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The actual "health care" part is small compared to the rest of it. So many pieces of other regulations were thrown in with it, a sort of wish list for collectivist.
That is exactly what I have heard from my libertarian and conservative sources. I hope you all don't mind me throwing in my two cents without having read the bill, but any legislation that forces me to buy a product and that the majority of the American people were literally yelling that they didn't want in town hall meetings across the country, is bad news to me. It cannot possibly be a constitutional piece of legislation. The fact that they worked so hard to ram a bill through, despite public outrage, to me means they have a lot to gain and we have a lot to lose.....sends chills down my spine.
Shame on me though, I haven't read it and I know I need to but I think I am just too terrified of what I am going to find.
Last edited by Sights_Set; 01-20-2011 at 07:27 PM..
Reason: wording
So it appears, even by the House...3 Dems have joined to repeal....I wonder why?
Republicans predicted that Democrats would be defecting from the party and voting for repeal in droves. That didn't happen. The three Democrats who voted for repeal were against the bill last year too. Republicans won no new Democrats to their side.
There's no momentum to the repeal effort. It's dead on arrival.
Republicans predicted that Democrats would be defecting from the party and voting for repeal in droves. That didn't happen. The three Democrats who voted for repeal were against the bill last year too. Republicans won no new Democrats to their side.
There's no momentum to the repeal effort. It's dead on arrival.
No, but it'll remind people 30 years from now who was responsible.
No, but it'll remind people 30 years from now who was responsible.
Thirty years from now nobody will notice, nor care, how it became law. Do you still hold politicians and parties liable for specific bills they passed 30 years ago? Of course not, and neither will they.
Here's the thing about this law: It had great intentions and those intentions were supported by a majority our citizens.
But, the President and his staff took very little part in actually crafting the bill. Instead, they stayed pretty much on the sidelines and let Congress write it themselves. Instead of sending his own proposal to the Hill, he simply gave some broad outlines, served as the public face of the debate and let the Congressional leadership do the rest.
In theory, that's great to let The People's representatives do their job. But, in practice, it resulted in a law crafted by committee, where everyone got to throw in his own piece of the pie and horse trading went on from sunup till sundown. Predictably, it's loaded with special provisions for important constituents, paybacks for support and pork. Who would have guessed that's what Congress would produce when left to their own devices? It turned out to be more of an insurance reform bill than it did health care reform.
The bottom line is that it's a law which got a lot of the basics right, but contains a lot of stuff which we could do without. The People wanted health care reform, but it's not at all certain that they wanted THIS health care reform. There is much room for improvement.
But, that improvement isn't coming any time soon. Once again, the Democrats and the White House are letting the GOP set the terms of the debate and those terms are predictably built around an either/or, black and white choice: keept it all or throw it all out. That too should have been expected, since the GOP has had much success in the past couple of decades by framing every issue along divisive lines and because the Democrats have shown a remarkable lack of balls. Partly, that's because their party is not nearly so homogenous as the GOP and they have a much broader intra-party constituency to satisfy.
In any case, the needed reforms to the reform bill won't actually be accomplished until some time in the future, certainly not until the 2012 election is past. Ever since 2008, that's been the GOP's only goal and it still is. Until that is settled, the GOP will have no interest in making the current law better and the Democrats will have no interest in admitting their bill needs some changes.
It will be changed, but just not right now. And, it won't be overturned either.
How does one even get ahold of a multi-thousand page government new-law document? How much for the printing charges, if they are making the law available at all to citizens? I haven't seen it on the internet and we must be aware that (1) the poster can make changes; and (2) what was written in the bill will be a "work in progress" when trying to create the 157 new government health care oversight agencies and the bureaucracy that has been called "infinite."
Government seeks micro-control of absolutely everything (here and worldwide) while maximizing costs, minimizing productivity and over-rewarding gov't employees. The liberals say this health care insurance mandate will be the first successful gov't program (don't start with Social Security, my costs will exceed my benefits by tens of thousands if I live to be 100)--just like I suppose Obama is the first honest politician.
Luckily there are always new, young, naive Americans growing up to believe the gov't promises. No wonder they subsidize child-bearing so heavily when it destroys the value of labor!
How does one even get ahold of a multi-thousand page government new-law document? How much for the printing charges, if they are making the law available at all to citizens? I haven't seen it on the internet and we must be aware that (1) the poster can make changes; and (2) what was written in the bill will be a "work in progress" when trying to create the 157 new government health care oversight agencies and the bureaucracy that has been called "infinite."
Government seeks micro-control of absolutely everything (here and worldwide) while maximizing costs, minimizing productivity and over-rewarding gov't employees. The liberals say this health care insurance mandate will be the first successful gov't program (don't start with Social Security, my costs will exceed my benefits by tens of thousands if I live to be 100)--just like I suppose Obama is the first honest politician.
Luckily there are always new, young, naive Americans growing up to believe the gov't promises. No wonder they subsidize child-bearing so heavily when it destroys the value of labor!
Don't worry. They're not going to mail a copy to all 300 million of us.
And, no, readers can't change the text on the Thomas website, nor could they when it was on the Congressional website for several months. Nobody can excuse themselves from not reading it because they didn't have the chance. It was there for a long enough period of time for anyone who wanted to read it.
As for those Congresscritters? No, I doubt very many of them actually read it any more than they typically read ANY bill, even the short ones. Most people don't appreciate how full the day is for Members of Congress and how little time they have for reading and reflection. That's why they have a staff who DOES read it and summarizes it for the Member. The point is that unless a Member has a totally incompetent staff, or just doesn't give a damn, he/she will know what they're voting on no matter how long the bill. That was true for the health care reform act, just as it was for the equally long Patriot Act.
As for government seeking to micro-manage something? "Government" is a political and administrative system, not a person or a thinking entity with an agenda all it's own. It is not a sentitent being; it's just a structure for decision making and administration on paper.
But, that structure is operated by people just like you and I. Some are honest and hard working, some are not. Some have ambitions, some do not, just like in any other work place. It is not some evil conspiracy out to rob you of anything. There certainly are individuals within that system who sometimes overstep the bounds of their responsibilities, but it's unfair, dishonest and downright wrong to indict the whole system for the actions of a few.
And, since we are a respresentative democracy wherein The People's voice is heard, "government" doesn't do anything we don't want it to do, not for long. The political system is it's own corrective for misbehavior or expansion of unwarranted power. Individuals within the system my act outside their brief, but they will ultimately be jerked back by the collective votes of The People.
The point is that when you presume to separate The People from their government, you undercut our democracy and make finding consensus that much more difficult. It's hard to find agreement with someone who rejects the very notion of self-government simply because they don't like the outcome. Tirades against OUR government, suggesting it somehow is doing things of it's own volition, that it exists in some world we don't inhabit, is the beginning of the road which leads to dismantling our democracy and replacing it with something more to your liking. Believing our government isn't ours any more leaves you vulnerable demogogues who would lead you down the garden path to tyranny.
Guess this thread proves the OP's point... nothing but knee jerk responses in step with what the media told them. Those that watch Fox are against it the others are for it. and no one has read it... probably including the media.
It is 1990 pages long. If you read 100 pages / day you will be done around Valentines Day.
unfortunately reading does not equate with comprehension.
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It turned out to be more of an insurance reform bill than it did health care reform.
