I wouldn't say I'm an asshole for wanting free healthcare for those who are less fortunate than me. Unless you're saying Jesus was an asshole, which he was. :: head explodes ::
Romney 2008: Ted Kennedy was the first person I consulted when planning RomneyCare And with that, Romney 2012 is officially dead in the water.
Study: Insurance companies hold billions in fast food stock The free market (now mandatorily subsidized with your tax dollars) at work.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/...ders-regulation-of-health-insurance-premiums/ Why do the Democrats hate freedom?
"High-income families making at least $96,000 will pay two-thirds of those fines, while families making between $24,000 and $96,000 will contribute nearly one-third of the funds collected." Wait what? So the CBO is saying what, that people who CAN afford health care are going to be paying fines for not having it? Wouldn't this just force them to get health care and therefore avoid the fines and get a product in return? (since they can fucking afford it anyway...) I'm sorry but this makes absolutely no sense at all. I would love to see how they did their analysis on this. From this article it sounds like they simply took the number of uninsured americans, split them according to income levels, and then determined who would be paying fines. If this is the case then all I have to say is WTF CBO......
I think you missed my point. The CBO is making the claim that 4 million people of the currently uninsured 21 million will be paying fines for not having an insurance plan. Considering the fact that there is no feasible way for anyone to know who is going to buy into a plan and who isn't, the only conclusion I can come to is that they are simply breaking down the 21 million uninsured americans into financial categories and, based on the laws that will be put into place in 2016, determining which of these people would fall under the "pay a fine" category. While it may be true that these people would have to pay if the laws were in place right now and they didn't change their behaviors, to say that this will be the case in 2016 is retarded. Why would people who make enough money to afford health insurance not buy it and pay a fine instead? They will most likely buy into a plan to avoid being penalized, therefore accomplishing one of the very goals the health care overhaul was set out to do...
Why should anyone have to pay for healthcare in the first place? Obozo's campaign promise was specific: NO mandates. That's why I say WTF Obama.
Why do you have to own car insurance to drive? Not buying health care puts a huge burden on taxpayers when you have a heart attack from shoving big mac's down your throat. This is besides the point though, you can argue the fairness of the reform itself back and forth until your face turns blue. The report you posted was moronic either way, all it does is state the obvious in a very un-obvious fashion.
I see. My problem all along has been Oshitba approaching healthcare reform as a cost-saving measure. He should have approached it as the right thing to do, no matter the cost. Like Bush approached the wars.
The buck stops with him. He is the one who pushed for the bill. And he's the one who ultimately signed it. It's ultimately a bill that would have been promoted by Republicans 3 years ago.
I think that he was forced to push it as a cost saving measure because of the current financial situation. It was not originally pushed as a long term financial measure, but the focus got placed on this aspect because of the pressure of "irresponsible spending".
If true, that sucks. He shouldn't have pushed it at all then. Now the Dems are going to lose numbers. We had best chance of pushing through socialized healthcare and Obozo blew it, plain and simple.
To be fair, that could very well be CNN's fault rather than the fault of the people who wrote the report. Reporting on anything that involves statistics is awful in all mainstream media outlets. e.g. the report could have said, '4 million people would be subject to a fine, and their make-up, according to records of those who currently do not have health insurance would be...etc.'
You having a heart attack does not negatively impact or burden the taxpayers if hospitals were A) not reimbursed by the government and B) are allowed to accept/deny patients for any reason/no reason at all. That's the real alternative, not the false dichotomy accepted and embraced by seemingly everyone.
That certainly is AN alternative, not necessarily THE alternative. No one is under the impression of a false dichotomy, the dems just decided to choose what they think would be the best plan. At some point or another you have to choose an idea and stick with it. I am sure there were plenty of alternatives like yours that were discussed, but you can't pass a law that covers every angle and possible solution...
My "law", in this case, would actually be the absence of any laws. My problem is when Democrats try to frame this as "either taxpayers pay for people's health insurance, or taxpayers pay for their non-insured medical expenses". That is a false dichotomy and one that is far too readily accepted and never questioned.
If hospitals were not reimbursed and were allowed to deny patients at will then that would certainly remove the price burden of caring for patients without insurance. I can't see letting people die outside of the hospital ER room because their health insurance didn't check out going over too well in the public eye though. Also what about the cases (pretty much most of ER cases) where there is no time to see if the person has the ability to properly pay for care? I am not saying there is no merit to your ideas, just that I don't think they are even close to the best option.
There are dozens of ways around each of those issues. The market would solve those issues, and I think it would probably involve "health insurance" not being what we think of "health insurance" as being today.
And since democracy is just another type of free market for choosing policy we should let the majority rule shouldn't we?
No. Majority rule cannot vote away people's rights. If individual rights are not protected, then we don't have a free society/free market.
You do realize that companies and businesses make decisions in terms of what the masses demand right? Majority vote in a capitalist system generally determines the market flow. I can understand your idealist viewpoint, but this is not how reality works. Majority rule is a best fit device for voicing individual rights and decisions when populations so large, therefore government decisions are just as valid as commercial decisions. To demonize one is to demonize the other.
You do realize that protecting individual rights is not up for a vote, right? That's essentially the principle that this country was founded on--that individual rights are sacrosanct. They are not up for a vote, they are not up for a government to "grant" them, they are not up to the whims of despot, they are not arbitrary. Companies obviously act in their own self-interest, which is to maximize profit, which obviously involves satisfying their customers. That is completely and entirely irrelevant to the point I was making. If you don't like how a company sets their policies, you do not have to do business with them. If you don't like the new healthcare bill... well, fuck you, you're paying for it anyway.
A little wait doesn't hurt anyone. People are triaged and the most needy receive care first. If that means you've got something not life threatening or particularly urgent and have to wait a few hours, then suck it up. Having worked in the US health system for the last 2 months, it's become clear exactly how wasteful the whole system is, and Americans expect to be seen right there and then and expect every test, no matter how unnecessary or clinically relevant it is to be done for them, because of some inflated feeling of entitlement or something. Suck it up.
Free marketfags don't really care about the hungry; capitalism works despite the poor, not in service to them
Sen. Coburn: Democrats Intentionally Set Up ObamaCare to Fail I've been hoping since the beginning that this is true.
