Predict the Health Care Vote

[CookieMonster]

Sorry about not being up to speed on this issue, but could someone tell me why people are opposed to universal health care in America? What's all the fuss about? Is it down to ideology, cost, or both?

It's not about universal healthcare, there is nobody arguing that healthcare in the us isn't too expensive. Nor is anybody opposing the idea of taking measures to allow more people to access healthcare. To say that there is is simply a lie. The opposition is over how this is achieved.

If you watched The Blair House meeting a month ago, which I will assume you didn't, there was on one side an attempt to frame the opposition to the bill simply as an ideological one. There was also a long held belief that the GOP were simply the party of "no". They showed that there were more reasons to be against the bill than for it. Some of ideological grounds, yes - viewing being forced to buy healthcare an something un-american. But mostly that it's a rotten bill, that it doesn't do what the public are being told it does (i.e that it doesn't lower the cost of healthcare) that it is incredibly expensive for what it is, that Obama has caved to special interests (unions) and that there is so much jiggery-pokery with the accounting for the bill that it's simply a mess.

The GOP also did something which people weren't expecting to see and something which the White House have been trying to hide - the offered alternative. In particular one proposal which McCain had made during the Presidental campaign which Obama went to town on (not because it was bad, simply because it was McCain proposing it) and how simply cannot bring himself to accept that it is a good idea. The GOP do have their own proposals on how to do this also.

[liamfoley]

Sorry about not being up to speed on this issue, but could someone tell me why people are opposed to universal health care in America? What's all the fuss about? Is it down to ideology, cost, or both?

Some of the issues include cost, not just how much it will cost the taxpayer but the fact that it will most likely drive up the cost of healthcare (ironic considering the heart of the issue is the high cost of insurance) but also how it compels people to buy insurance (possibly unconstitutional) another fear is that it will cost jobs and got to mention a greater bureaucracy (can you imagine a HSE that will serve a population many times greater than Ireland). Rationing of care and resources is another issue.

[rockofcashel]

MOD < Please stay on topic > MOD

[hiding behind a poster]

but also how it compels people to buy insurance (possibly unconstitutional)

I don't think that would be unconstitutional - unless there's a constitutional right to healthcare, which I don't believe there is. The compulsory purchase of insurance basically looks like one side of a contract - if you want your healthcare costs covered, this is what you do.

[liamfoley]

I don't think that would be unconstitutional - unless there's a constitutional right to healthcare, which I don't believe there is. The compulsory purchase of insurance basically looks like one side of a contract - if you want your healthcare costs covered, this is what you do.

Sorry, I don't quiet follow. I am basing that on Greg Abbott's threat to challenge the bill if it is passed based on (among other things) the obligation to purchase insurance. There is no other product that a citizen could be compelled to purchase.

[Oreo Livermore]

Haha, so the South is going to secede again over a health insurance law?

I promised Dave Cochrane not to comment on the stupidity of certain posters but this poster takes the biscuit.

He/she/it thinks Idaho is in the South

[liamfoley]

I promised Dave Cochrane not to comment on the stupidity of certain posters but this poster takes the biscuit.

He/she/it thinks Idaho is in the South

Well it is if you are Sarah from Alaska

[Oreo Livermore]

Sorry, I don't quiet follow. I am basing that on Greg Abbott's threat to challenge the bill if it is passed based on (among other things) the obligation to purchase insurance. There is no other product that a citizen could be compelled to purchase.

Of course you don't follow, nobody could.

This is because HBAP thinks the US Constitution lays out what the federal government can't do instead of what it can do.



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[CookieMonster]

Of course you don't follow, nobody could.

This is because HBAP thinks the US Constitution lays out what the federal government can't do instead of what it can do.

Well he is a eurolovvie. I remember I wrote an article which I never got around to having published which explained the need for a "tenth amendment" in the Lisbon Treaty.

It's a wonderful little addition to the US Constitution... *sigh*

[hiding behind a poster]

Sorry, I don't quiet follow. I am basing that on Greg Abbott's threat to challenge the bill if it is passed based on (among other things) the obligation to purchase insurance. There is no other product that a citizen could be compelled to purchase.

But surely the citizen is only compelled to purchase insurance if he/she wants their healthcare costs paid for?