Drop the term 'Obamacare'. It makes you sound like you're fucking ten years old.
Myself, I've tried to avoid using it in the pejorative. But it does work as short hand for "democratic health care reform as expressed in several bills currently before Congress or in non-specific platitudes and goals expressed by the president." Much shorter.
I really think people who oppose universal healthcare are totally oblivious to how unfathomably arrogant and selfish their position is. Arrogant because every other Western democracy has universal healthcare and yet the anti-universal-healthcare position says that all of those other Western democracies are wrong, that all of the politicians in all of those governments who enacted, ran, and continue to run those universal healthcare systems, are wrong, and that almighty America would be right to reject any and all such systems.
It's not arrogant to point out those systems are ALL much smaller than the system the U.S. would require. Roughly 307 million vs 33 million (Canada), 9 million (Sweden), or 60 million (Great Britain).
It's not arrogant to point out each of these systems have their own failings and shortcomings as well as facing their own challenges and "crises."
It's not arrogant to champion free markets, individual choice and profit over collectivism, government control and bureaucracy.
I know some of you feel opposition to liberal orthodoxy is by definition arrogance but it isn't.
Selfish because the anti-universal-healthcare position is in favor of each person paying for his/her own healthcare and looks down on the idea of everyone chipping in so that those who are less financially fortunate can enjoy the same quality of healthcare as those who are financially fortunate.
If only it worked that way. In reality the quality of health care goes down
for all as costs are controlled by rationing and new innovations are discouraged by the lack of profit.
And then those who oppose universal healthcare use the most ridiculous arguments.
HEAR THE FOLLOWING ONCE AND FOR ALL:
"DEATH PANEL" IS A PHRASE CREATED BY THE RIGHT TO SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF GULLIBLE AND UNINFORMED CONSERVATIVES AND RIGHT-LEANING INDEPENDENTS. THE GOVERNMENT WON'T DECIDE WHO LIVES AND WHO DIES ANYMORE THAN PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES DO - WHICH IS ALREADY TOO MUCH.
The problem with government health systems is not that they pull the plug on Grandma. It's that Grandma has a hell of a time getting plugged in the first place.
--Mark Steyn
Government lowers price to control costs=less providers=rationing= many Grandmas dying before they ever get plugged in.
GOVERNMENT WILL NOT PAY FOR HEALTHCARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
1) And where does it implicitly state this?
2) Why was language to say as much rejected by Democrats
3) Why are pro-immigration groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement on board?
4) Where is the money for enforcement and verification?
GOVERNMENT WILL NOT TELL YOU WHAT TO EAT OR DRINK. NOBODY IS GOING TO STOP YOU FROM BUYING A BAG OF CHIPS OR A SIX PACK OF BEER, AND NOBODY IS GOING TO COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND SEARCH IT WITH THE INTENT OF CONFISCATING A BAG OF CHIPS OR A SIX PACK OF BEER SHOULD THEY FIND SUCH THINGS.
But they will follow the tobacco model and restrict access and advertising while slapping "sin taxes" on them to highly discourage their consumption.
UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE WOULD NOT BE THE FIRST STEP DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TO BECOMING THE U.A.S.R.
You're right, but it could be a slippery slope to becoming Canada and god knows one of those is enough.
Those who don't support universal health care: Get over the arrogance, get over the selfishness, get over the idiotic arguments.
In other words. Shut up !! and eat your bigger-government-is-the-answer-to-every-problem vegetables.
This is a moral issue that gets to the core of who we are as a nation and who we are as a people.
"Who we are as a nation"? Why I thought it was arrogance to suggest any option other than blindly following the lead of European countries in this matter.
Anyway, let's save the moral stuff for when we raise the issue of government funded abortion.
To quote Bill Moyers from tonight's episode of Real Time With Bill Maher - Maher had Moyers on for a special nearly thirty minute one-on-one interview, and it should be required viewing
Whoa! required viewing no less! And who said liberals can't be fascists?
for everyone in this country - in response to Maher asking what the appropriate metaphor for this debate is, "We're all in the same boat". He said that, "We're all in this together", and "I don't want to live in a country where I am on a hospital floor getting an operation that costs $25,000, and two floors above me someone is being denied that same surgery because he or she has no money. What kind of a civilization is that?"
Too bad for the poor soul two floors above, that Mr Moyer's isn't as generous with his own money as he and his fellow advocates of Obamacare (sorry) want to be with mine.
What kind of a civilization is that? Can you answer that? What kind of civilization is it that employs a healthcare system that does more to financially benefit private insurance companies than it does to provide healthcare to every man, woman, and child?
What kind of a civilization is that?
One that will figure it out like we always have.