Like the Abolition of Slavery, Universal Health Care is a moral issue that many Americans refuse to acknowledge as a moral issue. If one strips away all the right wing hypocrisy: “It’s socialism; Let the free market rule; We can’t afford it; Why should decent hardworking Americans have to provide healthcare for lazy losers; We have the best health care system in the world ( a lie);”  We get down to the truth of the matter: It’s about selfishness and greed.

Those who prefer the current chaotic, wasteful and unconscionable system do because they don’t suffer and die for lack of health care. They see it as Nature’s Way, Survival of the Fittest. As they see it, religion and moral values have nothing to do with it. Republicans have few and a very narrowly defined set of moral values. Preventing the needless suffering and death by “have-nots,” isn’t one of them.

It’s about the money, honey.

Comment #48781 by anonymous
“Get insurance companies and employers out of the health care system. Anything less is politics not policy.”

Anonymous is absolutely right. Far too much dead weight sinking the so-called (healthcare) system… just like government. As a nation, we already spend more than enough to cover every American:

Physicians for a National Health Program
http://www.pnhp.org/

The National Report Card on the State of Emergency Medicine
http://my.acep.org/

Kill the greed and fill the need.

Approximately 2,900,000 households in North America whose net worth exceeds 1 million US dollars which include private equity holdings stated at book value, publicly quoted equities, bonds, funds and cash deposits, as well as real estate not used for primary residences.

So out of 300,000,000 there are only 2,900,000 households that are defined as millionaires if we exclude primary residences—-and perhaps, this wealthy population should be paying a greater percentage of taxes, instead of receiving tax cuts.

Tax Relief should be set aside for the working-class and middle-class.  MULTI-MILLIONAIRES who earn income from their investments should not receive tax relief, they are NOT the working poor, in fact the wealthy should be willing to pay their fare share of taxes, and to demonstrate gratitude to the country that has allowed them to become so wealthy.

As the trolls try to recycle the tired old lie that Democrats are “Tax and Spenders” and that the GOP will lower you taxes, we see in yet another way how the GOP has shifted the tax burden from the super-rich to the little guy, Joe Sixpack.

According to them, our job is to be slaves to allow the socialist Republican Elite to acquire ALL the wealth of the nation, and then divide it up amongst themselves. They name themselves CEOs, then fail to make a profit, and get $200 million dollars as the reward for doing so.

I believe in capitalism and the free market, but I do NOT believe in “Elite Socialism”—that the wealthy are entitled to become wealthy, and stay wealthy without earning it, and without paying their fair share.

Mr. Dionne and Mr. Edwards both are hurling a vast and reeking canard on all of us.

The one that is usually pictured as the wolf guarding the sheephouse…

A “rob wealthy greedy producer Peter to pay poor selfless nonproducer Paul” in a Marxian pas de duex.

regulate and tax the bankrupt US and its citizens to some semblance of fiscal realiy….in a fair yet tough manner…..what a siren song…

Why not just print more interest-bearing Federal Reserve NOTES?????????? it helped the hero of the nonproducers and the downtrodden..FDR

How about cutting out the pork-barrel spending.  Pass a bill without the fluff.  If a state needs funding for something legitimate, then those congressional leaders need to write a bill to be discussed and passed.

Get insurance companies and employers out of the health care system.

Anything less is politics not policy.

“If I ran my household that way I would have been backrupt before I was born!”

Your comment explains why you’re called HEADLESS!

If I ran my household that way I would have been backrupt before I was born!

Headless

Whoever gets to clean the Outhouse/White House after Bu$h gets done taking an eight year dump has my pity. Congress has demonstrated they won’t be much help on the issues that are destroying the middle class of this country.
It would be refreshing to see some of our tax dollars spent actually benefiting Americans. It’s a radical idea and a start in the right direction for taking the country back from the special interests. I hope Edwards succeeds.

“Edwards, at least, is willing to say which taxes he would raise to keep the deficit from going through the roof. He would start by eliminating Bush’s tax cuts for the top 2 percent of income earners, which he defines roughly as those earning more than $180,000 to $200,000 a year.”
In major urban cities incomes of $180,000 to $200,000 are not incomes of the super rich, but are just middle-class earnings—-multi-national corporations, investment firms, and CEOS who are making millions of dollars, really should bear most of the tax burden; NOT the middle-class.
 
The extremely high cost of living in locations such as NYC or California, make workers earning $50,000 not really part of the middle-class; but closer to the working poor.

Another confusing issue is how universal healthcare will benefit the middle-class if they are receiving only tax credits, or are still required to pay costly monthly premiums.

Under the Massachusetts plan uninsured people earning less than the federal poverty threshold are able to purchase subsidized policies that have no premiums, and would be responsible for very small co-payment fees for emergency-room visits and other services.

Those earning between that amount and three times the poverty-level amount would be able to buy subsidized policies with premiums based on their ability to pay. Though no maximum premium is set in the bill, legislators’ intent seems to be for it to top out at about $200 to $250 per month.

And what about catastrophic illnesses—will the middle-class and the working-class be covered by the government indefinitely in cases of catastrophic illness, especially when long term care is essential, or will families still need to become indigent in order to obtain long term care.

These medical concerns are not clearly discussed by Romney, Schwarzenegger or Edwards—-the public needs to hear specific details showing exactly how universal coverage will prevent personal bankruptcy.

My friends, let us not, like the press, neglect Representative Kucinich. Unlike most others, he has put himself on the line no matter the consequence. We desperately need people like him.

E.J.,

I’ve long enjoyed your writing, and valued your insights. In the short piece above, perhaps you might have mentioned, of Bush, something regarding his recent push to escalate the war.

The point behind this move seems pretty clear: it’s a canard. Some 20,00 troops to make a substantial difference? Even Bush can’t be that stupid. So, obviously, the real aim is political.

I think the the political aims of this empty, meaningless, manufactured step are:

1) All Bush’s pro-war hawkish hit men (read:  every Republican) now have an opportunity to come down with one foot on either side of the fence. For them, opposing it is a handy back door out of accountability for the war in the first place.

2) It has effectively fanned the flames, and steered debate (to an amazing extent!) away from the total failure that our foray into Iraq has amounted to.

3) It has gotten the Democratic presidential hopefuls stumbling over themselves to find different reasons for opposing the ‘surge’.

4) The Republican presidential candidates, having been supplied with the reasoning behind this canard, can frame their responses in the proper key, and thereby potentially gain advantage.

Get real. The thing is a complete hoax. Bush and his cabal don’t give a fiddler’s f*** about whether 20,000 more troops go to Iraq or not. They care about one thing, and one thing only: retaining the presidency in ‘08. Every single move they make from now until then will have that single focus.

In fact, it’s to the P.R. advantage of Bush, et al, to stolidly announce the surge, then defend it, then retract it when retraction seems most convenient. That way, they’ve achieved their short-term political aims at no risk, and can claim to have reasonably listened to the opposition. Thus Bush has a chance to lip sync a little “Uniter-not-a-Divider” music. He hasn’t gotten -that- very often! (read: never)

It’s funny. Humorous. Canard is French for duck. Gentlemen of the press! Presidential candidates! Bush is speaking French!