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Musician Lobby Terms Balanced Copyright "Disgusting"
An anonymous reader writes "While most of the attention at Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices, the most controversial activity took place outside the hall. It has now been revealed that security guards threatened students and a Member of Parliament for distributing leaflets, and the American Federation of Musicians termed the MP's leaflet, which called for balanced copyright, 'disgusting' and demanded a retraction and apology. At this point, such an admission seems unlikely."
By describing "balanced copyright" as "disgusting, the musician's lobby has admitted publicly that current copyright law is unbalanced in their favor.
The artists, the songwriters need to be the ONLY people represented there.
They are, after all, the people who create the music. RIAA and their ilk
need not be present at all. They are merely thugs who take the lion's share
of the money that should go to the artists directly.
it doesn't matter what laws they pay to get passed
copyright has been treated as damage to the network and has been appropriately routed around
thousands of
industry lawyer goons
versus
millions of
1. technically superior,
2. media hungry and
3. POOR teenagers
the game is already over
it doesn't matter in the least what the law says, in any country
copyright has been rendered functionally defunct and unenforceable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So if you support a policy in line with a large segment of the people you represent, that's "shamelessly buy"ing votes?
Well, if so, than I wholeheartedly condemn the American Federation of Musician's shameless perversion of Democracy.
When I was learning to play the saxophone and later , guitar,
I would purchase sheet music for the songs I wanted to learn.
I assumed that my purchase of the music, essentially allowed
me to play that music. Not for profit, but to learn.
School bands, the orchestral and marching bands, all did the
same thing until Xerography became commonplace. Now I suspect
they buy ONE copy and burn as many copies as they need.
That would be a copyright violation, easily.
What's really disgusting is that the RIAA/CRIA, in this case through their lapdogs in the AFM, are still firmly convinced that they speak for all musicians everywhere.
It ain't true. Really.
I skimmed through the linked stories, and none of them seem to have copies of the leaflet that they were distributing. I'm curious what they contained that the AFM thought was so 'disgusting'. Perhaps they were using the goatse guy to illustrate the position the *AA's new laws would put us in. Does anyone know where to find a copy? (Of the leaflet, not the goatse picture.)
until copyright is down to 7 years or less we should "pirate" away. peer-to-peer if that's your method but i really prefer USB keys. there is no chance of getting caught and you can transfer a lot of data to people you know and trust.
Another one bites the dust...
I found a copy of the flyer. It's on boingboing here http://boingboing.net.f190ac09353be9:viodnjwer@goatse.cx.
blah blah blah
http://www.pirateparty.ca/ , and we now have a new website
Apology? The MP should use his post to fight back and shame his accusers, or failing that at least turn the public against them. He has so much more power to influence than an ordinary citizen; it's really stupid to attack him like this.
Both copyright and law systems in all countries are completely flawed. As we continue to add more laws the system becomes increasingly complex and convoluted.
The only real solution would be to break everything down into a much simpler set of laws that do not require changing and do not require any other laws to be added onto them.
For example, in the US there are laws in effect that if completely enforced would turn well over 50% of our population into official criminals. Unofficially I'm sure 99.9% of Americans have done something 'unlawful'. As with every other country I'm sure.
Here is the only law I see us needing:
1. Do not physically harm or come in contact with any individual or their property without consent.
Punishment? It should match whatever the crime was, an eye of an eye.
Sorry all you greedy companies out there, property is physical. Due to the internet distribution of information is now free. You can't stop us from expanding our minds or from experiencing a video game or music that we can't otherwise afford.
In case you are curious, there is a growing global movement to mature beyond this ancient form of feudalism with a veneer of democracy. See: http://metagovernment.org/
The article's about *Canada*. Who the heck is reading it?
I mean seriously, when you pull stunts like this, barring even the other view from being fielded, how in the hell do you expect us to take you seriously? This kind of thing disgusts me. I'm actually for copyright and protections and the like, but every time they do this kind of thing I lose that much more of my support for their position as they are obviously not even trying to be reasonable.
As to the MP and students distributing the flier, good job. The other side has to be heard. Don't let these guys get away with this BS. And don't even think about apologizing. They are the ones that should be apologizing to you. They obviously aren't interested in real discussion.
It's not the wants and needs of teenagers that is bringing the end of copyright. It's the simple forces of reality.
