Federal Gestapo Services ask good citizens to report any emails about health insurance reform that seem "fishy" to flag@whitehouse.gov

[HAL 9000 96]

The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Better $700bn than $700bn + $1 trillion.

I thought that it wasn't free healthcare. Oh that must have been another propagated lie.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Better $700bn than $700bn + $1 trillion.

I suppose the idea is that installing an effective alternative to private insurers and re-introducing competition into this market (health insurance is mostly a monopoly these days) would yield some savings on the current waste. So, the math you offered may not actually apply.

[HAL 9000 96]

The right is being shut out of any input in Washington. Every amendment or change to the bill is met with an instant slapdown. In effect the only thing we can do is oppose the whole thing. Short of rolling over we are doing the only thing we can do.

That's factually incorrect, Gary.

Take the advance care planning provision of H.R. 3200, for example. The AARP strongly supports this provision which actually made it into the legislation with Republicans co-sponsoring it. Once this bi-partisan provision makes it into the legislation, the GOP then turns around and blasts the legislation that will lead us down a "treacherous path towards government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law". This is about as ill-spirited and dishonest an allegation as one could possibly imagine. Is this the bi-partisanship that the GOP allegedly is looking for? Don't kid yourself and others, Gary.

There's one goal the GOP has on healthcare reform and Sen. Jim DeMint was kind enough to share that goal with the public: To make health care reform Obama's Waterloo. The GOP is interested neither in compromise nor in bi-partisanship. The GOP is interested in maintaining the status quo on health care. The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

wow...

I know.

[mawilson 2,133]

There is not enough volume period. The only people that use snail mail regularly are businesses and putting the cost up would make business costs prohibitive - they would find alternatives, which they already have done in parcels for the most part. It is perfectly possible to make a viable postal service but not one that serves all citizens - that is what the US Mail service is charged with.

They would not find any alternatives because it's against the law.

You think that business would continue sending mail USPS if it was charged at cost + profit to maintain delivery to every single USC? You are crazier than I thought

They can't send mail any other way. They would either stop sending it altogether (unlikely) or

keep sending it USPS and pass the extra costs on to their customers (most likely outcome.)

[mawilson 2,133]

The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Better $700bn than $700bn + $1 trillion.

I suppose the idea is that installing an effective alternative to private insurers and re-introducing competition into this market (health insurance is mostly a monopoly these days) would yield some savings on the current waste. So, the math you offered may not actually apply.

For the record, I'm ok with the public option if it's SELF-FUNDED (as in "you have to pay to join".)

What I'm not ok with is spending $1 trillion to buy insurance for 40 million people through the current system

without addressing the problems of the current system.

[SMOKE 1,426]

Problem is... nowhere in this bill does it say the government is going to take over health care.

can you give an example of an industry where the private sector does compete the government? i can't think of one.

That is irrelevant to the specifics of this topic.

no it isn't. Gary said he didn't want the government taking over healthcare. you said what i quoted. i asked a question you can't answer. because you know as well as i do the private sector can not compete with the government.

[GaryC 7]

The right is being shut out of any input in Washington. Every amendment or change to the bill is met with an instant slapdown. In effect the only thing we can do is oppose the whole thing. Short of rolling over we are doing the only thing we can do.

That's factually incorrect, Gary.

Take the advance care planning provision of H.R. 3200, for example. The AARP strongly supports this provision which actually made it into the legislation with Republicans co-sponsoring it. Once this bi-partisan provision makes it into the legislation, the GOP then turns around and blasts the legislation that will lead us down a "treacherous path towards government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law". This is about as ill-spirited and dishonest an allegation as one could possibly imagine. Is this the bi-partisanship that the GOP allegedly is looking for? Don't kid yourself and others, Gary.

There's one goal the GOP has on healthcare reform and Sen. Jim DeMint was kind enough to share that goal with the public: To make health care reform Obama's Waterloo. The GOP is interested neither in compromise nor in bi-partisanship. The GOP is interested in maintaining the status quo on health care. The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Is this any different that the dems assertions that the GOP would make seniors eat dog food and live on the streets when the reps were in power? You act as if the GOP is doing something new.

[HAL 9000 96]

The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Better $700bn than $700bn + $1 trillion.

I suppose the idea is that installing an effective alternative to private insurers and re-introducing competition into this market (health insurance is mostly a monopoly these days) would yield some savings on the current waste. So, the math you offered may not actually apply.

For the record, I'm ok with the public option if it's SELF-FUNDED (as in "you have to pay to join".)

What I'm not ok with is spending $1 trillion to buy insurance for 40 million people through the current system

without addressing the problems of the current system.

Sounds like a very valid concern.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The right is being shut out of any input in Washington. Every amendment or change to the bill is met with an instant slapdown. In effect the only thing we can do is oppose the whole thing. Short of rolling over we are doing the only thing we can do.

That's factually incorrect, Gary.

Take the advance care planning provision of H.R. 3200, for example. The AARP strongly supports this provision which actually made it into the legislation with Republicans co-sponsoring it. Once this bi-partisan provision makes it into the legislation, the GOP then turns around and blasts the legislation that will lead us down a "treacherous path towards government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law". This is about as ill-spirited and dishonest an allegation as one could possibly imagine. Is this the bi-partisanship that the GOP allegedly is looking for? Don't kid yourself and others, Gary.

There's one goal the GOP has on healthcare reform and Sen. Jim DeMint was kind enough to share that goal with the public: To make health care reform Obama's Waterloo. The GOP is interested neither in compromise nor in bi-partisanship. The GOP is interested in maintaining the status quo on health care. The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Is this any different that the dems assertions that the GOP would make seniors eat dog food and live on the streets when the reps were in power? You act as if the GOP is doing something new.

But if you're genuinely interested in an open debate about healthcare reform - this sort of thing should be beneath contempt. It surely doesn't matter who did it before - kids use arguments like that "well, he did it first!"

[GaryC 7]

Problem is... nowhere in this bill does it say the government is going to take over health care.

There have been many prominent dems tell us that since they don't have the votes to pass a single payer (government run) system that this is the first step towards that. We want to stop that first step.

[HAL 9000 96]

Problem is... nowhere in this bill does it say the government is going to take over health care.

can you give an example of an industry where the private sector does compete the government? i can't think of one.

That is irrelevant to the specifics of this topic.

no it isn't. Gary said he didn't want the government taking over healthcare. you said what i quoted. i asked a question you can't answer. because you know as well as i do the private sector can not compete with the government.

Why can't it? Gary said what he said because he may be (again, I do not put words where they do not belong) projecting some conspiracy to force the evils of health care coverage on all that may be substandard to present standards of health care without considering that health care evolves with technology and costs go down over time as efficiency increases.

The resulting costs result from mismanagement. What we've seen thus far is a private sector that has taken profitability to an extreme beyond the limits a healthy society can and should tolerate. Hence the impetus to change that structure- not to destroy the current system but to place a check on it such that profitability doesn't become an exercise in corporate abuse and waste that takes precedence to a customer's (the patient) right to quality (health).

You asked in irrelevant question.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So Gary, going by the allegedly stated goal - then you don't actually care about what the bill contains as much as stopping "the left" in its supposedly socialist intent?

And the deliberate misinformation exampled above is a tool to faciliate that presumably.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Private Pike

[HAL 9000 96]

The right is being shut out of any input in Washington. Every amendment or change to the bill is met with an instant slapdown. In effect the only thing we can do is oppose the whole thing. Short of rolling over we are doing the only thing we can do.

That's factually incorrect, Gary.

Take the advance care planning provision of H.R. 3200, for example. The AARP strongly supports this provision which actually made it into the legislation with Republicans co-sponsoring it. Once this bi-partisan provision makes it into the legislation, the GOP then turns around and blasts the legislation that will lead us down a "treacherous path towards government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law". This is about as ill-spirited and dishonest an allegation as one could possibly imagine. Is this the bi-partisanship that the GOP allegedly is looking for? Don't kid yourself and others, Gary.

There's one goal the GOP has on healthcare reform and Sen. Jim DeMint was kind enough to share that goal with the public: To make health care reform Obama's Waterloo. The GOP is interested neither in compromise nor in bi-partisanship. The GOP is interested in maintaining the status quo on health care. The GOP is interested in wasting $700bn per year on a broken system while leaving tens of millions of Americans on the outside looking in on health care.

Is this any different that the dems assertions that the GOP would make seniors eat dog food and live on the streets when the reps were in power? You act as if the GOP is doing something new.

The difference is that most people are fed up with being lied to to score political points.

[SMOKE 1,426]

kids use arguments like that "well, he did it first!"

the Dems have been wearing that one out for months now.

[HAL 9000 96]

Problem is... nowhere in this bill does it say the government is going to take over health care.

There have been many prominent dems tell us that since they don't have the votes to pass a single payer (government run) system that this is the first step towards that. We want to stop that first step.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

kids use arguments like that "well, he did it first!"

the Dems have been wearing that one out for months now.

Examples?