Health Care

[pattygreen 5]

Merry Christmas to you Bjean.

BTW, I'm not grumpy. I'm a pretty happy girl today.

Seriously, Merry Christmas and the best to you and your family. Patty

[Jackiedi 0]

100% against the health care reform.

[minimeme 1]

I have also known guys at work whos insurance was dropped because they ran out of paid leave options. Once you are no longer drawing a pay check, you no longer have insurance. The time it takes for someone to go from one form of insurance to a different in times like these can be fatal.

The whole idea that the only people who are uninsured are those who are too lazy to work come from elitist. I come from poor people, I know dozens who have been horribly affected by insurance, lack of or switching.

Edited December 25, 2009 by minimeme

[pattygreen 5]

Why is nationalized HC so scary? Despite the rhetoric from the left, it is not because conservatives are mean-hearted evil trolls who live under bridges and use their clubs to squash the hopes and dreams of the poor and disabled. No, it was scary then for the same reason it is scary now. Not because it is "HC", but because it is "nationalized". Government spending on social problems does not make them go away; it just institutionalizes them. In fact, it ensures that the problems become a magnet for federal dollars, and thus there is an incentive for the problems to grow rather than shrink. As president Reagan said when he was inaugerated in 1981, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." The evidence is clear that Reagan was right! (Frank Miele)

[pattygreen 5]

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new poll shows 72 percent of Americans oppose paying for abortions with their tax dollars under the government-run health care bill in Congress.

[pattygreen 5]

The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly tracking update shows that 41% of voters nationwide favor the bill and 55% are opposed.

I suppose that congress could give 2 craps about what the people want. They feel they know what's best for us because they live in their own little world.

The more the people hear about it, the less and less they like it.

[BJean 16]

Reagan was an idiot who could deliver a speech. Actually he was smart in that he figured out before his brain went awry, how to take advantage of his star power. But being able to do that didn't qualify him to be governor, much less president. By the time he was out of office, most people knew the truth about Reagan. Now the right is trying to re-write history about Reagan. It somehow gives them comfort. Reagan was a tool of the rich and powerful in America.

[BJean 16]

Government isn't the problem. The greedy and powerful jerks who take advantage of others is the problem.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Government isn't the problem. The greedy and powerful jerks who take advantage of others is the problem.

Absolutely. It is not the government that is the problem it is GREEDY CORPORATE AMERICA and their lobbyists. It was their greed and disregard for people's money that caused the current economic problems. Remember Enron?

The government needs to regulate, baby, regulate.

And did you ever notice that the republican/conservative politicians (like Reagan) who are anti-government and portray the government as the problem then say: But elect me and give me a job in this same government. If they think it's such a problem, then why become part of it? Oh, yeah, I know they think they can be THE solution.

Reagan's solution was to convince corporate america that they could make more profits by reducing their workforce and getting more work out of fewer people. And middle america lost jobs and wages and hasn't been able to catch up yet.

[pattygreen 5]

Absolutely. It is not the government that is the problem it is GREEDY CORPORATE AMERICA and their lobbyists. It was their greed and disregard for people's money that caused the current economic problems. Remember Enron?

It is the politician who ultimately decides whether he will take the bribes or not. It is the politician who casts the vote. Are you living in another world? Big businesses have the money to sway leadership, but it is the leadership that has the final decision to accept or reject their propositions.

The government needs to regulate, baby, regulate.

And did you ever notice that the republican/conservative politicians (like Reagan) who are anti-government and portray the government as the problem then say: But elect me and give me a job in this same government. If they think it's such a problem, then why become part of it? Oh, yeah, I know they think they can be THE solution.

Reagan's solution was to convince corporate america that they could make more profits by reducing their workforce and getting more work out of fewer people. And middle america lost jobs and wages and hasn't been able to catch up yet.

Reagan's last three annual budgets had lower deficits than some of the monthly deficits in fiscal 2009.

[btrieger 21]

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new poll shows 72 percent of Americans oppose paying for abortions with their tax dollars under the government-run health care bill in Congress.

lifenews.com is an anti-choice, xtian rag. You can't quote their numbers and expect them to be true.

I personally think abortion is the only healthcare that my tax dollar should be spent on.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

There were no votes by congressmen or senators that caused the economic collapse resulting from the greed of corporate america. It was the decisions made in the boardrooms of big corporations to take chances with our money out of pure greed. Greed and arrogance.

What world are you living in to think it is otherwise???

Underregulation is a problem, though. More regulations, tighter control is necessary.

[BJean 16]

Cleo's: "Reagan's solution was to convince corporate america that they could make more profits by reducing their workforce and getting more work out of fewer people. And middle america lost jobs and wages and hasn't been able to catch up yet. "

And Americans won't get back to work unless there are incentives put in place with corporate America and a new direction for the country that includes creation of jobs. Corporate America has been incentivized, as Cleo'smom said, to eliminate jobs. Corporations have made the American worker irrelvant, and they've created a small upper echelon that has become wealthy beyond belief. That's what the Republicans have given us. And that's what patty's political/economic philosophy promises. It has been proven, there's no mystery involved.

It has become popular for the right wing to pretend that they are arguing the merits of no government involvement in anything. Sorry, we can't buy it. They have the same history that we have. They just stand to profit from their stance so they make like we are the ones who don't get it. We do get it and we do need to call them out on it.

btrieger, it's a complicated issue. And it would be an unpopular thing for us to discuss here. But we should not turn our backs on women in trouble... complications with a pregnancy, deformed fetuses, inability to carry a baby to term without seroiusly threatening her own life and the list goes on and on. The extremists deny that women have these probems and they turn their back on them because they have their own personal agenda. So it is easy for them to say they want to deny any type of funding for women experiencing a troubled pregnancy.

It goes right along with them denying that there is a need for health care reform at all. Heartless buzzards.

[pattygreen 5]

When legerdemain is used to pass an unpopular bill

By: Michael Barone

Senior Political Analyst

December 23, 2009

(AP File Photo)It's time to blow the whistle on two erroneous statements that opponents and proponents of the health care legislation being jammed through Congress have been making. Republicans have been saying that never before has Congress passed such an unpopular bill with such important ramifications by such a narrow majority. Barack Obama has been saying that passage of the bill will mean that the health care issue will be settled once and for all.

The Republicans and Obama are both wrong. But perhaps they can be forgiven because the precedent for Congress passing an unpopular bill is an old one, and the issue it addressed has long been settled, though not by the legislation in question.

That legislation was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Its lead sponsor was Stephen A. Douglas, at 41 in his eighth year as senator from Illinois, the most dynamic leader of a Democratic Party that had won the previous presidential election by 254 electoral votes to 42.

Douglas' legislative prowess far exceeded that of current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. To hold together his 60 Senate Democrats, Reid simply dispensed favors -- eternal Medicaid financing for Ben Nelson's Nebraska, a hospital grant for Chris Dodd's Connecticut, more rural health money for Byron Dorgan's North Dakota and Montana's Max Baucus.

Douglas did something far more difficult. He got the Senate to pass a bill some of whose provisions were supported by half of the Senate plus Douglas and some of which were supported by the other half plus Douglas. After passage, Douglas spent a day getting drunk -- a consolation unavailable to the teetotaling Reid.

The issue that Douglas said the Kansas-Nebraska Act would settle forever was slavery in the territories. His bill repealed the 34-year-old Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery in territories north of Arkansas and substituted popular sovereignty -- territory residents could vote slavery up or down.

We cannot say with assurance that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was unpopular; Dr. Gallup didn't start polling until 81 years later. But the results of the next election were pretty convincing. The Republican Party was suddenly created to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the 1854-55 elections transformed the Democrats' 159-71 majority to a 108-83 Republican margin. Democrats didn't win a majority of House seats for the next 20 years.

On the health care bill, there can be little doubt about public opinion. Quinnipiac, polling just after the Senate voted cloture, found Americans opposed by a 53 percent to 36 percent margin. Polls suggest that Democrats may suffer as much carnage in the 2010 elections as they did in 1854.

Nor did the Kansas-Nebraska Act settle the issue it addressed. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers fought it out in "bleeding Kansas," and Douglas felt obliged to break with the Democratic administration and disown election stealing by the pro-slavery side. The issue roused a former congressman named Abraham Lincoln to re-enter politics, and he beat Douglas in the popular vote (but not in the legislature) in 1858 and then was elected president in 1860.

A health care bill like the Senate's is unlikely to settle all health care issues either, though the ensuing political struggles will stop somewhere short of civil war. "We aren't done talking about health care," writes Atlantic blogger (and Obama voter) Megan McArdle. "We haven't even really started. Our budget problems are as big as ever, and we just used up both political capital, and some of our stock of tax increases and spending cuts, to pay for something else."

The Senate bill contains provisions that are likely to be revisited. Its language channeling federal and consumer dollars to abortion coverage is opposed, according to Quinnipiac, by a 72 percent to 23 percent margin. Its provision establishing an Independent Medicare Advisory Board and stating that it cannot be abolished except by a two-thirds vote of the Senate is of dubious constitutionality, and even if upheld in a court of law may not pass muster in the court of public opinion. Since when has Congress passed laws that cannot be repealed?

Kansas-Nebraska was an attempt to settle a fundamental issue by legislative legerdemain and political trickery. The Democrats' health care bills are an attempt to settle a fundamental issue by partisan maneuver and cash-for-cloture. As Stephen Douglas learned, such tactics can work for a while, but the country -- and the Democratic Party -- can end up paying a heavy price.

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst,

Edited December 28, 2009 by pattygreen

[pattygreen 5]

Obamacare Penalizes Marriage

By Mike McManus

December 23, 2009

While abortion and public plan aspects of health reform have been debated, a far more vexing issue for defenders of the traditional family should be the very substantial marriage penalties buried in the 2,457 page bill moving through Congress.

Indeed, the low and middle income subsidies in the "health insurance exchanges" are stacked against marriage - with penalties of up to 100 percent if a cohabiting couple decides to marry.

Individuals, who do not now have insurance, who have incomes up to $43,500, will be able to buy it at a very low cost due to federal subsidies.

For example, an individual earning $25,000 would pay only $1,538 in insurance premiums. But what if that person is cohabiting with a partner with the same income, and they decide to marry? Their premium is not $3,072, double the cost of one person, but $5,160.

That's a marriage penalty of $2,084.

A cohabiting man earning $32,000 pays a premium of $2,842, as does the woman. But if they marry, they will pay a whopping $9,316 in additional premiums. Why? A couple earning $64,000 gets no subsidy. "This will devastate marriage for the middle class. If this law is passed, it will do to marriage of the middle class what welfare did to the poor," says Allen Quist, a Republican candidate for Congress in Minnesota, who broke the story. "It will create huge incentives not to marry. There will not be much left of marriage, if this bill passes."

That is an overstatement. Most people who now have private health insurance, and are married, will not see such a spike for health insurance.

However, what uninsured cohabiting couple facing a $2,100 to $9,300 jump in health costs will marry? Will such perverse incentives result in more or fewer marriages, or more or fewer stable families in which to raise children?

That is a prism through which our elected representatives must view the most significant domestic legislation under consideration in more than a generation.

Senate Democrats claim to have developed a compromise on the abortion issue. Not according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, NY and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City wrote to senators that "federal funds will help subsidize...and promote health plans that cover elective abortions."

"All purchasers of such plans will be required to pay for other people's abortions in a very direct and explicit way, through a separate premium payment designed to pay for abortion. There is no provision for individuals to opt out of this abortion payment," they wrote.

Fortunately, an amendment to the House bill did prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions. But it is the Senate bill that is more likely to be accepted by a House-Senate conference committee,

A Quinnipiac University poll reports 72% of the public opposes public funding of abortions, which has been prohibited for three decades.

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VirtueOnline - News - Culture Wars - Obamacare Penalizes Marriage

You can see the whole article here. I think it is in Obama's sick plans for this nation to demean everything that is right and good, and to promote immorality and wickedness. He doesn't care about marriage because he promotes things in the HC bill that will deter people from getting married that are living together and want marriage. He makes it more financially tempting to stay living together instead of getting married. he is anti- marriage!