Prescription drug plan. A symptom that needs treating.

Of course this shitty healthcare system is only available to the people who have "health insurance," which doesn't include 46 million Americans.

Which includes me. After retiring from corporateland in 1999 I still can't afford the healthcare premiums in the small business I run. I could probably get a very limited policy but that would cover very little. I hear my Canadian friends bitching and moaning, but in reality, their system is tons better than ours.

Look into a policy that has a HIGH ($2,000) out of pocket deductable before your coverage kicks in. My bride will get her second of two brain tumors removed next week. Estimated cost per surgery, $100,000 to $300,000. Without insurance they wouldn't have let us walk in the door. . .

P.S. All is well. Non invasive or aggressive, likely benign, in a good location AND it should affect her hairstyle TOO much ;-)

My husband and I just had a switch in jobs/insurance cos that meant I had to pay out of pocket (in hopes of future reimbursement) for a doctor visit (he is a specialist - the charge for 15 minutes of his time was $344), some lab tests, and a few xrays. I dropped a grand in about 45 minutes. Of course I had to put some of it on a credit card to avoid depleting my checking account.... And we're the lucky ones with jobs, fairly good health, and nice educations (that we're still paying for 10 years later). But I suppose I should be happy I can still post on the Internet without being arrested and having my organs harvested before I'm disappeared. Or that what my friends say....

And then there are those estimated 3.9 BILLION people on this planet who cant even spell insurance, or Big Pharma. I guess you have to leave this country and go someplace where it isnt expected or given to understand that healthcare is not a right, it is a privilege. Everytime we send another billion bucks here and there to support another country it means that a retiree or a Melanie cant or wont be able to afford it because of the tax load. I can safely say in th 35 years that I have been paying for it that care has NOT gotten better, only more expensive.

Somewhere we diverged in this country into thinking we have rights that are NOT constitutionally given. Even in the non war years they spend, spend, and spend some more on social programs and universal health care is and will be one of them. Sorry folks, any idea that we will get that went up in smoke during Vietnam. The money for that was spent when we were kids for wars, the Great Society, Aid to Dependent Children, Defense, and every other giveaway that wasnt named here. Not to mention a hugely bloated USGOVT that administered it.

I am sorry but the wrong horses were backed even during the Reagan years when tax receipts were off the scale. What did we do rather than paying off the deficit? We spent some more. Not an Administration thing to spend folks. Congress does all of the spending! In just 10 years every dollar taken in will be going to entitlements. You had better start thinking about that rather than complaining about healthcare now.

Everyone out there understands that its a crying shame but there isnt anything anyone is able to do about it. Be happy with what you have rather than complaining about what you dont. The last thing I ever want to see is healthcare in the hands of the government. You think we have an immigration problem now, put that in and see how fast they can cross the border.

Some of us do think health is a right, not a privilege, at least a basic level of good health. It is what a decent society provides for its members. It's what we do for each other, like good manners, if we want to live together peacefully and safely. I have a right to be treated civally, respectfully and humanely. While I can't legislate how other people behave, but I can see that my community treats me properly, and health care is one of those things I should expect, like police and fire protection.

Mr. Kruger: I don't disagree entirely with the gist of your post. But I was surprised by your statement: "Somewhere we diverged in this country into thinking we have rights that are NOT constitutionally given."

The Constitution does not give rights to the people. The reverse is true. It is the mechanism by which the people granted powers to the federal government. The Tenth Amendment makes it clear: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The founders recognized that the people are sovereign. Our rights are inalienable. Hate to sound pedantic, but I think it's important to remember this at a time when we read every day of a new usurpation of that sovereignty by people who are monarchists, but call themselves Republicans.

The measure of a civilized society is how it treats its weakest members and those who cannot fend for themselves. On this scale, the USA does not score well.

There's a good and timely to this issue article in the June Atlantic that shows how WallyWorld may be the key to solving this problem and confirms Revere's economic analysis.

