You know, it's kind of funny thinking of myself as some kind of political activist. That's not me.

Like millions of Americans, I'm frustrated that our legislators don't listen to us because they are too wrapped up in the Washington political machine - that applies across party lines

I've discovered that well phrased, SHORT letters to your legislators DO get read and can actually result in a face-to-face meeting.

For the record, I've been unemployed since January - never been unemployed in my life until now. As of 60 days ago, I'm trying to start up a little sales company, but I've been doing all kinds of low level "grunt job" work just to buy food.

My health insurance payment is 50% more than my mortgage and my savings are gone, so I hope I don't get sick.

I'm certainly not some "Rich Republican Fat Cat" that folks are fond of talking about - but I AM really, really pissed off.

Respectfully,

Marc

One of your fundamental errors, Charlie, is that you equate Republicans with grassroots conservatives.

Republicans, in my mind, have mostly become Democrat-lites. If a politician proposes a slightly lesser spending increase, he calls himself a Republican.

I'm a card-carrying member of no party, but I don't walk around so proud (like millions of Americans) touting that I'm an "Independent." For the most part, they are the ones that go whichever way the wind blows. And they're proud of it.

I'm just to the right of Ghengis Khan.

Charlie,

I have never received or even seen an email/mail or phone call from the RNC, or any other Conservative group. I actually think for myself, despite your insinuations otherwise.  Do some real research and you will find that you are being lied to.

Blaming events on some force of evil is an old tactic and used to be called paranoia. Now it seems to be standard procedure for the White House crowd.

Again, do some real research and you may be amazed at what's actually going in the real world out there.

I'm a classic example: I have become highly motivated by the situation - NOT someone suggesting what I should do.

How many people saw this coming and voted against Obama? 57,000,000 people were not hired to disrupt, by the forces of evil.

Marc

And there is now written evidence that those disruptors are plants from the left.

This whole single payer health insurance "reform" movement is going to hurt the left badly. You can argue its merits until you're blue in the face - people do not want options taken away and change dictated to them.

Brew wrote on Aug 6^th, 2009 at 11:22am:


Really?  I suppose that evidence doesn't need to be given, simply alluded to? 

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Freedomworks is a group chaired by Dick Armey (Republican House Majority Leader 1995-2003), and Matt Kibbe is their President ... Matt Kibbe is the political trickster who promoted Ralph Nader's campaign in 2004 not because he supported Nader, but because he thought that it would split the vote. 

Here's a memo from Robert MacGuffie at RightPrinciples.com that says that it is necessary to 'rock the boat' early in the meeting - he recommends that an organized group fan out through the meeting hall, and engage in short, intermittent shouting episodes. 

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

And the idea that these protests are organized by the Dems is at variance with Marc and all the other people that claim they are genuine.

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The current proposals don't take choice away from people who are satisfied with their current insurance.

If we do nothing, change will still be dictated to us.  Health care costs will continue to rise (perhaps doubling in the next decade), and fewer people will have insurance. 

Here, let me Google that for you, monty:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Quote:

How naive does one have to be to believe this?

Brew wrote on Aug 6^th, 2009 at 12:13pm:


Ok - there is a memo from Obama that encourages people to go out and show their support for healthcare reform.

It does not suggest disrupting the meetings. It does not suggest pretending to be conservatives and then disrupting the meetings to discredit them.  That is very different from what you claimed - that the disruptive elements are plants from the left.

That 'analysis' is dishonest grasping at straws, Brew.  It involves 'connecting the dots' where there are no connections.  Dozens of conservative groups have issued emails or memos calling for such disruptions.  To blame it on the other side as you have done requires a special kind of mental flexibility, one that most people would consider a character flaw.

From the Wall Street Journal, May 20 2009

The GOP's Health-Care Alternative

We can cover more people by making the current insurance tax subsidy more fair.

By GRACE-MARIE TURNER and JOSEPH R. ANTOS

Republican congressional leaders are finally offering a clear alternative to the health-reform plans being developed by the White House and Democrats in Congress. The goals and the rhetoric of both sides are remarkably similar: cover the uninsured, allow people to keep the coverage they have, provide more choices of affordable health insurance, and rein in health costs. But their policy prescriptions are remarkably different.

Democrats are uniting around proposals to vastly expand federal regulation of health insurance, require everyone to have coverage, and compel employers to provide federally prescribed insurance or pay a new tax. A new Medicare-like insurance plan is still being debated, but even if it doesn't make the cut, Congress could regulate its way to a government-dominated market.

Four Republicans in Congress -- Sens. Tom Coburn (Oklahoma) and Richard Burr (North Carolina) and Reps. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) and Devin Nunes (California) -- will today introduce a bill that moves away from federal centralization. Aptly called the Patients' Choice Act, it provides a path to universal coverage by redirecting current subsidies for health insurance to individuals. It also provides a new safety net that guarantees access to insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.

