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UPDATE!! See David Letterman and Barack Obama Mix It Up On Tonight's THE LATE SHOW!!
I am – Hercules!!
Barack Obama appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” NBC’s “Meet The Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” CNN’s “State of the Union” and Univision’s “Al Punto,” but he’s likely saving his funniest material for Monday night, when he guests on “The Late Show With David Letterman.”
The Obama visit will mark the first time Letterman interviews a sitting U.S. president.
He’ll be Dave’s only Monday guest.
The president is stumping for health care reform, something I’ve been really hot to explore since I saw Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko,” which demonstrates that socialized medicine seems to be working exceedingly well in capitalistic democracies like Canada, Britain, France and Italy:
I know we have a lot of readers in Canada, Britain and other places that indulge socialized medicine, and I’d be keen to hear if they think their health care systems are as horrible as American politicians make them out to be. I’ve spoken to Americans who have fallen ill overseas and express astonishment at the free health care they receive there.
Can filthy foreigners really have better health-care systems than we God-fearing Americans?
Here’s a supercute English girl’s appraisal of the British system:
If the president has crunched the numbers and believes he can give us affordable universal health care by raising only the taxes of people with annual incomes north of $250,000, honestly, what's not to love?
11:35 p.m. Monday. CBS.
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You seriously were influenced by a Michael Moore doc? Socialized medicine is going bankrupt in every nation it is being used. Who cares if the citizens like it, they can't afford it in the long run. You should read the op-ed by economist Greg Mankiw in yesterday's New York Times. Health Care can never be free or equal in the long run. The president is selling a populist pill that other nations have already latched on to... hopefully the US isn't as stupid.
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...for at least 30 seconds. Who the fuck cares?!?!? I suspect this Letterman show will be one of the lowest rated of the year. Two reasons. People who watch Letterman are not politically savvy. The other is that he is the most overexposed, full of himself president of all time.
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hasn't Britain had the NHS since the 1940s? How long is it going to take the NHS to go bankrupt?
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I'm not quite certain that Michael Moore gave you an objective look at how things really are.
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Yep, the NHS has been around since 1948 or thereabouts. People like it because its simple to use - the patient doesn't get bills, and the employer knows exactly how much the health costs per employee will be - think of how many small businesses in the US are crippled by variable healthcare costs. Hence employers can't outdo each other by not offering health insurance (although private systems exist as well). Overall the NHS works really well. There's been problems but generally they get sorted. The MRSA thing mentioned in the vid was basically due to hospitals hiring cheapo private contractors to do cleaning who didn't do the job. As for 'socialized medicine' going bankrupt, if I recall the US spends twice its GDP on healthcare as most European countries with no real improvement in outcomes, so is likely to be the private system that goes bankrupt first. Especially as widespread genetic testing will mean skyrocketing premiums for certain people just because they're not genetically perfect - almost everyone carries one or more genetic diseases. As for the argument "Waaa, why should I pay for losers?", well because sickness respects no social boundaries. Plenty of healthy, fit people get ill (i.e. Swayze or Steve Jobs) so just because you go running and don't overdo the pie doesn't mean you won't get cancer or have a heart attack. The second reason is that disease can easily spread rapidly. If you have piles of people with no healthcare is pretty easy for them to spread TB or STDs (or any other number of illnesses) into the general population. Hence is best to make sure everyone gets basic healthcare because it also protects the middle-class as well as the poor.
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It does not make sense to make people working hard to pay those that are not and will not by choice. Breeders that want a bunch of kids and not take resp for anything. We really are a welfare country now. Work on jobs Mr O!!!! Then people can get healthcare. And besides everybody and their mother is on medicaid and medicare anyway.
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WHY is it so hard for this to get done?
universal health Care is the answer
Both the employer and the employees would help pay for it.
As a Healthy workforce is a valuable asset to business I don't understand why they would be resistant to seeing everyone covered, especially if it lowers the cost of doing business
Here is the plan
Universal Coverage-Single payer: All Business pay a flat tax of X% (say 7-10% use the GAO to figure it out) on there payroll $$ whether you are a small business or a large business the % is the same.
All Employees are Taxed a flat percentage of there wage X% (again have the GAO figure this,but say 3-7%)
The money would then go into an American Healthcare fund to pay for the medical cost
Your SSN would be your Healthcare card, no one would be denied coverage,
To control cost? Ban cost shifting and legislate that you can only charge ACTUAL cost plus a FAIR % as a profit for all procedures, This combined with the fact that EVERYONE would now be covered by a Healthcare Plan would enable the medical profession to be assured of getting paid- and while not at the same inflated rate that they use to, do to economies of scale they would not be loosing anything either, and in fact due to lowered administrative cost would likely come out ahead.
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and I've recently had to stay in hospital over night to have an operation on an infected abscess. I had a CT scan to assess the damage, the operation and plenty of tablets and dressings for afterwards, and it didn't cost me a thing!! It's fantastic.
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Also, Americans tend to get a skewed view of the NHS from our press. Most of the UK newspapers are pretty right-wing (Sun & Times owned by the antichrist Murdoch, Daily Mail owned by some tax-dodging Lord), with the Daily Mail being about the worst offender. The DM is effectively Fox News in printed form. Now the Mail tends to skew a lot of stories to make the NHS look terrible and these get picked up by Drudge so a lot of Americans think 'Holy shit! The British press are telling us their evil socialist system is killing 50 million people a year!' Generally speaking its a load of bollocks. The DM also tends to hate anyone who isn't upper-middle class so have a loathing for the masses and their other stories reflect that (British kids are all psychos and halfwits, the BBC is run by communists, the UK is the most violent country in the world - all shit).
Again, there are problems with the health system but they're vastly overinflated by the right wingers who ideologically hate the NHS. It is after all a public-sector service that has lasted a lifetime and still does the job.
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Even if you're making $250,001/year now, you never know when you'll find yourself without a job and without insurance and a gigantic mortgage on a devalued house you can’t sell and a couple kids in private school. And a big fat tumor in your liver. Isn't it worth achievers paying more tax if it gets you the treatment that will save you life?
I spent a few hours in a hospital emergency last year; not even a whole day. For nothing particularly awful; I was just feeling really dizzy (from an inner-ear disorder it turns out) and they wanted to observe me and run some tests done. $6,000 for just those five or six hours! And that didn’t include the MRIs and CATscans and God remembers what else they did to me in the days and weeks to come.
It takes a lot of people a lot of time to save $6,000! Imagine if you have to spend a few days in that hospital. Or a few weeks. How far into debt would something like that drive a working-class individual?
Don't cost-free hospital stays that won't bankrupt you sound even a little less stressful? Are we certain this is nothing we want to explore?
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I can ring up my local GP and see him that morning and sort out whatever is wrong in a very short amount of time.
I just had diagnosis, medication, physiotherapy and therapy courses prescribed and actioned to me all within a 4 week period. Bloody awesome! -
...but NHS wards do have more viral strains than an episode of Fringe.
Still it's free, so I can't complain...until I loose a leg. -
And if we don't FIX it, what does that say about our country?
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2 examples:
A few years ago I may have had a seizure (I'd woken up in the middle of the night and may have dreamt the whole thing lol). Within 3 days I had an MRI and within a month an EEG and sleep EEG
Cost to me? £0
Last year I was taken to hospital with a kidney stone. I was given drugs to help with the pain, multiple X-Rays, fed twice and spent the night in a private room.
Cost to me? £0
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how's that health care system working for you up there on that giant piece of ice you call a nation?
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Generally, it's a fantastic idea, and it's amazing that any westernised country doesn't provide "free" healthcare for it's population. It does suffer from idiotic bureaucracy but no more than other public services.
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The issue of right-wingers crying 'socialism' as a swear word is rather amusing, too. Aside from them not saying much about the banking bailouts or the huge increases in military spending via Reagan & the Bushes, there's the core issue of the US being very much a mixed economy - and much of its dynamism has come from public sector investment. The difference between the US and elsewhere is that while other countries had state-run businesses, the US has state-dependent businesses. Ask yourselves how big Lockheed would be if the government contracts vanished. Or Boeing. Or any number of other companies. How much cash would Bill Gates lose if the US government mandated Linux on all military/school/public office computers? How many movies are made with 'assistance' (i.e. lending jets to filmmakers - hello Michael Bay) from the military? How many get tax breaks?
Much of America's finest technology came from taxpayer-funded investment in universities and research labs as well as military spin-offs (satellites, chips, the Arpanet, GPS, various medical technologies and so on). Furthermore most of the talkbackers here are middle-class because of positively leftist policies enacted from the thirties onwards. For instance the GI bill - college training, unemployment coverage - enabled a large percentage of working-class males to enter the middle-classes after the war. Plus I'm not even going to go into the US military actions to boost American business where the army acts as free policeman for corporations (United Fruit, Haliburton)...
Finally, I bet all the congressmen who rant about free markets and overspending taxpayers money don't work for free. Socialism is good for them, but evil when the people who do the actual work want some of it... -
Sep 21, 2009 7:29:19 AM CDT
What happened to us? What happened to the American Dream?
by mr. zeddemore
"What happened to the American Dream?" It came true! You're lookin' at it...
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If Obamacare passes, you'll see emergency rooms packed with people who barely have a sniffle, a small splinter or simple headache. Why not? It's free!
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It's got its flaws as well as it's benefits. The National Insurance is practically nothing, Ask the English Girl (as you might have guessed) isn't exactly the most learned of people. The national insurance portion of your monthly tax isn't 20% or anything like it. The combined tax on the average paycheck (say £1,000) per month is only about £200 in total. The Nat Insurance is only part of that.
Naturally there are more taxes for those in the higher wage bracket (£40K+) but those are income taxes not national insurance which stays at a set percentage regardless.
What amazes me is the average american counter-argument to the NHS type system is either DAMN COMMIES! or Why should I have to pay for poor people? Well firstly, your pavements, fire departments and libraries are already on a socialised system so if you really are scared of pinkos then go picket them while your at it or you're just an uninformed hippocrit.
As to the second point: Errrm, because then the poor people would be paying for you as well? and the richer people would also be paying for you? it's not a case that your money is going to be 'wasted' on lazy people, it's getting put into a pool to eradicate sickness and pay for E.R.s to function. If the US instituted an NHS style system tomorrow, you'd save money.
Think about it. You break your leg, no bill. You get cancer. No bill. Your kid gets hit by a drunk driver, no bill. The docs just fix it all up as best they can, and you part with maybe $20 more a month. Saving yourself thousands in the event of an illness or injury. Why not think about it? -
Herc, thought I'd reply to you...
Like any health care system, Canada's isn't perfect. Indeed, sometimes there are waits for certain procedures (especially ELECTIVE, Ie. not necessary) procedures. But if anyone is tryinf to tell you that there's some sort of lineup or bureaucrat between you and a doctor for anything from an ER visit for a heart attack to a cold, they're sadly mistaken.
You can go to any hospital or walk-in clinic (clinics run by private doctors/firms but are billed out the government) at any time. You just show your health card, full out a little bit of paperwork (mostly on your health/reason for visit), and that's it. No bills, no fuss, no muss.
It's still SHOCKING to me how Americans don't see the fundamental ridiculousness of their situation. It's been said a million times before, but you are the richest country in the world, and you STILL can't see fit to take care of your own citizens?
And anyone making an argument regarding taxes/taxing the wealthy to pay for poorer people: that's what taxes ARE. Do you propose we eliminate all taxes, and everyone can pay for their own roads, army, navy, etc.? No one seems to mind public schools very much, which are all paid for you guys, regardless of whether you have kids of your own.
When is the US going to get its social conscience back? You prostrate endlessly about morals and values when it comes to invading countries, but you can't see to making sure infants born in your own country have a decent chance of survival? -
A quick word on UK taxes. VAT is currently 15% (will probably go back up to 17 at the end of the year), but doesn't apply to books, children's clothes, most food and various forms of business transaction; there are also some reduced-rate items such as fuel. Property tax in the UK ('council tax') is usually a bit lower than in the US - especially if you live in a large expensive house. Income tax isn't paid on about the first £6000 of income. There are also tax-credits for people with kids and/or those on lower incomes that offset much of the income tax paid. Anyone with kids gets child allowance (about £20 a week for first kid, £13 for any others). So overall we pay more taxes than the US but tend to get more back. It is a similar story for most European countries - am sure any nerds living in Europe can explain their systems if asked.
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well said
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That's a fair point, and it happens in the UK n a way, but people here with sniffles go to Family practices to see their General practitioner or GP (like the guy in the first video ^) They don't clog up ERs (or Accident and Emergency Rooms, A&E as they're called here)
That's how our NHS system works. If you break a leg, get really ill i.e. can't stand, blurred vision etc.. then yeah go to A&E, if you get a cold, random pain or suchlike, you head to your local GP, it takes them about 5 mins to listen to what's wrong, prescribe or recommend something and send you off. Thus the packed rooms clear fast. That's because in the UK we know better than to go to a hospital if we've only got a cold. -
What is it with the US and the metric system? Why are we so backwards-assed in so many things? I blame the fact that our nation was established by a bunch of puritans and now we have a large and vocal Christian conservative population that is afraid of change.
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Because I can.
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Two quick ways to make healthcare cheaper, pass tort reform, and allow insurance to be sold over state lines. Nothing in Obamacare has lead me to believe prices will go down, just someone else will pick up the bill (the rich or other ppl paying taxes). I would rather pay for my own insurance than to have to govt involved. I'm sure most in America would go for that if they had the option. Why should health care be "free"? Why shouldn't you pay for what you use in some way? If this passes then it will be free housing, food etc. I have little faith in the people that did such an excellent job with Katrina-Iraq-Clash for Clunkers-Fannie Mae-Freddy Mac-Putting America Back to Work Act would admisister this program correctly. Lastly what was the last federal program which came in underbudget?
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... And can walk into my doctor's or any doctor's for that matter with a pain or an ache and get it sorted. God bless socialism.
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Sep 21, 2009 7:59:19 AM CDT
heathcare should be the same as police/fire/military protection
by j2talk
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We never set foot into a hospital because everything is healed by the power of prayer. When I broke my leg, the congregation just stood around my bed and prayed until it fell off. It was completely free, and now I save even more money because I go halfsies on shoes with another guy whose opposite leg was lost to a wild pig.
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I believe everyone, regardless of whether they're a vagrant or multi-millionaire, shares a common value as a human being and deserve the same compassion and respect for the quality of their existence. I can't conceive of any government insisting a man endure an untreated broken arm or illness because of their income level. I rarely require medical service, and aside from the vasectomy OHIP provided me with, my life would have been radically comprimised by not receiving those services. What makes more sense when you're running a nation: ensuring your workforce is maintained at a minimum level of functionality, or letting them slowly decay or sacrifice their quality of life to maintain themselves? How much faster would the pyramids have been built if the pharohs implemented univeral healthcare for the slaves? Even my vasectomy, which can largely be considered a luxury service, does a lot to reduce the potential strains on other social services a low-income continuous breeder could create.
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StevenScorsese "If Obamacare passes, you'll see emergency rooms packed with people who barely have a sniffle, a small splinter or simple headache. Why not? It's free!"
You obviously have never been to an emergency department, because >90% of the patients are people without health care that have nowhere else to go for their ingrown toenail or other similar ailment. I love how people say things like that, or argue about tax increases and everyone being on medicaid without any actual knowledge of the health care system.
The average American cannot get Medicaid, and they cannot afford private insurance unless it is heavily subsidized by their employer. Newsflash, TONS (ie more than half) of employers don't help with insurance. In some states, a married person would have to have an income of less than $190.00 per month to qualify for Medicaid. If you made less than that a month, health care is the least of your worries.
As someone who actually works as a health care provider, it is painfully obvious that a couple of groups of people have done a great job of tricking half of the American public into thinking healthcare should be for the rich. Those groups: the insurers that profit because of a standard policy of denying every claim on the initial request, and the politicians who profit from the insurers lobby money.
As a physician it seems like it is a pretty simple concept. People can grow their food and cook it. People can go to a store and buy or sew their own clothing. People can pick out an apartment or hire someone to build it. But not many people can perform their own open heart surgery. It is a necessity of life, and it is the only necessity that an average person absolutely cannot attain on their own. This is why it is a right. It is a right to have a chance to be a productive part of society. No one can work if they can't live. -
"Hello police? There's a prowler here, he's going to rape and murder me!"
"Maam, have you got your insurance details?"
"What?!?! NO!!"
"Well do you have a major credit card?"
"Hang on, I'll just get it - AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
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$250,000 is not the domain of the "rich".
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Fantastic post. I bet the CEOs make sure they get a nice healthcare package as well while complaining they can't afford it for the workers.
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and was given 1 to 3 years to live. He has been going to chemo every 2 weeks for the past 3 1/2 years plus monthly blood tranfusions and MRI check-ups. Also during these 3 years, I got an infection from an operation I needed and I had home care from nurses twice a day for 3 months. Plus I broke my leg in 3 places. My parents meds can be submitted to get a percentage of money back on them at the end of the year through income tax. I don't think many americans understand the level of comfort universal health care can give you. As a citizen, it makes you feel safer. Why don't some people want it's citizens to feel safe?
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You're right, 50,000 is. If you make that much you can afford your bills. You might not have a great car or huge house, but you can pay for what you have without worry. At 250,000 you can afford your third car and second house without worry. That is definitely rich. The idea that we have become so inundated with greed that 250k isn't enough to be rich is a sad statement on our distorted values.
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From wiki: "In 2006, there were approximately 116,011,000 households in the United States. 1.93% of all households had annual incomes exceeding $250,000" So they may not be Bill Gates rich, but they're wealthier than the other 98%...
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I had the incredible misfortune of suffering a penile fracture 3 years ago. Which is to say, I had an erection, and my penis accidentally incurred a sudden bend to the side causing the interior chamber carrying the blood to rupture. Horrible injury. Needless to say, I went to the hospital asap, didn't wait in any waiting room - was taken immediately into ER, attended to by a physician, given a morphine drip, brought up to the urologist, given a prescription for painkillers and sent on my way with no muss and no fuss. They actually didn't even take my health care information until I was being discharged, so I could've been a visiting American and received the exact same treatment. Afterwards, the government covered my travel costs to consult with a specialist 900 kilometers away, and there was no additional costs for that specialist either. I've heard people complaining about long waiting times, but hospitals, even ERs, treat patients according to the severity of their needs. Yeah, go down to have your runny nose wiped and you're going to wait.
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It's been commoditized and people are conditioned into equating healthcare services to all other for-profit services. Effectively making it a critical "product" you either buy directly at mind-numbingly exhorbitant costs (not always the case before) or through a group savings plan (so-called health insurance).
There used to be a wealth of public (I.E. locally government-run) hospitals throughout the nation.
They've nearly all been privatized in the 80s and 90s, with the help of propaganda that fooled people into thinking privatized hospitals are more efficient (false, they are vastly more INefficient as profit incentive always seeks to provide the least and worst care possible) and politicians who sold us out with outright bribery (campaign donations) or field-related jobs for themselves or family.
Now you would be hard-pressed to find a public hospital anywhere, and if you need care and don't have the money or cannot afford the co-pays (which have gotten bankruptcy-inducingly expensive - check your fine print), you have to find a volunteer clinic in some gymnasium, that is if you survive long enough for the next one held.
The health insurers and hospital corporations STOLE from us not only our public hospitals, but also the entire concept of medicine as an altruistic field. -
At $250,000 you live on more in a month than people below the poverty level live on in a year. To deny that kind of income is rich is preposterous. I thought I was rich when I started making a third of that.
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I would still like to know what's the problem with making insurance cheaper and paying for what you use? I wonder how many who complain spending a couple hundred a month on insurance have no problem spending a couple hundred a month on cellphone, cable, etc. If it was expected people would pay for their health insurance people would budget for that. The only problem is few people have an option, that could end if Congress would allow sale over state lines and allow individuals and companies to combine to buy together. I guess I'm a rube for thinking I should pay for it.
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I'm in my young 20's don't get sick as much and I exercise on a regular basis... Is Healthcare important to me now or do I wait until in my mid 40's when my body becomes less active and need more work?
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Yeah, like everything in the world, public health care has some issues. They absolutely pale in comparison to the mess you have in the US. Getting sick is already a random punishment. Why should any individual be punished twice?
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Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News in the US and Sky News in the UK (not to mention newspapers like The Times and The Sun).
If any of Murdoch's UK outlets ran the kind of stories that Fox News runs about the NHS, they'd be laughed out of town. Seriously, the US coverage of the NHS is a fucking joke - you couldn't make that shit up because people wouldn't believe it.
I'm not British but I've lived in london since 1994. It kills me that, in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the great depression, American voters would rather stick with a system that charges them much higher prices for comparatively less care than any other western democracy. It's true that some of the best medical cover in the world is in US hospitals, but the medical care here in London ain't too shabby neither and we get it for free.
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It is important because you don't know when you are going to slip while cutting an onion and slice the ligaments that connect your thumb to your muscle. Stuff like that happens all the time and has nothing to do with fitness. And the cost without even reimbursing the doctor (ie just the cost of drugs and technology) is $10,000+ to repair that injury. At least buy a major medical plan if you can afford it.
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A natural-born subject of the British monarch. Usurper. Period.
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...and the Brits accept taxes like sheep.
Petrol here costs almost double what it does in the US, mainly due to tax. Pint of beer in London is now £3.50 (about $6), 40% of which is tax.
Most people in the US dont know this, but the UK has a 'TV License'. If you dont buy one it's illegal to watch TV in your own home. You're tracked on the electoral register and if they cross check, then find you haven't purchased one, and then knock on your door and find a TV on the premises, you're fined £1,000. Look it up. All paid to the Brit Govt. The list goes on, and on, and on.
Remember, the US revolted againt England over taxes. There was a reason for it. And there's a reason the UK is referred to as the Nanny State.
Simply put: the reason that the UK government can afford to give its citizens free healthcare is because of much higher taxes. At every level, not just higher wage earners. Almost 50% of the average UK wages goes back to the government.
I love living in the UK. Is it better than the US, no. But it's true, you can indeed walk into a Hospital at any time and get treated for anyting. But in the end, it will cost Americans just as much, one way or another.
Think about it. The folks earning $250k per year are mostly in Corp Management positions or business owners. With families, mortages and debts themselves.
All they'll do is increase the cost of the goods they sell to cover the money coming out of their own pockets. Which then increases oversall sales tax revenues.
Then, Execs (many of whom are shareholders in their own company) will demand higher packages because the Gov't is taking such a huge bite. Which then leads to higher tax revenue for the US Gov. Win/win for the US Gov.
Yay...magic. Universal healthcare in the US paid for.
Want free healthcare? You'll pay for it one way or the other. The argument is pointless.
At least with private insurance you get the option of how and when and by who you're seen. Otherwise, its a moot point.
Might as well move to the UK. At least your money will be worth more when you visit Ma and Pa back home.
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The average uk earning is £22,000. Now that's not including anyone retired, part-time, in education, out of work, or under 16. At that wage, you can afford to run a car, rent a flat and have normal amenities and even go abroad on holiday once a year. Probably.
If you had to suddenly factor a cost of a couple of hundred pounds EVERY TIME you needed to see a doctor, and thousands if you actually needed anything done other than a simple consulatation. Then you're living on a breadline.
Now imagine you're the primary wage-earner with a wife and 3 kids on that salary. Using a US system, Mr. Average would be broke as soon as winter hits and his kids start catching bugs.
The UK system means that Healthcare becomes something you just accept as a basic human requirement of a modern lifestyle that is provided by any right-minded society.
I mean otherwise it's like the TB'er earlier who suggested the police forces should be privitised.
Can any of you anti-NHS US types give me a sensible reason why the PD & FD are municipal and that healthcare shouldn't be? -
You do know that most of Europe has a TV licence? And Japan. And Israel.
http://tinyurl.com/3u4ry3
Plus overall taxes aren't that much higher in the UK than in the US when you consider what you get back in allowances/benefits/services. -
I dunno what Leroy i on about but 50% of wages only go back in taxes if you're on supertax, ie if you earn £100K+
Earlier Pageiv asked whether the people who grudged paying a couple of hundred dollars on health insurance would spend that on other things... well here's a breakdown of my monthlies in the UK to contrast:
Sky TV, Phoneline & Broadband - £17 a month
Blackberry Curve, 400 free minutes & infinite texts, constant free roaming internet - £10 a month
TV licence - £9 a month
Council Tax - £90 a month
Rent - £200 a month
I get paid around £1,000 a month, and about £180 - £200 is tax, which includes my national insurance. Life here ain't exactly that expensive.... Look at that and ask yourself if you'd begrudge paying a small amount of extra tax (and I mean small as in less than £100) each month for completely free Healthcare? As opposed to Hundreds each month on insurance and STILL have to fork out for the bells and whistles... -
Social healthcare works very well in the UK (my home nation) and in Spain (the country I live in at the moment).
National Insurance contributions are paid as a % of your earnings and it means you never have to worry about access to basic medical care.
If you want non-urgent treatment you can "top up" with private medical insurance, but there is no need as medical help is considered to be a basic human right rather than related to the size of your wallet.
What is scary to someone outside the USA is that so many people seem opposed to national health care. The USA portrays itself as a G-d fearing Christian democracy, yet at the same time seems opposed to the strong helping the weak (read that as the rich helping the poor), even though the system they would set up would be right there for them should they ever be unlucky enough to have cancer or be knocked over by some drunk in a car.
Everytime I feel my taxes are too high or I read that some crook is taking advantage of the unemployment or health benefits you can get in Europe I stop for a minute and thank G-d the system is there. There but for the grace of G-d go I. Something as simple as a slip, an accident or some badass disease and I would consider every penny I ever paid in to be worth it. -
As a Canadian who has travelled quite a bit, I have been asked about our system, and have watched with a mix of horror and amusement the crazy bs I sometimes here about socialized medicine from south of the border. As other posters have pointed out, our system is not "perfect", since Canadians do still die. But just knowing I can get ongoing care from my GP, see specialists when needed, and get free emergency services means less stress for me, and makes me as proud as the most patriotic American to be able to say I come from a nation people and governments actually care about the health and well being of its citizens. This issue also fired me up enough to write my first talkback after years of being a fan on this site. For Canaidans, universal health care is one of the cornerstones of national pride and identity, and gives us something that americans seem to cherish very highly - freedom.
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Doesn't go to the government. It is used to fund the BBC (TV, Radio, Internet), which is a government-independent organisation (yes, yes, bunch of loonie lefties, blah blah. Also principal source of quality programming here)
On the healthcare side, big thing to note is that the UK NHS is often being used in the US as a bad example because a) it has been historically underfunded (esp 1980s, cheers Mrs T) compared to other systems, b) it has problems with bureaucracy and ineffective management, c) them foreigners talk funny Better run and better funded systems like in France and Sweden are much less of an easy target (and before you ask, dental care is one of the things which is not properly covered by NHS)Saw a documentary about its foundation a few weeks back and the profit-focused medical profession were playing exactly the same sort of dirty trick scaremongering then as we see now in the US. -
Herc, don't mean to confuse you with a few facts but 875,000 Canadians are on waiting lists for referrals to specialists or for medical services. Average wait from time of referral to treatment by a specialist -- 17.8 weeks. Shortest waiting time -- oncology, 4.9 weeks. Longest waiting times -- orthopedic surgery, 40.3 weeks. Average wait to get an MRI -- 10.3 weeks nationally but 28 weeks in Newfoundland. Average wait time for a surgery considered "elective," like a hip replacement -- four or more months. SOURCE: http://townhall.com/columnists/BillSteigerwald/2007/09/01/uh-oh,_canada?page=full&comments=true
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by the way, as someone who has to pay taxes in Germany as well as in the US (on a case by case basis depending on the job) I can tell you that the taxes in California are higher than in Germany. And we have a heavily "socialized" state which effectively means less stress and fear for everyone here.
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As a Briton, and as someone who visits the US a lot, I can tell you that the NHS iss not perfect. Not by a long shot.
BUT - It is a gazillion times superior to the US system. A system I have had to negotiate more than once, and found to be utterly apalling. I know that when I or my family get sick in the UK, there is nothing for us to worry about. We are covered as a birthright.
This isn't about socialism or communim. Education and healthcare should be free to every individual. These are human rights. Profit has no place in healthcare. -
But since most of us are "forced" to pay for Cable TV,(If you want the best recption in High Definition).)it's pretty much up there as in $40.00 Monthly.And fining somone for a Thousand Pounds who is watching TV without a license is unheard of.God bless America, dammit. (well, most of the time anyways.lol)
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If a US Insurance company offered a no qualms, no quibbles, all covering insurance system that would get any medical treatment covered without you ever having to pay a penny, other than a $10 charge for prescriptions of any level. Which only cost you say 10-12% of your wage each month, would you consider that a good system?
Because in effect, thats what the NHS & National Insurance system is. -
I used to live in the UK, so I can say from experience it isn't all peaches 'n cream like people try to make it out to be. The waiting time to see a doctor is ridiculous the majority of time. Need to get wisdom teeth out? I hope you don't mind a year and half wait. Heart specialist? Get in line. It's one of those systems that from the outside is great because the consumer doesn't pay the doctor. What people fail to see is how high the damn taxes are to support this system. The UK taxes the living hell out of you and that is why it is possible to see the doctor "for free". If the system is so great, why do so many people pay for private insurance? You get ho-hum service at an idirect cost(taxes). Systems like this enabled the UK to become a welfare nation, where it is more profitable NOT to work and collect on the dole. Welfare recipiants in America would love the UK as it is a handout paradise. Love the UK, but that doesn't mean I have to like the high taxes to support the "free" healthcare and other handouts so people who don't want to work don't have to.
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Everyone's seems to be missing one thing. Socialized medicine may work well in other countries, but here in America we have two issues that won't allow it to work. First, let's take England as an example. They have approx. 80 million people living over there. In America, our population is 300 million. The second issue is our overall health in this country. We simply don't take care of ourselves. Nearly 1/3 of Americans live an unhealthy lifestyle that can lead to preventative illnesses in the future. You combine our population with our overall outlook on healthy lifestyles and you will find that NO system can possibly improve our healthcare. We need to get preventative illnesses (diabetes, cancer from smoking, etc.) under control before we can help those who truly need it. If socialized medicine in this country is enacted, we simply won't have enough doctors to take on the 45 million without insurance and we will absolutely be waiting in line for healthcare.
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Dude, whats the current unemployment rate in the US? I believe its around 9.6%, which is higher than the UK.
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Fatties junk food, coughies cigs, and skankies unprotected escapades. This won't happen though, and now every one of these cases will be payed for by the government (courtesy of the middle class, the real people that pay taxes, not the poor that usually get all the tax money and more they pay back from the goverment, and the rich that are able to hire lawyers to where they barely have to pay their fair share).
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I just lost respect for the writer of the propaganda filled with youtube video's above..
I've lived in Universal Healcare in Panama and then Canada and it is not this panacea you are making it out to be. My best friends mother in Canada bumped her head on the wall after being knokced over by her 80 lb dog while she was trying to place the walking collar on him. She went to the ER only to have her waiting there for over 12 hours before she got evaluated.. She had internal bleeding in the brain after a cat-scan where she needed surgery immediately. We got the bad news that there was no Dr. available that day and it was uncertain if there would be the next. I called up a private hospital in the US and had a surgeon fly in the same day to perform the life saving surgery in the Canada hospital. When it was safe for travel, she was flown to a hospital in the US where further care occurred. THe United States has the best healcare system in the world.
Just walk into any Government run organization and that is how the healthcare system would be run.. -
Simple solution: chop the military budget a bit and use the cash to train more doctors. Stick a small tax on unhealthy foods (in the same way you tax cigarettes) and use that to fund a comprehensive preventative medicine programme. It's been done in other countries, it can be done in the US...
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That's probably what NHS will be like in the US. Let's just say the service is lacking.
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So is it only the poor in America who smoke, are fat and have unprotected sex? I think you'll find a lot of middle-class people do those things too...
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Why didn't you foreigners speak up sooner? Do you ENJOY watching us dumb Americans bicker ignorantly?
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Bad example. The unemployment rate jumped in the past year with the housing meltdown. The UK rate is about 8% presently, but when times are good there is still a larger percentage collecting the dole. I'm just saying it is easier in the UK to be on the dole. I think the US still isn't tough enough for welfare. Where are the mandatory drug tests for unemployment and welfare recipients? You cannot refute the fact it pays to be a single mom in the UK. A friend had 2 kids, never married and because of that, was given a house on the sea in Devon. That really is a deterrent now, isn't it?
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Herc [and only Herc]- 1) when you go political, I remove the AICN link from my favorites. This reduces my recurring visits, and the subsequent hits, and thus your ratings. I understand you go political as it ups ratings, and talkbackers love to refresh to see the responses to their posts. This results in clicks/ratings for you. I can't/won't be a part of that. Unsure if TB clicks are part of your ratings, but these editorial decisions drastically reduce my desire to visit AICN. During the election, there were long periods I avoided: choosing instead to visit Latino review and Finke's Deadline Hollywood. I came back here intermittenly since then, and re-upped the favorites link this Summer. It is now gone again.
2)the questions you pose are the answer you seek. Try researching the opposing viewpoint, rather than sticking to surface accusations of jingo-ism and US xenophobia.
If you read the US Constitution, it strictly limits the powers of the Federal government. One of the overriding ideals in our history is the government should do as little as it needs to, and do only those things that really cannot be done by the individual: items like wars and infrastructure. Should the US deem healthcare a part of infrastructure, then we can have a discussion. However, the fact that an overwhelming majority of citizens do not rely on the government for their healthcare, makes the persuasive argument that the private sector and citizenry can do these things independently, and the government ought not. Elders are using Medicaid as they have been paying into the tax-system, and so a government system has to an extent bred dependence. Beware any program where the constitutional justification is the very broad construction of the "General Welfare" clause of the pre-amble.
The current proposal to increase the number of holders of healthcare insurance, will do little/nothing to decrease the cost of healthcare. If anything, it is very likely to increase cost. I would refer you to an excellent article on the matter: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
I agree with his assessment, but not his proposals. Very much worth anybody's time who has a stake in the debate. -
I kind of mixed two thoughts. I am saying though that the poor pay almost zero taxes (and when you factor in the goverment handouts and tax breaks they get, they usually are getting much more back then they pay), and the rich have enough money to hire lawyers to get out of paying their fair share of taxes. If you're in the middle class, you can't get the handouts like the poor, or the great legal help like the rich, so you have to actually pay taxes. As far as risky activites, if we've got NHS, there is not excuse for the goverment to pay for anyone who contributes signifigantly to their poor health.
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Maybe we'll get a Leno thread, we're all over 40 and hate humor here right? But still no Sons of Arachy thread?
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I don't think anyone will tell you that the current US system is super fantastic. There definitely needs to be changes to allow pricing to drop. I just don't think universal healthcare is the answer. Call me selfish or heartless or whatever, but I refuse to pay more taxes so I can foot the bill for everyone's "free" healthcare. It is a substandard system. I'd rather pay a little more and get a service that is good than one that will be substandard.
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Andy,
Without profit, there would be no incentive to actually study and create all those wonderful cures we now have.. Doon't be silly making statements like that..
Herc,
Dis you not have insurance when you went to the Dr.?? $6,000 was the total cost but for you, how much was the visit? If you don't have insurance and can afford it, then it is your fault for not spending the money to have it.. A Universal Healtcare system would tax and hurt everyone. Remember that prices and cost of everything including the amount of jobs available are all relative to how much money the top has to put to work in the economy. You ever heard of trickle down economics? So if you do tax to hell the wealthy achievers in the US, that means less jobs will be available and higher costs of products.. Simple as that so you can't say it'll only affect people making over $250,000 combined.. If Obama's Cap and Trade (tax) pases, over $3,000 more will be taxed on to everyone's taxes (of those who pay taxes) in order to pay for it. I though Obama had said taxes will never go up for those making less than $150,000 a year combined? ANother lie?
And out of those 45 million you point out, how many are illegal aliens that currently get free healthcare? Obama just said last week his plan will not cover them.. Oh wait, he wants to legalize all of them.. another lie??
If this Universal Healthcare passes, it will lead to a single payer option killing off all private insurance. There is no way around this since private sector cannot compete with an entity that does not have to make a profit. Some will say that is great.. However think of the ramifications of all medical employees sudden;y making a lot less money. Furthermore all drug companies suddenly cannot sell their pills at the high costs they currently do so research and development costs go way down.. Innovation and medical breakthroughs slow down because of this.. Is this what you want Herc??
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You have 300 million people in US compared to 80 in UK, therefore some form of socialised medicine will not work?que?Surely economies of scale could be used to make much bigger savings than in the UK ("Dear Glaxo SmithKline, I am your single biggest customer in the world. I am not happy with my current deal for drug X. Please come to my office to receive my revised terms)I assume you mean that if were run monolithically from Washington, it would be subject to major inefficiencies.I agree. The wrong sort of bureacracy (and not necessarily too much) is a major issue in most government schemes, likewise in the current private insurance-based system. Would that be allowed to happen? Don't know. Depends on the legislation.
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You're sourcing a conservative opinion column, which used "facts" provided by a libertarian (and DEFINITELY partisan) "think tank" (the Fraser Institute) that have never been shown to be actual facts (and questioned by various organizations, in and out of Canada). The 875,000 number originated by the Fraser Institute has been tossed around since 2007 without any substantial evidence to back it up. That's not to say that the indications regarding wait times are incorrect. However, wait time fears tend to be overdone ... and actual waits tend to be in regard to elective surgeries. Despite the existing wait times, polling has shown Canadians are happier with their Doctors than Americans are with theirs, and Canada has been ranked as a healthier nation than the US
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Welcome to reality. The middle children always get screwed over. It's the same the world over. Afain I ask you though, isn't that EXACTLY why it's better to get all medical cover regulated by a single body and covered by a fixed-level monthly payment that ensures a level of care regardless of your medical history?
I mean denigrate the NHS tax-based system all you want, but it's never denied treatment to someone based on how an insurance broker managed to turn a childhood bout of flu into an excuse to deny medical cover. -
Watched Leno last week and wasn't impressed. Really felt like the Tonight Show without a desk and at 10 p.m. I don't think it will stay a daily show too long. I'd be pissed if I was Conan.
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And if you think it is, you fell for the Fox News bullshit.
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Is hot.
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Several of the analogies here just dont make sense folks. If it cost me $100 a month more to ensure we had a NH system in place then by all means I, and everyone else, would go for it. Problem is that it wont be $100 and it wont work. The UK's NH has been in place for years....long before drug companies and insurance companies were greedy and fat. Our costs are MUCH higher and as a result the cost to implement a NH system would be financially backbreaking under this proposed plan. NH in Canada and the UK is a great thing but you also have a greater mortality rate for cancer and several other diseases. US healthcare is the best in terms of taking care of patients but it comes at a cost. Most Americans would support a NH plan regardless of who was championing it (repub or dem) as long as it made sense, was fiscally and financially responsible, and improved the system for ALL. Herc of course has to use this site to push his agenda and make it sound like if you arent on Obamas balls then you dont support NH, this is false. Devise a plan that works without breaking the backs of businesses and taxpayers and the masses will climb on board. UK and Canada have good models but you cant compare apples to oranges and you cant just pump in the UK's system here and expect it to work at their level of cost.
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had to say it.
I did not understand much of what she was saying but that was NOT the reason I clicked PLAY. :D -
Sep 21, 2009 9:51:53 AM CDT
Will Joe Biden be playing bass guitar with Paul's band too?
by yackbacker
That would be super cool.
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And use that money for NHS. That won't happen though. Looks like we've got LBJ pt.II on our hands.
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I bet Dave wears extra absorbant Depends today for his big interview. He knows he will pee his pants like a 10 year old girl at a Jonas brothers autograph signing when he talks with Obama tonight.
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"If this Universal Healthcare passes, it will lead to a single payer option killing off all private insurance."
It hasn't in any other country. Why would the US be any different?
"Furthermore all drug companies suddenly cannot sell their pills at the high costs they currently do so research and development costs go way down.. Innovation and medical breakthroughs slow down because of this."
If anything, they will sell more product, not less. At a lower per-unit cost, maybe, but they are smart guys, they can balance the numbers
The medical free-market argument always has to come against the same problems you get in any other area: A lot of the people who would like to be your customers cannot afford your prices, or cannot afford them after a certain period of time; A lot of those people would incur the biggest costs at lowest margins; this makes that group of prospective customers a bad choice economicallythe best customers economically are those you can regularly charge for high-margin, low-risk services.
Money is limited in any system. Everyone will eventually draw a line and say that certain people with certain conditions are not economical to treat. Question is what criteria and what overall system you use before get to that point.And evaluating national costs (as opposed to specific treatment costs) is interesting - if someone dies or is incapacitated by a treatable disease, what burden does that have on society, and how do you quantify the effect of the lost earnings?All I am seeing in a lot of places is classic divide-and-conquer thinking from those currently making money and those who accept that line of argument. -
I always thought that with movie theaters and popcorn, but I don't see them lowering their prices.
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Seriously?
That's the most laughable statement I have ever read here on AICN.
Simply look at death rates and ages in these countries campared to the U.S.
Just FYI, Michael Moore is a hypocritical pice of shit. -
as I work in a small profit driven (not necessarily a bad thing) clinic.
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He's the spitting image of Charles Atlas! Must be the healthy diet.
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The tooth fairy is real, Santa is coming and Obama will fix everything.
So is AICN gonna suck Obama dick for the next four years every time he shows up on TV?
I'm going to /slashfilm, their site is better anyways. -
amendmentforone wrote: "You're sourcing a conservative opinion column, which used "facts" provided by a libertarian (and DEFINITELY partisan) "think tank"..." Oh. Do you prefer Herc's "source" (the Moore propaganda movie) instead??? I supplied right-of-center info. Herc supplies wayyyyyyy left-of-center info. Pick your poison.
