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Zack Space - sounds like a character from Battlestar Galactica.

Hopefully he hasnt been replaced by a Cylon.

That symbol should realy show a vulture rather than a eagle

So, allowing people to file bankruptcy due to high medical insurance costs is ok to you? Allowing people to go without care is ok to you? The healthcare that is being sought can be passed without any Republicans or Blue Dogs. Realistically all is needed is 50 votes. If you like your plan and premiums..."keep it", but there are fellow Americans in need. Be the Goddamn patriots you claim to be and stick up for all citizens!

Anonymous.
The real problem at the root of this is that the Govt wants to go into the health market in competition with private industry. They can no more compete with private industry than a Rottweiler can compete with a rabbit. And they will just keep raising taxes to pay for an inefficient health service.
In other words accepting the justice of the idea that a healthy nation is a right, the problem is that this scheme would never work efficiently.
How would you feel about a tax break for people who fund their own health plan?

Hey, Anonymous, you claim to care about these people (or at least criticize everyone else about it), but what are you doing to help your fellow Americans?

Anon, there is a reason that 49% don't want government health care. And that number is artificially low now because people are in the "wishful thinking stage" according to some pollsters. The fact of the matter is, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Want rich people to pay for you? The rich people will move out. They can do it and you know it. I know I would, just go live on a beach in the Bahamas. Come on. Read Atlas Shrugged for God's sake.

Do you work, Anon? Why do you get out of bed each day?

The bill says that NO ONE can be denied coverage "for a pre-existing condition". That means that you can hold off on getting this mess untill you NEED IT. Then you can drop it after the treatment is done.

Also, your employer will either HAVE TO provide a helth care plan for EVERY employee, or pay the government an anual penalty of 15% OFF THE TOP of his/her income.

Expect a lot of small businesses going under and a lot of big businesses going overseas while the clueless Liberals cry "foul" and the government raising taxes on whoever is left.

Taxes are only going to go up on 1.2% of the rich. Hospitals will get paid and the result will be that peoples premiums won't continue to go up. Arguing that "Govt wants to go into the health market in competition with private industry" is foolish. Right now the healthcare industry has no competition and therefore allowed to rob people blind. Conservatives also come up with this argument that the Canadian system is a failure. It isn't.How many people go without healthcare in Canada? None or very few. How many medical bankruptcies are happening in Canada? None or very few. The general wait time for elective surgery in Canada is 4 weeks. If an uninsured person goes to emergency here, and is unable to pay the bill, your costs go up. Watching other nations provide care for their citizens is admirable and sad while we sit back and claim to be #1. If we are #1, we ought to have the humility to take aspects of Government healthcare and private and truly be #1. We have 50 million uninsured right now and that number is unacceptable. An "I got mine, screw you" mindset is not working!

Anonymous, we all have statistics to share. Yours look like they come from Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Statist with an agenda. Here are just a few statistics from Capitalists with an agenda (saving our country from Statists) that paint a different picture of your prized socialistic healthcare in Canada and Britain.

America's dream is about excellence, choice and opportunity - but most of all, FREEDOM from government tyranny. Even the FREEDOM to choose NOT to have healthcare insurance (such folks make up a significant proportion of the mythical 43 million "Uninsured").

With universal healthcare, there will be NO opportunity for the choice of excellence, for the competition-killing reasons listed by my evil Conservative buddies above. Where's the FREEDOM in that? Sounds like tyranny to me.

Anyone who believes that we'll be able to keep our healthcare plans if we choose has been drinking the Obama kool-aid way too long. It's been fermenting, pickling many brains.

Anon: Sen. Judd Gregg rips the Kennedy-Dodd "Healthcare Reform" bill a new one in this commentary. If enacted, it would do all the wrong things, raising costs but not quality. Instead of actually providing needed coverage to those who don't have it, the employer-sponsored system will be eviscerated, leaving millions and millions with healthcare plans that are far less flexible, with a little gov'ment bureaucrat inserted between patients and doctors saying what you can and can't have. My mom needs spine surgery, she's 73 and living with a lot of pain. Under Obamacare, would that surgery be covered? I doubt it.

Sen. Gregg's is a persuasive argument. Why does this need to be rushed, anyway? Just because Our Dear Leader wants it? More and more Americans don't. Should any bill, even a BAD one, be signed? Reminds me a whole lot about the Porkulus.

BTW, Anonymous, how's that Porkulus working for you anyway?

Anonymous Whinerbat at July 15, 2009 7:40 PM- "Taxes are only going to go up on 1.2% of the rich."

Sure. Good luck with that.

Anonymous Whinerbat- "Hospitals will get paid and the result will be that peoples premiums won't continue to go up."

What makes you think that dollar one from further punitive taxes, on an already squeezed dry nation, is actually going to end up in the hands of the hospitals? The country is broke, in debt to the tune of gazillions. The Brilliant Comrade and his Bolshevik bum buddies are on a liberal pet cause spending orgy of galactic proportions. Goddess Gaia demands the economy be crippled. The Chocolate Jism Fountain is dedicated to showering billions around the globe- as is the want of the future Chairman of The World. Like the big govt raids on other "lay-away" schemes, the $$$ are going to be spent long before they are even extracted.

Anonymous Whinerbat- "Conservatives also come up with this argument that the Canadian system is a failure. It isn't."

Yes, yes it is. It is no coincidence that majority of assorted leftists who champion the cause of socialist health care are young and healthy. A defining characteristic of the young idealist is the belief in their own invulnerability.

Anonymous Whinerbat- "How many people go without healthcare in Canada? None or very few."

Depends what one defines as "healthcare". If witchdoctors spent 2 minutes per patient shaking a rattle to ward off bad juju, of course few need not miss out.

