So, the House passed the health care bill.
posted by The Vidiot @ 9:15 AM Permalink Last night, 219-212.And as I was listening to some of the speeches about it, my favorites were the ones who said we were sliding into totalitarianism if it were to be passed. Which is obviously an incredibly brilliant thing to say. I mean, if you want the health care bill to pass, but you want to APPEAR that you DON'T want it to pass, you say something completely outrageous and without merit. That way, nobody has to agree with you AND you seem like you're obstructing. Meanwhile, the bill, which is a big fat handout to the insurance industry, is passed, you continue to get your 'donations' from that industry, the money continues to be taken from those below and moved up to those above, the status quo is maintained and everyone keeps up appearances.
This health care 'debate' has been AWESOME.
Labels: health care reform
10 Comments:
The Vidiot observes:
"And as I was listening to some of the speeches about it, my favorites were the ones who said we were sliding into totalitarianism if it were to be passed. Which is obviously an incredibly brilliant thing to say."
So, what happens if a poorly-employed rube doesn't pay his (and his dependent's) government-mandated health-"care" debt? No problem, the IRS has been tapped to treat such economic crimes like a criminally incurred income tax obligation and simply seize and sell off that dead-beat's property (firesale compensation) until paid in full ... of course, if the property-hoard is lacking -- as with delinquint tax obligations -- I'm pretty sure that any government-defined debt will also incur punitive interest rates.
And like tax debts, you will never be allowed to "bankrupt" out of it.
You're right, no totalitarianism here at all, and thank Dog they saved us from Canada's totalitarian version of HC.
DanD
I must mildly disagree with you Dan; there are no debtor's prisons in America and no one goes to jail over money except those who commit fraud (Bernie-style) or some other crime to accumulate it, but no one goes to jail for merely being broke without some intervening criminal act.
See: The power of Congress to enact bankruptcy law is specifically provided in the first article of the Constitution. Thus, our founding fathers must have envisioned that having debtor prisons was a bad idea even though the morality at the time equated the inability to pay debt as a ‘sin’ against the Almighty requiring destitute debtors to be incarcerated until their debt was paid. Creditors had the power to let debtors out of jail so they could seek employment to pay back money owed. Wage garnishments are slaps on the wrist compared to incarceration. We are lucky that we do not live in Dubai. Otherwise, LAX would be filled with cars left by H 1 B workers who have been terminated. And where do we imprison the millions of American citizens who have lost their employment in this recession? Should we also put Gov. Swarzenegger behind bars because California is bankrupt and cannot pay its bills? The wisdom of our founding fathers in paving the way to eliminating debtor prisons is apparent in their foresight. Commerce was expanding geometrically, and expansion requires financing. It was inevitable with the changing times that commercial enterprises would get bankrupt. After all, business risks can yield profit, or could lead to bankruptcy. If debtor prisons were not eventually eliminated, America could not build enough prisons to hold all business owners who went bankrupt. Maybe the constitutional delegates themselves owed money that they could not pay back. None of them wanted to go to prison for unpaid debt.
Hence, American debtor prisons were eliminated and replaced by bankruptcy law. Initially, bankruptcy law applied only to commercial endeavors. Entrepreneurs were encouraged to raise capital, borrow money and take risks to expand the economy and create employment. If the business enterprise failed, it could declare it bankrupt. The owners of the failed business do not have to go to debtor prisons. To illustrate, Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company failed in his initial attempts and declared bankruptcy. But eventually succeeded to build the Ford Motor company into the largest car manufacturer in the world at that time and continues to be a successful business conglomerate today. (http://www.asianjournal.com/consumer/atty-larry-yang/4029-are-there-debtor-prisons-in-america.html).
The Health care, furthermore is designed with the poor, infirm, and unemployed people in mind, by providing subsidies for people who may be able to partially pay, and full subsidies for those who cannot pay at all.
THAT'S what really chaps the asses of the republicans who would step over the ill on their way to their three martini lunches or whom would refuse to piss on your face if it was on fire. If they had their way I'm certain debtors prisons would still exist in America.
BTW, I filed bankruptcy back in the nineties and had almost five years of back taxes discharged in that bankruptcy, so I must also question the accuracy of the sentence, "And like tax debts, you will never be allowed to "bankrupt" out of it." When I filed those were the only debts I had to be discharged as I don't believe in credit cards: if you have to charge it you can't afford it.
But the republicans almost succeeded in another fear campaign which they almost won. I can't wait to see them out stumping to their poor, infirm, and deathly ill constituents that "for their own good they intend to take away an entitlement long, long overdue."
