Michele Bachmann Speaks Out Against Health Care Reform

Concur.

Maybe I'm opening a can of worms here, but I don't understand how providing affordable health care is comparable to slavery.

After years of paying nearly $1000 per month for health care for my husband and I, [which covered nothing for doctor visits] I finally qualify for the public option called Medicare. I also pay for supplemental insurance. I don't feel one bit like a slave. In fact, I have more money to spend in the marketplace or save.

In a few more months my husband will qualify too. YAY!!!!

I'm still waiting for answers to my questions Bea.

Why shouldn't those that receive care have to pay for it Bea?

Why should I have to pay for you to have treatment?

Janice she was talking about people having to give up half their wages to their various governments as being slavery. Which it is. That means for 6 months of the year all the work they do benefits the moochers of society and not themselves.

Janice, the slavery comparison is kind of wierd, but I think it refers to the fact that providing affordable anything to those who cannot afford it now means someone else must pay the difference....like by forcing those with higher incomes to pay more taxes against their will. Against the will = slavery, I think, to her. She's talking to those who will pay, not to those who will receive. Tough debate...

OK -- slitting wrists may be harmful to one's health. I would nix that, especially if the wrist slitter's have no health insurance.

Peter, your questions have already been answered previously, by me. Your own rhetoric does you in. You're already paying for the health care of others. If you have insurance then you are paying for someone elses health care. If you have coverage with Independent Health, then you are paying for *my* health care.

Additionally, if you are paying taxes, you are paying for nearly 75% of the nations health care as well. Things like Medicare and Medicaid are paid for with your taxes. Other things, like reimbursing hospitals for the uninsured comes from your tax dollars. UMMC's existence? Tax dollars.

If you are under the misconception that you aren't already paying for someone elses health care, then I feel sorry for you.

When some uninsured person goes to the emergency room, do you know who is paying? You probably don't from the sound of it, but I'll give you a hint. Look in the mirror. Whoa! It's you. Wouldn't you rather your money be used more effectively? Wouldn't you rather get a return on your investment? Government run health care is more effective, 95% of your taxes go to the people instead of 75% with what you're paying now.

Tony I want to know why, not who currently is. There is a big difference.

And why are the solutions I have offered bad?

And my money won't be used more effectively. It is impossible for a government as large as this one to do that.

Why should any of my money go to the people?

It should go towards national defense and a few other programs that are constitutionally obligated. Nothing else. If its not in the Constitution, the federal government should not be involved.

And Howard, you can't have something named GLOBAL warming unless the entire globe is warming.

Yes, money should go to, as Act 1 Section 8 states, "the general welfare and common defense" of its citizens. What is health care then, if not both of those?

Do you mind paying for medicare with your tax dollars? Do you mind paying for public schools with your tax dollars? Police forces? Fire Departments? Garbage pick up? Roads? Highways? Parks?

Some service are so necessary to the health, well being, and survival of a given community on an individual and collective basis that most people have decided that it is beneficial and necessary to fund it with tax dollars.

Making sure that everyone gets the care they need without going bankrupt really does benefit everyone. People getting free or subsidized health care would mean that more people would have access to preventative care; thus, they won't go to the emergency room for an earache. This saves insurance companies and hospitals and thus insured people like you and me money. Access to a public option would mean you could get a disease, yet still pursue other career opportunities without fear of not getting new insurance. A lady I work(ed) with got breast cancer almost 2 years ago, the chemo treatments destroyed her health and forced her on to Short-Term Disability to continue her access to insurance while seeking treatments. Her cancer spread, and she was unable to return to work after the 6 month window she had. Position, terminated. Insurance, gone. She'd now have a death sentence under your "ideals" with no access to public health care, and no money for insanely expensive COBRA.

And how exactly wouldn't your money be used better? The government is incapable of doing so? Really... that's an absolute shocker. It's funny that the Post Office picks up and delivers mail to my door for 44 cents, and provides everyone in the nation access to the system either through home delivery or PO Box delivery... yet UPS and FedEx pick and choose where they deliver. Who's more effective exactly?

Your wrong Tony the term "general welfare" was never intended to include government provided health care for everly dead beat, jobless, illegal alien, drug addict, homeless vagrant in the country.Congress was granted the power to promote the general welfare of the nation by the Constitution of the United States. It means that Congress should provide laws that are in keeping with the principles of the self governed. It means that Congress may provide legislation that acts in a general best interest of a nation.
It does not mean that Congress should create legislation that plunders the people in order to redistribute wealth. It does not provide for any entitlements for certain people. And I do mind paying into mismanged medicare medicaid government programs since these programs and others have accumulated more than $50 trillion in IOUs payable by future generations.

Richard, health insurance didn't exist when the Constitution was written. Of course it wasn't intended to include health care. Pointing that out is as asinine as saying the governments right to create an Army and a Navy didn't include any mention of an Air Force or nuclear bombs so those shouldn't exist - or asking where in the Constitution it says that C-SPAN has any right to televise the Senate and House chambers, and it definitely doesn't say that they are entitled to computers or internet use. The Constitution is a living document and is interpreted based on the times it is needed or amended for inclusion of new items and policies that simply didn't exist then.

And further, internet research shows that you're a senior citizen. You benefit from the "redistribution of wealth"... the average American senior who lives to 83 contributes $64,971 in Medicare taxes and receives $173,886 for a net gain of $108,915. This net gain comes from taxes imposed on working Americans (like myself)... so how exactly do you justify your statements while directly benefitting from exactly what you speak so strongly against?

Your research is flawed einstein in respect to both my age and your interpretation of the "general welfare" clause. The socialist marxist bureaucrats have continually tried to use the term general welfare to support their desire to redistribute wealth. National health care is the mother of all welfare entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being.

Anyone who wishes to comment on the "general welfare" clause would do well to read the Federalist Papers, as well as Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention.

The fact is, the purpose of the Constitution was to protect individuals from arbitrary government dictates. It was not a grant of unlimited powers, subject to the changing tastes of the time, or the interpretation of power lusters. It was a limitation on the powers of government, and it enumerated those powers, reserving all others to the states and individuals.

It's hilarious that someone can try to insult my intelligence, then fail to use proper capitalization, punctuation and fail to grasp that "socialist," "Marxist" and "beaurocrats" are all contradictory terms and are not in any way, shape or form related to one another. Karl Marx hated socialists, and socialism is not exclusive to the left, the right uses it too. Beaurocracy is the exact opposite of what Marx wanted.

You bring up the Federalist Papers, but have obviously never read them yourself or even have an elementary level understanding of them or the Constitution itself. If you did you'd be quick to know that they were solely written to get the US to ratify the Constitution and abandon the Articles of Confederation, and have no bearing on anything done today. You'd also understand that the FEDERALIST Papers were an effort to highlight the benefits of an all-encompassing FEDERAL government with overarching powers over the states and was in direct opposition to the Anti Federalists who wanted State control.

The Federalist Papers argument is as weak as any other you've tried. The Supreme Courts were created to decide what is and what is not Constitutional, not the Federalist Papers - which solely serve as the reason why the Constitution should be ratified. Do you have any of your own thoughts, or do you simply come on to regurgitate Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck? Both of whom are neither political scientists, nor educated. Maybe you should read Federalist Number 10, about faction, and how they never intended for there to be partisanship.

Yes I don't like paying for medicare or government school.

Fire can be privitized as far as I am concerned and the people that need the services should be billed.

Police is a proper role of government. But we don't need as many layers of it as we have.

Garbage should be privatized.

Parks should fund themselves.

Roads I am not decided on. I think a lot of money can be saved in their construction based on an article I read about a road that had been washed out and fixed by the citizens for a fraction of the government estimates and fixed much quicker.

Well, now that we've heard from the lunatic fringe (Rep. Michele Bachmann)...

I realize that AARP is a special interest group- essentially representing seniors and retirees. Unlike other special interest groups, the American Association of Retired Persons does not endorse or oppose candidates nor does it provide financial support through political action committees. In fact the AARP endorsed the Republican Medicare Reform Bill of 2003 which enfuriated Democrats. ...An act that displays some independent thought. What does AARP have to say about health care reform proposals?

http://aarp.convio.net/site/PageNavigator/Myths_vs_Facts_splash

Anyone who follows Bachmann's advice, slitting their wrists had best check their insurance rider. Wrist-slitting might require cosmetic surgery- not covered by most plans.

Yo Tony, what's even more hilarious is someone insulting my intelligence that chooses to live in or around batavia and attempts to revise the meaning of the constitution to rationalize and justify a national welfare health care program.

I read this on another forum and thought I'd share. I may have changed a few words to make it more appropriate:

This morning, I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking medicine which had been determined to be safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of state and local building codes and a fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on The Batavian and Fox News forums about how socialism in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

I've actually left.. and only returned after a plane crashed into some weird 5-sided building 3 blocks from my apartment at 1600 S Eads St, Apt 212S, Arlington, VA 22202... I'm not sure what happened exactly, I think it happened on September 11th or something though. Maybe that rings a bell for some people. I lived the following year there under floodlights and .50 caliber machineguns pointed at me driving down highways and listening to fear-mongerers clouding sane judgement. You would've fit right in perfectly.

That you still fail to grasp the obvious is enjoyable to me, because I see through your hysterical, ignorant fear which you continue to perpetuate. As Roosevelt said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. It is your frantic, gibberish-filled flight from your imaginary boogeyman of Marxism that is driving you straight into the iron grip of the industrialists that certainly do not have your best interests in mind. If there is such a thing as evil, it is manipulation that is well hidden, as the manipulation that the health care conglomerates are practicing behind the scenes, scaring uninformed and fear-based individuals such as yourself to comply with their propaganda. You are scared to the point where you aren't rational. What a shame it is that you have a vote, because you have thrown it away in service of those who would use you to line their pockets and discard you like a dried husk. You cite the Federalist Papers, but fail to realize that Number 10, discussing faction, can also be applied to todays special interests - groups you echo the sentiments of which do not care in the least bit about you, only themselves. It would seem that whatever wisdom would have normally been bestowed on someone of your age was always destined to be eclipsed by your ignorance and hatred of others.

Peter, if we were living in the 19th century and road repair was a simple as pulling out a stump or filling in a wagon rut, I suppose any simpleton could accomplish the task. I don't want some jack-of-all-trades building the bridge I drive over. As a less extreme example of the downside of allowing those of average competence to attempt road repair: the Town of Riga experimented with a non-asphalt product on Johnson Road. It was less costly and promised results. The first rain storm washed all their efforts away because its latex base failed to bond.

Anyone can sit back and nickle and dime the operation of government based on their personal criteria. The reality is that we live in a complex and expensive world. Even if you cut jobs, someone has to pay for the laid-off workers' unemployment.

You do not want to privatize or de-regulate everything, because you lose control over cost, logistics and quality. Example: many public schools bid out cleaning service. The only real savings on outsourcing such service comes from transfering the obligation for benefits like retirement and health insurance. In exchange the schools lost the ability to choose their employees and schedule operations; more importantly, they couldn't assign the infinite out-of-job-description duties that make up a large portion of what custodians do. Who cleans up the vomit? Who removes the bird that flew in? Who chases the wasp? Who sets up the chairs? Who fixes the broken desk? In a couple years when the contract was up for renewal, the savings vanished. And the districts couldn't afford to go back because the contractor now owned their expensive floor cleaning equipment.

Therein lies the drawback to bean counters. They never see the whole picture. They merely look at numbers without understanding the intricate division of labor that numbers do not reflect.

If you did Bea, then you would answer my questions now.

I thought this thread was about how Bachmanns words were interpited ...

“This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”

I just took it all to mean that paying half of your earnings to the government is over the top..More and more we are becoming a slave to government..What % of income is enough to give to the government..

"If 10% is good enough for Jesus, then it should be good enough for Uncle Sam"

AMEN to that Peter !!!

i agree Peter..

Uncle Sam must think he is above JESUS himself.

How does Jesus spend money didn't he die a long time ago? Oh never mind just remembered he must give the money to Santa and the Easter bunny to buy presents.

Jesus only mentioned tithing(one tenth or 10%) 3 times and each occasion was in reprimand to "religious" leaders and there legalistic hypocrisy. Jesus told his followers to give to Ceaser what was Ceasers(taxes)and to God what was Gods(offerings). The offerings to the church were used as the modern day forerunner to welfare and healthcare because the church took care of those who couldn't take care of themselves, not the government.

Jesus never said that. Some other jamokes said that he said that and wrote it in a fairy tale.

Tony what are you babbling about. Nationalized health care is dead, know why? Cause of people like me who work for major fortune 100 world wide industrial conglomerates that have an iron grip on innovation, jobs, and profits they use for research and development oh and don't forget the puppet politicians. Thats right my company does have my best interest in mind and thats why they pay for my health care and I like it. The lie is we have a health care crisis, a global warming crisis and on and on. The US has the best health care in the world with more medical innovations having been developed by US private industry than any of the other countries combined. Ahhh ain't capitalism great.

Not as much as the government takes from companies like mine in corporate taxes. Texas is a net tax payer. The government receives more tax money from the state of Texas than they return in government funded programs.

Richard,
That is an interesting statistic. Is there a reference source that shows how much states pay the gov. in taxes as opposed to what they get in return? I'd be interested in where New York ranks.

Posted by Richard Gahagan on September 8, 2009 - 5:15pm
Tony what are you babbling about. Nationalized health care is dead, know why? Cause of people like me who work for major fortune 100 world wide industrial conglomerates that have an iron grip on innovation, jobs, and profits they use for research and development oh and don't forget the puppet politicians. Thats right my company does have my best interest in mind and thats why they pay for my health care and I like it. The lie is we have a health care crisis, a global warming crisis and on and on. The US has the best health care in the world with more medical innovations having been developed by US private industry than any of the other countries combined. Ahhh ain't capitalism great.

