This is particularly sad because I have never met anyone online or offline who's against tort reform. Is there really even a debate there? The only point of contention I could see is what the specific cap should be, since you'd have to value the actual worth of a digit, a limb, a chronic condition which dirupts your life, etc. but being fairly ignorant on the matter I just don't see why we couldn't hard cap the amount of money the lawyer may receive on these cases, regardless of the plaintiff's payout.

I would think that if a lawyer can't take a 30% cut of a massive settlement that the incentive to bleed out the insurance system would be significantly diminished, but I dunno. As I said I don't really know much about the debate and there's so little public opposition to a change that it's not a common dinner table conversation for people outside of the medical industry, in my experience.

Sympathizer? You know they're people, right? What's your solution anyway? What's a humane and politically palatable (be honest, the way washington works it has to be) way to handle the situation?

Also as I said the 11 billion figure is what I'd heard, if you have a more accurate one then by all means throw it out there. I'm no expert on the matter.

Thank you so much for hijacking the thread.

But we are kinda back discussing cost again.

So, are we germans paying too much?

How much do citizens in other countries pay ... and what's the leftover money worth?

I've been gone for several days, and I won't likely read this whole thread by now, but I just wanted to say:

No one else has to pay for a person's guns if he has the right to bear arms.  That right means the person has to buy his own weapons (and for several of these weapons, has to get a liscenced for them).

'Free medical care' means other people will have to pay for and provide the service for that person.  Hospitals are currently required to bring a person to a stable condition, whether or not he can pay for it.  Anything more than that is nothing more than being a parasite.

The notion of health insurance being a 'right' is one of the sillier arguments going on out there.

@Primal Zed

But isn't that an unchristian philsophy?

Many americans and much more republicans seem to share your life philosophy while at the same time calling themselves devoted christians.

Isn't that a contradiction?

Please tell me that you didn't just attempt this tired and flawed argument.

Yes, it is a contradiction. Previously the working class voted against the wealthy because it was in their best interests to do so, but there was a great cultural backlash in which the working class people, aka the christian folk, were duped into voting against their own interests.

When people get pissed at abortion, gay marriage, Wall Street, or the liberal media what do they vote for? They vote to cut Sean Penn's and Michael Moore's taxes. They vote to derugulate the media further, they vote to privatize social security and roll back medical care. The republican party made a brilliant transformation, they mire voters in a culture war and demonize any mention of class warfare. We're worse off than we were in the gilded age and it's still moral rhetoric that's deciding elections.

The only time the Republican party has delivered on any of its promises was when Bush appointed justices Alito and Roberts to start the slow process of overturning Roe v. Wade by the only means modern society will let them.

The people here who are opposing the health care bill are the fringe. The average republican is a con, not a mod, and they're christian. They want everyone to get health care, they just don't trust the government to do it. They don't believe any of the extreme (regardless of how true they are) views expressed here that boil down to "fuck the poor." The objectivists and libertarians are NOT a major part of the electorate, but the cons still vote for their policies because they've found a nest to roost their moral perspectives in that party.

Opinion polls disagree with you, sir.

The people here who are opposing the health care bill are on the fringe.

Libertarianism and objectivism, which are clearly at the core of many of the opponents' arguments here are not the meat and potatoes of conservative ideology.

While I do not agree with your assessment, I now understand the intent of your original statment. Thank you for the clarification.

@ Aroddo

If a person felt the moral obligation to provide goods and services to the less fortunate, there are plenty of avenues available for this that are not controlled by the government.  People being morally obliged to aid others has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not such aid is a 'right' to those who cannot provide it for themselves.

In short, it should not be up to the government to force the people into performing health/moral/good behavior - it should be to protect the rights of the people.  A basic human right cannot be something that another must provide.

That sounds nice, but medicare has dramatically improved the well-being of many senior citizens and the majority of the opponents of current health reform would not support people who seek to have it removed, so again I say you are on the fringe.

@Primal Zed

So you are saying that true christian compassion must be individual and must not be practiced by a state? Doesn't the official motto "In God We Trust" imply a state based upon christian values and if so, isn't that state compelled to act upon those principles?

 

I'm sure you've heard of separation of church and state.  It is not the place of the gov't to press Christian values onto everyone.  If you are going to argue that the gov't should enforce Christian values, then it would follow that it would become a law to attend a Christian church every Sunday as well.

edit: Also, redirecting this conversation to Christianity completely ignores the notion of people having the 'right' to have health care provided to them, which I was explicitly arguing against when you first started directing posts toward me.  I never even stated if I am a Christian or not.

You do know that many conservatives, including pre-policitian Ronald Reagan, opposed Medicare when it was first instated? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

edit: either way, I never claimed to be an 'average conservative.'  I don't know what point you are trying to make by continually saying that the people posting here against HR3200 and the idea of a public option are "the fringe".

There are so many distortions here I'm not sure how to dissect your words.

Firstly, the gospels overwhelmingly preach individual accountability, so any argument that Christian teachings demand that governments act in a certain way is easily debunked by examing passages from the New Testament and the more respected theological writings (Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther, to start). As for your comment on "In God We Trust," a nation founded upon certain values is not a religious state. The United States is not compelled to act on ideals of Christian compassion no more than it is compelled to fund conversion of citizens to Christianity.