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Right on.

A lot o bullets and children without health insurance dying in the USA.

TUESDAY, Aug. 28 (HealthDay News) -- A record number of Americans are without health insurance, according to new U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Tuesday.

"The number of people without health insurance coverage increased from 44.8 million in 2005 to 47 million in 2006," David S. Johnson, chief of the bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, said during a teleconference Tuesday.

The problems of the uninsured are particularly acute among children. The percent and the number of children under 18 without health insurance increased to 11.7 percent from 10.9 percent from 2005 to 2006, and to 8.7 million from 8 million, respectively.

Moreover, 19.3 percent of children in poverty had no health insurance

And whose responsibility is that, Tango? Mine, yours, or the parents? How many illegal aliens are included in that number?

Tango,

Does that study say how many of those families have new cars, Nintendos, Flat Screen TVs, lots of jewelry and any other myriad of "luxuries.?"

because if it doesnt, then its moot.

You tell me, you live in the most powerful nation in the world, the USA, that does not provide health insurance to the sons of their citizens.

But, who cares that a little brown or black kid dies.

By the way, your bullets most probably are made in communist china or vietnam.

Tango,

you know what? if your going to make racial implications, then I suggest you go to some other blog. No one here has made any mention of race or color ecept you, which makes you a racist and a bigot as far as im concerned.

And, since youre making those implications, drive down through any "brown" or "black" neighborhood and youll undoubtedly see plenty of nice cars with $4000 dollar rims and flashy paint jobs and hydraulics and all that. If the owners of the above have children without health insurane, IT IS BY THEIR DECISION THAT THEY DONT. Its about PRIORITIES and RESPONSIBILITIES.

If its my responsibility to pay taxes to insure someone's 8th child, where the fuck was their responsibility to me when they were procreating it?

Fuck that, brother. Take that liberal bulshit somewhere else, bud. We dont swallow crp here.

well, dont get excited its a fact that in the most powerful nation in te world cannot offer its citizens a decent health coverage.

Generally illegal imigrants, are brown people, coming from central america mexico, ect. You brought it up, apart its the law, ilegal imigrants have the right to health care in the USA.

Regarding being a racist, well I am maried to an african lady, "negra como la noche" and my kids are mulatos.

Take a valium.

You see, before you where born, I arrived in miami with my parents in 1961. We had to live out the charity of the USA goverment for a while,"El refugio". There where water fountains that "coloreds" could not drink out of and some beaches where Cubans where not allowed.

My father worked hard in miami and we where able to make it through. I was able to go to college and get my postgraduate degrees through goverment assistance. All have been returned though our taxes.

So, yes, I am sympathetic to poor people, I was one and a proud one.

Its a shame you are not.

well, dont get excited its a fact that in the most powerful nation in te world cannot offer its citizens a decent health coverage.

that is an outright, blatant lie. This country has the best medical care in the world, with even people from countries that do offer "proper health coverage" coming here for same. You may ahve swalloed that "healthcare fear" instilled by your hillary clintons etal, but it simply sdoesnt ring true,

And another thing, you have to be pretty ridicuolously myopic to think that the governemnt in charge of all healthcare is a good thing. For anyone that has dealt with the government in any way knows that its a squandering beaurocracy.

Amnd, just so you know, since you feel the need for such hubris, the fact that youre cuban - whether you are lilly white or mulato - makes you, in the eyes of most Americans, liberal or otherwise, a brown person.

i suggest YOU take a chill pill as this is MY soap box and I certainly aint going to allow you to hijack it with such inane tripe.

No one has said that goverment health care is good.

The inane tripe is based on the US census report, however, if you want to censor data, well......

I do need a pill, you are always trowing punches and loosing your cool.

take you feud to the census people.

tango

Tango, you have just precisley articulated the problem with liberalism.

I came here a year earlier than you, so don't pull that "before you were born" crap with me. My parents and grandparents also received help from el refugio. So what. All of them believe in the work ethic, all of them helped whoever they had to help, all of them pay taxes. We are sympathetic to the poor, but we are not obssessed to the point that you people are, wanting to force everyone to "feel" how you feel about the issue.

We don't tell you how to be, or what to do with your money. More power to you. You earned it, you keep it. You can use it to light cigars, or you can give it all away to children without health care. I could care less. It's a free society. Nobody's stopping you. But please, don't tell me what to do with my money or how to feel. Frankly, it's none of your fucking business.

(And your playing of the race card is laughable and pathetic. My late "brown" great grandfather would probably kick your ass for impying we're racists.)

Well, I do not care what you do with your money either, but I do care what the goverment does with my money, and I do believe that citizens have the right to decent affordable health care and education. If that makes me a liberal, well, so be it, better than a bible pushing cretino imposing me his religious beliefs on me.

Citizens have the rights that are enumerated in our Constitution. Period.

Who would that "[B]ible pushing cretino" be?

Tango,

What the fuck does health care have to do with the subject of this fucking post? Is there a fucking mention of fucking healthcare in teh linked article? Did George mention healthcare in any fucking way inhis post? OF COURSE NOT.

Do you know why? BECAUSE THIS FUCKING POST ISNT ABOUT FUCKING HEALTHCARE. YOU ARE THE ONE THAT TRIED TO INJECT THE FUCKING HEALTHCARE INTO THIS THREAD AND HIJACK IT WITH SOMETHING COMPLETELY FOREIGN TO THE ISSUE AT FUCKING HAND.

GET IT? Stay on fucking topic or take the liberal boilerplate bullshit talking points somewhere else.

ah...they always go back to healthcare and education as a way to push their agenda...many of my american friends always say, "yeah, Castro was bad but didn't he improve Cuba's HC and education"...don't buy into the bullshit..social medicine is a nightmare..

It is a shame you need the F words to defend a point.....

My understanding that this blog is to bring up the truth about the castro dictatorship, and as a side dish to express national politics. Politically is skewed to the far right of the republican party.

Well what do bullets and guns have to do with the castro regime? Maybe as much as health care.
Our communist enemies always use our health care to attack us. Therefore, we should be open to see its flaws and ways to improve it, independently of the political spectrum we represent.

Since you bring up the up coming elections, well, health care is an issue with the candidates.

You see our health and medical system in the USA is expensive. An example, is the cost of medicines. Claritine in the USA cost nerly 20 US dollars, the same medicataion in Europe is less than 6 dollars. Zoviax is over 20 U$, and in europe 6 U$. Why should the people of the USA finance the drugs of other countries?.

This is the issue, however if like to be robbed by the pharmaceuticals, be my guest. Same as medical test. I had a heart scam in a private clinic in Portugal with GE equipment and paid 300 U$ dollars. The same in the USA would have cost a fortune. Why the difference?

Regarding extreme liberal positions, you are preaching to a converter, please spare me.

And I " suggest" to keep away from those "coladas", they are driving up your nerves.

Its a quater to 4 here in lisbon, I am taking my son to the pool, so hasta la proxima.

Socialized medicine means you get a card that says you're covered. Good luck trying to get the care when you need it.

To the original point, guns in the hands of law abiding citizens help keep crime rates down and governments in check.

claude,

Are you plannning to take on the USA goverment with your gun?

Oye Tango, tu eres estupido o que?

The reason Europeans and the rest of socialized world pays so little for medications primarily invented by Americans is because their governments subsidize them.

What you need is a good reading of the US constitution, if your attention span allows it, of course.

TANGO,

You know what, you just earned yourself a week ban,

"It is a shame you need the F words to defend a point..."

Fuck off.

I gotta tell ya, I love this blog...you are all so passionate...it's great...i don't see this passion with ordinary americans over politics...most dont' care about the poltical process...I'm glad i found you guys!!

