Republican Party Allegiance

Is the Republican Party a wholly owned subsidiary of the Insurance Industry?

Healthcare reform is intended to provide care for all Americans – especially those with health problems. The insurance industry wants to insure only healthy people. To provide care for all Americans would cut into their profits. What political party is opposed to the reform?

Part of the answer goes as far back as John Calvin, I think. During the reign of Queen Mary, many of the English reform leaders fled to Geneva, and were strongly influenced by those ideas, which included the notion that God favored the Elect with wealth and comfort here on Earth. John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, refined the idea, insisting that the good men were the wealthy men, because God had clearly favored them. The conservative viewpoint today still has this element in it. Americans who cannot afford health care do not deserve it. They deserve our contempt rather than our help, because they are so clearly not part of God's Chosen. The banks and corporations, by that reasoning, are good entities that deserve bailouts and tax protection, as well as a "healthy" profit margin and billion-dollar bonuses for their executives.

Simple, really, if that is one's point of view.

It is not mine, and the current state of politics is, at least, pointing out the fallacies of such thinking to many.

Ann

Ann,
thanks for that information. It makes sense. The privileged fighting to hold onto their status. They obviously don't believe that there is equality at birth or liberty and justice for all.

Good post, Ann.

I agree. The social work organization always supports the liberal candidate. They are taught early on that some people are looking for hand-outs, don't want to work, feel the world owes them a living. BUT, social work students then learn there are those who need a hand-up, not a hand-out, that through no fault of their own, there are those who find themselves in tough situations.

I thought our country might be moving towards a belief that some things in life that happen to a person are not that person's fault.

I was raised to be responsible for my own life, and found as life went by asking for help was one of the most difficult tasks, and often I avoided it when I should have accepted it.

But somehow I always wanted to be a social worker. I believed in people. I believed it was all right to ask for help.

So, I had to bring the two beliefs together to be a good social worker, to be a better person.

Carol

Carol,
I think a person's status, whatever that is at the time, influences their thinking. I was a staunch Republican and a Charter member of the Republican Presidential Task Force. When I learned what it was like to be without a job and required assistance, my thinking changed. Of course there are those who don't want to work and look for a handout, but they are in the minority. Many that are against reform in healthcare have jobs and enjoy a good program. I don't like to wish people bad luck, but sometimes it helps alter one's thinking.

2/26/2010

I say strip all politicians of their benefits !
Number one a major majority are very
wealthy and they don't need them . Give them
a salary of $50,000- a year and make them pay
for their own benefits , that'll shake them up !


Cheers..Joe

2/26/2010

NYT..

I agree , politicians have gotten so
arrogant their attitude is they tell us what they want
us to have wether we like it or not ! They forget we
the people are the boss not them, one stroke of the
lever and poof their gone, someone else is in their
place to start the same arrogance all over again...
Our fore fathers must be spinning in their graves
because the way these jackasses are running everything
is not the way it was set up...

Cheers..Joe

How many US Presidents got into office because of family influence and lots of money - upper class?
How many became president whose origins were of the poor class?

2/27/2010


Kennedy is one , his father owed the Mafia
big time....


Cheers...Joe

Obama seems to come from partially poor background.  Or not.  Everything ABOUT that guy is "partially". Neither Clinton nor Reagan nor Nixon nor Eisenhower nor Johnson nor Truman came from rich, powerful families, I beleive. Interestingly, a lot of recent Dem losers were coming from wealth and influence: Gore, Kerry, Ferrara.   My favorite is: name me one major communist icon who came from the working classes.

I think all politicians stink !


Love Honey

Abe F. March wrote:

Healthcare reform is intended to provide care for all Americans – especially those with health problems. The insurance industry wants to insure only healthy people.

Not only that, they usually drop you if you develop some underlying condition they did not expect. They will not cover a lot of cancers and other problems you cannot help. Sad, I had a friend who died because she would not leave her husband and sign up for medicaid. Had they given her insurance, she would probably be alive today but instead she died at the age of 20 and left two children to her abusive husband.

John L wrote:

Sad, I had a friend who died because she would not leave her husband and sign up for medicaid. Had they given her insurance, she would probably be alive today but instead she died at the age of 20 and left two children to her abusive husband.

Two children at 20 with an abusive husband? Nature's way of weeding out the stupid ones.

Abe F. March wrote:

Is the Republican Party a wholly owned subsidiary of the Insurance Industry?

Healthcare reform is intended to provide care for all Americans – especially those with health problems. The insurance industry wants to insure only healthy people. To provide care for all Americans would cut into their profits. What political party is opposed to the reform?

Yes, this "reform" is great. No caps, no denial for pre-existing conditions, taxpayer subsidies for low-income (which means up to $88K/year), and a "penalty" for not buying a policy. I can see people not buying UNTIL they get sick, at which time their benefit will far outweigh the penalty.

LC wrote:

John L wrote:

Sad, I had a friend who died because she would not leave her husband and sign up for medicaid. Had they given her insurance, she would probably be alive today but instead she died at the age of 20 and left two children to her abusive husband.

Two children at 20 with an abusive husband? Nature's way of weeding out the stupid ones.

LC, I came back from tutoring intent on commenting on everybody's threads.

I just don't know about this one. I think you were going for the shock effect.

I think it worked.

Ann

Like the man said; "You ain't seen nothing yet..." these will be looked back on as the good old days.

Actually Ann, that's how I feel. First off, 20 years old with two kids. When did she start, 17? The abusive husband thing. When did she figure out he was abusive, after marrying him? After the first kid? The second?

Blech. I would rather my tax dollars to to PETA, seriously.

Believe me, having heard hundreds of these stories, there is always more than what appears at first. And LC, is it nature or society's way of weeding?

The book I first read in graduate school in the late 70s, Who Shall Live, by Fuchs left such an impression, I repurchased it again a few years ago, with an updated section to it. We have been deciding for years that the rich shall live, and the poor might not. But that has not eliminated poverty.

If all cancer patients received the care they needed, the percentage of those surviving years would increase dramatically giving hope to all of us.

The Indians said it right, something about walking in another's shoes. Someone else said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Or people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Or, we are our brother's keeper. The least of us.....

Anyway, it keeps the conversation lively when someone puts theirself out there as lacking human kindness. That may be the purpose. It's hard to imagine anyone putting into the public arena some of the statements I see here.

Looks like someone cracked open their copy of The Big Book of Cliches.

Maybe if someone cracked the big book of cliches across your thick skull, LC, you'd be more inclined to see things with a bit more kindness toward your neighbors.

The easiest thing in the world to do is sit back and judge someone else, especially when they can't judge you back because you remain too cowardly to reveal your identity. Know, LC, that by your very words here you have been judged, and have been found wanting.

You want an old cliche? Well, here you go. I wouldn't trade places with you for all the tea in China.

Hell I wouldn't trade places with you at all, not for anything.

Cliches R Us.

How about
"... and the horse you rode in on."