Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Universal Health Care for USA

Unfortunately that seems to be the main argument against us. I got mine and I don't give much of a damn what happens to you.

The last number I saw was about raising the tax rate on people making $350,000 or better. Seems that the idea is that the system has been pretty darned good to you if you're making that much and why would you raise hell about paying a fair percentage to help out your fellow Americans?

Theoretically this should go a great distance toward a "chance to significantly better my family's future". God forbid that you should run afoul of farm machinery, a crushing disease or some previously unknown genetic affliction strikes. Under today's system you're family will likely suffer horrible financial distress whether you survive the medical emergency or not.

I'd love for your nursery to be a huge financial success and I really believe that a slightly higher tax rate will do you a helluva lot more good than these economically strangling insurance premiums, co-pays and deductables.

Yeah, but the "I got mine..." thing is mostly an invention of the media and the politicians in an attempt to control voting blocks through divide and conquer means.

If people truly looked around at the vast amounts given to charity by "middle class to wealthy bastards" they would be surprised. Not only that, but the money that the "rich" make doesn't just disappear. it gets cycled back into the economy. You hate that rich person buys a yacht, but in doing so they create jobs for the yacht builder, its employees, the bank tellers that cash their checks, the grocers that sell them food, the banks that lend them money to buy homes and cars....

Most people looking from the outside in don't have a good perspective on things. I don't know how well the GB NHS is, i can only say what I have read about it. It might be this greatly fantastical thing that the rest of the world should immediately adopt. But, I'm willing to bet that there are just as many problems, albiet different, if you take a good look at it.

Lets face it, its human nature to be jealous. "Hey, Bob just bought a new car...why should he get one and I can't?" Well, maybe its because Bob worked hard and put himself in a position where he could earn enough to make the payments on that new car, whereas Phil is happy enough making less money and having to struggle more. But, if thats the case then Phil is grousing when he should be shutting up and bettering his situation through hard work and energy.

I'm probably different. I don't waste time and emotion and energy on jealousy. It can be a good motivator, but in the end, no matter how much you have if you have a jealous personality, you will always feel empty. I don't hate Bill Gates because he's wealthy. I do hate the fact that his system seems designed to continually cost more and more to use when it has been shown by things like firefox and safari that it really isn't difficult to turn out a good product for the money.

Whats yours is yours. I don't want it. But what I work and sweat and bleed for is mine, and I and I alone am and should be the one to determine what I do with it. I don't need big brother to tell me how to live my life, as long as I am not harming others in a criminal fashion. I won't go on bended knee to anyone just because they have a title or work for the government. and that isn't pride speaking, its pragmatism. If everyone is living off the government, whos doing the work? Someone has to, cause the government sure as hell isn't going to get it right.

Sadly, British obesity rates and substance abuse rates have reached US proportions and this is the result. That isn't the healthcare that's the people abusing their bodies. The UK has the highest cancer and heart disease rates in Europe. If we had the Ameruican Healthcare system our mortality and bankrupcy rates would go through the roof.

The UK unemployment rate is like every other country's it varies. At the moment it is high but not so long ago it was a quarter of what it is now. Tax rates haven't changed. I say again the UK sytem costs hugely less per person than the US system because it is not run for profit and is delivered as a service. Sure like any system it has faults but we know that if we get cancer or heart disease or suffer a major injury - or any of the other problems that bankrupt people in the states, we will be looked after because we have paid for it when we could afford to through a fair system of taxation.

Healthcare shouldn't be compared with owning a car or other consumable that sure you work you get more. That is only right but healthcare is different. ALL citizens deserve access to healthcare. The British system and others like it around the world work and provide reassurance to the populations. Only the US of the industrialised nations has the philosophy of I don't want to pay taxes for healthcare because when I get rich I will lose out. The highest earners have peddled this don't tax us because when you join us you'll be taxed crap for years and your low to middle earners have fallen for it. It is bullshit. for a few extra dollars - or possibly a few less dollars if you are paying insurance now - you could have peace of mind and a fairness that the US has never known. Instead you believe the political dogma of the rich who are selling poverty and suffering to the sick.

Guys in the US who are against universal healthcare still pay taxes for say the police or schooling. Why not employ personal security services and scrap the police? ditto the schools, why not have private tutors etc? The answer is of course you couldn't afford to. Some services work better and are less expensive when they are provided for everyone through a centralised purse. Healthcare is one of those services.


