Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
I'm not trying to justify it, just explain it. But isn't that what laws are intended to do? Protect the innocent from the guilty?


But they aren't providing insurance, they're providing a service. Only those hospitals which are publicly funded are required to provide indigent care, since they have already received payment from our taxes. And those hospitals are within their legal rights to recover any expenditures from the patient. True, in many cases that's not possible, but if you have any assets and require emergency care, the hospital can sue to acquire those assets to pay for that care. That's what insurance is for, to cover the patients' costs, not to cover the hospitals and doctors. If I choose to go without insurance, I run the risk of losing everything I own in order to pay for any care I'm given.

With all the claims and counter-claims going on, with all the lying and stretching of the truth on both sides of this fight, it's hard to know exactly what will happen if this program gets passed. But one thing I know is that the taxpayers are going to take it in the end. Those who are in most need of health care, the poor and indigent, don't pay taxes, or don't pay much in taxes, and so aren't going to have to pay for the care they want. But those who do pay taxes can frequently get health care from their employers, yet they are going to have to pay more in taxes to cover those who can't, or won't, buy insurance. It's my opinion that, if the government wants to create a nanny state, let them do so by cutting funding for other, unnecessary programs and use those funds to pay for health care. Force politicians and government employees to be covered by the government run plan, and use the savings to pay for it. But whenever I see Congress trying to push a bill through for my "own good" but they exempt themselves and/or government workers, I get paranoid. If this health care package is good enough for me, then it's good enough for them, too. And when they put that kind of language into the bill, then maybe I can support it.

But I think hell will have to freeze over before that happens. By which time we're likely to have a lot of very chilly politicians.
You can't lose your car unless you have used it as colateral on a loan.

You can't lose a house unless it is involved in a loan.

So by anything you have you actually mean 'Assets not protected under the law'. And those assets are generally rather limited.

As for the other stuff, its the usual politics. The fact is the country is largely divided between those who support small government and those who don't. You happen to support small government, but you are presenting an argument that basically says all government bills should have that nature. FDR supported a larger government, so did many of the best leaders of the United States of America.

People not buying insurance are being FINED and those fines are covering the cost of those who WONT. So taxes are being used to cover those who CANT.

As to the legitimacy of that argument, if you think anything violating small government is bad you'll never be convinced. I will point out the countries with the smallest governments and no income taxes are among the worst off in the world. I'd suggest that a country that is among the best would do well to not emulate the failed policies of those at the bottom.

But who cares about the country or the debt or the future as long as AMERICANS get a tax break. It's worked well since the 80's after all there isn't this authoritarian regime called China threatening to overtake the US as a superpower in the next 20 years.