Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

You were doing business in the UK? Impossible. They have one of those socialist communist healthcare systems, you know, the type which we've been told destroys business and free enterprise. There can't be any business going on in the UK. I don't believe you.

Either loss of control or a gross tactical miscalculation. It'll earn him a cult following from hard-core fringe elements, but cold shoulders from any of his colleagues who don't want to be viewed as nuts. Gets him enough visibility and controversy to make him maybe 3rd runner-up in the 2012 presidential primaries.

The Senate committee negotiations on the verification issue are ongoing over the weekend. You can pretty well guarantee that what comes out of that will be in the compromise bill that ultimately goes to the President's desk, whether HR3200 included it or not.

This enforcement issue is more a matter of immigration law, not healthcare reform. Whether illegals actually get healthcare in the U.S. would be a point of contention whether there's healthcare reform or not, so why is this even clouding the issue at hand? How can be used as an argument to stop reform? Don't you have this problem with or without it?

The whole thing is a non sequitur. Illegal immigrants are just being used here as a strawman argument, an all-purpose bogeyman that can be used to bring down just about any bill about anything. It's a calculated effort to use fear and hysteria to override critical thinking.

Non-event. Anyone can have a slip of the tongue, especially people who have to speak in public a lot.

I saw that story too. Certainly gives one pause.

On the other hand, the rally since they were buying in spring has been huge, and many of them were likely sitting on 50%, 100%, 200% profits after just 4 months. The urge to take money off the table under those circumstances could be overwhelming.

It's good that he can just succinctly come out and tell it like it is. Just say they're wrong, and you're done. The guy is short and to the point. He shouldn't waste too much time talking about this fringe element that gets all of its 'facts' from talk radio and spam email. They live in their own little alternate reality. There will never be any chance of reconciliation or compromise with this group, they've made that clear.

The first link, the first thing you see is an ad for 'Standing for Truth' with Joe Wilson!! It was hard to stop laughing long enough to get to any of the articles. How can I take the site seriously with an ironic opener like that?

The second link does some serious stretching. He crosses paths with acorn a couple of times in another capacity and they act like this makes him the President and CEO of Acorn. :S

After that I'd pretty well seen enough. Aren't old scandals usually held back until election year anyway?

James C Chandler Jr said:
[QUOTE]James C Chandler Jr said:
Paul, except in Massachusetts, health insurance is not mandatory, and it should stay thataway. Charity is also not illegal, even in MA. So there's no reason some folks can't get a free ride, regardless if health insurance is mandatory.

I hate to pop the bubble on this idealistic picture, but relying 100% on charity is one of those things that sounds nice in theory but doesn't cut it in real life. 'Coverage optional' only makes sense in countries where healthcare is so undeveloped and cheap that it doesn't matter, or if the person is rich enough to self-insure. Otherwise it makes absolutely NO sense.

Folks have lived productive lives and garnered as much happiness as they could manage without 'free' govt healthcare for only a couple of million years.

Well in those days healthcare likely consisted of little more than laying the patient out as food for the saber-tooths and cave bears. I think we're aspiring to something a little higher now.

It is neither your business or my business whether someone above the poverty line decides to buy insurance.

No. Wrong. It becomes my business when he has an accident and I am coerced to foot his hospital bills, not because he was poor but just because he chose to be irresponsible and 'opt out' and goes bankrupt the first time something happens. Where his 'freedom' takes away my freedom, that's where it becomes my business. I have freedom too, he doesn't get to take all of the freedom and leave none for the rest of us.

I suppose an elegant solution would be for all of us to 'opt out' of health insurance, and then watch all the clinics and hospitals become insolvent.

A fellow of basically good health pays $5000 a year insurance from age 20 to age 60 with minimal doctor visits, then he drops dead from a stroke.

Alternately, the fellow puts $5000 a year into his mattress from age 20 to age 60 and drops dead from a stroke, leaving a much happier grieving widow with $200,000 to help her find some young handsome boyfriend .

Of course in the real, non-idealistic world, he puts $5000 a year into his mattress and trips and gets a head concussion and a broken arm and $200,000 in doctor bills somewhere in the middle of that time span. And heaven help him if he has kids -- you've got baby delivery, ear infections, play injuries, etc. He has a stroke or something, spends 2 weeks in ICU accumulating expensive charges, and dies leaving his wife destitute and bankrupt with bills still unpaid, with you and me paying for it with a higher charge for our next service, all so he could save a few bucks that went up in smoke anyway.

Inexpensive high-deductible Catastrophic Major Medical + Medical savings acct-- The lucky guy ends up with a nice kitty to leave to the missus and kids. The unlucky guy has a wad of money saved up when he starts coughing up blood, so he has plenty of money in the bank to augment his high-deductible cheap insurance.

Actually both of your guys were 'lucky' versions, both in a fairly idealistic and atypical scenario where a person dies quickly with minimal health bills and never has any unfortunate events in a 40-year span. A little far-fetched I'd say.

The fellow who neither saves or buys insurance-- Well, that's just too bad, grasshopper. Sorry bout that!

Too bad for you and me, 'cause that's who pays for it after he gets discharged and goes into hiding. I still don't get how that sort of collective misery equates to 'freedom'.

The inertia of the numbers I think reflects the level of public discourse things have reached. Those who like him will continue to do so, and those who hate him will be determined to continue to do so as well.

The Joe Wilsons, Tea-Partiers and school-speech protesters are spooking the swing-voters enough to keep them largely in Obama's camp for the time being.

For many politicians the healthcare debate has become a noise battle just to bring Obama down rather than a debate about policy itself. But he's doing much MUCH better than the Clintons were doing in their healthcare push. He's learned from their mistakes.

It would be interesting to compare to other presidents' ratings after several quarters of negative economic growth.

Well, it was the republicans who first decided to tie the healthcare debate to the illegal immigration issue, and it looks like Obama's just following their lead and is looking to see how far down the field they're willing to run with this.

What Obama said was that we should decide what to do about this issue once and for all. That's it. That's what's thrown the R's into a tizzy.

If the illegal immigrant population's status were to be resolved by any means at all, either by legalizing or imprisoning or deporting, it would be the end to one of the R's key fear cards that they get to play on every other issue that comes up. The R's need the illegals to stay right where they are: among us, in the shadows, to make us jump at every turn and to attract the blame for every one of our economic problems so no one starts looking at past policies. They know the threat of illegal aliens gets them blue-collar votes that would otherwise go to the D's.

It's partly a game of put up or shut up: He's going to call them out on their favorite bogeyman and expose the fact that they have no solutions, no proposals, no ideas, NOTHING to deal with this, this one issue that they employ as a constant spectre to threaten us with every day. Big elephant trap.