Derwood

The great thing about people who espouse a mantra of "armed rebellion" against a "tyrannical government" is that despite everything they bitch about, it's never QUITE enough to actually go through with said rebellion. If you believe them, the camel has a million straws on its back, but it's never quite enough to break

dksuddeth

As an intelligent Libertarian, I know and understand that SOME taxes are necessary to pay for certain things, like interstate maintenance, military hardware and troop support, and unfortunately paying treasonous politicians their unearned salaries. It's also, again, completely and totally intellectually dishonest to mandate that I buy an insurance policy and call it a tax. We all know its not, yet most are quite willing to bend the definition of words as long as it gets them what they want. I'm not.


I'm not talking an armed revolution against the army. I'm one man and know that I have no chance at all. I'm simply stating that IF/WHEN the government sends armed agents to arrest me for not complying with their unconstitutional mandate or paying their tax/penalty, I will resist. That will inevitably wind up with lethal and deadly force being employed. I have no illusions of the outcome.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

silent_jay

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder

ratbastid

Read his last post. The Man is going to have to make him resist.

rahl

[QUOTE=dksuddeth;2726902]As an intelligent Libertarian, I know and understand that SOME taxes are necessary to pay for certain things, like interstate maintenance, military hardware and troop support, and unfortunately paying treasonous politicians their unearned salaries. It's also, again, completely and totally intellectually dishonest to mandate that I buy an insurance policy and call it a tax. We all know its not, yet most are quite willing to bend the definition of words as long as it gets them what they want. I'm not.


This tax isn't any different from any other tax in america. You don't have to buy insurance, if you don't you pay a higher tax. Just like you don't have to smoke cigarettes, but if you do you are going to pay a HUGE tax on them. Neither is illegal or unconstitutional.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Baraka_Guru

Wait, I can't be the first one to mention the bittersweet irony behind the idea "I'd rather die than pay for health care."

Maybe I missed it.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

Yeah, I was trying to work in the "Live Free or Die" thing, too.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Tully Mars

From what I read you're in a situation where you can not afford health care, health care a family member needs. You're not thrilled about enrolling in a government run health care system and you do not believe in having a system where the government is "to intervene and control prices of medical care so that it's affordable for all involved."

What type of health care program are you in favor of?

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

dksuddeth

you truly do not see that this 'tax' is in actuality a penalty for non compliance? is this any different than a poll tax? if you want to vote, you're going to pay extra? Or if this were a tax increase on people who refuse a flu vaccine? it's a 'tax' that is levied on a specific class of people, those that don't buy mandatory health coverage. I can't help but think we've really lost all concept of the constitution if people can really justify this and call it constitutional.

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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

rahl

I understand your convictions about the constitution, I really do. But a document written 200+years ago was designed to change with the times. It has to in order to sustain our country. If we were never allowed to change/expand on our original constitution we would have failed as a nation a very long time ago.

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"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Derwood

If we're concerned about the wishes of our founding fathers, shouldn't we be pissed that America isn't a Roman utopia of masonic ideals?

FuglyStick

Honestly. Aren't we supposed to be much more agrarian?

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AZIZ! LIGHT!

Plan9

Okay, who's gonna pick the cotton?

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

ratbastid

I've never heard a strict-constructionist-framers-intentionalist explain what the intent was behind the amendment procedure. Why do you think they wrote that in there? And since they did, do you really think they didn't intend for us to use it?

Was it a misuse of the amendment procedure to abolish slavery in the 13th Amendment? To grant the vote to people other than white men in the 15th and 19th Amendments? Was it a violation of all we hold sacred to limit the President to two terms in the 22nd? Are you still hopping mad about giving Washington DC representation in the Electoral College like those treasonous bastards did in the 23rd?

Not a single one of those things could have been foreseen by the framers. And that last one is a good example. DC wasn't the residential center that it is today when the constitution was written. There really weren't civilian residents there to represent, in any substantial numbers. But times (like they do) changed. That change required a change in the makeup of the body intended to represent the populace in electing their President. So the amendment procedure was used to keep the document (gasp) alive and relevant.

