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Health care is truly one of the most basic human responses all people receive from birth either by their family members or interested compassionate care givers. It is one of the most cherished gifts one gives to the dying members of your family. It is a right of civilized individuals living in a society dedicated to evolving into a more perfect government. It is the very first indication of the moral conscience of any society. Health car begins in the home out of love and concern for family and friends and often times complete strangers. It is one of the first services we provide to people of suffering nations as an indication of encouragement and compassion. Americans are by nature a compassionate people motivated by morality. From a band aid to chicken soup we all feel in some way we must alleviate and help heal the suffering of others both emotional and physical. It is a responsibility of being human, and perhaps to a higher calling than simply being human. When it comes to caring for needs of people beyond our novice capabilities, I would like to believe that as a society that cares for one another by instinct would be delighted to set up a plan to strengthen our nation by caring and healing the ailments of it's citizens. As a society we can foster an environment to nurture and enrich our culture enabling
greater creativity, security and production, or we can pursue what continues to be problematic for most with little resolution for the future. We can not have a large society with a miniscule government because we inherited a very large and complex set of problems. We have to ask our selves what we attribute our priorities for accomplishment. Is it to be an imposing threat to world peace to satisfy greed or is it to enhance our symbol of freedom and peace. When we get it right I believe others will follow. When we don't others will pursue.
@Boomer_1: "Anyone seriously believe at this point [the Republicans] would repeal the present plan and do nothing else?"
Anyone who has been paying attention for much of the last 30 years probably thinks that. The simple reason is because the republicans are the party of the top 1% and the top 1% can pay for healthcare out of pocket. You couldn't name a single republican representative that wants to provide health coverage to the poor and working class. All they want is to provide the health insurance industry with more profits.
What were the taxes like when the monks were self sufficient?
This is judicial corruption at it’s worst, and these men should be impeached or prosecuted
There was a mis-spelling in the piece above. It should read "This is judicial corruption at it's worst and these men should be impeached and prosecuted.
Were NAZIS bad, bicyclingjroad? If the answer is yes, well, guess what group is closely associated with the main Republican Party?
It now appears to be typical of you "righties" to mak truluy boorish blog comments. Add complaining to the list of things "righties" do well. This reminds me of the days the poor smokers complained about their rights being infringed because they could no longer put there noxious exhaust into my air.
bicyclingjroad, you were probably always a cry baby. Am I correct?
Obama's health care is constitutional do to the fact that insurance is commerce, therefore congress has the right to regulate commerce. By the judge in Florida who said they couldn't throw out the mandate without throwing out the whole bill made it such a large part of that bill, that there is no way they can repeal it. It is a no brainer because insurance is commerce and congress can regulate commerce. So to the right wing side who is doing this for political reasons, Ha! Ha! You lose.
Dr. Lawhon said, "Give a calf enough rope and he'll hang himself."
This is MY opinion based on facts. Anyone with half a brain and aware of the endless AND vile attacks against our President, Liberals, Progressives etc etc, by the Republican party and Tea Party advocates since day one, can figure this out by a modicum of logic alone.
The repeal of the Health Care Bill is solely a Republican mandate and agenda (Repeated on Fox Noise everY 10 minutes). The Tea Party has this as one of the MOST important issues in their "Take Back Our Government" mandate (All Republican Representatives voted unanimously to Repeal THE Healthcare Bill). The Big Insurance companies fund ALL Republican Lobbyists and all of the Neo-Conservative groups like Karl Roves' "American Crossroads" and other such neo-conservative groups (Easy to check the Contributions). In turn funneling money to Tea Party groups (that also not difficult to check). And of course the invitation and the attending of conservative political funding functions by Supreme Court Justices (Scalia with Cheney and behind closed door secret meeting with the recently elected Tea Party Representatives (Funny no Democrat group?), Alitto attending closed Door fund raising dinners, Thomas whose wife worked the Tea Party circuit)! This is fact.
The repeal of the Healthcare Bill is a Republican agenda only. I don't see too many Democrats trying to repeal it. Fact.
And as with everything else that the Republican agenda is trying to push, the sole motive is to defeat Pres Obama and make him a "ONE TIME PRESIDENT - Sen O'Connel's phrase!" and basically have him fail at the expense of the well being of all Americans. "Citizen's United" opened the floodgates for billions of dollars to flow in secret to special Interest groups whose sole purpose is to regain control of all three houses of our government AND the Supreme Court. This is no secret. Being stated ad infinitum on all right- wing Radio stations, Fox Noise and all other neo-conservative own media outlets.
My Opinion is based on Facts.
To the American People - When is This Republican controlled Congress going to start creating Jobs? All that is happening is endless partisan bickering and whining. They need to get their hands dirty and start creating jobs for the American people. All I hear, however, is the mindless whining and finger pointing! Fact.
"In short this is a complete take-over "Agenda" by the Healthcare Industries to stop and repeal the Healthcare Bill at "ALL COSTS"! They are spending hundreds of Millions to get this overturned."
Can you cite a supporting reference for that statement that is something other than someone else's opinion?
The Republican mandates are unconstitutional*, as well as being a stupid idea economically. It was a serious mistake in strategy to include these because the courts will rule them unconstitutional and that will undermine any gains we made in healthcare.
The silver lining in this is that after they rule this unconstitutional we can finally get on to solving the real problem with healthcare: it costs way too much. We pay about 17% of GDP in this country, while Europe pays between 9 and 11% and China & India are paying 5% (for admittedly poor healthcare). These are our competitors.
To have a competitive healthcare system we need to get costs under 15%. That would require taking about $650 billion a year out of current costs (to get to 15% and cover everyone in the country). The only feasible way to do that is to get rid of corporate waste--profits, outrageous executive pay, and other costs--that currently costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
The government should have simply said that it would pay for all necessary healthcare, and would increase the income tax across the board to pay for it. This would be perfectly constitutional and beyond court review. It would also be much fairer than even the PPACA system, which pushes people into for-profit healthcare insurance. That will simply increase costs because the cost structure in for-profit healthcare are higher than in public systems.
One of the biggest sources of cost in our system is the administrative cost from our adversarial system of payments. The providers must keep extra staff to research the plethora of plans and fight for payment, whereas the payers have to keep staff to deny coverage. Since there are literally tens of thousands of plans, we get enormous overhead costs. Public health systems generally have about 3-4% overhead, where we are paying maybe 30% overhead for runaway administrative costs and other corporate waste. A fully public system would eliminate administrative costs by reducing the number of plans and making it much easier to know which treatments are covered. It would eliminate the adversarial system.
Democrats did an extremely poor job with the package we got and they are rightly being sent back to do it over. We should welcome that and put our energy into getting a real improvement: publicly-funded healthcare.
* People that have not bought healthcare insurance are not participating in commerce. This is in contrast to the cases that many people cite, in which (for example) farmers grow crops and therefore are taking an action that is part of commerce. The Commerce Clause was stretched to cover these precedents to begin with, and it is pretty clear from them that going this extra step to allow non-activity to be part of commerce is an additional stretch. Frankly, stretching government power in this way is bad for liberals and we should not support it. Nor is it necessary. The government does not have to mandate that individuals buy from private enterprise in order to cover everyone. They can simply pay it out of general revenue and bump up all the brackets by about 2%. That's the right way to get what we want and Democrats should have done that in the first place. As I've argued for a couple of years, now.
Thom, I do not like disagreeing with you, because you are usually so thoughtful and compassionate. But the Obamacare (I don't liek that name) healthcare package is wrong, beccause it is forced on the people. What would be better would be for the government to have , ahumm, what eveyone, including you wanted in the first place.... socialized medicine. That way, you wouldn' have to be forced to buy it separately, it would be included with your taxes, which would certainly go up, some. But in the long run, the costs of medicine would stabilize, just like they have in other countries with socialized medicine. We have to find a way to get the big industries off our backs, and the medical industry is one of the biggest.
It seems The Crusades came up quite a few times today. In 1995 Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) and documentary filmmaker Alan Ereira made a historical documentary series called Crusades for the BBC. It is entertaining, informative and of course not without it's own critics. Might be a good starting point for anyone that is interested.
From your keyboard to God's ears!
From Wikipedia's article on Ichthys: "A less commonly cited use of fish in Christ's life may be found in the words of Matthew 17:24-27, in which, upon being asked if his Teacher does not pay the temple (two-drachma) tax, Simon Peter answers, "Yes." Christ tells Peter to go to the water and cast a line. He says that a coin sufficient for the tax will be found in the fish's mouth. Peter does as told and finds the coin."
If a religious church or temple is preaching politics, they should be taxed. Religions seem to be lightning rods for the spewing of hatred.
February 15 is considered the hump day for our temperatures to rise toward Spring. There will still be cold days, icy and snowy days but the date gives hope to survival of winter.
When the going gets tough, the non-tough gets winnowed!
You just thrashed a man who for the last 2 years has had all the Proverbial S*** thrown at him and he is still there leading our country!
And for a few non-agreements and simple criticism of your blog you simply quit!
Now I know I voted for the right man!
Groundhog Day is based on a disagreement over when the seasons officially change. Note that 6 weeks after Feb. 2nd is approximately the vernal equinox, which is when Americans think spring starts. The Chinese calendar starts the year around now (variation is due to having a sort of leap month), because they think the seasons should be divided at the mid-points between equinoxes and solstices. The Chinese view makes sense if you want to call summer the time when the sun is highest in the sky. In the American view, the sun is, on average, as high in spring as in summer, and as low in autumn as in winter.
I am simply amazed at the Anti-Health Care "Obamacare" rhetoric coming from the Right!
They all Repeat ad naseaum what they are hearing from "Fox Noise" and their ilk. They just don't get it.
There are a few "Propagandists" filling their brains full of Fears and outright lies.
In short this is a complete take-over "Agenda" by the Healthcare Industries to stop and repeal the Healthcare Bill at "ALL COSTS"! They are spending hundreds of Millions to get this overturned. If the Healthcare law stands, the Healthcare Industry stands to lose Billions. And my amazement is that these “For-Profit” Insurance companies are succeeding in convincing millions of Americans that they do not need Healthcare insurance! Such is the power of “Propaganda”, “Big Money”, and the Big Lie!
Why would anyone want to reject affordable Health insurance for themselves, their children, their wives, and immediate family, for no insurance at all? All in the name of ‘I don’t want Government to tell me what to do?’ Mind boggling right? But yet these anti-healthcare advocates would rather die than be able to get affordable healthcare. Just Amazing.
In any family, when a life-threatening disease or accident occurs, not having healthcare Insurance can bankrupt families - literally. Homes, life savings, properties, poof, all gone like the wind. And yet these people have been brainwashed by corporate interests to believe that they do not need this life saving Insurance. Astounding.
Here is a challenge for these anti-Healthcare advocates – when you are denied coverage for any reason, try getting compensation from the Healthcare Industries who have convinced you that you don’t need Healthcare Insurance in the first place. For a fact I know you will not get any. It is one thing when one is healthy to refuse Healthcare Insurance, it is another when a member of your family or yourself has to die or suffer pre-maturely because you don’t have that Health Insurance to save them. And no, the Emergency rooms of any “for profit hospitals” will not cover and pay for any long term life threatening health conditions – you are totally on your own.
If not for anything else, think of your family and your children before you deny life saving Healthcare Insurance for them. It just might save yours and their lives!
The Establishment Clause has been perverted. The tax free status of the church has enabled it to exist and to be political. If religion is so important how could a detail like taxes become an issue? Why should everyone fund sects? The answer is that no one should except those people who wish the sect to exist and reinforce their beliefs and world views.
Monks traditionally did labor, made wine and supported themselves. I don't know why anyone else should support people who believe so strongly.
Churches often rent out their main hall, which means they get revenue for non-religious functions.
Now we know why Issa wants that List of FOIA "Names"! (See Below yesterdays Blog on Issa)
Where is the Major Media concerning this? Other then this blog, Nothing!
Our liberties are being threatened here - where is the outrage?
I called my Representatives and Senators yesterday. They were not even aware of this!
Here is why Issa wants the "Names": to give to "Big Business" who in turn will use them against those who filed requests under the FOIA. Plain and simple. That is what you call the Inquisitional ferver coming in via a "Back Door" under the rubric of 'We just want to streamline the process and make it better'! Complete hooey!
Big Brother is coming and he Corporate/Wall Street led and paid for - I suggest that the American people wake up before it is too late. Once the "Oppressive Machinery" is up and running it will be very difficult to dismantle. The Corporate/Industrial/Plutocrats have way more Trillions than any single citizen or group of citizens.
And I suggest to the Right-Wing and Tea Party advocates that they are making a "Devil's Bargain" with the Corporate elite. They are being "Used" and "Bought" and lied to by the Corporate Billionaires in order to attain their complete Corporate power. Do you actually believe that once this Plutocratic/Oligargic/Corporate conglomerate once in power will let go of their power willingly in the future (Look to Egypt right now - an 82 year old despot willing to sacrifice 1000s of his own people so he can retain power for a few more months)?
The Right-Wing and The Tea Party advocates are being "Duped": the corporate billionaires are using emotional "Wedge Issues" to galvanize the Right to elect "Corporate “Bought” Politicians" who will in the short term satisfy the Rights' issues, but who in the long term will be entrenching their power in Washington and Wall Street. This is not a conspiracy theory, but what is actually happening with our Democracy right now. The "Devil's Bargain" here is that once the Corporate elite have attained their objectives, the duped Right will be left by the wayside and discarded like so much refuse.
It is one thing to protest in the streets for less government and less taxes, etc, it is another when those very actions then create an oppressive Corporate/Political Conglomerate that will eventually take those freedoms away from you.
Be careful what you wish for!
I recall that American military "aid" to foreign countries is not to be used against their own populations. The US has gotten around this in the past by sending the "aid" to Israel, who would then ship the weapons on to the intended destination. Indonesia was one such recipient. Israel also uses US military equipment against its own people, but excuses it because Palestinians are not considered to be "their own" people. I think that Palestinians are not even considered to be people - Golda Meir once said, "there is no such thing as a Palestinian." Noam Chomsky points out that Palestinians have negative rights.
The Middle East is a cauldron; the fire is on the inside as well as the outside.