Obamacare, Healthcare, etc.

[Kohan]

Kohan, you continue to be an inspiration for militant man-hating feminists everywhere. Go fuck yourself with your taking-shit-out-of-context bullshit.

Oh, nothing was taken out of context at all. I understand that you're trying to be cute and edgy (e.g., with the inapplicable man-hating comment), but you're not good at it. Really, when you do this sort of thing, it's almost as sad as when you ventured into spam to complain about the people talking shit on you therein. Seriously, those tears? They were the most delicious kind. It's still one of my most favorite threads in recent memory, and I could only imagine you running home to Mommy afterward with tears in your eyes.

Besides, you proved on your own that I wasn't taking things out of context when you tried to disguise the arrogance with your whole it "isn't arrogant" line. It's cool, you're a moron. That's understood. You should just accept this instead of flailing around ineffectually and making yourself out to be a gigantic tryhard pussy.

Unless you like to try to act all hard to cover the fact that you're a gigantic crybaby pussy, and if so, by all means. You've already got a lot of experience under that otherwise worthless belt.

[Psion]

Did this woman act completely rational? Hell no.

Was she retarded? not at all. Scared of death, yes. Worried about her children's future, yes. Worried about her job, yes. She was also driven to make a bad decision based on fears over several of her friends dying after going to the doctor after getting breast cancer, over all her experiences being that those who got breast cancer died quickly and painfully. But is she retarded for this? No, she was scared, and when your frightened out of your mind, you are are not in a mental state to think rationally.

In the end, she was a victim to her fear, something that claims all to many these days, whether it's those avoiding healthcare until it's too late do to their fears of living a life of debt and passing it on to loved ones, those who irrationally fear those who are different, those who fear change, and more. None of these people are "retarded" for being victims to fear. When complete and utter fear claims you, you cannot always break free of it on your own. Often you have to be given just the right knowledge and experiences from others that counteract your fears, and give you enough of a grip on rationality again to get rid of the rest and think clearly again. It isn't something that happens only to stupid people. it happens to everyone and anyone, at any time, over the strangest things, and is often caused by lack of knowledge.

If we had universal health care, people would use it. people would start to become better educated over various diseases, would start to realize that things such as breast cancer can be caught early and less invasive treatments used to remove it. Even if universal health care did nothing on it's own to further educate people, they would have less experiences of friends dying and more of friends going to a doctor early, having their problems cured while they were small, and have more loved ones who recognize early signs of a disease based on firsthand or secondhand experience and pressure the person showing symptoms go go to a doctor right away. And said people would be more inclined to do so, because they wouldn't go to the poor house for doing so, and it's better safe than sorry.

[kuronosan]

Look, I'm not heartless. I run these tests, so I know the seriousness of it. I've seen breast cancer cells both in tissue samples and in fluid effusions.

Don't tell me I don't give a shit when I see things like this ALL THE TIME. It's sad, it's sickening, but to say that this woman is a hero to her kids for working through a fatal disease is a lie. She owed her children better than that. Obviously I feel bad for her on a personal level and clearly this shows why we NEED universal care. I refuse, however, to say that her irrationality makes her noble. It's sad and disappointing that she had to go this route, yes.

Would you cheer on a single mom who is afraid her kids will get kicked out on the street so she keeps them in a crack house? Hey, at least they have a home. There aren't any other options or anything.

Sorry, I won't feel bad for something I have to deal with on a daily basis by the thousands.

[Psion]

Look, I'm not heartless. I run these tests, so I know the seriousness of it. I've seen breast cancer cells both in tissue samples and in fluid effusions.

Don't tell me I don't give a shit when I see things like this ALL THE TIME. It's sad, it's sickening, but to say that this woman is a hero to her kids for working through a fatal disease is a lie. She owed her children better than that. Obviously I feel bad for her on a personal level and clearly this shows why we NEED universal care. I refuse, however, to say that her irrationality makes her noble. It's sad and disappointing that she had to go this route, yes.

Would you cheer on a single mom who is afraid her kids will get kicked out on the street so she keeps them in a crack house? Hey, at least they have a home. There aren't any other options or anything.

Sorry, I won't feel bad for something I have to deal with on a daily basis by the thousands.

I personally never claimed she was a hero. She made a bad decision. I agree with that. I simply disagree that it made her retarded to do so, and instead I think that she acted irrationally due to her fears. This isn't something to be ashamed of, as most, if not everyone, makes irrational decisions based on fears. Many of them never break out of those fears, due to bad luck and lack of support from others and lack of knowledge to conquer those fears.

And sadly, a lot of people have little education, and little knowledge on where they can go for help. I personally think it might be a good idea for people to have a sort of "life support" class taught from a young age to college, that teaches basic life skills such as cooking, cleaning, how to handle a budget, what kind of services you can get from the government, such as welfare, homeless shelters, food pantries, and such, how they work, and more, such as techniques for dealing with stress and ways to stay healthy. Teach the stuff appopriate to the age of course. You probably wouldn't want to teach kindergardeners how to cook things on the stove just yet, though some are experienced enough for it. Teach people how to be self sufficient, manage their income, and teach them that there's places they can go to for support if they fall on hard times. Stuff like that.

A lot of people place a lot of blame on parents being lazy and not teaching their kids these things, but lets face it: a lot of parents these days are working full time, sometimes working two or more jobs, and simply don't have time for these kinds of things. If they want to make time to teach their kids life lessons as well, great! more teaching is always good. But a lot of kids these days simply aren't getting the knowledge they need to thrive, and i can't really blame the parents for it when theyre doing all they can just to keep the family from starving.

If we can just educate people early (and maybe make free classes for adults that teach the same things), maybe we could help prevent a ton of situations like this from happening and clogging up our hospitals and food stamps and welfare. That's just my opinion, though.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Looks the decision will be out next Monday if the SCOTUS holds to its schedule. This Thursday is possible also.

[Demosthenes11]

I kinda feel bad for the supreme court. They are supposed to read based strictly from the constitution, with the idea that bad rulings due to strict constitutional interpretations would just mean an amendment to the constitution by congress to make sure it does not hold up.

In today's climate, there is 0 chance congress gets a majority enough to amend the constitution, meaning a ton of added pressure on the supreme court. I could see them calling the mandate unconstitutional, which basically means America is stuck with a healthcare system people can't afford and allows sick people to be left out cold.

[Ragnus]

Even going off of USA's normal "Moderate", which is actually "Right of Center", instead of this POS climate we have going on I still don't see this surviving the Supreme Court. I'm just hoping that this isn't going to have an effect on other states' plans since VT actually has a true universal health care plan in the works last I checked. It would be a shame to see a ruling state that the individual states can do what they want but ,at the same time, have the ruling leave it open to strike down VT's plan as Federally Unconstitutional.

[Alarial]

How would the ruling strike down VT's plan as unconstitutional? State's can pretty much do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't infringe on another constitutional right. The question SCOTUS has to deal with is whether the Necessary and Proper clause affords the government the power to provide this mandate on a federal level. It seems pretty clear that the government does have this power, the only question is which way Justice Kennedy will sway.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Demo: A majority of the states could call a constitutional convention, although no amendment has passed that way.

Rag: This ruling doesn't affect the states at all. MA's will still be valid if the court strikes Obamacare down.

Alarial: You're all wrong.

[Demosthenes11]

Demo: A majority of the states could call a constitutional convention, although no amendment has passed that way.

ya uh I already said it's impossible

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

If you're referring to your previous post, "...0 chance congress gets a majority enough" =/= constitutional convention.

[Demosthenes11]

well thank you for pointing out perhaps an even more unlikely way

maybe alien-jesus will come from the sky and retroactively change the constitution

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I dunno, there's gotta be 27 blue states out there, but you don't need an amendment to get the health care you want in this country. Under current precedent, Congress could have created a single payer system and that would have been perfectly fine. OTHER aspects may have still been unconstitutional (the "death panels" or the medicare/caid expansion--which we'll find out about Monday as well), but not the govt. being the single payer.

[Tyche]

From what I've read, the legal experts seem to think the mandate has about a 30% chance of being struck down with everything else being pretty safe (and useless without the mandate), but...citizens united, so who the fuck knows.

[Demosthenes11]

I dunno, there's gotta be 27 blue states out there, but you don't need an amendment to get the health care you want in this country. Under current precedent, Congress could have created a single payer system and that would have been perfectly fine. OTHER aspects may have still been unconstitutional (the "death panels" or the medicare/caid expansion--which we'll find out about Monday as well), but not the govt. being the single payer.

haven't we been over this already? If there is no mandate, it's not possible to make covering pre-existing conditions profitable

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I didn't think you needed it in a single payer system.

[Pirian]

I didn't think you needed it in a single payer system.

You need mandatory participation in any system where there exists asymmetric information because of the adverse selection that occurs otherwise

[Buffy]

From what I've read, the legal experts seem to think the mandate has about a 30% chance of being struck down with everything else being pretty safe (and useless without the mandate), but...citizens united, so who the fuck knows.

I was reading an interesting article today about the chaos that would ensue if the government proceeded with the Health Care law, without the individual mandate.

This just in: It isn't good.

[Tyche]

You should find it and link it. I'd love to read it.

[Buffy]

You should find it and link it. I'd love to read it.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...102626718.html

This was the article I read, I think. If not, they borrowed from the same source, it reads similarly.