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So where are these individuals now? Why the silence?

A better question would be... Why is Obama/Baucus proposing a mandate on the middle class?

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Jollee

OR we can address the topic, and wonder why there's suddenly silence on a 'once supported' idea now that Republicans have gone on the offensive regarding individual mandates. Like these conservatives have said, the measure (in theory) stands to cut money spent for the uninsured. That's why Obama's proposing it. My question involves why those on the right who support it are relatively mute on said support now.

I would not know why, but I concern myself with the actual facts that are occurring today, and the travesty that this mandate would place on many middle class families....

So, my question would still be and related to the above, why would President Obama propose such a mandate on the Middle class or the Uninsured middle class?

How would that be helping the 30 million uninsured when obviously they cannot afford it now, you are asking them to shell out an additional hundreds of dollars that they are currently not shelling out.... This may place a distinct burden on families living paycheck to paycheck....

Sounds somewhat of an out of touch elitist policy to me....

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Jollee

Wait, so one of the truest conservatives in the senate is actually in support of what's really the most "socialist" part of the bill? (excluding the public option, which is sort of a gray area anyways)

Apparently, forcing Americans to buy healthcare has been in the works for a long time.

I recall something about forced healthcare back in the pre elections with McCain talking about it. In any case, here is something about forced health insurance back in May of '09. way before Baucus brought it up


http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=1222

What is your prediction on how it will all come down?

Don't think it is socialist. The capitalists will reap all the profits.

A socialized health plan was never really on the table.

Well, it made good fodder to distract the public over the threat of turning America red.

The 'real plan' all along, may have been to enrich the HMO's with new 'forced' business and ram the latest scam, the 'Individual Mandate,' down the publics throats. I was told by one person that the lobbyists for HMO's have thrown more money at DC over this issue (healthcare related or not) than any other issue in history.

Lets take a look at how it all went down. After all, it is quite a change from what Obama promised.

From...

"Lets Spread the Wealth. Lets set up a Socialized Healthcare System for All Americans paid for by taxing the rich 5%."

To...

"All uninsured Americans MUST buy healthcare insurance. And you must submit such evidence of coverage on your tax returns to the IRS or you will be FINED a penalty up to $3800."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072103410.html

The hope of striking it rich, within a capitalistic society, is all that most citizen can cling to, as they go through a life of slavish dependence, working until they die.

Some of these worker drones may have given up the hopes of striking it rich long ago. Their hopes may be more along the lines of retiring in a one room sweat box and being able to afford some canned dog food to eat.

But the greedy Ponzi capitalists, along with the full faith and backing of the politicians, have taken that little dream away from many of the retirees as well. I often wonder how the old folks get by nowadays with 1/4 of 1 percent on money market funds and if they are lucky, maybe a whopping 1-1/2% in CD's.

Why are the rates kept so low? Can you imagine if the government had to pay high percentage rates on all their debt? so they keep the rates artificially low and to hell with the retirees.

If we look at the data, we can see that only 5% to 6% of the households are making more than $250,000 per year. That doesn't make them all rich, but we can generally say $250,000 a year would be a nice income for most of us reading this. (With mine being less than 9% of that figure.)

And if one is talking millions of dollars per year in income, then the figure is just a couple percent of the households in America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Househo..._United_States

So capitalism favors 1% to 2% of the population and the other 98% end up as slaves to the capitalists.

Now, I'm not promoting communism or any other extreme views. Even the so called selfless communist governments get weighed down with egocentric leaders. If one is selfless such as ants or bees communism works fine. It is only when human selfishness is injected into the equation that communism fails miserably.

The reason the ideal of communism fails is because imperfect humans have to apply the perfect ideals. Same goes with our imperfect democratic elected leaders. But the problem is not so much that we elect imperfect leaders, the problem is that we have no oversight committee to change the wrongs that they do. Nor do we have punishment for them for doing such wrongs.

Just look at Bush and the rest. As soon as they leave office, what is said? "Well, they may have done something wrong...but lets just move on."

Politicians have a free reign to rape and pillage the US and Americans as they wish...because there is NO OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE nor PUNISHMENT for the evils they do.

Socialism, in its most ideal form, puts society and social issues first.

Capitalism puts profits and greed first.

But the way things are set up, social ethics goes out the window, all in favor of the cult worshiping the almighty dollar. Social ethics cost money. And spending money for such things is against the capitalists religion. Capitalism is not the religion of humanity, it is the religion of greed, power and money.

One solution would be an opt-out program. I'm not sure how you'd structure it so that people can't just lie about being in it if they're in an emergency though.

Seems to make sense to require at least a bare minimum plan to me. The current structure is a bit to luxurious for certain people. I for one have only been to a doctor's office twice in my life (check-ups to join sports), so it's difficult to justify placing me, at the peak of my health, in the same category as a bunch of old, fat people. Nothing against em, just picking out those who provide more risk, the same way I paid higher auto insurance until just recently because of my age and sex.

There are subsidies that stand to aid low income households. Of course they would have to be substantial, and according to polls... the opt-out feature people would support (when compared to individual mandates) is ironically a public option. Such an argument, however, doesn't justify the sudden silence on a once supported issue. I'm really attempting to be cordial here, but I would not appreciate this thread getting hijacked instead of facing a reality. Is this political posturing out of convenience or not? If so... how important is health care reform to the right (especially considering they're willing to remain silent while their counterparts go on the attack).

Well it's government intervention, so call it what you will. I think a lot of people would call similar circumstances socialism. Not everything that earns revenues has to be capitalist, especially when it's not on a free market.

Just don't get trapped into the illogical argument that if its socialist it has to automatically be bad. Judge it on its merits.

This part of the plan has always been characterized as a concession to get the other parts passed, ie the parts that lose the insurance companies a lot of money. They win either way of course, but they win more if we don't do anything. It's the free market catching us from surprise

And yes, that smiley is exactly what it looks like.