Proof positive that the Reps tried everything they could to make this better however none of the major things they supported are in this bill. The two people I spoke to that said they were done with Democrats were disgusted with the process. They could not believe the level their party would stoop too to get this passed with all the closed door negotiations after the President PROMISED that this would be open. They were disgusted with all the sleazy deals that were put in the bill to buy votes and felt any true reform would not have taken shenanigans like this to pass.
I call bull**** Here's an easier question: are you now or have you ever been a member of the Tea Party Patriots?
If you look at SC history, there is a FAR lower chance than 50/50 that they even get involved. If you look at history with regards to entitlement programs, they have never overturned one. Not a single time. I really hope GOP strategists think exactly like you. The GOP shut THEMSELVES out. Obama bent over backwards and damn near licked the balls of any Republican who indicated that they might work in a bipartisan fashion to get something done. When all of that failed, he took seven hours out of his day to have a nationally televised health care summit so that the GOP could have one more chance to work in a bipartisan way. They chose to say that nothing was good enough but a "blank sheet of paper," which wasn't reasonable after a year of debate. The GOP shut themselves out, the Democrats did not do it to them. I hope you are right. I really hope that the American people are able to see past the Faux "News" take to see what really happened over the course of the last year.
Which law school did you attend and how did you score on the Constitutional Law section of the Bar exam?
Like you really listen to the other side. I have said many times that this was an opportunity to improve health care. Everyone believes something needs to be done. The problem was the corrupt process that got this passed after the PRESIDENT promised this would be completely open to the public. If it was so good then there would have been no need for the buy offs and back room deals to get Democrats to vote for it.
Yes, and over a hundred Republican amendments made it into the final bill. Of course, there were also the times that Republicans put amendments out there and then voted against them because they were just stalling... Except for the hundred plus amendments that they did put in. Except for the time that Obama put everything out on the table in that seven hour long televised health care summit in which the two ideas espoused were tort reform (which has been pretty much proven not to lower healthcare costs) and a "clean sheet of paper," which isn't a proposal so much as a "f*** you, we are going to fight this bill or die trying." There was debate, discussion, bills being formed, amendments being made, proposals going back and forth for a solid year. At the end of this year, once the GOP made it absolutely clear that they were not interested in helping at all, Obama had a seven hour long televised discussion about health care during which the phrase most repeated by the GOP was "clean sheet of paper." Can you honestly say that there was any interest at all in bipartisanship on the GOP side? (rhetorical question)
We are taxing people on the reasonable assumption that they will USE something. People get sick, that is the long and short of it. As such, it is reasonable to expect that everyone maintain financial responsibility for their health.
The entitlement aspect of this is not being challenged. The challenge is that the federal government is mandating that private citizens buy a product from private companies or pay a fee/tax to the government. I have not said it will be overturned. It is not my decision to make. The way I see is that both sides have compelling arguments. I believe that this will be heard by the SC and a decision will be made. I personally think it could go either way thus my 50/50 prediction.
What specifically did the Republicans ask for that was not included in the bill? The majority of amendments are GOP amendments. The Republicans were invited on numerous occasions to bring their ideas to the table when the bill and the reconciliation fixes were being passed. The GOP refused to do so. Instead they demanded the whole bill be scrapped. They shut themselves out of the process and rather than even present their own ideas wanted to destroy it from the beginning. Please look at the statement by Jim DeMint. This was back in July 2009. DeMint and the Republicans weren't interested in trying to reform health care, nor did they offer any big ideas. They only wanted to break Obama and have the issue be his waterloo. They placed politics above health care reform. I would be interested in seeing these big ideas you mentioned that the Democrats didn't accept. The closest thing I can think of was Tort reform, which was acceptable to the Democrats, and interstate insurance allowance which would allow insurance companies to use the rules in the state with the least restrictions, and not reform the health insurance industry at all.
If this is not overturned y the SC then we will see. You said before we should bookmark this thread for later visits. I agree 100%. I have no problem admitting when I am wrong, do you? BTW does name calling make you feel better because there sure is a lot of hate being spewed from the people who share your beliefs on here.
