Pelosi: 'Once we kick through this door,' more reform will follow

[luckytxn 2,264]

Trust me, when the Socialist speaker of the house is done we will be longing for the days of that Idiot Bush Jr.

[JimandChristy 1,689]

Trust me, when the Socialist speaker of the house is done we will be longing for the days of that Idiot Bush Jr.

"Socialist"

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

"Socialist"

Progressive, Liberal, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, all faces of the same serpent, where the goals of the state matter more than the Natural rights of it's citizens.

[Pooky 3,787]

So, you're essentially admitting that the other side of the isle doesn't have anything of substance to offer to tackle the problem. How stupid do you think the American people are to put people w/o effective solutions on the wheel?

I'm disregarding the other side of the aisle completely right now. Their part in this travesty is that they had no power to put up a fight in the first place. They had neither the votes, nor the leadership to do so.

No, this farce is solely a Democrat fustercluck. They got too greedy, too needy, too over-reaching, and, instead of a comprehensive healthcare reform Bill, we have a sham that covers up paying off everyone and their second cousin, all the while putting a band aid of a solution on an arterial bleed of a problem. They should be ashamed. And the country should be, and in a large part already is, angry. Very angry.

[scandal 951]

"Arbeit macht frei"

Huh?

Where did that come from?

Did someone steal the sign off the Auschwitz gate again?

[natty bumppo 297]

Huh?

Where did that come from?

Did someone steal the sign off the Auschwitz gate again?

i'd send you a pm .... but you would dismiss it .....

let's just say i have a lot of history in skokie .... fair enough?

[scandal 951]

Progressive, Liberal, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, all faces of the same serpent, where the goals of the state matter more than the Natural rights of it's citizens.

Why do you put Liberal in that list (or Progressive for that matter), yet not conservative?

In this country, at least, the (lower case) terms liberal and progressive are neither pejorative, nor evocative of repressive government. They are the natural alternative to conservativism. You do believe in having alternatives, don't you? Unless you actually prefer authoritative government of one dogmatic persuasion only?

i'd send you a pm .... but you would dismiss it .....

let's just say i have a lot of history in skokie .... fair enough?

Nope. Skokie is a nice town, but Buffalo Grove is nicer.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Well the health care industry in this country for the past 40 yrs has constantly been tinkered with, minor changes made hoping it would provide better quality care. Problem is now the care system is so broke just tinkering with it is no longer feasible (Which the Republicans want to do). It needs a major overall, right from the bottom up, which is what this debate has been all about. The whole legislative process has been going on for over a year, the bill you have right now is the best bill you are going to get. It is not a perfect bill but this is partially down to political reasons rather than health care reasons.

The Republicans were invited to the table, made far more amendments to the bill than the Dems and still weren't happy. Not once did they try to compromise, the dems did, they allowed buying across state lines, they dropped the public option etc etc. I don't think they even had any intention of trying to fix the system in the first place but rather score political points in trying to regain power. They were in power from 2000-2008 but where was their ideas of overhauling the health care system then? All of a sudden they seem to care or did they ever?

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Well the health care industry in this country for the past 40 yrs has constantly been tinkered with, minor changes made hoping it would provide better quality care. Problem is now the care system is so broke just tinkering with it is no longer feasible (Which the Republicans want to do). It needs a major overall, right from the bottom up, which is what this debate has been all about. The whole legislative process has been going on for over a year, the bill you have right now is the best bill you are going to get. It is not a perfect bill but this is partially down to political reasons rather than health care reasons.

The Republicans were invited to the table, made far more amendments to the bill than the Dems and still weren't happy. Not once did they try to compromise, the dems did, they allowed buying across state lines, they dropped the public option etc etc. I don't think they even had any intention of trying to fix the system in the first place but rather score political points in trying to regain power. They were in power from 2000-2008 but where was their ideas of overhauling the health care system then? All of a sudden they seem to care or did they ever?

All problems have been because of Government.

Logic would tell anyone with half a damn brain to take government out of the equation completely.

Of course logic seems to escape most these days.

There are only 2 people who should be making health care decisions, patient & doctor.

We sure as hell don't need an even larger government intervention that has been failing miserably the past 40 years.

The audacity and the idea that the Government is going to FORCE the people to buy health care is against every thing this nation stands for. I said it earlier, 'there will be blood' if this passes and it will be contributed to me to spill that blood if anyone dares to come knocking on my door to collect taxes for something i choose to handle on my own and do not wish to purchase insurance for, nor do I wish to subsidize others even more.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I'm disregarding the other side of the aisle completely right now. Their part in this travesty is that they had no power to put up a fight in the first place. They had neither the votes, nor the leadership to do so.

No, this farce is solely a Democrat fustercluck. They got too greedy, too needy, too over-reaching, and, instead of a comprehensive healthcare reform Bill, we have a sham that covers up paying off everyone and their second cousin, all the while putting a band aid of a solution on an arterial bleed of a problem. They should be ashamed. And the country should be, and in a large part already is, angry. Very angry.