-- Yeah, and people that worked for the largest auto manufacturer in the world said the same thing... too bad health care costs took them down. And I work for the largest bank in the world in terms of assets, the most valuable banking brand in the world, and the only one to escape sub prime mortgage crisis which comes in ranking at 20 on your precious Fortune list. What are we getting at here? Who has the better job with the bigger company?

The US has the best health care in the world? 37 must be the new Arabic Numeral for 1 or something. In the place we called "reality" France and Italy have the best medical systems in the world. But of course you'll try to discount the WHO rankings, you know, that UN is out to get us... so maybe you put more trust in the CIA, which says it ranks 47 in the world. Even better yet! So, what possible reason could the CIA have to say that it isn't the best? No worries though, at least we rank ahead of Cuba who spends all of $85 per year per resident on health care.... by all of 2 spots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/opinion/12sun1.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN07651650
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11/life.expectancy.health.care/

If government does things so well ..Then why are we in so much debt...Someone posted on here how much government does for him in a course of a day...Never mentions how broke all that is making the country..

Has anyone had their mind changed by the otherside?

Posted by Mark Potwora on September 8, 2009 - 6:46pm
If government does things so well ..Then why are we in so much debt...Someone posted on here how much government does for him in a course of a day...Never mentions how broke all that is making the country..

-Mark, the Reaganomics view of debt is that the biggest misconception of National Debt is that it does not list a single asset. Also, the debt is mostly comprised of money owed to its people, whether through T-Bonds or other funds owed. Not to mention the high values of all government owned buildings, land, machines, cars, computers, etc. The dollar is seeing the highest volumes of trade ever, which is promising. Therefore, as Dick Cheney so articulately put it, "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter.".... whether or not that holds true is anyone's guess... I'm just delivering that assessment of it.

Bea what would i get rid of..loaded question,but a few of the things are Nasa and that space station,The post office.If UPS and Fedex can deliever packages to my house they can sure then get junk mail to the house,thats about all the post office delievers these days..I would cut out pre k..I started school in k,and i'm sure most people on here did also...I would cut out subsized bus service..Pay what the ride cost..Bline bus is a money loser...Raise the prices..I would do away with all tax exempt property in the city..would lower my tax..
I would cut all of congress staff by half..I would get rid of trash pick up in the city ,It should be up the the homeowner to pay and get rid of it..

The FDA doesn't do there job very good,we still keep getting somienella outbreaks that they never figure out ..No one ever gets fired ..
The SEC is not effective,they let Bernnie Madoff rob thousands of people of billions of dollars..

Does anyone else out there have any parts of government you would get rid off...Bea wants to know...

- Get rid of trash pick up, I'd rather have suburban disposal or someone that picks up my brush and blue glass bottles

- Cut congressional staff

- cut congressional pay

- cut congressional health care (and private planes, transportation, lobby gifts, etc)

- cut social security and medicare for those under 30

- promote private retirement savings

- get rid of all tax-exempt property and businesses

- limit the number of presidential aids

- press corp should pay for transportation with the president

- deport illegal aliens (not just Mexicans, the Russians, Irish, etc that all come here illegally)

Peter and I could probably think of a few more, but we're a bit busy improving our house, property, and life style, while the government continues to steal from us.

Chelsea seems like we are on the same train of though here...

Perhaps this is off topic, but I have a question. Many are opposed to, "paying for the health care of others." However we pay for schooling. IF I"M NOT MISTAKEN NYS tax payers pay approx 15,000 per year to send a child to public school. Well worth it. Is health care not as important? Is the mind more significant than the body that carries it?

But why do we pay for schooling the way we do? If we had some type of voucher system, we could pay a certain amount and then go to whichever school we deemed best for our children. Same as if we all could afford health care through private insurance, you could choose which insurance company to go with, which could then let you choose your doctor and personal plan. (In order to make this happen, there would have to be reforms put in place, such as being able to buy health insurance across state lines, and to reduce the overall costs of health care and insurance)

I agree, Chelsea. I have a difficult time hearing people say they do not want to ,"pay for others Health care." What if people had to apply for public education to determine eligibility as they do for medicaid? Is public school not a government funded program? Does this mean those who opt out of private schools are, "moochers?" I don't think so. I see it as utilizing a resource that is offered to our children. Healthcare should be made available to everyone if education is. Preventitive health care is a lower cost than the alternative.