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US House Democrats Unveil a Health Care Plan
gollum123 sends in this piece from a political blog in the NY Times. Here is the text of the bill in question (PDF). "House Democrats on Friday answered President Obama's call for a sweeping overhaul of the health care system by putting forward [an] 852-page draft bill that would require all Americans to obtain health insurance, force employers to provide benefits or help pay for them, and create a new public insurance program to compete with private insurers — a move that Republicans will bitterly oppose. ... But the chairmen said they still did not know how much the plan would cost, even as they pledged to pay for it by cutting Medicare spending and imposing new, unspecified taxes. The three chairmen described their bill as a starting point in a weeks-long legislative endeavor that they said would dominate Congress for the summer and ultimately involve the full panorama of stakeholders in the health care industry, which accounts for about one-sixth of the nation's economy. ... House Republicans, who have had no involvement in the development of the health legislation so far, quickly denounced the Democrats' proposal as a thinly disguised plan for an eventual government takeover of the health care system. ... The House Democrats' plan is one of three distinct efforts underway on Capitol Hill to draft the health overhaul legislation. In the Senate, both the Finance Committee and the health committee have separate bills in the works, and in recent days those efforts seem to have stumbled."
I can't believe this was released in the same week where the government sponsored VA hospitals were sticking dirty anal scopes up veteran's asses and giving them hepatitis and AIDS.
I guess cleaning the ass scope isn't that fun so they decided to only do it once at the end of the day.
This is why I'll steer far clear of government run health care.
Socialism - Good on Paper, Not in Reality...
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had failed very few students but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "Ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism."
"All grades will be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade meaning, obviously, no one will receive an A." They all agreed to this. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a C. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great dismay the professor failed them all. Then he sent all of them this note: "A socialistic government will also ultimately fail - because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed."
Government run schools suck. Baltimore is not safe, because the government cannot provide basic safety. We fight unnecessary wars. We have terrible copyright laws. Government granted cable monopolies. Etc... etc... etc... Our government is going to "fix" health care? ROTFLMAO Call me when our moronic government can get the basics right.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
You are so right!
It wasn't that the guy was gay that made me suggest not paying taxes for his healthcare, it was that he was a Democrat with a disease that happens to be terminal.
But here's the flipside. What if we sponsored a plan to provide taxpayer funded abortion clinics but only opened them in areas that were heavily Democratic. The idea would be that you would try and get Democrats to abort themselves out of existence, but you could always sell it as providing a service for the needy or something like that. How could any Democrat argue that this would be a sort of a genocide, when they say that abortion is not killing at all?
This is my sig.
I know this will be an INCREDIBLY unpopular thing to say, but the parent has a valid point. Blacks in America are incredibly unhealthy. The reasons for this can be argued, but the fact remains. I don't doubt that they drag down our nation's life expectancy.
There will be waste and corruption no matter what, but leaving private companies involved will double waste, corruption and cost at the bare minimum.
Seriously? Compared to the US government? Surely you jest.
I love how the same people that laugh at government waste ($500 hammers, anyone?) can seriously think government-run healthcare would be anything but a complete disaster with respect to finances and efficiency.
How is this geek centric news?
It's not. It's a liberal-Democrat talking-points story backing up a liberal-Democrat political play being made to further-burden the US economy as part of a planned and concerted effort to collapse the US economy so that the resulting chaos and power-vacuum allows the socialist frameworks being put in place (Acorn, Americorp, etc) to essentially rebuild the US as a socialist country after the collapse.
Being that Slashdot leans heavily-left due to the low average age of posters and submitters, combined with being largely American with little experience living through actual histories of socialist-style societies/governments and their failures & collapses, it's perfectly understandable that a topic that is purely political and on the socialist agenda with extremely-little actual "geek/nerd" content would make the editorial cut to be a posted report.
Reminds me of this quote: "If a man is not a socialist in his youth, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 30 he has no head" -- Georges Clemenceau, Former French Prime Minister and one-time radical.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Only about 90% of Canadians express satisfaction with their system!
That is a good example of sample bias; The ones who it killed were not included in the survey.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Republican Leaders, you are not welcome and you are a joke in every sense of the word. Want proof? Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Syk09MSsc
I'm tired of the games, the lies, the deceptions. People's lives are on the line and the republicans and some democrats have the fucking nerve to play politics as usual and treat us as if we're their little children they distract with lies and misdirection.
FUCK OFF REPUBLICAN LEADERS... You're a joke. These are serious times and we need SERIOUS PEOPLE WITH SERIOUS SOLUTIONS.
Enough really is enough.
Personally, I would rather have Single Payer Universal Healthcare but the democrats lack the balls to stand up for whats right. Call em up and call them out.
Its time to chip away the fat from washington one liar at a fucking time.
Didn't say the U.S. did not benefit from the things you mentioned, but how much of socialized medicine worldwide is possible because of FOR PROFIT companies that make money in the U.S.?
If everybody has socialized medicine, other than for altruistic reasons what will be the motivation for companies to do research? Will the government give these companies blank checks to do research?