Gabbords is conspiring with Russians!

[Ray From Cleveland]

Gabbard is a liberal just like Bernie Sanders.

Nah, she's way prettier.

I like Tulsi Gabbard, mostly because she is anti war, but also because she has the military background to realize gun control is essentially treason.

Well, the left never had so much ammunition (no pun intended) as they do today. Another mass shooting in my state last night. I think we can all pretty much predict what the next main topic for the Democrat debate will be. I don't know if she is pro-gun or not, but if she is, the others will nail her to the wall with this issue.

Actually, I think that if the issue of gun control comes up, Tulsi will wipe the floor with all of them.
It is a very easy argument to win.
Gun control is totally and completely illogical, contradictory to a democratic republic, and can't possibly ever do any good.

The question is just whether or not she will "stick to her guns", or cave and pretend to go along with the mass hysteria?

Oh, I totally agree with you. However in light of the fact nearly 30 people were killed and many more injured, by sticking up for gun rights, she would appear heartless, especially given the crowd she's addressing. I anxiously await how Sander's will respond as well.

 

[Rigby5]

The least nutty sounding one on stage is being sequestered by the REAL nutjobs lol

Um, Damascus Gabby is the real nut. In addition to her love for the Butcher of Allepo, she is rally tight with some cult out in Hawaii...

Tulsi Gabbard Still Dogged By Krishna Cult Rumors | HuffPost

Saying that we should not be conducting illegal regime change by force in the Mideast is honest, accurate, and true.
Anyone supporting the use of force against Assad is ignorant and a criminal.

And no, Tulsi is not a cult member, but a Hindi.
Of all the religions Hindi is one of the better ones, that does not have a long history of slavery, imperialism, colonialism, etc., like most of the others.
It shows.
India is mostly Hindi, and they don't go around invading other countries much in history.

 

[Rigby5]

Tulsi Gabbard supports the same policies as socialist Bernie Sanders. She supports Medicare for all. She bashes Trump on his border policy.

Medicare for all is the only way to fix the economy.
Right now, US products are about 30% higher than they need to be in order to be competitive, all because of ridiculously inflated health care prices. And all that extra health care costs are because of insurance companies.
They not only skim, but encourage providers over charging, because that makes insurance more necessary.
Getting insurance companies out of health care is essential if we want to survive as a major country.

Insurance companies have little to do with our cost of healthcare. Most of our cost is because of government. I've seen it first hand when I worked in medical for ten years.

There is a lot of waste and fraud with government because unlike private insurance, they have no need to watch every dime. Insurance companies don't take your money and put it under a mattress until it's needed. They invest that money so the profits help offset claims. Not only that, but a portion of their income is dedicated to insurance fraud.

Everybody talks about a better system, but nobody sets the priorities correctly. The first thing we need to do is find out why medical care is so expensive, fix that, and then figure out how we are going to pay for it.

Everyone knows why medical care is so expensive.
It is deliberate.

The whole system got screwed up in 1957, when insurance companies convinced the government to allow employer benefits to be tax exempt.
This not only created a privilege of subsidized healthcare for only the wealthy, but gave the wealthy so much greater collective bargaining power through the employer, that it essentially made health care suddenly totally affordable for anyone without insurance.
This caused insurance companies to encourage providers to charge outrageous rates that ensured even more people would have to buy insurance.
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
{...
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
BY EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL OCTOBER 10, 2008 4:15 PMOctober 10, 2008 4:15 pm


In this installment of Health Care Watch, Stuart M. Butler and Ezekiel Emanuel talk about what the candidates are saying about taxes and employer-sponsored health care coverage. Go to Mr. Butler’s post.

Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, is the chairman of the department of bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. He is the author of “Health Care, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America.”(Full biography.)

Decisions made more than half a century ago are a large cause of today’s health care mess. During World War II, the War Labor Board ruled that fringe benefits, like health insurance, did not violate wage and price controls. Then, in the mid-1950s, employer provided health insurance was made tax exempt. Thus, $1 in health insurance, which was not taxed, became worth more than $1 in income, which was taxed. The result is that today’s health care system relies on employers to provide coverage and encourages more and more health insurance and spending.

Stuart Butler is right. Almost everyone who examines the issue — both conservative and liberal policy wonks, doctors, economists, lawyers and politicians — believes this tax exemption is a grievous error.

It is inequitable. It gives more benefit to the rich because their tax rate is higher. For instance, the Lewin consulting group estimated that for the exact same family health insurance package, an executive making more than $100,000 per year gets nearly $3,000 in tax benefits, while a blue-collar worker making less than $30,000, it is under $750. In addition, richer people tend to get bigger and more expensive health insurance packages from their employers, so they get more “freebies.”

It is also inefficient. The tax exemption provides an incentive for people to take more health insurance rather than wages, spending more on M.R.I.’s instead of other goods and services, like education or vacations.

This tax deduction is not free. Tax deductions are subsidies. This one costs more than $210 billion per year. It is the single largest tax break in the United States and dwarfs the mortgage interest deduction. Make no mistake, when the Treasury collects less taxes in one area, it must make up for it either in higher taxes somewhere else or in more debt on our children and grandchildren.

Thus, John McCain’s proposal to eliminate the tax exemption for health insurance is good policy. (About a year ago, President Bush made the same proposal.) The problem is having built the whole health care system around tax exemption, we simply can’t get rid of it without combining it with some other policies. And, as Mr. Butler acknowledges, this is where John McCain’s reform proposals — and President Bush’s proposal earlier — gets it very, very wrong.
...}

The solution is simple.
End all the illegal employer benefits exemptions, so then the wealthy and poor would all be on a level playing field.
Then instantly almost all people would be without insurance, so then would all demand single payer, to collectively bargain for everyone instead of just the wealthy.
And the collective bargaining power of single payer would quickly force providers to cut charges in half, just like the rest of the world.

And by the way, you are wrong about government administration.
The VA and Medicare for example, add less than 10% overhead, while private insurance companies balloon over head to more than 30%.
That is because government has an inspector general department to cut costs in an unbiased manner. Private companies have no over sight at all.

