Good lord: Kathleen Sebelius incoherently compares ObamaCare to owning a television

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• Okay I decided to try this again and then I stopped before the Superbowl nonsense. What she is saying is that those that have no insurance still use healthcare products and facilities. Okay I am there with her. However I still dont get her point, because those that do not have insurance and get healthcare still HAVE to pay for the healthcare. Insurance having it or not having doesn't exempt you for paying for the healthcare. So it is absurd for her to say that people use healthcare but do not pay when they get it. Trust me they will come after you for that money UNLESS... unless we are talking illegal immigrant here (or another type of fraud situation) with fake social and fake address. Then of course hospitals carries on that fraud and makes people that are honest when they go into the ER or whatever and they pay for it. So even though that first part was understandable now that I re-read it, it still is dumb because she obviously doesn't know what she is talking about. Stating because a minority doesn't pay when they go in the hospital without insurance and defraud the hospital pretty much doesn't mean that the government should punish or make people buy insurance.

  Once she talks about the TV and the Superbowl she completely looses me, but then she goes back to her original point. She should have used a better example. No one else picks up the tab unless they are defrauding the hospital and in that case the hospital passes on those costs to those who do pay. The government does the exact same thing when it is defrauded. Again she is an idiot in my estimation.

  If she is trying to say that when fraud happens no one else should pay the tab, I agree however if her answer is going to be government I once again disagree because govt just makes things worst and fraud will only increase nevertheless. She wants to have faith that govt will lower the fraud, but I have no faith in the government. Hospitals carrying those fees to those who do pay is wrong, but again govt is not the answer. There has to be better solutions. For example do not offer healthcare if the person has NO ID and NO Social or else have a system in place where you can check if the person is a legal person or not. I wouldn't mind that if it meant that someone who is not legal get denied healthcare.

  Then what happens is that we (the communities) can set up free clinics in communities and if communities and government want to subsidize that fine that is where does that cannot pay and have no documentation can go is the quality lower perhaps? Yes but perhaps we can think of incentives for doctors and nurses to donate their time to those clinics? I dont know I am not a politician but people need to come up with solutions and fast.

  • "Then what happens is that we (the communities) can set up free clinics in communities and if communities and government want to subsidize that fine that is where does that cannot pay and have no documentation can go is the quality lower perhaps? Yes but perhaps we can think of incentives for doctors and nurses to donate their time to those clinics? I dont know I am not a politician but people need to come up with solutions and fast."

    this eerily resembles the tiered healthcare of several socialist-leaning European countries

    • You have no idea what you are talking about. Governments don't have to subsidize free community clinics (not fully and not in majority), but for sure community clinics is a not new thing and it is certainly not a socialist thing. The Pennsylvania Hospital was the nation's first real hospital and if anything a community hospital that Ben Franklin raised money for without government subsidizing not the British and not the US (later on). It is possible for people to take control of healthcare in their communities without government intervention, but people are just too damn lazy and see the government as the solution for everything. Don't talk to me please unless you have something productive to say.

      • You are techy, EyeMote seeker. Permit me the use of First Ammendment remedies to address your tortured sentence:

        "Then what happens is that we (the communities) can set up free clinics in communities and if communities and government want to subsidize that fine that is where does that cannot pay and have no documentation can go is the quality lower perhaps?"

        Even if I concede that this does NOT merely resemble some European healthcare systems, let me remind you that the Recovery Act does this very thing. Rejoice, you have found some consensus with your enemies.

        And while i may in fact have no idea what i'm talking about, recall that you yourself were not aware that Cap&Trade was originally a Republican/FreeMarket concept, and that Reagan presided over a near tripling of National Debt. You had asked others here to verify this fact, and i do not recall anyone being forthcoming.

        • Oh and by the way, I apologize for my tortured sentence. I have to simplify things around here for people like you. I appreciate the heads up.

          I really have nothing else to say to you by the way. I have made it a resolution to not get into useless discussions with useless people on the internet. I can also come up with a great deal of insults for people like you, but like I said I am not going to waste my time anymore with people I have no respect for and no need for. Have a nice life, I am sure you can waste your time elsewhere.

        • I am as useless as any of God's children, perhaps, or a man who carried signal and weapon for country, and swore Oath to defend its Constitution. Most assuredly i am useful to my 3 children and my wife.

          You are the Judge of Uselessness, apparently.

