US shutdown - safe mode

This says it all:-

Safe mode.png

Good one!

Nothing is ever free… somebody has to pay, and personally I don't want my Tax dollars to be spent on giving people free health care as most of them chose or chose to be were there at in life. Giving 'free' health care to children is one thing giving it to adults who are in the place they are at because of their bad decision's is not.

The guns are debatable, but I'm not completely sold on the fact that they should all be banned.

nasa.gov is down =(

Tax dollars to be spent on giving people free health care as most of them chose or chose to be were there at in life.

debatable. some chose are easier based on your background (ie. poor/rich family). Also take a look at the Hippocratic Oath Hippocratic Oath - Wikipedia (i'm talking aboun the new and revised version, the one witch all doctor have to follow)

most of them chose or chose to be were there at in life.

Odd that, I don't remember my dad or two of my cousins choosing to have cancer, I wish I had asked them just to make sure.
Come to think of it no one asked my son if he wanted to have a growth hormone deficiency either.

Your tax money is already used for "free" health care (and has been for your entire life).

You are quite right you know, see the top headline from this loveable UK newspaper.

Mail.png

Odd that, I don't remember my dad or two of my cousins choosing to have cancer, I wish I had asked them just to make sure.Come to think of it no one asked my son if he wanted to have a growth hormone deficiency either.

Please don't misunderstand my comment. This was in no way an attack personally and has nothing to do with people's health, but rather who should pay for their care. Although some people aren't in their position (monetarily) do to any fault of their own most people made mistakes in their life that led them into the place that they can't afford health insurance, and I don't really think that I should have to pay for their care . For example, people with a long and ongoing criminal record should not qualify for free stuff including health care…. their children are another story.

Your tax money is already used for "free" health care (and has been for your entire life).

I know. I was responding to the commit that said America should restart with free health care.

What purpose would that serve?

If they already have a criminal record (whether on-going or not), it's unlikely that they could get a job that would enable them to either get employer-provided health care, or be able to pay out of pocket for health care (insurance or otherwise).

Hell - I'm full time employed and make really good money at my job, and even if I weren't covered by my job's health care coverage, I -still- couldn't afford a health-care plan for me and my wife. Have you ever priced them? They're insanely priced for what you can get. For anything decent, forget it!

How do I know this? Well - you could say I made a "bad choice" in my life once: I trusted an employer and strove to help them get "back on their feet". I was employed by them for several years, had coverage, etc. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but things fell apart, and the health coverage was the first thing to be "delayed", with constant excuses of "oh, we're working on it". This was a small company with maybe 5-6 employees.

Ok - so maybe my mistake was in believing in them, and in the product. I was still getting my paycheck. Well - for a while. Then there was a time where I (and others) didn't get our paychecks - with constant promises of "just give us a chance, we'll get back to where we were - and with insurance!".

Never happened. But I believed in my employer. I believed in the product. Yes, I was a fool. I am still owed that backpay (about $5k when all said and done - I'll never see it, though - and because we never had real pay slips, I don't have much documentation - did I mention I was a fool?).

I went for about 2 years without healthcare coverage, other than some dental coverage. At the age I was at the time, it was pretty nerve-wracking. Had the ACA been in place and going, I could have probably at least afforded something; I looked around for self-pay plans - none were anywhere near in my price range.

In 2011, I finally quit, found another job that made more money, and had coverage (that said, I never did get coverage - let's just say you shouldn't attempt to find a job via Craigslist - the new place was a complete scam, though I did get paid properly to the very end). Six months later, I was looking for another job, and this time I'm at a company that I know I don't have to worry much about them going belly up, scamming anybody, or anything else. I have full coverage, and I feel better now.

...but I know what it's like to be working, and having no health coverage, nor any way to get or afford any (I certainly didn't qualify for state coverage, since I make way too much). Maybe if insurance companies had established pools for small businesses and single payers in various "groups" so that they could all pitch in collectively to get lower rates - we wouldn't be talking about this today. Of course, that just would have eaten into their greed.

Which leads me back to the ACA: Do you notice how the insurance companies are being kinda two-faced about it? One face is hating it, but the other is kinda "meh - whatever" and working with it? Personally, I think the ACA is a crock, overall, and that all of us is going to be screwed over by it in some fashion. Health care costs will probably go up - not because of "free healthcare" (which it won't be - most people will have to pay something to get on the ACA plans) - not because of "too many people to cover". I don't know what the real reason will be, but we're going to get it.

It should've been a single-payer system all along, or at least something like Congress has (I think that should've been one the requirements for the ACA - make our reps eat their own dogfood - but no, they get to keep their cushy and wonderful plans, while us plebes get the dregs while being raped).

:frowning:

I think the point that Drew is trying to make is that people should have the choice about whether they want to enroll in a health insurance plan. Obamacare forces you to enroll. Not everyone wants to.

