Tell me Hillary wouldn't be a socialist dictator.

[Liberal]

@Polycarp

Yep, in a folder labelled, Enim, Hilaritas delenda est.

Probably the same thing for Frutex.

[Zoe]

Liberal: I’d wager that Cato has the original bill on file, and that its pages are dog-eared and worn.

I feel certain that Cato has a copy somewhere, but I scoff at the notion that they’ve read it carefully. If they had, they would know that no such threats of penalties to doctors and patients for going outside the system was part of the plan. If such penalties had been described, they would surely have been decried by the health care attorney and the controller who wrote the article that you quoted from – the one that mentioned the other penalties.

Besides, if they had read the plan carefully and still made that claim, then they would be lying. Would the Cato Institute do that?

If the First Lady of the United States had actually tried to control the ability of doctors to treat patients outside the system and the ability of patients to seek help outside the system, we wouldn’t be sitting here around the Pit arguing about whether it happened or not. That would have been considered so unAmerican in those days that there would be no doubt that it happened!

Today we’ve grown more accustomed to surrendering our civil rights.

[villa]

@Starving Artist

I read part of it, didn’t have time to go through the entire thing…at least not now.

What I was thankful to Lib for was finding something to show that there was indeed an actual basis of some sort for the allegations I referenced. Now it’s a case of reading through the fine print to see just what was intended…and remember, the bill that finally got to congress did not necessarily contain everything that its authors may have orinially intended for it to carry.

And Dio, for what is probably the thirtieth or fortieth time around here, I have to mention that I don’t listen to Limbaugh…although given that so many of you around here are so certain that I do, perhaps I should see about getting a job writing for him. Might be big bucks in that!

This is utterly disingenuous of you. The article IN NO WAY shows any “actual basis of some sort for the allegations” you “referenced.” It simply isn’t about “reading through the fine print” now. As I posted, to save you the effort of reading it, the article Lib posted indicates there would be penalties for fraud. There would, it seems, be increased reporting requirements, and there would be a penalty for not reporting breaches of federal law.

Now, how on earth does that in any way, shape or form support your ridiculous assertion that doctors would be subject to penalties for treating patients outside of the central plan? (Here’s a clue - it doesn’t). If your argument, on the other hand, is that you heard reference to these penalties, and in some anti-Clinton, foaming at the mouth frenzy extrapolated from them to a situation where you imagined there would be penalties for treating patients outside of the plan, then I feel distinctly sorry for you. That’s a level of abject paranoia of which McCarthy would have been proud.

I’ll admit to being pretty firmly on the left of the political spectrum on most issues, but pretty frequently now I get angry with those on the same side as me when I see the level to which political discourse has sunk. Then I see people like you, and remember the utter insanity of many of the attacks on Clinton, and just despair of people in general.

[Guinastasia]

@Starving Artist

Leaving aside the fact that ‘partisan’ doesn’t necessarily equal ‘wrong,’ what the hell are you talking about? I never said she wanted to deny affluent people medical care, only that she wanted to force them to accept government health care. And I never said she wanted to throw doctors–or anyone else–in jail for no reason. I said I’d heard or read that she wanted to impose penalties including jail or prison terms to anyone who tried to circumvent it by paying for it themselves (the patients) or by accepting payment for it (the doctors).

Now this may or may not be the case; no one seems to know.

But be that as it may, your characterization of my allegations is way off base, as I’m sure you know.

No, turdburglar, what it said was that doctors who tried to bill the government for services not provided would be prosecuted. In other words, those who commit fraud. Jesus Christ, you’re thick.

I don’t doubt you’ve heard this, considering all the bullshit that spews around here, but whatever your source, I doubt it was much more credible than David Icke.

[Brainiac4]

@Guinastasia

No, turdburglar,
…

I think you should apologize to the turdburglars.

[Liberal]

@Zoe

I feel certain that Cato has a copy somewhere, but I scoff at the notion that they’ve read it carefully.

Sorry, but I have to dismiss that as gratuitous. There is no reason to suspect the legal scholars at Cato of not giving the document a careful read.

