly. Is it still paying its claims, or it already followed superior private industries like Enron, WorldCom, AIG, Lehman, GM, Madoff... ? You might want to be more careful regarding standards. I wonder how well the Social Security would run if the trust fund was managed by a superior private industry company like the one owned by Bernie Madoff? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

According to Wiki, "The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent agency of the United States government". If you go

Yes, this is correct. If everyone was responsible and act honestly and reasonably, we wouldn't need police and prisons. We wouldn't even need tax withholding, security guards, and so on. But so far no country in the world succeed here, so it's utopia. Yes, this would be wrong. If you're a reasonable person and understand that you need to maintain insurance, the law which requires it (the "punishing" part) would have no effect on you at all. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Really? So you're saying that Catholic Church now permits using condoms? So you're saying it's ok to have oral or anal sex without regular vaginal intercourse? Well, Catholic Church disagrees with you. Do you really know your own religion? So how else the person would learn God's will if not by reading the God word or by going to the church? Do you really think one would learn it by watching fox news? So how would one know if he is going to be saved if you're saying that reading the bible and going to church is not necessary? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

And that's why there are no genuine Christians there, as to be one you have to only have sex in marriage, only in missionary and only for procreation - no condoms, no oral, no anal. This alone would exclude a lot of so-called "christians". In my opinion the situation in US is no different from Russia, when a 2006 poll asked a bunch of people whether they consider themselves Christians. Among the population 80% replied they are Christians, but only 40% ever read the Bible, only 20% do it regularly, only 9% go to church every Sunday, 8% are not sure if there is really a God, and 1% is sure there is no God. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The problem comes exactly from the fact that some people do not want pay those premiums. They they got sick or go into accident, get the treatment and do not pay for it (or offer ridiculous terms like paying $20 a month). If you have other ideas how would we prevent people from getting medical service and not paying for it, I'd like to hear it. If you make claims based on numbers, it would sound more reliable if your source is more reliable than just "somebody says". Apparently the problem here is that "personal responsibility" thing just does not work. Even here when recently discussing about skydiving without health insurance (and the sport is expensive, so the people obviously have enough money to get at least some insurance), and some people still said it's fine to do so. There is likely the main reason liability insurance is mandatory virtually everywhere - because if it is not, some people would say that they have other spending priorities, like buying a new TV. The funny thing is that responsibility is a personal trait, and the one who does not show responsibility in terms of getting insurance would likely to not show it while driving, therefore getting a higher chance to get into accident. What about UPS/FedEx? What about private schools? What about Stanford University? By this statement I bet you neither read the bill nor even thought seriously about any possible fix besides generic statements like "tort reform". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Personally I found it hilarious when people consider sending the soldiers to die overseas for some bogus reasons (where's the WMDs?) "securing nation interests", but consider providing healthcare to all citizens against nation interests. This is kinda very weird logic to me. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I wish you checked the thread [1], as this has been already discussed recently [2]. Then why don't you explaining why you think so? You know, just voicing your opinion without explanation why you think so makes no sense at all. Well, if you don't - welcome to the club :) * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This has been discussed already. Scroll down, there are several posts about it. also discussed. No. So far you just provided a bunch of opinions (and not even your own), and no facts to support them. Yes, that's my opinion based on reading the actual bills. This is likely because I do not watch talk shows (I do not watch TV at all), and therefore have a luxury of having my own opinion which I can stand. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

- by cutting down the number of people who go to ER and do not pay, therefore having someone else (you and me) paying for it through increased premiums; - by increasing the insurance pool by requiring people to buy insurance; - by increasing the competition, allowing buying insurance across state borders and removing anti-trust exemption from insurance companies. Also the companies will have to compete with the government plan, meaning that they will have to provide either better service or better price. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Missing option "this poll really sucks" * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes, likely. At least hopefully insurance costs won't increase 15% a year as they are now. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It will be competitive pretty much on the same level as Medicare is: if your priority is price, you'll choose it; if your priority is quality or ability to keep your doctor (which is not a priority to me, for example) - you will not choose it as long as you can afford anything else. The levied fundings are not going to be used to fund public options, they are going to be used to pay for the insurance credits (private or public) for those who cannot afford it. If you got different opinion, please quote the bill (please do not quote talk show hosts or fox "news" though). Obviously when your theory is based on wrong assumptions, you'll end up with invalid results. It can be a little cheaper than cost of the cheapest insurance. Assuming this situation would only let one go to ER, and not to the doctors, lab or pharmacy, it doesn't look like too much savings to me. And getting sick may be too late to apply for coverage, as it will not be available overnight. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Some people seem to INCORRECTLY assume that "public option" means the ONLY option. THIS IS FALSE, and therefore the poll is bogus as there is not a single option which "every other American" would use. There are and going to be multiple options, and people will choose between them depending on their priorities. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Your sins are so bad that you need to send at least $200. Send them to www.ffrf.org * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I wish every Christian knew that the only way to get to Heaven is to send me a $100 check (not tax deductible, sorry). Nothing else would work, and if you don't do it, you're guaranteed to go to Hell where you gonna suck George Bush's cock for eternity. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So what would happen if someone goes deep inside this mine field, then steps on one and lies there screaming with a torn leg? Should we just leave him there forever, or maybe you would volunteer to get in and bring him out (to provide emergency services and then deportation, of course)? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It definitely doesn't look like that. So if you consider this "fast"... * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

How do they feel about cost of their health care? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, if you are going to build something yourself and never build a public PHP-MySQL based webapp before, ask an experienced developer to review your code before posting it online. Your code might have a bunch of security issues, ranging from direct system code execution to SQL injection. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Was Larry Craig? What about Gov. Sanford? Even if we admit the way you're presenting it (that there are only two choices - which of course is not true), supporting Republican party looks to be the worse one. After all, it seems to be moron magnet - and a lot of morons are in very high positions there. I do not support either party, but supporting Republican party in its current shape, with all those idiots looks like a pretty stupid thing to me. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This routinely happens in the Army. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Those who are poor, and cannot afford insurance and go to ER generally are not worried about collector harassment - they have a lot of them already, their credit rating has been sank, and adding one more collector doesn't really matter to them. Even if it is, they do not have any other options anyway, as ER bills are quite expensive, and the person which can afford them should have no problems affording insurance either. You are paying for it through premium increases - and since you're basically required to keep the coverage and will pay a fortune if you drop/lose it, you can consider it a kind of tax. Unfortunately you do not provide any facts or even thoughts (aka cost analysis) to support your beliefs, so at the end they're no more trustworthy than fox "news". Yes if you're going to use government plan - this already happens with Medicare. If you can afford private healthcare, nothing would really change. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I wonder if the reason for that is just cost/reimbursement rate, or something else? Found interesting data. Basically, the average cost of health insurance more than doubled during last ten years. This is 219%(!) increase just during last ten years! Now I wonder how much of those went to doctors (after all, this is actual purpose of insurance), and how much contributed to 1M+ salaries - because according to "explanation of benefits" my doctor does not get a single penny more from the insurance after those last four year increases. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You're not ADDING anyone into the system. Those people you mentioned are in the system already, and already using those services - they just do it the most expensive way by going to ER and not paying for it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *