Indeed. Such as revealing top secret legal programs that are used to fight terrorism that had congressional oversight, still the NYT felt compelled to expose such. Then later admitted it was the wrong thing to do and it had more to do with Bush then anything.
Look at the current health system: How much do you pay for those drugs that you need? How much does your INSURANCE COMPANY pay? Now think about if it was the govt? How many people DON'T want to screw the govt out of some money? After thinking about that one, think about how many people cheat the welfare and medicaid/medicare system every year... Now if your brain is not hurting, here is a simple one for you...is the govt doing a good job of preventing people from cheating? Should the govt pay for your neighbor's lung cancer that your neighbor got while smoking 2 packs a day for 45 years? Who's fault is it, and who should be covering that person? The govt currently can't handle its own systems of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid...I will never get SS, because it is expected to run out by the time I retire in 40 years (67-40=27, which is how old I am in case you can't do math).... Furthermore, relying on the govt more just leads us towards a socialistic or communist govt (and although shrillary would love us to be socialistic so she can take anything she wants, I am not for that). See this thread: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=271442 and this one: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=261117 you can't out someone who A) has already outed herself and B) wasn't covert...why do you think no one has been charged in "outing a CIA officer"? Because no one did, except herself and her husband...The special prosecutor has also said no other charges will be filed, translated as "I spent way to much of the american people's money on something that didn't happen."
So are you saying that the NSA, which is under FISA, wiretapping conversations between foreign nationals and US citizens without warrants does not break FISA?
As for government healthcare, keep in mind that there are a lot of expensive and new procedures that insurance does not pay for. Would the government be obligated to pay for, say, John Q's son? (A young boy who had an undiagnosed heart condition which quite literally meant death without the transplant)? And there are thousands of Americans that decrease the level of treatment they get because they don't have the money to seek health care and there isn't a county hospital that pays for all care for the uninsured like you see on ER in their area. If the government was paying for all care and it didn't cost a dime of the patient's money (until they were taxed for it) to get treatments, do you think cost would be a limiting factor for any treatment at all? And what about decisions over your treatment and medical research? If the government is paying for all medical treatment in the US, it has even more of a reason to mandate that it gets to control what kind of medical research is going on. I agree that there needs to be some kind of health care reform, but I firmly believe that the first step of any such reform needs to start with Tort reform and reigning in our overly litigious society. Do you have any idea how much of your doctor's bill comes from paying for other people's frivolous malpractice lawsuits?
what happens when they can't pay their taxes...and that will never work, because people hate new taxes... true, but it can't mandate the price...be careful of your words...when the govt starts mandating it means we are turning more communist... exactly...this is the first problem...the actual problem lies with the lawyers and jurors who "feel sorry" for the victim....how do you think John Edwards, the presidential wannabe, made all his money? Many of the large cases he won he got 60-70% of the final amount, which came out to be millions...
I just want to point out that the two things you quoted where things I was pointing out as problems with the idea of national health care.
Okay. Based on stuff in another thread, I think another 2 issues are going to be Taxes and spending cuts.
back to health care for a minute as of now when a person that does not have insurance goes to the hospital gets his treatment and either pays out of pocket or does not the hospital adds all the unpaid bills and breaks it down among the bills that are paid. so these services are paid by some one else. it is not like the people that don't have insurance or can't pay don't recive the service. so the total expenditures won't go up except for new procedures josh mentioned. add to all this money the profit made by all these insurance companies and i bet we have enough money. it is just the matter of paying differently if we can collect all the money spent on insurance and direct payment to the health care providers it would be enough money to pay for a national coverage. Tort reform should be addressed at the same time and we can institute bonuses and penalties for bad behavior.routine doctors visit will help reduce the cost and so on. this is a large project and needs a commitment from the whole country. leadership is needed
But what happens if a hospital decides to charge more? Does the government get to regulate the costs of the procedures? What happens if hospitals are then overpaid due to beurocracy, or underpaid due to regulated costs? Do the hospitals go under to then be bought and run by the government? Currently hospitals are businesses which must try to make a profit by cutting costs. If this goes away, it's likely that inefficency will increase. And what happens if the government takes over this 'service'. In education, another service industry run by he government, provided to all Americans (of a certain age) is seeing woeful underpayment in the areas of teachers.
or maybe each person is then given an insurance voucher and each hospitals set a yearly cost for all needed services and people can choose among hospitals i think California is starting a system now.that can be used as a model i think the place to save is in the insurance part and i think there is enough money to do it just the leadership we need someone with Ronald Reagan's skills to work on this
I'm saying there was nothing illegal. So did the NYT, about six months later, after the damage was done. If you have something to show otherwise, you have my full attention. We've covered this before.
The NYT? Pardon? And I have not yet seen that covered in any conversation. The link at the beginning of the thread is a link to a ruling by a US district court judging the Wiretapping to be illegal due to ignoring FISA, which is a binding law, and ordering it to cease. Further, the most recent development in it I've found is Bush and the NSA 'compromising' with judges from the FISA court in secret proceedings.
On the original thread topic, it looks like the current list stands at: The War in Iraq Civil Liberties (FISA/Patriot Act/Wiretapping, McCain/Feingold act) National Security Global Warming Government spending Taxes The Budget Candidate Trustworthiness (consistency on the issues, personal life) health care immigration gay marriage jobs To GTech: Ah. New York Times, pardon. Pizzaman: You know, I've been strongly against government management of healthcare, but I just remembered how poorly the Rail industry was doing until the government -temporarily- took it over in war time in order to put an end to the mismanagement.
i don't like govt doing it either but i think there is enough money in the system to provide universal health care. we just have to look out of the box a little. i think this a very important election that would change a lot of things about the country so i agree with you that we have to really look at the candidates very carefully.
That's the problem though, there's to much money in the governmental system going to to many things and coming out of to many pockets as it is. And currently many people get health care as a part of their employment package. What happens to them? I'm afraid they may loose their benefits and wind up paying more taxes both if we go to a government health care system. This is a topic that deserves some real thought.