Anonymous Whinerbat- "The general wait time for elective surgery in Canada is 4 weeks."

Really?

"A typical Canadian seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007, an all-time high, according to new research published Monday by independent research organization the Fraser Institute... Despite government promises and the billions of dollars funnelled into the Canadian health-care system, the average patient waited more than 18 weeks in 2007 between seeing their family doctor and receiving the surgery or treatment they required... It's becoming clearer that Canada's current health-care system cannot meet the needs of Canadians..."
SOURCE: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/15/waittimes-fraser.html

When was that "4 weeks wait"? How long ago? 10, 20 years ago? What could possibly be screwing things up? Let's assess Canada's experience with multiculturalism, diversity and mass immigration-

"Population of Canada 1990: 26,538,229.
Ethnicity: British Isles origin 40%, French origin 27%, other European 20%, indigenous Indian and Eskimo 1.5%.

Population of Canada 2000: 31,281,092.
Ethnicity: British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%.

Population of Canada 2006: 33,487,208
Ethnicity:

The 2006 Census estimated 5,068,100 individuals who belonged to a visible minority. The visible minorities accounted for 16.2% of Canada's total population, up from 13.4% in 2001 and 11.2% in 1996.

• Between 2001 and 2006, Canada's visible minority population increased by 27.2% This was
five times faster than the 5.4% growth rate of the total population.

• The growth in the visible minority population was largely due to the high proportion of
newcomers who belonged to visible minorities. In 2006, fully 75.0% of recent immigrants who
arrived since 2001 were visible minorities. This compared with 72.9% of visible minority
newcomers in 2001 and 74.1% in 1996.

• South Asians surpassed Chinese as the largest visible minority group in 2006. Chinese and
Blacks were respectively, the second and third largest visible minority groups.

In 2006, the census enumerated an estimated 5,068,100 individuals who identified themselves as
a member of the visible minority population. They made up 16.2% of the total population in
Canada.

The visible minority population has grown steadily over the last 25 years. In 1981... visible minorities represented 4.7% of Canada's total population.

In 1991- 9.4% of the population. in 1996- 11.2% of the total population. By 2001, their numbers had reached an estimated 3,983,800 or 13.4% of the
total population.

Between 2001 and 2006, the visible minority population increased at a much faster pace than the total population. Its rate of growth was 27.2%, five times faster than the 5.4% increase for the population as a whole."
SOURCE: Census.

"Canada had the highest population growth rate among Group of Eight industrialized nations between 2001 and 2006, boosted by the arrival of 1.2 million immigrants, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday. Canada's population grew by 1.6 million, or 5.4 percent, to 31,612,897 as of May 16, 2006, census data compiled by the federal agency showed. That's up from 4 percent in the previous census period between 1996 and 2001. Among G8 countries, only the United States had a comparable growth rate, at 5 percent between 2001 and 2006. Canada's population increase was attributed largely to immigration, Statscan said. Since 2001, 240,000 newcomers have arrived each year, on average, for a total of about 1.2 million over the five years... Two-thirds of the growth now comes from net immigration, with the remaining one-third due to a natural increase when the number of births outpaces the mortality rate. By 2030, immigration could account for all the growth in the population... The majority of immigrants concentrate in a handful of big cities, he added, which is "fundamentally changing the makeup of the country," as these cities grow and become more diverse. "The rest of the country, or much of the rest of the country, is not going to grow and will remain relatively homogenous..."
SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idUSN132615020070313

That's a lotta diversity and enrichment. It couldn't possibly be affecting the healthcare, though could it? Just coincidence, surely? The bottom line is- Mass immigration + Multiculturalism + Socialist welfare State = CRAP. Collectivized crap, equally distributed. But still crap. It's only going to get worse. Much, much worse. The US is in a worse situation than Canada with it's own "enrichment".

Anonymous Whinerbat- "If an uninsured person goes to emergency here, and is unable to pay the bill, your costs go up."

So why the hell are they getting treatment?

Anonymous Whinerbat- "Watching other nations provide care for their citizens is admirable and sad while we sit back and claim to be #1. If we are #1, we ought to have the humility to take aspects of Government healthcare and private and truly be #1."

Or, one could reject socialism. Scrap Big govt, the income tax, and let the citizens have the $$$ to spend as they see fit. There will be more than enough in people's pockets to save, and to use for medical treatment when needed, or for insurance. If some are too feckless, screw 'em. Charities exist for a reason. Better yet, let liberals pick up the tab.

Anonymous Whinerbat- "An "I got mine, screw you" mindset is not working!"

Not according to marxists, anyway.

Woah. We're talking about healthcare, how does that have anything in the world to do with the Nazis, was the picture with the eagle implies. Whether you like it or not (and I'm sure 99% of people here don't), Obama is the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT. Just because you don't agree with what he's proposing, doesn't make him a Nazi/fascist. It is the greatest insult to the millions who died fighting and in concetration camps to invoke that word every time you disagree with someone. Bush wasn't a Nazi, even though I disagreed with him. And dear God don't come back with "Obama's healthcare plan will see millions die from poor coverage, therefore the Nazi analogy is apt". The debate about healthcare in America c.2009 could not have less to do with the Nazis c.1940, to suggest such either shows a criminal ignorance about history or a horrendous disrespect for what happened in the 1930s and 1940s.

Seriously, at best you've got another three years of Obama - ration your hatred! Not every single thing is a doomsday. As soon as one side screams Nazi, the debate is pretty much over. The Democrats have the votes, Blue Dogs or no. This is gonna happen. You can either attempt to have as much input into the final product as possible, and mitigate your fears, or you can scream Nazi and be ignored.

Filling up these poor guys' email in-boxes with your drivel is not going to do anything but push them the other way.

They know we care, but they don't care that we care.