Again I should repeat, public heath care does NOT increase costs at all.
We now are paying over TWICE what any other country does, per person, and we have some of the worst health care in the world. We have almost half a million deaths a year from medical malpractice.
Deaths by medical mistakes hit records
{...
It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

"The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks.

Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events.

“When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha.

Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors."

It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day.

Disch cited the case of a Minnesota patient who underwent a bilateral mastectomy for cancer, only to find out post surgery a mix-up with the biopsy reports had occurred, and she had not actually had cancer.
...}

Just mumbo jumbo. Do you really believe there are no deaths in socialized medicine? No mistakes made?

Private insurance was promoted by government by being tax exempt for the simple reason that the government would not have to be involved in taking care of everybody. If you don't like one insurance company, you can always switch to another one. If you don't like one doctor or facility, you can do the same with them as well. There is only one government healthcare, and if you disagree with how they handle it, too bad.

Government, particularly on the left, have been trying to gain more and more control over the people. The only two entities stopping them are energy and healthcare. Once they control those two industries, they will have total control over the people. Why? Because nearly everything in our lives revolve around those two things.

So down the road when we do go to government healthcare, they will eventually be able to tell you how to conduct your personal life. They will tell you what you can eat (Michelle Obama) what to drink, how much you can drink of it (Mayor Bloomberg), what you can smoke (Al Gore) and even how much exercise you must have. They may even place limits on television and the internet. You will get your government serving of both, an hour a piece. After that, they go off the grid until the next day when you get your new hours.

Don't think things like that can't happen here? Guess again.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

 

[Rigby5]

Gabbard is a liberal just like Bernie Sanders.

Nah, she's way prettier.

I like Tulsi Gabbard, mostly because she is anti war, but also because she has the military background to realize gun control is essentially treason.

Well, the left never had so much ammunition (no pun intended) as they do today. Another mass shooting in my state last night. I think we can all pretty much predict what the next main topic for the Democrat debate will be. I don't know if she is pro-gun or not, but if she is, the others will nail her to the wall with this issue.

Actually, I think that if the issue of gun control comes up, Tulsi will wipe the floor with all of them.
It is a very easy argument to win.
Gun control is totally and completely illogical, contradictory to a democratic republic, and can't possibly ever do any good.

The question is just whether or not she will "stick to her guns", or cave and pretend to go along with the mass hysteria?

Oh, I totally agree with you. However in light of the fact nearly 30 people were killed and many more injured, by sticking up for gun rights, she would appear heartless, especially given the crowd she's addressing. I anxiously await how Sander's will respond as well.

No argument from me.
It will be interesting to see, with Bernie as well.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Tulsi Gabbard supports the same policies as socialist Bernie Sanders. She supports Medicare for all. She bashes Trump on his border policy.

Medicare for all is the only way to fix the economy.
Right now, US products are about 30% higher than they need to be in order to be competitive, all because of ridiculously inflated health care prices. And all that extra health care costs are because of insurance companies.
They not only skim, but encourage providers over charging, because that makes insurance more necessary.
Getting insurance companies out of health care is essential if we want to survive as a major country.

Insurance companies have little to do with our cost of healthcare. Most of our cost is because of government. I've seen it first hand when I worked in medical for ten years.

There is a lot of waste and fraud with government because unlike private insurance, they have no need to watch every dime. Insurance companies don't take your money and put it under a mattress until it's needed. They invest that money so the profits help offset claims. Not only that, but a portion of their income is dedicated to insurance fraud.

Everybody talks about a better system, but nobody sets the priorities correctly. The first thing we need to do is find out why medical care is so expensive, fix that, and then figure out how we are going to pay for it.

Everyone knows why medical care is so expensive.
It is deliberate.

The whole system got screwed up in 1957, when insurance companies convinced the government to allow employer benefits to be tax exempt.
This not only created a privilege of subsidized healthcare for only the wealthy, but gave the wealthy so much greater collective bargaining power through the employer, that it essentially made health care suddenly totally affordable for anyone without insurance.
This caused insurance companies to encourage providers to charge outrageous rates that ensured even more people would have to buy insurance.
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
{...
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
BY EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL OCTOBER 10, 2008 4:15 PMOctober 10, 2008 4:15 pm


In this installment of Health Care Watch, Stuart M. Butler and Ezekiel Emanuel talk about what the candidates are saying about taxes and employer-sponsored health care coverage. Go to Mr. Butler’s post.

Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, is the chairman of the department of bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. He is the author of “Health Care, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America.”(Full biography.)

Decisions made more than half a century ago are a large cause of today’s health care mess. During World War II, the War Labor Board ruled that fringe benefits, like health insurance, did not violate wage and price controls. Then, in the mid-1950s, employer provided health insurance was made tax exempt. Thus, $1 in health insurance, which was not taxed, became worth more than $1 in income, which was taxed. The result is that today’s health care system relies on employers to provide coverage and encourages more and more health insurance and spending.

Stuart Butler is right. Almost everyone who examines the issue — both conservative and liberal policy wonks, doctors, economists, lawyers and politicians — believes this tax exemption is a grievous error.

It is inequitable. It gives more benefit to the rich because their tax rate is higher. For instance, the Lewin consulting group estimated that for the exact same family health insurance package, an executive making more than $100,000 per year gets nearly $3,000 in tax benefits, while a blue-collar worker making less than $30,000, it is under $750. In addition, richer people tend to get bigger and more expensive health insurance packages from their employers, so they get more “freebies.”

It is also inefficient. The tax exemption provides an incentive for people to take more health insurance rather than wages, spending more on M.R.I.’s instead of other goods and services, like education or vacations.

This tax deduction is not free. Tax deductions are subsidies. This one costs more than $210 billion per year. It is the single largest tax break in the United States and dwarfs the mortgage interest deduction. Make no mistake, when the Treasury collects less taxes in one area, it must make up for it either in higher taxes somewhere else or in more debt on our children and grandchildren.

Thus, John McCain’s proposal to eliminate the tax exemption for health insurance is good policy. (About a year ago, President Bush made the same proposal.) The problem is having built the whole health care system around tax exemption, we simply can’t get rid of it without combining it with some other policies. And, as Mr. Butler acknowledges, this is where John McCain’s reform proposals — and President Bush’s proposal earlier — gets it very, very wrong.
...}

The solution is simple.
End all the illegal employer benefits exemptions, so then the wealthy and poor would all be on a level playing field.
Then instantly almost all people would be without insurance, so then would all demand single payer, to collectively bargain for everyone instead of just the wealthy.
And the collective bargaining power of single payer would quickly force providers to cut charges in half, just like the rest of the world.

And by the way, you are wrong about government administration.
The VA and Medicare for example, add less than 10% overhead, while private insurance companies balloon over head to more than 30%.
That is because government has an inspector general department to cut costs in an unbiased manner. Private companies have no over sight at all.

Again I should repeat, public heath care does NOT increase costs at all.
We now are paying over TWICE what any other country does, per person, and we have some of the worst health care in the world. We have almost half a million deaths a year from medical malpractice.
Deaths by medical mistakes hit records
{...
It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

"The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks.

Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events.

“When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha.

Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors."

It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day.

Disch cited the case of a Minnesota patient who underwent a bilateral mastectomy for cancer, only to find out post surgery a mix-up with the biopsy reports had occurred, and she had not actually had cancer.
...}

Just mumbo jumbo. Do you really believe there are no deaths in socialized medicine? No mistakes made?

Private insurance was promoted by government by being tax exempt for the simple reason that the government would not have to be involved in taking care of everybody. If you don't like one insurance company, you can always switch to another one. If you don't like one doctor or facility, you can do the same with them as well. There is only one government healthcare, and if you disagree with how they handle it, too bad.

Government, particularly on the left, have been trying to gain more and more control over the people. The only two entities stopping them are energy and healthcare. Once they control those two industries, they will have total control over the people. Why? Because nearly everything in our lives revolve around those two things.

So down the road when we do go to government healthcare, they will eventually be able to tell you how to conduct your personal life. They will tell you what you can eat (Michelle Obama) what to drink, how much you can drink of it (Mayor Bloomberg), what you can smoke (Al Gore) and even how much exercise you must have. They may even place limits on television and the internet. You will get your government serving of both, an hour a piece. After that, they go off the grid until the next day when you get your new hours.

Don't think things like that can't happen here? Guess again.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

 

[Rigby5]

Medicare for all is the only way to fix the economy.
Right now, US products are about 30% higher than they need to be in order to be competitive, all because of ridiculously inflated health care prices. And all that extra health care costs are because of insurance companies.
They not only skim, but encourage providers over charging, because that makes insurance more necessary.
Getting insurance companies out of health care is essential if we want to survive as a major country.

Insurance companies have little to do with our cost of healthcare. Most of our cost is because of government. I've seen it first hand when I worked in medical for ten years.

There is a lot of waste and fraud with government because unlike private insurance, they have no need to watch every dime. Insurance companies don't take your money and put it under a mattress until it's needed. They invest that money so the profits help offset claims. Not only that, but a portion of their income is dedicated to insurance fraud.

Everybody talks about a better system, but nobody sets the priorities correctly. The first thing we need to do is find out why medical care is so expensive, fix that, and then figure out how we are going to pay for it.

Everyone knows why medical care is so expensive.
It is deliberate.

The whole system got screwed up in 1957, when insurance companies convinced the government to allow employer benefits to be tax exempt.
This not only created a privilege of subsidized healthcare for only the wealthy, but gave the wealthy so much greater collective bargaining power through the employer, that it essentially made health care suddenly totally affordable for anyone without insurance.
This caused insurance companies to encourage providers to charge outrageous rates that ensured even more people would have to buy insurance.
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
{...
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
BY EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL OCTOBER 10, 2008 4:15 PMOctober 10, 2008 4:15 pm


In this installment of Health Care Watch, Stuart M. Butler and Ezekiel Emanuel talk about what the candidates are saying about taxes and employer-sponsored health care coverage. Go to Mr. Butler’s post.

Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, is the chairman of the department of bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. He is the author of “Health Care, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America.”(Full biography.)

Decisions made more than half a century ago are a large cause of today’s health care mess. During World War II, the War Labor Board ruled that fringe benefits, like health insurance, did not violate wage and price controls. Then, in the mid-1950s, employer provided health insurance was made tax exempt. Thus, $1 in health insurance, which was not taxed, became worth more than $1 in income, which was taxed. The result is that today’s health care system relies on employers to provide coverage and encourages more and more health insurance and spending.

Stuart Butler is right. Almost everyone who examines the issue — both conservative and liberal policy wonks, doctors, economists, lawyers and politicians — believes this tax exemption is a grievous error.

It is inequitable. It gives more benefit to the rich because their tax rate is higher. For instance, the Lewin consulting group estimated that for the exact same family health insurance package, an executive making more than $100,000 per year gets nearly $3,000 in tax benefits, while a blue-collar worker making less than $30,000, it is under $750. In addition, richer people tend to get bigger and more expensive health insurance packages from their employers, so they get more “freebies.”

It is also inefficient. The tax exemption provides an incentive for people to take more health insurance rather than wages, spending more on M.R.I.’s instead of other goods and services, like education or vacations.

This tax deduction is not free. Tax deductions are subsidies. This one costs more than $210 billion per year. It is the single largest tax break in the United States and dwarfs the mortgage interest deduction. Make no mistake, when the Treasury collects less taxes in one area, it must make up for it either in higher taxes somewhere else or in more debt on our children and grandchildren.

Thus, John McCain’s proposal to eliminate the tax exemption for health insurance is good policy. (About a year ago, President Bush made the same proposal.) The problem is having built the whole health care system around tax exemption, we simply can’t get rid of it without combining it with some other policies. And, as Mr. Butler acknowledges, this is where John McCain’s reform proposals — and President Bush’s proposal earlier — gets it very, very wrong.
...}

The solution is simple.
End all the illegal employer benefits exemptions, so then the wealthy and poor would all be on a level playing field.
Then instantly almost all people would be without insurance, so then would all demand single payer, to collectively bargain for everyone instead of just the wealthy.
And the collective bargaining power of single payer would quickly force providers to cut charges in half, just like the rest of the world.

