Lock Up Your (Sons) and Daughters: Steny Hoyer Is Coming For Their Voluntary-Mandatory Health-Insurance Contributions!

Over at Investor's Business Daily, reporter (and Reason contributor) Sean Higgins reproduces Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer's strange definition of the penalty that youngsters would pay for not having health insurance. It's not a penalty, insists Hoyer. It's a contribution. You know, in the same way that it's not a gang, man, it's a club.

"We are certainly looking at making sure that young people will have an incentive. By the way, let me make it clear: I don't refer to nor do I believe that these are penalties. What we are saying is everybody will contribute, whether you are a business, [or] an individual, contribute to making sure that health care options are available to all of our citizens."

As Higgins notes, "Just wait until the blood drive." Read more here.

Comments

[aelhues]

More "it depends on the meaning of 'is'". It's not a tax, or a penalty, it's a donation. If you don't provide the correct amount in your donation, we'll fine you. If you don't then provide the proper amount of donation, or pay your fines, we'll take it out of your paycheck. If you haven't got a paycheck to take it out of, we'll throw you in prison. Don't think of the imprisonment in negative terms though, we're providing you with free housing, food, and healthcare.

[John Tagliaferro]

Reminds me of leftist supporting fines for not voting and saying that is not coercion.

[democratsarefascists]

Democrats be the pimps.
You da hos.
Pay up, or Steny will have to choke a b*tch!

[xack Beeno]

Wow that dude just looks like he is corrupt as the day is long. Wow.

RT
http://www.hide-yer-stuff.se.tc

[grrizzly]

Come on! Admit, you're not the real bot.

Oiece of shit bird hater.

[Pro Libertate]

I have a cunning plan. The Libertarian Party should employ a costumed mascot.

[Kevin]

Anybody have a Feral Pig suit?

[Solanum]

A monkey wearing a bicycle helmet?

[Tulpa]

Racist AND retardedist.

[Libertymike]

Are you obsessed with race and racism? You are certainly quick to accuse others and/or their ideas as racist.

[Tulpa]

Most of the time, I'm satirizing the Obama defenders who see racist whistle words all around them.

However, I am quick to sincerely term racist people who explicitly bring up Obama's race as a reason to oppose him. Such as you, libertymike, lover of the Confederacy and poster of rants against "the negro communist". May history forget you called yourself a libertarian, you racist fuckwad.

[Libertymike]

Tulpa, if you are honest you do not attribute to another that which you know not to be true.

I have never brought up Obama's race as a reason to oppose him. Do I believe him to be a communist? Yes. For the same reasons I believe Michael Dukakis is a communist: they both support the income tax, the progressive income tax, death taxes, compulsory state mandated and regulated education and collective bargaining.

Yes, Obama is a negro. He supports affirmative action. He, it can be credibly argued, has been a beneficiary of affirmative action. He has and continues to support affirmative action. He was a member of church that preached racial identity and he contributed big money to the church.

There is no doubt, just read his own words, that much of Obama's identity is wrapped up in his race. He is both an exploiter of race and groupthink as well as a victim. Nevertheless, he is a racist who has no problem using the state to project its power in service to his racist/groupthink agenda.

People who place a great deal of pride in their race, people who conceive of themselves as a member of a race, first, and identify themselves by their race, first and foremost or significantly, are not people to admire.

As for loving the confederacy, prove it. You can't and you know it. Criticism of your boy Dishonest Abe and his genocidal co-conspirators, Sherman and Grant, does not equal love of the confederacy. Is that too hard to understand?

So, save us your sanctimony. Not everyone buys your statist, politically correct driven conceptions of what constitutes racism. Using negro to modify communist in describing a public sector lifer who derives much of his identity by his race is not racism.

[Pope Jimbo]

Monkey would have to be smoking too. Nothing funnier than a monkey smoking.

[sage]

That was funny. Let's hear it again.

[Pope Jimbo]

Monkey would have to be smoking too. Nothing funnier than a monkey smoking.

[John Tagliaferro]

With a top hat and monocle.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, naturally.

[Tulpa]

Isn't the Free State Project already doing this? Though it's a bit more dangerous to have a giant porcupine going around hugging little kids. Not that a man in any animal costume hugging little kids doesn't reek of peril, but anyway.

