Politics & Government - 2 August 2007

why is it when i have a falling out with a girl, i cut my arms up? i dont know why i do it. i mean, i know the horrible things that can happen and im quite educated. i mean im in the military and a nurse but this sh*t kills me inside. dont worry folks, im not gonna end up in a hospital or anything worse like that, but for all thoes who cut, why do we do this stupid a*s crap???

2007-08-02 12:24:33 · 5 answers · asked by coolrhyder 2 in Military

Or is it every man, woman, and child for themselves?

2007-08-02 12:24:30 · 20 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics

wouldn't guy like that serve our country well if he were given a miitary job and used covertly to defeat terrorists? He had an IQ of over 140. that is genius. you don't keep a guy like that locked up.
FREE TEDDY KAZINSKY!

2007-08-02 12:24:14 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Politics & Government

Ok, now she is attacking him for saying he WONT use nukes in Paki or Afghani when going after terrorists, and she says, get this, " a President never takes nuclear weapons options off the table" as she attempts to make it sound like shes the end all authority on them.

If he had said he would use them, she would have attacked him for that. Shes just looking for more ways to spout off and sound important, which has always been her specialty.

2007-08-02 12:22:49 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Elections

I mean, it sure has worked out nicely for the left - everyone's talking about how little effort the Bush administration has put into maintaining infrastructure, and how the money spent in Iraq might have been put to better use right here at home. Does this suggest a liberal conspiracy?

2007-08-02 12:20:35 · 22 answers · asked by Who Else? 7 in Other - Politics & Government

retired care worker

2007-08-02 12:19:09 · 17 answers · asked by honeysuckle 5 in Military

Do you believe they are trying to make a North American Union like the European Union, and that is why they wont't secure the borders?

2007-08-02 12:18:07 · 13 answers · asked by bro_tj1 3 in Immigration

The all of the recalls from china (e.g. toothpaste with antifreeze, children toys that contains lead in the paint, Chinese food with glutens in it.....) are they trying to kill us one by one.

2007-08-02 12:18:00 · 5 answers · asked by Penny 1 in Politics

2007-08-02 12:17:12 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics

Individual Freedom vs. Government Control

Congress faces a critical question this week: Will U.S. health care be government-run, or will Americans be given the freedom to obtain their insurance plans and medical care from private firms? The next U.S. president will likely answer this question, but the resolution to the current debate about SCHIP — the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, a state and federal government partnership for insuring poor children — that is roiling Washington, D.C., will preview the answer.

Although health care is a crucial issue for the electorate; traditionally, presidential candidates have avoided any but the blandest generalities. Health care is the third rail of politics. Its complexity, size, and multiple, committed stakeholders scare away most would-be saviors.

Yet, the underlying debate is simple: It is all about who will manage and control the health-care sector that comprises one-seventh of our economy. Will individual Americans have the freedom to make their own choices? Or, will we trust government bureaucrats, lawyers, and politicians to make those decisions for them? Our future health-care system will be shaped by how we answer these simple questions.

Let’s be clear: The SCHIP battle is not about whether to insure poor children. The debate is about how to insure them: Via the government or private insurers? This debate has not only pitted Democrats against Republicans but has also sundered the Republican coalition. Some Democrats wanted SCHIP expanded by $50 billion dollars so that even families earning about $81,000 a year who have eligible children were included. (The 2005 U.S. median household income was $46,000.) A resolution with the Republicans who hold minority leadership roles led to a compromise, costing only $35 billion, which allowed coverage for those earning up to $60,000.

A fundamental problem with this compromise is that the same amount of coverage for children within SCHIP costs $1,000 more per child than under private insurance. A group of forward-thinking Republicans led by U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and others has an entirely different idea of how to provide insurance: they want to cash out eligible people and enable them to use this money to buy health insurance from private insurers in a tax-protected way. Count the president in too. He has pledged to veto legislation that permits expansion of the present program.

None of the combatants’ are supported by an unblemished array of evidence. The Democrats support the expansion of SCHIP by lauding the universal coverage and substantially lower costs of single-payer, government-run systems, like the U.K.’s and Canada’s. Yes; but costs are controlled by rationing health care to the sick. More than 20,000 Brits would not have died from cancer in the U.S. Onerous waiting lists have caused illegal, for-profit health-service centers to proliferate in Canada. These rogue establishments are so well-accepted that the head of one became the president of the Canadian Medical Association. Nor do single-payer systems achieve equality of access or health status — the powerful, assertive, litigious, and connected go to the head of the line.



In the U.S., the government-controlled Medicaid program has achieved its low costs per person by stringent limits on provider prices. As many as 40 percent of doctors refuse to see Medicaid enrollees, leading to reduced health care quality. Physicians who accept Medicaid often shift their un-reimbursed costs to the privately insured. A system totally paid by the government would shut down this escape hatch, exacerbating the current shortage of primary care doctors.

But the group of Republicans who support private insurance acknowledge that they cannot laud health insurance as a model industry. The massive bureaucracies patients all-too-often encounter when they attempt to obtain the medical services they paid for are not merely frustrating, they sometimes kill. Free-market Republicans claim that the problem with the U.S. insurance firms arises from their lack of accountability. Agents, such as governments and employers, use our money to buy health plans. The agents’ incentives — simplicity and cost control — are not well aligned with our needs for responsiveness.

Senators Richard Burr (R., N.C.), Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and others want to refigure the tax code so that we could buy health insurance with tax-sheltered money, a right currently reserved solely for our employers. If we purchased our own health insurance with tax-protected funds, we could keep these arrogant behemoths in check, just as we do in the other sectors of the American economy. The Swiss universal-coverage, consumer-driven system requires people, not employers or governments, to buy health insurance. (The poor primarily receive funds to purchase insurance just like everybody else.) This consumer control enables the Swiss to enjoy an excellent quality of care without the social inequality of single-payer countries at costs that are a third lower than ours.

SCHIP is not merely a debate about yet another mystifying government program. It is all about free-market principles versus government mandates. Giving taxpayers the freedom to choose and buy their own health care would unleash powerful market forces that have been subdued by third-party bureaucracies for the last 60 years. In every area of our economy, market forces have transformed rare, costly products and services like cars and computers into common products and services. We can make health care cheaper, better, and more widely available, if Congress can muster the vision and courage to act.

2007-08-02 12:13:24 · 5 answers · asked by mission_viejo_california 2 in Politics

2007-08-02 12:11:00 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Military

I would absolutely love to voluenteer for my candidate's campaign for president, but there's one problem: I'm underage and can't do a whole lot.

I live in an urban metro, and thus far, all events have been in the city, which I am not allowed to go to by myself

I am not allowed to pass out fliers door to door or to anyone that I do not know (unless it was at one of these events)

I do not see a whole lot that I can do on the internet, and even if I could, I can only go online from 2-6 Tues, thurs, and from 1-4 on sundays.

Say there is an event in a "safe" part of town: I don't have reliable transportation!

And I cannot set up my own event because my mom is afraid that something will go wrong

My stepdad, mom, brother, and sister-in-law are all racist, so I cannot put up signs at our house...
...which is not even my or my mom's house, giving me even less a right to do it.


Is there anything I can do???

2007-08-02 12:10:14 · 3 answers · asked by The King 1 in Civic Participation

When none such event ever happened? I'm sick and tired of this awful myth. One news person in the US hinted that the 9/11 terrorists came through Canada... and then publicly admitted he was wrong. But I guess perception is reality right? You speak of the "threat" coming from here...when you have absolutley no justification for making suck claims. It's based on dishonest men speaking lies becuase they can't handle the responsibility for the greatest security fiasco in US history. Stop blaming us for your mistakes, and take responsiblilty yourselves.

2007-08-02 12:08:16 · 9 answers · asked by MattH 6 in Politics

if there are places on earth that no country owns how would a country claim such a area for its own and could a individual claim such teritories as his or her own and how would it be done

2007-08-02 12:08:01 · 5 answers · asked by whisper 1 in Law & Ethics

i mean i have it and its not green or anything so why is it called that?

