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[Dacke]

Sorry, but Capitalism dictates that jobs be created where there is the cheapest work force. That is China. By the way, have you paid your debts to China off yet?

Viva la Capitalism! 

Indeed.

What needs to be done is to make sure that no one becomes a wage-slave, anywhere. If the standard in countries like China is improved, there won't be enough people there desperate enough to work in slave-like conditions. As long as there are impoverished people, the richest people can keep accumulating wealth by taking advantage of the desperate masses.

[team_q]

Why are politics still defined on a single line? You confuse way too many people.

[Craig Stern]

*nonsense*

First of all: just because a law is challenged in court as unconstitutional, that doesn't mean that it ceases to have effect during the challenge. For that to happen, the court would have to order that government officials stop enforcing the law pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.

Second of all: your insurance premiums went up because your private insurer raised them, not because of anything required by this bill. If anything, that should reinforce for you the need for greater government oversight of the health insurance industry.

[Dacke]

Why are politics still defined on a single line? You confuse way too many people.

Me?
I don't think I do that?

[team_q]

Well, you don't, it's apparent based on your sig. I mean, in general, things are defined on a stupid Left/Right designation. I guess it makes it easier to ignore opinions that way.

[Cthulhu32]

Mmm lets stir this pot a little more.





Obviously this is going to be very one-sided considering the journalist student calls his interviews the "New Left Media". But even so, these people are about as bad as going to an anti-abortion rally.

[Squiggly_P]

*nonsense*

First of all: just because a law is challenged in court as unconstitutional, that doesn't mean that it ceases to have effect during the challenge. For that to happen, the court would have to order that government officials stop enforcing the law pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.

Second of all: your insurance premiums went up because your private insurer raised them, not because of anything required by this bill. If anything, that should reinforce for you the need for greater government oversight of the health insurance industry.

Why do you think private insurance premiums have gone up? Maybe because of the pending "Healthcare" reform legislation?

The law will go into effect, but the debate will not stop and will continue to dominate everything, thus preventing us all from focusing on more important issues. I have no problems with regulation. I love regulation.

As far as China and jobs goes, why should we waste time trying to improve other countries? Our own country is slowly becoming a third-world nation. Look at what's happening to Detroit. That same sort of thing is happening in the south where all the manufacturing jobs are being outsourced to various places. These cities down here are falling apart the same way Detroit did. A lot of the US is going to start looking like that, soon.

Why do we allow a US company to dump toxic waste in any way that would be illegal in the US at all? If it's illegal here, shouldn't they be required to practice those same policies in other areas of the world? Do we think that other countries' citizens love having our toxic crap dumped in their back yards? Why can't we enforce our federal minimum wage in the same way? The only reason they outsource is so they can do shit that would otherwise be illegal here. It doesn't make sense to me that we let them do that and yet still operate in the US as a US entity without anyone really giving a shit.

[Soulliard]

I have Crohn's disease. Every 8 weeks, I need to go to the hospital to get a Remicade infusion. This is the only treatment that seems to work. Before I got regular Remicade infusions, I was in such severe pain that I was unable to live a normal life.

I can't afford to miss even a single Remicade infusion. If I did, my body could build up an allergic reaction to it, and I would not be able to get the treatment again.

However, Remicade is extremely expensive. A single treatment costs thousands of dollars without insurance. I can not afford to go without health insurance for even 2 months without being bankrupted.

Because I have a preexisting condition, health insurance is prohibitively expensive for me in the individual market. This means that I can't afford to be unemployed, or even self-employed, once I hit the age where my parents' insurance no longer covers me.

This bill makes health insurance affordable for me, even if I purchase it as an individual. It still won't be cheap, but it will at least be affordable. If I am ever temporarily unemployed, I will not be bankrupted by a single Remicade treatment.

And this bill actually makes it possible for me to be self-employed. Before this bill passed, I would never have been able to go indie full-time. Now, it's a possibility. I can finally follow my dream without fear for my health.