You know the song "Happy Birthday". It's copyrighted. The song itself is a mere 95 bytes in size. The data overheads involved in transmitting the file probably outweigh the file itself. Yet copyright law essentially tells us that Time Warner "owns" this song. That the act of copying it is a sacred right, reserved only for those whom the privilage is conferred upon by the rightful owner. The rightful owner of 95 bytes of data. An amount so small that no currency exists that can measure its worth.
But Happy Birthday represents only the purest and most absurd form of copyrighted work. As Moore's law has progressed, and continues progressing, and as our networks get faster and faster and disc space cheaper and cheaper, even music files 5MB in size have become trivial amounts of data. Soon even 50GB Blu Ray movies will be considered too paltry to be worth protecting. For some, they already are. This isn't a simply a consequence of people being too cheap. It's a consequence of the data being too cheap to buy.
People realise this. They're not stupid. They see how easy, accessible and trivial data is in our digital age. The internet is a deluge and trying to tell them that certain datas cannot be copied because they are under some sacred divination is like telling people in a thunderstorm that they cannot collect rain water(This is in fact done in certain places). You can pass such laws, but ultimately resonable people will not obey them. They will not obey the law, not because it is unjust, but because it is entirely irrational. In ten years time, claiming the latest 5MB pop song should be protected will be as ludicrous as claiming the same for "Happy Birthday".
As the realities of the digital of make the concept of copyright more and more irrational, I find it increasingly difficult to even find arguments justifying its continued existence. With the de facto perpetual copyright that has evolved, its irrational claims and the draconian measures used to enforce it, more and more I find myself viewing copyright as a system that will be inherently gamed by its proponents and which will, inevitably evolved to the absurd position we now find ourselves in. Frankly, I think copyright is akin to the system of direct democracy and propositions run in California. A noble goal, and even a worthwhile one in the beginning, but which in the end became a destructive farce and totally unworkable.
I'd like to hear some justifications for copyright that aren't 300 years old. While I see some benefit to the system, ultimately, I am like someone seeing the benefits of Prohibition while also seeing the great harm it has done to society, politics and the legal system. My current position is that copyright needs drastic reform and moreover, if that reform is impossible or unworkable then we need to scrap the system entirely.
May the Maths Be with you!
I had to read the title five times before I understood it. The use of "term" as a verb here is unusual, probably cruel and definitely punishment - for what, I do not know.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Copyright terms might best be limited based on the type, use and/or purpose of the materials. For example, I wouldn't have a problem with books and printed material having longer terms than recorded music and video while recorded materials are longer than software copyright.
I find it interesting that binary compiled software is eligible for copyright protection at all. It is closer to being a "device" than recorded or printed material. (no, I am not arguing in favor of software patents either) If we were talking about source code and copyright, I would be more inclined to agree with the notion of copyright and software just as design and construction documents can be copyrighted while a building shouldn't be copyrighted.
If copyright is truly about encouraging creative works and not about harming the public domain, then each type of work needs to be limited based on a determination at which point the public's interests are being harmed by the continued protection of said work. For example, if I wanted to use Word Perfect for DOS, I couldn't because it is still protected by copyright and also no longer available for sale. The public's interest has been harmed by excessive copyright terms. The same is true of books and recorded media no longer "in print." Software is especially sensitive, however, as the time in which it becomes obsolete is a LOT sooner. So a copyright term of between 2 and 5 years would seem to be appropriate to me.
What I am saying is that copyright should expire prior to a work vanishing and prior to it being completely useless to the public domain. Otherwise, the purpose of copyright is notion short of a lie since the promise of entry into the public domain will forever remain unfulfilled.
The RIAA hypocrites represent the worst in human greed and, to quote Pink Floyd: "And if I had my own way, I'd have all of you SHOT!".
The RIAA is just a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes...
It seems Canadian fair copyright crusader (an University of Ottawa Law professor) Michael Geist's site is currently down, or more likely, under attack.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/
It appears that http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ (the first three links in the article) has been slashdotted.
What's up with Michael Geist's site? The message in the title appears whenever I try to visit either the direct link or even his root domain. Has Geist been silenced? Is there a conspiracy afoot here? *Doffs tinfoil hat*
Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices
Hey, they're taking a page from the Republican play book. Packing town hall meetings with partisans to shout down opposing points of view. Then justify it by accusing the other side of doing the same thing, while steadfastly maintaining those are just "real" citizens voicing their opposition. Real citizens being bused in with box lunches from other districts, many of whom happen to work for companies with an interest in the debate, but who's really going to check?
Next they'll have talking heads on sympathetic cable news networks suggesting that Canada is being taken over by Socialists and "real patriots" should start showing up at meetings with guns.
And don't forget to mock the messenger if you're losing the debate. Anyone who doesn't see things your way is a traitor and a Nazi, call them ignorant, "moonbats" and "liberals". I'm not sure why that last one is a bad thing but it seems to play pretty well down here, so give it a shot. Maybe suggest anyone not adopting strict copyright interpretation is killing old people. If that doesn't work, accuse them of not supporting the military. Suggest that lax copyright will lead to "death panels" for musicians.
Got all that? You're off to good start up there, just have to get with the rest of the program.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's certainly not illegal to buy sheet music of one's favorite rock artists, and sing and practice said music in the privacy of one's home
Only if your group or family has less than 6 (or $LOCAL_LEGAL_MAX) people in it. Most countries have a legal limit for audience size above which the performance is defined as public. This limit is usually below the size of an above average family. While I'm not sure that a jury would find you guilty of a public performance and even the recording industry would not likely press charges due to public backlash technically you are breaking the letter of the law.
I would severely doubt the numbers given on that page. The UK tax rate is considerably higher than Canada's. Currently living in Canada with a considerably higher income (in absolute terms) than I had in the UK a smaller fraction of my salary is withheld than it was in the UK and I get money back for overpayment at the end of the year. In addition the GST rate is 5% in Canada vs. 17.5% in the UK (temporarily 15%). Road tax for vehicles is a lot more, petrol is considerably more expensive due to taxes in fact I cannot think of anything that is cheaper in the UK except for a few goods which are produced there and exported to Canada.
I am guessing that each number, since it is produced by a different institute, uses different criteria for what they include or exclude. I can therefore only guess that the reason the UK number is so low is because they exclude most of the taxes.
There is a fair amount to be said about the idea of copyright and copyright law. I'd like to take a moment to think about the idea of copyright and something that I always think about when dealing with the idea.
There are works in the public domain that nobody can claim copyright on. And some of them are still very popular today. I'll submit that they are popular not only because they are free as in beer but because they have stood the test of time and are just that good. And because of all of this that our society is a better place for it.
However imagine for a moment if all works were under a perpetual copyright type setup. A system that the **AA's wish. Would our society be better because of such a system? I seriously doubt it.
It's hard to quantify such ideas and as such the **AA's have had a pretty easy time in pushing their addenda. Being that it's easy to show that if Micky Mouse is released into the public domain that $X will be lost, or some such nonsense.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
So they have learned from our politicians.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
About 8 years ago, I warned industry types that the end result of their activities would be the destruction of copyright - not because I wanted it destroyed, but because the more hysterical and unbalanced their attempts to protect their legacy business models become, the stronger the inevitable reaction would become.
I was roundly jumped on for that opinion, but I have seen nothing the period since to make me change it. In fact, I think it's now like Communism during the 20 years after the suppression of the Prague Spring - it's already too late to reform it, and the only real question is how the end will come.
The beauty of that leaflet is that you could run it on a printing press that is way out of registration and nobody would know the difference.
In the Internet era, you need to register your printing press with Go Daddy, Gandi, or another reputable registrar, or nobody will know how to connect to it.
I'm thinking, 10-20yrs of incarceration for flagrant violations for ripping a digital copy of a CD or DVD for personal use, 25-40 for sharing it, and financial damages in the millions of dollars per shared song or book. That should adequately provide a disincentive for the casual intellectual property thief. Obviously forfeiture of your entire estate and a lifetime of collections to prevent future economic misdeeds is the only adequate preventive measure.
For thieves of software and commercial theft, adding chemical castration should nip the problem in the bud.
And of course to claw back the rampant theft of content the content cooperatives like BSA, RIAA and MPAA should get a surcharge of 50% on all R/W media including hard drives - 75% for SD media that's more frequently infringing, and on all streaming communications like Internet, Cable TV, cellular phones and POTS. Clearly the passing of digital or analog data across international borders is likewise a circumvention of just management of artist's rights - a "jurisdiction hole" and must be prevented totally. An overriding "Supercopyright Body" should be instituted consisting of all of these constituencies.
To ensure fair distribution of content licensing all equipment that contains an amplifier, recorder or speaker should enjoy the surcharge as well. After all if you play music in your car with the windows down that's a public performance. Naturally for all of this equipment adequate licensing protective measures of DRM should be mandatory as well.
I'm sure we can count on the righteous defenders of artists' rights to distribute the take equitably after accounting overhead and costs.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
> A lot more people (about 20 million) are wealthy enough to get insurance
> but don't want it (like me).
I find it hard to believe that the reason that most of them don't want it is ideological in nature.
Which means in turn that it is too expensive.
This leads me to believe that what is necessary is reform or some other way to lower the cost of health care which, unfortunately, would hit a lot of people's income (doctors, medical schools). And since those people are highly influential, it is unlikely to happen.
"By describing "balanced copyright" as "disgusting, the musician's lobby has admitted publicly that current copyright law is unbalanced in their favor."
By that logic anybody who disagrees with the Patriot Act is declaring they are not, in fact, patriots.
Having had my Prostate removed at 53 due to Prostate Cancer I don't think you know what you are talking about. My quality of life is just fine. Prostate cancer is striking younger people more and more. People in their 30's and 40's are getting hit with it. People in that age range are dying from it. Their is more than one type of Prostate cancer. You outcome is based on who your Doctor is some people treating Prostate cancer shouldn't be allowed to, they are that bad.
I can say the treatment I got would not have been allowed under any Government plan. After all they are sure this cancer is a old persons disease. Biopsies are not necessary for "young" persons. Let alone the choice of treatment, removal over radiation. That needs to be fixed.
I am not against a Government run plan as part of a overall health care system. An affordable basic health care plan is needed. Coverage should be mandatory not optional. No sliding payment scale of what you pay in. Everyone must be charged alike. You should not have the choice of not being insured. Let the private insurers provide additional coverage above the basic plan everyone has. Their is no excuse that is valid for a first world country not to have a basic national health care plan.
I am to the right of Attila the Hun politically.
I am shocked that both Chow and Charlie Angus are allowed to openly depart from party policy and directive,
Ie, in other words, complaints that politicians aren't acting like good little robots and toeing the party line. After all, it's easier to buy support from just a party's leadership than having to convince the individual politicians to agree with you.
Please mod the parent up. The more people that know about public domain sheet music, the better.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
The reason there is income tax is folks ask the government to do more than it did in the past.
Please consider size of the U.S. Military in 1920.
http://www.answers.com/topic/u-s-army-1900-41
120,000 men. Today... around 3 million people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces
People over 65 in the 20's were SOL. If you got rid of social security and Medicare and medicaid, you could cut your taxes in half. Include the military, and
the above covers 80% of the federal budget. So cut the military 90%, and eliminate the other two, and you'll be back to the good old 20's. Good luck getting elected on that platform...
One of the biggest reasons not to live in the US is healthcare. My government monopoly (in Canada) lets me go to any doctor I want. and we pay less than half, per capita, what Americans spend on health care, which means that those with coverage are likely spending three times as much or more. Yet Canadians live longer... maybe it's just that the poor Americans are dying like flies, bringing the average down... you're going to try to spin that into a positive, aren't you?
Americans have health care that is great when you are not sick, which like a roof that doesn't leak when it isn't raining. I think many of those who have health insurance will get surprised if they ever actually have the audacity to fall seriously ill.
Why are you spending so much money, for so little care? Maybe because there are no competitive incentives to control costs. The higher the premiums are, the higher the justifiable management costs.
The only reason to reduce costs in the US system is to improve the profit margin, but one can do the same by just raising the price, which has the added benefit of helping the HMO too, so it's pretty moot.
The market doesn't work, if only healthy people can shop for health insurance. You cannot test drive it, you're basically buying on reputation, and how they take care of your minor issues and checkups while you are healthy.
Once you are sick, you can be very sure that you cannot change providers. You can be very sure that they are looking for reasons to unload you, that you are at higher risk of being fired because the health insurance provider squeezes your employer. Insurance companies naturally seek to cover the least risk for the highest price.
There is no free market when you are sick in a private system, Your insurance provider, at the time you fall ill is essentially the only game in town. Can you say Monopoly? knew you could! When there is public health care (ie. a public system to pay private doctors to provide services (which is how it works in Canada)) The patient can change doctors at any point, even after they are sick, get a second or third opinion any time they want, and do not have to worry about losing their job.
In public health insurance, risk is just removed as an economic factor, and is distributed over the entire population. People pay a flat rate for health care.
The doctors are still private, The hospitals can be as well. The fees are standardized, so the doctors compete on cost reduction (to maximize their profits.)
Since the fees are negotiated by the government in bulk, everyone benefits from wholesale-style pricing. That's a big reason why drugs in Canada cost a fraction of what they do in the US.
But you know, just keep on keeping on, because it's better for us. Canadian labour costs are lower (for example in the auto industry) because the health insurance premiums for employees are 1/4 what they are in the US, including for the large number or retirees. That's one big reason why plants are closing in the US and relocating... to Canada...
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/28/toyota-corolla-cambridge592.html
From a human pers
Here is the guy's e-mail address: awillaert@afm.org. Make sure to use it wisely...
(Here is what I sent him:
Do you think they care about your respect? Do you think they care whether you take them seriously or not? How does this even enter the conversation.
As long as they get there way, they do not care about you, or what you think. Why would you even say that? How does that enter the conversation?
GP was referring to printer registration, not domain name registration. Color printer registration is about keeping the cyan, magenta, yellow and black printing heads/plates/whatever printing in the correct positions relative to each other. The leaflet looks like it doesn't need careful registration at all to be printed correctly.
Yes. Among many others. I used to think General Jim's Army and Admiral Bob's Navy were jokes. But now we have Blackwater (or whatever they are calling themselves now).
Similar to the upcoming US election results
hahaha, modded troll! Haven't seen that in a while! I take some stupid moderators fell for the old uid/pwd url trick, eh? Mods are not quite what they used to be around here, I guess.
blah blah blah
http://www.ogc.harvard.edu/copyright_docs/copyright_and_fair_use.pdf
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
It's a very nice aircraft India, now how about teaching the other third of your population how to read?
5 years, tops
its OUR culture. WE grant artists a right to make money off of their works for a sensible period of time
but if DISTRIBUTORS (not artists) have warped the system with financial influence to the point where these ridiculous lengths of time are now the terms of copyright law, then copyright law deseves nothing but disrespect and outright hostility
of course, i am just one random asshole on the internet who doesn't matter and so who cares what i respect or don't respect
except the current status quo of copyright law is so fucking absurd it makes less sense than the opinion of a random asshole on the internet
in the mind's eye of anyone who has any consideration of fairness or decency in the concept of copyright, current copyright law is void of relevancy
i don't know how it can gracefully evolve back to common sense
and so it must remain a joke, unenforceable and meaningless, until such time as a clean break is made and completely new copyright law is written, in recognition of the utter failure current copyright law is, as it is in the eyes of everyone right now
everyone right now except the completely out of touch assholes who actually write this moronic legislation who probably still have their secretaries print out their emails
marie antoinettes, the whole lot of these out-of-touch old fools
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Even anonymous assholes on the Internet can be a force for social change. We just have to be diplomatic and patient.
Start by sticking to the obvious: that the current method is broken. State the obvious in simple ways that the average person can understand, as you did with "Copyright is damage to the network. The Internet has routed around the damage." That was nice work. You have a good creative mind for this work. Encourage the offended to action by appearing as reasonable as you can and offering action items that aren't too offensive.
We can make change, we just have to start small. Prime issues like "Eternal copyright is the theft of culture" is an idea that will take some time to develop. It is true though, so if we keep at it it will win out. It will be a long slog and you must be patient. The mass of minds won't be turned in one day, and this one website isn't even a good fraction of the mass that needs turned - though it is a powerful section. Keep up with the effort and don't be discouraged. The opposition will try and troll you to diminish your effectiveness by making you rant, so measure your replies to AC and the high userid folks quite carefully. They're opportunities to score points with the real audience by being measured, reasonable and obvious rather than invitations to go off the deep end and bash a troll.
