Danes feel Obama is greater than Jesus

[Vandiablo]

Just a nit. Our government is changing laws about health insurance, not seeking to make health care affordable. I believe the recent changes will make health care more expensive, less available, and of lower quality.

That's a huge "nit".

Changes in laws about health insurance can make a huge difference in accessibility of health care.

Been to the ER lately? You'll find a lot of people there getting treatment for stuff that should have been prevented by an earlier trip to a doctor. If a patient's condition is life-threatening, the ER is required to treat it (which I agree with, and you ought to too with your "compassion"). The hospital, even while giving cut-rate care to the uninsured, often loses money on this, and the patient is bankrupt afterward.

This in turn has made our health care more expensive, less available, and of lower quality. Already. So if, as you say, you are concerned about that, you should want things to be different.

It takes government to figure out how to mess things up that badly.

No, it doesn't. We've had private insurance companies running things for decades now, and it sucks.

My insurance company tells my doctor what he can and can't do with me. In other words, they set "policy". Now it would be great if the policies driven by private insurance companies were in the best interest of my health, or to optimize the country's health care system. However, the policies are there with the primary aim of creating a profit for the company. Those of you that feel that competition between companies will fix everything should remember that the health insurance industry is exempt from anti-trust legislation (just like Major League Baseball).

The real problem is that health care is too expensive for fair private sector insurance. It may be that it is impossible for a company to be fair and still make a profit. IMO we're at that point, so the solution should not be to let things continue the way they are.

It may seem odd, but my feelings about what the government forces us to do are very different from the compassion I feel we should show to each other freely.

Yeah, right. I think you showed your true feeling with the "doesn't deserve it". Let them die. You know, the "them" that is not you. My entry into this thread is that I feel that your "compassion" isn't as great as you think it is.

My own compassion could use work, but I am not claiming to be compassionate. Just ask my wife, who often reminds me how insensitive I often am. (Hi Honey, I love you!) But I tell you what -- I seem to have more compassion for the people who cut my grass than you do.

Bad things happen, and good people do something about it. Not because we are forced by the laws and government to do it, but because we are compassionate and caring beings who form societies.

What good are societies that help medical research if the resulting treatments are not available to you?

Government is not the glue that holds a society together, it is merely an agreed upon coda that attempts to give us justice.

I don't really care whether health care is paid for by government or private insurance, just so long as it's not creating injustice. You feel that the government will fail, I feel the private sector has already failed.

It cannot give us equality, as that is measured in the character of each individual.

That would be a great joke if it were at all funny. Government in this country was used to propagate and curtail slavery, to promote and end segregation, and to deny and grant suffrage. Maybe government cannot "give equality", but it is government -- past, present and future -- that removes significant injustices that prevent equality.

Democracy at gun point. Enforced compassion through legalism. And, worst of all, we've sold our kid's futures to bankers dooming them to indentured servitude for many decades.

Cats and dogs living together, etc etc.

Danes feel Obama is greater than Jesus

That's no biggie. What would be cause for alarm would be if they felt Obama is greater than The Beatles :P