The idea of wealth trickling down from the wealthy to the poor is a concept that whenever it has been analysed is shown to be false. It doesn't work! taxation does not prevent wealth creation. Good business leaders and a strong private sector create wealth. Good healthcare prevents loss of work and actually aids wealth creation. It is a win win situation.

Through its Medicare programs, the US government has been the largest payer (insurance reimbursement) for years. It's only going to become a larger proportion of the total, with the boomers retiring and the private pension plans lessening their health benefits coverage.

However, the US Gov has done very little with the pricing power it has by being the largest insurer. The attitude is to let the market set prices and for the US gov to be a price taker.

This is why the current proposed reform will make things worse. With a backstop of a government system, private insurers will have greater ability to cherry pick the most profitable patients and stick the taxpayer with the sick and the poor.

Without either a single payer or heavy regulation of pricing and the insurance industry, reform is really a transfer of wealth to insurers and the pharmaceutical industry from the taxpayer.

This reform will give everybody coverage but keep everything that's broken and unsustainable about the system.


Private insurance or even your own chequebook can't pay for a service that is covered by the Canada Health Act without the government deducting an equal amount of reimbursement from its funding. You get around it by creating service that's not covered by CHA. "Hip-replacement deluxe holographic foil variant." Okay maybe not for hips (yet) but definitely for cataracts.

Most private insurance covers things like prescription drugs, dental and services like chiropractic, physio, vision care, getting sick while in another country, or people coming from outside Canada on the 90day residency waiting period for insurance.

Thanks, Arachne. Thanks, Tamper.

YK, I've sort of promised myself that I wouldn't keep on with these kind of discussions once it got to the point where I was just repeating myself.

However:

Quote

...Seems that the idea is that the system has been pretty darned good to you if you're making that much and why would you raise hell about paying a fair percentage to help out your fellow Americans?...

There really is some ugly little corner of the American mind that gets off on the idea of depriving others. I gave up years ago on trying to understand it. It goes well beyond "I got mine." It's more like, "I can't have it, and I don't even want it if I have to share it with the likes of you." So far as I can tell, it doesn't run along the liberal-conservative divide, either. Such as it is.

I'm a collective thinker. The whole point of living amongst others ought to be that we do things together that we couldn't do alone.

When I'm flat on my back from runaway complications of a medical condition that exploded out of control, because I couldn't pay to manage it properly, I'm not going to take any solace in the fact that millions of people I don't even know had to suffer, too. Why would I? It's ridiculous.

But it's normal, apparently. I will never, never understand it.

Ah middle class psychology yearning for deluxe luxury treatment they know in the hearts they have the very slimmest hope of ever touching let alone affording. So they say who cares if the rich get disporportionate advantages, I have a 0.00000000001% chance of being one of them.

If it puts American minds at ease, I'll tell you that urbane silver-haired donors to Princess Margaret, Mount Sinai, St Michael's and all the other socialized hospitals get much more personal attention from the staff than Joe Schmoe trashy trailer guy.

I'm pretty sure Peter Munk would get more staffers personally responsible for his stay, if he had a heart attack and was taken to the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at Toronto General than say someone like me. So some day I will hope to get a hospital named after me and get a really good prostate exam or something.

Hey! You can't say "prostate" on this board!!

Grrrr...

As someone who has basically always worked for a living, and rarely had insurance, and has even dabbled in small business, the standard reasoning against anything resembling standardized care fall completely flat.

I've had medical issues that got far worse because I couldn't afford to deal with them at the time. Thank you, GOP!

Yes, it would be a bigger expense on small business. So is getting building permits vs. building an unsafe shack. So is bothering to meet any sort of occupational safety standards (federal or not). At this point, it needs to be a baseline, not a luxury.

And anyone with insurance usually has to fight tooth and nail to get anything of significance paid for. And they have to get pre-approval for anything - which is hard in an emergency situation. We already have the GOP's proposed boogey-man of a bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor - unaccountable corporate ones!

I've known people turned away from the only local ER because they had no coverage, and still owed for the last necessary treatment they couldn't afford.

Plenty of people like me who have been hanging on by our fingertips for decades on end.

What about those who are unable to work because of medical conditions?

Agreed. a major part of the problem.

