I agree microsoft is a nasty company, but compared to Apple they are a wonderful innocent little kid, and Apple is the prison escapee that stole a tank and drove it through a school while shooting at a hospital.
What competitors did Apple destroy? What exclusive agreements did Apple require of businesses that worked with Apple? When did Apple tell hardware vendors they had to install and use Apple software?
well, if you are forcing students to purchase and use laptops, you might as well get them the best value for their money. A good win7 laptop or netbook with the same power as that mac would probably cost 299.99. 600 cheaper, more useful, more versatile, more better.
No, a netbook with Ubuntu is the best value. Forget that, Suse is best. Nah, Redhat is better. Sound ridiculous doesn't it? Fact is is what you're proposing is supporting a monopoly, when what needs to be done is the task at hand. Schools should identify the task then allow people to decide how to meet the requirements for the task. Papers need to be written, so allow the use of any word processor that will do the job, not require MS Office. If cheap is what the person wants then they can use a netbook running Linux and OO.org. If a presentation needs to be created then allow any presentation software to be used.
Actually, in this type of situation, going with Windows would be better. If students already have Mac laptops, they could run Windows using bootcamp on them, and they'd only have to buy a copy of Windows, not a whole new laptop. By going with Mac laptops it forces parents of students who already have a Windows laptop to either need a loaner, or buy a second laptop.
Actually requiring any specific platform is stupid. The best idea is to identify the tasks to be performed then allow the people to make their own choice as to how to perform the task. And MS Word or Office isn't the task, word processing, presentations, spread sheets, and databases are the requirements. Allow people to use whatever tool will do the job.
I don't get that, trains can carry more cargo for less money than planes. The only thing I know that has a better efficiency are barges on water. The problem is rivers don't go everywhere whereas trains can cross water.
Who cares if he lied about it? If someone asked you an inappropriate question that was absolutely none of their business, would you tell them the truth? What do you expect, for him to tell everyone on nighttime TV exactly what he did just because some other politicians want to know?
I, and many others care. If a person will lie about one thing they'll lie about something else. Like the lies told to support the invasion of Iraq. Truth and lies matter a lot.
As for his wife, I suspect Bill and Hillary have a marriage of convenience only, and always have.
I agree, but it should of been obvious I was not talking about the Clintons when I said "he had it while his wife was fighting breast cancer". That I know of Hillary has never been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was Elizabeth Edwards who has cancer.
If Medicare sucks so bad, why aren't you on private insurance and off of Medicare entirely?
I wish I were on private health insurance but there is no free market in it. Government has been interfering with the markets for many years. As for me being on Medicare, I never did apply for it, first my mother did then my sister did. My mother did while I was in a coma, and my sister did after the last private insurance I had lapsed. Instead of reapplying for private insurance my sister, who controls most of my finances, applied for Medicare.
Hell, I'd love to get the same tax breaks employers get for offering insurance to employees as well as being able to cross state lines to buy insurance. But I like nobody does get those tax deductions, nor can they cross state lines.
The only logical answer is, Medicare is better.
Remove government inference in the market and that will no longer be true.
As for a national market, the problem there is insurance companies competing for all the healthy patients who **don't need** health care - because they're the cheapest for the companies - and charging so much for people who might need it that the needy can't afford it.
All that requires to be fixed is a law saying "No insurance may disallow pre-existing conditions". That's 6 words whereas the health care bills Obama signed were a thousand tymes as many pages. Add "No insurance issuer may drop a person from coverage due to an injury or illness." Fifteen more words. I could keep going yet use only 1 page of paper.
This is why a free market is great for things we can live without, but terrible for things we need to live
We, the USA, has not had a free market in health insurance since World War II. I dare you to try to prove me wrong. You'll have to go before World War II as explained by The Real Health Care Radicals to find a free market in health insurance. During WWII government the federal government passed wage and price control laws, the Office of Price Administration was created, by executive order, in 1941 to control prices and rent. These laws made it illegal for employers to give employees raises in pay. However because these laws made it hard for employers to hire and keep employees employers started offering benefits such as health insurance. Government then gave those employers tax deductions, but government did not give people who bought their own insurance the same tax deductions. That is a massive interference in the market.
Reading the rest of your reply it's my guess you didn't even bother to read all of my post otherwise you would not have asked the following questions. So I'm ending here, it's no use trying to debate with someone would will not read what I say and instead make things up.
About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions.
As the link you provide says, the bill depends on shifting education provisions from education to health. Now did the CBO also consider what effect giving every person the same tax deductions as employers get for offering health insurance as well as it the federal government allowed interstate commerce, the Interstate commerce clause of Section 8 - Powers of Congress? Did it also find where the Constitution of the USA gives the federal government the power to regulate health and medical care?
Those figures do not include potential costs that would be funded through future appropriations (those are discussed on pages 10-11 of the cost estimate).
Ha, so they had to leave out some costs. Is that because their figures are a snow job? Is it because it's political after all?
Oh let's not forget this:
They had a year to read it, and many of them bet their jobs on it. They read it. If I gave you a 1 page book, which you read, and then added a page a day, would you be able to keep up? Of course.
Congress had no where near a month, never mind a year, to read all of both bills. And together they weren't 365 pages, they were more than 1800 pages. A quick calculation says that if congress had a full year, almost 5 pages would need to be read to read all of the pages. Ah, however wanting to know precisely how many pages health care reform took, a Bloomberg article says it's more than 2400 pages. And the Huffington Post has Republicans asking how anybody could digest 2700 pages. What was VP Biden's response? "A big fucking deal." How ignoramus can you get? He obvious does not care what people think, or what the USA Constitution says. But anyway, using 2700 pages, more than 7 pages would have to be read a day for a year to read all of the bills.
It's one thing to overuse "think of the children" to support ridiculous censorship laws, but it's quite another to actually suggest we deny chemo to a kid who could benefit from it and survive because Mom and Dad don't have deep enough pockets.
So...in other words..insurance that's basically useless for:
A) Anyone who has a chronic health problem.
B) Anyone who occasionally visits a doctor for routine health care and check ups
OR
c) for a family or couple.
You left out a very important OR
d) Anyone who wants to pay out of pocket for regular medical expenses.
I'd rather have catastrophic medical coverage and use a health saving account to pay ordinary medical costs. If I were married, even if I had children, I'd still prefer my option. The only thing that would change that is an expensive chronic issue. In which case I'd be willing to pay more for more coverage. Unlike others I believe in personal responsibility.
The truth is that people who have coverage through their jobs, won't even notice much of a change except they will not have to face 'maximum coverage' clauses and 'lifetime benefit' clauses that allow the insurance companies to weasel out of their obligations.
A massive 1800 or 1900 page bill, no member of congress probably read anyway, wasn't needed to correct that.
Considering a bi-partisan budget panel reviewed the legislation and came to the agreement that it would indeed save costs, you'll forgive me if I take their answer with a bit more credibility that your claims that it will "will just make it worse", , well, just because...
Given that health insurance companies want someone earning $30,000 to pay $15,000 a year for health care is the real problem. What's worse is that the person earning $100,000+ a earn pays less than $5,000 for even better coverage.
Democrats refused to talk about there being no free market in health insurance too. And the new law doesn't change that.
due to cost, a lot of people avoid preventative care (which could've handled the problem far more cheaply) until it's a life-threatening condition that will get treated no matter what, and that you have no hope in hell of paying for.
H=Guess what? I am right now on Medicare but I still hold off on out of pocket medical expenses. I have a disability, which is why I collect Supplemental Security Income or SSI and am covered by Medicare, yet I still have trouble with my bills. Some months go by when I will not refill my prescriptions because it's that or buy food.
nd finally, words have meanings. No, you do not have the right to raid your neighbor's wallet. Yes, that's theft-if you do it. On the other hand, a duly elected government does have the authority to collect taxes. You have the right to disagree with the tax, to express your disagreement, to vote for those who do not wish for it to be imposed, etc., and you're doing two of those things (and I imagine it's a safe enough bet you'll be doing the third come election time). But it's not theft, and people really need to quit misappropriating that word. It has a meaning.
By the same logic, or lack thereof, the Holocost too wasn't murder. It was carried out by a duly elected government and therefore not a crime. Sounds absurd doesn't it?
The thing that must be avoided at all cost is a financial disincentive to receive medical attention. That's the human rights part- a person in need of care should never have to balance their life against the needs of their family, and recovering people in a hospital should never have the additional burden of worrying about bills.
Access is the human rights part, not forcing others to pay for it. Why should I, you, or anyone else be forced to pay for the unemployed couch potato's medical bill when they won't take care of their own health.
While I supported insurance reform I opposed what came out of congress and Obama signed. Instead I would have supported giving every person the same tax breaks employers get for offering insurance and being able to cross state lines to buy insurance. Then for those who would still be unable to afford insurance I would have supported a grant or subsidy. A buyer would then go out and choice an insurance plan they liked and as long as it cost less than the subsidy they could get it.
a requirement that I MUST buy health insurance, or be punished (fined $950)
So buy insurance. If you don't, nobody's going to just let you die because civilized countries, decent humans, don't do that. If you get sick and can't afford the hospital stay that would make you healthy again, then somebody's going to pay for it anyway -- that somebody being the taxpayer.
That might be true elsewhere but not in the US. Taxpayers don't pay the medical bills for those unable to pay, those who use medical services pay.
So we don't care if you're young and healthy and say you don't need it when the truth is you'd rather gamble with our money
What is this if not trolling? Neither I nor many others want to gamble with other people's money, what I want is to be able to pay out of pocket for regular medical bills, and be able to shop around for the providers of said services. With most medical care if the medical staff is told the bill will be paid out of pocket, so they don't have to file an insurance form, they will reduce the cost. It does cost money to file those forms after all. And just as with everything thing else, I want to be able to shop around for health care.
and we don't really lend much credence to accusations of immorality from anyone who suggests we would or should just watch someone's child die right here in our own country.
It doesn't happen often where we allow children to die because of lack of medical care now. Though an adult, being unemployed, a student, and not having insurance after I was hit in an accident after my classes I was Medevaced by helicopter to a hospital where I stayed while in a coma. After I came out of the coma I was moved to a rehab house where I stayed a few more weeks. Once I left there I still went through more months of therapy. All together my medical bills came to more than $120,000, without any guarantee the docs, hospital, rehab house, and therapists would ever be paid.
Not only that, but for children there are a number of Shriners Hospitals for Children, 22, in the USA. There is no requirement children admitted to any of them or their parents be able to pay. The same with comedian Danny Thomas'sSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Let's see what Funding says"
"All medically eligible patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay. St. Jude is the only pediatric research center in the United States where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. In addition to providing medical services to eligible patients, St. Jude also assists families with transportation, lodging, and meals. Three separate specially-designed patient housing facilities--Grizzly House for short-term (up to two weeks), Ronald McDonald House for medium-term (two weeks to 3 months), and Target House for long-term (3 months or more)--provide housing for patients and up to three family members, with no cost to the patient. These policies, along with research expenses and other costs, cause the hospital to incur more than $2.4 million in operating costs each day. Around $180,000 is covered by patient insurance, the remaining $2.22 million/day is funded by charitable contributions."
"We don't really lend much credence to accusations of immorality from anyone" who makes up BS!
Obama didn't put that in there, the Senate and House of Representatives did, can't hit Obama for that.
What, you mean congress overruled Obama's veto of the health care bill? No they didn't he signed it, so he is responsible for forcing those who do not want to pay for health insurance to pay anyway.
>>>Obama hasn't instituted the killing of people politically opposed to him
I don't recall Lenin doing that either, after the old dictatorship had been toppled, a new government had been instituted and peace achieved.
Lenin achieved peace? And he didn't have those politically opposed to him killed? AHAH! He did neither. By decree Lenin established the Cheka (secret police), the precursor to the KGB. The Cheka was run by Felix Dzerzhinsky who was widely known as a large scale human rights violator. He routinely used torture and summary executions and conducted the Red Terror.
You're right, government gave corporations the power they enjoy. So to make themselves bigger corporations made government bigger. Thomas Jefferson wrote his warning about corporations, "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of
our country." But now instead of bidding defiance to government corporations now get politicians to write laws favoring them.
Government, in that sense, is an attempt to curb the threat of centralized power by trying to have a single entity, which is at least nominally controllable, and can all other such entities - corporations - in check.
At least here in the USA, states grant most corporate charters not the federal government, and the last tyme I checked there were 50 states.
I am not a lawyer, but as far as the Obama administration arguing for this, doesn't the administration pretty much -have- to defend the law here since it is the government and the government is the defendant?
No it doesn't. As an example take take the federal Microsoft lawsuit. Under Clinton the Department of Justice had MS on the ropes but when Bush became president the new Department of Justice let MS off without so much as a slap on the wrist.
I've never understood this. Fascists supported a dictatorship where individual freedom is all but dead. Republicans support a libertarian philosophy (albeit not as extreme as the actual LP) for maximum individual freedom.
Republicans, not all but many, do not support the libertarian philosophy. That is why dissatisfied Republicans left the Republican Party to start the Libertarian Party. Republicans seek to restrict liberty just as much as Democrats do, only in different arenas. Businesses can do whatever they want to make a profit but individuals can't do whatever they want in private.
Maybe it's time to go back to how it was done in 1792, 1796, 1800, et cetera - let the States pick the president of the Union.
Then just as it is now the president is chosen by the electoral college not Voters or States. However Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice-President, ratified in 1804, did change how the president and VP were chosen. Prior to then every candidate ran for president.
I'd not only repeal the 12th amendment but would include ranked voting and the electoral college. For the first tyme, last year we had ranked voting in Minnesota for some offices.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree microsoft is a nasty company, but compared to Apple they are a wonderful innocent little kid, and Apple is the prison escapee that stole a tank and drove it through a school while shooting at a hospital.
What competitors did Apple destroy? What exclusive agreements did Apple require of businesses that worked with Apple? When did Apple tell hardware vendors they had to install and use Apple software?
Falcon
well, if you are forcing students to purchase and use laptops, you might as well get them the best value for their money. A good win7 laptop or netbook with the same power as that mac would probably cost 299.99. 600 cheaper, more useful, more versatile, more better.
No, a netbook with Ubuntu is the best value. Forget that, Suse is best. Nah, Redhat is better. Sound ridiculous doesn't it? Fact is is what you're proposing is supporting a monopoly, when what needs to be done is the task at hand. Schools should identify the task then allow people to decide how to meet the requirements for the task. Papers need to be written, so allow the use of any word processor that will do the job, not require MS Office. If cheap is what the person wants then they can use a netbook running Linux and OO.org. If a presentation needs to be created then allow any presentation software to be used.
Falcon
If it is not the job for education to support monoploies what are they doing by enforcing the use of one particular product?
Yet you'd require MS Windows and Office. That is supporting a monopoly.
Falcon
Actually, in this type of situation, going with Windows would be better. If students already have Mac laptops, they could run Windows using bootcamp on them, and they'd only have to buy a copy of Windows, not a whole new laptop. By going with Mac laptops it forces parents of students who already have a Windows laptop to either need a loaner, or buy a second laptop.
Actually requiring any specific platform is stupid. The best idea is to identify the tasks to be performed then allow the people to make their own choice as to how to perform the task. And MS Word or Office isn't the task, word processing, presentations, spread sheets, and databases are the requirements. Allow people to use whatever tool will do the job.
Falcon
I don't get that, trains can carry more cargo for less money than planes. The only thing I know that has a better efficiency are barges on water. The problem is rivers don't go everywhere whereas trains can cross water.
Falcon
In the US that's called school choice, and too many people oppose choice.
Falcon
Like the economy wouldn't have improved without Obama and it never runs in cycles.
It certainly would not have improved if Bush continued his "tax cuts and deregulation fixes everything" philosophy.
I never said otherwise. All I did was question whether Obama had anything to do with any improvement in the economy. Or are you trying to say I did?
Falcon
Who cares if he lied about it? If someone asked you an inappropriate question that was absolutely none of their business, would you tell them the truth? What do you expect, for him to tell everyone on nighttime TV exactly what he did just because some other politicians want to know?
I, and many others care. If a person will lie about one thing they'll lie about something else. Like the lies told to support the invasion of Iraq. Truth and lies matter a lot.
As for his wife, I suspect Bill and Hillary have a marriage of convenience only, and always have.
I agree, but it should of been obvious I was not talking about the Clintons when I said "he had it while his wife was fighting breast cancer". That I know of Hillary has never been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was Elizabeth Edwards who has cancer.
Falcon
If Medicare sucks so bad, why aren't you on private insurance and off of Medicare entirely?
I wish I were on private health insurance but there is no free market in it. Government has been interfering with the markets for many years. As for me being on Medicare, I never did apply for it, first my mother did then my sister did. My mother did while I was in a coma, and my sister did after the last private insurance I had lapsed. Instead of reapplying for private insurance my sister, who controls most of my finances, applied for Medicare.
Hell, I'd love to get the same tax breaks employers get for offering insurance to employees as well as being able to cross state lines to buy insurance. But I like nobody does get those tax deductions, nor can they cross state lines.
The only logical answer is, Medicare is better.
Remove government inference in the market and that will no longer be true.
As for a national market, the problem there is insurance companies competing for all the healthy patients who **don't need** health care - because they're the cheapest for the companies - and charging so much for people who might need it that the needy can't afford it.
All that requires to be fixed is a law saying "No insurance may disallow pre-existing conditions". That's 6 words whereas the health care bills Obama signed were a thousand tymes as many pages. Add "No insurance issuer may drop a person from coverage due to an injury or illness." Fifteen more words. I could keep going yet use only 1 page of paper.
This is why a free market is great for things we can live without, but terrible for things we need to live
We, the USA, has not had a free market in health insurance since World War II. I dare you to try to prove me wrong. You'll have to go before World War II as explained by The Real Health Care Radicals to find a free market in health insurance. During WWII government the federal government passed wage and price control laws, the Office of Price Administration was created, by executive order, in 1941 to control prices and rent. These laws made it illegal for employers to give employees raises in pay. However because these laws made it hard for employers to hire and keep employees employers started offering benefits such as health insurance. Government then gave those employers tax deductions, but government did not give people who bought their own insurance the same tax deductions. That is a massive interference in the market.
Falcon
Hint, take some introductory level text on markets and read it.
I suggest you do the same about economics, for instance Adam Smith's On Wealth of Nations, some of Milton Friedman's, or Amity Shlaes books. Also try books by Ludwig von Mises. It's my guess you'll poo poo them as well as Ayn Rand though.
Reading the rest of your reply it's my guess you didn't even bother to read all of my post otherwise you would not have asked the following questions. So I'm ending here, it's no use trying to debate with someone would will not read what I say and instead make things up.
Falcon
About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions.
As the link you provide says, the bill depends on shifting education provisions from education to health. Now did the CBO also consider what effect giving every person the same tax deductions as employers get for offering health insurance as well as it the federal government allowed interstate commerce, the Interstate commerce clause of Section 8 - Powers of Congress? Did it also find where the Constitution of the USA gives the federal government the power to regulate health and medical care?
Those figures do not include potential costs that would be funded through future appropriations (those are discussed on pages 10-11 of the cost estimate).
Ha, so they had to leave out some costs. Is that because their figures are a snow job? Is it because it's political after all?
Oh let's not forget this:
They had a year to read it, and many of them bet their jobs on it. They read it. If I gave you a 1 page book, which you read, and then added a page a day, would you be able to keep up? Of course.
Congress had no where near a month, never mind a year, to read all of both bills. And together they weren't 365 pages, they were more than 1800 pages. A quick calculation says that if congress had a full year, almost 5 pages would need to be read to read all of the pages. Ah, however wanting to know precisely how many pages health care reform took, a Bloomberg article says it's more than 2400 pages. And the Huffington Post has Republicans asking how anybody could digest 2700 pages. What was VP Biden's response? "A big fucking deal." How ignoramus can you get? He obvious does not care what people think, or what the USA Constitution says. But anyway, using 2700 pages, more than 7 pages would have to be read a day for a year to read all of the bills.
Falcon
It's one thing to overuse "think of the children" to support ridiculous censorship laws, but it's quite another to actually suggest we deny chemo to a kid who could benefit from it and survive because Mom and Dad don't have deep enough pockets.
Did anyone actually say don't think of the children? Shriners Hospitals for Children and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital actually treat children free of charge. Imagine that. Oh but those aren't real, children are left to fend for themselves or die.
Falcon
"...quoted high-deductible, catastrophic insurance..."
So...in other words..insurance that's basically useless for:
A) Anyone who has a chronic health problem.
B) Anyone who occasionally visits a doctor for routine health care and check ups
OR
c) for a family or couple.
You left out a very important OR
d) Anyone who wants to pay out of pocket for regular medical expenses.
I'd rather have catastrophic medical coverage and use a health saving account to pay ordinary medical costs. If I were married, even if I had children, I'd still prefer my option. The only thing that would change that is an expensive chronic issue. In which case I'd be willing to pay more for more coverage. Unlike others I believe in personal responsibility.
Falcon
The truth is that people who have coverage through their jobs, won't even notice much of a change except they will not have to face 'maximum coverage' clauses and 'lifetime benefit' clauses that allow the insurance companies to weasel out of their obligations.
A massive 1800 or 1900 page bill, no member of congress probably read anyway, wasn't needed to correct that.
Considering a bi-partisan budget panel reviewed the legislation and came to the agreement that it would indeed save costs, you'll forgive me if I take their answer with a bit more credibility that your claims that it will "will just make it worse", , well, just because...
What "bi-partisan budget panel" was that?
Falcon
Given that health insurance companies want someone earning $30,000 to pay $15,000 a year for health care is the real problem. What's worse is that the person earning $100,000+ a earn pays less than $5,000 for even better coverage.
Democrats refused to talk about there being no free market in health insurance too. And the new law doesn't change that.
Falcon
due to cost, a lot of people avoid preventative care (which could've handled the problem far more cheaply) until it's a life-threatening condition that will get treated no matter what, and that you have no hope in hell of paying for.
H=Guess what? I am right now on Medicare but I still hold off on out of pocket medical expenses. I have a disability, which is why I collect Supplemental Security Income or SSI and am covered by Medicare, yet I still have trouble with my bills. Some months go by when I will not refill my prescriptions because it's that or buy food.
nd finally, words have meanings. No, you do not have the right to raid your neighbor's wallet. Yes, that's theft-if you do it. On the other hand, a duly elected government does have the authority to collect taxes. You have the right to disagree with the tax, to express your disagreement, to vote for those who do not wish for it to be imposed, etc., and you're doing two of those things (and I imagine it's a safe enough bet you'll be doing the third come election time). But it's not theft, and people really need to quit misappropriating that word. It has a meaning.
By the same logic, or lack thereof, the Holocost too wasn't murder. It was carried out by a duly elected government and therefore not a crime. Sounds absurd doesn't it?
Falcon
The thing that must be avoided at all cost is a financial disincentive to receive medical attention. That's the human rights part- a person in need of care should never have to balance their life against the needs of their family, and recovering people in a hospital should never have the additional burden of worrying about bills.
Access is the human rights part, not forcing others to pay for it. Why should I, you, or anyone else be forced to pay for the unemployed couch potato's medical bill when they won't take care of their own health.
While I supported insurance reform I opposed what came out of congress and Obama signed. Instead I would have supported giving every person the same tax breaks employers get for offering insurance and being able to cross state lines to buy insurance. Then for those who would still be unable to afford insurance I would have supported a grant or subsidy. A buyer would then go out and choice an insurance plan they liked and as long as it cost less than the subsidy they could get it.
Falcon
a requirement that I MUST buy health insurance, or be punished (fined $950)
So buy insurance. If you don't, nobody's going to just let you die because civilized countries, decent humans, don't do that. If you get sick and can't afford the hospital stay that would make you healthy again, then somebody's going to pay for it anyway -- that somebody being the taxpayer.
That might be true elsewhere but not in the US. Taxpayers don't pay the medical bills for those unable to pay, those who use medical services pay.
So we don't care if you're young and healthy and say you don't need it when the truth is you'd rather gamble with our money
What is this if not trolling? Neither I nor many others want to gamble with other people's money, what I want is to be able to pay out of pocket for regular medical bills, and be able to shop around for the providers of said services. With most medical care if the medical staff is told the bill will be paid out of pocket, so they don't have to file an insurance form, they will reduce the cost. It does cost money to file those forms after all. And just as with everything thing else, I want to be able to shop around for health care.
and we don't really lend much credence to accusations of immorality from anyone who suggests we would or should just watch someone's child die right here in our own country.
It doesn't happen often where we allow children to die because of lack of medical care now. Though an adult, being unemployed, a student, and not having insurance after I was hit in an accident after my classes I was Medevaced by helicopter to a hospital where I stayed while in a coma. After I came out of the coma I was moved to a rehab house where I stayed a few more weeks. Once I left there I still went through more months of therapy. All together my medical bills came to more than $120,000, without any guarantee the docs, hospital, rehab house, and therapists would ever be paid.
Not only that, but for children there are a number of Shriners Hospitals for Children, 22, in the USA. There is no requirement children admitted to any of them or their parents be able to pay. The same with comedian Danny Thomas's St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Let's see what Funding says"
"All medically eligible patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay. St. Jude is the only pediatric research center in the United States where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. In addition to providing medical services to eligible patients, St. Jude also assists families with transportation, lodging, and meals. Three separate specially-designed patient housing facilities--Grizzly House for short-term (up to two weeks), Ronald McDonald House for medium-term (two weeks to 3 months), and Target House for long-term (3 months or more)--provide housing for patients and up to three family members, with no cost to the patient. These policies, along with research expenses and other costs, cause the hospital to incur more than $2.4 million in operating costs each day. Around $180,000 is covered by patient insurance, the remaining $2.22 million/day is funded by charitable contributions."
"We don't really lend much credence to accusations of immorality from anyone" who makes up BS!
Falcon
Obama didn't put that in there, the Senate and House of Representatives did, can't hit Obama for that.
What, you mean congress overruled Obama's veto of the health care bill? No they didn't he signed it, so he is responsible for forcing those who do not want to pay for health insurance to pay anyway.
Falcon
>>>Obama hasn't instituted the killing of people politically opposed to him
I don't recall Lenin doing that either, after the old dictatorship had been toppled, a new government had been instituted and peace achieved.
Lenin achieved peace? And he didn't have those politically opposed to him killed? AHAH! He did neither. By decree Lenin established the Cheka (secret police), the precursor to the KGB. The Cheka was run by Felix Dzerzhinsky who was widely known as a large scale human rights violator. He routinely used torture and summary executions and conducted the Red Terror.
Falcon
of thin air;
You're right, government gave corporations the power they enjoy. So to make themselves bigger corporations made government bigger. Thomas Jefferson wrote his warning about corporations, "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." But now instead of bidding defiance to government corporations now get politicians to write laws favoring them.
Government, in that sense, is an attempt to curb the threat of centralized power by trying to have a single entity, which is at least nominally controllable, and can all other such entities - corporations - in check.
At least here in the USA, states grant most corporate charters not the federal government, and the last tyme I checked there were 50 states.
Falcon
I am not a lawyer, but as far as the Obama administration arguing for this, doesn't the administration pretty much -have- to defend the law here since it is the government and the government is the defendant?
No it doesn't. As an example take take the federal Microsoft lawsuit. Under Clinton the Department of Justice had MS on the ropes but when Bush became president the new Department of Justice let MS off without so much as a slap on the wrist.
Falcon
I've never understood this. Fascists supported a dictatorship where individual freedom is all but dead. Republicans support a libertarian philosophy (albeit not as extreme as the actual LP) for maximum individual freedom.
Republicans, not all but many, do not support the libertarian philosophy. That is why dissatisfied Republicans left the Republican Party to start the Libertarian Party. Republicans seek to restrict liberty just as much as Democrats do, only in different arenas. Businesses can do whatever they want to make a profit but individuals can't do whatever they want in private.
Falcon
Maybe it's time to go back to how it was done in 1792, 1796, 1800, et cetera - let the States pick the president of the Union.
Then just as it is now the president is chosen by the electoral college not Voters or States. However Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice-President, ratified in 1804, did change how the president and VP were chosen. Prior to then every candidate ran for president.
I'd not only repeal the 12th amendment but would include ranked voting and the electoral college. For the first tyme, last year we had ranked voting in Minnesota for some offices.
Falcon
Get thee hence to a remedial politics class
Both of you need to go back to school, neither Kucinich nor Obama are even close to being liberal.
Falcon