Maybe the U.S. should do an experiment to test out Kruger's hypothesis about the "immigration problem"... provide universal access to healthcare for U.S. residents AND stop the bombing and exploitation of other countries. How would that affect immigration? My dad, for one, came to the U.S. illegally, NOT because of your fantastic social services, but because he was desperate and living in poverty after the U.S. had bombed his beloved homeland Korea to bits and pieces. My guess is that most would-be immigrants would not want to leave the beautiful land of their ancestors for your country unless absolutely desperate...

So we have one that says his Dad was here illegally? So he didnt go to North Korea or China when he had the chance to express his fury at the bombing of his country. No, he came here where he could bitch about it I guess. I know it was because of the health care we were able to provide to him. Might want to trot down to immigration and let them know that Dad is here from Korea illegally Sam. Decide which Korea he wants to go back to. I dont like hearing that you want the laws to work for him when he freely broke them. Okay, so everyone who thinks that someone ought to be able to come here and violate the laws of the country give us an r for rant. Mine came here legally and thru Ellis Island like probably nearly everyone on this here blog.

As for Marissa, I agree. But that doesnt mean that you throw the baby out with the bath water. Your situation isnt unique and I am employed as well thru the corporation that I founded. I have always paid for the entire insurance for my people. Its a smooth 35,000 a year. They do have to pay the 20 buck co-pay. I am fortunate to be in a business that makes enough to do that. No damned premiums for my people. Anywhere else they are getting whacked for 300 per month on average for a family of four.

Tennessee folks just dumped their health care because in just 10 years it put the state 2.5 BILLION in the hole. When Ned McWhirter put it in Bill Clinton said it was going to be the model for the entire United States. Its gone, finished and people in wheelchairs are out on the street because they can only get maintenance of life type care, not improvement. Does it make me feel bad? Yes. Is there something that can be done to keep from tipping the scales over into insolvency of the entire country? I am listening.

Those people are back onto Medicaid now but they still want MORE. This is indicative of whats going to happen in a few years. Those people that dont pay into the system are getting better care than my people and myself that do! This is upside down. I dont disagree with Reveres on one thing and that they all ought to have some sort of net to fall into. But not one so big that its paying for boob jobs, name brand drugs that we the people paying the bills dont get, and above all I dont want government sitting with their hands on the wallets anytime they need another billion or two to shore up the system. We are the government here. If this is voted for and approved it will finish the country in under 5 years..No way to bond it, tax it or amortize it into being. Its already bonded, taxed and amortized from previous years and its not a Republican or Democrat problem. The only correction to it is to take people off the rolls. The only way to that is for someone to die and thats where continually poorer and poorer healthcare is going to take place. It wont be Insurance companies under universal health care, it would be the government. By the time you get the paperwork filled out, you WILL be dead.

Understand the country is broke and its going to implode depending on your age in about 10 years. Try paying for all of these great services and programs when you cant feed your mom and dad or grandparents. Taxes or the rent, no jobs because of taxes and oh yeah lets raise the minimum wage because thats the answer. All that has done has ensured that the US becomes less and less competitive. Living wage. Yeah if you can get a job. Decide which is more important when you cant feed yourself or your own family because they can only get so much out of one dollar. So what do we do, just give it all to the government so we can have healthcare for all of America and the world? I dont think its possible. Canada has 32 million and change. They will be in the same boat as us. Not enough young ones to pay for the old ones. Sure both will l have to cut defense, but then things get dicey. It leaves only the nuclear option to deliver the message.

Yep, its a spiral that we were taught about like inflation in H. School. There will be an ever increasing majority voting themselves a larger and larger portion of an ever shrinking pie.

Another, one mans defensive move is anothers loss of freedom. I dont see anyone bombing your village, I dont see anyone destroying New York. I bet you are one of the people that thinks that the NSA is spying on you too. Well folks look up something called ECHELON and you'll find that they have been happily doing it for 40 years from guess where? CANADA. Why? Because you cant legally do it on US soil. The only people that ever used it questionably is the Clinton Administration so dont fall back on Harry Reid on this one.

