should Obama's plan go through in the U.S...................

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That's another thing I hate about you Atlas Shrugged zombies. If it's not sitting in an empty apartment doing nothing, it's extraneous activity that can be cut from your personal budget.

"They are quite simply the most intolerable herd of steaming social animals I've ever had the misfortune of turning my nose up to. I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog." *


*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N1sjdLQIj8

So you can't accept the fact you lost the debate, so instead you choose to try to smear me... Seriously, grow up.

i dont understand US healthcare reform, but im struck by how different peoples attitudes are vs the UK.

Since WW2 weve had a nationalised health service which is paid from general taxation & free to everyone on the point of delivery. Although TPTB wish to dismantle it (and do so by stealth) but they tread very carefully because to even hint at that openly, in plain language would be instant career suicide for any politian, of any persusion. Its almost seen as sacred, an essential part of the national identity. This regard seems to stretches across a lot of the social and economic divide.

From what i gather whats on the table in the USA doesnt come anywhere close, but people seem to have anxieties about communism! From a UK perspective this all seems rather surreal.

I dont have anything of substance to add (i dont understand it) but i just find the contrast interesting & thought id share

Last edited by psych on 21 Apr 2011, 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

You smear yourself. Pointing it out is just being polite.

You know how much more taxis would cost? And in most situations, a ride with a co-worker means having a co-worker in the same area and also assumes that you have a job at the time.

Seriously, kid, you need to get out and live life before you act like you know everything about it.

You choose to buy a car, that is an act of engaging in commerce... You do not engage in commerce simply because you have a heartbeat, and the way Obamacare is set up it punishes people for choosing not to engage in commerce. That is why Obamacare is unconstitutional and why Obama is hoping to stall the case for a Judge to die or retire so he can put another one of his cronies on the Supreme Court whose loyalty is to the far-left and not the Constitution of the United States.

Is it a fundamental disconnect for liberals or just the fact I have taken a Constitutional Law class and understand the implications of what you are arguing for, when you don't. This is a fairly straight-forward abuse of power.

For all of the conservative rhetoric about slashing medicare and medicaid, that is wildly unpopular and they often use stealth rhetoric. Once PPACA has been running for a few years, people will become very attached to it and overturning it will be as impossible as ending SS and medicare/aid. That's why they are freaking out now. It's the only window they will have.

What's unfortunate is that the low brow wing of the republican party are content to simply spread crazy lies rather than discuss something on the merits. But that's where we are.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/18/1 ... z1JyfkWuz9

Obamacare should be thrown out because of the individual mandate. It is unconstitutional, which means it should be thrown out. I don't particularly care how well intentioned (and this law was not well intentioned) a law is, it flies in the face of Constitution of the United States which is the Supreme Law of the land (at least in US jurisdiction).

There are plenty of other reasons why Obamacare should be tossed (Bernie Madoff style accounting for starters), but the main one is simply because Obamacare crosses the line and goes into the realm of unconstitutionality.

I don't agree with much of what you wrote, but at least you wrote a post of substance. I can appreciate that.

The problem with health care and health insurance is that no one prioritizes spending for it, until they need it so badly it moves up the chart to the tippy top. But by then its too late, you need hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending, not just thousands, and if no one had been investing in the system for you up until then, that care would not be available to you. By saying you can't afford the health insurance, you are saying you can't afford to set anything aside for your own future catatsrophic care, but are you willing to forgo that care if you ever need it?

I have a high deductible plan, btw. And an HSA. It's still not cheap, but I feel that facing the bills directly helps me make wiser choices in my care.

Most of us live with a false sense of what we can and cannot afford. Everything is choices, and most of us need to admit that we don't choose to feel the pain of setting money aside for our potential health needs because we know we'll get the care anyway, and we assume we can figure out how to pay for it later. It really is gambling, and gamblig with the money of other people.

Which, Inuyasha, is why some form of mandate is considered necessary. Experts have long considered the so-called freeloaders (not illegal immigrants, but normal citizens who choose the gamble) to be the biggest drain on the system, and a large part of why costs are so high. The current plan, the mandate compromise piece, was actually developed by a CONSERVATIVE think tank. Funny how some people run from their own ideas the second the opposing party is willing to say, "hey, I think that might work!" Geez. I totally understand why people don't like it, but what do you propose instead?

I hate the fact that health care costs so dang much, and I see waste in so many places. A good piece of it is our own doing, as a society, demanding theoretical access to the best and demanding it NOW. That isn't efficient; few businesses run that way, and has been proven to not actually improve medical outcomes. But it does raise costs. We have the most expensive health care system in the world but rank no where near the top in actual health, and we're also the only country in the world where people go bankrupt over medical bills. Can anyone really believe that some drastic fix is not in order?

