30 Comments

• 1. Rana Quijotesca  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm

  Isn’t this similar to what Mitt did in Mass?

• 2. js  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm

  Sounds like the insurance industries best friend to me.

  Go after the victims instead of the thief.

  What a concept.

• 3. Diane Tomlinson  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm

  The only way to solve this is to get rid of the insurance companies altogether and just let Americans pay for their health care out of pocket or on time just like everything else. Debating this with people who think bombing Iraq will help them win a war with people being sheltered in Pakistan is really about as pointless as any argument can get.

  When enough children die because the truth gets out, that the cost of health care is high not solely because insurance companies are for profit concerns, but that doctor charges a fortune because they are the most skilled people that normal Americans encounter on a regular basis and their training leaves them mired in debt for a decade. And there is nothing wrong with the level of cost considering America has the highest standard of medicine on Terra.
  What the right wants to assure is that only those who can AFFORD the top tier care in that system get it not some common worker or his wife and kids or perish the thought a gay couple or even a retired middle class worker who still has to work to suupplement his meager pension if they have one.

  It is the combination of those two factors that makes it imperative that some sort of National Health care system that addresses all those issues is implemented BEFORE all the Boomers collect their first Social Security payment.

• 4. hermie  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm

  and just how will this plan undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms?

  The primary users of these facilities are illegal aliens, who are supposed to be inelligible for jobs which wages are to be garnished.

  Also, how do reduce the pressure when insureds will know that anything from colds to minor scrapes will be paid for?

• 5. Doug  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 pm

  Uh, duh, hello Mitt Romney.

  Come on Mark, you’re a Romney supporter and you talk about Hillary like this, why not crown him Emperor Romney at the same time.

• 6. Mark Noonan  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm

  Doug,

  Because I plan on running for Emperor in 2012 if Hillary wins this year…

• 7. Hillary Clinton » V&hellip  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm

  [...] Mark Noonan wrote an interesting post today on Vote Her Majesty, Hillary I, ‘08Here’s a quick excerptWASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans. The New York senator has criticized … [...]

• 8. Magnum Serpentine  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 3:34 pm

  I believe medical care should be totally free.

• 9. Bigfoot  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm

  I believe medical care should be totally free.

  This is impossible. It may be provided without charge to the patient, but someone else will still have to pay for it. Even if Hillary were to achieve her dream of socialized medicine (and make no mistake, that’s what she wants), the money would be forked over by the taxpayer.

  people who think bombing Iraq will help them win a war with people being sheltered in Pakistan

  Iraq was bombed and invaded because of Saddam’s refusal to comply with UN resolutions and come clean on his WMD, his harboring of terrorists (possibly, but by no means limited, to Al Qaeda), and his mistreatment of his own people (gassing Kurds, draining the swamps of the Marsh Arabs, etc.), not because someone thought that it would help against someone hiding in Pakistan.

• 10. GOP4ME  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm

  Bigfoot,

  Don’t even waste the bandwidth trying to talk sense to these BDS suffering morons.

  Haliburton, Chimpy, The Shrub, Darth Cheney, blah, blah, blah!!!!

• 11. kjstrouble  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm

  Hey Magnum - ever heard the saying “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”? Or maybe that “the definition of an elephant is a mouse built to government specifications”?

  Ponder the “free lunch” idea. Someone ALWAYS has to pay. It may not be the person getting the lunch - but it is paid for.

  Proof of the “elephant” quote - look at what Medicare regulations have done to health care and health insurance.

• 12. GOP4ME  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm

  Just curious, if healthcare should be free, why not food, clothing and housing? I mean they have more to do with everyone’s day to day well being right?

  This socialism is awful. As a Canadian, I can assure you, a socialized health care system is NOT the answer.

  There is a difference, A BIG DIFFERENCE, between coverage and care. The demoncrats are very crafty in their confusion of the two.

  Sure everyone has coverage, but does everyone have care? Ask the 20% of Canadians who have no availability to a primary care physician…

• 13. phnx  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm

  Free healthcare in Canada (that BTW is not free)

  http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php

  Where are all the leftist trolls from the Great White North?

• 14. Canuckguy  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 7:03 pm

  Phnx asked: “Where are all the leftist trolls from the Great White North”

  –You mean Canadian Observer and I, Canuckguy?
  –I am no leftist and I don’t think CO is either. Your definition of ‘leftist’ is anybody who disagrees with the Bushbots on some or any topics

  –I would not trade our Medicare(flaws and all) for a system like yours where people can be bankrupted by their medical bills. I stated this fact before and will state it again “medicals bills are the single largest cause for personal bankruptcy in the USA.”. However perhaps that changed since I said that. Now perhaps defaulting on the subprime mortgages is the Number #1 reason.
  –Anyway, medicals bill do cause a hell of a lot of bankruptcies and for that alone, the USA government should hang their heads in shame.

• 15. JD  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 7:53 pm

  Hillary ain’t got a chance in hell of occupying the White House. God help US if she does.

• 16. GOP4ME  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 8:11 pm

  Well, I would rather be bankrupt and alive in the USA than dead in the cold ground of Canada due to delayed surgery and inferior care that Canadians unquestioningly accept for reasons that defy common sense.

  Just wondering why do many Canadians come south for treatment. How many Americans go in the other direction? Proof meet pudding.

• 17. searp  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm

  Sure, I can say totalitarianism…blah, blah, blah but I don’t know what it is…

• 18. Almiranta  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm

  Co is not a Lefty? Surely you attempt a jest here. Yes, I know, some of you just get off so much on trashing all that is right of center you never stop to think that that makes you left of pretty much everything, but I have been reading your posts for a long time, canuck guy, and CO’s as well, neither of you can rationally claim to be anything but aderents of radical Lefty philosophy, such as it is.

  Hillary’s old plan also called for fines for getting medical care outside of the system, and really outrageous penalties for any medical person PROVIDING medical care outside of the system. Kinda makes you wonder who will be in charge of enforcing this kind of totalitariahism, doesn’t it? We already have the Left demanding Thought Police, starting with defining crimes according to what was allegedly the MOTIVE for a crime instead of for the crime itself, it was only a matter of time before we had a proposal that would involve snooping to such a bizarre degree into the private lives and decisions of citizens.

• 19. Canuckguy  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm

  Almiranta: Listen up! About this ‘lefty’ accusation

  I and perhaps CO(if I may be so bold as to include him), do not automatically disagree with everything ‘right of centre’. What we disagree with is the mess the current buffoons of the ‘right of centre’ Bush administration got your country into through sheer incompetence. That does not a ‘lefty’ make.

• 20. phnx  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm

  Hey Hoser I just asked where the leftists Canadian trolls were, and you responded. If the shoot fits…if not don’t take offense. What I have read of the posts CO is definitely a socialist. Maybe you are not as far left as he is, but I have yet to read any conservative thought in your posts. Prove me wrong.

• 21. coulterfan  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 pm

  Since when did all you Bushies ever care about ‘totalitarianism’????

  Were you speaking out against warrantless wiretaps, manipulating intelligence and using it for political purposes (color-coded terrorism alerts at ‘convenient’ times), torture, ‘free-speech zones’ (wasn’t that SUPPOSED to be the ENTIRE COUNTRY?), planted questions, fake newscasts, etc, etc?

  You’re upset that the poor will have HEALTH INSURANCE? I thought you people were ostensibly ‘pro-life’? Or do you only care about children BEFORE they are born?

  Meanwhile, have you seen Bush’s latest proposed budget of 3 TRILLION DOLLARS?!?!?!

  So much for ‘fiscal responsibility’. . . both Hillary and Obama would be fiscal conservatives compared to your guy. . .

  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22981657/

• 22. coulterfan  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 11:28 pm

  BTW, forget about a LINE ITEM VETO. . .

  What we REALLY NEED is ‘LINE ITEM TAXES’. . .

  That way, all you Iraq War supporters could opt to put $3000 per year in your tax money to the war, while the rest of us could use it for ’socialized health care’. . .

  After all, why use OUR tax money for ’socialized health care’ in Iraq (which the US insisted be in their ‘totalitarian’ Constitution) when nearly 50 million AMERICANS have NO insurance (and many more are underinsured).

  C’mon war supporters, put your money where your mouth is! You can opt to purchase your private health insurance and spend your tax money on the WAR. . . and I will spend my tax money on ‘SOCIALISM’ (health care, education, the US infrastructure, etc)!

  This would be an EXCELLENT way to keep war supporters happy - especially the ones who can’t serve in the military! As long as they continue to choose to pay extra taxes for the war, it keeps going and going. . .

  Just like McCain and Romney want!

• 23. Choose.Life.Not.War  |  February 4th, 2008 at 1:29 pm

  CoulterMan:

  Repugs wouldn’t ’sacrifice” a single dime for this war and certainly not their careers, lives or limbs.

  They talk a good game but ask them to ENLIST and they’d rather join Daily Kook Kos as consultants instead.

  So our soldiers continue to go on multiple 15-month tours with only 12 months of rest in between because there aren’t enough warmongers with the guts or onions to back up their rhetoric.

• 24. Nate  |  February 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

  you’re just being silly. bill gates has insurance through microsoft. even if he didn’t he could buy whatever he wants so he’d not be heading to publicly funder emergency rooms, or waiting until a health problem becomes very expensive to treat. people with no insurance do run into things like that if they don’t have the resources for quality alternatives. do you really want to pay for other people’s health care — whether through federal, state, or local taxes to the emergency room?

• 25. Doug  |  February 4th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

  I went three years without insurance for my family. The simple fact was that during that time our state’s regulations made it that no insurance company would cover us, coverage for the self-employed was basically wiped out for three years. All of the plans were designed for big businesses or government employees.

  Insurance would have been cheaper and more widely available if the state hadn’t regulatated them into only supplying those options. Probably the same thing with Bill Gates, the only way he could have gotten insurance was through his company (same state).

• 26. Canuckguy  |  February 4th, 2008 at 8:37 pm

  Phnx, you asked me “I have yet to read any conservative thought in your posts. Prove me wrong.”

  Come on, I already stated just because I disagreed with the Bushbots government basically on their incompetance, not for their fumbling conservatism. that does not make me a lefty.

  What do you want me to do, try digging up old posts to prove I am not a lefty?

  Why don’t you try proving me a Daily Kos type lefty.

• 27. phnx  |  February 4th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

  Hey don’t get all upset. I never went so far as accusing you of being a Kos Kadet. That’s reserved for some of the tin foil loonies (no offense to your currency) that frequent the site.

  You don’t have to defend your bonafides.

• 28. Canuckguy  |  February 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

  That’s OK Phnx. I was just role playing a sensitive canuck.

  I did come across an example of my conservatism in the fiscal field in the Jan 2408 posting “Comprimise on Tax Rebates”. In it, I decried the borrow borrow spend spend attitude of homeowners. Up here in Canuckland, our banks, due to stronger regulations, were not heavily exposed.

• 29. phnx  |  February 5th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

  Would that we had had stronger bank oversight.

• 30. Health Insurance Californ&hellip  |  April 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

  Health Insurance California Health Insurance Michigan Health Insurance

  I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view