Finally a sane view of the whole deal.

Since you don't like doing the big, famous hard games, does that mean you're not doing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out? :(

Real healthcare reform is impossible in this political climate. We're close to civil war era partisanship, and even though both sides hold some good ideas, they have such stubborn views on other issues that the resulting consensus on anything will be minimally effective at best.

Getting into politics begins with a personality that holds strong opinions, craves a certain amount of attention, and believes that they are right and can change things for the better. This type of person is not likely to be objective about everything and in all honesty I'd prefer if a different type of personality in politics. They don't want to be in charge though; they're all introverts.

I think you should do more political commentary, you may disagree with the political system, but that's a fresh perspective that's very interesting to hear. It's up to you, but I enjoyed your analysis (even if I don't totally agree).

I believe the health system does need to be redone, but not like this. I for one, really haven't needed health care for years. I am careful on what I do. I should not be forced into something I do not require as of yet, or cannot afford. I think I should never get punished on such a thing, and making it a fine and arrestable offense is just absurd to me. Just think too, if all those who cannot get health care, go to jail, that will increase what we have to pay, to pay for all those jails and prisons.

You may not LIKE doing political commentary. But you are NOT bad at it.
Be careful you don't do it too much if you really don't like it.

Stephen King was once asked "Why do you always write Horror?"
His response was "What makes you think I have a choice?"

You are good enough and compelling enough at this I could see a point where you have the potential to be answering similarly.

Take it as a compliment, that is how it is intended.

I know it isn't super great coverage but doesn't your state offer Blue Cross/Blue Shield? I myself don't get coverage from work since I am a student and only a part time employee(even if I sometimes do almost full time work) so I went for BC/BS. They took me even though I have a genetically impaired immune system. Though to be fair I haven't had a hospitalization in years. For someone in their 20s and 30s the premiums aren't too bad.

I do like how you can look at this from a pretty politically objective viewpoint and not from where the parties are standing. I wonder what will happen when the folks of our generation become the dominant generation like the Baby Boomers are now. A lot of people our age are getting tired of the bull that the parties are feeding us.

Though your non-partisan viewpoint likely comes from the fact that the issue actually affects you and isn't just political posturing in the from of a premature ego boost.

Here's hoping that some of the stuff your writing includes some awesome crossovers for TGWTG's 2 year anniversary. I would love to see you do something with Spoony!

I'm sorry, but there are problems in your assumptions.

First, you seem to believe that basically all dollars paid in premiums to companies are paid back in form of care so that 30% more payout will result in a direct 30% increase in premiums. Incorrect. The average insurance company pays only around 75-80% of dollars in payouts. So the link isn't direct. If overhead and profits stay the same in absolute terms, then the increase is more like 22-24%, but even less if the company sacrifices profit and overhead, for example cutting publicity costs if the health insurance exchange and the mandate makes publicity less important.

Second, the bill has implemented already a high-risk pool for people expected to get sick, this pool is partly funded by the government, this means that the insurance companies therefore don't have to shoulder every expense of sickness-prone individuals. This only last until 2014, where the mandate kicks in and this is compensated by having more healthy people buying insurances.

Third, I'd like to know why you think that payouts will increase a lot more than the pay-ins of new, healthy, customers who won't make much claims. This doesn't seem like an affirmation that one can make as if it was self-evident, it's a complex matter. I'm not affirming the opposite, but I'm saying it's not a clear-cut situation. The 30+ millions uninsured people aren't all uninsurable people, it's more complicated than that.

Fourth, the biggest mistake of all that you made, you didn't consider the fact that similar systems DO exist and they did not cause anything like what you claim is going to happen. In the US, Massachussetts has a system of mandates and a law forbidding the denial of insurance over pre-existing conditions. Though it hasn't brought the premiums down, it hasn't increased them either, at least not more than in other States. This systems has insured all but 3 to 4% of citizens of Massachussetts. Plus, Switzerland and the Netherlands have similar systems of private insurances, but even more controlling, with the insurances being forbidden to make profits on the basic coverage package dictated by the governments. In both cases, premiums are lower than in the US and so is spending on health care.

Anyway, I know more about this than a Canadian should, I mean American politics are so interesting as in "train-crash-can't-look-away". This issue has been dealt with for decades in basically every other country, though health care reforms are discussed everywhere, people don't generally debate anymore the way their country covers their people.

The most objective analysis by the CBO says that premiums will stay the same for the same policy, but the self-insured will take better coverage because of new subsidies, resulting in 10-15% increase in average premiums. BTW, premiums will be capped at a certain %age of your income, the government will pay the rest. The bill also has added cost-control measures that experts applaud, but their effects are uncertain and have not been considered in every analysis.

The reason that more in-depth reform hasn't been attempted is because of:
A: the influence of corporate money in politics, the insurance industry would just go all out and BUY the votes to block any reform. Why bother with elections when you can just buy the congressmen?
B: look at the anger on the right about this. Now imagine if a NHS would have been proposed. I think bullets would be flying.

You should do NES' Gauntlet UNTIL YOU WIN! That's a HARD one...

The Federal Government will never represent me. Nor will it represent you either. The system is rigged so that we have an oligarchy and the people in charge have no interest letting more parties in. It will never be fixed as long as the political class are the ones in charge.

Americans are morons. Anyone who could seriously argue Sarah Palin would have made a good VP (or President should McCain die) is more retarded than her retard baby. They got 45.66% of the vote. Therefore America is AT LEAST 45.66% retarded.

Obama renewed the Patriot Act but I have yet to hear a peep out of his supporters. NOT A SINGLE WORD. It was a horrible law in Bush's time and it's a horrible law now.

Actually they did do a lot more than just raise costs. They managed to increase the deficite by almost a trillion to do nothing positive, and they managed to increase prison overcrowding by putting even more people in jail, this time for being a citizen of this country and not having enough money.
So yeah, they can enjoy those happy accomplishments too.

Why not play a more enjoyable...game...like....hmmmmm.......

Comix Zone? I mean since not alot of reviewers have talked about it....I've been at that game for over 6 years and still have not been able to beat it....I swear...I love it...it's fun but really hard...or at least for me....I mean I've beat Battletoads and others just as strong and yea I've beat sliver surfer (and that drove me up a wall as well) but this one fucking game.......

Many of Obama supporters did criticize Obama for renewing Bush-era policies. It's just that they don't focus on it because they choose their battles and they want to avoid tearing him down in public too much. "Present a united face to the enemy" and the like. As long as Obama at least tries to deliver the goods on some important issue for them (health care, closing Guantanamo, stimulating the economy, etc...), then they will silence their criticisms in public for pragmatic reasons. But between themselves, they're much more open about what disappoints them with Obama.

To the second Anonymous, the deficit was already above a trillion on Obama's first day, the CBO said it. The stimulus and other Obama policies added hundreds of billions to it, but most economic analysts claim that it did create or save between 600 000 and 2 000 000 jobs. As to putting people in jail, that's an exaggeration. The goal of the mandate isn't to put anyone in jail, but to fine people if they don't buy insurance, in order to use those fines to pay for those requiring more care. The law doesn't criminalize not buying an insurance, it imposes a tax or a fine for it, it's only if people don't pay it that they become criminal, not for not buying insurance, but for not paying their taxes, which is already criminalized.

It's like speeding tickets or parking violations, the goal isn't to jail people, though it may happen if they decide to be extremely uncooperative, but to collect money and incentivize certain attitudes. A lot of people get speeding tickets or parking violations, but those jailed for it are very, very rare. The fine for not getting an insurance is not made for those who can't afford insurance, those will receive subsidies and be covered through Medicaid, it's for the people who have the means to have one but opt not to get one. Say what you want about Democrats, but you can't say that they're typically in the business of jailing the poor or the working poor.

As far as video games to beat goes, I still want to see Batman NES :) The one I remember had lots of wall jumping and stuff and I recall it being pretty hard. Been years and years though........

And a nice note on the health care stuff.... I was reading something earlier that said one of the changes the Republicans were trying to get made was something about denying sex offenders money for erectile dysfunction products such as Viagra and Cialis......

Can I suggest a better change? How about they don't pay it at all? I mentioned it to a lady I know and she told me something about how men can get money for that but women can't get birth control... which also helps with more than just stopping babies during all the sexing... yet....... Why not just don't fund that at all?

We're still fighting over whether we should allow abortion or not allow abortion.... so let's not pay for those things at all. Yeesh.