There are plenty of DC residents lobbying for a constitutional amendment to give DC representation in Congress. Would that violate the framer's precious intent? Did they intend to have a major US city have no representation? They certainly didn't say anything about DC having congressional representation in the document they wrote! They must have intended that people living in DC have no representation, then! Why do you think they intended that? It couldn't possibly be that their foresight was limited and they knew it and so gave us the power to adapt their document, could it?

IMO being literal and about the Constitution is almost as ridiculous as being literal about the Bible, and leads to nearly as nonsensical outcomes.

---------- Post added at 10:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 PM ----------

Whoever it is, you're gonna have to pay for their health insurance!

Plan9

Ya know, I'd gladly pay $15000 right now to have healthcare for the rest of my life.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

guy44

I'm trying to understand the logic. The individual mandate for health care, which really only requires people to purchase private insurance, is somehow going to lead inexorably to a totalitarian state of government. That would be the same totalitarianism that refers to a type of government that has total control over all aspects of its citizen's lives. Let's ignore for the moment that getting from individual mandate to totalitarianism is a ludicrous leap.

So then, after you refuse to obey the laws of this country by engaging in tax evasion, and you either wind up in prison for a short time or are given a fine, we will have your blood somehow on our hands.

It's good to see that you were able to make a visit to the hyperbole fairy today.

P.S. It's really just that health care is what's being debated at the moment, right? Because somehow libertarians were able to stomach the federal income tax, state income tax, local property taxes, sales taxes, toll roads, mandatory car insurance, and innumerable other government sources of revenue up until this point. Something tells me that a few years from now most libertarians will be telling us that with universal health care now in place and precisely zero evidence of totalitarianism, the U.S. is thisclose to totalitarianism and god help us if we raise the marginal tax rate by half a percent.

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"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

dippin

the whole "intention of the founding fathers" thing is such a red herring. At least the Catholic church has a god and an infallibility doctrine to support it when it makes claims like that.

ratbastid

Yeah, and isn't it funny that people who get all stompy about the framers intentions have the same intentions they ascribe to their beloved framers? Coincidence much?

yournamehere

Social Security always says "No" initially, unless you're blind or missing a limb. It's pretty automatic. Any lawyer with even a modicum of talent can get your wife on SS Disability on the first appeal. The good news is - as soon as she's approved, the Disability will be retroactive to her time of becoming disabled, which means you'll get a pretty nice check if it's been awhile. Minus the attorney's 30%, of course.

And, as you know already, anyone on Social Security Disability is eligible for Medicare - which is another name for that "evil" public option.

The bad news is - once you start(ed) to make over $30k per year, her SS becomes taxable income. I know - it's totally fucked up, but it's the truth. You'll need to plan for that or face an ugly surprise from the IRS come tax time.

__________________
If you want to avoid 95% of internet spelling errors:
"If your ridiculous pants are too loose, you're definitely going to lose them. Tell your two loser friends over there that they're going to lose theirs, too."
It won't hurt your fashion sense, either.

cementor

Folks,

The biggest single reason for my lack of support of the healthcare plan is this.

The government has proven over and over that it is incapable of running these types of programs. Do we need reform? Damned right! But do we want another government run program? Hell no! See all the other bankrupt efforts..... social security, medicare and medicaid the list goes on and on (hence our deficits - this isn't a Republican / Democrat issue, they are both capable of running amuck on spending). Bush did it and Obama is surpassing W's irresponsible pace . You absolutely cannot run private interest business in competion with government non profit (sic) programs. All you accomplish is bankrupting the viable business and then the program that replced it. Fix it , don't wipe it out!

The second item is how do we (you and I) pay for it??? Expanding the risk pool to bring down costs is poppycock. I got to make those decisions for my former employer for the last few years and I can assure you as we grew from 90 folks to 500 folks our costs didn't go down, nor did our major cases go down, they increased seemingly at an exponential rate. Sure it is a microcosm, but it provided a real life case.

