Inflamed hair follicle

[Siegecow]

oven range + steak knife = healh plan

[baph]

lol

 

While the 9mil figure was a gross exaggeration, deductibles are really high. I'd be looking at $300 a month in insurance payments to get it down to a reasonable level, and even that is for some pretty dismal coverage.

 

Basically, there is no new health care system in the US. The public health option was shut down, because it's apparently socialism, which is apparently unamerikun. What we have instead is essentially a forthcoming handout to the insurance industry in the form of mandatory paid coverage in exchange for them not canceling insurance policies when people get sick. But the corollary is, the insurance companies are currently in the process of raising their rates-- Blue Shield, for example, is expected to raise its rates over 50% in California.

 

But, you know, thank god, it almost got really socialist in here for a minute, and it's almost like Congress was going to "provide for the general Welfare of the United States" and I challenge you to find that power in the Constitution, because it's definitely not in Art. I, Sec. 8, which all good USAmericans know sez Congress is just supposed to give money to defense contractors.

[YEK]

i like that youtube^. penguin doin it's thang, can't cope. i guess it's a little sad

it's kinda unanimal like actually. i wonder how intelligent those guys are.

[sup]

sounds like u need a manpon for ur barse

[Dragon]

The lump on my barse burst last night. What really disturbed me was how it just popped without me even knowing it. I was just lying in bed, listening to SAW2, when I felt a liquid run down my left cheek.

 

I had to take an emergency bath at 3 in the morning, just about lukewarm because we didn't have any hot water. I'm still taking antibiotics, and I'm going through many changes of underpants because of the constant leaking.

 

I guess now would be as good a time as any to post it...

 

 

must be awful to have to fucking spread your ass cheeks to your doctor too.

 

Nah, she was hot.

[sup]

shoulda listened my advise

[Guest Billov]

sounds like u need a manpon for ur barse

 

shoulda listened my badvise

[sup]

>???????????????????

[baph]

This is relevant:

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

 

The ink was barely dry on the PPACA when the first of many lawsuits to block the mandated health insurance provisions of the law was filed in a Florida District Court.

 

The pleadings, in part, read -

 

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage.

 

State of Florida, et al. vs. HHS

 

It turns out, the Founding Fathers would beg to disagree.

 

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.

 

Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.

 

And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I think it’s safe to assume that the man in that chair had a pretty good grasp on what the framers had in mind.

 

Here’s how it happened.

 

During the early years of our union, the nation’s leaders realized that foreign trade would be essential to the young country’s ability to create a viable economy. To make it work, they relied on the nation’s private merchant ships – and the sailors that made them go – to be the instruments of this trade.

 

The problem was that a merchant mariner’s job was a difficult and dangerous undertaking in those days. Sailors were constantly hurting themselves, picking up weird tropical diseases, etc.

 

The troublesome reductions in manpower caused by back strains, twisted ankles and strange diseases often left a ship’s captain without enough sailors to get underway – a problem both bad for business and a strain on the nation’s economy.

 

But those were the days when members of Congress still used their collective heads to solve problems – not create them.

 

Realizing that a healthy maritime workforce was essential to the ability of our private merchant ships to engage in foreign trade, Congress and the President resolved to do something about it.

 

Enter “An Act for The Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen”.

 

I encourage you to read the law as, in those days, legislation was short, to the point and fairly easy to understand.

 

The law did a number of fascinating things.

 

First, it created the Marine Hospital Service, a series of hospitals built and operated by the federal government to treat injured and ailing privately employed sailors. This government provided healthcare service was to be paid for by a mandatory tax on the maritime sailors (a little more than 1% of a sailor’s wages), the same to be withheld from a sailor’s pay and turned over to the government by the ship’s owner. The payment of this tax for health care was not optional. If a sailor wanted to work, he had to pay up.

 

This is pretty much how it works today in the European nations that conduct socialized medical programs for its citizens – although 1% of wages doesn’t quite cut it any longer.

 

The law was not only the first time the United States created a socialized medical program (The Marine Hospital Service) but was also the first to mandate that privately employed citizens be legally required to make payments to pay for health care services. Upon passage of the law, ships were no longer permitted to sail in and out of our ports if the health care tax had not been collected by the ship owners and paid over to the government – thus the creation of the first payroll tax in our nation’s history.

 

When a sick or injured sailor needed medical assistance, the government would confirm that his payments had been collected and turned over by his employer and would then give the sailor a voucher entitling him to admission to the hospital where he would be treated for whatever ailed him.

 

While a few of the healthcare facilities accepting the government voucher were privately operated, the majority of the treatment was given out at the federal maritime hospitals that were built and operated by the government in the nation’s largest ports.

 

As the nation grew and expanded, the system was also expanded to cover sailors working the private vessels sailing the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

 

The program eventually became the Public Health Service, a government operated health service that exists to this day under the supervision of the Surgeon General.

 

So much for the claim that “The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty….”

 

As for Congress’ understanding of the limits of the Constitution at the time the Act was passed, it is worth noting that Thomas Jefferson was the President of the Senate during the 5th Congress while Jonathan Dayton, the youngest man to sign the United States Constitution, was the Speaker of the House.

 

While I’m sure a number of readers are scratching their heads in the effort to find the distinction between the circumstances of 1798 and today, I think you’ll find it difficult.

 

Yes, the law at that time required only merchant sailors to purchase health care coverage. Thus, one could argue that nobody was forcing anyone to become a merchant sailor and, therefore, they were not required to purchase health care coverage unless they chose to pursue a career at sea.

 

However, this is no different than what we are looking at today.

 

Each of us has the option to turn down employment that would require us to purchase private health insurance under the health care reform law.

 

Would that be practical? Of course not – just as it would have been impractical for a man seeking employment as a merchant sailor in 1798 to turn down a job on a ship because he would be required by law to purchase health care coverage.

 

What’s more, a constitutional challenge to the legality of mandated health care cannot exist based on the number of people who are required to purchase the coverage – it must necessarily be based on whether any American can be so required.

 

Clearly, the nation’s founders serving in the 5th Congress, and there were many of them, believed that mandated health insurance coverage was permitted within the limits established by our Constitution.

 

The moral to the story is that the political right-wing has to stop pretending they have the blessings of the Founding Fathers as their excuse to oppose whatever this president has to offer.

 

History makes it abundantly clear that they do not.