I love how Solyndra is still giving out bonuses. They need to retain that great talent they got.

Justinian I, his argument had absolutely nothing to do with any concept of god. Epic fail.

The idea that morality is make-believe is a silly and naive. Human history and psychology both just called you stupid.

They weren't humorous enough for me. If they were actually humorous I'd have enjoyed them. And maybe, just maybe, dolts wouldn't have responded to them as if they were serious. (lol--okay that part was funny)

Your lack of humor annoys me!

What's there to talk about? Republicans are going to nominate another establishment candidate.

Whoever wins, our debt will grow, and our course toward fail will progress forward.

RIP Breitbart.

I can't wait to learn more about our righteous president.

It's going to be awkward to see him ignore and brush off causes he used to fight for.

Noir:  "human development index ratings"?!

...Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I'm not going to argue with whatever statistics your propaganda ministry tells you verify that your healthcare is better than mine. My bad. You're right. You didn't tell me who donated the best healthcare to you free of charge, but I'll ignore the fact that you ducked the question and trust that you're right.

RisingDown:
"and those even lower in the economic picking order get stuck in the clinics that we in Europe consider pitiful."

And yet, by my lower-middle-class standards, the best you can get in Europe I consider pitiful. Nobody is donating the best specialists and newest technologies to your socialist healthcare systems. You simply don't have in your hospitals what I have access to. You constantly ignore this paramount fact and refer to faulty availability measures to rate anything above American healthcare.

"effectively creating a system where there are 2 extremes in the healthcare: good & expensive vs cheap & mediocre/bad."

The same exists in your country, except the gap between the rich and the poor is much, much wider. The rich come to America for care I can afford on my lower-middle-class income. Your middle class have no top-notch care available for their middle-income as I do--Additionally, they are saddled with paying for your crappy global healthcare, whether they're satisfied with it or not.

I'm a free man and I have better healthcare than you do. You sound jealous. You make references to unhealthy people as if I care. I'm not their babysitter, and, in a free market, their stupid lifestyle decisions spike their cost of healthcare--not mine.

Maybe you should get education/training for an occupation other than "babysitter." I'm not a babysitter. My healthcare is better than yours. Consider this well.

" I think what we're seeing now is a big initial increase in the costs because the system needed to be overhauled for this new system to be implemented, and I expect these costs to drop in the coming years. It's an investment that may pay off in the future. Leave it alone and check again in 5 years."

This is just stupid, ignorant, childish nonsense. Are you 12?

Use your head. Where is your explanation of the mechanics which will, eventually, you claim, decrease costs? Everything "Obamacare" does increases costs. Overhead. Stupid mandates saddling responsible people with the additional costs of irresponsible people: That's a direct disincentive for healthy behavior, which obviously only increases total costs.

Cutting doctor compensation only lowers the quality of care and, as we've seen repeatedly with the "doctor fix," only goes so far.

Healthcare companies didn't jump on board because they thought they'd get less money with this legislation.

Government involvement is the biggest source of cost increases in healthcare. From massively restricting competition and removing all costs of care from the customer (aka patient), the whole system has gone haywire, with customers (patients) having lost all grasp or where the real costs are and having lost all responsibility for picking up that tab when their behavior vastly increases those costs.

There's also the simple matter of freedom. I obviously think you're a bunch of ignorant, naive children. I don't want you involved in my healthcare. Anywhere. Ever. It's my responsibility to take care of myself, and the free market assists me greatly.

You're arguing that you know better than I do, and you can provide better than the free market. Let's pretend that's ever been the case regarding anything. What happens when healthcare companies, rather than you benevolent geniuses, guide (aka buy) politicians to milk us customers/taxpayers for all they can? It happens with every other regulatory agency. Giving more corrupt people at the top more control is asking to be extorted. It's like wanting the mob to extort you because, somehow, you actually convinced yourself they're going to protect you from the legitimate threat of... yourself.

Noir: Most of that cost is because of government involvement. Despite what you believe, it is a simple fact that the new legislation will increase costs even more. In addition to the indirect increases in cost, much of it is direct--Some of which I referenced previously. Want some examples? Everyone will now be chipping in for STD medications, contraceptives, and birth control, regardless of if they do or even can have use of them. People with good healthcare plans (shouldn't the goal be to get as many people good healthcare as possible?) will now have HUGE taxes levied upon them.

Increasing the cost of healthcare doesn't help more people get healthcare. Taxing the crap out of good healthcare does not help more people get good healthcare.

This legislation is silly (corrupt) on its face. It's about extending government control over healthcare. The claim that it will cut costs is absolutely ridiculous and laughable on its face. If its intended purpose was to increase coverage for the poor, the bill wouldn't be thousands of pages long and still not provide low-income care on the backs of the taxpayers.

As for "mediocre," you two are just ignorant, cocky children. America has the best healthcare in the world. Period. The ONLY measure you ignorant brats can claim America ranks behind anyone on is measures of national "availability." I specify the word "national" because most of America's programs providing healthcare to the poor are handled on the state level, even when involving huge sums of federal money.

It's really embarrassing that you're so ignorant and yet you have the nerve to post such trash anyway. The simple fact is that our money not only buys us the best technology and specialists on earth, but develops new technologies that save lives. You can pretend that your government is benevolent and wise and does the same with your tax dollars, but your government is neither benevolent nor wise and, on top of that, you simply don't have the money to contribute to the advancements of the age that America has.

If you want to argue that America should provide healthcare to 100%, I respect that argument. But the ONLY measure you can rate America behind ANYwhere else in the world is availability--a flawed measure, because the ratings you refer to ignore the MAJORITY of low-income healthcare ("free") provided to the poor in the US. It's at best ignorant, at worst deceitful to even make such a silly claim.

On top of this, you ignore that America has simply the best healthcare available to anyone anywhere in the world. And it's available to middle-income America if they prioritize it. And it would be MORE available to middle-America if government didn't make it SO much more expensive with bizarre regulations and huge taxes.

Noir: Prioritizing what? Corruption? Payoffs? Higher costs for lower quality care?

HotDogBun: What part of the bill causes our current care to be expanded to "more care"? Is it being donated by aliens? Because more and more doctors are dropping coverage by government providers because of the low payout for services and more are retiring early to avoid the headache and low payout.

"More care" sounds great. But what part of this bill produces more care?

And what standard of "medical care" are we talking about providing for those who don't have it now? Cuba's level of care? Maybe North Korea's? Because part of this bill includes taxing the crap out of desirable healthcare. How exactly are we making good care more available by taxing the crap out of it? Or doesn't the best care matter -- I want too much healthcare? I should have a harder time getting more in order to provide crappy healthcare to all, even those who choose to buy other things over it?

People with cars worth more than a few grand, houses, kids, who eat out, who drink, who do X Y Z can afford healthcare; they choose not to.

If you want to provide healthcare to the poor, that's great.

But this bill doesn't provide "free" healthcare for the poor.

But this bill does things like tax me to pay for contraceptives and herpes medication and HIV medication--I'm not sure how this helps provide care for the poor, but I am sure it punishes responsible behavior and saddles responsible people with the costs of irresponsible people. Nice disincentive.

How is taxing good healthcare I want to provide my family substantially more a solution? I'm all for helping the poor, but somewhere between providing herpes and HIV meds, contraceptives, cell phones, air conditioning, cable TV, apartments and houses, I'd love to not have good healthcare for my own family made substantially more expensive because I need to fund a bloated, fraud-ridden government program often disincentivizing responsible behavior.

Paininside: In the free market, the cash rewards the best producers. This motivates higher quality and quantity production, resulting in more and better quality stuff at lower prices, increasing all of our standards of living.

When government cronies pay off their sponsors AKA handlers, the money is reward for corruption and begets more of it.

To pretend that taxing money out of the economy and giving it away to anyone is equally good for us all is stupid and disgustingly ignorant.

Bunch of whack-jobs.

Racist government policies cannot combat racism. That's retarded. The end.

Stop being racist while you complain about racism.

It's not that hard. You, too, can stop being a racist. Try it some time.

Just like the competition of companies selling goods from China always find out if there's lead in their infant/children's products!

Oh, wait: That frequently doesn't happen. We're talking about nations where governments frequently use their power to assist businesses (sometimes government businesses) in whatever profits them, making information and access less available to competitors.

Sure, sounds nice on paper. Oooo a naive moderator will give you points on a forum! But as the lead example indicates, it doesn't always happen in reality. Bigger industries than children's products are all the more valuable and justify increased government protections in countries like China. Shortsighted proposals get support all the time: They require more government to enforce them, so there's always powerful bureaucrats in favor of them.

Major polluters only signed the Kyoto treaty because it exempted them from meaningful cuts. There's absolutely no chance they'd sign on to [enforceable] legislation that actually caused them to dramatically increase costs of production: Their people are not as rich as you, and cost of living loss is very real to them. Ignorant, pampered brats of this generation (in well-off Western countries) are quick to say they would take a cut of a few thousand dollars/euros per year if it saves the planet (in the name of blatantly political "science").

But nobody in the less developed world is willing to take a $10 increase in what they pay for products because a bunch of politically-motivated scientists 5000 miles away say it's for the planet. Let's not have that debate--Maybe you're at least 1% correct--But propaganda like Al Gore's "documentary" only detracts from any real case you may have. People without the luxuries you have aren't going to set themselves back because someone tells them it's for the good of the planet.

Large portions of the world don't have nearly any cars, or even refrigerators, air conditioning, televisions, etc. And none of them are willing to set themselves back in getting these things you take for granted because someone says they're killing our planet every time they breathe.

You want to save the planet. That's great. But the only people signing onto these sorts of measures are corrupt bureaucrats. They're not saving the planet, and they're not going to.

Our freedom in the USA, such as it is, is not lauded in schools because our schools espouse communist ideals.

Obviously men are wretched beasts and many armed conflicts involve some horrible actions by horrible people making them happen. Obviously, then, many people aren't serving with full consideration of the morality of their actions. One would think free peoples would give more weight to such consideration (and more likely , but people are, by and large, pretty dumb. People, by and large, enjoy ignorance and choose it.

Your first prerequisite can only be measured in relative terms, and more importantly, isn't inherently a determiner of the morality of a conflict. The government of a less free nation could attack/violate the sovereignty of/whatever a more free nation, putting it at fault.

Prerequisite 2 is pretty much given, and tricky; but not unmanageable if one is honest about it. To pretend that an army of hundreds of millions (lol?) surrounding a nation (presuming no provocation) isn't a threat that's about to attack is just silly. That Hitler would devastate Europe wasn't unknown to many; they were in denial.

Prerequisite 3 is pretty much given.

To disagree with 2 or 3 is to say that you have no right to use force against someone who would enslave you. To disagree is to endorse slavery. Any claim of such would either be retarded or trolling.