For the record those that make $600K will pay 150K in federal tax (probably close to the minimum) and from 0-as much as $40K in State taxes, depending on the state they live in, assuming they give a bunch of money to charities. And substantially more on both counts if they do not.

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Cementor
If I was any better I'd have to be twins!

rahl

Expanding the risk pool will absolutely bring down costs. That's how insurance works. Your particular case is not a typical example of this. The more people contributing to the over all reserve pool for insurance the cheaper the premiums will be.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

cementor

I guess I left out one key component. The additions must all be paying the fullfare premiums, and I hardly think this will be the case.

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Cementor
If I was any better I'd have to be twins!

boink

is it constitutional to force people by law to carry car insurance ? do you skip out on that ? that's a $500 fine in my state.

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when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

dksuddeth

maybe you missed some of the other posts where it details and defines that it's not the federal government that mandates you buy auto insurance? Your state does that. It is state law. It's done that way because congress KNEW (at that time anyway) that they had no authority to do that, so they told the states that they would withhold federal highway funding to any state that didn't mandate it.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

rahl

Which IS constitutional and no different than mandating health insurance.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

dksuddeth

apples and oranges. the withholding of funds is considered a constitutional power, yes. That has absolutely zero to do with congress mandating health insurance. The STATES mandate it in order to receive the funding. Now, if congress wants to go that route with health care, then THAT would be considered constitutional, but I imagine that 80% of the states would then find themselves facing lawsuits testing their own constitutional power.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dc_dux

Consider the mandate to have health insurance as an excise tax.

The federal government has the power to impose excise taxes...for revenue, as a "penality" or both.

The whole unconstitutional argument is simply Tenthers blowing smoke out of their ass.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

dksuddeth

not according to the supreme court. taxes can be raised as revenue only. penalty taxes are null and void.

watch us not comply.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dc_dux

You're right.....poor choice of words.

Taxes can be imposed for a regulatory effect, not a punitive effect.

They can also be imposed for dedicated programs.


Hey...its cool.

Don't pay the fine (tax) if is assessed on you....and don't answer census questions you dont like....and dont comply with any government program you dont think is constitutional.

I'm all for civil disobedience...but if you are in the position of not having health insurance, just dont be a hypocrite...dont utilize any government-funded health services to which you have not directly contributed.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

rahl

States can't overide a federal statute. If it's passed by congress it's law, states have no say. Unless there is specific language in the bill that states can opt out.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

ratbastid

Or go ahead and use the programs, and come to terms with the fact that your principles, noble though they are, just aren't real-world-worthy.

But don't be a hypocrite.

By the way, dk--and, look, this is a personal question that you absolutely don't have to engage with, but I'm curious: does your wife know about your plan to nobly sacrifice yourself as a martyr to strict constructionism? Does she support your intention to use deadly force against anyone trying to extract $750 from you? My sense, from your post history, is that she needs you rather badly, and the state she needs you in is alive. Has she ever tried talking any real-world sense to you?

flstf

It might not be unconstitutional but in my opinion it is just plain wrong to force people with the threat of prison to purchase products from our polititians' campaign contributors. It looks like the millions the insurance industry used to buy our congress is going to pay off big time when millions of new customers are forced to buy their products. Getting rid of that pesky tiny public option will be icing on the cake.

dc_dux

I agree it is not the perfect solution.

At the same time, every time a person w/o insurance goes to the emergency room for routine care or has an emergency operation and then reneges on the bill, you and I pay it in higher premiums. Where is the personal accountability here?

Every time someone with a communicable disease goes to work or school because they didnt have health insurance to visit a doctor, others are impacted.

We cant force people to be healthy, we can force them to at least have the mechanism in place to minimize those particular potential adverse impacts.

Taxes are a burden we bear for the greater good.

I dont like the fact that a large percentage of my local property taxes go to public education when I no longer have a child in the public education system, but thats how the system works. I can choose not the pay that bill and face the consequences.

