on an unrelated note, I hope you’re enjoying our debates as much as I am. I can respond less regularly if you’re genuinely getting angry or annoyed. Oh, and sorry the lgbt one honestly got a little too personal.

The govt has no money of it’s own, it can only borrow and tax. there is a limit on how much they can tax, that limit being 100%, that would still leave them short to pay for all of the expense that would be incurred.

And again if universal health care doesn’t replace private health care then it isn’t universal.

When Canadians don’t want to wait for their government health care, they can cross the border and get whatever they need here. In the UK, if you don’t want substandard government run medical care, you pay for private health insurance and go to a private hospital.

With the black market thing you are right and wrong….at the higher margin will be the specialty services that aren’t covered, but at the bottom side there will be a black market for the poor to still bridge that gap. How large that market is is in relation to how strict the govt becomes with the services it does decide to offer….think of back alley abortions, but sub abortions for something the govt decides it won’t fund.

Oh, and black market health care? What do you mean by that? People who will pay for further services the government won’t offer but private healthcare won’t have a product for them? Because the way it works elsewhere is kind of like what you said, free market at the higher ends. Those who can afford it get supplemental healthcare to cover the gap between the absolute basics the government covers and everything else that people still want. But “those who can afford it” aren’t the extremely wealthy they’re the middle class (this is in reference to what happens elsewhere).

Oh, and if you’re gonna throw out the euthanasia thing, I’ll play cuz this is an interesting side issue. The problem of prolonging life at extreme expense. This happens a lot and what do you do when you might bankrupt your family for another 6 months. This is probably the most touchy issue I can imagine, but it comes down to costs and we as a society have to start taking a hard look at our selves.

As far as the govt running private health care out of business goes, the point is that a private corp can’t confiscate your wealth like the govt can, this will affect the private corp’s ability to offer services at a reasonable price because of the market share that the govt will demand. This will cause further erosion of the private corp’s customer base causing an increasing burden on those who don’t move to the govt system.

The private sector may never actually disappear but that won’t matter to those who can not afford the services they offer.

What you endorse would result in a free market that only exists at the highest side of the margin, on the low end of the margin we would probably see a huge black market for services the govt no longer offers due to cost overrun issues.

This limits freedom and choice of the consumer. Erick doesn’t have to list all of the alternatives to the universal/single payer govt system.

I even think you could stretch to make a Constitutional argument against the single payer system, as it limits one ability to exercise their right to freedom of association.

Unfortunately, the Democratic machine is doing a very good job of sending us off on tangents, e.g. the latest “uproar” over Steele’s comments about homosexuality being a choice or not.

We need to focus like a laser on our core message.

It seems to me a list of promises with the line: “If it requires taking someone else’s life, liberty, or property, it ain’t a right. ” at the end would be a cute little ad we could run.

Kidding aside, EE, I think you’re exactly right on this. If we can come up with better alternatives, the people on the other side will start listening to us again.

But wait, what has this got to do with freedom and liberty? Everything! You want to work for your “American Dream”, forget it because without the productivity of a free market of manufacturing most will be stuck in the cheap services sector flipping hamburgers. Your individual liberty will be shipped out of your community, stolen from you by Big Government Waste and Abuse, more and more will be lost if this is not stopped. Big Government is the Problem and Not the answer! We need leadership that can deliver this massage and can show the fortitude to carry out this new direction.

Well I would like to chat some more but McDonalds is hiring and I got to go, I just lost a job as a millwright, my freedom and liberty stolen from me, “every man can make himself” is gone and we need to take it back NOW!

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Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.

James Madison