Obamacare

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I don't quite understand why people wouldn't want universal health care. It works quite well in Canada. Health care is available to everyone, just like public education. It seems like a basic need that should be met by organized society.
You might end up with a lot of employers only hiring part time employees - this is the trend here. They don't want to pay benefits, but there is health coverage to fall back on.
I've noticed a lot of Republicans making a fuss over the problems with the website, but this seems more like a logistics concern. Why are they being so stubborn about not supporting it?

guns versus butter. they would rather their tax dollars support our larcenous military/industrial complex rather than their own needy fellow citizens. combine that with rampant invididualism and the pernicious horatio alger meme [or as john Steinbeck put it, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”]. add in some racism/ableism/classism and mix well, and you will get something akin to the present-day GOPTP.

Because, whether they like to admit it or not, right wing Republicans don't really believe in equality. Rather, they want someone to have less, which then fuels their own social status. If all Americans had healthcare, then we'd all be that much closer to being equals, disallowing the Republican right the opportunity to feel superior to the rest of us.

Well.. my friend..modern science clearly understands that IT IS empathy that is responsible for the continued existence of all social animal species..

Social animal species take care of each other and co-exist in a harmonious social atmosphere of cooperative sharing...

Even wolves in the wild do this...

Human Sociopaths are an exception...

At times..

And yes unfortunately some people on the autism spectrum are too...

NOw..to be clear I do not know how you express empathy in real life...

But ...

IN writing a demonstration of It for your fellow social animals...

Is in clear deficit...

That is all..

And that is all a real problem here in the US...

If this social animal species is going to continue..in the state of culture as IT exists...

So thank 'GOD' for Obama..and Pelosi..and the true patriots of this country...

As well as the leaders of cooperative support for this thing called...

The human race.....

They are the true heroes in this world...and particularly in this country....

We've already had a negative income tax in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit since the late 70's/early 80's.... That's where most of Romney's 47% comes from--EITC recipients.

I'm all for 'work-fare' (which is what the EITC was supposed to promote) as I believe everyone needs an occupation and the private sector is much better at providing some kind of (at least marginally) meaningful work...
The problem is, over the last 30+ years, the EITC has morphed into a business subsidy and an incentive to create crappy, low wage, no benefit jobs.

I live in an area with just about the lowest rate of unemployment in the country and just about the highest rate of poverty in the country.

My neighbors are the working poor, and they could not make ends meet without the EITC, SNAP, Medicaid, and anything else they can scrounge up.

An expanded negative income tax might be the way to go, BUT it must be accompanied by some kind of comprehensive healthcare program, increased taxes on the upper end, and disincentives/penalties for 'Low Road' employers. That last bit is essential because if you create low wage, no benefit jobs, your employees are going to be a bigger burden on the system. No matter what happens, business will have to pay higher wages or higher taxes if this scheme is going to work.

As the right often reminds us, there is no free lunch, and in the end, we'll still be squabbling over who gets stuck picking up the check.

If you like your doctor, if you like your insurance plan, you can keep them. No matter what! Well, except for this lady. It must be the Tea Party's fault.

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424 ... 6?mobile=y

if you're a 60 year old lady and paying only $54 a month on a so-called "health insurance plan," chances are it was a sham plan designed only to bleed one's bank account slowly but surely, without providing any real benefit or paying for any actual medical care. ACA bans such plans no matter how much of a bargain their users think they are. now at least the plan I got off the exchange has prescription drug benefits and doctor's office visits, my old catastrophic plan paid only for catastrophes, leaving me totally up the creek when I got sick but short of a catastrophe, I basically had to stay home and ail for a while and hope I could heal on my own.

Your caring is very selective. You care about people who are struggling, but you don't care about people who have 40-50% of their work taken away from them. It's likely I care just as much as you do about people who are in need. It's also very likely that I have done a hell of a lot more than you have to help them.


No, it's not.

Human compassion is what helps people. There is no empirical data to suggest that liberals/socialists are any more compassionate than conservatives.

No. My plan doesn't change at all.


Of course there are going to be winners. It's wealth redistribution. If I'm forced to buy you healthcare, you're obviously benefitting.

Some employees don't give a damn about their employers any further than getting paid. The employer is just a cog in their money-making effort and nothing more.

Why should employment be any different than other exchange. When you go buy bread at the grocery store, you don't (and shouldn't) be concerned about the people that made the bread. You are providing money in exchange for bread. That's the end of it. The bread makers couldn't care less about your concern. Your money is all the concern they want.

An employee is just performing labor in exchange for money (and fringe benefits). They employer doesn't owe the employee anything outside of fulfilling his end of the exchange. If the employee is unhappy with the exchange, he should go to a different employer (or work for himself).

When some people work, they get paid for all of their labor. When I work, I get paid for about a half of my labor and the other half goes to those people. It seems I'm being treated pretty unfairly by the law when it comes to labor. Where is your empathy for my situation?

Your selective empathy is offensive, but it's nothing compared with your accusation that I'm a sociopath. Disagreeing with you or the other entitlement people here doesn't make me broken or disabled. It just means that I don't agree with you.

Yes, they're called "tax evaders working under the table."

All of us pay taxes. Grow up.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i81ESp3lBb4[/youtube]

The difference is, those people who are taxed 40-50% of their income can afford it. The rich never went broke from taxation (taxation on the rich was even higher under Eisenhower, a Republican). Who's supposed to carry the tax burden, those who can't bear the burden?
And as a matter of fact, I think one's compassion is gauged as wanting when one believes the needy shouldn't receive help, but should either pull themselves up by their bootstraps or die. And that describes the position of conservatives, not liberals.

Nobody is paying 40-50% tax on income.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax ... _tax_rates

If you run a small business and have the profits taxed as personal income, you have no business running a business!

It's pretty selfish to think that you should have a claim on someone else's production. Just because they can afford it doesn't mean we should take it away.


I don't think it's intellectually honest to claim that beliefs are a better measure of compassion than charitable contributions, and there is no evidence to support that liberals are more charitable than conservatives.