I dont like the fact that 20 cents of every one of my tax dollars ends up in the pocket of Haliburton or other defense contractors to pay for a war that I dont support. I can choose not to pay and face the consequences.

And the fact remains that most of the uninsured who will refuse to purchase insurance will either be at an income below the level to be penalized (3X the poverty level) or at an income (above 3X the poverty level - ie, about $65k for a family of four) where they can chose to pay $1500 fine or purchase affordable insurance (which would benefit the family).

The "go to jail" scenario is so extreme that it will virtually impact no one other than those who choose to be martyrs. The IRS is not going to prosecute someone for $1500 bucks.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

boink

where can I find out where I fall in this schedule of incomes and whatnot ? I don't have health care and I'm hoping a cheaper option will open up to me through all this. I looked into it about a year ago and it was gonna be like $500+ a month and I just thought that was ridiculous. I'm definitely pro national single payer system like Canada or other countries.

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

dc_dux

There are good fact sheets on the proposed Insurance Exchange (where you would purchase insurance), including the credits based on income...and the benefit packages that would be available....from basic to high end and priced accordingly.

Insurance Exchange

Guaranteed Benefits

The Senate version is slightly different.

And in the end, if legislation is enacted, the details on the cost of the four different benefit plans are not in the bills, but would be in follow-up regulations.

---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 PM ----------

It is also a fact that many of the provisions will take up to 2 years to develop regulations, seek public comments, etc.

But there are immediate benefits:

Provisions That Take Effect Immediately

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

boink

thanks...I've needed very little in the way of paid health care. but I do want it and would like to see a Dr. at least annually.


I was curious, for abortion in the case of rape, someone mentioned "provable" case of rape. makes one wonder if you gotta wait for a conviction in a rape case to go forward w/ the abortion. I'm fine having it included in a woman's plan to use at her own discretion.

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

dc_dux

Health insurance is as much for an unanticipated catastrophic event as it is for regularly health maintenance.

As a young guy, you dont want to be in position of having to face declaring personal bankruptcy if you cant pay the huge hospital bill (and the surgeon, and the anesthesiologist,....)

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

flstf

I don't have a problem with our government providing health care and/or insurance and taxing us for the cost. I think the whole health care system is out of control and should probably be totally government controlled with a single payer system.

Forcing us to buy products from private companies including their large campaign contributors is an entirely different matter. It's almost as if this bill was written by and for the insurance industry. The bill will even transfer money from our government to their private coffers by using taxpayer money to subsidize people to pay their high premiums. If people decide to not give their government determined share to the private insurance companies they will be fined and threatened with jail.

This whole fiasco of transferring public money to private insurance companies is the result of congress being paid off by the insurance industry and refusing to pass single payer legislation.

flstf

A more accurate analogy to this health care bill's requirement to purchase a private industry product (insurance) would be "you don't have to buy cigarettes but if you don't buy a government dictated quantity each year you will be fined."

dc_dux

I think that is a bit of a stretch.

IMO, the mandate is simply an excise tax you can avoid and, if you are currently uninsured, protect your family at the same time (as a result of less expensive insurance options that would be available as opposed to the current market).

It also requires you to take personal responsibility for your health care rather then force other taxpayers to bear the cost if you renege on an expensive, unanticipated medical bill.

And, while there are good features for the insurance companies, (millions of potential new customers). There are good things for consumers, like ending anti-trust for insurance companies, opening the closed markets in many states, requiring coverage of those with pre-exisiting conditions, capping out-of-pocket expenses, etc. which is why the industry is spending $millions on lobbying and media buys opposing this bill.

I would prefer a stronger public option and ultimately, a single-payer, but the votes are just not there and comprehensive reform like this will be even less likely if the Democrats lose that super-majority in the Senate, which is likely in 2010 ...at which point, we are back to NO reform.

The lesser of evils or accepting a good bill knowing that the possibility of a better or perfect bill is not a reality? I guess it is a matter of perspective.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire