According to the bill's summary, if you have demonstrable "hardship" you won't be forced to pay this tax. (There is a link to the full text of the bill lower on the page.)

And also, somewhere in this thread, someone said something about taking funding away from Medicare/Medicade to pay for this, yet the bill specifically says it won't do that, nor will it add to the deficit, according to those proposing the bill. I recall that old chestnut being repeated a bunch earlier this year, by opposing campaign ads on TV, and my old advice to people is: don't trust anything you see on TV. It was probably paid for by someone who will benefit from the bill's failure.

For me the finicky rules and shady taxes of the health care monster aren't really that unusual; they look just like any other system made by our government. The problem I see is the flat out concept of having a government-run health care. This country has moved far away from its roots. Whether that is good or bad is a debatable point, but the place our government has held in the past is changing and a new direction is being decided upon. Not long ago the philosophes that founded our country were working in it as well, advocating low taxes and no economic controls whatsoever. That age had its hypocrisies, we have ours; that's not the point. The health care plan shouldn't worry us citizens half as much as its implications for the gov's place in our lives. US citizens are no longer allowed to merely live their lives out and work for a living. They are slowly being forced about by bureaucracy to dance to the tune of societal justice; the health care plan and global warming laws are perfect examples. Millions of people all about the nation are now paying tens of times more for their new inhalers simply because the old ones used CFCs [this was mentioned before]. That's ridiculous. That's simply the sort of thing that laws like this are going to lead to: the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the society. I don't believe it works, I don't think has ever worked, and I'm pretty sure it is not going to go well at all.

Every other advanced country has some form of socialized medicine, and their people a much better off for it. Why does the US have to be different? Why is it there that all government spending is bad and involves stamping on individual rights?

I don't know every detail of the health care bill, but I do know that the status quo of letting big insurance and pharmaceutical companies run the show is causing a great deal of suffering.

When are we going to wake up and Revolt against this corruption?

HA! That's funny. Revolt would mean people have to set down their mobile phones/video games/cable TV remote/You Tube and actually do something. Apathy is the most rampant disease yet.

(since it is sometimes difficult to keep up with due to redistricting...boy, what that a joke and a waste of taxpayer time)

The health care bills the Democrats have been circulating have always struck me as an attempt at rationing people's life expectancy as part of an overall regime of "getting cheap on domestic services". Hence why the fundamental point of unity to which its proponents generally seem to rally is the idea that it will save the government money over time.

But the bills of late have become, if anything, even more reactionary than they started out. Now they all seem to have provisions that in effect severely restrict abortion access and all but (if not literally) ban immigrants from receiving medical care. And now it seems all talk of even a competition-based "public option" has vanished.

There is no such thing as universal health care under this system in my view. Even single-payer regimes have real shortcomings. Universal health care, as far as I'm concerned, is only possible when it's completely based on equality, which is only possible if a system of free medical care is implemented as part of the socialist reorganization of the economy as a whole.

Ah, but we can't have one of those evil Socialist governments!

What are you talking about, Wolfmammy? What with Obama "spreading the wealth around" and everything, it seems certain that, as our friend Mr. Beck routinely explains, we already have one.

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