Thanks! It's not been "Easy" - but it's not been as hard for me as it was when I was married...

That's why, while I love a woman with curves, I'm worried that, if I start dating or even marry another BBW, that I am going to get complaicent and put it all back on again. So, for me to even consider more than friendship, there has to be a commitment to be active and eat healthy. Not going to ask her to lose weight... just don't put me in a situation where I will put mine back on... if that makes sense.

Here's a good example for you... Think about it, your paycheck going down by over $500 a month for a "FREE" government funded healthcare program.... that's More than I pay right now for health insurance!

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010374

"This exercise is especially instructive, because it reveals where the "single-payer," universal coverage folks end up. Democrats who run the Wisconsin Senate have dropped the Washington pretense of incremental health-care reform and moved directly to passing a plan to insure every resident under the age of 65 in the state. And, wow, is "free" health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes. It represents an average of $510 a month in higher taxes for every Wisconsin worker.

Employees and businesses would pay for the plan by sharing the cost of a new 14.5% employment tax on wages. Wisconsin businesses would have to compete with out-of-state businesses and foreign rivals while shouldering a 29.8% combined federal-state payroll tax, nearly double the 15.3% payroll tax paid by non-Wisconsin firms for Social Security and Medicare combined.

This employment tax is on top of the $1 billion grab bag of other levies that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle proposed and the tax-happy Senate has also approved, including a $1.25 a pack increase in the cigarette tax, a 10% hike in the corporate tax, and new fees on cars, trucks, hospitals, real estate transactions, oil companies and dry cleaners. In all, the tax burden in the Badger State could rise to 20% of family income, which is slightly more than the average federal tax burden. "At least federal taxes pay for an Army and Navy," quips R.J. Pirlot of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce business lobby.

As if that's not enough, the health plan includes a tax escalator clause allowing an additional 1.5 percentage point payroll tax to finance higher outlays in the future. This could bring the payroll tax to 16%. One reason to expect costs to soar is that the state may become a mecca for the unemployed, uninsured and sick from all over North America. The legislation doesn't require that you have a job in Wisconsin to qualify, merely that you live in the state for at least 12 months. Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health-care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes."


If this were put in place, how many businesses are going to close up shop and MOVE to another state to save form having to pay those taxes? How many Jobs lost?

What about people like me that pay about $250 a month for health insurance that would see that $250 replaced by a figure over DOUBLE THAT for a state run health insurance???

EDIT: FYI - it's been a great debate. I've got some errands to run this evening and I'm about to leave the office. So, if I don't respond, dot' get all cocky thinking you shut me up!! - Like the terminator, I'll be back!!!

You do know that a natioanl Health Care plan is funded form taxes and will be for TAX PAYERS.

If they are not paying taxes, they will not benifit from the current suggested plans either... so again, we are going to have to look for another solution...

And, you can't afford health insurance right now... so, do you just think you'll get a magic insurnace card in the mail for "Free" from Uncle Sam? No - look at how tight your budget is now... and picture it with even less in your paycheck when taxes are raised to pay for that medcal insurance card....

I have no doubt it's tough, but I'll ask you this... those people sitting in front of you that can't afford health care now... what are they going to do when their taxes are raised to fund a national health care program???

If you think it's hard on them now while it's an OPTIONAL expense... when it becomes a mandantory expense in the form of higher taxes will only make it worse.

You guys are treating it like I'm saying leave the system as it is, and I've never said that.

There needs to be something done... but a National Health Care system is not going to be the magic cure (Pun intended).

Here's a better question for you than my last...

If you can't afford to pay for your own health insurance now, how will you be able to afford it when the Government FORCES you to pay for a National Health Care plan in the form of taxes??

Actually, going back to the main point, economics, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Someone has to foot the bill - in this case, every tax payer in America.

Now, let me ask you a question - this is not trying to be heartless, but logical - How is it MY Responsibiilty to pay for YOUR healthcare??

