How would you calm down the town halll protesters

[Bottle]

It's not in the bill, it's actually an admission of the fact that private companies can't compete with a government health care system.

Except Great Britain is proof that even that admission is incorrect.

Exactly.

That's my point:

If private companies can't compete with the government, then they deserve to go out of business.

Personally, I think that the reason their current coverage is shitty is because they don't HAVE to compete. They're playing a rigged game, they set up industry standards however they want, so there's no incentive to try to do better when they can all just do worse and get rich.

I think that if the private sector had to compete with government insurance, they'd COMPETE. Just like in the UK. And I think that would be better for all of us.

[Sdaeriji]

Ah, flaming.

Do me a favor, then. Show me the part of the bill that would force everyone to take the public option. Show me the part of the bill that would outlaw private health insurance.

It's not in the bill, it's actually an admission of the fact that private companies can't compete with a government health care system.

That's not even true, though. Private companies will definitely be able to compete with a government health care system because a government health care system is, almost by definition, only going to be a very bare-bones system designed to make sure everyone has catastrophic coverage so they do not become a burden on the rest of us if something happens to them. Much like Medicare currently, for example. You have your basic, stripped down Medicare that is completely government subsidized and, as most elderly will tell you, barely covers anything. Then you have your various Medicare supplement plans that people pay for to cover the difference between what Medicare covers and what stuff actually costs (Medigap).

There will ALWAYS be a market for private insurance companies to compete.

[German Capitalists]

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law."


"Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage," in the "Limitation on Enrollment" section on Page 16:

[Capfrania]

Ah, flaming.

Do me a favor, then. Show me the part of the bill that would force everyone to take the public option. Show me the part of the bill that would outlaw private health insurance.

It's not in the bill, it's actually an admission of the fact that private companies can't compete with a government health care system.

The government plan could lose money every year forever and it would just come out of our tax dollars, whereas the private industry would go out of business in the same situation.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

The current system is much better then UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE! People say how the Government is a failure and yet they want to put their health in the hands of the Government?!

Prove it.

[Bottle]

Ah, flaming.

Do me a favor, then. Show me the part of the bill that would force everyone to take the public option. Show me the part of the bill that would outlaw private health insurance.

It's not in the bill, it's actually an admission of the fact that private companies can't compete with a government health care system.

The government plan could lose money every year forever and it would just come out of our tax dollars, whereas the private industry would go out of business in the same situation.

News flash, if you're an American then the failures of the private industry already come out of your tax dollars. You pay the price for the fact that millions of people have no insurance already. You pay for the fact that millions of people's insurance won't cover basic preventative care, so they end up in the emergency room. You pay the price when people can't meet the premiums, or can't make the co-pays, or simply can't choose between eating and paying for prescriptions. You already pay the costs of living in the sickest rich nation in the world. It's been going on for at least as long as I've been alive, and the insurance companies aren't out of business yet.

[The Romulan Republic]

Nothing to do that I can see other than keep repeating the facts, maintain tight security to prevent any more violent incidents, and wait for the nuts to either calm down or escalate into doing something illegal, at which point they can be arrested like any criminal.

[Marcuslandia]

People say how the Government is a failure and yet they want to put their health in the hands of the Government?!

My gut feeling (admitted up front) is that the most outspoken people against health care reform, citing government's poor performance on other things, as also the same ones loudly crying, "America is the greatest nation on Earth!"

How can that be? How can the US be great at anything, given that it's government is incapable, incompetent, pitiful, and pathetic? To note the MANY things that the US government does so abysmally, why have we not just disintegrated and self-imploded many, many years ago? How could We The People continually allowed such a bunch manage our nation and our Treasury decade after decade after decade?

Or is this _really_ a case of, "Well, maybe they're not that bad"?

[Dyakovo]

So apparently he wanted to use these "town hall protests" about health care to make a stupid point that he has a right to bear arms.

Why not? Protestors in GA decided to go disrupt a town hall meeting about transportation issues (specifically the widening of a highway - an action that will cause many people to lose property) to rant about health care. Then they got mad when the congressman in attendance scolded them and told them to save it for his town hall a week later. Then someone decided to paint a swastika on the sign outside his office in protest.

And that was just as wrong.

[Dempublicents1]

Wow... Just wow... Could someone please explain to me how they are not being peaceful?

Shouting down others is not conducive to anything productive. There is a time and place for just shouting your views out - it's at a protest - not at a town hall meeting meant to give constituents a chance to question and have a discussion with their elected representatives.

