funny that the democrats wan't insurance companies gone... what with their role in having them established in the first place.

They created the HMOs and cant stand them now either.  Goes back to the road to hell and best of intentions.

more like "good intentions of stupid people who demand instant implementation and capitulation to their demands and refuse to listen when smarter people tell them exactly how it is going to be wrong, instead accusing the smarter people of being evil, eating babies, and wanting people to die if they get sick"

How is it that everyone with half a brain predicts exactly what is going to happen with perfect accuracy? I can do it, most conservative talk radio hosts can do it, most economists can do it... and yet to the democrats it is always "completely unexpected"... actually they say "nobody could predict"... it is really funny/insulting when they say this on the positive effects of something someone else has done.. ex: Barak Obama: "I admit that I was wrong about the surge not working, nobody could have predicted that it would be as successful as it was"... really? if nobody could predict it, how come they did it? did the people who pass it think it was going to fail? bah.

So, no... the road to hell is not paved with good intentions. its paved with arrogance and stupidity. My good intentions are to stop obamacare. Their good intentions is to force obamacare on the people who don't want it. Its not the good intentions thats making them ruin this country, but the disregard to the rights of people, freedom, the constitution, and experts in the field.

And they are supposed to be the smart ones. LOL

and yet, conservative are supported to be the ones who limit government spending

Yet another reason why I don't think rethoric isn't that much of a big deal, whoever the politician is. Bush and republicans kept increasing the government's budget during a time of great economical prosperity for the whole world (and the country), which is.. just.. not normal for people who claimed to be conservatives.

Both sides are rotten, mesay.

Conservatives yes, republicans no.  Do not confuse the 2.

Until I see a Conservative Party in the White House..

Or until I see the GoP stop claiming they represent the conservative side of the issue

I will confuse both of them as much as I want. Specially as Bush run his campaign as a conservative. And as many GoP representative at the time also ran as conservative, but have donne little to nothing to cut spendings when the president was on their side (as opposed to their good job when Clinton was around)

Do you mean the same same Clinton with the Republican controlled congress? Are you giving Clinton the credit for keeping the congress in line? I do believe Bill told the public, after the 94 elections, "I hear you and will comply" (something to that effect). At the same time I don't believe the 2006 Congress get near enough "credit" for their spending habits...it was all "inherited" in 2008 after all. The Rep's do deserve their share of the blame, no argument there. I just get a kick out of when liberals complain about fiscal conservatism. Everyone knows it's not their concern at all, just something to point to. Kind of like a fisherman complaining others were catching too many fish, as they are reeling them in just as fast as they can.

Bush was the president, the president controls the military, not spending. Current congress was bending over backwards to do what obama wanted instead of their job (and it was their job to control spending) for some odd reason. they have stopped though. the reason we haven't socialized healthcare yet is because democrats in congress STOPPED bending over backwards for obama (while still controlling congress).

As for republican control of congress... they controlled congress from 2002 to 2006. Democrats were in power between 2000-2002, and between 2006 and 2008 (so, only half of bush's presidency). and currently of course.

Did you know there were several republican proposed bills to stop sub par lending that were shot down by democrats? did you know the republicans actually cut taxes when last in power? Did you know that while bush supported the first bailout, a supermajority of the republicans in congress opposed it, and a super majority of democrats voted for it?

A simple google search:

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/65211

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR03997:

Democrats: 140 AYES, 95 NOES

Republicans: 65 AYES, 133 NOES, 1 NV

and unlike the democrats, the republican voter base has been swift to label as traitor anyone who voted for it and give them the boot. to the point where now every single republican congressmen is unified in saying no to the healthcare nationalization bill...

I am having more difficulty finding the senate results... someone please link them if you have it.

I agree with you here. If all Democrats thought that way their bill(s) would have passed a long time ago as they do have a majority capable of ramming through anything they want. As it is, there are enough of them among their own party who still have some common sense and are trying to do the right thing instead of simply furthering an ideological agenda.

I disagree. The solution isn't to create a government alternative that is doomed to be inefficient and wastful, not to mention highly expensive to the taxpayers, but to change how the existing insurance companies are regulated. They are already regulated so it won't need to be anything new and expensive, simply change some of the regulations. First and foremost is to do away with their anti-trust excemption. That alone will go a long way towards evening out the playing field between the companies and create true nation-wide competition between them.

