Why I haven't been a Republican for many years now

[Amianthus]

So, suppose, someone has insurance at X company and gets cancer. Then X company lays off a bunch of people, and now this person gets a job at Y company. But his/her cancer is now a pre-existing condition and is excluded from coverage. How does sirs' clever comment give this person the treatment they require to get well?

Under CURRENT law, if this person gets a job at Y company within 6 months, they cannot be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition. If the person gets a job at Y company after 6 months have passed, then they can only be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition for 12 months, after which, it must be covered. This is the current federal law, some states have different limits, but they cannot be worse than federal law, only better. (Maryland, for example, limits pre-exisiting condition clauses to 6 months rather than 12.)

[sirs]

Good gravy......so why the need for this 2000+page Obama monstrosity if pre-existing conditions are already legally mandated, with specific time frames applied??  Why the 2000+page Cash for Croakers power grab to "cover everyone" when it doesn't??  Why the 2000+page piece of legislative crap that will saddle this country with far more debt that it's already broken every debt record, in order to "see what's in it"??


The question is largely rhetorical, since we all know exactly why the hard core liberal dems are trying to pass it.  And hint, it has prescious little to do with healthcare

[Amianthus]

If anyone is interested in the changes I'd make for healthcare, here they are. I'd have each item in the list as a separate bill, none of them should be more than 1 or 2 pages in length.

• Increase period for exclusion of pre-existing conditions to 12 months, and limit pre-existing condition clauses to 6 months.
• Remove all limits on health insurance sales across state lines.
• Modify COBRA such that a company that lays off an employee is responsible for any difference between what an employee must pay under COBRA and their previous health insurance costs (employee will not pay more under COBRA than while they were employed). A company can opt out of this provision by providing 100% of the costs of medical while the employee is unemployed (they can gamble that the employee won't get sick, but if the employee does they must pay 100% of the medical costs).

These are the changes I would make right off - I would wait for this to settle out for a couple years before revisiting.

[sirs]

2, maybe 3 pages...max, right?  This conservative will work with you on adopting those provisions

[BT]

You can't govern unless you are in power. So unless a conservative is a member of a political party, they might as well be a libertarian for all the good it will do.

AMI thanks for your proposals. You helped clarify the status qua and what reforms you think are needed.

[Christians4LessGvt]

You can't govern unless you are in power. So unless a conservative is a member of a political party, they might as well be a libertarian for all the good it will do.

uh?...maybe it's just semantics
i am a conservative
kind of like a "free agent"
i could just as easily vote for a conservative democrat as a conservative republican
we currently see in Congress right now conservatives coming together to stop Obama on many issues

define "member of a political party"?

because they stamp republican on your voting card because you voted
in the republican primary in my mind does not mean you are a member of that party

sure party may be needed to organize if you are a candidate or an elected official
but party in my mind should mean nothing to a voter

what kind of moron would vote for a candidate they disagree with, but still vote
for them just because they are in the same party as the voter?

to me that's insanity...but i think thats where the term yellow dog democrat came from
so there are people in this country that conduct themselves that way...blindly voting party only

[BT]

My larger point is that philosophies don't win elections, people do.

And people aren't perfect. So i doubt you will ever find a perfect conservative,nor should you expect to find one, because for a conservative candidate to be viable, to be representative of an entire district, state or country, he or she sometimes has to listen to the other side, to find common ground, reach agreement on that which can be agreed upon while striving to convince the opposing side of the error of their ways. Not an easy gauntlet to run.

But we all compromise, because a principled conservative might not have the perfect candidate to vote for, so they settle for their second or third choice. Some of the biggest Bush supporters in this forum claim to be conservatives and Bush was no more conservative than Nixon.

How do you damn politicians for what you yourself do?

They settle, you settle. They make tradeoffs, you make tradeoffs.
They negotiate.

Because both you and they live in the real world and that is the way the real world works.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Under CURRENT law, if this person gets a job at Y company within 6 months, they cannot be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition. If the person gets a job at Y company after 6 months have passed, then they can only be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition for 12 months, after which, it must be covered. This is the current federal law, some states have different limits, but they cannot be worse than federal law, only better. (Maryland, for example, limits pre-exisiting condition clauses to 6 months rather than 12.)
==============================================
(1) I was referring to the supposed law in the mythic Land of sirs, where pre-existing condition exclusions appear to be sacred.
(2) If you have some forms of cancer, those 12 moths could easily be the difference between life and death.Curiously, I tend to side with life.