        • Oh I am sorry I left my Lib double speak at the library I cannot follow your insults. Please know therefore that I am not insulted because your words mean nothing to me.

          Listen alien, I don't know everything about everything, but I have not seen communities creating their own hospitals and healthcare services and I sincerely doubt the Recovery Act does the same thing by the virtue that is a government institution doing it. I guess by communities you are confusing them with governments and that is not what I mean at all. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that you don't know what it is meant by actual communites... whatever.

          I am sure I can find a great deal of things that you are also very much ignorant of. With that said, I care not about Republican and Democrats. I am independent when it comes to political parties. If Cap & Trade is unconstitutional and many indications point it to be so, then whoever did it, from wherever party is as culpable as the ones that CONTINUE to implement it now like Obama who knows fully well that everything will inevitably go up and so on... causing even more problems like we are having right now. So if you meant to disarm me by pointing that a Republican did it, well it didnt work.Have a nice day.

        • Not being liberal, speaking Lib double speak won't help you to understand me. Myth of me being a lib is your misapprehension.

          Your doubts about community heath centers and Recovery Act funding are easily shed if you simply consult NACHC or the HHS.

  • I think when she says people don't pay for it.. they skip on the bills.. they go bankrupt, whatever.. A lot of this cost gets borne by governments and higher healthcare & insurance costs..

    its more like a store being forced to give out credit for TV emergencies, then the TVs don't get paid for.. and all us other TV buyers must foot the bill

    • What?!

      TV and healthcare... healthcare and TV... I dont see the comparison qualities there.

    • I think you should take the rest of the weekend off and rest up, Alien. You've worked overtime today trying to translate what Sebelius said and make it into something meaningful and we appreciate your efforts.

      • Tis mental exercise

  • Don't hurt yourself KQ... it is illogical. Her premise that healthcare is a RIGHT is where it all goes wrong. Almost in the same sentence she says healthcare IS NOT a right (like owning a TV - it is a privilege) - and then turns around and defends mandating it as a right. How many sides can a mouth have? The left has been using these terms so interchangeably, they have no idea what they mean anymore. A sad day indeed.

    • True. I don't think she knew what she was really trying to say. If healthcare is a right then it shouldn't matter if someone else picks up the tab, but it is isn't obviously someone else picking up the tab is a bad thing. Can't have it both ways but that is what a lot of liberals do.

    • she is contrasting it with the TV situtation, not saying they are the same

• She said its NOT like having the right to a 27" TV. She said we DON'T have a right to expect a TV.

  Am i reading in a different universe?

  Then she says, ON THE OTHER HAND, we ALL get healthcare, because eventually we have the right to the ER (it has been this way for a loong time, and its expensive). Then she says SOMEONE ELSE PAYS THE TAB. She is addressing the very thing that you are all complaining about.

  So, she's saying healthcare is different from a TV. Which everyone agrees with.. except the headline

  • Although to be fair, we do have a right to an attorney and legal counsel if we're ever accused of a crime, and if we cannot afford one, then one is appointed to represent us.
    So as per the 2nd amendment, where's my government subsidized AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of 5.56x45 ammunition per month? I want my "free" guns dammit! I have a right! LOL

    :-)

  • Then why does she support a government program that will force some people to subsidize healthcare services for others through taxes and mandates?

    Healthcare services cannot possibly be a "right". Nobody has a right to the property or labor of others. For me to receive service, doctors and nurses have to work, medical equipment and medicines have to be manufactured, hospitals have to operate. Everything has an associated cost to it.
    Nobody is preventing me to go see a doctor. But just because I have a need doesn't mean that someone else ought to be forced to pick up the tab.
    Mrs. HHS Secretary is twisting this argument and trying to use it against us. She fails miserably.

    By that logic (or lack thereof) it can be argued that we have a "right" to food, since we need to eat in order to live. So when can we expect a government takeover of farms, grocery stores, distribution centers and restaurants so that "everyone can have access to food"? Are they going to force everyone to have food insurance too? Are they going to force us to eat our veggies every day because it's for our own good?

    • its already a right.. (before ObamaCare)

      Everyone has a right to healthcare as a last resort, in the ER.. There, someone else is picking up the tab, if the patient can't pay. You may debate that point, but legally its fait accompli, correct?

      I think she rests her understanding on that fact, and contrasts with TV, to which we do not have a right. Her metaphor is awkward and obviously ineffective.