And by the way, you are wrong about government administration.
The VA and Medicare for example, add less than 10% overhead, while private insurance companies balloon over head to more than 30%.
That is because government has an inspector general department to cut costs in an unbiased manner. Private companies have no over sight at all.

Again I should repeat, public heath care does NOT increase costs at all.
We now are paying over TWICE what any other country does, per person, and we have some of the worst health care in the world. We have almost half a million deaths a year from medical malpractice.
Deaths by medical mistakes hit records
{...
It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

"The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks.

Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events.

“When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha.

Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors."

It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day.

Disch cited the case of a Minnesota patient who underwent a bilateral mastectomy for cancer, only to find out post surgery a mix-up with the biopsy reports had occurred, and she had not actually had cancer.
...}

Just mumbo jumbo. Do you really believe there are no deaths in socialized medicine? No mistakes made?

Private insurance was promoted by government by being tax exempt for the simple reason that the government would not have to be involved in taking care of everybody. If you don't like one insurance company, you can always switch to another one. If you don't like one doctor or facility, you can do the same with them as well. There is only one government healthcare, and if you disagree with how they handle it, too bad.

Government, particularly on the left, have been trying to gain more and more control over the people. The only two entities stopping them are energy and healthcare. Once they control those two industries, they will have total control over the people. Why? Because nearly everything in our lives revolve around those two things.

So down the road when we do go to government healthcare, they will eventually be able to tell you how to conduct your personal life. They will tell you what you can eat (Michelle Obama) what to drink, how much you can drink of it (Mayor Bloomberg), what you can smoke (Al Gore) and even how much exercise you must have. They may even place limits on television and the internet. You will get your government serving of both, an hour a piece. After that, they go off the grid until the next day when you get your new hours.

Don't think things like that can't happen here? Guess again.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Insurance companies have little to do with our cost of healthcare. Most of our cost is because of government. I've seen it first hand when I worked in medical for ten years.

There is a lot of waste and fraud with government because unlike private insurance, they have no need to watch every dime. Insurance companies don't take your money and put it under a mattress until it's needed. They invest that money so the profits help offset claims. Not only that, but a portion of their income is dedicated to insurance fraud.

Everybody talks about a better system, but nobody sets the priorities correctly. The first thing we need to do is find out why medical care is so expensive, fix that, and then figure out how we are going to pay for it.

Everyone knows why medical care is so expensive.
It is deliberate.

The whole system got screwed up in 1957, when insurance companies convinced the government to allow employer benefits to be tax exempt.
This not only created a privilege of subsidized healthcare for only the wealthy, but gave the wealthy so much greater collective bargaining power through the employer, that it essentially made health care suddenly totally affordable for anyone without insurance.
This caused insurance companies to encourage providers to charge outrageous rates that ensured even more people would have to buy insurance.
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
{...
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
BY EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL OCTOBER 10, 2008 4:15 PMOctober 10, 2008 4:15 pm


In this installment of Health Care Watch, Stuart M. Butler and Ezekiel Emanuel talk about what the candidates are saying about taxes and employer-sponsored health care coverage. Go to Mr. Butler’s post.

Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, is the chairman of the department of bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. He is the author of “Health Care, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America.”(Full biography.)

Decisions made more than half a century ago are a large cause of today’s health care mess. During World War II, the War Labor Board ruled that fringe benefits, like health insurance, did not violate wage and price controls. Then, in the mid-1950s, employer provided health insurance was made tax exempt. Thus, $1 in health insurance, which was not taxed, became worth more than $1 in income, which was taxed. The result is that today’s health care system relies on employers to provide coverage and encourages more and more health insurance and spending.

Stuart Butler is right. Almost everyone who examines the issue — both conservative and liberal policy wonks, doctors, economists, lawyers and politicians — believes this tax exemption is a grievous error.

It is inequitable. It gives more benefit to the rich because their tax rate is higher. For instance, the Lewin consulting group estimated that for the exact same family health insurance package, an executive making more than $100,000 per year gets nearly $3,000 in tax benefits, while a blue-collar worker making less than $30,000, it is under $750. In addition, richer people tend to get bigger and more expensive health insurance packages from their employers, so they get more “freebies.”

It is also inefficient. The tax exemption provides an incentive for people to take more health insurance rather than wages, spending more on M.R.I.’s instead of other goods and services, like education or vacations.

This tax deduction is not free. Tax deductions are subsidies. This one costs more than $210 billion per year. It is the single largest tax break in the United States and dwarfs the mortgage interest deduction. Make no mistake, when the Treasury collects less taxes in one area, it must make up for it either in higher taxes somewhere else or in more debt on our children and grandchildren.

Thus, John McCain’s proposal to eliminate the tax exemption for health insurance is good policy. (About a year ago, President Bush made the same proposal.) The problem is having built the whole health care system around tax exemption, we simply can’t get rid of it without combining it with some other policies. And, as Mr. Butler acknowledges, this is where John McCain’s reform proposals — and President Bush’s proposal earlier — gets it very, very wrong.
...}

The solution is simple.
End all the illegal employer benefits exemptions, so then the wealthy and poor would all be on a level playing field.
Then instantly almost all people would be without insurance, so then would all demand single payer, to collectively bargain for everyone instead of just the wealthy.
And the collective bargaining power of single payer would quickly force providers to cut charges in half, just like the rest of the world.

And by the way, you are wrong about government administration.
The VA and Medicare for example, add less than 10% overhead, while private insurance companies balloon over head to more than 30%.
That is because government has an inspector general department to cut costs in an unbiased manner. Private companies have no over sight at all.

Again I should repeat, public heath care does NOT increase costs at all.
We now are paying over TWICE what any other country does, per person, and we have some of the worst health care in the world. We have almost half a million deaths a year from medical malpractice.
Deaths by medical mistakes hit records
{...
It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

"The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks.

Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events.

“When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha.

Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors."

It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day.

Disch cited the case of a Minnesota patient who underwent a bilateral mastectomy for cancer, only to find out post surgery a mix-up with the biopsy reports had occurred, and she had not actually had cancer.
...}

Just mumbo jumbo. Do you really believe there are no deaths in socialized medicine? No mistakes made?

Private insurance was promoted by government by being tax exempt for the simple reason that the government would not have to be involved in taking care of everybody. If you don't like one insurance company, you can always switch to another one. If you don't like one doctor or facility, you can do the same with them as well. There is only one government healthcare, and if you disagree with how they handle it, too bad.

Government, particularly on the left, have been trying to gain more and more control over the people. The only two entities stopping them are energy and healthcare. Once they control those two industries, they will have total control over the people. Why? Because nearly everything in our lives revolve around those two things.

So down the road when we do go to government healthcare, they will eventually be able to tell you how to conduct your personal life. They will tell you what you can eat (Michelle Obama) what to drink, how much you can drink of it (Mayor Bloomberg), what you can smoke (Al Gore) and even how much exercise you must have. They may even place limits on television and the internet. You will get your government serving of both, an hour a piece. After that, they go off the grid until the next day when you get your new hours.

Don't think things like that can't happen here? Guess again.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

 

[Rigby5]

Everyone knows why medical care is so expensive.
It is deliberate.

The whole system got screwed up in 1957, when insurance companies convinced the government to allow employer benefits to be tax exempt.
This not only created a privilege of subsidized healthcare for only the wealthy, but gave the wealthy so much greater collective bargaining power through the employer, that it essentially made health care suddenly totally affordable for anyone without insurance.
This caused insurance companies to encourage providers to charge outrageous rates that ensured even more people would have to buy insurance.
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
{...
The Problem With Tax-Exempt Health Insurance
BY EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL OCTOBER 10, 2008 4:15 PMOctober 10, 2008 4:15 pm


In this installment of Health Care Watch, Stuart M. Butler and Ezekiel Emanuel talk about what the candidates are saying about taxes and employer-sponsored health care coverage. Go to Mr. Butler’s post.

Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, is the chairman of the department of bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. He is the author of “Health Care, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America.”(Full biography.)

Decisions made more than half a century ago are a large cause of today’s health care mess. During World War II, the War Labor Board ruled that fringe benefits, like health insurance, did not violate wage and price controls. Then, in the mid-1950s, employer provided health insurance was made tax exempt. Thus, $1 in health insurance, which was not taxed, became worth more than $1 in income, which was taxed. The result is that today’s health care system relies on employers to provide coverage and encourages more and more health insurance and spending.

Stuart Butler is right. Almost everyone who examines the issue — both conservative and liberal policy wonks, doctors, economists, lawyers and politicians — believes this tax exemption is a grievous error.

It is inequitable. It gives more benefit to the rich because their tax rate is higher. For instance, the Lewin consulting group estimated that for the exact same family health insurance package, an executive making more than $100,000 per year gets nearly $3,000 in tax benefits, while a blue-collar worker making less than $30,000, it is under $750. In addition, richer people tend to get bigger and more expensive health insurance packages from their employers, so they get more “freebies.”

It is also inefficient. The tax exemption provides an incentive for people to take more health insurance rather than wages, spending more on M.R.I.’s instead of other goods and services, like education or vacations.

This tax deduction is not free. Tax deductions are subsidies. This one costs more than $210 billion per year. It is the single largest tax break in the United States and dwarfs the mortgage interest deduction. Make no mistake, when the Treasury collects less taxes in one area, it must make up for it either in higher taxes somewhere else or in more debt on our children and grandchildren.

Thus, John McCain’s proposal to eliminate the tax exemption for health insurance is good policy. (About a year ago, President Bush made the same proposal.) The problem is having built the whole health care system around tax exemption, we simply can’t get rid of it without combining it with some other policies. And, as Mr. Butler acknowledges, this is where John McCain’s reform proposals — and President Bush’s proposal earlier — gets it very, very wrong.
...}

The solution is simple.
End all the illegal employer benefits exemptions, so then the wealthy and poor would all be on a level playing field.
Then instantly almost all people would be without insurance, so then would all demand single payer, to collectively bargain for everyone instead of just the wealthy.
And the collective bargaining power of single payer would quickly force providers to cut charges in half, just like the rest of the world.

And by the way, you are wrong about government administration.
The VA and Medicare for example, add less than 10% overhead, while private insurance companies balloon over head to more than 30%.
That is because government has an inspector general department to cut costs in an unbiased manner. Private companies have no over sight at all.

Again I should repeat, public heath care does NOT increase costs at all.
We now are paying over TWICE what any other country does, per person, and we have some of the worst health care in the world. We have almost half a million deaths a year from medical malpractice.
Deaths by medical mistakes hit records
{...
It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

"The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks.

Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events.

“When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha.

Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors."

It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day.

Disch cited the case of a Minnesota patient who underwent a bilateral mastectomy for cancer, only to find out post surgery a mix-up with the biopsy reports had occurred, and she had not actually had cancer.
...}

Just mumbo jumbo. Do you really believe there are no deaths in socialized medicine? No mistakes made?

Private insurance was promoted by government by being tax exempt for the simple reason that the government would not have to be involved in taking care of everybody. If you don't like one insurance company, you can always switch to another one. If you don't like one doctor or facility, you can do the same with them as well. There is only one government healthcare, and if you disagree with how they handle it, too bad.

Government, particularly on the left, have been trying to gain more and more control over the people. The only two entities stopping them are energy and healthcare. Once they control those two industries, they will have total control over the people. Why? Because nearly everything in our lives revolve around those two things.

So down the road when we do go to government healthcare, they will eventually be able to tell you how to conduct your personal life. They will tell you what you can eat (Michelle Obama) what to drink, how much you can drink of it (Mayor Bloomberg), what you can smoke (Al Gore) and even how much exercise you must have. They may even place limits on television and the internet. You will get your government serving of both, an hour a piece. After that, they go off the grid until the next day when you get your new hours.

