Freedom - is liberty worth the price tag?

[Neil D]

Don't hold your breath, Neil. If you believe they will actually achieve that, I have a really nice bridge to sell you between Michigan's peninsulas. The "choices" they have in mind have nothing to do with natural medicine.

Does your current health care Insurance pay for natural medicine? If you get your choice of insurances, like they have in Congress, would that encourage you any?

PS- I want a certificate of authenticity on that bridge you hold controling interest on....

[GreatLakesGramma]

I do not have insurance. Why on earth would I be throwing away money on insurance that doesn't pay for my choice in health care? Especially since I can't afford it in the first place?

If they come up with low-cost policy that would only cover accidental injuries, then I might think about it. Otherwise, I don't want insurance. Period.

[karl]

What the very kind grandma is trying to get you to see, Neil, is that every liberal program you are recommending is accompanied by a loss of freedom.

People should be free to NOT pay for health insurance or health care if they don't want it. People should be free to NOT pay for illegal aliens, abortions, government subsidies and handouts to other nations, businesses and freeloaders. They are not currently free in these regards. Their tax dollars are supporting these things because liberals keep voting for more spending.

Support true conservatism and lets try to get this leviathan government off our backs.

Neil, I think we can at least agree that we are opposed to bailouts for banks and other businesses (corporate welfare.) Now let us extend that free market wisdom to all aspects of life. If people want insurance, let them buy it. If they don't, what right does the gov have to force them to buy it? This is ludicrous. We don't have the right to force them to buy an essential, like food, but insurance? Oh, sure! Yeah, that's more important than food.

[Neil D]

I do not have insurance. Why on earth would I be throwing away money on insurance that doesn't pay for my choice in health care? Especially since I can't afford it in the first place?

If they come up with low-cost policy that would only cover accidental injuries, then I might think about it. Otherwise, I don't want insurance. Period.

Ok, ok, don't beat me up for your choices in health care. It just seems a bit harsh not to have back up for accute processes.... And so, when you have an acute appendicitis [enter disease of choice], who's gonna cover your $25k hospital bill and $15k doctor and $10k surgeon bill?

What type of health care are you doing?

Let's see, you eat vegan.

.... and take natural herb remedies?

grow your own herbs? Do you take St. John's Wort?

[GreatLakesGramma]

I am a raw vegan. I am in agreement with Dr. Gary Null and others in the natural health movement, who says that there is really only one disease, cellular malfunction, and there is only one cause of disease, toxins.

Operating on the basis, I have rid myself of conditions that, according to information at officially sanctioned medical websites, are incurable. Why should I be concerned about things like appendicitis?

And as to any high medical bills I might have for any reason, I prefer to trust God to provide for them. He always has. One year, we had over $10,000 in medical bills, of which, if we had had insurance, only a few hundred dollars would have been covered. Our daughter also got married that year. My husband earned more money that year than he ever has either before or since. We paid all bills as they came up, and did not go into debt for any of them.

It was nothing short of miraculous. And I feel convicted to continue to trust God for the future. Whatever He allows to happen in our lives, He will also provide the means to deal with it. I do believe that if the government forces us to buy insurance, God will provide for us to have everything we need anyway. But I am, and always will be, opposed to the government taking away our freedom of choice in the matter.

[karl]

My hat is off to you, GLG. You are doing the right thing. Staying healthy and fighting the attempts of the people who are NOT living healthfully to make you pay for their health care.

Insurance is nothing less than applied socialism. The only freedom you have in insurance is choosing your risk pool, and Obama/dems are determined to take that freedom away from you.

Interesting that people get more conservative as they age.

Gallup has conservatives at:

30% in ages 18-29

41% in ages 30-49

42% in ages 60-64

48% in ages 65 plus

Wonder why?

[GreatLakesGramma]

You deleted your post while I was writing my reply, but I'm still going to say you're dead wrong, Neil. I will die before I will ask for medical care I can't pay for. And that is my choice to make, not yours or anyone else's.

But I don't believe it is ever going to come down to that, because, as I have said, God has always provided for everything he's ever allowed to come into our lives, in more ways than I could tell, even if I were to devote my full time to remembering and writing about it for a month. But even if it should happen, I will continue to trust Him. He performed a miracle to heal me once. If it is His choice that I die next time, so be it.

I have been under very strong conviction for many years to leave my health in His hands, and never seek treatment that would put my family in financial hardship, even if it appears that I will die otherwise, and also to depend on God instead of insurance companies. I am going to follow His will in this matter, no matter what you or anyone else thinks.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Interesting that people get more conservative as they age.

Gallup has conservatives at:

30% in ages 18-29

41% in ages 30-49

42% in ages 60-64

48% in ages 65 plus

Wonder why?

Because we learn from our experiences and mistakes, from watching the experiences and mistakes of others, and from world events.

Believe it or not, I was a Democrat as a teen/young adult. Now I'm a Libertarian. If I believed that politics and government were the answer to our nation's problems, I'd be a dues-paying member. But I prefer to give my money to the only One who really has the answer.

[phkrause]

You deleted your post while I was writing my reply, but I'm still going to say you're dead wrong, Neil. I will die before I will ask for medical care I can't pay for. And that is my choice to make, not yours or anyone else's.

But I don't believe it is ever going to come down to that, because, as I have said, God has always provided for everything he's ever allowed to come into our lives, in more ways than I could tell, even if I were to devote my full time to remembering and writing about it for a month. But even if it should happen, I will continue to trust Him. He performed a miracle to heal me once. If it is His choice that I die next time, so be it.

I have been under very strong conviction for many years to leave my health in His hands, and never seek treatment that would put my family in financial hardship, even if it appears that I will die otherwise, and also to depend on God instead of insurance companies. I am going to follow His will in this matter, no matter what you or anyone else thinks.

I do agree with people's choice to not have healthcare if they don't want it. My problem is for those that choose not to have healthcare than come into the ERs and don't pay. The rest of us pay for that. This is one of the many reasons why the costs of healthcare are so high. In Mass they were saying that the cost of us who have health insurance is in the billions because of those that have no healthcare and continue to go to the ERs because they know they can't be turned down. This is a problem, and not just here in Mass, pretty sure its in every state.

pk

[Neil D]

You deleted your post while I was writing my reply, but I'm still going to say you're dead wrong, Neil. I will die before I will ask for medical care I can't pay for. And that is my choice to make, not yours or anyone else's.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Unfortunately, people don't always make the choice themselves to go to the ER. My son told me about several incidents he'd read about, due to the sad state of the economy, of people involved in accidents taken to the ER unconscious, then actually unhooking themselves from everything and leaving when they woke up and found themselves there, because they had lost their insurance along with their jobs.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Oh, and I was doing a bit of research on Dr. Gary Null, and found a lot of stuff on Quackwatch.

[GreatLakesGramma]

One other note: I used to trust in drugs. But I kept getting sicker. When I turned to alternatives, I got WELL.

[karl]

Originally Posted By: karl

Interesting that people get more conservative as they age.

Gallup has conservatives at:

30% in ages 18-29

41% in ages 30-49

42% in ages 60-64

48% in ages 65 plus

Wonder why?

Because we learn from our experiences and mistakes, from watching the experiences and mistakes of others, and from world events.

Believe it or not, I was a Democrat as a teen/young adult.

Yep, Gallup has liberals at:

31% in ages 18-29

21% in ages 30-49

20% in ages 60-64

16% in ages 65 plus

Wisdom of age. Or maybe it is mirroring the desire to keep some of what you've worked your whole life for.

Easy for kids to want to spend other people's money. They still haven't learned that it doesn't grow on trees. Plus, they have virtually nothing to try to protect from the taxman.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Wisdom of age. Or maybe it is mirroring the desire to keep some of what you've worked your whole life for.

Easy for kids to want to spend other people's money. They still haven't learned that it doesn't grow on trees. Plus, they have virtually nothing to try to protect from the taxman.

Decades of watching the government fail to deliver on their promises, refuse to cut the pork from the national budget, take away more and more of our freedoms, and spend our nation farther and farther into the hole is a big part of it. We have to live within our means or suffer the consequences. The politicians that run our government seldom suffer the consequences of their profligacy.

[karl]

The Dangerous Return of Utopian Socialism

From the desk of Martin De Vlieghere on Thu, 2009-10-22 17:17

Jeffrey Sachs is senior economist at the UN and author of the bestseller "Common Wealth" and the controversial Time essay "The Case for Bigger Government". In a recent interview in the Brussels newspaper, "De Tijd," Jeffrey Sachs blames “unbridled American market capitalism” for the financial crisis and pleads in favor of the Swedish social model as an alternative. His ideological argument is revealing for the dominant utopian-socialist mind at the top of the UN.

The Swedish social model, which Sachs would like to introduce, has not the only the largest Size {per capita} of Government of Western World, but also the weakest economic performance of the OECD. In 1970, Sweden still was the fourth wealthiest nation in the world. Thirty years later, Sweden had fallen to rank 17 with catastrophic social consequences.