As long as we don't feel, as a society, that we can ethically or economically leave people's medical needs untreated, then there is no choice but to have some level of government involvement to force the sharing of the costs.

As for being self-employed and getting health insurance ... this bill gives me a big sigh of relief. It is insanely difficult to GET health insurance when you are self-employed, lets not even talk about the cost, because without the collective bargaining power of a big group the insurance companies will find every excuse to reject you. This bill means I won't have to sweat so hard over it the next time I decide to fly solo, as I have done many times in my career. One of the craziest parts of our health care system is the fact that it is tied to employment, and how much you pay depends on the collective bargaining power of your employer. Exactly how does my need for health care, or the amount I'll cost the system, have anything to do with who I work for? Having avenues for entering the system that are independent of employment is a huge plus.

I understand the plan is expensive, and paperwork a nightmare. But staying alive against cancer, or any of a number of lessor ills IS expensive. Where do we think that money comes from?

Doesn't matter, the way it is worded currently it is unconstitutional, you can't start making exceptions or pretty soon you'll end up losing your rights. It oversteps the authority of the Government and the Supreme Court will likely throw the entire document out because there is no severability clause, and for good reason, they would be overstepping their authority to rewrite it and make in Constitutional. So the Supreme Court will likely (and you better hope they do) toss all 2000+ pages out.

If what you say is true, doesn't don't void only the applicable part? Wouldn't throwing the rest out be an overreach?

And what do you propose as an alternative?

I am a firm believer in the philosophy that until you have a better idea, you live with the ones that exist.

Nope, you can thank the Democrats and you can thank the Democrats for that fact. They took out the Severability Clause, so Obamacare has to be considered whole and entire. While technically the court could argue they can just snip that part out, realistically (and what the Court is supposed to do) is throw the entire law out because part of it is unconstitutional, further Obama's legal team has argued it causes the law to fall apart.



Start from scratch, deal with junk lawsuits for starters.



Here is a question for you then: Should the Constitution be ignored by the Government whenever they feel like it?

I don't think they should be able to, but reality is, its done all the time. Think Bush 1st term. Think the failure to throw out California's Prop 13 at least with respect to commerical properties. Both widely in legal circles to have been considered political punts in opposition of the predominant constitutional interpretation.

I'm not a constitutional expert, but legal experts mostly seem to feel the mandate IS constitutional. On constitutional issues I tend to put my finger in the wind and see which way the expert legal opinion is blowing. Just because you don't agree, doesn't mean its fact. Apparently, the concept of what is and is not constitutional is often a matter of opinion.

Guess not much in life is black and white, is it? Regardless of how strongly you want to believe it is.

It isn't a matter of ignoring the constitution.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 21 Apr 2011, 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You can wish for ponies and rainbows all you like but it's not up to you. The SC will decide it and I'm sure there have been many decisions that don't conform to your views. This may well be another.

Spoken like someone who has never had to make a choice between buying health insurance and buying food.


Speak for yourself, please. Most aspies have a very real sense of what we can and cannot afford.


Your problems with health insurance are only because you live in California, where the voters think it's possible to regulate prices of things to below their costs and not cause shortages. Happened with auto insurance, happened with electricity, now it's happening with health insurance. The self employed just happen to be bearing the brunt of the inevitable shortage there.

Here in Massachusetts, health insurance has always been trivially easy for the self employed to get, because the prices reflect the costs of each plan - pick the one you're willing to pay for. And the prices tend to be reasonable because the bargaining power issue is solved by small business associations that add up to being big customers. It's a great approach; pity Obamacare bans it.


Tying health insurance to the employer certainly is stupid - but the main reason it's stupid is because it means the system caters to the employers, rather than to the insured, because it's the employers that pay and do the selection. The result? Our health care system waits until people get sick to treat them, rather than keeping them healthy in the first place, because they might not get sick until they're working for some other employer, while the current employer will have to pay for the costs of keeping them healthy.

Ryan's budget plan at least fixes that for Medicare, by giving the choice to the individual as to what plan to use on retirement. Unfortunately Obamacare enshrines employer tied health insurance for the vast majority of people in the U.S., thus perpetuating the worst aspects of today's system.


There's a simple and inexpensive way to prevent 77% of all cancers - and that's with only an 85% compliance rate with the regimen:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/85/6/1586.full

Of course, it's only been tested in postmenopausal women - and even there it was only found by chance - because the present health care system doesn't believe in prevention. In the long run, Ryan's plan should fix that for Medicare, but we really need something like that for everyone, instead of Obama's plan that just makes things worse.

And yet, two out of two Federal courts so far have ruled it unconstitutional so far. Maybe the approach of trusting others' opinions isn't such a great approach.