That's not really what I said. One one side you have Obama who would continue pushing mandatory healthcare and extending the war on terror; and using bureaucracy to solve the problems of bureaucracy. On the other you'd have Paul, unable to push radical laws and vetoing anything that comes to his desk except for legislation repealing older laws.
In other words, Obama will undoubtedly agree with Congress and pass unneeded laws just to "reach across the aisle". Congress won't be able to pass unneeded laws with Paul in office.
You've not made your case that the laws are "unneeded".
I don't know why there is a mentality that if you support something, there needs to a law for it.
This is a straw man argument. That is not the mentality. The actual 'mentality' is the government has a useful role to play.
Ron Paul spouts an ignorant slogan "the government is unnecessary" and you are echoing it. But you are not looking at the pros and cons, you are simply declaring your personal freedom is impinged therefore all laws are bad. If all those laws were gone you would find your personal freedom in a lot worse shape as every individual with more power than you simply took your rights away.
... If you support our farmers does that mean you should pass laws subsidizing their work?
More straw. While the farm subsidies may have once been useful, they currently serve to pad the pockets of crony constituencies. I am specifically for ending these subsidies. That doesn't mean everything the government does is unnecessary.
If you disagree with homosexuality does that mean you need to pass a federal law to ban it?
Actually, we need laws to protect homosexuals from the people who disagree with homoseuality and then want to unfairly discriminate against gays.
But try telling that to Congress with their great ideas like SOPA.
There are legitimate issues with copyright infringement that need to be resolved in the new era of file sharing and freedom of Internet access to information. This particular legislation is not well devised. But something is needed. I await a better version.
It's not Ron Paul's rationale I agree with. It's the consequences of what he can actually accomplish in office. It the Civil Rights Bill got repealed today, it would hardly have an effect. Racial equality has been socialized into our culture. Yes, it made sense then.
This conclusion is naive. I'm guessing you don't live in the South or maybe you approve of the discrimination against Muslims.
No, but I do believe that mandatory health insurance results in doctors and hospitals charging more for services than they might be worth, because the patient is not accountable for the cost and the doctor's demand doesn't decrease if he sends the government a larger bill. Also, because the doctor gets paid regardless of the quality of service there may be less incentive to provide a good service. Then you end up with a situation where the price of healthcare is artificially high due to entitlement and inefficiencies.
You are poorly informed here. Currently insurance companies reimburse doctors, not patients so your argument is unsupportable. Currently those patients that do pay for health care subsidize the costs of the freeloaders.
If you want to say it's OK for the hospitals to let people who can't pay die on the steps of the ED then you can make your argument that mandatory health care coverage is wrong. As long as society is unwilling to do that, then the freeloaders are better covered by either tax dollar supported national health care insurance or directly provided care in government run hospitals and clinics. Short of that, mandatory private insurance is the next best option.
Ron Paul's position is to pretend charity will pay for all the freeloaders. But it already currently does not. The costs of unpaid medical bills are included in paying customers' charges.
If someone is really worried about dying at the steps of a hospital I'm sure they'll be more motivated to take care of themselves and avoid risky activities. The scenario you presented does leave us with a situation were an innocent person is a victim of crime or an accident. Here I think the government should step in and pay the bill. It's a small cost.
Ridiculous. Do you seriously think as long as you are motivated by lack of health insurance you'll never get cancer or an infectious disease or Lupus or MS or...... on and on? Your position is absurdly naive. In your version should the government not pay then if the un-medically-insured injured driver caused the accident and isn't a victim in the way you describe?
The government could issue a low interest loan to the affected family to be paid in "volunteer work" or to be withheld from future tax returns.
This would provide an incentive for the family to go to friends and family first. Perhaps the government could match the amount raised. I don't know. There are other solutions.
Aren't these mostly government stepping in solutions? Funny isn't it. When you actually look at Ron Paul's positions they just don't work in the real world. People can certainly disagree
how the government should intervene, but a blanket,
"the government doesn't need to intervene" is not realistic.
One night, I kicked someone during a nightmare. I woke up to terrible pain because the kick in my dream translated to me actually kicking my bedroom wall. My big toe suffered a minor fracture, but having no insurance, and since I had fractured my finger previously, I realized there was nothing to be done... Imagine if, with this knowledge, I went to the emergency room and asked to be seen for this minor fracture, had 2 or 3 x-rays taken at the expense of my government subsidized insurance. Or imagine that I had a more severe fracture, was poor, and decided that I'd rather spend what little money I had on beer, and let the government pay for my fracture.
What is your point? I take it you don't have health insurance and you are telling us how you survived without it. Suppose that same injury was more significant than your previous fracture and you mistakenly thought you were qualified to diagnose your own injury? Then where would you be?
Toe fracture complications:
Toe fractures, especially intra-articular fractures, can result in degenerative joint disease, and osteomyelitis is a potential complication of open fractures.
Copays are a reasonable way to limit one seeking unneeded health care.
I take it you are talking about:
Perhaps more distressing, he implied in several places that the reason to become more like China was that only by doing so could America defeat China, and others, at economics. Consider the line:
"Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you – America will always win."
Leaving others, one is forced to conclude, to lose—not once, not occasionally, but always. And what is likely to be the outcome of unending defeat?
I don't see Obama's rhetoric as claiming it was a winner take all world economy. To be number one doesn't mean number two loses all. The op ed author sees the comments differently than I do.
