This guy used to teach Constitutional Law for a living?

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Fine, if I get cancer, I'll buy my own morphine patches, no chemo, no radiation. Just give me a waiver to sign and have notarized.

Fat people cost the health care system BILLIONS in health care every year too. Are we going to tax twinkies next? How about Soda, fast food? Where does it end? I don't buy this altruistic crap that Congress is increasing the taxes for good intentions. They're just as bad as a dealer jacking up the price of heroin on a street junkie. If they really gave a damn about people who were smokers, they'd ban it. This nanny state crap needs to stop.

Then you get this BS from primarily democrats, who act like they care about helping out the lower class. Well they know statistically smokers are low income people. Love the doublespeak. Its the Democrats who have been pushing the higher Cigarette taxes.
 



Where does it end? That's libertarian talk, and frankly I don't have any concern for "where it ends" because that's why we have our court system to interpret what is and isn't acceptable.

I view healthcare like car insurance; if you are alive, everyone uses it at one point or another regardless. All those who don't want to pay (those who are screaming liberty from taxation) are the true free-riders. Also to cover the bases, I don't view taxation as theft, so I have no problem with higher taxes as long as we are getting something in return. This is where you retort with we are not, and this is where I just highlight many social systems we utilize daily from mail, transportation, hospitals, police & fire, emergency services, etc. etc.
 
Also, just to add for the record, I actually quit smoking in November, I now use electronic cigarettes. (Although I still light up a conventional smoke every now and then)

E-cigarettes, not much is known about them yet, but there is strong evidence that while they are not necessarily healthy, they cannot logically be nearly as bad as cigarettes. Yet, the FDA manner-minders without congressional oversight or cause decided to step in and seize shipments of them. Thank God the judge ruled against them.

Now what have they done? They've ruled them a "tobacco" product. I'm sure they'll start taxing them soon. It never ceases to amaze me how much the government can twist things and butcher the English language to suit their desires. THERES NO TOBACCO in Electronic cigarettes, and yet its a tobacco product?
 



"The American Republic will endure until Congress discovers it can bribe the people with their own money"

No I'm not a Libertarian, no I'm not anti-taxes, however I am against government abuse. Clearly you don't regard the system as it exists today as such. Thats your right to believe so.
 
If you have the power to make your job easier, wouldnt you?
Make popular law, your popular.
Spend someone elses money doing it, and you have a base.

Using scare tactics against the supreme court isnt the wisest thing to do.
As Obama has said, if this doesnt pass, therell be much suffering.
Like thats going to happen, and like that authorises its need.

Just because we can doesnt mean we should, and certainly doesnt mean its lawful.
 


Well to be fair, the degree ("Marine Affairs") from U. of Rhode Island was actually not bad until the recession hit. I keep telling my daughter that BP could use some good ecology-types after the Gulf oil spil :), but she also does not want to leave Rhode Island, for some unfathomable (no pun intended) reason. And she also did not attend many recruitment events or job fairs on campus, which she was eligible for. Since I used to do a lot of campus recruiting for my company, I told her that was a big mistake, but as a father to a 20+ yr. old, my IQ is apparently that of a potato and thus she didn't pay attention to what I said 😛..

She was on the varsity sailing team so I strongly suspect her idea of a degree & career had to involve oceans somehow. Of course, she could have joined the Navy and been paid for her time & trouble, but hey what does a potato know..

My ex-wife & I paid around $150K for that degree, but unfortunately no money-back guarantee 😛..
 


Actually I did, since URI required either student insurance to the tune of $2K+ a year or private insurance. So when she turned 22 I had to get some policy by United Healthcare - they charged $500 for 6 months and did not pay one nickel of any claim, including routine exams. Now that was a scam & a half! The only benefit was the prescription reduction and I guess the negotiated services rates.. I was downright giddy to dump their sorry arses once she got back on my Aetna family plan..
 


LOL - small world, ain't it?? :)
 

Unless you file for exemption under "Rangel Rule"

In all seriousness. I honestly have doubts whether or not democracy works. Congress has had an extremely low approval rating for as long as I can remember. And yet, we keep electing the same old windbags into office term after term...
 


I agree with you 100%, it's unfair and unscientific.



