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Q: But where do you draw the line? Should you personally be able to choose which taxes
you pay and which you don't? So you don't support this health care bill and consider
it theft ... yet you (or someone else may) support defense spending and are okay with
your tax dollars funding the CIA and our armed forces, so that's not theft. Where's the distinction?
Where's the line? Who gets to decide?
The point is any program is going to have people who are happy about it (those who benefit
from it) and those who are unhappy about it (those who do not directly benefit from it).
There's no way to please everybody. Tax cuts for the rich during the Bush administration
ticked off poor people but made rich people giddy. Bush's absolute raping of the EPA and
any environmental protection laws made his good buddies in the oil industry LOVE him
and the scientific and environmental communities despise him ... congress's health care bill
isn't going to please everyone. But that does not constitute theft. It constitutes government.
A: under the Constitution, our taxes are supposed to pay for a government that provides a military
defense and a justice system. other than that, The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people. so it's not a personal choice of mine, it's written in
the primary law that's supposed to put chains on what our Congress can and cannot do.
Q: Well, my friend, then you need to go live in a country that doesn't tax, because that's
way it's been since the framers. Even they believed in taxation, they just wanted representation.
It's not theft with you choosing to live in this country.
A: original taxes in the US were to be levied on ALL citizens equally. not some more than
others, and some none at all. and the "benefits" of the taxation were not to benefit some more
than others, and some none at all. that's what "to promote the general welfare" meant
- to help everyone. and there were only two functions which they believed served that
purpose - military and justice - and I agree with them.
nobody handed me a ballot card when I came out of the womb and asked me to select which
set of people I wanted to tax and rule me, so no, I didn't choose to live in this country.
but I do thank God I was born here, it's the best one of I know yet.
Q: A government option isn't socialistic, nor is it a step towards socialism. Socialization
of healthcare would involve government financing and direct provision of health care services,
which it won't / doesn't. Distribution of wealth / property does not describe Socialism,
although it is a characteristic. A: yes, it definitely is. it's distribution
of wealth/property. it doesn't involve government financing? I don't know why I was in such
an uproar then! I thought it was going to be funded by my taxes!
there's no government provision of health care services? so the services will, without
any funding or direction, magically find their way to the necessary citizens? sweet! that
is definitely a good plan.
Q: By provision of healthcare services I meant government-controlled hospitals and medical
work areas (the actual services being preformed there). Don't we choose what hospitals /
physicians we see? A: I'm not sure how you make the distinction
between direct government-provided services, and government-funded services. for example,
you say that it would only be socialist if the government directly provided the services,
but what if their supplies were manufactured by private sources? does that make it not
socialism? and if so, how far down the rabbit hole do you have to go to admit that it's
socialism. does the government have to fund or perform the primary services of mining
or harvesting the materials to make it socialism? my point is, it doesn't matter who "technically"
performs the services. if they are performed with funds forcibly taken from the populace
and the "benefit" is not directly returned to that person, it is socialism.
yes, socialism embodies more than healthcare, but socialized (or "universal") healthcare
is a socialist tenet/agenda. socialized healthcare is even one of the 10 planks of the Communist
Manifesto. communism and socialism are not exactly the same thing but I think the point
is clear.
Q: isn't "no pre-existing conditions" a good thing?
A: I'm actually pretty happy about it. now, with the "no pre-existing conditions" stipulations,
I don't have to buy healthcare until I actually need it! I only have to pay a $750 annual
"penalty" until something happens to me - then, I just have to pay the same monthly
amount as everyone else! I don't know where the money to cover my catastrophic injuries
is going to come from, though, since everyone else will probably do this too and there won't
be nearly enough money in the pool. I guess I'm hoping that instead of shutting down their
businesses, the health insurance companies will just reach into those deep pockets and
turn into charities!
Q: Where do you think the money comes from now for all the people who don't want to buy
healthcare and wait until a catastrophic ailment to go to the hospital? When these people don't
pay their medical bills, and the majority don't, the money comes out of medicaid and
medicare. The fact is that Medicaid will be completely broke by 2012 under this current
system. At least now $750 a year from anyone not wanting to buy insurance will be given
back to the system. A: so this bill is a good thing because it
will supposedly help the ailing medicare/aid? you make the presupposition that a bandaid
is a good solution to the tumor that is medicare. but everyone knows that you don't try to patch
a tumor - you remove it.
I don't understand how so many people seem to take as common knowledge this idea that
medicare is a necessity, and that it just needs to be "fixed". same goes for the notion
that we have to figure out some way to pay for people that are treated without fronting
the bill, without addressing the underlying premise that hospitals are for some reason
expected to render service without proof of payment - or that we the taxpayers should
be accountable for a so-called "private" entity's unpaid liabilities, instead of those debts
being handled in court where they belong.
OR the fact that our US government should have no hand in "figuring out" our healthcare
system in the first place... then again, they're now talking about legislating the BCS format.
ludicrous.
Q: But when you call 911 for immediate health care, are you talking to the government or
to a private enterprise? Are you sure you don't trust the government to save your life?
A: I hope that they will save my life (since that's what I'm paying them for), but I don't
trust them to. I would much rather there exist a private emergency response enterprise where
competition could exist.
Q: But... outlawing pre-existing conditions as a reason for denial of coverage is a good
thing for everybody! A: I have a back problem; I crushed a lumbar
vertebra and ruptured a disc playing football in 9th grade, and I've had recurring problems
with it over the years. the insurance company came back and told me that due to my back's
injury history they could not insure any back injuries or problems. now while that sucks
for me and I really hate it, are you telling me that it's only "fair" that they can't make
such an exception, and that it would be "fair" if I immediately opted for a surgery that
cost tens of thousands of dollars once I was on their plan?