An outsider watching the US health care debate

[trish]

So let's see, contrapostive of your assertion is that if the dems can't pass the bill without republican and blue dog support, then there were more than 70000 at the DC rally. What kind of logic is that??? Looks like you discovered a non-sequitur. Congratulations!

The reason the dems are reluctant to pass the current form of the bill is that it represents too much of a compromise to the republican authors. The dems don't like it because it has no viable public option and the republicans don't like it because they need to defeat Obama on at least one issue.

Once again, since you keep repeating the opposite, Obama has offered to put tort reform on the table. Just this morning on meet the press he mentioned it again. Personally, I think tort reform is tricky business. If your doctor was sure enough of your diagnosis to propose surgery, but not sure enough not to order the extra tests to cover his own ass in case he's wrong, would you trust him to perform the surgery without the tests? How many safeguards against misdiagnosis are you willing to give away for the miniscule savings offered by tort reform?

[eddie]

Decimal inches my ass! I was an automotive machinist years ago and I heard that same bullshit. Decimal inches are consecutive I agree but everything else with the "standard" system takes memorization. For an American growing up in the USA the standard system seems fine, but go to the simple country of Mexico and the Standard system is lost. Why should you have to re=aquaint yourself with measurements once you leave the US? Why dosent the USA convert to the Metric system, there is no benefit to the US system. Even US cars have gone metric on everything except the speedo as they must do so in order to have their cars and parts manufactured in this WORLD economy.

Any American car in the 1980s was a piece of shit!!!! I love muscle cars and most all American trucks but everything else including your Corvette is garbage. Why do brands like Buick and Mercury still exist? These are old thinking outdated brands that only sell to the 60+ crowd. American car industry is lost. Go more diesel.... oh I forgot most Diesel reserves are in Iran and the US hates Iran so they put dutys on small car Diesel vehicles.

[Beagle]

I'm just saying that since government run health plans have such wide broadbased support with the American people, and since (as everyone points out here) all this protest is just overblown right wing nonsense that is hyped way out of proportion by the evil Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, that the Democrats and Obama should just ram this bill through the House and Senate.

I'm sure (based on the comments of many HungAngel members - which surely represents a fair and balanced cross section of the American psyche) that the vast majority of American public really do want government run health care. All this rumbling you've been hearing about is pure hype. There's only a tiny fraction of Americans - you know the rich evil republicans - who don't want this ObamaCare plan.

Even if a few pesky Blue Dog Dems vote the other way there's still a way to fake the system and get it passed.

Look all those people that are still complaining about Bush/Cheney and the Republicans....Don't forget that you won. The Dems can pass this health bill - and in fact, they can pass the even more radical single payer plan that Obama really wants. We can get a health system that is just as good as the V.A. or as financially stable as Social Security and Medicare!!!

C'mon now... Let's do it for ol' Teddy. And let's try not to think about the gold plated health-retirement plan that our elected officials have (and will continue to have) - that would be too.... divisive.

Heh heh heh...

[Beagle]

Decimal inches my ass! I was an automotive machinist years ago and I heard that same bullshit. Decimal inches ad consecutive I agree but everything else with the "standard" system takes memorization. For an American growing up in the USA the standard system seems fine, but go to the simple country of Mexico and the Standard system is lost. Why dosent the USA convert to the Metric system, there is no benefit to the US system. Even US cars have gone metric as they must do so in order to have their cars and parts manufactured in this WORLD economy.

Any American car in the 1980s was a piece of shit!!!! I love muscle cars and most all American trucks but everything else including your Corvette is garbage.

Surely, there must be some way we can blame this on a member of the Bush family?

[eddie]

the Bush family can not be blamed for shitty American cars in the 1980s. That is a true loss, after bumper and emission laws in the early 1970s the US car manufacturers lost their way.

A company that did well all the way through.. Porsche.

[Willie Escalade]

A company that did well all the way through.. Porsche.

So you LIKED the 914 and the 924??

[worldbro]

A company that did well all the way through.. Porsche.

So you LIKED the 914 and the 924??

Holy shit those look like pieces of shit

[Silcc69]

Can we please keep the metric system out of here lol this is about healthcare damn it.

[duplicatt]

He's attempting to shut down Guantanamo, he's relocating troops to Afghanistan (where they should've been in the first place looking for Osama).

Why? If Osama is even alive (have we seen any video of Osama? we know one of his sons sounds just like him), he's in Pakistan. Should we invade our putative ally Pakistan willy-nilly?

Why's the US in Iraq then?

What do you mean? Do you think they were an ally when we invaded?

What were they doing to the US?

Well, first off, they violated the cease fire. Secondly, Hussein kept acting like he had WMD - which convinced people that he had WMD. Thirdly, it was thought to be an opportunity to start up a western-style "liberal democracy" in the middle of Islam and demonstrate the advantages to the surrounding areas.

[duplicatt]

They were living on top of our oil, damnit Jay!

haha! That's the answer I wanted to hear! Heaven forbid they took those billions spent on the war and develop new energy sources. But...silly me, I'm sure it wasn't about oil.

If it were just about oil, we'd have invaded Canada and Mexico instead.