Yes.

At least this would be great news to fix a huge source of inequality that I've spoken about here on several occasions.

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/11/hea...-for-gays.html

sorry I cant read that.. my work blocks anything that has LGBT even mentioned in it.. Though you can go to any "christian family anti gay" website you want.

Consider that this is EXACTLY what the proponents of this health care bill mean when they say it will cut costs. If it does, it will be because it denies care to millions of people. Not the illegal aliens, since we are unwilling to seal the border apparently, and they can't be asked to indicate whether they are citizens or not. Conveniently without ID, this couldn't be verified anyway.

So we will continue to pay for illegal aliens, and everyone else who will get "free" healthcare, at the expense of others since we will increase demand and not increase supply of medical services. That is the mechanism by which the long Soviet-style lines for toilet paper and potatoes used to occur in the 1980s. It will be no different except that some of those in line will die before getting seen by a doctor.

It's also worth noting that if the bill decreases payments to physicians in an attempt to supress expenses, it will be less desirable to actually become a physician. This means that over time there will be less doctors, so over the long term you will have increasing demand due to illegal "immigration" and decreased supply due to less medical school graduates. That must translate to higher prices and an increasing mortality among those who need healthcare.

Note that the use of the word "alien" is purposeful, and the term "illegal immigrant" is nonsensical, since logic demands that you would need to have permission from a host country to emigrate there. If you do not have permission, you are trespassing as an illegal alien, breaking the law. Only here in America could you as a lawbreaker get medical care and social services in "sanctuary cities" whose mayors and councilmen are themselves breaking the law by circumventing Federal statues in refusing to enforce them or aid the agencies charged with that responsibility.

It would remove the tax inequity where domestic partner benefit premiums paid by your employer are treated as taxable income, making it unaffordable for most couples to get insurance for one another.

Ie, if the domestic partner premium is $400/mo, and you pay $75 for it and your company pays the $325, that is taxable income for you and you have to pay income taxes on it -- so that $75 premium becomes essentially a $150 premium which it wouldn't do if your spouse was of the opposite sex getting the same benefits.

I agree with you on your statement to a certain point. It seems like they get things that they dont deserve and they arent tax paying citizens like you and me. Dont you think that because this country supports illegal aliens that this is a contributing as too why our economy is in shambles. Its a shame none of our elected officials have the courage to do something with our borders and prevent illegals from getting a free ride when they enter our country.

i know that many think illegals get more than they pay for...but i also have read that social security remains afloat mainly because those same illegals are paying into soc. sec. with fake #'s, and will never get that money back. how can they? and of course whatever an employee pays in, the employer must send in the matching 7.5%. now obviously not all illegal aliens are paying into s.s., but not all of them are arriving at the e.r. either.

The anti-abortion amendment tacked on by Bart Stupak has to be removed. It's horrible.

Hopefully it will come out, and my guess is it will.

I hope so too, and I think you are probably right, but I wouldn't count on it. If there is a more gutless collection of political wimps than the Democrats in Congress....I haven't met them.
They throw real reform (single-payer) out the window before the debate process even starts, compromise the integrity of the bill(s) they do come up with repeatedly, and then go along with this Stupak-ammendment crap.
Since the right-wing hillbilly movement is going to scream about "socializing your medicine" no matter what, it would be nice if just once the Democrats actually showed enough backbone to make the right-wingers' fears of drastic change legitimate.

So will it shock me if Senate Democrats accept letting a womans' right to choose suffer just because the alternative might be a little politically difficult? Not in the least.

i wouldn't bet that it's coming out brian. it removes the only impediment to full backing of health legislation by the council of catholic bishops.

if i were betting, i'd say the final bill is less expensive and covers fewer people than the current house bill. i'd almost guarantee the ban on government funds for abortions sticks.

they could never have passed single payer. there weren't ever enough votes.

the senate will pass a more "conservative" bill than the house and the final bill will be closer to what comes out of the senate than the house. because of senate rules, the key number is 60 votes in the senate, not 218 in the house.

the stupak amendment is the consequence of being a "big tent" party. we could try the republican route and start calling anti-abortion democrats "dino's".

but i'd rather have an anti-abortion democrat representing a conservative district then an anti-abortion republican. i'll let republicans be the ones to define themselves as a minority.

I agree with you. I don't know how we could turn someone down with a true emergency. For this reason, one could make an argument that everyone should be forced to have insurance. In that way, people who have insurance and pay their monthly premiums would not be forced to pay for people who don't have insurance and get free medical service when they come down with a serious illness.

I don't know what the laws are in other states, but in California people are forced to have auto insurance. It is the law and it makes sense. It makes sense because if someone has an accident and they are at fault, they need to be able to pay the damges that they caused. If they didn't have insurance they probably would not be able to pay the damages.

Medical insurance is somewhat analagous to that in the sense that people need to have insurance just in case of an emergency. Otherwise, everyone else gets stuck with their bill. As Danzig said, one of the reasons hospitals are so expensive is that they need to charge us a fortune to make up for the people that get free service.

I don't what the answer to any of this is. Some people truly can't afford insurance, so how can you force them to buy insurance? What about the issue of serious pre-existing conditions? What insurance company would want to give insurance to a person with a serious pre-existing condition? If an insurance company knows for sure that they are going to lose a fortune on a person, why would they insure the person? Insurance companies are not charities. They are businesses.

Anyway, there is no simple answer to any of this and that is why nothing has been done on the issue for so many years. Nobody can agree on what the best way to tackle this issue is. I honestly have no idea what should be done. I don't think the current system is great but I'm not sure that we could come up with a new system that is better.

Right-wing hillbilly movement. That sounds slightly less offensive than the left-wing corhholer movement. But it's ok because you listen to Ani Difranco and they listen to Brooks & Dunn. You're not as annoying. Nah.

we agree on 1 sentence out of 2000 pages:tro:

Walmart as an example: What happens to the door greeter (usually a senior or disabled person) when the company is facing huge costs (maybe even more than he is getting paid) insuring him?

Answer: he/she will be staying home a lot more or everyone will become (part-time) and excluded.

We need jobs; we have too many illegals, how about arresting and not treating illegals at the hospital? A guy having a heart attack you need to treat. But then it’s time to go home. Broken arm? Vicodin and a bus. What's the number we will save on that plan and how many jobs would it provide?

2ndly we missed the opportunity but every child coming in for a free flu shot should have been checked for citizenship and if no; then they and their parents go. Even if only half have jobs we get one job back for every two illegals returned. This frees up people receiving unemployment and welfare 'lifers' to be employed so it could have been a 'cash for clunckers' type home run. But instead of an in-the-park type w/errors this would leave the ballpark.

There is currently law that bans use of any government funds for abortion. Period. It works. That has been law for some time. It won't change and healthcare reform does nothing to it.

What the amendment does is prevent anybody from purchasing insurance that would pay for abortion. It is a back-door abortion prohibition. It is slimy and it sucks.

I agree, the Democrats are acting completely back-boneless. I figured I'd have to worry about all the "liberal" legislation they would pass. I was wrong.

Edit: Illegal aliens are thought to comprise less than 1% of people who get into the healthcare system, from what I've seen written. If anyone has anything different, speak up.

that's inaccurate.

the amendment prohibits any government funded insurance plan from paying for an abortion. it has no effect on the private insurance market.

even plans that depend partially on government funding could offer riders for abortion coverage which you would pay for without assistance from any federal government source.

we've lived with the hyde amendment for decades. i'm not saying it's the greatest thing but it's not worth trashing the health care bill over this.

I thought Obama lifted the ban of federal government money for abortions ? Hell Id love for the feds to pay for my bad choices too.
All this provison says is that if you are on the government insurance program they dont want to pay for your abortion , unless its incest , rape or is going to kill the mother . Sounds good to me.

even if we take for granted your 'in the air figure' of 1% to be correct which it isn't. What's 1% of 1.2 trillion?

figuring a population in the US to be 300 million and 22.5 illegals here it's hard to believe only 1% of the 7% get treated? Or are they just healthier than your average American?