Lighten up, major! The chain email reference was just a joke... How is this justified? Who else gets to be so sloppy with their books? Isn't the waste usually found in the "overhead?"
Accept that there are plenty of other examples of the government failing to successfully compete with private business and even private business successfully breaking down a government monopoly. Consider the Post Office. Fedex successfully challenged their virtual monopoly through a more effective business model. When the Post Office tried to compete with its own next day air service, Priority Mail, it failed miserably. In regard to Health Care we've had Medicaid, Medicare and the VA for decades while private health insurance has continued along and even provides Medicare gap coverage. The bigger concern I don't think is that a Public option will takeover private health insurance but that a private option will be so poorly run that it will have problems surviving on its own. Any sort of private option that might come out of the current health care debate is likely to be not so much a tiger out to swallow private health care but a mouse sqeaking around the edges of private health care.
I just cannot resist. I have to respond to this. I am a conservative. I am, however, a reasonable conservative. I am not so blinded by a knee jerk ideology that I cannot discuss rationally a topic. I know that when your first inclination is to refer to those you disagree with as "douchebags" and throwing around epithets like "socialist," you pretty much concede that you have no real argument. You also terminate any possibility of furthering your side of the argument. On behalf of all conservatives....stop it. I love capitalism. I enjoy it everyday. I also know that when it comes to real life and death stuff (like access to health care), you have to be willing and able to compromise. It is really part of the social compact that makes society possible. I know that the system we currently have fails way too many people. It is irreparably broken. A very good friend of mine is screwed if he loses his insurance. He is a type one diabetic. It has been a pre-existing condition for him since he was 8 years old. If he goes without his treatment, he will succumb to the ravages that disease can have on the body. Refgal pays $400 a month for health insurance for her and her two kids. She cannot get a MRI that she needs for her chronic neck pain and cannot get a colonoscopy because the insurance company will not pay a dime toward it. So she goes without. She could be developing colon cancer right now and we would not ever know it. For her to get the test, it would cost her over $1,200.00. Single mothers do not have that kind of cash lying around. Maybe those failures of the system do not mean anything to you. Maybe you are find with the status quo that ends in a number of unnecessary premature deaths. That just makes you heartless. This does not mean the end of private insurance anymore than Social Security meant the end of private investment. It is a safety net. It provides (AT A COST TO THOSE WHO USE IT) an affordable access to the health care system. You say that you know it will end in government takeover. That is your paranoia, not mine. Conservative thought when I was a younger man meant that the government leveled the playing field so that all had opportunity. The playing field when it comes to health care access is so out of whack that it must be leveled. If the public option were free to the user and if it were the only option, I would have a problem with it. Using the government to make available affordable, quality care to those that have been left behind by their current insurance policy or those who cannot afford it any other way is simply the right thing to do. Most of the classic conservative figures in history would be perfectly ok with this. Not because it is ideal, but because it is the right thing to do. Maybe you have not had this touch your life through those you are close to. You have been lucky. If you are in this planet long enough, it will touch your life, and your views will change. The best of luck to you.
Bars that were once filled with people having fun are now closing due to statist smoking laws. That is not paranoia. More and more people are clamoring for the government to control's and monitor every citizen's health and tax them appropriately. That is not paranoia. More and more people are calling for the demise of private industry. That is not paranoia. The is a swell of support for year round compulsory attendance to state institutions. That is not paranoia. Your friend's situation sucks. I have already stated that there are big problems. It is ridiculous that health insurance is tied to a job. However, I will never believe that a government takeover is the answer. And it would be inevitable if we don't fight. The Patriot Act is nothing compared to that. Now excuse me, I have to go take my Saturn in for a tuneup.
you don't want citizens' health to improve? who did this? if anything obama supported private industry by supporting the bail out and all the fed programs to help them. the administration helped guide GM and chrysler through bankruptcy. are you really one of these nutjobs? you can disagree with year round schooling but you really think this is something to 'fear'? you don't have to believe anything. but first of all a public option is nothing near a government take over (i support single payer completely). secondly, there are many western democracies that are free and wonderful that have single payer that work great. this ignorant idiotic notion that a 'government takeover' is the end of freedom and liberty has been promoted in this country for way too long. from AMA/Reagan tapes disparaging medicare s a government takeover that will cause us to lose our freedoms to teabaggers and your arguments right now. its just absurd. to argue that a single payer or even a public option is not the best solution is fine. but paranoia about a government take over and us losing our liberty is stupid.
I wanna rock. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3nYeN5rBGgs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3nYeN5rBGgs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Taking my money from my successful business and giving it to their failing one is not supporting private industry. Yes, Yes I am. I fear giving the government too much power. You are not sounding "tolerant" enough. The government will now administer you the appropriate dose of medicine. Feel better now? Good. Now go relax and cozy up with a good David Sedaris book.
Regarding "bars that were once filled with people having fun", I know plenty of people who used to avoid bars that were packed with smokers. Now that smoking is confined to the outdoors, bars are actually tolerable. I know that it may be a bit of an inconvenience for a smoker to have to go outside, but bars more than make up for that inconvenience with all the new business they get from non-smokers who had previously not been customers. Citing the demise of a few bars (you don't think that might have anything to do with the economic downturn, do you?) and blaming it on the "statist" smoking ban and an impending government takeover is, in my opinion, nothing more than paranoia.
Well, I can't argue with that sound logic. You've got me. I'm part of the government takeover. Damn you for blowing my cover. While it was fun while it lasted, I'm moving on to the Treasury. Here's your new currency, bucket not included.
You have yet to provide any evidence for any of your claims. There is nothing in the bills that would indicate a govt. takeover. Until you can show evidence your claim is meaningless. You are basing your assumptions on nothing that is factual.
How much of health care now is paid for from federal and state governments? Could there possibly be a relation to that and rising costs? What was promised in 1965? (Not to mention the gov as the cause of the r****ded employer-based health insurance / health care in the first place.) This is the same government that created the system in which companies that make revenues out of disease. BTW, I feel it, see it and smell it. Fight to keep the government as far away the doctor office as possible. Fight for the freedom to control your own health. Don't let the government dictate what that is and how it will be done.
