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"those who don't have insurance because they don't want it" will pay a fee for the privilege of not having to buy health care; not sure what you're talking about.
What do you think is the purpose of the Health Insurance Exchange?
Give the health insurance companies some credit for ingenuity
Have you seen the commercial by some pro-health insurance reform group, that shows a mansion on a hill, and the voiceover says, "This is [Wilford Brimley]'s house. Wilford is the CEO of [Big Health Insurance Company]. He makes fifty-seven thousand dollars."
(Beat. Beat. Beat.)
"A week."
That's what you're defending, roysold.
"those who don't have insurance because they don't want it" will pay a fee for the privilege of not having to buy health care
You surely understand that all those people, about 10 million or them, who opt for lifestyle instead of healthcare because they are young enough that they don't think they will be sick do so because they are free to do so. These bills that the Dems are proposing all call for penalizing those who use that freedom and I just can't hold with something like that. Fining them because they don't have health insurance is a little more than I can stand.
This Exchange is nothing more than smoke blown at us to make us believe that public option is something that can be chosen if one likes it. How long before the insurance companies are all gone because they can't compete with the government that can tax to make up for any mistakes. Smoke really bothers me when it starts floating toward me.
I really don't think many insurance companies will be able to stand up to the government. This is not in any democratic at all. When a bill says that if you don't have insurance you have to take public option I see what is meant. Public option is just the road to socialized medicine once everybody has government insurance.
He doesn't need the money, but loves the attention and instant fame over most idiot Americans voting for him. He is bad as Carter or worst. Al Gore the Crook got an NB, so why not Obama.
He doesn't need the money, but loves the attention and instant fame over most idiot Americans voting for him. He is bad as Carter or worst. Al Gore the Crook got an NB, so why not Obama.
Huh?
Anyway, back to the OP...
Trying to find numbers of actual lobbyist in Washington isn't as easy as it might seem at first. I did come across this piece to which I haven't verified the numbers yet but suspect they are in the ball park at least. http://www.managedcaremag.com/archiv....lobbying.html
Quote:
Such is a day in the life of one of 17,800 registered Washington lobbyists upon whom interest groups spent $1.56 billion last year to sway Congress and the executive branch — numbers that are grossly understated due to the narrow definition of "registered lobbyist," says Jeffrey Birnbaum, author of The Lobbyists: How Influence Peddlers Get Their Way in Washington.
As to how this effects the health care debate, the following bit kind of blew me away.
An estimated 40 percent of those 17,800 lobbyists promote health care agendas, according to James Albertine, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based American League of Lobbyists. To put it another way, there are 13 health care lobbyists for each of the 535 members of Congress. Among their most passionate causes this year are Medicare reimbursements and tort reform.
When facing such well funded and formidable numbers, it is amazing that members of Congress just don't wear a price tag.
It is the excessive power of Congress that needs to be eliminated. The lobbyists are just a natural result of this power. If the power of Congress to write discriminatory law is eliminated the manipulators will disappear. Why is this hard to understand?
Complaining about ants gathering at food scraps without picking up the food is completely ignorant and unproductive.
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"those who don't have insurance because they don't want it" will pay a fee for the privilege of not having to buy health care; not sure what you're talking about.