No, I believe the most derogatory influential force in politics is the dollar. When we take the private funding of politics out of the equation, and put all candidates from all afilliations on an equal stage and let them argue their platforms equally, then politics will return to sanity. Until then we are battling the interests of faceless, conscienceless, multi-national companies who bottom line is profit, and will do anything to get to that bottom line, including negatively influencing policies that would have a positive public good but may impede upon the firms goals.

Also, I am against government excess in every way, and think it should start with bringing the average pay of a congressman down to numbers that resemble middle of the economy persons, not the upper echelon of society. Government was never supposed to be an upper echelon, it's abused every way imaginable to keep it that way though. Andrew Jackson, Dwight D. Eisenhower and a few other president specifically warned of this in speeches and notes, and it's the very monster they warned us about. Hell, Ike specifically warned about the Military Industrial Complex and look at the $1.3 Trillion/year allotment they are getting between "Defense" and "Security" related costs. So really, I just want basic social services and health care coverage that is equal for all. If you want to go get extra insurance or privately held goods, I believe that is your right, but I don't think economic social status is anyway to determine who gets something and who doesn't concerning the most basic of necessities.

This was one of the most eye opening 20minutes I've had in awhile. Yasheng Huang is from China and gave a TED talk on Socialism vs Capitalism and the problems that arise in Captialism that don't in Socialism. It was very enlightening and really strikes to the heart of the problems with growth.

http://www.ted.com/talks/yasheng_huang.html
 


Late reply, but when I graduated at my college, as a student worker I was running most of the lab. My boss had died and I assumed a lot of his responsbilities until someone could be hired. I applied for the position. I was told I was under qualified. I found a new job before they found a replacement and they ended up shelling out over $10k in general consulting fees for basic work. This was back in 2000 when creating a user in Novell required someone with a profound knowledge of Console1.
 


Your understanding of the not--for-profit business model is poor. Not for profit doesn't mean prices will remain lower than a for profit company. In fact, that might even force prices to go up in a not for profit company. If you did a NFP, they could charge whatever they wanted and there would be little regulation over that, as opposed to for profit companies.
 


I'm guessing a lot of the work, prior to the recession, was based on government grant money as opposed to public/private companies making an investment?

I've seen too many people get worthless degrees and then go back to school for something useful. I think College has become one of the biggest scams because they offer a degree in everything and try to keep a high graduate rate. People need to fail out of college more instead of just passing everyone through for the profit.

People need to be talked out of certain degrees, or learn how to research the job market and possibilities prior to starting a degree path. None of that is beneficial to a college though.
 


But there would be unlimited, equal, competition fighting for the same subscribers, giving way to sea of different companies offering the same type of coverage.

Have you ever even dealt with a not for profit insurance company? Because there is no share holders and no paid dividends, the surplus funds at the end of the year go back into the service pool. What is hard to understand about that? In Michigan I dealt with a few not for profit health insurance companies and coverage and premiums were ALWAYS lower than private, for profit institutions. This seems to be the trend across many, many states as well assuming that the not for profits can still remain competitive. In a market where all competition is equal, I don't see where the problem is.

Again, not rocket surgeon math.

@OMG, I think we have very similar opinions on this, but I view the oversight differently than you do because I see medicare being a perfect example of how the system could work if everyone was given a public option. This isn't to say that every illness on the earth should be covered, but basic services, preventative care, check up and emergencies should be covered by a very basic public option. From there having insurance be deregulated across state lines would provide a solid base for competition while still having the default public option to cover basic needs. This would provide 3 things for the private sector:

1.) They do not need to cover the small items and can offer extended care packages that just cover serious illness or hardship, creating an opportunity for them to create more profits because their subscriber base is healthier than an uninsured, partially insured or person who has not gotten regular checkups.

2.) Because there would be no inflated prices for basic services based on profits margins, the cost of procedures would go down because of raw buying power of the government, being able to leverage contracts that accurately address public health while keeping the costs down by buying in huge bulk numbers. I see Rx going down as well because of the same scenario, with competition being created by the contracts the government negotiates.

3.) States would have to be more competitive to bring insurance companies to their state. Regulations could even be passed that if you are going to sell insurance in a state, that you at least have 1 brick and mortar building within the state you want to operate. Along with providing a better environment for equal competition , this would provide many safeguards to the community against exploitation.