As a Cuban-American, NRA member, hunting advocate, and self-proclaimed right wing "CubanRedneck" All that comes to mind is: "Tango, what the fuck are you doing in fucken lisbon, you liberal pinko fucken communist." Last I saw the 2nd amendment of the constitution is the right to bear arms...not the right to healthcare."

The US government with all its problems and deficiencies helps "brown" people succeeded in this country. Education, welfare, healthcare, may not be perfect in America...but I sure would take it over Europe!!!

Val... sorry about the language.... couldnt resist!

Pepe, passion, reason, patriotism, humor, and anti-communism will never in short supply here. Thanks for the kind words.

Tango, the overwhelming majority of people who are "without health insurance" are either:

1) Just starting a new job and in the 30-60 day waiting period for the insurance coverage to kick in, or:

2) Are very young and, feeling immortal as young folks tend to do, decided to forego health insurance to increase their take-home pay. (I did this back in the day.)

But even those "without health insurance" still have health CARE. Nobody gets turned away from emergency rooms (except maybe at MLK-Harbor here in LA before they finally shut it down this month). Paramedics don't ask for proof of insurance when they arrive at a medical emergency, and if you require hospitalization, you don't get kicked out of your bed until you're well enough to get home.

If you want government-provided healthcare (which is where you want this conversation to go) always please remember the DMV principle. See how efficiently and effectively your local Dept. of Motor Vehicles operates -- a cautionary of how the medical profession would work. Not to mention that it would cost a lot more money -- in taxes. Have a look at countries where they do this, like France, where the federal rate alone is 56%. Do you want your state, local and federal taxes to leave you only $1 out of every $3-$4 you earn?

Or as P.J. O'Rourke once put it: "If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait 'til it's free."

All those uninsured people:

Now, let's remove illegal immigrants from that number.

From what is left, let us remove all people between the ages of 18 and 26. This should exclude all the interns, employees at startup companies, entrepreneurs just getting started, and other twenty-somethings who have no kids and (mostly rightly) assess their health risk as low and would rather have the money for beer.

From what's left, let's also exclude the folks in households making 2X the poverty level or more.

Who would be left?

Not a lot. Maybe 5 million.

And as the Canadian Supreme Court stated in a surprising ruling about healthcare reform, "The right to get on a waiting list is not the right to healthcare."

Back in the day when I was growing up, before HMO's, my parents had no health insurance. We all somehow managed to see the doctor when we needed, and if you were really sick he came to your house, any time day or night. And for the record, my parents were working people, not monied.

If I ever tried to pass my parents off as "monied", I'd have gotten laughed out of any Carolina country club, assuming was ever allowed in one.

Tango: I use my money to buy Bushmaster rifles and .223 ammo, you can use yours to buy health insurance for those that don't have it because their parents are too lazy and stupid to realize that when people have sex children are made and I have no responsibility for the results of them having a good time in bed after smoking a joint...

I prefer the new Panther .300 SAUM. Its awesome and has a punch that can knock down large game and communist if need be :-)

"And, since youre making those implications, drive down through any "brown" or "black" neighborhood and youll undoubtedly see plenty of nice cars with $4000 dollar rims and flashy paint jobs and hydraulics and all that. If the owners of the above have children without health insurane, IT IS BY THEIR DECISION THAT THEY DONT. Its about PRIORITIES and RESPONSIBILITIES."

This is ridiculously small-minded. You blatantly have no understanding of the broader historical injustices perpetrated against people of color, more specifically blacks. It is likely you believe Lincoln freed the slaves and 100+ years is ample time to get one's act together.

The creation and cultural transformation of the ghettos has been an active endeavor on the part of this country (via redlining/blockbusting/residential racism), not a simple byproduct of low-income Hispanic or black families choosing to live together.

The glorification of transient wealth is an easy cop-out as well, one which ignores our glorification of capitalism at large. (Oh no, he's a communist!... No.) Please.

(Try replacing "transient wealth" and "capitalism" with "guns.")

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