The US Government Shut-Down - Whom to Blame

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I draw the line at shutting down government, it is not good when anybody does it. it should be off-limits and considered an act akin to sedition.

You post a link to a site about the Constitution and claim that is a cite to support what you want?

Precisely what language on that site or in the Constitution says that the House of Representatives must be bound by the wishes of the President and the Senate?

It may come as a surprise, but the Supreme Court has, in the past, reversed itself when presented with similar cases to that which they had already decided. For example, consider Gideon v. Wainwright in which the Supreme Court ruled that legal counsel must be provided to criminal defendants who cannot afford their own lawyers. But that wasn't the first time a case made it to the Supreme Court over that issue. In Bretts v. Brady, the Supreme Court ruled just the opposite -- that if a criminal defendant cannot afford his own lawyer, then the court is under no obligation to appoint one for him.

anybody who would rather have the expense of 300 million clams a day for this shutdown rather than the expense of obamacare, is a hypocrite who strains at gnats [obamacare] but swallows whole camels [300 million clams a day for this stupid shut down of our government]. once again, it's a war between guns versus butter, the 1% versus the 99%. why are so many of the 99% lackeys for the 1%? is it because they naively believe they too might join their ranks some day soon?

the SCOTUS has the right to reverse itself; Congress does not have the right to reverse a SCOTUS decision that it does not like, nor to determine that a law is "unconstitutional" when it has been determined to be so by the Supremes.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.
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In the Lancet, Jan. 31, 2009, Dr. Emanuel and co-authors presented a "complete lives system" for the allocation of very scarce resources, such as kidneys, vaccines, dialysis machines, intensive care beds, and others. "One maximizing strategy involves saving the most individual lives, and it has motivated policies on allocation of influenza vaccines and responses to bioterrorism. . . . Other things being equal, we should always save five lives rather than one.

"However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear." In fact, Dr. Emanuel makes a clear choice: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated (see Dr. Emanuel's chart nearby).

Dr. Emanuel concedes that his plan appears to discriminate against older people, but he explains: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination. . . . Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."

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To reduce health-insurance costs, Dr. Emanuel argues that insurance companies should pay for new treatments only when the evidence demonstrates that the drug will work for most patients. He says the "major contributor" to rapid increases in health spending is "the constant introduction of new medical technologies, including new drugs, devices, and procedures. . . . With very few exceptions, both public and private insurers in the United States cover and pay for any beneficial new technology without considering its cost. . . ." He writes that one drug "used to treat metastatic colon cancer, extends medial survival for an additional two to five months, at a cost of approximately $50,000 for an average course of therapy." (JAMA, June 13, 2007).

Medians, of course, obscure the individual cases where the drug significantly extended or saved a life. Dr. Emanuel says the United States should erect a decision-making body similar to the United Kingdom's rationing body—the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)—to slow the adoption of new medications and set limits on how much will be paid to lengthen a life.

health care rationed by lottery would be no more unfair than health care rationed by wealth. both are situations where the people involved have no control.

We must live in different countries. I know people who have very little money but who still have had expensive health care procedures. For example, one woman I know who has no insurance and earns a little over minimum wage in a family that is anything but well off recently underwent some rather expensive exploratory surgery for cancer. Her husband is looking at a kidney transplant because of diabetes. I know another woman with little or no money and no job managed to receive dialysis treatments for several years. Those are just a couple of examples and neither are anywhere close to retirement age. Am I to understand that they are really quite wealthy because if they were in the financial shape I know them to be in, they would not have had the option of any health care at all?

According to a report in the Newburyport Daily News, tourists at Yellowstone National Park were actually detained under armed guard and locked in their hotels when the government shutdown started on October 1st. The paper explained that foreign tourists with poor English skills actually thought they were under arrest because of their harsh treatment.

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At Mount Vernon, the privately-owned and managed historic home of George and Martha Washington, NPS authorities erected barricades to keep people from parking at the site. The site is privately owned and funded, but the NPS technically co-owns part of the parking lot and a bus turnaround. Of course, since it is a parking lot, it requires no maintenance. Nonetheless, the NPS is spending more money and resources keeping people out of such places than it would spend by simply allowing the public to use them.

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It what looks like a spiteful move, the NPS even removed handles from water spigots along the Chesapeake and Ohio canal where bikers and joggers exercise as well as along the Great Allegheny Passage, just to ensure people don't get any water from them.

same country but different planets. who you are describing are legitimate Medicaid patients, but you ignore the vast working class who make "too much" to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to pay for any kind of health insurance or medical treatment. obviously you have not been in that situation or else you might feel less disdain for such unfortunates at not having "jerked themselves up by their own bootstraps." you have never had to go to the ER only to be given the wallet biopsy with negative findings, and thus made to wait for over 24 hours and then given only rudimentary care and given a humongous bill that you could never repay.

The second might have been on Medicaid, but the first certainly isn't. What she did was contact a number of different doctors and found one who was willing to work with her and accept a much lower fee and for the hospital where the surgery was done to reduce their charges as well. And then they set up a payment plan where she will be paying for it monthly until it is all paid off.

I draw the line at shutting down government, it is not good when anybody does it. it should be off-limits and considered an act akin to sedition.

Exactly right. Governments should serve the people, not the other way around. Shutdowns like this show tha some government officials aren't there to serve the people but heir own interests.

Like the administration doing their best to make the shutdown as miserable as possible for the citizens?