It doesn't come out on top among those with a pre-determined outcome in mind, who pick and choose only the data that supports their determination. And their views generally get top-billing in the corporate media environment.

sorry, Kent, but I don't go along with your GOP hatred. I went without insurance for years. Basically do now. What I have through my wife will cover me basically dying and her getting a payment. But how does that give me the "right" to demand that others pay for my medical bills?

And if you went to a government funded er, and they turned you away, it was illegal. Every time I have a family member that winds up in the emergency room (happens frequently with several of my family) I see signs up saying that they have the right to basic stabilization and recovery. Guess what, if you are poor, like me, you get less in life. Its the way things are, always have been, and allways will be and trying to blame a historic fact since the dawn of recorded history is kinda...well...off.

If anything, I blame Nader and his unsafe at any speed for creating unrealistic expectations. The example is that the Bug was "unsafe" and that it put poor people at more risk. But, it was an inexpensive vehicle that allowed poor people to have a realiable way to get to work or school in an effort to better their situation. They knew this and accepted it as being a part of their life based on their economic situation.

then, Nader comes along, and a cheap, reliable if not luxurious car is taken off the market. And poor people that could swing the reliable car suddenly have to start making do again with unreliable, broken down used cars. Because of this, they spend MORE money keeping the car functioning than a new inexpensive bug would cost, they are considered not as reliable at work because of more breakdowns, they may miss too many days of school trying to further their education and get a better job. The ripple effects continue to this day.

All because one guy "felt" that it was an injustice, that it wasn't "fair". No shit. Please, tell me...who told YOU life was fair? 'cause my dad made sure I knew it wasn't from an early age and that only my doing the work and putting out the effort would bring about more equality for me, and even that is subject to the whims of fate and destiny.

Saying "its not fair" is for four year olds that want to watch a tv show that the parents wont allow. Its not for adults that have seen the way the real world operates.

That isn't cynacism. That's pragmatism.

there have been plenty of times that I wanted to rail against big business and OSHA for the way they handled my crushed leg. I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it and feeling my leg being crushed all over again. It damn sure wasn't fair. But, thats the hand I was dealt and I am not gonna waste time crying about it when the only it matters to anymore is me.

Perhaps they did or did not (a generalization does not apply to everyone), but, as a nation, should we accept this risk?

Do we really have to choose between cheap and unsafe and expensive and safe? Or should we hold car manufacturers (and, by extension, health care and insurance providers) to a higher standard?

I'm sorry to hear about your leg, Rick, and I'm also sorry that the outcome wasn't fair to you. But you seem to be letting that experience color your perceptions of government or anyone who tries to better a situation. If I read you correctly, you are arguing that it's better to accept things the way they are--unfair though they may be--rather than working to improve a situation.

Frankly, if our founding fathers thought that way, we'd still be under British rule, African Americans would still be in chains, and the gay rights movement would not be making headway.

Every major social change has been fraught with potential drawbacks. There have always been detractors who have worried that the sky was going to fall if this movement or that movement proceeded further. (The 1940s arguments against integrating the armed forces sound suspiciously like modern arguments against allowing gays to serve openly.) And, true, there is always the risk of mismanagement and corruption. But to deny reform a chance to work because reforms of past have failed is to give up before we even start.

Such thinking reminds me of the old saying, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." This saying, meant to make people accept an unfair circumstance, boasts a significant flaw: It assumes that only negative outcomes are possible. The history of America--and, indeed, the human race--suggests otherwise.

Regarding universal health care: I've enjoyed reading both the pro and con positions in this thread, but I still don't feel educated enough on the subject to be swayed one way or the other. UHC sounds mighty tempting, but I just read an article that gave me pause. In the article (admittedly from a conservative Christian source) former surgeon general C. Everett Koop is quoted as saying that in Britain he would have been too old to have a procedure that saved his life.

Government-made decisions about who gets what treatments is a subject that would have to be carefully considered in UHC.

No, He Who, I didn't accept it. First, they wanted to remove my leg above the foot. Then they wanted to remove all my toes. Then they wanted to remove the small toes and leave the big one.

It really ticked them off when I refused each time and made them work to save it. And then when the Workers Comp hearing came up, i completely whipped them (the companies lawyers) because I took the simple measure of getting a copy of my medical file, and going through it. Where they made a mistake or an outright lie, i highlighted it and brought it up in the hearing.

And after I won that, the case completely died because the owner, a state senator (repub, by the way), got the case lost in the shuffle, gave us the wrong manufactorers name, and by then the statute of limitations had expired. I won a short term battle, lost the long term battle to corruption and money.