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I hope he lights up on tonight's Letterman. Letterman can pull out a cigar, and it can be like one of those old 60's talk shows where everbody smoked.
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You'll either lose your job or be merged with the government option, either way, you'll be forced into the SEIU, if you aren't a part o fthat Union already.
A huge push for this healthcare package by B.O. is the fact that it will increase the size and power of SEIU, all healthcare employees will be forced into that particular union.
Big unions worked out for the UAW and GM pretty good right? right? -
The drug companies will lower their prices because their main customers (i.e. the health services) can buy in bulk kinda like Walmart do. So if the drug companies say no to discounts, then, well they're bankrupt. Also a lot of successful drugs have come from development teams working in countries with the dastardly socialised medicine, such as Viagra, which I believe was invented in the UK. Nowadays a lot of research is going on in India & China as well. Plus much of the drug research in the US is state funded - i.e. via the NIH. Apparently they're responsible for well over 20% of pharmaceutical research in the US. Again, its the mixed-economy thing - lots of private companies in the US benefit from things paid for via the taxpayer, but they never mention this when they're wittering on about the free-market and why they deserve lower taxes.
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Incidentally, I don't have health insurance, it was to pricey, like a quarter of my check, but I receive health-care for free at work, and I STILL have to buy in. Not just disaster insurance, but the whole kit and caboodle. Obama had me until mandated with penalties for those that don't want it.
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in schools, what makes you think that it will work in this case? Government programs have a knack for turning into self-serving entities that completely screw up their original plans.The Government can't save you, guys.
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Ummm, other countries aren't doing too badly: http://tinyurl.com/yvls29
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Since you evidently aren't off to Slashfilm, maybe you could tell us why you're against Socialised healthcare giving reasons rather than just making hyperbolic statements and broad generalisations.
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I don't agree with Herc's source either. Moore often distorts many truths with his editing and dramatic methodologies. My "poison" are non-partisan groups. I'd recommend FactCheck.org. They're very good about pointing out the mis-truths, misinformation, and outright lies on both "sides of the aisle." Usually when President Obama has a speech, they'll take it apart piece by piece. And just as often, when one FOX News' opinion folk spout off, they'll compare that to the facts as well. It's a good resource.
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@Philvis - a year and a half wait to get wisdom teeth out, what fucking crack are you smoking?
The waiting times for NHS dentists and private dentists for a wisdom tooth are more or less the same - a week, max, if you're unlucky.
It's true that NHS dentists are oversubscribed and a lot of people have to end up going private for dental care. I've had wisdom teeth pulled under both kinds and the only difference was the price: the private doc set me back £70, whereas the NHS was free.
Bottom line, if you're waiting a year and a half to have you're teeth pulled, it's because you're either lazy or cheap. -
If you end up waitng more than a week or two you just have to phone them and complain. Then you get rushed through.
Its not rocket science, its just typical admin failure, happens at every business occasionally. -
Get the facts straight. The President is NOT proposing universal health care. The goal is to cover as many people as possible and reduce costs. He is NOT proposing a single payer system like Medicare or the systems in those other countries. There is no free healthcare for everybody. *
When you spread misinformation, you just add to the confusion and the fear of the unknown. *
As for your inner ear thing, I hope that you tried a family physician or an urgent care facility first. -
It was so nice reading the non-inflammatory posts from our British and Canadian friends until they showed up. I promise I won't go to their TB.
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Sep 21, 2009 10:37:55 AM CDT
I BELIEVE MICHAEL JACKSON ALREADY TACKLED THIS SUBJECT
by bringingsexyback
In his hit song, Heal The World.
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Ok Americans can you answer me this. If you have BASIC health insurance and you need say a heart or liver transplant. Does basic health insurance cover the entire cost. If it does do your premiums then go up? if you then get cancer and need another operation does it still cover it? Im 33 years old and have had quite a few operations. I had my appendix out when i was 15 after it burst during the night. Was in the operating theatre the next day and home in 6 days due to slight infection after. Then when i was 28 i had to have a heart valve replaced in a very serious operation but it was a congenital problem id had since birth. So with this problem in your country i would effectively have been born with maybe a $250000 debt or more inside me. How much would my premiums have been for my life with them knowing i had to have this big operation at some point in the future. Could i have even got health insurance?? Then about 4 months ago i had a lump on my kneck removed that turned out to be a non cancerous tumour (thank god) but as soon as the nhs found it to be possibly cancerous i had it out within a week. The NHS has been there for me everytime with no charge and i am forever in there debt for it. And as for the rich helping the poor out.Why the hell not, your all Americans arent you. I thought you were meant to be the greatest,most patriotic country in the world. Christ it seems half of you couldnt give a shit about the well being of the other half.
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Because I don't think that my Tax ID should have to be linked to my Government insurance. Why does the IRS have to get involved, and how far will the involvement go?
I'm not against a open plan, but why can't we peasants get the same coverage as the elite politicians who run this country?
When congress votes to ensure they are NOT a part of this plan, something seems fishy to me.
If Obama went on all these shows and declared that ALL Americans, himself included are going to all be on the same plan, then I would probably be for it. The fact that they ensure they won't be is enough for me to oppose.
Whats good for the goose.. -
are rising up against his plans and now has to do his spin tour again. And to softball venues no less. Letterman's going to fall all over him with adoration. Oh and theres story after story about how universal health care is not working in Canada, UK and other places.
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This is not your field of expertize. Everyone I know in Canada flies down here for medical treatment because the situation is such a mess in Canada. England has tried this experiment and it failed there as well. And if you are NAIVE enough to think that the taxes will stop with only the top %1 earners, you are truly a fool.
And what number crunching are you talking about? It doesn't exist - just hyperbole. -
And how much can the top 1% handle? How long can these people pay the bills before they move to other countries or revolt in their own way, then what?
It's so easy to say, "just tax the rich", but what about when there is no rich to tax? -
Re: paburrows - Story after story that oddly are coming from Right Wing US politicians and companys that stand to lose money if there was universal healthcare. Strange that... it's almost as if they don't want it because it'll mean they earn less.....
Re: thewizardofoz - The Experiment has failed? What experiment? you mean the system that has worked fine for us for oooooh over 50 years? Don't talk drivel.
Re: Spastic Jedi - I'll admit you've lost me here, I'm not certain about the link between tax ID and insurance, or what effect that would have on you. Also I'd presume congress are all paid handsomely enough to not require any form of state-healthcare, so it probably does benefit them to exclude themselves. And presumably leave provision to re-include themselves if it happened and worked out really well.. -
Sep 21, 2009 10:53:29 AM CDT
BILL MAHER TO WENDELL POTTER, FORMER HEAD OF CIGNA PR DEPT ...
by bringingsexyback
Maher: "Did Moore get it right in Sicko?"
Potter: "He got it right."
So much for Moore's distortions. -
I mean, come on now.
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You would've likely encountered a labyrinth of insurer bureacracy if you were American.
I'm not saying insurers don't cover anything. Of course they do. But your procedures sound exactly like the ones that the insurers are notorious for denying. God bless you and your good health now, but in all likelihood you would've encountered the possibility of a shitload of red tape and denial of coverage, if not outright recission here. -
Sep 21, 2009 10:58:09 AM CDT
I'm an ex-Pat living in France and the healthcare here...
by zombieheathledger
... is topnotch. Spain, too. No one here would trade there system for the U.S.'s. Even with it's problems it's still a better system than what the U.S. has. It's embarrassing that the richest country in the world doesn't provide for it's citizenry what nearly every single other modern democracy in the world does. Yay, un-checked capitalism! (not)
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There is provisions in the bill that call for Tax info and payroll information to be included with your healthcare policy.
Also, how are they going to keep this information private?
http://tinyurl.com/lh8yyr
Right to privacy is a farce. -
The population of France is 70 Million.
The Population of the United States is 400 million.
There is your reason.
Pretty simple actually. -
I used to be a self-employed consultant (my wife still is) and made excellent dinero. However, we did pay a hefty premium for our individual plans, and never felt safe under them. We have a few doctors in our families and we actually went to them for basic care and checkups, so we were lucky enough not to draw on or rely too much on our insurers.
The problem is when you come across a catastrophic condition, either by nature or by accident. There is such a huge question as to whether your insurer will cover it. You may get the care by having insurance, but should they deny the hospital's claim, you could owe a lot of fucking money you didn't expect to.
But it goes without saying that you need some form of insurance. Shop around, read the damned fine print and ASK YOUR PHYSICIAN what plan they would recommend. In fact, ask a few of them.
For basic surgical procedures, you're likely to be covered with no problems. But the co-pay structure is designed to fuck you over. Read and ask questions.
I'm under a corporate-sponsored plan now, with thousands of employees in the plan. I wasn't asked for my health history, so there is less of a chance for denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions. But individuals who purchase plans are scrutinized more because you don't have the bulk-purchasing power behind you like a corporate plan.
I think even small businesses suffer from similar restrictions. Good luck, get something and stay healthy. -
is that they are on the whole, absolutely unwilling to conceed that in some instances, other countries might do something better.
Now I'm not saying that it's always the case, or necessarily even often, but if you look at half of the arguments here, it all stems down to: "America is the biggest/richest/most powerful country! How dare you suggest our way isn't the best way?"
The other problem is that vast swathes of ANY society will usually blanket believe whatever their chosen newspaper/church/political group tells them. This is absolutely the case in this argument. I mean Look at this Talkback. We've got US TB'ers coming in trying to tell people in the UK that our system is falling apart and we're all going to die of ill health. Errm hello? We live here, I think we'd have noticed! Maybe you might want to listen to our side of things as we happen to know a bit more about it than what you got from the soundbite some congressman spewed out. -
thankyou for your reply and kind words bringingsexyback. I watched a documentary on british tv a few months ago and it showed a large number of Americans,some who had driven from very far away,queing to see doctors in a sports stadium. These were people who had no insurance so had no choice but to travel for hundreds of miles and be seen en masse after hours and hours of waiting. In many respects America is a great country but if i was Anerican i would have been so ashamed of that. You have so much wealth in your country and yet millions are not even properly looked after in ill health its a tragedy and kind of an embarrassment.
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And I think the current tax burden is just under 40%, not 50% as someone above said. Still rather pay that and know that a sudden accident / illness won't bankrupt me though! I really don't get the resistance to universal health care in the US, your system, as is, sucks and - despite the glitzy meds and fancy machines - is more inefficient and unfair than the NHS (which is really saying something!)
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In a third world country like mine, we have charity wards for those who could not afford medicines and other hospital procedures. And the average Filipino earns an average of $3 to 4 US dollars a day. How about that? A poor country that can take care of its sick people who have no money vis-a-vis the United States, the richest nation on earth, that has insurance companies that cannot even take care of those people who need health care the most?
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The US is number 50 on the life expectency list. Many countries with socialised health care are way ahead of you. And I LOLed at you for calling the English system an "experiment". When something is working for 7 decades you can hardly call it an experiment anymore, can you?
I work in the US and in Germany with my time evenly split. I always pray I won't get sick in the US, not because your doctors aren't good (they are) but because you never know the cost of being sick and your healthcare plans (yes, I have a US plan, too) are a fucking nightmare to understand. -
Get taxed extra so those who skate by (not saying all people do or will) and choose to sponge off the system get free or reduced health care? BullS***. I have worked in the Health Care industry for over 15 years, from an insurance aspect to the actual Hospital level. More people leech off the system than you can imagine.
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I think that was Sicko, the documentary in question.
It's Michael Moore however so shouldn't be taken quite at face value as he is a bender of facts. You're better off with Mark Thomas. http:// www.markthomasinfo .com/ He's Britain's answer to Michael moore and a whole lot more convincing. -
The population of the US is 300 million +.
The population of the EU (nearly all of which have public healthcare) is 300 million +.
If America could win WW2 (with us!) and get to the moon, then I'm sure they can sort something health-wise if they try. -
is that they are on the whole, absolutely unwilling to conceed that in some instances, other countries might do something better.
I mean Look at this Talkback. We've got Euro TB'ers coming in trying to tell people in the US that our system is falling apart and we're all going to die of ill health. Errm hello? We live here, I think we'd have noticed! Maybe you might want to listen to our side of things as we happen to know a bit more about it than what you got from the soundbite some documentary or celebrity spewed out. -
From the michael moore film and few posts and people ive spoke too,these medical insurers sound like a complete scam. They charge you huge amounts of money just so they can try there hardest to turn you down. They wont accept anyone but the almost totally healthy. As bringbacksexy stated above,Alot of people dont feel totally safe and covered with them. So much so that you try and use other sources of help if you can for fear of pissing them off and being turned down in the future. Seriously America, Forget abour being right or Left,Republican or democrat, ignore 50 years of propaganda and WAKE THE FUCK UP. Your lining the pockets of the insurers and drug companies at the expense of YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS.
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Where did you get your population figure for the U.S.?Go to the U.S. census bureau and it's around 308M. Even if you take into consideration the number of illegals, maybe 20M according to US immigration support, total of 328M.
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That last post of yours was complete and utter fail. You suck at irony.
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I have a friend with numerous health issues that lives in Canada, and she is always talking about the difficulty she has in seeing a dr and getting treatment. My cousin works in health care here, and works with a number of nurses who have come down here to get away from the Canadian system. I'll pass.
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Sep 21, 2009 11:19:23 AM CDT
LANE MYERS - REGRETFULLY I HAD ONLY HEARD ABOUT THOSE CLINICS
by bringingsexyback
myself recently. A couple of months ago one in Los Angeles was featured.
And again I point to Wendell Potter.
Until early this year, he was HEAD of the communications department at CIGNA, one of America's private biggest insurers. In other words, and pretty much in his own words, top dog for propaganda.
He had encountered such a volunteer free clinic in Virginia while he was on vacation, and upon seeing so many uninsured AND insured (who could not afford their co-pays) queueing for free treatment, and knowing how his industry worked, he quit and turned whistleblower.
I can't tell you how much of a hero he has become in my eyes in the last week or so. I tracked down his previous interviews and see how morality can drive a man to do good, extraordinary things. In this case, doing what Moore basically did in Sicko, but with a wealth of insider experience in the industry. -
Yea man, the ER on a Friday night?
Really, my taxes are going to pay for the removal of that object from that orifice.
Great. -
"The Big Problem with the European Mindset is that they are on the whole, absolutely unwilling to conceed that in some instances, other countries might do something better."Can't you say the same about Americans too?
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I appreciate that you work hard and it's true that some people will skate by and leech off the system. But on the other hand there are people that work hard all their life and still get sick and bankrupt as a result.
I rather live in a country where we accept the freeloaders than in one, where people have to fear to get sick (as if that isn't unpleasant enough already). -
"Maybe you might want to listen to our side of things".So we should ignore what your President says?Wish you'd told us that 9 years ago.
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I do fully believe the US system is broken and needs an overhaul... I just don't think that is the answer.
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What do you think is the answer then?I would much prefer a government financed instead of a government run one myself.
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and what an utter and total scam it is ...
You could've been paying premiums for YEARS, tens of thousand$ ... and they could drop you without so much as refunding a penny.
It truly is frightening to be seriously sick in this country. -
Dude, I just sopied and pasted from a post above and reversed the locations.
Anyone who claims someone else is ignorant is themselves displaying their own ignorance. -
No kizeesh it was a panorama documentary on bbc 1 i was watching but cheers for the advice
ive been a fan of Mark Thomas for 15 years or so.Great stand up and Love his expose documentaries on Coca cola,Nestle and such. I know people say Michael Moore bends the truth but i dont think he does that much and i totally think he is coming from what he percieves to be an honest place. Same with Mark Thomas. -
However it doesn't make what I said any less correct. I for one certainly haven't gone around saying that the American system is a failure based on what I saw on Sicko, and every other documentary and tv show, movie, book, website and story I've heard about the US medical system. I've only offered my opinions on how Socialised Medicine is a preferable one based on my knowledge of the UK system.
In response to an earlier point, surely your Medical records are the property of the Insurance companies which is surely as unsafe as with the proposed system? Privacy is relative, you're details are already held by a host of relevant companies. I rather fancy that no-one was saying they'd be available to anyone, just to the Health Choices Commisioner and State health plans. Which presumably will be legislated to hold such information as private. Otherwise your government has trouble understanding basic information handling. -
Sep 21, 2009 11:26:03 AM CDT
SPASTIC - I USED TO DO JUST THAT WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS
by bringingsexyback
But I stopped because it was lame. Let's not do lame things OK?
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My bad...serves me right for not reading the other posts above yours.
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lied to people's faces about numerous things, yet you need to trust us on HealthCare reform.
Actually the idiots that voted for him would have no problem trusting him despite the fact he is a pathological liar... -
Totally agree. I mean, we've go the Senator Charlie Rangel writing tax laws doing just that?? As usual the middle class will get screwed because they can't cheat the IRS because the IRS actually goes after them.
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All of the people who are upset because some people want to actually talk about the important parts of the country (not just the entertainment) are retarded. It is possible to talk about politics on an entertainment website. I don't know if you know this, but there are other links, and nearly infinite storage. I think it will be fine. Quit bitching you trolls.
First, Spastic Jedi, I have no idea where you got your birth and death rate info, but if you used accurate numbers (ie not some crap from a news company) the other countries are actually considerably better than us. Second, those people in the 1% usually use loopholes to get their tax down below 10%. The total is high, but if I'm paying 30% they should pay at least that as well.
Himbo, my opinion (and that's all it is) is that your understanding of the constitution is biased toward a conservative ideal from the start. It is a document that can be interpreted in many ways, but to begin by believing that it must limit involvement is dangerous. It was not written as a swiss army knife document. The authors wrote it with deliberately ambiguous language specifically so that different situations would allow for different interpretations. There are plenty of times to be hands on and plenty of times to be hands off with government. The thing that makes the country great is that we were given the right to figure out which situation calls for which strategy.
Finally, no reform can work here without some kind of tort reform. Places like Great Britain, Canada, France, etc. have much lower malpractice costs. In some of those places it is an extremely minimal cost. Between taxes and malpractice insurance a doctor in the US is giving up more than half of their salary. And that salary isn't nearly as much as most people think it is from the get go. If you want to be rich be a lawyer or get an MBA. Most doctors would be willing to make a little less if they knew they could provide the care they believed was necessary without the risk of constantly being sued. Any reform must curtail frivolous lawsuits if it expects "unnecessary procedures" to be limited, because those things are the definition of cause and effect. -
Have the car dealerships gotten their money yet??
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Happy to listen to you, are you going to listen to the 1.5m families whose homes were foreclosed in 2007 because of unaffordable health care costs? How about the 62% of bankruptcies caused by said costs? I think your system is bad because I will never lose my home or be forced to declare bankruptcy because of health costs, is there a flipsy to that statement that will reverse my view? I'll be here and waiting!
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Yeah people should care if they like TV and movies, especially considering the history of censorship.
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That there are only two options being discussed?
Really? Those are the only ideas people/politicians can come up with? I guess thats what you get when you have two political parties who continue to be catastrophic failures at leading and governing.
With all the innovations around us, all our leaders can too is either one of two stupid things?
And to make things worse, party loyalists will promote whatever stupid thing their party wants. With no real insight other than blind loyalty.
Might as well be Microsoft vs Apple.
I also agree things need to change, but neither side has a good idea. If you think they do, they you really need to read more about the subject. Real change hasn't come and isn't coming. Obama's plan is more about consolidated control through health and tax records and expanding the unions that got him elected.
If the Dems would allow for a republican plan to see the light of day, I'm sure that would also be just as bad and full of reasons to not back it.
We have spaceships and computer phones but we can't solve this problem without conceeding control to government or a political party? Really? -
Are you lecturing me?
I'm not one for personal attacks, but seriously dude, go fuck yourself. -
Unfortunately, we in the United States are rarely united on anything. To say that the problem with the American mindset is that we cannot accept that other countries can do something better is disingenuous. There are a good percentage of Americans (including many on this TB) who are pointing out our own health care issues (and failures) in comparison to other nations constantly. Unfortunately, there is the other half that usually call us fascists, socialists, etc. (back in 2004-2005, we were called traitors, "terrorists," "loons," etc. for protesting the war in Iraq).
Most people (not all) traditionally love most aspects of the country they're in, and like to believe that "their team" is the best. So I'm sure you can find such "narrow vision" (or mindsets) wherever you go.
Nonetheless, I'd like to think those across the oceans don't view us all as ignorant rabble who scream "socialism" on topics such as this. -
£17 a month for all that? Hell, in the US it's considered a package "deal" if you get all 3 for the "low, low" price of $120. I hate American cable company monopolies.
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First, a bigger population in the US allows us to have a larger budget. The population differences actually favor us. Next, yes, right to privacy has been a farce ever since Bush took it away. But either way it isn't actually in the constitution. That is another interpretation issue.
Kizeesh, you comment about our mindset is, unfortunately, dead on. But it isn't the mindset of everyone. It is kind of like the idea that you can't be a real American if you aren't Christian because only Christians can be right about anything. We are one big dysfunctional family over here. By the way, our medical records are actually the property of the individual the records are about, but you forfeit the privacy when you have private insurance.
And someone else mentioned that the insurance industry seems like a scam. I think it is easy to see that when they have spent more in the last four months to defeat reform than their total advertising budget for the last decade. I'm sure they are doing that because they are just trying to look out for the health of the citizenry. -
everything to everyone. for FREE. but I don't think we can expect people to be industrious AND pay for everything. Our economy is in the crapper, and paying for more stuff when we ARE IN SERIOUS DEBT ALREADY is not good decision making. and seriously, quoting Michael Moore as a source is like saying that Joan Rivers is a hottie.
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see previous post LOL
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why do you think quoting Michael Moore is the same as lying?? i am genuinely interested to know all the times that you know for sure that he has blatantly lied in his films or tv documentaries
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No exemptions, no standard or itemized deductibles, just straight ass tax. They're here anyway, not going anywhere and sending money abroad.
Use that tax money to establish and help fund public option healthcare.
Bada bing bada boom. -
Oh, I don't know, maybe just the fact that I could lose my job in the health care field? I've heard two stories about this, one that it will be a plan offered to individuals who have no other health care option. The other that it will be offered as a health care plan option to employers. This is the one that scares me. Most employers could give a rat's ass what their employees think about the quality of their health care as long as the option they choose is saving them some money, which the government option will no doubt do. The problem for me specifically arises when enough companies decide they want to save money by taking this route, it takes money away from the HMOs (by which I and thousands of others are employed), which means the HMOs go out of business and I and many others lose their jobs. Funny how no one on Obama's team ever talks about that eventual possibility...
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Ugh.
Bush took away our rights?
Uh huh, so what did Clinton do exactly...
http://tinyurl.com/23gztw
The Patriot Act, which Bush actually opposed at the time was simply an expansion of the Terrorism SAct of 1995 inacted into law by the Clinton Administration.
History goes back further than Bush, and for the record, Bush wasn't as evil as Keith Olbermann would have you believe. Most of what Bush pushed through was created during the Clinton Adminstration: Anti-Terrorism Act, Iraq Liberation Act, etc.
I'm a third party guy, I'm not a fan of either side, but the ridiculous fear mongering from the left regarding Bush was just waaaaaay over the top. -
The constitutional angle is interesting, especially when people seem to believe it is a document set in stone. The original constitution was from the late 1700s before any sort of modern medicine existed, so its not a surprise it doesn't say much about healthcare. Since then we've had the constitution being amended to ban alcohol (1919 amendment), unban it (1933), introduce presidential term limits (1951) and allow votes for the over-18s (1971). In all there's been over 20 amendments since the original document. So if the will is there am sure a constitutional amendment would follow. Sadly at the moment too many people are making oodles of cash out of the current system and/or gaining power over people (i.e. the churches, alternative medicine hawkers and the like) and will fight tooth and nail to stop any sort of fairness being introduced. Is time for the normal people to make their voices heard, methinks...
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"It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.—It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the Government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another. 23
There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the Administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty.—This within certain limits is probably true—and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party.—But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.—From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose,—and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it.—A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume." - George Washington, during his farewell address.
Our first President warned against the dangers of organizing into political parties. It seems with all the demonizing on both sides that his fears have come to light in a fashion.
While there is much animosity thrown from the Republicans to the Democrats regarding the bills on the floor, I don't see the GOP getting much support based on mythical plans that cannot "see the light of day" due to Democrats. The GOP has quite the promotion tool through FOX News, and definitely have the venues to promote any plans. The issue is other than mentions of tort reform, they haven't contributed anything to the debate other than opportunities to denounce Democrats in the build-up to the 2010 elections. -
Okay, I'm joking, but isn't that the stance of the "we must pass NHS now crowd." They think you're part of an evil industry so it's okay when you lose your job. Meanwhile it's okay to save a dinosaur like GM, and it looks like Newspapers are next for the bail out cash. Funny how success is punished, and failure gets rewarded over and over. Just like when NHS will run out of money and money will go away from programs that really are paying for themselves. As Don King said, "Only in America!"
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Sep 21, 2009 11:53:35 AM CDT
I WONDER IF I'LL LEAVE THE THEATER ANGRY AT CORPORATIONS
by bringingsexyback
after watching Capitalism, as I did angry at insurance companies after Sicko?
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The US has had Social Security since the 40s as well. I guess that isn't going bankrupt?
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Ofcourse it would be a huge shame that profits for HMO's would go down, so people who work for them may lose there jobs. But boo hoo when you work for companies in an industry that has been ripping people off for years by over charging and denying expensive surgeries so you can keep that same job. See that pay cheque youve been collecting for years. Thats born of peoples misery and suffering right there. you should be ashamed.
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I couldn't imagine paying for healthcare the way the US does. I'd have to be almost dying to even think of going to the hospital.
In Canada the only real downside is the terrible waits you have to sit through for non-emergency situations - but that's what walk-in clinics are for.
My buddy got so drunk on New Years that he had to be brought to the hospital and given gravol and water via IV since he couldn't keep it down. He walked out of the hospital a few hours later in good shape without paying a dime.
Another buddy bad-tripped on shrooms, called the cops on himself thinking he was going to die and they hospitalized him for the night. Walked out the next morning with no bill and no criminal charges.
It may not be perfect but it sure as hell is preferred. -
Recent revelation.
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Do you have timeframe and figures?
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I seriously doubt the rich will move to other countries to "revolt". Especially when *and I have no proof of this, just shooting off my arrogant mouth* the reason they are rich is BECAUSE they live in the US, by doing whatever they did here to GET RICH (ordietryin -Air Marshall 50 Cent).
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If the founders really wanted universal healthcare (or some kind of equivalent), wouldn't there be a gurantee that every one will be fed for free. Forget healthcare, back in those days, starving to death was a huge health problem, with an easy to diagnosis solution.
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The vast majority of our patients love us and the job we do, despite the premiums they pay. I wouldn't mind there being a plan offered to low income individuals so that those with no health care can get it, but I really hope this is NOT offered to employers.
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Explore, absolutely. Rush through Congress with the first plan we come up with ASAP, not so much.
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To an extent, I agree.
But after that, can we then put up a wall or some sort of fence or soemthing so we can maintain our border and immigration and our economy? -
Hello Trotsky!
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I just got a mailing from the SSA last week that said. I'll dig it out when I get home, okay?
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The company I work for is NOT one of those that deny services and/or surgeries ever, unless you are uninsured, and even then, the procedure is not denied, you simply have to pay out of pocket. What is so evil about having to pay for services rendered?
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Preamble: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
General welfare bit, dude. Or, as the US constitution site defines it:
welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being.
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a job? I coulda sworn he did. This guy is angling for Billy Mays' old gig, I just know. 10 million You Tube users think this guy is wasting time. TV has become the equivalent of a restroom break for this cat. You stay in your damn office until you come up with an idea that doesn't suck, Chief. Get some damn work done for crying out loud. This President is overpaid. Guy flies around, the Gadfly in Chief, selling buggy whips.
I'm thinking if we're angling for teachers getting performance based pay, we ought to look at the Pres first. -
...all this shit about people who don't work and have kids and blah blah blah. I get it, but there are families out there who make over $250,000 a year, and have multiple kids. In some cases, those folks have coke habits, drinking habits and could care less about there children. Sometimes those kids grow up with severe mental issues. Some become rapists, murderers or just abusive people all around. On the other end, you have some low income families who may not have the best jobs, but work really hard and possibly travel long distances to go to a shit job just so they can afford to put food on the table for their kids. There's bad on both ends and in the middle.
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I'm not for open borders, but we can do something constructive - mutually - with the 20 million we already have.
So ... do I still have to fuck myself? LOL -
are fucking brilliant. That totally changed my mind about how truly sick our insurers are from their profligate greed. I think if people educate themselves by reading interviews with people like Wendell (can you get more inside than being Aetna's Goebbels?), there's no way you can continue to support the current system. HOWEVER... like I said in the TB where you posted the interviews, I still think our government is the absolute worst when it comes to setting up an unnecessary bureaucracy for government run programs. Everyone's friends and friends of friends will want jobs within this system doing medical billing and processing, and we'll have state overseers and then regional health care overseers and then COUNTY health care reps... I can see it growing out of control, just like every other government program that has tons of useless employees to whom the taxpayer is beholden for life in the form of fat pensions, insurance (guess that problem is solved then... but they'll probably want a non-public option, just so we still have to pay). I grew up in New Jersey, where public corruption is a way of life and there is nothing more sickening than to see state property taxes go up while the value of homes goes down. Or to see the FBI arrest practically every public official in the state at the same time... you just go, "what the hell am I paying for?" And then they have the nerve to ask for MORE money. Example: they just passed a sales tax on lottery winnings... that's RETROACTIVE. The whole reason was so that they could tax the winnings of a bunch of people who won a huge jackpot earlier this year. A New Jersey public official said, "We're facing a shortfall so... we had to find the money somewhere." Uhhh, how about you REDUCE YOUR OWN SPENDING. Just like the average citizen has had to do. If you can't pay for it, you have to start trimming the fat, you useless pieces of shit!So yeah, my problem is always that the government seems to think the taxpayers are an endless source of income... for the government. And that's on both sides of the aisle. I'm not against public health care, I'm against the way the U.S. might do public health care. The sickness in the soul of this country is GREED and the same thing that screws up our current system could just as well screw up a government run system in the form of corruption, bloated payrolls, pensions, etc. That said, I want health care and, as a freelancer, the only way I'll have it and not have to worry about gaps in employment and being sick is if this thing passes in one form or another. So I'm for it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes an unwieldy mess within ten to fifteen years.
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It's funny though,Lane_myers111 wants to make a villian out of anyone in the insurance/health industry. Why would he want to do this? Perhaps he's been listening to the democratic talking points for the past few months basically make you and others in your industry a bigger threat to the free world than global warming and terrorism combined.
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Where my kids go to school, they don't even have crossing guards anymore, and the list of supplies we parents have to provide at the beginning of the year just so that our children have the BASICS is longer than my arm. Why not overhaul the system? Here's an idea, give kids a QUALITY education, so that when they graduate, they can go to college and get a good job so that they can afford health care. FREE services promote laziness and abuse. Welfare system, anyone?
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Hello Trotsky.. very funny,your saying im for socialised medicine so i must be a russian communist anti american. So you believe everything fox news tells you then. Must be a lot easier than forming your own opinions. Insurance companies (not just medical)are evil we dont think it we know it. They are a business first and will always put profit ahead of people if they can get away with it (and they do it daily). I dont think the government should have bailed out GM or the banks from a moral perspective (they made their bed they should lie in it) but from an economic perspective they could not have handled the collapse of the motor or banking industries. And you really are insane if you think the NHS is running out of money.
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It's not this year or decade, but definitely this century. May or may not affect you and I, but it will affect my kids, and I care about that.
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Sep 21, 2009 12:08:35 PM CDT
GOOGA MOOGA - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH PAYING FOR SERVICES
by bringingsexyback
Just that costs are already through the roof. Not that your job is contributing but let's look at the huge profits and executive compensation as a primary factor in creating this untenable situation.
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...free education. That first sentence should have ended with a ?!
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Croatia has universal healthcare (well, sort of a mixed system actually). And it's not perfect. In fact, some parts of it are pretty controversial. But it works. From the point of view of any Croatian, the American system is barbaric and scary. I would be afraid to go to the US because I might catch pneumonia or something serious - and then what? Face bureaucratic hell? Go bankrupt? Get deported? I can't imagine how you can live with a bunch of huge predatory companies just waiting for the inevitable disease to suck your bank account dry. Which happens more often than most Americans seem to want to admit even to themselves. Oh, I just remembered: yes, we're a capitalist democracy, in case people don't know.
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First off, no he can't. Even if you taxed everyone at that income level and above at 100%, it wouldn't pay for national health care, nor would it pay for the incoming tidal wave of Medicare and Social Security obligations, which range anywhere from $50 to $75 trillion dollars. You also need to consider that taxing the rich have lots of nasty, unintended consequences, like people sheltering their income (meaning even less tax revenue), increased unemployment (those horrible rich people tend to be employers), and stagnant economic growth. You want to know the real reason why Obama is pushing nationalized health care? It's a new form of taxation, pure and simple. Just another way for Washington to squeeze every last drop out of the economy so that the political class get to keep their worthless positions. It's also a handy way to keep the voters poor and dependent on their state benefactors. It's incremental enslavement, something that's been going on ever since the days of FDR.
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In mine, at least, there have been neither for at least the last two years. There have also been no non-union (like me) wage increases. Even when there were bonuses, they were contigent on meeting certain patient satisfaction goals. Don't meet the goals, don't get the bonus. How is this any different than any other large, successful business? And again, why is it evil that a company provides a service (a service that costs them money) and then expects to be paid for said service?
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Dude I am so glad you got something out of them like I did. I hope at least a few others here did as well. And I agree, even if reform is not perfect we need to pass SOMETHING. We can always amend and tweak later, but to not pass ANYTHING is a huge victory again for the insurance industry.
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if the insurance company you work for has amazing high ratings and all your customers love you despite the premiums then you have nothing to worry about. If everthing you say is genuinely true and you never deny care or dont over charge then i and many others who feel the same way about socialised health care shouldnt have a problem with you either. But America needs a government backed health initiative to cover everyone that cant afford private health care or chooses not to do so. This will be the competition needed to bring the almost unchallenged dishonest insurance companies (not yours if you are telling the truth) into line as they are forced to be competitive
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The US-Mexico Border Fence is a pointless and expensive project that will do nothing to protect our border. $2.4 billion has been spent to create the fence since 2005, and the GAO is estimating $6.5 over 20 years (so far, it seems to gradually increase every time cost estimations come around). Granted, that doesn't seem that cheap, except for the fact the existing fence portions have been breached 3,363 times, with an average repair cost of $1,300.
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Take it to a hotel.... quit fellating this bastard publicly and just admit your love for him.
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Just don't get sick or hurt you bunch a weak pussiesi haven't been to a doctor in 13 years, why...because I choose not to get sick
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So you've got the same George W. Bush everyone is good or evil mentatality. I call you Trotsky because it's obvious that you are the one who has totally bought into the propoganda the dems are spewing, and will follow it even to the detriment of yourself, and your country, just as Trotsky was a blind follower who definitly didn't gain any thing from the communist takeover.
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needs to be revamped first. Everyone should have the opportunity to pursue education to its fullest level. It's up to the individual to make use of that opportunity. A better education can only help a society (or a particular country). Perhaps if other countries offered that to their populace (and more importantly, to their female population), there would be less violence in the world.
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I meant to say "Granted, that doesn't seem that expensive" not cheap.
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No, you don't have to fuck yourself, but no lecturing. ;^)
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I don't work for an insurance company, but I am an American who actually works everyday to make sure he does have health insurance.
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Wall, fence, something!
I think we need something to stop the flow over that border, I don't know what, but something. -
well then go fuck yourself.
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You, like many others believe everything the media tells you. HMOs are evil, HMOs are only concerned about money, etc. That may be true for some, but not all. You have convinced yourself that HMOs are the problem to the point that a desenting opinion sounds completely unbelievable to you. I have worked for my company for 19 years, and while there have been issues over the years, I have NEVER heard of someone flatly being denied service. ERs are required to provide service, even if the person is completely unisured, and for any other service, if you have no coverage, it is pay as you go, but there is never a denial.
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That's what happens when you go shorthand ...
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with googamooga. I was just defending the guy, since I figured some people on here would hold his job in the same esteem as a hit man.
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I thought your being sarcastic anyways.
Deal. -
I think it should be up to the individuals to take care of themselves. I mean, if I live an unhealthy lifestyle, don't bother to get health insurance, and have a heart attack, whose fault is that? When do we start taking responsibility for our own lives? That includes voting for piss-poor politicians. Seems to me like the American mind set is broken more than anything.
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Whoa, look at the pay levels here: http://tinyurl.com/5pa95k
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Is that most of the time they don't present the views of oppossing opinions or even oppossing facts. That's fine and dandy, but really it's nothing more than propoganda than. I don't like this no matter if it's coming from the right or left, usually however, most docs take a leftist slant. It's like an inconvenient truth. It was a well done documentary, but you didn't hear the opposing opinion at all. I'm someone who believes in climate change. I think it would've been more beneficial if they would've shown the other side just to take it on. Instead it was all one sided.
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We can't afford nationalized health care. We can't afford Social Security and Medicare. We can't afford most of what the federal government does. Taxes don't begin to cover the cost of what the government tries to do, so it must go into debt, as it has done in spades over the last seventy to eighty years. The problem with accumulating debt is the interest payments...eventually they overwhelm our ability to pay for anything else. We've been able to keep the charade going for quite some time, piling on debt in the form of T-Bills that are considered "safe" investments, but the more you pile on (and the Obama and Bush tag-team administrations have been doing a metric fuck-ton of that), the higher interest rates must go in order to make those debt purchases attractive. This pushes interest payments even further and not only squeezes out more funds and capital, it increases the risk of default. Universal health care is a ridiculous dream...most countries that have it have always faced underfunding problems, and now with the depressed economy are facing outright insolvency. Call it a "right" all you want, it is still a commodity and therefore subject to the laws of supply and demand. Health care costs what it costs, and no amount of subsidization or declaring it a right is going to change those costs. My question for those who want to see us go down the sinkhole of socialized medicine is this...how do you suppose we're going to pay for it with 25% unemployment (it's coming), businesses contracting and therefore producing less tax revenue, declining overall tax revenues, and an exploding budget deficit eventually making further deficits impossible to fund? I'll take "magical money-shitting unicorns" if you can provide definitive proof of their existence.
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Realistically, we presently do not have the resources to actively cover such a stretch of territory. The Border Patrol is stretched as far as it can go (despite the legislation passed in 2006 to beef up their budget). Even with DHS backup, they can't cover and maintain existing border defenses. To quote Jurassic Park, "life will find a way" (not saying that illegal immigrants are velociraptors, though). People will find a way around any fences or walls put up. Unless they're like 200 ft high force fields ... then, I guess, that might hinder stuff. But in reality, for now, we have to find some way to get those coming over "in the system" and make it the right decision for them to pay taxes.
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Weird, I work for probably the biggest HMO in the country, and we aren't on that list.
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Sep 21, 2009 12:29:35 PM CDT
It works in CA FR UK & IT because none share a border w/ Mexico
by darth_inedible
And none of them have anything close to 2 million mostly poor immigrants arriving each year. Welcome to one of the things that makes America unique in the world Herc, and why socialized healthcare may not work as advertised here. It WILL break the bank, and the 80% of people happy with their care now WILL be unhappy with rationing.
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Sep 21, 2009 12:34:13 PM CDT
its obvious..u just need to work out how to pay for it
by lane_myers111
so it's obvious ive totally bought into the propoganda the dems are spewing. That statement just leads to a cyclical argument that would go round and round and round. You say that then i say youve bought into the republican right propaganda that has been bashed over your head from Reagans little videos in the fifties right up to 24 hour fox news today. Look you cant get over these facts
1. millions of Americans have no health care cover and many due to lack of work available or social situation have no way to get it. They are struck in a rut and suffering.
2. The fees most of the Insurance companies and drug companies charge is absurdly high because they work in an industry where people have no choice but to pay them because THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE NEED IS OUR HEALTH.
3. When you include the entire population,your country has comparatively terrible statistics for mortality ratings and general well being considering you spend a larger percentage on health than many other countries.
4.Government Run Health Care can run side by side with private companies. There is no reason why it cant. Give people a choice, at the cost of a tiny percentage coming out peoples pay cheques. -
Darth, a big chunk of Eastern Europe has been immigrating to the Western states (UK being the main destination) for some time now. Yes, many are going home in the recession but until recently we had hundreds of thousands of Poles, Latvians, Romanians and others coming here to work. Both Europe and the US have similarly large immigration issues, is just that most of ours was legal due to the expansion of the EU, although to be fair we have a lot of immigrants from Asia and Africa coming here as well.
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So we need a Mexico Liberation Act so we can invade and conquer Mexico and make it a U.S. territory so that Mexicans won't have to cross a border to get the U.S., they'll be born in the U.S.
Then U.S. companies can turn Mexico into one huge vacation destination.
That's a win-win right?
Plus the southern border of Mexico is way smaller so we can build a wall there! -
Include Tort Reform.
Lawyers making millions of frivilous lawsuits does nothing productive for those that have real lawsuits nor does it do anything for the good Doctors trying to be good Doctors.
Tort Reform has to be included if you truly want to decrease cost.
Problem is that most Dem politicians are lawyers who have made millions off frivilous lawsuits, so they try to avoid discussing Tort reform at every instance. -
The insurance companies made sure that they're number one flunky was made chairman if the finance committee. Either he'll make sure it doesn't happen or if it does go through, it will only benefit the insurers. Capitalism at it's best. Control the process through bribes.
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best country humanity has ever created...if we were all like canada the world would be at peace and society would advance in countless ways
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They fight for the "common" person and never ever do anything for profit that could damage someones life or career. They're not like those "evildoers" in the "for profit" health industry.
