keep in mind that the english healthcare system is only one option, and it's not the best one. check out the french system sometime if you want an example of a more differentiated, and far more effective, alternative to american-style barbarism on health care.

the 'general welfare' clause in the constitution would be things related nationally, like interstate highways and such. welfare, as commonly thought of as government assistance for below poverty income homes, is a state function and has no business being in a federal spending/stimulus package.
-----Added 9/2/2009 at 11 : 24 : 03-----
In free market, a doctors practice can certainly ask those questions, and I'm certainly free to find a doctor that doesn't consider it his business. As to the theory of insurance companies pulling out of the market because they can't price policies? not buying it. there will always be another company coming in to alter their rates and take up the business.

do you think in the universal system you are wanting, these questions will not be asked?

The one thing I truly do not understand is how do you justify raising taxes on something like tobacco products and expect more income from that?

You get people who will refuse to pay the prices and quit, thus in actuality lowering the revenue you counted on.

From there what? Do you continue to raise those taxes until you have totally abolished that revenue? And if you do, then what? Do you start taxing other things the government deems "unhealthy" into a black market and where no revenue to speak of comes from?

I question government's true agenda when things like this are done, because it does not help revenue in the long run, it seeks only to control behaviors through taxing. By trying to control behavior through taxation, smacks our forefathers in the face and takes away the civil liberties and freedoms that they risked everything to fight for in building this country.

Ah, but what did they know? Those principles and ideas are outdated. To me freedom is never outdated and taxing behaviors out of the hands of the people is no, not, never freedom. It is the beginning of tyranny and a self righteous government that will crush anyone who questions it.

That is about as relevant as claiming that car owners are vastly more likely to be involved in an auto accident than non car owners.

and as long as the insurance market stays free and open, gun owners will be free to find insurance companies that suit them by NOT asking those questions. Not so with a closed market under single payer.

since you're neither pro or anti gun and most likely do not follow that issue, I'm not surprised that you've not heard of it happening. It's simply not on your radar.

well, dk, things have changed since world war 1, like it or not.
it makes no sense to allow your strict construction position to run you in this direction on questions of social welfare.
at least with guns, i can see why you do it--but on this question--which i expect also extends in its basic logic to objections to national income taxation--you end up detaching from reality.

i suppose that underlying this strict construction business is another position that you've not explained--so what do you imagine the functions of welfare to be? what is your position in relation to it as a way of dealing with those functions? what alternative would you prefer to see?
this beyond the pseudo-legal response above please.

nice, no rhetoric involved there, eh?
-----Added 9/2/2009 at 11 : 37 : 50-----
so some things have changed....so what? when you apply your living and fluid desire for adaptability by heavily reducing constraints applied to the government by legal doctrine, you end up with an even bigger mess than what you had before. Look at us since 1929 and you'll see why. When this country had a rigid legal doctrine to work with and follow, we saw a lot less controversy over the minutest of things, but nowadays we are inundated with trivial arguments brought before a judiciary who are expected to rule on ever changing things. What kind of societal consistance does one expect from that? How does anyone ever know where one stands on an issue? It's real simple, one doesn't know....until they've found themselves afoul of the government or a community because they offended someone. It's totally ridiculous.

It has been well established that provision of insurance generally only takes place when they can estimate the risks associated with any person. As you can imagine, insurance companies are not mandated to ask any sort of questions. They do because that is how they can best operate in a free market. To defend a free market for health care and then complain about how it asks unfair questions is simply short sighted.

But let me make the argument more explicit for you. It is an argument that won a few economists the nobel prize: when you can't differentiate between people who are low risk and people who are high risk, you have no way of determining the adequate price each should pay. If they charge the "low risk" price out of everyone, they will go broke because high risk people will drive costs up. If they charge the high risk price, or even the "average" price, out of everyone, they'd be essentially overcharging low risk people, who would either migrate to a company that recognized their status as low risk by asking intrusive questions, or would forgo insurance altogether.

So you end up with a situation where the company that doesnt differentiate between low risk and high risk clients ends up with only high risk clients. That is why private healthcare advocates defend those types of questions. Otherwise, it really isnt a free market (which is why I find it ironic that you complain about that and defend private insurance at the same time. There is a reason all insurers ask that question).

