A Funny Photo

[curiositykilledthecat]

I think this speaks volume to us all

[Repaid1]

I think this speaks volume to us all

For those who wish to see the pic...

[momma.bear]

the only TRUE *RIGHTS* as defined by the Founding Fathers are: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness)

yeah, & the founding fathers also believed that a black person was only 1/8 of a human being.

i dunno, i just think it's hard to pursue "life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" when i (even though i work full time as a teacher) can't afford adequate healthcare. but wait - i have "worked & received paychecks for years." i guess it must be wrong of me to think that i, as a human being, deserve affordable healthcare. i must have mistaken my WANT to be healthy for some kind of inherent human NEED. silly me, what was i thinking? of course human beings don't NEED to receive medical treatment. we should just let all of the poor people (including the ones who work 40+ hours a week & still can't make ends meet) die in the streets. or better yet: all of the people who work in food service & can't afford healthcare, we'll just let them go without medical treatment so that when they get communicable diseases, they can just spread it to everybody!

sarcasm aside, i don't think that welfare is the perfect solution, & no i don't think that "FREE" healthcare is the best solution ever. but AFFORDABLE healthcare is a human NEED. a need that our country is obviously not meeting right now.

[ArtemisEnterri]

yeah, & the founding fathers also believed that a black person was only 1/8 of a human being.

i dunno, i just think it's hard to pursue "life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" when i (even though i work full time as a teacher) can't afford adequate healthcare. but wait - i have "worked & received paychecks for years." i guess it must be wrong of me to think that i, as a human being, deserve affordable healthcare. i must have mistaken my WANT to be healthy for some kind of inherent human NEED. silly me, what was i thinking? of course human beings don't NEED to receive medical treatment. we should just let all of the poor people (including the ones who work 40+ hours a week & still can't make ends meet) die in the streets. or better yet: all of the people who work in food service & can't afford healthcare, we'll just let them go without medical treatment so that when they get communicable diseases, they can just spread it to everybody!

sarcasm aside, i don't think that welfare is the perfect solution, & no i don't think that "FREE" healthcare is the best solution ever. but AFFORDABLE healthcare is a human NEED. a need that our country is obviously not meeting right now.

Momma Bear, healthcare is NOT part of the Federal Government's job, that is an issue that should be dealt with at the COMMUNITY level.

When the Federal Government gets their hands into things, those things FAIL MISERABLY. Just look at the existing Medicare and Medicaid programs. The government can't even work those right, so what makes you think the government could handle a complete "universal" healthcare program covering all 305 million (or so) Americans (and they'd include the illegals aliens, no matter how many times they say they won't)??

What needs to be done is better regulation of things... Use the Monopoly laws to break-up the mega corporations in the insurance business and split them down into small regional groups... More companies in the market = more competition, and more competition = better prices. (The same should be done with the phone, cable, and electric companies...)

Also put an end to the insane dollar amounts juries award for malpractice cases... I can understand punishing a doctor for a DELIBERATE act, but millions of dollars for a simple HUMAN ERROR is insane... That problem is driven by the lawyers who chase people looking for doctors to sue. If the government would put SENSIBLE LIMITS on what the juries can award, healthcare prices wouldn't be so high.

Think about it, doctors have over $100,000 in student loans just to become a doctor, then they are FORCED to have malpractice insurance (which has very high prices) just to open an office or work in a hospital, and the doctors that do have a private practice have the same basic expenses of any other business (rent, utilities, payroll, etc). The big problem is that there are too many people in government these days with some mental defect which makes them believe "profit is evil"... But if there's no profit, what is the reason to stay in business (for ANY business, not just doctors)?

A "universal" healthcare system (like France, England, Canada, etc) limits the rates doctors can charge while at the same time FORCING doctors to see more patients than they could really handle during a single day/week/month/etc... Doctors would no longer be allowed to profit from their knowledge and skills, which means they'd be stuck in debt because they'd never have money to be able to pay down their debts. That factor would severely reduce the number of people willing to put the effort into going through medical school since they would not be able to live "comfortably" and repay the student loans incurred just to get the degrees needed.

I am an accountant, I deal with profit(loss) calculations and income vs expense reports. There are VERY FEW businesses that can stay open if they do not make a profit. (Don't bring up "non-profit" groups, because they are not true businesses... They don't have true income, they only have donation money which is then used to pay their expenses.)

[Repaid1]

I think the point is very simply that this health care plan/Bill is just wrong. It's not researched, Nobody voting on it knows what it contains. "They" Just want it passed and right now. I don't get the hurry. We have already suffered under Bills so far that are just rushed through without those voting yes knowing what the heck they voted on. I think that what was stated above is very true, name one thing the "government" controls that works correctly.

Normally I wouldn't comment, but for a teacher, I am appalled at your typing and capitalization skills. I get in a hurry too, but It is ingrained into my life to capitalize the letter "I". So anyway...Do we need health care reform...hell yeah that's what we need. We do not need a bill passed, that is going to change our lives forever, at a cost nobody can explain the source. Finally while the need is great, is it that great that it needs done in a month and should we know what it is we are passing? How many little extra features have the politicians snuck in between the lines? These guys are exempt from anything they pass. Their retirement and medical is 100% covered without any money out of their pocket just ours. I wish I could vote on my own raise which is higher (MUCH) than any cost of living increase they vote for "Us".

I think it's time we started cleaning out the closet. It's time we as Americans started taking our country back, not voting it away (If you didn't vote...You still voted)

[curiositykilledthecat]

hey repaid, how do i get the pic to post on the thread and not a link?

[AutieAB]

Ooh, politics, lovely

I saw a car with 2 bumpers stickers the other day (I live in a red-with-a-capital-R-E-D type state). The one on the left was your standard Obama sticker. The one on the right was older, I'd guess from around about early 2005 . It read:

"Dear World,

Sorry, but we tried our best.

Love,

Half of America"

[Dougie]

Neither party is currently fit to run this nation. They haven't been since Kennedy was in office. He was the last true President. Ron Paul was a hopeful contender, but he was blackmailed out of the race.

If we don't push for or basic freedoms we will loose them all! We also need to push to keep the 2nd Amendment alive and protected. If we loose the 2nd Amendment, we will loose the 1st! That is how we will become a Socialist or Communist country.

[momma.bear]

Normally I wouldn't comment, but for a teacher, I am appalled at your typing and capitalization skills. I get in a hurry too, but It is ingrained into my life to capitalize the letter "I".

heh, sorry. i don't use capital letters on teh intrawebs. *shrug* my lack of capital letters on forums/instant messages has yet to have any effect on my scholarly or creative publications.

healthcare is NOT part of the Federal Government's job, that is an issue that should be dealt with at the COMMUNITY level... What needs to be done is better regulation of things... Use the Monopoly laws to break-up the mega corporations in the insurance business and split them down into small regional groups...

actually, i agree. it would be much more efficient for local communities to take charge of healthcare. & yeah, of course monopolies should be broken up in order to increase competition - but be careful saying that or some of your republican friends might think you're a dirty liberal! i mean, really - breaking up monopolies? how progressive of you!

I don't get the hurry.

i agree that it's being rushed. politicians sneak things into bills all the time. & i encourage you to write to and call your senators and representatives to encourage them to carefully read the bill before they make a decision. however, the hurry is that a lot of hard working americans and their children are currently without healthcare - or at least, that's how a lot of people feel about it.

A "universal" healthcare system (like France, England, Canada, etc) limits the rates doctors can charge while at the same time FORCING doctors to see more patients than they could really handle during a single day/week/month...

i'm not sure about france or england, but canada's system isn't like that. my ex-boyfriend's brother is a doctor in canada, and he makes plenty of money under their current system. this argument seems to me to be based on misinformation, as is most of the discussion in this country about canada's health system. if you can get the numbers, i would be happy to change my mind on this question, but none of my canadian friends seem to have any issue with their healthcare.

We also need to push to keep the 2nd Amendment alive and protected. If we loose the 2nd Amendment, we will loose the 1st! That is how we will become a Socialist or Communist country.

*facepalm* communism and socialism have nothing to do with free speech or the right to bear arms. they are predominantly governmental orientations to economic issues. yes, there have been communist countries that were also fascist or dictatorships, but communism doesn't inherently have anything to do with that. karl marx would have been all about free speech and gun rights.

i'm not saying that this particular health bill is the best. but i get really pissed off when (1) people start throwing around the words "communism" and "socialism" without having any real clue as to what they mean (2) people start calling the poor lazy, or implying as much. i grew up in a really poor home, but my mother was not a lazy person. she worked 16+ hours a day, usually 6 days a week. yet we still couldn't make ends meet. my mother didn't want handouts; she wanted to be able to take care of her children.

certainly we need to be careful not to rush any bill through, but at this point, healthcare is an urgent issue. if communities won't step up and take care of their own, then the federal government needs to take a stand and make it happen.

[ArtemisEnterri]

Momma Bear, I have many republican friends who AGREE that Monopolies are bad and should be broken up.

The biggest problem with prices in the American market is the lack of competition. In the pre-monopoly days, when everything was "mom & pop" businesses, competition was EVERYWHERE, and the money spent at the "mom & pop" stores benefited the local community. But now, the chain store (wal-mart, target, cvs, rite aid, walgreens, etc) or warehouse (sam's, costco, BJ's) you shop at is just a "branch" that sends the money received for the goods sold to their corporate headquarters (which is almost always a different state) and therefore no longer benefits the local community. Sure they have the "buying power" to buy large enough bulk amounts to get discounts allowing them to sell products for lower prices than the remaining "mom & pop" stores (where do you think they get their stuff from?). But in the end, those monopolies do not have as much benefit to the community (even when they have "donation" programs) as the old methods.

Are you saying that you prefer things the way they are now? Very limited competition, crazy prices for products (compared to what those prices were even 10 years ago), "mom & pop" family stores being put out of business by the mega chains?????

[momma.bear]

Are you saying that you prefer things the way they are now? Very limited competition, crazy prices for products (compared to what those prices were even 10 years ago), "mom & pop" family stores being put out of business by the mega chains?????

if you looked at what i said, you would notice that i said i agree with you about big chains & corporations being broken up. most folks who lean towards the left feel really strongly about that.

unfortunately, a lot of folks in the leadership of the two main political parties in this country have heavy investments in & get campaign funding from huge corporations... this is much more pronounced in the republican party.

so while i am glad that you & some of your republican friends agree with us left leaning folks about monopolies, i think you may need to examine some of the leadership in your political party.

[AutieAB]

/me finds it hilarious and revolting at the same time that so many Americans consider anything that looks remotely like helping their poor or sick citizens to be communism. Buy a bloody dictionary!

Communism (from communis = "common") is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general.

Communism != universal healthcare, duh!

[momma.bear]

thank you, autieab! it's so frustrating when people throw that term around without knowing what it means.