OK, here's a question...

[asur]

Bob - you are smarter than you look.
National Healthcare is a very bad idea.

Costs go up and service goes down.
The benefit isn't worth it in any way.

Healthcare is now affordable if people were careful how they spend their money.

Some people are driving around mercedes and yet claim they can't pay for health insurance. This makes no sense.

 

[Andy]

Good post, Andy, and I would like to address it, but at noon yesterday we got an avalanche of work (sort of an avalunch of work, so to speak) so I'll be gone for a while.

You are blessed. I'm currently unemployed

 

[Andy]

How did this get soooo twisted??? I was pointing out that {look at the data} that the majority of hardworking Americans are now having to make the toughest choices about: keeping their current insurance policies or house payments??? Retirement benefits are being changed by the largest corporations and the retirement plan that they were promised is "Not Iron Clad Guaranteed" anymore!

Are we talking about Health Care or Retirement?

'FREE CLINICS'...you mean there is one in every neighborhood in America...NO THERE ISN'T!!!
"So why don't they go to the free clinic"...gee, I don't know, would that possibly be a transportation problem???

Even the poorest of Americans have cars.

Unlike my sources which you can fact check, I can't seem to find anything supporting the claims your guy about Norway. Of the little information on health care I have found this:

The Norwegian tax burden is 45% of GDP.
Many pay out-of-pocket and travel to a foreign country for medical care when waiting lists are long.
Patients choose general practitioners (GPs) from a government list. Patients can only switch GPs twice per year and only if there is no waiting list for the requested GP.
There are significant waiting times for many procedures. Many Norwegians often go abroad for medical treatments. The average weight for a hip replacement is more than 4 months. “Approximately 23 percent of all patients referred for hospital admission have to wait longer than three months for admission.” Also, care can be denied if it is not deemed to be cost-effective.

Further there are many economic factors in Norway, that are not present here. For example, Norway has a population of only 2.5 million people. They also are the second largest exporter of Oil in the world. Only Saudi Arabia exports more. The also export a wide range of other commodities as well. And despite this massive income from exports, they still need to tax the economy at 50% in order to fund their social services, for 8/100ths of the population of the US.

Now, perhaps if we slaughter off about 99% of the US population, become the second largest exporter of Oil, and a primary exporter of all other commodities, and increase our taxes to 50% of the GDP... then yeah, the Norway method might work.

If you looked around your area: {major cities sized 80,000 plus} I think that you would see what I have; that the only major building boom new construction has been/still is the sky scrapers that the Insurance Companies have built...what makes you think that they aren't ripping us off on all of our policies??? Insurance Companies and their grossly over paid lobbyist have had their way with 'John Q. Public' long enough...lets put the squeeze on them and make them come to the table with a 'new improved plan/policy' for a change!

Actually most of the largest buildings are not from insurance companies. That isn't to say that large insurance companies do not have big buildings. But if this is your idea of how to know if your being ripped off, it's um.... a bit lame. Sears Tower must mean that Sears was ripping us off. In reality, the reason companies make so much money is because they are not ripping us off. The reason Sears was doing so well they could afford to make the tower, was because they were offering the best products at the best price at the time.

I have yet to find a single example of any situation where the use of government to "put the squeeze on them" has resulted in anything positive. Reminds me of R12 auto refrigerant. We sure put the squeeze on Dupont. They turned around and supported the ban on their own product (because their patent was up) and now they sold us R134a which leaks out like the levies in New Orleans, and they are making a killing.

General Electric is supporting the Cap-and-Trade system knowing they'll make millions off it. And the list of governmental controls used to make companies millions goes on and on.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Yup, sure do, and the only one that's getting "angry" here is you. As for myself, every time I read one of your posts, it's everything that I can do to keep from peeing my pants I'm laughing so hard!!

Your "team" obviously doesn't know DICK about researching the best HMO/PPO policies, otherwise they'd have found the ones that I did with a 2 minute web search, now, why don't you get back to your animals little girl, and leave intelligent discussions to the adults.

