The Constitution of the United States of America is a document that defines the national government of the people of the United States. It is short and relatively easy to understand. The main purpose of the Constitution is to restrict those in government from practicing tyranny over the governed. It clearly defines the limited roles of the three branches of our national government, and prohibits those three branches from taking any actions outside their respective roles. Providing health care for every citizen is not within the limited role of any of the three branches, least of all Congress.

The Constitution is like a “white list” of things government is allowed to do. Anything not on the list, government is not authorized to do.

All supporters of this bill, enjoy your victory while it lasts. Even if it passes:
(a) It will be challenged immediately after being signed into law and some portions (if not all) will likely be struck down as unconstitutional. If not, the Constitution is effectively meaningless and we’re all in serious trouble.
(b) It will likely be nullified by several state governments (e.g. Arizona) and have no effect there.
© It will be ignored by those of us who understand the concept of limited government and will not be forced to buy a damned commodity (health insurance) for any reason whatsoever.
(d) It will possibly be repealed following the 2010 or 2012 elections. I don’t think some of you realize how much political fallout this is going to cause.

This bill is supposed to help 31 million uninsured become 24 to 25 million uninsured. Then what? Will someone please tell me how the government is supposed to be able to run this hulk of a monster when they’ve failed at everything they’ve managed thus far. This bill needs to be scrapped. The industries need to be fixed…Insurance, Drugs/Pharms, Medical. Or maybe first, fix Congress. Do away with the crap added to this bill, add a 28th ammendment to the Constitution to do away with private insurance and retirement for Congress, make the government accountable for our tax dollars. We need to make sure that government is run like a business and if they fail, then and only then will we be on the hook for trillions in mis-spent funds!!!

Can someone please tell me why the House voted on this bill tonight when it was passed last year by both the House and the Senate. I’m confused as to why they had to vote on it again tonight. Thanks in advance.

You would want to take away Veteran Care?! Care for the very people who keep your right to speak against them in such a manner?! You are the type of person that causes the problems in this country. You only see things in ’D’s and ’R’s. Just because you say you’re an independent and that you voted for Bush (obviously a lie) you tout the far left ideology at every corner.

I have no disagreements with anything you’ve just said. At this point we just vary to the slightest degree in our faith in free markets. The past years have shown quite decisively that free markets can fail. They can punish consumers excessively and they can produce giant corporations, large enough to tap our government like a huge piggy bank while still paying their executives enormous amounts of money and escaping any degree of oversight.

Our country is at a crossroads, and I for one believe it should protect the free market at all costs. This legislation I see as protecting the free market from itself. Take me for instance, as a young, self employed workaholic student, I’d never participate in the old insurance system. Now that there’s some degree of regulation in the Open Insurance Market, I don’t feel like I’d be buying snake oil.

BAD BILL SEND IT BACK NO NEW TAXES.

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.

You conveniently leave out that the supreme court precedent for declaring these acts “constitutional” is a direct result of FDR’s thinly veiled threats to pack the court in the 1930s. The fact that social security and friends have been declared constitutional is not a valid argument for the constitutionality of this (or any other such) legislation but merely a symptom of a federal government not currently bound by the rule of law.

Have any of you noticed how top-rated comments and higher ratings tend to lean more towards the tea party – also spelled with lowercase to emphasize a point-they might represent a lower percentage driskells, but they thrive in numbers here, just look at the top-rated comments over on the right.

I am a long term unemployed individual. I had spent 28 years working and paying taxes in the State of Pennsylvania. I was last employed, for 10 years, as a technician in the lab of a textile processing facility. I have an associates degree in the arts and I am now in my junior year of the B.A. program at Kutztown University. I have lots of experience and education. I have been looking for a job for a long time and I have not found one. Bad (employed) people are saying that I/we are lazy and not looking for work. I was filing mail claims for quite some time, to receive my benefits. Any one of our elected officials should know this much, or they should not even be broaching the subject. The truth is you can’t be a long term unemployed individual and not have been looking for work, because, at one point, you must document your searches. If my congressmen don’t help me, I do not know who I will vote for – none of them deserves to draw a paycheck from the taxes I will pay.

Fortunately, none of the voting on this site reflects the electorate; it does, however, match the rhetoric here.

The “True Believers” of Big Government will love this bill. Those of us who realize that as governments get bigger and more powerful, citizens are less free, upward social and economic mobility slows, and citizens get poorer will work like heck to get this repealed. George Will articulates it best: “As America’s teetering tower of unkeepable promises grows, so does the weight of government, in taxes and mandates that limit investments and discourage job creation. America’s dynamism, and hence upward social mobility, will slow, as the economy becomes what the party of government wants it to be — increasingly dependent on government-created demand.” —columnist George Will

The military home buyers’ help you are seeking has been signed into law. This has been a mess of a way to do business. Partisans. Dug in. Fighting a war of attrition over small patches of rules in order to win the bigger battles. Democracy at it’s most frustrating.

So I’m just taking on this bill piece by piece. I read sections 1312 and 1501. So you don’t have to enroll, but you will be fined. I understand that these fines, as well as all those that do pay whatever plan they are already in, the 13% who are currently not insured that will be insured with this bill’s passing, will be able to fund this bill? As well as lower (or eliminate) the burden on everyone that has to pay for those people that taxpayers pay for (illegal aliens)?

“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

It’s tough not to be simple in 1000 characters! The problem with insurance is that it’s a largely disreputable industry, so we very much agree that it’s regrettable that the government subsidized it so much years ago. Too bad the republican party threw a tantrum instead of participating in the solution. It would be great to have other, smaller solutions to examine. This is what we’ve got and it will probably go a long way to leashing an industry known more for its reputation of fraud than promoting health.

As for what the government does better than private industry? The US Armed forces personnel represent the best and most professional at what they do. We tried to privatize aspects of war with huge consequences if you remember Blackwater’s excessive use of force. The police are better than the mob, and the TVA is better than Enron was.

Check out Charlie Rose’s coverage of the issue. He’s been able to have straight, informative interviews with people involved in every aspect of this thing. Not sure how he does it, but when people appear on his show they don’t simply regurgitate party talking points. Until now I just followed him on mid-east related issues, such as when Petraeus was on, but these days I watch almost every show. Recent stuff is on hulu, with back logs available from his site.

I already voted out specter for turning his back on us. Who’s next?

I certainly have. I love the idea of this website, but I wish it were a better sampling of the people at large. There seems to be a pretty hard bend to the right here.

That’s why most of the time I use it just to keep track of the progress of bills, and try to pretend the comments don’t exist (except just now obviously).

There is a big difference when it comes to cars: I am not required to purchase/drive a car in the first place. If I don’t want to buy auto insurance, I don’t have to. With this healthcare bill, I am required to purchase/obtain insurance no matter the circumstances.

In regards to the market not working the way it should have, I blame the government controls imposed on it in the first place. We never did have a free market. Government stepping in to help the healthcare market will be a disaster. Think TSA and airports.

Your health insurance already covered the uninsured through added hospital costs when uninsured people are treated. Hospitals can’t and won’t let people die in the ER before they verify insurance coverage.

This isn’t a rights based thing, it doesn’t cover all Americans, but serves to increase the insurability of those of us who are self employed or recently unemployed. Interesting that you mention car insurance, as much of the bill seems to emulate the government requirements on car insurance that most of us accept as common sense.

“have you ever heard of the ‘Free Market’. the part that makes it work is the FREE part.”
A splendid joke chap! Well met!
Oh wait, your serious.
The problem with your statement is that in the U.S. there isn’t and hasn’t been a “Free Market” for some time. In a Free Market there are no restrictions on what can be done in the private sector aside basic property laws. Evidently this isn’t what you want though, considering that you go on to say:
“i aint saying there shouldnt be rule and regs …”
What you have described here isn’t a free market at all, it’s what is called a mixed market, and it just so happens to be the type of market the U.S. has had for decades. A mixed market is simply a market that allows for private control of assets with government regulation.
You then making assertions that no one seems to be suggesting. No one has said private industry should in anyway be overturned. No one has stated that people shouldn’t be allowed to try and sell superior products to the public.

First of all Lucas, this is not a bill about health care, if you look at the title, you would see that it is a legislative vehicle. In other words, this is the bill that is going to carry the health care bill with it. This bill covers a first time home buyers credit for members of the armed forces.

It has nothing to do with health care.

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!!

A webpage at whitehouse.gov entitled “Reality Check” claims that the president’s program “would be fully paid for over 10 years, and it would not add one penny to the deficit.” The CBO is mandated to prepare cost estimates and to show how individual legislative proposals would change spending or revenue levels under current law. A July 15 2009 letter from the CBO made this assessment,

“enacting the proposal would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficits of about $1.0 trillion over the 2010-2019 period.”

However, CBO analyses of the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills show that they would reduce the federal budget deficit by $109 billion and $81 billion respectively.

Both H.R. 3962 and H.R. 3590 do terrible things. For example, section 163 of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 would allow the government real-time access to a person’s bank records – including direct access to bank accounts for electronic fund transfers.

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.

I don’t want to do away with Veteran Care, but I have a moral disagreement with forcing anyone to provide Veteran Care. Veteran Care should be the best care available, but it should be provided voluntarily, and the funds for it should be provided voluntarily. Every time governmental force is used to gather funds, freedom goes out the window.

“Social programs like this do nothing but good over time.”
…
…which is clearly why Massachusetts, upon implementing a similar system to the one Obama is proposing in 2006, saw skyrocketing health costs.

We wouldn’t even have a health care crisis if not for Medicare, Medicaid, and government regulation. The government requires employers in many states to provide “health benefits” to their employees, and this is a huge part of what has caused consumers to have no choice in their health insurance coverage.

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 :)