the eternal

I have compiled everyone's suggestions and added a few that I like. Not like like Just like. Because I totally just like like bean But then I bolded LOS and Slogo because I don't just like them I mean it's just that I mean Y'know One of them almost ripped out a chunk of my butt and that totally changes things but at the same time I don't like like them. I mean like I used to totally like like Winnie Cooper but then she found some other guy hot and now I don't know who I'm going to take to the Homecoming dance And then it's like I'm friends with Hunhee, so I like have to nominate her but then she doesn't post much but then like if I see her it'll be like Whoa and she'll be like--Pffft and I'll be like--I'm so totally embarrassed and she'll be like--I'm so sure but then bean'll be like Woo-hoo and I'll be like and it'll be like Kewllll! This is such a super awesome, way mature thread. And this list'll totally kick ass if Stan and Kyle don't get ahold of it and change everything. This'll be even kewler than Twilight New Moon OMG, I don't care if Robert Pattinson isn't on the board. He is SUPER-HOT and so totally GOTH I want to like nest in his hair and make babies in it I am SOOO looking forward to Sophomore year. We are going to rock that school WAIT what was I doing here---Oh yeah the list BABES *Siren* GothicRavenGoddess Eevee Ice Queen Tigerlilly Megalicious Lillylu Velvet Tears ~Tszura~ taysteewonderbunny Xyla Toxic asphyxian_doll Tyger bean! FarrIL Fidget Zima wormsinwombs pheramoans fuckmerunning Rayne TheOsakaKoneko (Even if she doesn't win--she is so the fashion win of the century. Carrie Bradshaw is so totally Ugg compared to Osaka's threads) TitsMcgee MrsHeart (Any woman of LOS is a woman of...well LOSs but I'm putting her up cos she's his bitch and that counts for a lot) MinaRose f0rged pleasurekatzen katRN05 (She will so kick my ass if I don't list her here and that's major fail...on my ass. And I love my ass. I mean it's a part of me, okay?) kat cat feline whiskers That white cat in the Fancy feast commercial (SUPER CUTE!) gothykytten Pomba Gira Hunhee Chernobyl --NOT Cher. Chernobyl. Chernobyl is a badass nuclear disaster, Cher is a wild haired cougar that makes bad music STUDS pRick RevReverence TheGimp Raev spook Mstrbeau torn_asunder st_masey Iris Joey Deadcat DJ Saint deathfearsnone StormKnight Troy Spiral Robert Pattinson Nightgaunt COTN SpammerovtheG-ds Darkmatter (Lillylu and not him ---that's so heinous) Reaper LoS Slogo phee and Clover I so want to nest in his hair and make babies in it too Maybe Robert could join us and we could be all poly. That would be so hot! Oh dear g-d no. Why not alphabetize my 1001 cd Emo collection while you're at it. Which reminds me-- I know I left out a few people. Some because you're not on the board much anymore some because you're like major fails or ugg uggs, but most of you (who are still rockin the threads all badass and freaky like you're Justin Bieber or sumpin) WELL MOST OF YOU I just plain forgot to namedrop because my ADHD is not letting me give you mad love since I got all obsessed and freaky wit my My Fall Out Boy bit torrents. I love getting poetic inspiration from old skool rock like FOB. That and Pete Wentz iz hawt! See you at Homeroom. Lady Gaga Rulz!!! Edited because this entire thread would be major fail if I di'int put !!! after Lady Gaga Rulz Edited again because I added a few more as people keep nominating.

That is awesome

+1000

She's a mantestant, and a badass to boot, but I still think only Prick can handle our late-night mantestimoanials to our lord, which of course is me, the eternal one, and Chuck Norris, our guiding light and prophet. And we don't want to make woMEN uncomfortable. If Prick is unavailable, I'll donate a couple manpoints to anyone who thinks they handle sharing the lot with us. You may drink more. But we're louder than you. We have better music than you. And we have a penchant for running around camp naked and grunting at 5AM. (OK that's just me)

beanternal would, but ONLY if you become a Mantestant. You kick people's ass on a daily basis, and that's just to get an aerobic workout. What's more manly that that? We may need Prick and his +1 though. Of all the people that heard our screams and S & M late at night---(Chuck Norris's name has never sounded so sweet) Prick seemed to appreciate it the most. And I know a mere spectator could not handle it's manly power

But you're a man-king! Chuck Norris does roundhouse kicks in your honor. Ron Jeremy has named his penis mold--Chernobyl #69 Men want you AND want to be you. What's more approval than that?

OOh I liked it. It definitely takes a little patience as it doesn't change up too often, but if you just lay back and let the music go, it's really quite nice This next one is both a martial arts lesson AND a song. You get such value! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Y6231uAmo

Peaceful

To Obama, it was about providing health care to as many people as possible. He ran on this platform, because it was important to him, and to many Americans. You said yourself that people of all political stripes found healthcare reform important. What impact this bill will have on society remains to be seen. I think if it survives repeal in November, it will have major consequences, but if it gets repealed before being implemented, obviously it will have had no impact at all. That is the goal of the republican party. The midterm elections will not only be a referendum on Obama. It will be a referendum on the Healthcare bill.

I did. I gave you five stars. Of course, I had an ulterior motive. Israeli soldiers are badass! If you know their techniques, I need to stay on your good side

Raev--Just watching UHF is enough to make any day. The ladyfriend is bonuspoints. bean and I just saw Capitalism-the Movie (by Michael Moore) at a MoveOn party. It was awesome. And yet, ironically enough, it was getting a PM from my favorite Libertarian that completely made my day! WOOHOO!

There is NOTHING wrong with that obsession. Since he's still young and impressionable, I recommend their classics --Rubber Soul --Revolver --Sgt Peppers --The White Album AND my personal favorite --Abbey Road Not that I'm a fan or anything I'm listening and watching Tourism videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByKiRTDF8ww&feature=related

You guys are awesome! Well, bean bumped me up to four. It took her forever! Someone really doesn't like me. I don't know why I care. I will work harder on being awesome and secure. bean being a Buddha bear said if I don't become that way, I can do it in my next life. As for my starting this thread, I don't want it to happen to any of you. It just doesn't seem fair to give disgruntled people that much power.. But since I'm apparently the only one that noticed the star ratings in the first place, I guess you guys are good!

----NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Really? HER?? Ummm OK, I'll give her a chance, but I just don't get it. Maybe everything I thought was wrong. You're just so smart and awesome. ----I think I may have started a shitstorm and it may take longer than I thought for balmy weather to come through again. ----Never enter fights with a crazy person ----If Medicare/SS/Disability got taken away tomorrow, because it was ruled that no program should require every one of citizens to pay into it, thereby bankrupting all of them, would the people that were on it, the people that depended on it for their livelihood, STILL be against the govt reqment to get health insurance that'll go into effect in 2016? ----I had bad food last night but it was worth it! ----Starting tomorrow night no bread products, no cereal, no wheat, no barley, nothing! FOR A WEEK! (I will end as I began) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

On Wednesday, Obama spoke in Iowa City about the Health Care bill. It was about a half hour speech, which breaks down to: ---5 minutes of shout outs (Can I get a WOOT WOOT for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack) ---5 minutes about the road to get to health care reform, interrupted by fans shouting and cheering ("I love you Robert. Twilight rulez!!" ---"Wait what is this rally for again?") If you want, you can view that part HERE BUT AFTER THAT, he actually goes into some of the basics of what this health care bill is, what it isn't, and what it covers. It was so packed, at the 2 min mark, he actually briefly halted the speech because someone fainted. VIDEO 2 He continues about the bill until the 3:30 min mark, when he switches gears to talk about how the GOP plans to repeal the bill, tells them GO FOR IT and ends with stirring up the crowd about why it's so great that change is coming (If you're wondering what the man shouted out at 2:10 it was "What about public option?" To which of course Obama responded "It's not in it because we couldn't get it through Congress") SO, although the full speech is entertaining, IF YOU JUST want to learn a little about the bill and see what its #1 proponent has to say AND you can't stand reading my long posts, (I don't blame you--they're not for everyone) WATCH the entire first video inserted above and about 4 minutes of the second one. It's a good watch

DAMN YOU PHEE!!!!!! If you weren't a samurai, you'd be in trouble. WATCH OUT THOUGH, bean's a ninja pirate.

In every profile, there is a star rating. If people like you, they click five stars, if they don't, they click one. SO, after I noticed my star rating go from ***** to *** in a day, I found out that if someone doesn't like you, and they're bored, they can just sit all night and lower the number of stars in your rating until it goes to one. MY QUESTION---- IS rating someone's popularity a good thing on a goth board? OR is it just childish? AND Does anyone like the idea that in one night, any one of us can change someone's lifetime rating?

Shocked.

What can I say? The universe has been very good to me lately

As eternal, I am your lord, and as such will abide as your guide to moral rectitude, but as you are the communist dictator, Komrade Phee I will also serve under you as your merchant of death, and minister of communications. ALL Hail to thee Phee. Those who refuse suffer the wrath of the eternal Bear Jew

You know what that means. We can have a party at Reaper's house, without the hassle of him being there! His house is awesome! WOOHOO! UMMM...I mean Happy Birthday

I hit goal number 1! I would post in here, but reading about someone who's eating less than me, making more than me in a wonderful profession where you help people every day, and THEN ends the day by becoming strong AND fit in Isreali hand-to-hand combat, is too much for me. It would make me sad to read everyday and I'd respond by sitting on the couch and eating ice cream. But that's because I've always had low self esteem and am constantly comparing myself negatively to others. (I think it's great what you're doing ) SO, I haven't been in this thread since late last year when I proclaimed myself a big winner (as in getting fatter every day and blowing through pant sizes. ANYWAY, everyone still called me thin, even "skinny" soemtimes because I carry my weight well. However, according to BMI, I had 50 lbs to lose to become normal. And I'm not muscular, so I can't use that as an excuse either. So, that is my mountain to climb. (That I split into two mini goals to keep motivated) BUT, I lost 30 lbs!!!!!!! GOAL NUMBER 1 ATTAINED!!!! ----------------- GOAL NUMBER 2---20 more lbs and some tone-age by Manfast WILL be achieved.

DON'T think for a second this was the only major case he ignored MSNBC.com Pope failed to defrock sex abuse priest Vatican halted trial after cleric’s plea for leniency to future pontiff By Laurie Goodstein The New York Times updated 12:51 p.m. ET, Thurs., March. 25, 2010 Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal. The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer. The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked. In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal. 'Kind assistance' But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations. “I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood,” Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. “I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger. The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican. Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities. Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest. Even as the pope himself in a recent letter to Irish Catholics has emphasized the need to cooperate with civil justice in abuse cases, the correspondence seems to indicate that the Vatican’s insistence on secrecy has often impeded such cooperation. At the same time, the officials’ reluctance to defrock a sex abuser shows that on a doctrinal level, the Vatican has tended to view the matter in terms of sin and repentance more than crime and punishment. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was shown the documents and was asked to respond to questions about the case. He provided a statement saying that Father Murphy had certainly violated “particularly vulnerable” children and the law, and that it was a “tragic case.” But he pointed out that the Vatican was not forwarded the case until 1996, years after civil authorities had investigated the case and dropped it. Father Lombardi emphasized that neither the Code of Canon Law nor the Vatican norms issued in 1962, which instruct bishops to conduct canonical investigations and trials in secret, prohibited church officials from reporting child abuse to civil authorities. He did not address why that had never happened in this case. As to why Father Murphy was never defrocked, he said that “the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties.” He said that Father Murphy’s poor health and the lack of more recent accusations against him were factors in the decision. The Vatican’s inaction is not unusual. Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church’s doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked, according to a recent interview in an Italian newspaper with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the chief internal prosecutor at that office. An additional 10 percent were defrocked immediately. Ten percent left voluntarily. But a majority — 60 percent — faced other “administrative and disciplinary provisions,” Monsignor Scicluna said, like being prohibited from celebrating Mass. To many, Father Murphy appeared to be a saint: a hearing man gifted at communicating in American Sign Language and an effective fund-raiser for deaf causes. A priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, he started as a teacher at St. John’s School for the Deaf, in St. Francis, in 1950. He was promoted to run the school in 1963 even though students had disclosed to church officials in the 1950s that he was a predator. Victims give similar accounts of Father Murphy’s pulling down their pants and touching them in his office, his car, his mother’s country house, on class excursions and fund-raising trips and in their dormitory beds at night. Arthur Budzinski said he was first molested when he went to Father Murphy for confession when he was about 12, in 1960. 'So friendly' “If he was a real mean guy, I would have stayed away,” said Mr. Budzinski, now 61, who worked for years as a journeyman printer. “But he was so friendly, and so nice and understanding. I knew he was wrong, but I couldn’t really believe it.” Mr. Budzinski and a group of other deaf former students spent more than 30 years trying to raise the alarm, including passing out leaflets outside the Milwaukee cathedral. Mr. Budzinski’s friend Gary Smith said in an interview that Father Murphy molested him 50 or 60 times, starting at age 12. By the time he graduated from high school at St. John’s, Mr. Smith said, “I was a very, very angry man.” In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse. However, it was not until 1996 that Archbishop Weakland tried to have Father Murphy defrocked. The reason, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, was to defuse the anger among the deaf and restore their trust in the church. He wrote that since he had become aware that “solicitation in the confessional might be part of the situation,” the case belonged at the doctrinal office. With no response from Cardinal Ratzinger, Archbishop Weakland wrote a different Vatican office in March 1997 saying the matter was urgent because a lawyer was preparing to sue, the case could become public and “true scandal in the future seems very possible.” Plea for leniency Recently some bishops have argued that the 1962 norms dictating secret disciplinary procedures have long fallen out of use. But it is clear from these documents that in 1997, they were still in force. But the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency. In an interview, Archbishop Weakland said that he recalled a final meeting at the Vatican in May 1998 in which he failed to persuade Cardinal Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Father Murphy. (In 2002, Archbishop Weakland resigned after it became public that he had an affair with a man and used church money to pay him a settlement.) Archbishop Weakland said this week in an interview, “The evidence was so complete, and so extensive that I thought he should be reduced to the lay state, and also that that would bring a certain amount of peace in the deaf community.” Father Murphy died four months later at age 72 and was buried in his priestly vestments. Archbishop Weakland wrote a last letter to Cardinal Bertone explaining his regret that Father Murphy’s family had disobeyed the archbishop’s instructions that the funeral be small and private, and the coffin kept closed. “In spite of these difficulties,” Archbishop Weakland wrote, “we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church.” Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome. This story, "Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest," originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright © 2010 The New York Times URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36030565/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/page/2/from/ET/ AS A SIDE NOTE, BEFORE BECOMING THE POPE, CARDINAL RATZINGER HAD A NOTORIOUS REPUTATION FOR BEING A DETAIL-ORIENTED MICRO-MANAGER FOR ALL MATTERS RELATED TO HIS WORK.

NO IT DOESN'T. Under the Hyde amendment, Our money is barred from going toward abortions. In U.S. politics, the Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortions[1]. It is not a permanent law, rather it is a "rider" that, in various forms, has been routinely attached to annual appropriations bills since 1976. The original Hyde Amendment was passed on September 30, 1976 by the House of Representatives, by a 207-167 vote. It was named for its chief sponsor, Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois. The measure was introduced in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, and represented the first major legislative success by abortion opponents. The Hyde Amendment inspired the passage of other similar provisions extending the ban on funding of abortions to a number of other federal health care programs. Consequently, those federal government employees who wish to have abortions must pay for them "out-of-pocket". In addition, abortion services are not provided for U.S. military personnel and their families, Peace Corps volunteers, Indian Health Service clients, or federal prisoners. The Stupak–Pitts Amendment, an amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, was introduced by Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan. It prohibits use of Federal funds "to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion" except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother,[5] and was included in the bill as passed by the House of Representatives on November 7, 2009. However, the Senate bill deemed passed by the House on March 21, 2010 contained no such language as part of an agreement between Rep. Stupak and President Obama. The President signed an executive order on March 24, 2010 affirming that the Hyde Amendment would extend to the new bill.[6] WHY DO CONSERVATIVES STILL CLAIM THIS? Because, once again, this is NOT a govt-run plan. This healthcare reform is made up of guidelines for the insurance providers WE ALREADY HAVE And, apparently, a few insurance companies still have abortion as one of their covered procedures. SO, to correct this "problem," the bill segregates private insurance premium funds from taxpayer funds. Individuals would have to pay for abortion coverage by making two separate payments, private funds would have to be kept in a separate account from federal and taxpayer funds. No health care plan would be required to offer abortion coverage. States could pass legislation choosing to opt out of offering abortion coverage through the exchange. In other words, if we banned abortions from every plan the govt is regulating or supporting, we'd be banning abortion coverage from just about every insurance provider in the country! So, to get around this problem, the bill says to the indiv. insurer. You CAN offer abortion as part of health care BUT you have to set up two set of books, with two sets of payments so that not a single dime of taxpayer money goes to abortion. NOW HERE'S THE FUNNY PART 1. How many of you have health insurance or knows someone with health insurance that provides abortion coverage. I've had different plans for over a decade and had over a dozen plans (as companies switch providers quite often) and NEVER had one with coverage nor knew someone that did. The best I had was one plan would let me get a vasectomy for $25. That's less than a BluRay movie! I didn't get it, but it was tempting! 2. Do you have any idea how time consuming and complicated, dealing with health insurance providers is? Now then, JUST TO COVER ABORTION, there has to be two sets of silverware and plates, one for meat and one for cheese, and that's not including Passover, which makes it four ---No wait, that's for keeping Kosher--- OK, so to allow providers to cover abortion there would have to be two sets of books- one for govt funds, one for non-govt funds, and so MOST of the small number of insurance companies that DID offer abortion coverage are going to say "Screw this,it's not worth it" So, non-taxpayer abortion coverage is going to get killed by paperwork and procedure, and we'll all have to pay full price at Planned Parenthood. IF there's an abortion provider in your area in the first place. (Less that 5% of counties in the US have at least one provider) Get a dictionary? Wow! Way to keep things respectful on here. AND you put it in color to draw attention to it. Nice! So you say a product is "something (as a service) that is marketed or sold as a commodity" OK, let me get out my dictionary, so I can look up commodity. Commodity -- Definition 1 A physical substance, such as food, grains, and metals, which is interchangeable with another product of the same type, and which investors buy or sell, usually through futures contracts. The price of the commodity is subject to supply and demand. Risk is actually the reason exchange trading of the basic agricultural products began. For example, a farmer risks the cost of producing a product ready for market at sometime in the future because he doesn't know what the selling price will be. Definition 2 More generally, a product which trades on a commodity exchange; this would also include foreign currencies and financial instruments and indexes. NOW, lets see how healthcare stacks up with a commodity like a bag of grain health·care (hĕlth'kâr') n. The prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health Health insurance is insurance that pays for medical expenses. It is sometimes used more broadly to include insurance covering disability or long-term nursing or custodial care needs. It may be provided through a government-sponsored social insurance program, or from private insurance companies. So unless US Medicare is interchangeable for Americans with another product of the same type, (UK's healthcare??) and which investors buy or sell, traded on a commodity exchange, I think I'm in the clear on this one. BUT, so this thread doesn't get jacked by off-topic exchanges, I am going to, for the sake of argument, agree with you, for a moment. Let's say it IS a product and a service. WORDS MATTER! People view services as having value. They view services as something done for them to make their life better. Which is what health care's aim is to do. We view products as furniture, commodities if you will. Whether you realize it or not, by calling life saving health care a product, the actual wording minimizes the value of it. Politicians of ALL stripes use different language (partial birth abortion instead of third trimester, corporate mergers and downsizing instead of "We f$#@ed your company in the ass and now you're out of a job") to either draw attention to or minimize value of the thing at question. So by referring to health care reform as a product, something I never hear others do, it seems to share more in common with a handbag than what may give someone FREE preventive care to ensure that that person stays--- healthy and alive. ANYWAY, I actually wasn't ranting at you Rev, nor was I accusing you or anyone else as being against healthcare. I kept my commentary strictly about the issue you raised. And I referenced ONLY govt programs that every working American has payroll taxes taken out to support. So although it was lengthy, I kept it narrowly focused to services like SS/Disability/Medicare that we are FORCED to pay for through our taxes ---your primary concern. And I'm a big enough man to give credit where credit is due. So, as I did in my last post, I will say again you raised a good question. Why should everyone* need to be enrolled in a healthcare plan? (*OK not everyone. No one's require to get health care until 2014 and the 2.5% fine--with a $695 cap for no coverage WILL NOT go into effect until 2016 EVEN THEN---Six years from now Exemptions will be granted for financial hardship, IE those for whom the lowest-cost insurance option exceeds 8 percent of an individual's income and those with incomes below the tax filing threshold. In 2009, the threshold for taxpayers under age 65 was $9,350 for singles and $18,700 for couples) WELL---- why does everyone have to give a little bit of their taxes for Medicare, Social Security, or Disability? To have enough money to cover those who need it. BUT, you may say, this money isn't for other people. It's for MY own coverage. Yeah, isn't that great? It's not like SS, where you don't even know if it'll be there when you're old enough to need it. It's there for you NOW! The reason why everyone needs it is because if it was optional, many younger people wouldn't elect to take it. Only the older and sicker people, who are using up all the benefits. And what insurance company is going to sign on to a group benefit filled 100% with people constantly making costly claims. They'd all go under in a year! And IF: --We are going to expand coverage to 32 million more Americans --We are going to close the donut hole for seniors --We are going to credit small businesses (who are NOT reqd to offer it) up to 35% for their voluntary choice to offer it anyway. --We are going to ensure EVERY American's right to health care, regardless of risk or pre-existing condition We need to balance out the risk pool with young and healthy people. For example, I have a TON of life insurance. As long as you're relatively thin, under 40, and not on prescrip. medications, it's really really cheap. Now if I was a 50 yr old 100 lbs overweight and on Lipitor and Wellbutrin, it would be ridiculously high. So, to make sure that we can cover someone like that, we need enough people like me to keep premiums down. Why do I have life insurance if I'm such a low risk? Because as healthy as I am, and despite the fact that the most intense drugs I take are Ibuprofin(Advil) and Caffeine (Oh sweet sweet, fizzy Diet Coke Aaaaahh) I COULD die at any moment, and if I do I want bean to be ok financially, and what's more, I could get a disease or health condition tomorrow. It wouldn't kill me, but it could prevent my insurability (AKA If I got an incurable disease, I would be too high a risk to qualify for affordable life ins, if I qualified for life ins at all!) The same thing is true for health insurance. I'm a good risk, but not 100% perfect. Say I got that incurable disease tomorrow, with health insurance that now is BARRED from dropping my coverage and now has NO lifetime limit on it, I'll know that I'm covered. But if I didn't have coverage, and I got this disease, they may DENY ME AT A TIME I NEED IT MOST! OR If I HAD coverage, THEY MAY DROP ME, claiming I was too high a risk for claims, once again AT A TIME I NEED IT MOST! I'm not picking fights here, I'm not ranting at anyone, and I leave the door open that I'm wrong on this. BUT, I believe in this bill and the benefits that are possible with it. I TRULY hope it opens the door for a day when NO ONE has to wait to be "actively dying" from a brain tumor to get the proper medical care they need, like Raev did. And that when this day of full coverage does come and care is available, that NO ONE will have to take out second mortgages to pay for the surgery like Raev's grandmother and aunt had to. Unfortunately, without healthy people like me paying insurance premiums and keeping costs down, this wouldn't be possible, and what happened to raev and his family would be sure to happen to thousands of people across the country over and over again.