You see the problem is that Republicans want to starve old people and school children because they are cruel and malicious people. Democrats want to do the same thing because it is economically expedient. The democrats have a Utopian vision that they are trying to create if we will only shut up and get out of the way. Motivation makes all the difference don't you know. It's so much easier to watch your parents die when you know it is for the good of the group.

Lorie, you and yours are being baited. A (probably BIPARTSAN) health bill is bound to pass by mid-October which will result in a major Republican grassroots hangover due to its failure to stop that which is only a natural progession of Americanism since 1912, in which Reagan himself is comfortably encased. I speak of The Safety Net; insurance reform, probably mild or ineffective, but something Obama can "claim". Yet the GOP grassroots will feel thrashed. Perhaps betrayed if historical patterns hold. Capiche?

Actually, the lefts vitriol has offended so many americans not just conservatives. The independents and even conservative democrats are upset at the name calling of democratic leadership. So, my advice is for the democratic leadership to continue to offend us with your nazi, unamerican, intimidators, thugs comments. ww

"...failure to stop that which is only a natural progession of Americanism since 1912."

I always like expressions like this. Reminds me of when, during WWII, people were saying that Uncle Joe Stalin was running a country with "20th Century Americanism".

I think it time that people start re-reading the US Constitution WHICH LIMITS A CENTRAL GOVERNMENT. Unfortunately we live in an age when 'nannyism' is all the rage. Those who like to preach from "the moral high ground". All we have to do is accede power to them to make all our decisions for us. The "elite" will tell us what to do, what to think, who to vote for. In exchange, they will remove all risk from our lives, and all decision making from our lives. A real "worker's paradise".
Just look at what they've accomplished in Kalifornia, Detroit and Illinois.

Who said that of Stalin, GF?

Lorie: Remember Democrats' claims that Republicans wanted to starve old people and school children?

Remember when a few days ago Sarah Palin said that a 'death panel' might decide whether Trig gets to live or die? She was lying--nowhere in the bill is that even implied--but it's okay because she's a Republican.

Who said that of Stalin, GF?

The statement was in newspapers when we entered the war and became allies of the Russians against the Germans. Suddenly we were buddies. It led to a lot of fawning articles about good ol' Uncle Joe.

"Sarah Palin said that a 'death panel' might decide whether Trig gets to live or die?"

She's probably uncomfortably close to the truth. How else is Barry going to "keep costs down"? The baby boomers are coming of age and will start tapping Medicare (and Barry has said he'll cut BILLIONS there) and Social Security. HR3200 is about "efficiency" and "cost effectiveness". At some point, some bureaucrat will make the decision about who gets what. You can't add another 50 million people to any system and say with a straight face 'nothing will change'. Oregon already has legal assisted suicide. Not a stretch of the imagination for someone elderly person in great pain being told "you are too old, the operation is too expensive, take the pain pills or move to Oregon".

And there certainly will be a panel or panels to approve or disapprove care. It's just not called a "death" panel.

Obama has PROMISED us that people will be helped to make "better choices" particularly about end of life care and that money will be saved by not giving people care that is unlikely to make them better and by giving them the "pill" that does the job rather than a more expensive treatment.

So yes... there will be panels that refuse care.

Explicitly and absolutely.

Insurance companies decide what treatments they will cover and what treatments they will not all of the time. The government is setting itself up as an insurance provider. It will behave like an insurance provider, limiting care (since our ability in medicine grows leaps and bounds each year... or at least does under the present system) because there is no end to the *possible* treatments.

So what do we get?

Government acting just like insurance companies, just like HMO's that approve or disapprove treatments for various reasons.

And an insurance company that acts just like the government.

And someone is annoyed because someone used the term "death panels?"

You can sue and insurance company. How are you going to sue the Federal Government? States have insurance regulators who insure the insurance companies comply with state policies concerning insuring the residence of that state. If the Feds both regulate and insure. Who is going to regulate them? It is not the job of government at the federal level to be in the health care business or any other business outside of what the Constitution allows for.

Not only can you sue an insurance company, but you can raise money and pay out of pocket. If the government controls everything then such private payment is not possible.

Furthermore, when the government controls what will be done and how much, what is the likelihood that they will allow their employees, the doctors, inform patients of procedures that are not available in the plan? They already do so for doctors receiving direct Medicare payments.

And if you question whether or not doctors will be government employees I would ask why then should the House bill be regulating what doctors are paid annually?

Some additional food for thought: How many doctors will continue to practice when the government limits their income and allows their liabilities to be unlimited? Only the stupid ones would be my guess.

How many doctors will continue to practice when the government limits their income and allows their liabilities to be unlimited? Only the stupid ones would be my guess.

Barry will do what Britain does, import doctors from other countries.

Are all the doctors going to go back to school to become investment bankers? Will they move to Switzerland in search of a bigger paycheque?

If the system is in disrepair, as the reformists are arguing, then it's not beyond the realm of possibility that one problem is salaries are too high. My mother earned about $50,000/yr. as an operating room nurse. She was offered $85,000 US (about $100k CDN at the time) to move to Dallas by a headhunter. So it's possible that salaries will come down. Not saying that that's a good or a bad thing, but I would be very surprised if that results in a mass exodus of physicians. Also, when salaries dip a bit, the government can be proactive and offer better incentives: i.e., subsidized tuition, so that they can buy a house right out of school and start building equity much earlier rather than worrying about massive student loans.

Hyper -

And where, pray tell, is that 'subsidy' money supposed to come from?

Government's just one big damn piggy bank to you, isn't it? An inexhaustable credit card that never has to be repaid?

Sorry, we're seeing the bills, and what the payments are going to be. Thank you for your 'generosity', but we can't afford it!

Hyper, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Healthcare especially in hospitals is tightly regulated from hiring to operations of everything within the facility. These are not recommendations but standards that must be in place to receive accredidation. Putting those standards in place as well and maintaining them is costly.

And you are offended by lying? Shall I list Obama's lies so far? ww

I always like expressions like this. Reminds me of when, during WWII, people were saying that Uncle Joe Stalin was running a country with "20th Century Americanism".

Earl Browder, the American Communist Party's general secretary at the time. Do some bloody research, please.

Sorry, the above was addressed to hyperbolist (who else bleats without looking?) regarding the question:

"Who said that of Stalin, GF?"

I was asking a question, and I received an answer. Quoting Earl Browder might serve to make a point in a discussion about communism, but reforming health care with a public option has nothing to do with totalitarian government. Sweden, Japan, Norway, France, Canada etc. are not communist countries. They're social democracies, and they're pretty great places to live.

Willie: idiot: do you really think that countries with public health care don't have high standards in their hospitals? Do you think that Americans spend waaaay too much money on health care simply because their hospitals are held to a higher standard than those in Stockholm, Edmonton, Osaka, or Lyons?

JL: if it makes sense to subsidize tuition in order to maintain the current number of physicians in the work force, then that would surely be less expensive than paying every doctor half a million dollars a year as an incentive to go to med school. However, since one of the main purposes of HR3200 is to reduce unnecessary treatments, it's possible that physicians will simply bill less and earn less, and the labour market will be unaffected. I'm not so sure, though.

Hyper -

Good question - but where (once again) is the money to subsidize tuition supposed to come from? In case you haven't noticed, we've gone beyond being a minor shitload in debt to major shitload, soon to be coming up on elephantine craploads of debt. We're buried, man, and the elephants (and donkeys) in Washington just keep on shittin'.

Now, I don't know about you, but knowing we're currently almost $12 trillion in debt, with an additional $1.3 trillion deficit already promised out this year (with two more months to go until the end of the fiscal year, god help us...) doesn't make me want to save money by going even further into debt.

We ain't got the money, I don't care how much we might save. It's like someone going to a car dealership, taking on a loan WAY beyond their ability to repay, but yet being happy that they're 'saving' a lot of money because they didn't get charged the MSRP for the car.

They'll drive it for a couple of months, stylin' like crazy... then the repo man comes in the middle of the night and the next day they're walking... with their credit score shot to hell.

And Chapter 13 bankrupcy (or 11, for that matter) ain't an option.

The major problem we're facing, I think, is a Congress that is constitutionally (in the psychologically oriented way) unable to NOT do something. If there's a surplus, it's spent. If there's no suplus, they borrow. There is no situation in which they'll go "You know, maybe we shouldn't spend this money today."

Case in point - the 'Stimulus' money. Supposedly less than 10% of it has been spent, and the economy is supposedly coming back. Now, you or I might look at that as a signal to review whether the money NEEDS to be spent, or put away (so to speak) until it's REALLY needed again - but there's no apparent move in Congress to do that. If they have it - they will put in place programs to spend it that will ever-more HAVE to be fed, with budgets increasing in size at about 5% a year.

We simply can't afford to 'save' money like this.