Should Muslims be Exempt from Buying Health Insurance Under the New Health Care Law?
Muslims are specifically exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance and also from the penalty tax for being uninsured. Islam considers insurance to be “gambling”, “risk-taking” and “usury” and is thus banned. Muslims are specifically granted exemption based on this.
Virtually all other Americans will face crippling IRS liens placed against all their assets, including their houses and pension plans, and face hard prison time if they refuse to buy insurance or pay the penalty tax. Meanwhile, Louis Farrakhan will have no such penalty and will have 100% of his health needs paid for by the de facto government insurance. Non-Muslims will be paying a tax to provide full medical care to all Muslims in the U.S.
I have nothing at all against Muslims, but do you think this is fair?
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Wait a second…first of all, as a health professional, I do not know about this exemption because the hundreds of Muslim cancer patients I’ve helped have had health insurance or wanted me to help them get it so this doesn’t at all ring true…Are you positive you’re talking about health insurance when you say insurance? Secondly, your proclamations of ‘crippling liens’ and ‘hard prison time’ are sensationalist claims and are not what these upcoming health care changes are about…but I guess I should have seen that from your ‘I have nothing against ____ group, but..” statement…and should have known better – you are providing misleading information with a leading, biased question.
oh my god. Reading my link and its example of the chain letter, it’s disgustingly obvious you didn’t even write this yourself. You just copy and pasted a chain letter you received. Give me a break.
@MrItty Paranoid claims don’t require thought, don’t worry about it
Here is something that is a matter of fact and not opinion. Please provide citations for this nonsense, or quit posting bullshit.
Check this stuff out before posting it as fact. If it sounds too “right” to be true, it almost certainly is. This is nonsense. Muslims aren’t forbidden to carry insurance. They aren’t exempted from having auto insurance in order to drive, nor is there any exemption in the healthcare bill. Also, those who do not purchase healthcare insurance will not “face crippling IRS liens placed against all their assets, including their houses and pension plans, and face hard prison time.” There is no such provision in the healthcare bill. Read the bill. It is still online. http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2010/03/affordable-health-care-for-ame.shtml
I have nothing at all against Muslims,
YES, you do.
I’ve yet to see a Libertarian turn down Medicare benefits for their parents, or subsidized student loans to send their kids to college…
What a crock.
Word up, here. This is Fluther. You are not dealing with a bunch of mouth breathing illiterates like those who typically swallow this crap without question.
Do your homework before posting nonsense as if it were fact.
Some people…..............
@ItsAHabit Now you see what happens when people spam Fluther with unsubstantiated crapola. Mayhap you would feel more at home on Yahoo Answers. The crowd is credulous and you would fit right in.
@dpworkin & @ItsAHabit If you want a place where you will get praise heaped on you for spouting such poopaganda as this questioner spouts, try www.sodahead.com
There are some level headed posters there too who will call the lies out, but they are far outnumbered by the inbred crowd who get all their “facts” from places like www.wnd.com and claim that anyone who actually looks into multiple sources and fact-checks things (like reading the actual bill in question) is relying on obviously biased sources because Drudge said so.
Everybody here is welcome to form their opinion, they just aren’t welcome to form their own facts.
@ItsAHabit I figured it would not take too long until you would be recognized for what your behaviour suggests you are: ill informed and a parrot for what your hear from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.
If you can’t support your delusional beliefs, don’t offer them here as fact and expect not to be called on it.
Either get the facts and inform yourself or live with your delusions but do it quietly.
We are open-minded but not gullible. Even those of us with a more charitable attitude toward the President do not believe he has achieved all the goals he set for himself.
With the mindless obstructionism from the Senate minority, progress towards meeting America’s needs has been unduly slow and limited.
You need to change you habit and learn to think.
Crippling liens….
Have you read the bill?!?!?!
How do you justify the claim that Obama is a Socialist by stealing from the rich to give to the poor when you say that the poor will be tossed in for “Hard Time” if they can’t pay?
@everyone. Save yourself the time and don’t reply to @ItsAHabit posts, unless you want to argue with all the worst trash/misinformation from Fox news and the republican party bullshit generator.
Looks like the Dunning–Kruger effect may be at work here.
“In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
-Bertrand Russell
Ridiculous propaganda. What’s the source: Beck? Rush? Thanks for the laugh.
