I have largely stayed out of this thread and will return to doing just that after this post, but as I was reading some of the recent posts to see how the thread was holding up, I did come across one quote that I just couldn't leave alone. This was in one of Stormy's posts:

Quote:
In almost any other country, our poor would be considered well off. At what point are you living in poverty?


Um, yes, "poor" people in the U.S. would be considered well-off in many other countries. To which I basically say, so what? I find that to be a totally irrelevant argument because, in this case, we are tolking solely about the quality of living in the United States and what is considered poverty in this country as a result of that standard of living. It really doesn't matter one whit if you try to compare poverty in a sub-Saharan nation with what we call poverty in the United States, because in this particular debate, we are talking about what it would take for people living below the poverty line in the U.S. to receive some kind of healthcare coverage through healthcare reform. In such context, what we consider as poverty in the U.S. is all-important because that is the baseline we must use when deciding who will qualify for what based on income. In that context, a family in a Third World country that is surviving on $50 a month (equivalent dollars) or less plays no part whatsoever in determining how we will provide better healthcare for those who live in poverty by current U.S. standards. To even try to inject this into the debate seems a bit misleading at best, a bit disingenuous at worst.

Brad

He who has a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how'.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

Sounds like everything takes time, discipline, and patience, and those are seven things I don't have.
--Jon Dore