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Easy. First, phase out Medicare and Medicaid. These programs have ridiculously low reimbursement rates that cost-shift the burden to the private sector. Don't believe me? Ask your doctor how many pennies he gets back on the dollar for his Medicare patients. By the way, note I said "phase out" and not "cut it off". We pay for current and upcoming beneficiaries but end it shortly thereafter. Secondly, tort reform. That's a no-brainer. Limit damages to hospital costs and lost wages, and watch malpractice insurance rates plummet. Thirdly, repeal the HMO act and stop forcing employers to provide cheap, ineffective medical care for employees that should be paying for it themselves. Remove the federal regulations that prevent people from buying cheap, catastrophic health insurance. This will help prevent hospitals and ERs from cost-shifting when they are forced to care for people that have no ability to pay (if you've ever stayed in a hospital and wonder why they charge $30 for a single aspirin, there's your answer). Then of course, encourage competition by allowing people to take insurance across state lines. Notice that most of these solutions are to problems caused by government interference and regulation. Perhaps it is that particular entity that is causing problems in the first case...and some of you insist that it's the same entity that should administer the health care of every single American?!
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Massive taxes and crappy wages. The whole center of England makes poverty wages. They are no example for the USA. England is NOT the land of opportunity. They are a land that has about the same income as California and the same space as Ohio.
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Kind of like "Super Delegates" at the Democrat National Convention!
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I'll respond to each of your points: 1. Millions of Americans don't have health insurance, that's true...but how many of those choose not to have it? Can they really not afford it, or are many people unwilling to sacrifice their lifestyle in order to get it? How many of them would buy cheap, catastrophic health insurance if THE FEDERAL REGULATIONS ALLOWED THEM TO?! 2. The fees insurance companies and hospitals charge are as high as they are because of cost-shifting, from both federal programs like Medicare to laws that force hospitals to treat despite the patients' ability to pay. It has nothing to do with greed, it has everything to do with shifting cost to the private sector. 3. See my last point, we as private citizens spend more on health care because we don't allow the free market to work. 4. No they can't. We already have a public option (Medicare) running side-by-side with the private sector, and the private sector is getting squeezed out and is increasingly expensive because of it. Medicare underpays for services because if the federal government raised rates to levels that would pay market price for medical services, you'd see pitchforks, torches, and shotguns on the steps of the Capitol. A publicly funded option cannot coexist with the private sector because the latter will eventually get squeezed out, forcing more people to the public option. It's that "Trojan Horse to single-payer" you hear of.
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Remeber those threats to humaity known as video nasties. Isn't censorship grand! BTW if Britain is so great, why are there so many people from there coming over to America? When you talk to them, they usually cite high taxes in England as the reason they came over.
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"we as private citizens spend more on health care because we don't allow the free market to work"
Can you clarify your proposed outcome?Under your ideal free market model, about what % of Americans would not have adequate health coverage?What would you anticipate average personal expenditure on healthcare to reduce to? -
hes always taking over the tv like cobra commander.
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Monarch: Please explain how France, Germany, The UK and damn near everyone else also has private schemes which co-exist with the state sector?
Fulmer: Yep, what they do is get educated in the UK, build up their work history then pop over to the US where you get a nice highly educated worker and don't have to pay for their schooling. Besides, plenty of Americans are working over here and seemingly manage to pay our taxes, so we're not all bad. And, ummm, didn't the US even censor comics at one time?...
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I outlined what I think we should do to fix the health care system above. Take a look. As for percentages, I have no idea. We have to accept the fact that some people are going to go without. It sucks but the math never lies, we can't afford to pay for universal health care. If you as a private citizen have actually cut every corner, have exhausted every financial option and still cannot pay for the minimum of health care...that's horrible, but that's why we have private charity organizations. Perhaps if we didn't tax the ever-living hell out of this economy those charities would be a little better funded.
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I'm all for health care reform and I don't see the point of a useless middle man taking a 30 percent profit, but something to keep in mind as people talk about how great England or France has it - it's one thing to provide health care for populations of that size, it's another to provide it for close to 300 million people. I don't see how just taxing those who make more than 250,000 is going to cut it. It's time for Obama to lay out the plan - no more "I'm open to this...yada...yada..." Spell it out for the people that this is your plan and this is how it's going to work. Quit using the term "single payer" and call it what it is "Medicade for everyone". It's simple and makes it harder for interest groups to distort the message into one of death panels.
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Should be interesting.
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They don't co-exist. Private insurance outside the state system in those countries are outrageously expensive, precisely because state-run systems cost-shift the financial burden to them. State-run systems have always been underfunded. They've been able to mask over this problem by rationing services and cost-shifting, but the charade is now ending and we're looking at outright insolvency (you can only squeeze so much when you're already neck-deep in debt while business and private citizens are taxed to the hilt and cannot take any more). We have only been able to finance these programs through excessive taxation and the taking on of debt, but the consumer is tapped out and countries will shortly find themselves unable to take on any more debt.
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Actually if I remember correctly it was a self censoring deal back in the 50's/60's (film had the same thing). Now that isn't really something to brag about, but the government wasn't actually censoring like in the Video Nasty case almost 30 years later in the Britain.
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I guess we'll have to worry if he starts off saying, "Citizen's of the World" and ends with "COBRA!" Or perhaps a Serpentor "This I COMMAND!"
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Doesn't anyone ever wonder why in the debate over health care reform no one has asked those who provide the health care how they would change it? If you want meaningful change and a system wide improvement, you have to ask those who actually have to deal with the system - not those who stand to make a dollar off of it.
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HI-OOOOOOO!can I get a what what
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Monarch, no, not quite. BUPA (Google it) seems to do quite well in the UK. am sure the Euro equivalents are doing fine also. As for the 'we can't afford it' argument, well please explain how the US can afford their wars? Wouldn't it make more sense to stop them and divert the cash to their own people?
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You are indeed correct about the video nasty censorship stuff, that was a comic piece of legislation on behalf of the Thatcher government. In the 80s Britain was a bit odd with censorship - you'd have difficulty buying a horror video like the Evil Dead, but you could see 16 yr old girls with their tits out in the newspapers every day. Perhaps this had something to do with the guy who pioneered 'Page 3 Girls', one Rupert Murdoch. (Note Thatch was pals with him & was also pals with guys like Paul Raymond who was one of the richest porn barons in Europe... odd bedfellows)
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Obama's Justice:
You make $250,000 or more per year??? Good... Then take it up the ass like the lower class does every fuck'n day.
Remember kids, help your fellow man. Don't shit on them. -
Fair dues. I guess my concern is that the price-reducing effects of free competition may not be 100% applicable in this situation.Where a product is (basically) a necessity, and control of key elements of the pricing is in the hands of a small number of very large organisations, you often find that price will remain artificially high because the level the market will sustain is constrained by the underlying need for the product, not by capacity to provide.In fact, one of the limitation of a lot of social schemes is that they are resource efficient - they don't have a load of spare capacity, which results in waits and delays. Currently in the US, if you can afford it, you can get very effective service because of inbuilt inefficiency through oversupplyIf my car starts having reliability problems, I have a range of options of what to do with it - get it repaired, buy a new one of a suitable price, buy a second hand one, buy a motorbike, use public transport or some sort of car share scheme. I may think about it for a while, and save up.If I get serious cancer, I don't genuinely have the same freedom of consumer choice (I think we can assume that dying of cancer is not an option I would consider acceptable).Likewise when offered differently priced treatments or different care organisations, my free choice is limited by my ability to make a properly informed choice in the timeframe. I haven't got a medical degree. And some might say that's just tough - caveat emptor and all that.
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Your speaking my language.
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Again, we finance most of what we do through issuance of debt. The problem is that the more we pile on, the higher the debt service becomes. We also get a double whammy in that as the debt pile accumulates, so do interest rates...forcing debt service even higher. Even if we ended both wars immediately (which would be a bad idea for reasons too complicated to get into here), we're only talking about shaving maybe half a trillion dollars off the yearly budget. Half a trillion...when we are already on track for yearly, trillion dollar DEFICITS over the next several years. And this is before we get hit with the shitstorm of Baby Boomer retirements. Tens of millions of older, non-productive, increasingly ill people putting even more financial pressure on Social Security and Medicare, to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars. Also watch our economy completely crash when those same folks start withdrawing en masse from their 401(k), IRA, pensions and other investments to pay for necessities. Investments have to get sold for that to happen, and we're not going to make that up in demand very easily with exploding tax rates required to pay for Obamacare and every other existing obligation we can't afford.
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You were only off 100 million.
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Is that fact that they are profiting on our lives, especially when we are sick! How many times do we have to hear about someone being denied coverage because of some stupid pre-existing condition (did you know that in 8 states and D.C., domestic abuse is considered a pre-existing condition)?
Did you know that in basically every state health insurance is mostly run by 3 companies or fewer? Is that really competition?
While I agree with you that people take advantage of lawyers, and "the system," people really do get messed up by doctor negligence or what have you, so I agree tort needs reform, but it has to be balanced enough not to screw the people who need legitimate recompense.
As for illegal immigration, as a liberal, that's the one thing I've never been able to adopt completely as part of my "liberal ideology." Do we need to be nice to people and help out the sick, tired, weak, etc? Of course. But they are here illegally, and that should definitely be looked at. The health care bill does explicitly say "Health Care under this bill will not be provided to illegal immigrants" (or whatever it says, but it's specific). But then my Republican friends say "look, if they can get a driver's license, they can get health care." And while that's clearly true, the Republicans in the House/Senate/Presidency could have taken care of loopholes like that years ago, countless times, especially considering how many things they rammed down our throats during the Bush years, but they didn't, because having illegal immigrants around benefits them as well.
As phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, that idea is almost laughable. We're trying to help people, not hurt them. Medicare has saved countless lives over the years. Even the right-wing crazies at these town-halls don't want government to interfere with their Medicare.
Then there's the public option. Something like 70% of doctors want a public option. Even Bill O'Reilly is in favor of a public option. Goodness knows it's the least thing we need, but in Matt Taibbi's article in last month's Rolling Stone, the Public Option as is has been castrated pretty bad to the point where it's not going to be effective enough to do anything meaningful.
So ultimately, damn the politicians. What we really need is a revolution in this country, and not the kind that crazy Glenn Beck and his "we want to get rid of Democrats and Kenyans" is advocating for, but a real revolution that makes our politicians not so freaking beholden to corporations, and to the people again. -
Sep 21, 2009 1:40:00 PM CDT
Still at least american health care is better then iraq health c
by jettl93
Over there if you get sick they call you an infidel, throw rocks at you to cure you, rape your mother and curse your name for all time
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Prices are never artificially high in a free market. They are determined by simple laws of supply and demand. Keep something too expensive for too long and you not only start attracting competitors (driving down price as supply begins to increase), but you start forcing alternatives as well as conservation (read: lower demand) into the picture. We saw it with Russia and the platinum market in the '90s, we saw it with the crash in oil prices last year. As for your cancer scenario, part of the reason you don't have a lot of options is because you are currently not allowed to buy insurance that only covers catastrophic events. You can thank the HMO act (federal law) and other regulations for that. The only options for people with limited finances are expensive monthly insurance that covers more than what they may need, medical savings accounts (which would be insufficient in the current market where private payers have costs shifted to them due to government interference), or going entirely without and sticking the hospital with the bill (because they're forced to treat you despite your ability to pay). It's a sucky situation that could be minimized if the government stopped all the damned tinkering in the market.
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Isn't it horrible how food companies profit on our lives, especially when we are hungry? So let's nationalize the food industry, and you can have your very own Washington bureaucrat determine when and how much you can eat. Medicare saving lives?! What planet have you been living on? How many people have had tens of thousands of dollars taken from them in their working lives to pay for Medicare beneficiaries? How many of those people found themselves dependent on Medicare precisely because they had those funds forcibly taken from them instead of say...opening a MSA or buying better insurance? Medicare was never intended to save lives, it was intended to create a class of dependent voters who are so afraid of losing their scraps that they will re-elect every leech that promises not to take it away. That's fucking evil.
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Until three or four companies control the industry and fix prices. Try starting your own car company and then tell me about how easy competition is.
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The NHS has constantly been reformed because Britain cannot afford it. Unless it’s drastically cut back it will eventually go bankrupt. Compare it to Social Security or Medicare. Just because a bad program lasts decades and the public is unwilling to do away with it doesn’t mean it’s sustainable. Plus the UK rations health care. They face longer waiting periods for preventive care. Breast cancer is a bigger killer in the UK because it takes too long to get adequate treatment. My wife just had brain surgery at Duke by the same surgeon who operated on Kennedy. I’m lower middle class person and my wife was able to get the best health care. In the UK she could have waited for years before we got the life saving surgery she needed. That’s not my idea of progress.
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And the best part about doing it over the interent is that all parties involved wind up looking retarded
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...I can't even talk about this topic for fear of punching someone in the fucking face. Republicans are supposed to be all about small business...well, freelancers are the ultimate small business and get FUCKED by the current system. Buying my own private policy would cost more than my yearly mortgage....simply not possible.If I ever get diagnosed with a serious illness my plan is to go to capital hill and blow my brains out on those nice marble steps. No way I'm leaving my family buried under mountains of medical bills...
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Try living in a region that got it's ass handed it by Katrina. There were no camera's or national gaurd here, just a shit ton of damage and insurance adjusters saying things like "well this half of the building is covered but we'll have to let you know about the other half in four to six weeks". The insurance companies,oil and energy companies, pharmacutical industry ,and the finance companies are why I quit voting along the party lines (mostly republican) and started researching each canidate on my own. I would love to think one particular party has our best intrest at heart while the others are the "bad guys" ,when the truth is they are mostly all out for themselves. Any one that thinks the health care system in this country is fine the way it is has mental problems.
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Went through this childish phase back in college, until I realized that every single "Free Market" premise of theirs is hedged on all the companies and corporations somehow "behaving" themselves and not (just one example) going over to the "dark side" and forging lucrative alliances with the government (witness Boeing) or exploiting market position to smother their competition (witness Intel and Microsoft).
All you get from ideologues is idealized horseshit. You learn more about the realities of the "Free Market" from a Marxist (conversely, you learn more about the realities of socialism from a libertarian...but we're talking about the glaring shortcomings of America's highly privatized system here).
Triangulate, and you get in the ballpark of reality. In the case of health care, this is a socialized system allowing for private insurance plans. All this bullshit about a "Free Market" solution is a thought experiment that no other industrialized society actually uses, including our best buddies in Japan, Israel or the UK. -
And so Rickey shall never need a functioning heathcare system, because he's got you crazy fuckers to amuse him.
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Price fixing and collusion only occurs when governments allow it to happen, either by laws and regulations designed to protect existing companies or willful ignorance. The reason why you can't start your own auto company is simple. Federal regulations make it too expensive for new starts. Powerful union lobbies buy off Congressmen and through political pressure and laws designed to benefit union workers makes it impossible to have a cheaper, non-union shop in existence. Every car you make has to conform to federal and sometimes state standards on safety, emissions, and the size of the damned drink holders. Every one of them adds to production costs. Take away those regulations, bust the unions and allow individuals to negotiate their own wages in a union-free shop, and watch prices on cars plummet. Oh yes, let's also not forget the regular federal bailouts of the auto companies that should have been dead long ago due to high labor costs and poor product. Behind any unfair business practice is usually lurking a government leech passing laws designed to encourage it, or at the very least looking the other way.
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Yep, free market theory sounds great but almost every business has shown a tendency to near (or full) monopoly where several companies control most of the market. We can see that with cars, phones, computers, heck even TV. Is the one thing modern market fanatics don't seem to understand, even though their earlier conservative forebears did (Sherman Act was a Repub piece of legislation IIRC). Monopoly is a natural state of unfettered capitalism, the theory may not say that, but real-life shows otherwise.
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Republicans don't give a shit about the "small businessman". They just like to pander to America's vain sense of "independence" and "individuality", despite how conformist most Americans truly are. Business greedheads fill their coffers on an annual basis to convince folks that a transnational corporation is simply a bigger version of Mom And Pop's corner grocery down the street.
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As far as I know she never tried to abolish the commie NHS nor for that matter do the current Brit Conservatives have any intention of doing so if the BBC Newsite is any guide.
So why are so many here keen to excuse the price gouging of scumbag Insurance Companies ? I can understand why so many in Congress suck their cocks shamelessly, because they were lobbied to within an inch of their lives and showered in campaign finance for their votes. But shilling for them here is pathetic. The status quo is not an option when the system right now is so expensive and broken. -
Business collusion with government takes two interested parties, my friend. You run a business, you play the system in order to stay in business. Your outrage would be better directed to government leeches who ignore the law to secure their own positions of power, at the expense of the little guy. You want less collusion? Take the power away from government. There's a reason our Founding Fathers designed the Federal government as subservient to the states, they saw the dangers of allowing a centralized bureaucracy access to too much money and power. When you pile up too much shit in one place, don't be surprised when the flies show up.
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Holy shit I needed that, thanks Rickey.
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You're probably going to get a lecture on how, "in theory", monopolies shouldn't happen in a "Free Market".
"In theory", you could flip the Washington Monument over on its pointy top and balance it there indefinitely. Same approach to reality. -
Please explain why so many conservatives favour strict laws on individuals with little power, but no laws on giant corporations with vast economic power? If all the laws governing health & safety, design standards and so on vanished then you'd simply have companies churning out shit like exploding cars, e-coli riddled food or houses that fall down while hoping they don't get sued too much by ill or injured customers (which with tort reform they wouldn't). They tend to do this rather a lot in China - which is a rather good example of the extremes of free market theory despite their ostensibly Communist political system. Also last time I looked it takes rather a lot of money to set up any sort of large company so irrespective of lack of government intervention is rather unlikely any normal person who can't borrow a spare few billion dollars will be competing with Intel or Pfizer just yet...
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But David Palmer was the best black president of all time
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No, because he's always on TV shilling for crap. Sham-WOW, anyone?
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Sep 21, 2009 2:26:01 PM CDT
Monopolies probably wouldn't happen in a free market...
by themightymonarch
But we have never really had one, have we? We've come close, but there's a reason Ayn Rand called capitalism "The Unknown Ideal". Maintaining 51% market share in an environment free of governmental restriction or protection would prove damn near impossible and would probably say more about the skill of the company to maintain prices and service at a level where buyers would neither seek alternatives nor would new competitors be attracted into the market. Monopolies only happen in this current environment when there is a government entity running protection on it.
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Joss is weeping. Openly and shit.
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"You run a business, you play the system in order to stay in business."
Correct. This invariably leads to monopoly and/or political influence. And if the political influence isn't there, it's easily created with enough monetary incentive, subsidizing a political career for a useful corporate stooge whenever possible. A reasonably bright child could see this.
Your attempt to whitewash the market's intent and its inevitable influence over the government isn't very compelling. -
I think so! Interestingly the monopoly situation happens all over the place. We see it in Hollywood with giant movie businesses and average actors earning millions, but we also see it in that glorious unregulated market the drug-dealers live in. In theory so long as you're willing to 'take risks' selling drugs should be a nice competitive free market where everyone can be a success (so long as they avoid the cops). But in real life its always controlled by a few psychos at the top. Hence if free-market theory behaved as advertised we wouldn't have a Cali or Medellin cartel, it'd be 5000 Columbian small businesses happily competing against each other to see how many Americans and Europeans they could fuck up...
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and follows that up with a trip to Simply Ming and Judge Alex. Maybe he can do a guest spot on Days of Our Lives too!
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The man doesn't know how to govern. He hasn't run a business, nor has he ever held an executive position, in either the private or public sector. All he knows how to do is campaign. Every single job he's held (well, except for his brief career in "distribution") has been directed at obtaining the next highest office or the next grant of public money.
That being said, McCain probably would have been almost as bad of a disaster. There's a reason we usually don't see Senators get elected President...they only learn how to wheel and deal and never really learn how to run anything. The last Senator that got the job (Kennedy) only got there through a combination of voter fraud (dead people voting in Chicago, anyone?) and an opponent that was pretty reprehensible. -
FAIL. Comparing capitalism and the cartel is apples to oranges. If you fail at selling widgets, you can try again. You fail at securing Pablo's Colombian gold, you are not in the next census. There are no rules ensuring a fair playground.
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Lol. Healthcare, taxes, and welfare are huge difficult issues, but most people in this talkback seem to find the solution easy: "The way I've decided is best because everyone on the other side can be summed up in one word: stupid."
Guess what? I personally find that approach pretty stupid. :P
Here's the part where try to whittle out the useful facts about the issue from this talkback...
Nah, there are a few, but I don't think this talkback is going anywhere. -
He will give a special perfomcance of Olivia Newton John's Physical in honor of health care reform. He'll follow that up with a cover of K.I.S.S.'s Dr. Love.
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But why do corporations find themselves drawn to lobbying in the first place? Because they have willing accomplices in Washington that will do their bidding in exchange for a Congressman-For-Life position. Take away the ability of Washington to do that and watch the big lobbyists scatter. You can't get rid of the corruption but you can at least take it away from a distant bureaucrat who doesn't have to worry about the local torch-and-pitchfork crowd.
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Has still helped people (hopefully the poor and unwell) for fifty years. Considering the human condition, a fifty year reduction in misery is a major achievement.
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been done. next.
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I guess maybe in 2013.
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Is the end goal of Capitalism. corrupting governments is just a tool towards that goal. I learned this lesson from Milton Bradley and their "Get Out of Jail Free Card."
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Sep 21, 2009 2:46:37 PM CDT
Come on! Aren't there a bazillion other websites for Politics?
by gregbourbon
Can't you go start a political thread somewhere other than a web site that's supposed to be all about cool movie and TV news? I come here to get away from all the inane bickering back and forth.
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With a mortgage and two young kids no matter how hard I work I scrape by so I can understand how difficult it is to get sick and worry about bills.
What I don't want to see is everyone hearing the words "Free" or "discounted" and running out to have every maintenance procudure under the sun done.
Granted I am not 100% up to speed on the whole HC Bill. I just want to make sure my retierment money is there in the long run.
Plus I would rather talk about movies than Hack politicians, both left and right. -
Yes, this is kind of my point. The 'rules' in business come from the legal framework set in place by governments. Posters here are suggesting if we get rid of said rules then everything will operate perfectly via the actions of Smith's 'Invisible Hand'. Whereas in reality it just means the worst scumbags will destroy everyone else. You may fail at selling widgets because the dude down the street is using 12 yr olds as slave labour - hence the need for labour laws. You may fail selling widgets because your competition firebombs you - hence the need for laws punishing them. And so on. Now getting a balance between good and overly bureaucratic laws is pretty tricky, but simply saying get rid of them all and everything will be hunky dory hasn't been borne out by history (Quick - someone name me a libertarian free market successful country with no government....).
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some of the insurance rules using legal means. What they shouldn't do is take over the industry. There are many good points that have been brought up on here about things that need to be changed in the system, but I don't think they are things that require a government take over to accomplish.
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From my perspective, the Canadian Medicare system is excellent (not perfect, but what is?). Any American politician that claims that the is broken and doesn't work are are lying to the American people, and is spewing rhetoric. Under the terms of the Canada Health Act, all "insured persons" (basically, legal residents of Canada, including permanent residents) are entitled to receive "insured services" without copayment. Such services are defined as medically necessary services if provided in hospital, or by 'practitioners' (usually physicians). I have never been turned away from a hospital or a clinic, nor have I ever paid out of pocket for health-care services. American politicians (mainly Republican) are trying to scare the American people into rejecting a system that would provide health-care for all, in favour of a system that provides care for the wealthy and/or insured. Universal health-care is not socialism, it is common sense. People who live in the wealthiest country in the world (Americans)should not fear illness. When you need a doctor and can not afford treatment (or your insurance company simply rejects your application) - then the advantages of a public health system like the one we enjoy in Canada will become clear. As I stated, the Canadian system may not be perfect, but it is a much better than the American system - and American citizens deserve better! Just my two cents...
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First off, I doubt too many "conservatives" would agree with that viewpoint. Kind of a straw man, there. The conservative viewpoint (and I don't mean Washington Republicans, most of those assholes are about as conservative as a gay hippie cornholing a copy of "Das Kapital") probably lends itself to a small government that has neither the power nor the ability to pass the kinds of laws that benefit one entity over another. As for China, think about the kind of system they have over there. Companies get to put out cheap and sometimes dangerous products, and a ruthless government gets to take their cut while putting down any kind of a popular resistance the mass production of such products might incite. If anything, China resembles our own country taken to extremes. Only difference is that here, our leaders at least pretend to listen to us before doing whatever the hell they want.
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When you headlines on Leno tonight!!!!!!!! Hey obama, cancell Leno for fucks sakes, he's ruining our country.
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The Democrats, now the party in charge are collecting all the bribe money. But even if the Socialists got elected, there's always cash to bribe the right people.
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Thank you for your reply. This is an interesting topic. The small government aspect would be fine except they don't seem to exist anywhere in the world in developed states. Also the companies in China putting out cheap 'n nasty stuff, that was pretty much par for the course everywhere before the relevant laws were passed (i.e. Pure Food and Drug Act in the US in 1906 or the UK's Health & safety act). Logically if you adopted small government then you'd also have to have in place a legal framework to limit the power of corporations. I know some Conservatives suggest that, but most don't seem to want to go there.
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So I guess he's scrapped the Missle Shield program for the MASS device instead.
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Even if you are (like a lot of americans are) an inhuman bastard who don't care about others, the whole point of having the whole country pay for each other is that it is CHEAPER for the individual. So let your greed work for you there numbnuts.
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@cookylamoo: "A system that goes bankrupt after fifty years.... Has still helped people (hopefully the poor and unwell) for fifty years. Considering the human condition, a fifty year reduction in misery is a major achievement." This is the state of the left. Creating a program that doesn't work in the long run is better than no program at all. You know at the end of 50 years the program bankrupts the nation and economy suffers. I guess eliminating liberal guilt is more important than long term economic prosperity.
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In which he intercepts Kanye from stealing some lame ass country Superstar's acceptance speech, only to end up calling him a jackass and a Punk Biatch.
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The "economy" will survive the program just as it survives the boom and bust cycles of capitalism. It's like the saving and loan scams, the housing scams and the junk bond scams. The economy may suffer but there's always a new scam. And there's always a new program.
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If the program goes bust, how many other viable programs will have to go by the wayside in order to keep it afloat until the bust.
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Were all of the others standing?
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after he was elected. I could sware he was on there.
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Look at it this way. The United States owes trillions in debt, but who the hell is ever going to collect on it? The United States is simply "Too Big to Fail". So if Medicare fails, let it fail. We'll try something elce, like ancestor worship. In China, you children take care of you in you dotage. What a concept! Taking care of you parents. But in the meantime, let's party.
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Dave will essentially be the guest tonight and the audience will undoubtedly break into rapturous applause at least 20 times during the interview. The problem with Barack and his supporters is that they love every word that comes out of their mouths and they think everyone else it out to get them. Hey, Barry... let's stop CAMPAIGNING and start, ya know, PRESIDING over, ummmmmmm, actual problems?!?! Yes???
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Sep 21, 2009 3:40:07 PM CDT
Why not just fucking make the Waltons pull all their money toget
by series7
And pay for everyones health care? They didn't earn it, so its not like its their hard work. Because of their money is the reason so many people are lacking good health care. They got money to build a shelter to protect them from the Apocolypse, because thats the first thing we need if the world goes to shit, a bunch of righ spoiled kids who know how to sell shit for cheap. In this time, Wal Mart is looking to destory more companies. Why not just start fucking putting hospitals in Wal Marts, the already got eye doctors and pharmacy's, you know they've got a plan for it somewhere.
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Liberals are all about feeling good. Making actual hard decisions that have good impact in the long run is not their forte.
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Helping the country avoid the nightmare scenario of 4 years of a doddering puppet-corpse and a demonic idiot cheerleader in the White House. Talk about dodging a bullet.
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Oops. Car pull tunnel makes it hard to type well.
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Whatever kind of healthcare we get, it will almost certainly make things worse. We're not talking the UK government or the Canadian government, we're talking the American government. If it cost the Pentagon $500 for a toilet seat, healthcare is going to be a might pricier. And will work worse. Our current system sucks, we will only amp up the suckage. Cuz we're Americans, and that's how we roll.
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"Obama IS natural-born! - A natural-born subject of the British monarch"
In that case, he'd be just like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin... -
No. Sure, maybe it is elsewhere, but it won't be here. Doesn't work like that in the US of A. Mark my words.
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Says Lost is "too complicated".
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For everybody. You can be broke and uninsured and get healthcare at any ER. And you're service sucks just about the same as if you had great insurance. Trying to argue people don't get taken care of here is a bit misleading--most people get taken care of, although long term care and stuff like transplants can be a lot trickier. But it's not like half the population can't get healthcare.
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All the bad guys give up, everthing is wonderful, the series ends. You know, perhaps that wouldn't be so bad.
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Philvis wrote: "I used to live in the UK, so I can say from experience it isn't all peaches 'n cream like people try to make it out to be." - well, since Labour came to power in 1997, things have been improving. The most recent time I saw my GP it was with 1 hour's notice (and it wasn't an emergency), my local hospital has been practically rebuilt, and waiting times are down. That's what happens when the right wing is out of power.
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I think were simpatico on most ideas. I suppose I think of the government needs to provide a framework that protects entrepreneurs rather then corporations (to a point), and that is a fine line
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Name a monopoly that existed without government collusion (sometimes by buying off local governments and police officials, frequently through the tool of lobbying the federal government). My local cable monopoly, and yours, isn't a product of the free market. It's the government providing "protection" for these "infant industries" who have put a tremendous investment into infrastructure . . . when it was illegal to own your own phone back in the heady days of AT&Ts monopoly, that wasn't the free market at work. A free market would not make phone ownership illegal. And so on. "Natural" monopolies, where companies with patents and copyrights can get a large segment of the market thanks to size and a unique ability to offer their products, rarely last long enough for the government to execute an anti-trust case against them--see the government's anti-trust case against IBM. Which, even then, may have enjoyed some government collusion.
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Because, whatever we get, it's a pretty good bet the NHS will turn out to be much less expensive and much more effective that whatever mess we end up with.
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But without government you'd have anarchy, so nothing would be worth anything anyway. And protections begin the minute you stop the strong guy from taking the weak guy's food. You're giving the weak guy special treatment in defiance of capitalism (and Darwin) Free market means the weak guy starves.
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I think you need to provide an example of a free-market state somewhere with no government interference to show us how monopolies won't rise. If you have big government companies can bribe it, small government ditto, no government then the dominant business interests rule the roost - they just become, ummm, the government (albeit an unelected one).
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"The Big Problem with the European Mindset is that they are on the whole, absolutely unwilling to concede that in some instances, other countries might do something better." - not at all. The US has better hamburgers than we do, and service in restaurants is tons better.
"I mean Look at this Talkback. We've got Euro TB'ers coming in trying to tell people in the US that our system is falling apart and we're all going to die of ill health."
I don't recall anyone claiming that you are *all* going to die of ill health. Just the majority (others will die of gunshot wounds, road accidents, falling trees and the like). Most people in the world die of ill health sooner or later.
"Errm hello? We live here, I think we'd have noticed!"
I would have thought that you would have realised that most people in the US (and elsewhere) die of ill health, but apparently not!
"Maybe you might want to listen to our side of things as we happen to know a bit more about it than what you got from the soundbite some documentary or celebrity spewed out."
Well obviously there are some very good things about US health services - choice, good food in hospital, people just desperate to provide services that you may not actually need. But what most of us non Americans just can't grasp is the fact that you are happy to take money in taxes to pave the roads and provide street lighting and military bands and national parks - but many of you seem to have deep seated objection to taxing in order to insure your fellow citizens against dying early, or against going bankrupt through no fault of their own due to medical bills.
You've been conned, guys! -
You can't have a free market without protections against theft and enforcement of contracts. A market where theft is allowed is, by defintion, not free. I'm just arguing that monopolies require government collusion (above and beyond protecting private property).I'm not arguing for anarchy. Indeed, certain things are better done in the public sector (military defense, public roads, etc).
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You'd have to show me an example of a monopoly that doesn't involve government collusion. Thus, monopolies are not an artifact of free markets but of non-free, non-competetive markets. I point you to your local cable monopoly as one potential example (and yes, I know there is more to the story there, given the need of easements and right-of-ways along the properties of public utilities for the purpose of laying cable). Bribes for legislation to favor one company over another are example of attempts to defeat the free market, rather than embrace it.I'm not arguing, BTW, that business would be ideal citizens if the government left their hands off. Big companies love big government and heavy regulation, just so long as the governments and regulations favor them against their competition.Large companies do not embrace free markets. They would prefer that we not have them.
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"As a Canadian I will share the following…
"For serious illness you get dealt with quickly. For example a family-member found out about cancer on a Friday…in for surgery on Monday. If you have a non-life threatening illness, like you’d need a hip-replacement or knee-replacement you’ll wait a long time...maybe 18 months, but when its get it out or get it fixed or I die…it’s done right then and it’s free.
"Why anyone in the US would object to Canadian style health is beyond me…no logical reason comes to mind.
"Cheers
"Jesse in Canada"
Looking at the talkbacks as well, I sense a pattern. Americans have horror stories about friends who live in Britain and Canada and hate the health care over there and had to pay for flights so American doctors could treat them.
But the talkbackers who dwell in Britain and Canada and have experienced their systems first-hand seem to quite prefer the "free" health care they get.
I'm also confused by the argument that a Canadian/British/Spanish/Italian/French-type health care system can't work in the U.S. because more people live here. If we divided the U.S. into five (or 50) smaller nations, would it work then? -
I've lost like eleven friends to falling trees. It's quite a tragedy. I suggested arming themselves whilst walking. Talk about your backfires.
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Great! Then go along with Obama's healthcare plan. Like my friends in the UK (I lived there for 8 years), where the husband waited two years for a neurologist appointment. Oh, and then he waited six months for an appointment with another specialist. Meanwhile, a friend of mine nearly died from a flu that could have been fatal, and the nurse told her "because you're young (34) the hospital would've been more upset than if you were over 60." Meanwhile, my other friend's father died as he had two small strokes that were not followed up by the doctors - in the U.S, they would've prescribed blood thinners, etc. So he got a big stroke and died. The NHS was rid of another old person, woo-hoo! Want an endoscopy (tube down your throat) without anesthesia? Because the NHS did that to another friend of mine. Oh, and what about Canada, where someone with a bladder problem going to the bathroom 12 times a night has to wait three years for a half-hour operation?? Because health care procedures will have to rationed under Obama's plan, just like in the UK and Canada. A LOT.
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Depends. Our healthcare system may spur more treatment innovation than other systems. Our mortality rates compare favorably with other systems. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that a public system will have any serious impact on our mortality rates. Mandatory diet plans and exercise regimens might have an impact. Switching to a single-payer system or having a nebulous "public option" will probably help in some specific cases with no overall improvement in our mortality rates. Indeed, average lifespan continues to go up in America. Despite our unhealthy lifestyles.
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I've gone indie myself.
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And I can tell you, ALL of my friends there have horror stories about the NHS. And I have a lot of friends.
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Don't even get me started about the time I was attacked by blacktop. Motherfucker nearly had me. Thank god a tree happened to fall on the blacktop. I still get panic attacks about that particular encounter.
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Not because of more people, but because of so many more Americans. Compare your British friends and Canadian friends to your American friends . . . Look, this is America. If we can make it take longer, be less efficient, and suck more, we will. Remember that scene in Appollo 13 where Ed Harris learns that the carbon scrubbers that do exactly the same thing on both the main ship and lunar module are completely incompatible. "Tell me this isn't a government operation."
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ONLY 40 MONTHS IN THE QUEUE
I suffer from arthritis bad enough that I require shoulder replacement surgery. In the summer/fall of 2006 our GP referred me to the University of Calgary Sports medicine clinic, who promptly sent me a note I received in July 2007 saying I could see the doctor in a few more months. Since then (after unsuccessful arthroscopic surgery made the pain worse) I've been referred to another colleague at the same centre. I am now in the queue for replacement surgery and have just another 7-10 months to wait! If I am lucky enough to receive the surgery in that time frame it will have taken nearly 40 months from the first referral to replacement surgery. Yippee!
When the first surgeon referred me to the second I was told that I was very lucky because I wouldn't have to wait the average of 18 months just to see the new surgeon for an initial consultation.
I haven't tried to verify the wait time they mentioned but I wouldn't doubt a wait time of over a year.
Mark Gray
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HOW COULD IT HAVE HAPPENED?
I am sending you this tragic story to add to your catalogue of nightmare anecdotes. ( I was born in the U.S. and have lived in Canada since marrying a Canadian 35 years ago. I work as an R.N. in the British Columbia capital Victoria.)
A colleague of mine just lost her 2 1/2 half year old daughter this July. The little girl was taken to E.R. with symptoms of croup and eventually discharged that afternoon. By the middle of the same night she was again in respiratory distress and 911 was called. The ambulance arrived WITHOUT the equipment for pediatric intubation despite the 911 call describing a young child in respiratory distress. It took 20 more minutes after the ambulance reached the child to send for the proper equipment, in which time the child suffered irreversible brain damage and subsequently died a week later. She was her parents' only child.
Name withheld
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SCOTTISH DOCTORS SHORTENED MY LIFE
Since you’re on the Hugh Hewitt show telling the world about Glaswegian survival rates under the Scottish NHS I had to write to you about my NHS experience.
Three years ago when I was 23 I was feeling extremely ill and had pains in my stomach. I phoned HNS 24 and they sent me to one of these old Victorian hospitals we have here in Glasgow. I was given a cursory look over by the doctor, while being made to feel like a time waster, pronounced OK! and sent home with a tube of analgesic cream.
The pain went way but a month later a worst pain began slowly affecting my hip muscles. It became so bad I could hardly walk. I went to the hospital again and again was treated like a time waster. The conduct of the reception staff was like I should just feel grateful that they were taking down my name and address. This time the doctor could hardly be bothered with my complaints and sent me home with slightly stronger pain killers.
I had to live with the pain and the pain killers for about three week until I began feeling my heart pounding really fast. I went to my GP this time. I was astonished when he didn’t even consider listening to my heart with his stethoscope because that would take up too much time. He then gave me a prescription for 5 days worth of tablets.
After 5 days I had become so weak and breathless I couldn’t wash or brush my teeth. I went back to my GP but this time, luckily, he was off and I got a doctor who decided to spend more that the allotted 3 minutes that you get at the GP’s surgery. He discovered that my body temperature was very high, my blood pressure was extremely low, I had a racing pulse and my weight had dropped to 7 stone. He sent me straight to the hospital but he had to personally phone the Glasgow Royal infirmary to make sure I would be admitted for tests.
After I was admitted to the hospital I was told by the cardiologist that I was dying of heart failure due to endocarditis and one of my heart valves had been destroyed. After a week in hospital I had to have emergency open heart surgery, I then stayed in hospital for a further 3 months while receiving aggressive I.V. antibiotics 3 times a day for 2 hour at a time.
The fact is this would not have happened to me in American. In America I would not have been treated like a time waster. In America the first time I set foot in the Hospital I would have been properly examined by the doctors, given a multitude of tests and the common blood infection that caused the endocarditis (once discovered) could have been treated at an early stage with standard oral antibiotic before it caused any damage. That would have cost be around £500 to £1000 in America but that is nothing when it comes to the quality of my life and I would have been happy to pay it if only to avoid the suffering I had to undergo.
I am now very unlike to see my mid 30’s because of my heart problems all thanks to NHS we have here in Scotland. Anyone that wants a health care system like the Scottish NHS must be completely mad, bonkers or both!
Stephen McMorran
Glasgow, Scotland
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niccageshairpiece wrote: "With a mortgage and two young kids no matter how hard I work I scrape by so I can understand how difficult it is to get sick and worry about bills. What I don't want to see is everyone hearing the words "Free" or "discounted" and running out to have every maintenance procedure under the sun done." - good point. In the UK you can't get a non-urgent procedure done unless your General Practitioner recommends it. For, for example, the only cosmetic surgery you can have done is for very serious issues (facial scarring, facial birthmarks, hare-lips, etc) that cause severe physical or mental distress. You can't have a tummy tuck or a facelift. It's the National *Health* Service, not the National Medical Procedures Service. I suspect that similar limitation would be put in place on any US system (although Obama is not proposing anything like the UK NHS).
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Are full of human beings, with all their failings. Every healthcare system will be full of horror stories. Guaranteed.What should make people suspicious is when people pretend any human system, filly with fallible human beings, operates at a level of near perfection. Cuz it just don't happen.
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Then whip out your wallet and go outside the system. Even in a socialist health care system, money talks. Are there really people so dumb that they have serious illnesses and they sit around and wait for the government?
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After the last 10 years of incompetence, corruption and bald-faced lying from the right-wingers in charge, I just don't believe a single word or statistic that comes from a GOP mouthpiece. I'm not saying that Democrats are a paragon of virtue-- they ARE politicians-- but the easily disprovable BS that comes from the right these days is staggering. I don't know how you can ignore that kind of credibility gap. -
Everyone in any country knows someone who has a medical horror story about something that happened to them and some doctor was crap or whatever. However we usually all know about 20 stories of people who got ill/hurt, went to the doc and are as right as rain now.
No-one said the NHS was perfect, it cartainly ain't. However, it does work, has worked for years and will continue to work. The problem in the talkback here is more with the fact that there are such flagrant lies being spouted about it in the american media as some example of a flawed and terible system. This we take massive exception to, especially seeing as we know that it's all bull. -
Pussy. Free Pussy,and not the kind you get at the animal shelter. If Obama really cared about my health he would make it happen. I would gladly pay extra taxes so some hot porno chicks could get a good pay day and medical benefits. Thats change I can belive in. Also,can we do like Mexico and sell all prescriptions over the counter? I'm tired of having to call some low level dealer every time my back goes out.
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Saying I'm going to give these hucksters a chance to screw me over, just because these hucksters over here already did, does not sound like a compelling policy argument to me.On the other hand, I am a right-winger. Myself, I don't find a lot of credibility on either side of the ideological divide. But perhaps that's just me.
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They're basically animals. I hate that the plan would help them too.
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You may be entirely right, but to test this we'd need a perfectly free market somewhere & to examine it to see whether monopoly naturally appears. As I mentioned before half-jokingly with drug-dealers, they operate in a market with no (aside from the police) outside manipulation but you still get monopoly popping up there. Ditto with other businesses outside the law - you'll still wind up with a few controlling most of the market. Hence (as mentioned earlier) you'd have to put in place a legal framework to strip large companies of their power so they don't take over the show. Letting anyone compete would be nice in theory, but the cost of market entry is usually beyond the budget of anyone who isn't already rich in most industries - and many companies are naturally large because they make hugely expensive goods (trains, planes, aircraft carriers). If there were zero regulations in place it would still be nigh on impossible to dislodge Microsoft or Intel due to market inertia (Even Linux at a cost of $0 can't manage to make a dent). It'd be impossible to set up a competitor to Boeing without billions to burn.
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(I guess these foreigners think you can't stick a long message in talkback)
"Hey Hercules,
"I read your article about Obama on Letterman, and you said youd be keen to hear what we thought of our healthcare systems. I'm from the UK, (newcastle upon tyne, England to be precise) and have lived with the NHS all my life. I've also seen Sicko, and am generally Fan of Michael Moores films, i may not always agree with everything he says, but his films are damned entertaining. Let me give you a bit of background....
"The NHS is probably the one reason i would never move to America. Over here, if i get ill, i go to see a doctor. The doctor tells me whats wrong, writes me out a prescription. Then i go to my local pharmacy and pay for my medicine, which is about £7. But the charge for a prescription is universal, and applies no matter what medicine you get. My wife has ME, (sometimes called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), and has a variety of other health problems, which i wont get into here, suffice to say, she has chronic pain problems as well, which require her to use a drug called Fentanyl, which i'm told is ....50 times stronger than morphine. She gets this on prescription, instead of paying the £7 like i do, she pays 1 yearly fee of £98 (approx) and that covers her for ANY medication she needs. For a whole year. If we lived in the states, we would be broke and living in a cardboard box, because we would have to pay a fortune for her medication. Also, according to Sicko, my wife would be refused Health Insurance because ....shes ill and needs health insurance. She gets her Fentanyl prescription topped up every fortnight.
"I'd love to know how much Fentanyl costs in the US, i bet its a lot more than £98.
"I've never been in American hospital, so i cant comment on the quality of them, but from what i gather from TV and the internet, American hospitals are like sickbay from Star Trek the Next Generation, shiny, amazing places full of the latest technology. I wouldnt say British hospitals are of that quality (especialiy some of the older ones), but they are not the dark, dank disease ridden Victorian nightmares that a lot of people (sorry a lot of US politicians) are making them out to be, not at all. And they are certainly better than the alternative (i.e the US healthcare system). Whats the point in having the best hospitals in the world, if only the rich can use them?
"What astounds me is that opposition to Socialised Healthcare is the US exists at all, if you put it to a vote, what do you think would happen?
"I'm happy to continue to fund the NHS as long as i live, along with everyone else, via my tax and national insurance contributions. Even if i didnt have a disabled wife.
"I've just read this all back, so ill stop now, as i appear to be rambling. But i will leave you with one thought, and that is that I have NEVER had to worry about medical bills. Ever.
"Oh, and if you use this, please call me Blagbert. LOVE your column." -
Sep 21, 2009 4:33:20 PM CDT
"The People Against It Are Too Stupid To Be Treated as Human"
by kevinwillis.net
Awesome. I'm sold.Sheesh.
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"Monopolies Don't Happen in a Free Market": how would we know? There are now truly free markets among the advanced economies, because Governments step in to stop private sector monopolies developing.
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There will never be free healthcare. The question is purely a matter of who we're going to make pay: The person needing the procedure, or a bunch of faceless taxpayers. I'd prefer the person needing the procedure pays, because at least then there's some pressure to keep costs reasonable and procedures effective.
Also, I think Obama is shaping out to be as bad a president as Carter; but still, if he shows up on Letterman, Letterman should treat him respectfully and with decorum. He's the damn PRESIDENT, while Letterman is a host of a funny tv show. -
Hah!I take it as a metaphor for what American national healthcare would be like. Haven't seen any Brits double-posting in this Talkback.
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His is the make/break opinion for me on all things British.
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Sep 21, 2009 4:36:19 PM CDT
HERC - LOL - DON'T YOU HATE HAVING TO INSERT PARA BREAKS?
by bringingsexyback
Talk to Harry FFS!!!!
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Mass hysteria!
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The person who posted that needs to release that there is somebody out there both SMARTER and BETTER INFORMED than the poster, yet who is passionately against nationalized medicine.
And the same works in reverse. There's somebody smarter than me that still think nationalized medicine is a GOOD idea. It keeps me humble.
Calling your opponents idiots in a political discussion is usually an indicator that YOU'RE an idiot. -
Monopolies can exist and do exist. Yet they all enabled by government collusion. Private sector monopolies don't exist and can't endure in even an imperfect free market. Thus, we can see that for real monopolies to exist, government collusion is a necessary factor.
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one or two horror stories from friends about health care in the U.S., but ALL of my friends have horror stories in the UK. ALL of them. You see, if you have something fairly minor wrong, fine. But something major? You can kiss your butt goodbye. Of course British people will stick up for the system - my friend did, even as he was waiting two years for a specialist appointment. Even as he waited years to have his wisdom teeth out (he couldn't believe how much better he felt afterwards). He was in a total state of denial about the NHS.
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Pair that with the best doctors and nurses in the world (even if we have to import them from the Philipines), it goes without saying we should be able to have the best Nationalized Healthcare System in the world. I'm excited!
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More free health care for me...
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Sep 21, 2009 4:40:49 PM CDT
Toonol: It Would be Lovely if the Person Needing the Procedure P
by kevinwillis.net
And if there was tort reform. But it ain't going to happen. Just to show you how far we've gone, nobody is talking about national catastrophic care insurance--i.e., insurance that covers catastrophic illness or injury. The sort of thing you buy house insurance for. You don't have your home insurance pay for the bug man or the carpet cleaners . . . but those days are past, and they ain't coming back.
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Herc, you wrote: "Looking at the talkbacks as well, I sense a pattern. Americans have horror stories about friends who live in Britain and Canada and hate the health care over there and had to pay for flights so American doctors could treat them. "
I think that quality of health care will decline, if we socialize the medical system, probably resulting in a net gain of pain, suffering, and death.
But that's not why I oppose it. I oppose it on IDEALOGICAL grounds. It's immoral to make somebody else pay for you, and to make you pay for somebody else.
It's like why I support capitalism. The free market is great, because it is the best mechanism for raising quality of life... but that's not why I support it. I support it because it's the only moral way to live. It's the only economic system that treats people as free individuals, respecting their rights. -
Sep 21, 2009 4:45:22 PM CDT
TOONOL, YOU KNOW, SOMEONE ELSE PAID FOR THAT SIDEWALK
by bringingsexyback
you walk on. And that bridge you cross. Please refrain from using either.
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The fact that there are still thoughtful, honest people like you on the right, hopefully helping to balance out all the crazies, is one of the few things that gives me hope for the country. But pragmatically speaking, even though the DNC is far from perfect, I gotta support them as the lesser of two evils. I hope, for the sake of the GOP and the country, that the credibility gap narrows... and NOT by the Democrats lowering the bar to match them. -
So ALL of your friends have horror stories abou the NHS? Then you go on to qualify that minor problems are cool under the NHS but anythng major and it's curtains.
So... all your freinds are dead then? or are you just talking cobblers. Because either you make all your friends in a Marie Curie home or perhaps you might just be full of cack. -
"I've lost like eleven friends to falling trees. It's quite a tragedy."
My sincere condolences. These things do happen, even in the best regulated of families.
Nevertheless, to lose one friend to a falling tree, Mr Quin, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose twelve begins to look like carelessness.
I suggest a remedial viewing of "Kind Hearts and Coronets". -
he sounds like an American to me.
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That crusty shriveled and whitened piece of dog doodoo that was breaking up seemed more fresh than Letterman.
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For a number of reasons. Thus, the drug market is not a free market, because there are no protections of private property and no independent 3rd party enforcement of contracts, among other things.It's not the best comparison. There are no ideal free markets, and we are unlikely to have them. However, the freer the market, the less likely we are to have monopolies. That being said, free markets require enforcement of contract law, protection of private property, general law enforcement (can't murder your competitors), regulations against anti-competetive behaviors such as price-fixing (this is more to avoid oligopolies, but still important). Not to mention, a dependable national currency.Laws that indiscrimnately protect property and enforce contract law ensure free markets. Laws that favor big companies over small companies (such as have been enjoyed by Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T, and most modern cable companies) are antithetical to free markets. And, oddly, all monopolies are produced with the collusion of the government. Otherwise, competition is always possible, and any potential monopoly always breakable within the market.
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I'd vote against that, too. But since it didn't matter, and they took my money to build the damn sidewalk anyway, I'm going to use it.
It's logically consistent. You're raising arguments that have been answered long ago. -
I'll help you make the sign.
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Can we all just remember that America actually sits lower in overall life expectancy that the UK Canada, France, Germany and most of the rest of continental Europe.
Maybe a socialized medical system might help people get healthy? All these poor people who would clog up the system with their lack of medical insurance, might get healthy and then be able to work... you know and get the economy going. Not to mention that a socialised medical system will need plenty of people running it, oh look more jobs..... -
Sep 21, 2009 4:50:23 PM CDT
SO IF REFORM PASSES, AND YOUR INSURER PAYS FOR YOUR ILLNESS
by bringingsexyback
Will you tell them to deny you on a preexisting condition anyway?
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I'm gonna back alley abortion the shit out of that
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I'll speak out against them, and have. Since there's a near infinite amount of things wrong with the current system, and only so much time, I'll reserve my activism for the more disastrous issues, thank you (such as nationalized healthcare).
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Watch Food Inc. And leave the chickens for fuckin', not eatin'!!!!!
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While we're on the subject, the taxpayers paid for the science that created the Internet you're on. So best get off that, and go design your own.
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Sep 21, 2009 4:53:01 PM CDT
TOONOL - SO SHOULD WE ABOLISH FIRE AND POLICE DEPARTMENTS?
by bringingsexyback
Get rid of Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA? How about the court system? That's taxpayer funded. Let's have village tribunals instead. Just like in Pakistan. Works for them right?
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Can we all just remember that America actually sits lower in overall life expectancy that the UK Canada, France, Germany and most of the rest of continental Europe.
Do you really think that has anything to do with the healthcare system? I doubt that; I think it's more to do with social and cultural norms. Americans are often less healthy, but it's due to the things they DO, and I don't think the healthcare system will effect that one way or the other. -
"It's immoral to make somebody else pay for you, and to make you pay for somebody else."
So I guess that means that you are against funding the US Armed Forces, Police Forces, Fire Services and all non-toll roads and everything else paid for by taxes?
The way that Europeans tend to look at it is that our armed forces are publicly funded because they help protect us all from pain and death by invasion.
Our health services are publicly funded because they help protect us all from pain and death by disease.
Either War or Disease result in huge costs that can't be easily privately insured against for a reasonable sum of money.
It's the same principle. -
As the lesser of two evils. It's the same thinking I use when I vote for the Republicans, although I'm beginning to suspect I am only barely supporting the lesser of two evils. If that. In the case of John McCain, I'm not sure I could detect a difference in the level of undesirability, and I'm still not sure. Sigh.To be clear, while I don't support healthcare reform as currently constituted (I'd like to see tort reform, healthcare savings accounts, catastrophic public insurance for the poor), I also don't see a public option as being the end of the world, or the end of America. Or the end of American healthcare.
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Sep 21, 2009 4:54:09 PM CDT
THAT'S TRUE CATLETTUCE - INTERNET CREATED BY DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
by bringingsexyback
funded by taxpayers. Shit! See you Toonol!!!!
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...(and until recently CA) have been putting more into the "treasury" than other states because it's about fairness and the "general welfare" -- upgrading healthcare is just another dimension this.
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I think the solution is to get the fuck out of Oregon and back to the few, spaced out trees in Southern California parking lots.
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The Space Program. National Parks. National Defense. A prosperous nation can afford a decent infrastructure. I get those things, I suppose the compromise is I must live with huge government stimulus packages, nationalized healthcare, and the like.Frankly, I consider our current system, thick with insurance bureaucracies, simply a preview of what we'll be getting from government healthcare. :)
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I now pay $588 monthly ($7,056/year) for health insurance via Blue Shield, which carries a $2000/yr deductable, so my insurance did cover the bulk of that incredibly expensive trip to the emergency room.
If that insurance premium sounds high it's because I was diagnosed with type II diabetes a few years ago. My blood sugar is never super-high, and it's easily regulated with overpriced pills, but it still technically makes me a diabetic and it sends my rates skyward.
(And no, I'm not diabetic because I'm incredibly fat and don't take care of myself. I'm almost 6'2 and was diagnosed when I weighed 170 lbs.)
In a few years when I hit a new age bracket my monthly premium will increase, I believe, to about $1000/mo. I will pay it because only one company is willing to cover me. They have to, because they covered me before I was diagnosed as diabetic. If I miss a payment, they'll drop me and and no insurer (including Blue Shield) will cover me because of the pre-existing condition.
I'm hopeful I'll still be able to afford my health insurance when it goes up. If I lose it and get a catastrophic illness like cancer, the treatment would likely wipe out my life savings.
My worry, in this troubled economy, is for all who lose their jobs and can't afford insurance.
Also, for those who asked: I got really dizzy at about 10 p.m. so the emergency room was my only option unless I wanted to wait till morning. I was really concerned I might be having a stroke (or something) and thought it better not to wait.
Anyway, go health care! -
You really want the same government that fucked up Katrina to run your healthcare? The same government that is busy bailing out banks and wall street while citizens struggle? The same government that has destroyed social security and medicare/medicaid?
Let's get real. Our healthcare system needs an overhaul for sure, but I don't want want our wasteful, partisian government running it. -
The last thing we needed for a homeland security was another frickin' bureaucracy. Thanks, George.
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Katrina was a flop, we keep sending money overseas we'll never see back. Scientists get free cash for shitty studies. Bleh.
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6'2" 170? You've gotta be the biggest 14 year old girl in captivity! (I keed, I keed!) -
Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.
You'd do better over this side of the pond. That said, it didn't save Troy Kennedy Martin, who died on Friday. Which still hasn't been mentioned on the site.... -
Sep 21, 2009 5:05:32 PM CDT
JUST DON'T PUT HECKUVA JOB BROWNIE IN CHARGE OF HEALTH CARE
by bringingsexyback
Problem solved!
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Sep 21, 2009 5:06:02 PM CDT
Turn the US into a small island nation and UHC will work!
by darth_inedible
Alternately we could take German approach to illegal immigrants and methodically repatriate them thus keeping the system solvent, but that would never work in America. So basically we'll get half-assed reform designed Alinsky-style to fuck things up worse and create a convenient outcry for "radical change".
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Here is a link to a document pointing out 59 lies in one movie alone. http://www.davekopel.org/terror/59Deceits.pdf
Just like everyone else Michael Moore is often a victim of his own partisian blindness and fails to search for truth and sticks to party agenda.
I'll give him credit and say that he latest movie seems to be much more fact driven, but I have yet to actually research it. -
Sep 21, 2009 5:06:42 PM CDT
"It's immoral to make somebody else pay for you, and to make you
by hercules
But I don't really think of it as paying for somebody else. I think of it like Social Security. You're actually covering your own butt in case something really bad befalls you.
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If you want a real answer, than I would say this: There should be no federal involvement on any level with firemen, and a legal involvement only to coordinate intra-state crimes. Constitutionally, the federal government has a very restricted domain of permissible activities.
Fire falls under the domain of state government, and in that matter we have to look at the state's constitution to see what it permissible.
Larry Niven said that "Libertarianism is a vector." It's never going to be a position that you'll reach; it's always a direction in which you head to or away from. I don't think a free, libertarian "utopia" is reachable, even if it IS desirable; but there's a million ways in which we could be getting closer, and more free, every day; instead, we're inching away. -
I think Homeland is more or less a consolidation of INS and some other departments. I think they serve a useful purpose, as long as Presidents don't go abusing the Homeland Security Alert for election manipulating purposes ...
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Social Security is working out real well isn't it? You and I pay into it, but I doubt we will see any return. Sad, but government run programs like social security, healthcare (i.e. medicare/medicaid) simply haven't proven to work here in the United States. What makes you think that the current administration and Congress are goign to buck that trend?
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Sep 21, 2009 5:11:00 PM CDT
CAN YOU IMAGINE IF DID NOT HAVE SOCIAL SECURITY TODAY?
by bringingsexyback
Do you know how many people rely on it for paying basic necessities like rent, food, medicine, etc.?
This recession would've been a depression that dwarved the Great one. Grandpas and grandmas would be dropping dead left and right from homelessness, starvation and illness.
I'm not even exagerrating. -
- Internet based on Arpanet (ARPA)
- Sat nav uses GPS satellites (Air Force)
- Chip technology & supercomputers (US Gov bankrolled much of the research and bought the early products as they did with transistors in the 50s)
- Nanotech research (various places like Sandia labs)
- Nuclear power - defence again (Atomic Energy Commission)
- Modern cosmetic surgery - based on techniques used to treat disfigured soldiers... and so it goes...
You have a complex feedback loop in place - taxpayer funds 'blue skies' research, companies eventually sell a product based on said research. Its a pretty good mixed-economy model, but in no way is it a pure free market. I'm sure this will piss off Toonol so much he's going to stomp off and find a true free-market country to live in.
Good luck with that!
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They shouldn't be using the Homeland Security Alert for anything. Useless. And consolidation, in the government, tends to mean another building, with another budget, and another staff, and a more elaborate reporting structure . . . I'm still not convinced.
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Sep 21, 2009 5:12:43 PM CDT
I'm Expecting to Get Something Back from Social Security
by kevinwillis.net
Whatever administration/party let Social Security lapse would never have power again. Ever.
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In Star Trek's future, there is no money, not even credits. One planet, one government. Everyone benefits. People contribute according to their ability. You hungry? Press a button.
Oh shit that sounds Communistic. N/M -
We might get there, and sooner than you think. But I'm afraid there isn't going to be a button you push to get a veggie burger.
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Every single administration since FDR has let social security lapse. The problem is our government has been taking "loans" from the social security fund for decades and not repaying it. The current administration won't change that, neither will the next one or the one after that...
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Whether or not it's funded, per se, or not, or in a lockbox, or not. FDR wanted Social Security to be replaced by a private or quasi-government option (or said so, may not have really cared). And I'm all for the Bush "privatization" of Social Security, though that ain't never gonna happen. Heck, put my SS in government T-Bills for me. Sumtin'. But . . . what's not going to change is old folks getting their Social Security checks. When I'm old, I'll be getting mine.
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after all the fucking money they've been taking out of my paychecks all these years I'm going to be plenty steamed. I don't know about anybody else.
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Actually, if Social Security had never existed, we would more likely have actual prosperity today instead of the debt-fueled consumerism that is currently coming to an end. Imagine decades of people actually getting to keep the thousands of dollars they sunk into Social Security. Imagine our seniors of today not being dependent on meager government handouts that makes them slaves to Washington politicians. Imagine them living off of actual savings instead of a pension program that robs their children and grandchildren of their ability to save for their own futures. It doesn't matter anyway, Social Security is already insolvent, the federal government hijacked our surpluses for years and left us a huge stinking pile of IOUs in its place, and our Baby Boomer parents are about to retire en masse and really show us the meaning of "economic crisis".
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Speaking as a former and perhaps future Republican, don't you just look at the party and get depressed as hell over the lack of any coherent plan or leadership. The only bright spot they had Obama shipped off to China. There's just no room for diversity of opinion or nuanced thinking anymore. The party of Lincoln becoming the party of Palin. I seriously want to cry when I think about it.
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You know, Walnut Grove was always able to pay Doc Baker with chickens, eggs, apples, services in exchange.
It wasn't until a young asshole whippersnapper doctor from the city (I forget his name, but what a fucking asshole) came in to replace a retiring Doc Baker was anyone told to pay in cash. I mean, you shoulda seen their faces.
But thank GOD Doc Baker returned. I swear I wish every doctor was like him. -
Might stop the COLAs, may increase the rate at which Social Security benefits are taxed, but you'll be getting your check.
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It's a joke. The money gets taken away, but really, do we ever see it back? How come young people don't get Social Security checks? Why is it always old people. Why don't they go for Health Care. SS is a big joke.
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Sep 21, 2009 5:20:52 PM CDT
HERC - IN THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY THAT'S CALLED RECISSION
by bringingsexyback
Yeah, a lot of people are plenty steamed but good thing for CIGNA and Aetna they're too sick to fight it ...
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I certainly don't mind the politics of Palin as much as I do the squishiness of McCain. That being said, I do agree that there is nothing coherent in the Republican leadership right now. Certainly, I miss the Bill Buckley's. We seem to be short on those folks. Alas.Generally, I think there is room for reasonable diversity of opinion in the party, I just think it's the lack of a clear plan or leadership that leads to nothing but bickering that is the fundamental problem. Well, we shall see. I hope there is somebody better to vote for in 2012 than there was in 2008. ;)
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Here is a great site that has some good info on social security. http://www.justfacts.com/socialsecurity.asp
As far as you and I getting our social security, your probably right. We probably will get ours, but at the expense of generations to come after us. Much like pervious generations are benefiting from what we put into Social Security. At some point that model will break down and someone is going to get screwed. It may not be you or I, it may not even be our kids, but at some point it will fail. You simply can't sustain a system like our current social security. I wish our governmetn would overhaul it, but sadly they probably won't. -
It keeps the elderly from living like the homeless. No joke. It's not much of a life but it beats the fuck out of fighting for scraps with a racoon. I'm against an entitlement mentality in general, but if SS was yanked out from under the elderly they wouldn't make it month to month. And the young can get social security. Minors split up their deceased parents contribution. So if your lucky enough to have a parent die on you while in High School, jackpot!
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Sep 21, 2009 5:25:30 PM CDT
MIGHTYMONARCH - YOU MEAN PEOPLE INVESTING THEIR MONEY PRIVATELY
by bringingsexyback
and having it dissipate in market bubbles? Come on.
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Nothing drives me crazier than hearing the same, and incorrect myths over and over again:
1. "The Canadian system is a disaster" --- Bullshit. It's considered a national treasure, by even the rightest of the right wing up here. No one in Canada would call it a failure. Under pressure, requiring constant tuning, yes, but also a jewel in the crown.
2. "It costs a fortune!" -- Bullshit! Our taxes are higher but study after study has proven we pay less per capita on health care than Americans do, have equal or better care, have a longer life span and consider our care to be, again, a national treasure.
3. "Wait times are terrible" --- It's been covered here, but wait times are only long for non-essential stuff, and you can always "shop around" to try and find a hospital with a shorter wait list. Or a better doctor. Compare a wait time for a 75 year old Canadian to get a hip replacement, to a 75 year old American with no insurance, or poor insurance. I can't imagine waiting a few months for a hip replacement is better than not being able to get one at all.
4. "Every Canadian I know heads down to the US for better care! I know a Canadian who flew down for special treatment right away because he couldn't get it in Canada!" --- Baloney!! Every Canadian I know hopes to hell that they never find themselves sick when visiting the US. And if for some reason you need to fly down to see a specialist in the US, IN MOST CASES THE COST IS COVERED BY YOUR CANADIAN HEALTHCARE and you don't have to pay for it.
5. "The Canadian system is socialzed, not for profit, etc..." --- The Canadian system is a for-pay system, and Dr.'s, nurses, pharmacists, etc. etc. all make a great living working in healthcare. Drug companies manufacture and sell drugs in Canada, and they flourish. Canadian Dr.'s can choose to be a Ob-Gyn, a family practitioner, a plastic surgeon, and can pursue a specialization based soley on profit motives if they want.
6. Various horror stories (scheduling nightmares, admin problems, bitchy nurses, mis-diagnoses, etc. etc...) --- Shit happens, whether you are going to hospital or taking your clothes to the dry cleaner. It is almost guaranteed that at some point you will receive bad service or have a bad experience, in anything. But I have yet to hear horror stories of the same volume or severity as the ones I hear about in the US, where people die becuase they lost their job and insurance, and couldn't get new insurance becuase of a pre-existing condition.
7. "Socialism!! Evil!!!!!" --- This really boils my blood. I have a lot of American friends, and relatives, and this I know to be true: an American will argue until he is blue in the face about hypotheticals involving inalienable rights, liberties, government infringements, left, right, libertarianism, free market power, etc., etc., and they are rarely able to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to make a pragmatic observation of the world around them to save their lives.
Is my country and my health care system socialist? Yeah, probably. Does my government infringe on my rights as an individual through taxation and strict gun laws? Yeah, I guess so. But I also know I can walk the street at night without worrying about everyone being armed, and I never have to worry about not getting medical care, and I am not afraid of my government.
I live in a country where the population has chosen to compromise a bit on some of the political hair-splitting that would make an American apoplectic, and where we agree on the need to all chip in order to freaking help each other out. Because that is the god-damned point of having a modern democratic system instead of all of this every man for himself bull shit.
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It was designed in the 1930s when people only lived a few years past retirement. Now people are retiring and living for what...20, 30 more years? That's a hell of a lot more checks written than FDR ever imagined. We might have weathered this storm...but every single extra penny Social Security has taken in over the years was not placed in some air-tight, secure lockbox. It was spent by Washington leechfucks who can't help but spend other people's money. There is no Social Security trust fund. The Social Security trust fund is essentially a file cabinet somewhere in Washington chock full of unsold Treasury bills (in other words, more debt). We are in a debt-based recession, which means the only two ways out are paying down debt (not fucking likely) or defaulting on the debt (in which case working stiffs like you or me won't get jack shit from Social Security). You should be plenty pissed about this. Government cannot be trusted with money, this is why our Constitution sought to limit its powers.
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But he couldn't take Social Security private. That's how powerful grandpa and grandma are. Imagine if he had done it, and in the downturn of 2008 everybody woulda been bankrupt.
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and they get ton of free shit like half off at movies and restaurants. Young people pay FULL price!!
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You'll never see one world, one government. You want to know why? Because every minority group, whatever it is, will never give up what they view as their identity to be part of something bigger. You see it here in America all the time. Every ethnic group, religion, or minority will not consider themselves as just Americans. They insist that their cultural heritage and beliefs be represented no matter what. If Americans can't even think of themselves in terms of one county, how the hell is the whole world going to ban together and think as one collective group? Not going to happen in our lifetime.
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That shifts the financial onus on white people. Just sayin!
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You mean market bubbles created by the bad monetary policy of the Federal Reserve and Congress? Without their interference destroying the value of the dollar you wouldn't need complicated 401(k)s and other investments to save for retirement...parking it in a savings account would have been sufficient.
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voted for him in 2000, and think we'd be much better off if he had been president over the last 8 years. Palin seems like such a reactionary speaker and I've had it with that particular mindset. I discussed this with my older sister, a self identified Palin-chick, and she'd rather see the party stay small and powerless then allow the Log Cabins in. The libertarian branch, which needs a strong voice, though not ontonimy, is all but gone. The republicans have turned on moderates, just like the dems did back in the day and it makes me sad. We need Kissinger, not another Bush/Cheney/Palin cookie cutter.
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Well we do have a clandestine, shadow world government, but I won't get into that now ...
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If you did that UHC would absolutely work in places like Minnesota, Montana, Maine, and Washington. California would be an absolute disaster. Texas, Arizona, Florida, and possibly NY would all be disasters because of the huge influx of poor immigrants into those states. Seriously imagine a California with even more public liabilities... European countries like France are struggling with UHC even without having to deal with 2 million immigrants every year.
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Suckah
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Suckah
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But again, we're gonna trust the federal government with INVESTING our money? They spent every extra dollar they collected. It's like trusting your fifteen-year-old daughter to deposit your cashed paycheck at the bank that happens to be right next door to the mall.
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Sep 21, 2009 5:39:34 PM CDT
BUT THE FLIPSIDE IS INVESTING THAT MONEY WITH THE BANKS
by bringingsexyback
And Lord knows that, these days, the last place you want your money parked is in a bank.
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I want my free health care so fuck the "achievers" I had to go to the ER for the an infected cyst and I was stuck there for three hours and then had to have surgery which cost way too much. The ER is ridiculously crowded, so maybe if more people could afford healthcare I wouldn't have such an incovenient problem, and I wouldn't have had to deal with pissed off overworked doctors, nurses, and PA's
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To address point #7 in your post. I'll rely on this quote from Ben Franklin "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
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Sep 21, 2009 5:42:49 PM CDT
"It's considered a national treasure, by even the rightest of th
by hercules
I've heard precisely the same thing said by Britishers. When nationalized health care was proposed the conservatives apparently fought it tooth and nail but the new generation of conservatives who grew up with the system now prize it. Crazy!
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They were probably busy treating illegals and that is why you had to wait.
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Could there also be 100,000 truths in there?
In "Sicko," Moore interviews a lot of foreign patients and foreign health care providers. If they're all lying, that's a ton of lying foreigners. -
I'm not much for politics but I want to check out Obama on Letterman, its rare sitting presidents go to places like that. I wanna see what happens.
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And all the shows on CBS cater to them.
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So ALL of your friends have horror stories abou the NHS? Then you go on to qualify that minor problems are cool under the NHS but anythng major and it's curtains.
"So... all your freinds are dead then? or are you just talking cobblers. Because either you make all your friends in a Marie Curie home or perhaps you might just be full of cack."
No, I didn't qualify it at all. Minor problems, you can wait a long time too. Is that okay with you to wait, say, years for getting your wisdom teeth out (when it was just a "minor problem")? Yes, three of my friends nearly died because of the NHS care - one friend's father did die because of it. Maybe you should go back and read it again, because it doesn't sound like you read my posts at all. -
Actually, I'd trust most banks that didn't get themselves heavily leveraged in real estate or refused to take bailout money. Believe it or not, you can still find them. Usually local credit unions. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank? Fuck them. They made bad financial decisions and went to the federal government for a taxpayer-funded bailout. They should have been seized, and their assets sold to pay off their depositors. Instead the federal government allowed them to conduct business as usual and are just as criminal as the banks they are backstopping.
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Exactly proves the entire point of my comment in 7.
Go ahead and quote about the divine nature of democracy, and split hairs about individual rights, the burden of freedoms, yadda yadda yadda.
In the meantime the guy in line behind you at the Cracker Barrel has a gun hidden in his jacket and an undiagnosed mental problem because his health insurance won't cover it.
Just keep on debating the finer points of what you hypothetically awesome free market, democratic country is like, while being surrounded by people unable to access health care, and who live afraid of their neighbours and their own government.
In the meantime I will be living in a country full of generally happy, profit loving, healthy and generally safe Canadians, in a thriving democracy, all at the expense of not taking the wisdom of Ben Franklin too literally.
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"So ALL of your friends have horror stories abou the NHS? Then you go on to qualify that minor problems are cool under the NHS but anythng major and it's curtains.So... all your freinds are dead then? or are you just talking cobblers. Because either you make all your friends in a Marie Curie home or perhaps you might just be full of cack." --
No, I didn't qualify it at all. Minor problems, you can wait a long time too. Is that okay with you to wait, say, years for getting your wisdom teeth out (when it was just a "minor problem")? Yes, three of my friends nearly died because of the NHS care - one friend's father did die because of it. Maybe you should go back and read it again, because it doesn't sound like you read my posts at all. (Sorry for double post - had to put quotes where Kizeesh's post started and mine began) -
I only provided that link because a previous poster challanged anyone to find an instance of Michael Moore lying (i.e. being dishonest) in one of his films.
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It can not be run out of DC. You must break it down as locally as you can. If it is run out of DC there would be a ton of problems. You think Cigna and Blue Cross are bad this will be even worse.
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FYI - I'm both - dual citizenship, but even if I was American only, it seems like you're calling me a liar, when I lived in the UK for 8 years? Have you lived in the UK, or am I mistaken?
P.S. I could call you a liar too, when you slagged off American soldiers in a post about a year back -- -
...it's health INSURANCE.That would be the same greedy bastards that have our government representatives in their back pocket.
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All I'm saying is that I'll take liberty over socialism any day. If you like socialism, great! I'm happy for you.
In the meantime I will be living in a country full of generally happy, profit loving, healthy and generally safe "Americans", in a thriving democracy because of men like Ben Franklin.
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So you have 3 friends and none of them died....
I'm seeing a flaw in your logic but you know what. It's midnight and I never give more than a day to one of these talkback debates so you can go on clinging to your bizarre 3 example based castigation of the NHS completely unhindered. I'll still think you've failed utterly at making your case but that shouldn't affect you, I'm sure you can find 3 people here who think I'm nearly wrong, and that'll be enough for you.
Have a sweet night, and clutch your Stars and Stripes bedspread to your heart tightly. For your wallet's sake, lets hope you don't get sick... -
Wow, you call my stories bizarre? Because they are true? Oh, and my friend's father dying doesn't count in your book...or my friends nearly dying don't count to you either? See people, that's what happens in a universal health care system! People stop caring whether others live or die, because they have to constantly ration health care - Thanks Kizeesh, for proving my point!
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Hey Herc, I never, ever write into these tackback segments (largely because of the amount of stupidity people display in them, both on the left and right), but thought I'd relate my experiences as a Canadian to you.
The healthcare system here has both positives and negatives. The most obvious positive is of course, that it's free (although in technical terms we pay for it through our taxes, but still). The biggest drawback is the wait times. As someone who has been sick with various illnesses for the past 3 years or so, I like to say, "Universal health care, universal wait times." Most of the time, if it's something deemed serious, you get fairly quick treatment. However, as others have noted here, if it's something not seen as life-threatening (hip surgery, knee surgery, etc.) you can wait a long, long time for treatment. I have a friend who recently blew out his knee and was limping around for 10 months before he got in for surgery. He couldn't afford to go to the States or a private clinic here and pay to have it done sooner, and so those 10 months weren't fun for him, to put it mildly. Of course, once he got in, it was free. So there are both pros and cons to the whole system. Likewise, even potentially-life threatening situations can be put on hold. As I noted earlier, I've been sick for almost 3 years. At first due to my symptoms, the doctor thought there was a possibility it was brain cancer (turned out it wasn't), and I needed an MRI. He sent in the request, and a few weeks later I got word that I would get told when I would have the APPOINTMENT for the MRI in a year. Not even the actual MRI in a year, but the friggin' appointment for it. If I had actually had brain cancer, what could have happened in that time? I shudder to think about it. Anyway, long story short, I ended up nagging the MRI people enough over the phone and lucked out into getting someone's cancellation a month after the initial request, and found that I didn't have cancer. So yeah, the health care system here is far from perfect. But it's free.
Oh, and for people saying emergency room wait times are long in the States - it's the exact same thing here.
As for your question about why people raise population as an objection to universal health care, that has to do with both money and aging. The money issue is, of course, the fact that the US is in both greater debt and deficit than pretty much any other democracy, maybe even any other country, period (though of course the whole world in general is pretty much screwed in regards to debt - makes you wish they'd just cancel everyone and every country's out and start from 0 again. But alas, we've no Tyler Durden-esque person to do that). As such, you have less resources to put into it than you would otherwise. The other, more important part, likely has to do with an aging population. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but in Canada the population is aging; there are more baby boomers than there are people being born. Put simply, that means that there are more people getting old and sick and making use of the health care system than there are younger people paying taxes and putting into it. If current trends continue, the system here isn't sustainable in the long run, which is why there has been the rise of many privately-run clinics/labs, what pols like to call "two-tiered health care." (the rise of which is much to the ire of those on the far left). People don't want to wait 12-18 months simply for hip surgery or something (though not everyone can afford private clinics). The other aspect to the argument about high/increasing population has to do with the amount of resources you have to tie into it; the more people you have, the more resources you need (in terms of money, equiment, doctors, nurses, etc.) That, I think, summarizes the argument in a nutshell.
I probably sounded more negative here than I intended to, partly because my experiences have left me somewhat jaded about our system here. I find it a little laughable when Americans point to us and say we've got a great system, considering how many warts it has. If ours is so great, how bad must yours be? As the saying goes, "The grass is always greener..." It strikes me that both systems have good aspects to them (as a British poster said earlier, you guys give the impression of having medical technology from Star Trek), and have equally negative things to them as well. Props to Obama for trying to fix your mess, but I'm doubtful of all politicians (no matter what country or political spectrum they're from) being able to fix any major problem. The older I get (and I'm only in my 20s here), the more cynical I become of people. Politicians in particular. -
i dont know how it works in america but least in canada, dental related things have NOTHING to do with our healthcare system. that's actually somewhere where you do pay money or have a dental plan. so if somebody waited years to get something fixed, its their own fault.
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Sorry, somehow all the spacing got screwed up there, reducing it to a difficult-to-read blob.
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What do you call your public education system? Firemen? Police? Your military, your roads, water and sewer lines?
Do you have Fireman insurance so that the trucks will come visit you when your house is burning? Or do you pay for it out of your pocket, if and when you need it. Do you tsk tsk the neighbor's unattended burning house, because they weren't working hard enough to get decent fireman insurance?
Get this: You are living in a socialist democracy too (or at least one with socialist tendancies). It's what paying taxes to support a democratic government is all about, to pool funds to support services for the greater common good, that individuals may not be able to afford on their own.
The only real difference between the US and the rest of the western world, on this matter, is that for some inexplicable reason America chose to draw the line just short of pooling funds to pay for health care. Odd that I don't see Tea Party assholes picketing to protest against a universal Postal Service, or Socialized public libraries.
And by the way, Ben Franklin funded the first public library in the US, the pinko. -
For reasons that only Harry knows for sure, you can only put in line breaks if you insert the following symbols (minus the spaces ... just type all three characters together without spaces and you will get a line break):
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For some reason a lot of people think the Constitution guarantees them a standard of living, and it doesn't.
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That's it for me. Those fuckers scrape my teeth so much they bleed.
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Political TBs always have a chance at the title, but I don't think I've encountered a more complex issue in one before. The results are ... mixed, to put it mildly. (Though what's the point of putting it mildly since my subject line is so clear? I don't know)
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Someone on here asked if there is such a long wait for an appointment with a specialist or for a procedure in the UK, why not pay privately? Because then you are paying for it twice - the private health care, plus you are still getting the amount deducted from your paycheck, whether you like it or not. And if this bill is passed and universal health care becomes the norm in the U.S. and people don't like it, well..that's it. You won't be able to remove it. You're stuck with it.
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see headline.
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As a Canadian, I'll give into the troll bait: My aunt recently started to feel very sick. She saw her doctor and was referred to a specialist later in the week. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Met with the oncologist 2 days later, surgery less than a week after diagnosis. Immediate and recurring chemo and radiation treatments afterwards.
I'm extremely glad to live in a country that provides healthcare to everybody regardless of income, and as a struggling musician making 30k a year (Canadian dollars) in Canada's most expensive province, I don't feel drowned in taxes, and I am honoured to pay into a system which helps those who need it perhaps more than I do at this point in time. I've never waited for an essential service when I've needed it, and the most I've spent in the emergency room waiting line, EVER (this was for a sudden toothache) was three hours. In Toronto. The system isn't perfect, but nobody is denied care, and nobody goes bankrupt.
When Katrina hit, an elderly lady from our church went with a bunch of other volunteers to provide aid and help in the cleanup. She fell ill during the trip and sadly she died in the hospital. She didn't have any travel health insurance and her Canadian insurance didn't cover the USA hospital expenses which were (not even including the costs relating to her death) over $500,000 for a week of hospital care, tests and procedures. Her family was saddled with that debt, which they couldn't pay. -
He keeps on reciting emails about how wonderful things are and skirts all the negative comments. How about listening to all sides of the debate instead of pushing your agenda that is fueled more by your love for Obama and less about National healthcare.
If this proposed healthcare bill was created and sponsored by a republican you would be on your soapbox talking about what a disaster it is how it would never work.
Healthcare in this country CAN work if done right. This plan aint the right one. Until people put aside their agendas and work together as Americans rather than dems and GOP it wont get done. Fixing healthcare can be done but it has to be done right. -
...how do you legally emigrate to Canada and get Canadian citizenship? Short of marrying a Canadian, anyway. Anyone got any online resources they could point toward?
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AMENDED!
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For starters the U.S. military doesn't fit your model of social services and our postal services might not either, although it is closer.
For the rest of the things you mention, they are all state, county, or local social services NOT federal. The firemen, police libraries, roads, etc. are funded by local taxes not federal income taxes. Yes the federal government does give money to the states to supliment some of these programs, but they are funded primarly locally and they are governed locally.
Federal healthcare would be funded by federal taxes and governed by federal beauracries.
See the difference? I would rather decisions about social services be made at a state and local level rather than the federal level.
For the record the United States isn't a socialist democracy, it is a Constitutional Republic (sometimes called a federal republic or a federal constitutional republic).
Our government wasn't founded to accept taxes and pool funds for the greator common good. Read our Declaration of Independence and out Constitution, for a picture of what our founding father envisioned. It is in line with what I want my government to be. -
Lots of spelling errors in my last post. Also the paragraph spacing got messed up. My apologies.
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First, we develop some of the best medical technology in the world. Unfortunately, it's not accessible to most, even those with insurance. Second, countries with single payer health insurance do have long wait times for surgeries. But so does America, it's just wait while they try to find a way to pay for it, and usually end up dying regardless.
