Obama 2012
The proposed medical legislation is far to complicated for me to understand. Since it requires some 2400 closely typed pages of convoluted and cross referenced text - I am sure I would forget the first pages by the time I got to page 1019 or so. Like me, many of you probably rely on the summaries and interpretations of others. Unfortunately, they often tend to be politically biased. Somehow this legislation has been turned into a partisan issue when it never should have been. The matter of improving Amreica's health care is important to all of us and not just the Democrats. From the beginning it has been driven by the far, far left liberals with little, if any, input from the more conservative middle. The result is a bill that satisfies no one.I first thought that the legislation was so wildly expensive and that it should be shot down regardless of it's merit. I really objected to the WAY it was drawn up (liberal input only), and to the rush to pass it before anyone had an opportunity to read it (or understand it), and especially the borrowing beyond the capacity for OUR generation to pay for it.
It is time for America to live within it's means. Our economy is already stretched thin and our financial condition is declining in relation to other world currencies. Since our printed dollars have no valuable commodity backing them - it is especially important that we keep our dollar relatively strong.
For all of these reasons, this current health care initiative should fail.
Comments
They say they fixed some things like not allowing an insurance company to deny someone because of preexisting conditions. Instead they let them charge up to 400% more in premiums which means you might be able to buy it but you cannot afford it. It goes on that way. I have to wonder if we really have two parties in anything but name. One blocks everything that might cut into insurance companies profits, protecting the biggest companies, but the other puts out a bill that is impossible to see as anything but a giveaway to insurance the health industry. If they pass it with the mandate, it's nothing but a forced tax and I don't see anywhere it will reduce the costs. They don't want it to as that would hurt the stock market :(
Like the "Climate Change" treaty, it's about government taking control of our lives, and it stinks to high heaven.
The Republic is at risk.
And therein lies the problem, Rain.
Your comment about us having the worst health care in the advanced world?
Prove that, please.
Thank you.
This "Health care reform" bill stinks.
It doesn't reform health care, and in an already troubled economy, it's another huge step towards disaster.
"Hope and Change"?
Well, it's a change for the better for insurance companies and big pharma and those that want Government controlling more people's lives.
But tell me... where's the "Hope" for the rest of us?
Priority list:
Food, shelter, water, Gold/Silver, and LEAD, (at the tip of a brass casing).
You and I don't agree on the necessity of the Iraq war. My only complaint is the other members of the U.N. that continued to threaten Saddam Hussein, (unsuccessfully), didn't put a stop to the RAPE ROOMS and the CHILDREN'S PRISONS sooner.
You've made several observations that are either badly biased or not true at all. You say that Republicans want big business to take over our lives. It would be more accurate to say that our government (Democrats and Republicans) want to take over our lives. Democrats have a long history of favoring labor unions, Republicans a history of favoring business enterprises. It is both parties that favor big and bigger government - and that interprets to increasing control over our lives.
You have said many times that America has the worst health care in the world. That seems to be a much repeated lie in the blog world. Overall our medical and healthcare system is one of the best anywhere. It services the largest percentage of our population with TIMELY and HIGH QUALITY medical attention. You refer to wikipedia.org for measurement and statistics. Do you realize that wikipedia gets it's information from unproven bloggers. Even the U.N. which doesn't even like us gives more accurate statistics.
Our anger, both yours and mine, should be directed toward the uncontrolled insurance companies that have turned our medical care industry into a cash cow. The romance between politicians and medical insurers has got to be brought under control or eliminated - and replaced with a better, less costly, less unfair, and less domineering influence.
At this point we firmly divide. You want the insurance industry out and the government in. I see this as simply making the problem larger, less efficient, and more unfair. In my book the government has managed no similar major program well - EVER!
The federal government MIGHT be able to regulate some of the loopholes that allow medical insurance companies to make obscene profits. It might also provide supplemental financial aid to those with pre-existing conditions or who can not pay for other reasons.
I am not confident that our present government is capable of inserting itself in the financial part of providing medical care. They have made a mess out of the Post Office, the educational system, the banking industry, the mortgage loan industry, and so on. They could easily make a mess out of providing health care as well. But surely it's worth an attempt BEFORE SIGNING ON TO A MISERABLE, BADLY WRITTEN, INCOMPLETE, PIECE OF HEALTHCARE LEGISLATION THAT FEW HAVE READ AND NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.
Dixon
As for the rest of what you said, I was talking about what Bush did as an impact on the money that is now available, the debt we face, the attitude of not paying for what we do. It is not possible to discuss what is happening now in our life or the government if we don't look at what has happened as a factor. You cannot tell me that most people aren't worried about health care because of the failure of the anti poverty programs of the past. You talk about the government not doing anything right as your concern for the health care; so you also look at the past. What bush did is very much a factor in today and it might be in the future if the right wing choose another like him.
If you think it's okay to lie us into a war, I might ask would that be only when it's the right doing it and not the left? Supposing you found out that Obama ignored data, lied about what he did know, and then got us into a war somewhere. Would you care then? I think if it was right to attack Iraq, it was right to be honest about why and PAY for it as we went! I also think they should not have rushed to do it before our people were fully armored.
I am not surprised you see this all as you do because it's part of the right/left divide in this country which is pretty much handicapping us for doing anything. As a people we don't agree on where we should go and so we trade leadership all the time getting us nowhere. I guess that's not possible to change at this point.
Why is it I cannot do that?
Because I'm FORCED to use the U.S. Postal service.
Rain, like you I live in a small community and I'm on a first-name basis with my Postmaster. She goes to my Church. If I mail a letter, it gets where it is addressed in a reasonable amount of time. But when I go into the Post Office in "BigTown" I have to deal with surliness and anger.
If the U.S. Postal service didn't have a monopoly on 1st Class mail, they'd be bankrupt in no time at all.
And lying us into war?
Horse plop.
You are in-credible.
As for the truth of the war, Bush/Cheney claimed they had weapons of mass destruction. inspectors said they did not. We claimed they hid them here or there but every location turned out to be bad info (due to torture probably?) and we claimed they had the potential to do a nuclear bomb. They did not and they were not buying yellow cake but we used the least credible sources to say they were. AND if we had wanted to off Hussein, we could have but we wanted to invade. That's the lies.
As for postal service, Farm Boss's business has found the postal service gets there just as fast and at 1/3 the cost. So it might be where you live. He's operating out of Corvallis, Oregon and sending around the nation.