Thoughts?

Democrats are absolute idiots and completely missed their chance at keeping the supermajority in the Senate.

Losing Massachusetts after fucking KENNEDY might be a bigger failure than losing to W. for the second time.

When I heard Scott Brown got the seat, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and just hide until something happens and he goes away or something. I am NOT happy about this. I feel like the American government has been disappointing me a lot lately, especially with the Republicans and the health care bill. And let's not forget gay rights.

I better not get started on that or I'll just go on and on.

Don't blame Republicans for the health care issues -- recent polls have shown a majority of Americans no longer want the proposed health care plan (as shown in Time magazine, a known liberal media outlet). You know, it could very well be because as time passes, more pork gets added, the costs are ballooning, and less and less of it makes sense.

Wanna know partly why?

Companies that previously supplied health insurance, can simply decide, hey, there's a public option, we're going to stop giving employees insurance, so we can save money. And in addition to that, they're not going to increase salaries to compensate.

It had literally nothing to do with that. Whatsoever. The worker never saw health insurance money out of their paycheck. Why would it matter to them if they didn't see it now, yet still going to health insurance?

It would have saved businesses millions and probably created jobs.

What led you to believe businesses would even consider raising salaries for people to compensate for money they never saw?

Ok, so let's do a little math right now.

Say the average health care premiums per year for the average employee is about $1,000. (This is for shitty healthcare, and more if the family/dependents are included.) Say the average employee gets paid $30,000 per year. So their salary, with benefits is now $31,000, effectively, since they are not paying their own health insurance. Suppose the public option becomes available -- and the employer decides to no longer cover employees. The employee therefore loses $1,000 in benefits. Employer gains $1,000 per employee, and decides to pocket the money, to assuage shareholder fears of insufficient profit margins. Stockholders, employer wins, employee loses.

Your "math" is based on wild and baseless assumptions. The employee won't be losing any benefits since alternative, free health care will be available to him, so it wouldn't matter either way. I'm talking about the money the employee literally gets deposited into his bank account.

The employee drops his company's health insurance, picks up public health insurance, the companies pick up $1000 for every customer that gets dropped from health care, I'd say that's about 1 job for every 30 people working in the company, assuming they just make more jobs and don't simply allocate the money into other places. It still creates jobs.

Whether or not they'll compensate into salaries, create jobs, increase spending, etc. is all speculation.

Your understanding of the public option is grossly askew. The public option is proposed to be a "purchaseable" item, akin to standard insurance packages. It is not free, except for those already qualifying for Medicare/Medicaid, which will be combined into the new system. However, for most, it will be a purchase with premiums approximately the same as standard insurance plans. Instead of getting "free" insurance from their employer, they employee instead will end up purchasing the public option.

As for if it were a "free plan," that is hardly free -- the money has to come from somewhere, i.e. higher taxes on the individual, so while some might feel it is "free," others will be left to foot the bill via much higher taxes, significantly more than any insurance premiums they might have paid in the past -- because they will be covering many others' premiums.

Sorry, I saw it. I didn't need to pay for healthcare until this year, and low and behold, I have to pay $400 a month for healthcare for myself and my daughter... that's a BIG pay cut for healthcare. Not to mention, if people all of a sudden LOOSE healthcare, and they have to go out and pay for it, they're spending money that probably USED to go to something else, and is now spent on healthcare.

Er, I don't know why you're seeing pay cuts when nothing's been implemented yet. These are the insurance companies raising your prices, not the government. If people are losing health care, it's because the insurance companies are dropping them.

I'm not saying it had to do with the government. What I'm saying is that when I all of a sudden had to PAY for healthcare, as people would have to do if their healthcare was dropped, and they went to the public option, it would make a difference... I noticed that money being gone. If companies drop healthcare without giving raises simply because there is a public option, people would notice that money being gone.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you either got health care and weren't paying for it (what?), or you just never had health insurance until now because you "had" to pay for it.

I was of the understanding that the Public Option would be an attempt at universal health care, and would draw money from higher taxes and co-payments that would put in competition for quality health insurance companies. The public option was never implemented, so why were you dropped from your insurance plan?

I rarely talk politics because...well, I'm part of the uninformed majority. And people are quite sensitive. Still, how they did that was stupid. Really, Massachusetts? I think people need to realize that 8 years of mucking up cannot be fixed in 1. How is that even plausible? We want instant gratification as if Obama is our ruler and can pass things immediately rather than wait and wait and well, how about wait some more due to the whole process of passing things along.

Despite describing yourself as uninformed I think you've hit the nail on the head here... people are impatient. Things haven't improved over night, of course they haven't, and people view that as a failure, which of course it isn't. Americans have such a sense of entitlement... they want everything and they want it now.

Personally, I think it speaks volumes of what is to come in 2012.

I agree with what you're saying, not with what you're implying.

People are going to want change away from both the weak Democrats and the unintelligent Republicans, and we'll see a raise in support for independent candidates.

We can only hope for that. It would be an amazing thing to see.

I have a few independents that I would love to see get a crack at the Senate and White House.

It shouldn't be too hard. All they'd really need is some mainstream support.

Fat chance of that. All you'll see is more media blitzing by both parties, and the marginalizing of independents again.

Like I said, if people are already wanting change, they're not going to spend a lot of time listening to the people they want to change from.

Then again, there are people who seriously believe Glenn Beck is saving America, so I don't even know anymore.

Most Americans believe what the television tells them to believe. Wanting change and doing the right thing are two different things entirely -- if people really wanted change in the last presidential election, they wouldn't have voted for Obama. They also wouldn't have voted for McCain.

People don't want change, they want what feels good, what puts money in their pocket, what makes their individual lives easier, even at the cost of others. In America, hedonism is king.

I think the 'even at the cost of others' point is important. In the UK people are far more accepting of the fact that our taxes may help others more than ourselves. We don't like people who abuse the system, but we do want to help those who need it.

I agree!!

America just seems doomed to stagnate.
It's hell bent on clinging to anachronistic constitutional rights (Like, 'let's all own guns!') rather than embracing what the rest of civilisation have been enjoying for decades. Basic stuff, like.... Health Care.
Maybe it's because nobody ever goes anywhere to realise that "Shit. They've got it better elsewhere."

And don't forget the "our country is better than everywhere else" attitude. Funny thing is it's so far from the truth. The vast majority of people in other developed countries would never choose to move to America. Why would anyone move to a country that's in millions of dollars of debt, which has a poorer standard of public education, very expensive higher education, more violent crime and is unable to provide healthcare to a large number of it's citizens (and where people are refused necessary medical care because they can't afford it or their insurance company deems it unnecessary). I know I wouldn't. :P