Why, is he a Mohammedan?

"Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the first Republican candidate to react to Romney's speech, said "Romneycare" had made healthcare worse and more expensive in Massachusetts."

Really, Rick? I'd like to know what he bases that opinion on. All the time he's spent touring hospitals in Massachusetts? The only impact mandatory health care has had on 90 percent of the population in this state is they have to file a form with their state taxes affirming they have health care coverage. The other 10 percent didn't have health care in the first place, still use emergency rooms as their primary source of health care and then stiff the bill because they can't afford to pay $500 for a couple of stitches and a band-aid.
The reason health care is more expensive is because there isn't anyone out there who has the balls to address the real source of the problem - the outrageous costs charged by the providers with the endorsement of the insurance companies. Until that happens, reform is a joke.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the first Republican candidate to react to Romney's speech, said "Romneycare" had made healthcare worse and more expensive in Massachusetts."

Really, Rick? I'd like to know what he bases that opinion on. All the time he's spent touring hospitals in Massachusetts? The only impact mandatory health care has had on 90 percent of the population in this state is they have to file a form with their state taxes affirming they have health care coverage. The other 10 percent didn't have health care in the first place, still use emergency rooms as their primary source of health care and then stiff the bill because they can't afford to pay $500 for a couple of stitches and a band-aid.
The reason health care is more expensive is because there isn't anyone out there who has the balls to address the real source of the problem - the outrageous costs charged by the providers with the endorsement of the insurance companies. Until that happens, reform is a joke.

and to that, most americans who oppose health care reform do not like to acknowledge the well-accepted facts that Medicare and Medicaid are two of the very large counterbalances to rising costs; both programs make health care in America cheaper for everyone.

"That is why people hate Obama's bill."

Maybe. But there are people who hate Obama's bill because they hate Obama. Just as, admittedly, I probably hated some of the stuff Bush did because it was Bush's stuff.
But Bush's concept of health care was to keep his hands off of it and rely on the market forces. That may be OK for guns and butter, but not everyone needs guns and butter. At some point, everyone is going to need a doctor.
Universal health care in theory is about a noble an endeavor as anyone can possibly imagine. And it works pretty well, even in capitalist countries. I understand why some people have misgivings about certain aspects of Obamacare, but I can't understand the vitriolic response to the concept of wanting to keep people well. Of course it's got an aspect of socialism to it, but we have to live in a socialist society to some degree. Public schools are socialist. In a way, roads and sidewalks are socialist, if you get right down to it.

APRTW wrote:

I dont like Obama's bill because I dont think it did enough.  I dont think it did hardly anything.  That was the only shot this country will have in a long time to fix health care and they blew it.

yep.  they fucked up the best chance we had.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

APRTW wrote:

I dont like Obama's bill because I dont think it did enough.  I dont think it did hardly anything.  That was the only shot this country will have in a long time to fix health care and they blew it.

yep.  they fucked up the best chance we had.

Naaaah. Universal health care was part of Teddy Kennedy's agenda for decades, and it was on Clinton's to-do list when he got elected in '92. We'll get there evenutally. It's going to take some sort of major event like an epidemic or a president who has enormous political clout to make it happen.

Obama could have done it.  He got this billed passed.  He just didnt have the balls to take it further.

i'm with AP, here.  first off, he said "a long time", not never.  second, obama had a huge mandate to to do this thing, and one of his big problems is he tries to sit in the middle of the road (where there is only a red stripe and a dead armadillo, said one texas pol) and please no one. 

he ain't FDR because, IMO, he doesn't have the identity to make a champion for reform.  if obama attacked the current plutocratic system, he would be seen as an outsider making a revolution, whereas FDR was an insider attacking the excesses of his own priveleged people of wealth and power. 

i repeat an earlier argument, for obama to leave a lasting mark on this country, he should take on the system of race-based entitlements and lay out the road map for how they will end.  few things piss off decent constitution loving americans as much as race based entitlements, and obama could win the hearts of swing voters if he did that.