georgerussia

Are you sure you're not trying to present your personal and ungrounded opinion as facts? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So are you trying to tell us (see the thread title) that checking IDs when an immigrant applies for the program would prevent, or even reduce this type of fraud? I don't get it. Standard question: how would YOU address this issue? Please be realistic, and take in account that fraud prevention should not be too expensive (otherwise it's cheaper to let the fraud go). You'd find that this is surprisingly hard to address it. Also note that there are more types of fraud, which includes the people who do exist - for example, charging the insurance company for procedures which were not performed, or performed without medical necessity. Make sure your "fix" would not lead to just switching from one type of fraud to another. According to the OP (unfortunately he did not provide the link), the amendment proposed was a) only for immigrants and b) only for sign-up. The fraud you mention happens mostly on citizens (I'd speculate that minority of immigrants receives Medicare), and only with those who have signed up already, probably long time ago. I fail to see how this change would address the issue you mentioned. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

What kind of power, and who it then belongs to? Please be specific. BTW, does Medicare also not belong with the government? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This is a very strange comment from a someone who didn't read the bill itself. Would you please elaborate it? I'd only ask to reference the bill, not Fox News or whatever. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes. And AFAIR most of the issues you brought were either not correct, or not really different from what we have now. Yes I did. Note that English is not my native language, especially legalese English. So it took more time, including checking dictionaries and Wiki to understand what the terms mean. But now I can say that it's not something extreme, and if you're a native English speaker you should not have half of the problems I had. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes, I know you posted it in past, and while I disagree with you, it still makes sense to discuss things, as you're the one expressing the opinion. This, however, cannot be said for "supported articles", as they're created by people to support a specific agenda, not to "tell you the truth", and some of them are even paid for that. The quality of those articles you posted is so low and they're so full of flaws that in my opinion a person even with a half of brain would see them. I believe you've seen them too, and such a choice of "supporting materials" does really poor job in supporting your agenda. The most important point here, however, that when you (or someone else) starts spamming "supported articles", the discussion does not make sense anymore. For example, it's useless to argue with some posters here who generally do not express their own opinion - just copypaste stuff from other sites and avoiding discussion (ii.e. typical trolling) - you obviously know those :) So if you still believe the articles you posted are supportive, could you tell us YOUR opinion about what was written there? See, you didn't even say whether you agree with the article in full, or in some parts, so it added zero value to the discussion. P.S. Did you read the FULL bill? :) * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Seems like you've gone into Dreamdancer's style posting. Do you really expect anyone here to spend their time to rebuf the bullshit you copypasted from some sites, just to see more copypasted bullshit? Do you have YOUR OWN opinion on the subject, or you have permanently rented your brain to your party propaganda? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The German import from USSR in 1940 was only 7.6%, fifth after Italy, Denmark, Romania and Netherlands. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Actually the bill does exactly the opposite - it requires everyone to have the insurance, even if you believe your home would never burn and therefore you do not need it. Somehow you're missing the point that the people still get treated with preexisting conditions - they just do it in the most expensive way, via ER. And insurers (and taxpayers) are forced to pay for it. So we ARE already covering them, but since they're not accepted by insurers, they pay nothing for this coverage. Would it make sense to have them pay at lease something? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

And I'd agree with what he said. If an illegal (a crime) goes so far as using someone else's credentials for a purpose of fraud (a crime), including citizenship status (also a crime) and SSN (another crime), to fraudulently obtain government services (yet another crime), they would have no problem to produce a fake ID as well. Now you'd ask what are the drawbacks if the law requires checking IDs? I see some already - for example, you would not be able to apply online or by mail, therefore increasing the overall costs. People also need to be trained to check the IDs - it's not as easy as some think, for example, to confirm the identity of Asian using an 8-year old picture in their passport, unless you grown up in a diverse community and could compare face features quickly. So, increasing cost without really increasing security. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I wonder why? You think it's ok for someone who has cash to buy health insurance to skip it (and buy something else instead), and then once they have a problem, just go to ER and skip the bill? Those individuals seems to be no differ than the individuals you described below. You are right, of course. The only problem here is that this is something nobody provided a solution yet. So the question to you would be exactly the same - what would you realistically do in attempt to fix it? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Just a small correction: this is just the sort of shit that WE ARE subsidizing right now. This is not something in future - you and me, we are already paying for his bypass. At least with the bill he'd probably not drop his coverage to finance a Hawaii vacation or so. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Those who cannot afford it, will get it subsidized, or for free. Those who may not want it, will have to pay for it - unfortunately we cannot have them signing waivers where they admit that if they get sick, they'll silently die and will not end up in ER without paying for it. This means that they just do not want to pay for it, but still want to use it. For those people it's ok for me to force them to buy it. I do not like the idea of paying for someone's else health insurance, but we're doing it now anyway - including those who just do not want to pay for it, and still end up receiving care. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Then it's basically no different from "tax another guy, but not me", which is now widely represented as "tax the rich", when a "rich" is defined as "someone making more than me". How could this system be fair even in theory, I just cannot understand. There are two obvious problems with this approach: 1. It is simply impossible to put _everyone_ into equal position through wealth redistribution. While some things are possible (like providing everyone with the same food), some are not possible no matter what you do (like providing everyone with a three bedroom condo facing Central Park in NYC). 2. It takes away the incentive to work hard. Why would one work hard if the government provides you basic stuff for free? For example, both me and my wife were born in poor families, and while we weren't starving, we did have to often live on bread and pasta, and reuse clothes from previous generations. This gave us tremendous incentive to study a lot and then work hard so we could avoid such a future for us, for our parents and our kids. This is also a pretty typical case with every immigrant I know - there is simply nobody who was born with a silver spoon, everyone knows what it means to be poor (like in Tijuana, not like in US), and those memories force us to work hard to avoid it. As a direct consequence, this means that I will work harder to make sure my employer is satisfied with my performance, which means I'll provide more/better services or greater skills for the same pay comparing to others - which, in turn, means that even considering a few disadvantaging factors (being white, male, married with kids and non-gay), I'd likely get a promotion/raise faster, or would be laid off later than others. Knowing a few Mexicans, most of them went through similar background, and Tijuana beggars were also major factor for them to become what they became. I personally believe that if you haven't seen the hell, you wouldn't appreciate the heaven. And if you never been poor, you'd very unlikely to make yourself rich through hard work. And I teach this to my kids too. For example, none of them gets ANY allowance, and all the money they have they have to earn. Wanna go to a movie, a funny jeans or a new phone? You have to work for that. You don't want to? Then you won't have any. And save for college, Daddy will not pay for it either. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I lived under Communism, and my personal experience is that it is not at all. It only looks like everyone is equally miserable there - but still, someone has a (crappy) car, and someone does not; someone is a janitor and someone is an office manager. And so on. It depends how you define "fair". If you're contributing to the pot more than you take out, it's definitely not fair to you. But if you live off others, it's definitely considered very "fair" to you. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

In Communism everyone is - it's not like anyone gonna ask your permission. Remember, the government there decides everything for you. It's more user friendly for the average Joe - because it gives them everything taken from anyone who is above average. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This happens everywhere, I wouldn't limit it to any specific country. For example, it happens on much larger scale in Russia, mostly because the police doesn't give shit about what they call "family disagreements" (however, in their favor, I have to admit they have a very good reason for that). I tend to believe it's the same everywhere when people are too busy to satisfy their basic survival needs. The main reason is that their collective survival really depends on each others, and because they just do not have time to watch Fox news or other stupid shit, no mention discussing and disagreeing about it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Communism is only different in terms that you won't even get smiles; everything else would be the same. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, it will only work when you die, and the value of your organs at this moment might be much less useful comparing to what they worth to society now. Obviously if you commit yourself to be split apart right now, it will make greater good for society. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I lived there in several countries in Europe (comparing to just "been to"), and I can tell you this is definitely not the case. Again, you're following the same mistake as most healthcare critiques do - they compare costs of flu treatment in Europe vs cost of cancer treatment in USA. And they're definitely not the wealthiest - I spent almost three months in Romania during last 12 months, and it's definitely not even close to wealthy region - even though they do have "free" healthcare. That's what I'm talking about - you could just go there for thrill if you want to, and leave any time you wish. This is NOT how people live there, they do not have U.S. income, and they cannot move back to U.S. as soon as they wish. That's why to wipe the slate clean you'd actually have to move there on permanent basis. Which, of course, you do not want to - it's only OK to force _others_ to start from basics, but not you. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You know, splitting you apart for organs and tissue could save up to ten lives. Isn't it also greater good for society - exchanging one life to ten, and how'd you feel about it? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, you are most likely living in USA, and have access to computer and Internet. Presumably you're not starving, your life is not in permanent danger, you have access to education, healthcare and you have a place to live. Very likely you had all of this as soon as you were born - and this puts you into a approximately lucky 1% of the world population. To wipe the slate clean it would be necessary to send you to some African country, to deal with the same problems most of the world is still dealing. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

If you wanna help, don't pray for me. Just send a check. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Sure you know him! You do know he doesn't have SSN, and even birth certificate because he cannot state who the father is, don't ya? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I prayed for you George and if you ever need someone to talk to... I want you to know that there will always be people willing to listen. There is always a plenty to talk, but not the another thing :( only Jesus. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *