I have been trying to figure out the opposition to this bill.

Now I think I finally somewhat understand (not that I agree with it) that many people feel like the government is doing too much. This is just like how I feel about religion and how it is involved with the government.

And I can understand that you may feel like the government has been too involved in everything since basically the civil war. And that no matter how good a program is or intended to be, you do not want it. Because it is another intrusion that eventually is going to become outdated and a sinkhole of corruption and waste.

I can see that argument and how it is valid.

But we have to change the system because it is not working and getting more and more out of hand.

I think you feel that people need to look after themselves, and they need to plan ahead, but realistically you know that is not something that will happen. People will always make bad decisions and end up with nothing.

So what should be done at that point? Do we just let them die in the streets? Because even that has risk of spreading diseases to us, and we will still have to pay for body removals.

So instead do they become wards of the state? Because then we still have to pay for them.

And I understand that you may be afraid of where does this handholding all stop. That is valid, but there are only a couple things that we need as humans to survive: Food & Shelter. And a few more that help us to be productive to society: Health, Education & Transportation.

The first two are costly and have virtually no return on the money spent. But the last 3 are investments into the future.

If people become educated they can help society with their skills. If people are healthy they can work better and become more reliable. And if people have a well run transportation system not only do goods flow from business to business better, but also the employees can get to their jobs to be productive.

Those three things elevate the wealth of the country.

These things should be looked after in our society. And when I say shelter I do not mean a house. I mean basic shelter (think Jail cell). If people want to increase their homes into a better place, they pay for it.

If we can make sure that every American citizen has access to those, then the government would only have to deal with what it is set up to do, our protection.


Public Option

Now people keep talking about this public option and how much money it is going to cost.

But they don't seem to get that when people go to the ER we all have to pay for it if they cannot?

And the middle class folks that get these huge bills that they cannot pay for, guess what they go bankrupt and, we pay for them yet again.

I really don't understand why that is so hard to get.

And this is for the millions of people that can almost afford it, but don't because it is just out of reach and they are fairly healthy. Insurance is not there for when you don't need it, if it was it would be called health service.

Insurance is a way to keep the money that individuals have to put out of pocket reasonable. If 10 people pool their money and put in the same amount every month then if one gets sick they draw from that pool to pay for it.

Usually it will grow, because we tend to not need it all the time. But it is needed for those times that we are not healthy.

Now if those 10 people decided to dump that 1 that got sick so that he/she doesn't pull money out of the pool, then that person is screwed.

That is part one of this bill, to stop insurance companies from doing that.

The second is to bring costs down in the medical field. Right off the bat, you have the ER not being used for everything that will bring down costs.

Then you have the fact that people will actually be paying what they can into the system. It may be subsidized so they pay a reduced price, but they will be paying something into it. So there is some more money in the system.

After that you still need to come up with some money. One thing that Obama said was he would like to see the tax write off
of charitable contributions leveled out. Because right now if you are wealthy you can dump more money into the tax write off charities and get a far higher tax break than if a middle class person made a donation.

By taking this away the wealthy would still benefit, because it is still a writeoff so they would get back more money than if they don't make the contribution, but if they decided it is not enough (which is a stupid thing to do) then they would just pay full taxes on it. Whichever they chose it would be enough to cover this bill.

So the costs can be taken care of.

So the next argument against it is not enough Doctors.

That is another false argument. There are enough doctors to cover every American citizen and then some.

The thing is that today most of them are specialists and not general MD's. But they still have the tools to do the job. We have plenty to get this done.


So next is the argument about wait times.

People like to talk about these several month long wait times to get surgery on cancers. But what they fail to realize is that the cancers are being found! In America if you do not have insurance (even if you do in a lot of situations) you are not getting your cancers found until it is much further advanced (because you felt something wrong and got it checked out).

If we go to a preventative care model those cancers get found much earlier. So that you don't wait until 5 years later to find the tumor.

If you can realize this, then you can realize that those 7 months to get surgery on a tumor is still 4 years earlier than it would have been dealt with here in America.

And they would not put people on the waiting list that have severe cancer that needs to be dealt with right away, they would still be first in.


So the only real argument with this insurance program comes down to people just not wanting another government program. And that is understandable. And very valid. But I would ask you to understand that this is good for the country.

The country depends on a healthy educated workforce to stay ahead in the world. If we continue to allow our workers to fall behind the world in education and health it will only be a matter of time before we use up all of our wealth and fall behind. This would be an investment into one of those, but at least it is something.

And for the record I do not think that this is the ideal way to do this, I think a much more comprehensive and widespread fix is needed, but this is at least a step in the right direction.

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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” -Einstein

Great post...very well thought out...side note we can help pay for health cost by raising taxes on cigarettes, booze and make weed legal and tax that as well ( I will still get mine the old way)

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I like to lie..Everything I say here is a lie to make me look cool

"So the only real argument with this insurance program comes down to people just not wanting another government program. And that is understandable. And very valid. But I would ask you to understand that this is good for the country."