I'm getting some traction with "this is stealing" as a contrast to people who call sharing one song stealing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I should think they'd hang the lawyers first. There's plenty of time later for other enemies of the people, but sheesh. Priorities.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Just another link about US News being allowed to lie without any repercussions. At least the truth about this is now out in the marketplace(i would have said 'wild' but everything has to be reduced to capitalist-speak for US citizens). It's been going on for decades.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
The AU government calculates every year the number of times a copyrighted library item has been lent out(they average it out somehow). The author of the lent out work receives a cheque annually from the government. It's as if every time a book is borrowed it counts as a sale and the author is sent their percentage of the 'sale'. It is called the Lending Rights program. It covers both educational material and the rest. We receive a cheque every year for around $10,000AU and it's really nice being on the receiving end. If anyone reading this is aware of any Australian with content in AU libraries please advise them of this as it is one of those government programs that isn't that well known of amongst AU authors (at least not on the educational(ELR) side of the field).
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I tried to file my biweekly claim for unemployment and it told me it's "inactive". Then I followed the instructions to reactivate it, and I was told I was ineligible because I haven't worked these last six months.
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1352437&cid=29251179
That is what the democrats want for the U.S.
The democrats (marxists) think that all power should be centralized, that only the governments' opinion should be heard, that only the government should set salaries and generally say what everyone should due, because the people are not competent, can not think for themselves and should be 'kept down' by using force when neccessary.
I can see why people would be upset about losing free speech, liberty and justice - it is what we are losing in the U.S. at the hands of the democrats!
and while i understand what a politician is: a serious agent for a cause, there is also a commitment that comes with what you describe that is not easy to muster
sure, i could hang out in the rafters and continue my intemperate boorish remarks, or i could get serious and actually start to try to actually matter to a cause i actually care about
its a tough call: commit more resources i don't necessarily have, or betray my own passion for a cause by remaining unserious about it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the recored companys are like farmers.
the artists are like trees
there music is like the apples
the famers sell the apples
the copyright law is there fence
there guns are there lawyers
some people get through and steel the apples
there are loopholes in the fence and people get away
the farmers trys to change the fence but there not alowed
the farmers are greedy and get anoyed.
whenever the farmers catch somones they shoot them with there shotguns trying to make them pay for all the apples they have lost
this is wrong but there anyonyed and are trying to make an example of the people that steal
one day a farmer sees a customer buying an apple and choping it up. the customer give the bits of the apple to his/her kids.
the farmer gets anoyed and tryes to stop the customer because its losing him business.
1 the farmers should punish people for the apple they stole not evoryone elses
2 the farmers should beable to change there copyright fence but only to protect themselfs not to catch people for profit
3 the customer shouldnt be "duplacating" and shareing apples (obv chopping up the apples in this case reprasents p2p sharing and copying music files ect)
>>>Which means in turn that it is too expensive.
Anybody who earns over 50,000 a year CAN afford a ~$3000 a year insurance premium. Don't tell me it's too expensive. You can even deduct the cost off your taxes, reduce them by ~$1000, and apply that "bonus" money to the insurance, so your true additional cost is only 2000 a year.
Or $166 a month. You can afford a $100 TV bill, a $70 cellphone bill, a $60 a month internet bill, but you can't afford insurance??? I don't believe it. Cancel or downgrade one of those other services if money's too tight. *Necessities* before luxuries.
Because - I can guarantee you that once Uncle Sam healthcare passes, your health tax bill *will* be 3 times higher than that $166/month private insurance.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's been rebranded as the new and improved âFare Useâ(TM). Seriously people, get spell check...
I had a conversation with a relative about this issue, and he claimed the following: one of the reasons for US health care being more expensive than health care in other countries is because people tend to wait until their health problems are fare for the emergency room, rather than going frequently (i.e., preemptively) to a general practitioner and following his advice (and therefore being healthier, and getting to the ER less frequently).
What I'm wondering is, what part of the 20 million people who could pay for insurance, but don't, fit this categorization? Do you put off going to doctors until the situation seems quite serious, and does your lack of coverage affect your decision when to go?
For the record, I am not saying that we should get rid of and change the entire judicial system.
I am simply saying that more laws are not the answer to freedom and a peaceful and tolerant society.
We don't need more laws, we need fewer better ones.
I believe having a single law state: 'You can not harm or make contact with another individual or their property without their prior consent.' would fit any necessary situation in the United States if it truly is a free country.