Liz: Who paid for your trip ?

425,000 uninsured in our county ? Back that one up if you would. We already have free care at VMC for anyone that needs help. Wait til we pay for the "new" care. OUCH.
Pelosi, such a great role model ?? How about the Nebraska bribe, the Louisiana purchase, the "Executive order" for flopper Supidpek from Michigan.. It was Chicago thugery and bribes that got it passed, not ability, openness or fairness. Hello Mr. Marx, come on in.

George is right, Liz can be replaced next time too.

The Devil is definitely in the details, as Kniss points out.

As George points out, how many taxpayer dollars were spent to fly her across the country during the depths of a recession and with the public deficit out of control?

@George well said on all counts.

I'll quote Thatcher once again: "The problem with socialism is that at some point you run out of other peoples money"

I'm glad people are bringing up socialism, since it gives me occasion to link to a trifling column I wrote on the subject three months ago:

Web Link

In the subsequent Town Square conversation, the gist of the debate was boiled down well by "USA," who wrote,

"Of course there are a number of areas where the national, state, or local governments should or must be in control where individual control does not make sense. Mustering armed forces, building roads, staffing police and fire departments, and building city parks are some of those areas. ... The problem comes when the government goes beyond what is necessary. Our nation and our culture were founded on the principles of individual liberties where government is limited in spirit and by the constitution to those areas where it needs to be involved ... The health care 'solution' proposed by the big government proponents is just one more step in the wrong direction."

Which brings us to today. So instead of merely saying "socialism = bad," maybe we should figure out how to explain precisely why health care is, or isn't, "beyond what is necessary."

And why on earth was the student loan measure thrown in? That part of the legislation also makes no sense. It's clear that student loans have not been handled well by the government or private sector, so why shove an ill-thought through measure onto this monstrosity of a health care bill?

Don Frances, I love your article, at the link in your comment. The USA spends the most on health care but in many other countries people live longer. Instead of labeling other systems "socialist", see what works and what doesn't. And if you want to keep more of your own money and not have bean-counters come between you and your doctor, be happy about the controls on insurance company abuses in the health care reform legislation.

@Don Frances and @phm I think the issue really is less about health care reform (which I believe most folks conservative or liberal would agree is needed) and more about what some would call massive government intrusion.

I for one believe that we could have achieved significant health care reform that would be inline the spirit of American individualism and free market principles versus opting for a bill that creates over 150 new government agencies and hires 15,000+ additional revenue agents to enforce mandates (questionable financial assumptions aside)

At the end of the day our federal government has not shown itself able to run anything particularly effectively. Run down the list: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even The Post Office. Each and everyone of these are either deep in the red and/or rife with fraud. Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac - No comment needed. CIA? Failed to see the fall of the Soviet Union. SEC? Laughable in its failure to enforce regulations that are on the books. Homeland Security, Department of Defense, FAA... The list goes on and on.

Why is this? One significant reason is that government has no incentive to run efficiently. It has no competitors who can run it out of business. It does however have every incentive to grow and grow - and recently evidenced under the Bush and Obama administrations.

So with this dismal track record, we somehow think it a good idea to turn over 1/6th of our economy to them?

One last comment: It is really good to see that folks are for the most part having civil and thoughtful discussions on this forum - even on such a contentious issue

The current healthcare bill is not perfect for many reasons. The party of “NO, NO, NO, --” saw to that. Healthcare has become a political issue that touches several religious issues. The Christian Science people are exempted from this bill. I do not believe they or anyone should be.

Socialism is most efficient if the pool is as large as possible. Everyone should be required to be included in the pool. Christian Science and illegal people (especially the illegal Catholic’s with many kids – likely to have kid born in a hospital), will wind up needing medical care sooner or latter. What if their kids have a compound fracture while playing in school or they are in an automobile accident, they are taken to the hospital.

Then there is the Congressional religious right-winger like Stupak that is more concerned about an unwanted fetus than they are concerned about illegal immigrants and their children wandering among us in stores with incurable tuberculosis or some other disease that could be fatal to them or the rest of us – save the fetus not the kids. Do the right-wingers think that the insured are protected from fatal diseases, because they have insurance and contract from the uninsured?

Seems stupid to me to have medical insurance and then be uninsured (unprotected) because we have the uninsured (the disease carriers)!

Yes, big government never does any thing write. They screwed-up by going to moon and thereby by producing a lot of technology.

@ben the dems have overwhelming majorities in both houses. Claiming republicans somehow blocked or impacted the bill is disingenuous.

As far as them being the party of no, I would say that Washington needs to hear a lot more no.

As far as NASA goes, just google "NASA cost overruns"

@ Steve,

I should have said the parties (meaning groups of). Yes, there were stupid pro-life Democrats. I am glad you did not support their strange thinking - saying NO to a women's health choices.

Just because the “Dems have overwhelming majorities in both houses,” you must not understand how the Senate voting works and been have been paying attention to how voted as a block. Most of the NO NOs came from the Republicans and their childish attempts to block everything. When any group votes as a block, you know there is something wrong. When have you ever seen any group agree to the point that they vote 100 percent NO? What gun was held to their heads?

There should be more NOs in Washington. No to the anti-abortion Christian Right that does not understand the old virgin birth story (ABC nightline debate last night) is a myth and they still cannot understand that a scrambled egg is not a scrambled chicken.

@ben the abortion issue was a house issue vis a vis the Stupak amendment. As far as bribery and coercion is concerned, the Nebraska, Florida, & to a lesser degree Louisiana kickbacks in the senate bill have been well documented.

What I'm saying is that even with a 60 vote super majority Reid had to cajole coerce and bribe members of his party to vote for this bill. You have to wonder about the quality of the legislation

What makes you wonder even more is that the senate leadership and their staff as well as the president and vice president are exempted from this bill. Surely if it is good enough for us, it is good enough for them?

Even better is that the original bill had a (republican - not all of them are evil) amendment mandating congress be included in the bill. This amendment was struck by Reid and his staff behind closed doors

To his credit the president has said that he will participate in the pool, but he is not required to do so

interesting article on the failure of republicans in the health care fight - by a republican strategist.

Web Link

The comments after the article certainly go off the deep end of course