Now, before you make the "Greater Good" and for the "Betterment of our fellow man" and "Compassion" arguments, realize those are MORAL based arguments. And, since when does the Government run based on Morals???

The point is this, Why should I have money ripped out of my pay check that I have worked so hard to earn to pay for a half @$$ed goverment run system so you can have health care?

I know, it sounds cruel, but that's is the essence of the issue.

EDIT - that's why I say there is a better fix out there somewhere... say price regulation on the cost of health insurance to make it affordable to anyone.

There in lies the root of my argument... Do you really want to entrust your health care, and the health care of your children to a divided house that has spent more time investigating Steroids in Baseball than trying to come up with solutions to these problems?

Never said that.... they are in the MINORITY that have. (What about the millions of ILEGAL IMMIGRANTS that draw Food stamps, and posibly Social Security and never paid a dime into the system??)

However, you want to bring up health care for vets that have earned it, it's a prime example of why the goverment is the WRONG answer.

Summer 2004, my uncle, a disababled Vet and POW from Vietnam who has a history of heart attacks begins having chest pains at 5:30pm. The local VA clinic is closed, so he calls the VA hospital in Atlanta, 45 miles away.

They will not dipatch an ambulance... I drive him there.

We arrive around 6:30pm and he is signed in.

We wait in the waiting room until 11pm, when he is called back, triaged, and snet back to the waiting room.

1am - he is taken for chest x-rays and put into an exam room.

3am - a doctor comes in, tells him it's gas, gives him some pepto and tells him to follow up and at the local clinc the next day

9am - we are at the lcal VA clinc, they do a blood test and find out he had a heart attack, not gas and is rushed back to the VA hospital and put in ICU....


YUP = I want ALL of us to get the same great care our Vets who put their lives on the line do...

Again, I don't deny there is a problem - I've jsut seen how the Government handles the problem and see their Cure is Worse than the disease!

I don't dispute the fact that anyeone is entiled to care without the worry of cost... but, there is a difference between price and cost.

Price - a Loaf of bread is priced at $1.19, but factor in your time, your gas, ... and the COST of that bread is about $2.00 - Economics 101.

Health care under such a national plan make look cheap on the price tag, but when you factor in the COST of the government to run it - it's is WAY more than what you are paying right now.


EDIT - For the record, I don't like Rush... I listen to Rusty Humphries... ww.talk2rusty.com

As for how I "know" that the majority of people on these programs have not earned it, there is plenty of data out there.. You just have to open your eyes and look for it. that link I posted to IPI (http://www.ipi.org/) is a good source to start.

I think the fundmental thing here is this... We all agree that there is a problem, a serious problem and that it needs to be fixed.

But, calling on the Government should be a LAST RESORT, not a first response.

And, the Governement has a history of making problems worse.

I think many people are just in love with the CONCEPT of a national healthcare program... So much that they will not even consider any other option.

I thank you gusy for keeping this civil... I've had this dicussion with other people where I was called all kinds of names.

All I ask is that, if you REALLY belive there needs to be a fix (i do) that you be willing to look at ALL the options and weigh all the facts of the different types of fixes... not just latch on to the first program the Fed's toss out there.

This is why I said you have to use "Logic" - not emotion.

The problem is that the MAJORITY of the people on these programs have not earned it, and are ruining it for those that do. That's fact and easily researched.

As for your eating cat food.... My best friend was a stay at home mom of 2 kids, her husband left her high and dry. Did she turn to the Government? Did she eat cat food? NO to both.

Her Church, her friends, her family were all there... she got CAR LOADS of food brought to her house until she could find a job.

She had men from the church cutting firewood for the winter for her.

Compassion - the very meaning of it. And all without a penny of tax payer dollars.

Like I said, there are better ways to fix the problem.

If something happened to you tomorrow, before you even considered cat food for youself, you email me. I don't know you from Adam's cat, I'm in a hard place financailly myself... but you can bet, I would make my calls and have a few Wal-mart shopping cards in the mail to you to pay for gas and groceries before you knew it.