[sirs]

Someone who "obviously" doesn't pay attention to what sirs writes

[Universe Prince]

My larger point is that philosophies don't win elections, people do.

And people aren't perfect. So i doubt you will ever find a perfect conservative,nor should you expect to find one, because for a conservative candidate to be viable, to be representative of an entire district, state or country, he or she sometimes has to listen to the other side, to find common ground, reach agreement on that which can be agreed upon while striving to convince the opposing side of the error of their ways. Not an easy gauntlet to run.

But we all compromise, because a principled conservative might not have the perfect candidate to vote for, so they settle for their second or third choice. Some of the biggest Bush supporters in this forum claim to be conservatives and Bush was no more conservative than Nixon.

How do you damn politicians for what you yourself do?

They settle, you settle. They make tradeoffs, you make tradeoffs.
They negotiate.

Because both you and they live in the real world and that is the way the real world works.

There is a difference between accepting a trade-off to make small gains now and supporting the things to which one's political philosophy is supposed to be opposed. The latter seems to be what Mr. Elder is complaining about. Supporting what one claims to oppose indicates a lack of integrity, even in the real world.

[BT]

Mr Elder is harping from the bleachers. He has no skin in the game.

Perhaps Elder is confused because he doesn't realize that fiscal conservatives make up a faction of the GOP, social conservatives make up another and country clubbers make up another.

Of course there will be discrepancies between voting records of Republicans and the straw man Elder has erected.

[Universe Prince]

While I do not share your insouciant acceptance of Republican politicians embracing big government, I am glad to see that at least you seem to admit that party platform and the like are meaningless. While Mr. Elder may or may not also realize this, he is not imagining or setting up a strawman that the Republican Party and its spokesmen in general seek to position the GOP as the political party of fiscal conservatism and smaller government. And while Mr. Elder may be in the bleachers and not in the game, unless you are a member of Congress or one who regularly works with  those members, I would say you are also in the bleachers and not in the game. Mr. Elder has as much "skin" in the "game" as you do. He is no less his congressman's constituent than you are. Potential candidates for office must seek his vote as they do the vote of anyone else. Seems to me the closest thing to a strawman here would be the notion that merely being a member of the Republican or Democratic Party somehow elevates one to the status of being "in the game". While the members of the parties may comfort themselves by thinking of themselves as being so elevated, this is not a novel of magic but, ahem, the real world where believing a thing does not make it so.

[BT]

While Mr. Elder may or may not also realize this, he is not imagining or setting up a strawman that the Republican Party and its spokesmen in general seek to position the GOP as the political party of fiscal conservatism and smaller government.

On scale, they are. Or do you think the Democrats are the Party of fiscal conservatism?

[Universe Prince]

While Mr. Elder may or may not also realize this, he is not imagining or setting up a strawman that the Republican Party and its spokesmen in general seek to position the GOP as the political party of fiscal conservatism and smaller government.

On scale, they are. Or do you think the Democrats are the Party of fiscal conservatism?

That the Democratic Party is not the party of fiscal conservatism and smaller government does not mean the Republican Party ipso facto then is such a party. The Republican Party may attempt to position itself as the party of fiscal conservatism and smaller government, and certainly its representatives make many words about those things when they are not in control of Congress and/or the Presidency. The Republican Party, however, in action and deed has proven repeatedly and consistently to be neither fiscally conservative nor limiters of government.

[BT]

That the Democratic Party is not the party of fiscal conservatism and smaller government does not mean the Republican Party ipso facto then is such a party.

Sure it does. They, on average, are more fiscally conservative than their Democrat counterparts. That they should be even more fiscally conservative in the minds of some is fine, they are entitled to that opinion. But, to mix metaphors, to be called hypocritical for claiming to be for immigration reform, when you don't call for rounding up all the aliens and shooting them, does not mean you are not for immigration reform.

But be careful what you wish for. A true fiscal conservative would double your taxes in a heartbeat.

American businessman, politician, and current Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, considers himself a fiscal conservative and expressed his definition of the term at the 2007 United Kingdom Conservative Party Conference.
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To me, fiscal conservatism means balancing budgets - not running deficits that the next generation can't afford. It means improving the efficiency of delivering services by finding innovative ways to do more with less. It means cutting taxes when possible and prudent to do so, raising them overall only when necessary to balance the budget, and only in combination with spending cuts. It means when you run a surplus, you save it; you don't squander it. And most importantly, being a fiscal conservative means preparing for the inevitable economic downturns - and by all indications, we've got one coming.
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--Michael Bloomberg[17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatism