How Does Republican Platform Help Middle Class?

Because in a new government health care system, there are no unchangeable, set-in-concrete guidelines that the government has to follow. It will decide in it’s own best interests, and it will change its mind and flip flop its decisions all it wants, just like other government agencies like the IRS, EPA, and FMCSA, to name only a few. Yes. I think many people, often younger people in the U.S. without health insurance, do tend to think twice before doing something physically risky. It’s a personal responsibility thing, a self reliance thing. I think it’s a problem because chances are excellent that the government will feel entitled to make the decision on what to do with it. The problem is, the insurance industry isn’t 100% free markets anymore, not since government requires some types of insurance, or since some corruption is involved in the insurance business today. For example, insurance rates skyrocketed in the few years after 9-11-2001, for the trucking industry, and others I’m sure. The insurance companies were forcefully making up for their losses. Which, like social security, are heading towards the cliff of financial disaster. So the slippery slope is VERY real? Dr. Adequate calls it a fallacy. Do you disagree with him on that?

With social security, medicare, Medicaid, often free emergency room service, not so well these days. It worked out better in past generations, before these programs existed. Yes, because the U.S. is currently saddled with governmental burdens that other nations don’t even think about. Its multi-billion dollar legal system is one, and its obsession with a worship of the environment is another. As one example, Donald Trump (one of the few political wannabe’s who knows something about building) has been recently pointing out the differences in U.S. vs China’s abilities to build. China makes decisions overnight, the U.S. often has to wait years, or decades, for self-serving environmentalists to do their work.

Yes, but as I’m sure you know, private company pay in the U.S. isn’t as costly as government employee pay/benefits. The government likes money. You’ve never noticed the government making extra effort to grab money from somebody? The U.S. government is in far more financial trouble than any private company. Any private company as financially inept as the U.S. government would long be out of business by now. But it’s still in existence, and it really needs money. Collectively bargain? With the federal government? I own a heavy truck, I’m afraid the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) never asks my opinion on anything. The government knows that most people aren’t sick at any given time, and that most people aren’t going to be interested in what decisions the government is making about their healthcare. It’s that thing called the slippery slope, just like you described with the next step would be decreasing costs at hospitals, meaning hospital administrators receiving more commands from government. The next step seems to about always be more government commands. If you and the Democrats want to change America from its basic foundations of the 1700’s, I’d suggest you repeal and replace the Constitution, not pretend that you’re following it. People still have two arms and two legs just like the 1700’s, they still have problems, the world still had tyrants, on and on. Human desires and abilities don’t really change over the centuries. No, I never said we shouldn’t try. We should make more effort to keep them in check, to not trust them too far. U.S. foundations are largely about not trusting government. Of course that’s true, but my beliefs in why that is differ from yours. The prescription drug promotion and sales process is obscene in the U.S. today, and it was practically non-existent only a few decades ago. I blame corruption and current government involvement, you blame free markets. That’s where we are. My earlier post addressed that. Free, responsible people should be capable of providing themselves with routine living expenses, including an insurance process for their personal health. According to the constitution, it’s the U.S. governments job to post roads, because that involves a public unification that goes beyond one’s own personal affairs. At least as many, if not more, than could 100 years ago. Not today’s high tech medicine, but at least as much pain relief and comfort. One of the main problems with this whole controversy is that much of today’s high tech medicine was often developed by the rich, for the rich. Today’s entitlement mentality has too many people thinking that just because something exists somewhere, they’re automatically entitled to it. It’s not reality in a free society, and never has been.Government healthcare isn’t going to solve everyone’s health problems. All the government promise and implication of a paradise on earth if they’re granted enough power and control over common peoples lives is an illusion.

It’s the liberty theory, that the government isn’t going to be able to provide a paradise on earth no matter how much power and control over our lives we allow them to have.I'm fascinated by how so many people think the government will cure all problems if they're just given enough power, no matter how many times history shows how it ends in disaster. I cry for those that the insurance companies will target, to make up for their losses, just like after 9-11-2001. And the government will be better? The government won’t worry about preventing people from getting health care? They’ll gladly toss around the money required to make us all healthy? They’ll never dispute and deny? Do you ever actually deal with the government? In some ways, yes. The multi-billion dollar legal industry is behind a lot of it. My (and others) past experiences with other government agencies like the IRS, EPA, and FMCSA. It goes along perfectly with the descriptions and warnings of big government that are contained in U.S. foundings.

I think you'd find that a lot of Republicans favor state run programs. States have much more incentive to get things like this right, because there's a sort of "competition" with other states. The federal government has no such competition. The U.S. founders knew this too - they were much more restrictive on federal powers than they were on state powers. I understand what it is. I just don't agree with those who say;

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each of those contingencies needs to be factually established before the relevant conclusion can be drawn.

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Why is that? If there is a suspicion that one loss of liberty can lead to another loss of liberty, the removal of the first liberty needs to be decided with that possibility in mind. It's happened too many times in the past. Remember "no smoking on airline flights of two hours or less"? Many people then suspected that it would lead to no smoking on all airline flights, but they probably couldn't forsee it leading to bans in all public places in entire cities. The slippery slope is very slippery.

Government bureaucracies go far beyond laws passed by congress to carry out their mission. As only one example, the EPA sets its pollution standards according to its own ‘expertise;, and levels fines and orders changes in manufacturing standards (or any traditional behavior) to see that its own standards are met. Any new government agency in charge of health care will make many decisions about how health care is administered that have nothing to do with laws. And I answered it EXACTLY. I said yes, and I explained that uninsured people do have good reason to be more careful in some instances, so a comparable-in-every-way insured person could very well be more reckless. In a free society, it should be up to an individual. It’s not prudent in every situation for every person for every type of insurance. Example, I live at a very high elevation, 600 miles or so from the ocean. I don’t think it would be prudent for me to spend my money on flood insurance. Not get rid of them, just un-do the problems that have crept into them over the last 50 or 60 years. Free markets can control the growth of health service expenditures. But the markets aren’t free when the government is commanding insurance companies to pay for certain things, like power chairs, prescription drugs, and other things that insurance companies weren’t required to pay for only a few decades ago. It’s the common problem, failed big government always results in cries for more big government to fix it. That mechanism is, when no one, or not enough people, are buying the service! If few people are interested in paying to have a baboon heart transplanted into them, those in the medical community who are doing research on how to do that will have to find something else to do to make a living. Something people are willing to pay for.

I get it from all these claims that people still get sick, can’t afford health care, get left out in the free market system, and therefore we need the government to take over. If the government can’t perfectly fix these problems, why make changes/give them control of the situation, in a country that really does have good cancer survival rates, and a higher-than-normal amount of technical medical equipment? Not YET. In the 1960’s, it would have been equally laughable for anyone to be asking for free medical care. Rather than try to argue with Hamiltion, it makes much more sense to take note of what prominent founders actually had to say on the subject.

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Jefferson; "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

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Madison; "With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

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Today’s Democrat party obviously takes them in a literal and unlimited sense. Intent of the framers doesn’t concern today’s Democrat party, and the historically illiterate people who vote for them. Those should be state issues. The modernization of society shouldn't change the basics in how new issues should be handled. No one? Have you ever heard a teenage girl in a shrill voice demand that her birth control pills be paid for by her HMO? I have. So you think there’s no chance that any type of cosmetic surgery will ever be publicly paid for in a government run health care system? They’re the same as any other business, they provide a product/service that their customers are willing to pay for. If they don’t honor their commitments, they don’t stay in business very long. Current economic freedom that insurance companies have works. By about 2004/2005, prices started falling again. A thing called competition (free markets) caused that to happen. And the post office consistently loses money, and requires additional public funding. If two or three companies were competing with each other for the mail transporting business, I’d bet a letter could be sent for still less than 50 cents, with no additional funding required. A lot of interstate mail transportation is currently done by private companies. It’s done that way because it’s cheaper, and more efficient. They’re answerable to the people they sell their products to — they have to compete with others for those peoples’ business. The government doesn’t have to worry about losing business to competition. Probably because they don’t have ambulance chasing lawyers loading up their air waves with advertising. I remember when it was illegal for them to do it in the U.S. Yes, sometimes government can be good! Insurance companies do actually make out better when they’re sued more, because it frightens more people into buying their insurance. But it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the legal system that allows law firms to do it. During the Clinton administration, the EPA looked at the crystal clear blue skies over the Cincinnati area, and told us our air was actually very filthy, and commanded me and everyone else to line up like sheep and pay to have our vehicles tested in order to get our license registrations renewed. Never mind what the fourth amendment says about all encompassing searches. Anyone who thinks the government is the only thing that can prevent a complete environmental meltdown has no belief whatsoever in U.S. foundings, or the concept of personal liberty.

Thanks. But fresh? Fresh for what, EvC forums, or the scientific community? My style of conservatism/tradition isn’t all that fresh in many places, it’s pretty common. I suspect that the scientific community is largely in favor of government health care. Much more so than the general population. Why? — because it gets them closer to be able to play god. I don’t think it’s important for anyone (who's not somehow involved in political party operations) to identify with a political party, as if that party dictates how they think. My opinions are based on what I know about U.S. and world history, how it shows past human reaction to certain situations. I look at U.S. foundings, quotes of its founders like Madison, and see how they square with the realities of current events, and history. Madison wasn’t necessarily a Republican, but of course he was nothing like today’s Democrats. I don’t know, so far admin has let us play all we want in this thread [furiously knocking on wood] - I hope it stays that way.

If a communist government does something (does not do something) that the U.S. did/did not do 50 years ago, I'm not going to condemn them for it. It's almost like they learned something from the U.S, back when the U.S. was more of a free country.

State Republicans, or federal? Chances are I'd disagree with them, but I'd have to see the details of the debate. That's how I would form my opinion, not only by a blind support of Republicans.

Some and such? If Republicans are helping prevent the EPA/Democrats from labeling much of the middle classes transportation tin cans and prohibiting them from using them, then we have an example of Republicans doing something for the middle class! You’re the one demanding perfection from free markets, not me. I only want the best that free markets can provide. NOOOOO!! Suzy has the Verizon phone, Johnny doesn’t have a chance!! Because the EPA sets them higher than what is reasonable, to justify its own existence.

The freedom to poison people — the founders entrusted future generations to know that everything has costs, that issues like this are seldom black and white. Air can’t be divided into two catagories, clean and dirty. There are variable amounts of impurities in air, varying amounts of which can be removed at varying costs. Science is becoming capable of detecting ever more minute traces of impurities with ever more insignificant consequences. The EPA shouldn’t have the freedom to declare any air they want as dirty, just so they can level fines and make a profit from it.

True. And so many people who want to change things for the better end up changing them for the worse, and find out too late that they can’t change them back. Ever seen this little paragraph? It's attributable to one Alexander Fraser Tylter (from hundreds of years ago) though that's debatable. What's not debatable is the thought that it can inspire.

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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.

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I wonder which of those stages majority of posters in this thread thinks the U.S. is in right now? From apathy to dependency would probably be my choice. I would agree, except I'm afraid the time is gone when they're able to keep it in check well enough. I don’t think it’s urban/rural, the political mix between those two is far too evenly split/unpredictable. I think it’s more religious/non religious. I’ve seen a few genuinely conservative atheists, and liberal Christians. But they’re both clearly the exception rather than the rule. The clear major split in U.S. politics is between traditional Judeo-Christian values vs evolution/atheism. Wouldn't that explain the heavy Democrat leaning we're seeing at this scientific forum? The U.S. Constitution is very brief, and very basic. I’ve never seen anyone make a convincing case that a government has to be more involved in individual’s lives just because they have more technology and modern conveniences. Keep addressing? A narrow focus on health care has only been marginally on topic. But parents rights in raising children that was discussed a good bit back in pages 15, 16, several others, had nothing at all to do with it. I’ve been wondering if the coffee house is exempted from on-topic rules. But I don’t really care. (and now I may be in trouble) It’s nice that there have been no more terrorist attacks on anywhere near the scale of 9/11/01, and I think Republican policies on foreign affairs has had a lot more to do with that than Democrat ones, but I can’t enthusiastically come up with anything else right now - the middle class being helped just isn’t something that’s a big focus of my type of worldview. I like to think of a middle class being able to live their lives without help. 60 years ago, a Democrat said ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. I don’t think there are many Democrat voters alive today who have given that profound statement much thought.

Dr A is a European, it’s not surprising that Democrats sometimes need Europeans to help them make U.S. foundings compatible with today’s Democrat policies. Didn’t Jon really do it more simply for you, with far fewer words? Dr Adequate made no objection, do you suppose he agrees with that?

MESSAGE 386 Did not have a single collective intent, and you’re going to school me in American History?In ALL cases, including this particular one, their single collective intent was to ensure that the federal government they were establishing would not threaten the principles they fought for during the revolutionary war. They did not want their government to ever become like the government they were freeing themselves from._______________________MESSAGE 369 No. It would have to be borrowed money, the federal government has no money. It is actually trillions of dollars in debt. No. It clearly violates what’s stated in
federalist paper #45 It’s a somewhat long read, but it has one paragraph that summarizes it pretty well.

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The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

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"DEFINED", "EXTERNAL", despite what your European expert on American history tells you.____________________________MESSAGE 388 Here, read about mission creep. You can claim that it doesn’t matter, that bureaucrats like Browner are caring people, but you can’t claim that actions like hers don’t take place. And what are you here for? To be a member of a shout-down gang? If you get confused by answers that go into an explanatory mode, that require comparisons and use parallels to the questions, I can't help you. You'd have to check with Jar on that Message 145 I'm an independent myself. __________________________--MESSAGE 395 Currently, prison inmates have full access to it. There is a convicted rapist named Kenneth Pike (recently in the news) who is about to get an $800,000 heart transplant operation, paid for by taxpayers. It goes back to what I said in an earlier message about the mere existence of costly medical technologies being demanded by everyone, not just those who they were developed by and for. You blame free markets for health care problems in the U.S. , and I blame current government involvement with health care problems in the U.S. That’s where we are, and I have little more to say about the health care issue. Why not try to learn something about U.S. foundings on your own, and not rely on a European who does nothing but c/p far left political talking points off the internet? Use some common sense, if the founders intended the government, along with 51% of the population, to be able to do absolutely anything it wanted to do/ grow as big as it wants, why did they go to the trouble to write a constitution and bill of rights? Why even have them? Did you know that Alexander Hamiltion said this:

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"We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship."

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Extremes of democracy, do you suppose he knew something about the paragraph attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, that I showed in message 383? You never bothered addressing that, here it is again in case you missed it;

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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.

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Where are we today? I’d like to say we’re only at the from abundance to selfishness point, but considering we’re trillions in debt, continue to borrow millions each day, and continue to give prison inmates heart transplants while allowing the EPA to continue to impose costly new regulations, I’d say it’s much later than that. Madison, in Federalist #45. It is largely undisputed by any historian that Madison was the "father" of the constitution, that is, he had more to do with it than any other founder. More than Hamilton, and Jefferson. Uh, Minnesota care has been discussed in this thread, your Message 380 even had that reference in its title. No I don’t. The air was basically the same 5 years before the programs started, stayed the same during the program, and is now the same 6 years after it ended. The only thing that really changed was the millions of dollars earned in my area that went to a California testing company. But the EPA got plenty of information, like how the public reacted to it, how many miles different age cars are driven (they were recording mileages, just what that had to do with making a car run cleaner is uncertain) and public reaction (how many car engines were destroyed by test officials, how many claims were filed, etc.) First class testing stations, funded by taxpayers, are sitting empty today. Who knows what the plans are for them. They have 14’ high clearances, yet they were built only for testing cars and light trucks. Either they prepared for hiring some very tall employees, or they had the biggest diesel trucks in mind for future tests. I’m sure we’ll find out soon. No, it was about power and money. (mission creep) I’m sure the California testing company was very appreciative to the EPA, probably funded a few get-togethers. That would be the time to do it, yes. When there is a common sense need for it. Why is it that big government advocates think there is no going back when something is dirty? Cleanliness can be achieved after something is dirty. What there is almost never any going back from is big government bureaucracy. Sure, their useless emission test program was eliminated in my area, but they gathered information about how it went, and it will be back. They weren’t accountable in any way for its failure. Private companies PAY for failures like that, often with dissolution.