Secondly is to clamp down on some of their less than honest practices and ensure they can't screw people over. Basically, make sure their contracts between themselves and their customer are honored and don't allow them to simply cancel a person't policy to avoid paying a claim (which happens quite often).

Every major industry in this country is better regulated than insurance. That's what needs to be fixed.

they rammed all the other things through... now they are scared for their seats because they see how much the public hates it.

I agree. We need simply change some of the regulations governming insurance companies. the exemptions need to go, but also a few regulations need to go. If you change jobs, you should not lose your insurance, that means that employers shouldn't be forced to give insurance, in fact they shouldn't be ALLOWED to give insurance, instead they should give a special tax free insurance stipend that you apply towards and insurance of your choice. If you change jobs, you just have your new employer apply his stipend towards your insurance, or pay for it yourself

. You shouldn't lose your insurance if you move, if you are really opposed towards allowing insurance to be sold across state lines, you can limit it to existing contracts (that is, if you move you get to keep your insurance in the other state, but you can't buy a new policy in another state than that which you live in).

Finally, you should rein in malpractice. Actually, malpractice needs to be seperated into medical accidents and medical assults. If the doctor carves his initials into your bones while operating (real case) or uses his own sperm instead of your spouse when doing artificial insimination, that is assult... not malpractice. he should immediately lose his license; be arrested, and be tried for assault. Compensation should come from his personal funds too. not an unlimited compensation lawsuit against the insurance company. Actual medical accidents should be insured for treatment (that is, the insurance pays for your medical bills to undo the damage), and maybe a small predetermined "emotional compensation" fixed amount payout. (right now, its just sue for unlimited payout with a sympathetic jury). It really really sucks when those things happen, but currently malpractice insurance is more than 50% of the gross income of doctors. cutting it down some would mean you half the price of medical care.

the whole "have them compete with government insurance" simply is impossible to do right. Because you just KNOW they will funnel tax payer money to the government insurance company, this means that you are already paying for government insurance, so either you pay twice or you switch to government... it is a stealth way to kill private insurance. Sure if the government managed health insurance company was run WITHOUT taxpayer subsidy it would be perfectly legitimate move... but pigs will fly before something like that happens.

While I agree that mostly, every regulation requires an enforcement bureaucracy the size of which bears a direct relationship to the granularity of the regulation.  Highly granular, complex regulation begets big bureaucracy, a bureaucracy which siphons capital from the real economy, contributing nothing, and spawns ancillary private industry devoted, not to wealth generation, but avoidance of the impacts of regulation.  Regulatory simplification may be an oxymoron, but it's our only path to recovery from the mess we're in, IMO.

Don't misunderstand, regulation of things directly relating to basic public health & safety issues - e.g., sanitation, drinking water, transportation, building codes (up to a point) - is necessary and beneficial, having raised our standard of living immeasurably.  Once you get past the basics, though, regulatory bureaucracy just gums up the works.  When it comes to commerce (and the delivery of healthcare services is commerce), simple regulatory principles are better.  The microregulated nanny state is not conducive to either health or wealth.  Again, IMO.  And it is doomed to collapse in on itself, once there is insufficient productive commerce to support it.  Just look at Greece.

I know an industry that is worse regulated then insurance.

Energy futures. Enron was the first, the high gas prices we had until a few months before the 2008 election was due to banks trading oil futures (largest oil trader in the world? JP morgan bank; not exxon mobile like some think). they were rushing out in fear of new regulation, but it didnt happen and prices have been rising since. And natural gas and other energies are still all being traded heavily in futures and causing price hikes / bubbles for no reason at all.

We need to permanently ban the trading of energy futures by anyone who isn't directly involved in production or delivery. The futures market is there so that farmers could sell their stock, not so that bank X, bank Y, and bank Z can buy 90% of global crude oil production for the next 10 years, and then steadily increase the price at which they sell it to refiners.

Banning isn't the same as regulating, though.  Banning doesn't require a compliance bureaucracy, just criminal statutes.

Energy futures, or any futures trading for that matter, isn't an industry. It's just a part of an industry. Let's try and stick to facts here folks. The stock market isn't actually an industry at all, although it is a major part of the economy. Let's not start mixing apples and koala bears.