Oops! I carelessly rushed without fact-checking, for which I apologize.
Some of the reactions, especially the conclusions to which some have jumped, have been interesting and telling: the assertion that I have something against Muslims (simply not true), “AM radio and FOX” (which I neither listen to nor watch), that I’ve said Obama is a socialist (where did I say that?), the assertion that I “heard from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck” (I don’t listen to either of them), and the implication (not assertion) that I might be a Republican. In reality I’m a former conservative Democrat who is now a registered Independent.
Jerv asked a reasonable question: “Have you read the bill?!?!?!” No, I haven’t but certainly should do so. Actually I don’t anyone to my knowledge, including those who voted for or against it, who have read it. Of course, that’s not to say they haven’t read it.
@ItsAHabit Whenever I see something outrageous in the news, I do a bit of fact-checking before going off. Current-day America is more about sound bites than substance, and the media is often more interested in ratings to attract advertising revenue than in accuracy; sensationalism is the norm.
I too was concerned about the penalties for not having health insurance, but when I saw how small they were and read the fine print, I realized that the whole uproar had little/no basis in actual fact.
jerv. How very right you are.
@ItsAHabit I think it is the best plan whenever you hear anything at all inflammatory about any side of the political spectrum is to go for the source. If I cannot find the source (I do not count Fox news as a reliable source, by the way) I discard that bit of information until/unless I can find verification.
I have seen so many things like the chain mail you got, and much more subtle, which were bullcrap when I did some digging. Another trick is strategically taken quotes when, in combination with other strategically taken quotes, paint a highly inflammatory picture.
Arisztid. Yes, and not only Fox but also others as well. I well remember Dan Rather’s problems resulting from ignoring evidence suggesting that what he was reporting as factual information was actually based on counterfeit documents.
For instance, blasting Obama for a recent arms treaty claiming that our hand would be tied in the even t of a biological attack even though the treaty had a provision explicitly allowing us to amend the agreement in the event of a biological attack.
gorillapaws. I never watch Fox.
Then, we have to ask, where did you hear this little gem? and what made you think it was true?
@cazzie Actually, I have heard that one quite a bit from The Right (not the Conservatives, but the Legion of the Batshit Insane); people like Sarah Palin and the Fox news crowd.
As for what made @ItsAHabit think it was true… well, I can’t answer that.
It was in my email. I knew that the Amish and various other Anabaptist groups reject social security and medicare, which they view as insurance. Their objection seems to come from the Biblical injunction to “trust in the Lord.” They think that being involved in these programs violates Biblical teachings. Others might reasonably have religious objections.
Seems to be?
More accurately, the Amish generall live in extended family family communities which includes their own system of caring for their members.
It’s modeled after descriptions of what the the early Christians did things. in the book of Acts it describes them being “of one mind and one heart and they held all things in common”
Thats a model of community which runs clearly counter to the American ideal of rugged individualism. It isn’t just a nebulous kind of idealist trust in the Lord, but a clearly defined community structure separate unto themselves, not merely as individuals but as an integral part of a unique community structure on a practical level.
According to Jonathan Turley’s site (he’s a pretty balanced authority on the law) the exemption is most likely going to be for the Amish and similar groups BASED UPON the historic track record they have.
In everything I’ve read so far there and elsewhere (even his link to Fox news) there hasn’t been a peep about Muslims.
So, my impression is that extreme right wingers are just putting that in for the scare effect.
@gorillapaws & @ItsAHabit Fox news is the only major player claiming to be a news organization that has ever gone to court to defend their constitutional rights to order their reporters to lie, and fire them if they refuse.
I have to laugh when I hear right wingers decry the MSM and claim they are all biased wihle Fox is “fair and balanced.” The MSM actually still employ researchers to verify stories and print or broadcast apologies and retractions when they realize they got a story wrong. Dan Rather did so. Fox went to court to defend their propaganda operation.
No. Muslims should not be Exempt (*but everyone else should be).
I don’t’ even know how to express how uncool that is…
@jerv I second that.
Obama ran on a promise to reform healthacre. Despite Republican efforts to engineer elections, Obama still won by 10,000,000 votes. Now the party that claims to love and defend democracy seems determined to set up a dictatorship if that’s what it takes to get their way. 2nd Amendment remedies if we can’t win at the ballot box? WTF?