Sending racially charged letters? Also, not very peaceful. Disrupting a meeting that has nothing to do with health care because you apparently can't wait a week for the town hall meeting to address that subject and then painting a swastika outside the congressman's office because he dared scold you for it? Yeah, not very peaceful.

If these people want to go to the town hall meetings, act like adults, and raise their concerns, more power to them.

[Kynchile]

Keep believing that. Republicans had 12 years to do healthcare reform their way. They chose to do nothing. Because that's what they stand for: Nothing.

The democrats have controlled the legislative branch since 2006 and nobody considered us to be in a emergency with our healthcare until the President said so. The Republicans had control for 6 years including the year of 9/11/2001 and all the business that followed.

Most Americans genuinley feel there are bigger problems out there then expanding the current goverment.

[Antilon]

The government plan could lose money every year forever and it would just come out of our tax dollars, whereas the private industry would go out of business in the same situation.

In theory, that would be the case. However, I somehow suspect that all is not as it seems...

[Dyakovo]

I would also TAKE NOTICE of who was organizing the lines and PAYING to ship the same people all over the place.

Source that these people are being paid and organized? I think they're just regular folks who decided to speak up.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/state_regional_govtpolitics/article/BUSS23_20090722-222402/281595/
http://recessrally.com/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/28/kyl-pretends-notobstructing/

Nothing "spontaneous" about these protests at all.

So they are organizing. So what? They're exercising their 1st amendment rights. I don't agree with their tactics. But they are just scared.

Exercizing their 1st amendment rights by trying to make sure others can't do the same...

[Dyakovo]

So they are organizing. So what? They're exercising their 1st amendment rights. I don't agree with their tactics. But they are just scared.

I don't know why they're so damn scared. Is it just because of the amount of misinformation out there being spread by the media? Is it just unimaginable stupidity? Why are they scared?

Both

[Lunatic Goofballs]

Keep believing that. Republicans had 12 years to do healthcare reform their way. They chose to do nothing. Because that's what they stand for: Nothing.

The democrats have controlled the legislative branch since 2006 and nobody considered us to be in a emergency with our healthcare until the President said so. The Republicans had control for 6 years including the year of 9/11/2001 and all the business that followed.

Most Americans genuinley feel there are bigger problems out there then expanding the current goverment.

The Republicanc controlled COngress from the beginning of 1995 to the beginning of 2007 and the White House from 2001-2009. In all that time, including 2001 to 2007 when they had both, they did exactly dick.

[Dyakovo]

They represent my voice. Not in a way I want my voice represented, but they are doing it non-the-less. Last time I saw poll numbers on healthcare, it was very close, with those AGAINST it having a slight lead.

And that couldn't possibly be because of the misinformation being spread by the GOP?

Not saying that it definitely is, but most of the arguments against it that I have heard are based on ignorance.

[Intangelon]

I've seen pro-healthcare bill people beating up protesters and attacking a random black man selling merchandise on a corner. But yelling is un-peaceful for the protesters.

Is that the SEIU YouTube? If it is, it's completely impossible to tell what happened there because the camera starts filming moments AFTER the altercation, and does not clearly show anything other than people yelling at each other and pointing others out to the police, who seem to arrest everyone involved.

Yeah, I've seen that, too. Unless there's more video of earlier in that incident, we'll never really know what happened and we'll be subjected to endless bouts of he-said-she-said. Which sucks.

I've read seen some witness testimony as well, but I guess that's still he said she said. That guy wasn't even a protester, though, he was just selling crap on the corner.

Or so we're told. Again, no conclusive evidence.

[German Capitalists]

People say how the Government is a failure and yet they want to put their health in the hands of the Government?!

My gut feeling (admitted up front) is that the most outspoken people against health care reform, citing government's poor performance on other things, as also the same ones loudly crying, "America is the greatest nation on Earth!"

How can that be? How can the US be great at anything, given that it's government is incapable, incompetent, pitiful, and pathetic? To note the MANY things that the US government does so abysmally, why have we not just disintegrated and self-imploded many, many years ago? How could We The People continually allowed such a bunch manage our nation and our Treasury decade after decade after decade?

Or is this _really_ a case of, "Well, maybe they're not that bad"?

Ah, a liberal with the "America is weak" mentality, surprise, surprise. America is superior militarily and economically to any other nation and that is a fact, you can't dispute it, you can't say it's Conservative lies. It's a fact. Look at the statistics.

