--
...the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought
to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes...Romans 8:26

Jack Miller
3301 Stacy Court
Winston-Salem NC 27107

The welfare system of forced charity has let people/churches/local communities off the hook for community care and has made us a worse society.

Do you need some assistance?

I'm not quite following you here. The old Soviet system basically forced everyone to work for the same wages, regardless of how much or little work was done. So productivity went way down (little if any penalty for being lazy) and the money became a fake money that could not be readily traded for stuff. In a way, the Soviet workers were slaves since they did not have the option of working elsewhere for more, and the money they received was fake in a way.

As for the capitalist system and Jesus's story about the workers in the vineyard, yes his story doesn't make much sense economically, but that was the point about salvation and the kingdom of God. The capitalist system is based on the notion of choice and voluntary exchange, and bosses who pay too little (or otherwise mistreat their workers) are supposed to find their workers quitting for greener pastures; such is actually bad for business, FWIW.

"You ask "How can I be sure that will work?"
I say, "It will almost certainly work better than a national, top-down system of control and distribution.""

You're talking about something that can and should exist but does not due to greed. You say "it will almost certainly work better than...." but look around you. If it did work better, we'd have it now. If it did work better, we would not be looking to the government. It is because of selfish and greed filled people, including Christians, who are comfortable and unwilling to share their good fortune with the poor that we have anyone looking to the government for help. the help is NOT being freely given. I have donated and belonged to a parish in a church of over 1 billion people and yet when I have need I go to my church and I am turned away and told to go to Welfare. Yes, I was literally told this by my church whom I donated thousands of dollars to when I was able. When I was in crisis and in need, my church turned its back on me. And then they petitioned everyone for money to build a new sports stadium for their adjoining school which cost about half a million dollars. This is the fact of the matter. For every Christian who is willing to share their wealth you have at least 2 or 3 or 20 Christians who are tight fisted, avaricious and consumed with their own luxuries. Who cares if someone dies when you're in need of the latest texting plan for your $600 cell phone? Kill them all and let God sort them out. That's what YOU say.

"People got paid for doing the same amount of work, whether they worked well or poorly"

But like the workers in the vineyard who were paid the agreed upon amount regardless of their hours invested, should we be questioning who receives what kind of pay for their work? So many Christian businessmen do not want to be forced to pay anyone anything above minimum wage because it would cut into their personal profits, and would argue that no one should force them to pay more. But we will question the same freedom in a socialist society? Were the Soviet workers slaves or did they freely choose to work for the same pay as their coworkers? We can not have this both ways. Capitalism and Socialism share the same concept here yet we can not condemn it only when seen within Socialism.

And if your home is invaded by prowlers do you fall to your knees and go to "Daddy/God" or do you call Mommy/911? And should you wait on God to enact justice on your behalf when your need is immediate? You said, "Since God has a larger perspective than we do, his idea of justice can sometimes be to slow for our taste. So when daddy doesn't give you what you want, what do you do? We go to mommy." God's idea of justice may be too slow for your taste, so you call 911. When something is stolen you don't wait for God to get it back, you file an insurance claim. You will find that 99% of the time in your life you will NEVER wait on God and His justice and insight. You will always run to the established "mommies" to aid or save you. I should also add that 911 is a government construct that taxpayers pay into, so if you don't agree with using other people's money for your own foibles, don't dial it in an emergency.

It is because the churches can not be trusted to provide for their own parishioners that the government even needs to be involved. Christians are failing other Christians and non Christians alike. Many are more than happy to sit back and watch others suffer and die as long as their own position is safe.

More likely, you'll have a larger group of very well compensated executives,
but the net impact on healthcare costs will remain the same. Government
benefits packages are phenomenal, and expensive therefore. You will not see
a reduction in administrative costs under a federal plan. I assure you. It
just doesn't happen that way.

More likely, you'll have a larger group of very well compensated executives,
but the net impact on healthcare costs will remain the same. Government
benefits packages are phenomenal, and expensive therefore. You will not see
a reduction in administrative costs under a federal plan. I assure you. It
just doesn't happen that way.

More likely, you'll have a larger group of very well compensated executives,
but the net impact on healthcare costs will remain the same. Government
benefits packages are phenomenal, and expensive therefore. You will not see
a reduction in administrative costs under a federal plan. I assure you. It
just doesn't happen that way.