And I have lived in countries with universal healthcare and visited many. None ever ask about guns, and generally only ask about lifestyle questions when its relevant.
-----Added 9/2/2009 at 11 : 51 : 25-----
I am curious as well. Any evidence of doctors changing diagnostics based on gun ownership? It is not on my radar, but it would be nice to have a concrete example at least, instead "it happens and I know because I am pro gun."

dk--i don't know what you're talking about above. could you explain it more please?
it looks like you're not answering my question and instead are repeating the outlines of a strict construction "problem" with everything that's happened legally since 1789.

as for the american health system as barbarism--actually it isn't particularly rhetorical. within this system, the lives of the children of the affluent are worth more than the lives of the children of the poor, if you measure it by access to basic health care, which is obviously a significant factor in determining quality of life. that's barbarism. nothing rhetorical about it.

In the universal single payer system I have, I'm not asked those questions. The state-funded healthcare system doesn't need to ask such things, because everybody qualifies anyway. Private insurance makes up the difference, paying for things like prescriptions. I have full coverage of my prescriptions with a $7 co-pay, optical and dental. I get all of this for peanuts -- $9 per week. When I applied? No questions about pre-existing conditions, no questions about firearms. Age, marital status, smoker or non smoker. Bam! Done.

A universal healthcare system makes a lot of the currently asked questions irrelevant. If your insurance company doesn't have to pay for the treatment of your gunshot wound, they don't give two shits about how many guns you own. Assuming you lot were to institute a system similar to ours, my thinking is that you'd get hassled less about your guns.

Just sayin'.

Roach, i've tried explaining things very simply to you in the past and have been met with pretty much the same answers you have given now. I don't know what else you are looking for except for maybe me to say you were right and I was wrong. What I'm saying now and have said in the past, is that you want every issue decided by government taking in to account where are times and situations stand at that precise moment in time and for them to arbitrarily decide whats best for all of us. That is not their job, in the 'strict construction' sense. We had that fluid system at one time and it was decided to break away from that and form a freer nation with government under our control. Going back to it is not something i'm willing to do.

the obvious fix to that is to open up the health care market instead of constraining it to a flowchart system of how to's with a limited and prescribed course of treatment/action. Medical prices are sky high now because health insurance companies rule the medical field, making decisions for doctors based on cost. This is wrong headed and has caused the 'barbarism' you speak of.

dk--to be clear, the logic of these responses from you is very simple and clear. so much so in the way of simplicity that i have a hard time imagining that you actually think this way---whence the responses from me. i'm trying to figure it out, how this position you occupy holds together. i don't think it does really, but that's a different matter, for another time or not as the case may be.

in the case of guns, your strict construction viewpoint is coherent because it is either a screen for or an aspect of a political viewpoint that is entirely outside the arguments that you make about the constitution---in that, you argue for the narrowest possible (tipping into the arbitrary) interpretation of the 2nd amendment because you are freaked out about change to it--and so are freaked out about the constitutional system in the name of the constitution.

so i assumed that there was something comparable on welfare programs, that the real issue for you is outside the argument that you're making, but shapes that argument by giving it a direction. my sense is that you don't want to come out and say why you oppose welfare programs, if you in fact do, on other than strict construction grounds--but i've found in general that's typically the case for folk who occupy that position on the constitution. it lets them argue against things without avowing where that argument's coming from, what animates or shapes it.

but it's hard to say the extent to which this is speculative (the motive business just above), so i just put it out as a reading of your sentences with no particular weight beyond that.

Another small but symbolic change:

A president who is not afraid to face the public and take tough questions....how refreshing!

I'm not sure where you got the notion or idea that i'm against welfare programs. I've known some very decent people who had the unfortunate experience to have to use them, in fact, i've come very close on occasion myself in the past. Welfare programs can provide a great temporary relief for those that find themselves truly in need and I think they should continue to be used.......but at the state level only where they belong. In my view, the general welfare clause in the US constitution does not authorize the kind of welfare we are talking about right here and now.
-----Added 9/2/2009 at 01 : 24 : 29-----
I look forward to seeing how this turns out. Hopefully the far left groups and politicians can avoid creating another joe the plumber.

i just wondered, dk, where you were coming from on this.
to go further would probably be a threadjack, so i'll leave it at this.

