His full Name is: Willard Mitt Romney

[baldeagle]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.

I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..

But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

The solution is simple. First, get government out of the healthcare business. Regulations increase the cost of healthcare dramatically and restrict competition. Second, have insurance companies provide catastrophic coverage only as well as full coverage. Those who want to pay full coverage would be free to do so (at an increased cost of course), but those who don't could carry a much less expensive catastrophic coverage policy. Third, get rid of punitive damages for pain and suffering. If a person is harmed by a medical practitioner, they are entitled to compensation for their loss. They are not entitled to get rich and make their lawyers rich by assessing triple damages.

Look at auto insurance. Your auto insurance doesn't pay for tuneups, oil changes, brake jobs, engine jobs, transmission jobs or routine maintenance. It has a collision deductible that is an incentive to drive carefully and avoid collisions that are expensive and sometimes catastrophic, yet covers you in the event of a large expense. It even has a deductible for acts of God.

If consumers paid for their own health tuneups and "oil changes" and the government got out of the healthcare business, healthcare would probably cost one third (or less) of what it does today.

The reason people go to the emergency room every time they stub their toe is because it costs them nothing. But it costs us a lot, because we have to pay for highly paid professionals, expensive equipment and buildings and protective procedures that serve no purpose other than to comply with regulations and indemnify the practitioners.

Human beings are very predictable. They respond to incentives. If there is no incentive to be careful with money, they won't be. How many times have you heard someone say they went to the doctor or the hospital because "it costs me nothing - I have insurance"?

That is the reason healthcare is so expensive today.

[The Annoyed Man]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.

I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..

But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

The solution is simple. First, get government out of the healthcare business. Regulations increase the cost of healthcare dramatically and restrict competition. Second, have insurance companies provide catastrophic coverage only as well as full coverage. Those who want to pay full coverage would be free to do so (at an increased cost of course), but those who don't could carry a much less expensive catastrophic coverage policy. Third, get rid of punitive damages for pain and suffering. If a person is harmed by a medical practitioner, they are entitled to compensation for their loss. They are not entitled to get rich and make their lawyers rich by assessing triple damages.

EXACTLY THIS!

2firfun50, First of all, I do not feel a social obligation to provide longterm health insurance coverage to other people. There isn't a single moral argument to be made which can support that idea. Now, that does NOT mean that I do not believe in some sort of limited social safety net. But the key word here is LIMITED. Unfortunately, whenever libtards get their hands on the national coffers, they attempt to extend these things to "FOR LIFE" by making the obligation open-ended. The motivation is obvious: bread and circuses. They want to create permanent dependencies out of large segments of the population who will become enslaved to those programs; and then those segments will become voting blocks who will continue to vote for politicians who will protect and/or extend those programs as "entitlements"—which is simply another word for the misguided notion that the government provided service in question is a "right." When the safety net is defined as an "entitlement," there is then no onus placed upon its recipient to get themselves OFF of it......because, after all, they are ENTITLED to it.

In the end, it isn't even about the programs themselves, which are nothing more than a cynical ploy to gain power over EVERYTHING, not just those programs. When you have a gigantic dedicated voting block of citizens who have become permanently depended upon your programs and who will always vote for you, regardless of the issue, and even when that issue conflicts with their own personal morals (example: liberal religious people who are personally pro-life but keep electing pro-abortion candidates because those same candidates ALSO protect their welfare checks), you have power over OTHER things as well, such as military spending, foreign policy, revisions to the Constitution deleting inconveniences like the Bill of Rights, etc., etc.

So given that tendency of governments—for which there has never been an exception in ALL of human history—isn't it better for the cause of human liberty and the protection of the rights of man (which is, by the way, the PRIMARY function of government according to the Founders, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States) if policies are enacted which minimize the role of government in the lives of its citizenry?

Therefore, instead of perpetually pursuing the notion that government is a substitute for God, we should be enacting legislation which get's government out of the way so that people have more choices, including in their healthcare and health insurance.

I've already described the fundamentally vile and unjust position that the healthcare bill put me in personally. An affordable catastrophic coverage policy would solve all of my own insurance problems. In fact, it would probably solve all of yours and most everybody else's. My total out of pocket expenditures for my healthcare are a small fraction of the cost of even a high deductible policy, and the affordable monthly cost of a catastrophic care plan would keep me from having to liquidate my net worth to pay for a catastrophe.

It is the ONLY just and equitable solution.

[Jaguar]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.

I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..

But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

The problem with health care today is not the cost, the problem is that everyone believes they have a "right" to health care regardless of cost. Sure, there are whiz-bang techniques and state of the art machines that can diagnose and cure your every ailment, but do you have a right to utilize these things if you cannot pay for them?

For example, say there is "High Tech Automotive" in town that has the latest diagnostic and repair equipment available which utilizes factory trained technicians that can fix any automotive related issue you can think of. There is also "Joe Blow's Garage" that has Joe and an outdated diagnostic tune up machine. You can spend $200.00 an hour at "High Tech Automotive" who will have your car tuned up and running like new in two days for $4000.00. Or you can spend $50.00 an hour letting Joe look at your car, ordering parts, and it takes a week and $750.00 to get it "mostly" running well. Health care today is like taking your car to Joe, then having it air lifted to High Tech, and you paying nothing for any of it.

I have been on the receiving end of Health Care many times in my life - more than I like. I've had medical problems where I was covered by good insurance and some where I wasn't covered at all. I injured my left hand while uninsured, and although I had it worked on with two surgeries, it was by Joe Blow's Garage and not the High Tech center, and I now have a permanently fused joint in one of my fingers, and made payments for that for fifteen years. I was diagnosed with cancer while covered with some very good insurance (and an Aflac policy, which I highly recommend if you have the chance to purchase) and I was taken care of by the High Tech place.

If I did not have insurance for the cancer, I would not have gotten treatments and would probably not be here today. Life it terminal, it is only a case of when. I would have regretted leaving my family in a tight situation, but as it is now if I were to die my family would be taken care of. Part of leading a responsible life is having a responsible death, and ensuring your loved ones don't suffer after you are gone goes a long way in that. For that reason, I refuse to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills to be paid by my family after I die, so either I have insurance coverage that will pay, or I refuse care that might save me. Sure it would suck to leave this world at a fairly young age (diagnosed at age 40) but to me it is better than taking a chance on living a longer life if I had to drag my loved ones into debt to take that chance.

Believe me I have mulled this over many times in the last seven years since I was diagnosed. I mulled it over earlier this year when my mother passed away debt free and left a small inheritance to myself and my siblings. I mulled it over when a friend passed away leaving his family in bankruptcy paying for long term care that didn't improve his quality of life and ruined his family's financial situation after he was gone. Dying is part of living, everyone will do it, rich, poor, or in the middle, even the latest, greatest, and most expensive care in the world will not change that fact, so you need to plan for it and make sure you do it well. Leaving others, family or taxpayers, to pay for your care is not dying well and people should be ashamed if that is their "plan B".

[tbrown]

If consumers paid for their own health tuneups and "oil changes" and the government got out of the healthcare business, healthcare would probably cost one third (or less) of what it does today.

The reason people go to the emergency room every time they stub their toe is because it costs them nothing. But it costs us a lot, because we have to pay for highly paid professionals, expensive equipment and buildings and protective procedures that serve no purpose other than to comply with regulations and indemnify the practitioners.

Human beings are very predictable. They respond to incentives. If there is no incentive to be careful with money, they won't be. How many times have you heard someone say they went to the doctor or the hospital because "it costs me nothing - I have insurance"?

That is the reason healthcare is so expensive today.

And it's even worse when the patients don't even pay premiums for their coverage, much less other costs that hard working people have to pay. Why not go to the emergency room for a stubbed toe when you have no insurance, no deductible, no copay, and no self respect.

Anybody who thinks healthcare should be "free" is free to take their own money and their own time to provide others healthcare. That's true freedom.

[The Annoyed Man]

What Jaguar said.

To add onto what tbrown said.... He's not kidding about stubbed toe in the ER. I worked in an ER for 5-6 years. There is a whole economic strata who treat the local ER is their family doctor.......NOT because a regular doctor's office won't see them, give them a cash discount, or help them make payment terms either.....but because they don't have to make an appointment for the ER and come in when it fit's into a doctor's schedule. They walk in when it is convenient for them. The ER HAS to see them and cannot turn them away. The only inconvenience is that they'll be triaged and if the ER is busy, they'll have to wait to be seen. But that's OK because there's free cable TV in the waiting room. They bring the whole family down and get checkups for everybody. And if they're the right combination of destitution/color/immigration status, they won't even have to pay for any of it. And if they don't like waiting, they can make a big stink in the waiting room about "this hospital is RACIST, man!" and they'll get right in.

[The Annoyed Man]

Why do people believe that they are entitled to health care they can't afford?

The same way they're entitled to the 60" color TV and $300 sneakers they can't afford either.

[Jasonw560]

Why do people believe that they are entitled to health care they can't afford?

Somewhere along the way, probably around FDR's time, the word "right" was misconstrued to equate to "privilege".

[fickman]

I thought about using a reductio ad absurdum argument on the healthcare topic.

Given:
- Sandra Fluke wants us to pay for her contraception.
- Liberals agree that we should, and view contraception as preventative healthcare (to avoid the *disease* of pregnancy and/or to reduce the future burdensome healthcare costs to society that additional humans would bring).
- Preventative healthcare is the new "smarter" healthcare. In fact, it's being forced on doctors over sick care.

Then:
Why doesn't the government (read: Sandra Fluke - hahaha! just kidding! - read: actual taxpayers) pay for my gym membership? Is there any better form of preventative health than working out? Can I have a *free* nutritionist and personal trainer? That would help.

Think of all the poor people who DON'T have access to nutritionists and personal trainers. Some of them can't afford health clubs! For the sake of public health, isn't this a real priority? Not only am I entitled to this, it's my RIGHT!