Don't think things like that can't happen here? Guess again.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

I am not saying you should not be able to do all that stuff.
I don't want a nanny state.
I am just saying, that with things like seatbelts, smoking, eating bad, etc., those things cost everyone else a little when we make bad choices, so it is not wrong to charge us for those costs we incur to everyone.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Just mumbo jumbo. Do you really believe there are no deaths in socialized medicine? No mistakes made?

Private insurance was promoted by government by being tax exempt for the simple reason that the government would not have to be involved in taking care of everybody. If you don't like one insurance company, you can always switch to another one. If you don't like one doctor or facility, you can do the same with them as well. There is only one government healthcare, and if you disagree with how they handle it, too bad.

Government, particularly on the left, have been trying to gain more and more control over the people. The only two entities stopping them are energy and healthcare. Once they control those two industries, they will have total control over the people. Why? Because nearly everything in our lives revolve around those two things.

So down the road when we do go to government healthcare, they will eventually be able to tell you how to conduct your personal life. They will tell you what you can eat (Michelle Obama) what to drink, how much you can drink of it (Mayor Bloomberg), what you can smoke (Al Gore) and even how much exercise you must have. They may even place limits on television and the internet. You will get your government serving of both, an hour a piece. After that, they go off the grid until the next day when you get your new hours.

Don't think things like that can't happen here? Guess again.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

I am not saying you should not be able to do all that stuff.
I don't want a nanny state.
I am just saying, that with things like seatbelts, smoking, eating bad, etc., those things cost everyone else a little when we make bad choices, so it is not wrong to charge us for those costs we incur to everyone.

And when does it stop? How about riding a motorcycle? How about being fat? How about not having enough muscle tone in your body? How about how much internet you use? Maybe we can submit dash cam videos of how bad a driver you are. I would have a picnic with that one.

So where does it stop?

 

[P F Tinmore]

Gabbards has been an apologist for Putin's boy Assad.

So she got a moment of attention before people finally figured out that she was nuts. SPLAT!

That is just STUPID!
Assad is incredibly POPULAR, with most Syrians.
The ONLY people against Assad are Sunni being paid by the Saudis, and armed by the US.
Why do you think the rebellion against Assad has totally and completely failed, even though the US has invested billions to create it?
Gabbard is one of the few candidates who is telling the truth and is not lying.
She is also likely the smartest.
Which is why she is about the only democrat candidate who is not hysterical about the gun control issue.
She realized gun control does absolutely no good because dishonest or violent people can not possibly be disarmed by it.

ROTFLMAO!
yeah...Assad..very popular..with the 10 million who fled his rule...and the hundreds of thousands he gassed..oh and the hundreds of thousands more he barrel-bombed...yup...you either like Assad..or you're dead! If you live in Damascus..you might like Assad..outside the city..not so much...if you're a Kurd..no.
As for the US creating the rebellion..totally untrue..not that they didn't try to take advantage of it..once it started.
Why it failed....in a word..Russia. I have to say..your post sounds a bit....propagandized. If not..then a bit of research might be called for. for the record, I've been to Damascus 4 times in the past 10 years...know just a bit about the region.

Syrian Refugees
Quick facts: What you need to know about the Syria crisis

Wrong.
Assad did not start the rebellion, fighting, or violence, and anyone claiming Assad gassed anyone is just lying.
There have been no substantiated autopsies to prove that there were any toxic gas attacks at all, and it is clear Assad's own troops have never had or used equipment to survive gas attacks, so he could not possibly have used poison gas.

And of course the US started the rebellion.
Why do you think Stevens was in Benghazi, arranging for unemployed extremists like ISIS, al Qaeda, and Kurdish nationalists to get the lastest US weapons.
ISIS was all from Iraqi Sunni the US caused to be unemployed.
The US had them imprisoned.
When the US suddenly released them all, they all then were instantly equipped with millions worth of new Toyota trucks and weapons.

And no, the Russians did almost nothing.
They never had any land presence, and they only provided a minimal mount of air power.
The do not even have the air power to run large bombing missions like the US does with B-52s and B-1s.

Sure the Kurds hate Assad, but the Kurds also hate the Turks, Iranians, and Iraqi because they want to restore Kurdistan.
It would not mater if Assad was a saint, they would still hate him because they want their country back, that as taken away by the British, French, and US, after WWI.

Your own link says:
{... Anti-government demonstrations began in March of 2011, as part of the Arab Spring. But the peaceful protests quickly escalated after the government's violent crackdown, and armed opposition groups began fighting back. ...}
The Arab Spring is Hillary's catch phrase. It is clear it was the US that started the rebellion, and it was not organic at all.
Nor was it ever widely supported.
It was always clearly a foolish attempt by the US to disrupt anyone who the Israelis do not like, just like we did to Saddam and Qaddafi.

 

[Rigby5]

Of course there will always be deaths, but clearly all other countries are have more socialized health care than the US, and all of them work better than the US.

And no, you can not just switch to another insurance company if dissatisfied.
If you change policies you have to start over and pay almost 10 times as much as you did.
I have done that several times, so I know this as a fact.
And also insurance companies have engaged in illegal price fixing, as well as illegally buying up providers to create a health care monopoly.

Making employer benefits tax exempt is inherently illegal and only benefits a wealthy minority.

There is never a lack of choice is there is single payer.
First of all, you would have much greater access to file complaints, vote, etc., and second is that you still get to choose your physician instead of an insurance company picking your physician for you.

You have it totally backwards. Socialism is when the people get to decide more through the voting process. It is capitalism where you have no choice due to monopolies, price fixing, dumping, and other ways competition is always deliberately destroyed. Like capitalists illegally using the FDA to prevent half priced foreign drugs for example.

No democrat is trying to tell you want to drink, smoke, or eat.
They are trying to educate and get people to pay for the additional costs they force on everyone else.

Japan is the single most capitalist country in the world, not socialist.

England is not really socialist at all either, but a monarchy that is trying to fool people.
And the article is clearly attempting to create false hysteria, since the reality is that the NHS is just trying to weather a temporary financial shortfall from right wing funding cuts.

