The poor already have their entitlement and the elderly have theirs. The health care reform I want to see will make a more equitable "entitlement" and give benefits to people who actually pay taxes for everyone else's entitlements. It's the middle class and upper middle class who are getting screwed, particularly the self-employed and small business owners.

Everyone should pay, even those people on welfare should pay on a sliding scale. What we have is worse than socialism, it is special-interest socialism with everyone else footing the bill.

I do.

I think everyone who needs health care should pay for their health care, but most of them don't. Medicare and Medicaid are net losses. Those who are sick on insurance are net losses. Social security is a net loss.

And those who are producing should get the lion's share of tax benefits. Which outside of Health and Human Services and Social Security, they usually do in the form of physical infrastructure, the system of Justice and enforcement of laws and protection of our national interests.

I agree that Society should take care of it's weak and wounded. I don't agree that we should be forced to, against our will, by a system that pays no heed of the needs of the tax payer, the responsibility of the receiver or the accountability of the bureaucracy.

I love helping folks, but I fight thieves. If you ask me for money I am happy to give what I can, if you force it from me I'll get resentful.

History is replete with stories of Socialist failures, but no country has yet tried Charity in the modern age of medicine and the internet. Whenever it's tried on a personal level, we see heroic efforts to reach out and help each other, with people giving what they know they can spare, without the government having to threaten them with prison to get it.

Let's give people the true joy of helping each other in Freedom, and give the recipient the Spirit building pleasure of gratitude to individuals instead of a false feeling of rapacious entitlement to grudging Taxpayer funds.

Can you point to any Socialism that isn't? The nature of Socialism creates that automatically. Those who learn how to work the system benefit off those who ignorantly play along, convinced that they are working for the "common good". There may be small scale systems where it has not yet degraded, but the general trend, due to human nature, is the slide into tyranny. In the case of Socialist Medicine, it is Tyranny of the Inable over the Able.

Reread "Animal Farm" and "Atlas Shrugged", then some of recent Russian autobiographies.

Then it has to be available for us to purchase. We are tired of paying 1/3 to 1/2 of our incomes in taxes and not being able to buy private health care because the cost is astronomical or we can't buy it at any price. The small business owners and self-employed are pissed off and we've got a voting block as well as the money to hire lobbyists and make political campaign contributions to make it happen. We are both Democrats and Republicans and we all agree this is one of the major concerns about the health of our businesses. We don't give a rat's ass about huge insurance company profits. We know that this situation is hindering our ability to purchase health insurance as well as our ability to hire the best employees. We aren't going to vote for political candidates who do not support health care reform. The constitutional constructionist Republicans are going to hoist their own petard on this issue.

Um, I think you are confusing my "health care" with "Health Insurance". As we know, basic and emergency health care is available to everyone in the United States. And most States do have "Insurers of Last Resort", but yes, it's expensive.

I'm sorry that some people are sick more often than others, but that doesn't give them the right to take more money away from my family without asking first. I know that your personal soapbox is insurance reform for more lenient Group Insurance, but that's not really the subject of this thread no matter how much I might agree with you.

Is this "Damn the Constitution, I want what's mine!"?

God Bless the Ex United States of America... Of course, since my State representative is a declared Socialist, I'm already sort of used to living in a repressive State owned Tyranny. I know to keep my head low and play the system. God help anyone who wants to try to make something of themselves in the next 40 years.

We're not the type of people who will allow our personal wealth to be wiped out because we're being soaked on both ends. Basic health care is NOT available to people who have money and no insurance. We pay through the nose for it, at rates much higher than insurance covers. Do you think people who work their butts off to build something and provide jobs for other people are going to go begging for charity? I don't think so. At this point, I don't really care how it happens, but health care IS health insurance in this country. And we shall have access to health insurance or we will vote the bums out! That is the American way and our constitutional right.

Baerdric, no one is taking money for your family. You are being subsidized in your group policy by the young and the thin.

Really? What policy do I have and how much health care has it paid for?

Hint: I will be paying for my spine surgery for about 20 years. I am on no medications and I haven't been to the Doctor for anything other than that surgery and checkups for maybe 10 years. But because this is Vermont, we pay a very high price. I pay for people like you, and we are poorer because of it.

But this thread is about Nationalized Socialist Health Insurance. That would take money away from my family and give it to non-producing families... Except that I am getting prepared for it because of conversations like this which have convinced me that the Tyranny of Socialism is right around the corner, and I want to be one who plays the system, not a grudging slave to it.

If I recall, the last time we had this debate, you said you had a group policy. I have a policy now that costs over $1,000 a month and I pay $60,000 a year in income taxes. I haven't had a hospitalization in 18 years and that was labor and delivery. When I didn't have insurance, I paid cash for everything. So, how are you paying for people like me?

Not you, I don't presume to know your situation, but people like you who may be young and thin or old and fat, but who need frequent medical supplies and/or care and who are in that group plan.

I don't, they do, I pay, they profit. My family makes do at a lower standard of living because their frequent needs drive up the cost of my less frequent needs.

See, you picked a bad example because although I may be fat, my only health problems (that I am willing to go to a doctor for) are structural problems related to a "Pre-existing condition" and are not covered. My self insurance just barely covers it as long as I keep making payments for a very long time.

I also would pay if Nationalized Socialist Health Inusrance become the law of the land. Again, because those people who need constant care will be paid for by those who do not, whether they can afford it or not.

I'm extremely healthy and insulin is cheap. I use fewer resources than I pay for in premiums, but I need insurance for catastrophic reasons and also for the fact that doctors insist on an unreasonable amount of tests, none of which I personally want to have done. I'm in a high-risk group, but I am pretty healthy personally. You would be arbitrarily put into a high-risk group too, even though you may be personally healthy. If you choose not to have group health insurance, then you are putting yourself into a very risky position that could wipe you out. The system is logically untenable without uniform access to health insurance. Your argument is purely ideological.

It's not the government's job to protect those who pay for it with their taxes.

No, no... it's their job to protect the multi-billion-dollar corporations that donate to its politicians!

Also, waving the "National Socialist" (Nazis) banner isn't going to earn anyone "fact points" here. Just makes me want to invoke Godwin's.

Nationalized has a defined meaning and that's the meaning I use. The proposed health care plans will Nationalize most Health Insurance companies and Medical Providers and use a Socialist method of distributing the goods and services of those companies. You inferred what I did not imply.

But you brought up the Nazis, so I claim Godwin* on you. 8-)


*Godwin's Law doesn't mean what most internet users think it means, and I am using the wrong meaning for it in this case because it creates humor... for me at least.

And we should always abandon Ideology to attend to our creature needs. That's what made us a great Nation. Damn the Constitution and personal responsibility.

You've convinced me. How about a nice game of Chess?

Backgammon. With wagers.