Thats reality. He, if you want to make like Don Quiote and tilt at windmills, go ahead. But I don't live in a "what would be nice world", i live in the real world. And real world says that money and influence wins out. You may get an Erin Brokovic story once in a very rare blue moon, but dispite the hollywood machine, it ain't gonna happen but rarely in real life.

Look at old hopey right now. He's lied about the stimulus spending, pushing it back to an election year (big shock there), currently lying about how his health care bill is gonna bring the cost of healthcare under control (only of the government, the spending, not so much according to the Congressional Budget Office), and Lied to his followers about how he was gonna "END THE WAR IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS" without the first bit of real, practical knowledge.

No, I don't trust the government to handle such a big portion of my life. I may be a bit rougher than the standard person on this board, but I find life much easier to take if I have a realistic view of it, rather than a pie in the sky hope for the best outcome. Good things don't just happen out of the blue in my life. I have to work for them, and pay for them myself.

Cleome is clearly having a tough time right now. So is Scott and Caroline. would it be fair of me to demand that THEY contribute to my welfare and health?

And if we give the government the right to control health care, whats to stop them from telling us what we can and cannot do in our own lives. "Hey, Bob, you know that mountain biking you like to do? Well, do it again and you go to jail. Our accountants tell us that it would cost money to rescue you from the mountain if you were hurt up there. It would cost money to transport you, to care for you, for your rehab if possible, and if not, to take care of you the rest of your life." And since they could make it illegal, could they shot you if they found you doing it and you didn't stop? The shot people that run during traffic stops. Why not? yes, its a broad example, but you get the idea.

I want the government worrying about other things, like why i have to spend so much money repairing my truck when i drive over seventeen bajillion potholes every day. I want them worrying about people that blow up the twin towers...twice. I dont' need them telling me how to live my life...even concerning health care.

Hey, they may tackle obesity by rationing food. Whats to stop them?

I don't see a slippery slope here, I see a cliff with the road of good intentions running straight off it.

My god the spelling erros. Hey, I don't not clam to be no typizt.

I'm done with this discussion. Anything the previous president did was just fine with you and you attacked me personally over it when I tried to present a different view. At no time did I show such deep disrespect and so much hatred for my fellow American citizens.

Apparently the only way to talk to right wingers is to ignore them as <strike>any</strike> every discussion becomes a series of personal attacks and hypothetical scare tactics.

I find the constant diversion of discussion into FOX Noise talking points to be highly offensive.

(snip)

rickshaw:

Quote

...cleome is clearly having a tough time right now. So is Scott and Caroline. would it be fair of me to demand that THEY contribute to my welfare and health?...

Oh, Baby, I wish you would. As I tried to explain upthread, I'm a firm believer in the power of reciprocity.

Here at chez_cleome, what America's weird, lumpy mash of public-private "care" has done is created a person who is more than willing to shrug her shoulders and say, "Look, I'm already screwed."

I already can't afford non-emergency care, and my not-care is costing our household a freaking bundle that we are only microscopically reimbursed for in the least efficient way possible. (That is, things were so lousy here last year I don't think we'll owe any taxes at all this year. I actually believe in taxation as a positive force, freak that I am; despite everything. But I can't afford to step up to the plate on that front right now, either.)

So, to sort of jump off from what HWW wrote, I'm being asked to believe that single-payer would somehow be worse for me than the deal I have now. I have to believe that it will cost my palatial lifestyle an ever-escalating fortune for something that I can only access on paper unless I'm literally in imminent danger of serious disability, protracted illness or death.

Uh, no. I can't believe that. Such a system might be half-baked, annoying, even maddening, but worse than this? Does not compute.

While I will accept a plan that keeps private, for-profit insurance, I wouldn't weep any tears to see it go the way of the dinosaurs. Sorry, Big Insurance, but if you want people to behave as if they have something to lose in your absence, you actually have to give us something first other than a constant, overpriced runaround.

As for choosing between cheap and unsafe...yeah. sorry, but that is economic reality. You can build a car that will guarantee that you will not be killed in an accident, but even the government couldn't afford it. Or, if you are poor like me, you go with what you can afford and do your best with it. That's been the way of the world since day one. hell, now they make cars out of plastic. Do you really think they were thinking about "dent resistance" or where they thinking "gotta make it lighter to meet the new fuel efficiency standards...hey, plastics lighter than steel...but how can we sell it? Oh, I know, I'll have a commercial showing a shopping cart running into it and say "Wow, its dent resistant now." Ain't gonna do excrement to stop that CAR coming at you, but it will stop a grocery cart.

