I am fundamentally opposed to my government taking my money to simply give it to somebody else - and controlling the lives of those receiving the money.

I harken back to JFK's famous "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" speech.

Gigantes56 wrote: [TO: ATC@ZDC]

Taxes are taken from your money and distributed to people already- Social Security for instance, federal government employee salaries, military salaries. The lives of the people aren't controlled, they're given a choice. Universal healthcare grants an opportunity for healthcare that can be accepted or denied, but it is made available for those who lack the ability to do for themselves. The plans are oriented toward the elderly and the youth of the country. Also, the availability of healthcare to people who wouldn't have it otherwise could act as an avoidance measure for eliminating a future disability claim. The corporate healthcare system we currently have has eliminated a fair market and allowed the costs of medical care and prescription drugs to balloon far out of the realm of the typical consumers wallet or purse.

The good old days of America are long gone, we're in a new age with different rules. We live in a hugely divided country that falls just short of internal strife- if Americans were any more divided, the battle wouldn't be rhetoric, it would be bullets and blood. It's sad, and without a unifying agent, we're doomed as a country.

Doing for your country could include contributing funds from your paycheck to allow those less fortunate citizens of said country access to affordable healthcare. A country is not the land, a country is the people. Without the people, there is no country.