Obamacare forces you to enroll. Not everyone wants to.

i'm pretty sure you can fill a paper where you deny some or all of the tratment (local law may vary)
but you talk about "health insurance ", and this is not right, at least here in CE you have a Sanitary Card witch give EMERGENCY free heal care in all the world, and witch store some infomation, like blood type and witch kind of tratment you can't follow (bacause of religion/choose/healt), so by default you heal care is "on", but you can choose to turn it "off"

nb: the healt care cover emergency or life threathing , but you still pay something based on your income for other cures.

Without wishing to take sides here, from what I've heard this situation has been helped along by a gerrymander which has helped certain politicians get elected.

Surely a strong democracy relies on the principle of: one man, one vote?

That's really only the tip of the iceberg...

First off - we are not a democracy. In theory, we are a "representative republic". At least, that's what they tell everyone.

In truth, depending on the time of year, position in an "election cycle", how the public is feeling, how much the media is paying attention (and/or how much they are being bought for), and a whole host of other reasons, we are likely everything else.

Those of us who actually care, who want to see things restored to sanity and actual work get done, those of us who want to see our politicians -not- working for themselves (while saying they are working for the people), but rather for the people who elected them (regardless of whether it gets them elected the next time) - well, we are all few and far between, and it seems like we can never get what we need.

It's amazing that they find it so damn difficult to fix this budget, but somehow spending 1 trillion plus dollars (which we'll be paying for long after I am dead) on the war in Iraq was somehow "easy". I shake my head at the lost opportunity that we had, had we spent that money instead on infrastructure, education, and healthcare. For some reason, our society here in America prefers to spend money to bring -other- people misery, rather than spending it to bring -themselves- opportunity.

Then again, had the money been spent in the way suggested, instead of on the war, it would've just gotten "lost" in the pockets of the greedy and corrupt, just like it did for the war as well.

Personally, I tend to also wonder if government, once it gets past a certain size, becomes apathetic ala "The Corporation". That is, even if everyone in the government is working for the best interests of their constituents and others, to the best of their skills - the actual output that occurs from the system as a whole is at best apathetic to the situation at hand, and at worst, actively belligerent. We know this is true of corporations; it follows that it is likely true of any organization of nodes over a certain population size. It also seems to correlate that the intelligence of the individual nodes comes into play; ie - the higher the intelligence and the greater the number of nodes, the more likely such "bad" or "unwanted" output occurs.

Side note: Which is better - a neural network made of trillions of unintelligent nodes, or one made of trillions of intelligent nodes? Personally, I would pick the former, as it would be more likely to reason like an individual, whereas the latter would reason like a bureaucracy or other large organization. Makes one pause when you think about the internet...

Anyhow - I don't see any of this fixed in the near term, if ever.

The bigger part of the problem, which most of the arguments try to bury in fertilzer is this, in the United States the federal Government has no business doing a lot of the things that it has taken on. Many of those responsibilities are things that are reseverved for the individual states.

While some of this may seem a bit odd to those from other countries (exceptions might be Canada, Australia and Russia), we have states that are as big as, if not bigger than some countries in the rest of the world. And I am sure that some of you all living in Europe have felt a degree of irritation at the power the EU has over individual nations rights. We ahve heard of some of those squabbles from time to time...

This is all part of a bigger question - Just how powerful should the federal government be? And there are a great many here in the US that feel that the power of the federal government needs to be rolled back. Some think a bit, and some think a lot... We do tend to be a more conservative lot, and there is a growing sense that the entitlements are getting a bit rich. I would like to be able to afford a fine steak, and I do get a bit pout off when some yob with a government aid card can buy the steaks that I can't afford. Why should he be able to eat well and get fat when I am working and have to eat beans?

I would like to be able to afford a fine steak, and I do get a bit pout off when some yob with a government aid card can buy the steaks that I can't afford. Why should he be able to eat well and get fat when I am working and have to eat beans?

So where do you get this sort of information from? I bet it is the press and fox news. Do you actually know anyone like this?

We have the same problem with propergander in the UK. In virtually all cases on proper investigation these stories are found to be either a simply lie or exaggerated out of all proportion.
It is estimated that 0.7% of claims for benefit in the UK are fraudulent so that means out of every 1000 people 7 are ripping you off. So do you intend to punish the other 993 people because of these seven? That is a very odd an uncivilized attitude if you do, and I am sure you wouldn't.

I am sure if a relative or friend lost there job you would help wouldn't you?

One trick that Fascist pull is to depersonalize and dehumanize people, it then makes them much easier to hate and persecute them. That is how Hitler did it and every other evil faction, it is the oldest trick in the book, don't fall for it.

