Since conservatives oppose the health-care bill...?

Yeah, it gets better. Of course, requiring you to have mandatory health insurance is just plain unconstitutional and wrong... sort of like requiring a driver to have auto insurance to cover any accidents he or she might have is just plain unconstitutional and wrong.

I mean, we shouldn't be going around FORCING drivers to maintain insurance on their vehicles. So what if accidents happen and they can't pay for them? I mean, it's not like the rest of society has to absorb the cost of whatever goes wrong when they go bleeding to the emergency room and we have to sew them back together and... ooooooh.

See, THAT'S the rationale behind it. The rest of us DO have to pay for it every time someone without health insurance has one of their little accidents just like we have to pay for it every time an uninsured motorist has an accident, so since everyone is driving around in their own personal little bodies just waiting for an accident to happen, it's in all our best interests if everyone actually has their own health insurance so the costs of an industry we cannot dispense with are correctly distributed and the rest of us don't have to pay for someone else's health insurance by proxy.

*Ahem*... don't expect conservatives to understand that.

You also shouldn't expect them to get the irony of the GOP health care agenda. For instance, take the health care reforms they want to enact, as listed on their own website:

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/Uploaded...

The thing is, every last one of those is part of the health care package they want to repeal. If you take all those proposals and put them into one comprehensive health care reform package, you get "Obamacare".

The only part that isn't really in Obamacare is the all important tort reform section they want to enact, but as President Obama pointed out at that health care summit the Republicans like to pretend never happened so they can claim they were never consulted and no one ever tried to work with them before crafting health care reform legislation, the tort reform they want to pass will only make a token difference in the amount of money spent on health care (a point to which they had no good response when he made it, and still have not been able to defend).

That's okay, though. Look at how much time and effort they waste claiming they're going to cut government spending when nearly 85% of the Federal budget is eaten up on defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, and interest payments on the national debt.

One has to wonder where they're planning on saving all this money in the 15% they have left. Maybe could do away with the Department of Transportation. Who needs interstates? Or perhaps we could cut out the child pornography and sex trafficking divisions of the FBI. That could save some dough... or just do away with the FBI altogether. And the CIA. And the NSA. Who really needs national security, anyway?

I'm sure we can just trust the other countries of the world to not try and exploit the situation.

I know. Let's cut the Department of Education. They seem to be all for that. After all, it's not like our world has become exponentially more complex since the time of the Founding Fathers, so a system where each parent, regardless of their educational qualifications, just puts what effort they want and can personally afford into providing the equivalent of a seventeenth century education to their children should be more than adequate.

Besides, educational expenses eat up, what? Two percent, three percent of our national budget? That's almost as awful as that one half of one percent the Federal government spends on "welfare" programs.

Don't worry. I'm sure once the Republicans get a hold of things, we'll all be doing dandy. After all, it's not like all the economic data over the past fifty years shows that deficit spending increases every time they take power and the standard of living slips for the average American family and... aw, crud.

You may have been too busy reading your comic books to see the really big picture of the Obama Universal Health Care bomb. The way I see it, the whole idea behind it anyway is to prod private companies away from providing Health Insurance to their employees through tax provisions. When that happens, the folks will be left with the alternative of purchasing individual health policies OR getting signed up with a government provided program. Nothing more than a back door move to enact the Public Option/Single payer scheme.

While I do agree that there is a need for Health Care/Health Insurance reform, the Obama package is not the way to go.

Andi- When do you suppose you will stop using the auto insurance analogy? Anyone with half a brain has figured out that there is no correlation. If you don't own a car, you have no government requirement to purchase auto insurance. There is no IRS fine for not having auto insurance.

I went to the site you linked. You must have a brain cloud if you didn't see any differences between the proposals listed and what Obama care is.

1. Without increasing taxes OR CUTTING MEDICARE. Obama is planning a 500 billion medicare cut.

2. Ending Junk Lawsuits. While in your opinion, it doesn't amount to much, an decrease in malpractice insurance to health care providers should lower costs.

3. Encouraging Small Business Health Plans. Allowing small businesses to pool their health care policy needs is a big change. And could conceivably save them a large amount of money.

4. Allowing Americans to purchase across state lines. The democrats wouldn't even consider this and it could make a HUGE difference by encouraging competition.

5. Enhancing HSA's. Again, the Obama package has no interest in HSA's and indeed would like to do away with them entirely.

And lastly, you stoop to the liberal weapon of claiming that any savings will have to be paid for by closing or reducing funding to whatever program you have decided we can't live without. I believe it's called the Washington Monument gambit.

You are fairly close to the right answer and you don't even realize it.

The problem it that employer provided health insurance is not a good idea. Employers provide health insurance instead of pay. Since your policy cost would be $1000 per month they pay you $1000 less than you deserve and they buy the insurance policy for you. But they only pay 600 because they are buying lots of policies and they get a bulk discount. On top of that, the government does not charge them taxes on the benefits but would charge them for pay role tax if they gave money.

So to pay you the $1000 would cost your employer $1160 or so but instead they buy insurance for you at just $600. They save $560 per employee and you have insurance so they can expect better attendance from healthy employees (I'll bet studies will find this part to be less than true).

Insurance is a savings for your boss and every time they 'share to burden' by raising deductibles and co-pays they are managing that $560 in savings to keep that number steady. They are no where close to the $1160 it would cost to pay you outright.

My employer just imposed a $600 annual fee for anyone who smokes. TV ads are just starting that talk about the cost of obesity, what will they be charged? One insurance company ad hints that runners have bad knees, will there be a penalty for that in the future?

Be careful what you wish for.

Universal Health care would potentially cost you more than $1000 a month for a total lack of usable coverage and treatment. You also have to look at the total bill not just parts pertaining to health care, there happens to be a bunch of garbage that was included in that bill (that should not be in there). Many companies have already started getting around paying insurance benefits to their employees and also decreased their wages. Many companies will not be able to provide insurance benefits because of the increased costs, meaning they will leave it to the employees to pay OR close their doors and move overseas. It was not the forcing to buy insurance that was needed, but rather regulations to reduce the high costs of treatment, something that insurance companies will not do, after all increases in costs means they can increase premiums. Any way you cut it, the "health care insurance reform" or universal health care, is bad for Americans.

Ways you proved you're a completely ordinary Democrat:

> EVERYONE able to quote ANY portion of the bill has come out against it. Thus we know YOU have NO IDEA what you're supporting.

> NO employer provides coverage. YOU WORK FOR IT and INSTEAD of getting paid, you get insurance. YOU were fooled by Democrats making it illegal for your employer to SHOW that part of your earnings on your stub.

> Insurance only became "necessary" as an EXPECTED consequence of Democrat policy. You went to the provider of YOUR OWN choice on YOUR OWN schedule and you paid him and YOU COULD AFFORD it. Democrats spent decades deliberately ending THAT and YOU are GLAD.

None of those three things can apply to anyone BUT a Democrat. Humans are too smart.

Label, if you actually did the math, you would see that health insurance is a scam and only benefits the provider. In other words, the deck is stacked in the favor of the house, the "insured" always loses.

If a person starts work at 18, and works 50 years (retirement age of 68), he pays an average of 7,000 dollars a year for insurance. That's 350,000 in total payments, but that same person will only use around 100,000 worth of services. So, that 250,000 goes to the house. If that same person put the same amount of money into a simple money market, that same 350,000 would be almost a million, with the difference now going to children.

Its no wonder the government wants a piece of the action, will give them a triple edged sword. They'll control your life by controlling your health insurance, they'll control your actions with taxation, and they'll control your death with social security. Complete control over you, and you'll pay them to do it! What a perfect scam.

Madoff was given 90 years for taking money from "investors", and redistributing it to previous investors. The government calls that social security and taxing the rich. It's no wonder the government put Madoff for the rest of his life... he was a competitor.

Just wake up from your nap? When you get old enough to get a job you will see employers have been offering health care packages as an incentive to attract quality workers for a very long time.

This Health Care Bill is forcing people to buy something they could hardly afford, and now that insurance companies are being forced to raise their premiums can definitely not afford.

If you follow the Liberal beliefs, we all would have government heath care. If government health care is that good, then why stop there. Why not government housing for everyone? Why doesn't government provide a vehicle for everyone? Why not government mandated diets?

People better wake up, never elect a Liberal and reelect no one.

I'm all for UHC, but I suggest we start from scratch. Junk all politicians HC. Then the same care for everyone. Nothing annoys me like paying for HC, and not getting it simply because I happen to not be a politician. Of course the Repos filibustered the bill into intensive care. They were petrified they might have to dig into their $192,000 + Cadillac HC+ bennys.

Your question is based on fiction and wishful thinking Obama-care is unfortunately based in fact and reality and will drive cost higher than you predict in your rant.

That's just about the picture of what would happen. There are many ways that UHC could have been phased in for the American people, but this wasn't one I would have chosen for myself or anyone I care about. Paying money higher for premiums out of your necessities so that fat-cat executives can get million-dollar bonuses for denying treatments and surgeries is criminal; just like those who are running it right now...

We need to get capitalism out of medical care.