And I don't believe they would build in subsidies and even free care for the people who cannot afford to pay for care while harboring draconian desires to snatch people's homes and land out from under them.
Bill;
Back when the Repugs were ostensibly in charge, they did see this coming ... and they have appropriately changed the bankruptcy laws.
"Law of the Minimum" loaning by banks and other financial institutions was pretty-much the law of the land until Nixon got in. Then started the great bubble-builders extravaganza for real estate. Before the era of bubble-financing, a piece of property for the most part retained its value.
It was during this era (which is only coming to an ignominious close now) that a modest house could (especially in California) double in value in around five years. Now, do you really think that the house actually doubled in value? Or perhaps instead that the government was just horribly inflating the number of dollars available for the specific purpose of devaluing that same dollar benchmark?
Anyway, when someone becomes bankrupt here, America itself becomes the prison. I have a friend that made an investment in a company in good faith. But the government claimed that the company was running a scam, and then seized all the investments tha people had made. That money then proceeded to disappear down the government's Treasury-hole.
Ultimately, my friend not only ended up loosing more than $100,000 in investment capital, but the IRS also started coming after him to collect taxes on all the interest for which that money was supposed to have made. The poor motherfucker STILL can't put any amount of cash in his bank account over fifty dollars because the IRS checks it regularly and confiscates it.
And you're talking to me above about how honorable and fair the IRS is? Or that the IRS will be any kinder or more gentle with what it would undoubtedly characterize as Health-Care deadbeats?
Why hide the most severe of your lack-of-payment punishment victims in a debtor's prison when you can make so much a better statement of pariahship by placing them destitute on the street in front of the rest of your prospective victims?
You shouldn't make any statements of comparison regarding bankruptcy in the last century with what the taxmaster's are endorsing now.
Back then, if a banker was stupid enough to loan somebody money that they could not reasonably repay, that rube could declare bankruptcy and have most of his debt slate wiped clean. Ultimately, it kept bankers (more) honest about how they were loaning out money on what fractional reserve. After all, the banker is supposed to be the economically most educated one.
But starting in the Reagan years, bankers became completely disconnected to the value of what they were financing. To them, it was all pie-in-the-sky.
And now? Well, the government is officially in charge with how much the health industry can charge us hoi-polloi. Problem is here, the health industry has bought out every last poliitcian in WDC. Now, this money-scam is just going to be redefined in a different direction of extortionate costs.
DanD
"And you're talking to me above about how honorable and fair the IRS is? Or that the IRS will be any kinder or more gentle with what it would undoubtedly characterize as Health-Care deadbeats?"
Please reread my comment, Dan. I said absolutely nothing about the IRS gestapo being either honorable or fair.
"You shouldn't make any statements of comparison regarding bankruptcy in the last century with what the taxmaster's are endorsing now."
My statement was made in disagreement that taxes could never be discharged in bankruptcy and cited my personal example. It was not intended to be a scholarly repudiation of anyone's assertion that, indeed, the tax laws have changed and it MAY be correct that one can no longer do this; I ain't no tax specialist nor attorney and I'm damn sure not gonna sit down and read over 18,000 pages of our tax codes.
I do wonder though, why has your friend not made an 'offer in settlement' to the IRS, every citizen's ONE TIME shot at having taxes reduced to pennies or dimes on the dollar or discharged altogether? Any competent tax attorney can do it for him or he can even call IRS and they will send him the paperwork to file the offer. Ronnie Deustch (sp?) and those other attorneys on TV can do exactly what they say they can do. You have to be careful and remember it is a ONE TIME thing and you can never file such an offer ever again in the future.
But, again, there are no debtor's prisons in America. I say that literally, not metaphorically, and The statement as it stands is 100% correct:
"(T)here are no debtor's prisons in America and no one goes to jail over money except those who commit fraud (Bernie-style) or some other crime to accumulate it, but no one goes to jail for merely being broke without some intervening criminal act."
My sympathies to your friend, but if he hasn't pursued an 'offer in settlement' he has not done all he can do to get that debt (and the gestapo) off his back.
Oh, my friend has an attorney and has made an offer. But, after the IRS considered it a bit, they then went back over his file and told him that they can't do it because he also owes taxes from 10 years earlier that he never reported ... problem is, he has absolutely no idea what they're talkin' about.