But actually, I believe I have found it. Several sources, including the Harris W. Fawell Congressional Papers, refer to the bill as HR 3600. That bill is actually dated 1994 (not 1993), and is available online from the Congressional Record. It may be a revision of the original, but at least it’s something.

I think their search links are dynamic and expire, so find it as I did by clicking the “Simple (1994 forward)” link, and typing “universal health” into the search box. (Be sure that you have selected 1994 from the dropdown.) The file is about 1.5 megabytes of text, and took several minutes to download with my broadband connection. I fiddled with some text searches, but I honestly don’t know how to filter such rigamarole as that. Maybe a lawyer could check it out.

[Starving_Artist]

@Raygun99

Here’s the full clip of Hilary speaking - turns out she was quoting a southern hymn - and yes, she was putting on an affect, but she wasn’t hiding that she was putting on an affect. Both before and after the quoted part she’s speaking in her normal voice.

Okay, it looks like at least one apology is in order. Thanks for the link, Raygun99. Having seen it I am convinced that Hillary was not phonily adopting a faux-southern accent such as it appeared on the two sites where I had seen/heard her speaking that way yesterday.

I’m still not persuaded that she didn’t want to create penalties for going outside her healthcare system, however. Many of you are trying to point to the finished bill as proof that this wasn’t so, but as I’ve said before, the idea was bandied about in the early stages of both Bill Clinton’s administration and the formulation of the bill…IIRC, that is, and never made it into the final bill. If you’ll recall, I even posited that perhaps Bill Clinton himself slapped her with a clue stick and caused the idea to be abandoned.

But who knows, my sources back then may have been as misleading and erroneous as the clips I saw and heard yesterday of Hillary’s speech. Frankly, I’m going to have to start looking twice at my side’s information, too. First O’Reilly (who, believe it or not, I rarely listen to but do watch on the odd occasion) tries to pass himself off as having seen combat when he hadn’t, and now this. So, given that my side has apparently gone over to the dark side and adopted the same techniques as the mainstream media ( ), there’s no one left to trust. Le sigh!

And Zoe, I’d vote for a black woman/black woman (or asian, or whatever) ticket provided that I thought they’d do a good job and that we were simpatico politically. Most of us conservatives have no objection to women, blacks, asians, Indians, whoever, holding office. It’s just that, unlike some of the liberal contingent, we don’t think that their race or sex should be the predominating factor in selecting them for office. For example, I saw a post by someone here (the Dope, that is, not this thread) who thought it would be nice for Obama to win because it would be nice to see someone ‘break a barrier’. Well, sorry, but when you’re selecting someone to an office where he will set much of the nation’s agenda and become, for all intents and purposes, the most powerful man in the world, there are more important considerations than whether he breaks some ‘barrier’.

But, having said that, many regards and best wishes to you, dear Zoe. ( :: heart smilie :: )

[wonky]

@Starving Artist

For example, I saw a post by someone here (the Dope, that is, not this thread) who thought it would be nice for Obama to win because it would be nice to see someone ‘break a barrier’. Well, sorry, but when you’re selecting someone to an office where he will set much of the nation’s agenda and become, for all intents and purposes, the most powerful man in the world, there are more important considerations than whether he breaks some ‘barrier’.

I’m pretty sure you think you’re referring to one of my posts. I’ll quote it:

@me

All else being equal (which it isn’t), I’d like to see someone elected who breaks down a barrier–someone whose election means one less thing for the talking heads to claim prevents a candidate from being elected, someone who can help erase the notion that you gotta be male, white, and oh-so-Christian to be president.

Bolding added.

[Starving_Artist]

I hadn’t interpreted ‘all else being equal’ to mean what you’re saying here. It appeared to me that you were referring to electibilty. Given your clarification here, you might be surprised to find that I agree with you.

[Charlie_Tan]

Slight hijack (don’t think it’s worthy of its own thread):

Do you guys think a person of Hispanic descent will be elected prez before a black person? Hispanics are the largest minority in the U.S. now, right?

[wonky]

@Starving Artist

I hadn’t interpreted ‘all else being equal’ to mean what you’re saying here. It appeared to me that you were referring to electibilty. Given your clarification here, you might be surprised to find that I agree with you.

Well, okay.

(Who knew the enormous persuasive power of bold?)

[Siege]

@Charlie Tan

Slight hijack (don’t think it’s worthy of its own thread):

Do you guys think a person of Hispanic descent will be elected prez before a black person? Hispanics are the largest minority in the U.S. now, right?

Considering I think Bill Richardson is the best candidate out there, I certainly hope so. I might even quit voting Libertarian if he gets the nomination.

[BrainGlutton]

Regarding propagation of memes like “Hillary wants to send patients and doctors to prison,” here’s an astonishingly apposite cartoon.

[Starving_Artist]

I don’t know if they’re now the largest minority, but if not it’s pretty close. However, blacks have been making strides and struggling up the political ladder for several decades now, whereas Hispanics are only just starting to gain a voice of their own. Given that race isn’t the problem it once was here, I imagine that Hispanics will rise more quickly in the future, as in many ways the trail has already been blazed by blacks; however, at this point in time blacks have made greater inroads politically, and I suspect that as a result we will likely have a black president before one who is Hispanic…in a race against a white candidate, that is. If the race were between a Hispanic candidate and a black candidate, I think largely the vote would go to man who best resonated with the majority of the nation’s voters as being the best man for the job…

…but with a slight additional boost going to the Hispanic from leftover racists who would likely view the Hispanic as being quasi-white and would therefore vote for him…

…unless they thought that he would champion Hispanic concerns over their own…

…then they might vote for the black candidate…

It gets complicated.

[DanBlather]

@Charlie Tan

Slight hijack (don’t think it’s worthy of its own thread):

Do you guys think a person of Hispanic descent will be elected prez before a black person? Hispanics are the largest minority in the U.S. now, right?

Have you seen some of those American Samoans? Them folks is huge!!

[Yookeroo]

@Zakalwe

Okay, really now, isn’t there a rule against joke threads in the Pit?

Or are you really that fucking stupid?

Do you really have to ask? Of course he is.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Starving Artist

But who knows, my sources back then may have been as misleading and erroneous as the clips I saw and heard yesterday of Hillary’s speech. Frankly, I’m going to have to start looking twice at my side’s information, too. First O’Reilly (who, believe it or not, I rarely listen to but do watch on the odd occasion) tries to pass himself off as having seen combat when he hadn’t, and now this. So, given that my side has apparently gone over to the dark side and adopted the same techniques as the mainstream media ( ), there’s no one left to trust. Le sigh!

I’m glad to see this, although I’d suggest that there never was anyone to trust, not in the sense that you seem to trust them. As a teacher, one of my main jobs in social studies lessons is to convince students not to trust anyone. That is, they should look with a skeptical eye on any source of news, should consider its sources, biases, and plausibility. Honestly, your theory about Hillary’s criminalization of private health care fails on all three counts–it’s unsourced, comes with strong bias, and is completely implausible (what on earth would be her motivation behind such an act, and how would a politically savvy person like Hillary take such a proposal seriously?)

I hope in the future you’ll be a little more skeptical, and will insist on good evidence about wrongdoing before you believe it. Give folks the benefit of the doubt, please, even if they are a goddamn liberal.

Daniel

[Liberal]

Has anyone examined the bill yet?

[Frank]

@Starving Artist

So here is the chance for someone to fight ignorance by showing me how my perception of her is off base…provided, of course, that it actually is.

I’m curious, Starving Artist, has this thread altered your previously held conception?

[CarnalK]

@Liberal

But actually, I believe I have found it. Several sources, including the Harris W. Fawell Congressional Papers, refer to the bill as HR 3600. That bill is actually dated 1994 (not 1993), and is available online from the Congressional Record. It may be a revision of the original, but at least it’s something.

I followed your search instructions and got the max 50 hits. I think the short name for the bill was “Health Security Act”, which is the title for 10 of the search results. The ones near 1.5 megs didn’t seem promising. Can you give the little code they have for where you found it? e.g. cr10au94

Just in case the search is
not so dynamic.