Interesting.



The part in bold is my point. In America, it will not work because of the abuses. Of course, time will tell.



No not specific churches/religious organizations. It should be up to the respective individuals (citizens) within those belief systems as to how they help people. Taxing all citizens (well those that pay taxes anyway) to pay for everyone’s health care just seems morally wrong. To quote one of this Nation’s Founding Fathers:



If Synagogues, Mosques, Wiccan Temples, or even Athiestic non-profits want to help the poor than that is their right to do so just as it is the right, and privilege I might add, of Christians to help those in need. It is the right of individuals that is at stake here. Not to mention government is never as efficient as private organizations. Take the oil company PetroBras in Brazil for example.



The freedom of women to kill their innocent unborn children is protected under Rowe Vs Wade. This is a very sad fact in my opinion. However, mandating that everyone in this country has to contribute financially toward this including religious organizations as well as many individual citizens who have a conscious objection to it seems a bit… Tyrannical.



This probably seems this way because you do not understand the basics of my belief system. Contrary to what you’ve said in this thread and others I have thought critically about it. I believe in helping people of my own accord. I do not believe you will find in the Bible, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the idea that any of the “helping the poor” should be done by government. That is a responsibility of the Church (or any other religious or non-profit organization) and the individual. To take away that right and mandate a tax seems morally wrong.

Even if there were nothing else I could find objection to this law other than the PP, I cannot as a Christian support what in my value system amounts to murder. The reason being is I believe this violates the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Being forced to support PP is wrong. How would you feel if someone forced you to support and pay for pro-life centers?



I agree it is an opinion. Thanks this is appreciated. We can agree to disagree civilly.



Okay in spirit of teachability please point me in the right direction to getting the facts you speak of…. And what specific information do you consider misinformation? I’m looking for constructive criticism not just being told my vies are a bunch of hogwash please. Thanks in advance.

In a civilized society... On a basic level yes everyone should have access to it. However, if someone doesn't want it it shouldn't be forced upon them. I didn't want it for 9 years and took the risks associated with it. I saved over $20,000 in monthly payments. It was my right.

To mitigate the cost and spread it over to everyone may seem like the best way... I would say that is pretty close to agreeing with socialism. Something I cannot and will not embrace. I grew up with a whole bunch of people who believed in such a system. It doesn't work. Well it does work but there is a ton of corruption and innefficiencies...

Public Education in this country is failing. Americans seem to learn less and less with each generation. We need reform in that as well to ensure a better future for our children and children's children. Healthcare should not be available just to the wealthy and it isn't. Giving people free healthcare is like handing a $100,000 check to a homeless person. They will cash it,still likely squander it away, and end up broke again. Poor decision makers will still make poor decisions no matter the circumstances unless there is an outside factor. And more government is not the cure.

A tax isn't theft. That is correct. Unless it is unlawful. But this law requires all people to pay to help support organizations like Planned Parenthood. This violates a person's first amendment right of religious freedom. I ask again: what would the case be if all people in America in a similar law were forced to support some pro-choice organization? What will be next?

Yes, I suppose the Supreme Court agrees with you.

First of all, we can stop calling it "Socialism." Socialism is state ownership and control of assets. Some countries do actually have socialist medical care, but the US model doesn't fit the description. You will still have a private medical industry. All that's being mandated is people have to buy health insurance. The state is not seizing ownership of assets.

Now, with that out of the way, I actually agree with you, somewhat. I'm against socialism of most flavours. But the difference with medical care is that we simply will not let people die. If someone needs medical care, we give it to them, whether they can afford it or not. Note that this is already how it works now. Nobody is denied emergency care because of an inability to pay. If they can't pay, then taxpayers pay for it.

Thus, as a taxpayer, you should want people to be required to have their own insurance. When they don't, then you end up paying for them.

And yet the US spends more money per student than it ever has in history, even adjusting for inflation. What's the answer? Still more money? At what point do we ask if we're throwing good money after bad?



I've seen research that links student performance with parental involvement. So if kids are failing, it's because parents aren't putting in the time. What "reforms" would you propose to address this? How do you force parents to be more involved with their children? Maybe ensure that people who are incapable of being good parents stop having so many kids they can't support? Oops... we're heading back towards the "Planned Parenthood" ice berg ...

And I'm still interested in whether not you fundamentally disagree with the socialized education model.

I won't argue the legalities since I'm not qualified as a lawyer or legal scholar. But if the Supreme Court upholds it, I'm not inclined to argue the case (and yes, I do recognize that it was a divided court), it's very hard to for me to seriously take counter-arguments unless the person making those arguments has similar qualifications. That's what gets me about those placard-carrying folks stating that the HC law is unconstitutional. They declare it unconstitutional on no other grounds that they don't like it and they believe that it infringes on their rights when they haven't studied the law enough to actually know what rights are granted by the Constitution and what rights aren't granted.

EDIT: This sort of thinking is true on both the left and the right. Ignorance doesn't have political boundaries.

Again, this is a "fact" for which you provide no evidence. I do not believe that government is necessarily efficient in most cases. But there are plenty of examples in this country where we have a government monopoly that is necessary either because of circumstances or because it is most efficient to have it that way. Some examples include:
* Air transportation infrastructure (airports, air traffic control, weather systems, and even security). Including security might seem to support your view but we had private security pre-9/11 and it clearly failed horribly.
* Roads. There are of course private roads in some areas but there is no evidence they are more efficient and nearly all of them are only possible because of government subsidy
* National defense - there are private military organizations but no one would seriously suggest eliminating the military
* Utilities - most operate on as quasi-government monopolies. Privatization attempts about a decade ago were disasterous
* Legal system - there are private alternatives but they are not any more efficient

Not to mention a very broad range of government services that are consistently criticized until they are needed. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was going to be closed until we had a disaster. The USGS is always criticized unless there has been a recent major earthquake. Even NOAA is attacked all the time for telling the truth that global warming is increasing the energy of storms yet no one complains when they use that fact to accurately predict a hurricane's course.

There are plenty of things that the private sector does better than government. But the private sector is extremely bad at managing large scale systems where returns are long term.



How do you figure that everyone has to subsidize abortions? I certainly would not support that. I personally think that every woman should be entitled to access those services if she chooses but I don't want to pay for it any more than I want to pay for a smoker to be treated for lung cancer. I also don't want to pay for the incarceration of that unwanted child. I don't like subsidizing your church's property tax exemption either. But you know what, sometimes paying for things we don't like is part of living in a civil society. Get over it.



Wow, the government helping people is morally wrong? What kind of moral code do you live by? I'll let you believe what you will about your church but you clearly are very misinformed about the reality of ancient middle eastern social systems. The religion WAS the government so the parallels you are trying to make are silly.



Perhaps we can agree that the justices are a little more versed in constitution law than either of us and none of them agreed your position that the law infringed upon religious freedom. Even the right wingers saw no infringement on religion.



The Kaiser Family Foundation has a lot of objective (as near as I can tell) information about health care issues in this country. You can find a lot of information about international health care systems on wikipedia. If you don't like that as a reference then simply follow the links there to better, primary references. You might also search for "Swedish Institute" (http://www.si.se) for information about the health care system there that Mr. Light mentioned. Perhaps Kombat would be in a better position to provide accurate resources to learn about the Canadian system. My information about Canada is anecdotal, from friends, and none of them have ever had to wait or been denied necessary care. I've also had German friends who had to be treated urgently (though not emergency) here in the US. As soon as the hospital knew they were covered by the German state system they were treated like royalty, I'm just sayin'!

We do have good health care here for those who can afford it. If the law simply makes it available to more people then that does not necessarily increase costs. Much of health care costs are fixed in the form of hospitals and equipment so that the marginal cost of treating more people is relatively small. And the idea is that expanding the pool (demand) will reduce costs, a solid conservative economic argument. Plus people will be able to get treated early which is generally accepted to reduce total treatment costs. But it is very hard to accurately quantify so it is a bit of a "wait and see."

And really, if everyone here just improved their diet a little bit and lost 5-10 lbs we'd save enough to pay for the changes many times over.

Actually, I disagree. What you did was put us all at risk of having to pay your bills if something happened. Until we as a society are prepared to let people bleed out at the door of the emergency room if they can't pay in advance, your choice not to provide for your possible care does impact me in the form of a potential cost even if it was never actualized.

We're forced to support churches through a tax exemption they enjoy. Is it ok that we are all forced to do that?

Taxing all citizens to pay for America's armed forces is not so different from this. All Americans benefit from national defense, but not everyone agrees with wars we have started overseas, all of which have resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives in addition to the lives of military personnel. And yet we're all forced to pay for those wars through our taxes (and I say this as a US citizen who happens to live in Canada).

In fact there are many probably hundreds or even thousands of things that our government does that I may disagree with but I'm forced to support as a taxpayer. I'm not sure that's morally wrong. It just means that someone, or a group of someones, whose values differ from mine made a decision that the government should do x, y, or z. If I don't like it, it's my responsibility to either work within the system to try to get it changed, or do what I can to ensure that more people who share my values get elected.

So this PP thing seems to be a sticking point. I do agree that you should not be forced to pay for abortions, contraception, or wart removal if you have an objection to it. So why not just set up a health insurance company that does not pay for these things? I'm fairly certain that the law allows for this. That way your premiums don't support the things you oppose. You'd still comply with the law by having insurance.

Yes, part of the issue with education in America is parents take no or little interest in thier children. Parents work all the time or as in many cases are divorced. So the kids are left to educate themselves or become "educated" by their peers. And then we wonder why kids are failing shool, some can't even read, and others are shooting each other in schools... I'm sure you won't like my answer but if people would turn back to God I bet the changes in people's lives would translate into better parenting. In my opinion the issue with our current state of affairs in the U.S. is a lack of absolute morality - everything is relative.

Public Education - In it's present state yes I do disagree with it. Have you been to or studied at a public school here in the U.S.? Many are plain pathetic. In some countries only the best students get their education for free. Everyone competes for the positions avaiable in free government sponsored schools and regardless of economic background (ideally at least) the brightest, most dedicated students get to go for free (or at least with a significant scholarship). At least for high school and college. Perhaps a good solution would then to be to have a paid program for the remainder of students(paying according to % of household income) after that for those who don't make the cut.

Give a kid fifty dollars they will be grateful hopefully. Get the kid to earn the fifty bucks by working for it mowing yards for a couple of hours they will appreciate it even more. People respond to incentives. Plain and simple. The current education systems incentives don't work.

This methodology would foster an environment of competition not just a free education hand-out. By the way I would say most kids in the U.S. don't even value what education they're handed on a silver platter. Take all the "party animals" that go to colleges for example. Then of course these same students end up with thousands of dollars in debt if they even finish their degree but that is a topic for another thread.

Nope. It's not about religion. Religious schools are some of the worst in this country, and some of the best. Aside from your own opinion you've provided no evidence or cogent argument for why you think religion has anything to do with it.

It's about parents giving a crap. Give the parents a financial incentive for their child's progress and fine them for disciplinary problems. Require them to help out at school 1-2 hours per week as well so they are involved. It works. This is how many private schools operate and many DoD schools as well.

There was another thread about this recently...

Agreed. The lifestyle that used to be possible with a single blue-collar income now requires two white-collar incomes. Why is that? An increase in housing costs that has drastically outpaced inflation? Ditto for education costs and healthcare? A decrease in real wages as "good" jobs are shipped overseas? All of the above? This is obviously a broad topic way beyond the scope of this thread, but suffice it to say, for whatever reason, today's families are pulled in more directions than ever, and the kids' educations are just one casualty.



You might be surprised. While I don't think the specifics of any particular religion really make a difference, I do agree that there is a great deal of value in many of the general moral principles common to virtually all religions. Don't steal. Don't kill. Don't lie. Don't cheat on your wife. Things like that are universally good ideas, and don't require surrendering critical thought to a belief in a magical sky-man constantly watching and judging us.



But doesn't that risk creating a stratified, "class-based" society where the children of rich folks have a competitive advantage (since their parents can afford private tutors, or can get by on one income, freeing one parent to dedicate their time to their kid)? Wouldn't that potentially set up a multi-generational cycle that excludes lower-income children from ever aquiring the means to improve their station in life? The single mom making minimum-wage has neither the time nor the education herself to become heavily involved in her child's studies, so her child is doomed to follow in her footsteps.