Holy crap what a racist and stupid thing to say!

Well, yes, single payer would be nice. But it ain't cheap. Everything the government needs to do for the country could be accomplished with a "tithe". A ten percent across the board tax of income, gains, interest, dividends, etc. No outs, no exclusions, no loopholes. Ten percent would apply to ALL corporations, especially big oil, some of whom pay little if no tax at all. Ten percent would apply to you if you made 2 million a year or 200 a year. You would be unable to offset this tax amount by claiming anything. A flat 10% tax. Period. The surplus would be huge and social programs would flourish because of the extra money the government now has to take care of its citizens which is what it should be doing in the first place.

No mention of the private security force that is authorized by the bill in section 5210, on page 1312. What's it intended for, and what will it actually be used for?

Establishing a Ready Reserve Corps

http://www.infowars.com/obama-just-got-his-private-army/

Oh Christ. We're bleeding money and they're allocating another 250 mil to failed abstinence education? What a joke and what a waste.

Also, I'd like some conservatives to come out and give me a legitimate defense of this. You're the ones who are always bellyaching about how much money we spend on useless social programs. Justify this one in light of the fact that every study out there says it's pretty useless.

Money for abstinence-only education is a good???

WOW!! Let's hear it for the paranoid!! For those interested, Obama's "private army" established in the bill would obviously consist of DOCTORS, NURSES & DENTISTS!!!!! (http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/about/ and http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/about/history.htm)

"The National Health Service Corps (NHSC), through scholarship and loan repayment programs, helps Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in the U.S. get the medical, dental, and mental health providers they need to meet their tremendous need for health care.
Since 1972, more than 30,000 clinicians have served in the Corps, expanding access to health care services and improving the health of people who live in urban and rural areas where health care is scarce.
About half of all NHSC clinicians work in Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-supported Health Centers, which deliver preventive and primary care services to patients regardless of their ability to pay. About 40 percent of Health Center patients have no health insurance."
And the purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps, as defined in the bill, is "‘‘(1) PURPOSE.—The purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps is to fulfill the need to have additional Commissioned Corps personnel available on short notice (similar to the uniformed service’s reserve program) to assist regular Commissioned Corps personnel to meet both routine public health and emergency response missions."

So, the "army" consists of doctors, nurses, dentists, public health experts, etc. to help in health emergencies (such as Katrina, Haiti, etc.).
I, for one, am shaking in my boots at the thought of an “army” of doctors and nurses descending on my town!!

These are all excellent except for number 9 which restores funding for abstinence education. Except for #9, they will help everybody and should have been put into practice years ago. Better late than never.

Are there any incentives to get doctors and clinics out to rural America? Native American reservations don't have much access to health care, but many small towns are almost as bad.

A small private room for breast milk pumping- that's wonderful; this will do so much to improve the health of our children!

Since I was in the Army, stationed in Europe by both Bushes, I would definitely love to see public option or single-payer health care - those systems work. The only way we will get any improvements to this bill is to keep Democrats in office. The Republicans have said they want "a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub." which probably means money only for the military and no consumer or environmental protections.

Anyone who is going to infuse their commentary w/ racist or just plain stupid, won't you please evolve w/ the rest of us and stick to the facts? First this headline "loaded w/ goodies" -- implies there's anything wrong w/ making employers allow for pumping (i worked for a company that only gave my friend 15 mins a day to do so), that there's something wrong w/ being able to read your W-2's health info, something wrong w/ taking care of our most vulnerable and shafted people in society (our true americans, the indians), making sure we know what the doctors are getting from teh RX companies (um yes, i'd like to know why they're prescribing one drug over another!). Wake up people, the world isn't going to implode (unles the teabags start shooting, which i suspect their loading up right now out of fear and stupidity), none of what is going to take place is going to affect, i'm pretty sure, anyone who's commenting here in the negative (none of you make $200k or $250K married), so get over it. Guess who won the last elections? THE DEMS, that is what democracy is -- you'll get another chance in a few yrs to infiltrate your poison and rapturous hate again. HOping though that in the meantime you'll all go insane watching Obama actually HELPING Americans and corporations at the same time. Hard to deal with, huh... Go take a pill then, am sure your right wing docs are happy to dole them out for freebies from Rx companies...