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

I am not saying you should not be able to do all that stuff.
I don't want a nanny state.
I am just saying, that with things like seatbelts, smoking, eating bad, etc., those things cost everyone else a little when we make bad choices, so it is not wrong to charge us for those costs we incur to everyone.

And when does it stop? How about riding a motorcycle? How about being fat? How about not having enough muscle tone in your body? How about how much internet you use? Maybe we can submit dash cam videos of how bad a driver you are. I would have a picnic with that one.

So where does it stop?

Oh I am not going to disagree on this either.
It is just that behavior that benefits others should be rewarded and behavior that harms other should perhaps pay their way more?
For example, maybe bad drivers should pay a nickle more a gallon for gas, so we can make mass transit free?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Bloomberg made softdrink cups illegal over a certain size. Michelle stripped school cafeterias of edible food and put her dog food choices there instead, causing kids to go hungry and forcing them to bring candy bars and other snacks to school to much on during class changes when they got near their lockers. Al Gore sued the tobacco industry causing prices to skyrocket. DumBama instituted a huge sin tax causing the price of cigarettes to go even higher; taxing people into submission.

That's not what I call educating people, that's what I call government force. I don't want to live in a country where government can do these things to it's citizens.

I didn't label anybody socialist, what I did was demonstrate what government is capable of doing once they have total control over healthcare. They can take many choices away and literally tell you how to live your life.

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

I am not saying you should not be able to do all that stuff.
I don't want a nanny state.
I am just saying, that with things like seatbelts, smoking, eating bad, etc., those things cost everyone else a little when we make bad choices, so it is not wrong to charge us for those costs we incur to everyone.

And when does it stop? How about riding a motorcycle? How about being fat? How about not having enough muscle tone in your body? How about how much internet you use? Maybe we can submit dash cam videos of how bad a driver you are. I would have a picnic with that one.

So where does it stop?

Oh I am not going to disagree on this either.
It is just that behavior that benefits others should be rewarded and behavior that harms other should perhaps pay their way more?
For example, maybe bad drivers should pay a nickle more a gallon for gas, so we can make mass transit free?

Then how much different is that than more government control over all of us? Taxation into submission. Just take all tobacco products off the shelf, close every bar, bring back prohibition, all dangerous sports like skying, hiking, football, boxing, any sport with possibility of injury eliminated, maximum highways speed at 35 mph, internet and cable television allowed only one hour each day, perhaps three on weekends, and just don't allow anybody to have any fun in this country? After all, who needs freedom anyhow, right? It's always been overplayed anyway.

 

[Rigby5]

Gabbards has been an apologist for Putin's boy Assad.

So she got a moment of attention before people finally figured out that she was nuts. SPLAT!

That is just STUPID!
Assad is incredibly POPULAR, with most Syrians.
The ONLY people against Assad are Sunni being paid by the Saudis, and armed by the US.
Why do you think the rebellion against Assad has totally and completely failed, even though the US has invested billions to create it?
Gabbard is one of the few candidates who is telling the truth and is not lying.
She is also likely the smartest.
Which is why she is about the only democrat candidate who is not hysterical about the gun control issue.
She realized gun control does absolutely no good because dishonest or violent people can not possibly be disarmed by it.

ROTFLMAO!
yeah...Assad..very popular..with the 10 million who fled his rule...and the hundreds of thousands he gassed..oh and the hundreds of thousands more he barrel-bombed...yup...you either like Assad..or you're dead! If you live in Damascus..you might like Assad..outside the city..not so much...if you're a Kurd..no.
As for the US creating the rebellion..totally untrue..not that they didn't try to take advantage of it..once it started.
Why it failed....in a word..Russia. I have to say..your post sounds a bit....propagandized. If not..then a bit of research might be called for. for the record, I've been to Damascus 4 times in the past 10 years...know just a bit about the region.

Syrian Refugees
Quick facts: What you need to know about the Syria crisis

Wrong.
Assad did not start the rebellion, fighting, or violence, and anyone claiming Assad gassed anyone is just lying.
There have been no substantiated autopsies to prove that there were any toxic gas attacks at all, and it is clear Assad's own troops have never had or used equipment to survive gas attacks, so he could not possibly have used poison gas.

And of course the US started the rebellion.
Why do you think Stevens was in Benghazi, arranging for unemployed extremists like ISIS, al Qaeda, and Kurdish nationalists to get the lastest US weapons.
ISIS was all from Iraqi Sunni the US caused to be unemployed.
The US had them imprisoned.
When the US suddenly released them all, they all then were instantly equipped with millions worth of new Toyota trucks and weapons.

And no, the Russians did almost nothing.
They never had any land presence, and they only provided a minimal mount of air power.
The do not even have the air power to run large bombing missions like the US does with B-52s and B-1s.

Sure the Kurds hate Assad, but the Kurds also hate the Turks, Iranians, and Iraqi because they want to restore Kurdistan.
It would not mater if Assad was a saint, they would still hate him because they want their country back, that as taken away by the British, French, and US, after WWI.

Your own link says:
{... Anti-government demonstrations began in March of 2011, as part of the Arab Spring. But the peaceful protests quickly escalated after the government's violent crackdown, and armed opposition groups began fighting back. ...}
The Arab Spring is Hillary's catch phrase. It is clear it was the US that started the rebellion, and it was not organic at all.
Nor was it ever widely supported.
It was always clearly a foolish attempt by the US to disrupt anyone who the Israelis do not like, just like we did to Saddam and Qaddafi.

Excellent video.
I suspected, but have not actually seen the proof, that the Arab Spring was fake, created by the US, in order to destabilize long standing independent regimes, so they can be replaced by US puppets, like we did with Sisi in Egypt.
Assad is by far the best possible choice Syria, and we should not be interfering like we are.

 

[Rigby5]

Soft drink are deliberately made to be addictive, with sugar, caffeine, and all sorts of other chemicals.
They even use to put cocaine into soft drinks.
Legislating cup size is not really a burden.
It is just making it less easy to be irresponsible in costing others for your health care irresponisibility.
Same with tobacco.
People should pay for the added cost they impose on others when they get health problems from smoking.
I believe Michelle just pushed more vegetable, which does not seem draconian to me.
Children are not supposed get full choice over what they eat.
They would only choose to eat candy.

