Ok-I'm going to pass your papers back.
Unfortunately, if these posts were mid terms or final exams, you'd all be put back a year.
I'm sorry. Your papers all showed at least an average level of inteligence Most had fair to good ideas abou the healthcare crisis. And only one of you continued with prejudiced attacks on the President.
Your posts-very wordy-sometimes rambling, they force me to fail you due to the fact that you did not do the assignment.
46mil- face death sentences-cancer, heart, kidney......

(cont'd)--I AM sorry-in the margins of all of your final exam/term papers, my 'red pen' comments would circle entire sentences and paragraph's, with comments like, ''interesting idea, but stated already back in 1993-94.''
Currently if 46 million Americans needed a heart or kidney transplant, or aggressive chemotherapy and/or radiation to fight cancer, they would surely die(excepting that fraction saved by miracle last second private charity mentioned in one post).
The Presidents plan and proposal addresses-

(cont'd)-The President addresses this elephant in the room.
We heard talk, ''(it's just)talk''-PMG.
26 years of it. I am hearing calls for reform. I happen to agree. In the meantime--whilst all your good ideas and reforms are implemented(that will take a few days-perhaps even weeks, right?)....please, follow the instructions this time. I've only asked 7 or 8 times now.
Paul
P.S. Please...do the assignment. Answer the question.

I do think that some reforms are needed - but I am not sure that we have to fix the parts that aren't broken. I do not want a bandaid approach, I want any changes to be well thought out so that it will be fair to all (or as many as possible as, unfortunately, nothing will please and best serve everyone). I hope that those who are making the decisions are debating the issues, just as we are in this forum - all sides should/must be heard and considered. How any changes will actually be paid for is, to me, a huge consideration. I also worry that those who will be making the decisions will not have to abide by the same standards of care (or potential lack of) that the rest of us will, so they may not have a true idea of the big picture. I have worked hard, from the bottom up, to achieve my American dream - and I would simply like to maintian my ability to choose the level of care that is available to my family - and that the same level of fairness (and expectations of responsibility) will be offered to, and expected of, others. I am not going to fall into a panic over worst case scenarios on either side of the debate - I just want to know what it all really means - if that is even possible. I think that there are many elephants in the room and I hope that they will all be equally considered and debated. I am trying to be open minded, but I am worried. Sorry Paul, I don't even know/remember what your question is/was????

Very well said, golfwidow. That's how I feel, too.
Not to take sides here but I think part of Paul's frustration is at the heart of why I asked that this discussion be moved from the "Something to think about" thread.
Everyone's concerns about health care and other national issues are legitimate. But too often these conversations among us become political debates because someone invariably hits the panic button on every matter the president and Congress have to deal with.
I submit to you that anything they do in the Capitol will screw somebody over in some way. But it seems a lot of us (not just here on this board) have bought into the divisiveness that reared its ugly head with the advent of talk radio and the relentless labeling by those who have run for office over the last 20 years. So now we have an atmosphere where anything that comes up, if the leanings in Washington are contrary to what we want to see of our government, some of us are very quick to declare the sky is falling, and they'll do that on every issue as long as a certain party has the power. Even when the heart and soul of what they say in criticism of public policy is an honest, well-thought-out assessment, the political spin kills the message. Instead of being something the rest of us can look at objectively, it looks like bashing - and bashing is a fast and efficient means of having an opinion dismissed as empty rhetoric.

Jazzwriter is on the mark about my feeling frustrated. I think we have some good ideas being posted here. Yes, I could do without posts with ''Obama and his cronies'' ''Obama's infomercial'', prejudical and coming from an ingrained negativity about anything the President does or says about anything. But I will wade through all that with a smile, if it leads to an answer.
With all the good stuff posted, the question I asked 7 or 8 times in the other thread was: The President's plan and proposal directly-

(cont'd)-The Presidents plan/proposal directly addresses the unacceptable fact that in the richest country on the planet, we have 46 milion Americans for whom a diagnosis of say, cancer, kidney, heart problems etc-ammounts to a de facto death sentence-other than the miniscule percentage who get saved by a private charity that will pay the hundreds of thousands to pay for chemotherapy/radiation or life saving tranplants. That is a disgrace. I am frustrated that I hear alot of ''no's'' from what some are now

(cont'd)-Some are referring to them as ''the party of no''.
Ok- I will accept a NO to the Presidents proposal. But I ALSO want, not just a no, but an alternative plan....that specifically deals with that largest elephant in the room. I gave failing grades to the posts because they once again ignored that question.
Now I'm gonna get out of the way.
Thanks y'all.
Paul

Guess I am bringing this to the top one last time in hopes that my question will be answered by the 2-3 posters from the other thread that promised to.
''Please, come in-I get so lonely when that third attendance bell rings and all my students are not here''.-Mr. HandB-):-D

I think that the largest elephants in the room are greed, selfishness and laziness! If everyone would be willing to get a good night's sleep, get up in the morning and eat a healthy breakfast, brush their teeth and then go to work or school and do their very best at it, and took the time along the way to stop and help old ladies cross the street and hold the door open for the person behind them, and get some exercise and bring a sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch (instead of eating a candy bar or stopping for fast food), and quit smoking, and stop worrying so much about what kind of car they are driving or when the newest Ipod will be available while complainig about how much it costs to get their teeth cleaned, and spend an evening attending a fundraising spaghetti dinner to help the neighbor who was recently laid off and in need of surgery instead of going out to dinner at a restaurant, and help their kids with homework instead of sitting at the computer all evening (or going out on the town), volunteer at a Hospice or a local school, give blood, and be appreciative and pay it forward when a good deed is done for them, etc....then we will have an alternative plan that might work....there would be no need to divide us with a political fence with this plan - it would just require kindness, honesty, hard work, common sense and decency - if everyone could take responsibility for his or herself (and teach their children to do the same), and be willing to help those who need a little help getting there, we'd be in fine shape - IMO it's those who chronically abuse the system on either end that make it a challenge, and I don't know what to do about them - perhaps if we stopped allowing that sort of behavior to be acceptable? At some point you get what you give - it's just too bad that the middle man has to carry the burden for those who can't see beyond their own noses. The problem isn't healthcare (that's a symptom) - the "problem" is greed, laziness and selfishness. That's my alternative plan - it seems to be an impossible dream...so easy, yet so very difficult to achieve as we humans are so not all that we think we are!