[Episiarch]

STEVE VOLUNTEER FOR MASCOT! WEAR WARTY'S FACE LIKE MASK!

ARE YOU BIG-LEAGUING STEVE, PRO-L? YOU BIG-LEAGUING STEVE?

[Pro Libertate]

Me? Never!

[creech]

What's Starchild?

[Pro Libertate]

I suggest a topless harpie.

[Pro Libertate]

Oops. I meant harpy.

[sage]

I first read that as "hairpie."

[Pro Libertate]

Damn my imprecision!

[Tyler]

It's not force it's an *incentive*

Kind of like when the playground bully asks for some kid's lunch money, the "or else I'll beat your face in" is an *incentive*

[Congressman X. Torsion]

Watch it there, boy...

[*]

Is there any doubt that, when politicians are conscious, they're lying sons of bitches?*

*I assume they lie in their dreams as well, but that doesn't hurt anyone.

[Duncan]

Just for the sake of arguement, how do you guys feel about mandatory car insurance requirements? The basic economic arguement is that optional insurance in both markets impose externality/free rider/signaling problems.

[kinnath]

you must be new here

[SugarFree]

It's false analogy. The car insurance mandate is for basic levels of insurance based on covering what you do to someone else. No state requires you to carry full coverage. The equivalent would be a mandate for everyone to carry a catastrophic health insurance plan. That would not satisfy the "health care is a right!" crowd whatsoever.

[John Tagliaferro]

Someone else has it down thread. I shall expand. The solution is for the government to give them all cars. Then, they would be free riders if they don't have car insurance, so they should be fined if they don't have insurance. Then everything will be fair.

[Fluffy]

In the case of car insurance, if you get in a car accident you create a claim for someone else.

I don't create a claim for someone else if I get sick.

The notion that the reason these "contributions" are being pursued is "free riders" is really, really dishonest. They're being pursued so that the young and healthy can be used as milch cows. Period.

The number of young and uninsured people who incur costs that they can't cover out of pocket [who aren't already covered by Medicaid, i.e. all the single teen moms out there don't count] is vanishingly small. Very few legal residents of the US with incomes that don't qualify them for Medicaid are walking into hospitals and doctor's offices and running up huge bills and then bailing. Pretending that the mandatory coverage element of these plans is about stopping those "evildoers" is a canard. The mandatory coverage logic is simple: "Let's force people who would never make a claim to pay us premiums anyway! That way we can afford to not use risk-based pricing and can use community pricing!"

[Duncan]

Sugarfree,
Some of the policies out there are catastrophic insurance only. I could see that requiring such policies would be a way to avoid the free rider problem. Most car insurance requirements policies are similar to that. I'm not saying that I'm advocating insurance requirements, but I think there are some serious free rider and signaling problems in the current environment. I want to try to figure out how we solve those problems.

[T]

No free rider problem exists. A free rider is someone who uses a public good with contributing an equivalent share of the costs. Health care is not a public good. It is both rivalrous and excludable.

The "free rider" problem in health care is yet another bullshit excuse for state intervention. Someone gets services and doesn't pay, treat them like any other deadbeat and send the account to collections. Yes, this increases costs to everyone else as the losses get built into the rate structure. Since I'm in favor of hospitals and physicians having the right to turn patients away if they so desire, I don't see the free rider crap as an issue.

[Big B]

I live in an area with a high illegal immigrant population.

I can tell you this: they seldom have "mandated" car insurance. And if you are in an accident with one of them, good luck recovering anything.

Not sure how the "mandate" is helping much there. If you don't want car insurance, you just aren't going to sign up for it.

Of course, that's why health insurance includes penalties.

Then again, if you're illegal, you aren't going to get penalties anyway, and you'll still show up at the hospital.

[Big B]

i.e. - free rider problem NOT SOLVED.

[Skid Marx]

I don't drive.

Next question...

[Mango Punch]

That gives your handle whole new meaning...

[TrickyVic]

Ditto

[TrickyVic]

Ditto to the I don't drive.

I hate these threaded comments.

[Skid Marx]

In Soviet Union threaded comments hate you!

[Zeb]

I live in a state without mandatory car insurance for all drivers (NH) and the sky has not fallen.

