NEWS: Dear Republican Friends: Regarding Your Stand On Healthcare…

The chart wasn't healthcare. You said we should agree to disagree about Obamacare. That isn't possible with someone who talks about death panels.

Yes, that's my point. The runaway success of Chrysler--which one bid on one fleet does not add to or subtract from--shows that bailing out the auto industry wasn't a bad idea.

You don't need to dig through 2,000 pages of lawyerly rhetoric, just the two or three pages that outline the IPAB, its functions, and its limitations. Let me quote the most relevant text:

The proposal being discussed is any proposal made by the IPAB regarding cutting costs.

No, on a conservative board nobody confronts you with the facts when you say things that are provably incorrect.

I pay a whopping 1.1% less of my income than you do. And I do it while I'm supporting a brother who is currently in the hospital, dealing with a disease that's going to kill him in 5-10 years if I can't find a way to get him covered by some really insanely good health insurance. And when I say "supporting", I'm not speaking figuratively. He is literally too sick to hold down a job. You served your country? Good for you--I mean that, good for you. But it doesn't score a whole lot of points over me, because I served as well. And nothing in any oath I swore prevents me from fully supporting the Affordable Care Act, because it was rule constitutional by the Supreme Court.

You cannot have a factual discussion if you're not willing to check your facts. And the state of conservatism in the US, at this point, is such that pretty much anything that comes out of it right now can be conclusively refuted with a simple google search. And that's not even touching the vile hatred that's been coming out of the right for the past decade. You don't like getting picked on for being conservative? Try being told that your friends ought to be put in concentration camps or killed by the government. Try hearing that--and try to keep your cool when the people who say such things are praised for it by their peers.

Well, that escalated rather quickly.

Hey everyone calm down. It does not matter who is in charge the general public is going to get screwed either way. All of you are just fighting over who is going to do it and how hard. Obamacare isn't bad for what it is doing, it is bad because of the things that kick in after it is ten years old and Obama is long gone. This is why it always looks like the republicans spend more. When the democrats are in charge they pass laws that look peachy up front and cost loads of money after they are gone. It is always easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up. Just so you know I do not support either side. But since there is no third party strong enough to win I choose the republicans.

Funniest fucking thing in this thread so far.

Yeah, that fucking Clinton's "Invade Iraq After I Leave Office While Also Cutting Taxes" bill. What an arsehole he was. Poor Bush copped all the flak.

Chrysler was also bought out by Fiat and the Italians turned it around, but whatever, that point is getting old.

Yes IPAB is going to cut costs and no, they aren't going to sit there with 2,000,000 manilla folders with a picture paper clipped inside the top flap, their medical papers inside and 2 stamps that say "live" or "die." Medicare reimbursements are predicted to drop 30% this year, then if medicare spending exceeds 1% of the growth of our GDP they are there to cut spending with no oversight, cuts that will be in the billions or trillions of dollars and I'm being told nothing will change in anyone's healthcare whatsoever when providers are going to shoulder a larger premium after they are already hurting due to low reimbursements. People will be turned away at most doors or told their treatment can no longer be facilitated unless doctors are willing to take the hit out of their own pockets.

I've supported almost all of my posts with cited material and it's all easy to find. I'm not trying to bolster statements with inflammatory, shock mongering words like "death panels." I've decided fates both ways. It doesn't shock me and in the reality of this world it's not shocking. But life shouldn't be held in the balance based on a paycheck and a government's inability to properly reform the ability of every citizen to receive cost efficient, secure medical treatment when we have the power to do it properly. Don't shove down my throat a rushed together set of reforms that are cumbersome and blatantly not going to fix the problem then create even more committees that don't have oversight and tell me it's fucking peachy. Premiums will still be going up. Now you have to pay for it.

If you need better health insurance there are oil field offices in the Pittsburgh area. PA has a lot of gas that needs to be extracted and you don't have to do it in the middle of nowhere like every else. If you are willing to swing a hammer, work a rig and freeze a little go be a hand for a year or 2. Full benefits and you'll make enough to get a good policy on the side. Look into Schlumberger, Weatherford, Halliburton, Pioneer, Marathon, Universal, Cheyenne and Chesapeake just to start.

Being a Vet doesn't give me brownie points and I don't want it to. I'm paying back my service into the tax pool so I don't owe anyone a thing and no one owes me a thing. But I do feel that the constitution has been stepped on and the ideals which the founding fathers wanted this country to be guided by are now considered extremist. Not just by this administration, it's all been pounded into dust over the last 70 years. That was just further demonstrated when the Supreme Court found a way, in the face of Obama's thinly veiled threats, to make it constitutional by stating it could be considered a tax. Since now the constitution can be ripped up in the open, it's pretty frustrating.

Everything I've said has been factually supported or as factual as possible when in the case it was based on hypothetical situations. And you think I get fumed about being "picked on" because I'm a conservative? This is the first time because I don't have the size or demeanor to get picked on. And your friends get called crazy? I am most likely on a watch list for the simple fact that I'm a combat veteran with skillsets that have me on a map and pinboard, ron paul supporter, support OWS and a gun owner. After everything I've done for them I'm supposed to be suppressed and imprisoned without due trial. But I'm not mad. It's what I expect.

These lies about Canada's system are quite intriguing. Well done, SG for posting this liberal partisan drivel.

Reality:

Obamacare is exorbitantly expensive.

We don't have any money.

We don't have any money.

You partisan douche-tards who point to the other side and yell "It's all your party's fault"- You need to get a grip on reality. Republicans and Democrats arguably have an equal hand of getting us into this mess. Like half of you guys are a bunch of MSNBC-watching fucking idiots. Wake up.

And they say there's no civil discourse anymore...

Nothing like a rant-y cop-out. It is the height of intellectual dishonesty to say "it is everybody's fault we're in this mess" because it is simply not true.

I really don't understand anything beyond "hypothetical situations" in this paragraph. Can you explain?

I'm not sure what that has to do with my point.

Yes, "no oversight" aside from, y'know, Congress. Nothing in the acceleration of the IPAB's activities gives it a way to get around their built-in prohibition on reducing healthcare quality or coverage. They're simply being allowed to not reduce healthcare quality or coverage sooner rather than later.

Yes, bully for you, you didn't say the words.

That's what the Supreme Court does. If there's a way to interpret an existing law as being Constitutional, the SC generally tries to interpret it that way. As a tax, the penalty would be constitutional; therefore, the SC chose to define it as a tax. The only reason it wasn't called a tax in the first place is because the GOP screamed bloody murder about it.