Another a majority of the people in the last election disagreed with your read on whats supposed to be going on. Those powers that were granted to the government are reviewed annually and they are renewed or not. You havent had any usurpation of any rights granted you under the Constitution or any State law. Name one that has affected you personally. I would like to know if the jack booted DEA kicked down your doors lately David Kores?

Revere it would be very, very nice to provide all things to all people at all times. I would submit to you that in 10 years that many colleges will be so cash strapped that they will have to merge, and/or fold. They are screaming now as it is. There isnt going to be much higher education because the "entitlements" which everyone has come to expect as the big brother net is going to be gone. Social Security alone will account for every dollar taken in. That doesnt include Medicaid/Medicare, or any of the other programs that are out there. Our school systems will start to fold up like a deck of cards. States will raise taxes just to maintain what they have.

Being treated civil, respectfully, and humanely is NOT in the Constitution. You are afforded the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, not that it will be provided to you. The Amendments to the Constitution dont say it either. Its all relative to the situation at the time. Sure you think you have the right to it because you wrote it. You believe it. That doesnt mean you are going to get it. There are millions that will think that because they paid in just like you and me that they are "entitled" to enough money to live on. Sure they could double the tax rate to 60% and then the economy will shut down as the unproductive old people will force this issue. Still wont change anything. If the boomers last even 30 years, a 16 trillion dollar budget is what I read will happen. No way for the 2 being able to take care of 13. So the beloved healthcare system collapses anyway and universal healthcare will never come into being. There is no basic level of healthcare specified ANYWHERE in any state or federal law. There is when you are whacked up and on your back in a substandard nursing home or hospital, but not outside of it.

One other thing Sam. The exploitation of countries on this planet has been going on since we invented the ability to use a club. Thats a moot point as far as I am concerned. We are in Iraq for Al Qaeda, nothing more. You think we are there for the oil? Fine think that because all of the known oil there will be gone in under 30 years. Same thing in Saudi Arabia. I havent seen any Exxons or other operations going into Iraq since this stuff started. Thats full blown Indian country. There are those that said there was no WMD. Fine think that and remember that Saddam did have enough VX that was UN verified to kill everyone on the planet. Where did that go?

Bombing? Think again. We dont have to bomb. Those 15000KW AWACs planes could fly over the countryside at low level and microwave them in their own skins with their radars. But thats inhumane. If we were there for the oil why is gas so high? Where is the increase in flow? If we were there for someone other than Al Qaeda and Saddam, then who are we shooting up? I have heard of only three airstrikes in a month. Trust me. If we were bombing someone into bits our media would have a field day. But you also have to tell me who in the Hell bombs the UN headquarters in Iraq?

Man Utopia is out there somewhere. Its not going to be the USA or any country that I am aware of in the next 25 years. Better get your seat for this ride into Hell. Healthcare? Might be hard to get something to eat instead.

Randy,

With the stroke of a pen we could provide this country with better care and less cost than we are getting now. Skip the apocolypse scenarios. The rest of the industrialized world has already figured this out and we could too if we wanted to.

Right now, we don't want to and are content to let 1/6 of our citizens go without healthcare and don't bat an eye about that. We also have stunning rates of homelessness and hunger that we don't seem to want to do much about, either. By civilized standards, this is a pretty cold society.

Unfortunately Melanie, we cant skip the apocalypse scenarios. We are already in it and we are already heading downhill and have been for 25 years. Want to argue that point? I dont see how anyone could. Used to be even the bums on the street could get it in to see a doc. Now you pretty well only have one or two options in each city. You have indeed proven my point. Right now we dont want to, In 10 years we wont be able to. Cant do what you want and defend the country or provide for all of this stuff we have allowed ourselves to get goat roped into. Its socialism in a capitalist society and thats doomed to fail period. We ARE the defenders of the free world and our ability to subsidize them with our defense capabilities is going to go to near nil in the next 10 years unless something else is cut. So something is going to give and I bet it wont be defense by any Administration, Republican or Democrat. You are right, we have stunning rates of homelessness and hunger. Plan on them to get a lot larger soon.

