Posted on 07/08/2008 3:18:19 PM PDT by indcons
Democrats are launching an aggressive push for universal health care, fourteen years after a failed attempt on the issue resulted in political disaster.
A coalition of liberal groups that includes major labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union and the activist group MoveOn.org announced today it will spend $40 million to make health insurance a major issue in the campaign, with Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, as the one of the group's main spokespersons. The group, which has dubbed itself "Health Care for America Now!" plans to spend its money running ads in battleground states, canvassing 45 states to get people to sign petitions supporting the initiative and trying to get every member of Congress to sign a pledge to expand health insurance to all Americans.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democratic staffers are trying to set up a structure for getting a bill through Congress next year.
The staffs of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who heads the Senate's Health, Education Pensions and Labor Committee, are already meeting with key health care experts, including some from Massachusetts, which passed a landmark health care law two years ago.
In a series of meetings over the next month, Senate aides plan to meet with doctors' groups, insurance companies, business associations and other key players in reforming health care. Their goal is to have the outlines of a health care proposal by the end of this year that can be introduced in the opening days of the next president's administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free”.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Get ready for a fight people.
These guys just don’t die. It is like one of Romero’s movies.
Fixed.
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free”.
LOL. That’s a really funny line.
“Free” Healthcare has been the Democrats campaign plan, all along. It’s been the “Big Stick” they have been trying to use for YEARS now.
The “Climate Change” thing simply isn’t working, so they need something else. As Donna Brazille openly said, “It’s about CONTROL of your money.”
Obama-Romney ‘08 “We will control your health.”
Have they wheeled in Ted’s corpse yet?
Don’t worry, it will be part of the show.
Can I assume that this new Universal HC proposal will ALSO include all gov’t officials from the President on down as well as ALL gov’t employees?
Healthcare is already mandatory from Kindergarten on up. Everybody has to be on something or face being a social outcast.
Follow their allocation of $$$; “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Such a waste. PR and advertising
“gotcha” tactics.
They know socialized "healthcare" is a disaster.
They don't care about that. The people who will force this on us will get top notch health care no matter what. The people who will force this socialism on us will have the money necessary to get private care for themselves and will exempt themselves from having one choice: the fifth-world heath care system that will result from "universal healthcare".
The issue for them is control. There is nothing quite as exhilarating as the the absolute, total control the socialists in this country will have once they hold the very lives of 300 million people in their filthy, fascist paws.
The joy of having God-like, life-and-death power over each and every person in the country is just too good for them to let go. Imagine having the power to deny life-saving healthcare to those whom you believe to be useless eaters; imagine having the power to decide who gets that lifesaving replacement organ and who does not; imagine having the power to determine that certain families can't have that third child and having the power to decree that the only procedure that will be paid for is an abortion; imagine all that forced tax revenue coming into your office and you have the power to decide who gets some of it and who does not.
That's absolute power, baby. The power over life itself. That's what the democrats crave above all else and that's what they will fight and claw for until their last breath.
Don’t they understand that socialism DOES NOT WORK?!?!
Obviosuly not. These programs are immoral in that they seek to take from one group of people and redistribute it to another. These programs are illegal in that they are far beyond the Constitutionally sanctioned scope of the federal government. These programs are failures in that, well, they always fail. There is nothing useful, different, or new about healthcare and none of the other socialist welfare policies have done this country a speck of good.
The time to rid ourselves of the mentality and reality of government dependence should be NOW. Limited government and liberty, not slavery and obedience to the state.
A simple plan that offered catastrophic health insurance covering everything over five thousand dollars would take care of the public fear. Government provided catastrophic coverage would be subject to all the limits on service of normal government run healthcare. The government would have to set a budget and limit service, just like all government programs. Anyone could buy a more comprehensive plan that would cover more; like private rooms, shorter waits, more medical options, etc..
Preventive care and routine doctor visits could be covered by individuals and for the poor have a plan for charitable run medical clinics. Many Doctors would volunteer some time in health clinics for the poor and church groups or others could help pay the overhead. Waiting times in such clinics might be a problem, but if a person has a little money most doctors I see offer discounts for cash because overhead is lower when insurance companies aren’t involved.
The plan has some problems but it avoids the catastrophe that is most socialized medicine.
Bottom Line for most Americans:
“Do you want to pay 11% of your payroll for government provided healthcare?”
For decades, the answer has been a resounding “NO”.
Perhaps more importantly, Doctors have overwhelmingly rejected these schemes. The Medicare fee debacle is just a minor preview as to why.
Amazingly, liberal Democrats assume that most Americans and American Doctors answer yes to these questions. It’s like they live on the different planet or something.
Insurance needs reform, that is certain. But Americans are at the limit of what they will pay for taxes, expecially for more inflexible government programs.
I’m sure back-door or front-door gun ban will be part and parcel of this “healthcare” system, too. Guns = dangerous = health hazard = you can’t have ‘em any more because it costs too much $$ to treat gunshot wounds.