In response to your, ummm, lack of bladder control; you might be suffering from a prostrate condition or you really are as immature as your posts dictate and I would suggest that you fore go those big boy tidy whiteys and go back to those 'DEPENDS'...I'm sure that might help with your bladder control problem...but as far as your lack of 'knowledge' on this issue you'll continue to 'WOW' us with your brilliant lack of understanding and FACTS!

2 important 'FACTORS' that play the all important role in getting an affordable health care insurance policy:
1. portability
2. pre-existing conditions

But as with most of your 'continual blather', the facts and your point are not connecting...but you must have a REAL 'magic marker' and the ability to draw an imaginary line.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Are we talking about Health Care or Retirement?

The show to which I was referring covered the impact of people loosing their retirement benefits and the lack of funds/health care was making the 'golden days' not as they had planned or saved for! NO, monthly budget to pay the policies...makes the policy null and void...funny how finances work that way???

Even the poorest of Americans have cars.

hmmm...you really just didn't say that??? Did you forget the impact of Katrina on the gulf states and how the 'POOR' didn't have vehicles to drive themselves out of the area once the mass transit shut down...I know you will rethink that statement and see the error of your point!

Unlike my sources which you can fact check, I can't seem to find anything supporting the claims your guy about Norway.

Since I do not live there, but he's been in both countries {USA & NORWAY} all I have is his word and his ability to compare what his children have for health insurance here in America versus what he gets in Norway...he doesn't have a 'dog in this verbal battle', just a point of view on what he gets over there for health care!

Of the little information on health care I have found this:

​

Further there are many economic factors in Norway, that are not present here. For example, Norway has a population of only 2.5 million people. They also are the second largest exporter of Oil in the world. Only Saudi Arabia exports more. The also export a wide range of other commodities as well. And despite this massive income from exports, they still need to tax the economy at 50% in order to fund their social services, for 8/100ths of the population of the US.

Now, perhaps if we slaughter off about 99% of the US population, become the second largest exporter of Oil, and a primary exporter of all other commodities, and increase our taxes to 50% of the GDP... then yeah, the Norway method might work.

My, My, My that seems such a, well such a irrational method for solving the health care problem in America and here I was thinking that you were wanting to solve the problem...not to be sarcastic and stupid about it!!!

Actually most of the largest buildings are not from insurance companies. That isn't to say that large insurance companies do not have big buildings. But if this is your idea of how to know if your being ripped off, it's um.... a bit lame.

So you think that having a building boom of the last 20 years and the largest buildings (in my area...I believe that I've stated that once already) were being built by the 'INSURANCE COMPANIES'...is LAME in your opinion. Who do you think paid for that profit that provided the funds to built those towers of gluttony???

Sears Tower must mean that Sears was ripping us off. In reality, the reason companies make so much money is because they are not ripping us off. The reason Sears was doing so well they could afford to make the tower, was because they were offering the best products at the best price at the time.

Now that was a true senseless comment...I wasn't comparing {and I'm quite sure that you understood that} the preexisting older structures in America {new construction or did you just ignore that fact on purpose}...JEEZ LOUISE

I have yet to find a single example of any situation where the use of government to "put the squeeze on them" has resulted in anything positive. Reminds me of R12 auto refrigerant. We sure put the squeeze on Dupont. They turned around and supported the ban on their own product (because their patent was up) and now they sold us R134a which leaks out like the levies in New Orleans, and they are making a killing.
General Electric is supporting the Cap-and-Trade system knowing they'll make millions off it. And the list of governmental controls used to make companies millions goes on and on.

Oh yes, and the lack of controls and checks & balances sure helped the SEC in the past 8 years...but then again...maybe that last 2 paragraphs you typed is just the evidence/remnants of the 'G.W.Bush brain washing' that lingers in the USA

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

How Congress failed to curb medical spending
Lessons from the cost controls lawmakers didn't have the will to impose

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
msnbc.com
updated 1 minute ago

Health care spending in the United States has been growing at more than 7 percent a year, far faster than the economy itself has been growing.

President Barack Obama has called growth in medical spending “a ticking time bomb for the federal budget.”

