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Hey chibi, about how the passing of the bill was unconstitutional: I'm not sure if "unconstitutional" is an accurate word to describe it, but it is certainly "incorrect."

Try watching this video a couple of times. Pause it after each statement so you can get ahold of what the guy is saying before playing the next part. ^^ I hope you are able to watch it on your difficult internet connection.

Also recomended to anybody else who is curious about how they went about passing this bill.

P.S. I love the part where he says, "I've watched Schoolhouse Rock"! mrgreen

I can't load it unfortunately. xp But, some guy actually mentioned Schoolhouse Rock in defending the healthcare reform bill? rofl

From what you posted, it looks like the fine will be 2.5% of the person's yearly income.

Well, since I'm not a politician or anything, I guess all I can do is sit back and hope for the best. I guess that wouldn't be too bad for really poor people. If they only make a $25k per year, then it would be a $1000 fine. I guess that's cheaper than most insurance plans. But, would the people who didn't pay still be covered in case of emergency?

Not only that, but the fee for not having health insurance is 2.5% of the adjusted GROSS income--that's BEFORE taxes--for the whole YEAR. For a LOT of families, even that one payment (levied however often the government checks to see if everybody's "properly" insured) is just too much to handle. For a lot of families--honest, hardworking families who would supposedly benefit from being forced to buy health insurance--it's enough of a challenge to pay for housing, utilities, and groceries.

Maybe you're right, but the problem is that the bad stuff kind of poisons the whole deal. I'll use an example that parents have been using to discuss purity issues since time immemorial: Suppose I were to bake you a nice pan of brownies that had your choice of extra ingredients--peanut-butter cups, pecans, and all of the wonderful goodies that make brownies a treat. But I've decided to pour quite a bit of X-Lax into the batter as well. Would you still want the brownies? Not all of the brownies necessarily have X-Lax, but there's enough of it, and the batter is mixed up well enough, that eating any of the brownies at all would give you a horrid case of the runs. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to risk eating any of the brownies, no matter how good they might taste. Similarly, I think that the major problems in the healthcare bill (namely its intrusions on matters that should be kept private and left up to individual citizens) negate any "good" that the implementation of the bill might do. Also, as I stated in that last sentence, I really don't see why the government thinks that it must "help" us by inserting itself into more and more areas of our personal lives, and I definitely don't see how more bureaucracy, red tape, and intrusions into our personal affairs are going to benefit the populace at all. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Add to that the fact that I'm not convinced that a lot of our national leaders--many of whom will say and do pretty much anything just to buy votes--really have the people's, or the nation's, best interests at heart. It really scares me.

I would call socialist ideas a bad intention.

Hey, that was an awesome metaphor. What are you talking about? You're a more than a sound debater!

Chibi, you bring up an excellent point. It's a bad idea for government to get involved in a field which is not its speciality - far from it.

One of the many issues of the bill is that it will employ (sounds good off the bat, right?) a bunch more people to run the system. The problem is, these people will be bureacrats and staticticians who have no knowledge of the practical application of medicine.

It's like sending a whole team of people to watch the carpenter fix the roof. What's the point? Yes, they have jobs, but they're useless jobs. It would be better for them to find a fulfilling way to contribute to society, without bankrupting fellow citizens. Because our taxes ultimatly go to pay them.

And, the more people who are dependent on governenmt for work, the more power the government has over us.

Instead, we should be listening to the DOCTORS, the people who work within the system on a very personal level; the people with whom we have contact. If you listen to the doctors, they're saying they have extreme misgivings about the health care bill, at best. Don't you think they'd know better than politicians about what will be the best way to treat patients?

Everyone won't pay a little. It's sad but it's true.

Another terrible thing:

Insurance companies no longer have the right to refuse you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.

That sounds nice, until someone, let's say his name is James, skips out on paying for insurance for twenty years. One day, James finds out he has diabetes and that he'll have to go in for major surgery. So he signs up for insurance right then. He gets is surgery, which is upwards of thousands of dollars, but he hasn't paid a cent of that surgery. You and I, who have been paying into insurance honestly, as we should, are essentially paying for James, who was just too lazy and/or cheap to pay into insurance.

If you can't grasp the ridiculousness of the concept, think of it in terms of auto insurance.

It's like waiting to buy auto insurance until the day you get into a car accident.

It's stupid! It's dishonest. And it'll be the downfall of the insurance companies, effectively rendering them bankrupt and forcing all citizens to fall back on governemnt insurance.

Once the government health care is the only health care there is, they can do whatever they like with it, and with us, because we will have no other choice. It is really, really frightening.

Have you ever read 1984 by George Orwell?

But, isn't is wrong to deny people healthcare coverage simply because of a pre-existing condition? Let's say that Billy has Chron's Disease, but he is able to get insurance through his job, so it's not that much of a problem. However, his job lays off a bunch of people, including Billy, so he has to find a new job. But, his new job doesn't provide health insurance, so he goes to different places trying to get health insurance to help cover his medical bills, but he's denied, and stuck, and ends up dying (because he can't afford medications and treatments) or becoming homeless (because he uses all his money on medicine). That just isn't right. I've even heard of pregnant women being turned down because their pregnancies were considered pre-existing conditions. That stipulation is just stupid!