2007-08-02 12:07:53 · 7 answers · asked by catfight_007 1 in Immigration

Hillary vs. Rudy on health care, is Hillary crazy

Today’s health-care debate previews the fall 2008 election, if today’s presidential frontrunners win their respective party nominations. Senator Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) and former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R., N.Y.) are promoting reforms that contrast like midnight and high noon.
As Clinton cheers, Congress moves to reauthorize the State Child Health Insurance Program. Launched modestly in 1997, SCHIP was targeted at kids whose families were too prosperous for Medicaid, but too poor for private coverage. Like nearly every federal scheme, SCHIP is metastasizing. Clinton, her Democratic comrades, and some weak-kneed Republican appeasers are widening SCHIP into a self-contradictory contraption, complete with a tax hike and a fiscal blunderbuss.

“It is one of our most important national priorities to cover all Americans, and that should start now with all of our children,” Clinton said July 16. Of course, it depends on what the meaning of the word “children” is. Washington already lets 14 states cover 670,000 “boys” and “girls,” up to age 25, some of whom have been drinking legally for four years and voting for seven. Ninety-two percent of Minnesota’s SCHIP budget insures adults.

Clinton’s proposal, like the House Democrats’ bill, would cover children in families up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL), double today’s target. Thus, a family of four making $82,600 could receive federal-government medicine. Meanwhile — the Heritage Foundation’s Rea Hederman estimates — 70,000 “American families are both poor and high-income — simultaneously.” They qualify for SCHIP and the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Madder still, 77 percent of children between double and triple FPL and 89 percent between 300 and 400 percent of FPL already have private health insurance, notes Cato Institute scholar Michael Cannon. Nonetheless, the Democratic House Wednesday night approved $47 billion for SCHIP through 2012, 88 percent above its current $25 billion, five-year budget.

Senate Democrats would fund this extravaganza via a 156 percent cigarette-tax hike — from 39 cents to $1 per pack. Heritage forecasts that 22 million new smokers would have to light up by 2017 to keep SCHIP afloat. So, SCHIP promises to improve children’s health while exploiting adult tobacco addiction. And if those smokers never materialize, future Congresses simply will invoice smoke-free taxpayers.

“The Left is pretty blatant about this being their vehicle to move to universal coverage,” one health-policy expert told me. “Make kids think you get health insurance from the government, and in less than a generation, you’re there.”

While Democrats and some lily-livered Republicans ceaselessly invoke “the children” to impose government medicine, Giuliani does the reverse. His just-unveiled health plan rejects public entitlements and tax hikes and embraces private property and tax incentives to extend health coverage overall — beyond just kids.

“America’s health-care system is being dragged down by decades of government-imposed mandates and wasteful, unaccountable bureaucracy,” Giuliani told New Hampshire voters Tuesday. “To reform, we must empower all Americans by increasing health-care choices and affordability, while bringing accountability to the system.”

Giuliani specifically would grant uninsured families $15,000 tax exemptions, and singles $7,500, to help them buy private coverage that they, not their bosses, would own, control, and transport throughout their careers — much like car, home, and life insurance. Funds remaining after insurance purchases could be deposited tax-free into Health Savings Accounts for routine medical expenses.

He also would let Americans acquire health plans across state lines, as they now do with non-medical insurance. For instance, unmarried New Yorkers, who now must buy such unneeded mandatory benefits as in-vitro fertilization, would be free to secure no-frills plans from insurers in, say, mandate-light Ohio.

Giuliani also would curb malpractice costs by capping lawsuit damages and requiring frivolous plaintiffs to cover victorious doctors’ legal bills.

“If a person gets injured, he should be compensated, but he shouldn’t get the brass ring or win the lottery,” Giuliani explained.

Unlike President Bush, whose happy talk fuels Leftist disdain, Giuliani describes Democrats’ ideas with bracing candor. He calls their health proposals “heavily influenced by Marxism.”

“We’ve got to solve our health-care problems with American principles, not the principles of socialism,” Giuliani says. “I know Democrats will say this is unfair, I know they’ll squeal…But I am a realist. I face reality, which is: If you take more people and have government cover them, it’s called socialized medicine.”