Oh well. I knew nothing good was coming of all of this and only looked at all the "Yay Obama is going to save the country" stuff with a bitter humor anyway.

I say drop NAFTA and start doing stuff to make the US produce more products instead. Let's try to get something like 40% of the stuff we sell actually made in our country rather than making it a expert level scavenger hunt to find products that say "Made in USA." Playing the stock market and playing with money is not a good way to keep making money........

In other news I've been having fun replaying old Megaman lately!

It only took me two days to beat comix zone myself, but that game is very difficult, i do agree.

Good to see you're doing well Jason. I still think you should play Hagane for the SNES. Its obscure(no one played it) and it makes for a GREAT substitute for Ninja Gaiden =).

you are failing to see one aspect of the problem. not everyone who can pay for health insurance and doesn't need it beyond background levels have it currently. a fair amount of the uninsured in this country are "insurable" but just aren't insured for whatever reason.

that said the simple flaw is that insurance shouldn't be a business. this is one of the places where profit margins=suffering and frankly it's pathetic to think that the free market will aid anyone in it.

What I don't understand is how people can have these opinions without knowing the fundamental issues with health care. Here are some basic facts that people need to understand about the system of health care irrespective of reform.

1. Health care costs are dominated by chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart issues, asthma, and back pain. If you look at the actual people who report to the doctor, almost all of them have one or more of those chronic conditions that make their overall health worse. Diabetes is linked negatively with pretty much every condition there is. Obesity fits right in there as well. It's a well-known fact that Americans are obese, but what isn't as well known is that diabetes is reaching epidemic status. My point here is that the situation isn't as simple as waving a magic wand and fixing the health care system, either by reform or, as Jason said in his video, blowing it up and starting over. There are underlying issues which need to be accounted for and fixed, issues which are directly tied with the behaviors and choices of American people. Health care reform will not last if we don't solve the obesity crisis, curb diabetes rates, and improve the overall health of our country.

2. Medicine as it is currently practiced is an inefficient system. Most people go to their doctor when they are sick. The doctor looks you over, and probably makes an initial diagnosis, prescribes a treatment, and sends you home. Let's say your situation doesn't improve. You go back to the doctor, who might reassess your condition, prescribe a new treatment, and send you home. Your doctor might also realize you need to see a specialist, so they refer you to a specialist. Getting in to see your specialist takes forever because there's only one in your pool of providers. In the meantime, you're living with your condition because your primary care physician doesn't know what's going on and you don't have any treatment options. You go to see your specialist, and they do a bunch of expensive tests, imaging, and other procedures to see what's wrong with you. That's standard practice these days. Ideally, the specialist figures out what's going on, and they can treat it.

Do you see the point here? The health care provider system is broken. The term 'health care reform' is disingenuous because there's more than one aspect of health care which needs to be repaired. This bill is health insurance reform, not reform of how people actually get treated, i.e. health care.

3. People who come to the hospital through the emergency room have to be treated. A huge proportion of hospital costs are attributable to patients who report through the ER. One reason people come to the ER is that they can't get in to see their doctor or a specialist who can treat them. Seeing a pattern here?

I don't claim to know everything about this issue, but I do have plenty of experience working in the industry. I know the issues at play here, and I know that most people debating this topic are pretty ignorant. I myself only know what I know because I took the time to look into the issue. I hope people out there in the general public can learn to do a bit of research and thinking for themselves before perpetuating stereotypes and partisan attacks.

I think we need to move towards single-payer/universal healthcare, or socialized healthcare as the Republicans like to call it. I mean it it worked for the Fire Departments and the Police, they weren't always government run.

I think that you did a good job explaining what will happen with this healthcare bill. Granted, it's a gross over simplification. You failed to factor in how healthcare costs have been sky rocketing already, I think I heard something like a 400% since 1990 but don't quote me on that. The way the bill is structured is in such a way that many of the benefits to the consumer won't kick in until 2014, meanwhile the insurance companies will continue to jack up rates more and more. Add in the fact that people will be required to buy in (though I think there are only hefty tax penalties if you opt out, no jail time) and the public outcry against this bill will be enormous. It will be seen as a failure after the first few years and it'll probably be repealed before Obama's run for re-election. Granted, it's a rather pessimistic view of the whole bill but the Democrats have really put themselves in a tight spot here. They put in over 200 Republican amendments, dumped the public option and/or Medicare buy in, in the end the bill was weakened immensely. It's basically just a blank check to the insurance companies, and while it's nice that they can't dump you for a pre-existing condition anymore, the point is moot if no one can afford the fucking thing. It's politically disastrous to say the least.

On top of that, consider the consequences of not buying this faulty, over priced product. You get punished with a tax. That gives this bill the distinction of being an almost direct corporate tax. In a truly capitalist society, we vote with our dollar but we're no longer given that option. We're forced to buy into private healthcare insurance by the government or we're penalized. Yeah, that's so fucking free market it makes my eyes bleed. For those of you who don't get it, I'm being fucking sarcastic.

Granted, I'm a single payer nut. I thought the public option was too much of a compromise but I was willing to accept it. Introducing a public option would after all be real reform. But what's more disappointing to me than the bill itself is how we as a country have conducted ourselves. One the one hand we've got people like Glenn Beck saying the sky is falling, and we've got Sarah Palin talking about death panels. All of it lies, and yet they worked a small group of "Teabaggers" who rather quaintly left bags of tea on the white house lawn, protesting congress with misspelled signs and old ladies with oxygen tanks telling the government to take their hands off their medicate. Less than a year later they successfully worked that same group of people into a seething angry racist mob, bursting at the seems with hostility. The irony and comedy replaced with hate speech and death threats. The spin doctors at Fox News successfully spun a well-right-of-center bill as being a socialist take over.

But you know what's worse than the conservative response? The liberal response. My beloved liberals have turned into a bunch of ditto heads. We sat on the side lines during the long months of debates and meekly defended the bill against conservative propaganda. As the bill went from single payer to public option to none of the above and gradually more right wing we said nothing. When they hit us we just turned the other cheek. Then, when the bill does pass we proclaim a job well done and loudly defend the bill that not a week before most of us were criticizing. We rush to our precious Obama and defend him and call him our savior, despite the fact that since he's been in office he's listened to liberals less and conservatives more and more. It's pathetic and it's disgusting and it makes me embarrassed to consider myself a liberal.

ffffuuuuuuuuuuu, keeping clear of THIS one...

It seems to me the biggest issue is that of social freedom. The government doesn't force people to do anything right now. Except jury duty, which is short term and for which you're reimbursed, and public schooling, for which there's a public option.

You have to pay taxes, but you're not legally required to hold down a job or own property, so the government isn't forcing you to pay taxes. It's only a legal requirement if you do basically optional things. (Yeah, you need a job, but not having one isn't a crime.) You aren't required to report to unemployment as soon as you're jobless.

In New York, you have to by car insurance if you drive, but you're not legally required to purchase a car, so you're not forced into buying car insurance. You can choose.

Now, the government is forcing you to participate in a private system that tracks you regularly and demanding that you stay in the system. It's freakin' Orwellian, to say the least.

Some awesome points..... Pretty damn good at the political commentary there Lordkat.

@valar84: Using Mass. as an example in favor of the bill is probably a bad idea, it's nightmarish over there.

I'm starting to think that your attitude, as well as mine, is starting that comes from being New Yorkers. There's a lot more cynical of an attitude in NY towards both compan... political parties.

Democrats are often seen as know it all's who can't get anything done - they fall apart when someone asks them what they think on a subject since they all think they know what's best. Republicans are seen as gun nuts, conservative / religious nutjobs (ie. Fox news) or people with too much money who want to tell those with less money what needs to be done to make the country a better place. It tends to leave a lot of New Yorkers falling into places between religious parties especially if they're religious themselves.

But I'm also of the mindset that the health care industry just needs to be obliviated entirely and started over. Health care shouldn't be part of the private sector, it should be government run at all times. Health insurance companies have screwed over people with terminal illnesses, be they things like obesity, cancer, AIDs or Diabetes, for a number of years. I have family that was screwed over by the health insurance companies, dropped from coverage under some obscure reasoning and then their condition just got worse and worse. Now they're sucking on the government teat when they were once more than capable of working - nice job breaking it guys.

Add onto that the fact that the medical sector has become so over inflated on costs (ie. several thousand dollars for specialized examinations that take all of 10 minutes) and the whole system is just broken to pieces already. It just needs to be reset at this point. I'm actually almost convinced that this is what Democrats are working towards at this point.

Things would have likely gone over a lot better if the Republicans had actually been interested in working together instead of starting up the propoganda machine. I honestly think they could have reigned in a bit of the Democrat stupidity, put in some stuff in there that could have actually helped the system out a bit and generally made this actually work. But we know how that goes these days.

Also one last point - the government doesn't care about you. At all. They don't care anymore about the people working for themselves or running small businesses. They write laws with companies in mind, not guys like us. It's the way things are now.

This bill wont pass due to the simple fact that there will be lawsuit after lawsuit about its obvious illegal connotations.

Buy Nikes or you go to jail/get fined....

No offence but Americans seem to be absolutely enthralled by the mass media especially since 9/11 who have constantly lied about everything. Like here in the US fundamentally there is no major difference between the major political parties. Did anyone really think anything would change depending which party who would win?

Americans don’t seem to mind the fact that the US government whatever the administration is has a number of Israeli firsters or dual citizens especially in the Bush administration with the Trotskyite Neocon’s and this Obama administration and the ownership of the mass media and the major political think tanks setting US foreign and domestic policy like AEI or citizens here in the UK finance political parties in the US like George Soros and Lord Jacob Rothschild who controls a large percentage of the media in Europe who held a fundraising event for McCain which I believe is against the FARA act and the constitution. I could be wrong on that though.

I don’t know if it is hard or not but how about an Until We Win of Mr Mosquito on the PS2 if you can get a copy that is?

I'll still go on suggesting Holy Diver for the Famicom. It's not 'too' obscure.. but it's still obscure enough that the majority don't know about it.

Also, nice to see someone else other than me admit that their own political views don't mesh well with the current state of the country they live in. I hate all of the political parties, and especially their unwillingness to work together on things. Instead, they push something out there.. and when it wins, it gets treated like a 'victory'. Then again, it might just be the news getting it to seem that way.. but let's not get into the media and how they screw everything up in different ways.

P.S. Killswitch Engage sucks, by the way.. talk about raping a classic metal song.

Americans talking about the healthcare are always funny. When I started working in US I was very surprised my health insurance premium was pretty much what I paid for healthcare back in italy (through taxes) AND I still had to pay a lot of stuff out of my pocket, AND I had to deal with all the insurance bullshit AND if I ever needed my insurance for real the insurance company would find any excuse to drop me.

I agree that the basic problem with this bill is that it doesn't do very much to lower health care costs. I never understood why the insurance companies would lower premiums just because they got more payers when they could just charge everyone the same and make a bigger profit. Unless someone tells them they can't, why not make more money?
On another, but IMPORTANT, note:
You are not trying hard enough to find catastrophic health coverage. What happened to Sean Fausz is tragic, but also an eye-opener. I am about your age (I think? 25-30?) living in California and I have a _very_ basic catastrophic coverage plan through Anthem Blue Cross for $102 a month. Yes, Anthem is a big insurance company that recently got press for attempting to raise rates 39% just because they could (idiots), and my rates jumped from $70 to $102 a while ago, but $102 a month is manageable. $1,200 a month would be impossible, but unless you have a "preexisting condition," or you are much older than I thought, or you are supporting a family, you should not be paying that much a month for catastrophic insurance. If that is what you were quoted, there is either something very wrong with the premiums in the state you are living in, or your insurance agent is a complete dick. For your sake, you might want to try finding coverage again.
I hope I didn't just post 5 of these in a row...

single payer plz

One thing's for sure; if I were a doctor in the US, I'd have lots of trouble sleeping at night. Imagine turning sick people away because they didn't have health insurance? Imagine deliberately prescribing someone weaker medication because their insurance policy told you to do so? Imagine spending 7+ years of your life, studying medical procedures, only to ask every patient if they had health insurance?

Now that I think about it, EVERYBODY has lost sleep over it. Even the president of the United States has lost sleep over it! What a mess.

Nice..
But I must say that I don't agree with what you think is a "pre existing conditions". You made it sound like it's a absolut death..
It is true that these people have a condition that is incurable and probably something that must be checked and rechecked and/or have medicin for a long time..
I should know as I have one..
I have something that is called colitis ulcerosa. If you check that out you'll notice that it is a incurable disease, but also that it is a disease that doesn't effect your quality of life and can be kept aside with the correct medication. So for people like me, it doesn't really mean that they are on the verge of dying (or getting sick) all the time. It only means that the people have had earlier a disease that modern medical care has not found a way to cure yet..
(And certainly a punch of people that don't have AIDS or any type of cancer.)

But I don't live in the USA and I have not really kept any interest on this Health Care Reform conversation so I don't actually know much of it.
This is the health care system that I am under:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Finland

First of all... SEAN HAD HEART ATTACK, or was that just some sort of a fat bun that I missed!?!? I mean if its true then damn, quite a young to have one.

On the health care reform, im with the previous poster ( Im also from Finland... )

And last, take your time with your vids and stuff. Dont make getting vids out obligation or its going to eat away the fun of making em and thats going to show for sure in the long run. I for one prefer quality over quantity. Keep up the good work ^^ !!

I had to shut the video off at about the half-way point because I couldn't care less about a political dissertation from a gaming dude. Sorry to be so blunt but really, politics and religion are minefields you should stay away from unless that is your chosen battleground or you are in it for the lulz. Open political discourse - especially in the US - has nothing to do with facts, it's just another pointless flame war about personal believes. Universal health care is far from an utopian vision seeing most countries in the western world already have it but listen to some pundits and it's either the best thing since Jesus or the de facto establishment of fascism in the US. So who's right? Who gives a shit.

"Guys like me, we're fucked!" & "I'll keep paying the fine till they put me in cuffs, for having a heart atack." Made me laugh man, but so true for us self employed.

Due to technical errors that I can't seem to fix at this time I have not watched the video and have not heard your specific comments on the health care matter within it. The following is in response ONLY to the text below the video regarding your information on how things work in the healthcare industry. Your entry contains two serious mistakes.

1: You're assuming that everyone with a pre-existing condition will be requiring multiple payouts over an extended period of time. Quite the contrary, MOST people who are rejected for health coverage due to pre-existing conditions are either not going to require any sort of payout whatsoever(more on that later) or would only need a few payouts over a brief period before their condition was fixed. Their continued patronage in paying for further coverage from that company would eventually offset that initial expense. Most people who are rejected for pre-existing conditions aren't cancer-sufferers or anything, they're usually people who have developed some kind of debilitating condition that can be fixed by a few months of prescription drugs or a one-time surgical procedure.

2: You're assuming everyone who would sign on with a pre-existing condition would immediately be asking for payouts. Again, quite the contrary, most people don't ask for a health insurance payout unless they absolutely canNOT cover something on their own. Most people with pre-existing conditions that have managed to soldier on with coverage-free treatment will sign up for some coverage and simply not use it unless their financial situation degrades to the point where they can't pay out-of-pocket anymore. The thing is, when you have to get an insurance payout, your premiums usually go up as a result. So people generally try to save making claims for when it's absolutely necessary, hoping their premium stays low so they can cash in during an emergency that results in a genuine need for it.

The above was found to be the case when the state of Massachusetts instituted THIS EXACT SAME TYPE OF HEALTH CARE SYSTEM(which was backed by Republicans - a fact that should say a lot about the REAL reasons they've opposed the reform), and premiums did not change whatsoever for the majority of people(some reported a decrease in their premiums, but not enough to say it was the result of the new system - it was likely just coincidence).

The only irresponsibility on the government's part was not making sure the fixes they're trying to bring in now were in the bill to begin with. One of the proposed fixes to ensure that premiums don't go up is to tweak the "pre-existing condition" matter to allow companies to continue to deny people with pre-existing conditions that were already discovered at the time an application was submitted - with well over 60% of current pre-existing condition rejections being the result of something found during a required screening as part of the application, and a disturbing number of policies being dropped at a latter date when a condition was found that had existed prior to the policy being issued but was missed before it's signing, it's easy to see how this remains rather fair to the majority of patients while giving the insurance companies SOMETHING to smile about in the reform.

But even then, reducing premiums was not the point of this bill(though effort has been made to ensure said premiums do not INcrease), but simply to get coverage to the millions who are unfairly denied coverage on a daily basis.

You see, pre-existing conditions should only affect things if you're trying to apply for a type of coverage that might make the insurance company have to pay out for it. My friend Izzy has asthma. He can't get any type of coverage whatsoever because of it. The only way an insurance company would have to pay out is if he got prescription drug coverage to pay for his medication. But he never applies for that - he only applies for catastrophic injury coverage. Why should he be rejected for it?

