Just the kind of nitpicking one would expect from a guy who’s gets the major facts wrong in just about 95 percent of every argument he makes.

And emigrate is spelled with one “m”.

Duros: You and I might actually agree on something — Insurance companies and banks make money, no matter what the economic situation is.

“President Clinton says health care in America costs too much-that it’s a national disgrace that 37 million Americans have no health insurance and that tens of millions of others have inadequate coverage. Clinton’s “solution”: a total government takeover of all medical care in the U.S.–1/7 of the entire U.S. economy. As you will see, what Clinton is really talking about is a government takeover of your life.”

Could you guys at least pretend that you aren’t miserable hacks?

You, and your ilk, are PRAYING that the issue in 06 will be immigration.

Let’s talk about emmigration. Your departure from our hallowed soil would make me a very happy liberal.

JK

The Clinton Health Care Plan redefined “health care fraud” to include any practice of medicine outside the dictates of their proposed National Health Board. In other words, if you practiced medicine outside the government system, you would be guilty of a crime. Hence, private medical practice was criminalized. That wasn’t what most people wanted.
__________________________

One aspect of this debate that people seem uninterested in discussing is the fact that “health insurance” isn’t really insurance at all, at least not in the traditional sense.

Most “insurance” exists to endemnify the insured in the case of a catastrophic accident. That usually includes providing financial relief in the form of a lump-sum payment, and legal counsel. For example, if you have a car wreck your insurance company pays for vehicle repairs and medical costs to other injured parties, and will represent you in court if you are sued.

And you become “high risk” with respect to the claims you have filed. Either your premiums increase, or future policies will exclude certain coverages, or your coverage will be terminated.

But that’s not what most people want from “medical insurance.” What most people want is the illusion of “free” or very low individual cost health care, with someone else picking up most of the bill. That’s not insurance. And as such, in my opinion, health care should not be handled by insurance companies.

Then there is the deliberate confusing of health insurance with health care. These two are as different as apples and oranges. A person without health “insurance” is still entitled to health care from public hospitals and government health clinics.

Read a paper, watch the news, listen to the radio. The issue is immigration.

And, BTW, O frameone the self – absorbed one! What the hell do immigrants have to do with liberals — except for the fact they haven’t a clue as to what to do about them and (based on JK’s simian comment) couldn’t care less.

I’m sure that France, the Land of the Burning Autos, can tell us a lot about immigration.

God forbid waves of homosexual illegal immagrants storm the borders and get married to our children!

What other domestic groups have the honor of being the target of a GOP hate campaign?

The sum of all premiums paid to health insurance companies, plus out-of-pocket payments made directly by patients to healthcare providers, in the form of co-payments and payments by those self-insured,

versus

The sum of all payments actually received by hospitals and caregivers from individuals and insurers.

The difference would give some useful information about the corporate overhead and profit involved in the equation. How can someone say that a different system would be better or worse if we do not have a good grasp of the large slice now being taken by the insurance industry under the current system?

Keep worrying about some Mexican taking a $6/hr dishwasher job, while $25/hr manufacturing jobs go off shore. Real smart.

That’s not to say welfare reform wasn’t needed. It was. But the way in which the right blew the issue out of proportion was extraordinary. They made it sound like the sole reason their taxes were so high, was because scheming welfare mom was buying potato chips with foodstamps.

So, illegal immigrants are the new “welfare Mom.” You’ll hear stories on talk radio about how an illegal immigrants have ruined their sad, pathetic right-wing lives. Jay Severin, local Boston talk radio right-wing nutcase, calls illegal immigrants “Crimaliens” on his show. You get the picture. The demonization started a long time ago.

(Of course, if lying about winning a Pulitzer Prize were a crime, Mr. Severin would be in jail.)

So, been there, done that, Red State America.

Go fry a steak.

JK

Yes, I wake up every single morning worried about about those illegal immigrants streaming across our borders, trying to make a living, and a lousy one at that.

Frank’s issue for 06′ isn’t immigration. It’s constipation. Mental constipation.

