Fighting an infectious disease while it has a low incidence in the population does benefit society as a whole.

War in Afghanistan is also a theft. The question is, does the good of what the money is spent on outweigh the bad of it being taken in violation of my personal freedom. Just like it is bad to limit my freedoms in say... setting things on fire, but not as bad as the violation of my setting someone else's things on fire (or filling their space with smoke).

So we need another method to determine which expenditures are warranted, and which are not.



No, I don't know that it's GOOD. It's its own discussion. I'm simply saying it's a fact. This is how the system works.




No, and it won't until I file my 2010 taxes.



And that is definitely true (on both points). But yes, if we just changed how the industry is regulated, that would have addressed 80% of our concerns, for half the price. I would have at least STARTED there.



And the government is morally required to follow the law and treaties it's agreed to.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:59, Mon 05 Apr 2010.

Unfortunately the Rupublicnas chose to stay out of teh discussion and protest the idea that any bill was being considered instead of weighing in on what would be teh best approach until the bill was already done and then insisting they needed to start over. I think the result would have been 100% better if teh Republicans had cooperated on teh drafting liek Obama begged them to do, but they wanted to score talking points instead.

I think it was rushed through far too fast.  Despite the good things it offers, I think it's really going to hurt small businesses which have traditionally never really made enough to give such bonuses to all employees.  Small businesses generally supply at least half of all available jobs in the US economy.  That's a huge burden to suddenly shove off on small business owners.  I'm seeing a lot of newspaper articles mention the new health care tax credit for small businesses but so far none of the articles has mentioned that the new tax credit will be scaled back every year until 2014 at which point it will vanish.

Rushed through too fast? It took over a year from a campaign promise and orriginated as a Republican proposal in the 1990's as an alternative to 'Hillary care' as teh Republican dubbed it. The only reason it took as long as it did was Republican foot dragging, kicking and screaming. I'm sorry but the Republicans really dropped the ball on this one, it's hard to protest the quality of the bill when you were asked to contribute and acted like spoiled kindergardeners instead.

Aside from the economic concerns which is primarily why I opposed this and continue to hope that it'll go down in flames in court challenges, the Democrats just didn't really seem to be all that concerned with the nitty gritty details.  They seemed to be more concerned with just "getting it passed" whatever "it" actually was.  Perhaps that's because it was Republicans proposing amendments in an effort to force it back to another vote and Democrats just trying to shove it through before they lost one more seat and couldn't shove it through anymore, but it kept seeming like Republicans were the ones coming up with all the good ideas that were routinely ignored.

I have a hard time believing that no Democrats ever, in all the time that the bill was being considered, were congenitally unable to come up with any of those ideas or considerations for potential ramifications.  I think they're smart people and I think it's just that they didn't really read and consider all the ramifications.  Some of them, like the House Majority Leader, even publicly said that they didn't read it before voting on it.  For most of last year, this wasn't the only thing on their plate, they had all the normal things that Senators and Congressional Representatives are responsible for.

Obviously, a year or ten years or decades back to when a national health care plan was first proposed was just not enough time -- although the general idea was considered, obviously (in my opinion) the Democrats just didn't spend enough time on the details and now we have this piece of sludge which I'm not happy with for a number of different reasons (primarily the economic one which says that we just cannot afford this).  They should have stopped and spent enough time on the details before trying to ram it through.

actually a number of Republican proposals *were* in teh bill, and most of their proposals were, as you said, designed to delay rather than enhance. I don't think the democrats should be criticized for their ability to cut through procedural obstructionism. Again, if Republicans had actually taken the time to be involved in teh process instead of trying to undermine it the bill probably could have been much better, but realistically it took longer than it should have because the democrats kept giving Republicans so mamy opportunities to make a constructive contribution.

Aside from the economic concerns which is primarily why I opposed this and continue to hope that it'll go down in flames in court challenges

I thought the right was against legislation by the courts?

The right's concept of what procedures are correct are highly situational. In case anyone has missed that. Most of the 'parlimentry trickery' they are complaining about regarding teh health care bill they invented and used under Bush.

I read the US Constitution on the matter of the voting on the bill and I don't see a conflict. The vote must be made in both houses and signed by the President but how that is done seems to up to the respective parts of the Congress. So if the House used "Deem and Pass" where the House in the bill granted such power when it went up it was as far as I can tell acceptable. There is nothing to ban it in the Constitution at all. I suspect any court would consider this an internal matter of the House and Senate as long as a proper vote as in they voted in the two houses. And it was signed by the President. So was that the case all around - yes.

Add to this the individual mandate is not new. An early precedent at the Federal level demanded members of the militia provide of their own expense a musket, powder, ammunition and a backpack. This was not in the Constitution technically the states should have done this but its a precendent even if an old one.  And since this is a tax consideration either you have insurance or pay a tax penalty, no one is forcing anyone to provide or get insurance or go to prison. You don't the government using its legitimate power to tax will do so they have that right under the US Constitution and its amendments.

As for Medicaid states don't have to participate its voluntary and states can always refuse. But if they participate they must accept Federal rules its a join program offered by the Federal government for part of the funding. And if they refuse then the states would likely have to make up for the care to their disabled and poor seniors in nursing homes etc. on their own somehow.

I don't see any issues in any of this that would be overturned the courts unless they wanted to overturn decades of precendents. I don't see why this is at all a problem we finally have Universal Health Care like most other advanced nations.

Universal Health Care?  I thought all that got passed was a restriction on revoking someone's insurance once they got sick...maybe I'm thinking of another bill?

The procedures were invented decades ago and have been used by both political parties when they were the minority party and decried by the majority party.  When I hear of points that the Right brought up, my first thought is, "Why didn't anyone on the Left think of that at any point along the way while the bill was being put together or discussed before it turned into a 'ram it through without any more discussion'?"

Which points are you speaking of in particular, Bart?  Right now the discussion is just a "Right is bad!" "No!  Left is bad!" argument about generalities.  But if we bring up some specific, concrete issues we might be able to get some level of agreement, or at least fruitful discussion.

Let me add this though- teh right and teh left have different perspectives. That is why Obama wanted teh right to participate constructively- so a difference in persepctive could be used to help improve the bill. Asking why the left didn't think of it is as pointless as asking why The catholic Clergy didn't realize that the earth goes arround the sun rather than the other way around- their perspective didn't see things in that way.

And when the Republican side is yelling about 'death panels' when they should have been talking about fiscal responsibility didn't help.

Yeah, the right dropped the ball no matter how you want to cut it. Whether you think all the fuss and PR was an intentional plan to stop an undesirable bill from going through or not, the bill did go through - and the only things we wanted that we DID get were basically gifts from Obama.

However, that's focusing only on the bill. On the larger scale, the Dems have lost a lot of credibility with the general population as 'getting stuff done', and they're going to suffer come this election.

And the response to that, of course, is that really, should either party be using legislation primarily as a pawn to putting itself in power? (This applies to both parties equally, but the Reps in the past two years especially.)

There were a lot of proposed amendments during the 20 hour reconciliation amendment period.  Here are the first few that were proposed: http://coburn.senate.gov/publi...ad-4748-3ac0f35d4335

I have a hard time disagreeing with most of those.  The first was "No Viagra to convicted hard core sex offenders".  Come on, people have been arguing about that for years now, surely someone on the left would have thought of this if they'd bothered to stop and think about the bill.  As it is, it's giving huge soundbites that make the left seem like antisocial nutjobs.

There were a lot of amendments proposed and I find myself forced to accept one of three scenarios for each one:
1. They pushed it through too quickly to think about that.
2. They didn't care about that and so ignored it.
3. They were incapable of thinking of that.

Also, let me note again that some people (like the House majority leader) expressly said that they didn't bother reading it before voting on it, so I'm pretty much forced to support 1 -- they pushed it through far too fast.

Politicians rarely read full bills any more. They hire people to do that for them. Politicians are busy politicking, to make sure they're re-elected.

People miss the point when talking about this people ,as a rule, will forgo soft freedoms for hard freedoms such as having enough food to eat or health care.

Why do you think in the old Soviet Union the vast majority of people did not care? It wasn't force it was because the government provided freedom from want - everyon was entitled to housing, food, medical care, a job and generally don't screw up the system and be a good citizen you never have to worry.

The same thing here people under a Capitalist system will be happy as long as they don't have to worry if that means adding in socialism to the system to make sure we are all happy citizens. So in this case people are pissed about health care, the poor are not happy its to keep the people happy. I know as long as I'm taken care of I'll not shake the boat and focus on not getting into trouble.

That is all that matter here so my guess is regardless of the Constitutional issues they will never overturn this there is to much to lose, in other words greater instability.

Because if you cared, you got shot?

Only if you said something about it. You could quietly care all day long.

As to te proposed amendments a lot of them did get in. I also have to wonder if some of tehm were trully necessary. Take for example the exampel of no viagra to convicted hard core sex offenders. Now if tehre already exists a law prohibiting teh prescription of viagra to a convicted sexx offender then this proposal s redundant. Or if if there are other rules in place regarding, for example, who will determine which drgsa are to be made available based on which criteria then it wouldn't be necessary to spell out individula cases such as sex offenders and viagra. Tehre may even be a schedule of drugs that are not availabel to ex-cons (including many that can be usd to manufacture street drugs) and viagra may be on that list...
This message was last edited by the player at 18:22, Wed 07 Apr 2010.

No because they got their wants taken care of and were loyal citizens. If the people rose up they were not going to stop such a revolution they knew that. So they made sure most people were happy enough and kept troublemakers to a minimum.

True they were hard on troublemakers that was not an issue for me they had the right to rebel and never did so most poeple obviously tolerated their state.

Its still not altering my basic case people want to be taken care of and as long as their free from worry everything will be fine if they lose some freedoms here or there in the process. Just look at other capitalist governments like Singapore they have few rights and might have issues with the government BUT are comfortable in a stable nation. They don't harm the govenments interests and are safe, have enough freedom and are prosperous. Seems like the situation in many capitalist nations even ours.

So no they will not rule the bill unconstitutional there is to much at stake for the government to regain stability and control long term.

They will not rule the bill unconstitutional because it isn't. Personally I also think the bill is a good idea.
That doesn't mean the Soviet Union was peacefull because the people agreed with the government or were simply satisfied because the government took care of their needs.

I'm pretty sure that conditions were miserable for most of the country and any large outbursts were forcibly put down by the army until Gorbachev, who was the first one who didn't use the army to squelch a revolution in the works.

Having actually lived in the Soviet Union, I can attest that Bart is right. The living conditions there were ABYSMAL. Speaking with them, they knew it was abysmal. They did not like the government, and did not consent to anything that was happening to them. However, to so much as complain was grounds for getting shot (no, I am not kidding. We invited a Russian and his son to visit us at our house in the US compound. While passing by the Russian guards out front, this man was literally shaking in his boots - because he knew if he was stopped by the guards outside of the gate, they could do whatever they pleased with him, and there was nothing he or we could do to stop them.)

Really?  I don't know man, I have a very hard time believing that any of those amendments were offered in good faith.  They seemed like pretty much pure political theatre to me:  not meant as an effort to improve the bill, but simply as a source of campaign sound-bites to embarrass democrats.  I mean, I read a lot of commentary about health care in the US during this whole debate, and I never once heard anyone mention the issue of viagra for sex offenders as a problem with US health care.  Perhaps people have been arguing about that for years, but I've missed it all.  And really, I don't think that's very high on the list of things that need addressing in the US health care system.  Seriously now, do you really see that as something particularly important, such that any health care bill that didn't address it should be deemed a failure?  I certainly have things I don't like about the bill that passed (I supposed I should call it a law now then), but the issue of whether or not insurance can cover viagra for sex offenders doesn't make the list of important ones for me.


Hmm.  I think you're still talking about process and people involved, rather than substance of the law.  I guess I'm not to interested in that discussion.  If you want me to agree that all politicians are dirty tricksters, and that they don't read the bills they vote on, I won't put up much of a fight.  I guess I'm more interested in hearing what specifically you don't like about the bill, rather than what you don't like about democrats, or about the pace of government in the US.  I'd disagree that it was passed too fast (in fact I think the process was drawn out far too long, and became far more theater than governance), but that's purely a matter of opinion on our parts, and there's not much hope of agreement.  Sort of like debating whether vanilla or chocolate is better.  Like I said, I think there are plenty of legitimate reasons to not like the new law, and also plenty of legitimate reason to like it, and those could be worth discussing/debating.  But arguing that the law is bad because it was passed "too fast" or because someone didn't read it seems to be focusing on the politics instead of the law.