------------

Entire article here: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4132

Sweden had the highest per capita savings in the world before they went socialist LESS THAN FORTY YEARS AGO. Socialism gradually dropped everyone in the culture to the lowest common financial denominator.

If they were after egalitarianism, they got it, but what an enormous price to pay.

[karl]

Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business.

Since French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed constitution of the European Union, we've heard countless theories as to why: the unreality of trying to forge 25 E.U. countries into a United States of Europe; fear of ceding excessive power to Brussels, the E.U. capital; and an irrational backlash against globalization.

Whatever their truth, these theories miss a larger reality: Unless Europe reverses two trends -- low birthrates and meager economic growth -- it faces a bleak future of rising domestic discontent and falling global power. Actually, that future has already arrived.

It's hard to be a great power if your population is shriveling. Europe's birthrates have dropped well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children for each woman of childbearing age. For Western Europe as a whole, the rate is 1.5. It's 1.4 in Germany and 1.3 in Italy. In a century -- if these rates continue -- there won't be many Germans in Germany or Italians in Italy.

In the 1970s annual growth for the 12 countries which are now using the euro averaged almost 3 percent; from 2001 to 2004 the annual average was 1.2 percent. In 1974 those countries had unemployment of 2.4 percent; in 2004 the rate was 8.9 percent.

One way to revive economic growth would be to reduce social benefits, taxes and regulations. But that would imperil Europe's "social model," which supposedly blends capitalism's efficiency and socialism's compassion.

Consider some contrasts with the United States, as reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD.) With high unemployment benefits, almost half of Western Europe's jobless have been out of work a year or more; the U.S. figure is about 12 percent. Or take early retirement. In 2003 about 60 percent of Americans ages 55 to 64 had jobs. The comparable figures for France, Italy and Germany were 37 percent, 30 percent and 39 percent. The truth is that Europeans like early retirement, high jobless benefits and long vacations.

The trouble is that so much benevolence requires a strong economy, while the sources of all this benevolence -- high taxes, stiff regulations -- weaken the economy.

Europeans could do something about their predicament. They could, but they're not. This is the classic dilemma of democratic socialism: Too many people benefit from the status quo to change it; but the status quo isn't sustainable.

[GreatLakesGramma]

This is the classic dilemma of democratic socialism: Too many people benefit from the status quo to change it; but the status quo isn't sustainable.

That's already the case here too. Only they want to make it more so.

[phkrause]

Decades of watching the government fail to deliver on their promises, refuse to cut the pork from the national budget, take away more and more of our freedoms, and spend our nation farther and farther into the hole is a big part of it. We have to live within our means or suffer the consequences. The politicians that run our government seldom suffer the consequences of their profligacy.

Didn't Clinton get rid of the pork? And than Bush revoke that bill when he came into office? I seem to recall this!

pk

[Woody]

I am very hopeful that with the next election ... we will be able to get more Republicans in and stop the flow of pork.

[karl]

I am very hopeful that with the next election ... we will be able to get more Republicans in and stop the flow of pork.

Only if they are conservative republicans. I would rather elect conservative democrats than liberal republicans. We simply cannot afford any more of what we have been getting.

We are bankrupt several times over.

Politicians refer to slowing the increase in the national debt as if it were fiscal conservatism.

These guys have to go.

At this point, the only politicians we can afford are those who are committed to cutting entitlements. Entitlements, and only entitlements, are sinking the ship.

[lazarus]

I am very hopeful that with the next election ... we will be able to get more Republicans in and stop the flow of pork.

The GOP loves pork too! It just a different kind of pork. GOP = Guns and tax cut spending. Dem = Social services and infrastructure. Do really think Republicans will cut spendig in any significant shape or form. They never have.

Note that Dick Cheyney was a hero at the last CPAC. Wasn't he at the center of the last Admin that is so despised by conservatives. The anger is not about the actual spending but whose doing the spending and what it is being spent on.

[phkrause]

Originally Posted By: Woody

I am very hopeful that with the next election ... we will be able to get more Republicans in and stop the flow of pork.

The GOP loves pork too! It just a different kind of pork. GOP = Guns and tax cut spending. Dem = Social services and infrastructure. Do really think Republicans will cut spendig in any significant shape or form. They never have.

Note that Dick Cheyney was a hero at the last CPAC. Wasn't he at the center of the last Admin that is so despised by conservatives. The anger is not about the actual spending but whose doing the spending and what it is being spent on.

Good post Lazarus. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I've asked this before, didn't Clinton sign a bill to get rid of the pork and than Bush reversed that bill?

pk