Its easy to dismiss what I say here. Doesnt make me wrong or you right. You can say its as simple as the flick of a bic. The second we do that you would accelerate a problem that is already nearly unmanageable. Sure, everyone wants it. But you cant pay for it. Actually we cant pay for anything new much less the old.

Give me a call in 10 years and lets see who was right.

Randy: Your comments to Sam about his father are offensive. People come here for all sorts of reasons and stay here for all sorts of reasons. If you are so unhappy with the government here you should leave and go somewhere else. Just like your family did from wherever they came from. You can go somewhere they don't provide anything for their citizens. Like Zimbabwe. Are you going to take advantage of Medicare when you are 65? Because you obviously think it's immoral.

You are from an immigrant family. Do you have proof they are all here legally? When was it? Are you sure they didn't bribe some official somewhere along the way? buy their papers? Why did they come here at all? Home country not "good enough" for them? Did they want "more" here? Screwing the rest of us by trying to get something they couldn't get back wherever the hell they came from? Where was it, by the way? Now that you and your whole damn family climbed up the ladder to get here you want to pull the ladder up after you. Lovely.

A lot of people came here "illegally". Probably half your family did. So what?

Randy: If you think you are the Defender of the Free World you need to go back on your medication. You are the Defender of Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Defense Contractor, Big Telecom, etc. Thanks for keeping us all in chains. The rest of the world thinks so, too. Only you and Halliburton and Dick Cheney and his crowd think you are defending the Free World, and they don't even think so. They think you are a chump because you bought The Lie.

I immigrated here in 1978. Legally. Till 1999, I paid all my taxes before being forced to retire for medical reasons I won't go into, and some of which later forced me into Chapter 11. Now I have about 10 years to get Medicare assuming the don't raise the target again. If I get a serious or chronic disease I hope it's quickly fatal, because I cannot afford to pay for it. I practice holistics, meditate, and do all I can to ensure I am healthy. I won't begin to tell you though, the problems I encounter if I have to make a trip to the hospital. It's like being treated like a second-class citizen. Thanks to the banking lobby if I run up medical bills again, I cannot even file Chapter 11 again to get some relief.

Crotalus kruger appears to have your number revere. Out here in the West when we encounter a rattler in the corral we kill it. Usually with a hoe so as not rile the rest of the critters.

I know you have a long tradition of revering rattlesnakes in your neck of the woods - the Gadsden flag and all. But you've not had any rattlesnakes there for some time. 'Spect you've probably forgotten that they're not especially educable.

Offensive to me ladies and gentlemen is when I see things that are preventable happening. That happening is someone like Marissa who did come legally, paid her taxes and then cant get any help at all. Medicaid isnt immoral but it is out of control. Healthcare for all will be just that too. Out of control. It makes no provisions for anything else in a budget. Its great to talk about, but no one will be able to pay for it. Marissa IS a second class citizen just like the rest of us. Why? Because she and we do it right. The illegals have more rights than the people who were born here.

As for where the family came from was Germany via Norway Revere. Both were pretty socialistic then and they left because they could. No they didnt bribe someone to get here because if you pay a bribe you dont generally have to wait. They waited five years. Kind of like legal immgrants are doing now. Marissa also likely waited, and waited, and waited.

As far as I am concerned beyond me, Marissa is the one who should be offended by the acts of Sams father and others. Someone else took up resources that she paid for. Those resources were taken illegally that "might" have been available to her now in her state as a legal immigrant. Its a crime not only to her but to all of us and I mean that. Why do we condone Sams fathers actions? Its a crime regardless and would be still interpreted as such by the law. Sams father if caught would be back on a plane within a week and he knows it. Sorry but that IS the law. Offensive to them? Not really. Just the law. But the law is for those that abide by it. Not by those who break it.