@ItsAHabit, It was in your email? That’s not a source. Where did the email come from? A respected source by you, I’m assuming, if you thought quoting here would promote some sort of intelligent debate. Instead, it’s boiled down to a ‘We can’t understand how people believe the trash that is spouted off by idiots’ discussion.
@bootonthroat yes… everyone should have the freedom to die of a curable disease or condition because healthcare has become a business rather than a public service. (sarcasm..wtf)
@cazzie
TRUE
“everyone should have the freedom to die of a curable disease or condition”
FALSE
“because healthcare has become a business rather than a public service”
@bootonthroat Everyone does have the right to refuse treatment. Feel free to die of a treatable condition if that is what you want to do. Nobody will put a boot on your throat to stop you. As to the assertion healthcare hadn’t become a business, it most certainly has in the USA. Part of the reason we had to reform it is the cost was heading toward bankrupting the nation. We were spending 17% of our GDP on healthcare, and getting some of the poorest results in the developed world. The top nations use a more intelligent approach and get the best healthcare in the developed world for about 10% of their GDP.
@ETpro thanks for that concise response. I get tired of pointing out the obvious to people.
Nonsense.
In Germany for employed people health insurance is mandatory. We got 2.2 million Turkish Muslims in Germany. Insured. And no problem with Islam.
@ETpro
I may want to have the freedom to die of a treatable condition WITHOUT having paid for it. If I am 95 and my treatment would cost 1MM then I might feel better giving this money to my family, etc. The problem with the mandatory health-care system is that I must pay for treatment of even if I refuse it. Since you have prepaid through insurance your right to choose is taken from you. It isn’t really a choice if you already paid—then of course you will opt for the service.
@mattbrowne: Germany has no problems due to Islam? None of these 2.2MM Muslims wish to see Germany under Sharia Law?
@bootonthroat wow. You’re wrong. Such an incredibly simplistic view. When you think you understand something about public health care, just think to yourself, ‘I’m probably wrong… It is more complicated than that.’ If an elderly person has a disease of some sort and it can be treated without risk to their quality of life OR their life, they will be given the treatment, unless they say…no thank you, it’s my time to die. Then there is nothing to pay for but the funeral.
Besides, if you’re 95, you’d be on Medicare in the USA and everyone is paying into that now anyway, though taxes. Imagine having a less fatted healthcare system where that money would buy MORE services for the over 65’s instead of less…THAT would be a good thing. THAT is what they are trying to do. How can anyone be against that? I don’t understand? (Unless you’re a Medical Insurance CEO or someone else fattening the current system)
Insurance is what you are all paying for NOW and NOT getting your money’s worth. The American system is wasteful, inefficient and lining the pockets of CEO’s and shareholders. Healthcare is NOT a business. Hospitals are NOT entities for profit.
If your health care system can be fixed (and I highly doubt that now), everyone will end up paying LESS, get it, LESS than they do now.
@cazzie Are you another one of these people who think that money just comes out the ether to pay for medical expenses? If not, who pays for the medical care? So if a taxpayer refuses medical care weren’t they forced to pay for care that they did not receive? There is no choice to opt-out.
@bootonthroat I’ll help you pack for that island you want to live on.
You are all paying into Medicaid now. No plans to disassemble that program.
@bootonthroat – same way you’re forced to help pay for the police solving the murder of someone who isn’t you, yes. Isn’t that horrible, to pay for someone else’s problem like that? Same with fire departments – who wants to pay for them to put out someone else’s fire? That’s just wasteful and stupid…
…except that we don’t pay for someone else’s fire or crime investigation because of that, we pay for the system to be in place. The same system that will put out your fire or solve your crime or keep your street safe or your country from being invaded if need be. A health care system benefits everyone, you as well as me. And even if you never need an operation, the fact that it’s taking care of other people all around you might mean that you don’t get sick the next time some communicable disease goes around. And the fire department putting out your neighbor’s fire means that your house might not catch fire. It’s all related.
@cazzie – I am against Medicaid. We should “disassemble that program” but we have created people dependent on it. Is the goal to create lots more people dependent on the government?
@laureth
The government should provide a military and maintain order. Except for communicable disease what you say about that has no bearing on health-care. Communicable disease is also not handled very well and is handled worse than ever under Obama. For instance, we now allow people with HIV to enter the USA where they infect citizens.
@bootonthroat So, I’m confused. You don’t want to ever be treated by a doctor or have surgery or if you are in an accident, you just want to be left to die? Or, if you do, you’re willing to pay a ‘market rate’ for the service… which.. I’m not going to look up, I’m sure everyone is becoming more aware of what an ER visit costs in the US these days.
EVERYONE needs health services. NO ONE becomes dependant on the government because their child gets an infection, or needs a tetanus shot because they stepped on a rusty nail. Or perhaps they get MS and then they really DO require more medical care than they ever thought or certainly ever wanted. Providing people healthcare doesn’t make them dependant on the government. People already NEED the service. They have a RIGHT to the service in many people’s opinion.
The hospitals are still run by doctors, medical administrators, not a G-man with a clip board. But what DOESN’T happen is the turning away of people because they lack the right Insurance Card.
Again… I’ll help you pack your Alisa Zinovjevna Rozenbaum (aka Ayn Rand) books and we’ll find you and your like-minded fellows a nice island you can all play Lord of the Flies on.
@bootonthroat is becoming the poster child for empty, simplistic answers.
@bootonthroat – People who are starving and lack health care might decide to just go die, but usually not. Heck, people have rioted in the past over things like food prices and lack of jobs. Even if your view of government only concerns “maintaining order,” it is a wise idea to keep the people from civil unrest caused by the need for things like medicine and bread.
I suppose you might think that’s what the military is for, though, à la Kent State.
@dpworkin: at least @laureth has an answer. It might be wrong/misleading but she has some sort of point. Many of your “answers” are non-answers.
@laureth: people generally don’t riot over medical care. They do riot over food. That is one reason we need all of the illegals OUT so that we have more farm-land per citizen. Next we need a strong economy which means we need the government out of the way. We need citizens to care deeply about the economy. Lots of citizens don’t even care that our economy is doing poorly because they are content with their 1 year+ unemployment and their food-stamps and other handouts. If it were not for the food stamps you better believe unemployment would never have been allowed to reach 10%.
1. Illegals help make food cheaper by taking much less than minimum wage and no benefits to harvest it, with the savings passed on to the consumer. Kick all the illegals out, and I suspect food prices will rise.
2. Besides rioting, people will also do other illegal things if it’s a choice between feeding their family and watching them starve while doing nothing. Why do you think so many people come here illegally so they can send money home? Besides, “more farmland per citizen” doesn’t matter a while lot when you’re exporting so much food overseas, and importing food from other places overseas.
3. Citizens care about the economy. I don’t know where you get the idea that they don’t. And I don’t know what you mean about unemployment being “allowed” to reach certain levels, as if jobs just come out of the ether to satisfy demand for them.
4. Who is big enough, in this time of failing companies, to drive job creation? That’s why the government needs to step in. Getting government “out of the way” (I assume you mean “less regulation”?) is a large part of what got us into this mess. Of course, if you prefer the business opportunities in a land with minimal to no government, Somalia is the best place I can think of for you. Government is notably absent, and opportunities for entrepreneurs abound!
5. I can understand the temptation to throw non-answers at you, because it’s much easier than trying to wave data in front of you. If it’s not going to be seen and evaluated, the effect is the same as a non-answer.
RE1: We have enough surplus labor in the USA now to harvest the crops. Therefore, we would not see a cost increase. We would be harvesting the food with people currently getting handouts so we could offset or get rid of > $1 of handouts for every $1 of labor cost incurred.
RE2: They come here illegally to escape the exact type of laws and systems you want to impose on America.
RE3: I get the idea that they don’t when they vote on candidates based on handouts instead of on jobs.
RE4a: Yes, companies need to drive it.
RE4b: “Government” is corrupt in Somalia and doesn’t maintain order
RE5: I think non-answers are not excusable.
You indulge in them constantly. How do you excuse yourself?
For instance, we now allow people with HIV to enter the USA where they infect citizens.
@bootonthroat Huh? Please provide data to show that the HIV infection rate has gone up since the HIV traveler policy was changed.
@Dr_Dredd
Each HIV infected individual who enters the USA increases the infection rate as a matter of simple math.
let u = number of uninfected people without new policy
let i = number of infected people in the usa (not including people we let in)
the percent infected is therefore i/(u+i)*100
after x infected persons are allowed to enter the percent infected would be
(i+x)/(u+i+x)*100 where x>0
Therefore we have an increased based on those admitted alone. Then we can add to that number anyone infected by a member of group x.
This is simple basic math. Can you show differently?
Sorry, but I find that argument akin to claiming that gun ownership leads to an increase in violent crime when I have seen stats that prove otherwise and point at other factors.
Umm… how is HIV/AIDS infected again? Last I checked, it wasn’t one of those things that you could get from a toilet seat or a handshake. You almost have to try to get it. So unless you are into unprotected sex with strangers and/or sharing needles, I wouldn’t worry too much.
@bootonthroat You didn’t answer my question. What is the infection rate between people? It goes without saying that the total number of people infected will increase if infected people travel into the U.S. That’s not particularly surprising. What would be surprising is if there was an increase in HIV transmission between those folks and people already living here. As @jerv said, HIV is actually very difficult to transmit. It doesn’t survive long outside the body, so unless there is direct blood-to-blood contact, you can’t get it.
@Dr_Dredd @jerv
Travelers do in fact find often someone and have sex with them (duh). The habits of people with HIV are not the habits of the 75% of travelers who do not engage in casual sex.
”
Freed from the normal social constraints of everyday life at home and often with ample time and opportunity, up to 25% of travelers engage in casual travel sex.
”
This actually talks about Americans traveling elsewhere but the same is of course true in reverse: http://journals.lww.com/stdjournal/Fulltext/2002/09000/Sexual_Behavior_of_International_Travelers.3.aspx
The person who has sex with the traveler may or may not believe they are having casual sex. The traveler can of course say anything.
I have a new theory about @bootonthroat. I think it is a Turing Experiment, and a rather well done one, and I would like to praise the programmers! It’s not entirely convincing, but it is the closest I have ever come to experiencing a machine as a human, and great progress must be being made in the field of artificial stupidity.
@bootonthroat – My guess is that about 200,000 out of the 2.2 million are in favor of sharia law. There are 36,000 known radical Muslims in Germany. They are being carefully watched by the authorities. There are undercover agents visiting services in mosques and also infiltrating various groups and visiting their meetings.
In Turkey about half of the population is truly secular, but a majority of the other half still does not want sharia law.
@dpworkin Yes…one could contemplate that. If one was an optimist. On the other hand… one could guess that he was a frustrated statistician of some sort in a sad managerial role.
@bootonthroat Ok, so of that 25% who engage in casual travel-sex, what percent are willing to intentionally transmit a deadly disease to others by having unprotected sex when they know they’re infected? Less than 1%?
If it happened, the CDC would be tracking it. I subscribe to the Morbidity and Mortality report, and surely it would appear in the daily summary.
@mattbrowne
I dispute “200,000 out of the 2.2 million are in favor of sharia law” because that number is so far removed from the number of people who want sharia in Muslim-majority countries. You would have to show that almost-exclusively non-sharia seeking Muslims emigrate. In fact many emigrate for the express purpose of spreading Islam, sharia, etc. Some of the Muslim-majority countries were not always Muslim-majority countries just as Germany is not yet today. I see no reason why Germany should follow a different path than the other countries which fell to sharia or at least a subset of sharia before it. I believe if the Imam asked the question in private vastly more than 1 out of 11 would be in favor of sharia. Of course when you ask the question that is like a black man asking a white man if he is racist. The answer will be NO regardless of truth.
@bootonthroat And, do you think the same of the Muslims in America? That more than a minority want to change our laws to Muslim laws?
What do you think @mattbrowne ? You know one of the keys to good writing is strong character development and I am certainly a personality. Some writers model their characters after real people but how cutting edge would it be for a sci-fi writer to model a character after a maybe Turing Experiment? You could write a portion of the book but my parts could write themselves—almost analogous to sampling in modern music. Some people would say it is cheating and lacks creativity but I don’t think so. Of course I would be biased wouldn’t I? Still, it would make for a hell of a writer’s interview. Several researchers have attempted to develop models for forecasting the financial success of motion pictures, primarily using statistics-based forecasting approaches. I can tell you in the role @cazzie prescribed me and using preliminary models ported from the movie to the book industry that such gimmicks can provide a lot of press for budding writers.
@bootonthroat – Well, my sci-fi story is based on androids passing the Turing test. And it’s easy to take two chatterbots from the Internet and let them talk to each other. There should be some recorded dialogs somewhere.
But what has this issue to do with Muslims and sharia law?
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