Look, I dont' rail at the world because I'm poor and things tend to cost me more over time because of it. I work to change my circumstances. And that used to be the attitude of america. It's what built the country and made it strong. the new attitude seems to be "what can I get for free"...and it hurts the country as a whole.

I'd love to see some changes that would actually decrease the cost of health care significantly, like punishment of frivalous lawsuits. I'd love to see small companies that didn't have to worry about going out of business and toting large insurance premiums to cover any bs lawsuit that someone looking for a payday throws out, but as long as big money law is out there with its lobbists, that ain't gonna happen.

We (my dad and I) had to carry one million dollars in liability insurance on two ford pickups to even sell timber to the mills when we had a company...each. A million. We weren't big and lived on the edge each week. Do you know what those premiums are like? You haven't done a damn thing to incur it but you have bills for just existing. That is crippling to an economy, and the government set the system up by letting lawyers run wild.

Nader...is most likely a decent man. I don't know him so i cannot say. But the ramifications of his actions have been devastating to the economy for the last forty years.

You cannot legislate complete and total safety any more than you can legislate morality. A woman buys hot coffee from mcdonalds. There was nothing wrong with the cup, the lid or the coffee. She spills it and she sues them, and they have to pay because a jury felt sorry for the woman. They were wrong. I'm sorry the woman was burned. Hate to hear it in ways you cannot imagine (my leg felt like it was on fire for four years due to crushed nerves, so trust me, i know) but it was wrong. And it set off a new round of "sue'em and screw'em".

And until the country gets back to the attitude of "its on me to do it" rather than "hey, were's my free...", it isn't going to get any better.

I just think at times that we are too in the moment to realize that Nero's a'fiddlin!

Oh, and on a timely/related note:

From Cog To Human Being , in which an Ex-CIGNA shill turns on his former bosses.

Fun reading, for any other Lefty freaks who might be lurking about.

Sorry you feel that way, YK. I haven't as far as I know attacked you. And in NO way did i agree with every thing bush did. I disagreed with his amounts of spending along with the rest of the GOP. I disagreed over his proposed ways of dealing with illegal emigration amoung other things.

And if he had attempted a universal health care system like the ones proposed by clinton and obama, I would have opposed it as well. If you think that i don't like this current president because he's liberal, you are wrong. I don't like his horrendous spending policies any more than I liked Bush's.

And these are not "fox news scare tactics". I opened my email on verizon and found a news report that a NH teenager was being fined $25,000 for a mountain rescue. And I almost fell out my chair.

Sorry if you feel that this has degenerated into a personal attack. I don't see how. I simply talked to you and others. I presented my side of the issue as I saw it. I don't know your situation but you seem to be taking this a lot more personal than it was ever intended. Sorry to hear that. I certainly don't have any ill will towards anyone here. To each their own.

Again, you have my sympathy for having to go through all that.

But, on the positive side, you did get to keep your leg and all your toes. To me, that would trump everything else.

Although my situation cannot compare to yours, a few years ago I was diagnosed with GERD and told I would have to take Prilosec or something similar for the rest of my life.

A short time later, I changed jobs, thereby eliminating a major source of stress in my life. Not long after, I stopped taking the Prilosec and haven't been bothered by GERD since.

Were the doctors trying to rip me off (and make money for the medicine company), or were they truly giving the best advice they could at the time? (As my brother says, there's a reason they call it "practicing" medicine.) I don't know and don't have the time to think twice about it. I've found that I live a healthier and happier life if I focus on positive outcomes and don't dwell on the negative.

Reality is what we make of it. We can choose to dwell on the negatives and get angry over the way things should have gone, or we can count our blessings and expect better for ourselves, our communities, our nation, and our world. If that sounds like tilting at windmills, then I'll happily tilt away.

The alternative, it seems to me, is to get bitter and depressed over a situation that isn't going to change of its own accord, and to distrust anyone who proposes even the slightest way of improving things. Things do change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for worse. Often new solutions create new problems. But every positive step should be appreciated, every victory, no matter how minute, celebrated. Attitude makes all the difference.

I think that's true for most of us. It does not follow that those who support universal health care want a free ride or want things given to them. But in a system where a large number of Americans work AND still can't afford insurance premiums, we have to ask, who is really expecting a free ride? The workers or the insurance companies?

For the record, so am I. I'm an adjunct college teacher--that means I get paid part-time for full-time (and then some) work. It means I have to hold down three jobs just to make ends meet. It means that my classes can get cancelled due to low enrollment or because a full-timer does not have a full load.

I have not had health insurance in three years.

In a way, I feel much of what you seem to feel: anger against the unfairness of it all. But I choose to remain in hope and to trust God that these circumstances, however negative, will help me to grow in some way and to find a better employment situation. Adversity can be to our benefit.

Things won't always go the way we want them to go. But we can choose how we respond to such situations.

Demand? No. But if you ask nicely . . .

It seems to me that the intent of UHC is to allow those who are temporarily going through tough times to still afford healthcare. It also seems to me that we need, more than ever, to believe in two things: one, that the current economic crisis is temporary, and two, that we will all go through ups and downs in our lives. UHC, in theory at least, would give us one less thing to worry about.

This does not mean that we won't have to work hard to get ourselves out of this mess.
But with a positive attitude, we've got a much better chance of succeeding than if we don't.

Well, I do see a slippery slope. Our government has always been built on a system of what we can do and cannot do. We have freedom of speech, but we cannot run into a theatre and yell "Fire!" We can do what we want with our money but we still have to pay taxes, etc. If the situations you suggest did come to pass, they would be with the support of a majority of Americans who would be convinced that the benefits outweigh the negatives. Even then, advocacy groups such as the ACLU would challenge such changes.

Again, I question the necessity of extremes in your argument. A car either guarantees you will not be killed or it has to be cheap and unsafe. Why no in-between?

In point of fact, cars are much safer than they used to be: seatbelts, airbags, and better designs and engineering. That doesn't mean they are 100 percent safe or ever will be. But it doesn't mean the drivers have to settle for unsafe vehicles, either.

Do you know for a fact that cars made of plastic are unsafe?

In any case, the motives of the car manufacturers are irrelevant. The results should speak for themselves.

There's nothing new about this attitude. It's human nature.

Agreed. But that doesn't mean we can't try to improve safety or morality.

Why no in between? Well of course you can have an in between. And that just proves my point. The more spent on the design and safety of a car, the more it is going to cost. The less spent on the design and safety of a car, the less cost. Do you really think a yugo is gonna have the same saftey that a bentley or a Yukon will have?

And the motives are completely relevant. The cost of making things according to exterior applied "standards" drives up the cost of a vehicle just like taxes do. Corporations do not pay taxes. They are tax collectors at point of sale. The money that collect for taxes doesn't come out of their pockets, it comes out of yours and mine. And the same thing applies to the cost of meeting some exterior standard, whether the standard is good or not.

And of course that attitude has been around since human kind began. But now we have a legal system designed to FEED that attitude. Guarantee that if lawyers weren't allowed to profit from frivilous lawsuits, you wouldn't see them. When the lawyers sued big tobacco in a class action lawsuit and won, the lawyers made significantly more than any individual named in the lawsuit. They were rainmakers and raked in the profits, some of which immediately went back into the lobbyists hands to make sure that lawsuit reform did not take place.

Look, you seem to think that I'm some bitter dude sitting at a computer regurgitation hate and bile and thats as far from the truth as can be. I just don't fool myself or lie to myself. I am a worker drone in a hive. I matter to maybe five people, my family. When i am gone from this earth, maybe three people will remember me for twenty years, if I'm lucky. And as long as I've set my son up to have a better life than I have had, to not have to work his guts out in jobs that are nothing but hard physical labor that even prisons don't force on inmates anymore...I'm okay with that.

People that have "hope" for a better tomorrow..are needed. Absolutely. The world needs dreamers to have better ideas and look for better ways. But, the world RUNS on guys like me. Worker drones that will never be remembered, wont go down in the history books, and left an ordinary life full of the ups and downs. And for me, the world just is.

I don't have anger at the unfairness of life. I don't waste time thinking about it. Its as bad as jealousy. Its wasted. It can be a motivator for some, but not for me. I get on with the job of daily life working to make a better place for my family. And thats about all I can do. It would be nice to be a great enough man to strap the country on my shoulders and tote it into the future, but thats not reality. I'm nothing special.

after your rants, Rick, I have to about your referring to my "GOP hatred."

If better off people can profit off of poor people, then they can afford to chip in to give poor people a fighting chance. Fair is fair.

How does this prove your point? In acknowledging that there is an in-between, you use two more extreme examples. Why not more economical models?

Is it truly safety that drives up the price of cars, or is it all the add-ons, like stereo systems, DVD players, and whatnot?


You've completely lost me here. What do standards have to do with the personal motivations of the car manufacturers? (We were talking about their personal motivations, such as greed, right?)

Agreed that this is a huge problem in driving up costs, but what do you propose to solve this problem? And would such a proposal be an alternative to UHC?

Some of your posts do come off as bitter toward the government, doctors, lawyers, Nader, etc.

It's interesting that you frame the world and your role in it in terms of "worker drones" and "dreamers," as if one cannot have degrees of both.

The presidents who have had the greatest impact on the U.S. tended to be both visionaries and men who got things done: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR . . . Lincoln, incidently, came from the poorest of the poor.

I'm not bitter towards the government, i just see it for what it is...a self sustaining entity that has come to feed off the people that do the work. And this entity is run by a) politicians that are wholly self serving b) quite a few people that wouldn't be able to maintain a job with anyone else if it wasn't so hard to fire them for incompetence and c) genuine people that have been in the system so long they no longer feel that they can effect it or have the energy to care about it.

My posts may come off bitter, but thats a misdirection by the limitations of the typed word rather than the spoken word that carries all the important inflections of speech. I don't hate the government, I hate those in positions of power that abuse the uses of government to further their own personal drives and agendas.

Yes, Lincoln came from the poorest of the poor, log cabin, yadda yadda yadda. I'm also accutely aware that while he "saved the union" the purpose of the union in the first place was for states to have their own independence and governance, which his war usurped. Something else else great may have come out of it, but also something with a rotten heart may have come out of it.

FDR did great things. But then, he gave us social security and a promise that it was the people's money and would not be taxed. Now, the system is near collapse, broke, and taxed. Meaning, later governments broke their word, lied to the people, and because we have become so cowed, we allowed congress to get away with it.

If the spirit of america was as great as we would like it to be, Fienstein would be under arrest for tampering, Sanford would be out of office for dereliction of duty (not for whoring around on his wife, thats personal, not public except that he cannot seem to shut his mouth), and the members of the supreme court that allowed the constitution to be rewritten concerning eminent domain would be up on malpractice charges.

As for my proposal on frivalous lawsuits..simple, if a lawyer is determined to have brought up a frivalous lawsuit having had no merit, he is fined into bankruptcy and he/she is disbarred, and prohibited from practicing law in ANY state in the union.

And if a lawyer brings a lawsuit that is proved to be accurate, the company that is under the gun pays the proper amount, and is not allowed to use legal bankruptcy to slide out of paying, as so many do. The aggrieved party is to be first in line for settlement. It isn't perfect, it isn't fair, but give it five years and there won't be any frivalous lawsuits. It's called punishment.

And yes, safety is a major factor in costs. Do you know how many tests are run trying to cover each and every possible aspect that might happen, from the ordinary such as a crash to crashes that envolve specific points creating specific reactions to make sure that some remote, obscure, nigh-impossible event won't take place and therefore lead to said lawsuits?

And you missed the point about in betweens. For more a few people, the "in between" models cost more than they can afford, and they HAVE to make a choice between the new and cheap or the used and repair heavy models. I know, I'm one of them. Its why i will be repairing the transmission in my '95 pickup myself rather than going out and buy a new vehicle. Im not bitter about it, I just deal with the reality.

Oh, put on some freakin' long pants, Dream Boy. Otherwise nobody's ever gonna' take you seriously.

Besides, I, for one, am glad to hear somebody other than Democrats hating on Nader for a change.

I too am curious as to how he plays it as "rants", lol. I simply type. I'm not the one here that goes on about how they hate all "insert political group x here" like so many others do. I disagree with many positions, some held by dems, some held by repubs. And many times when I am attempting to explain a position held by some on one end of the spectrum, others assume that it is a position I hold as well, which isn't always the case.

Hate to say it, but there's quite a bit of intollerance here, on a mostly liberal board, for those that think conservative. Lot of breast beating and shouting takes place.

As I have tried to say many times here, dems/libs aren't all sweetness and light, and all repub/cons are not dark and evil. Unfortunately, most on the dem/lib side take it as a personal attack when I say that. It isn't meant that way, but they do.