If this bill was so good and right, why’d the House leadership have to lie about preexisting conditions? Just tell people straight out what they think, like Bricker does. Tell the sick and poor flat out that they’re on their own. At least then I’d have some shred of respect.
Huh?
You switched wording on me. I never said that this meant the government has “gotten out” of the traffic business. Or the health care business. “Gotten out,” was not a phrase I used.
I said:
So that’s what I said: “move away” and “move towards.”
And then we can see how everything fits nicely: if the government instituted a rule allowing right turns on red, YES, I would say they are “moving away” from the model of total traffic control.
But that wasn’t your argument. You said “people did just fine without it”. But you were wrong. Some people did. Others did terribly. That particular argument had nothing to do with the government or its role at all. Just “I did fine, and I don’t really care about anyone else”. And that’s a terrible argument. Just saying.
“Government’s role”: That argument might have legs.
“I personally was oblivious to the pain and suffering going on around me for the past 50 years, so the status quo was hunky dory in my opinion”: Eh, not so much.
Political philosophy divorced from human concerns might as well be Leninism. People will suffer and die if we do not, and we can prevent that. Therefore, we should.
Should we not provide food inspection? That’s health. Education isn’t directly health, but it affects health. That next? Government not going to provide an Army to protect my health from Guadalajara Muslims? So, you’re just gonna eat that one potato chip, and then you’ll stop?
Just to ask, Bricker, what do you think of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act?
Also, do you expect any change to death rates and bankruptcy rates if this bill becomes the law of the land? If so, what changes do you expect, and to what extent?
He did not, but then. . . this society is not based on Christian principles. We as a society have steadfastly fought against any such association; we sue to prohibit public prayer and school prayer; we aggressively demand removal of Christian religious monuments in public spaces; we try to forbid grants to playgrounds because they are run by Christian schools.
So why in (ha!) Heaven’s name would I accept the argument now that this one policy should be derived from Christian teachings? Is it sui generis somehow?
Old folks deciding whether to spend all their money on medicines to stay alive an extra year or so, or just take the dirt nap and leave it for their grandkid’s college. Kinda like The Waltons, all warm and homey.
you know the answer to this the same as we all do. for the same reason everyone is required to pay for the roads and the schools and the defense dept. because we believe that these are things that make this country better with them than without them. and we should and did add the health and well being of our fellow citizens to that list. and that was a good thing, IMHO.
mc
Too facile an analysis. People will suffer and die in car wrecks. But we permit the deadly contraptions to keep running. Are we monsters? Or do we engage in cold-blooded cost benefit calculations? What do you say to poor little Cindy Lou (who was no more than two) when her mommy was killed in a car crash that we could have stopped by requiring only professional drivers drive on our streets with public transportation vehicles and end the deadly scourge of private automobiles?
The answer is that Cindy Lou’s plight is tragic but not the proper way to develop public policy, and that goes double for Czarcasm and his inamorata/o. I sympathize with the individual; I do not agree that the anecdote should drive the policy result.
OK. I disagree with you. I suspect most Republican legislators agree with you.
I’ve watched a lot of cable news in the past few days and I’ve seen a lot of people on both side interviewed.
And I have not seen anyone say “We don’t care if our constituents have insurance or not. If they can’t afford to buy insurance at the terms the market dictates then that’s their problem and the government shouldn’t be involved in the process.”
Instead they either lie about the effects of the bill or use weasel language like “access to coverage” instead of saying " if you have a pre-existing condition no one’s going to actively block you from buying insurance at 10K a month, if you can come up with the money you can be insured and if you can’t it’s not our problem".
And yes, Trump won the election. He was also the candidate that promised “A system that would cover MORE people at a fraction of the cost”. Of course, that promise always reminded me of the guy runnng for elementary school president that promised to put Pepsi in the water fountains, but still, that is what he promised and he also promised to achieve this over the objections of his own party.
Now, if I suspected that most Americans wanted to go back to the way things were pre-ACA I’d still be mad, but I’d be angry in a whole different way. But the way this legislation passed was just dishonest.
If you think your constituents want repeal only, just repeal it. But don’t say “repeal and replace” unless you really mean it.
I think it wasn’t a good thing. IMHO.
b
yeah! what she said!
mc
Many thought it was a non-starter in the House too yet it squeaked through. It may do precisely the same in the Senate once the wheeling and dealing is over. Trump and the Republicans need this to pass, look for a lot of arm-twisting ahead.
People in the aggregate.
Not “each and every person in the land.”
If the original bill was so good and right, why did Obama have to lie about it, telling people if they liked their existing care they could keep it?
No shit.
You’re talking about forcing a specific religion on others.
Mercy and compassion are examples of Christian (and Jewish and Muslim, etc) principles.
Matthew 25:40(American Standard)
So why can’t your side take the high ground?
“But he started it” is the argument of a four year old.
Not directly, because I have employer-provided MEC . . . although I do have a pre-existing medical condition that might cause issues if I lose coverage and have to regain it without the Obamacare guarantee. So my desired outcome here may well make my own situation untenable one day.
So what?
That’s not my argument. I was answering the question by suggesting the motives were the same. That is, the motive for Obama’s lie was identical to the motives animating the current Republican lie. You’re asking a new question: even if Obama lied, shouldn’t Republicans still choose not to lie?
Yes, they should, but considering the presumptive leader of the party is a liar on a scale that no politician in the modern age ever dreamed of, I don’t see it happening.
So what? Why should religious principles from a book based on the imaginary tales from a nomadic group of wanderers be remotely relevant in forming policy? (This is the view of the Bible that government should adopt, under current caselaw).