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National Health Care.

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johnson1010
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Re: National Health Care.

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Quick synopsis in first link, more detail direct from senate below.

Get familiar everyone. Do not fear health care. Its good for you, and now you can get it.
http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc-sen_health_care_bill.cfm
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Re: National Health Care.

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This was in our paper (Comments Section): I thought it was a rather good summing-up.
If Obama's election night was a rising up of America's better nature, his triumph in healthcare reform was a victory after years of Republican obstructionism. Ours is an essentially good-hearted nation, but so deeply divided that wedge issues can decide a campaign outcome. When I've blogged in favour of universal healthcare, I've been stunned not so much by the vitriol of comments against it, but by the ignorance. The same lies and wild rumours, gleaned from far-right sites, are repeated mindlessly.

I spent months between 2006 and 2009 in hospitals receiving treatment for cancer of the mandible. I had four scheduled surgeries, several emergency surgeries, and went through four physical rehabilitations after tissue was moved here and there on my poor harvested frame. I received excellent care. I had good employer health insurance. Otherwise we would have been wiped out. None but the very rich can afford to get seriously ill in America and hope to pay for it themselves.

Yet opponents of reform were selfish: why should they pay for those too stupid, lazy, etc, to provide for themselves? They feared government would control healthcare. What did they think insurance companies were doing? The day of the vote was surrealistic, exposing the unwholesome underpinnings of the anti-Obama Tea Party movement. Forming a gauntlet for congressmen to run, demonstrators shouted the n-word and spat at black congressmen. I doubt Sarah Palin will choose to speak at their next convention.

Now Republicans face the destruction of their party over their stonewalling against reform. Bush's speechwriter David Frum blogged: "It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. We followed the most radical voices in the party, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. "

Those radical voices coined the term "Obamacare." So it will long be known.
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Re: National Health Care.

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Thanks, that's more or less what I thought. It seems it affects the pockets and the rich and businesses, insurance companies.
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Penelope wrote:This was in our paper (Comments Section): I thought it was a rather good summing-up.

<<snip>>
Thanks for the article.

I'm hoping the health care legislation will turn out to do some good. I'm still unclear as to how it all works, but for sure universal health care is a noble goal and I'm glad it passed.

It's an odd thing, I consider myself a moderate conservative and if I were to run for public office I would run as a Republican (probably). But the Republican party these days has become a magnet for extreme right-wing whackjobs. It's only too clear that these guys are engaged in pure group think and it's a group that increasingly represents the lunatic fringe. And yet many Americans are buying into the paranoid lies being spun that Obama's administration is turning us into a socialist nation. I've never seen such fear-mongering in my life. Hopefully the success of this bill and especially with the Republicans complete lack of participation in this health bill will ultimately hurt them in the polls come election time. I'm so tired of this bitter divide that pervades politics these days.
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unfortunate but true.

real republicans have been pushed to the side, marginalized, and forced to either tow the crazy line (McCain 2004 vs 2008) or lose support of the party.

It's difficult to combat. The people who care enough to rave in the public forum, pay money for rediculous billboard signs, and mobilize tea-bagging are the crazies. Moderates, by nature, aren't all that riled up about things. We usually think "this too will pass" and trust in the sanity of others to carry us past the crazies.

Moderates have to be heard over the lunatic ramblings of "values" consevatives so we can help smother the fear they try to sew before it takes root.

Fear has ever been the most effective prod, and odious talking heads like Glen Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter have become adept in its use.

It would be hilarious, if not so influencial in our lives. I am always amazed. It seems any nitwit should be able to call a turd a turd upon cursory glance, but they keep managing to polish that turd until it looks like the philosopher's stone to the herd-minded.
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johnson1010 wrote:It seems any nitwit should be able to call a turd a turd upon cursory glance, but they keep managing to polish that turd until it looks like the philosopher's stone to the herd-minded.
Priceless.
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Re: National Health Care.

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Some interactions from another board talking about health care.

You gotta share these stories or they fester in your gut.
can't see how the government can force people to buy health care. isn't that like the governement making everyone buy a new car? and also, i don't see how its fair to tax the rich more so the poor can have health care.
Yeah, and where does the government get off insisting that you take care of your kids? Or force you to educate them? How dare they demand your money to pay for the roads you use!

Wait, these sentences need more exclamation points.

Yeah, and where does the government get off insisting that you take care of your kids?!!?!!!?!?!!!!?!

That should be more understandable.

I definitely agree though. Upsettingly, disturbingly, rich people really should just get to keep all that money and use it more wisely. How in hell is “Super Sweet Sixteen” going to stay on the air if the flabby desk jockey golf addicts who spend over two hundred thousand dollars on their kid’s birthday parties have already spent that money getting quality affordable health care to their employees? These CEO’s only make three hundred times more than their average worker after all. One day of them sitting behind a desk, or tooling around in their private jets is worth more than an entire years worth of their employee’s hard work, as we all know.
Yep, funny how the libs just ignore that...but wait, once we lose more money, jobs and force people to choose shitty healthcare over what they want, then we'll see "how good this really is" and not only that but you and me will also be paying for random peoples abortions...how lovely huh? lol more like how stupid...
You will be surprised when none of your doomsday horror stories come to pass. Or maybe not, if you are really as jingoistic as you appear to be from these posts. Whatever you do, don’t be nice to anybody who looks like they might be a dirty foreigner. They will steal your job.
Countries with universal health care are clearly under a better system than ours. I have health care now, but not very good coverage. When i get hurt or sick, i don't go to the hospitol. I walk it off. That is not good policy or practice.

My boss fell in the winter and broke a few bones in his hand. He didnt go to the doctors and now he has a semi-deformed claw-hand.

"But under socialized medicine you would have to wait in a line!!!!!!"

Want to know about waiting? My wife has a friend who's father-in-law had throat cancer. They caught it well before the time it would be lethal, and it appeared to be completely treatable. he didnt have sufficient health coverage, so they put him out on the streets. Hospitols are only mandated to stabilize people. he was stable, so off he went. They told him to come back when it interfered with his swollowing enough to be an imminent threat.

He had to wait six months. Slowly deteriorating. Losing his vitality as his family watched on helplessly. When he had finally deteriorated to the point where the hospitol had to take him in, it was too late. He died last fall.

I suspect he would have been delighted to be forced to wait 4 weeks to be treated, rather than wait six months until he died.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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geo

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Re: National Health Care.

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Group hysterics.

Here's some nice fellows at a recent tea party rally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ik4f1dR ... re=channel
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Re: National Health Care.

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Johnson- That’s truly a horror story, and in my estimation an indication of society placing far too much emphasis on money and material gain, and far too little on more redeeming human values.

I was reading an article in the NY Times that suggested that if the new health care legislation was an indication of things to come, then perhaps in the future we might start referring to the time from 1980-2010 as the “Reagan Era”, meaning a time when materialism was in ascendancy.

I haven’t really read a comprehensive report on the new legislation yet, but my understanding is that everyone will still be routed through private insurance companies. I wonder if this will still leave room for corporate excesses?

And geo, your video reminded me of a story from here a couple of years ago. The (true as it turned out) story leaked out that the premier of the province of Alberta got drunk one night, and had his chauffeur drive him to an inner city homeless shelter, where he disparagingly through loose change at the startled residents, and told them to get off their a** an get a job, along with some other (slurred) adolescent rants. Alberta is known as a magnet for those with right wing views in Canada. Sadly, extreme enough that his behavior caused barely a ripple in the media, and he was handily re-elected. I think this says something about society today, and it ain’t pretty.
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Re: National Health Care.

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Here is another slant on the new health care legislation:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/hea ... le1511586/
"I suspect that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose"
— JBS Haldane
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