[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Malorn

It IS that simple. According to liberals all of those prisoners are being held illegally.

Return them to their country. Oh wait, that would destroy career and legacy if even one of them were to go on to commit another terrorist act against the US.

And putting them in US prisons would piss off every state. So what is he to do? The smart thing for him to do is nothing because every outcome is bad for him. He's a smart politician, so he's doing nothing and he'll weather the storm of criticism over it. That is the path of least political damage.

This was mentioned before the election that it was an impossible promise for that exact reason. Also I don't think liberals believe all of them are held illegally. Some of the cases though where innocent people were held for 7 years without a trial was getting fairly ridiculous. It wasn't illegal so much as unethical in a lot of cases. Basically kidnapping people and getting very confused on what to do with someone that is just a regular citizen of another country. Read this. Or this. It happens all too frequently. Or just watch this. It's very hard to justify these kinds of practices.

You're right that moving them all to the US would be a state problem. The bigger problem is actually finding out if they have evidence against the people they take. That information is secret though meaning for many people there it's impossible to be released even if you are falsely accused. That and the whole torture thing. Basically if you have to hold people in another country because what you're doing is so unethical then you probably are doing it wrong.

I think everyone else refuted most of the conservative talking points so I'll not reiterate those, but this one always irks me because people are so misinformed about it. I'm kind of surprised Malorn fell for the giving money to rich helps the poor succeed in the economy. There has been no supporting evidence for that. You would only gain that viewpoint from reading opinionated conservative media.

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

We are all already paying for everyones health care. Having an insurance mandate doesn't make things socialist.. it already is highly socialist. But it is implemented in the absolute worst, and most inefficient, possible way, because some people can't stand the thought of giving people something with no strings attached, they feel everything must be earned in some fashion. So we got the awesome mix where you still sometimes can get what you didn't earn(i.e. expensive emergency care), but you will be severely punished for it, and of course the massive inefficient bureaucracy intended to deny people.

I often think this point is completely obvious, but I've met way too many people who don't realize this. Basically all some people want is a cleaner system of handling this problem.

Originally Posted by Hamma

This probably couldn't have been said any better. As someone who lived in Massachusetts at the tail end of when they implemented their shitty health care reform.. it's a joke. People who are employed pay full price for health care while those who are low income get it at a cut rate. Best of all? If you don't get health care at all (which should be your choice) you pay a fine. How does this make sense? And when does it end? If the government can tell us to buy health care what is the next thing they will tell us to buy.

It makes sense because healthy people are required for insurance to work. If healthy people decide they are too healthy to need insurance then the system fails. That is you can't fund insurance with sick people so you require everyone to have insurance. Using private insurance companies though is extremely inefficient, but until we can get the stigma out of a single-payer system where no one is fined, and it's a simple tax based system to support everyone we'll be stuck with these less than ideal models to support everyone. You can tell from listening to the Democrats that this is not really the system they want at all either. It's just the only thing that Republicans can see halfway and won't block. Basically we're trying to regulate a private industry (because private industry is better for this somehow) that decides who gets healthcare or not, but at the same time we can't let people just die on the streets since most people agree that's unethical in a modern society.

Also as mentioned a lot of healthcare related things are random occurrences that destroy one's savings. This happens on a daily basis with people that get their appendix removed. Even with insurance it can often cost up to $8K dollars. I believe it's around $20K-40K without insurance and that's assuming you get out of the hospital as soon as it's over and rest at home. (Meaning only staying for like 10 hours). I have amazing insurance because of where my dad works and I still paid $1K dollars after a surgery. I was only there for 3 hours. Quick walk in got knocked out in like 20 minutes and went under the knife then woke up and was wheelchaired out the door where my mom was waiting. (Couldn't drive since I was still out of it). That was a surgery that happened in a matter of a week from when I met a doctor about the problem. On top of that I had to pay like a 10 dollar deductible for the following 2 follow-ups to get the stiches removed which wasn't a problem, but seemed a bit odd since I've never seen a deductible that low. (I've only been sick like 3 times in my life and never been to a hospital before that point so maybe it's really common).

I'm hoping within our lifetime we don't have to deal with that, but I think it might be impossible convincing people that healthcare should be a right. For now Obamacare seems to be the most agreeable solution.