Resolved Question: Should we work harder to be able to pay health insurance and rent?Should we have more extra jobs?

Resolved Question: Should we work harder to be able to pay health insurance and rent?Should we have more extra jobs?
I am cleaner. I have the job I was born for. I am not a doctor or lawyer and I am happy with who I am. But I am human being and I have my rights. One of them is an affordable health care because I work and clean after those lawyers and doctors who do not want to do this job. We are all involved and all the progress we see is because we all work and do part of the work. So why people like me have no right for an affordable health care? I do not want to be rich. But I want to be healthy, I want to be able to send my kids to school, and I want to have an affordable housing. If I loose my job I will not be able to pay rent. It is our right to have these three things affordable to everyone who works. If you want to be rich go ahead work and study hard and then buy expensive cars, houses for 1M. You won't take them with you after your death anyway.
Source: _http

Resolved Question: Does the Tower of Babel story work as political metaphor, and make sense of US politics today?
What I'm getting at is the reason that God provides for giving everyone a different language at Babel. I believe He is quoted in Genesis as saying that He will sow confusion that human beings will not ever complete the tower, ascend to heaven, and challenge God's pre-eminence. Today most Christians, atheists, Jews & Muslims in R&S make very little reference to the Tower of Babel story; we all fight about other things in here. But politically and economically, aren't we a little like the people in the Tower of Babel story? We face a world that's in a severe economic recession, and in the US the unemployment rate is at 9.5 percent and rising. Millions of people in the US are losing their houses; many millions more are still without affordable health insurance. Meanwhile the big Wall Street banks have accepted enormous financial bailouts from the government, and yet they're still not making easy credit available to individual consumers and small business owners who need it. It's also unclear, so far, that the US government will be able to overcome the resistance of the big oil & coal companies and enact a good program to curb global climate change. So all Americans - religious believers and atheists alike -- face some really important political challenges and political and economic problems, and the futures of our children and grandschildren depend on meeting and solving those problems well. But we are scattered in confusion -- so just because of speaking many different languages, but because we belong to dozens of different religious denominations -- or in some cases to no religious faith at all. The unemployment rates keep rising, and the banks keep getting money from the government without providing credit to people who need it -- and we're permanently divided & impotent because of our disagreements over religion. Is this a new Babel, perhaps? Are there "principalities and powers" who want to keep us perpetually divided over religion and anti-religion, so that we never challenge the power of the economic & political elites? Sorry; there are some confusing typos in this question; my bad. What I meant to say is that we are divided -- NOT just because we speak different languages, but also because we adhere to possibly dozens of different religious traditions, and some anti-religious traditions as well. As the people at Babel failed to complete their tower because of a confusion of languages, so, also, we in the USA today (and around the world) are failing to unite to solve common problems, at least partly because we embrace a confusion of different religious faiths. Are we getting fooled by a powerful economic and political elite into division and powerlessness, based on religion -- just as the people at Babel were fooled by God into a similar kind of powerlessness, this one arising from different languages? K Bell - Thank you for seeing my point. I think you're not quite right to say that God saw nothing wrong with the tower building, though. This is from part of the Genesis story: 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8 It looks to me as if God in this story is worried that "they have all one language ... and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. " He then, on that basis, decides to confound their languages, etc. I mean no disrespect to God, if he really exists. How could I? But isn't this the classic behavior of the power elite - any power elite? To divide the powerless according to language, religion, race, nationality etc, and thus keep them powerless?
Source: _http

Resolved Question: Do you agree with Dr. Ron Paul on health care?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul339.html As a medical doctor, I’ve seen first-hand how bureaucratic red tape interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and drives costs higher. The current system of third-party payers takes decision-making away from doctors, leaving patients feeling rushed and worsening the quality of care. Yet health insurance premiums and drug costs keep rising. Clearly a new approach is needed. Congress needs to craft innovative legislation that makes health care more affordable without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. It also needs to repeal bad laws that keep health care costs higher than necessary. We should remember that HMOs did not arise because of free-market demand, but rather because of government mandates. The HMO Act of 1973 requires all but the smallest employers to offer their employees HMO coverage, and the tax code allows businesses – but not individuals – to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums. The result is the illogical coupling of employment and health insurance, which often leaves the unemployed without needed catastrophic coverage. While many in Congress are happy to criticize HMOs today, the public never hears how the present system was imposed upon the American people by federal law. As usual, government intervention in the private market failed to deliver the promised benefits and caused unintended consequences, but Congress never blames itself for the problems created by bad laws. Instead, we are told more government – in the form of “universal coverage” – is the answer. But government already is involved in roughly two-thirds of all health care spending, through Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. For decades, the U.S. healthcare system was the envy of the entire world. Not coincidentally, there was far less government involvement in medicine during this time. America had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients enjoyed high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and had insurance only for major illnesses and accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment, rather than an HMO or government program. The lesson is clear: when government and other third parties get involved, health care costs spiral. The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine, but rather a system that encourages everyone – doctors, hospitals, patients, and drug companies – to keep costs down. As long as “somebody else” is paying the bill, the bill will be too high. Erich M, the solution is to get the government out of healthcare. It was fine before congress forced medicare, medicaid, and HMOs down our throats.
Source: _http


Labels: