Health Care Reform Passes

I can't believe people's reaction to this bill still.

If as an individual you make more than $44k/year and can't afford health insurance then stop spending all your money on crack.

If you make under that amount then get your medicaid!

The real kicker is if the population took better care of themselves the american economy would crash because a good part of our economy depends on treating people that are sick. So by all means, keep smoking, eating cheese burgers, drinking beer and don't take good care of yourself. You do your country proud you wonderful ignorant *** lol

Problem, /usa/?

It's because you use words and thoughts that are to big and/or complicated for most American's to grasp.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36020850/ns=politics-capitol_hill -- story

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=36031649&#36031649 --- video
holy ***

edit:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36016267/ns/politics-health_care_reform
/reading it now
at first glance, i can see this is just hte beginning, but what i wanna know is if this fix-it bill doesn't pass, what the hell happens?

I'll opt out, what are they gonna do? Put me in Jail...lol

=O
/sends your post to the government

Wanted to say thanks for the last few pages of discussion and information! I'd been meaning to catch up on this thread the last few days in the hopes that all the knee-jerk reactions had passed and this [seems to have] ended much better than it started.

Oh and thanks to Jaerik for linking Slate.com, I'm really liking this site so far.

don't know if this has been talked about .. but has any sort of tort reform in there ?

David Frum, President Bush's former speechwriter and conservative columnist, wrote an interesting article a couple days ago that I think is worth reading. Especially given that today, the Republican think-tank he works for fired him over it.

Without expressing my own opinion as to whether the bill was a good thing or a bad thing, (I honestly don't know what to think yet), he raises some good points.

This bill is nowhere near as "socialist" as the one that Democrats won an election by promising. They wanted Canadian/European-style single payer, and were beaten back. They tried to settle for a public option, and were beaten back. Now the bill has only a private mandate instead, which was a Republican idea to begin with. Shouldn't Republicans be claiming victory?

The bill started by costing trillions with no way to pay for it. It got hammered back to billions. Then it got hammered back to actually cutting the deficit, even if the CBO numbers were slightly sketchy. And it did it primarily by cutting waste from Medicare -- something Republicans have been promising to do for decades. Shouldn't that be considered a Republican win?

I could go on. There are over 200 Republican amendments in this bill, from giving the states the right to opt-out of the private mandate (it's in there, by the way -- apparently these states that are suing over it didn't read the bill) to forcing Congress to use the same insurance exchanges the bill sets up for everyone else. (Another Republican talking point the Democrats were forced to include.)

If they had been smart, they could hold these 200+ wins up as major victories. "We're in the overwhelming minority, but look how effective we are! This could have been so much worse! You should vote for us!"

But no. Instead, they decided to go with the strategy of just saying Obama was Satan coming to murder your grandma. That it was a socialist plot to usurp Democracy and incite World War III. Of threatening armed insurrection. And guess what? Once you've declared someone to be Hitler, you can't negotiate with them. (Even if you apparently did. Successfully.)

Republicans decided to go with the strategy of All or Nothing, and now they're stuck with Nothing, unable to even take credit for their own (numerous) victories. And if I were them, heads would be rolling at Fox and the RNC over what some of them are starting to realize was an enormous strategic blunder.

I'm genuinely surprised to hear there's an option to opt-out of the private mandate, but does that exclude the states from any particular benefits? I'd have to think if they aren't going to contribute to payment on a state-wide scale that they'd be losing out somewhere big, but I see your point about people being up in arms over whether it is or isn't constitutional which I'd guess is just putting up a front to say "we don't like this" as so far I've only read about how unlikely it is the lawsuits are to accomplish anything while costing individual states a hefty amount from their budgets.

In addition to the point of Republicans announcing small victories within the bill, I can just as easily see Democrats and the President claiming bipartisan success, but I guess giving any ounce of credit to the opposing side isn't the way of things.

I remember Obama making the same point in recent memory, I think maybe when he had the Q&A with republican congress, and at the time I actually expected something to come of it. I hate how deceptively cordial those events seem to be.

Also, here's a response piece that criticizes David Frum's Waterloo as well as a supportive piece defending Frum's position.

Thank you Jaerik. You have a way with words that I find envious.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen a single payer bill especially considering how much ground liberals have given up in the hopes of being bi-partisan. In the end how many Republican votes did they get? Not one Republican in the House or the Senate voted for the bill. Even after numerous pledges to if this or that was changed.

The American people deserved a candid discussion of ideas to improve the state of our health care system. What we got was pure propaganda in an attempt to score petty political points. There are great ideas from the libertarian and conservative wings of our nation. However, the RNC has routinely chosen to ride the waves of bigotry, paranoia, and jingoism while ignoring the people inside their tent that make sense and have sound arguments. It's not that I hate the RNC, I just hate how they have chosen to operate.

You do not know what it means to be american, this is why I can not stand people from the south. I read the whole thread and am posting now.

Please for the love of god... unlike your brain dead parents do not have any children. I do not want to see any more low IQed (below 50) redneck, douchbags in my country.

genetics are passed on, Intelligence probably is the same >:

I am glad it passed. I have seen to many people file bankruptcy because of health care bills. And I am tired of seeing old folks at the grocery store buy dog food so they can save money to use for prescriptions they need.

lol wow

he lives in the south, he is a retard redneck wanna be supremacy. His parents should tell him not to freaking produce, and if he has his children should stop.

Just because we're AMURICAN doesn't mean we're all the same 'retard redneck wanna be supremacists,' even if we live in the south.
Despite what you may hear outside of said South, or even outside of the States, retard rednecks and supremacists really are the minority.
The same with Catholicism's pedophilia scandals, the States' 'Tea Party,' and giggly blondes who have more shoes than IQ points.
Strawmen, biases based on stereotypes, and silly circular reasonings don't belong here. D:
To be completely honest, if you don't love your country(Regardless of whether or not you believe in the path they are taking), then perhaps you don't belong there. It's a culture-wide upbringing that breeds these ideals, not the fever-dream ramblings from some kid who happened to come from a stereotypical country-bumpkin bumping his cousin, and anything less hereabouts is seen as deviant, almost heretical.
Anything less brings upon itself the wrath of the far right and far left, and we all know what happens when we upset either side!

I do not hate my country frobeus does. he is in the group I said, you can tell.

Pretty sure he was directing his comment to the minority.

i know he was D:

I meant your comment lol, you beat me though

it is late bare with me, trying to fall a sleep.

Take NJ for example.

I was watching NJN today (local NJ channel) for lottery numbers, lol!

The democratic assembly and the republican chairman were arguing about property taxes. In the middle of the argument. it came on that the state of NJ got an extra 1 Billion $s for medicaid. That's medicaid, not medicare. If you don't know the difference look it up.

The republicans governor's proposal would increase property taxes for the middle class. Not only that but would also stop benefits for all of teachers in NJ. Which has led to the fact that over 29,000 teachers in NJ that are eligible for retirement, would retire by August 1rst. That is the dead line to receive benefits from retirement.

Ok so basically the republican governor has proposed a budget that would essentially make sense for 29,000+ teacher to retire and increase property taxes for the middle income homes. NJ has the highest property taxes in the USA.

Now is the previous year, when we had a democratic governor, the state got 1.57 Billion $s for school aid. At the time funds were redirected to medicaid and medicare from this 1.57 Billion after the school budgets were taken care of.

Now this year, the federal government has not only given $0 dollar to public school, but now has proposed a 15% increase to school districts that have gotten, I think the figure is $68,000.

Now because there are 60 (high income) school districts out of a couple hundred, that did not receive aid the previous year, they essentially got a free ride. That is to say, yes, this year, 2010, 60 somewhat districts did not get any aid. Neither did all the other districts. Now because 2010 there is $0 in aid for the districts, in order to "balance" the budget, the republican government has decided to charge 15% more interest on the those districts that received aid last year.

Yet, the 1 Billion $s in federal aid for medicaid has been used for some medicaid, and a bunch, republicans have yet to disclose this #, hmmm, towards paying for their administration pay.

SO my point is from what I heard during this tv debate, last year the democratic party got 1.57B $s for schools, gave out funds to the schools as needed, then the rest they put towards medicaid and medicare. Now this year the republican party has decided not only tax the middle and low income schools 15% more, but take their 1 billion $ federal aid and give to all schools equally, after they have hired more and increased their administrations pay rate then give it to medicaid only. Therefore leaving medicare, and the school ***.

Research this BS, and let me know what I got wrong, but this is basically what they were arguing about for over an hour. Add by BS, I mean democrats took 1.57B $S in aid and took care of it responsibly, where as republicans have take 1B $s in aid and paid themselves more and want to increase taxes more.

Not only that, but 29,000+ teachers forced to retire?! WTF! Has NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING to do with the health care bill. The republicans will no doubt say it does. But it DOES NOT! This is mainly republican policy and their shitty ideas for the budget!