Good grade school comment.
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The point here is the "slippery slope" that I know you think doesn't exist...
I'll break it down real simple-like...
It doesn't matter what the current government allows, or wants, or approves of. The point is control. If you give the government the power to control, you're setting yourself up to follow that to its indeterminable end. When the government you want is in place, that's a good thing for you...when the next government comes along, it's not going to be good for you.
Only by standing closely to our Constitutional Rights...and nothing more, or less...are we able to avoid both extremes. I know we started this whole project hundreds of years before any of us were born, and it's really hard for someone born this late in the project to grasp the global scenario going on when all this took off, or a lot of the reasons why we have the things we have...but it is all there if you actually care enough to spend a little time researching.
The point I think Tg was trying to make is, the huge Women's Lib/anti-abortion movement wants government out of their lives when telling them they can't have abortions...but wants them IN their lives to tell employers they have to pay for such. On the face that seems like a conflict of interest, and it is. It goes back to what I said before...either you give them control or you don't. Instead of lobbying for new laws that give whatever government more power, start lobbying for limiting power back to the 1800's.
Government isn't a computer. It's not a ground-breaking laser treatment for cancer. At its core, it's based in logic, and nothing more...logic that is timeless. It is one of the few things where new isn't always better. Quit trying to change it and focus more on using it the way it was intended.
The only reason abortion is an issue is because people disagree on when a life becomes a life. To abortion proponents, I think I can safely say the VAST majority would be completely against a mother killing their 6-year-old child...or even their 1-year-old child...but have no problem killing a fetus. I'm not at all a religious person, but to me, as soon as that seed breaks in to that egg, that's a person, unless there is some known medical condition that would otherwise prevent and/or seriously complicate that fetus growing to birth. The issue here is that while that fetus doesn't yet know it is a person...we know that it will be. That line of reasoning is invalidated by the fact that you're not allowed to kill someone with advanced Alzheimer's.
If you'd bother to quit huffing paint, you'd realize that a lot of us are against the corporate handouts and tax breaks and loopholes as well. ProTip: Your side does it too.
It's a condition of people in power, not a condition of right or left. Our Constitution was designed to hold this off for a while, but...it's finally starting to wear down. The strongest wall can only hold out for so long.
There's a difference between the government saying you can't do something and the government supporting you when you want to.
There's curiously little outcry about erectile dysfunction drugs from these very same people.
The lack of government also isn't some special fantastic utopia. It's anarchy and the collapse of our society. You think exploitation happens now? Wait till all the rules go.
No. The insurance exchanges were always going to cost money. (there would be savings from hospitals having to take care of less uninsured people in the ER, but that would not be counted in the net cost of the insurance exchanges, from what I read in the CBO report)
The parts of the ACA that were supposed to save money were three-fold, if I remember correctly:
1) Reduction to payment rates for Medicare Advantage
2) Various pilot programs designed to create cost efficiency that could be expanded broadly (that's ongoing)
3) The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) that was meant to determine the most cost-effective ways of treatment and make sure Medicare payment rates for various treatments were correctly formulated, and make that the standard for Medicare. By doing that, insurance companies (who generally follow Medicare's line) would also do the same.
3 was the very big driver of savings. Members of the IPAB were supposed to be appointed by the President, the Senate, and the House. The House, under Republican control, has refused to appoint its members, and thus IPAB cannot function.
Not exactly death panels.... but lets look at what the HHS has said since Obamacare passed....
Women under 50 don't need a mammogram every year.
Men under 50 don't need a prostate exam.
People only need a general check up every other year.
Sounds like they are really trying to figure out the most "Cost-Efficient" way to keep me alive, huh. These are just "recommendations" for now... but soon they will become the standard for healthcare approved by the Government. Why.. to save money. Which will cost lives.