[Sdaeriji]

Ah, flaming.

Do me a favor, then. Show me the part of the bill that would force everyone to take the public option. Show me the part of the bill that would outlaw private health insurance.

It's not in the bill, it's actually an admission of the fact that private companies can't compete with a government health care system.

The government plan could lose money every year forever and it would just come out of our tax dollars, whereas the private industry would go out of business in the same situation.

We already have a real world, American example of public vs. private health care and how they operate. It's called Medicare. Humana reported $650 million in net profits in 2008 primarily by providing supplementary insurance to both Medicare and Tricare. So, save your terrible "private enterprise can't compete with the government" argument, because in both theory and in practise, it simply is not true.

[Ifreann]

Simple. I'd send in the cryo legionnaires. There's a cold front coming.

[Farnhamia]

Keep believing that. Republicans had 12 years to do healthcare reform their way. They chose to do nothing. Because that's what they stand for: Nothing.

The democrats have controlled the legislative branch since 2006 and nobody considered us to be in a emergency with our healthcare until the President said so. The Republicans had control for 6 years including the year of 9/11/2001 and all the business that followed.

Most Americans genuinley feel there are bigger problems out there then expanding the current goverment.

No. The GOP took control of the House in 1994 and of the Senate in 2000. They lost control briefly in 2001 but regained it in 2002 and kept it until 2006. And they did nothing about this. They did, however, give us war and fear and color-coded alert levels and warrantless wire-taps and a gigantic expansion of the Federal deficit (which they didn't even have the balls to put on the books properly).

[Capfrania]

So they are organizing. So what? They're exercising their 1st amendment rights. I don't agree with their tactics. But they are just scared.

I don't know why they're so damn scared. Is it just because of the amount of misinformation out there being spread by the media? Is it just unimaginable stupidity? Why are they scared?

Both

They may have actually read the bill.

Or they read the books of people who worked on the plan, like Holdren and Daschie. That's scary stuff.

[Kynchile]

The Republicanc controlled COngress from the beginning of 1995 to the beginning of 2007 and the White House from 2001-2009. In all that time, including 2001 to 2007 when they had both, they did exactly dick.

There has to be a problem first. You have to remember that since 1996 the US has seen unprecedented wealth and a very strong economy. Why fix something that so many people are happy with.

[Dempublicents1]

Well, some people think it would be nice if a town hall meeting was, you know, a meeting. Rather than just a place for uninformed and rude individuals to scream things at elected officials.

So that's one reason.

But speaking as somebody who's likely to vote Democrat in the next election, I am 100% behind the town hall mobs. I hope nothing stops them. They're doing more to ensure a Democratic supermajority than anything the Dems could pull off for themselves.

Indeed, I was having this conversation with the girlfriend last night. Republicans will always be republicans and democrats will always be democrats. Elections are won and lost in this country by the whims of the moderates who share some beliefs with both parties.

And at the end of the day, this tactic shows that the republicans don't have ideas, don't have their own views. It reeks of desperation, and the inability to actually have a plan for america's future.

And i believe people will figure this out.

Your absolutely right! It's the Pro-Healthcare People who follow the sacred word of Obama that have the ideas! Democrats good, Republicans bad. Capitalism evil, Free stuff good!

You really aren't helping your case with this nonsense. You know that, right?

@ NA. I think you're probably right. I've never really strongly affiliated with any party, but with the Republican party in its current state, I just can't see myself voting for them.

[Dyakovo]

Calm them down? Now why would anyone ever want to do that? This country is built on the right of Freedom of Speech and the voice of the people. Democrats wouldn't "calm down" when they protested Bush and the "evils of his Administration", yet now that the Republicans want to protest, they should shut up? It really is a demonstration of how screwed up Politics is if people can't even see their own double standard.

Well, some people think it would be nice if a town hall meeting was, you know, a meeting. Rather than just a place for uninformed and rude individuals to scream things at elected officials.

So that's one reason.

But speaking as somebody who's likely to vote Democrat in the next election, I am 100% behind the town hall mobs. I hope nothing stops them. They're doing more to ensure a Democratic supermajority than anything the Dems could pull off for themselves.

Ah, it is the "Angry Mob" that is uninformed? It's not the Senators promoting the bill that haven't even read the entire bill. They aren't the ones uninformed of course.

So it's not possible that both could be uninformed?