      To be clear: I am extremely dubious about the health insurance mandate's constitutionality. I just think the article here mistakenly or deliberated mangled her debating point, to make its own point about her apparent stupidity

      • We mangled it? For god's sake, man, read her words. They are absolutely incomprehensible.

        • I did.. they are tortured, but i get her gist. She could've used any voluntarily product. She is trying to say that healthcare is a product we all receive already. A dying hobo can be dragged into the ER and get healthcare. It would be the last minute ER kind, but its a ubiquitous product/service available to everyone and we all pay for it..

          She is CONTRASTING ObamaCare to owning a television.

          That being said, i don't believe this makes the Constitutional case

  • If that explanation about Obamacare being constitutional made sense to you, then you might be from a different universe.

    • i did not address the constitutionality of it

• I am sure the left has a school some where to train people... Because no one could be that stupid on their own... God bless America

• She is kidding right??? Who the hell does she think pays for it now??? A better way to do it is to say that the hospitals and doctors can turn you away if you don't have health insurance!!! Everyone will get it then if it means that they will drop dead on the streets without it. And my nephew and his family, who have been on welfare for as long as I can remember have a 60" TV with satellite and bluray!!!!!!!! Only in California. Good Lord, this state sucks!!!

  • In what part of our wonderful state do you live, Liz?

• She was an idiot when she was governor of KS and she's still an idiot as Health and Human Services Secretary.

• Uhm... say what?! What did she say? I heard it, I read it. I heard it again and I read it again. Seriously what she said made no sense... Superbowl healthcare, healthcare, Superbowl...? What?

• I think I'm actually dumber just listening to that.

  BTW, nobody on welfare has a 27 inch TV. They all have 55 inch TVs or bigger.

  • 27" is the size of the rims on their SUV. So the tires are only an inch thick. Hey, whatever happened to spinners?

  • No joke. When I was a kid, and a VCR was like $300+, (what's that in today's money, $900+?), my parents weren't on any welfare stuff, and we didn't have one, but the family down the road who got stuff for free including free lunches at school sure had one. Or two.

  • 27 inch CRT televisions are so 1970s...

    Today even people on foodstamps and section 8 housing have 50 inch LCD screens, premium cable channels, iPhones and blu-ray players.

    • Don't forget free WIFI

• These people are COMMUNIST!!!! Nothing more, nothing less, it is all about the good for all. Each according to their needs, each according to their ability is tattooed on all of their asses and imbedded into their brains.

  They have the mind set if you won’t buy it or buy in to it. By God we will force you to or you might not be here long.

  The change that was promised is coming. The destruction of the private sector in all aspects and the complete destruction of this nation by barry and his goons.

  Never believe what a person says, watch how they act and who they are interacting with. That will tell you more about them than any thing else.

  • Amen deepthinker and for all of the thumbs down to these posts...you're a dolt! Is that you again SoberVoter?

• No, you idiotic woman.
  To fix the analogy and try to make it somewhat coherent, it would be like the fedgov FORCING me to buy a TV because they want me to watch the superbowl. And if I refuse to buy a TV and refuse to pay the penalty for not buying a TV, the fedgov will send IRS agents to knock on my door and point their guns at me.

  These people are truly delusional in their belief that government has unlimited power over the citizenry. This is the sort of tyranny we've all been warned about since childhood.

• Is everyone in Obama's inner sanctum an idiot?

  • It makes Obama look smarter.

  • Certainly looks like it.

    This is the ultimate irony...
    The fedgov wants to ensure our well being.
    So they mandate us to have health insurance.
    But then they threaten us with violence if we don't comply.

    Only in the mind of a government bureaucrat does this make any sense.

    • I don't get it... if you are sick I want to be Papa Government, but if you don't obey me I will break your legs?! What?!

    • Look at it this way Omar. In typical communist fashion they want us to live healthier so we can work longer which means we pay taxes for a few more years.

      Think about it! Nobody born after 1954 can draw their full social security until they are 66. The rate is already graduated up until nobody under 48 years old right now will be able to get their full social security payments until they are 70. To live and work that long the fools think they have to tell us what to eat, drink or smoke. They want to make sure we are getting our checkups like we should to ensure longer life. Longer life, being forced to work longer, means more tax money paid into the combine. I'm glad I don't have to worry about it but I do feel sorry for those who don't know how to save their money and are relying on social security in the future. They will have to work until they drop, just like a slave.

      • But you would think that they would actually want us to die younger, so as to keep the government enforced Ponzi scheme going.