As it seems, sometimes, they just make shit up (you see, my friend is half Negro and half Japanese. I have a sneaking suspicion that he's incurred the wrath of somebody in the IRS who don't like black-japs or some such. And you can't tell me that kind of racism no longer exists in the government or anywhere else).
So, tell me Bill, do you really think that America's sick-care industry is just magically going to start letting people receive care at reasonable costs just because BO passed a law that they wrote? And while we've all heard the broad outline of this thousands-of-pages of legislation being whittled down to 30-second soundbites, what happens when all those rule-exceptions start being discovered in that legaleze netherworld tucked somewhere in between? You know, the ones that reveal that no real "health" care change has taken place ~
I mean, this legislation is coming from the same Barry Obama that only ratcheted up Dubya's warmongering to a more extreme level of war-crime. What make you think that -- somehow -- he's being more populist with his public-optionless HCR program now?
I do feel that, in the long run, we will discover that we've only been sold yet another pig-in-a-poke.
DanD
DanD
"So, tell me Bill, do you really think that America's sick-care industry is just magically going to start letting people receive care at reasonable costs just because BO passed a law that they wrote?"
Aw, c'mon. Dan. Give me a break. I made no such allegations and moreover, neither you nor I can say what the effects of a bill that's been passed only two or three days ago.
It's rather obvious that you hate the government, bt I am not now, nor have I ever been a part of that government since being Honorably Discharged from the Air Force, so throwing such vehement anger at me does nothing at all to serve anyone.
You know that I respect your right to express your opinion, but geez, I'll be damned if I can figure out why you'd get so twisted out of shape because I express mine.
Our opinions are much closer than far apart if you keep an open mind, but blaming me, in essence, for the trials and tribulations of your friend but why you are directing all this invective at me is beyond my meager ability to discern why, even if we disagree we need not be disagreeable about it.
Maybe I spend so much time heavily medicated that I missed something. It wouldn't be the first time.
Bill;
Actually, I'm not twisted out of shape and I don't think my ramblings are hateful, as much as they are exasperated. Furthermore, I don't "hate" the govenment per-se, but I do find hypocritical government servants something to extensively despise (and this includes those government employees who are all too willing to just "play along to get along" with the crimes of their peers).
I do admit to being an extreme cynic, but cynisism itself is neither anger nor rage. As far as getting twisted out of shape? I no longer have the energy for such antics.
Somehow, I think that you are reading a level of vitriol in my rantings that I have never intended. Fundamentally, I belong to the religion of Murphy, I believe that "G_d" is a perspective; if something can go wrong in life, it will ... at the worst possible time.
As far as "hope" is concerned? I only hope that the almost omnipresent malice that my species is currently practicing at an overtime rate doesn't get me caught too clearly in its gunsights.
Even so, my cynicism is (at least I thought) written in the third person, and while the tyrade ostensibly may address you in its initial phase, my actual target of disenchantment is humanity in general.
I do apologize if you feel that my critique is focused (only) on you, as I will henceforth limit my casual attitude of address.
DanD
Aw, c'mon, Dan, there's no need for you to apologize for stating your opinion. When you started disparaging me by name specifically, and the pronoun 'you' repeatedly, that gave me the impression that your remarks were directed at me personally, and with a great deal of vehement anger (or it seemed).
I do, as you know, stay heavily medicated and it's entirely possible I failed to interpret your opinions as being directed at persons or portions of the government, but, please, don't ever stop callin' 'em as you see them. Maybe you shouldn't sugarcoat 'em so much [snark]. I accept your apology, although it is entirely unnecessary (in the sense that I was never p.o.'d by anything you said, just nonplused and confused).
It is my sincere desire and hope that we will have many exchanges of opinions in the future as I very often find them enlightening and always find them entertaining.
Bill
"So, tell me Bill, do you really think that America's sick-care industry is just magically going to start letting people receive care at reasonable costs just because BO passed a law that they wrote?"
Okay, I plead guilty to the method of my writing style. I should have written: "So tell me Bill do "You" think that America's ... .
By using the Royal "You" (ya' know kinda' like the Royal "We"), which was what I intended, in that I was saying "Don't You (and anybody else reading this bullshit along with You) think that (blah, blah, blah) ~
Come-on, why don't you (and you and especially, You) give a rube a break and let me keep a minimal, sanity surviving, "Legend in my own mind" kinda' self-perspective ~ (auto-deprecating snark).
DanD
Walang problema, compadre.
See ya around the blog.
Bill (ya'll didn't know I'm sometimes multilingual, didja? Yessir, a regular polyglot, that's me.)
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