Here's a pretty good summary of the arguments for/against the mandate being Constitutional -

http://www.slate.com/id/2224258/pagenum/all/#p2

There are two ways of going at it, and both will likely be pursued.

One is "why it is not Constitutional" where people opposed to it will need to find a clause that actually prohibits it. The best candidate here is the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, which says the government may not take property from a citizen without just compensation. One could argue that there is no "takings" because each person gets insurance and then it would come down to whether or not that is "just compensation." However, the argument will never be made because procedurally, "takings" have always been against individuals - while the name is "individual mandate" the fact of the matter is that it is a uniform requirement on all US citizens - just like income taxes.

The other way is to show "why it is Constitutional” which will be used by those who support the mandate. Here, there is a powerful argument under the interstate commerce clause which has been greatly expanded to cover just about any economic activity. The argument is that those remaining outside of the pool are essentially, as "free riders," increasing the costs for everyone else -

Covering more people is expected to reduce the price of insurance by addressing free-rider and adverse selection problems. Free riding includes relying on emergency care and other services without paying for all the costs, and forcing providers to shift those costs onto people with insurance. Adverse selection is the tendency to wait to purchase until a person expects to need health care, thereby keeping out of the insurance pool a full cross section of both low and higher cost subscribers. Covering more people also could reduce premiums by enhancing economies of scale in pooling of risk and managing medical costs.

The key here is that -

In essence, the commerce clause enables the economic arguments for the individual mandate to become legal arguments as well.

From a societal viewpoint, the mandate makes absolute economic sense. If the Commerce Clause allows that to be a legal argument, then game over.

Sorry, teabaggers and glibertarians.

Why is a health insurance mandate, in principle, any different from Social Security and Medicare?

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

Originally Posted by playwrite

The argument is that those remaining outside of the pool are essentially, as "free riders," increasing the costs for everyone else -

Mandating coverage might result in a small and temporary drop in costs for the people who are already covered.

But it probably won't because of the people who are seriously sick and currently outside of the system. Suddenly, millions of patients who were too expensive to cover will have coverage...I'm sure that will be great for the bottom line.

After the initial adjustment of forcing everyone toward the midpoint of costs, the proposals do nothing for the factors truly driving prices through the roof. Within 5 years of passage, it is almost certain that we'll pass 20% of GDP on medicine, and this ratio will only continue to grow until the entrenched interests are challenged.

The only winners here are the insurance companies and pill pushers. The macro perspective is that we'll continue to spend more and more of our GDP on a health product that consistently ranks below nations that spend half as much per person.

Forget about the moral implications of regressive taxation and corporate favoritism or the legal implications of the constitution and omnipotent government. This legislation is a joke whether or not those factors are considered valid concerns.

So do people think this is 3T legislation, so to speak? When I first heard Obama talking about it, he mentioned things like how there is a 150 billion dollar subsidy to insurance companies that need to be addressed and that gave me hope that he really wanted to reform the system. By the time the House passed the bill though, it was just more of the same 3T stuff that we are all sick to death of, in my opinion. More payoffs, more screwing over the the endangered middle class, more BS, more red tape hiding the fact that nothing has changed and so on.

I wonder if this bill will be a catalyst for voting out the current constellation of generations in Congress in the next election, or if we aren't 4T enough to care yet. Maybe the current stimulus will have to peter out and remind people that we are in a depression before we wake up. Or perhaps the looming hyperinflation will have to really hit. I don't know what it will be, but it seems like the economy is really going to capsize soon.

Originally Posted by Odin

I trust government bureaucrats far more than I trust corporate bureaucrats.

Totally agree. However, I am increasingly pessimistic about the way health care reform is going and believe at this point we will only get watered-down reform at best. Unfortunately, the Reagan Revolution has done its job and its anti-government rhetoric has seeped into much of mainstream society over the last thirty years and become common "knowledge" even among quite a few Democrats (Clinton, DLC, etc.). I believe things will have to get really bad before the majority of Americans finally wake up and realize that the Republicans' "free-market" policies since the Reagan era have not been to their benefit but to a very small elite. At this point, I don't see Obama repudiating Reaganism but rather playing the same cautious, centrist approach that Clinton took during his presidency. I believe that if Obama turns out to be a truly progressive, tranformative president, it will be becuase he was pushed into doing so (much like Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ) and not on his own. Otherwise, he will likely go down as a failed Hoover-like figure.

Originally Posted by Odin

I trust government bureaucrats far more than I trust corporate bureaucrats.

Your problem, Odin, is that you trust bureaucrats at all. That's not a good thing.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Uh ... because it's privatized? If it were socialized medicine that we were talking about, then no it wouldn't be any different in principle. But we're not.

True that. And there's an obvious conclusion to be drawn . . .

Originally Posted by independent

Mandating coverage might result in a small and temporary drop in costs for the people who are already covered.

But it probably won't because of the people who are seriously sick and currently outside of the system. Suddenly, millions of patients who were too expensive to cover will have coverage...I'm sure that will be great for the bottom line.

After the initial adjustment of forcing everyone toward the midpoint of costs, the proposals do nothing for the factors truly driving prices through the roof. Within 5 years of passage, it is almost certain that we'll pass 20% of GDP on medicine, and this ratio will only continue to grow until the entrenched interests are challenged.

The only winners here are the insurance companies and pill pushers. The macro perspective is that we'll continue to spend more and more of our GDP on a health product that consistently ranks below nations that spend half as much per person.

Forget about the moral implications of regressive taxation and corporate favoritism or the legal implications of the constitution and omnipotent government. This legislation is a joke whether or not those factors are considered valid concerns.

Maybe its just me but it seems strange to raise the moral implications of regressive taxation and corporate favoritism in the same post where providing health care to "people who are seriously sick and currently outside of the system" is put forth only as a money problem.

Anyway, I think the much larger population of the uninsured are young and healthy folks; otherwise, why would the insurers be so gun-ho about the mandate?

Also, while it certainly has proven easy to do so in just about every discussion on the matter, one can't have a realistic view of the issue by treating it in isolation, i.e. the health reform bill. Health care costs and health insurance are going to soar if we do nothing.

I think this MIT smartee has got it right; at least more so that most -

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...rm_do_eno.html

bottom line -

It also moves the conversation on cost control in a way that's impossible without this bill. It does real things on cost control, and then it does real things to make cost control more politically viable. It lays the groundwork for doing more. To kill this bill for not doing enough on cost control would be like criticizing the Yankees for not winning the Super Bowl. They won the World Series! They did what they could do!

Originally Posted by playwrite

Maybe its just me but it seems strange to raise the moral implications of regressive taxation and corporate favoritism in the same post where providing health care to "people who are seriously sick and currently outside of the system" is put forth only as a money problem.

What do you want? There are moral AND economic problems created with the current proposal, and any suggestion that it fixes anything seems like faith-based politics from the other team's bench.

The legislation does not create supply, it mandates demand. The legislation does not influence the current incentive structure, ie: maximize transaction volume.

From here, we've been told to expect "further negotiations in the Senate" such as eliminating the new taxes or further restricting the pathetic 2% public option.

Anyway, I think the much larger population of the uninsured are young and healthy folks; otherwise, why would the insurers be so gun-ho about the mandate?

Show me an industry that wouldn't salivate over a federal mandate that legally enforces a 330 million-strong captive market.

Anyway, is this the new Dem/boomer talking point? "We just have to make the young pay their fair share!" Seriously? Your generations watched our country turn into a police state and global empire, you trashed the whole world's environment, you created a huge bubble of debt for us to pay back, you won't even retire and free up your cushy jobs, and you think the problem with medicine is that young people haven't been forced to pay for it yet? Lemme guess, it also has something to do with Chinese currency values and hardworking people from poor countries who don't feel entitled to a fundamentally unsustainable lifestyle...

I'm not exaggerating now, I'm pissed - and if you get your way in making young people pay for another one of your lifestyle entitlements you may come to realize the generational anger is not so partisan as it was in 2005. (Many things have been typed here and subsequently deleted in the interests of civility)

Also, while it certainly has proven easy to do so in just about every discussion on the matter, one can't have a realistic view of the issue by treating it in isolation, i.e. the health reform bill. Health care costs and health insurance are going to soar if we do nothing.

Yes, they will continue to soar. We have a pill for every ache and pain and depression and personality quirk that existence inflicts on us. We ignore what our bodies and minds tell us about the society we've created. We subsist on food that would have been fit for peasants in generations past. Did you have your eight servings of gruel...er grain.. today? Didn't you know that Manwhich counts as a vegetable? Put some on bleached bread and you've got a Complete and Healthy™ meal! Oh yeah, make sure to take another pill for all those vitamins you missed out on, I'm sure the liver & kidneys just love that.

I think this MIT smartee has got it right; at least more so that most -

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...rm_do_eno.html

bottom line -

"Let's throw tons of money and customers at the industry, then maybe later we can revisit the situation and decide if there should have been strings attached."

Where have I heard that one before... Oh yeah, that's the fundamental premise of what we call deregulation. "Government must constantly supply the sector with demand, and the rules can be thought up later."

What a joke. You won't get one penny from me for the insurance industry. They almost killed me once, and I won't give them a second chance at that. Fool me twice, shame on me...

Originally Posted by playwrite

..."I think this MIT smartee has got it right; at least more so that most -

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...rm_do_eno.html

bottom line -

I agree-great article.
-I also like this quote:

Here's how I think about this: Do you know Pascal's wager? Why not believe in God? I think of health-care reform similarly. We don't know if we'll really bend the cost curve. But if we do this and we don't do anything, we still go bankrupt in 100 years. We don't lose much. But if we do it and it works, then it's a savior.

Originally Posted by independent

What do you want? There are moral AND economic problems created with the current proposal, and any suggestion that it fixes anything seems like faith-based politics from the other team's bench.

The legislation does not create supply, it mandates demand. The legislation does not influence the current incentive structure, ie: maximize transaction volume.

From here, we've been told to expect "further negotiations in the Senate" such as eliminating the new taxes or further restricting the pathetic 2% public option.

Show me an industry that wouldn't salivate over a federal mandate that legally enforces a 330 million-strong captive market.

Anyway, is this the new Dem/boomer talking point? "We just have to make the young pay their fair share!" Seriously? Your generations watched our country turn into a police state and global empire, you trashed the whole world's environment, you created a huge bubble of debt for us to pay back, you won't even retire and free up your cushy jobs, and you think the problem with medicine is that young people haven't been forced to pay for it yet? Lemme guess, it also has something to do with Chinese currency values and hardworking people from poor countries who don't feel entitled to a fundamentally unsustainable lifestyle...

I'm not exaggerating now, I'm pissed - and if you get your way in making young people pay for another one of your lifestyle entitlements you may come to realize the generational anger is not so partisan as it was in 2005. (Many things have been typed here and subsequently deleted in the interests of civility)

Yes, they will continue to soar. We have a pill for every ache and pain and depression and personality quirk that existence inflicts on us. We ignore what our bodies and minds tell us about the society we've created. We subsist on food that would have been fit for peasants in generations past. Did you have your eight servings of gruel...er grain.. today? Didn't you know that Manwhich counts as a vegetable? Put some on bleached bread and you've got a Complete and Healthy™ meal! Oh yeah, make sure to take another pill for all those vitamins you missed out on, I'm sure the liver & kidneys just love that.

"Let's throw tons of money and customers at the industry, then maybe later we can revisit the situation and decide if there should have been strings attached."

Where have I heard that one before... Oh yeah, that's the fundamental premise of what we call deregulation. "Government must constantly supply the sector with demand, and the rules can be thought up later."

What a joke. You won't get one penny from me for the insurance industry. They almost killed me once, and I won't give them a second chance at that. Fool me twice, shame on me...

I'm not buying it, Indy. The oldest GenXers are 48 years old; they've at least been along for the ride. They certainly have been key in the business arena for the last decade or so; and they are the crest of gunslingers having no loyalty but to themselves. On a percentage bases, they are the generation that continues to support the Right that basically got us into this economic mess with deregulation, tax cuts and continued deficit spending - essentially, GenXer were the enablers of the Right wingnuts of, at least, the last eight years before Obama. So blew it out your ass.

Its just way too easy to blame another generation or another person. The problem with that, Indy, is it cedes all control of your life to those you blame. If you don't snap out of it, when the Boomers are eventually gone, its likely you'll be one of those confused Xer's chasing the kids off the lawn and blaming all those damn Millies for making your life so hard.

I guess I'll go with that other Xer that I provided a link to. You know, the MIT smartee -

In 2006, he received the American Society of Health Economists Inaugural Medal for the best health economist in the nation aged 40 and under. He's unabashedly pro-reform, but he's from the camp of reformers that worry incessantly about the economics of the plan.

- he seems to fit in that Xer category of being a realist and trying to get something done as opposed to a nihilist ready to bitch about everyone else.

Realist vs. Nihilist. I think one sign of this 4T's Regeneracy will be when GenX, in toto, begins to tilt to the former and away from their comfort zone of the latter - which they currently wear like some sort of badge of honor. Sooo, 3T.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I'm not buying it, Indy. The oldest GenXers are 48 years old; they've at least been along for the ride. They certainly have been key in the business arena for the last decade or so; and they are the crest of gunslingers having no loyalty but to themselves. On a percentage bases, they are the generation that continues to support the Right that basically got us into this economic mess with deregulation, tax cuts and continued deficit spending - essentially, GenXer were the enablers of the Right wingnuts of, at least, the last eight years before Obama. So blew it out your ass.

Yes yes, very nice. America's political problem started with Nomad Xers and our healthcare is screwed up because Civics haven't paid in enough.

Its just way too easy to blame another generation or another person. The problem with that, Indy, is it cedes all control of your life to those you blame. If you don't snap out of it, when the Boomers are eventually gone, its likely you'll be one of those confused Xer's chasing the kids off the lawn and blaming all those damn Millies for making your life so hard.

Well blow it out yours, you're the one who said most of the people who don't have insurance are younger folks and that we need to force them to buy in to the system for the collective good.

I guess I'll go with that other Xer that I provided a link to. You know, the MIT smartee -

- he seems to fit in that Xer category of being a realist and trying to get something done as opposed to a nihilist ready to bitch about everyone else.

Yea yeah, MIT smarty. I could have gone too, but how smart would it have been to take out $200,000 in debt right before a once in a lifetime deflationary collapse? That appeal to intelligence shit doesn't work on me. Sadly, you'd probably think higher of me if I did in fact trade my future liberty for that piece of paper. Of course, I'd be desperately hunting for a job that pays enough for that kind of "smartyness" and I'd probably have to settle on something that involved lying to, deceiving, and/or directly stealing from you.

Most people don't actually hold the acceptance letter and contemplate it, so I'll forgive you for missing the bigger picture here.

Realist vs. Nihilist. I think one sign of this 4T's Regeneracy will be when GenX, in toto, begins to tilt to the former and away from their comfort zone of the latter - which they currently wear like some sort of badge of honor. Sooo, 3T.

Realism: MIT and Harvard and Yale smarties have been and continue to be the primary marketers for political stupid: its the best propaganda debt-slavery can buy. GenX may stop sounding so cynical when we're passed dumb Boomber politics. It might also be too late then.

Not every chapter has a happy ending, buddy. Remembering that is the most important aspect of realism.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Your problem, Odin, is that you trust bureaucrats at all. That's not a good thing.

Someone has to do the paperwork. Unlike many people I respect our civil servants.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Paperwork? What???

That "paperwork" consists of deciding who gets funding for which medical services. Our civil servants perform the same role as insurance company reviewers for Medical and Medicare patients. You respect them enough to do that?

Somebody has to do it. Like all resources, medical care is scarce -- that is, there's not enough of it to provide everyone with unlimited amounts -- so it has to be allocated. There are basically two ways to allocate resources, by market decisions or by a bureaucracy (private or government). If we were to allocate medical care by market decisions the way we allocate cars or clothes, which would mean eliminating all collectivization of medical costs whether public (e.g. Medicare) or private (insurance), the result would be that only relatively wealthy people -- think your income or higher -- could see a doctor when they needed to. (Which would probably mean you'd be out of a job and couldn't do that yourself.)

If we're going to collectivize the allocation of this resource, whether publicly or privately, the result is to give the decision over to a bureaucracy rather than a market. So the only real decision to make is whether that bureaucracy ought to be government, corporate, or some mix of the two. Personally, I think it ought to be government, for the reason Odin said. Unfortunately, the bills running through Congress don't go that way. My hope, though, is that if we do pass a public option, eventually the fears of insurers will be realized and it will become a single-payer system by process of attrition.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Do you know how they plan to enforce the mandate yet?

The favorite 4th branch of Guv-ment, Internal Revenue Service.

Originally Posted by independent

Yes yes, very nice. America's political problem started with Nomad Xers and our healthcare is screwed up because Civics haven't paid in enough.

Well blow it out yours, you're the one who said most of the people who don't have insurance are younger folks and that we need to force them to buy in to the system for the collective good.

Yea yeah, MIT smarty. I could have gone too, but how smart would it have been to take out $200,000 in debt right before a once in a lifetime deflationary collapse? That appeal to intelligence shit doesn't work on me. Sadly, you'd probably think higher of me if I did in fact trade my future liberty for that piece of paper. Of course, I'd be desperately hunting for a job that pays enough for that kind of "smartyness" and I'd probably have to settle on something that involved lying to, deceiving, and/or directly stealing from you.

Most people don't actually hold the acceptance letter and contemplate it, so I'll forgive you for missing the bigger picture here.

Realism: MIT and Harvard and Yale smarties have been and continue to be the primary marketers for political stupid: its the best propaganda debt-slavery can buy. GenX may stop sounding so cynical when we're passed dumb Boomber politics. It might also be too late then.

Not every chapter has a happy ending, buddy. Remembering that is the most important aspect of realism.

Yep, it's all someone else's fault.
Valuable input, thanks.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So you have to turn in proof of health insurance every April 15? I'd seriously like to know ... need to come up with a plan.

If the IRS computer shows no health insurance with your SS#
- then its: Game, Set, Match, my dear.

As with taxes, if you got a problem with the mandate, take it up with your Congress critters.

Don't F with the tax man.

I think the Xer support for the "right" is very misunderstood by a lot of people. It doesn't have at its source the same thing that drives boomer righties, if I understand the boomer mentality correctly as being ideological in a moral paradigm. Xer "conservatism" can't be accurately represented within a boomer paradigm.

The internecine warfare that characterizes the prophet generation only goes so far with the Nomads, as far as I can tell. Lacking any voice of their own prior to gaining political power through age, Xers who engage at all with establishment politics tend to focus on their distaste for what they see as arbitrary authority, whether on the left or the right.

It could be a distaste for the Clintonesque political landscape, for example. Or it could be an anger at corporate interests who exercise power in a corrupt government to dump waste or destroy wilderness. The culture war of the 3T provides plenty of distractions and minutae, and lots of Xers simply don't care about those things that boomers seem to worry over.

Some Xers will take some time to wake up from the red vs blue football game, but when they do I think it will be difficult to label "conservative" Xers as simply neocon drones. They are only "conservative" if you don't look past preconceptions that the boomer culture war has put at the forefront of everyone's mind. Once the last of the detritus of the 3T has been swept away we'll see where everyone really stands.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Say what? Prove it.

Isn't it obvious? Remember I'm positing no health insurance at all, and also no free clinics or emergency rooms, all of which represent collectivization of costs and consequent bureacratic allocation of resources.

To see a family-practice physician costs from $95 to $265. A visit to a specialist costs from $115 to $325. Most people could afford an annual check-up at that rate, but if you have anything very serious you will also undergo batteries of tests, and quite possibly hospital stays and surgical procedures that can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars very quickly. And after that we are often talking about fairly long runs of medication (sometimes permanent), and follow-up visits with follow-up tests.

I currently make about $40k-$50k a year, although I expect that to go up rather dramatically over the next few. Without health insurance, at this point I could afford to see a doctor only if I didn't need to -- that is, if I were to get a checkup and learn that everything is fine. (Which is hopefully the case, knock wood.) And my current income, while not lavish, is a long way from poverty level for a single person. Even someone with a solid six-figure income would find himself hard pressed to meet the expense of a major illness such as cancer or AIDS or some degenerative disease. Without health insurance or some other way of socializing costs, health care in a situation like that would be affordable only by the very rich.

I see the costs of health care all the time, although I'm working in auto and fire rather than health insurance, because I know how much a serious injury in an auto accident can cost. I always advise my clients to take a minimum of $250,000 per person bodily injury liability if they can possibly afford it. One client told me a story of a friend who ran over a motorcyclist who lost a leg. That cost half a million dollars. And even something like that isn't as bad as the worst illnesses out there.

Granted, most people for most of their lives won't be faced with medical costs in that range. If it were otherwise, our whole society would be unable to afford the cost even with maximum socialization. But that just underscores how impossible it is for most people to afford it as individuals.

As for the part about you being likely out of a job in that case, consider how many of your patients' parents pay for your services, plus any drugs you prescribe, out of their own pockets as opposed to using insurance. Now imagine your patient list being limited to those who could.

Originally Posted by Odin

Ugh, an anti-choice Catholic Democratic congressman with connections to the Christo-Fascist C-Street "Family" pushed though an amendment saying that abortions cannot be covered by ANY insurance except in case of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. I'm REALLY p*ssed off right now. ****ing religious BS!!!

Originally Posted by Odin

Translation: "Women are sinful sluts are should be punished for having sex".

For who claim that this is NOT about controlling women:

In truth, a broader sentiment seems to be fueling the discomfort with contraception. Perhaps the American Life League gets to the heart of it best, noting on its website that birth control leads to “a state of mind that treats sexual activity as if it has nothing to do with babies”—i.e., to put it in plain terms, promiscuity. Birth control somehow shades into abortion, and together both lead women down the path to immorality.

Abortion, it seems, was lost to political horse-trading. But there are also deeper forces at work that will continue to affect the 10 million women who are expected to participate in a health care exchange—an infuriating irrationality that taints not just abortion, but many other health issues that are perceived to be connected to women’s sexuality.

The best example is birth control, which was also recently thrown under the health-reform train. So far, none of the three reform bills has required insurers to cover contraception, although it is almost universally used by heterosexually active women. Other preventive services, such as some counseling about sexually transmitted diseases and pelvic exams, didn’t make the cut, either. Nor have the bills protected these services from “cost sharing,” which means that women may well end up paying for much of their birth control out of their own pockets.

Few in Washington or elsewhere would cop to such plainly sexist views. Once it’s actually put into words, the blanket condemnation of all sex without the intention of making babies is obviously out of step with the way most people think and live. It’s arguably even more retrograde than the idea that certain methods of birth control are equivalent to abortion. Yet in July, when senators debated an amendment put forward by Barbara Mikulski proposing full coverage of birth control and other preventive women’s health services, the conversation focused on Planned Parenthood and abortion, despite the fact that neither was mentioned in the amendment.

It’s the rare—and almost always female—politician who’s willing to brave these irrational currents to fight for birth control. Mikulski’s amendment is now the only remaining hope of getting birth control completely covered and paid for in the final health-reform bill. The majority of politicians seem intent on steering clear of the whole tawdry mess. Yet it’s worth remarking that even as they give off an air of quiet disapproval, most of these lawmakers somehow do not have huge broods of children themselves. If the subject of birth control comes up, they often respond—or, rather, don’t—with the kind of wide-eyed panic you might expect from someone accused of playing footsy with another man in an airport bathroom. When George W. Bush was asked whether he supported the use of contraception, for instance, the usually garrulous father of two stayed mum.

Women are now falling into the silence left by these hypocritical and terrified politicians. Though lawmakers have treated birth control and abortion as abstract matters of values, the consequences of their heady decisions for women will be quite real. The consequences will be harshest for the middle- and low-income women most likely to participate in a health exchange. If they have to pay for part or all of the cost of birth control themselves, women will be less likely to get it. Some will get pregnant. And virtually all of the women who want abortions will be unable to get them covered through our new national health plan.

Originally Posted by Odin

For who claim that this is NOT about controlling women:

It's a lot of things, but there's no doubt that a lot patriarchal biases are informing these people. One thing that's clear, though, is that politicians have sacrificed women's healthcare in the name of compromise. I think this is something something progressive big government advocates should keep in mind.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

It's a lot of things, but there's no doubt that a lot patriarchal biases are informing these people. One thing that's clear, though, is that politicians have sacrificed women's healthcare in the name of compromise. I think this is something something progressive big government advocates should keep in mind.

I think it's more about Boomers trying to stuff the Awakening genie back into the bottle, after experiencing its downside first hand and wanting to protect younger generations from it. As I've said before, it isn't just women who are affected by abortion and birth control... so are men.

Problem is, you can't do it. It's like trying to un-invent the atomic bomb. Only way to get to that happy medium I talk about is to work our way through it, not to build a bridge back to a past that wasn't all it's cracked up to be. Today's politicians may want to consult Bob Dole on that one.

came across this today ....

An analysis of 687,091 patients who visited trauma centers nationwide from 2002 to 2006 found that the odds of dying from injuries were almost twice as high for the uninsured than for patients with private insurance, researchers reported in Archives of Surgery.

Trauma physicians said they were surprised by the findings, even though a slew of studies had previously documented the ill effects of going without health coverage. Uninsured patients are less likely to be screened for certain cancers or to be admitted to specialty hospitals for procedures such as heart bypass surgery. Overall, about 18,000 deaths each year have been traced to a lack of health insurance....

The research team from Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston used information from 1,154 U.S. hospitals that contribute to the National Trauma Data Bank. The team found that patients enrolled in commercial health plans, health maintenance organizations or Medicaid had an equal risk of death from traumatic injuries when the patients' age, gender, race and severity of injury were taken into account.

The risk of death was 56% higher for patients covered by Medicare, perhaps because the government health plan includes many people with long-term disabilities, said Dr. Heather Rosen, who led the study while she was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School.

The risk of death was 80% higher for patients without any insurance, the report said.

here is a link to the actual study

http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/con...ll/144/11/1006

busy, busy, just a quick note of glee.

Oh, baby!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34017224...eform/?from=ET

updated 11 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Senate's top Democrat on Wednesday prepared to unveil a new health care bill that aims to meet President Barack Obama's goal of expanding coverage without adding to the federal deficit.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the measure would cost $849 billion, reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 31 million and cut the federal deficit by $127 billion over a decade, NBC News reported.