In his press conference Tuesday, Obama pledged that the health insurance overhaul that he is proposing “brings down the crushing cost of health care. We simply can't have a system where we throw good money after bad habits. We need to control the skyrocketing costs that are driving families, businesses and our government into greater and greater debt.”

But as Congress designs the massive insurance overhaul, there’s reason to doubt that it will find the willpower to control this spending.

It has tried — and failed — in the past.

In the 1997 balanced budget law, Congress aimed to cut future spending on the Medicare program, which pays for medical care for Americans age 65 and older.

But it has proven that it won’t fully enforce the cost controls mandated by that law.

Great expectations in 1997
The story starts on July 30, 1997, a day of bipartisan jubilation in Washington.

By huge margins, Congress passed a bill to cut taxes, extend health insurance to five million uninsured children, and in its key cost-control measure, to cut future Medicare spending by nearly $400 billion over ten years.
“We have put America’s fiscal house in order again,” exulted President Bill Clinton who signed the bill into law.

House Budget committee chairman Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, said, “This is the dawn of new era,” calling the future Medicare spending cuts “amazing.”

<for the rest of this story>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31495588/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
*****************************************

It would appear that while the republicans owned the congressional votes during this period...they too lacked the back bone to 'DO THE RIGHT THING'!!!

 

[TheFranklinParty]

After reading this entire thread my head is spinning. Many good points, some great facts, and a lot of miss interpreted statistics. It is not that any of you are right or wrong, but I think we're missing the clear problem that is causing the expensive and escalating cost of healthcare.

Unions and corporations decided many years ago to use healthcare coverage as a benefit to help lock-in employees to staying with one company. This transcended right into retirement. The problem is that no one had the common sense to realize that down the road a compnay could have as many people collecting retirement benefits as they acutally had working. This is one of the major components to the death of many of our iconic companies. This game also lined the pockets of insurance companies, unions, and HR managers while increasing healthcare costs. It also drove us to a managed healthcare system which made us beholden to the insurer instead of the healthcare provider.

The simple answer is to disconnect the health insurers from our employers. Allow for insurance compnaies to cover nationally. This will allow for more competition in Emergency Care insurance and Major Medical. It will also drive Hopsitals and Medical professionals to provide care that is more focused on the patient since that is who the real customer will be from now on.

Finally, let's have a nationalized healthcare plan for children under the age of 18 years of age, as long as they are still in school. This way the family healthcare cost will be greatly reduced and at the same time we will create a healthier America going forward which will inevitably lower overall healthcare costs 20-30 years from now.

Last thought - how about changing the medical model from break-fix to early diagnosis and preventative healthcare?

For more on the subject check out the book:
Political Common Sense for America

Also: The Franklin Party

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

After reading this entire thread my head is spinning. Many good points, some great facts, and a lot of miss interpreted statistics. It is not that any of you are right or wrong, but I think we're missing the clear problem that is causing the expensive and escalating cost of healthcare.

Unions and corporations decided many years ago to use healthcare coverage as a benefit to help lock-in employees to staying with one company. This transcended right into retirement. The problem is that no one had the common sense to realize that down the road a compnay could have as many people collecting retirement benefits as they acutally had working. This is one of the major components to the death of many of our iconic companies. This game also lined the pockets of insurance companies, unions, and HR managers while increasing healthcare costs. It also drove us to a managed healthcare system which made us beholden to the insurer instead of the healthcare provider.

The simple answer is to disconnect the health insurers from our employers. Allow for insurance compnaies to cover nationally. This will allow for more competition in Emergency Care insurance and Major Medical. It will also drive Hopsitals and Medical professionals to provide care that is more focused on the patient since that is who the real customer will be from now on.

Finally, let's have a nationalized healthcare plan for children under the age of 18 years of age, as long as they are still in school. This way the family healthcare cost will be greatly reduced and at the same time we will create a healthier America going forward which will inevitably lower overall healthcare costs 20-30 years from now.

Last thought - how about changing the medical model from break-fix to early diagnosis and preventative healthcare?

For more on the subject check out the book:
Political Common Sense for America

Also: The Franklin Party

WOW...insightful, thoughtful, non-abusive, with information enclosed and a offer of 'what if' attached! I would love and fully support a 'WELLNESS' driven health care plan.

The only point of concern that I currently have over your options: the current national impact of child obesity in the USA and how the lack of 'good nutritional' meals are being feed to our public school children daily. Heavy on the starch/fatty prepackaged food/and if it isn't smothered in some dark orange substance that they say is 'CHEESE' then it doesn't get placed on the tray for consumption!!!

 

[Andy]

How Congress failed to curb medical spending
Lessons from the cost controls lawmakers didn't have the will to impose

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
msnbc.com
updated 1 minute ago

Health care spending in the United States has been growing at more than 7 percent a year, far faster than the economy itself has been growing.

President Barack Obama has called growth in medical spending “a ticking time bomb for the federal budget.”

Now let's just think this through a moment. Health care is ticking time bomb for the federal budget.

Do you understand exactly what that refers to?
Government has failed to control costs, yet they are taxing EVERYONE in the entire US, to pay for ONLY people over 65 years of age.

Yet it's going bust, and they can't control cost.... yet due to reductions in medicare payouts...

Note to Medicaid Patients: The Doctor Won't See You

Now let's review... they can't control costs, yet doctors are refusing medicare patients, yet it is a time bomb on the federal budget.....

Are you seeing a problem here? The federal government can't even handle just covering those who 65 years or older, without both blowing a hole in the budget and doctors refusing patients.

And you want them to cover EVERYONE? You think they can CUT spending for EVERYONE when they CAN'T handle just those over 65?

Do you kinda see why I'm against government run health care? Do you know how the UK handled it? The UK public was so upset over multi-year waiting lists, that the government set out to reduce waiting lists. And they did. How? They limited how many could be on the waiting list! Now they have an "unofficial" waiting list you have to get on first, so you can then get on the "official" waiting list.

See? The list is shorter, because there are fewer people on the "official" list! All those people on the "waiting list to get on the waiting list" are not on the waiting list, so we succeeded at reducing the "waiting list"!!

And you want our government to handle health care? Why? What great feat of would cite as an example of a successful social project?

 

[Andy]

The show to which I was referring covered the impact of people loosing their retirement benefits and the lack of funds/health care was making the 'golden days' not as they had planned or saved for! NO, monthly budget to pay the policies...makes the policy null and void...funny how finances work that way???

Obviously I don't know the specific situation in reference here, but there is no "right" to a retirement. My parents were simple school teachers. They didn't earn a ton, but they saved up every last dime. They have a well diversified 401K, and some investment properties. They earned their retirement.

Now most of the people I know that retired in the gutter, did so by their own choice. They either didn't bother to check for a good investment, or didn't save at all, betting everything on a pension which went down the drain with the company. Health care is not a right. You must pay for services.

hmmm...you really just didn't say that??? Did you forget the impact of Katrina on the gulf states and how the 'POOR' didn't have vehicles to drive themselves out of the area once the mass transit shut down...I know you will rethink that statement and see the error of your point!

Yeah that was a bit off. When I think of poor, I think of my personal experience with "poor" here in Columbus Ohio. I've seen beggars with signs at the road side, walk three blocks down and climb in a car and drive off. I've worked at the homeless rescue where people showed up in a car for a free meal. I've watched people come into the stores from a Cadillac, and pay for food with food stamps. I watched kids jump in a bran new Jeep, after getting their free school lunch.

But yeah, there are some real bums and homeless people out there, so I was off on that.

Since I do not live there, but he's been in both countries {USA & NORWAY} all I have is his word and his ability to compare what his children have for health insurance here in America versus what he gets in Norway...he doesn't have a 'dog in this verbal battle', just a point of view on what he gets over there for health care!

The way that was written, it sure came across like he had a dog in it.

My, My, My that seems such a, well such a irrational method for solving the health care problem in America and here I was thinking that you were wanting to solve the problem...not to be sarcastic and stupid about it!!!

That wasn't sarcastic, nor stupid. It was an honest assessment. You can't take two countries that are so completely and utterly dissimilar, and claim one is the model for the other. There were massive fundamental differences that allowed a system to work in one place, when it clearly would not have in the other.

So you think that having a building boom of the last 20 years and the largest buildings (in my area...I believe that I've stated that once already) were being built by the 'INSURANCE COMPANIES'...is LAME in your opinion. Who do you think paid for that profit that provided the funds to built those towers of gluttony???

Like I said. Most successful corporations are successful because they provide a good product at a good price.

Now that was a true senseless comment...I wasn't comparing {and I'm quite sure that you understood that} the preexisting older structures in America {new construction or did you just ignore that fact on purpose}...JEEZ LOUISE

Ok, what city do you live in / nearby?

Oh yes, and the lack of controls and checks & balances sure helped the SEC in the past 8 years...but then again...maybe that last 2 paragraphs you typed is just the evidence/remnants of the 'G.W.Bush brain washing' that lingers in the USA

So, you don't understand that DuPont has profited greatly by the government ban on R12? Or you don't know the GE will do likewise with Cap-n-Trade?

As for lack of controls, you must be nuts. SEC has tons of controls. It was controls that got us messed up in the first place.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

Now let's just think this through a moment. Health care is ticking time bomb for the federal budget.

Do you understand exactly what that refers to?
Government has failed to control costs, yet they are taxing EVERYONE in the entire US, to pay for ONLY people over 65 years of age.

Yet it's going bust, and they can't control cost.... yet due to reductions in medicare payouts...

Note to Medicaid Patients: The Doctor Won't See You

Now let's review... they can't control costs, yet doctors are refusing medicare patients, yet it is a time bomb on the federal budget.....

Are you seeing a problem here? The federal government can't even handle just covering those who 65 years or older, without both blowing a hole in the budget and doctors refusing patients.

And you want them to cover EVERYONE? You think they can CUT spending for EVERYONE when they CAN'T handle just those over 65?

Do you kinda see why I'm against government run health care? Do you know how the UK handled it? The UK public was so upset over multi-year waiting lists, that the government set out to reduce waiting lists. And they did. How? They limited how many could be on the waiting list! Now they have an "unofficial" waiting list you have to get on first, so you can then get on the "official" waiting list.

See? The list is shorter, because there are fewer people on the "official" list! All those people on the "waiting list to get on the waiting list" are not on the waiting list, so we succeeded at reducing the "waiting list"!!

And you want our government to handle health care? Why? What great feat of would cite as an example of a successful social project?

I see....the cost cant possibly be from ineffecent inurance, lack of early treatment, huge huge markups ( profits) wasted advertising for drugs you need to see a dr to get anyway....payments to dr.'s to push there drug....

news flash andy, those of us who pay for out medical threw private see prices going up and up and no end in site....with the baby boomers ageing, how can you expect that to not effect goverment coverage?




I have yet to see any republican come up with any reform that will even come close to making sure all can get some form of decent coverage, and lower costs....or even one of the 2.....all I know is they are against anything anyone eve suggests it seems....status quo works great I guess.....unless you like having health care.....

 

[Bob the Builder]

I have yet to see any republican come up with any reform that will even come close to making sure all can get some form of decent coverage, and lower costs....or even one of the 2.....all I know is they are against anything anyone eve suggests it seems....status quo works great I guess.....unless you like having health care.....

Not true pocket, I already gave you the answer, go out and buy your own insurance, or not, it's your choice, but it is not the governments responsibility/place to do it for you. Tell your State Reps/Senators to support 10th Amendment legislation, and tell your Fed Reps/Senators to quit spending so much money on all of the totally unconstitutional programs, and you'll have more than enough money from the tax savings to buy your own. What is so difficult to understand about that?

Never forget, they work for us, so it's up to us to tell them what we want them to do, but only when it's within the limits allowed by the constitution.

 

[top gun]

Not true pocket, I already gave you the answer, go out and buy your own insurance, or not, it's your choice, but it is not the governments responsibility/place to do it for you. Tell your State Reps/Senators to support 10th Amendment legislation, and tell your Fed Reps/Senators to quit spending so much money on all of the totally unconstitutional programs, and you'll have more than enough money from the tax savings to buy your own. What is so difficult to understand about that?

Never forget, they work for us, so it's up to us to tell them what we want them to do, but only when it's within the limits allowed by the constitution.

The fact is as we speak people who buy insurance are paying for those who do not. It's passed along in our premiums anyway because hospitals WILL NOT REFUSE THE INDIGENT.

This being the case plus the fact healthcare is for all real intents and purposes a monopoly (there's no real competition on price in the US... to get a better price on a procedure you have to leave the country). So there is a big problem that needs to be addressed.

It's revisionist history to try and pigeon hole everything into 1776 terms. Times change and for that matter the original documents were quite obviously flawed at their origination... remember that little you can own slaves thing that was in there?

But in Constitutional terms healthcare could be seen as a... and provided for the common welfare... thing.

There's nothing wrong with trying to come up with a better healthcare system. Let's all watch President Obama tonight @ 10:00 Eastern to get his perspective and possible solutions.

 

[Bob the Builder]

The fact is as we speak people who buy insurance are paying for those who do not.[/B] It's passed along in our premiums anyway because hospitals WILL NOT REFUSE THE INDIGENT.

This being the case plus the fact health care is for all real intents and purposes a monopoly (there's no real competition on price in the US... to get a better price on a procedure you have to leave the country). So there is a big problem that needs to be addressed.

There is no question that there are problems, just as there is no question that those problems need to be addressed, so we are in agreement thus far, but that's about to change below.

It's revisionist history to try and pigeon hole everything into 1776 terms. Times change and for that matter the original documents were quite obviously flawed at their origination... remember that little you can own slaves thing that was in there?

You can't be THAT incredibly ignorant can you? The Constitution quite clearly addresses the fact that the founders clearly understood that things would change, and therefore intentionally included Article 5, whereby the Constitution could be AMENDED to address those changes, just like was done with the 13th Amendment, so your assertion that the "original documents were quite obviously flawed" is highly specious ON IT'S FACE.

Also, like most liberals, you fail to honestly address the fact that slavery in America was a direct result of BRITISH insistence that they be brought here in the first place, so when we declared our independence, we inherited an existing institution that was responsible for nearly 40% of our entire GDP, but I suppose that a block of instruction for you on this particular topic will have to wait for another thread.

But in Constitutional terms health care could be seen as a... and provided for the common welfare... thing.

Another totally specious statement by someone who obviously hasn't bothered to study their history. Both Thomas Jefferson (you know, the author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the primary founding fathers, a staunch anti-federalist, and the 3rd President of the United States among other things) and James Madison (you know, the father of the Constitution, 4th President of the United States, and author of nearly half of the Federalist Papers) both (among the vast majority of the other founders) agreed that the phrase "the general welfare" meant only those things specifically granted to the government by We The People, and "health care" AIN'T AMONG THEM!

There's nothing wrong with trying to come up with a better healthcare system. Let's all watch President Obama tonight @ 10:00 Eastern to get his perspective and possible solutions.

Yeah, nothing like an honest, dispassionate, non-partisan, and critical fourth estate to watch out for We The People....NOT!

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Obviously I don't know the specific situation in reference here, but there is no "right" to a retirement. My parents were simple school teachers. They didn't earn a ton, but they saved up every last dime. They have a well diversified 401K, and some investment properties. They earned their retirement.

I was once invested with the KEPRS fund {circa 1988-1998} and during that period of time 3 of our top Kansas Employers Board of Directors were brought up on Embezzlement charges to the tune of $30 million dollars from our KEPRS fund...{I took a hit of an extra 12% when I had to pull my share out, family medical emergency} anyway, I no longer trust no do I participate in any 401K/or retirement fund anywhere! Once burned twice shy! The 401k/health care policies that were guaranteed to these early retirees/recent people being laid off...is no longer an iron clad document that their medical coverage will continue and that the 401K is going to be paid...some corporations have actually put a 'freeze' on the pay outs due to huge losses on the investments side. That trickle down negative impact is hurting many Americans who worked long and hard for those same said benefits!

Now most of the people I know that retired in the gutter, did so by their own choice. They either didn't bother to check for a good investment, or didn't save at all, betting everything on a pension which went down the drain with the company.

what part of 'NOT' paying attention to the investment groups that got caught up in the recent 'PONZI' schemes haven't you been paying attention too??? There were colleges, stock portfolio's from many municipalities, private investors, mortgage companies, Unions, Police/Fire/Welders etc., etc., etc., and Berny Madoff took them down the toilet with his BILLION DOLLAR SCHEME!!!

Health care is not a right. You must pay for services.

Well, ya, but don't you think that there should/would/could be caps set on the premiums that they force feed us???

Yeah that was a bit off. When I think of poor, I think of my personal experience with "poor" here in Columbus Ohio. I've seen beggars with signs at the road side, walk three blocks down and climb in a car and drive off. I've worked at the homeless rescue where people showed up in a car for a free meal. I've watched people come into the stores from a Cadillac, and pay for food with food stamps. I watched kids jump in a bran new Jeep, after getting their free school lunch.

No, problem...I volunteer at a local food pantry and there is one pastor who shows up on a regular basis and takes a van load back to his house for just his personal use...chaps my arse something fierce but until they tell him, "that's enough freeloading", I continue on and just document the situation...grrr. I knew that you knew there is a real underlayment of poor people out there in this huge country...sometimes the discussion just gets going to fast to make sense!!! LOL

But yeah, there are some real bums and homeless people out there, so I was off on that.

As long as there are good people providing a 'free service' there will be the leeches of this world taking advantage of that 'free service' {{shrugs}}

The way that was written, it sure came across like he had a dog in it.

Well, he gets passionate about this issue and his family over here in America have had many ongoing problems with 'pre-existing conditions' and the 'portability issue' from their varied insurance providers!!!

That wasn't sarcastic, nor stupid. It was an honest assessment.

Well, you can't make a statement like: killing off 'X' amount of humans and not make me think that your 'tongue in cheek post' wasn't sarcastic...especially on the heels of "all poor people have a vehicle"...LOL

You can't take two countries that are so completely and utterly dissimilar, and claim one is the model for the other. There were massive fundamental differences that allowed a system to work in one place, when it clearly would not have in the other.

And that is a 'GIVEN' but this was important enough to make Norway, Canada, Sweden and other countries make it 'happen' for their citizens...we need to quit dragging our collective feet and get something started...NOW!!!

Like I said. Most successful corporations are successful because they provide a good product at a good price.

Given the most recent mortgage crisis/bank failures/trickle down economy crisis...I would beg to differ! It would appear that the GREED DRIVEN CAPITALIST has hurt this country in the worst way!

Ok, what city do you live in / nearby?

Outside the Johnson Country Area of Kansas City, Kansas...where we have seen a building/bedroom community boom in the last 25 years unlike anything in the past 100 years. But that shouldn't matter...the commercial buildings that went up the quickest/biggest/most palatial were the Insurance Carriers {not counting the SPRINT TRAINING CENTER, that is now being divided up into other corporations}.

So, you don't understand that DuPont has profited greatly by the government ban on R12? Or you don't know the GE will do likewise with Cap-n-Trade?

See my recent statement about 'GREED DRIVEN CORPORATIONS"...I fully understand about the 'carpetbegger scenario' and how it works in corporate America...DUH

As for lack of controls, you must be nuts. SEC has tons of controls. It was controls that got us messed up in the first place.

Maybe you need to read some current documentation from the financial guru's and how the oversight SEC that G.W.B. had appointed and wanted them to BACK OFF of keeping the taps on the bottom line was one of the driving forces that allowed the Berny Madoff's and others of his ILK to screw the masses in the way that they did!!! Rules/guidelines and regulations were ignored and the wording of those 'bundled mortgages' were twisted around so that the finite details were being overlooked...some think on purpose, some want an investigation so we will know just with whom to place the blame and press charges...others don't want to waste the money to find out...but my $$$$ start with G.W.B. and INC. and move down from there!