I used to work for Fedex in my early college days, a job which would take me as a delivery driver into some of the poorest parts of town. I was always amazed by the number of high-end $50k SUVs and late-model Cadillacs in the driveways, especially in the trailer parks. Those folks sure love them some Cadillac, with 2-tone Earl Sheib paintjobs and 22" chrome spinner rims you could see from orbit. I would see these same cars everyday, at the same time of day: mid-mornings and mid-afternoons.

As for Obamas performance so far, he's sure doing a lot of talking.

This just in, nice cars allowed in poor neighborhoods... Film at 11.

are you simply being obtuse? or are you really missing the point?

gee, what *could" powerclown's "point" be?
it is most mysterious, don't you think?

I really hope no one is insinuating that someone can afford a Cadillac with welfare checks

What? People who live in trailer parks and work evening jobs such as in restaurants and other service industries happen to be home during the day and like to drive Cadillac? (Wage and shift-work earners often don't do the 9 to 5 thing.)

Or that relatively few people who own luxury cars actually do without financing them, making them "affordable" so long as you have the monthly cash flow?

Maybe I'm obtuse....

What's the point?

Powerclown.

Please describe in detail who 'those folk' are,
what they look like, height, weight, complexion.
Pretend you are giving a description to the police, of one of 'those folk'

I dare you.

I'm not missing the point. Frankly, the point was fucking dumb. If Mr. Clown wants to make a point about the abuse of the social safety net, he should just do so, preferably without relying on useless "well I saw someone once who did something" anecdotes.

One would have to be pretty obtuse to think that the only people who own nice cars in poor neighborhoods are people who are cheating welfare.

oh, i get it. because someone didn't bring in signed affidavits, sworn on some sort of bible, testified in a court of law, broadcast it in the media, it obviously doesn't fucking happen. Because I see someone in a grocery store line using food stamps to buy milk, bread, and cereal while wearing more gold chains that Mr. T, leather jackets that cost as much as two months of my car payment, and load those groceries up in a Lexus to take home to a run down trailer park, I should just assume that they know how to manage their finances or some stupid shit. get fucking real for a change.

You people come fly in to Detroit this weekend and I'll take you on The Tour, as my ex-fellow employees used to joke about. Block after block of neigborhoods with cars worth 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the houses they were parked in front of. I'm not saying they're all owned by welfare kings and queens; there's probably a middle manager or boss' kid in their somewhere...

My girlfriend works in foodstamps. Literally. She's a lead case worker for our county, personally administering over 500 food aid cases and leading a team of case workers who serve over 8000 households. I can promise you, from the many things she's told me, that your grocery store thug-caricature welfare cheat is a VAST outlier.

Forgive me, but I'll go with her anecdotal evidence over yours.

1- Ever hear of confirmation bias?

2- This idea that welfare recipients are somehow all swimming in cash is beyond ludicrous and poorly evidenced. Anyone who knows how much people on welfare actually get, and how many requirements and regulations there are for actually getting welfare, would know how cases of abuse of the system are so few and far between.
-----Added 9/2/2009 at 09 : 43 : 03-----
Unless you somehow know how many of these people actually are on welfare, or are paying for these cars with welfare checks, the ratio of car price/ house price is really irrelevant, unless you think it is your place to legislate how others spend money.

You don't need a signed affadavit, you just need the ability to recognize the usefulness of anecdotal evidence. Let me help you out: anecdotal evidence is useful for appealing to people on an emotional level. Beyond that it doesn't mean anything. You saw a poor guy with a nice jacket? So the fuck what? I saw a guy in a sports car use a racial slur-- I guess everyone who drives a sports car is a bigot.

If every time you happen to notice that someone who lives in a poor neighborhood has something nice you think to yourself "welfare cheat," then you are an idiot (and I'm not saying that you do).

You don't know what you're saying, because you're not really saying anything at all. You don't know anything about these people. From what I've heard of Detroit, most cars are worth 1/3 to 1/2 the price of an average house.

This is like the Cadillac welfare mama stories back in the 70's. A few people get caught collecting welfare under several names and the press picks up on it and it becomes mainstream that everyone living on welfare drives a caddy. I'm not saying DK's story's not true, hell probably is and the guy should be charged with everything possible. But after working with the gov'mint I'm with you they're VAST outliers.

