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And when given the choice, about 2/3 of people choose against complying with medical treatment, which in the long run is not affordable regardless of who is paying.

That conclusion draws more heavily on other premises. I was just pointing out that expanding coverage doesn't really solve the problem.

Actually, many that already have Medicaid/Medicare still go to the ER for their primary care because they either don't utilize preventative care and thus wait for their chronic conditions to have acute exacerbations or they don't want to deal with the inconvenience of making appointments.

Global warming is so 2006.

For the record, I'm in favor of a booze-filled healthcare summit.

What's the IPA situation there?

I voted! Edit: btw, I think the first step should be combining the healthcare summit with the beer summit. Then we should offer tax credits for the consumption of IPA.

I think maybe half the universe exists.

Yes, and it's much worse than we feared, as the entire world is dead. See the frozen wasteland thread.

I haven't been reading all the junk in this thread, so have we reached a consensus?

It's a very prolific bit.

I'm here trying to be a smartass, and you're just determined to pin me down to a serious argument. I've never seen the Nobel-prize-winning treatise An Inconvenient Truth, but isn't the robot that presents the arguments in that film wearing an Al Gore mask, much like the one featured in the music video to which you refer? Yeah, all things being equal, longitudinal studies addressing trends are better than a dude in a wife-beater picking a banjo (or a dude in an Al Gore mask telling us Florida will be under water if we don't immediately stop using fossil fuels). OK, but climate change is a

My point exactly, though it's much sexier when done with sarcasm. Al Gore did, but he deleted his post after I made mine. There was also a post doing so at the same time as I posted mine. Regardless, I wasn't aware that we were only allowed to address arguments made within a thread. I think at the very least, any argument ever made on the Huffington Post or by Andrew Sullivan are fair game since they vicariously participate on so many of our threads.

Of course every time we have a hot summer or a hurricane (edit: or a blizzard!), it's OK to use that to validate global warming.

I believe my first post on this board was calling Edwards a douchebag in 2004.

Really? Where in the Constitution is that?

Is he supposed to be impartial with respect to his own decisions?

Back in the day, people used to beat each other with canes in the Capitol. And again, Obama publicly criticized the Supreme Court to their faces. If anyone was making an ass out of himself...And for the record, I don't think anyone was making an ass out of themselves (at least not moreso than usual). If we've really reached the point where mouthing "not true" is considered offensive, then we've truly become a nation of pussies. The way I see it, Obama checked the Supreme Court, and Alito balanced his ass. So Obama is akin to the Supreme Court's client? A more accurate analogy would be if

Except Obama. Pretty soon you'll be joining the NRA! Well, that's obviously why Alito did what he did. To act like there is anything "dignified" or "professional" in that setting is ridiculous. It's a room full of politicians congratulating themselves on their stances on the issues. While the Supreme Court is supposed to be uniquely nonpartisan and professional, if they have to sit there and watch Obama publicly criticize a decision that they made, a mouthing of "not true" is the least they can do.

So Obama publicly calls the Supreme Court out on their case and states something that (at least in Alito's mind) is factually incorrect, and Alito is in the wrong for mouthing "not true"? I don't think being nonpartisan means being neutral on your own decisions.

Forget most divisive President, who was the most prolific President in history?

That's true, but both versions of the healthcare reform bill (and I realize you oppose them) mainly focused on adding taxes to higher income earners (whether through income tax increases or higher taxes on their health insurance premiums) to pay for the increased spending.

I agree that $200,000 is more than enough to live comfortably on, but I think some of the resentment of having to pay higher taxes comes from the fact that half the nation pays no federal income taxes other than Medicare/SS. With those kind of numbers, we're not talking about just those living in poverty. And most of the proposed healthcare changes are going to benefit those same people more so than those paying a third of their income in taxes. I'm not saying everyone should be paying 30%, but to expect "free" healthcare without making even a modest tax contribution is insane.

It's more of a half-assed takeover. It not only mandates that you should have insurance, but what kind. If the Senate deems that it doesn't cover enough, you're fined. If it's too much, it's labeled a "Cadillac" plan, and you're subject to additional taxes. If you prefer to have a high deductible plan with health savings accounts to cover out of pocket costs, the governments further limits what you can put into those accounts. I don't see the need for these mandated insurance exchanges, when they could just make it legal to buy insurance from across state lines. And they're paying for this bil

It seems like an exaggeration to me. No one hates free market capitalism more than big corporations. They would much rather buy politicians to regulate their competitors out of existence than to do away with regulations that would make it easier for smaller companies to compete.