I pay taxes because thats the system. We expect some sort of stewardship by our government and by both Dems and Republicans and we get nothing. Its a garden hose approach to a rapidly growing fire. Spray here when it rises up, spray there. Bottom line is that we are going down and fast. Even with the current intake of tax revenue we will be done in 10 years. Unless we cut something and that I can assure you is going to be healthcare money thats provided by the feds. I think that 1/2 of us are going to be uninsured by 2015. Why should the insurance companies provide it ? They know they are going into a time where they are going to be laying out more because of aging. Its a business not a right. Its reality.

Revere its not that I want to pull the ladder up so much as I want to keep things possible for myself and my kids and the rest of America. You come here legally and I will defend your Nazi, Communist, left or right wing, conservative or liberal right (if you are) to say and do anything within the system. All of the illegal immigrants who moved into California and were illegally registered to vote turned an election and put Gray Davis in. Then they sucked up all of the available money by using those voter registration cards to start school, registered for social services of all kinds and then the balloon burst. The state was insolvent in under two years. RECALL election. Then Grey Davis went down. State is still pretty much insolvent. That ladder Revere is paid for by someone else and while the opinion is valued, its not going to pay the bills and illegals are not going to pay them. We are. I dont let people steal from me if I can stop them. So far we have, but maybe not in the future.

As for being the big defender of the free world Revere, unless you have been in the military then thats a far reach for you. What year were you in? If you were in then you are and were a defender of the free world. Just a different definition perhaps. My immigrant family who came in 1868 put six sons in the first conflict which was the Spanish-American War. Just long enough for them to get their feet dry and have their children turn old enough to go. They owned the land where Brigham Young stands today in fact.

One of those children was on the Maine. World War I broke out next and the Krugers fielded from six sons 18 warriors, two didnt return from Belleau Wood. The 16 remaining put 39 into WWII and my grandfather was in charge of the draft board in St. Louis. All were in differrent branches of service. One went down on the Annapolis, one in the Ardenne, 3 went down over Gerrmany in B-17's and P-51's, 2 on Guadalcanal, 3 on the death march from Bataan, 4 on Iwo Jima. It tamped us back a bit WWII but we were back for Korea and put three into that one. I missed Vietnam by a lucky draw of the chit but I enlisted two weeks before the Iranians took our people and then spent 13 years in. So as being a defender of the free world if thats not enough, then by all means tell me what is.

You tout that I am a defending BIG everything. Nope. I am defending the free market society that allows them to charge any damned thing they want for anything they offer for sale. You DO have the right not to buy it. You DO have the right to try to regulate it. But you DONT have the right to take it simply because you feel like you are being slighted at the gas pump, or your pills are too expensive. Lose this system and I can safely say that you wont get diddly in the next one.

Also, I can say that you are for the time being in the minority because a majority of people thought deferently than you did in the last election. You might wins some points in this election because of the spin thats on everything. But we will have to wait and see on that one. Either way, its the middle ground we live in and if you or I pull too far to the right or left the system and that middle ground collapses and us with it.

You also make a lot of presumptions of what I think Revere. I am very middle of the road. Dropping what remains of what I make into a government mismanaged healthcare system is the last thing that I want to do. Tennessee's plan failed miserably. So did California's, Kentucky's is going, Illinois is getting ready to downgrade theirs.

Defender of Big Pharma and Halliburton? I cant for the life of me understand why you would say that. If you think that you are sadly mistaken. I will say that I would defend them all if it comes at the cost of trading one of them for "Big Government" . Why? Because you cant control one and always have the right not to buy from the others. For now.

Melanie, your above post reflects that you are willing to sign up for an unknown as an experiment. That experiment would IMO and many others sell the farm forever. Do you want that much governmental control over what you do? You would still be paying for the things that are not covered and the list would first be narrow, the larger, then larger still. You will have come full circle and given the government yet another cash cow from which to take from you. The income tax is repressive as it is. What society survives when it takes from the rich and gives it to the poor if that person who is rich got it legally? Then you have a bunch of equally poor people with no incentive to produce.

To have universal health care would require at least a 60% tax rate for starts and it aint going to be one of those filthy rich people that are going to be hit because progressive tax is about to go down when it goes to the Supreme Court next year. Everyone under this system would pay. EVERYONE. Everyone will feel this bite and that includes the little people. It would initially be good, then the costs would rise to meet the then fixed rate of intake, then it would go pink, then into the red and they would have to infuse hundreds of billions of new dollars into a failing program. I have lived it right here. It bankrupted the state and we are still paying for it even after we dumped it. The Democrats put it in, it bankrupted the state and the Republicans had to take it out. Our Democrat governor signed the paper, just as Bill Clinton did to end welfare as we knew it. They had to because they knew that it was strangling us to death.

If Sam and/or his father were offended then thats the way it goes. I am offended that they were not caught. It was pretty easy to immigrate back in the 50's from Korea for political reasons, all the way up into the 60's in fact. Perhaps they could enlighten us on how his father circumvented federal law, how they were able to stay here illegally. Why didnt they do it right? And how being here illegally can his father or Sam stand and demand his fathers "Rights?"

Strange that everyone who comes back to bash is defending an illegal act of an illegal immigrant. Those same laws give me equal protection from this kind of activity. Where are my rights? You are very quick to stomp on the law and my rights. I remind the Reveres that it was Sam who jumped right in there to say that the US Govt was bombing Korea to bits. I find that statement offensive myself. I also remind you all that it was a UN sanctioned war not a unilateral one. Sams father likely wouldnt have made it out under the system that would have been imposed. This doesnt change anything though. Sams father is an illegal and committing an illegal act. Its not a small one either. .

So what is it Revere? Quickly, we must hush this kind of talk....To defend the law is wrong when the little guy is getting beat up even though he bailed on his own country. Well I dont bail. You almost assert that to say that its offensive....must be politically correct.

Uh uh. Sam I urge you to get your father to adhere to the laws of this country just as we all have to. If he climbed onto a plane and went back to Korea then applied to come back with you here, then it might go a little better. Else one day you might come home and find him gone because that is the law. Its not wrong. What was wrong is that he came here illegally and someone thinks that he has the right to do so. You cant proxy citizenship. Its earned. Sometimes in blood. My intent Sam is not to offend anyone but your father is an uncaptured criminal by your own admission. The law doesnt distinguish whether you are an axe murderer or an illegal alien, just that you have committed a crime. Get him to turn himself in or go back and apply. I would suggest the latter though.

I love being likley the only conservative out there....I take hits from every direction.

Marissa, if you are the one that I think you are. Hit me on the email. There are other sources out there that you may not be aware of for your problem. I have people that might be able to aim you in the right direction.

Randy: If you think the Spanish American War was defending the free world, you have a lot to learn. If you think World War I was defending the free world you have even more to learn. If you think illegal immigrants don't pay taxes -- taxes that you use for your own purposes but they don't get the benefit of -- you have still more to learn. If you are middle of the road -- I'm not sure what road it is except the road to perdition.

Here's my solution to the "immigration problem." Get rid of the borders. Then there's no more problem. Collect taxes from everyone, not just poor and middle class. Then we can pay for everyone's health care. Get rid of most of the military machine. Then we can stop wasting money and stop meddling in other people's business. Take a look around you, Randy, and see how the US gov. is treating soldiers. Throwaways.

Every other industrialized country has universal health care but us. Because the richest country in the world can't afford it? Maybe if we worried more about our own people an stopped butting in to everyone else's business we could afford it here, too. Have you ever been to Norway? I have. Have you ever been to Sweden? I have. I've even lived there.

You have political points to make, and I am willing to have you make them here (although I wish you would do so at less length). But I suggest you read over what you write and try to put yourself in the place of others. If that's possible. It doesn't seem to be.

Or Revere you could be wrong in thinking I havent been there. Sweden? Great, havent seen them spend a buck on their own defense except to say they were in NATO. I have a real problem with a society that thinks I make too much and the money in my wallet belongs to someone else. All they have to do is convince some Washington jerk that it belongs to them.
Universal health care is just that hand coming out yet again and you dont have to pay for it if you dont defend your borders or the rest of the "Free World." Learn to speak Chinese now, you'll need it later.

Brief enough?

Randy: Yes, admirably succinct. I'd be glad to pay for universal health care. Even your health care. It makes us all safer. And you don't even need a gun. Thanks for the Iraq debacle. Do you feel safer for it?

Actually yes. Although, I am nervous about what will happen if our little friends in Al Qaeda ever leave the lighting rod of Iraq and Afghanistan for much greener pastures like Europe or the US. It wouldnt surprise me if they didnt first tag France or the UK first with something really interesting. 3000 troops is not a debaucle for three years in country.

Do I care if the Muslims hate us? Not really, they were pretty much on their way to that during the first hijackings in the 60's Uh lets see the libs were in charge then. You do of course know that PLO stands for PUSH LEON OVER? I on the other hand thing that some really cold hard naked agression is in order. If the combatants are civilians and you have to assume that theres a concentration in some cities. TAKE THEM OUT. 1000 pounders if necessary. Knock out Al Jazeera on the way too. Its a war. Not a negotiation.

Really now, can we sit and let them continue to get any stronger than they are? Osama binabomber and Zawahiri are preaching their game of hate and destruction and we are on the menu. I dont recall bombing anyone in the middle east prior to 9/11 except for maybe Khadaffi and he had it coming. I do remember airplanes being blown up in the desert and in the air, hijacked and flown to Lebanon and guys being shot and pushed out onto the tarmac. And it was Muslims who did take the WTC's in two different attempts. . Sure, we are going to lose a bunch more people. But the soldiers knew that when they signed up too. You dont give the military enough credit. Debaucle?

I see kids going to school and bombings in the city streets...and I aint talking about Baghdad. Our lives here are gettting to be pretty much an ordinary day in the Mid-East no matter where you go. The debaucle? You better hope its a democracy that gets a springboard over there else those Sunni's will wipe the Shia's off the map and the Kurds will take their toll too.

I know you would pay for universal health care Revere and God love you for it. But the number of poor will increase if we implement a taxation system to provide for it. By the time we run 20 years into it we would be back at square one. Crappy health care and no way to dump it and hundreds of billions in the red. People that didnt have care would have some but not much and people that had much better care prior will slide backwards into so-so care and they STILL would have to pay for someone else. I see nothing for us except a big road full of deeper and deeper holes.

A lot of people in Canada have had to go back to secondary insurance just to cover the short falls. Their own Supreme Court struck down a law that the Canuck government was trying to implement to keep people from going to private physicians and buying insurance to pay for it. Sad state of affairs when you are being told by Big Brother what you can do with your money and your body. They also just had to pony up what would have been 100,000 per citizen in new taxes to pay for their system thats starting to collapse. 64% effective tax rate now. Whats next?

We the payers are going to get socked for those who think its just owed to them. Why? Because they cant afford it? Because someone else thinks we the people who can owe it to them? That isnt a democracy. Its legislative tyranny. If we do this it will increase the number of poor people as they are forced into an unwanted system. The minimum wage would be 20 per hour and we would lose jobs as a result. Jobs will be replaced with healthcare. Great idea. Baby with the bath water.

Mr. K wrote: "I see nothing for us except a big road full of deeper and deeper holes."

Yes, we gather that.

I'll leave all of the delicious straw men for you to knock down, reveres, but I don't think Randy adds much to the discussion here.

An aquaintance of mine just pulled the rip cord: she and her NZ husband just opted to move there from Colorado because she is horrified by what's happening here. She was an aeronautics engineer on the B2 and went out for astronaut training.

She is unhappy in her new surroundings: she could not find horseradish for sale anywhere.