The founding fathers, it turns out, passed several mandates of their own. In 1790, the very first Congress—which incidentally included 20 framers—passed a law that included a mandate: namely, a requirement that ship owners buy medical insurance for their seamen. This law was then signed by another framer: President George Washington. That’s right, the father of our country had no difficulty imposing a health insurance mandate.
That’s not all. In 1792, a Congress with 17 framers passed another statute that required all able-bodied men to buy firearms. Yes, we used to have not only a right to bear arms, but a federal duty to buy them. Four framers voted against this bill, but the others did not, and it was also signed by Washington. Some tried to repeal this gun purchase mandate on the grounds it was too onerous, but only one framer voted to repeal it.
Six years later, in 1798, Congress addressed the problem that the employer mandate to buy medical insurance for seamen covered drugs and physician services but not hospital stays. And you know what this Congress, with five framers serving in it, did? It enacted a federal law requiring the seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. That’s right, Congress enacted an individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. And this act was signed by another framer, President John Adams.
April 2012
35 posts
The Newt Gingrich campaign’s donor list is up for rent — and I’m only half joking when I say we progressives should start raising funds to use it for one big, epic practical joke. How much would you pay to create shame and indignity among all his funders?
I love reading about how anarchists, who endorse government so small it is non-existent, are left-wing. Just kidding! It’s infuriating.
is it a private school? or a religious org? i bet it is, and they can do whatever they want.
Yes, it’s both a private school and a religious institution. I don’t know whether or not her firing would hold up under legal scrutiny. On one hand, maybe federal and state employment laws apply to the school. On the other hand, maybe they don’t for some reason.
But that’s not really the point. The point is that her getting fired for being pregnant is wrong. If Ms. Samford were male, would she have lost her job for being an expecting father without being married? Does anyone think, for even a moment, that the school’s policy is equitably applied across genders? Furthermore, Ms. Samford’s right to be pregnant trumps the school’s [apparent] right to impose their arbitrary morals onto her body. I guess that while the religious Right likes babies, they hate unwed mothers. Just because something is or may be legal doesn’t mean it’s right.
Take a moment and signal-boost this.
“You don’t need reporting skills to thrive in the news today. All you need is…” and that’s when I clicked Close Tab. It’s exactly the kind of media trolling The Atlantic wrote about last month.
“I think it should be Sarah Palin,” McCain said on CBS as he broke into laughter, when asked about Palin’s suggestion Tuesday night that the eventual presidential nominee should “go rogue” in their VP selection.
Asked by the laughing hosts of “This Morning” whether he had spoken to Palin about this, the Arizona senator said, “No, I haven’t.”
On one hand, credible threats of terrorism, like today’s, are sometimes newsworthy and merit coverage.
On the other, terrorism is essentially a publicity stunt. The primary channel that terrorists use to get their threats of violence, intimidation, and destruction to the masses is the mass media — and coverage of “terrorist threats” give terrorists exactly what they’re after. The goal of terrorism is not necessarily to kill. It is to make people fearful en masse, and achieve some cultural or behavioral change in doing so.
I guess the way to eliminate terrorism would be to censor the media from reporting on it.
- Host: That's what you think.
- Pundit: That's what I know!
- Host: That's what you think you know.
- Pundit: That's what YOU think I think I know.
- Host: That's what I KNOW you think you know!
- Pundit: I know you THINK that's what you know...
- Host: I KNOW that I KNOW th...
- Pundit: YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I KNOW!!!
March 2012
49 posts
I’ve asked this before, but no one has ever answered it. It’s a question for the millions of progressives in this country who support the ACA.
Right now, progressives could all form a giant collective. You could call it the Democratic Party Health Insurance Coop. Everyone would join by contract….
Because we live in a Democracy, and that’s not how things work in a democracy. Sure we could form a collective with some kind of single payer or other similar healthcare system. We could also form a collective that, say, bans birth control, but that wouldn’t have an impact outside the collective which would (I think obviously) somewhat defeat the purpose.
In either case, using a voluntary system misses the point, because we live in a world where many elements interact. If I pay taxes that pay for public hospitals which treat patients, regardless of their insurance status, then I want a system that requires everyone to have (or preferably provides everyone with) insurance, so that the tax dollars can be put to their best use. If I’m a part of the collective but someone else is not, I still (via tax dollars) have to pay for their coverage when they fall sick and are cared for (as they should be) without insurance to cover it.
We all pay for policies we don’t agree with or that we feel are misuses of our money, and we are all forced to obey laws we don’t agree with. That’s the beauty of a Democracy.
Bolded for emphasis. I’ll support a progressive healthcare collective just as soon as I get my tax money back that have funded wars and tax cuts for the rich.