Some of these "goodies" are complete wastes. Like abstinence only sex education which is already proven in studies NOT to be the most effective kind of sex education in schools. 250 billion dollars for what is shown NOT to work?

ALL of this could be much less expensive and much more effective with a 30 PAGE piece of legislation known as SINGLE PAYER. Opening up Medicare.

As for me, right now, in our family's health care, I have the same damn problems as before. We haven't seen anything yet.

All I can say is that I don't want to deal with insurance companies any more!!

SINGLE PAYER NOW!

Let's live like the civilized nations do.

250 billion dollars to tell people not to have sex, and when we have people who can't get in for a cancer diagnosis??

WAY TO GO CONGRESS!

There is NO DIGNITY in medical care through MEDICAID. Medicaid is crapola! Ask the people who don't have any right to complain under that shat system!!

OPEN UP MEDICARE TO ALL AMERICANS NOW!

SINGLE PAYER!

You don't want the government to provide healthcare and to stay out of your life-fine. Get rid of the VA, Medicaid, Medicare, stop supporting state programs to provide medical care for children and elderly that may not qualify for other federal programs but still need help. Tell them to get rid of the CDC, the FDA, USAMRIID, and stop supporting WHO. Quit trying to get the Supreme Court to make abortion illegal (that is a health issue, for the mother and the child), eliminate AIDS research, stop supporting colleges and universities that do the research and trials and testing, the Medical Corps would be eliminated and no extra financial aid/loan forgiveness for medical professionals. These are the real life, every day examples that show that the government always has and always will have a very deep hand/tentacle in healthcare. Like it or not, healthcare would fall apart if the government stopping supporting it. No amount of tax breaks, financial penalties or fines for the insurance companies or political posturing can ignore this. People don't want to support others in the guise of it being too expensive, if you lose your job/coverage, who will take care of you or your loved ones? Don't go to the ER or community clinic, the government helps pay for that care and the rest of society doesn't want to help to take care of you either.

@17:43 — penelope

actually try reading the article and see million instead of billion in the text before you barge in with your fauxrage.

i do agree that Abstn/edu is a pile of doggydo.

Yeah 01:25 @doggie do, where do you get off barging in and telling others where they're coming from? What the hell do you know about what other people have gone through in this crap medical system that's still crap? Bet you have your doctor taken care of FAUX know it all.

I hate the Guv'mint handing out billions to the corrupt Pentagon. Socialism!

Single payer is the only solution to the health care crisis that will solve all the major problems and at the same time save tons of money. It was absolutely reprehensible and stupid for Obama and the centrist Democrats to take the only real and proven solution off the table. The national government is too controlled by corporations to work, so there is little hope of getting a sane bill passed. We must all fight for single payer on the state level. If we can get a state like California to go to single payer, other states would soon follow when they saw the results.

the baggers can't understand that we almost have a flat tax. The poor and middle class pay dearly while the rich consult their tax attorneys AND creatively hide their loot,
Must be a Victorian-era 'Christian thing' that requires Douchebaggers and anti-tax zealots never to question the filthy rich, since they are 'closer to god' then the miserable little people.

The only viable solution is single payer medicare for all paid for by public taxes, of course. The real question has ALWAYS been a simple one. How do you equitably and efficiently collect public funds? The answer has been irrefutably explained in the book "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George. Humanity needs a "land value tax" on all natural monopoly values, from land values to natural resource values, and all the other (inefficent and unjust) taxes then may be eliminated. Sound too simple? That's because we have been indoctrinated since birth into a paradigm of thought which has us, including every one of us "progressives", believing that the Earth can in some way be justly treated as private property. And so the world our civilization has built on that premise is totally perverted and divorced from God's will of justice and prosperity for all. The solution is neither left nor right, and lies below the level of social discourse of all the divisive issues of our times. If we want a truly functional and sustainable world where human beings are treated with dignity, we need to resuscitate polital economy, as taught by Henry George, back into public discourse and apply the solution of the SINGLE TAX on land value. George proved in his treatise that nothing else can succeed, and his work is still irrefutable after 130 years in publication.