Do you have the same goals? When Reagan accepted the Republican nomination in 1980, he said of the GOP, “We’re the party that wants to see an America in which people can still get rich.” But most Americans not born rich will never get rich, no matter how hard they work or what choices they make in life. Some will, most won’t; that’s how it always been. Thank you very much, I would rather have an America where it is all but impossible to be poor. I don’t believe an unfettered free market will produce that and I don’t believe you believe it either.
They could start by criticizing the health reform package based on things provable or plausible, and shutting up with the screaming bullshit about “Communism” and “tyranny”.
Nope, your argument doesn’t wash. It’s my health, my body, my relationship between doctor and patient. If I develop some soul-crushing ailment and decide NOT to take care of it it’s my business. Not the IRS’s.
I see others have responded already, but since you are tossing out the softballs, here’s a first draft of the press release I would have made the day it was signed into law, were I in their shoes:
Not perfect, obviously, but way better than what they have been doing.
Maybe put forth a a comprehensive, plausible, alternative plan and sell it to the people without resorting to fear mongering, jingoism, and incitement?
Still waiting for someone to elaborate on the conservative option BTW.
Well, maybe we’ve just observed radically different happenstances in life, but I couldn’t disagree more. There would be a true bloodbath at the polls if a government-run company took your money every month under the pretense that they would take care of you in the event you got sick, and then dropped your ass like a hot potato and left you to die when you got sick. But it happens all the time in the private sector, and no one has made a big enough stink about it to force the market to change itself.
Profit can be a fine motive, but it needs to be regulated for abuse. I look at it like MMA: you can knock your opponent down with a kick to the head, jump on top of him and elbow him in the face - with the full understanding that he can do the same to you - but you can’t bite him, poke him in the eye, or knee him in the balls. There’s got to be a line drawn somewhere or the guy with the fewest scruples is gonna win every time. Right now the businesses with the fewest scruples are cleaning our clocks left and right.
Not bad, I must admit. But it still boils down to expecting Republicans to go along with and attempt to cement a plan that it is vigorously opposed to (I mean, this is major stuff; we’re not talking NASA allotments or highway building here) and which only 35% of the population supports. It’s a major step toward government interference in our lives and one which everyone who is honest enough to admit it knows is a foot in the door for what is hoped to eventually become a single-payer plan administered by the government. So if there was ever a time for Republicans to dig in their heels, this is it.
And besides, I don’t see where Republican rhetoric is any worse than that coming from the left, which holds that insurance companies and opposition to a government plan are EVIL and that conservatives are cruel, heartless bastards who want to see people dropping dead in the streets so they can keep up payments on their boats and Lexuses. (This is more for BrainGlutton’s benefit than yours, HS.)
But still, under circumstances of less urgency and import, yours would be an excellent speech for a politician to make (though I must say I can’t recall anything similar coming from the Democratic side of the aisle over the last several decades either).
Just because the other guys are doing it doesn’t mean you should too. Certainly not when the GOP is heavily playing the ethics and morality card as hard as they are. If they want to gain support they need to lead by example.
Part of the political game means having to swallow and execute things that you are opposed to, if the laws require you to do so. These 2pm walkouts, personal attacks, and such are not becoming, and make them appear childish. While the dems haven’t exactly been model citizens in this regard during the W reign, I still never saw anything approaching this level of vitriol. You might argue that W never enacted anything this sweeping, but he did his fair share of what I saw as monumental mistakes on some fairly major stages, and I never saw dems staging walkouts and voting against everything out of spite.
And I’ll have to call cite on your 35% figure. From what I have read (for my cite, see the article I linked to earlier in the thread) a significant amount of the oppositional figures are from people who feel that it doesn’t go FAR ENOUGH. Also,
Can I have this in writing with a notary stamp? Will you agree not to die in public and so become a public nuisance and stink up the street that I walk on? Will you agree that if you or your kids get a soul-crushing ailment you won’t rush them to the E-room for care at my expense? If so we are cool. 
Maybe I should start selling medical bracelets:
DO NOT TREAT. I REFUSE UHC FOR MYSELF AND MY FAMILY.
ETA: Err wait a minute, that should be a tattoo, a bracelet is to easy to remove when needs be.
If your life is on the line you’re going to take the treatment. Come on, if you get appendicitis you’re going to say, “No doctor, I refuse treatment. It’s not a financially sound decision for me.” Seriously?
Yeah, there really is no good way for claims like that to work. Either the person making such claims will actually demonstrate themselves to be a hypocrite and accept publically funded health care to survive; or they are so fanatical as to kill themselves over (of all things) the issue of where health care money comes from.
There was talk of studying effectiveness of various treatments, then encouraging doctors to use the most effective treatments. Did any of that make it into the final law?
How is it different? If you don’t want to pay for police protection or a road, is there a box you can check off on your tax returns?
Wake up. So you don’t like the people who got elected in 2008 and the laws they’ve passed. Suck it up. There were plenty of people who didn’t like the ones who were elected in 2004 and what they did. This is how democracy works. Your guys don’t always win. But you don’t get to pout about how the government isn’t real unless you personally approve of the results.
The Democrats won and the Republicans lost. That means the Democrats get to enact the laws. For everyone, including the people who didn’t vote for them. And when the Republicans win, then they can enact the laws they want and those will apply to everyone.
Stop acting like a five year old complaining it’s not fair.
Suck it up… well I’ve had my fair dealings with the IRS in sucking it up and I don’t care for any more. As I said before in an earlier posting which was not responded to, there are MANY necessities of life. When Gangster Octopus challenged me on this and said well we have public transportation, public housing etc, I referred him to the current state of those issues in Jersey. He has yet to respond. I say again, it sets a dangerous precedent. Is not getting to work and having a decent roof over your head a necessity? Will the government help me out then? Or am I to be an unemployed worker who has excellent health care?
Yes, SEC. 6301. PATIENT-CENTERED OUTCOMES RESEARCH.
Ah, Washington English. “We are going to conduct research on health care, focusing on outcomes that directly affect patients.” Well, yes. Good idea.
As Hans Rosling said once:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Of course, another point to make is that if you are not healthy you would be more likely to lose your job and then your roof in the current system that we have.
You are spinning sir. Like Gangster, you have not addressed my previous posts.
When Gangster Octopus challenged me on this and said well we have public transportation, public housing etc, I referred him to the current state of those issues in Jersey. They are under government rule, and a in complete shambles. So tell me again why I should trust the government to interfere between the most trusted of relationships : doctor and patient?
New Jersey =/= Federal government.