“We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.”
Nikita Kruschev
They want us to feed from their hands, be completely dependent, and obey their every command. The essence of government is force. Unfortunately “In the end, the people will say ‘make us your slaves, but feed us,’” rings all too true these days. Great post.
Thier track record speaks volumes, let them get a hold of another black hole filled with tax payer dollars and once again not be held accountable or resposible. They can’t wait to get thier hands on this free money! I’m sick of them all!
“BOHICA - looks like the rats haven’t learned ONE lesson from the failure of socialized healthcare in other developed countries.”
If rats could learn, they wouldn’t be rats.
Kind of sounds like opting to be shot in the liver rather than in the head. :=)
Which, some day, is what they're going to get.
Do you think the rats’ goal is providing health care??? Their goal is POWER. And that’s something that communized medicine will give them.
If they succeed, shooting OUGHT to follow shortly after. But it won’t.
Notice how they are trying to gain control over CARBON??? I.e., control over EVERY LIVING BEING and EVERY MAN-MADE MACHINE.
Cap-and-Trade is like the I.R.S.—except instead of telling you how much to send in from last year’s income, you get a notice from the government how much you are allowed to earn NEXT YEAR.
Not to mention the power to determine who gets to be a doctor in the first place. Under HillaryCare (I read all 1400+ pages of it) a commission would determine who would be eligible to attend medical school and what type of physician they would become. Most would be forced into general practice. Specialized medicine (orthopedics, cardiac, thoracic etc) would be limited admission to discouraged costs involved. When you ration medicine, you simply do not need as many specialists. this is the case in Canada. You will have the SAME health care, regardless of your condition. Penalities will exist for physicians if they take money for anything other than government rationed treatment.
Like being nothing but a bit of chum thrown to the sharks. Like being nothing but another step toward Communism. Like being unConstitutional.
The Left in this country does not need to have a Soviet Union to support. They are Communists in their own right.
Although I think the elite-elite-elite in the Democratic Party expect to live their lives in comfort, exercising total power over the rest of us, backed by the power of Red China and OPEC money, with which Washington is already awash.
Congress and much of the Executive Branch are swimming in foreign money. Our government is living on bribes from abroad, oceans of tax dollars, oceans of (illegal) drug proceeds, etc.
During the HillaryCare fight, my sister (a doctor) said, “You can have the medical costs of 1960, if you are willing to have the medical care of 1960.”
If we get Communized Medicine in 2009, we will have the medical care of 2000, 1990, 1980, and then probably the medical care of 1970, FOREVER. This is what they have in England, Canada, France, etc.
The good part about this is that it is so easy to defend against.
Just cite endless socialized medicine horror stories from Canada and England. Personal anecdotes of people suffering because of an unfeeling bureaucracy will always sell better than pie in the sky promises.
The only defense they have to this is that their system will somehow be different. But that is a weak defense against some very graphic tales of terror.
“The socialists want Americans to have teeth like the British.”
“Do you want your parents to have to wait a year for a hip transplant?”
“It is too expensive to have to drive to Mexico for health care, because they have ruined it here too. And for what?, some stupid 19th Century philosophy that has never, ever worked anywhere? Don’t they have any pattern recognition?”
“Socialized medicine is like hitting yourself on the hand with a claw hammer. If it hurts and injures you four times, are you dumb enough to think it won’t the fifth time?” Hillary and Obama do. But it’s not their hands that are hurting, it’s everybody else’s. But they don’t care if it works at all, as long as people have no other choice.”
Control at the polls. They would bludgeon republicans with the new found power like they have with social security. A conservative would be scarce-hard to find in such a political landscape.
For example, the republican would say we need to balance the budget so we can not decrease the doctor's co-payment of $20. The democrat would cry that the republican is trying to deny your grandmother affordable health-care and we need to lower the copay to $15.
Of course, the democrats would not give a damn whether you and I have quality health care. In due course of the democrats, they would prefer that you and I had lousy health care...so they could "fix" it with a never ending stream of useless and ineffective tweaks. Ask a liberal if he is for a government style run health care. Naturally, he will say yes. Then ask him if that government could be the state government. Wait for the fuses to pop and then ask him to accept this style of gubmint health-care that is exactly like Europe, where each state takes care of their own. The liberal might say yes. The leftist will insist that the federal government will have to run it. The Democrat party is overrun with leftists.
The attempt to pass Hillary Care cost Clinton tremendous credibility, failed, and helped put the Republicans into the majority in the house.
Let’s hope it works as well this time.
I was thinking the same thing..if not that.. then let us select the same coverage as the government people have..I want nothing less...If it is good enough for government employees, it should be good enough for the general public..
CHURCHILL IS RIGHT—— THAT IS WHY THE RATS WANT 18 YEAROLDS TO VOTE, ALSO ILLEGALS AND DEAD PEOPLE.
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