BILL FOR WARFARE PASSES THROUGH HOUSE WITH EASE- BUT DON"T ASK FOR HEALTHCARE CITIZEN!

[Orwellian_Ghost]

H.R. 2647:
111th Congress

This is a bill in the U.S. Congress originating in the House of Representatives ("H.R."). A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate and then be signed by the President before it becomes law.

Bill numbers restart from 1 every two years. Each two-year cycle is called a session of Congress. This bill was created in the 111th Congress, in 2009-2010.

The titles of bills are written by the bill's sponsor and are a part of the legislation itself. GovTrack does not editorialize bill summaries.
2009-2010

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2647

Aye: 389 (90%)


No: 22 (5%)

Present: 1 (0%)

Not Voting: 21 (5%)

[patrice]

1. Cool resource on that link. Much more user friendly than Thomas. Thanks! nt

[NNN0LHI]

2. Caps lock broken?

[Cerridwen]

18. Ya mean like in your user name?

Oh, irony.

[HamdenRice]

3. Who says don't ask for citizen health care? There's a health care bill before Congress right now.

This is why I sometimes think a portion of DU lives in an alternate universe.

[ipaint]

4. Yes, the civilized universe

Where single payer is not just a reality but a right.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

5. Merely slowing down the GENOCIDE is okay with you, Hamden?

That bespeaks volumes!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6063966
-------------------------------------------------------------


The lesser of two evils is evil.
- Seymour Leon

[HamdenRice]

10. As someone who lived in a village in Liberia that adopted me and was subsequently wiped out ...

during the civil war, I think your use of the term "genocide" is disturbing. I followed news of the murders, massacres and arm chopping in the region during the 90s, and when Google Earth came along, I looked for it and it's simply gone.

That's genocide, my friend.

That said, I agree that the health insurance industry kills people. The Democrats are trying to change that. Sorry you don't like that.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

14. That you, unlike the majority here, recognize genocide as more than one historical event...

is much to your credit. Those who view all genocide bad but some more bad than others I find disturbing.
Would you rate genocide by degree or perhaps it's more to the point if I ask if you would rate death by degree?
I in no way would ever trivialize the genocide that took place in the village you mention yet I have to ask, if death by degree is the issue, twenty two thousand annual deaths would seem, in most reasonable people's minds, to qualify.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/star_mason/2009/02/number-of-americans-dying-each.php
What was the population of 'your' Liberian village when you lived there?

The time has arrived to help millions of Americans living without a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health . . .
and protection . . . against the economic effects of sickness.
--Harry S. Truman,(D) September 19, 1945
-------------------------------------------------------------


The lesser of two evils is evil.
- Seymour Leon

[HamdenRice]

15. Every crime has both an act and an intent, as well as scale

My village had a population of about 100. Liberia at the time had a population of about 2 million.

About 200,000 people died in the war.

Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone are tightly linked by history and culture and the war spilled over there which had a similar population and death rate.

For the US to suffer a similar casualty rate would require 30 million deaths.

There is a difference between bureaucratic structures failing to take care of people such that thousands die of natural but preventable causes, and armed warlords slaughtering people, rapping women, conscripting child soldiers, burning villages, and cutting off the arms of people who resist -- in order to pillage the country's natural resources.

50,000 people dying from, for example, preventable car accidents (if roads and cars were made safer) is different from a warlord murdering 50,000 people. The intent is what makes the crime different.

Genocide isn't just murder, and it certainly isn't negligently letting people die of preventable causes. It has a particular meaning, which you are trivializing. Genocide is the deliberate mass murder of entire peoples, regions, or cities, towns and villages. There is no genocide by health care in the US -- neither in terms of acts committed, intent nor scale.

Btw, the man who caused much of that suffering was in the newspaper yesterday because he began giving evidence in his war crimes trial at the International Criminal Court. He is former president Charles Taylor.

[anigbrowl]

16. nice line in hyperbole you've got there

I guess it's more fun to SCREAM about the problem than talk soberly about the solutions.

[maryf]

7. that taxes benefits, fines those who won't buy into it, and still

doesn't guarantee coverage for all...written by the for profit insurance industry! Read some of the info here...

[MADem]

9. I'm with you.

They pay selective attention to issues.

The Defense Authorization is pretty much a "same shit, different day" exercise too. We've been passing them...forever. It's a fill-in-the-blanks process, with a few hearings for flavor.

A health care bill is a new entity entirely, that had to be created from scratch. Despite that, there is indeed one before Congress, as you noted.

[TBF]

17. We're asking for single-payer, not just health care for rich people

or elaborate strategies to keep the insurance lobbies happy and wealthy.

[maryf]

6. Thanks! K&R

War resisters league and http://www.nationalpriorities.org are two great resources for stats and facts!

[MADem]

8. Healthcare is a NEW CONCEPT for America. We've been passing defense authorizations forever.

It's just not a fair comparison.

Yes, we need healthcare, but the legislation needs to be crafted, first. There's no handy-dandy "fill in the blanks" boilerplate template to use to make it happen.

Everyone knows that the Defense Authorization bill is a cut-paste, run it by the HASC/SASC, do the hearings and testimony drill, that happens as surely as the swallows return to Capistrano.

[Orsino]

13. ...and has more to do with national defense than do foreign wars of aggression. n/t

[MADem]

19. Well, not to make too fine a point of it, military health care is pretty fucking good.

Even retiree health care isn't awful. It used to be as good as active duty care (and you could even swing dental care if ya asked nicely) --no more, unfortunately...but still better than what a lot of people get.

And that military health care is part and parcel of the personnel appropriations of the defense budget.

[kentuck]

11. In other words...

Your government will not hesitate to ask you to die for your country but if you ask for a doctor, then screw you!

[Gregorian]

12. It just strikes me that Republicans were faking the whole Schiavo thing.

Oh my god, don't let a woman who has been in a coma for eternity, and who very well might be living a nightmare, die. It should be a crime to abort a living organism that hasn't been born yet.

But who gives a rat's ass about the poor, needy, sick. And for that matter, nuke everyone with brown skin.

The conservative mind is blind. That's all I can come up with. Total idiots. It's like having anti-gravity. Everything works, except we have Republicans.

And I might add- some Democrats.