Oh, so the party of no - no plan, no ideas, no clue - is off the hook. Interesting. The Democrats had to accommodate everyone from far left to center in order to construct a bill that can garner the votes needed. Had the GOP participated and supported provisions that are in the bill that they have advocated for years, then we may have a better product today. Instead, they made it their mission to make the health care reform effort - any effort - Obama's Waterloo. They wanted nothing from the health care reform process other than inflicting political damage to the Democrats and the President, the country be damned. But you're gonna let them off the hook. Brilliant.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

All problems have been because of Government.

Logic would tell anyone with half a damn brain to take government out of the equation completely.

Logic? How about reality? How about the real, actual world? A look at the real, actual world would let anyone with have a damn brain recognize that wherever government runs a tight ship when it comes to the health care of their population, the cost is lower and the outcome is better. You can make stipulations to the contrary but the evidence speaks against you.

[My Name Is Nobody 3]

The hiring of aprox 15,000 more IRS agents should be all anyone needs to know that this is more than about Healthcare Reform.

It should actually make a clear thinker stop and question some things. Regardless of which side they are on. People need to wake up.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Logic? How about reality? How about the real, actual world? A look at the real, actual world would let anyone with have a damn brain recognize that wherever government runs a tight ship when it comes to the health care of their population, the cost is lower and the outcome is better. You can make stipulations to the contrary but the evidence speaks against you.

We have a national health care program in place it is called VA hospitals. Here is your "better outcome"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4997.htm

Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor

By Mark Benjamin

UPI Investigations Editor

FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen."

Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his abdomen since doubling over in pain there.

After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20 percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family in Mississippi. "They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still trying," Buckels said.

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls "medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment.

The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold.

"It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin ailment.

A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public affairs officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not returned.

Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in medical hold were deployed to Iraq. Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops. They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior to military service.

Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper.

They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick people.

"I think it is disgusting," said one Army Reserve member who went to Iraq and asked that his name not be used.

That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a sudden onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten steadily worse. He shakes uncontrollably.

He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson's Disease and it was a pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax shots the Army gave him.

"They say I have Parkinson's, but it is developing too rapidly," he said. "I did not have a problem until I got those shots."

First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with the 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from the Iraqis as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles. Mosley said he was healthy before the war; he could run two miles in 17 minutes at 48 years old.

But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus. He also thinks the anthrax vaccine may have hurt him. Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury there.

Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself looking at shotguns recently and thought about suicide.

Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder block barracks. He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more doctor appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov. 11. He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the Army Reserves.

"Now, I would not go back to war for the Army," Mosley said.

Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to see doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait.

"The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and they put us on hold," said another soldier who returned from Iraq six weeks ago with a serious back injury. He has gotten to see a doctor only two times since he got back, he said.

Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has had real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in Iraq. "There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can't perform the surgeries that have to be done," that soldier said. "Look at these mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them," he said, gesturing to the bunks. "There are people here who got back in April but did not get their surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families."

The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves.

In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of the backbone of the military.

"Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror," Bush said. "And you're making your state and your country proud

[Mark&Gladys 0]

Logic? How about reality? How about the real, actual world? A look at the real, actual world would let anyone with have a damn brain recognize that wherever government runs a tight ship when it comes to the health care of their population, the cost is lower and the outcome is better. You can make stipulations to the contrary but the evidence speaks against you.

What evidence? The world is full of examples where centralized health care increased costs and provided much poorer care. The VA hospitals mentioned earlier are also an excellent example. Your points about the republicans ignoring the problem are appropriate, but they also lacked the votes and leadership to make true reforms. This bill actually will force people to purchase health insurance which is one step closer to socialism and a blatant violation of civil rights and that point alone will eventually kill it. In fact I believe 27 states are already moving on legislation to address that point directly.

Here are the facts:

This bill may protect a few of the disadvantaged people in the country - but we will be paying their bills. A redistribution of wealth!

It will not provide better care.

It will not lower costs.

It does not provide for tort reform.

And it will not impact the deficit in any measurable form.

There is nothing in this bill except more expense and red tape for the majority of the people in the USA.

The whole debate has boiled down to a power struggle for the Obama administration and Pelosi. The irony is that Pelosi does not even know what's in the bill - she wants to pass it so she can "find out what all is in it". She and her army have filled the bill with pork to buy votes and are now threatening any politician in the Dem party with political genocide if they dare hold to their principles and vote their conscious. The truth is that only a minority of the Dems actually support the bill but they have been bought or beat into submission.

So again I agree that we need health care reform desperately, but this bill is not the answer and has no chance of surviving the legal challenges coming even if it does pass today.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

We have a national health care program in place it is called VA hospitals. Here is your "better outcome"

I'm sorry, I must have missed the part of the debate where anyone was proposing a nationalized health care system along the lines of the VA - or the British NHS, for that matter. The only people I've ever heard debating such were the idiots on Hoax News and the interest groups that profit from the status quo. The fact remains, however, that nationalized health care was never on the table. What has been on the table was a public insurance option and/or the expansion of Medicare. And Medicare fares far better than PHI in this country.

But yeah, keep hitting that nationalized health care system straw-man. Have at it.

What evidence? The world is full of examples where centralized health care increased costs and provided much poorer care.

Which one? Let's see it. Show me the system that has had costs exploding more than our PHI system. Bring it.

Edited March 21, 2010 by Mr. Big Dog