[Seamus]

Your analogy might be valid if the state required drivers to have collision and comprehensive insurance. But in fact, the most it requires is that we have liability insurance.

[Joedog]

Back in the 80s, when California passed mandatory insurance laws, the promise was that rates would go down for everybody.
My rates (I was still a fairly new driver) went up about 50%, because insurance companies had a captive market and didn't have to provide me with an incentive to insure.

[Xeones]

Anonymity guy is really chasing the brown pony today, huh?

[J sub D]

What we are saying is everybody will contribute ...

I guess the draft was just saying that everybody will volunteer.

[Xeones]

I guess the draft was just saying that everybody will volunteer.

Just like all those nice folks volunteered to come over from Africa and pick cotton a couple hundred years ago.

[Rush Limbaugh]

God love 'em!

[Rachel Madcow]

Alright, more evidence!

[Episiarch]

I'm impressed Stoyer came out of the closet about being a furry. That took some guts.

[J sub D]

Just for the sake of arguement, how do you guys feel about mandatory car insurance requirements? The basic economic arguement is that optional insurance in both markets impose externality/free rider/signaling problems.

Oh crinminy, millions of people legally go through life without auto insurance. They merely don't drive a goddam car. This is a fucking adjustable health care head tax.

Any other dissembling comparisons between piloting tons of metal down a public street and breathing?

[Duncan]

J sub D,
Try having a job in a lot of the country and not having a car. For many people, having a car is not a realistic choice.

The basic idea is that when you do get sick in the U.S. you still get treatment, you just are forced to quit your job and get on Medicaid. The problem with signaling is that by individuals opting into buying individual insurance, they are telling insurance companies: "hello, I'm high-risk, charge me more." That is one of the core reasons (marketing and sales costs is another) that individual insurance is more expensive than employer based plans. I think that a stronger individual insurance market would be good for the economy and encourage more people to take the chance and start a business. How would you propose to fix the signalling problem?

[kinnath]

You are free to move someplace where a car is not required to have a decent life.

You will not be allowed to move somewhere where you don't have to pay a "mandatory contribution" for health care.

There isn't even a remote comparison between mandatory car insurance and mandatory healt insurance, and you're a sack of shit for brining it up.

[Big B]

kinnath - great point. Why is it that "where I live that isn't possible" is an answer to anything? Living in the deep woods of Alaska doesn't entitle you to the same options, opportunities and choices as living in New York City. You want to live without a car - move to where that is possible.

[aelhues]

How about we change the tax code to make it a fair playing field for individuals to buy insurance. Then instead of people buying individual insurance only when their high risk, or don't have a decent job, they buy it because they then have more choice, possibly lower premiums, and portability. Which should eliminate your signaling issue.

Try having a job in a lot of the country and not having a car. For many people, having a car is not a realistic choice.

The government should buy them all cars, no?

[John Tagliaferro]

And supply their insurance.

[J sub D]

Try having a job in a lot of the country and not having a car.

Been there, done that.

Were it up to me I'd make people declare bankruptcy if necessary to discharge medical expenses incurred. The uninsured who don't pay for their medical expenses amounts to ~ 1 fuckin' percent of national health care costs IIRC.
The mandate is nothing but a wealth transfer from the young, healthy and poor to the older, less healthy and wealthier. Those young healthy and poor folks just starting out in life already pay a medicare tax of 2.9% from the first fucking dollar they earn.

[Duncan]

"The mandate is nothing but a wealth transfer from the young, healthy and poor to the older, less healthy and wealthier." This problem can be reduced significantly be altering the amount that can be charged for age and some other risk factors (weight, smoking etc.). One of the key differences between the Senate and House bills is how much they allow insurance companies to vary their rates based upon age. If you make it large enough, you can significantly reduce these wealth transfers. Also if you only require catastrophic insurance, then the cost imposed to avoid the free rider problem is a lot smaller.

[We The People v. United States]

Or this problem could be solved by having the Government get the fuck out of where it doesn't belong.

[J sub D]

SCREW THREADED COMMENTS!

[John Tagliaferro]

+1 Funny

[db]

the biggest problem here will be that most won't even have the choice to protest this through civil disobediance by not paying the 'voluntary' fee. Employers will be required to pay this through a withholding tax arrangement. The best argument against this. post-implementation, would be groups of heath care protestors being dragged off to prison for asserting their right to the fruits of their own labor.

[hurlybuehrle]

Maybe, maybe not. In Mass. we have an individual mandate, and they ask about it on the state tax return form. So the self-employed and unemployed could protest in this way. Obamacare is an individual-mandate plan, not an employer-mandate plan, IIRC.

[JB]

I wouldn't mind seeing this fucker contributed off this planet.

[Duncan]

Kinnath,
Wow, I see that you know how to act like an adult.

[Episiarch]

Duncan, maybe you should respond to the arguments presented to you by NutraSweet, Fluffy, and kinnath, and not worry about being called names. This is a big boy (and girl) board, so you better have a thick skin if you want to play. People will both present you with reasoned arguments and insult you, so just get used to it.

[Libertymike]

But shouldn't there be an effort to uplift the quality and tenor of one's posts, in general and to save insults for (1) those who refuse to engage in comprehesive and rigorous debate; (2) those who have a propensity to insult and/or insults dominate their posts and (3) statists and those that love the state and worship institutions of the state, most particularly those who "serve" the state?

[kinnath]

It's a sad fact of life. When you're walking around in a cast, the eight or nineth jackass to make a joke about it itching is gonna get blasted for everyone's sins.

Duncan is not the first, and won't be the last, to attempt to justify mandated health insurance because most states make LICENSED DRIVERS buy insurance for LICENSED FUCKING CARS.

If Duncan is too stupid to see the fallacy, he deserves whatever insults come his way.

[kinnath]

. . . . states make LICENSED DRIVERS drive LICENSED FUCKING CARS that are insured by the OWNER.

More accurate

[aelhues]

I'll repeat an earlier comment.....you must be new here.

[Duncan]

Aelhus and Episarch,
I'm just playing the game too. I think that even if you eliminate the employer based insurance tax advantage (which is pretty unfair) you still have the problem of free riders who don't get insurance when they aren't sick. This increases the cost of insurance, which makes more less risky people not buy it, which increases the cost of insurance...

[John Tagliaferro]

I refuse to have a vehicle insurance policy. Stay out of my wallet, Socialist.

[Duncan]

John,
Well, I commend you for being consistent. Does your state not require car insurance, do you not drive, or how do you get out of the requirement?

[John Tagliaferro]

My State does not require it, but they will suspend my license if I do not pay for damage you caused with my vehicle.

[John Tagliaferro]

My State does not require it, but they will suspend my license if I do not pay for damage you caused with my vehicle.

[T]

Okay, your problem here is that you're, like half the fucking country, conflating insurance with health care. So I don't get insurance when I'm not sick. So what? How, in any sense of the phrase, am I a free rider? I'm not taking any health care so why should I pay for any health care costs through my 'contribution' to insurance? If I go in and get health care and pay for it in cash, I'm still not a free rider if I don't have insurance. Insurance is not health care.

You need to go back and clarify your thinking before you try to argue this.

[Joedog]

One hundred percent correct.
Health insurance does not equal health care.

Remember the Seinfeld episode where he flies somewhere, and the rental car company has his reservation, but doesn't have his car?

Same thing with insurance v. care. If the insurance doesn't cover the care you need, it is worthless. If you don't need any care, the insurance is also worthless.

[aelhues]

Maybe I'm missing something. You haven't responded to points made, and have complained about being insulted, and somehow that is playing the game?

Sounds like you conceded the signaling issue. Correct?

As for the free rider problem, there are a number of solutions to that that don't involve mandatory insurance. One would be to eliminate medicare and medicaid. I'm guessing you don't find that acceptable despite the fact that they are broken programs that are outside the mandate of the federal government. So setting that aside, we could change the treatment mandate to actual emergency situations. If you go to the emergency room, they have to treat you. However we could change that mandate to they have to treat you only if it's a immediate life threatening issue, everything else can be referred to an urgent care facility with triage, and insurance or payment required. On top of that, your community could support a free or graduated cost clinic to handle those without insurance.

I'm not going to go through further solutions, I'm trying to shorten my posts some :). Point is, if you are a little bit creative, you can come up with solutions to the problems in the system that don't require federal involvement, or reduce their involvement.

[Duncan]

Eliminating Medicare and Medicaid could change the market dramatically, in some ways for the better. Maybe people would start getting realistic about end of life care when they're footing the bill. I think that the problem with that idea is that politically it wouldn't fly. As ideally libertarian as it is, it just couldn't get the votes.
The problem with your idea of government only providing treatment in actual emergency situations, is that those are the most expensive situations. Day-to-day health care costs are a pretty small share of your lifetime healthcare consumption.

[aelhues]

While I agree that a gun shot wound is going to be more expensive to treat then a single case of the sniffles, the actual numbers make this a moot point. The vast majority of the expense in emergency rooms, is frivolous. The actual cases of real emergency care though individually more expensive, are still the vastly smaller portion of the un-recouped cost.

[adam]

"The problem with your idea of government only providing treatment in actual emergency situations, is that those are the most expensive situations. Day-to-day health care costs are a pretty small share of your lifetime healthcare consumption."

That's not true. Most medical costs, about 75%, are for chronic conditions. http://www.kaiseredu.org/topic.....amp;id=358

[adam]

Duncan,

The free-rider problem that you're concerned about would be solved if insurance mandate were structured to require a person to pay a premium based on a risk-adjusted based on health risk. Young, healthy people would have extremely low premiums, likely under $1000 a year. This wouldn't solve the problem the democrats are trying to solve though, which is how to pay for sick people without charging the sick people.

[Adam]

Adam,
I agree (see earlier post). If you allow some sort of risk based pricing, but still require some minimum level of insurance, you could greatly reduce the free rider problem. If I remember right, the Senate bill allows something like an age adjustment to premiums to be about 5 or 6 times cheaper for younger people. I think that house bill only allows a factor of 2. These kind of details hugely impact whether or not there is yet another big wealth transfer from young to old.

[adam]

The demoncrats won't sign up for full risk-based pricing. Some old guy with a history of cancer and heart disease would end up paying hundreds of thousands a year in premiums (assuming a ban on flatly denying coverage).

[JB]

Hey cockbag Steny Hoyer, I want you to come to my door to collect my contribution.

[Spartacus]

Fear the turtle!!!

And the costumed guy too!!

[Duncan]

I miss the friendly terp. The newer angry terp just makes me laugh.

[John Tagliaferro]

You know, in the same way that it's not a gang, man, it's a club.

It's not a club, it's a thick stick.

[Spartacus]

I was going to make a Spitzer joke here, but it's just too easy.

[swillfredo pareto]

It's not a club, it's a thick stick.

Bart: Wow! Can I see your club?
Lou: It's called a baton, son.
Bart: Oh. What's it for?
Lou: We club people with it.

[Sean]

Have any of you read "The Third Reich", by Micheal Burleigh? It's a great historical analysis of how the Nazi regime worked, in all aspects. Coerced "contributions" to State social services (Winter Aid, etc) were a major component of the Nazis' social welfare programs, in lieu of either the State having to pay from its own coffers (thereby reducing funds for war plans), or letting charity be a private activity outside the purview of government officials.

A bit of a rhetorical stretch, but still...I'm shocked by the similar mentality at display here. "Mandatory voluntarism", my ass.

Disclaimer: As a fairly productive 25-year old, the idea that I'm forced--not asked, not begged (I freely donate 5% of my income every month), forced--to contribute to others' welfare is some damn infuriating bullshit.

[Duncan]

Sean,
Do you make a distinction between the FICA taxes you pay and all the other taxes that you're forced to pay? To me, it's all the same thing. I'm forced to pay for someone elses kids to go to school or scientific research or whatever else. My point is that all regimes, in history, have taxed things to make the populace pay for whatever cause.
As one former Argentine guerilla once told me, "I still have the government, but at least we have the power to change it."

[swillfredo pareto]

FICA taxes are attached to your social security number and fund your benefits. On the Social Security side your benefits are based on your level of taxation. Theoretically they are not for the rest of the population.

[Duncan]

Swillfredo,
I'd agree with you if the benefits you received better corresponded to the amount of money you put in. Right now, Social Security pays out way more than the retirees put in.

[swillfredo pareto]

Social Security pays out way more than the retirees put in.

That's the interest it earns in the lockbox.

But seriously, everything wrong with Social Security and Medicare is an entirely separate conversation. Except the part about how Medicare is a big part of why the healthcare "system" is so dysfunctional.

[Tman]

That's the interest it earns in the lockbox.

That's one of the funniest things I've read in ages.

"Lockbox". Hilarious.

[Fluffy]

Duncan,

This is true.

FICA taxes people making minimum wage, and uses part of the proceeds to send monthly benefit checks to multimillionaires.

The health insurance reform being contemplated will fine people with low incomes in order to obtain funds to subsidize the health care bills of people with higher incomes.

That's not all these taxes do, but it's definitely part of it.

[Joedog]

Well run public education has benefits for those who do not have children.
A better educated workforce is a boon to employers, and raises the communities standard of living.
An educated electorate votes for better laws and officials (an illiterate, poorly educated, or heavily indoctrinated electorate votes for Democrats).
The more education children have, the less likely they are to be involved in crimes - particularly violent crimes.
etc.

[Duncan]

Typo correction:
As one former Argentine guerilla once told me, "I still HATE the government, but at least we have the power to change it."

"Argentine guerilla"

RACIST!

[Big B]

See my comment above. I live in one where it is, and coverage is hardly 100%.

Your comment appears to be spam. If it is not, a moderator will publish your comment later.

Four words, no links and I get mistaken for spam??? Fuck this shit.

[John Tagliaferro]

But the spammer is still getting through.

My point exactly. Thanks.

[aelhues]

Just because I pay way too much in mandatory contributions (taxes) now, doesn't mean I have to be ok with making me pay more. At last it sounded, Duncan, like you were saying I should be ok with it.

[Duncan]

My point is not that you should be okay with what you pay, but simply remember that in the Third Reich is was not exactly as easy as using the ballot box to change governments. If you want to compare us to Sweden and say that we're moving in that direction, fine, I can agree with that. I can't agree with comparing a genocidal regime with our government because they both imposed taxes to pay for social schemes.

[aelhues]

Clearly, that wasn't Sean's point...."A bit of a rhetorical stretch, but still...I'm shocked by the similar mentality at display here. "Mandatory voluntarism", my ass. "

[Libertymike]

I agree with you that Sean was not equalizing the 3rd reich, in general, with our empire and its historical propensity to commit mass murders.

I also am tiring of the de rigeur knee jerk condemnations of any person who "compares" Obama/Obama's worldview to Hitler/3rd reich.

[Sean]

Right, aelhus. My point isn't that "OMG! ObaMa is a genocidal commie-nazi maniac! RuN!" Rather, Duncan, the similar mentality--the government FORCING some people to "contribute" in order to "help" others, according to the same government officials' agenda--struck a nerve, and stinks to high heaven.

I'm perfectly capable, and willing, of helping on a voluntary basic, including pooling resources to overcome issues of efficiency. For crying out loud, I'm a preschool teacher and Unitarian-Universalist. Hands off my wallet and my body, government pigs.

[Duncan]

Aelhus,
I'd say the problem with bringing up the Third Reich is that they did some things similar to normal governments, but they were still the third reich. Because Sweden and the Nazis have a similar policy towards national health insurance, we should then say that their attitudes are similar?

[Episiarch]

I get it now. Duncan is Dan T.

[SugarFree]

Maybe you are Dan T., trying to distract us.

[Episiarch]

If you don't like it, NutraSweet, you can always move to another blog.

[SugarFree]

No, you move. You want some utopia that will never happen.

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

If every other commenter but me were Dan T, would I ever know?

[John Tagliaferro]

Ask the Server Squirrel.

[Stoner]

Whoa! Deep, man.

[aelhues]

No, only that in this...defining a fine/penalty/tax, as a contribution is dishonest, disturbing, and something that shows evidence of a similar attitude amongst some of the worst of our elected officials. Just because Hoyer said this, doesn't mean the government is evil. It's just a small warning sign stuck amongst all the others.

[T]

These are the same fucknuts that will argue a tax cut is a subsidy. You're surprised they'll brutalize the English language in other ways?

[Duncan]

Aelhus,
I agree. Voluntary contribution is just spin. I don't care that much about whatever spin they use. I more care about how you address that currently flawed structure of the healthcare system.

[Libertymike]

Duncan-

Yes, their attitudes towards confiscating the private property of their citizens in order to fulfill the totalitarian designs of state actors upon the pretext that "everybody is entitled to free health care" are the same.

[Duncan]

Libertymike,
That attitude is common to just about every country in Europe.

[aelhues]

and one which most here are violently opposed.

[MJ]

That such an attitude is common in Europe does not make it something a US citizen should meekly accept, if anything, it's an argument to resist such a mentality from taking hold here.

[Enough About Palin]

Man-up and die, people, man-up and die.

[Enough About Palin]

Really people. Have none of you ever heard phrase "Give me Liberty or give me death"?

It also applies to healthcare.

[Pope Jimbo]

Be more specific. Did you mean

"Give me healthcare or give me death"

or

"Give me liberty or give me healthcare"

[Enough About Palin]

I meant give me Liberty from the Pelosi/Reid/Obama healthcare scam or give me death.

If everyone were to boycott all aspects of the medical-industrial complex, there would be no need for healthcare reform.

The founders were willing to risk death in order to defeat tyranny.

Man-up and die, people, man-up and die.

[Isaac Bartram]

FICA taxes are attached to your social security number and fund your benefits.

No, part of my FICA taxes are paid out immediately to current beneficiaries and the remainder is given to the treasury to use for current general outlays.

Not one red cent is being put aside to fund my benefits. My benefits will be paid for with part of the FICA taxes of some future group of taxpayers. What I "paid in" will be irrelevant.

[J sub D]

Tangentially related to government run health care.

A furious Oakland County judge blasted the Michigan Department of Human Services this morning for failing to help a Southfield woman take care of her bedridden mother, a woman who eventually died of bedsores and neglect.

The daughter, Stephanie Cooper, eventually pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, and faced up to five years in prison when she appeared for sentencing before Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Nanci Grant this morning.

But Grant refused to send Cooper, 40, a clerical worker, to jail or prison, noting that DHS workers had investigated the family home at least five times, noting bedsores on Agnes Cooper, who was in her 70s. They found her in a filthy bed and malnourished.

Stephanie Cooper, a single mother with clinical depression and diabetes, repeatedly sought help from the state and local agencies, but was placed on "waiting lists."

Note that the deceased was "in her '70s" and presumably medicare eligible. Note also that Michigan Department of Human Services was on the case.

[kinnath]

After reading the full thread, I stand by my early pronouncement that Duncan is a sack of shit.

[John Tagliaferro]

+1 Insightful

[Libertymike]

kinnath-

If Duncan is a sack of shit, how would you characterize Joe? LW? Chad? Tony? Don't mind my questions-its just me being a pain in the ass.

[kinnath]

More of a Chad/Tony style of crap.

[kinnath]

"joe" being wildly aggressive while also being willfully blind to his own side's faults.

"lw" being a single-issue, paranoid-delusion-spewing nutcase.

[Joshua Holmes]

Duncan,

The only part of car insurance that is mandatory is liability insurance. That is, you are not required to cover yourself, only what you could do to others. Note also that some states do not have mandatory liability insurance at all, while still having lower uninsured rates than states that do require it. Mandatory health insurance requires that you cover yourself, which mandatory car insurance doesn't do. There's a difference between "protect others" and "protect yourself".

US healthcare has a huge number of problems. Requiring young people to purchase insurance or be fined will solve exactly none of them. We will still have the badly-broken system, subsidized a little more around the edges.

[prolefeed]

The notion that the reason these "contributions" are being pursued is "free riders" is really, really dishonest. They're being pursued so that the young and healthy can be used as milch cows. Period.

Ironically, it was a wave of these young voters on the verge of being screwed over who gave us the one-party rule that makes the screwing over possible.

[Enough About Palin]

Ironically thankfully, it was a wave of these young voters on the verge of being screwed over who gave us the one-party rule that makes the screwing over possible.

[J.]

Steny Hoyer was at the Maryland-Clemson football game in College Park, Md. last month. He was introduced at halftime for some reason or another and was practically booed out of the stadium. I was pleasantly surprised that happened at what I would've thought as a highly liberal-leaning venue.

And Go Terps.