Third, letting insurance companies sell across state lines WILL DO NOTHING to help reign in costs because it does nothing to address community rating, lifetime caps, or pre-existing condition exclusions that currently guide the industry. Finally, it's really not a right or left issue. If you're conservative, you should be championing reform, as it will, in the long run, help small and medium-sized businesses become more competitive in the market. -
Here's what my most recent SSA statement says: "In 2017 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in taxes. Without changes, by 2041 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted* and there will be enough money to pay only about 78 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits." and "*These estimates are based on the intermediate assumptions from the Social Security Trustees' Annual Report to the Congress". So, not bankrupt, but not very healthy. Now, how will the government make a better guarantee of funding for health care years from now? It's one thing to tell people you can't pay back all that money you took from their checks over the years; it's quite another to find health care is suddenly unfunded by ANYone.
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Never. going. to. Fucking. Happen. Ever.
Who really gives a shit about the hypothetical fantasies of idealogues ? In the real world there wil always be a Government.
Politics is as hardwired into humans as fucking. Hell, you can even do both hiking the Apppalachian trail.
On lighter News Afghanistan is now truly fucked.
It was fucked from about 2005 onwards and will now always be fucked but it's time to admit the obvious and phase a withdrawall.
That chicken, it be fucked now. -
until then; the behind-the-scenes secret of Beyonce's appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8id8jxZnnQ
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because they all know the big picture and details behind every complicated and intricately intertwined system. and canadians can't even get rid of that silly queen.
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The Pop culture President couldn't get any lower...he goes on Letterman. After his unecessary "jackass" comment on what everyone else in the entire country has spewed at West for. Do something, Motherfucker. Perform your fucking magic already.
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He's going to be on every single television show being made, and it will be mandatory to watch.
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I think I will take a chill pill, thank you very much, and because of my awesome health care system that pill won't cost me a dime!
Seriously though dude, you are doing exactly the kind of political hair splitting that Americans do that drives me so crazy ... federal vs. state responsibilities, definitions of what kind of democracy you have, whatever.
At the end of the day, you are still living in country that seems to value everything else above the health of your fellow citizens. But whatever floats your boat! -
Now it's a big deal when he isn't.
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Actually, Herc man, you have been right on the money on this subject and really enjoy your posts! Keep up the good fight!
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He admitted to one of the morning shows a few years ago that if doctored storytelling presented as a documentary changes the mind of those who disagree with him, then he's ok with that. So the left slanted media blasted him for using the documentary format when its not necessarily factual, and rightfully so. So, all I'm saying is that don't believe everything you see from that hack, its not a genuine documentary. He has not shown you the bad side of Health Care in those countries.
As far as Obama's plan, I'll get on board if he starts guaranteeing stuff. Right now, his plan is not sustainable. -
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/profile.html
BILL MOYERS: Wendell Potter joins us now. Welcome to the Journal.
WENDELL POTTER: Thank you very much for having me here.
BILL MOYERS: You worked for CIGNA 15 years and left last year.
WENDELL POTTER: I did.
BILL MOYERS: Were you pushed out?
WENDELL POTTER: I was not. I left-- it was my decision to leave, and my decision to leave when I did.
BILL MOYERS: Were you passed over for a promotion?
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely not. No.
BILL MOYERS: Had you been well-paid and rewarded by the company?
WENDELL POTTER: Very well-paid. And I, over the years, had many job opportunities, many bonuses, salary increases. So no, I was not. And in fact, there was no further place for me to go in the company. I was head of corporate communications and that was the ultimate PR job.
BILL MOYERS: Did you like your boss and the people you work with?
WENDELL POTTER: I did, and still do. I still respect them.
BILL MOYERS: And they gave you a terrific party when you left?
WENDELL POTTER: They sure did, yeah.
BILL MOYERS: So why are you speaking out now?
WENDELL POTTER: I didn't intend to, until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years, and particularly back in the early '90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan.
BILL MOYERS: But during this 15 years you were there, did you go to them and say, "You know, I think we're on the wrong side. I think we're fighting the wrong people here."
WENDELL POTTER: You know, I didn't, because for most of the time I was there, I felt that what we were doing was the right thing. And that I was playing on a team that was honorable. I just didn't really get it all that much until toward the end of my tenure at Cigna.
BILL MOYERS: What did you see?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, I was beginning to question what I was doing as the industry shifted from selling primarily managed care plans, to what they refer to as consumer-driven plans. And they're really plans that have very high deductibles, meaning that they're shifting a lot of the cost off health care from employers and insurers, insurance companies, to individuals. And a lot of people can't even afford to make their co-payments when they go get care, as a result of this. But it really took a trip back home to Tennessee for me to see exactly what is happening to so many Americans. I--
BILL MOYERS: When was this?
WENDELL POTTER: This was in July of 2007.
BILL MOYERS: You were still working for Cigna?
WENDELL POTTER: I was. I went home, to visit relatives. And I picked up the local newspaper and I saw that a health care expedition was being held a few miles up the road, in Wise, Virginia. And I was intrigued.
BILL MOYERS: So you drove there?
WENDELL POTTER: I did. I borrowed my dad's car and drove up 50 miles up the road to Wise, Virginia. It was being held at a Wise County Fairground. I took my camera. I took some pictures. It was a very cloudy, misty day, it was raining that day, and I walked through the fairground gates. And I didn't know what to expect. I just assumed that it would be, you know, like a health-- booths set up and people just getting their blood pressure checked and things like that.
But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they'd erected tents, to care for people. I mean, there was no privacy. In some cases-- and I've got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement.
And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee-- all over the region, because they knew that this was being done. A lot of them heard about it from word of mouth.
There could have been people and probably were people that I had grown up with. They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road, in the house down the road from me. And that made it real to me.
BILL MOYERS: What did you think?
WENDELL POTTER: It was absolutely stunning. It was like being hit by lightning. It was almost-- what country am I in? I just it just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.
BILL MOYERS: People are going to say, "How can Wendell Potter sit here and say he was just finding out that there were a lot of Americans who didn't have adequate insurance and needed health care? He'd been in the industry for over 15 years."
WENDELL POTTER: And that was my problem. I had been in the industry and I'd risen up in the ranks. And I had a great job. And I had a terrific office in a high-rise building in Philadelphia. I was insulated. I didn't really see what was going on. I saw the data. I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but I didn't put faces with that number.
Just a few weeks later though, I was back in Philadelphia and I would often fly on a corporate aircraft to go to meetings.
And I just thought that was a great way to travel. It is a great way to travel. You're sitting in a luxurious corporate jet, leather seats, very spacious. And I was served my lunch by a flight attendant who brought my lunch on a gold-rimmed plate. And she handed me gold-plated silverware to eat it with. And then I remembered the people that I had seen in Wise County. Undoubtedly, they had no idea that this went on, at the corporate levels of health insurance companies.
BILL MOYERS: But you had, all these years, seen premiums rising. People purged from the rolls, people who couldn't afford the health care that Cigna and other companies were offering. This is the first time you came face to face with it?
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, it was. You know, certainly, I knew people, and I talked to people who were uninsured. But when you're in the executive offices, when you're getting prepared for a call with an analyst, in the financial medium, what you think about are the numbers. You don't think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations. That's what you think about, at that level. And it helps to think that way. That's why you-- that enables you to stay there, if you don't really think that you're talking about and dealing with real human beings.
BILL MOYERS: Did you go back to corporate headquarters and tell them what you had seen?
WENDELL POTTER: I went back to corporate headquarters. I was trying to process all this, and trying to figure out what I should do. I did tell many of them about the experience I had. And the trip. I showed them some pictures I took while I was down there. But I didn't know exactly what I should do.
You know, I had bills of my own. And it was hard to just figure out. How do I step away from this? What do I do? And this was one of those things that made me decide, "Okay, I can't do this. I can't keep-- I can't." One of the books I read as I was trying to make up my mind here was President Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage."
And in the forward, Robert Kennedy said that one of the president's, one of his favorite quotes was a Dante quote that, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain a neutrality." And when I read that, I said, "Oh, jeez, I-- you know. I'm headed for that hottest place in hell, unless I say something."
BILL MOYERS: Your own resume says, and I'm quoting. "With the chief medical officer and his staff, Potter developed rapid response mechanisms for handling media inquiries pertaining to complaints." Direct quote. "This was highly successful in keeping most such inquiries from becoming news stories, at a time when managed care horror stories abounded." I mean, you knew there were horror stories out there.
WENDELL POTTER: I did. I did.
BILL MOYERS: You put these techniques to work, representing Cigna doing the Nataline Sarkisyan case, right?
WENDELL POTTER: That's right.
BILL MOYERS: And that was a public relations nightmare, you called it. Right?
WENDELL POTTER: It was. It was just the most difficult. We call them high profile cases, when you have a case like that — a family or a patient goes to the news media and complains about having some coverage denied that a doctor had recommended. In this case, Nataline Sarkisyan's doctors at UCLA had recommended that she have a liver transplant. But when the coverage request was reviewed at Cigna, the decision was made to deny it.
It was around that time, also, that the family had gone to the media, had sought out help from the California Nurses Association and some others to really bring pressure to bear on Cigna. And they were very successful in getting a lot of media attention, and nothing like I had ever seen before.
PROTESTERS: Shame on Cigna! Shame on Cigna!
WENDELL POTTER: It got everyone's attention. Everyone was focused on that in the corporate offices.
BILL MOYERS: You were also involved in the campaign by the industry to discredit Michael Moore and his film "Sicko" in 2007. In that film Moore went to several countries around the world, and reported that their health care system was better than our health care system, in particular, Canada and England. Take a look at this.
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MICHAEL MOORE: I went across the city to a crowded hospital waiting room. How long did you have to wait here to get help?
CANADIAN WOMAN #1: 20 minutes
CANADIAN WOMAN #2: 45 minutes
CANADIAN MAN #2: I got helped right away.
CANADIAN WOMAN #3: You can see how crowded this is. They really do an amazing job.
MICHAEL MOORE: Did you have to get anyone's permission to come to this hospital?
CANADIAN MAN #2: No.
CANADIAN MAN #3: No.
CANADIAN WOMAN #1: No.
CANADIAN WOMAN #3: We can go anywhere we want.
MICHAEL MOORE: You don't have to get pre-approved?
CANADIAN WOMAN #3: No, no. You just--
MICHAEL MOORE: By your own insurance company?
CANADIAN WOMAN #3: Oh no, oh heavens no.
MICHAEL MOORE: Can you choose your own doctor?
CANADIAN WOMAN #3: Oh sure. Oh yes.
MICHAEL MOORE: What's your deductible?
CANADIAN MAN #1: Nothing.
CANADIAN WOMAN #1: I don't think we have any.
CANADIAN MAN #2: I don't know. I don't think there's any as far as I know.
CANADIAN WOMAN #3: It's really a fabulous system for making sure that the least of us and the best of us are taken care of.
BRITISH WOMAN #1: Oh, really it's not like that in the US? No. Not at all, no.
MICHAEL MOORE: So what do you pay to stay here?
BRITISH WOMAN #1: No one pays. They're asking, "How do people pay?" And I said, well there isn't, you don't, you just leave.
BRITISH MAN #1: It's just the insurance. There's no bill at the end of it, as it were.
MICHAEL MOORE: Even with insurance, there's bound to be a bill somewhere. So where's the billing department?
BRITISH WOMAN #1: There isn't really a billing department.
BRITISH WOMAN #2: There's no such thing as a billing department.
MICHAEL MOORE: What did they charge you for that baby?
BRITISH WOMAN #3: Sorry?
MICHAEL MOORE: You've got to pay before you can get out of here, right?
BRITISH WOMAN #3: No.
BRITISH MAN #1: No, no, no. Everything's on NHS.
BRITISH WOMAN #3: This is NHS.
BRITISH MAN #1: You know, it's not America.
BILL MOYERS: So what did you think when you saw that film?
WENDELL POTTER: I thought that he hit the nail on the head with his movie. But the industry, from the moment that the industry learned that Michael Moore was taking on the health care industry, it was really concerned.
BILL MOYERS: What were they afraid of?
WENDELL POTTER: They were afraid that people would believe Michael Moore.
BILL MOYERS: We obtained a copy of the game plan that was adopted by the industry's trade association, AHIP. And it spells out the industry strategies in gold letters. It says, "Highlight horror stories of government-run systems." What was that about?
[Note: You can download the documents by clicking here and here (PDFs)]
WENDELL POTTER: The industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that if you even consider that, you're heading down on the slippery slope towards socialism. So they have used scare tactics for years and years and years, to keep that from happening. If there were a broader program like our Medicare program, it could potentially reduce the profits of these big companies. So that is their biggest concern.
BILL MOYERS: And there was a political strategy. "Position Sicko as a threat to Democrats' larger agenda." What does that mean?
WENDELL POTTER: That means that part of the effort to discredit this film was to use lobbyists and their own staff to go onto Capitol Hill and say, "Look, you don't want to believe this movie. You don't want to talk about it. You don't want to endorse it. And if you do, we can make things tough for you."
BILL MOYERS: How?
WENDELL POTTER: By running ads, commercials in your home district when you're running for reelection, not contributing to your campaigns again, or contributing to your competitor.
BILL MOYERS: This is fascinating. You know, "Build awareness among centrist Democratic policy organizations--"
WENDELL POTTER: Right.
BILL MOYERS: "--including the Democratic Leadership Council."
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: Then it says, "Message to Democratic insiders. Embracing Moore is one-way ticket back to minority party status."
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: Now, that's exactly what they did, didn't they? They--
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: --radicalized Moore, so that his message was discredited because the messenger was seen to be radical.
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely. In memos that would go back within the industry — he was never, by the way, mentioned by name in any memos, because we didn't want to inadvertently write something that would wind up in his hands. So the memos would usually-- the subject line would be-- the emails would be, "Hollywood." And as we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as Hollywood entertainer or Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, just to-- Hollywood, I think people think that's entertainment, that's movie-making. That's not real documentary. They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth. They would want you to see this as just some fantasy that a Hollywood filmmaker had come up with. That's part of the strategy.
BILL MOYERS: So you would actually hear politicians mouth the talking points that had been circulated by the industry to discredit Michael Moore.
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: You'd hear ordinary people talking that. And politicians as well, right?
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: So your plan worked.
WENDELL POTTER: It worked beautifully.
BILL MOYERS: The film was blunted, right?
WENDELL POTTER: The film was blunted. It--
BILL MOYERS: Was it true? Did you think it contained a great truth?
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely did.
BILL MOYERS: What was it?
WENDELL POTTER: That we shouldn't fear government involvement in our health care system. That there is an appropriate role for government, and it's been proven in the countries that were in that movie.
You know, we have more people who are uninsured in this country than the entire population of Canada. And that if you include the people who are underinsured, more people than in the United Kingdom. We have huge numbers of people who are also just a lay-off away from joining the ranks of the uninsured, or being purged by their insurance company, and winding up there.
And another thing is that the advocates of reform or the opponents of reform are those who are saying that we need to be careful about what we do here, because we don't want the government to take away your choice of a health plan. It's more likely that your employer and your insurer is going to switch you from a plan that you're in now to one that you don't want. You might be in the plan you like now.
But chances are, pretty soon, you're going to be enrolled in one of these high deductible plans in which you're going to find that much more of the cost is being shifted to you than you ever imagined.
BILL MOYERS: I have a memo, from Frank Luntz. I have a memo written by Frank Luntz. He's the Republican strategist who we discovered, in the spring, has written the script for opponents of health care reform. "First," he says, "you have to pretend to support it. Then use phrases like, "government takeover," "delayed care is denied care," "consequences of rationing," "bureaucrats, not doctors prescribing medicine." That was a memo, by Frank Luntz, to the opponents of health care reform in this debate. Now watch this clip.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: The forthcoming plan from Democratic leaders will make health care more expensive, limit treatments, ration care, and put bureaucrats in charge of medical decisions rather than patients and doctors.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Americans need to realize that when someone says "government option," what could really occur is a government takeover that soon could lead to government bureaucrats denying and delaying care, and telling Americans what kind of care they can have.
SEN. JON KYL: Washington run healthcare would diminish access to quality care, leading to denials, shortages and long delays for treatment.
REP. JOE WILSON: How will a government run health plan not lead to the same rationing of care that we have seen in other countries?
REP. TOM PRICE: We don't want to put the government, we don't want to put bureaucrats between a doctor and a patient.
BILL MOYERS: Why do politicians puppet messages like that?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, they are ideologically aligned with the industry. They want to believe that the free market system can and should work in this country, like it does in other industries. So they don't understand from an insider's perspective like I have, what that actually means, and the consequences of that to Americans.
They parrot those comments, without really realizing what the real situation is.
I was watching MSNBC one afternoon. And I saw Congressman Zach Wamp from Tennessee. He's just down the road from where I grew up, in Chattanooga. And he was talking-- he was asked a question about health care reform. I think it was just a day or two after the president's first-- health care reform summit. And he was one of the ones Republicans put on the tube.
And he was saying that, you know, the health care problem is not necessarily as bad as we think. That of the uninsured people, half of them are that way because they want to "go naked."
REP. ZACH WAMP: Half the people that are uninsured today choose to remain uninsured. Half of them don't have any choice but half of them choose to, what's called, go naked, and just take the chance of getting sick. They end up in the emergency room costing you and me a whole lot more money.
WENDELL POTTER: He used the word naked. It's an industry term for those who, presumably, choose not to buy insurance, because they don't want to. They don't want to pay the premiums. So he was saying that half... Well, first of all, it's nothing like that. It was an absolutely ridiculous comment. But it's an example of a member of Congress buying what the insurance industry is peddling.
BILL MOYERS: Back in 1993, the Republican propagandist, William Kristol, urged his party to block any health care proposal, in order to prevent the Democrats from being seen as the quote, "generous protector of the middle class." But today, you've got some Democrats who are going along with the industry.
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Max Baucus, the senator from Montana, for example, the most important figure right now in this health care legislation that's being written in the Senate. He's resisted including a public insurance option in the reform bill, right?
WENDELL POTTER: That's right.
BILL MOYERS: Why is the industry so powerful on both sides of the aisle?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, money and relationships, ideology. The relationships-- an insurance company can hire and does hire many different lobbying firms. And they hire firms that are predominantly Republican and predominantly Democrat. And they do this because they know they need to reach influential members of Congress like Max Baucus. So there are people who used to work for Max Baucus who are in lobbying firms or on the staff of companies like Cigna or the association itself.
BILL MOYERS: Yeah, I just read the other day, in THE WASHINGTON POST, that Max Baucus's staff met with a group of lobbyists. Two of them had been Baucus's former chiefs of staff.
WENDELL POTTER: Right.
BILL MOYERS: I mean, they left the government. They go to work for the industry. Now they're back with an insider status. They get an access, right?
WENDELL POTTER: Oh, they do, they do. And these lobbyists' ability to raise money for these folks also is very important as well.
Lobbyists, many of the big lobbyists contributed a lot of money themselves. One of the lobbyists for one of the big health insurance company is Heather Podesta, the Podesta Group, and she's married to Tony Podesta, who's a brother of John Podesta.
BILL MOYERS: Who used to be the White House chief of staff.
WENDELL POTTER: Right. Right. And they're Democrats. And my executives wanted to meet with — and when I say my, the people I used to work for--
BILL MOYERS: At Cigna.
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, wanted to meet with Hillary Clinton, when she was still in the Senate and still a candidate for president. Well, that's hard to do. That's hard to pull off, but she did. That just shows you that you can, through the relationships that are formed and that the insurance industry pays for, by hiring these lobbyists, you can your foot in the door. You can get your messages across to these people, in ways that the average American couldn't possibly.
BILL MOYERS: So it's money that can buy access to have their arguments heard, right?
WENDELL POTTER: That's right.
BILL MOYERS: When ordinary citizens cannot be heard.
WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely right. It's the way the American system has evolved, the political system. But it does offend me, that the vested special interests, who are so profitable and so powerful, are able to influence public policy in the way that they have, and the way that they've done over the years. And the insurance industry has been one of the most successful, in beating back any kinds of legislation that would hinder or affect the profitability of the companies.
BILL MOYERS: Why is public insurance, a public option, so fiercely opposed by the industry?
WENDELL POTTER: The industry doesn't want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot of acquisitions and mergers. So first of all, they don't want any more competition period. They certainly don't want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are, that they operate. The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.
BILL MOYERS: Compared to the industry's--
WENDELL POTTER: They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit. So they don't want to compete against a more efficient competitor.
BILL MOYERS: You told Congress that the industry has hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street. You said, "I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors." How do they satisfy their Wall Street investors?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, there's a measure of profitability that investors look to, and it's called a medical loss ratio. And it's unique to the health insurance industry. And by medical loss ratio, I mean that it's a measure that tells investors or anyone else how much of a premium dollar is used by the insurance company to actually pay medical claims. And that has been shrinking, over the years, since the industry's been dominated by, or become dominated by for-profit insurance companies. Back in the early '90s, or back during the time that the Clinton plan was being debated, 95 cents out of every dollar was sent, you know, on average was used by the insurance companies to pay claims. Last year, it was down to just slightly above 80 percent.
So, investors want that to keep shrinking. And if they see that an insurance company has not done what they think meets their expectations with the medical loss ratio, they'll punish them. Investors will start leaving in droves.
I've seen a company stock price fall 20 percent in a single day, when it did not meet Wall Street's expectations with this medical loss ratio.
For example, if one company's medical loss ratio was 77.9 percent, for example, in one quarter, and the next quarter, it was 78.2 percent. It seems like a small movement. But investors will think that's ridiculous. And it's horrible.
BILL MOYERS: That they're spending more money for medical claims.
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: And less money on profits?
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly. And they think that this company has not done a good job of managing medical expenses. It has not denied enough claims. It has not kicked enough people off the rolls. And that's what-- that is what happens, what these companies do, to make sure that they satisfy Wall Street's expectations with the medical loss ratio.
BILL MOYERS: And they do what to make sure that they keep diminishing the medical loss ratio?
WENDELL POTTER: Rescission is one thing. Denying claims is another. Being, you know, really careful as they review claims, particularly for things like liver transplants, to make sure, from their point of view, that it really is medically necessary and not experimental. That's one thing. And that was that issue in the Nataline Sarkisyan case.
But another way is to purge employer accounts, that-- if a small business has an employee, for example, who suddenly has have a lot of treatment, or is in an accident. And medical bills are piling up, and this employee is filing claims with the insurance company. That'll be noticed by the insurance company.
And when that business is up for renewal, and it typically is up, once a year, up for renewal, the underwriters will look at that. And they'll say, "We need to jack up the rates here, because the experience was," when I say experience, the claim experience, the number of claims filed was more than we anticipated. So we need to jack up the price. Jack up the premiums. Often they'll do this, knowing that the employer will have no alternative but to leave. And that happens all the time.
They'll resort to things like the rescissions that we saw earlier. Or dumping, actually dumping employer groups from the rolls. So the more of my premium that goes to my health claims, pays for my medical coverage, the less money the company makes.
BILL MOYERS: So, the more of my premium that goes to my health claims, pays for my medical coverage, the less money the company makes.
WENDELL POTTER: That's right. Exactly right.
BILL MOYERS: So they want to reverse that. They don't want my premium to go for my health care, right?
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly right. They--
BILL MOYERS: Where does it go?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, a big chunk of it goes into shareholders' pockets. It's returned to them as part of the investment to them. It goes into the exorbitant salaries that a lot of the executives make. It goes into paying sales, marketing, and underwriting expenses. So a lot of it goes to pay those kinds of administrative functions. Overhead.
BILL MOYERS: When a member of Congress asked the three executives who appeared before the committee-- if they would end the practice of canceling policies for sick enrollees, they refused. Why did they refuse?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, they were talking to Wall Street at that moment. They were saying that because-- I guess they might have to spend some additional dollars to be more vigilant, to make sure that they were not rescinding a policy inappropriately. It makes no sense. The only reason they would have said that is to cover themselves. And to send a signal to Wall Street that you know, we're going to continue business as usual here.
You know, I've been around a long time. And I have to say, I just don't get this. I just don't understand how the corporations can oppose a plan that gives the unhealthy people a chance to be covered. And they don't want to do it themselves.
Well, keep in mind, what they want to do is enhance their profits. Enhance shareholder value. That's number one. And the way that the business that they're in is health care, certainly. But their primary motivation is to reward their shareholders.
Most of the shareholders are large, institutional investors and hedge funds. Hedge fund managers are the ones who look at the stock. And investors for large organizations. It's not mom and pop investor.
BILL MOYERS: You wrote a column with the headline, "Obama's false friends of health reform." You use as a prime example a man named Ron Williams, who is at the top of the list of insurance executives in terms of their compensation. We actually saw Ron Williams at President Obama's Town Hall meeting .
RON WILLIAMS: I would commend the president for the commitment he's made to really try to get and keep everyone covered. And I think as a health insurance company we are committed to that.
BILL MOYERS: Who is Ron Williams, and why do you use him as the example of what Wall Street expects and wants from the insurance companies?
WENDELL POTTER: He has, apparently, had a seat at the table of health care discussion. He was recruited by Aetna from WellPoint. Aetna had gone on a buying binge. There's been an enormous amount of consolidation in the health insurance industry over the last several years. Aetna bought a lot of competitors.
It reached 21 million members. And, but what it realized and what investors began to see is that a lot of the businesses that it had bought were not all that profitable. So they were in Aetna was in a pickle. And they saw their stock price starting to plummet. So they brought-- among the things they did was bring Ron Williams in. And Williams, among the first thing he did was order a revamp of the IT system, so that--
BILL MOYERS: The information technology system--
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly, so that the company could determine more about which accounts were not profitable or margining profitable. So with that new system, he was able, and the other executives to identify the accounts that they wanted to get rid of. And over the course of a very few years, they shed eight million members.
BILL MOYERS: Eight million policy holders?
WENDELL POTTER: Eight million people, men, women, and children, yes.
Some of them were shed by intention. Some, I'm sure, probably walked because the-- or left for whatever other reason, but they intentionally had this program to purge these accounts. Eight million fewer people were enrolled in Aetna's plans. Many of them undoubtedly joined the ranks of the uninsured, because their employers had been purged.
BILL MOYERS: So what happened to Aetna's stock?
WENDELL POTTER: Went up. And it has--
BILL MOYERS: And so did Ron's--
WENDELL POTTER: And--
BILL MOYERS: --compensation, right?
WENDELL POTTER: Ron's compensation and his stock on Wall Street.
RON WILLIAMS: And so I think in the context of thinking about a government plan, what we say is, let's identify the problem we're trying to solve. Let's work collaboratively with physicians, hospitals, and other health care professionals, and make certain that we solve the problem, as opposed to introduce a new competitor who has the rulemaking ability that government would have.
BILL MOYERS: You know, there's an irony, because you hear the companies and their trade groups talking about how we don't want a public option that would put a bureaucrat between a patient and his doctor. But you've just described a situation in which a CEO is actually between a doctor and the patient,
WENDELL POTTER: It's true. And that same thing happened, in the Nataline Sarkisyan case. You had a corporate bureaucrat making a decision on coverage. So, they are trying to make you worry. And fear a government bureaucrat being between you and your doctor. What you have now is a corporate bureaucrat between you and your doctor.
BILL MOYERS: Whose motive is profit. Understandably, naturally, profit.
WENDELL POTTER: Right.
BILL MOYERS: But companies, any company is in business to make a profit, right?
WENDELL POTTER: Oh, absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: So how can you object? How can we object when an insurance company wants to increase its profits? That's a serious question. I mean, it sounds like a set-up but it's a serious question.
WENDELL POTTER: It's a very serious question. And I think that people who are strong advocates of our health care system remaining as it is, very much a free market health care system, fail to realize that we're really talking about human beings here. And it doesn't work as well as they would like it to. Yeah, there's nothing wrong. And I'm a capitalist as well. I think it's a wonderful thing that companies can make a profit. But when you do it in such a way that you are creating a situation in which these companies are adding to the number of people who are uninsured and creating a problem of the underinsured then that's when we have a problem with it, or at least I do.
BILL MOYERS: This is the key question for me. Can health reform that includes a public plan actually rid our system of the financial incentive on the part of the insurance industry to provide less for more?
WENDELL POTTER: It will help. It would help. Would it rid it? No, I don't think it would, because of the for-profit structure that is now dominant in this country. But the public plan would do a lot to keep them honest, because it would have to offer a standard benefit plan. It would have to operate more efficiently, as does the Medicare program. It would be structured, I'm certain on a level playing field, so that it wouldn't be unfair advantage to the private insurance companies. But because it could be administered more efficiently, then the private insurers, they would have to operate more efficiently. And that 20 cents in that medical loss ratio we talked about earlier might get narrower. And they don't want that.
BILL MOYERS: As this debate unfolds in the next month, into the fall, what should we be watching for? Tell us as an insider what to look for that is more than meets the eye?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, what happens is they will continue this charm offensive, until there's actual legislative language. And what that means, of course, is that right now, you're not really seeing the bills before the House and the Senate that will actually be voted on. When we see the actual legislation, when there's something before Congress, and it will happen, presumably, within the next few weeks, you'll start seeing a lot more criticism of it.
And the special interests will be attacking this or that. The AMA will be upset about something. The pharmaceutical industry will be upset about something. The insurance industry will not like this or that. It's, you know, a lot of money is made in this country off sick people. And then you'll start seeing a lot more of the behind-the-scenes attacks on this legislation, in an attempt to kill it. The status quo is what would work best for these industries.
BILL MOYERS: In other words, if the industry is able to kill reform, or the Democrats and the Republicans can't agree on a proposal, that's what the industry really wants.
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly. And it happened in '93 and '94. And just about every time there has been significant legislation before Congress, the industry has been able to kill it. Yeah, the status quo works for them. They don't like to have any regulation forced on them or laws forced on them. They don't want to have any competition from the federal government, or any additional regulation from the federal government. They say they will accept it. But the behavior is that they will not-- you know, they'll not do anything after say this plan fails.
Say nothing happens. They're saying now what they did in '93, '94. "We think preexisting conditions is a bad thing," for example. Let's watch and see if they really take the initiative to do anything constructive. I bet you won't see it. They didn't then.
BILL MOYERS: Well, on the basis of the past performance, and on the basis of your own experience in the industry, can we believe them when they say they will do these things voluntarily?
WENDELL POTTER: I don't think you can. I think that they will implement things that make them more efficient. And that enhance shareholder value. And if what they do contributes to that, maybe so. But now, they do say, they are in favor of an individual mandate. They want us all to be insured.
BILL MOYERS: For the government to require every one of us to have some policy.
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly. And that sounds great. It is an important thing that everyone be enrolled in some kind of a benefit plan. They don't want a public plan. They want all the uninsured to have to be enrolled in a private insurance plan. They want-- they see those 50 million people as potentially 50 million new customers. So they're in favor of that. They see this as a way to essentially lock them into the system, and ensure their profitability in the future. The strategy is as it was in 1993 and '94, to conduct this charm offensive on the surface. But behind the scenes, to use front groups and third-party advocates and ideological allies. And those on Capitol Hill who are aligned with them, philosophically, to do the dirty work. To demean and scare people about a government-run plan, try to make people not even remember that Medicare, their Medicare program, is a government-run plan that has operated a lot more efficiently.
And also, the people who are enrolled in our Medicare plan like it better. The satisfaction ratings are higher in our Medicare program, a government-run program, than in private insurance. But they don't want you to remember that or to know that, and they want to scare you into thinking that through the anecdotes they tell you, that any government-run system, particularly those in Canada, and UK, and France that the people are very unhappy.
And that these people will have to wait in long lines to get care, or wait a long time to get care. I'd like to take them down to Wise County. I'd like the president to come down to Wise County, and see some real lines of Americans, standing in line to get their care.
BILL MOYERS: Wendell Potter thank you very much for being with me on the Journal
WENDELL POTTER: Thank you for inviting me.
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Your SSA statement is lying to you. There is no trust fund. All the SSA surpluses collected over the years have already been spent. Social Security is already running deficits, paying out more than it collects. This "trust fund" they mention is nothing more that unsold Treasury Bills, which is a nice way of saying IOU. The problem is that we have already sold so much Treasury Bill debt (to the tune of about $13 trillion dollars) that it will be impossible to sell enough debt to pay for the unfunded liabilities of Social Security (and Medicare, and Medicaid, and damn near every other government program not covered by tax revenues) without jacking up the interest yields on T-Bills. That won't happen because the interest payments on that debt would quickly rise to unsustainable levels, and our Federal government goes essentially bankrupt. You either have to increase Social Security taxes to a level that would kill any kind of economic recovery, severely reduce payments to beneficiaries, or "means-test" it (which means people who earn a certain amount outside of Social Security would either see their SSA income eliminated). Again, we could have put this off by decades if Congress hadn't touched the surpluses, but they chose instead to squander it on pet projects, failing social programs, or corporate welfare. And both parties are guilty of this (more so the Dem party as they've been in control of Congress for longer, but there now is very little difference between the two).
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Your right that I'm splitting hairs. On the other side of the coin your being overly general by lumping all Americans into the same bucket, so whatever to that.
What it boils down to is that we have very different philosophies on how government should be run. Your happy with what you get from your government and I'm happy with what I get from mine. Is there really anything wrong with that?
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We'd have a home mortgaged to the hilt. We'd have several maxed out credit cards that we can barely make the minimum payments on. We'd have both sets of grandparents living at home who we've promised free medical care and retirement income to. Daddy just took a pay cut and mommy just got laid off. We've got the brother and his wife and two kids living with us after they lost their jobs and their home. And to top it all off, we've promised free medical care to all of them, and everything from basic necessities on up just got way more expensive because of a local thug named Cap N. Trade running an environmental protection racket.
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I think some of you have a very skewed outlook on what "rich" is. I've seen many figures bandied about, from as low as 50K, up to the government approved 250K. Is that for an individual, or a family? If it's a family, a family of how many? The thing a lot of people are missing in the context of "rich" people is the majority of people that make a ton of money oftentimes don't get paid in salary, but get paid in stock or other options that don't get taxed the same way.
I would say "rich" starts somewhere above 500K a year, probably closer to a million. That's based on personal observation of people that I know who make varying levels of income. If you think someone making 200-300K is living like a rockstar, you have no ideawhat you're taking about. Are they living paycheck to paycheck? No, but they're not buying a second house or a summer home on the lake. They are comfortable, but not extravagent. -
Yes, I am painting with a pretty broad brush, but yes, there is still something wrong with what you are saying ... because YOU are happy with a government that's leaving so many OTHERS in the lurch, sick, uninsured, and foresaken, and that just strikes me as being a shitty citizen.
I'm sorry man, I appreciate and respect your political perspective, until it reaches a point where so many of your neighbors are condemned to ill health, financial stress and family catastrophe just because it crosses some kind of political definition that makes you uncomfortable, or becuase you decide that health care is something you earn, protect and horde, instead of share and guarantee.
You are probably a really good and decent guy, and I would totally shut up if we were arguing about something trivial, but this just isn't. This is about deciding whether you want to live in a country where you have each others' backs or whether you take satisfaction by being less fucked than the other guy. -
Sep 21, 2009 10:08:54 PM CDT
Hillbillies and corporate tools against health care. Surprise?
by felwithe
The sad thing is, the hillbillies don't even understand that they're being used as tools by the health care industry.
They're basically dogs. Feed them anything and they go into a frenzy.
If they could understand how stupid they were and see the big picture, half of them would kill themselves out of embarrassment. -
It's against this healthcare plan. As drawn up it doesn't add up to Obama's numbers according to the General Accounting Office (I think that's what it's called.) People keep stating that this isn't a political thing, but it is on both sides. For the dems it's a "we have to pass something" initiative, no matter how poorly thought out it is. For the reps it's a "we have to kill it", no matter if it's good or not. I think this plan sucks. I don't have a better alternative, but it's not my job to come up with one. If you could give us an alternative that wouldn't cost so ungodly much, or something that could be phased in, or hell, even something that was more clear as far as exact policy I would be more open to it. The bailouts have proved that the gov't is all about getting the money flowing and figuring out the specifics later. Sorry, that's not good enough when I'm going to be taking a huge tax hit.
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Depends on where you live, won't you agree?
Here in NYC, no, $250K ain't rich but it's comfortable. You can make do if you're frugal.
In Arizona, you can buy 2 houses all cash in say, 2 years. If you save your pennies. Second house would be used as a rental to generate a fucking nice return on the investment. So yeah that would be a rich person. -
I am an American college student. I cut my thumb about a year ago and went to the ER and used my Ohio State student health insurance when they asked. A week or two later I get a message from OSU's insurance saying that they won't cover my ER visit (at OSU Hospital). The amount was around $3,000 for stitches and whatever. They said they wouldn't cover it because when asked how it happened at the doctor's I had said I cut it at my sister's trying to pull apart two glasses (doing dishes, one shattered in my hand). They wanted my sister's home owner's insurance to cover it. She's married and has a kid, but they don't make a lot of money, and would have to pay a $1,000 deductible for it. I was almost sick in my stomach reading that letter (which luckily I didn't go get my stomach treated because they wouldn't cover that either I bet). I eventually lied to the hospital and told them I had no insurance, that I thought I had OSU insurance but didn't, and they made me fill out some paperwork and because I didn't make enough I qualified for 100% assistance. I simply cut my thumb and they would have nearly ruined shit for me and my sister. I really wanna ask people in America why they are fighting any kind of health care change in this stupid country, because it cannot be worse. This isn't a "If it's not broke don't fix it" scenario. It's a "You're fucked" scenario for anyone middle class or lower. I'd gladly pay taxes to know that if something happens I won't be brushed aside as I won't add to someone's profit margin.
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"Having someone else's back" implies that you're a willing participant. When it comes to forcibly taking wealth from others to pay for something someone else claims to need, that's not having anyone's back. Where I'm from that's called robbery. I don't take any satisfaction out of being less "fucked" than the other guy. I am concerned with the welfare of my family, first and foremost. When my government takes half of my gross pay to finance the "needs" of others, those are wages I could have used to secure my childrens' futures. Instead it goes to people I do not know, to organizations I do not agree with, and to politicians that take their cut before redistributing my earnings away from me and my children. No matter what you call it, it is still robbery as I have no say on where it is spent or whether it is taken from me at all.
Felwithe, funny that you use a crass, uneducated statement to describe a supposedly crass and uneducated people. -
I don't know what part of Arizona you're talking about, but I know the housing market (for sellers) sucks there now. My parents 600K house sold for 425K this year. This was not a big house, probably 1700-1800 SF. This was the Cave Creek area. NYC is a COMPLETELY different animal, because you pay to live there. If you made 250K a year, figure you probably have a take home after taxes of about 170K (it would actually be less). Take out 30 for 401K, leaves you with 140. Take out 2K a month for rent, food, car, utilities, etc, you're "down" to 116. Keep in mind this is for an individual, not a family which would greatly increase expenses. This also doesn't include for insurance of any kind. There's no way in hell you could buy two houses worth a damn for 230K (assuming you could save every other penny and not do anything else during that time frame). For an individual this would definitely be doing well, but far from rich, and def. not able to buy two houses in cash after two years.
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at the Tea Party insurrection rally: http://bit.ly/rzJ4V
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MJDeViant,
You are in college. You are young and naive still. You probably own an HDTV, a PS3/X-box360/Wii and have thousands worth in computer systems and video games not to mention all the other technology you have. And you have a car as well since you drove to your sisters.. My point for mentioning all this is for about the price of one video game, you can buy insurance that would be able to cover you for any health issue and have a small deductable. You say the middle class is screwed however its the middle class and over 85% of them that are happy with their health insurance. Health care even in the UK is not free...You pay for it in every aspect of society. What will happen is America's great quality of health care will turn into sub-standard care and long waits. Rationed care for the elderly will have to occur unless the Government cuts quality even further. Obama's propaganda campaign has indoctrinated you and that is a shame. Next thing you know the Government will be in control of every aspect of your life and I guess you'll be OK with that.. -
My child needs another toy and i need an ipod. We are all in this together. You are already paying for the uninsured. That's one of the reasons why rates are skyrocketing. Its time the system worked better for all.
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You know why the hospital charged you $3,000 for a simple cut thumb? That good old cost-shifting again. They were forced to treat you despite your inability to pay, therefore they are forced to raise prices in the hope that someone with cash or insurance will pay it and make up for it. You can also blame insurance regulations that prevent you from buying cheap insurance that would have paid for unforeseen accidents like that. Right now your choices are either a) expensive insurance that you can't afford, that covers more than you need; b) pay cash, which is not likely given the cost-shifting measures employed; or c) go without and stick the hospital with the bill as you did. All can be traced back to...guess what? Government messing around in a market that didn't need messing with. You may be okay with paying even more in taxes...those of us already seeing half our paychecks disappear every two weeks while trying to pay bills and raise kids, well we tend to have a different viewpoint.
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I'm sure Letterman will take Obama to task, asking the hard questions and pressing him for answers! Obama is very brave for subjecting himself to such harsh criticism.
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Did you catch that MJDeViant had student health insurance - which I will assume he pays as part of tuition - but that they reneged on the coverage? I mean, you might wanna knock him for being a poor college student but in this case he had fucking insurance man.
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For the cost of a video game a month, you can have health insurance at your age and in college. Just get a part time job and you would easily be able to afford it. A lot of college students don't buy health insurance and most will not need it. Obama's plan will be forcing you to buy health insurance though if you did not know...So might as well start saving up..
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I understand the rationale of stating, "which is more important, someone buying an ipod or someone else getting health insurance, but here's the question: Are you saying that those without health insurance are going without said ipod or new toys for the kids (as you put it)? A lot of times on the news when they are talking to people who are uninsured they show them in their houses. I personally get kind of pissed when I see someone that "can't afford" health insurance that has a TV that dwarfs mine, with a shiny PS3 and games sitting underneath it. It is about priorities, but it should be about everybody's priorities, not just those who make more money.
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MJDeviant - I read that you had insurance, but like all insurers they screwed you.
I'm also sure that they didn't offer to refund any of the premium money they received from you even though they reneged on their part of the deal.
