[AlexdeLarge]

And a Pony too..........

Does not matter if you want it or not. Obama would have signed whatever they gave him even last August. The congress critters have not even read it. It was drafted by God knows who, SEIU, ACORN, Bill Ayers. It has a 1.5 Trillion dollar price tag (low end cooked estimate). And it will not fix a thing, but it will destroy jobs and the best health care on the planet.

Senators bought and paid for:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/19/AR2009121900797_pf.html

GOP can't stop it:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1209/McCain_GOP_cant_stop_health_care.html

The Dems own it:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091219/D9CMCOC80.html

Merry Christmas suckers. Elections have consequences, and we deserve the government we get......................

[Cloud9]

Looks like the bill will play out differently for different people. As it turns out people in Nelson's counties will get a better deal than the rest of the nation.

http://www.breitbart.tv/healthcare-shoc ... -benefits/

[HeckuvaJob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', '[')i]It was drafted by God knows who, SEIU, ACORN, Bill Ayers.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('HeckuvaJob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', '[')i]It was drafted by God knows who, SEIU, ACORN, Bill Ayers.

[AlexdeLarge]

The point being......it sure as hell was not written by your duly elected bozos in the Senate! Plus SEIU was in on it, along with the trial lawyers, big pharma, a few big insurance companies (Now you have to buy from them a one size fits all plan or pay a fine or else???)

A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
Change Nobody Believes In
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598130440164954.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')r. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.

Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.

[mos6507]

Alex, don't you want universal healthcare? Someone's got to pay for your, treatments.

[AlexdeLarge]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'A')lex, don't you want universal healthcare? Someone's got to pay for your, treatments.

[efarmer]

Get the brackets off him Mos and feed him some of the steak and eggs.
He's been watching Congress and probably has already seen enough of
the old "in and out" already.

[AlexdeLarge]

Of course I was just going in to be fitted for new reading glasses. What lovely people there are in the British health care bureaucracy. So efficient. You should see how well they do with English dental work. Simply marvelous.....as long as you don't mind yanking your own molars!

As for the ole In and Out, I suggest you should enjoy it while you still can. I understand that Pelosi is considering a tax on the number of times you can perform this little ritual. Of course Mos will not be effected by that amendment since viagra will now be only available to party bosses. Perhaps he can get job enforcing this decree? He can be the new copulation czar !

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('HeckuvaJob', '[')i]Hopefully the insurance companies can save the greatest healthcare system on the planet!

[efarmer]

Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator of Vermont, was being grilled on MSNBC Morning Joe today. While being grilled and asked to defend the murky workings of Congress, he simply replied that the Congress was owned by corporate and special interests.

rangerone314 has the kidding on the square comment that politicians ought to be like Nascar drivers and wear their sponsor patches on their jackets. This is nothing less than a brilliant concept. They of course would never do this.

Video journalism has the simple ability to run a crawler each and every time the President, Congressman, Governor, Mayor, or any other elected official is on the screen that shows their accurate top 10 sources of political funding.Regardless of what was being said, people would be reminded each and every time they see them, who was tugging for their loyalty in addition to their constituency.

If journalism really is a 4th estate and not another version of what our government has become, I pray they find the stones to prove it.
Our government has been sold and retasked to consume their people.

[Sixstrings]

Yup, Merry Christmas, it's a done deal.

From what I understand, all the taxes start up straight away (naturally lol) but nobody will actually get any insurance until 2014 (bitter news if you have a health problem right now, in 2009).

I wonder.. is this nothing but a tax grab? I mean, we all know things could change so much by 2014 that they'll have to delay the plan or abandon it.. so this just gives the government an excuse to hike taxes for the next 4 years without actually delivering anything.

At least under Bush, the uninsured got free care in the emergency room. Not anymore, sucka.. come 2014, the uninsured will have to cough up 8% of their income to Aetna (or pay a 2% fine to Uncle Sugar).

EDIT: Oh one more thing about that 2014 date.. HOW CONVENIENT! That's after the 2010 congressional elections, and the 2012 presidential election. So it wouldn't even begin to be implemented until halfway through Obama's second term. This gives him cover during re-election, he'll get to claim health care victory when in fact the only part of the plan that will have gone into effect are the taxes!

[efarmer]

Many years of hospital IT experience.

The "free" ER visits are in fact tallied at the going astronomical ER
rates and allowed to be added to the bills of the paying customers
and their insurance companies. Part of this phenomena is the
very common practice of insured people ending up with a separate
bill or scheduled payment for "what is not covered".

What I believe we are really seeing is the health care industry
fighting the congress for which entity gets to suck the majority
of an individuals estate up during their decline and death.
The estate tax is expiring because the insurance industry prevailed.

The Republicans belong to the corporations, feel they run the world
and that the free market is smarter than they and the people who elect
them are.

The Democrats belong to the corporations, feel they could run the world
if they could agree on how to do it, and that the government should
regulate the corporations but find it hard to do because they work
for them and can't get permission.

The corporations are the honest brokers, they work for themselves and
elect people to lead them who look out for their best interest and sack them if they fail.

[mos6507]

You missed one group.

The citizens, otherwise known as "consumers" who have bought into this state of affairs as long as they get bread and circuses. They bitch and moan, but at the end of the day, do not have the guts to get off the treadmill. They perpetuate BAU by default. They dream about utopia but lack the vision to formulate a plan anymore detailed than fantasizing about revenge and scapegoating.

[efarmer]

My opinion is that most people are born into a system and attempt
to fit in and survive or prosper until the system completely fails them
and they are absolutely forced to seek alternatives and dither out
into the unknown to see what that might entail.

As long as the system is still blowing bubbles, most folks hold out
hope of a return to BAU, and I can't get or stay mad at them for that.

[AlexdeLarge]

This nonsense has nothing to do with Health Care.

There is no health care crisis. There are "lots" of problems with the current system, but it is not a crisis. Calling it a crisis is just another Owellian scheme to sucker the gullible into going along with this BS bill.

The problems with the current system can be handled incremently. The first steps are easy.

Allow Insurance companies to compete across state lines.
Tort Reform. (Ask yourself why this not being addressed.)
Portability between carriers when you change jobs.
Denial of coverage for preexisting conditions outlawed.

This could all be handled in a ten page bill. Pass it and see how it impacts pricing, service and quality of care. Then if more changes are needed, you can look at it again.

All this House and Senate bill does is raise taxes, take over even more of the private sector....and save face for Obama. It is going to be a huge failure in improving health care but it will be a success in screwing up whats left of the economy.

The crisis is the exponentially growing debt........but that is being ignored and this chicken will be coming home to roost very soon.

[AlexdeLarge]

[Cloud9]

Alex, it never was about health care. It was and always has been about forcing all of us to enroll into the national insurance program. A lot of people are going to get rich. A lot of other people are going to go broke. If you want to find out who the winners are, look at the donor list for the Democratic Party.

[AlexdeLarge]

The True Intent of Health "Reform"
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1792-The-True-Intent-of-Health-Reform.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '1').Congress will pass and Obama will sign something containing this "individual mandate."

2.This will generate immediate lawsuits which will begin their way through the system, headed for the United States Supreme Court. That process will take several years. Note that the so-called "benefits" of this reform will also take several years to show up. This is not an accident.

3.Meanwhile, the taxes begin immediately. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s by the way - taxes were raised right into the maw of an economic recession, and helped turn it into a Depression. Such it will be this time as well.

4.Young, healthy people will pay the "fines" under protest and refuse to buy coverage (it's cheaper than complying with a $15,000/year mandate to pay the $750/year fine!) and join said lawsuits in Step #2. This will in turn begin to force private companies out of the system (remember, there are also price controls in there!) as adverse selection will not be eliminated as promised.

5.At some point the courts will strike the individual mandate. Free to not pay the fine or buy insurance and prevented from raising rates adverse selection will collapse the remaining private health insurers.

At this point you have:

1.Permanently higher taxes (since it is constitutional to tax!)

2.NO private health insurers left in the market.

3.The "standards and practices" remaining and impossible to remove (note the super-majority requirements in the bill - intentionally put there to prevent the removal of those standards and practices!)

What comes next? Unable to impose mandatory individual payments to private companies The Government will then have "no choice" but to put in place a Canadian-style system.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', ' ')national insurance program.