---

The only reason I haven't been making this argument to show the folly in the liberal position of the healthcare debate is because I'm afraid they would think it's a great idea and pass more bloated, parasitic legislation.

[RoyGBiv]

An interesting analysis from Arthur Herman last week..

Understanding the true agenda of liberalism–and I used to be a liberal myself–means grasping that liberalism only really fears two things: free market capitalism and American strength. Publicly liberals blast capitalism for lacking compassion, and for exploiting others for the sake of profit. But what they really fear is prosperity, the wealth capitalism creates that inspires people to assert their rights and disobey the dictates of government and its ruling elite.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/ ... s-failure/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[The Annoyed Man]

An interesting analysis from Arthur Herman last week..

Understanding the true agenda of liberalism–and I used to be a liberal myself–means grasping that liberalism only really fears two things: free market capitalism and American strength. Publicly liberals blast capitalism for lacking compassion, and for exploiting others for the sake of profit. But what they really fear is prosperity, the wealth capitalism creates that inspires people to assert their rights and disobey the dictates of government and its ruling elite.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/ ... s-failure/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good stuff, Roy.

Moscow Times
Why Putin Wants Obama to Win
27 September 2012
By Andrei Tsygankov

But it wasn't only Medvedev and his pro-Western supporters who became critical of the Republican's views. Although President Vladimir Putin recently thanked Romney for his openness regarding the "No.1 foe" comment, he also indicated that it would be hard for the Kremlin to work with Romney as president, especially on sensitive security issues such as the missile defense system. During Putin's interview with RT state television, he also called Obama an "honest man who really wants to change much for the better." This comment was widely viewed as Putin's most direct endorsement of Obama in the presidential race.

The reason that part is highlighted in red is this video:

[youtube][/youtube]

The YouTube channel is owned by "Russia Today." The caption below the video reads:

Published on Mar 27, 2012 by RussiaToday
On Monday while President Obama was taking part in a global nuclear security summit in South Korea, he was caught on tape asking for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for "space." "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility," Obama implored. Obama assured the departing Russian President he will have the "flexibility" required to deal with missile defense issues after the 2012 presidential election.

Get that? That's Obama telling Medvedev to convey to Putin that Putin needs to back off at this time and give Obama some breathing room, because after the election Obama will have more flexibility to bargain away Europe's security.

THAT's the traitor that Democrats are proposing to reelect.

[Heartland Patriot]

An interesting analysis from Arthur Herman last week..

Understanding the true agenda of liberalism–and I used to be a liberal myself–means grasping that liberalism only really fears two things: free market capitalism and American strength. Publicly liberals blast capitalism for lacking compassion, and for exploiting others for the sake of profit. But what they really fear is prosperity, the wealth capitalism creates that inspires people to assert their rights and disobey the dictates of government and its ruling elite.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/ ... s-failure/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good stuff, Roy.

Moscow Times
Why Putin Wants Obama to Win
27 September 2012
By Andrei Tsygankov

But it wasn't only Medvedev and his pro-Western supporters who became critical of the Republican's views. Although President Vladimir Putin recently thanked Romney for his openness regarding the "No.1 foe" comment, he also indicated that it would be hard for the Kremlin to work with Romney as president, especially on sensitive security issues such as the missile defense system. During Putin's interview with RT state television, he also called Obama an "honest man who really wants to change much for the better." This comment was widely viewed as Putin's most direct endorsement of Obama in the presidential race.

The reason that part is highlighted in red is this video:

[youtube][/youtube]

The YouTube channel is owned by "Russia Today." The caption below the video reads:

Published on Mar 27, 2012 by RussiaToday
On Monday while President Obama was taking part in a global nuclear security summit in South Korea, he was caught on tape asking for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for "space." "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility," Obama implored. Obama assured the departing Russian President he will have the "flexibility" required to deal with missile defense issues after the 2012 presidential election.

Get that? That's Obama telling Medvedev to convey to Putin that Putin needs to back off at this time and give Obama some breathing room, because after the election Obama will have more flexibility to bargain away Europe's security.

THAT's the traitor that Democrats are proposing to reelect.

But TAM, those leftists LOVE this stuff...and they think and/or feel that WE are "evil" for NOT loving it. There is something seriously wrong with those folks that I simply cannot understand.

[RoyGBiv]

Maybe it's that BHO is sooooo bad, so completely incompetent and dangerous that many folks just can't believe what they're seeing... Similar to a "deer in the headlights".

It's inconceivable to me that anyone fails to see the damage that BHO has done and keeps doing...
You don't have to be a Republican to see it...
If I was a Dem, Hillary is such a clearly better choice than BHO.. Isn't that obvious?

[Jaguar]

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.

In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/26/taxpa ... z27gMo4y00

[The Annoyed Man]

Vote for Obama because he'll give you a phone....

[youtube][/youtube]

The scary parts are that A) she breeds, and B) she votes.