The nexus of their plan is redirecting the $300 billion annual tax subsidy for employment-based health insurance to individuals in the form of refundable, advanceable tax credits. Families would get $5,700 a year and individuals $2,300 to buy insurance and invest in Health Savings Accounts.

Low-income Americans would get a supplemental debit card of up to $5,000 to help them purchase insurance and pay out-of-pocket costs. They would have an incentive to spend wisely since up to one-fourth of any unspent money in the accounts could be rolled over to the next year. The combination of the refundable tax credit and debit card gives lower-income Americans a way out of the Medicaid ghetto so they can have the dignity of private insurance.

The great majority of Americans with job-based health insurance would see little more than a bookkeeping change with the Patients' Choice plan. But implicit in the policy is the acknowledgment that our system of tying health insurance to the workplace is not working for upwards of 45 million uninsured Americans.

That's a pivotal point in the fight over reform: Will the next health-reform bill lock in a system of job-based health insurance or allow more individual choice and portability to fit a 21st century work force?

Democrats are fretting over how to pay for their plans, which early estimates peg at $1.5 trillion or more over 10 years. Economists at a recent Senate Finance Committee roundtable unanimously supported limiting the virtually invisible $300 billion tax subsidy that workers receive when they get health insurance through their employers. Even Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) said he feels like Willie Sutton: Congress must look at redirecting at least some of this huge subsidy because "that's where the money is."

This is the same proposal John McCain was criticized for during the 2008 presidential campaign. Television ads by the Obama campaign pounded him for "taxing your health insurance."

Employers worry that their contributions toward their workers' health insurance premiums no longer would be recognized as legitimate business expenses. The Republican alternative doesn't touch that. Whether companies offer their workers compensation in the form of health insurance or cash wages, they still can deduct the full cost.

While many Americans are fed up with private insurance, opinion polls consistently show a majority think government-controlled health care would be worse. There are problems in the private insurance market, and the Republican plan takes steps that can help.

States could provide one-stop insurance shopping through new Health Care Exchanges rather than giving the federal government control, as most Democratic plans would do. And it frees up Medicaid money and provides added resources to the states to target additional help to those with disabilities and low incomes. It also calls for auto-enrollment to expand insurance coverage: People will have many options and opportunities to select insurance, but if they don't make an active choice they can be automatically enrolled in private policies financed by the tax credit.

Who will control the system? Doctors and patients, or politicians and regulators? That's the crux of this year's health-care debate. The Republican proposal makes the choice clear.

Ms. Turner is president of the Galen Institute. Mr. Antos is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

And then HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius wrote in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Tuesday, "President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can't let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring."

Yeah, that's it. Trust us on the details.

Even though support for this magic trick is quickly slipping away, it's mind-boggling to me that there are so many that still put their faith in this administration's ability to do anything right, and the congresscritters that help them make it so.

Worst. President. Ever.

And in record time.

Please tell me how George Bush is relevant in any way.  Oh wait, I forgot, when all logic fails, make sure to bring up Bush.  Seriously.

And I said what I would do in the previous posts.  Tort reform, immigration reform, etc. I would address waste and fraud not by creating huge new government bureaucracies, but by addressing a system that is broken *primarily* because the government mandates waste and encourages fraud. I don't give a shit who is responsible for getting us where we are, I just want it fixed.  Having it run by the government is a sure way to increase waste and fraud, increasing costs while at the same time adding millions (they say) of previously uninsured people to the system and somehow availability of health care is going to go up?  Really?  Are there doctors sitting idle in their offices now or on golf carts because they have a lack of patients?  Where do they address the capacity of the system to handle millions of new customers?  They don't.  They just want you to believe impossible math.

I guess as long as the media plays along, people will believe anything.

I don't have 1000 pages to put a plan here, but it's not my job either.  My point is there are proposals that will address those concerns in a completely different way and the folks in control will not discuss them.  Obamacare is the only way.  I get it.

Off the top of my head though, if you could eliminate the drag on the system of illegal aliens, you'd have a lot more people who could afford the true cost of healthcare.  We who pay are already forced to pay higher prices to cover them and they use far more expensive services than a covered person would use.

Tort reform would also go a long way towards reducing costs overall, again making it possible for many more people to afford it.

You know, I resent the implication that any conservative plan is less compassionate than Obamacare.  The fact is Obamacare will reduce the availability and quality of coverage for all people.  That is the opposite of compassion in my opinion.  It is, in fact, an evil plan.

While I'm at it, let's talk about Obama's plan.  Does your media tell you that he has no frikkin idea what is in the bill?  He said so himself.  The plan has not even been released yet, and Obama did not write it (let alone read it).  He is very vocal about what the plan isn't, but he is being vocal about something he is ignorant about.  Let me repeat, Obama said he has no idea what is in the bill.  But he can surely tell you that you won't lose private coverage.  Yet that is exactly the opposite of what is in the house bill.  Obama covers these discrepancies by saying he doesn't know the details and hasn't seen it yet.  And yet, continues to assure you what isn't in it.  UN FRIKKING REAL.