So, uh, the health care bill passed.

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comex
I suspect that most illegal immigrants did not have any reasonable opportunity to "do it the legal way".

Their life here would still be 1,000,000 times better without legal citizens unfairly being forced into supporting them. New laws in support of the illegal will only hurt you and I more.

What we need are new laws that give them all the opportunity to become legal immigrants as painlessly as possible. But I assure you, you won't see that happening anytime soon under the Obama administration.

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Arikado
What we need are new laws that give them all the opportunity to become legal immigrants as painlessly as possible. But I assure you, you won't see that happening anytime soon under the Obama administration.

Hmm. On the first point, then, we agree.

But surely using pejorative terms does not engender this cause?

Just to make it known I went through the same process as any other person. I was not sponsored by a company, it was something I decided I wanted to do, nobody helped me. Yes it was not easy, but it's a process that anyone can do.

Anyone in, say, Mexico? Really?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2010 09:32PM by comex.

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comex
Arikado, I'm sorry if I missed it, but I haven't seen you address this post. Under what terms of the new bill do taxpayers have to (effectively) pay for two plans?

I believe you and Dancingninja are trapped under a common misconception. The "Individual Mandate" provision of the bill requires every person in America to have a health care plan. It is illegal to not have one, and you will be fined if you do not. However, it states that you need only at least one health care plan. Later provisions in the bill explain new taxes that everyone will be required to pay regardless of whether or not they use the government health care plan offered to everyone. People who do not use the government health care plan will ultimately pay less than those who do (depending on your insurance of course -- but I wouldn't mind paying more for better coverage), but they will still be forced to pay for it. Thus, everyone is forced to pay for government health care but not required to make use of the government health insurance plan. Here is a list of most, if not all, of the new taxes contained in the bill that everyone will be required to pay: [www.atr.org]

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I'm going to go back to my analogy of NY State auto insurance. Everyone has to have it. But the government offers a plan for anyone who can't afford it or get accepted for it privately. Anyone who doesn't use the government plan doesn't have to pay for it. People who work hard and are accepted on to private plans actually pay less. Furthermore, laws are in place in ensure that no one is abused by any private policies. If only the government had taken a similar approach with health care on a federal level as was hoped, things would be all good

Aren't conservatives usually against a public option?

Regardless of my general political status why would I (or anyone) be against something that helps people that's not at the expense of others who don't need the help?

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comex

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Arikado
What we need are new laws that give them all the opportunity to become legal immigrants as painlessly as possible. But I assure you, you won't see that happening anytime soon under the Obama administration.

Hmm. On the first point, then, we agree.

But surely using pejorative terms does not engender this cause?

While they may, it's certainly not an illogical prediction in any way when looking at everything done by the Obama administration already.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2010 09:51PM by Arikado.

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comex
Anyone in, say, Mexico? Really?

There's no discrimination, each year so many hundred thousand spots are open for anyone to apply for. If you don't believe me here's the official statistics from the department of homeland security for 2008. [www.dhs.gov]

As you can see legal immigrants from Mexico out number any other country ten fold.

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Arikado
It's a beautiful notion, but at that point, leadership would become the new currency. People will never be equal in every way. So let's work with what we have, and try to make it better. The new American health care bill only makes things worse for everyone in a hope to benefit not the people, but the government (the vast majority of my country agrees with me).

Yes, I realize, we're far from the ideal thing, still, with no egoism, leadership won't even exist. However I think we should go in the direction towards the ideal, not away from it. How would it benefit the govenment, you say?

