I don’t want “affordable” insurance either. This defeats the whole purpose of Free Health Care, I’m thinking.

I would like to walk into a doctor’s office/clinic with only my proper ID and simply leave with my ID and my prescription (if necessary). An insurance card would not be needed. I think that is what all of us are seeking. This bill is very confusing when it doesn’t have to be. We need to overthrow all of the insurance companies, we have the power NOT THEM.

Is there a possibility of a public vote on this?

Also, I don’t fully understand how this bill is unconsitiutional. Please don’t beat me up, I would just like to understand so I can support.

Can someone please explain to me in simple terms HOW we “trim” the federal deficit by $138 billion while adding 32 million uninsured? If the answer is further increase Medicare taxes on dividends/interest I’m concerned the constitutionality of coercive taking of wealth from one’s production and giving it to someone who didn’t produce it.

The bill bars the insurance industry from denying coverage to pre-existing medical conditions. Gee, insurance only WORKS by excluding “pre-existing” conditions. Example in car insurance: Can I not pay premiums, then call and get car insurance only AFTER I’ve been in an accident? This whole bill is a car wreck…

Most coercive government action I recall in my lifetime: Starting 2014, most Americans would be required for the first time to purchase insurance or face penalties if they refused. Large businesses would face fines if they did not offer good-quality coverage to their workers. Gee, I wouldn’t want to be a “large business” anytime soon then.

“Because each state has it’s own set of rules in regards to what their package can and can not include, so most of the time the reason private insurance may be cheaper in one state rather than another is because the coverage isn’t as good as many might think.”

So to solve the problem create a nationwide private health insurance market with nationwide policies of what a package can include…and ban companies from rejecting people from pre-existing conditions. That will fix our health care system.

Dummy, it raises taxes on the super rich. NOT THE MIDDLE CLASS!

I may try to reply to the Howard Rich essay here, since it’s the bottom of the thread. This guy sure quotes a lot of figures without offering any source for where he gets them. It’s also frustrating that he uses such obvious exaggeration. He’s a very wealthy man, maybe he has some access to privy information, but he’s the first guy to question the CBO report in everything I’ve read. Not exactly an unbiased investigative journalist there, I’ll be surprised if he gets much traction.

Until very recently I very much supported most libertarians, voting for them whenever I got to the polls, but these guys are off the rocker lately. What’s an independent party that wants to reduce the deficit and reach fiscal responsibility, not simply by avoiding interaction with government, but by actually working within it.

Too many congressmen misunderstand the meaning of parts of the Constitution, especially the Preamble. Too many mistake “promote the general Welfare” to be “provide the general welfare.” Government doesn’t need to provide for the welfare of a free people – free people naturally provide it for themselves; freedom promotes the best general welfare possible, so government is charged with protecting freedom.

This health care bill cost too much and only rewards insurance company’s I voted it down this is garbage and will add to our 12 Trillion Dollar debt many American’s want cheap affordable health care not this.

Don’t kid yourself that there is anyone who falls into the category of Believer of Big Government. It’s simply a matter of choosing your sacrifices. We all want a government big enough to tackle anti-trust when needed, to defend the borders at very least and to protect the population. This falls into that first category while also increasing solvency, something that slipped very far from our fingers in our response to both real and perceived threats over the past decade.

Do we need an amendment to separate corporation and state? Good Lord, they need to just hit the kids with healthier lifestyles, exercise and preventative care and implement medicinal marijuana to help cut those damn prescription pill costs down and the government could take in some revenue.

Hard to tell what they are thinking, or why they are rejecting he bill. They never have specific complaints. It’s just seems to be a general fear of things they don’t take the time to understand.

The TSA had nothing to do with the Xmas bomber. He came in from a foreign country, and through their security, not ours.

If Obama had his way, there would be one massive bill titled “Comprehensive, Systematic Takeover of Everything I Think I Can Run Better than You Act.”

The text of the bill would read like so:

Sec 1000. Definitions

a) Entity – Any corporation, business, organization, group, individual, or practice which is determined by the President to not be running exactly the way the President thinks is best.

Sec 1001. Extension of Presidential Powers

a) At the President’s request, a committee shall be formed to investigate the status, actions, structure, and any other qualities of any Entity. This committee will deliberate with the President to determine what corrective actions are necessary. Corrections shall be applied immediately upon the request of the President.

The Democratic “health care reform” effort has become an election campaign. They just want something, anything, to pass. They don’t even care that the Senate bill will not reduce health care costs, will not reduce health insurance costs, will raise taxes on the middle class, will severely hurt small businesses, will increase the deficit, and otherwise will not achieve any of the goals that President Obama set for health care reform.

The process is not transparent, as was promised. This is a behind closed doors process full of payoffs and kickbacks. If this thing passes, it will be a sad day for our country.

Keep up the fight!

PROVE that the people who are members of the Tea Party movement are a very small constituency.

In the future, I would appreciate you referring to the people of this movement in a less offensive manner.

neveragain, I think you exaggerate the scale of this reform. This is one case where the money is at least accounted for. A certain other party used its house majority to engage in unilateral action on the other side of the world without even considering adding it to a budget.

There’s a clear problem with the health insurance industry; everyone agrees on this. The republican party fails time and again to do anything about it, while millions of Americans suffer needlessly to outright corruption. If the free market consistently fails, the government steps in. It’s simple cause and effect.

If you refer to the 1982 anti-trust lawsuit the United States vs AT&T, then lets do it, you have my vote. If health insurance reform is on the same road then I can’t wait for the day. As for the Howard Rich essay, if you have his kind of money, then I understand why you wouldn’t support this thing. Poor guy is about to get an extra 1/2 % income tax on his billion dollar investment portfolio windfalls when the house amendments go through. But I generally don’t trust what he says because he speaks in hyperbole.

I simply fail to see the same thing you do in this bill, I don’t see a public option, or a new government run plan. It looks like regulation when I read it, and fiscally responsible, timely legislation at that. I do complain that it’s cumbersome, but at least it phases in so we can see some effects and have time to anticipate the rest.

Slugger, you hit the nail on the head. That is the major problem with our American process. The discusting part is that it is legalized bribery.

Is anyone out there good enough to tackle section 3401 and break it down for us? According to the CBO it’s the source of 146.7 billion in debt reduction over 10 years but the wording in the bill is at best cryptic.

The social security act section 1886 that it references is no less cryptic.

When the choice comes down to greed or saving lives, I will always back life.

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816

According to gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/hist.html table 6.1 you can thank our victory in WWII as a manufacturer supplying the allies for a large amount of your purchasing parity. This is the period where the US economy grew the most since its inception. The delayed entry to war was a government decision, fully supported by our extremely unhawkish fathers and grandfathers.

According to Dr. C. J. Tassava, our mobilization for war thanks in a large part to Roosevelt’s “the Arsenal of Democracy” in the year before we were attacked in Pearl Harbor gave us the preparedness advantage needed to win outright economically and militarily.

So don’t be too quick to dismiss Goverment’s role in your quality of life. As for market competition… There exists no market competition under yesterdays system, when employees don’t have the opportunity to choose their provider you have a different form of governance, the kind that involves a company store.

If you were ever in the armed forces, you’d know that, although the best on the planet, there is HUGE ineffeciencies and waste. Same with TVA, police, etc. By the way, how’s the Energy department doing with their goal of eliminating dependence on foreign oil??

Yep, free markets aren’t a great solution, just better than anything else ever invented. When was the last time you saw a government agency of any size save money and return it to the taxpayer?? There is no incentive to do so, and every incentive to spend as much as you possibly can get away with every year. Free markets punish those who do this quite effectively. Their products get too pricey, and stop selling. Government has no such check and balance.

And I suppose “The Patriot Act” is constitutional? Why weren’t you screaming when that was passed? (By a republican president/congress, I might add)

Well, Bostondan, I guess you’ll be forfeiting your right to use community services then, since you don’t think the government should do anything to help you. When your home is burning, or a family member has a heart attack, I don’t want to hear you calling 911 for help :)

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I can’t believe this GARBAGE legislation is making its way through congress when so many Americans are against it? Who are these senator’s, who are supposed to be representing American interest, listening to if not us? These kinds of politics make me SICK!! Our politicians have been bought off, obviously!!… but I suppose that’s old news. When will America be America again?

Furthermore, it disgusts me how they disguise these garbage bills with fancy titles and abstracts that SOUND good, but are filled with poison. Of course another strategy of theirs is loading these bills with thousands of pages of garbage so nobody will ever read it, even if they had the time to. Finally, they push them through, making the bills impossible to come under scrutiny. What the crap is WRONG with this country and its politics!?! This is INSANITY people!!

RESTORE THE REPUBLIC!!

This bill, quite frankly, frightens me. I admit I haven’t read the full text, but from what I hear and have read, it appears that every citizen will be REQUIRED to purchase health insurance, but I haven’t seen or heard anything about regulating the cost of it. Sure, there’s talk about a subsidy for those who can’t afford it, but what are the eligibility requirements? If you want proof of the disaster this can be, look at Massachusetts. Their mandatory insurance premiums are forcing people to either bankrupt themselves or become criminals. If this passes and is signed into law, I foresee a situation in which people avoid getting healthcare at all…not only because they can’t afford it, but because they don’t want to be fined for not carrying mandated insurance. I have insurance, but my daughter, age 21 and working part time, does not. What will become of her and those like her who cannot afford to pay $500 a month for coverage?

Yes: “HUGE ineffeciencies and waste”; and yet still: “the best on the planet.”

What has the free market done for you without taking everything it can from you?

Both chambers passed Health Care Bills. But both houses have to pass the exact same legislation. This is the Senate version. The version that passed the House was HR3200. The Senate wrapped their version into this bill because, according to the Constitution, all bills for raising Revenue must begin in the house (sort of a shell game there). Since both bills were different, and only the legislation that has passed both houses can go forward to the President for signature, the House had to pass the Senate version as there were not enough Senate votes to pass the original House bill.