Makes no difference...I am NOT voting for Obamarama. nm

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.... because I do not want to turn one more element of my life over to Big Brother. Our government (which is supposed to be working for us) is already too huge and too intrusive. To have all of our personal medical information under some sort of *central control* and the decisions on our treatment made by government employees is just way too sci-fi for me.

At least Canadians have the US as a fallback if they need help in a hurry, a sophisticated test or procedure not readily available under their system. If universal healthcare/socialized medicine is implemented here, what's our fallback going to be? Where will we go when we're told the wait is 6 months or that we're in the wrong demographic to merit a treatment? France?

Under our current system, if your insurance company says no to an expensive treatment for your kid, you can sell or second-mortgage the house. You can sell everything you own. People in your church may help. You can get the story on the news and complete strangers will actually raise money for you. Maybe some altruistic doc or hospital will donate their services for the *face time* it provides. All of this help would be voluntary. The publicity might even shame the insurance company into changing its mind.

You see stories like this all the time. Someone from a third-world country, usually a child with horrible injuries or congenital deformities, is brought here for treatment - where else in the world would they go? But if we switch to a centralized system, no means no, even if you come up with the money to pay for it yourself. Nobody gets around the system (except maybe CEO's and politicians - who are too big to fail.) Maybe you can file an appeal, but then another government employee will likely uphold the decision of the first.

And (I hate to keep hammering on this) free government healthcare is not free. This will be supported by taxes and the cost will be spread among all of us who work. If you think that without a substantial increase in taxes you are suddenly going to reap the bounty of free healthcare, anything you need or want, please rethink that premise.

You pay premiums to an insurance company now. But there are other insurance companies in business. If you change jobs, you may get a new company with better policies. It's expensive, but you can buy your own insurance or supplemental insurance from a company you select. If they screw you, you can drop them. But there is no recourse if the government runs the whole show. You cannot take your business elsewhere.

If our medical insurance system is broken, let's fix it. Let's eliminate the pre-existing condition loopholes. Let's make it more free-market and less dependent on who our employer is. If insurance companies had to compete for our individual business, I believe their policies would improve. But let's not junk the whole thing and line up like sheep to be sheared by Uncle Sam.

I would much rather be told no by a private insurance company than by a government agency staffed by people who actually are supposed to be working for me. I just do not want to give this kind of control to politicians and government bureaucrats. They mangle whatever they touch. Whatever the government does becomes much more expensive than it would be in the private sector. A gigantic new bureaucracy would be needed. A whole new IRS-type agency. Think about it. Makes me shudder.

This is not something we can try for a while to see how it goes. Its a fundamental change in our whole social system. Once we go down that road there will be no way alter course.

Rudolph and Osama bin Laden is that one is Christian and one is Muslim. Other than that, there is no limit to their hatred.

To say that clinic workers at an abortion clinic are just as guilty as Rudolph is, at its best, INSANE. Those clinic workers broke no laws. Rudolph not only broke the law, he violated the "Thall shalt not kill" commandment that you all claim to believe in.

But, as with Bush in Iraq, it's okay if people kill, as long as they're the people you worship. I truly don't understand people like you, and I don't wish to. Frankly, you all frighten me, and I won't be reading your posts any more because I find them too disturbing.

is between free speech and slander/libel. Everyone has a right to an opinion and to voicing that opinion as long as one does not libel and/or slander a particular individual(s). Since the widows were named and The ***WTC victims*** were not, one is free speech, albeit lunatic fringe free speech, and one is not.

To weigh in on the subject of Coulter; she makes her living saying and writing outrageous stuff. She is a shock jock. If she started writing books like William Safire does, no one would read them and she would not be on every talk show on the airwaves. It is her job to be repugnant and she does it quite well. I don't listen to her, don't read her books. I don't listen to Howard Stern either; nor Rush, nor Grover, nor anyone who makes my blood boil. It is an exercise in futility to try to change anyone's mind on the stuff these people say. You love them or hate them and so I just avoid them.

Within 24 hours of taping? I reiterate the point I made above. And when you buy things from a private company unless they state it outright they might turn around sell your information to other advertisers. Unless you can produce where you signed a waiver of privacy, like you do at a doctor's office, you are not guaranteed that your information will be kept private.

I guess any good consumer could elect not to have phone service. That's one way to keep your conversations private. It's a bummer when it comes to communcation, but unless your plotting something illegal you really shouldn't have a problem should you?

It's okay for President Bush to get political but it's not okay for his employers (the American citizens) to do the same thing? That would be the norm in a fascist government ruled by a dictator like Iran. Is that where we're heading in America today?

Grandma's comment regarding the number of American troops killed in Iraq approaching the number of civilians killed on 9/11 was a very relevant comment, considering Bush himself exploited 9/11 in order to justify invading and occupying Iraq when it turns out Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The consertatives you list are political commentators. They can have their own shows and columns, etc. Many liberals do.

Huffington Post puts itself out there as a newspaper, a NEWS source if you will. Problem is, they are all biased to the left so it's not being fair. Should not be called a newspaper if they can't be fair on both sides.

JMHO.

Before you start in by saying, well that's just more liberal media, look who contributing authors are and where they are from. This is just one example of real world news. Step outside of the box for a while.

If the majority were to rule in all instances, you would not have had the right to vote.

provision in this bill. Don't like the HMO, you can go somewhere else. With total government control, where will you go? No where, just kow tow. I don't know anyone who could think it is right to withhold medical care from the infirm, the elderly, and children with devastatinly incurable diseases, anyone not deemed by government as being a productive citizen worthy of having medical care, those who will be a drain on the healthcare system. I don't want to know anyone who could support withholding medical care from the most vulnerable in our country.

is that you think it's the end of the world if you have to help someone else, while I consider it a privilige to be in the position to do so. Greed isn't going to make all our problems go away. It didn't help anything over the last 8 years and it won't help in the future. The sooner people figure that out, the sooner we have a chance at actually restoring this country to what it should be.

between speech that incites violence versus voicing one's opinion? On Hannity's website he listed 3 types of revolutions (all of which would be violent -- as in no option for a peaceful revolution) and asked which one would you choose. That would be the same as asking someone would you like to stab, drown or suffocate this person? What do you honestly think the implication is with this type of rhetoric? Get a clue.

Yeah, there are far left nut jobs just like on the right. However, we (the left) recognize those nut jobs and don't defend them. You guys do defend your nuts.

The homeland security report that came out specifically pointed out threats by extremist right-wingers. So what did you guys do? You defended them by demanding an apology. So, what I see is that you self identified with what was pointed out to be extremists. Why? I believe it's because that's where the base of the pub party is right now.