Grumpy_Mike:

I would like to be able to afford a fine steak, and I do get a bit pout off when some yob with a government aid card can buy the steaks that I can't afford. Why should he be able to eat well and get fat when I am working and have to eat beans?

So where do you get this sort of information from? I bet it is the press and fox news. Do you actually know anyone like this?

We have the same problem with propergander in the UK. In virtually all cases on proper investigation these stories are found to be either a simply lie or exaggerated out of all proportion.
It is estimated that 0.7% of claims for benefit in the UK are fraudulent so that means out of every 1000 people 7 are ripping you off. So do you intend to punish the other 993 people because of these seven? That is a very odd an uncivilized attitude if you do, and I am sure you wouldn't.

I am sure if a relative or friend lost there job you would help wouldn't you?

One trick that Fascist pull is to depersonalize and dehumanize people, it then makes them much easier to hate and persecute them. That is how Hitler did it and every other evil faction, it is the oldest trick in the book, don't fall for it.

Its just one of the convenient forms of misdirection used by the sociopaths that run our country. Theres a lot of talk of "cracking down" on election fraud as well, even though the number of fraudulent votes per election is about 30 out of 241,000,000. Both parties are owned by the same corporations, so they had to do something to differentiate themselves. I actually do know people that take advantage of the system, and it bothers me, but not enough to shut down the system for everyone. Thats just stupid. What we really need to do is evaluate and restructure the systems that we have. We have all these welfare programs that overlap in services and coverage area, that cost way more than they should, while still leaving giant holes in coverage.

I have a problem with the federal government providing welfare to the citizens, because that is the job of the states. The federal government should only be involved enough to ensure that the individual state programs all follow similar rules, so that citizens can move from one state to another without losing coverage or services (If you are injured outside of your state, or an out of state hospital is closer, you should still be covered).

kf2qd:
We do tend to be a more conservative lot, and there is a growing sense that the entitlements are getting a bit rich. I would like to be able to afford a fine steak, and I do get a bit pout off when some yob with a government aid card can buy the steaks that I can't afford. Why should he be able to eat well and get fat when I am working and have to eat beans?

My father-in-law worked every day of his life from 8 (driving a logging truck with his older brother) to 62. He retired "early" because the manual labor jobs he worked destroyed his body. He worked creating the lumber used to build your house. He worked building the roads that allow you to travel this great country; the roads that bring you food. He worked hauling things, like your food, over those same roads.

He did not earn enough to keep his family alive. They could not quite afford the food they needed so they grew what they could not afford. They could not afford new clothes so his wife made clothes for the family.

His entire retirement "income" comes from Social Security which is significantly below the Federal poverty level. By the end of the year, your delusional perspective will result in his no longer receiving Social Security checks. At that point, without aid from his family, he will no longer be able to afford property tax and will lose his house, he will no longer be able to afford food, and he will no longer be able to pay for the energy needed to survive the winter.

@kf2qd, I will happily buy you a steak if you stop threatening to take away what very little my father-in-law has left.

Grumpy_Mike:
One trick that Fascist pull is to depersonalize and dehumanize people, it then makes them much easier to hate and persecute them. That is how Hitler did it and every other evil faction, it is the oldest trick in the book, don't fall for it.

This is being done in Australia. There is debate about asylum seekers arriving in this country. An advertisement run by the (former) government designed to discourage "boat people" showed an old rickety boat, but strangely no people on board it. The slogan "stop the boats" was used, and the ad showed a boat approaching the country. Odd, that a boat would not have people on board. But showing men, women and children on the boat would humanize them, generate sympathy.

Similarly the people seeking asylum were referred to "illegals" (illegal immigrants) rather than people or asylum seekers. It is easy to reject an "illegal" rather than a father, mother and child fleeing persecution. And of course they are not in fact illegal until due process of law has found them to be so.

Grumpy_Mike:
It is estimated that 0.7% of claims for benefit in the UK are fraudulent so that means out of every 1000 people 7 are ripping you off. So do you intend to punish the other 993 people because of these seven? That is a very odd an uncivilized attitude if you do, and I am sure you wouldn't.

here in italy the number are worst, at least 2/3 times at year someone is cought stealing money from many times with fake blindess or invalidity.
BUT we still support it, and we are happy with it, i've listen to people from far right to far left, the only discrimination PROPOSED on healtcare was that illegal immigrants was to be charged from the police after tratment.. and it didn't pass

And we are talkin about Italy, where pseudo-fascism is strong, "the right" is on charge with berlusconi for many year (like 20 in the last 25 years) AND we have a lot of problem with illegal immigrant (read: escaping from syria, etiopia and souch country), as they see italy as the jump point for the rest of europe

Perhaps because they were in fact, illegal and "jumping the queue" in front of all those seeking to enter the country by due process of law, by paying upward of $10,000 apiece on the black market.

Perhaps that way of doing business in their home countries, actually made them unpopular.