Maybe someday when Supermans and MightyMonarch get care denied for themselves or their family they won't be acting so smug and stupid. -
MJDeViant's college provided insurance is an example of the "public" health care option.. Under Obama's health care, there will be a panel that decides what type of treatment to give you and you will not be able to choose the Dr. you want. For my back surgery, I got to choose the best Dr. after visiting and getting opinions from 4 of them.. under Obama care, I would be lucky to see 1..
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Which I thought might help me out since I pay them $450 a quarter and am usually never ill or hurt. My bad for thinking they'd step in and cover me for what I am paying for. Simple stitches, a shot of a numbing agent, and a towel for me to bleed on should not cost $3,000. There is no way that costs that much. A $1,000 including the labor of the nurse, maybe. $3,000? Fuck off. They did what someone from the early 1900's could have done and charged me a used car for it. There's no way it cost that much. I'm not asking doctors or insurance companies to do things out of the kindness of their heart, I'm asking them to not punch me in the back of the head while they rape me and grab the wallet out of my pocket.
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I refuse to post with anyone who can't fucking read. Not to mention you're clearly an idiot on everything else.
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Two suggestions: 1. Talk to the billing department of the hospital. They almost always will let you pay part of your bill and let the rest of it go. 2. Call Fox 28 or one of the local stations and get them involved. It's topical, juicy, and if they get involved you will end up not paying a dime. Just stay away from Gabe Speigel, he's a douche bag.
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... [insurance ] reform, please consider this: There are literally millions of americans who hate their jobs and would like nothing better than to start their own entrepreneurial businesses, but stick with what they've got, because of employer based healthcare insurance? Does not every "free market capitalism" pundit wax poetic over the virtues of the 'entrepreneurial U.S. economy'? Can you not see, if you allow your rational mind to hold sway, that universal healthcare would be a fantastic boon to our society from this one perspective at the very least?
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Speigel comes off as an American Psycho type. I already dealt with it the best I could at the time, and that was oddly enough it was to tell them I had no insurance. Also, not only was I a student at OSU but a student employee at OSU. AND I went to OSU hospital AND I had OSU health insurance. If they can't get that right, over a cut thumb, just imagine what is going on elsewhere.
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Fuckin' A.
You paid $1,800 a year for crap insurance and that's part of the core of our problems. It's not insurance when they don't cover you, it's a goddamn scam.
Your post does the proverbial nail/head thing on the issue of reform. -
all of us foreigners have bankrupt health care systems, and we dont like getting it for free anyway, we wish we could pay a fortune and not be covered when we need it...You lucky lucky americans with your far superior health care!!!
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so many grammar errors......making OSU proud no doubt
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MJDeViant,
$450 is your tuition or the tacked on insurance on top of your tuition? There is no need to tell me to Fuck off here, you don't know me and I don't personally know you. You could be a 50 year old pretending to be a kid to make a case. In this case I believe your story. Honestly you can get excellent insurance for a lot less than you think, I bet you haven't even tried and been quoted.. Before you bash the health care system, at least try to get yourself insurance. Furthermore, if you read Obama's healthcare initiative, you will be forced to pay for health care so you might want to think about that if you think it will be free.. -
No need to resort to calling me or anyone else an idiot when you can't win an argument of ideas..
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i didn't tell you to fuck off. I said it in a general fuck off, like no way am I paying that. $450 is the tacked on price for the insurance.
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No contest your honor!
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Never really saw him as a Patrick Bateman type, just always thought he came across as oh so smug. Regarding health care reform, as I stated earlier just because you oppose this plan it doesn't mean that you are against ANY plan or reform. The problem is if you replace one bad system with another bad system, it will take even longer for a good system to be implemented. I did enjoy the tactic of leveraging someone's love of capitalism to get them to support a socialist (not by definition, but by accepted terminology) policy. Then you lost me with the smugness (whoever made the statement).
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More from Max Blumenthal's book, Republican Gomorrah:
"This was a portrait of the Republican Party fully in the grip of its right wing: almost exclusively white, overwhelmingly evangelical, fixated on abortion, homosexuality, and abstinence education; resentful and angry; and unable to discuss how and why it had become this way. Noticeably absent from the convention were moderate Republicans. Senator Lincoln Chafee, legatee of the moderate Republican tradition in Rhode Island, was defeated in the 2006 midterms, and he was endorsing Obama. The last Republican House member from New England, Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut, would lose his seat in two months. None of the great Republican families of the past, from the Rockefellers to the Eisenhowers, were there either. Both of Ronald Reagan’s natural children, Ron and Patti, endorsed Obama. President Dwight Eisenhower’s granddaughter, Susan, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Denver just moments before Barack Obama appeared to accept his party’s nomination. How did a party once known for its “big tent” philosophy become a one-ring circus? How did a Republican Party that had dominated American politics for over twenty-five years become so marginalized?"
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Let me get this straight... You have a great idea for a business but you feel it won't make enough money to get insurance...? I am an entrepreneur and I hear all the time from losers who think it would be great to "do what I do." Like it's an ad in the paper that you answer or winning the lottery. There are tons of sucks that work at 9-5 jobs because they are sucks and that is how they get by. When you have an idea that will make you money, you will not be working a 9-5 job. Otherwise, what you have is a day dream and you need to get back to work.
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For $450 a quarter, at your age, they shouldn't have denied you over what they did. Yes, no system is perfect and in this case the system failed. However does that mean this is the norm? Does that mean the whole system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt? In my opinion no.. I do want to see these types of issues tackled and I want our health care system reformed.. However reform for me does not mean Government run health care for me.. THe Government is part of the all the problems health care already has by regulations and so forth. Get rid of frivelous law suits and healh costs will go down.. Covering their own asses is the reason you got all those tests for your cut finger..
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Sep 21, 2009 11:20:04 PM CDT
I THINK I'LL START A NEW COMPANY SELLING HEALTH INSURANCE
by bringingsexyback
I'll collect a shitload in premiums and just pay for the occasional small claim.
I'll be fucking rich and the best part of it is the wingnuts will fight tooth and nail for my right to fuck everyone up their financial ass.
I'll just throw them the red herring marked Socialism and I've got my personal brown shirt corps, free of charge. Sounds like a business plan!! -
Never heard of it.
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I'll buy. Your plan sounds better then OSU's already, because you have "Sexy" in your name.
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You sound like good people.
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"Doctor said I need a back-iotomy"
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Free of charge.
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They say their christians but how do they justify that jesus’ main point was to help the sick, poor, folks who need help, etc. But they listen to a few “entertainers” who don’t care bout our country getting better. They want to muddy the issue and keep it as is.
I’ve said it again and again: I’ll never understand how people that aren’t rich don’t vote donkey. Over the last 100 yrs the democrats have had the working men and women needs more so than the elephants. They have fought more for Joe the plumbers when the elephants fight to keep the country club folk in the country club. It all boils down to a pocket book issue to me. But that’s just me. All the rest is window dressing and slide-show to muddy the debate.
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so when I show up to see a movie if I get fed up (shit, I think Karl Pilkington lingo is fusing with my library...I swear I'm amreican) they will reimburse me. An insurance that is worth it. I'd add $3 to a movie ticket for insurance, which in C-Bus is around $9 at the AMC theaters (cheaper elsewhere), and they could keep the $3 if I bailed at less then 50% of the film and I'd get my $9 back. So I'd spend $12 on movies I'm iffy about but maybe get $9 back if I can't stand it. Come on people, make it happen.
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by all the spelling errors. But then, that wise-crack just made me seem un-American........
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Cut into the Defense budget. They get more than half the total budget. We don't need to waste this much money. We need to end our wars, bring all our troops home, and work towards making this country a much better place. Alas, I fear I will leave it, if it continues the way that it's going. Especially if another Republican gets in the White House. And if Sarah Palin gets voted into anything... Well, I'll be gone as soon as I can. And yeah, I know a lot of people talked about how they would leave if Dubya got in, but never did it. Well, I did. I was out of the country 2004 - 2009...
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...I freelance and to buy my own private policy would cost about three times as much as people getting coverage though their employer...and more than my mortgage. Right wingers go on and on about freedom and liberty and independence...we would be so much more free to be independent and entrepreneurial if we weren't held hostage by a shitty work benefits package and predatory insurance companies...
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...as opposed to getting it though a corporate employer costs you about three times as much because the corporate employer gets massive tax breaks under the current system.As a self proclaimed entrepreneur you're cool with that? Doesn't piss you off at all?
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Always go down smooth. Delicious! Give Herc a politics column if you want a traffic spike. The vitriol will keep Knowles in twinkies and viagra for years.
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Ol' Green Eyes is gonna miss ya.
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Really? The Dems have been the force for the downtrodden for a century, eh? I'm not going to go to the trouble of enumerating the reasons why that is false. Its brazenly untrue on its face, and so does not deserve my time. However, just so you know, I vote "elephant", and I'm all but broke. Also, I really DON'T care about the less fortunate, the more fortunate, or pretty much anyone besides myself. So yeah, I guess that will fit in nicely with your perception of GOP voters. Cheers!
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Sep 22, 2009 12:01:54 AM CDT
Quin: Annual migration into France: 93k, USA: 2 million
by darth_inedible
Atomic retard beatdown on poor Quin. But I'll agree that France has a shamefully huge number of unassimilated immigrants and children of immigrants who arrived during the mass migrations of the '60s and '70s. So they're struggling with these people while evil racist America's immigrants are getting MBA's within the second generation. I'd love to see how well the struggling French healthcare system would do if they started pouring millions of Algerians into the country again.
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I'm also a multi-racial atheist. Crazy!
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Who was talking annual?
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Sep 22, 2009 12:32:15 AM CDT
Health insurance reform = give it to the gov't, prob solved?
by darth_inedible
That's right Moaters opposition to the government nationalizing 1/6th of the economy is "opposition to healthcare [insurance ] reform"... This from the side that admits(Howard Dean) they're too cowardly to even make a -peep- about tort reform... But hey let's turn every doctor's office into a mini-DMV waiting room what could possibly go wrong?
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Herc, I am here to tell you as an American who lives in Germany and has done so for the past 10 years - THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I would EVER give up my socialized medicine. They are no waiting lines. The service is MUCH better. I have many, many personal examples but in the end it all comes down to cost. I pay $350 a month for full coverage in Germany. If I leave Germany and say I go to the US, I have no coverage unless I buy travel insurance. Now say I get ill while in the US and have to go to the hospital. My hospital visit costs the average $2 - $3k after deductable if you have normal US insurance. I pay $0. Not a penny. No matter how high my bill is, I pay nadda. Now, you say how much do I pay for such incredible coverage that allows me to get better service than 99.99% of all insured Americans in America? $12 a year. No, that is no typo. $12 year. These are indisputable facts. If America cares so much about its people then why can a foreigner get better service in America than Americans? Because our health care system is not for profit, it is for health.
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America has every other nation on earth beat in terms of percentage of illegal, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc generation immigrants as total population. France has 60 million "immigrants" America has 300 million. Anyway congratulations on indirectly agreeing with my point.
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Sep 22, 2009 12:41:31 AM CDT
mr. president, you are not a entertainer
by supercowbell5thecowbellhasspoken
please stop appearing on major televised sporting events and talk shows all the time. please do your job. this is getting real old.
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"I live in Oakville, Ontario, to the west of Toronto. "I just saw the waiting room clip on aicn and the talk about 20-45 minute wait times at a hospital is a joke. I sincerely doubt there is anywhere in Canada with that short a wait time. Typically, 3-4 hours would be more like it, unless it is serious, since all ER nurses are trained in triage to determine who is seen first. "Other than that, our health care system can't be beat. There are always stories about someone who thinks they should have better care, or think they need a CT-scan or MRI faster than they can be scheduled for one, and have the money to go to Buffalo. But those stories are not common, IMHO. "Last September my wife fell down a short flight of stairs at night and hit her head badly. I called 911 and within 5-8 minutes the ambulance arrived. Ten minutes later she was at ER. When she complained of dizziness, she had X-rays and a CT-scan all within 40 minutes of arrival. And since it was night, they e-mailed the results to a specialist who checked out the images from home. They kept her in for several days as she was still dizzy, but no concussion. "The total bill was $15 for the cost of the ambulance ride to the hospital." $15!! You hear all those Canadians cheering their health-care system on Letterman tonight? There's your reason!
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In fact, he has busted his butt to right a sinking economy, pull our troops out of Iraq and bring health care to all Americans. He is without question the most ambitious president of recent memory.
So what if he goes on the occasional talk show, unfortunately not all Americans watch Meet the Press or other hard news shows.
You want to talk about a president not working hard enough, then complain about Crawford, Texas' favorite son, George W. Bush. That man was on perpetual vacation. While kids he sent into an unnecessary were dying in combat, he was having leisure time back on the ranch. -
Sep 22, 2009 1:33:07 AM CDT
Dude George bush sucked don't pull that shit on me
by supercowbell5thecowbellhasspoken
Just because I question Obama loving to appear on tv and call celeberties jackasses but not a guy who calls him a liar doesn't mean I supported one of the worst human beings who ever lived. Damn you!!
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That was what ticked me off as a Canuck in Sicko how he said, "Oooh, look! No waiting here" which I thought was lame. We wait. And wait. And it sucks. But it's not as if you're going to the emergency room with a steering wheel stuck in your chest and then they'll make you wait, you're gotta get that bad boy pulled out ASAP. And not paying for seeing a doctor is great. I think paying for medication sucks, but my job covers the costs of meds (after awhile, but I got it now). I can't believe people are actually ANGRY about having universal health care in the states. your system is BROKEN. People should not DIE because they cannot AFFORD IT. That, truly, is what is immoral. If you think that's in the morally right to pay for health care when you're sick and you need help, it's a pretty disgusting way to treat your fellow human beings.
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Didn't we conquer them seven decades ago?
I keep hearing this same awful story: that people in all these other nations don't fear losing their shirts if they get sick.
What I'm not hearing is why it's not a good idea to adopt these obviously vastly superior models. You point to a few extra hours of wait time for non-emergency procedures when my grandma's meager savings are at stake? Fuck. You.
"Man, you want the government -- the government that created the Interstate system and puts out house fires and captured Saddam Hussein -- you want that government to create a health care system as shitty as what Germany and Italy and Britain and Canada and France have?"
Yeah, baby. I'm thinking that's EXACTLY what I want. The goverment is supposed to work for the voters, not for Cigna's or Kaiser Permanente's or the AMA's army of lobbyists. Hop to, I say. I'm sick of Americans needlessly living in fear.
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"You point to a few extra hours of wait time for non-emergency procedures when my grandma's meager savings are at stake? Fuck. You."
Never thought I'd ever hear myself say this but... Herc FTW! -
I'm an American living in Norway and enjoy the health care system here, as practiced by all Scandinavian countries. Most American's (my family in Oregon included) have absolutely no idea what they're talking about when they complain about it and try to spread fear and scary scenarios. It works very well, though certainly not without faults. I could share some horror stories that happened to my wife and I while living in Las Vegas. Suffice to say most Americans know nothing about it and are only spewing out bullshit to try to scare people because they are afraid of change. That's it.
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If you ever question Obama's methods or policies, you prove yourself to be an unreasonable "Bushie". How long will it be okay to divert criticism by saying "Bush was worse"? Just wondering (though I assume the answer is "forever").
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Amen brother. Same rules apply here.
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I'm hearing a lot of "I'm looking out for my self and my family" when you don't want to pay higher taxes for healthcare but if your care is covered, wouldn't that free you up to care about those less fortunate from yourselves? Can't you look at it like a cyclic donation? I mean, I'm grasping here but you guys really need to do something about this.
As it stands, to outsiders it looks like you care more about your roads than the people who use them. -
First off, it is the law that every single person has health insurance. If you are unemployed, the government pays it for you. The difference here is that the government doesn't own the insurance companies but sets regulations on how they operate. There is no such thing as pre-existing condition. There are a few dozen different companies to choose from for the public option. If you are employed and make less than around $50k a year at today's exchange rate then you must choose one of these companies. They all charge 14.9% of your salary. If you make more than $50k, you can choose "private" insurance which has a few more bells and whistles but in the end is about the same. It is mostly so there is an upper cap on what one person pays into the system. FYI, my taxes aren't any higher here than when I lived in Atlanta. Obviously, no system is perfect. However, personally not ever had a single problem with this system. I had a form of ecoli a few years ago which I got in the tropics and brought home with me. The y wanted to hospitalize me but I convinced my doctor to let me stay at home provided I was under daily supervision and checks with her and the German CDC. Easter Monday is a holiday here (don't get me started on holidays and vacations as we get 30 days a year paid vacation here and anywhere from 16 - 25 paid holidays). Anyway, on that Easter Tuesday - the first day the doctor was open after being closed for 4 days, I called with an eye infection. They said come right away. I waited for 7 minutes. I times it. Fast forward 1 week later and I am visiting my mom in NJ. My eye isn't getting any better and I need something stronger so I have her call an eye doctor. The guy calls back and says, "I am under no legal obligation to help you as you are not my patient." WTF? No legal obligation. This is what is wrong with the American system.
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I said your criticism of Obama was unfounded and if you want to be angry at a president for not doing his job, aim your complaints at Bush. How does that amount to me saying you're a Bush supporter?
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I forget how gifted that dude is in political skill.
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I forget how gifted that dude is in political skill.
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Time and again you'll hear it reported that the US is seriously lagging the rest of the industrialized world in both healthcare and education. And while the media starts bouncing the ball around on what "new solutions" and "new approaches" are needed, they never seem to ask the simplest question: WTF ARE THE COUNTRIES BEATING US DOING?!
How is the world's economic leader unable to keep its citizens healthy or educated, when it has so much more wealth at its disposal? And why do I have to listen to some libertarian jag-off theorize wildly about how to solve both when we should be cribbing off of our global rivals? -
It was about time Barack paid Dave back for all the campaigning Letterman did for him. Wouldn't it be cool if Obama balanced this visit out with an appearance on a conservative talk show?
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I make a respectable living, but if I had to pay an extra $250 or $500 a month for health care...I don't want to think what that would do to my lifestyle. That's a HELL of a lot of DVDs, movie tickets, groceries, etc.
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You bring up a very valid point. University is free here in Germany as it is in most of Europe. Why is it so hard to replicate and improve upon the European (or any other working system for that matter) in the US? The US pays more per person for health care than anywhere else in the world.
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(or the alternative of heavily regulating insurance companies so that they are run like utilities were 40 years ago) you are ignorant, stupid or brainwashed. We need a single-payer system or government price controls and subsidies.
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ur so lame i bet before sunrise and waking life are ur favorite movies
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Seriously. You want to talk about reducing costs to help pay for this? Stop forcing doctors to pay 20% of their salary on malpractice insurance and forcing them to do every test under the sun in an effort to keep a society that is obsessed with lawsuits from filing $20 million dollar "pain and suffering" suits for the tiniest thing. I know that the democrats are in bed with the trial lawyers, but this is just common sense. Until there is some real reform on stupid and unnecessary punitive damage amounts in these lawsuits being put up constantly, there isn't going to be any reform possible.
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...can be boiled down to one simple sentence.
As an American who has lived on both sides of the Atlantic for extended periods of time (currently residing in Sweden), I have seen up close how both the American and several European systems work -- not only when it comes to healthcare, but many other things as well. While no system is perfect, and indeed there are things better in some countries than in others, it's only in America and among American conservatives that I've heard this particular sentence when explaining why a certain aspect of everyday society is superior in another country: "Well, if it's so great over there how come we ain't got it here in America?"
It's this ignorant, default fallback response to anything which shines a light upon flaws in American society which is hampering true progress. In some areas America is much more advanced than other nations, but you never hear that response when explaining that to non-Americans. They may weigh pros and cons in the issue but they most often end up replying: "Yep, that's a good idea, I wish we could do that here."
In a way I'm glad things have become so polarized in America at the moment because it's laying bare the true driving force behind American conservatism these days. They've been recently described as dogmatic, "inverted Marxists" which is a perfect image, the irony of which is waaaaaay above most of their heads. -
Come on Herc. You and Harry really have to open a political site and leave this one for the real "cool" news.
Nothing is free by the way. Have you seen what other taxes would go sky high if this thing is passed?
Keith Jones is a retired Hockey player who maintains a residence in Canada and he mentioned on the radio that he is taxed almost 50% of his income due to their system. Is that what we want here? -
Fuck the chicken AND eat it?!?!
Win win! -
That's another make or break issue for me.
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1) While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor
and make clockwise circles
2) Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air
with your right hand.
3) If your foot changes direction, you could definitely benefit from Obamacare. If not, you're smart and can do without it.
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Sep 22, 2009 7:44:25 AM CDT
Quin, I'm All For Embracing the Log Cabin Republicans
by kevinwillis.net
If they can get along with the Religious Right. I suppose it makes for odd bed fellows. I love them both.While I don't think McCain would have been better than Bush generally (McCain being, as I have noted, a little too squishy for me), I expected we would have avoided a pre-emptive war in Iraq, which I think would have been a positive.Frankly, you know what I miss? The 90s. Contract With America, Freshman Republicans, Democrat president. While I thought the whole impeachment/Lewinsky gate was idiotic, and insane, and made me unhappy with the Republicans more than almost anything else they have done, overall the 90s were a good time. NAFTA. Welfare reform. Competition between the branches. No carte blanche for any single ideology. I think, on the whole, it worked out well.
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They're hilarious, and almost as bad as the neo-cons themselves.
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I mean, since it's so terrible in Canada ...
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"My Dad's Better Than You're Dad!"
"No, he isn't. The radio said he smokes crack and lives in a box and everybody died because he doesn't do his job.""Yeah, well I read on all the blogs that you're dad is fat and greedy and can't move and killed your grandma, that's what I heard!"Not better, people. Herc. I'm looking at you. "Different". -
Are interesting but of little value. Stats tell a bigger story. Portion of GDB, GPs and specialists per capita, availability of drugs, equipment and procedures, overall cost per capita . . . I'm extremely conservative (loved Palin, at least before she bailed on her job as governor), but the fact is we already have most of the problems of public healthcare (due to layers of insurance and bureaucracy between patient and caregiver) without the benefits. While I expect our implementation of public healthcare will be uniquely American, and thus unrecognizably idiotic to Canadians and the British, I don't expect it's going to be more than 10% worse than what we have now, and may, in fact, be better. I still wouldn't vote for it (I want tort reform, medical savings accounts, etc).
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The Religious Right? Not as much.
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Sep 22, 2009 7:56:42 AM CDT
WHEN AMERICANS ARE DETERMINED, WE CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING
by bringingsexyback
But where was the concern from the Right about deficit spending when Dick Cheney was saying "deficits don't matter"?
At least be honest (not directing at you Kevin), the Right just doesn't want anything good out of Obama. If Bush or Palin was pushing for healthcare reform (chuckle) the tea baggers would be marching for it. -
Kirk Cameron, best known for his role in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, now spends much of his time advocating for far-right Christian evangelical causes.
In a video posted recently to YouTube, Cameron lays out a plan to subvert 'Darwin Day' on November 22, 2009 -- a date marking the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species." Cameron says that he and like-minded activists plan to deliver 50,000 copies of an altered version of Darwin's book to students at dozens of U.S. universities.
Cameron explains that this "very special" edition of the "Origin of Species" will include an introduction explaining "Adolf Hitler's undeniable connection" to the theory of evolution, and highlighting "Darwin's racism" and "his disdain for women." Cameron's edition also exposes the "many hoaxes" of evolutionary theory, while presenting a "balanced view of Creationism."
You can watch Cameron's full video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN9zpf5cT0M&feature=player_embedded
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Compared to the soul crushing, market-collapsing, economy-crushing and artificial war starting Bush era. For the first time since the 90's I have hope that the Government is doing something for we the people, and not just for drug companies and defense contractors.
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...is that Republicans can't use their favorite boogeyman, money, to frighten people.
Republican: "It's gonna COST MORE OF YOUR MONEY to make it happen!!!
Everyone else: "Yes, we know. We're ready to pay for it."
Republican: "Err... TEA PARTY! OBAMA IS HITLER!" -
You were feeling dizzy and had an inner ear infection. Thanks to all those Government imposed regulations and frivolous law suits, every private hospital has to test the hell out of you.. A dizzy head could be anything from an aneurysm to a simple migraine. Be glad you only had an inner ear infection and be glad they did perform all those tests which could have come up with a more serious diagnosis. In a Universal healthcare system, you wouldnot have gotten an MRI and a catscan within 6 hours in any ER.. Think about that when you are wishing you had less done to you...
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I'm Irish, we have a healthcare system funded by the taxpayer that works pretty well, sure if folk want to buy further private health insurance, go ahead, but if you are unable to afford it, you can access all the health care you need simply by asking for it.
There may be a waiting list, sure, but for most cases you will be treated, and treated well.
For gods sake, what on earth can the american people have such a problem with?
Doesn't everyone have a right to a healthy life?
Having a sense of social responsibility seems to be tantamount to being a "card carrying commie" in your parlance. -
Why on earth are these people given any time at all in the press?
I mean, I'm all for free speech and believe that even these right wing nuts are entitled to their views being heard, are being used to present the alternate case in every debate, despite there being a spectrum of opinion.
Why do folk default to extremeists?
Is it to scare the middle ground into saying "no", to keep the status quo, to remain "conservative"?
This, of course stifles change and keeps those who make money from peoples illness in the profits they are accustomed to.
And how immoral is that?
Making money from other peoples misery?
Or is that "The American Way"?
Thank the gods I'm Irish in that case. -
How about minding your own business, eh? We in the USA are so thrilled you like your Health Care. I like mine as well. I have never had one single issue with any health care I have ever needed in my life.
To even HINT that "we don't care about our people" is a load of disingenuous bullshit and you all can stick it.
As stated ad nauseum, this is about waste and health INSURANCE issues, not actual HEALTH CARE. Lawsuits and doctors having to CYA is the number one issue. That is what needs to change. But it won't.
Our bullshit detectors are going off so loudly and regularly we need to change the batteries daily. As our new government continues to divert REAL questions and challenges, you (the rest of the world) and those who have their Obamaglasses on, refuse to see the situation as it is and how this "Health Care Reform" (is that what it's being called today?) is about anything but. -
Does that mean that you either have no opinions about the rest of the world or are simply trying to be "polite" by never ever mentioning them?
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...everyone knows this is about insurance issues and not the quality of health care as such.
Straw man FAIL. -
It means that I don't tell you what kind of Health Care you should have, so I'm truly not interested in what kind of health care you (the rest of the world) thinks I should have. This talkback is sprinkled with disparaging remarks about the American people and "how can you have ANY issues with wanting to take care of people" comments and frankly its just flat out wrong.
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Please, what nonsense and the worst use of "FAIL" and "Straw Man" - all in one post. (nice job) Clearly NOT everybody knows what this subject is about, based on many responses in this talkback alone.
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Most conservatives I've discussed this with in the States couldn't give two shits about other people. The only thing they care about is how much other people are going to cost them.
It's rather sad and amusing that so many people on that side of the political spectrum choose to diss Darwin when it suits them yet call upon "survival of the fittest" when they find it useful. -
...the rest of the world is perfectly free to tell us what kind of health care (I thought it was insurance?) we ought to have, and you're perfectly free to ignore their advice. Telling them to "mind their own business" is like telling Herc and the others to stop posting politics on their own site. It makes you look like a thin-skinned asshole and serves no purpose other than to get in the way of debating the issues on their merits rather than where the person is from who's discussing it.
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OMG. That's just as ripe as me saying "most foreigners I know", seeing how I know about 4.
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Is different that being told what to do.
What works for some, does not work for others. That's what America used to be about, today? Not so much. Tossing out insults such as "thin-skinned asshole" just makes one look like they have nothing more to add. -
Well, I know a hell of a lot more conservatives than you know non-Americans, apparently. My ex-wife's entire family and virtually all their acquiantances were die-hard Republicans -- and that's not even including people I worked with or met socially in other contexts.
So what was the point of that post, exactly, other than to give you the splendid opportunity to use the word "ripe"? -
...makes you LOOK LIKE a thin-skinned asshole. If that was your intention, fine. If not, perhaps a less faux-indignant approach would be more constructive?
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That is completely untrue. How scared are you, really?
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Where exactly is this "Rest of the World" I'm from? Globalization links each and every nation on the face of the Earth and we have as much right to comment on American domestic issues as Americans have the right to comment on world issues. Your government can institute unsolicited regime changes, your citizenry can condemn foreign cultures for traditions they don't find politcally palatable. We reserve the same right to speak our minds. And yeah, your health care DOES affect us, since it is intrinsically connected the your countrys social and economical development.
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Extend to the religious right. Not that that isn't understandable, but they tend to feel that the Religious Right is in charge of the Republican party, while many Republicans (myself included) feel that nobody is in charge. Not even remotely.
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While we certainly have done the unsolicited regime change, to what degree to Americans condemn foreign cultures for traditions they don't find politically palatable? To a greater degree than other cultures condemn America? Doesn't seem so from where I'm sitting.That being said, the more of the private sector gets controlled by the American government, the sadder our social and especially economic development is going to be. So you might want to become less intrinsically connected.That being said, of course you have a right to comment on what's going on in America. Anyone who says different is a tosser.
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It's true.
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With respect to education, we have convinced ourselves that everyone should go to college in the US. It is my understanding (and this could be outdated or wrong) that only about 25% of Germans got to University. Is that close to correct? It would be a lot easier to have state-funded education if we did not need to accomodate everyone's dreams for their children. However, I still believe we need a lot more government money in higher education. We also need to improve high school level education as it is also my understanding that most kids who finish the higher grades in the effort to go to University learn the equivalent of a sophomore in college in the US.
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Sep 22, 2009 9:40:11 AM CDT
Canadian seal hunt, Japanese whaling, South American forestry
by scumcock
to name a few. And saying that any one country somehow has the option of not being involved with another is glib. It's like telling the village blacksmith not to deal with the village woodcutter.
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About other people. They simply don't believe an expanded government and more folks on the dole and more government control of the private sector, and individual decision making, is the way to help other people.Of course, there are plenty of conservatives (and, interestingly enough, liberals) that I've met that are very "me first". Me first seems to be an attitude that bears no direct relationship to ideology. Or, at least that has been my experience.
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Yes, let's cap the liability of companies and professionals when they fuck up so we can encourage even more hazardous products and services.
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I don't know anybody that "couldn't give two shits about other people." The differences between the two are simple. One group thinks people should be given every opportunity and tool to help themselves, the other group thinks they should given everything when needed. Apparently the Conservatives you know are just jerks.
Yes, Globalization is here. Yay? Just because my government sticks it's nose in where it doesn't belong certainly doesn't mean I support it. Who's condemning what now? -
Oddly, I find myself in 100% agreement with Doc Pazuzu. Telling people they can't have an opinion because they don't live here, are the wrong skin color or gender, haven't done this or had that or been there or whatever else, is just bullshit.If someone has an idea or an opinion or an experience to share, it's better to ask questions than to tell 'em to shut up. Find out where that position comes from, instead of just saying, "Of course, you'd say that. You like the Steelers. We don't need to listen to people who support the sort of sports franchises you do."
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To get money they didn't earn and don't deserve. Drives up malpractice insurance and insurance rates and hospital costs and there isn't a shred of evidence that being about to sue for $500,000 provokes any better or more responsible behavior than being able to sue for $50,000,000.France has tort laws--and limits on punitive damages. Does Canada or the UK? I need to check that out.
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Question: what do you feel are the REAL questions and challenges you feel the U.S. government should be pursuing right now?
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I should say. Or current tort laws. Something like that would have been more accurate.
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Why do Americans cultivate such an animosity and distrust of government when they're so shit hot to crow about how awesome their government run military is and inflict their style of democracy on other nations? And if you can trust a government with the lives of soldiers in wartime, how is it you can't trust your government with lives in peacetime? And if elected government officials are accountable to the electorate, then why be afraid of having health care under their administration when private sectors are only accountable to board of directors?
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While I don't always agree with you, I always agree with the way you *say* things.
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You know a whole 4 foreigners? WOOO! I'm impressed. Maybe, just maybe for one little split second, you can get through to your pea brain that despite what you may wish or hope for, the US is not the center of the world. In fact, it doesn't even make up 1/20th's the world population. Why not try to stop looking like a dumb ignorant American and educate yourself about the world around you? Is that too much to ask or are you one of the 53% of Americans who can not find the UK on a map? Or maybe you fall into the 23% that can't even find the Pacific Ocean? Health care is the #1 reason for bankruptcies in America and this affects the world economy in a drastic way. Maybe your health care is fine. But have you ever been deathly ill fighting on the phone to get a test approved? Have you ever been stuck in a dead end good for nothing job because you had cancer not once but twice and no one will insure you but the one that you are stuck with at this crappy job? No you say? Well MILLIONS of people are in this situation and they are all red blooded Americans. You must not be American at all since you clearly don't care about the well being of your fellow Americans. I may not fall under the US system anymore (thank god for that) but I still care about the US, my friends and family there and the only chance they have is if reform happens now.
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Not "Shut up".
Big difference.
If I decided to paint my house Day Glow Green, and my neighbor came by and said, that's really awful why'd you do that, you should paint it brown. I'd tell him to mind his own business, I like Day Glow Green.
So that would make be a thin-skinned asshole, and closed to his opinion and experiences?
I said it before, I think it's GREAT that people have chimed in here, pleased with the health care they have received. Again AWESOME! I am pleased with mine too. Confident if the shoe was on the other foot and the USA was telling you all to change YOUR Health Care, we'd get quite a rude earful. -
Probably a combination of many things: fear of 'change'; fear of losing what one already has; and they do have examples of the gov't fucking things up, even with the "best of intentions" like cash for clunkers for instance. I am, btw, for a revamp of the current healthcare system. I'm more for a government financed system, and I believe that a tax should hit everyone, because really, that's the only way. You pay premiums through your company now, well now it will be another payroll deduction. Much like I would like to see with education as well. From day-care to college, it's quite fucking crazy how much dough you have to put out for your kids.
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Because America should never be criticized, correct?
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Way to jump to conclusions. When I say "4" I mean foreigners that I actually KNOW and are my friends. I "know" many more others. I just got back from Paris 2 weeks ago and fell in love with the city, and its people. I'm not even going to humor you on the rest of the nonsense you wrote.
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Is consumer debt. Don't know where you're getting your numbers, but it's cold hard plastic and an appetite for clothes, shoes, and flat screen TVs that is the #1 reason for bankruptcies. Then there's unsustainable mortgages. Then there's healthcare debt.
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Who said America should never be criticized? Unreal.
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Health Insurance is expensive, and it ain't magic money. Even if you don't see it, it's getting paid, and can easily run into the thousands per month for an employee that covers their family.As pricey as it is, I'm not sure I want the government paying for daycare.
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I don't know, somewhere stupid like Harvard Univeristy - http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html
They can't possibly know what they are talking about right? -
Here's one thing I found on it, data appears to be from 1999-2003, so at least it gives one an idea: Bankruptcy Profiles
* average age: 38;
* 44% of filers are couples;
* 30% are women filing alone;
* 26% are men filing alone;
* Two out of three have lost a job;
* Half have experienced a serious health problem;
* Highest bankruptcy rates: Tennessee, Utah, Georgia, Alabama.
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Maybe they have a political axe to grind. Maybe the study is just flawed. But healthcare debt is not the #1 reason for bankruptcies in this country. Not even close.
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PAris huh? OK, so you have stepped out of your comfort zone into another country. I give you credit for that. So what did you learn there since you liked it so much? France has THE best system in the world. This is an indisputable fact. Did anybody tell you about their quality of life? How about medical care or vacation time? Or did you simply visit the Eiffel Tower and be done with it? As somebody who has traveled abroad, I would expect that you should be open enough to take the better parts of other systems and make them American. Isn't that what the country was founded on? French food and fashion are some of the best in the world. Their healthcare IS the best so why not incorporate some of that into American society? Why is this such a bad idea?
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I'm also considering it to become more 'structured' and more of a learning center, if you will, than some of the day-cares out there. At the very least, when they are considered pre-school age.
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I thought it was because of the copious amounts of red wine drunk that led to a higher quality of life? :-)
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Look directly above your last post. Those facts speak for themselves? Where do you get your numbers from? Your gut? Not exactly scientific.
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Nah, that's why they have the best sex life of anybody on the planet.
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Not every American is the back-woods neanderthal you seem to think they are. Sorry you had what seems to be a very terrible time here. I did none of the "tourist" stuff and spent every single day and night experiencing nothing but the city and it's people.
And it's not the "idea", so far it's the "execution". -
From one American to another, I'd much rather hear an opinion about other health care systems from a foreigner with firsthand knowledge of their own system rather than the abstract rambling of another American "conservative" who's just talking out of his partisan ass. So take your "who asked you?" and cram it. -
This Fraser Institute says healthcare costs play a very small role in bankruptcies....
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/Commerce.Web/product_files/HealthInsuranceandBankruptcyRates.pdf -
The reason the US will never get a single-payer and/or universal health care system is because Americans, by and large, don't really give a shit about each other. They're too wrapped up in their abject terror that someone somewhere might get something they don't deserve. They're so wrapped up in this terror that they will allow tens of thousands to die without coverage or with shitty coverage that doesn't actually cover anything. The US is in a decline and it doesn't start with the economy - it starts with what Americans value. Americans don't value each other enough to, as another TB'er posted earlier, be honored to pay into a system that helps each other. It's not what the US is about so you'll never see it in the USA. It's too bad too - a country that can find billions to terrorize and destroy other countries should be able to pony up to pay for its citizens' health. But, again, it's not what the USA values. Funny, the rest of the world can see what the USA cannot - that Americans find meaning in war, not in life and health.
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Good Lord. Try reading things objectively once in a while.
I look forward to the day (LOL) when we here in the US stop seeing things as "left" and "right" because it's really REALLY not productive. -
Taxes for daycare and for college because kids are expensive? Take health care out of the discussion for a minute. I have kids and know how expensive those things are and the idea of having a tax to fund them is terrible. Why? Having kids (if you're a woman) is a choice. As quick as many of you have been to malign anyone who doesn't support THIS version of health care, I hope someone jumps on this suggestion, because this is socialism. It's bad enough that people have to pay property taxes that support schools if they don't have kids. You think others should help foot the bill so your kids can be in daycare and later college? Get off the crack pipe. There are some things you do have to pay for. Among them are daycare and college. If you don't like it, don't have kids. By the way, I don't support the health care changes as proposed. I think Obama's proposal sucks and will cost too much, but am open to a DISCUSSION about other options. That's the one thing nobody seems to understand is that not liking THIS plan doesn't mean that you think the poor should be condemned to death. The whole idea that you're a greedy retard if you don't 100% back Obama's plan and feel that others should suffer so you can have a new flatscreen is as stupid an opinion as any.
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INteresting link. I wonder why though they didn't compare the numbers to other countries than Canada like the UK or Germany? The reality is you can spin the numbers any way you like based on who does the research. However, I am more inclined to believe the data from Harvard than some think tank that may be on a payroll of someone.
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I believe it. I've known several people over the years who filed bankruptcy. A few of them have had serious health issues, some of which have interfered with their ability to earn an income--but the bankruptcy filing was due to their outrageous consumer debt and their inability to pay it back (plus the outrageous interest on that outrageous consumer debt), not because of their hospital bills. In once case, the majority of the healthcare problems were covered by insurance. In another, disability via social security. In both cases, debt having nothing to do with their doctor bills, but their extensive consumer spending and the effect of their health problems on their income, created the bankruptcy.Public healthcare will not insulate people from having to pay their debts, nor guarantee them ability to work anymore than private insurance does.
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I read your post. You're saying to foreigners, "Who asked you?" Herc asked them. I and others asked them. We're interested in hearing what they have to say about their systems and how we could adapt them to fix our system. You were whining about their input. Hence, "cram it." For a talkback, that's about as polite as it gets. -
On consumer debt, mortgages, and bankruptcy. If you remained convinced healthcare costs lead to the majority of bankruptcies in America, there's nothing I can say or cite that will change your mind.
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My time in America? Maybe you didn't read my earlier posts but I AM AMERICAN. My mother lives in NY, my father in CT. I come from an upper middle class background. I lived in Atlanta for 12 years and know all about red southern America first hand. The stats I quoted to you came from National Geographic. Americans as a majority are pretty well stupid about the rest of the world. Like I said, I appreciate the fact that you have left North America. That is more than most Americans will ever accomplish. I do agree with you that it is in the execution. However, how do you get anything executed when the system is controlled by the people you are trying to limit? You don't, Obama's plan is certainly not the best. Bill Maher called the new version "a blowjob for the insurance companies". The Republican Party is not offering suggestions to make this plan any better though as they see it as a chance to "bring down Obama". Not exactly in the best interest of America. I LOVE my socialized medicine and would gladly fight for it with my dying breath. It is far superior to anything I ever had for the 30 years I lived in America.
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My mother lives in NJ and that is where I grew up! I hate the Yankees and Mets! Go Phillies! Today I am a happy resident of Mainz, GErmany but still very much an American citizen and care about this issue as it effects the future of the country.
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Taxes for day-care/school so that everyone should have the opportunity to realize a full education. It is up to that child/person to fully maximize that experience. And I have thought about the whole town taxes due to the educational budget. And I think someone who does have kids should pay more than someone who does not. Putting the money where your mouth is, so to speak. And because your opinion differs from mine in this issue, I'm smoking a crack pipe? Um, yeah, okay.
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you are from the US but now you lived abroad. I guess that's what you get for "multi-tasking". :/
Ebonic - thanks for being polite. -
I hate the Phillies. Luckily, their pen will doom them in the playoffs. Go Mets! *pillow hangs head in utter shame*
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And Germany is my next trip...hopefully!!
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Their pen will doom them. No doubt about that. Why aren't you a Braves fan since you live in TN? I had season tickets for most of the 12 years I lived there. Saw some of the most amazing pitching possible. Too bad they are now owned by a soulless Time Warner / AOL. The Phillies chance of repeating are about as good as getting healthcare reform passed - between zero and zero.
