Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars:
Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to think this observation might resonate with voters: John McCain could be denied coverage under John McCain’s healthcare plan.
Elizabeth Edwards, whose cancer is no longer curable, was pointed in her criticism at a meeting of healthcare journalists:
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, said she and John McCain have one thing in common: “Neither one of us would be covered by his health policy.”
Edwards lodged her criticism of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s proposal Saturday at the annual meeting of the Assn. of Health Care Journalists.
Under McCain’s plan, insurance companies “wouldn’t have to cover preexisting conditions like melanoma and breast cancer,” she said.
McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy. Edwards in 2004 was diagnosed with breast cancer, and announced a year ago that it had returned and spread into her bones, meaning it no longer could be cured.
McCain’s plan focuses on offering new tax breaks for individuals who buy their own health insurance. But critics say the Arizona senator’s proposal avoids giving insurers requirements on whom they must cover and how much they may charge.
John McCain, who has received low-cost, taxpayer-funded government healthcare for his entire life, is content to leave millions of Americans uninsured. This is not surprising. (McCain is known for his robust lack of interest in domestic policy.) He used to be one of those Republicans who looked for pragmatic solutions to domestic problems, and even lent his endorsement to this book, in which Democrat Jim McDermott and Republican Jim McCrery came to an understanding on healthcare reform. Both men, liberal and conservative, agreed that any healthcare plan that didn’t cover everyone was a waste of time and money. I hope John McCain could come to that understanding too.
I will bet Old Man Flip Flop Insane McCain will drop before November.
Seems funny someone that has flip flopped on almost every issue, and only votes to help the top 1% is doing so well.
I just love how his lap dog press corps talks repeatedly how “honorable” he is, and how he is so “energetic”. My god. I want to puke.
If it wasn’t for the 50 lobbyists holding him up, he would fall flat on his face.
Why don’t the lobbyists just run for president as a group. They could call themselves “America Gets Screwed Again” and put that name on the ticket in front of the -R. I am sure 50 million American cave dwelling un informed maggots will vote for them, just because there is a -R after the name.
I just wonder who Insane McCain would bomb first if he can fool enough retards into voting for him…..
And yes, in real life I am just like I am here. If anyone is stupid enough to admit they are a Republiconvict, I make sure I insult them.
If they still call themselves Republiconvicts, I want to let them know I consider them common criminals.
Being Republican is admitting guilt to aiding and abetting the Bush Crime Family.
Insult the bastards.
So let’s see – we want to spend taxpayer dollars to make sure women don’t have abortions – but we DO NOT want to spend taxpayer dollars to make sure their kids are healthy.
It looks like Elizabeth Edwards isn’t supporting the Obama healthcare plan either:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....94654.html
BTW, this McCain video link is for Will:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....94558.html
(Notice that McCain can’t even do scripted humor and not sound like he’s reading it on the Senate floor.)
Hey HorsesAss Steve,
Which Constitutional Amendment gives us the right to healthcare insurance??
Get off your horsesass and get a job to buy some.
Hey All Fiction Supports My Insanity,
Insult the “bastards” in person or doesn’t your fictional world allow for self-accountability??
Forgot my signature which I would also repeat in person to anyone at anytime to their face;
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child – miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill disciplined, despotic, and useless. Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats.” – P.J. O’Rourke
@6
Then how come every spoiled rich kid I’ve ever known in my life is a Republican?
@7 – Unfortunately most people I have encountered as being the spoiled rich kids were all dems….sad to say against the party.
@6
Leave it to liberals to confuse a spoiled child with “spoiled rich”.
5 w
The Constitution does not “give us” rights. We possess them. Homeschooled?
But here’s a little something for you. Um, it’s in the Consitution.
If you need to be told, this statement makes your question meaningless.
Conservatism is a philosophical superstructure that at its core is an excuse for selfishness.
When McSame says he wants to cut costs, what he means is cut benefits. He doesn’t think about how health care is provided, just whether insurers are making the money they think they ought to be making. McSame is just four more years of Bush with one or two extra wars.
I would say that no one in general has any right to health insurance. But everyone has a right to health care.
Maybe McCain is scheduled to blow a gasket just before the convention and Jeb Bush will be nominated in his place.
@13 How could healthcare be a right? Please explain how that would work. You said it previously – Rights are not “granted” by the Constitution, they’re affirmed. Given that, how could healthcare possibly be a right? Seriously. What other right is based upon governmental coercion? I surely don’t know of any way to make healthcare a right otherwise. Do you?
@10
First, the question is rhetorical (look up the word genius)
Second, our Constitution defines in writing our inalienable rights. Nonschooled??
Finally, have you lost any semblance of sanity by offering Amendment IX as a ludicrous argument that healthcare is an inalienable right!?!?!?
NO ONE is THAT stupid!
@11
I retract my previous observation…you can be that stupid.
@13
How profoundly obvious.
Speaking of health – when will that old bastard JohnBoy McCain release the health records he’s been promising? Or was that just another one of his lies too?
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child – miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill disciplined, despotic, and useless. Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats.” – P.J. O’Rourk
Who cares what you or PJ O’Rourk thinks about anything? Fuck you right wing asshole! You represent traitors, cowards and crooks – and I’ll say that your face at the next DL if you have the stone to show up.
Oh yes I forgot Puddy – you don’t come to DL.
@ 15:
The answer you seek is in the preamble to the Constitution. See if you can figure it out and post your answer.
Good luck.
@21 Nah, I’ll concede my ignorance. Why don’t you explain it to me?
@2 “Insult the bastards.”
I’m working on it.
5, 6 = Republican social darwinism on full display in all its resplendent glory.
… As if Republicans aren’t the world’s biggest freeloaders to begin with …
@15 Health care is at least as much a right as getting a lower tax rate than the janitor who empties your wastebasket. (Example #2008-1754932-04 of fucked-up Republican values and fucked-up Republican priorities.)
@26 Okay then Roger, tell me how. You were a lawyer, speak with your intellect and not your emotions for once.
@20 – Puddy was at the last DL as GBS has said! You were the one who no showed both at the meeting in Rainier and at DL
Yeh I can’t hardly wait to see you Democraps trying to get a needed medical service after your F’n free Healthcare to 47 million more Americans gets into effect.
This is going to be a F’n riot to watch!
Have you been to a doctor’s office in Washington lately, and looked and waited around since Gregoire and her gang of thieves started handing out free healthcare?
Waited an extra hour or more past you’re appointment time?
Wait till these Stupid F’n Democraps get through with their BS plan, you’ll be waiting months for an appointment and years for a needed operation.
You’ll all be in the Emergency ward, where you claim the uninsured now have to now go, because you won’t be able to get an appointment or an operation in any reasonable time frame!
It now takes a Year in England to get a heart valve operation.
They have a brand of socialized medicine like you are all giddy about.
I just hope you don’t need a heart valve! Or at least in less than a year!
“Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, said she and John McCain have one thing in common: “Neither one of us would be covered by his health policy.””
Why would she, wealthy lawyer in her own right and wife of a multi-millionaire trial lawyer, expect any tax-payer funded healthcare coverage? WTF?
As far as the other argument goes – She’s welcome to walk into any hospital in the country and pay her own way. She has the right to purchase the services of the medical profession without undue government interference.
No where in the constitution does it say she has a right for other people to pick up the tab.
@ 30 and 31
Yeah, but it’s health insurance we’re talking about. Of course anyone can pay out of pocket, but most Americans can’t.
See der boy? Dem der deez der healthcare, boy? See?
I’m a Democrat, arguably a liberal on some issues but perhaps conservative on others. As for my own opinion, I will conceed that health care is not a constitutionally guaranteed right.
Health care is, however, something which can be regulated and provided to the citizens by Congress under Article I of the Constitution, allowing it to “…provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States”.
You might also make an argument that it falls within the “commerce clause”, in that the existing patchwork of insurance companies, employer plans, state regulation, and government benefits restrict mobility of workers and citizens between the states. The Commerce Clause was used as the basis for the initial Civil Rights legislation barring segregated public facilities.
Personally, I think the current employer-based health care system is on its last legs. It is one of the major reasons why lots of employers go to great lengths to keep their employees on part-time basis, allowing their corporate staffs to be insured but everyone else to not be covered. And it’s also one of the big reasons why out-sourcing is so beneficial to companies.
Not that the current system really saves us any money. Huge amounts of money are lost in doctor’s offices and hospitals in handling claim administration. By not providing routine health care, we end up paying for it in the end: in emergency room care, medicare when preventable conditions become permanant & disabling, infectious diseases spreading because the initial carriers can’t afford simple medical care, etc. Even the insurance companies contribute to the increase cost, by often being stingy on routine preventive care. They argue that since employees will change jobs every three years or so, it isn’t cost effective for them to pay for routine medical care which will prevent bigger problems that another insurance company might be responsible for paying for later.
I work for an international company, and we have lots of employees come from around the world. Trying to explain how to traverse our health care system is quite a challenge. They usually get frustrated after an hour or so of explanation, and exclaim: “It’s so stupid! In my home country we pay much less, and our health care is just or good (or better), and it’s much simpler! I can’t believe an advance country like the U.S. would have such a stupid system!” Some have even refused to believe my explanations, thinking I’m trying to play a practical joke on them, until their co-workers confirm that I’m actually telling the truth!
GS @29 bloviated:
Yeh I can’t hardly wait to see you Democraps trying to get a needed medical service after your F’n free Healthcare to 47 million more Americans gets into effect.
I hate to break the news, but the fact that universal health care works is beyond any rational dispute. In fact, every civilized country on this planet has some form of it. And you know what? They pay less and get better care. You can cite anecdotes about wait times all you want, but the bottom line is that the Brits, the French and yes, even those wacky Canadians (where I am now living and hope to stay for good instead of returning to a certain Bush-league country) live longer and have better overall health. By contrast, you Americans pay the most for the best health care in the Third World – 37th in the world according to the partisan leftists at the World Health Organization.
Why is universal health care better? Simple – a third of the money isn’t wasted on CEO perks and a cadre of people to deny care like it is in the U.S.
To the Obamaniacs, best of luck, but when you deliver truly universal health care, come talk to me and I’ll think about coming back. For now, I have to get to a doctor’s appointment – one that I chose – that is going to cost me . . . nothing. No deductible, no copay, no coinsurance, no out-of-pocket, nothing. When I can do that in what I’ve always been told is the Greatest Nation On The Face Of The Earth, I’ll listen to your rhetoric about “revolutionary change.”
I-Burn @ 22:
I see you like being “stupid as a fox.”
While the “Preamble” to the Constitution directs no explicit legal authority to any particular body of government, it has been cited, referred to, or implied in various SCOTUS and other lower court cases, the intent, meaning and guiding principles of our Founding Fathers. Courts have referred to the Preamble as to what the authors hoped the Constitution would achieve.
You can dissect the Preamble and discern its many meanings, however for this explanation I’ll only provide the authority for the basis of our government, the implications of a compact, and the specific portion that gives reason as to why health care can be considered a right.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The authority:
“We the People of the United States . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
These are the defining words that address the very foundations of our government. It clearly demonstrates that the Constitution derives its power from no higher authority than “We the People” because “We” “do ORDAIN” the Constitution: Not God, the Creator, Jesus, the Pope, Bishop or any other source of mysticism. It is this that the motto “A government of the People, by the People, and for the People” is birthed.
This describes the ultimate Social Compact. We the People, therefore, get to collectively decide what functions government will and will not perform. It is by our will and our will only.
“We the People, in Order to . . . promote the general Welfare” may decide that health care is a service that will be provided by the government.
And, that, my friend is where health care can become a right if we the People choose it. Understanding the Constitution and the framers intent is vital to understanding how government is supposed to function.
AGAIN I ran a right wing coward off a thread. This is too easy. These ass-licking punks simply haven’t got the balls to stand and fight, which is why they support the war – as long as someone else goes over to fight in it.
BBG- so who did YOU “run off” on this thread?
@35 GBS, thank you for a lucid and intelligent argument. There really isn’t an excess of that here, so it’s appreciated.
I agree with you, I think, that one could possibly use that as the basis for an extension of “basic rights”. I’m just not sure how it’d fly with the SCOTUS. For that matter, I’d guess the details necessary to propose such a thing would take years, perhaps decades, to actually work out, leaving it to the whim of successive administrations – not exactly a strength in our system.
And that brings me to my real objection to your proposal. In advance, I’ll say that you’re probably going to think I’m some kind of paranoid nutcase. But here it is. I’m an historian. I know that historically, the viable lifetime of democracies has most often been measured in generations, rather than hundreds of years. Our nation is pushing the envelope as it is. When democracies fall, they always fall hard, and frankly there is always a Bonaparte waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces. What I’m getting at is that based on the stresses and strains evident in our society at present, I’m not comfortable with the creation of a whole new pervasive bureaucracy, with that kind of access to personal data. What you want might be a good thing in the short term, but I’m not so sure it’d be one long term. Does that make sense? I’d prefer a weaker government that hasn’t the power to interfere too greatly in my life. But that’s just me…
I-Burn @ 35:
I will certainly agree with you that there are few lucid and intelligent arguments on this blog. I will also confess that from time-to-time I just love getting under the skin of the opposing views.
I wouldn’t consider myself a historian, but I do enjoy reading books on our Founding Fathers and the Constitution’s beginnings.
In general historical terms, the SCOTUS and other lower courts have cited the Preamble and its meanings when rendering its decisions and opinions in the past. Not every legal opinion rests on specific words in the Constitution. I give you Marbury v. Madison as an example. Judicial Review as we know it does not exist in the Constitution. Or, the “Wall of separation between church and state.” Yet, these two points profoundly impact the rule of law.
Putting that aside for a moment, the opinion of the SCOTUS is completely irrelevant at this point, and it most likely will remain so. That is because NO court will hear a case to give its legal opinion on “potential” legislation. You have to demonstrate “legal standing” in order for a court to hear your case, which means you have to have had suffered real injury or damage. The government providing health care does not convey those types of injuries. Even “for profit” health insurance companies would not be able to claim injury because the federal government gave insurance to those who are uninsured, or did not opt to use their services.
If you’re concerned about a failing democracy, then you should be concerned with health care for those without it because that number is growing substantially each day. If you’re worried about personal data being examined by the government, that is already well underway. Read the fine print in your insurance policy. The Bush administration and the Republican congress of the recent past have decimated our privacy laws in the name of security.
But the whole thing about government health care is that it is voluntary and not compulsory. So, if you object to it you can continue with your private health insurance.