I have Asperger's Syndrome(and if you feel sorry for me over that, stop. It's not a big deal). Anybody who knows anything about Asperger's knows that I'm no higher risk of causing injury to myself or anyone than any "normal" person is, yet I'm consistently rejected for coverage due to being "high-risk." How is that fair?

So, to summarize: This type of health care system has already been proven to work without raising insurance premiums, and due to that there's really no valid reason to oppose it. It works as well as it does because the cases of unjustified rejection of cases where insurance companies won't have to pay out any more than with the people they currently cover far outweigh the cases where they'll have to be paying out constantly for years to come. Politicians and insurance companies opposed to the reform have taken great pains to keep this information out of the public eye.

With the above all considered, as far as I'm concerned there is no justifiable reason for stripping me, and others in my position, of our right to health coverage.

Here's something most people won't consider. My wife is a nurse at a private hospital for spine & joint care. A lot of people come in for elective surgeries to relieve pain (as opposed to drugs or just suffering thru it - and when you're elderly, those aren't good options). The hospital planned on expanding. However, now that there is a reduced payment for elective surgeries, the doctors won't be paid as much. If the doctors aren't paid as much, they can't afford to expand as quickly. This could also lead to nurses, like my wife, being paid less. That forces her to either put up with it to keep her job that she likes, or look for a job she may not.

Say what you want about doctors being paid too much, but nurses earn every penny they're paid. Not only do they provide care for the patients, but they have to deal with all the BS from them, their families and the doctors. So I can say from another perspective that this isn't the best way to go. I think it's being pushed out too quickly. Change should happen, but slowly, so we can evaluate what the best course of action is without having the pressure of some imaginary deadline.

Good idea, poor execution.

-----------------------------------------

I would like to refer everyone to

www.howtopostacomment101.com

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ffs..

Love the healthcare reform stuff. You *should* be a political commentator; you did a really great job with this video, at least. Kudos on you also for having the balls to come out with a strong opinion, knowing that you'd get a lot of shit for it and possibly alienate some people. Most entertainers would just never address it. I respect that you took the high road.

Review Conquest Of Crystal Palace! Please?

Shrtst Cmmnt

Totally agree with you!!

Poor and sick people shouldnt be insured. #2 mill leeches. They`re dying or not producing anything anyway. So instead of insuring them for the sake of ( less pain? = whining fags ) what?!, they should help them to die more fast. You should only have to care for yourself instead of other like them dirty socialist countries!

All I can say is thank our founders for having the foresight to add the 10th amendment.

Once this gets to the courts, this bill doesn't have a leg to stand on, as the barriers between states, in repsect to health care buying, still exist.

That and, we could send people to congress with the nads to de-fund the whole thing. *hinthint*

The court challenge is what doesn't have a leg to stand on. "The federal government has never before required anyone to purchase anything"(slightly paraphrased) is their basis for challenge.

Two words: AUTO INSURANCE. Sure, you only have to buy it(or purchase a special type of coverage bond in it's place) if you want to own and drive a car, but it's still a federally required purchase if you want to do so.

They're taking this angle because the tenth amendment argument doesn't fly - the tenth amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."(exact wording used) The constitution grants the federal government the right to intervene for the sake of the well-being of US citizens in matters where the state has not provided sufficient effort. The health care reform EASILY falls under that allowance.

The simple truth is there is no valid reason to oppose the health care reform outside being an asshole(I have yet to be given a reason to oppose health care reform that made any sense out of an asshole context). The court challenge will fail unless the judges involved are unfairly biased.

I used to like the Republican party until they started paying attention to a movement that barely exists(but is very loud) and which is motivated more by racism than any genuine opposition to a political issue.

nice one formulafox.! that just about says it all.

Nice commentary.

One of the big problems with health care is that there is little to no relationship between the cost of the service and the person paying the bill. OK, this, that and the other thing is covered by insurance. Well, then it doesn't matter what it costs because insurance will pay the bill. The insurance industry, then, becomes a market-distorting force.

Then you get a pseudo-market where insurance companies haggle with medical providers, rather than a true market where people shop for health care and find a product they want for the price they want. At some point, we're going to have to way to get market forces involved in health care.