Exactly where is your data supporting the correlation between uninsured people and the number of people who don't vote?

I am more concerned about the politicians who run campaigns based on lying to us about how much they care, when in realty, they don't.

And the great USA, the land of the legendary opportunity to climb the economic ladder, has also been the land where people have been falling down the ladder a lot recently.

I have two close friends, both hard-working, business oriented conservatives (yes, I don't exclude people from my circle based on their political preference) who have come on hard times through circumstances that would have been extremely hard for them to control (although I'll admit it may still have been possible). One was a construction-industry guy pulling in 90K a year when it all fell apart about two years ago. He has lost his house, been unable to help his daughter finish her college education, and to add insult to injury, his wife gave up on him and filed for divorce. He finally cracked during an argument with her and last I heard was in jail after she filed a domestic assault charge on him.

Another is a hard-working Ivy Leaguer with both an MBA and Computer Science Master, both from top-10 universities, plus military ontelligence experience. A true conservative big brain. Both he and his wife lost their jobs (they we pulling a combined $150K in at the time) about three years ago. The wife now has filed for divorce, they have almost depleted his retirement accounts, and they will use hers to pay off the humongous credit card debt to support their accustomed lifestyle while they haven't been working. He has been fighting depression as well as a severe back-pain disability.

These people are hardly the leftist whiners you complain about.
These are people that would dearly love the opportunity to work seventy hours a week if they could find the work. They didn't voluntarily give up their homes, or end up getting divorced because they were couch-potatoes. They vote red; thought Bush was good, hate Obama, and are against regulating the banking industry (even though they are fully aware that idiots at Goldman Sachs and companies like Enron screwed things up for the rest of us).

So I don't think everyone who needs help or has fallen on hard times is simply a peanut-butter hippie/whiner, or a cadillac-driving welfare-queen.

The situation is lot more complicated than that.

I feel betrayed by the Democrats. I also don't want the GOP platform. But at least the GOP doesn't lie to you about what they are going to do. They are going to re-instate all the failures of the Bush years under some magical thinking that we just didn't make the mistakes big enough or long enough for them to magically flip over into being beneficial. It's dumb and delusional, but at least they don't lie about their beliefs and true intentions.

The same can't be said for Democrats. They promised health-care reform; we got giveaways to insurance companies, big pharma, and the anti-abortion crowd. They promised a change in foreign policy from the Bush years; we got a continuation of those exact same policies, albeit those policies are now coated with liberal language. But they haven't changed.

The Democrats promised banking reforms; we got giveaways to the big banks, no real reforms, and while arguably, the $780 billion helped to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the US economy, most Americans will not see improvements in their economic oppotunities even while the same idiots who caused the meltdown continue to advise our Democratic President and pay themselves huge, completely undeserved and out-of-line bonuses, and they continue to look for new bubbles, and gamble with our money, which they keep if they win, and we pay if they lose.

Given those are my choices, exactly who the hell am I supposed to vote for?

financial companies may be much more than $780 billion. Maybe up to $23.7 trillion.

Who votes red. I want them to get divorced lose their jobs go hungry and rot in he'll

Is it possible that some poor people don't mind that much being poor? ...

Except in those places where the strange concept of "potential death sentence for poverty" exists, it actually ain't so bad.

Of course, we should probably agree on a definition of "poor" first. In Canada and America "poor" often means "still possessing wealth, resources and opportunities that 50% of the human race can only dream of". Entire clans in developing nations - whole villages - live on less than our "poverty line", they'd think that was *real money*.

I know a 90 year old man right now who actually can't use one single pleasure a lifetime of earning provided him; for medical reasons, he can't drink liquor, can only eat a narrow range of bland foods, can't travel, can't drive his Mercedes. I suppose he could spend money on his medical expenses, but since it's Canada and they're all paid for there's no need.

But he was a happy man this Christmas when his children were over, with their own children, as they are every year. Despite a language barrier he made a gesture to me that touched me deeply. He said "having my children in my house is...". And then he made a gesture over his heart that was like - expanding, swelling...

Some people realize the lesson implicit in that in their final years. Some figure it out earlier. Some die before they figure it out.

I mean, those who are not poor see poverty as something horrifying and they cannot understand how somebody who is poor in the US would not do all they can to get out of it. As you say, in the US, being poor is still being a king, judged from the standard of the really poor in many places around the world. For many people being poor here may just be enough.

We vote for the politicians.
We pay them a salary.

We do not pay for their re-election.
They "raise contributions" (accept bribes).
The vote for the paymaster (not us).

And you expect them to do what we want?

The system is corrupt. Completely corrupt.

It sounds to me like this: "If this bill to help the poor doesn't pass, then I'll give up on helping the poor--besides, I'm well enough off that it doesn't matter to me. Poor people don't vote anyway, so why bother helping them if it means I have to put up with whining arguments from others online who disagree with me and think the bill does more harm than good? It will be the left's fault if this doesn't pass, because the left demanded that the bill cover everyone and clamp down on the private insurance industry more."

Look, I can understand wanting the bill to pass and perhaps blaming the left if it doesn't (though I would think the conservatives weigh a bit more heavily in the blame category there...), but why do you blame the left and then turn around and attack the poor and uninsured as unworthy of your further consideration? Because people who you have identified as on the "left" disagree with your position on the bill and pursue a course of action based upon their own beliefs? How does that even make sense?

Constituency that votes. I don't see it. If you don't vote idont support. Hey I do welll with repubs. It just don't matter anymore.

Scotjen, you said, ""Hey I do well with repubs." Finally, you're coming out, loud and large, for Republicans.

