Who’s getting tired of all the ads that are calling the proposals for Health Care reform “Socialized Medicine”? Even the most liberal approach to the reforms “Single Payer” is not at all socialized medicine. At most, it might me considered “socialized payment” or “socialized administration”. None of the plans call for socialized medicine, if you are one that falls for this misinformation then the Insurance Companies are getting just what they want from you.

A more realistic example of socialized medicine would be the British System, in which the hospitals are run by the government and the doctors are on the payroll of the government. Another example closer to home would be the VA in which the government provides the hospitals and the doctors to vets. What is being proposed here “Single Payer or a Government Option” is a system in which the federal program only takes the place of the insurance company and pays the bills to the doctors or the hospitals. This program is more analogous to the Canadian and French systems. The beauty of this program is that it takes away the insanity that doctors have to go thru in dealing with hundreds of separate carriers and it provides coverage for everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.

Do you really have a personal relationship with your insurance provider today? Do you even have a choice in which carrier you get? Most people don’t, they have to take whatever carrier their company provides for them. And then, once they take the carrier that is provided, they usually have to pick a doctor that is on the plan that the company offers. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a lot of free choice to me. You are being lied to by Insurance Companies. Single Payer will provide more choice and more cost savings to the average household. The only group that will suffer form this are the Insurance Carriers, and they will tell you every lie they can to stop it from being implemented. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for these companies. The way I see it, they are a big reason costs have escalated and quality of care has decreased over the last 30 years.

Gawd Beth, you crack me up!

Glad you're laughing in the face of all the evil coming out of this administration.

Let me ask you this -- how loud would you be braying if it was Bush doing all of this, the "notify the White House of 'fishy' e-mails and turn people in," the stuff that's implemented in these bills that takes your rights away...

I be you were one of the loudest to come against Bush's "Patriot Act," yet this wipes out SO MANY more of your civil rights. Yet you remain silent.

Your alliance with the left will be your undoing. You are more aligned with a political faction than you are with your own inalienable rights.

Did you fall out of a tree or something?

I'm glad I have to go get my hair did because I don't think it would be in anybody's best interests for me to get into a tiff with you right now about this stuff. You're obviously all freaked out and irrational right now. Hang on girl. If you keep listening to the extremists, you've got a lot of pain in store for you.

You REALLY don't get it, do you? I'm listening to YOUR PRESIDENT. I'm hearing HIS WORDS. I can't figure out for the life of me how an otherwise intelligent woman chooses to live with her head permanently up her ass.

Good thing you got your hair "did," but I worry that your rectum will muss it up.

By the way, BJean, did you watch this? It is Obama HIMSELF talking about single-payer healthcare, which is socialized medicine.

Okay, THIS is some of the scariest shit this thug has put out there to date:

Call For Informants: If You Oppose Obamacare, Even in ‘Casual Conversation,’ the White House Wants to Know About It - Jeff_Emanuel’s blog - RedState

So... for those who think this is a red herring, I pulled up the White House site to see if it is truly there. It is, right under Linda Douglass' video:

The White House - Blog Post - Facts Are Stubborn Things

Big Brother wants to silence the TRUTH.

Are you seriously trying to compare this to the atrocities of the Patriot Act and all of the other civil rights violations the Bush/Cheney administration implemented? There is a legitimate debate going on about healthcare right now in this country. A lot of people are making points in both directions, some are valid some are not. It looks to me like they are trying to collect the information so that they can refute the untruths, they are not specifically asking for the senders addresses.

This is what Robert Gibbs said about it in the Press Conference today:

GIBBS: Nobody is collecting names. This was -- we have seen, and as I've discussed from this podium, a lot of misinformation around health care reform. Some of it I think spread purposely. We have used on many occasions the Web site to debunk things that are simply not true. We ask people if they have questions about health care reform and about what they're hearing about its affects on them, to let us know and we'd provide them information to show that that wasn't true, but nobody is collecting names.

Are you seriously trying to compare this to the atrocities of the Patriot Act and all of the other civil rights violations the Bush/Cheney administration implemented?

You're seriously NOT?

I'd bet if Bush/Cheney was the one implementing these Stalinistic procedures, you'd be all over it. Why does this administration get a pass??

Are you seriously trying to compare this to the atrocities of the Patriot Act and all of the other civil rights violations the Bush/Cheney administration implemented? There is a legitimate debate going on about healthcare right now in this country. A lot of people are making points in both directions, some are valid some are not. It looks to me like they are trying to collect the information so that they can refute the untruths, they are not specifically asking for the senders addresses.

This is what Robert Gibbs said about it in the Press Conference today:

GIBBS: Nobody is collecting names. This was -- we have seen, and as I've discussed from this podium, a lot of misinformation around health care reform. Some of it I think spread purposely. We have used on many occasions the Web site to debunk things that are simply not true. We ask people if they have questions about health care reform and about what they're hearing about its affects on them, to let us know and we'd provide them information to show that that wasn't true, but nobody is collecting names.

OT, but please learn about how laws are passed and who votes for them. The Patriot Act was voted in by both parties in Congress with flying colors in 2001, and was renewed almost as successfully in 2006. There was more opposition in the House than the Senate, but it still passed and renewed easily. Their names and parties (LOTS of D's in there) are easily available. If you don't like it, make sure to blame EVERYONE involved.

OT, but please learn about how laws are passed and who votes for them. The Patriot Act was voted in by both parties in Congress with flying colors in 2001, and was renewed almost as successfully in 2006. There was more opposition in the House than the Senate, but it still passed and renewed easily. Their names and parties (LOTS of D's in there) are easily available. If you don't like it, make sure to blame EVERYONE involved.

I know very well how laws are made, thanks for the attempted high school civics lesson. I am also very aware that Democrats (the Senate vote was 92-1-1 the first time and 89-10-1 on the 2006 version (Obama was in favor of the second version in 2006)) voted in favor of the law too. The point I was trying to make was that it was the Bush Administrations law that congress approved and it was the Administration that pushed thru other egregious encroachments on civil rights. I don’t for a second give the Democrats a pass on that issue, nor do I forgive those that got us into the Iraq War. In full disclosure though, I bought the Iraq War nonsense early on too because so many of the lies the Administration fed us seemed so compelling at the time.

You're seriously NOT?

I'd bet if Bush/Cheney was the one implementing these Stalinistic procedures, you'd be all over it. Why does this administration get a pass??

No, I can not compare the two in any way.

I am angry at the Obama Administration about this issue though, just not for the reasons that you are. I am angry that they were too shortsighted and politically naïve not to see how this would come back to bite them. I think they were making an attempt to gather information and talking points form the other side so that they could retaliate against them, rumor control if you will. I don’t believe for a second they were trying to secretly collect personal information on “dissenters”. They didn’t need to do it this way though, they could have just Googled the web and gotten all of the info that is out there for anyone to see. By asking for it this way and not explicitly telling people to strip out email addresses, they have opened the door for their critics to lambast them on the issue. For the record, they deserve to be lambasted for it too, hopefully they will learn form this stupid mistake. If I were in the Administration I would demand the idiot that initiated this either resign or be fired.

I am all for everyone having health care, but why are we rushing this. Can't we pay for what the hell we have charged up before we add to it. (or at least most of it)

Work the kinks out of this (and I am sure there are some) and then bring it back to us.

Hell why not get a cross section of the country and ask them what they want and need..not what you think we need. I know..I know..very naive.

I get very leery of things when they are rushed. I feel like I am not getting the whole truth. I think this is how the country is feeling right now.

There is plenty of reason for us all to want this to slow down. What usually happens when they get a rush on things is a decent law doesn't get passed. Some butchered version of it will pass and it will have lots of crippy crap garbage attached. It will wind up not helping us in the way that we hope. If past history is any indication.

On the other hand, if they don't get it passed pretty quickly, the thing dies and the resurrection is difficult if not impossible. Again, nothing good happens as a result.

If the Democrats don't wise up and play the game that the Republicans have for many years, they're going to lose the game again. You have to fight dirty when you're in a pig sty if you want to win, otherwise you just let the pigs sling all their dirt on you and half the time it sticks.

Beth, your references to my ass and my hair are SO beneath you. Oh wait a minute, no they aren't. They're just like you. Gross!! You make some understandable arguments and then you say stuff like that and I can't stand to debate with you. You have some nerve talking about my leftist views. You're the most blinded person on this thread. Blinded by the Republican half truths, dishonesty and double dealing. You eat it up. Well, I am very sorry I tried to banter with you. You just become so revolting I don't want to have anything to do with you.

We are around number 34th in the world. We have a higher infant mortality rate than other industrialized nations. Many of those nations have a longer life expectancy rate.

Who are 1-33, then? Because frankly, I don't believe it.

So you're saying that the power we gave George W. Bush is the power we're giving President Obama today?

No, what I'm saying is the power you give President Obama today is the power you are giving the George Bush of TOMORROW!! I suspect you're blindly swallowing all this because President Obama is saying it, whereas you would be (rightfully so, ironically) suspicious about this if George Bush was pushing this bill. Remember, the government doesn't refund any power....what power we give them once, they have forever.

Some less mentally endowed folks think that paying taxes is socialism. They like the ring of that word.

Nice dodge, but this is waaaaaay beyong paying taxes. I heard today (Disclaimer: on Fox News, so I'm sure you'll discount it right away as a right-wing conspiracy) that if you tax EVERYbody in America that makes over $250,000 / yr @ 100% (ie, take everything they have), then it still wouldn't pay for the estimated cost of this healthcare bill.

Some people think that any kind of government oversight or involvement in our health care industry is socialized medicine. Big corporations have been calling every program that Congress or a president can come up with that might improve people's health care plight in this country, socialized medicine. It scares hell out of people.

BJean, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Just because the big corporations are against the healthcare bill doesn't mean that said bill is good for the country. That is simplistic thinking. Where the dems are going wrong is that they're too elitist...if you don't agree with them you're "buying the dis-information", or "being scared by the right wing", or "don't have a good enough grasp to know what's good for them". Hey, maybe people just know a turd when they see one, regardless of party politics?

There is plenty of reason for us all to want this to slow down. What usually happens when they get a rush on things is a decent law doesn't get passed. Some butchered version of it will pass and it will have lots of crippy crap garbage attached. It will wind up not helping us in the way that we hope. If past history is any indication.

On the other hand, if they don't get it passed pretty quickly, the thing dies and the resurrection is difficult if not impossible. Again, nothing good happens as a result.

Why? Why is it more difficult to introduce a better bill? Is the process not the exact same? Regardless, the white house said today that if there isn't any gop support for this bill by September, then they'll try to ram it through with dem support only (and it will probably happen...so get ready).

If the Democrats don't wise up and play the game that the Republicans have for many years, they're going to lose the game again. You have to fight dirty when you're in a pig sty if you want to win, otherwise you just let the pigs sling all their dirt on you and half the time it sticks.

Riiiiiiight.......meanwhile America suffers from party politics.

Americans suffer from confusion from all the lousy politicians and media pontificating politicoes.

I wish the media reported the news. That's just not the case anymore. That's not what people want and that's not what sells papers or air time. And when you have someone like Rupert Murdoch running one of the networks, it isn't hard to understand. Things used to be at least a little disguised as news. Not anymore. Everything is real in-your-face biased politics.

So health care reform is a turd, eh? What's your alternative to fixing the problems we have with this system? Oh yeah, you think that the insurance companies can sort it out. Ahem.

What are you going to do, join the rabble rousing folks who are taking it to the streets? That's exactly what I wanted to do when Bush took us into Iraq. But he was our president and we let it play out.

Now President Obama is our president and he needs to have the opportunity to lead us the way Americans voted to have him lead us. Protesting isn't a bad thing if it is genuine. But right now these people aren't protesting, they're inciting to riot.

How's this going to play out? Americans battling it in the streets like they do in other countries? God forbid.

Americans suffer from confusion from all the lousy politicians and media pontificating politicoes.

Why do you keep insisting that Americans are confused? Did The Huffington Post say that or something?

So health care reform is a turd, eh?

Nope. The current version of the reform bill is, though.

What are you going to do, join the rabble rousing folks who are taking it to the streets? That's exactly what I wanted to do when Bush took us into Iraq. But he was our president and we let it play out.

Oh yes, I'm sure President Bush has fond memories of the respectful way the demonstrators made their point. And RE: rabble rousing folks, you might want to remember how liberal college students shouted down every conservative speaker that was invited to speak. And maybe you want to remember how that fine, fine "Code Pink" organization conducts itself with subtly and dignity. In fact, I believe we had a discussion on here, back when the shouters were liberal and the speakers were conservatives. Maybe I'll go looking and re-post....that should be interesting.

Protesting isn't a bad thing if it is genuine. But right now these people aren't protesting, they're inciting to riot.

How do YOU know these protests aren't genuine? Because the democrats say so?