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Are we all strangers in our own country?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Simon_Cowbell, Dec 9, 2009.

  1. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    What exactly is 150% of the poverty level? I'm guessing that still cuts out an awful lot of struggling and poor families that earn just above that (and will create an incentive for borderline people to earn less to qualify for coverage).

    Sorry, but if it's not available to everyone, it's not a public option. The weaselling down of this bill is bullshit, it bothers me greatly that we can't just get this done like every other industrialized nation in the world did.
     
  2. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    This needs to be moved to the Poli.....



    (shuffling away quietly)
     
  3. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    The poverty level depends on the number of people in your family. A little over $10k/year for one, $22k for a family of four.

    It's kind of a silly measure because it doesn't account for cost of living. The poverty level is true poverty in an urban area. You can get by on it somewhat comfortably in rural areas.
     
  4. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Let me repeat myself. Polls are very clear. Majorities believe that a bill that provides health insurance coverage for more people means 1. They will pay more for their insurance. 2. The actual quality of medical care they receive will decline (why, who knows? Americans are not rational).
    Given those facts, it's a miracle any bill is ever even considered, let alone get as close to passing as this convoluted half-assed compromise has.
    Voters want low taxes, high levels of services, and a balanced budget. A large group of them think the only way they can get it is if some of their fellow citizens get nothing.
    IMO, the current public dissatisfaction with Obama is because many voters really wanted another George Bush who wasn't an idiot.
     
  5. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    They have separate guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii, and oddly the numbers are a little higher for Alaska.
     
  6. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    In the nether-regions of Alaska, where anything that comes in has to do so by bush plane, a box of Corn Flakes is $8. So it's not that strange.
     
  7. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Any proposal that increases government regulation, has no competition and continues to make employers foot the bill (or favors employers) is a flawed plan.

    Reform is needed, but the direction they're going is the wrong one. Toward the free market, not away from it.
     
  8. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Crimson, the problem with that idea as a generality is that health care is not a free market, because eventually, everybody needs it. Sick people are a captive market. That's why agriculture isn't a truly free market, either. Food's not optional. Society is always going to intervene in these markets (the Feds spend something like 30 cents of every health care dollar right now), so the trick is figuring out the most equitable and efficient means of intervening.
     
  9. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    This might have been the biggest bait and switch ever pulled, and open the door wide to single payer in the near future.

    Or the Dems got rolled by the weasels in their own caucus.

    Experience will always tell you to bet the latter, so don't feel bad, Simon. I had the same reaction.
     
  10. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Florida Representative Alan Grayson tonight on Hardball:

    On Dick Cheney: "STFU"

    On Cheney's criticism of Obama bowing to foreign leaders: "Did you see Bush Junior kissing Prince Abdullah on the cheek and holding his hand on prolonged walks? Maybe if he had let him get to second base, gas would be a dollar a gallon."

    Funny, incisive stuff.
     
  11. Oggiedoggie

    Oggiedoggie Well-Known Member

    I think that we have become strangers in our own country. And it's mainly because of the lack of respect for following rules and the social order they reflect. In doing so, we're pretty much "in your face" with the lack of respect for each other.

    When you're in the library "Quiet" doesn't mean it's Ok to be loud as long as you're on the cell phone.

    "No parking" means no parking, not "turn your flashers on 'cause you'll only be gone a minute."

    Handicapped spaces are for the physically, not mentally handicapped.

    Pay your fair share of the taxes. Drive somewhere near teh speed limit. Use your turn signals.

    Oh yeah, and the politics board is closed, goddamnit!
     
  12. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Grayson is a loudmouth, but he's damn funny and he makes some good points.

    He's also come in for a lot of stick for, basically, not following the freshman rep playbook of sitting down and shutting up.

    Which I find ironic given the number of people who think everyone in Congress should be turned out, that term limits are needed, that everyday folks need to be making the decisions, etc., etc. Now here's a guy who challenges the establishment -- and yet people want him to shut up.

    Makes no damn sense.
     
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