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I do admit, it makes it tough to search for a job or make-do with a part time job when you've got kids. I've been through that struggle. No income, trying to find a gig, kids bouncing up and down for attention while you're trying to set up an appointment for an interview . . . maybe that wouldn't be so bad.
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As a majority. It's a fact. I enjoy the BBC Radio 4 Comedy podcast, and I'm impressed by how much American news and whatnot they end up discussing. You don't see much of what's up in Britain parodied on SNL. Of course, some American's try to stay up on what is happening in the rest of the world. I enjoy partaking of the events and cultures of other English speaking nations, because I can participate directly. I don't speak any other language, and, frankly, just kind of keeping up with the U.K. and Australia (and not in depth, I am sure) takes up what time I got. If I want to keep on top of tech news and what not. And, of course, what's going on in the world of entertainment. Very important.
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Have you fuckers seen this?!It's Nic Cage in a test shot for Burton's defunct Supes flick:
http://tiny.cc/h5Bpq -
I don't know how the idea of those with kids would pay more would work, but it is an idea. As far as the smoking crack, that was probably a little harsh, but less so than accusations (not necessarily from you) of those who don't support health care reform in its proposed form are: inbred, stupid, selfish, uneducated, etc. IMHO daycare and college should never receive dime one of tax money. Not to take away from the love I have for my kids, but they are a financial burden. It is a burden I chose to take on. Much like it is not up to you or anyone else to tell me how to raise my kids, it is nobody else's responsibility to pay for it either. Whereas daycare might be a necessity for some, college is not for anyone. If you can't afford college it is very likely you are eligible for grants or scholarships, or the possibility of ROTC. There are consequences to choices people make, but just saying that taxes should pay for this makes these choices consequence free. Is a large student loan worth going to college? If so, do it. If not, then don't go. I think both daycare and college are more expensive than they should be, but using either of these is my choice, and should not be the burden of the public at large.
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That... is frightening. Now I feel like we missed something special. Imagine that guy fighting polar bears and a giant spider!
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A perpetually doomed Met and Jet (please Sanchez, keep giving us hope!) fan.
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Looks like fucking Tommy Wiseau!
"Lex, you're TEARING ME APAAAAART!" -
Here's where I disagree: I think a student loan standing in the way of someone attaining a college degree is ridiculous. It's not the fault of that kid that his parent's cannot afford college. And the education of the country benefits it as a whole. I think a greater burden is put on the country when there are uneducated people who do not contribute to their fullest because they were never given the opportunity. If they fuck up that opportunity, then so be it, they deserve the fate of "never getting anywhere in life". And I most certainly have not told anyone that they are inbred, stupid, etc. That's reserved for when we disagree about movies, dammit!
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Looks like Nic's head was pasted on it. Regardless, I really wish that catastrophic flick was made. The impact it would have had on the world would be the equivalent of the movie 2012. Seriously, the world came very close to ending.
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You are completely incorrect when it comes to personal bankruptcies. That's the credit card companies' line of bullshit. Their statistics show that AT THE TIME OF BANKRUPTCY the debtor had no medical bills. The problem is most people turn to their credit cards when they have serious medical problems and many of them have paid off most or all of their medical bills by the time they finally file for bankruptcy. Therefore, they can claim that bankruptcies are not medically related. However, if you examine the financial history of people declaring personal bankruptcy, medical bills are the number one contributor.
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The idea that tax rates will have to go way up to cover government healthcare is BS (Of course they will have to go up considerably to cover the wars and the financial collapse) A government run systme would be so much more efficient than the private insurance industry.
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As that horrible suit. Was Superman supposed to have the Jesus-hair in that flick? Man, what a mess we avoided. But, just as well. I don't know about you guys, but the Batman film--which I loved when it first came out--has not aged well for me. Still a solid performance from Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and a great Alfred (not Michael Caine, but still great) . . . but Nicholson's Joker? Kim Bassinger? The sets, staging, art direction, and just general direction? Even the script? Ugh. I find it almost unwatchable now.
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Being cheaper than private insurance. In America, I mean. We of the $400 hammers and $500 toilet seats. If you know what I mean.As far as bankruptcies being mainly a product of medical bills, it's just not true. You want to believe it, go ahead. And it's not the credit car companies line of bullshit, because it's their extending insane amounts of credit to people and encouraging them to go into debt which they charge loan shark levels of interest for that leads to the bankruptcies. Why would the credit card companies want to argue that it is their irresponsibility and misbehavior, not to mention confiscatory interest rates, that leads to the majority of personal bankruptcies? I expect the credit card companies would like you to believe that healthcare bills is the prime mover in personal bankruptcies in America, and not the credit card companies' business model.
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These "God Fearing" ass backwards, bigot fucks are the reason we won't have a public OPTION in the healthcare system. They scream big brother and government control while they pay private scumbags to decide if they should get medical coverage or not. Fucking dicks like Rush Limbaugh and that entire fucking FOX news station want the president to fail so they can get back to a government that fucks us and opens it's own asshole to big corporations. Worried about government spending? Go fucking lynch Bush for the Iraq war. The most illegal bullshit war ever waged. How much will that save us when we get the fuck out of there? More than enough to pay for a public option. And most people who need the help are not lazy people. They are people who got laid off, lost a spouse, got too old, got severely injured or ill, etc. If you want to scream SOCIALISM like some fucking retard, make sure you give back or refuse your social security checks, hire your own police force and fire departments to watch your house, do not go to a library and avoid public schools at all costs. You fucking hypocrites. Fear mongering, bigot, racist, ignorant, fucking twits. Go bring your guns to a health care debate like a dick sucking inbred. Fuck all of you! This president is too smart for you dumb pricks. Move to South Carolina with that asshole who shouted "YOU LIE" and fuck your mothers.
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The data shows that medical bills are a primary contributor to consumer bankruptcies. What evidence do you have that this is not the case?
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http:// www.factcheck.org/ askfactcheck/ what_is_the_percentage_of_total _personal.html
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Sep 22, 2009 11:56:13 AM CDT
MICHAEL JACKSON ALREADY TACKLED THE SUBJECT OF RAISING KIDS
by bringingsexyback
in his hit song, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'.
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From FactCheck.org:"It's worth noting, though, that the figure from the Harvard study includes those who lost their jobs or significant income due to illness – even if they didn't cite mounting health care bills as a direct cause of their bankruptcy."And..."Other factors may well be in play, and the authors themselves acknowledge that if some respondents hadn't faced health care problems, they may still have found themselves in court, filing for bankruptcy. "[M]aking causal inferences from a cross-sectional study such as ours is perilous," the authors wrote. "Many debtors described a complex web of problems involving illness, work, and family. Dissecting medical from other causes of bankruptcy is difficult. We cannot presume that eliminating the medical antecedents of bankruptcy would have prevented all of the filings we classified as 'medical bankruptcies.' " They surveyed 1,771 people in total who were in bankruptcy court.There is just no way that you could go with this survey as the all-encompassing survey on bankruptcy.
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Bottom line.
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Saying it repeatedly does not make it so. The FactCheck.org (and nothing against those guys) sites the same, single Harvard study. To quote Factcheck:"It's worth noting, though, that the figure from the Harvard study includes those who lost their jobs or significant income due to illness – even if they didn't cite mounting health care bills as a direct cause of their bankruptcy." Which is pretty much what I said. The actual stat of 27% being medical bill related is, I believe, still kind of high. As for bills that can't be paid due to injury or health problems--public healthcare will not fix that. At least, none of the plans I've heard tossed about. Maybe I missed something. Do a little research on consumer debt, home mortgages, and bankruptcy, and get back with me.
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it's a complete anathema to me. PS- Brilliant TB performance from Kizeesh above.
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Eat it!
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You filthy foreign cunt!
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But a lovable one.
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In regards to refuting the assertion that healthcare is the prime mover in American bankruptcy. I'm just arguing against the absurd idea that medical bills is the #1 reason for American bankruptcies. Given the wide availability of consumer credit, the insane mortgage lending practices of the past two decades, and the general materialism of the American public, the very notion that medical bills are the #1 reason for bankruptcies in America is prima facie absurd.The nature of bankruptcies in America, however, is not an argument for or against public healthcare, and, frankly, is not particularly relevant.
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Give it to us straight Jarvy. Do you cover explosive diarrhea or what?
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Sep 22, 2009 12:07:39 PM CDT
MOST BANKRUPTCIES ARE CAUSED BY KEEP UP WITH JONESES SYNDROME
by bringingsexyback
FACT.
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~ Glower ~
I am a victim of your speedy typing, and general command of the facts.BSB: If Kevin's An Ass is BSB speak for "Kevin is Clearly Right About Everything Always", then I see what you're saying. -
It's our language, dammit!
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I'll take what's behind door #2.
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Oooh. Nintendo Wii. Ooooh Blu-Ray. Ooooh iPhone. Oooooh Mercedes. Oooooh Jimmy Choos. Ooooh. I would like a walk-in closet with a built in jacuzzi tub and speakers that lowered out of the ceiling. That would be nice. And I work hard a job where they are downsizing and I might be next. I deserve a house I can't afford. And with no interest payments for the first year, and this "balloon" thing attached, what could possible go wrong? Balloon. That's a funny name for a loan.
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Wingnuts: "You expect ME to pick you up? It's your own fault you fell! Read the Constitution lady!"
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with their "sorcerous" ways.
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Nothing I can say really, Kizeesh has done it all above and far more eloquently than I can. He hasn't called anyone a cunt.
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A private system, and two burly men were immediately sent over to help her up. And then pleasure her. God bless America!
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Sep 22, 2009 12:13:19 PM CDT
Did they extend the text limit for subject lines? I guess there'
by ebonic_plague
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And I said it so concisely. Speaking of limitations of the TB, the fact that I can hit the enter key and accidentally post a TB with no subject and no content amazes me. Yet, I love it so very, very much.
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Debit card baby. Never buying anything on credit. I scoff when the teller or ATM begs me to take on a credit card. Like I don't know they're trying to enslave me with high interest rates and usurious fees. LOL
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It's a lot of entertainment bang for the buck. Quite the bargain.
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Read on, 95 percenters:
"Michael Moore has proven again and again that he has a remarkable feel for where the zeitgeist is heading. He's like a zeitgeist divining rod.
Roger and Me was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the auto-industry. Fahrenheit 9/11 was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the house of cards the Bush administration used to lead us to war in Iraq. Sicko was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the US health care system. And now, with his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, he is riding the wave of the collapse of trust in our country's financial system.
The film, which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, and all across the country on October 2nd, is a withering indictment of the current economic order, covering everything from Wall Street's casino mentality to for-profit prisons, from Goldman Sachs' sway in Washington to the poverty-level pay of many airline pilots, from the tidal wave of foreclosures to the tragic consequences of runaway greed.
Watching the film, I felt like Michael had climbed inside my head, made a list of all the things that have been obsessing me for the last 12 months, and brought them horrifyingly to life. It's one thing to know these things are happening; it's another to see them happening in front of your eyes.
Right from the beginning -- after a funny set-up juxtaposing End of Empire Rome and Modern America -- Michael goes directly to the beating heart of the economic crisis, showing a hard-working, middle class family being evicted from their home. The knot in your stomach starts to tighten -- and the outrage starts to build. Watch for yourself in this exclusive clip:
And so it goes throughout the film, with Moore successfully walking a cinematic tightrope, alternating between a punch-to-the-solar-plexus critique of the status quo, heart-wrenching portraits of the suffering caused by the economic crisis, and laugh-out-loud social satire.
The film also turns the spotlight on some underreported gems: an internal Citibank report happily declaring America a "plutonomy," with the top 1 percent of the population controlling more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent; an expose of "dead peasant" insurance policies that have companies cashing in on the untimely deaths of their employees; and amazing footage of FDR, found buried in a film archive and not seen in decades, calling for a Second Bill of Rights that would guarantee all Americans a useful job, a decent home, adequate health care, and a good education.
And Moore underlines the irony of Larry Summers being put in charge of fixing the crisis he helped create. A little like asking Kanye West to plan a Taylor Swift tribute.
While taking no prisoners, and directing equal doses of ire at Republicans and Democrats alike, the film also features a number of heroes, including bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren; Wayne County, Michigan Sheriff Warren Evans, who announced in February: "I cannot in clear conscience allow one more family to be put out of their home until I am satisfied they have been afforded every option they are entitled to under the law to avoid foreclosure"; and Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who took to the House floor and offered a radical solution to the foreclosure crisis: "So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave."
In the film, Michael describes capitalism as evil. I disagree. I don't think capitalism is evil. I think what we have right now is not capitalism.
In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn't get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It's welfare for the rich. It's the government picking winners and losers. It's Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It's socialized losses and privatized gains.
Which is why -- although you can bet many will try -- Capitalism: A Love Story can't be dismissed as a left-wing tirade. Its condemnation of the status quo is too grounded in real stories and real suffering, its targets too evenly spread across the political spectrum. Indeed, Jay Leno, America's designated Everyman, was so moved by the film he insisted that Moore appear on the second night of his new show, and told his audience that the film was "completely nonpartisan... I was stunned by it, and I think it is the most fair film" Moore has done.
After a preview screening last week (at which I did a Q&A session with Michael), he came over to my home for a late night bite. Over lasagna, he told me about an incident that occurred while he was filming that exemplifies how the economic crisis cannot be looked at through a left vs right prism.
It happened while he and his crew were shooting the climax of the movie, where Michael decides to mark Wall Street as a crime scene, putting up yellow police tape around some of the financial district's towers of power.
While unfurling the tape in front of a "too big to fail" bank, he became aware of a group of New York's finest approaching him. Moore has a long history of dealing with policemen and security guards trying to shut him down, but in this case he knew he was, however temporarily, defacing private property. And his shooting schedule didn't leave room for a detour to the local jail. So, as the lead officer came closer, Moore tried to deflect him, saying: "Just doing a little comedy here, officer. I'll be gone in a minute, and will clean up before I go."
The officer looked at him for a moment, then leaned in: "Take all the time you need." He nodded to the bank and said, "These guys wiped out a lot of our Police Pension Funds." The officer turned and slowly headed back to his squad car. Moore wanted to put the moment in his film, but realized it could cost the cop his job, and decided to leave it out. "When they've lost the police," he told me, "you know they're in trouble."
There is a real sense of urgency to Capitalism: A Love Story. I asked Michael what impact he hoped the film would have. He chuckled and said that, in some way, he had made the movie for "an audience of one. President Obama. I hope he sees it and remembers who put him in the White House... and it wasn't Goldman Sachs."
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/barack-obama-must-see-mic_b_293407.html -
Haven't seen the movie. I found the book interesting and reflective, very pleasantly written, and largely non-partisan, but with a clear bias against capitalism. The book, at least, was not written with idea of "explaining" things to conservatives or Republicans, or in any way bridging the gap. Not because it was mean to the conservatives or Christians in the book, but because it never took a serious look at conservatism, or spent any real time with right wingers with serious points. Every conservative in the book does things because "liberals love homoshexuals" or "God told them to". Which is not really a broad, or particularly objective, approach to the subject.As I said, I haven't seen the movie. In the book, however, he doesn't connect the dots, either. But it certainly isn't all there to see. That is, unless, you're a liberal and you've already made your mind up that conservatives are irrational religious goofballs who can be nice enough and would be mostly harmless, if only they couldn't vote.
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In pretty much any election. I do it based on what I consider not only my own economic self-interest but the broader economic self-interest of everybody. As everybody doing better will, most likely, help me and my family do better. That simple idea never seemed to make it into What's the Matter with Kansas, but I know so many fiscal conservatives, it's hard to believe Thomas Franks couldn't find one. Or the movie makers, for that matter.
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One word: LEECHESSeriously, everyone feels better after a good bleeding.
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I counter your fix with my own fix: #2 pencil to the mouth courtesy of 2for2true.
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http://www.roguefilmschool.com/default.asp OH MY GOD
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No worries man, we are just two guys having a polite debate on our differing political view points.
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That is why he should be made Mod! MNG 09! Kicking Ass and taking names on AICN for ten years!
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Y'all done kissed the baby. You vote against your own self interest. The Republican party is genius. The consistently get middle to lower class people to vote for them- and thus to support policies that overwhelming benefit the well off and wealthy, as opposed to middle and lower class, because the middle and lower class have some motarded hope that one day they too would like to have that benefit - if they are ever wealthy enough. It is a magnificent strategy, it feeds on hope and greed, not on reality and caring for others. There is zero wrong with wanting to better your circumstances - in fact it would be stupid to want otherwise, but that does not mean you support policies that not only a detriment are to your current condition, but to those of your fellow citizens. Just boggles the mind how people have become brainwashed into believing the supply siders mantra. The health care debate - is actually a healthy one. Limits need to be put on what an out of control liberal congress can or would do, in that respect I wholly support Republican opposition. What I do NOT support is opposition to health care reform that will cover those who can not currently afford it. What I do not support is ignorance of the policy being fanned into flames of intolerance by those whose only goal is to accrue power for themselves at the expense of the very people it would help. Everyone can benefit from the reform - if it is done properly. I dismiss the raging nut cases you see on youtube, they would exist no matter what. But the everyday ordinary guy who gets his information from pundits whose only goal is to get ratings and more money, that is a true tragedy. make up your own damn mind based upon facts, not based upon a knee jerk, 'imma vote for these guys cause they are against these guys'
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Sep 22, 2009 2:33:06 PM CDT
Repulican Congressman Roy Blunt referred to Obama as a Monkey?!?
by stalkeye
Another racist Repulican? say it aint sooooooo.*Sarcasm*
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...and don't drink his poisonous Kool-Aid either. =)
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But at least he does it civilly. That makes it okay I guess.
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Big Brutha is watching you...and will fine you $3800 if you choose to not go along with his health care rules. I hope that you left wing Obama suckers enjoy paying much higher taxes for sub par health care. I can't wait to ask in 2012, "Are we better off after four years of Obamaganda?" =)
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per Kevin Willis and the other economic conservatives. Good song. Look it up.
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Probably saved hundreds of American lives. He's good people.
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Rescue workers were still searching for remains, the wreckage began being hauled off to China to get rid of the evidence, Rumsfeld and Cheney were plotting the Iraq invasion and firing generals who said they need more troops, and Bush was chasing possums and tumbleweeds.
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Sep 22, 2009 3:34:32 PM CDT
NOT TO MENTION 8 YEARS LATER THOSE SAME RESCUE WORKERS
by bringingsexyback
are being denied healthcare coverage by the same country who proclaimed them "America's Heroes."
That's the thing about the Right that twists my panties.
It's all about them (individually, you know - me, me, me) or about their team (i.e. their Ideology).
I mean, let's raise the flag and toast the rescue workers, but fuck 'em if they need some doctoring.
And let's raise the flag and toast the troops. But fuck 'em if they need better pay and healthcare if it's gonna raise my taxes.
Let's raise the flag and salute America! But fuck anyone who will tax me to build bridges and roads and schools.
I mean, some dipshit above actually said he would vote against paving sidewalks. Imagine that.
Leave it up to the wingnuts and we'd all be dirt-biking to work. Not off-roading, as there would be no car companies around, because they don't support them neither.
So yeah. Raise the flag and salute the ideals. But fuck reality. -
the British love complaining, and yes we'll have a stiff upperlip about most things, and will moan about the state of hospitals and waiting queues. There's a whole load of things that could be done a whole lot better.
Woe betide the government that decides to try and scrap it. we complain, but we know a good thing when we see it. Sickness doesn't discriminate i find it outrageous that you can go bankrupt from an illness in the states. what i find mind boggling is the people who don't want this system in place? these fucking idiots in town hall meetings who equate health care to socialism ( like its a fucking dirty word). we all pay for it through our taxes, and quite frankly its not as expensive as most of you pay right now already.
If you want a private option, you can still have it. I used to work in a pharmacy ( boots the chemist) ages ago as a dispenser, you' have a mix of prescriptions come in, both those from private doctors and practices and those from GPs ( general practitioners on the nhs). 2 prescriptions with exactly the same medicine, one came to 14.85) 10 years ago the price was around £5 per item (not quantity, just item) that one was from the GP, the private one came to a whopping £135 quid.
was the healthcare different? in most cases no. for a gp, you have to sometimes wait or queue, and they see you quickly. for a private doctor, they probably spend a lot more time with you. was it worth a difference of £120 pounds? probably not. but if you have money and you haven't go the time to wait then you go private, that's fair enough, and you know what, if you can probably afford that extra, you can afford to pay taxes like the rest of society to pay for the nhs ( how many of the rich can dodge taxes? a lot i'd wager).
where the nhs does fall down are on things like hip replacements, something that is not life non-threatening, but can be debilitating can take months to do sort out. But you know what? if you can afford it, and you don't want to wait you can get it get it done privately. no ones stopping you!
I despair at our American cousins, you had an imbecile as a president for years who with the aid of the media scared you by saying the opposition wanted to take everything away from you. All they did was take everything away from you. they stole your wealth, billions in fact and the few that did get rich were the arms dealers, and the mortgage lenders and the bankers. they made you fear everything and everybody and shouted and shouted their skewed point across till you didn't know what was right. you now have a president who is and this is a bizarre concept, who is actually working for you on your behalf, even for those that didn't vote for him. he's putting his presidency on the line to help the majority of you and you still want to be convinced.
fuck me. the majority of you are stupid, murdock right wing press can't pull the same shit here ( no wonder he hates the bbc and license fees, as it counterpoints all his faux news bullshit with actual fucking news.) because the majority are educated enough not to believe that ultra right wing crap) most of are conservative on somethings and labour ( democratic on the other) ( i actually will vote for cameron in the next genial election as labour hav e made a right pigs ear of everything of late)
this from the country that debates whether its right for a present to speak to kids about the value of education and staying in school. a fundamental human right! effective healthcare should be a human right! -
are trying to keep you stupid. dont let them.
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That's why I always keep my eyes peeled around him.
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I agree, but just don't say that in Kansas!
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I just updated Netflix ...
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were because of failed business ventures. Chasing the American Dream.
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That doesn't mean he was a conservative, or that he got everything he wanted done, etc. So, yeah, I voted for Bush, although he was not a fiscal conservative in the spending or pre-emptive war conducting sense.
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And twisting it is inherently uncivil. It's an inherent contradiction. It's like saying, "If he was uncivilly civil" or "civilly uncivil". It's meaningless. Just so ya know. And, sorry for my narrow minded voting. I imagine you've voted for a number of conservatives and libertarians, then?
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Part of that price, unfortunately, is risking your home. True - many people who own small and mid-size businesses are going way out on a limb. Mortgaging their home, draining savings, leveraged on credit ...
It would make sense to me for the Federal government to initiate a Small Business Entrepreneurial Fund that not only lends money but also invests it. If a business plan is solid, have the government become a partner in the enterprise. This way, the risk is shared and the government makes a good return for the taxpayer. -
Never again though.
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I'm not voting against my own economic self-interest, nor does voting against the general welfare promote the individual's economic self-interest in the long run.While I appreciate your embrace of healthy debate on the healthcare issue, I'm not sure this sort of legislation can be free of hyperbole and partisan rancor. Would be nice, though.
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SICKO was hilarious. I say keep healthcare as it is.
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1) I see people arguing about NH won't work in America because of the illegal immigration issues. Well it should be a right of citizenship, you have to apply for a Healthcard and have proof of citizenship in order to do so. This is the way it works in the rest of the world.
2) Misinformed argument number 2..Americas population 300+ is too large for NH. Well if the country spent a quarter of the ridiculous amount of money that they spent on the military and offset with minimal taxation revenue there would be more than enough money to help fund a proper reform and a NH solution.
3) NH healthcare systems are not perfect for sure. They are works in Progress still but the alternative is bankrupting your families. Probably a better fit for the US is a tiered system. NH for all citizens but if you want improved service/availability and optional procedures and can afford it, you should still have the option to pay for priority. -
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/sep/21/undercover-drug-investigators-embarrass-polk-sheri/
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You know I can be convince NHC is needed for many reasons. Compassion, economic necessity etc. But please don't tell me health care is a right we're born into. Were born into shit and are entitled to shit. We carve out an existence the best we can.
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The foreigner did!
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Then circle BSB cross out The Foreigner. Now THAT'S reform!
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Sep 22, 2009 5:07:49 PM CDT
DIDN'T RIGHT WINGERS LOVE ENGLAND WHEN THEY SENT TROOPS
by bringingsexyback
for Iraq?
But now they rolled out the hatewagon over healthcare?
Must be nice to have such a flexible set of values. -
you qualify for nothing then. yeah its all or nothing. you carve fuck all if you dont get an education or are born into slavery.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr
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http://tinyurl.com/mpcqgq
another "proud" example of the Republican Party. what say ye now Chrrriisssssmm?
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It's all the luck of the draw, when and where we're born. I'm not entitled to anything more then those poor souls I'm just fortunate to be born when and were I was.
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You really need me to post it again?Bush dodges Arab shoe. BAAD!! Obama kisses Arab ass. GOOOD!!
Bush can't speak English language. BAAD!! Obama can't speak English language without teleprompter GOOOD!!
Pill popping Limbaugh. BAAD!! Pill Popping Patrick Kennedy. GOOOD!!
Mormon Romney. BAAD!! Mormon Reid. GOOOD!!
Sarah Palin delivers speech without a teleprompter. BAAD!! Bill Clinton delivers speech without a teleprompter. GOOOD!!
Trent Lott speaks favorably about Strom Thurmond. BAAD!! Chris Dodd speaks favorably about Robert Byrd. GOOOD!!
Mark Foley doesn't have sex with a 17 year old Page. BAAD!! Gerry Studds really does have sex with a 16 year old Page. GOOOD!!
Cheney profits from the Iraq war. BAAD!! Dianne Feinstein profits from the Iraq war. GOOOD!!
Torture. BAAD!! Rendition. GOOOD!!
Mark Sanford uses tax money to fund his adulterous relationship. BAAD!! David Patterson uses tax money to fund his adulterous relationship. GOOOD!!
Newt Gingrich says Barack Obama shouldn't televise to children during school. BAAD!! Dick Gephardt says George H.W. Bush shouldn't televise to children during school. GOOOD!!
George W. Bush snorted cocaine. BAAD!! Barack Obama snorted cocaine. GOOOD!!
Now, would you kindly fuck off with that Pelosi inspired "culture of corruption" tripe? -
Roy Blunt would be devastated by this turn of events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikTxfIDYx6Q&feature=player_embedded -
http://polizine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/bush_chimp.jpgBut, this, is perfectly okay. Must be nice to have such a flexible set of values. Let me know when you see Biden photoshopped wearing a yellow hat and then we'll talk.
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Except I don't defend the Dems nearly as adamantly as you do the Reps' bad behavior.
Rendition is bad. Wow that must blow you little mind don't it? -
Are you trying to DISPROVE Newsweek's cover story from last week?http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/newsweekcoverbabyracist.jpgBASKING in anticipation to see how you manage to disprove their cover story from this week...
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Sep 22, 2009 5:31:12 PM CDT
FISH DO I HAVE TO COPYRIGHT MY POSTS SO YOU DON'T STEAL THEM?
by bringingsexyback
Fuck's sake write your own lines, loser.
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Only a mind as twisted and as partisan as yours could possibly see how I'm DEFENDING anyone with what I wrote.I have a tendency to write in fictitious names on a ballot. Meanwhile, appearances suggest that you have a tendency to perpetuate this hypocrisy.Keep on labeling, liberal.
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of Bush as, say, a saltine cracker. I mean, peddle your retarded arguments elsewhere. Newsflash: what's acceptable in your household is utter horseshit outside your door. Idiot.
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...as you do. I'm not here 24/7. Interested in knowing what sentiment of yours I allegedly copied.You know... that whole "innocent before proven" thang.
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You used my line when you posted to Stalkeye. It's LAME.
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give me a break
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Immortal_Fish presents evidence that the left provided concrete evidence of comparing Bush to monkeys. BAAD!!BSB alleges evidence that the right provided allegory to comparing Obama to monkeys. GOOOD!!
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Sep 22, 2009 5:40:07 PM CDT
I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM - FUCK IT
by bringingsexyback
I don't want to pay for fixing Fish's ailment. Let his parents foot the damned bill. Probably drank too much during pregnancy.
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Sep 22, 2009 5:40:18 PM CDT
if BUSH were pro-gay marriage he wouldve allowed it
by dioxholsterreturns
instead he did the opposite.
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Tackling the most major issue on everyone's agenda. Save the people Obama. I support you.
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can someone give me a very good reason why this country will continue to be financially solvent through the year 2025? Republican or Democrat, I think it's been proven that it doesn't matter who you vote for, both sides are completely out of touch with economic reality. I just don't understand how this country will continue to pay for everything with out-of-control, China financed, deficit spending. I want some kind of public option for health care, only because at least the money will wind up back in my pocket at some point. Otherwise, it goes to propping up scumbag banking cartels and companies that should have went out of business decades ago. It's the lesser of two evils I guess. But I say that feeling that at some point, the chickens will come home to roost and I don't see how we are not fucked. I'm also dead serious about this... please, someone give me a good, detailed explanation as to why this country will not go broke one way or another and the dollar will become worthless. Either that, or they will begin taxing everyone at 50% or higher and none of us will be able to buy ANYTHING. It's like... destroy the dollar or raise taxes so much that it destroys businesses? What is the other option? Thanks in advance if you choose to explain this to me.
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Then kick your hypocrisy bent and you'll have nothing to bitch about. Unless, of course, you really mean that it must be nice to have such a flexible set of values.Cool if you recently had some revelation or something. Don't expect the rest of us to follow suit with you though. Not in TB of all places. Especially not if you insist on continuing to peddle your left-is-right, right-is-wrong crap.
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We may have to kill the monetary system and go Star Trek style.
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This is the type of person that cannot engage in civil discourse.This is the type of person that cannot engage in rational debate.This is the type of person that must engage in mud slinging in order to attempt to make a point.This is the type of person that maligned fellow Democrats as "the mob" and "domestic terrorists."This is the type of person that may be aligned with your ideology.
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You really do need me to post this so here ya go.
Bush dodges Arab shoe - which would not have been thrown if we had not gone into Iraq which had zippity do dah to do with 9/11 - BAAD! Obama shows respect to Arabs in hopes of getting them to change their animosity towards America, and BTW the Bush family really kissed Saudi Arabian ass -because it was financially good business ass. GOOOD!!
Bush can't speak English language and embarrasses himself on the world stage, where he really should have used teleprompter. BAAD!! Obama uses all tech available to him communicate his ideas clearly and concisely GOOOD!!
Pill popping, race baiting, intolerance flaming, hypocrite, only caring about his own fat drug addicted self Limbaugh. BAAD!! Pill Popping Patrick Kennedy -well hope he cleaned up his act for Goood!
Mormon flip flopper Romney. BAAD!! Mormon Reid. Well i'mma let you have that one GOOOD!!
Sarah Palin delivers idiotic, lie filled, motarded tongue cleaning speech about death panela -really? without a telepromster. BAAD!! Bill Clinton delivers speech without a teleprompter. well long winded and boring, but not lies about death panels, so GOOOD!!
Trent Lott speaks favorably about an unreconstructed racist Strom Thurmond. BAAD!! Chris Dodd speaks favorably about reformed, proof is in the legislation he sponsored and passed Robert Byrd. GOOOD!!
Mark Foley enagaged in pedophilic behavior with a 17 year old Page. BAAD!! Gerry Studds really does have sex with a 16 year old Page. very BAAD!!
Cheney profits from the Iraq war which he started, and sent troops needlessly to their deaths in a war that did not need to be fought, that had no bearing on 9/11, that drew resources away from the war in afghanistan that should have been foght and the tongue cleaner has the nerve to actually profit from it? Oh fuck yeah, BAAD!! Dianne Feinstein profits from the Iraq war. Not good.
Torture. BAAD!! Rendition. GOOOD!!
Mark Sanford uses tax money to fund his adulterous relationship. BAAD!! David Patterson uses tax money to fund his adulterous relationship. And Obama is pushing him out of the race,so that is GOOD!
Newt Gingrich says Barack Obama shouldn't televise to children during school. BAAD!! Dick Gephardt says George H.W. Bush shouldn't televise to children during school. Stupid.
George W. Bush snorted cocaine and was an alcoholic who had addictive tendencies. BAAD!! Barack Obama snorted cocaine. Not good, but not addicted either!
Now, Fish who can not die, would you kindly fuck off with that Palin inspired "culture of Alaskan stupidity" tripe? -
i want to strangle them and use their dead bodies for car fuel to help the environment and shit
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"Hey Herc,
"Have been sifting through the Letterman/Obama healthcare talkback and seen all manner of vitriol & misinformation being bandied about.
"As a Brit, can you explain just why Americans seems so resistant to socialised medicine?
I'm not being sarcastic or pulling your leg, I'm genuinely confused as to why so many people seem so red-faced furious at the notion of not having to worry about losing their life-savings if they need treatment?
"Sure, the NHS has it's faults as does any government run system but at the end of the day I have nothing to worry about should I need treatment other than "Will I feel better afterwards?".
I have no experience of the US Healthcare system, only our NHS and to read some of the blatant lies and scaremongering from some US sources about over here makes me confused/angry.
"If you go to A&E (ER) here, sure you can wait for a while if you're non-urgent - each admission is treated in priority order, triage nurses see to you and assess how immediate your problem is.
"2 personal examples of why I wouldn't change the NHS, however creaking and dangerous I'm being told it is.
"Last year, mum wasn't feeling well suddenly, shortness of breath and tunnel vision. Threw her in the car and we tore-ass down to the nearest hospital. She was admitted immediately and seen to, it was a heart attack. Within 20mins she had been given anti-coagulant drugs and was hooked to all manner of beeping and chirruping stuff. All ended well and she was discharged a week later having had dozens of tests and scans and drugs.
"Cost?
"£3 for a ticket in the car park.
"I had a car accident in '91, smashed me all to hell. I broke my arm, neck, fractured my skull, crushed a leg. Pretty busted up.
Spend a couple of months in hospital under sedation and then had to revisit for physiotherapy for almost 3years afterwards. Xrays, pins & screws in my arm, multiple operations to set my leg, months in physio learning to walk properly etc.
"I'm 100% functioning and completely free from injury now thanks to the hours a surgeon spent putting me back together and the weeks of nursing and drugs, months of physio at out-patients.
"Cost?
"They tried to bill me for the ambulance but we said we didn't ring for it as I was unconcious. They said "Fair enough" and let it go.
"Prescriptions from your GP?
"£7 per prescription, regardless of quantity.
Unless you are unemployed, retired or under 5. Then it's free.
Here's a link to NHS fees:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/Medicinespharmacyandindustry/Prescriptions/NHScosts/DH_087013
"Sorry for rambling, just pissed off reading about how antiquated and dangerous our NHS system is.
"It may not be perfect, but it's saved my life and my mum's life and I'll happily pay a nominal tax for that.
"Why the resistance to free healthcare in the US?
"I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to be safe knowing you don't have to worry if you get sick and need help.
If you felt ill/had an accident over here? Go to the nearest hospital, any hospital and they'll help you.
"Won't cost you a penny.
"Thanks
"Andy" -
Won't cost you a penny. Your neighbors, on the other hand...
Obama shouldn't stoop to appearing on late night talk shows. It is a clear disrespect to the office of the presidency. Boo. -
And heck every first world country has "free" emergency care. Nobody's going to turn you away to bleed to death because you can't pay. What I worry about is wrecking our ability to sucessfully treat non-critical diseases and develop new treatments and drugs. We're currently the engine of the world in this regard. So when the gov't takes over... Well how much innovation do you see out of the Post Office?
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i say we leave them and not call 911. CPR is reserved for smart people only
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Obama does look like a chimp. Why is that racist? It's a fact.
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Ooh, we're shaking, tough boy. The last thing you probably strangled was your two inch cock while watching this video:
http://www.tinyurl.com/bexhed -
Nothing in this world is free. And I am mature enough to understand that. So what I object to is being forced to pay more of my money in taxes so the sick, lame and lazy get their free healthcare. I'm not a hippy like many of you, I could give a shit what happens to my neighbor. I understand that my life is MINE to control. If I need something, I know I have to pay for it myself. I don't see why I have to pay for my neighbor's kid's surgery.
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Please tell me which of the GOOOD/BAAD items are demonstrably in error. Facts are impermissible only in the court of liberalism.
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Maybe if stopped eating we wouldn't have a food shortage?
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..."Nothing in the world is free", I'm going to fucking puke. That's not even in contention.
This isn't about something being "free". It's about allocating resources in the most efficient manner. The Free Market might work for iPods, cell phones and laptops, but it falls to pieces when faced with something everybody needs, like health care (or roads, education, police, firemen, national defense, etc). Not enough profit margin, so the market swerves towards denying access to a large percentage of the populace to turn a necessity into a profitable commodity. If the private sector were in charge of America's water, you'd see the same thing happen there, guaranteed. -
I don't know a hell of a lot about what goes on politically here in Canada or abroad... so maybe this is a BAD thing... but a couple years ago I had a snowboard accident that fucked me up good... I had a couple surgeries done, had a couple overnights in the hospital. It cost me nothing. Last year I was having allergic reactions to something unkown... without hesitation I just walked into the doctors and got checked out. My toenails were looking weird... I had them sent to a lab. My GF right now has a stomach ache... I told her to go to the Doctor tomorrow and get it checked out. Everytime I feel a little shitty I just head to the doctor. Why? CUZ IT DOESN'T COST A DAMN THING! I pay monthly 50 bucks to not worry about ANYTHING. You know where the worry comes in? that I'll cross the border to shop in Seattle and get it in a car accident. Pay for that for the rest of my life.
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I don't know a hell of a lot about what goes on politically here in Canada or abroad... so maybe this is a BAD thing... but a couple years ago I had a snowboard accident that fucked me up good... I had a couple surgeries done, had a couple overnights in the hospital. It cost me nothing. Last year I was having allergic reactions to something unkown... without hesitation I just walked into the doctors and got checked out. My toenails were looking weird... I had them sent to a lab. My GF right now has a stomach ache... I told her to go to the Doctor tomorrow and get it checked out. Everytime I feel a little shitty I just head to the doctor. Why? CUZ IT DOESN'T COST A DAMN THING! I pay monthly 50 bucks to not worry about ANYTHING. You know where the worry comes in? that I'll cross the border to shop in Seattle and get it in a car accident. Pay for that for the rest of my life.
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"Bush dodges Arab shoe - which would not have been thrown if we had not gone into Iraq which had zippity do dah to do with 9/11"Who voted for regime change in Iraq? Anc how do you suppose something like that gets done? No mention of Obama kissing Saudi ass. No surprise.
"Obama uses all tech available to him communicate his ideas clearly and concisely" Except for when he went off teleprompter, just like Bush.
"Pill popping, race baiting, intolerance flaming, hypocrite, only caring about his own fat drug addicted self Limbaugh. BAAD!! Pill Popping Patrick Kennedy -well hope he cleaned up his act for Goood!" Limbaugh had one overly reported incident. Kennedy has had many incidents that went ill reported at best.
"Mormon flip flopper Romney. BAAD!! Mormon Reid. Well i'mma let you have that one GOOOD!!" Count me in for hope and change!
"Sarah Palin delivers idiotic, lie filled, motarded tongue cleaning speech about death panela -really? without a telepromster. BAAD!! Bill Clinton delivers speech without a teleprompter. well long winded and boring, but not lies about death panels, so GOOOD!!" Subjective much?
"Trent Lott speaks favorably about an unreconstructed racist Strom Thurmond. BAAD!! Chris Dodd speaks favorably about reformed, proof is in the legislation he sponsored and passed Robert Byrd. GOOOD!!" More subjectivity. Not surprised. Ever ask yourself which party was more in favor of civil rights during the 60's?
"Mark Foley enagaged in pedophilic behavior with a 17 year old Page. BAAD!! Gerry Studds really does have sex with a 16 year old Page. very BAAD!!" Mark Foley was involved in a sexless sex scandal. Please link to your evidence otherwise.
"Cheney profits from the Iraq war which he started, and sent troops needlessly to their deaths in a war that did not need to be fought, that had no bearing on 9/11, that drew resources away from the war in afghanistan that should have been foght and the tongue cleaner has the nerve to actually profit from it? Oh fuck yeah, BAAD!! Dianne Feinstein profits from the Iraq war. Not good." This is the third one you didn't 'disprove' you know. At least not subjectively.
"Torture. BAAD!! Rendition. GOOOD!!" Fourth
"And Obama is pushing him out of the race,so that is GOOD!" And he ain't going. GOOOD!! (that's 3 O's)
"Newt Gingrich says Barack Obama shouldn't televise to children during school. BAAD!! Dick Gephardt says George H.W. Bush shouldn't televise to children during school. Stupid." I agree. QAll hypocrisy is stupid.
"George W. Bush snorted cocaine and was an alcoholic who had addictive tendencies. BAAD!! Barack Obama snorted cocaine. Not good, but not addicted either!" Subjectivity abounds. They either did or didn't. It's either bad or it isn't. What's your definition of "is" I wonder?
My GOOOD/BAD post was all about how each side does the same things. What raises my hackles is how the Dems think they are above it all. That you and BSB automatically ascribe someone like me as a far right zaelot for simply pointing it out indicates way more about you than it does me.
If nothing else, I can rationally assess each side. Meanwhile, you grow fat on soylent green. -
What gives you reason to think that I believe going into Iraq was a good idea? Or the Patriot Act either.
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First, in Canada we pay exhorbitant taxes so it's hardly 'free'. They de-list more and more services every year so you have to pay out of pocket for everything they decide isn't 'free' anymore. I waited 4 hours with a lacerated eyeball, excruciating pain but with 50 patients and one (ONE) doctor at the ER of a major hospital in Toronto, you get what you pay for.
If you need modern procedures or fast results, you go to the US. The elites trying to sell this crap to you won't be in line behind you, they'll be enjoying a different, better, health care system.
