Democrats need to stop teasing us with universal healthcare

[Sbane]

Maybe Democrats should care more about getting things done than elections. Maybe that would lead to more success. I think it's clear that if obamacare is struck down, anything the democrats pass in the future will be much less palatable for Republicans than the current bill. It probably won't happen though, mainly due to the senate. Also Republicans will do nothing if Obamacare is struck down. Maybe expand HSA usage and weaken regulations on insurance companies but that's about it. So the fortunate get even more help due to HSA's and the unfortunate get screwed a bit more. And many of them will be voting for the Republicans. If people want to dig their own graves, I can't feel too bad about what ends up happening to them.

[anvi]

Hagrid,

I'll leave aside for the moment the supposed "inevitability" of abolition (it only came only with great effort, cost and the loss of many, many lives).  I'll also leave aside the "foundational" nature of resistance to taxes for the time being.

There was no such things as health insurance in the United States at the time of the founding.  The earliest policies regarding accidental insurance were not offered until the mid-to-late 19th century.  Does the non-existence of health insurance at the time of the country's founding imply that it should never be an issue of national importance or constitutional debate in the future?  If the founders wished no changes be made the the Constitution to suit the needs of future generations, why would they have put an amendment process in place?  If they had not wishes the democratically elected representatives of the people to make laws to meet their changing needs through time as they saw fit, why did they map out a legislative process at all?

If the U.S. has anything that can be called "foundational ideas" of lasting value, they are about the process of governing and the limits of governmental powers, and much, much less about the content of what we should or shouldn't do at any given time.  If there ever does come a time when Americans want to find a way for everyone to have access to health insurance, then the founders have mapped out a process through which we can do it.  We haven't done it up to now because, all things considered, we haven't wanted to.  If there was a willingness to do it on the part of enough citizens and representatives, we would find a way to do it, and our Constitutional and legislative processes would not block our path, they would enable us to walk on it.

[Torie]

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The above is not an option for the Pubs sbane. We can't afford it. Everyone with a clue knows that.  

[Sbane]

So they will cut Medicare and send back Medicaid to the states where some will cut sharply into that. The fiscal problem gets solved but of course the access problem does not. I wonder if Republicans consider that a problem since I haven't heard anything that addresses that. Expanding HSA's and extending tax benefits for healthcare to all are good ideas but should be part of a more comprehensive plan.

[Person Man]

In fact, wouldn't deregulation give us the same problems we have already had with consumer spending a real estate? Wouldn't we just rob Peter to pay paul until we are back where we started, but with a another mountain of consumer liability that weighs further upon our economy?  Without Obamacare, or Obama and the Democrats for that matter, we are pretty much doomed to fall down a spiral of speculative booms quickly followed by even stepper busts until we just plum run out of money.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We have two tiered system of heath care, the medicaid and medicare program and the everyone else system of health care where prescriptive drugs are astronomical.  Scrap medicaid and medicare and provide a 1 tiered system where it is a single payer option like what Kucinich wanted to do medicare for everyone.

[Person Man]

Well, this or a Public Option system will be the only thing we can really do until the health insurance plan we have in place totally collapses. There's too many people who know where their paychecks comes from. If the stopped getting their paychecks from the insurance companies....that will be our next shot at reform.