Or, in your caring moments, are you saying, if they don't vote for Democrats, you "dont support."

I think we're close to a breakthrough Scotjen. Is this all about you wanting the uninsured to vote for Republicans?

Does or does not do?... I didn't think so... Besides, look, he has a point. If the folks who we think would benefit from X don't bother voting, then screw them, perhaps what we are just having wrong assumptions about what would benefit them...

Rights are not conferred on citizens by their voting behavior or by the fact that they do or do not vote. Those rights are inherent. That's what this place is about. Saying that people shouldn't get what they have a right to because it's presumed that they don't vote is preposterous and highly offensive. It places the person making the statement and policy in a position of 'God like' determination of who gets to live or die, which is the ultimate stake in health care reform. The basic rights I have as a citizen belong to everybody and I have no rights that are excluded to anyone else. That's a political belief but it's the basis for out political system. Scotjen can disagree but he's advocating a radical change in the fundamental principles of our Constitution. It's more akin to the eugenics movement.

Are we talking about here? Are you saying that we should force whatever rights we are talking about down the throat of people who don't care about them?

"unalienable rights" from the Declaration and "promote the General Welfare" from the preamble to the Constitution (you can't have general welfare if people are forced to suffer or die needlessly).

People have a right to health care. We can do that with a reasonable effort. Talking about voting and other nonsense as criteria for benefiting from the system of government established is ridiculous.

Hmmm, sorry, if I'm OKAY and the people who need it more than I do don't care about it, then I don't care about it either. Glad to give a hand, but they have to do most of the hard work because it should be more important to them. Who am I to impose what I think they should have on them?

they aren't *stupid*. They've been deceived, and by extremely skillful and well-funded liars, for a very long time. They should be educated, not scorned.

It's not like everyone in America has had the opportunity to see how it works elsewhere (I seem to recall there was even a recent US President who had never visited Canada); most of them got their info on what ideal healthcare is through American corporations. And believe me, if I'd grown up getting all my information about healthcare from the American media, I'd probably be in no better state.

is that you don't really have any skin in the game.

Have you looked at the bill? Have you thought about how the working poor are supposed to find 8% of their income for purchasing a private, for-profit insurance plan that may well not pay for much of anything, etc. etc. etc.?

If the point was to just fiddle with the insurance sector to benefit the companies who don't actually provide any care, have an exempted monopoly and profit handsomely then perhaps your beloved Mr. Obama and his party shouldn't have called it "health care" reform.

Now, me personally, I'm not comfortable letting the actions of others drive my perceptions of right and wrong. And when I act, I have little choice but to act in accordance with that sense of right and wrong in any given situation.

So choose your action or inaction, whatever that turns out to be, because you think it's right, not because someone hurt your feelings or not.

Hoping to get the vote out.

In 2008, Obama beat McCain by 1.9 million to 1.7 million in Virginia. In 2009, a Robertson clone, McDonnell beat a Democratic joke Deeds 1.5 million to 0.8 million. That's a 0.2 million spread for the Republicans from 2008 to 2009 and a 1.1 million spread for Democrats.

All it took was a year for a do nothing administration by Obama to help lift the Republicans back up in Virginia. That was helped considerably by a candidate, Creigh Deeds, who, despite being a Democrat, said he'd reject the health care reform bill for Virgina as governor. Deeds could barely utter an audible sentence but voters understood that one.

So there you go, it happened here and, regrettably, it can happen there.

This race is not about Coakley, or even Obama. It is about the tons of money pouring into the state strictly to defeat health care reform, and don't think otherwise.

Very true.

Conservative talking point you're using! Good stuff. I'll be sure to use 'em at my next limousine liberal cocktail party!

^{"Sí che dal fatto il dir non sia diverso."}

-Dante

There wasn't enough room for my smugness, lattes, "save the whales" poster, and the Prius I keep in my back pocket. ;)

I just don't care. Go for it. I'm fine

Are you well off? Do you have savings? Do you have good health insurance? Do you have a good job? Just curious :)

Retire tomorrow. No debt. Untouched

...or took a fall. A lack of compassion is a lofty perch and I would never want to fall from such a height. My falls have been small: but in fairness; many, many Americans drank the cool aide. Just who is responsible for that?

For people who don't vote or don't care. People who don't know they are being bought and sold by corporate interests. Democracy in the us is very nearly destroyed and no one even sees it.

Merton says it all perfectly:

"The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows, not by clarity and substance but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything."

Ignore what?

to consign Scotjen61 to the soundproof bozo bucket. (Where he/she belongs, in my opinion.)

He could retire tomorrow... Untouched... :)

is a crowd of angry, almost-violent protesters hanging around in DC for as long as it takes, brandishing guns, torches, etc. Talking a million people (likely unemployed), milling around pissed off about the situation. You don't need violence to change the govt, but the threat sure seems to grease the wheels pretty nicely. Or did LBJ give in to MLK because he *didn't* notice 100,000s of angry blacks marching around the capital?

Honestly, I think that is not possible yet. Our country is in stasis until the next shoe drops, like maybe the slow unravelling of housing in the USA forces the banks back into "pray to Jesus but reach for Uncle Sam" mode. Another bailout just would not be accepted by the citizens, no matter what the cost of refusal.

a soldier's strike. It does not happen unless there are enough people who really have nothing to lose. But, if you have taxes to pay, it means you have income, which means you have something to lose.

i certainly won't be crying, and i'm not sure i can name a single friend or family member, or even random stranger i've talked to, who would cry for the death of this bill.

reminds me what we all said in 2000 and 2004 - democrats are great at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. couldn't happen to a bunch of nicer people.