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Arikado
I stick to my original comment. For the record, the salaries of these health care company heads are less than many of the government officials (including those in state governments -- My state governor of NY has a salary of a whopping $179,000 a year -- but its not close to the governor of California who makes an insane $206,500 a year). Health care companies also regularly donate to medical research which is something the government certainly does not do. If anything, out government restricts research. Look at what they're doing to NASA: [www.washingtonpost.com]

Yes, that's a problem. Unfortunately, political salaries must go kinda high to avoid bribability. The thing about NASA is indeed a shame. Unfotunately, I've read to little about it to really say something, but it doesn't sound good in my ears. It's also a shame your government doesn't donate to reaserch, but hey, don't they? What about the HUGO project and other things, like that particle accelerator (which was canceled, but still)? I've got the feeling that USA heavily support research, but then, I've maybe got the wrong impression. After all, I don't live there or anywhere near it.

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Arikado
I stick to my original comment. Also, please see the last big block of text I wrote. In short: Good for business men if they're smart enough to make loads of money meanwhile doing good for millions of people. I've never had a problem with them, only been saved by them.

Maybe the ones who are saving lives arn't the worst. Still a 80 % tax income over $ 1 000 000 would still make those guys wealthier than enough.

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Arikado
1)Thats not what you said before
2)How does the policy of one nation make the world more equal?

1) It doesn't contradict what I said before.
2) USA is a part of the world and if it turns out well, there's a great chance it spreads.

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Arikado
I'm going to go back to my analogy of NY State auto insurance. Everyone has to have it. But the government offers a plan for anyone who can't afford it or get accepted for it privately. Anyone who doesn't use the government plan doesn't have to pay for it. People who work hard and are accepted on to private plans actually pay less. Furthermore, laws are in place in ensure that no one is abused by any private policies. If only the government had taken a similar approach with health care on a federal level as was hoped, things would be all good.

Yeah, that's fair. Except for one thing which I'll cover at the end of this post.

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Arikado
If your friends are only your friends because they expect you to share what you have, then I regret to inform you that your friends are using you like a tool and you should go look for some new friends. Of course in essence, this health care reform bill is only exploiting people too ...

I'm not wanting anyone of my friends to expect this. I'd like to have high taxes instead.

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Arikado
Profetylen, the United States is not a country of equality, but instead of equal opportunity. Each person, no matter where they came from, has the ability to achieve anything. Barack Obama is actually a perfect example of this: Despite growing up in a third world country, he was able to return to where he was born (if you believe he was born in Hawaii at least) and become president. Under no other political system today is this even conceivable. The more socialist our society becomes, more and more opportunity is taken away -- stories like this which our culture is based around will cease to exist if we continue on the socialist tract we are on.

Yes, the ability they have. But it's alot (ALOT) harder for one who's born on the street to get to the top than one who has a wealthy dad who pays school and stuff. (Don't know about U.S. laws, but you need to pay some of your own studies, right?)

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Arikado
Fun facts regarding the health care bill:
[www.sfgate.com] -- Unsurprisingly, Comrade Obama forgot to put promised components into the health care bill which sold some people on it. Of course, he made sure to remember to exempt himself and the rest of corrupt friends from having to abide under the bill. Most of the rest of his promised acts in the bill that we'll all be paying for soon won't even start happening until 2014 (hopefully he will not be re-elected and a new president can kill the bill by then)

Yeah, I hope that's not corruption from Obama himself (I really think he's a nice guy), but an attempt to gain enough votes to get this bill passed. This is the second bill, right? The first one, did it include the promised components?

The thing I would come back to:
You have more control when it's run by the govenment. For example, they won't waste antibiotics in the same way. The private companies do, because elseways, they'll lose customers. This happened to Sweden when we privatized the pharmacies. This will and are giving us trouble with multiresistant bacteria emerging from the exagerrated doses of antibiotics.

@scanff: I'm calling it egoism and fear. Everyone cannot work. And you'll get alot back in the form of reduced crimes and more workpower.

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Arikado
Later provisions in the bill explain new taxes that everyone will be required to pay regardless of whether or not they use the government health care plan offered to everyone. People who do not use the government health care plan will ultimately pay less than those who do (depending on your insurance of course -- but I wouldn't mind paying more for better coverage), but they will still be forced to pay for it. Thus, everyone is forced to pay for government health care but not required to make use of the government health insurance plan. Here is a list of most, if not all, of the new taxes contained in the bill that everyone will be required to pay: [www.atr.org]

I just went through that list. Some of those are real increases, but have some justification, e.g.

Medicine Cabinet Tax - okay, but

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This is not expected to be a big issue for consumers as only a small percentage of FSA amounts are used to purchase over-the-counter medication, Natt said. About 70 to 80 percent of FSA payments are spent on deductibles, co-payments and prescription drugs, he said.

FSA Cap - I don't think this is part of the current bill.
Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting - ditto.
Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals - I believe the reconciliation bill remove this.
Tax on Innovator Drug Companies - leading title, but okay.
Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers - okay, but

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In approving the tax, Congress reasoned that medical-device companies could help pay for health-care reform because they stand to benefit from an increase in demand for their products as more people obtain health insurance and visit doctors.

Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 - this is not a tax. Since employees whose employers do not already do this often can't easily tell how much their insurance costs, I don't see anything wrong with it. It was also proposed by a Republican.
Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax - okay. But this is Medicare and Medicare is going insolvent pretty quickly.
Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike - does not apply if "85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services".


Others are not in the bill, as far as I can tell, because that page is out of date. It is also heavily biased and while the descriptions of the taxes are factual, the nicknames are rather leading.

Anyway, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill is expected to half the number of nonelderly uninsured by 2019, not drastically increase it. They have read the bill much more thoroughly than either of us ;p

okay, first my uncle does not make most of his money selling insurance, he makes about 90,000 selling insurance, the other 990,000 he makes by being a stock broker(I just learned this today). Also where I come from there are a lot of farms. We need immigrants to work for us. I'm very good friends with an illegal immigrant from mexico. but on the other hand I don't think we should let them come into our country and take all the jobs. This is somewhat replaying what happened in Ancient Rome:
-Rich people go on conquests
-Rich people bring back slaves
-slaves replace the commoners as cheaper labor
-to help the commoners and get more money themselves the rich people go on more conquests
and they bring back even more slaves. this cycle will continue until we all be come mutants and die.... oh well.

(also I'm very tired when I type this please forgive my copiousness of grammar and spelling mistakes, also the high probability it doesn't make sense)

Guys, it's entirely possible the health care bill may be killed now: [news.yahoo.com]

Proper responses later to replies to me. I'm going on a mini vacation for several days :-D



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2010 08:30AM by Arikado.

By the way, illegals pay taxes on everything they would actually have to pay taxes on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2010 01:02AM by WikiFSX.

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WikiFSX
By the way, illegals pay taxes on everything they would actually have to pay taxes on.

So employers of illegals are reporting their wages and paying state and federal taxes on them? illegals are filing tax returns? How's that even possible when they don't have a SSN. Their not paying property tax because you need a SSN to get a mortgage.

The only tax they pay is sales tax and everyone has to pay it including someone on vacation from another country. Of course if their illegal they could try to claim the sales tax back, but that would be rather stupid of them.

United States is the only developed country not to have some form of publicly funded healthcare. Are you saying all other developed countries are socialist? :P

:O scary

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Phredreeke
United States is the only developed country not to have some form of publicly funded healthcare. Are you saying all other developed countries are socialist? :P

It depends on the health care system. A public option is not necessarily socialist, however forcing everyone to pay for the public option like the US is doing is.

We passed a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke. What could possibly go wrong?

What's so bad about some degree of socialism? Neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism can run a country.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2010 03:24AM by WikiFSX.

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WikiFSX
What's so bad about some degree of socialism? Neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism can run a country.

It depends on the scenario. Just like a diverse but balanced ecosystem is the strongest, so is a mixed but balanced economy.

In the case of the health care reform, we are given far to huge a dose of socialism and it is a very, very bad thing (please read my longer posts in this thread).