The Health Care Reform bill is one of the greatest things to happen to me. It means that I can try to make a living off of making games, and the only measure of my success will be the quality of what I create, not the cost of my medical treatments.

[Squiggly_P]

Mmm lets stir this pot a little more.





Obviously this is going to be very one-sided considering the journalist student calls his interviews the "New Left Media". But even so, these people are about as bad as going to an anti-abortion rally.

You could go around asking "democrats" and "Liberals" what specific provisions they like about the bill and get the same sort of canned, moronic answers. It's not that republicans are mindless automatons, it's that politics in this country have boiled down to being on one team or being on the other team and making all of your decisions based on that. No one actually goes out and researches this shit. They listen to the radio and watch their favorite biased TV shows and just repeat shit like parrots.

[Dacke]

Squiggly_P:
I'm not saying that the US should be fixing everything. You guys do indeed have all kinds of problems already (wars, lack of education, lack of healthcare etc.). This is something we, as a global population, will have to work on together.

I'm talking about creating a healthier world-wide economy in the long run. Helping people world-wide to get out of poverty is good thing for everyone. As long as there are desperate people and desperate countries, there will be corporations exploiting them, making it impossible for "good" corporations to stay alive.

The nationality-mentality won't work in the long run. We have a global economy, and people everywhere have the same basic rights and needs. Preventing exploitive corporations from operating out of rich countries is indeed a good thing to do. Another thing is to help poor countries enforce laws that (for example) prevent the dumping of toxic waste or dumping of wages.

But if you are looking to "bring back" US, specifically: general health care is actually a good first step. A healthy, well educated, happy population enables a country to function better. Such people are able to do things under their own power, without relying on low-paying jobs from GlobalExploit Inc.

[Zaphos]

There is a diversity in how well resources are spent in different countries.

Within the US as well, health care costs are often quite different even in places where the quality of care appears to be the same -- ie the amount of unnecessary care people receive varies wildly across the US.

[aeiowu]

I have Crohn's disease. Every 8 weeks, I need to go to the hospital to get a Remicade infusion. This is the only treatment that seems to work. Before I got regular Remicade infusions, I was in such severe pain that I was unable to live a normal life.

I can't afford to miss even a single Remicade infusion. If I did, my body could build up an allergic reaction to it, and I would not be able to get the treatment again.

However, Remicade is extremely expensive. A single treatment costs thousands of dollars without insurance. I can not afford to go without health insurance for even 2 months without being bankrupted.

Because I have a preexisting condition, health insurance is prohibitively expensive for me in the individual market. This means that I can't afford to be unemployed, or even self-employed, once I hit the age where my parents' insurance no longer covers me.

This bill makes health insurance affordable for me, even if I purchase it as an individual. It still won't be cheap, but it will at least be affordable. If I am ever temporarily unemployed, I will not be bankrupted by a single Remicade treatment.

And this bill actually makes it possible for me to be self-employed. Before this bill passed, I would never have been able to go indie full-time. Now, it's a possibility. I can finally follow my dream without fear for my health.

The Health Care Reform bill is one of the greatest things to happen to me. It means that I can try to make a living off of making games, and the only measure of my success will be the quality of what I create, not the cost of my medical treatments.

[Destral]

Personally, I'm in the 'nowhere near socialised enough' camp. Forcing people to buy a product (health insurance) is a travesty. It would have been much better if everyone paid a certain percentage of their income as health tax, and everyone had coverage for all the basic stuff. Then, if you want/need extra coverage because your family has a history of cancer or what-have-you, and you can afford it, you get extra coverage from a healthcare insurance of your choice. That would also get rid of the need for employers to provide healthcare to employees, and instead shift the onus on healthcare as a PERK of working for that employer, as opposed to basing whether you work for someone on whether they cover your children's basic healthcare needs or not.

[Dacke]

Personally, I'm in the 'nowhere near socialised enough' camp.

Well, me too, obviously. But people have been trying to push reforms since 1912, with no success. Getting anything at all passed must be considered a win, given that context. Hopefully they have now managed to go over a threshold, opening up for further improvements in the not-so-far future.

[Soulliard]

I'd rather have a good bill that becomes law than a fantastic one that dies in committee.

[Dacke]

I'd rather have a good bill that becomes law than a fantastic one that dies in committee.

Indeed. And a big congratulation on your survival! I'm really, really happy for you!

[Shade Jackrabbit]

I think it's important that people are happy for whatever small victories they get, and in the large victories that others (such as Soulliard, rock on man) get. I agree that it could certainly be better, but damn, it's a great step in the right direction. I'm just glad anythings being done. And the fact that there are people, even one of our own indie buddies here, who are gonna benefit from it is great.

[Skofo]

Touching story, Soulliard.

Then, if you want/need extra coverage because your family has a history of cancer or what-have-you, and you can afford it, you get extra coverage from a healthcare insurance of your choice.

I thought that this is how it has worked all along. The problem has been that the extra coverage in question is extra expensive, like in Soulliard's case. The regular, cheaper insurance companies refuse to cover people with expensive sicknesses, which is why their premiums are cheaper. However, the bill that passed will prevent insurance companies from dropping sick people, and this will make insurance more expensive for the average person, but more affordable for sick people. Forcing people to get insurance is a provision to have more money to spread around and therefore counteract the overall price increase. This will not be horrible for the poor, since lone people who make less than $44k or families that make less than $88k will get tax credits; the poorer the person/family, the larger the tax credit. This is how I understand it, anyway, I may be very wrong and would appreciate any corrections.

If what I'm saying adds up, you are in fact asking for less socialized health care?

[Triplefox]

One valid criticism of the bill is the enormous amount of horse-trading going on in it, with provisions affecting student loans(huh?) among other things. A complex bill(see full text) is a good way to make the general public completely uninformed about what's going on.

Another is the money: Will the government estimates on cost/benefit be correct? Is this a money transfer to insurers, or is it going to kill them and force us into single-payer? I've heard speculation both ways, and that comes back to the lack of information about the actual provisions in the bill.

Another is the "slippery slope paranoia" argument - it's not an immediate takeover of insurance like a public option, but it's another expansion of government, which has the downside of concentrating all risk factors in one "too big to fail" entity. If it operates smoothly, great; nobody wants an inefficient system. But if the government goes down, expect all the services it operates to shut their doors, at least temporarily. Government expansions also distort politics by creating a new and (potentially) corruptible voting bloc of bureaucrats.

This last argument is a favorite of Fox News, because it allows one to entertain notions of radical elements from within that are going to bring communism - or fascism - upon us overnight. (Making the story even better is cherry-picked parallels between the 30's Depression and today - which don't hold up under close scrutiny. We still believe in free trade, and intolerance and nationalism both seem to be trending downward.) While it's not impossible, since people are just as manipulable now as back in the day, the conditions aren't the same.

In any case, regardless of whatever nasty provisions are lurking in there, regardless of whether the path it takes our politics down is a good one, there is some real benefit for the indies who couldn't take on the risks before; let's celebrate that.

[Brother Android]

If this bill does more good than harm, in terms of actually getting people the healthcare it promises, then far be it from me to knock it. I have no energy to waste on the animosity and circularity of politics, though. I have little faith in the ability of the American government to deliver on its promises, so its decisions are relatively meaningless to me. Politics are important in concept, but in reality (in America, I mean; I think smaller governments are better at accomplishing things) end up being mainly a glorified game for the purpose of distracting people from things that are more important and enjoyable. The bottom line is, I feel like it doesn't matter what my (or anyone's) political opinions are, because they have no bearing on what actually happens. Or maybe this is just the feeling one gets living in polarized states one's entire life. I guess I feel it's just not really worth hating anyone over. To get really worked up about these things is counterproductive; calling people bad or stupid because they don't like the way things are getting done in the political system is a very one-sided view, as no one can deny there are problems... it's just apparently everyone disagrees on which problems are the most important.