Yes, I do listen to the other side. I read articles written by GOP folks often, my mother and stepfather are staunch Republicans and I talk to them pretty much daily. The difference is that I speak with them respectfully, leave out terms like Nazi, Hitler, Fascist, and Socialism and try to get to the actual substance. I try to get them to see that they are being lied to by Faux "News" just as much as they think people are lied to by MSNBC (disclaimer, I don't watch either of them or CNN either). I have a LOT of exposure to disparate ideas, which is the reason that I can say without doubt or question that you are attempting to rewrite history if you go on about the GOP being "shut out" of this debate by the Dems. If the GOP was shut out, it was by the party leaders who decided before the bill was even formed that this was going to be Obama's Waterloo. The unfortunate part of that strategy is that someone has to be Wellington and this time that role was played by Obama.
(for cml750 -- please let me know what you think of the following) Here's an interesting article from the Chicago Tribune a couple of years ago. There were 1 billion US visits to doctors offices, emergency rooms and clinics in 2006. That's an average of four per person. You may say: "I didn't go! Don't 'tax' ME if I didn't go." However: If you are (or ever were) a baby in the United States, you made several visits to the doctor. In 2006, babies averaged about 9 visits in their first year of life. If you ever plan to be over 65, apparently you will average over 7 visits to a doctor's office or similar per year. So if you are just born, live an incredibly healthy life and live to 70, you will have made at least 30 visits to the doctor (coming in under all the averages above and having ZERO visits, ZERO check-ups, ZERO broken bones, ZERO allergies, sports injuries, accidents, etc, between age 1 and 65.) I think if you could find a person who, as a baby, never saw a doctor, and who, in their golden years, never sees a doctor, you are talking some very, very rural place, but even then it would be an incredible story. PS -- the disturbing part of that article is the percentage of visits that end in a prescription drug being distributed.
hey Perry Mason - it will be years before a court challenge is ripe for review and works its way onto a Supreme Court docket. The Act itself becomes law of the land tonight. Further, the only thing that even faces a reasonable challenge on constitutional grounds is the insurance mandate, which I see you are dimly re-repeating because you saw half-wits like MojoMan repeating it, after they read it on some blog. It is severable from the rest of the bill. I'm not going to bother to explain what that means, since you are a man of legal skills to pay the bills and can ascertain this yourself. But if it does get struck down, if you do the math and think critically about it, it seems to leave only one logical policy choice - yep, the public option. So good luck with that challenge.
I just want you to know that I will support your right to refuse to succumb to the tyranny of health insurance. I applaud your refusal to purchase this "enforced" health insurance. I'm sure many more of us here will support you all the way to the detention camps. I'll even hold a sign.
This is an excerpt from a longer Slate article: The Virginia attorney general has promised to file a lawsuit against the federal government claiming that it can't compel Virginians to buy health insurance. His supporters say health care reform violates the 10th Amendment. Does it? Probably not. The 10th Amendment states that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The federal government, however, can claim two Constitutional justifications for mandating health care. One is the right to regulate interstate commerce, which includes any business that operates across state lines. (Even if not all health insurance companies operate in more than one state, Congress can still regulate them as long as that regulation is part of a comprehensive interstate scheme, according to the Supreme Court.) Congress also has the Constitutional right to tax. Just as Congress taxes polluting companies for imposing a burden on other people, it could tax Americans who don't buy health insurance for doing the same. As if to emphasize the point, the fine for not buying insurance is levied by the IRS.
You can call whatever you want to. It happened. I am not affiliated with any political party or movement. I study the issues and make up my own mind. I have not been to a single Tea Party rally or any other. My political views usually have me voting for the Republican candidate but there have been several times in my life where I voted for the Democrat candidate as long as they are pro-life. It may shock you to know I voted in the Democratic primary a few weeks ago but that had more to do with some local issues. The bill passed. Your side won, I fully admit that. I have only pointed out that this will probably be decided in the Supreme Court. I have not predicted it will be overturned but I definitely see where there is a possibility it could. I have no problem with health care reform. It is greatly needed. I do have a problem with the way this was carried out. People on here can twist the facts all they want to but a majority of Americans did not like this bill. Every major poll showed that. This whole process made the President look bad because he promised transparency. Question for you- Why did the President lie about transparency? He made numerous campaign promises regarding how open this process would be yet so much of this was done behind closed doors.