It's called concern for your fellow man, and I don't need Big Brother MAKING me do it or REGULATING how and when I do it.

It's still here - where does that plaque say "And I we will feed them, clothe them provide them with everything off the back of tax payers?"

It does not - that America is the America of OPPORTUNITY. Opportunities that have been stripped away by taxing the small business owner to death. How many of those that came and still come set up their own shops?

Think they come here to make a better life for their family only to have that taken away in the form of taxes to fund handouts for other people?

See, those people know the value of hard work & earning what you have. It's also why most of them are Conservative, not Liberal.

How can anyone be all they can be if the Government takes away what they earn to redistribute it to those that have not earned it in the name of being "fair."

How can dreams come true if those dreams are taxed out of exsistance?

Big business should be responsible for scandels... Just remember, Ken Lay supported Al Gore and played golf with George Soros and the heads of the DNC, not the RNC!

And I hate the idea of sending jobs overseas... but, when we let UNIONS dictate operational policy, not the industry, the industry is going to move. When we tax the profits of a business too much, they are going to leave.... Don't want the jobs to go to Mexico? Let industry run itself, and not tax the heck out of them. They'll stay here, make more jobs, and pay more. There is documented proof of it.

Compare the Economic policies and programs of Carter and Reagan if you don't belive it.

And, if you really hate jobs going to mexico, remember, it was BILL CLINTON that got us into NAFTA and opened the door for them to go down there!

I see the problem daily. I don't argue there is a problem. I don't disagree that something needs to be done.

I just look at programs like Medicare/Medicaid, Social Scurity, Food Stamps... I see the the un-needed paperwork, people that truley deserve the programs being denied, the bloated operation costs of those programs, the abuse by the people in charge of those programs and say - NOT FOR HEALTHCARE!!

The system is broke - I'm still looking for the RIGHT fix.

If the water pipe to your shower breaks, do you replace it with a garden hose just becuase a hose is cheap and carries water, or do you call a plumber and have it done right?

We've got too many garden hose, duct tape patchwork programs in our government as it is...

Not to argue with you, but here's a fact for you - I'm a Republican, a very CONSERVATIVE Republican that see's John McCain as a liberal.

Yet, I don't dispute that there is a problem. Every Republican I know agree's there is a problem.

Where we disagree with the Democrats is that we don't feel it's "Big Brothers" responsibility to take control of individual's health care.

Want to hear some of the FACTS about how these plans DON'T work. head over to http://www.ipi.org/

We have to look at this with Fact and Logic... NOT EMOTION. Sounds cold, but it's true. We let the emotional side of things get to us and we'll only make the problems worse....

That's where the term "Bleeding Heart Liberal" came from. People that tend to think with their heart and not the facts (Not throwing that term out there as an insult).

I'll third that opinion... But I'm still waiting for a feasable plan that would actually work.

Think about it, 3 months to wait knowing that you, and your doctor found a LUMP that needs to be checked out? - you willing to bet your life to cancer on 3 months?

Just pointing out that the people that are having to wait on some of these proceedres under other countries national health care programs are not just for ROUTINE screenings, but for things that, if there was a delay of 3 days here the provider would be suied for mal-practice!

Like I said, I do not dispute there needs to be oversight, regulation, and an overhaulof the system... just don't put the government in charge...

If you do, those Tylenol will wind up costing tax payers $100 and take you two weeks to get them by the time it goes through the 15 people required to approve the dispensing, review the process, file the paperwork, and supervise the nurse handing you the paper cup... (remember, all those goverment employees will have to be PAID their salary out of those tax dollars as well).

On a personal note, send me an email and I'll try to see who we use for insurance for the staff memebers we have that are "Self Employed Contractors" - we have a provider that gives them a MUCH better rate than $800 a month and we've got people all over the country! - anything to help out!

I agree, the costs of healthcare and health insurance are out of control... but putting the Government in charge of such problems has NEVER made them any better.... (Take the mess of Social Security for example).

There needs to be something done to the industry, but keep Washington's paws out of running it.