Today, 90% of physicians are private contractors.. there's no reason they should agree to become .gov employees.

Besides, doctor money is part of bundled reimbursement, not a straight salary.

And FYI, Obamacare INCLUDES SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS - not additional charges. Your stated "objection," BobbyATA, is in fact nothing more than a FoxNews lie.

Well you don't have to make them gov't employees; you just make it so that they can provide a yearly checkup for free and bill the govt directly for a certain amount; if it's not free they can't bill the govt, if it is, they get $X.



Doctors bill the govt directly here in canada, and it works well.

haha thanks Detmer you are too kind!

Qzjul and Unsympathetic I could be wrong but I think you two are slowly discovering Medicaid?

The thing is that you can rationalize the right to health care on the reason of cost, so only the rich don't have to worry. Then you rationalize the right to security because it is costly, so then only the rich can afford protection. Then the right to property. Then the right to food.

All those things we are not born with. It has taken thousands of years of social experiment, failure and collective growth to build and recognize the value of those safety nets as a foundation for wealth creation. When you start to let those things degrade past a certain point more of a burden is shifted to the shoulders of individuals, leaving them less energy to pursue progress and real wealth generation. There are some burdens that are shouldered better collectively with a better overall return on investment.

There is always the potential of a situation where too much energy is spent maintaining those rights. There is also a situation where our collective energy is literally being blown into the air and wasted due to bad economic management. I think the latter is in large part what we're facing. At this juncture it becomes our choice to take the hard, constructive route to create solutions or to take the easy path of fighting, blaming and finger pointing, although the two routes aren't mutually exclusive (superficially).

I don't think we should accept the degradation of our current rights as easily as some think. Maybe our current situation is unsustainable, as determined by money (which is itself a poor benchmark of sustainability). If so, then something must change. But hopefully it is toward a progressive side and not towards simply possessing natural rights (which don't matter if you can't provide security and get killed w/o a respawn point).

Libs are already doing it! hence, partial birth abortion!

bullets cost money. throw them off cliffs, gravity is free.

Oats: We do not have a natural right to food or security either. We only have the right to be free to persue the fullfillment of these needs.

also: I'm pretty sure that I stated that I agree that universal health care is sound policy, and that privatized health care is flawed policy. That however doesn't detract from the point that although it is sound policy, it is not a RIGHT.

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

H4: I guess I don't know how to respond to that line of thought. I don't think we possess anything more than nothing if that's all we possess.

You're right about rights but when I write right I think I'm using it from a slightly different perspective? I don't know. I realize that deconstructing the idea of rights to nothing we end up with your idea. But I think we can safely elevate our conception of basic rights at this point.

tax penalties for not having health insurance, unless they changed the code the last time i looked at it.

oats, ya I think we (H4 and me) are using the word rights the way it is defined, and you are not. Outside of that we are all kinda saying the same thing to some degree.

Unsympathetic, I think the idea of small business tax credits was one of the better things about Obamacare, but it seems to have in practice been pretty much a failure so far. And anyways, like I said before, but I seem to need to repeat myself, we would be better off without the tax incentives that promote the current employer-based healthcare model and in a way tax credits for small business owners just further entrenches us in such a model. Tax credits to try to offset the damage such a model does to the self-employed/small business community is good no doubt, but not optimal.

Also for the record, I barely watch Fox News (but I do just like I watch Rachel Maddow who I find equally shallow and uninformative). I find it makes me well rounded and helps me try to get some grasp on what society as a whole is thinking and why...plus I must admit it is more entertaining than almost any other news source I have.

What comes up when you search liberals fear brain?

Thats why you Canadians pay 70% taxes!

Being the stupidest/hypocritical/biggest in the pants conservative to grace these boards.

I feel I must disagree with Mr. Herbert's conclusion.

This in particular made me want to punch a baby (conservatively)

"Not to put too fine a point on it: The smartest kids turned into the most broad-minded and progressive adults. For example, the most intelligent kids turned out 20 years later to be much more tolerant of other races. They were also much more supportive of working mothers, rejecting the notion that pre-school children will suffer without a stay-at-home mother. In general, the sharpest kids came to embrace much less traditional moral values and were much more apt to challenge authority. They were also much less cynical as adults, more trusting that the political system can do good."

Two parts make me cringe.

A) "They were also much more supportive of working mothers, rejecting the notion that pre-school children will suffer without a stay-at-home mother."

- You have to be kidding me. I never heard of so much ADD, ADHD, R2D2 crap in my entire life. These people who were interviewed were probably middle - low class, and in those classes unfortunately mommy had to work. Regardless, why would a stay at home mother be considered "old fashioned" or looked down upon? I have a higher respect for a woman who can take care of her children over a woman who can pay for my dinner.

B) "In general, the sharpest kids came to embrace much less traditional moral values and were much more apt to challenge authority."

- You have to be kidding me. How much does a traditional moral value differentiate from a non-traditional moral value? I didn't even realize moral values could be so dated. So is a non-traditional value kind of like that "as long as I don't put it in the main hole, I am still a virgin" ? I heard that one once. My conservative reply was "no, dear. It means you are a whore. With a tight..." you know.

(I had a bunch of depressing single family homes websites, std statistic sites, & domestic violence sites linked here. But it was making me depressed)

Lastly, after saying all of this.



I read this 5-6 times trying to decide if Detmer was the funniest man alive or not. I believe I have come to the conclusion that he is.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

except not:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html

+ 10

WE ARE SAVAGE NATION!

We actually pay less than Americans do. Go look it up, it is true.

jfotouhi I am aware of our tax rates. Those are in fact lower than the US marginal income tax rates.

do you have to pay the federal + the provincial?