JK

Achievements of the French policy to integrate foreigners

Generally speaking, observers agree that the French integration model has been successful: the earlier waves of immigration (from Italy, Poland, Belgium, Spain, etc.) have been assimilated; the more recent ones (from Portugal and the Maghreb) appear to be being integrated socially, culturally and politically  although their economic and occupational integration is not yet complete. Reference to standard integration criteria seems to bear this out:

# nationalization statistics confirm the model s efficacy: when immigrants’ children had to “manifest” the desire to be French, when applying for French nationality, the overwhelming majority did so; they now acquire it automatically;
# there are many mixed marriages (between French people and foreigners): according to the 1999 census, 9.6% of the 271,361 marriages celebrated in 1998 were with a foreign spouse;
# at school, according to sociologists, in comparable socio-economic and family circumstances, immigrants’ children are at least as successful as other young French people;
# as regards housing, there are not strictly speaking any ghettoes; “problem” districts contain vulnerable people from a variety of different backgrounds. It should nevertheless be borne in mind that close on two thirds of immigrants live in towns of more than 200,000 inhabitants (one third live in Ile de France).

Nevertheless, in some areas the French integration model seems to be running out of steam, although the causes of the problems faced by immigrants tend to be socio-economic (working class backgrounds, few vocational qualifications) rather than “ethnic” (foreign backgrounds, national cultures):

# schooling: young foreigners are less likely than others to follow a “normal” school career (collège [mixed-ability school for children aged between 11 and 15 approximately], general education lycée [catering for children between 15 and 18 years of age] and then higher education). French middle-class families also use various strategies to avoid sending their children to schools with a high percentage of foreign children (dispensations from school catchment areas, enrolment in private education, etc.). Schools may themselves be “elite” establishments or, on the contrary, de facto, “ethnic” ones catering for a homogenous group of disadvantaged pupils.
# housing: the most socially and economically disadvantaged, among whom immigrants are over-represented, tend to be concentrated in certain districts, estates, or high-density housing complexes;
# employment: in 1995, there were 1.97 million (7.8% of France’s total active population) active foreigners (i.e. those in or looking for jobs). 46% of these were manual workers (compared with an average of only 26% for the country as a whole). Immigrants tend, moreover, to be working class whatever their country of origin  with particularly high levels among Moroccans and Algerians. The immigrant population has much lower job security (fixed-term contracts, temporary work). They also suffer badly from unemployment (20% of active foreigners were unemployed in 1995 in comparison with a national average of 12%). Non-European nationals are the worst affected: in March 1998 their unemployment rate, based on the International Labour Office (ILO) standard, was 31.4% in comparison with 11% for French people. Young foreigners (aged 15 to 24) are in an even more difficult position: their unemployment rate rose from 22% to 43% between 1992 and 1996, while the rate for young French people increased only from 16.2% to 21% over the same period.

The causes of these integration problems are not only economic and social (lack of education and qualifications, few financial resources, social problems, etc.), but also have to do with mutual cultural perceptions.

# Discrimination against immigrants is seen particularly when they are looking for jobs. Openly discriminatory job offers are illegal, but many other, more discreet practices escape the clutches of the law. Consequently, the number of legal convictions (74 in 1995 and 81 in 1996) does not show the whole picture.
# Racism is targeted in particular against peoples whose presence evokes a conflict-ridden colonial past: immigrants from the Maghreb are the main targets of hostility (more so than other Africans and far more so than Asians, and particularly the Portuguese). Support for Islam, which many people consider impossible to integrate into French civilization or at the very least to be incapable of embracing a secular culture, but which is nevertheless France s second religion, is perceived in the worst of cases as a challenge to the national tradition of integration. This feeling of foreignness is fuelled by differences in customs (women s status, lifestyles, family authority, etc.).

Looking at this from a historical perspective, it is important to remember that all groups of immigrants, whatever their original nationality, religion, skin colour or customs, have been victims of racism. Xenophobia is often linked to periods of economic depression and the notions of “tolerance threshold” or “inability to integrate” are devoid of any sociological meaning.

http://www.ambafrance-us.org/atoz/immigration.asp

This from Blogs for Bush:

The Republican Party has the really tricky task of actually finding a solution to the problem – and a solution which neither alienates the GOP base nor cuts the GOP off from the growing population of hispanic voters… Properly done, the politics of immigration can work out tremendously well for the GOP – a policy which will secure the borders, provide the labor, satisfy the base and appeal to immigrants. If the GOP can act reasonabily in its internal debate and realise that no one is going to get 100% of what they want, then we can do this…

You should also try to fold the NSA wiretapping into this push. May I suggest making Jim McDermott the point man.

one of the most unpleasant aspects of HillaryCare was that it criminalized the private practice of medicine

Sweet screaming monkeys, that’s ridiculous. Is there anything you’re ashamed to try to pass off?