But in all other countries, more government involvement has always been a vast improvement.
At least with government you get to vote.
Single payer does not mean health care has to be federal or centralized.
It can be state or local run.
It just would have to cover those in transit between states.

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

I am not saying you should not be able to do all that stuff.
I don't want a nanny state.
I am just saying, that with things like seatbelts, smoking, eating bad, etc., those things cost everyone else a little when we make bad choices, so it is not wrong to charge us for those costs we incur to everyone.

And when does it stop? How about riding a motorcycle? How about being fat? How about not having enough muscle tone in your body? How about how much internet you use? Maybe we can submit dash cam videos of how bad a driver you are. I would have a picnic with that one.

So where does it stop?

Oh I am not going to disagree on this either.
It is just that behavior that benefits others should be rewarded and behavior that harms other should perhaps pay their way more?
For example, maybe bad drivers should pay a nickle more a gallon for gas, so we can make mass transit free?

Then how much different is that than more government control over all of us? Taxation into submission. Just take all tobacco products off the shelf, close every bar, bring back prohibition, all dangerous sports like skying, hiking, football, boxing, any sport with possibility of injury eliminated, maximum highways speed at 35 mph, internet and cable television allowed only one hour each day, perhaps three on weekends, and just don't allow anybody to have any fun in this country? After all, who needs freedom anyhow, right? It's always been overplayed anyway.

Big difference between unpopular, draconian, edicts, and just encouraging people to be more responsible for the costs they incur to others.
With dangerous sports, it depends on if they have insurance and rely on everyone else to pick up the bill?
Actually they discovered that about 70 mph speed limits are safer, because cars tend to be less densely packed.
Internet and TV is not known to harm others. But if it becomes linked with mass murders, I would then see your point. But not sure what my answer would be?

My bottom line is that government is not a source of any authority.
Only the defense of inherent rights of individuals is the source of all legal authority.
So government has to prove that any restriction on anyone is necessary in order to defend the rights of someone else.
No arbitrary or subjective restriction is legal.

 

[SmokeALib]

TRUMP VOTERS:

Odd how right-wingers spew about women and children from Central America trying to come here to avoid death ...

... and yet ignore the dozens of right-wing terrorists who are slaughtering Americans every other day.

WHY the fuck its that ??????????????????????????????????????????

That's you picking your nose and your head caving in.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You may want to live under such rulership, but I certainly don't. If I want to smoke, then I'll smoke. If I want to be fat, then I'm going to be fat. If I want to take dope, then I'm going to take dope, and nobody is going to tell me how to live, because surrendering to that concept is also a surrender of freedom, and we lost way too many lives for that freedom to be taken away by a bunch of Democrats that want to control your every move in life.

More government is not good. That's why our founders wrote the Constitution. It doesn't tell us what liberties we have, it tells us what government limitations are. It didn't include the Thought Police, the Food Police, the Exercise Police, or any other police to oversee our lives. Our federal government was created to govern, not parenting.

I am not saying you should not be able to do all that stuff.
I don't want a nanny state.
I am just saying, that with things like seatbelts, smoking, eating bad, etc., those things cost everyone else a little when we make bad choices, so it is not wrong to charge us for those costs we incur to everyone.

And when does it stop? How about riding a motorcycle? How about being fat? How about not having enough muscle tone in your body? How about how much internet you use? Maybe we can submit dash cam videos of how bad a driver you are. I would have a picnic with that one.

So where does it stop?

Oh I am not going to disagree on this either.
It is just that behavior that benefits others should be rewarded and behavior that harms other should perhaps pay their way more?
For example, maybe bad drivers should pay a nickle more a gallon for gas, so we can make mass transit free?

Then how much different is that than more government control over all of us? Taxation into submission. Just take all tobacco products off the shelf, close every bar, bring back prohibition, all dangerous sports like skying, hiking, football, boxing, any sport with possibility of injury eliminated, maximum highways speed at 35 mph, internet and cable television allowed only one hour each day, perhaps three on weekends, and just don't allow anybody to have any fun in this country? After all, who needs freedom anyhow, right? It's always been overplayed anyway.

Big difference between unpopular, draconian, edicts, and just encouraging people to be more responsible for the costs they incur to others.
With dangerous sports, it depends on if they have insurance and rely on everyone else to pick up the bill?
Actually they discovered that about 70 mph speed limits are safer, because cars tend to be less densely packed.
Internet and TV is not known to harm others. But if it becomes linked with mass murders, I would then see your point. But not sure what my answer would be?

My bottom line is that government is not a source of any authority.
Only the defense of inherent rights of individuals is the source of all legal authority.
So government has to prove that any restriction on anyone is necessary in order to defend the rights of someone else.
No arbitrary or subjective restriction is legal.

But this is what your support of such punitive actions will lead to. You have to be able to see that.

The point being we all take some risks in life. What fun would life be without them? Here in Cleveland, every summer, we go through the same routine. People jump in the lake, drown, and corpses are pulled out of the water eventually by the Coast Guard or wash up on shore. It happens multiple times each and every summer. Some are pulled out of the water in time and make it, most don't.

Under your premise, people who swim should pay higher insurance rates and perhaps higher life insurance rates. See what I'm talking about here?

If we live in a society where people walk around like zombies because there is little to do outside of government or insurance standards, you might as well not be living at all.

It's like my example of driving. If I had the authority to pull over drivers and pass out tickets, I could issue about two hundred a day. If you are spending too much time on the internet or watching television, you are not getting any exercise, and likely chowing down on heavily salted and buttered popcorn.

If you are going to insist I be penalized for my less than healthy activities, I'm going to petition the government to do the same with yours. Then where are we?

 

[blackhawk]

 

[Lesh]

You only showed there were some articles about her, that does not at all indicate or prove they support her.

A BUNCH of articles on Russia state media SUPPORTING and PROMOTING her