2007-08-02 12:07:41 · 5 answers · asked by mission_viejo_california 2 in Politics

2007-08-02 12:07:41 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Elections

The Senate sent Bush a bill Thursday to make lawmakers pay for private plane rides & disclose more about their efforts to fund pet projects & raise money from lobbyists.

Democrats, however, hailed the 83-14 Senate vote as proof they are fulfilling their 2006 campaign promise to crack down on lobbying abuses,

The bill would require senators, & candidates for the Senate or White House, to pay full charter rates for trips on noncommercial planes. House members & candidates would be barred from accepting trips on private planes.

The final vote was 83-14

Are you surprised that all 14 senators
who voted against the bill were Republicans?

Or are you more surprised that
GOP Sen. Ted Stevens was one of the 14 voting against
the bill to disclose the facts of each earmark, etc?

2007-08-02 12:04:45 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics

And as a follow up, Did you vote for John Kerry and Al Gore?

(Again, not a big Bush supporter - Just don't like hypocrits)

Gore got into Harvard because his father was a prominent U.S. senator.

Gore continued his mediocre performance at Harvard, ranking in the bottom fifth of the class for his first two years. In his sophomore year, the Post reports: "Gore's grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale."

Gore could not complete either divinity school or law school at Vanderbilt, failing five of the eight classes he took in his three semesters at divinity school. Exactly how many classes do you have to fail to be called dumb, if you're a Democrat?

Meanwhile, the “Dumb Guy” was earning his MBA from Harvard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18

2007-08-02 12:04:40 · 14 answers · asked by PNAC ~ Penelope 4 in Politics

prove a violation of child pornography law?

2007-08-02 12:02:35 · 7 answers · asked by afreshpath_admin 6 in Law & Ethics

2007-08-02 12:02:13 · 5 answers · asked by stupidpeoplehater 2 in Law & Ethics

I had a lacerated cervix when I delivered. My doctor must not have documented it or whatever, but (sorry tmi coming) i had something coming out of me that the nurse and 2 other doctors believed was just a blood clot. First the nurse pulled on it--hurt like hell. Two residents then came in , gave me pain medication first , then pulled on it, but it hurt like crazy so i asked them to stop and contact my OB-GYN immediately. She told me not to let anyone else touch me, that it was my cervix they were pulling on. Long story short--for 2 weeks, it was hanging out of me, I went thru 2 procedures to "sew it back in" and was told to wait at least 2 years before trying to get pregnant because I wouldn't be able to hold the pregnancy as it got heavier. (told this only after I told the doctor i wanted another baby a year later) I am 38 years old. I'm finally able to talk about this, and have been told I should have sued. Do/did I have a case?

2007-08-02 12:01:36 · 20 answers · asked by AdoringK 3 in Law & Ethics

2007-08-02 12:00:24 · 6 answers · asked by jaeleeamari2904 1 in Law & Ethics

Any information pertaining to public defenders would be great.

2007-08-02 11:59:55 · 3 answers · asked by Chad S 2 in Law & Ethics

2007-08-02 11:59:30 · 6 answers · asked by Gypsy Gal 6 in Law & Ethics

These terroist bombs kill many innocent people, it needs to be stopped.

2007-08-02 11:58:31 · 9 answers · asked by Alpha Bravo Charlie 2 in Other - Politics & Government

if a 20 year old goes in for a routine check up on his parents insurance, and the doctor notices that hes been smoking when he looks down his throat, will the doc tell the 20 year old's parents or insurance company?

2007-08-02 11:55:30 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Law & Ethics

2007-08-02 11:53:26 · 8 answers · asked by Wildy 2 in Law & Ethics

I am trying to find out who I can educate and reach out to on this project. Any ideas?

2007-08-02 11:52:24 · 2 answers · asked by elizallenleslie 2 in Civic Participation

I don´t believe in CNN anymore, but they are always saying that Brazil is a dictatorship. I had to vote a lot of times last year...

2007-08-02 11:51:59 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics