Originally posted by Elara

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As for the quip about China... okay, what about the UK? They have a military on par with our own... they spend about $60 billion a year.

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Originally posted by Spartan

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Shafting me is when I'm doing my EOD training and cause some jackass liberal decided to cut our budget we can't have an adequate training facility and due to that when I AM deployed (my job pretty much guarantees I'm going to Iraq or Afghan) I wasnt able to be instructed to the best of the abilities due to lack of a budget some soldier ends up missing a leg or an arm because "We cut the military budget cause our school system can't spend its money effectively"

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Originally posted by Elara

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And notice that you're complaints are about inadequate training... which is education. Doesn't matter what field you are in, it's the same problem that I have.

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Originally posted by Elara

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Better than education, how about universal health care? We could have that.

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Originally posted by Vulkar

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So, need a heart transplant immediately? You can afford it? Too bad! We're going to make you wait until WE think you should go, even though this one guy ahead of you has been using drugs, drinking a ton of alchohol, and probably won't survive that long with a new heart anyway.

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Originally posted by Cairoi

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The United Food and Commercial Workers organization says we spend about $6,400 on health care, and a significant portion of this comes from research.

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Originally posted by Rakluv

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That costed $20,000 alone.

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Originally posted by Wikipedia

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On February 5, 2007, Edwards unveiled his plan for universal health care. The plan subsidizes health insurance purchases for poorer Americans, requires that all Americans purchase health care [18], "requires that everybody get preventive care," [19] and requires employers to offer health insurance through the Medicare system as one option for their workers. Since Medicare has lower administrative costs ? under 4%, versus 20% or more for many HMOs[20] ? Edwards believes that individuals will be able to save on health care by using the public option. While it is not a single-payer plan, the plan states that "over time, the system may evolve toward a single-payer approach if individuals and businesses prefer the public plan." and make Medicare the de facto national health program.

Edwards said "The bottom line is we're asking everybody to share in the responsibility of making health care work in this country. Employers, those who are in the medical insurance business, employees, the American people ? everyone will have to contribute in order to make this work."[21] The plan includes methods for cutting costs in the health care system and creation of revenue sources.[22]

[edit] Cost Containment

There are six ways in which Edwards proposes to reduce costs in the health care system.

1. Help doctors deliver the best care by researching improvements in health care delivery and disseminating best-practices information.
2. Invest in preventive care. Require citizens to obtain preventative care; reward citizens who meet "healthy living" standards.
3. Allow patients to review a hospital's or doctor's performance.
4. Work for environmental and health justice by reducing pollution, especially in low-income/minority neighborhoods and support translation services.
5. Improve productivity with information technology.
6. Protect patients against dangerous medicines by strengthening the FDA and restricting advertising of drugs.

[edit] Revenue sources

The total public cost of the plan would be $90?$120 billion per year, paid for by eliminating the 2001 tax cuts for individuals earning more than $200,000 per year.[23] Employers would be required to either cover their employees or to pay a payroll tax that will be used to partially fund regional health insurance pools (called "Health Markets") that are overseen by the federal government. Individuals who are not covered by their employers or by an expanded Medicaid program (covering individuals and families with incomes up to 250% of the poverty level) or Medicare will be required to purchase insurance from these Health Markets. Insurance companies must compete to win the right to be one of the providers in these Health Markets and must provide full comprehensive care (including mental health parity). In addition, one of the insurance plans will be directly provided by the federal government (similar to, but separate from Medicare). If a majority of individuals choose to purchase their insurance from the government plan, Edwards has stated that this could eventually lead to a single-payer health care system. In addition, there will also be a broad subsidy for those individuals who have to purchase insurance on their own. The subsidy is given on a sliding scale to individuals and families making up to roughly $100,000 per year (this is a significantly larger subsidy than is provided in the Massachusetts health care plan, another mandated insurance program).

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Originally posted by Rakluv

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Second off, we all hear about how Canada has this, and how great Canada is with its health, Canada is super-awesome, right? Wrong. With a bit of research, you can easily learn that getting an operation in Canada can take a HUGE amount of time. So, need a heart transplant immediately? You can afford it? Too bad! We're going to make you wait until WE think you should go, even though this one guy ahead of you has been using drugs, drinking a ton of alchohol, and probably won't survive that long with a new heart anyway.

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Originally posted by Elara

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And what about those people who are really bright, and would excel in their preferred field, but they can't afford to pay for tuition and books? Not everyone can get a full ride scholarship or qualify for financial aid.

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Originally posted by Rakluv

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If I didn't know so many things about him

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Originally posted by Rakluv

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Tell me everyone, if Obama never had been muslim, and has no islamic leanings, why was he trying to hide that picture?!

Sure, he dismisses it as "fear mongering", but he has yet to tell us why he was hidng the picture? If he was just wearing it out of respect for another country, surely he wouldn't have kept it quiet for so long!

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First off, remember his wife's speech? How she said she has never been proud of America until just recently? Yeah, SURE that's who we want as a first lady. Sounds perfect, right?

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And then...he has on many, many occaisons, decided that holding his hand over his heart during the national anthem was unneccesarry. He doesn't actually need to show that he LIKES America to become president, does he?

Oh yeah, and finally, you know that United States flag pen that all of the senators wear? He doesn't have it! He completely ignores it.

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all of these rumors that he was raised a muslim

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Because so far, I've heard two good things about him. First off, he stands for "Hope" and "the future". Of course, unless you go deep into his website, you'll never find out what his "hope and "future" are, it doesn't really mean anything.

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(his hope is making it so that politics are clean and completely perfect...which is pretty oxymoronic considering the amount of unethical politics he got into in order to become a senator...)

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Notice how neither of the good things about him actually apply to leadership?

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Tell me everyone, how on earth is this guy beating Hilary?

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Originally posted by Rakluv

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And then...he has on many, many occaisons, decided that holding his hand over his heart during the national anthem was unneccesarry. He doesn't actually need to show that he LIKES America to become president, does he?

Oh yeah, and finally, you know that United States flag pen that all of the senators wear? He doesn't have it! He completely ignores it.

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Originally posted by Rakluv

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Sure, he dismisses it as "fear mongering", but he has yet to tell us why he was hidng the picture?

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