I am still curious how allowing people buying across state lines squares with the idea of Federalism, one of the basic principles of this country? [edit]Whoops I see Major beat me to it again and Thumbs answered the question. DAMN YOU MAJOR! [/edit]
There is no historical data from this country or any other where private competes vs public that supports this assertion. There are many countries in which this is the case, by the way. Almost every western european nation which has universal care also has a private option. In the past decades, private insurance costs have quadrupled while medicare costs have doubled; yet medicare is forced to cover the most expensive population in America: old people. Single payer insurance is not only the more compassionate, humane way to provide healthcare for all citizens of a nation. It's also the most efficient.
I'm not sure where they get this doomsday scenario myself. There are countless examples of government support that compete evenly with a private competitor. Public Schools allow Private ones to selectively admit applicants and have not in any way ruined Private education in this country. The Post Office hasn't run UPS or FedEx out of town. Public Libraries did not spell the end of Barnes & Noble. Merrill Lynch still provides 401(K)'s, despite the government having SS to provide for retirement. PBS hasn't killed ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, or any of a thousand other channels I can get.
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I haven't been following this thread anymore. But, I think this would still be the appropriate place to put this article. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6699950.html [rquoter]Houston Tea Party rally draws more than 10,000 By PEGGY O'HARE Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Nov. 3, 2009, 12:16AM More than 10,000 people turned out Monday night for a North Houston Tea Party Patriots gathering to protest proposed health care reform and what they called big government spending and overzealous government leadership, according to preliminary attendance figures. Under clear skies and a perfect moon, crowds packed the field at the Sam Houston Race Park and cheered loudly as speakers called for the people to take control of the American government. Wearing slogans that said “Don't Tread on Me” and T-shirts stating, “I am a Tea Party Patriot — I will defend our Constitution,” those attending the event enthusiastically showed support for more constraints on the government and more personal freedom. “This isn't about ‘I can't stand Barack Obama' — this is about ‘I can't stand a government that will tread on me,' ” said Houston radio talk show host and TV anchor Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo to a rousing burst of applause from the audience. “Taxes are going up because we have to pay for health care for people who are here illegally,” Pagliarulo said. “We have to pay for health care for people who don't want health care ... We've got a government that's run amok — we've got a government that doesn't care about you or me. It cares about power, it cares about control.” Attendees stressed that Monday's event — and their support of it — was not partisan in nature. Several of those in the audience said they feel all political parties have stopped listening to the people and that voters feel like they no longer have a voice in Washington. “We vote primarily Republican, but they don't seem to be that much different anymore than Democrats,” said Everett Cochran of Montgomery, who attended the rally with his wife, Donna. “Nobody in the party apparently is listening to what the moderates to conservatives are saying — all they're listening to is the moderates to the liberals.” Laureen Jones and Joan Orozco of The Woodlands said they attended to protest government spending as well as government-run health care. “Basically, I think the country is going in the wrong direction quickly,” Orozco said. “I think the Constitution is being violated. People are tired of being told what the government is going to do to them.” An exact attendance count was not available Monday night, but Sam Houston Race Park officials said preliminary numbers based on turnstiles indicated the crowd exceeded 10,000 people.[/rquoter] Pretty decent turnout.
Amazing. I mean no disrespect, but how can you converse with people like this. If someone comes up to you and says "I resent what the Martians are doing to my bunions!" ... what can you say to them? "I'm sorry to hear that." (?)
Exactly the 2 quotes I was looking at with a big ole "WTF?". If you're going to be that stupid, I have no help for you.
Do you believe illegals are going to be given medical insurance coverage under the health reform bill?
It's my opinion that, if allowed to participate at all, illegal immigrants won't be given anything. It would also appear that the House version contrasts what the Senate version will say and what the White House wants. In the end, I believe the final version of the plan will not include illegal immigrants at all. My problem with the teabaggers is making it sound as if it's already a foregone conclusion that it will happen or that it's somehow magically already happened. I'm still trying to figure out where there is a constitutional issue, as well.
I was going to go to this just to see what it is about but after discussing it with my girlfriend we both concluded my tolerance for stupid is way to low for me to even observe a teabagger party.
Dave78, please tell us that you made a "let's just teabag in tonight" joke to your girlfriend. Thanks in advance.
(1) "given"? No chance. (2) I believe the "illegals!" argument is a gigantic red (brown?) herring. If anyone's taxes go up, it won't be because of illegals getting any sort of big healthplan. Of all the possible worries with healthcare reform, this one is only in the discussion because it rallies the base, perhaps even more than "they want to give GAY people health care!" (2A) Note the other wedge issue -- abortion -- is now coming to the forefront.
The crazies are throwing the kitchen sink. A clear sign they have lost the argument and are now just flailing for anything to latch on too.
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Given that the Democratic plan would reduce the deficit by 100 billion, and the GOP plan would reduce itr by only 68 billion they should all be behind the Democratic plan. Yet it seems that the deficit issue they claim to care so much about isn't that important after all.
If someone is concerned about how to pay for health care reform wouldn't you want more people paying into it? In my opinion illegals paying for premiums would be a benefit to the program rather than a negative. There is none.
Teapartiers seem to be concerned about spending as much as adding to the deficit. When one proposal spends nearly $1 trillion and the other spends about $60 billion then that's a much greater difference than the deficit reduction estimates between the two. So there are reasons for a tea party attendee to support the Republican plan without being hypocritical.
Tea Party Implosion? -- Party Foul! Tea Partiers Eat Their Own In Bitter Internal Feud The Tea Party movement is being ripped apart by bitter internal rancor, highlighted by a lawsuit against a former leader, vituperative name-calling, and charges of financial mismanagement and corruption. As we told you this morning, board members for the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) this week filed suit against Amy Kremer, a former TPP leader who fell out with the group over her involvement with a rival Tea Party faction, the Tea Party Express. And on Tuesday, a judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering Kremer to return control of the TPP websites to the board, and to stop representing herself as a TPP spokeswoman. But that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Tea Partiers' internecine strife. Emails obtained by TPMmuckraker detail how a rogue faction of Tea Party Patriots is lashing out at the board for going ahead with the suit against Kremer, and challenging the board's financial management, triggering a state of acrimony that appears serious enough to threaten the upstart movement's ability to continue to mount an effective grassroots challenge to the Obama agenda -- just days after the House passed the health-care-reform bill that the Tea Partiers view as socialism. In an email to fellow TPPers sent Wednesday, Gerald Merits called the lawsuit "the single most insane act of self destruction I have witnessed since this country elected Obama," and asked "how much donor money is being spent of (sic) suing Amy?" For the rest of the day, the email list was consumed with charges and counter charges. In response to Merits, Josh Parker, a supporter of the board, wrote: "Amy created a situation where TPP couldn't do anything BUT sue her, then she goes on with her poor me crap. She brings this on herself and all the rest of us." At the root of the dispute is the acrimony between TPP and the Tea Party Express, a newer group formed by a team of GOP consultants. Many TPPers sees TPE as inauthentic, calling it the "Astoturf Express," and deriding it as a "Republican front organization." But others -- including Merits -- have flirted with TPE, apparently out of frustration with the TPP's sprawling structure and unwieldy decision-making process. On Wednesday, David McKalip, the Florida neurosurgeon and one-time Tea Party Patriot activist, who found himself in hot water after we published an email he sent showing President Obama as a witch doctor -- addressed a Tea Party Express rally in Orlando. In Wednesday's email exchange, several other TPPers sided with Merits in raising concerns about the lawsuit. And one, Jack Staver, raised a separate charge against the board, suggesting that board members were being insufficiently transparent about the organization's finances. Wrote Staver: Merits echoed that theme. "Why are the financial records not public knowledge?" he asked. "Show me the money!" Eventually a Tea Party Patriots loyalist couldn't take it anymore. "Why are you intentionally trying to destroy this movement??" he demanded. Charges of lax book-keeping -- and worse -- appear to be breaking out across the Tea Party movement. In a separate email written Wednesday and obtained by TPMmuckraker, Matt Perdue, the president of a San Antonio Tea Party group, ripped into the group's treasurer, her husband, and their supporters for conducting a "mass redirection campaign," apparently to line their own pockets using Tea Party donations. "Where has all this money gone?" asks Perdue. "If there is nothing wrong going on, why has there not been one single piece of paper produced to back up why people got checks, some for $3,000, $7,400+, $4,000, $10,400+??? Where is the documentation? Why isn't the cash deposited like it should be? Why did it take more than two weeks to deposit cash from the meetings?" Meanwhile, other Tea Party factions are trying to distance themselves from the dispute between Kremer and TPP -- and position themselves to benefit. Darla Dawald, the leader of the Patriotic Resistance, a far-right grassroots group, wrote in a message on the TPP email list that her organization has "not supported any lawsuit or fighting ... but I felt obligated to inform our base what is happening so that you could make an educated decision about your support of the Group called the Tea Party Patriots." Dawald has been a key participant in the bus tour organized by the Tea Party Express -- an effort shunned by TPP. And Eric Odom, the founder of the Tax Day Tea Party events, wrote in his own message that the acrimony "presents a dangerous situation for the movement as a whole," and urged TPPers to return to "defeating the socialist thugs who seek to destroy our country, not fellow patriots who seek to stop them." We reported that Odom this week launched a political action committee designed to channel Tea Party activism toward an electoral goal. As Wednesday wore on, the TPP internal email list degenerated into name-calling, sarcasm, and personal attacks. "Jack, you REALLY look clueless right now," Parker wrote to Staver at one point. Parker also ripped Merits for "your usual pissing and moaning without knowing nothing." And Staver deemed Parker "not worthy of a response." Some TPPers expressed concern that the acrimony could damage the movement if exposed. "Daily Kos and other left wing interest groups are going to love running with this story," wrote one. Merits appeared to share that concern. "This will go public if we let it drag on long enough and if you don't think this will have a chilling effect on all Tea Party movements raising funds you are living in a world of fairy dust and gingerbread houses," he wrote. "Read my previous emails. If this goes on long enough, we all go down - NOT just TPP and TPE - ALL OF US."