More likely, you'll have a larger group of very well compensated executives,
but the net impact on healthcare costs will remain the same. Government
benefits packages are phenomenal, and expensive therefore. You will not see
a reduction in administrative costs under a federal plan. I assure you. It
just doesn't happen that way.

More likely, you'll have a larger group of very well compensated executives,
but the net impact on healthcare costs will remain the same. Government
benefits packages are phenomenal, and expensive therefore. You will not see
a reduction in administrative costs under a federal plan. I assure you. It
just doesn't happen that way.

More likely, you'll have a larger group of very well compensated executives,
but the net impact on healthcare costs will remain the same. Government
benefits packages are phenomenal, and expensive therefore. You will not see
a reduction in administrative costs under a federal plan. I assure you. It
just doesn't happen that way.

I am talking about the twenty years that I struggled to have healthcare coverage when nothing was done. I am not saying hurry. Let's get the bugs out of this plan and make it work. Starting over will result in the same attacks.

Of course not, but they shouldn't make millions of dollars a year in salaries, either.

Are you under the impression that a government system will be run by
volunteers?

Late date? It was drafted concurrently with the other proposals? Heaven
forbid it should take, um, weeks, to overhaul 1/6th of the economy.

Yes basically I think this plan needs achance to have the bugs worked out before we scrap it for a different plan that everyone can start all over trying to defeat. I think those coming up with a different plan at this late date are just trhying to advance a political agenda. They want to appease their constituents on both side of the issue. There might be a better plan but how will it ever be enacted.

But is he enraged at the high salaries that their directors, boardmembers or whatever put in their bank accounts. The hidden profit.

The following idea originated (as far as I can tell) with Franz
Oppenheimer, a German physician/sociologist who, with his unique
perspective, due to his place in history, was inspired to write a
magnificent book in 1908 titled "The State". (Even before he wrote this
book, certain government leaders were less the pleased with him. His
clarity of thought was a threat to them.) This book became the
foundation for an entire library of 20th century writings which expose,
with great clarity, how people invent, and then become dependent upon
the state.

So here's a core idea:
There are two means to acquiring the things we need/want:
1. Create a good or service and voluntarily exchange it for someone
else's product. This is the economic means.
2. Seize another person's property without their consent, either by
force or deception. This is the political means.

When negotiations break down, in a situation that would normally
terminate any chance of an exchange, some people resort to the use of
political means to accomplish their aims. Government has been granted a
monopoly on the use of force. By creating laws (which threaten use of
force if not obeyed), governments greatly influence what will/won't be
done, whether it be ethical, immoral or not. People are made to do
things (or not) under duress, rather than by free choice. Laws, by
their very nature, inhibit free choice. They reallocate resources (by
force or deception), taking things from the people who produced them and
giving them to people who did not produce them or exchange anything of
approximate equal value for them. This undermines the free interplay
between producers and consumers and inhibits the motivation of charity.

Before the government got involved in health care, the system may not
have been a model of perfection, but it was constantly changing and, for
the most part, improving as many individual people made relatively small
decisions which influenced the motivation of care providers. If care
providers performed poorly, they went out of business as patients
flocked to care providers who did their jobs well. The patients'
collective, individual decisions provided the incentive and care
providers utilized new ideas, whether they be a more competitive price,
innovative treatments or simply the degree to which they show respect to
the patient. The care provider's profit motive (though admittedly
selfish) and freedom to innovate combined with the patient's free choice
to generate a nimble, constantly improving system which established
America's health care system as the world's premier model to emulate.
This did not happen as a result of government law, but in the absence of
it, and then as of the last several decades, in spite of it.

Here's another core idea:
Government policy, no matter how well intentioned, always has
unintended, unforeseen, negative consequences. A nation full of people
is too complex for it to be otherwise.

In the specific realm of making sure everyone has access to affordable
health care, which is the central issue in the current debate, we've
been marching steadily backward ever since the government got involved
in regulating and reforming our health care system. The good intentions
of previous government laws have had unintended consequences, which is
how we've arrived in our present situation. If the government had
simply stayed out of the way, the collective decision process of
patients would have motivated care providers to innovate solutions. In
many cases, you can find examples where the public awareness of a
problem which was already effecting change in the market place also
prompted the government to jump in and created a new law, which short
circuited the market-generated reform already under way.

At this point, people are dependent upon Medicare/Medicaid. It would be
foolish to simply drop them. They need to be let down easy. But
ultimately, the best solution will be found through the people AND THEIR
CARE PROVIDERS having free choice, not through government involvement.