This is the second time you've asked me this, see my previous response. Have you read it? Do you remember what you read?

Yes.  I have read it.  Not only do i remember a lot of it.  I've actually got the source matieral for the parts I haven't read.

You really shouldn't be making claims  if you don't at least have the same level of knowledge on the subject as the people your trying to debate.

It's like going into a chess tournament shouting yatzhee and demanding that people king you.  78% of people who've actually read the bill at Opencongress.org are against it.  In otherwords... the more informed you are... the more likely you are against it.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

And yet you continue to debate. But, I'll take your word for it and believe you know more than me about the bill. Please tell me what in this bill will destroy our country?

EDIT* And do you think the entire 78% read the entire bill?

I think the 78% on average read as much as the 22% on average... and that both groups read more and therefore know more then the general public who's against the bill by about 60%.

Dennis Kusnich is against this healthcare bill... I'm not sure if you know, but he's pretty much as left as you can go congress wise.

Also it wouldn't "destroy the country"... that would just be melodramatic.

It will however be detrimental to the country.

How?  Well, just read the thing.

1) The Health Chare Exchange -  This is an entire government department being created to be a glrofied "Progessive insurance" website feature.  Also for some reason middle sized and large companies aren't aloud to use this to get cheaper healthcare insurance... but may be able to in the future.

2) The Public option - It's going to be a government owned buisness... like Fannie mae and Freddie Mac.  According to current legislation it's going to forced to be self sufficent.  Which is a good thing.  The bad thing is... non profit insruance companies currently aren't any cheaper then for-profit ones.  A government run healthcare buisness, that has to give everyone government level benefits is going to end up being more expensive.   It'd be a miracle if this really can survive without the government subdisizing it.

3) Health insurance prices will only be able to discriminate based on age group, where you live... and family size.  First off... where you live?  Why?  That's just asking for redline districting...  secondly... this pretty much raises everyones health insurance costs... a LOT.  Since people who are a huge risk, either by birth or often by choice end up paying the same price as everbody else... this means those massive costs of people deemed to risky to even be in the system now are passed on to everyone else.  Everyones healthcare bills are going to go up... and spending on healthcare as a percentage of GDP will skyrocket.

4) It limits "out of pocket costs"  Which means... no more cheap plans where you just pay for $10,000 worth of coverage.. etc, because you know you probably won't go over that.   Now every insurance plan reads like this "You get XX,XXX of treatment for free, then have to pay 5,000 dollars, then it's all free again."   In otherwords... rates because of this are going to go up.  Percentage of GDP spent will sky rocket.

5) They don't open up acess to healthcare.  They say they do, but the bill really just talks about making it easier for people to find insurance quotes rather then being forced to call each company. 

6)  To get support of the AMA and various hospitals they had to agree to increase Medicare and medicaid payments and roll back previous reductions that were planned.  In otherwords... "government" medicare rates have gone up for the government... GDP, Prices etc.

7)  Everyone is FORCED to buy healthcare or pay 2.5%.  Well everyone who has taxable income.

8) The vast majority of comapnies are FORCED to provide healthcare.  They either have to get a minium healthcare plan, or contribute an additional 8% or so of payroll.  So... that means less employees, less job growth (Perfect effect for right now).

9) To counter 6... they're going to pay medicare and medicaid doctors bonuses for having low readmission rates.  That could go badly a number of different ways. 

Healthcare in some states cost more then others, so they are allowed to adjust prices based on location.

Here is another thing to consider.

Insurance companies make about 7-8% profit. This means there is very little room to play. let's say they go crazy and drop that to 5% (insanely low for a company). To compare, Apple is in the 40 something percent profit arena.

So, aside from very little wiggle room, insurance companies have to offset any additional costs by raising rates.

The reason insurance companies don't cover people with pre-existing conditions, is because they cost a fortune. They are going to be required by law to cover these people, and they are not going to be allowed to charge them much more then they can charge everyone else.

This means for everyone, the cost of insurance goes up. About 5% of this country wants insurance that can't get it. Not very much. But right now, there are millions of people who are living paycheck to paycheck, and any additional burden on there monthly expenses will really be felt.

I would think the number of people this bill directly harms, is far more then the number of people it will help. How about the hundreds of thousands of people who will lose there jobs? Or won't be able to get them, because this bill will eliminate a job that would be created otherwise?

I am sure the last thing they care about right now, is insurance, when they can't even feed there families.

Well yeah, that 7-8% margin is why non-profit insruance companies aren't any cheaper.  There isn't that much profit being cut out.

Before you target the insurance companies, you need to target the hospitals... which also aren't cheaper non profit wise.

So before that you've got to target other things that cause the costs to be so high.  We're starting at step 3... which as you said, will make everything way more expensive for most people.

I see the Democrats got their balls back. What a terrific bill.

How much did they read? How much did they understand? How diverse is the group of people voting for or against the bill? None of these questions are addressed by just looking at this percentage.

Kucinich not supporting the bill doesn't mean it's terrible even if he is very liberal. I believe he wants a Single Payer System which this is not.

1) This is not a bad idea and excluding middle and large companies initially, seems like a capacity control reason.

2) Needs to stay in the bill, but will need revisions. This alone will bring more attention to the real problems of healthcare costs, the hospitals which contribute the majority of healthcare cost increases.

3) Health insurance is already determined by these factors. And just like with auto insurance, rates change based on your location. I don't really believe it's a bad thing.

4) Based on income tier and will be adjustable.

5) I don't see a detrimental problem with this.

6) I have a problem with this since, they need to really pressure the hospitals to lower their costs and provide more detail in their reasoning increasing fees.

7) The bill provides subsidies for low-middle income citizens to help buy insurance.

8) This needs to be revised, but I'm guessing it's to stop companies from not providng healthcare because of the public option.

9) They're trusting the doctors' and hospitals' ethics. It could be good if patient diagnoses and treatments become more accurate. It could be bad in a number of ways.

You're on here a lot......I can't keep up :)

I think the word you were thinking of was horrific ...

When the vast majority of Republicans and independents, along with a significant portion of Democrats, oppose a bill it should be a pretty good indication that it is not a good bill. CNN reported that a poll they performed had 75% opposition to this healthcare bill, while Rasmussen Reports has opposition at 67%, which should be a fairly good sign that there is something wrong with this bill.

1) You don't think it's a bad thing to spend billions of dollars on a government agency that could be replaced by a simple website?

2) Why?  Why is this going to be the case when we already have non-profit healthcare that doesn't work.

3) Do you think it would be a bad thing if auto insurance companies couldn't take into account driving history?

4) No, it isn't based on income tier or is adjustable.  It's 5,000 across the board last time I saw.

5) They are greatly increasing the costs of healthcare to everybody... without anything to lower costs.

6) They are pressuring the hospitals to lower their fees by paying them MORE?  You don't get it... they WERE pressuring hospitals... and now no longer are.

7) Which will barely cover the vast increases... whenever the government offers assistance you know what happens?  Companies raise prices so the consumer is paying about the same.

8) Except it won't be revised... this bill is being voted on in the nexxt 3 days.

9) They're relieing on doctors ehtics... but this is because they feel like doctors aren't paying enough attention.  You don't see a flaw on this?