Not sure about your wife's experience but in mine the people turning these cheats in are other program "customers." Partly I suspect due to jealously but largely due to, as one lady told me- "They're going to fuck it up for the rest of us! I'm doing job training from 6am til 3pm and then pumping gas until midnight just to keep my kids health ins. going. And that SOB is going to get this program shut down. Fuck that noise."

you people crack me up. If this was a republican president and republican majority congress, y'all would be ripping it up and down.

this makes me laugh.

poor petit-bourgeois conservatives, the ultimate victims....everyone takes advantage, and none more than those undeserving Others living in that lap of luxury that is welfare.

but no, this is not being made up: any one of us can go on a "see what you want to see" tour of detriot for "evidence" of what would otherwise be nothing more than a tiresome repetition of an old school far right canard, a limbaugh special, that kind of lovely stuff that makes racism seem respectable and class biais disappear. why that's just the way the world is and you, dittohead, are the ultimate victim of a malicious system gone mad. the good old days, that's what we want, when everyone knew their place and stayed there, "when the movies were in black and white and so was everything else," like gil scott-heron said once.

funny that this would come up in this particular thread.
it's hard not to wonder about the connections and what's really being said here.
maybe it's better not to think too hard about it lest things get ugly.

of course, since it's a liberal plan being railed against, it obviously makes me a whining conservative, regardless of the fact that my entire time on here would make any logical person see me as a libertarian and not a conservative. But i'm sure it makes it all good in your emotional mind that you can rationalize it as just conservative hatred and resentment, since that places your mindset on your own solid footing and not disturb the shifting sands under your feet. go with that and peace be upon you

Can't speak for "you people" but I know I've been ripping on the GOP's spending for years. They took tax and spend democrat and made it worse... borrow and spend GOP. Bush vetoed how many spending bills? Now we're in a shit hole and almost every recognized economist I've heard or read seems to think only the federal government has the power to stimulate the economy enough to pull us out of this nose dive.

Obama's been in office less then a month. I'm willing to give him a little time and support. And even though I supported Obama I would have been willing to support McCain and hoped he succeeded had he won.

Y'know, i go through Detroit often, and i have yet to see a really nice car in a poor neighbourhood. In fact, the number of vehicles is rather low. Parking is pretty easy, and not what you'd expect if everyone were driving fatass cars. Do you ever ride the bus in Detroit? I do, and i can tell you, by and large, who rides. It's people, who according to your view of things, ought to be riding the bus.
Does that comfort you?

The whole argument is absurd anyway. John Thain and his ilk were scamming you for millions and billions with the aid of yourveryownpreznitbush and you're worried that some sortafancy car in youridea of a bad neighbourhood belongs to someone who might be a Welfare Scammer? And how many Caddies could be bought with the money dumped down the shithole in Iraq and Afghanistan, money that would have been better spent on buying the whole country drugs -- the buzz being more real than any benefit derived from Iraq or Afghanistan adventures -- or even simply burnt in an immense potlatch?

I think people here are being fairly consistent. I think that the really inconsistent position has been the republican one (and Im no democrat), who, after 8 years of uncontrolled spending during an expansion, who, after requesting more pork to approve their own president's bail out plan, have suddenly remembered that they are against spending just as the economy takes the worst nosedive in 30 years, a nose dive that next month should reach levels not seen since the great depression.

I can't think of a worse timing for rediscovering one's own claims to fiscal responsibility.

dk...i wasn't addressing you in particular.

we all know what is being said here.

i'm just waiting for the mistake to happen.

NEWSFLASH: Some people who are on food stamps are making money via illegal means. More at 11

I can't even imagine a Republican president or Republican majority congress doing something like this.

Look, I'm not saying its a pandemic here, all I'm saying is I used to see it all the time. I don't know if they were scamming welfare, slinging dope, teaching history at UofM Ann Arbor, working the midnight shift on the line or doing corporate accounting on the 35th floor of the RenCen. You tell me how someone can afford a $50k car to go with their $75k house, or maybe thats why we're in the financial crisis we're in right now?

Car value/house value ratio as a measure of the economy?

Voodoo economics redux.

What sort of world do you live in where this question even makes sense to ask?

What does the value of a person's house have to do with the ability of someone living at that house to afford a quasi-luxury automobile?
-----Added 10/2/2009 at 12 : 59 : 59-----
Well, if you look at the car value/house value ratio in the years following the great depression you'd see that the New Deal only served to prolong the general economic malai-blahblaladsaghsds fsdajlfsdkgndaskgndsklgndsal;ngdslk;sdng.....