How the hell do you know whats good for the country? I'd like to know your qualifications for you to make such a statement. What's good for the country is not having my shameless fellow citizens think it's ok to take money out from my paycheck to fund their misfortunes, I couldn't think of anything more unamerican. A government run health-care bill which is hundreds of pages long will never work And will only increase the federal governments payroll for some new department. What amazes me the most are the people who run this country. These people are highly educated and the only solution they have for this health-care debate is to raise taxes on the rich to subsidize the needs of the poor. That's the best these people can do? I never under any circumstances want to pay fro someone else I don't care if their kid may live or die It's not my problem. This country fucking sickens me to see so many shitheads who think they are entitled to everything, Given the choice to work hard in life and pay your own way OR pay the minimum amount and make the wealthier pay the rest is NOT OK but the choice for many is obvious. Or how about this, I would gladly help pay for people who become ill with no fault of their own but if you become sick due to your unhealthy lifestyle you can go fuck yourself and die for all I care.

Talk about an incoherent morning wake and bake rant lol, I feel better having gotten that off my chest.
address tort reform, allow people to buy insurance over states lines, eliminate the pre existing condition problem and go from there.

healthcare is not a right. I bust my ass for what I have and have gone to school for many years to make what I do every year. For me to give that up and help fund some lazy ass on the couch with a J in their mouth, well you and the rest of the crazy fucks out there can kiss my ass. I will not fund someone else's lazy retarded ass much less healthcare so they can have a good life. Fuck that noise. You and everyone else had/have the same opportunities as I have/had.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Well if you are one of the wealthy that may have to give up a little of what you have gained over the last 30 years or so, then you should be fine to answer the question of 'good for the country' on your own.

If you are one of them, who works for you. Who is it that makes you able to do the job that you have and make the money that you make?

If you are a business owner and make this kind of money you will have some employees, if those employees get very ill, who does this put pressure on? You.

If you are a doctor, who is it that runs all the tests and does all the crap work to allow you to work to your abilities? That is right the nurses, janitors, HR employees, ect.

On and on. People like to not realize that it is in their best interests to have a healthy workforce.

If the people that you rely on to do your job are healthy, guess what it makes your work more efficient. And due to that the society as a whole benefits.

Same with education. If the people you have working for you are smarter and better at their job, it makes your business more profitable and better operating. So you save time and money and can focus more on how to grow your business.

Investments into these things is benefitial to all of us. Even the poor.

My qualifications is the work I have done all my life, working to put my fiance' through pharmacy school while I helped run a small business, before that working crap jobs, and for the last few years studying economics. And being able to learn the why of the things that I have experienced was an amazing thing.

So that is my qualifications, what are yours to be able to say that whats good for the country is not to take money out of your pocket for their misfortunes? Especially when it is not their misfortunes that is what I was talking about.

Muddying what I had said is what you had done. Improving the health industry is not taking money for their misfortunes. It is having the people that will benefit from a healthier country to pay for what they should have been doing all along.

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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” -Einstein

We are some of the people that do have to pay more.

You think that this is for the lazy?

You don't realize that if they don't work they make the money to be on medicaid. And that is already in place. This is for the people that are in the middle. The people that work hard and just get stuck working but cannot afford to get the care they need, but at the same time don't want to just stop working to get free care.

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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” -Einstein

Very nice post. I'm quite surprised that noone has shown up here to call you a communist, socialist, or "Obama kool-aid drinker".

I very much agree with your sentiments toward health reform.

One of the main arguments against health reform that I've heard is "I refuse to pay for someone else's health care", and many people don't seem to realize that they already ARE paying for other people's health care. People who don't have insurance visit the emergency room and don't pay the bill, which drives costs up for those who DO pay (Do you really think it costs thousands of dollars for an MRI?) In other countries where they have "universal" health care programs the costs for these types of things is substantially lower. Is our MRI better than Japan's? No. So why does ours costs us 10x more? Easy, because the costs are driven up by all the people who don't pay.

In other countries, health insurance companies exist solely to provide health coverage for the people. They don't exist to make profits the way they do here in the US. The insurance companies are getting richer, and the citizens are going bankrupt because of medical bills.

That doesn't happen in any other country.

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A government big enough to give you everything you want, makes Santa Claus pretty much obsolete.

My qualifications is the work I have done all my life, working to put my fiance' through pharmacy school while I helped run a small business, before that working crap jobs, and for the last few years studying economics. And being able to learn the why of the things that I have experienced was an amazing thing.

So that is my qualifications, what are yours to be able to say that whats good for the country is not to take money out of your pocket for their misfortunes? Especially when it is not their misfortunes that is what I was talking about.



I hold a MBA from Michigan State University

I have had 3 business started from scratch and had them bought out from me by their main competition for almost 5x their worth.

I teach entrepreneurship at the local community college in my off time.

I am a member of SCORE, the society corp of retired executives.

I have been in almost every country in the world for some sort of business.

I am now in real estate development in North Carolina.


SO that's my credentials in a nutshell.

Well then with all of those qualifications why do you not understand that this is not for the lazy? It is for the workers that cannot quite get over the hump of being able to afford insurance?

How many of your employees have you talked to and said that they should really put money into a 401k or insurance, because they are going to screw you over.

And think about what happens when the ones that decided not to get very ill or in a accident. Who pays for that?

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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” -Einstein

all my employees have had the best healthcare I could provide if they qualified. They do a great job and their job and deserve the best benefits I could afford.

My point is that we should not be forced to pay for others. I realize medi-care and the other freebies some get and the story of emergency rooms and their "free" healthcare.

I do not want to pay for someone else and their family because of their life decisions. I know its shitty but life isnt fair and we all deal with the hand we are dealt.

this debate can go on for pages and I dont have the time. So I am out. Enjoy the labor day holiday