Comments about ‘Baucus says health-care reform a shared duty’

This is an awful article. I'm sorry, do you work for the Baucus campaign? This seems like PR release. Where's the balance?

Let's hide behind closed doors, we've got all the answers. With the fuzzy numbers we'll be taxed to death. With 1500 pages and counting...is anyone going to read it. Of course we're 3 year old and can't read. This administration is totally out of control.

Is access to basic medical care for all Americans a right or not?

Access is clearly not a "right"... it is something that is a "privilege", something that has to be worked for...something that has to be "paid" for.

We already have a document on file called "The Bill of Rights." Our founding fathers would be rolling in their graves to hear of this debate.

With the country bordering on insolvency (bankruptcy), it is unconscionable that Baucus and others would propose additional trillions of added expenses against the national debt.

No, Mr. Baucus, the basic question should NOT be "is it our morality that all Americans have health insurance?"

The question should be framed "is it our morality that all Americans have access to affordable health care?"

Do not equate health insurance with the affordable health care service!

I don't see how we can call ourselves a Christian nation without also agreeing that basic health care is a right for our citizens (Let's put aside for the moment the fact that we are the wealthiest nation on the face of the planet at any time in history and can't provide this most essential service for our citizens). Odd that many (not all) Republicans for the last eight years have claimed a monopoly on morality and the Christian faith and yet are opposed to insuring the poor.

Baucus somehow stakes the claim that health care should be a constitutional right. This so called right flies in the face of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is absolutely unbelievable that a US congressman could be so uneducated about freedom and inalienable rights. How can you subjugate another person and bind him to another persons debt and call this constitutional. He is a jackass of the dumbest kind.
He needs to get an education, He needs to take econ 101. He needs to understand what true competition is and not try to twist it into despotism. Hey people let us rise above this foolishness and take back our rights and pledge our sacred honor. We will not allow this robbery to continue so help us God.

Mr. Baucus is using the phrase's . Health care---Health insurance, as if they were the same.THEY ARE NOT. I think this shows how little our leadera want to represent the people. Insurance co's. have "bought" all of them.

thank you.
James.

Baucus is trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. He also doesn't understand the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in the document is there any passage that can be stretched far enough to accommodate either the legality of mandatory health insurance or a responsibility by the public to ensure that everyone has health care.

As for the senator's contention that everyone has had a chance to air their ideas, that's pure bull. Every Republican suggestion and attempt at amendment has been blown out of the water by the arrogant Democratic bloc. Of course, a bunch of people went to the August "town meetings" to air their opinions, and were rewarded with slander and ridicule from the likes of people just like Baucus.

If I have a bakery, do you have a right to my bread because you're hungry? If I own a car dealership, do you have a right to a car that I have because you don't want to walk?

Healthcare is a GOOD and SERVICE provided by manufacturers and innovators, inventors and service workers.

WHAT IN THE WORLD gives people the idea that it's a RIGHT?! And why on earth would anyone work in that industry ever again if they can't make a profit? Answer? They won't! It will all come crashing down, and we'll have third-world care.

"Regardless of a person's station in life, "is it our morality that all Americans have health insurance?" "

NO! Wrong question! The question is do all Americans have a right to affordable health CARE! The answer is YES!

The Health Care debate IS a "simple question of whether or not Americans should have health care." I agree with Baucus. Are we so snooty that we think not every American deserves health care? As Americans we should leave no one behind. These ideas of people who don't have health care choose not to is repulsive. I am a college student working two jobs and can't afford health care. This is the first time in my life without it and the controversy over this makes no sense. Anyone working at this time based on our economy could loose their job and in turn loose their health insurance. NO AMERICAN is above having or not having healthcare. ALL AMERICANS DESERVE HEALTH CARE

It would be nice if we all had coverage, but like Baucus said is it a right that all have insurance? I don't think so. It has always been available to everyone but not everyone can afford it. Not everyone who could have bought it. It is far from being a right.

The problem with the alleged “right” to health care is that it would authorize the government to use force to compel some members of society (wealthy, doctors, business owners, soda drinkers) to serve the health care needs of others, and by doing so, the government would violate the unalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness of those people who are forced to provide labor or money for this health care on terms dictated by the government.

The alleged “right” to health care involves a contradiction and must be condemned because it is illogical, immoral, and unconstitutional. A right that violates other rights “ain’t right.”

Dr. Gregory Garamoni
Doctors on Strike for Freedom in Medicine

Health care insurance companies should share the
responsibility, they are making alot of profit
off human lives. the insurance companies made 437% profit from 2000-2007.

The 27 or 28 other industrialized nations that
have health care coverage for their citizens are
not for profit and they don't have co-pays and
deductibles.

As worded, this bill will kill my medical device company. We won't be able to make a profit with the taxes and fees they want to pile on us, we're barely making a profit as it is with the economy the way it is.

So, thousands more jobs lost, and one less choice for some lifesaving devices that could have saved your life.

Look, theere has never been a question of whether essential services shouldbe given to everyone at the expense of everyone. Why is it that essential services inlude such things as education, police services, firefighting services, retirement services (as in medicare and social security), a military, the FDA, the DEA, the FCC, but somehow healthcare chould be a for profit business. Anyone who has taken econ-101 can tell you that the way you run a business is by cutting costs and raising prices. How is this going to lead to better healthcare? Short answer, it won't. Imagine if every time you called the police or fire fighting service, they asked you for a credit card number or fire insurance policy number. Just food for thought from a very hardworking, law abiding citizen whom has lived without health insurance his entire adult life.

and I don't like this guy, I am amazed he gets re-elected. what an embarassment to our state, sorry,

As to the people who think there is a "right" to healthcare...who provides it? Are you okay with the state forcing doctors to give care, taking away their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Are you okay with manufacturers having their prices controlled? (They'll just stop making the products first.)

You need to think about what you're saying. That healthcare is other peoples' work and effort, from doctors to scientists to people working in factories. What gives you the right to take what they made and provide, any more than they would have the right to take what you make with the state dictating what they can be compensated? It's not magic healthcare, you're talking about taking away others' rights to serve yours. Healthcare is provided by people who work for a living.

It looks ugly when you look at it that way, doesn't it.

I have the RIGHT to own a gun. So, according to Mr. Baucas and Pres. Obama, the government should provide one for me.

I have the RIGHT to worship as I please. So the government should provide a place for me to worship.

Obviously the RIGHT to have something does NOT obligate the government to provide it.

Come on Obama, get a clue.

Anyone who thinks that the proposed changes will help anything hasn't thought through this thoroughly, and definitely hasn't had a frank conversation with a Canadian.
If you are pro- cancer research then you should be against this bill.
If you are pro- technological advances, you should be against this bill.
If you don't want DMV-style healthcare, you should be against this bill.
There are better options to fixing the healthcare system, namely Tort reform and deregulation (we should be allowed to buy insurance across state lines to increase competition and drive prices down).

Everyone should be able to receive affordable healthcare, but health insurance is not a right. It could never be a right without taking away real rights from the rest of us... and I do mean ALL of us will suffer under this. ALL of us.