H.R.3962

Whatever one's view on socialized medicine, it's a dreadful implementation. It's not possible for a person who read and understood this bill's measures and ramifications to have voted for it in good conscience. It's one thing to argue we need a rocket to the moon, and another to build it from baling wire and toothpicks. Indefensible, really.

One Republican vote, Anh Cao, R-LA.

-- James Arthur

This was in fact the date of Lenin's coup d'=E9tat. Lenin was a Bolshevik, a memeber of a group that believed in the "leading role of the party" rather than democratic socialism where every voter had equal influence.

The Communist Party always liked to claim that they were socialists, but in fact they saw real socialists as their most dangerous enemy and underminded them at every opportunity.

Around 1870 Bakunin had already criticized "authoritarian socialism" (which he associated with Marxism) and the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat which he adamantly refused.

=93 If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself. =94

which turns out to have been a remarkably prophetic comment.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

t

So you need to reform your electoral system to make your elected represenetative less susceptible to influence from the well-heeled, such as the insurance companies who are making a great deal of money out of providing a less than comprehensive health care sytem that offers health care no better than that provided by the fully comprehensive French and German systems for around 2/3rds of the price per head.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

It's a travesty on several fronts: a) the process: a massive bill, concocted in secrecy, and passed without review or debate. b) the cost: defies imagination, at a time we can ill-afford it. c) care: is not improved, just diluted--taken from Medicare and spread more thinly over more recipients. d) the merits: the mechanics, the implementation, the intrusiveness tentacles protruding into so many aspects of society; the complexity, and so forth. e) the mandates--compellng citizens to buy a product they may not want, by force of law, enacted by representatives who could not possibly have read it (1,990 page version released late Oct. 29th, with hundreds of pages of amendments since, many appended on voting day).

I chanced upon this surprising piece of sanity w.r.t. the process at the PuffHo site:

========

[...] Personally, I supported President Obama in the primaries and the election but do not support him on this corporate giveaway built on broken campaign promises. I voted for the Barack Obama who opposed the individual mandate , who said the negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN and who campaigned against backroom deals with PhARMA v=NCRO0g9CfAw).

Conservatives have expressed outrage for months about the way the health care bill was handled. Their anti-government anger is misplaced because the lets the insurances and drug companies who really helped drive this bill off the hook. But I understand their sense that this bill was passed despite the people.

Progressives should be every bit as upset that President Obama lied to us to get his historic health bill. The citizens of this country did not have a seat at the table. Proponents of the Single Payer didn't have a seat at the table. Under the guise of health care reform, we watched as the insurance industry got a bill passed that entrenches and enriches them.

Don't let anyone fool you that this bill is a good start. It's got a poison pill "Public Option" that is designed to fail. ===========

-- Cheers, James Arthur

DOA

t

What do they care? They have arguably the very best health care possible on Earth, paid for my thee and me.

Mark L. Fergerson

Some copywrite BS from AP. Try Foxnews.

Cheers

I can't speak for them all, but I daresay many in favor were moved by a sincere concern & sense of urgency over what they perceived to be a genuine problem. A problem they have no personal knowledge or experience of, yet have been deluged in a giant litany of testimonials to.

So, being human, they respond.

But, I know for a fact that many were grossly misinformed. Like the President and the amputations.

The blue dog I pressed had clearly not read this bill--he insisted H.R.

3962 permitted states to pass their own malpractice reforms. I told him "yes, they can, but they'll lose their federal funds." He said I was wrong. So I left him a highlighted copy of Sec. 2531 (pages 1431-1432). I was not wrong--see subparagraph (4)(B) on page 1432. It's not complicated, it's plainly there for all to see. Buried deep in the bill, under a deceptive subtitle.

In fact I spoke to about twenty people--including legislative analysts whose _job_ it is to inform the members on these matters--and _none_ of them knew of this issue, that the bill effectively proscribes malpractice reform. And that's a big deal--a potential savings of not less than 1/3rd of total spending, AFAICT, sacrificed as a special favor to a donor, the Trial Lawyers Assn.

The truth is it all happened so quickly none of them had a chance to read it. There wasn't time.

The Blue Dogs have a position paper on their notion of health care reform posted on their website. It's _infinitely_ better than Pelsoi- care. But it got no consideration. Such a shame.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Wouldn't it just have been easier to provide govt healthcare insurance for the lowest earners based on federal taxation?

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show

We already do that.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Socialist

I would amend section 330 and make it mandatory for not only congress but all their full time staff to enroll in the basic level and pay for anything else themselves. If you want to know what that currently says do some reading.

Socialist

it

Yep, they learned from the flaps over HR3200 to bury that kind of stuff much later in the text. The first 100 pages or more of HR3962 are mind numbing minutia of harmonizing it with existing statute.

Socialist=20

That is just part of what is being proposed. Have you even been paying attention?

Have you? We already do that--Medicaid. Medicare, if you're older.

What's being proposed is to expand M&M--the thing that Barack Obama said is breaking our budget--4x, to cover everyone, basically. You know, quadruple it, thus saving money. Funding? Takes from Medicare, plus a few taxes, plus a big chunk 'o deficit.

You can keep your existing plan, as long as the government approves it first and you never change any of its terms or conditions. Ever. (They call that feature "SEC. 202.(a)(2) PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE," pg. 91 line 23-24.)

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Socialist

insurance

I am paying enough attention to have a copy readily available. And what you say is really there. Some of the other things i have read scare me nearly as bad. Is what i said is there not actually there?

I say the that there are many more poison pills hidden elsewhere in the text of this massive bill.