I want to epilogue with the statement that I'm not an expert, but I have thought long and hard about this and considered multiple angles of the same scenario. The one truth that I consistently come back to is that for profit health insurance is inhumane and discounts the life of a human for the sake of a dollar. The public option creates a baseline for public health that, if you cannot find a private or in my scenario NFP provider, you can always default back to the public option while you are looking for something better. It's an option, not a necessity. What we have currently is a mandate, and like anything dealing with human nature we'd much rather decide on what we want by being given options, not by being told.
 
[But there would be unlimited, equal, competition fighting for the same subscribers, giving way to sea of different companies offering the same type of coverage.]

How is that any different from the private sector?

The private sector has to remain competitive, Non-profits do not.
 


I honestly don't know. The Marine Affairs degree included maritime law, marine biology & ecology and some economics and perhaps some other stuff (not a good clam chowder or lobster bisque recipe however 😀). I think the Scripps Institute, Woods Hole and some other maritime researchers (who may be largely funded by the feds IIRC) would have been interested if the fed dollars had not dried up. Unfortunate if you think about it, since IIRC the oceans generate about 70% of the Earth's oxygen and a large portion of the protein diet of humans..
 

That's the nature of being in a society that collects taxes and provides public services. Some of us will disapprove of some of the things that the government does (even though others of us will approve). For example, we don't have the right to withold 7 percent of our taxes because the government spends 7 percent of our money on the war on drugs and we think drugs should be legal.

We have to accept that participating in a society that consists of diverse members with diverse goals means that our government will do some things that we disagree with. In the cases where the majority agrees, and the action is not immoral and repugnant (think segregation, or war in Iraq if you want to get controversial), tough it out.

The wonderful thing about America is that, in theory at least, if you think something is wrong and convince the majority, that something can be changed. This was true in practice until fairly recently.
 

HELLO! Totally agree. WTF did people do and how did they learn BEFORE the unconstitutional Department of Education was created? The industrial giants (Getty, Ford) and great inventors (Edison) throughout American's modern history were certainly not a bunch of knuckle dragging morons because the government wasn't there to dictate standards.


We can thank progressives and the the socialist movement within the unions for the steady decline in trade schools and apprenticeships. I used to listen stories from the old-timers of how they learned to become watch makers, architects, or HVAC specialists by starting out at 16 as an apprentice learning under a Master Tradesman from the local Masonic Lodge or someone who owned their own business. If you weren't lucky enough to land a Mentor, you went to a trade school and then were connected with a Mentor. Vocational High Schools lost their distinction as being a training places for the Trades and have been relegated to the bottom of the educational ladder only meant for the "stupid" kids who could not make it in regular high school.


I personally agree that ALL forms of insurance should be non-for-profit companies; especially Health Care. However, I have a hard time resolving that against America's incorporation laws and the history of modern business in America. Specifically, without the States regulating and setting standards for insurance companies, their would be no incorporation, without incorporation, there would be no corporate person-hood, without corporate person-hood, the individual person would not a have a legal entity to sue in case of negligence, fraud, or liable. Corporate person-hood aside, the only way I can see making insurance companies not-for-profit is through an over reaching and unconstitutional edict; and I can't support that no matter how much I'd want insurance companies to be non-profit. I'm just too much of a free market guy. With that said, I like the idea of a market driven single payer system!
 


I'm sorry WyomingKnott is this reply comes off as harsh but your post struck a nerve as being the same apologetic rhetoric spewed by casual participants of our republican form of government; let's just all learn to get along because it is what it is. Please do not take it any other way than me ranting; no harm, no foul.

Taxation in American was not intended to provide the whole of society with "things" and "services". The intent of taxation was to collect the funds necessary for our elected representatives who derive their power from the consent of the governed to carry out the duties as clearly defined in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8.

The influence of progressivism since the early 1900's has perverted our tax code into a becoming a punitive system of dis-incentives and the people have been coerced into believing that a diverse society means that government is responsible to deliver a diversity of "things" and "services" to diverse groups rather than government being the basic framework that relies on the commonality of ALL OF US as American citizens living up to the duties and responsibilities of self government.

Thanks for letting me unload WyomingKnott.
 
No offense, chunkymonster. We're allowed to have different opinions.

I wasn't commenting on this particular government but any government of a number of persons too large to fit in a single village, too large for everyone to know everybody else. It was meant to be a very general statement.

I aspire to the generality of John Rawls. (See a summary of the book "A theory of justice" if you're not familiar with Rawls.)
 
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