Waiting lists for hip replacements are almost 18 months, during which time a lot of patients are in agony and barely able to function. Too bad for them.
In the UK they routinely deny people medicine, procedures and surgery if the cost-benefit doesn't work in your favor. Over 70? Good luck.
People like the Wallace are a major problem for 'free' systems because they over-use a finite resource, adding to backlogs and shortages.
Free care is slow, outdated, rationed care. -
You can't rationally assess shit. You're a fucking delusional partisan hack, your "facts" are anything but, and there's really no point addressing you other than to tell you to suck my sweaty taint, you fucking cunt. You're the problem with America. Thankfully, you're being marginalized further everyday.
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Sep 22, 2009 7:02:25 PM CDT
An answer for Herc and The Brit about socialistic health care
by toadkillerdog
First let me say this is an answer, but not necessarily the answer: We Americans truly pride ourselves on our sense of Democracy and freedom, with the emphasis on freedom. Ask any grade (primary) schooler about what America stands for and the first answer you will get is: Freedom. It is part of our cultural heritage that we believe we are the best and freest democracy of peoples that has ever existed. There are no racial, or regional barriers to this belief - although certainly there are groups who think they are less free than they are entitled to be. Whether that is a real or imagined belief is beyond the scope of this reply. Still, the word freedom is paramount. Free to choose. Free to think. Free to act (within reason) free from government tyranny. That last part - free from government tyranny, has been drilled into us since childhood. From grade school - the most impressionable age, we are taught that America was founded because we rebelled against tyranny -gov't tyranny - British, Royal tyranny. We are a free peoples because we rejected control over our lives by a gov't only interested in making money. It is not put that way exactly, but the gist is the same. We are free because we control the government and the government does not control us. We revel in that. Pride ourselves in that. Pump and puff ourselves up over that. And it starts from first grade. Communism, and socialism are viewed much in the same prism. Anti communism did not start in the 50's or 40's or even 30's, it started near WWI. Anti-communism red scare. It struck a nerve in freedom loving America. It still does with some. Communism sucks the soul from people. It gives them no incentive to strive for greatness. Socialism is viewed -perhaps erroneously in much the same way. Giving people a handout instead of a handup, triggers knee jerk reactions in quite a few people. Combine that with a belief that gov't should not be running or involved with our most intimate affairs (forgetting that gov't already is), is a recipe for fear of and rejection of policies that would benefit most of us. We already have socialized medicine - it is called Medicare, for the elderly. We already have socialized pension plans. It is called Social Security. Both of those faced the same type of opposition, but just try and take them away now. I do not think that all opposition is motivated by deep seated mistrust of gov't, some of it has legit concerns about how it might negatively impact current health care. And how will it be paid for? I do not believe for one second that my taxes will not go up as a result if this, regardless of what Obama says. These questions and others are legitimate concerns that people have. But they are being drowned out in a knee jerk 'reject anything that smells of gov't control' wave of protest that feeds on its own fury instead of rationally listening to answers. There will be reform. Obama does not need the Republicans. However, what is happening is that moderates in his own party and Obama himself are listening to the ire, and they will craft legislation that while not suiting everyone on the left, will not go so far that we lose the freedom of choice.
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You make my point for me. The far left is incapable of true debate and can engage in nothing but vile hate. Show me where I have done anywhere near the same."And when they finally came for me... there was no one else."
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How is megabeth a racist? I see no mention of color in his last post. And yet you wrote:"go to a black bar and yell out "If Bush looks like a monkey, then so does Obama! Hey, its not racist if it's a fact, right guys? Guys? Hey Guys, what's the big dea...., oh shit, feets do your stuff!""Do you truly want us to believe that you think so little of blacks that you find them incapable of anything but violence once a non-black takes Atty Holder's advice to stop being "cowardly" and engage discussion over racial differences?
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Every post I've seen from you is utter horseshit. There WAS a good debate going on in here (scroll up) until you showed up with your horseshit and straw men. You're notorious for doing this every time a political TB appears; every time you whine for people to debate your falsehoods, every time you get your ass handed to you, every time you refuse to acknowledge basic reality, and every time you disappear when faced with evidence of how full of shit you are, only to reappear in the next TB, whining the same tune. There ARE legitimate concerns being voiced by thoughtful posters; you are not among them. You're a lost cause and every regular TB'er knows it. So find someone else gullible enough to take your bait, and, once again, suck my fucking cock you worthless sack of shit.
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First, even though we completely disagree at least you're civil, which on these boards unfortunately is a rarity. When it comes to student loans, absolutely not. Never. A case can be made for health care. However, I should not be responsible for as much as one dime of anyone's higher education if I don't choose to be. Granted the prospect of huge student loan debt is daunting, but that is whoever decides to go to college's problem. There is nothing that anyone could say to make me think that college is a right for anyone, especially a right that should be free. If college is going to ensure the success of the individual, then the debt should be immaterial since they will make that money back easily. Using tax money for that is definitely redistribution of wealth for unnecessary things.
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okay maybe I simplified a little much... let me try again... my snowboarding accident left me bleeding out my ass. My cloudy townails I had for a couple years til they looked so weird I got them checked out. Should I not have? I was watching buffy one night and my throat closed up almost choking me out... I recovered but thought "hey... this is an odd reaction to something I eat every day... maybe I'll check it out in case whatever it was kills me next time"... So yes, I do use my healthcare a lot, I like that my GF can go get herself checked out after having stomach pain for 2 weeks and NOT have to worry about a 1000 dollar hospital stay. And I wonder how much your eyeball would have cost you in the states?
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http://bit.ly/healthcareusa
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I call bullshit. There's no way any hospital has only 1 doctor working an ER, and that goes triple for a 'major' hospital in Toronto. Even the ERs I've been to in Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie have had no less than 3 on during a weekday. You're obviously just one of those half-wits that prove in-breeding isn't a phenomenon reserved for the southern American states.
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we fucked up. think about it...if obama was white...would u have voted for him?????
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Who knew she had that in her?
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or actually racial discrimination according to business.com is "treating someone different because of their race". By saying you can't use the photo montage with Obama, but you can with Bush, like it or not, by definition, you are being racist. I honestly think neither should be done, because it is disrespectful not just to the man, but to the office of the President.
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into everyday conversations, just for his own personal amusement.
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Would that be wrong if he did? Just curious, because I remember when that controversy came up a while ago (don't remember the specifics), but I remember that it was all race this, race that. No apologies were ever made for playing the race card by those who were too ignorant to know, or too lazy to look up the definition of a word they didn't know. Granted, Immortal Fish would be doing it just to bait someone, but in a way it does prove his point. People are so afraid of racism, and are so quick to call something racist, they often don't know any of the specifics behind it. By throwing race out so early and so often it lessens the meaning of when true racism actually exists.
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I saw some straight up "propaganda" from this show 20/20 which was trying so hard to convince everyone that the canadian's were WORSE off.It was blantant grabbing at straws and then the conclusion : I guess our US system isnt so bad ay?
And it aired here in australia who also gets free healthcare, and im thinking our healthcare isnt perfect but some of you Americans are straight up in denial. And i think alot of that denial is from actually BELIEVING what your saying is true, but the truth is your mind has been made for you buy multi-million dollar coporations influencing the media and shows like 20/20 that has you confused. -
Are you being serious or just messing with me?
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And sadly it looks as if Sharon is eating 12 bags of oreos and 12 dozen donuts when she gets up in the morning and then puking them up while watching David Hasselhoff perform Jekyll & Hyde. Sad. So sad.
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She's like the test tube love child of Joe Cocker and Buckwheat.
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"I'm gonna tear you apart. And your friend too!" Yikes! God bless Jonathan. Poor bastard.
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Remember Sabrina? She was awesome! Kelly is looking to be like that. Surprisingly quick and light on her feet. She has my vote so far. Mya is prett good too. But Kelly is freaking me out!
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She has NO UPPER LIP. It's disconcerting.
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The waltz was no fluke! She's gonna be strong this season. The women are on fire this season, thankg goodness. But yeah, her mom is not looking good. The Prince of Darkness though? Still as lovably drugged out as ever.
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A little of both. The point about how quick people are to draw the race card is completely valid in my opinion. If you read many political threads you'll see any criticism of Obama as racist. Are some of his critics and some critiques of Obama racist? Absolutely. However I would say they are a small minority. My problems I've had with what Obama has done so far in his presidency have nothing to do with who he is, but what he's done, what he plans on doing, and promises he's broken. I do feel that by constantly playing the race card it lessens the meaning when actual racism is a root cause. Is racism still around? Sure, but guess what? It ALWAYS will be in some shape or form. Give me any political figure that is constantly recorded, written about, writes books, etc. and eventually you will be able to pull racist statements from things they've said or done. Obama has a couple of doozy's himself. Do I think he's a racist? No, I don't. But the whole niggardly thing shows how people can over react without knowing what the hell they're talking about. The word has not one thing to do with race, at least it didn't four years ago (don't remember when the incident took place.) I'm not trying to troll anyone, and I'm probably done with this thread because the loonies on both sides are out.
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I like cheesy but he's full-on rancid.
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If "niggardly" genuinely applies to whatever thought you are conveying, by all means use it. God knows Asians have had to put up with "chink in the armor" without any outrage.
But if you are obviously and deliberately provoking someone with the use of either of those words, in an obviously manufactured context, then prepare for some well-deserved blowback. -
Kelly seems to be delightfully modest. That gets my vote.
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I don't know the origin of "chink in the armor", but honestly I never put that together with an asian connection, but I suppose it can be there.
I can think of very few people that would know what the "other n word" means, much less use it in proper context, but you're wandering into the area of interpretation of intent. Based on the positive, light-hearted discussion the two of you have had I would thing that your perception of him using the word would go one way, no matter his intent. If you were (and I don't mean you necessarily, because I don't know your racial background, which is important for this, but rather anyone) were to say the word properly, in a non-racist context, regarding tipping to 10 random people (a mix of different races) at bars or restaurants, I would guess at least 9 would say it was a racist statement. All that would prove is that the majority of people are ignorant, and are quick to call racist! when they don't necessarily know what they're talking about. If you did that experiment 10 times, I would guess you would get at least 95 people said it was racist, which is more an indictment on education than anything. -
Like you said, you judge intent by context. It's ALL in the context. I happen to think that if the context is natural and correct for "niggardly" to be used, it should be harmless. If a black person were offended, it would be an unfortunate misunderstanding.
But going back to Obama - and looking at the context (which you and I agree is important to determine intent) - the context is .... he's BLACK. So any references to apes, monkeys, or gorillas (ALL of which has been used by right-wingers in talking about him and his family) clearly is a display of racism.
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I really see where you're coming from, and I do see your point. The problem I have (and I'll admit I'm almost definitely wrong about this) is if you take the Bush collage, paste in Obama pictures it goes from being a-OK to being racist. I had no problems with criticism of Bush. I had problems with plenty of his policies and what he did. I did have problems with those photo collages, because I think they were disrespectful to the office in addition to the man. I understand the historical perspective, but I think that the office of President is beyond race (I don't know if that makes sense) because he is not supposed to be the first black president, he is supposed to be the President, period. I've seen the statement "It's okay to do it with Bush because he looks like a monkey, he really does." Change the President in question and now it becomes wrong? I know it's naive to try to turn off color, but shouldn't that be the way that it is. The beauty of racism is it shows more about the holder of the belief than the person that belief is thrust upon, and this goes both ways.
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I respect that you hold the Office of the Presidency in high regard. Sincerely.
As honorable as the office is, it's not sacred in the sense that it's off limits to ridicule and mockery. The mass consciousness of our society will decide whether such mockery is warranted or not, but I don't think we ought to treat the Presidency like a monarchy. If Obama were doing a piss-poor job, I have the absolute right to criticize him - either constructively or sardonically.
But you are correct that the same collage of Bush, but done with Obama's image, becomes racist. Again, it's about context.
But right-wingers will call it unfair, etc. I would say ... don't blame Blacks, and don't blame Liberals, or don't blame anyone who feels the same.
Blame the racists of the past few hundred years who enslaved Blacks, who subjugated them, portrayed them as simians and treated them as subhumans. Believe it or not, Immortal's beef is with them, not us libruls. -
haha thats so wrong. http://tinyurl.com/krlhvb
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Sep 22, 2009 10:44:14 PM CDT
Presidency means nothing now after clinton tainted oval office
by dioxholsterreturns
the oval office got defiled by clinton's semen
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like clinton did. i miss those days
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do you have extra chromosomes?
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Sorry for admitting that.
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WHERE the FUCK was I being selfish. Fuck you. One instance. Did I say I was against NSH, even though it will likely cost me my job. NO. FAIL
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You are a pustule on the ass of whatever you support.
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Eat this one, Michael Moorehttp://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/ukkidney.html
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CARE LINKED TO DEATH
# Mark Cannon - The 30-year-old died eight weeks after being admitted to hospital with a broken leg. He waited three days to see a pain team and developed an infection. Complaints were upheld against the hospital and council - he was in a care home when he was first injured. The ombudsmen ruled care contributed to death.
# Martin Ryan - Died several weeks after having stroke. While in hospital, the 43-year-old went 26 days without being fed. The hospital was criticised: death could have been avoided if care had been better. -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html
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http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=648634
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Engineer Left Blind for Three Years Awaiting 20-Minute Operation
According to Britain’s state-managed health service, cataract surgery is a “common” and “straightforward” operation that usually should last between 15 and 20 minutes. But such a quick turnaround would have been news to Richard Adams of London, who went blind in both eyes while waiting three years for cataract surgery.
The 85-year-old retired engineer and award-winning dancer began losing his vision in 2004. That year, doctors diagnosed Adams with cataracts, but an operation to remove them was not scheduled until March 2007.
His excitement in 2007 at the prospect of getting his sight and livelihood back was short-lived because doctors cancelled the surgery.
“I was over the moon when I found out I had an appointment in March [2007] but when it was cancelled I just went downhill,” Adams said at the time.
Stuck in a wheelchair and suffering from asthma as well as kidney stones (also left untreated by the NHS, he said), Adams had difficulty performing everyday tasks. “I never cook anything,” Adams explained then. “It always has to be cold things like sandwiches or salad. I can’t go to the shops because I can’t see where I’m going.”
In despair, Adams said his life was “being wasted”: “I have all these ideas in my head but I can’t see to write and I can’t see to draw. All I can do is sit in my house and listen to the TV. I can’t see it and I have to turn up the volume because I can’t hear well.”
Spokesman Mark Purcell of Ealing Hospital, one of several hospitals that refused Adams treatment for his eyes, offered no sympathy. “If [Adams] has a complaint about the standard of care he has received he should write to the chief executive of the Ealing Hospital Trust.” (Whether this bureaucratic solution, which asked a blind man to write, was intentionally or inadvertently cruel is unknown.)
Adams was scheduled to receive treatment in late May, but this was little consolation for him. “I’ve been waiting for three years but they don’t seem to care. I think they’re just waiting for me to die or something,” Adams complained.
Finally, after Adams’ plight received attention from the British press, doctors removed the cataracts in one of his eyes in June 2007.
“He was really pleased with the result of the operation,” said Roger Woolsey, a family friend. “When I went to visit him he would raise the eye-patch and say: I really can see again.”
Tragically, four days after the procedure that restored his sight, Adams died. He had a heart attack after developing blood poisoning in the hospital. -
Do what's right, or get what's left.
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Assuming the facts you presented are accurate - what about all the people who die or never get coverage in this country? What about all the people that have to travel to Canada or the UK or France every year to get procedures done that would bankrupt them here? The statistics still show people are better off in the UK than here. Really France and Germany have the coverage we should be emulating. Educate yourself.
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Having a white mother and a black father makes someone 100% black? God you libs are pathetic. Fuck off with your bullshit white guilt, losers. Someone CAN oppose the current president and not be a goddamn racist.
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sorry to steal one of your subject lines BSB, but as always you and Mcgoocain is "holdin' it down" (i.e. fighting the good fight)against the usual tenacious yet naive Wingnut TBers.Megabeth:not a bad moniker especially if you really are named beth and most importantly a Chick.You're comments about Bam looking like a chimp is very ignorant and may come off racist. (which I'm sure you have no problem with.)Blacks have been called Monkeys (and not in an affectionate way like MJ's Chimp Bubbles or Curious George)throughout decades if not centuries..well atleast over a Century.Anyway, if you have nothing to contribute to this thread, may I suggest you go back to playing Guitar Hero while stuffing your (allegedly) fat face with Doritos and let the grown ups have a go at it.Immortal Fish:as usual your kind are grasping at straws,while further demonstrating their ignorance and Blunt is just another primary example.nice try with the yellow hat remark but we all knew what Good ol Boy Roy meant when he told that joke.(can't you hear the reactive gasps and shock from his audiance? i guess you couldn't bear to watch the video eh?) the Monkey reference is like calling a Spade a Spade. (And we know how well the RePUBICans would intentionally use that pun.)
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losing the freedom of choice would be insane. in oz we have a mostly public system - you can get private health care if you want but you pretty much don't need it. the last govt introduced tax incentives to get private health care. this is a pretty good system. it basically goes like this. if you have an emergency the ambos will pick you up and you'll get fixed up - free. In fact for emergency care public is prob better than private. the system isn't perfect and here is a bit that confuses some americans and is jumped on by some media out lets: mistakes get made, people fall through the cracks. this is impossible to avoid in any system. is there not a single doctor, anywhere in america who isn't a fuck up? if there is then it should be easy to find a horror story in america too, but this is not necisarily indicitive of the system of as a whole. additionally we gripe about it - we wish it was better. no matter how good it was, we would always want it to be better.the difference between public and private here is that yes, you may wait a little longer for elective surgery in public but if you need an op you will get it. also private has small thing that are better - single rooms, better food. you will always have people who are willing to pay for slightly better, but we are NOT talking about better surgeons, but better extraneous things. like massages and shitto deny choice would be crazy, you will always have private schools, private hospitals. the trick is for the minimum level of care to be adequate. and it is affordable, most of the world does this. having a public system need not exclude a private system. but what it would do hopefully is make it not necessary, which are two different things. even if it were not necessary it would likly find a way to survive - people will always be willing to pay to get more than others. it's just here that means a glass of wine with dinner, not better actual care.
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no such thing as free health care in europe gas is double what it is in united states. also if high taxes are so good why does michigan and california have such high unemployment
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and lower taxes than the us.
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I call absolute bullshit on that blindness story from personal experience. Firstly, you do not go blind from Cataracts in 2 years. It takes a fuck sight longer than that (no pun intended). My mother was on a waiting list for a cataract operation for about 4 months. In that time, the cataracts hardened or whatever it is that cataracts do and she went from having very little eyesight (borderline blind) because of the cataracts to being effectively blind. However, cataracts are not permanent. She went in for two individual operations within the space of 2 weeks both of which lasted no more than 30 minutes (including time for anaesthesia to take place). I know, because I drove her.Not only were both operations 100% successful, but they also actually removed her short-sightedness at the same time- she now has better vision than she had when she was 17. I suggest that you actually look at the facts of that case- but seeing as you are on a smear using the right wing press (PS- Daily Mail= Fox news for reliability). Firstly, the NHS actually assesses the risks of performing such a surgery as opposed to the benefits. I suggest that performing cataract surgery (a highly invasive and downright fucking frightening procedure) on an 85 year old man is fucking dangerous. Proof being, when the Doctors caved the old cunt died from a heart attack. Blood poisoning my ass. Secondly, and far more importantly, my mother thought about paying to go private and if the waiting time had been 2 years there was nothing to stop him going private. I suspect he tried and was told to fuck off on the grounds of risk. Go peddle your bullshit to those credulous dickheads that may believe it.
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the NHS isn't "Free". We pay for it in our national insurance. The key point being that you can't get turned down for some bullshit reason by national insurance. Secondly, all you dicks posting horror stories from the NHS can fuck off- you know full well that we can find far more than you about your morally repugnant, socially crippling downright odious system that you seem to want to keep.
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is the asshole that in an abortion Talkback saw nothing wrong with going down from his fucking dojo straight after a workout to a crisis centre to berate rape victims into keeping their unwanted foetus. He is an asshole and a scumbag and, ebonic is right, he can suck my fucking cock.
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added to top of the post.
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that's called MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE. And is fucking rife in your system. Don't be daft- that can happen anywhere and is fuck all to do with socialised medicine.
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if you ignore the fucking ridiculously pejorative headline, which is purely to incite those right wing fucks that believe the Torygraph is gospel, there is a serious point to be made by this. This isn't the NHS. It's NICE. NICE (Most inappropriate acronym, ever) are the bottom line concerned bastards that decide on the cost-effectiveness of medicines. They are complete and utter cunts on pretty much every level that actively attempt to stop the latest drugs becoming available for all. This scheme, which is thoroughly sensible, is being subverted in the name of cost by a bureaucracy that this country despises it and would dispose of in a heartbeat. The point being, when all you are concerned about is the bottom line then you behave like a complete cunt and show scant regard for human life and quality of human life. I'm not saying that the NHS is perfect- there's a raft of middle management cunts that could quite easily be disposed of, nurses are under appreciated etc, but I'd chose it 1000 times out of 1000 if the alternative was the fucking disgrace to humanity that is America's. How in the name of fuck can the world's richest country have worst healthcare than all these socialised systems that are so fucking evil and little tin-pot East-European states like fucking slovakia? And why would anyone in their right fucking mind want to keep such a system?That's what you right wing twats should be asking yourselves.
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'cuz I'd love to be on one. Sadly, however, there are none. OHIP, BCHIP, MHIP, etc aren't based on what they WILL pay for, they're based on what they WON'T - which is non-essential luxury items. As I mentioned earlier, the government sprung for my vasectomy, you think they're not going to cover a cast or chemotherapy? Even some tattoo removals are covered. I live on the Ontario/Michigan border. Next time one of you nay-saying motherfucks needs medical treatment pop by and I'll slide you my OHIP card so you can check out the system for yourself.
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Good job bringing the Big Pain of Schooling to these ignorant, myopic fucks. Unfortunately, most of them are too stupid to see common sense even when it's jumping up and biting their balls.
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I wouldn't give them my fucking NI card.
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Use 'em freely. They're off-limits to Immortal Fish and like-minded ilk.
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Ever since that truly repellent, chest-thumping post of yours describing how you heroically chastise rape victims for wanting abortions there is nothing you can say which could contain even the slightest moral or sensible weight.
You went from being what was perceived as a somewhat sensible conservative voice in TB a few years ago to being a ghoulish Republican martinet embodying the worst of the movement.
Thank God you people are on the wrong side of history and on your inevitable way out. -
You're just pissy you can't get away with calling Obama an ape. Pathetic.
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To me, and I'm sure to most other people, the chimp references to Bush had a hell of a lot more to do with his quasi-simian brain than his looks. Sure, he'd effect an involuntary apish visage on more than one occasion, but that, too, was less physical and more his expression mirroring the vacuous roiling behind his eyes.
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Like all wingnuts it's not like he can think for himself. Obviously he's receiving his morality code (such as it is) from Lila Rose ...
Lila Rose, Right-Wing Activist, Calls For Public Abortions (VIDEO)
By Rachel Weiner
Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose said at last weekend's Value Voters Summit that as long as abortions are legal, they should be "done in the public square," thus disgusting people into action. And then "we might hear angels singing as we ponder the glory of conception."
Rose is a student at UCLA and president of Live Action, a "new-media movement for life."
Watch:
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/lila-rose-right-wing-acti_n_294460.html -
I genuinely do not understand Americas attitude to healthcare. Even the story about waiting for days in A&E is also highly dependent. Last time I went to A&E (because being a lazy fuck I'm not registered with a GP) it was indeed something minor. Knowing this I decided to take a day off work and wait in UCL until someone could see me. I fully expected this to take all day and it would have served me right. I got in to see the overworked doctor in less than an hour and was back at work by 11AM. Better still, as I forgot my wallet, I was able to "tick" the meds and the NHS sent me the fucking bill for £7 in the post, which I duly paid. I find it simply astounding that anyone would prefer the American system.
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But I don't think angels are singing when Lila is taking a load from behind.
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I'm moderate that tends to lean slightly to the right. I voted Tory in the MEP elections the other week, I voted Tory in the London Mayoral elections. In the next General Election I'm finding out which poor cunt that isn't BNP is likely to lose their deposit and I'm voting for them. Because where I live there's no point voting Tory. It's wall to wall with left-wing sheep that will blindly vote Labour no matter how badly they are cornholing the country. Like you Republican fuck's last time out.
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While there are loads of problems with National Health Care in Sweden, none of them have to do with the economy of patients and everything to do with the lack of an independent body with the sole purpose of monitoring medical practices and malpractice claims.
It's mind-boggling what some Americans point to in other countries while ignoring how unbelievably worse the American system is. -
the problems in the NHS here are due to squandering resources on middle management cunts and attempting to be more "private sector". Negligence settlements aren't out of control yet- but all indications are that they will be soon. Honestly, look at the jobs section in the Guardian. It's a fucking joke. Not to mention stupid "top down" impositions on it that just squander cash but give bureaucrats a boner (the IT thing). Drives me nuts what gets pointed to by the right, that already either exists in the US (but is far worse) or they have a shittier alternative. Interestingly, there are some things that the state should run as the Private Sector invariably fucks them up- shit like the NHS, trains in the UK, the Post Office. Privitisation isn't always the best answer.
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I'd take the NHS with all the flaws pointed out in the post above 1000 times out of 100 rather than the US version.
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Rose is a crazy person.
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Then we will agree to disagree. I think the education of a country's population is of the utmost importance, and most certainly benefits the whole country.
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Funny, I see lots of attacks against the Canadian system or NHS but nobody has anything bad to say about the leading socialized medicine systems in the world - Germany (which I live with every day and used just today) and France. America won't get health care reform. It is like I said yesterday, you have about the same odds of that happening as the Phillies repeating their world series victory - between zero and zero. Greed rules and not morals in the land of the free. Thank god I have better insurance than all of you. I LOVE my socialized medicine and will NEVER give it up. Oh, and one final word to my republican friends who say fuck their neighbors, I wish some of the pain and anguish upon you as my friend who has survived cancer twice and can not change out of the shitty job she has due to the pre-existing clause from pretty much every company out there.
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The cost of medical insurance companies + the cost of malpractice lawsuit insurance + the cost of extra tests and examinations added to avoid malpractice lawsuits + the cost of clogging up emergency rooms = billions.
NHS is cheaper even if it´s funded by raised taxes.
It´s a no-brainer. -
I'm not sure it will make a huge difference if we get it or if we don't. However, the hyperbole is just amazing. When BSB is the most rational, and most interesting, commenter on an issue--well, other than Pillowtalk--I begin to worry.Lost Jarv: "you know full well that we can find far more than you about your morally repugnant, socially crippling downright odious system that you seem to want to keep."Indeed. However, how many times have you been through the scoially crippling and downright odious system that we have? I have had many, many experiences with the "odious" American system. Wonderful doctors, wonderful nurses, one particularly wonderful anesthesiologist, and so on. I have had different insurance carriers, and no insurance, and have always been able to get care, and often very good care. The most irritating thing about our American system is you can't get a doctor to ever commit that you are better, or recovered, or that you are well enough to do anything--because of the fear of malpractice suits. But, c'est la vie.It's not great. It's not that bad. But I wouldn't argue that it's superior to healthcare elsewhere, just that there is literally no difference between what goofballs here may be saying about Canadian healthcare or the NHS and your description of American healthcare. Certainly, it's not a good universal description, and it's really not accurate.
That being said, I get much better performance out of State Farm, the folks who do my house insurance and car insurance, than I've ever gotten out of any health insurance company. -
Incrementally. It won't even seem like healthcare reform. But we already have semi-public healthcare--Social Security covers much of the healthcare for the disabled, if they have been employed for a certain amount of time (I forget the specifics), but it takes a while to qualify. Medicare and medicaid covers care for the elderly. Then we got new prescription benefits under Bush. And more coverage for children--and slackers still living at home--under SCHIP. A few more bills and we'll have healthcare reform without ever calling it that. It's trying to do everything at once for everybody that tends to be problematic.
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Never, but my wife has and my mother in law was denied care by her fucking insurance company on the basis that it was a pre-existing condition. Despite the fact that it wasn't. So there.
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Because privatization ends up with entities still under an unusual amount of government control--making the "private" part the part where the politicians and cronies dip their hands into the till, mostly.Then, competitive private companies are things that grow from the ground up to be successful--taking a hot house flower and dropping out in the desert and saying, "Now it will be more successful. Oh, wait a minute, let me line my pocket first" is just silly. While I generally see nationalization as a bad idea--and government bailouts as a bad idea--I have rarely seen a case where taking a public utility or national service "private" has been either fully private, or a good idea. When most politicians speak of privatization, they seem to mean taking the same public service and making it so it's easier to put tax payer money in their own pockets.
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That is problematic. Just saying, most people in this country (your wife and mother-in-law excepted) are happy with their medical care--I think to the tune of 72% or 78%, which is a number I believe is fairly comparable to the general satisfaction with many other healthcare systems in the world.Anyhoo, I'm not arguing against change. I can see where it might be useful.Of course, group plans can't deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions for more than 6 months. So the American system is a bit problematic. Of course, if the laws were changed so that insurance companies could sell (a) types of insurance they are prohibited from selling and (b) compete across state lines, it might be better. Or, we could just chuck the whole insurance thing and go for national healthcare. That might work, too. Might even work better.
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That was the exact point of my post - freedom. In every possible way. It is inculcated in us from an early age, and thus any thing that smacks of impinging on that freedom triggers knee jerk reactions.
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Free health care would likely go a long way to reduce or eliminate the number of malpratice suits in America as well. A lot more people would be prone to sue over so-called negligence or a simple mistake when they're not being shanghai'd for exorbient medical insurance costs every month. Citizens will be less likely to sue each other over every minor injury. Resentment between lower classes who can't afford to see to their children's basic medical needs and the middle or upper classes is reduced. Some people will be able to work less and devote that time to their families, strengthening family bonds. Doctors won't be milking patients for every dime trying to make a buck, strangers won't be afraid to bring an injured person to a hospital, citizens will have their inherent self worth ratified and live with the dignity that brings. And most importantly, the government taking responsibility for the publics health care means they are placing an irremovable axe over the neck off every elected official. People may resist public health care now, but once they get it any change or challenge to that system will be met with a resolute and undeniable fuck you.
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not the hard working professionals at the sharp end. My Wife's cousin was diagnosed with Leukemia and the experience nearly bankrupted her extremely wealthy parents. They ended up having to sue the insurance company for fucking years to get them to pay for the care that they should have been paying from the start. The experience nearly bankrupted the family, and the disgust I feel at the company for refusing a 10 year old legitimate (in fact common) therapy on the grounds that it was "experimental" cannot adequately be expressed.
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see, that's what I think is the fundamental problem with the US system. It's insurance COMPANIES. All they care about is profit (quite rightly, as that's the purpose of a company) and they don't give a fuck about who gets shafted. Allow the populace to buy insurance but make the entity itself not for profit. Different vehicles for a profit related system for something as fundamental as healthcare are not the answer. If you want to stay outside it, you can- I'm sure private companies will still exist. If the companies behaved in a remotely ethical way then the US system would be the shit. They don't (not really a shock) so it's a fucking disgrace. And the law is no recourse in this situation as it's skewed in favour of the party with the most money. Which is invariably the insurance companies. Fucking scumbags, the lot of them.
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I'm sure that most are happy with their care, but I really believe that's boosted by people that have never actually *needed* their insurance company to step up to the plate and do what you're fucking paying them to do. And how on earth you lot are happy paying thousands of dollars a year to a private company (far more than I pay) that may let you down in a pinch is beyond me.
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People who are happy with their care never had to "battle" their insurance companies over coverage for their medical care that they received. I've never had any type of surgery or been really sick where I would have needed to stay at a hospital. Does that mean my medical care is all that? I'm fortunate in that I have pretty damn good coverage from my company, so having a kid costs me $5, and that's it. But how many other people can say that?
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none of that legal stuff is true. It will still happen. It does here, after all.
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Hy,
I'm from Germany.
At the end of 1993 I fell ill with leukaemia (CML), aka blood cancer. It was my own personal 9/11.
Fortunatly, they found a fitting bone marrow donor in the UK for me. For six weeks I had to stay in a isolation room, cause basicly your immune system has to get a reboot. If you are lucky, the new bone marrow will start to work. If not, well, that's it.
I was lucky.
So, the six week treatment, including the transplantation itself, cost around 350.000 Deutsch Mark (approx. 265.000 US Dollars).
Okay, if you get bone marrow from a person, who is not related to you, the chances are high, that you get a "Grafts VS Host Reaction", which means, the new bone marrow identified the body as unfamiliar and simply attacks it. That was the case with me. For about seven years (!) after the transplantation I had to take (off and on) a high dose of cortisone. And when you take cortisone, you have to take antibiotics as well. And when you have to take antibiotics every day, you have to take pills, that will protect you gastric mucosa, and when you take that than you have to take .... well, you get the picture.
For about four or five years after the transplantation, I had to take medicine worth around 200 US Dollars - two times a month, which is 400 US Dollars a month. For four years!!
And you know what, I never ever had to pay a cent for it, cause the howl enchilada, including the six weeks treatment, the transplantation and the medi care after that, was all covered by our national health insurance.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention, that, three days prior to the diagnosis, I quit my job for personal reasons.
My parents are running a small restaurant and we are by no means rich. If this happend to me in the US, my parents had to sell there restaurant, just to get me this transplantation. And I don't know, how they would pay for the medicine I needed every day after that. I simply don't know.
To this day, I get lymph drainages, do to skin problems on my legs, which is a long time side effect caused by the Grafts vs Host reaction.
Every now and than, when I'm telling somebody my story, this person will look at me, shake his, or her's head and say: In the US, you would be dead.
Yes, that's a frase over here.
And they right - unfortunatly.
Here in Germany, like everywhere else in Europe, you can choose if you want to get private inusrance or national. Needless to say, that no private insurance agency would pick me as a client. Not with my backround of health. And I don't blame them, 'cause I'm aware, how this privat insurance thing works. It is like someone is betting on your health. They checks your backround, and when you are healthy, you get a insurance. You would'nt bet on a cranky horse, would you?
No, of course not. So, the longer you stay healthy, the longer they get your money. This people are no samaritans, they are buisnessmen. And as buisinessmen you have to make profit to keep YOUR buisiness healthy. That's the main goal - make profit. Again, nothing wrong with that. That's how it works. That's capitalism.
But God forbid you get sick, 'cause than they have to give you somthing from the money, you gave them all your live, back. And when you give money to some one, you don't make profit.
My father is a client of a privat insurance for over fourty years. Now, with 74 years, he is a nursing case, who doesn't left his bed in two years. I don't want to get started on how difficult it is for my mother, to get the treatment, which the insurance company advertised fourty years ago. My mother requested "Pflegestufe 2" (level of care), which means, the company has to pay for someone who comes in daily, to help her wash my father (my mother is 75 by the way). BUT as long as my father can hold a spoon and shovel the food in his mouth somehow, which he hardly can, my mother won't get "Pflegestufe 2". So she get professional help every only two times a week.
That's the reason, why I can't follow this howl US healthcare discussion, without getting angry. Cause, shit like this, happend all the time - every hour, every minute, every second, sombody in the world get's sick.
You want an exaple?
Here is one:
Like I said before, my parents own this restaurant. There is this young guy, who is working there and who want's so desperatly to be a chef. This morning, not two hours ago, he came in with his mother. They both looked very worried. They where on there way to a hospital. 'Cause, guess what, he got nose bleeding for a few days, got to the doctor, who found out, that he has a tumor in his nose!!
Again ...
A TUMOR IN HIS NOSE!!
Concluding: Our health system is by no means perfect. And yes, it is not free, cause it is funded with taxes.
But at least the mother of this boy does not have to worry about how she will be paying for the CT scan her son is getting right now.
Like I said, Shit happens.
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Gross earnings:$1036.64 Deductions: $131.62 federal taxes (which includes my health care costs), employment insurance: $17.93, Canadian pension plan:$44.65. On top of that I paid into a suplementary health insurance plan through my employer which covers myslef, my wife, and my son:$4.45 for dental, $6.67 for health, $2.84 for vision care. Each service has a $1500 deductible. Net income for the week:$823.62. How are those costs unreasonable? How much more would I have had to pay under a privatized system?
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We can both offer conjecture on the point of lawsuits, and yes, they occur north of the American border, but when a person can't sue for costs and is reduced to suing for relatively non-lucrative pain and suffering type damages, it follows that the appeal of suits will decrease. Why would you bother suing a neighbour because an acorn dropped off his tree and gave you a boo-boo when you got that boo-boo treated quick and easy and at no cost?
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"It's been a barrel of laughs this summer for Kansas Republicans.
However, instead of Rep. Lynn Jenkins laughing at uninsured constituents, we find voters actually laughing at another Kansas Republican -- Rep. Todd Tiahrt. Tiahrt held a town hall meeting on health care reform and made the false claim that H.R. 3200 will set a cap on doctors wages. That claim has been debunked across the board and the attendees knew it.
It's really a stunning rebuke of Kansas Republicans and their lies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsX2HMSvZkY&feature=player_embedded
This is just another sign of the tide turning against the Republicans in Kansas.
Need more proof?
Kansans are tired of these theatrics and outright lies while expecting solutions from their elected leaders. The public is looking for an honest debate on important issues like health care, but are instead faced with lies and disdain from Kansas Republicans.
That's why we've seen a statewide turn of events away from the GOP. Midsummer we saw Sens. Brownback and Roberts' approval ratings drop and reports that pro-health care reform crowds were outnumbering opposition at a Lynn Jenkins town hall in Lawrence.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-nellis/video-kansans-laugh-at-re_b_294595.html" -
Free enterprise is great, profit makes the world go 'round ... BUT, unchecked and in the hands of a monopoly of corporations, it really is incompatible with the priorities relating to health and the preservation of it.
I think that truism is so obvious that even KevinWillis - upstanding proponent for all things lassaiz faire - is on board for a nationalized system.
It can only be lost on those who don't put much, if any, thought into the debate and just follow Fox News' talking points. -
With the insurance companies. This includes cancer treatments and the whatnot. But, yes, insurance companies not paying for the stuff they are supposed to is teh suck. Hopefully, a public plan will be superior to that, though my experience with getting the government to do what they are supposed to has been as spotty as it has been with the insurance companies. And, yes, the insurance companies are there to make a profit, but they are obligated to find a way to do that and still honor their contracts. When they don't do it, they obviously hurt the long time viability of their business model.If insurance companies always honored their contracts, paid for all reasonable treatments, and essentially did what they promised to do--even if they did at it a loss, now and again--would they have to be worried now about being put out of business by nationalized healthcare? Kinda shortsighted of the big insurance companies, if you ask me.
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I'm just don't think we can reasonably avoid it, and I think we're almost destined to get in piecemeal, even if we don't get it all in one fell swoop.I should not, one of the big problems with health insurance now is that so much of it is employer-based, and individual customers of said insurance--even when they buy individually--don't have individual agents, and thus no advocates. When I need to make a claim with State Farm, my agent--and everybody else in the company--acts as an advocate for me. I've not had that experience with health insurance--but, of course, I really don't have a representative agent. Even when I bought my insurance individually--from an agent--I didn't really have an agent. I had someone who did some paperwork, but every claim went back to and through the behemoth. I think private insurance works, when individuals have agents, when the government doesn't curtail what kind of insurance companies can offer, and companies can compete across state lines. Alas, I don't see that happening. So, perhaps some sort of national system is best, though I expect we're going to muck it up royally, as that tends to be how we do big government in the states.
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In medical malpractice cases, in the United States. It's not a problem in many other countries, where tort laws cap pain and suffering awards. But it may remain an issue here, unless healthcare reform includes caps on pain and suffering damages to, say, likely lifetime income of the plaintiff, or something like that.
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Sep 23, 2009 9:48:10 AM CDT
THERE'S AN APPLES/ORANGES GAP BETWEEN HOME AND HEALTH INSURANCE
by bringingsexyback
You probably have 15 to 20 houses on your block. Every one of the owners pays for home insurance. Chances are, though, slim that even 1 of your ever had to make a claim in the past say, 3 to 5 years. Chances of 1 making a claim is almost nil. THAT'S the ideal business model for an insurance company.
But take health insurance. Likely every single one of the households on your block has made some claim on their health coverage, be it a cheapo check-up or some more involved routines.
That the health insurance industry has to make a HUGE PROFIT on top of those claims is the cause of our crisis. And yes, I say crisis because what they are effectively doing is not selling you insurance (because there is no assuredness, or guarantee, for your claim) but selling you a lottery ticket. When you buy coverage, you are simply gambling on getting coverage. In other words, it's a scam.
I've NEVER had major procedures done. My insurers profited well from me. But I'm not happy paying into a corporate-run system that can, and is well known to, drop me the moment I need serious care.
Like you, I have absolute faith in my condo insurance. I know my policy inside out, and I know they will cover me if I need them to. That sure as heck ain't the case with my "health insurer".
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I'm glad you have a great homeowners insurance agent who has provided you with outstanding service. But agency being legal representation, I think you should be aware that his/her fiduciary duty is to State Farm and not you. Again, their model allows them to provide excellent service, as promised, to a small constituency of their customers.
But having an agent, who works for the insurer or sells on their behalf, for health insurance would not give you any advantage at all. It may even cost you a little more with the added commission.
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There really should be no need for something like the NHS. One of the big differences between home insurance and health insurance is if some cunt breaks in and robs your telly you can wait a while if the insurance company are going to be shit weasels and not pay replacement, whereas if you're sick then you need that fucking operation or you will die. This makes them being dicks all the more inexcusable. In a utopian world if insurance companies did what the fuck they were meant to then in theory we COULD have an optional system- provided that those without a job were protected. A lot of our objections to the US system relate to 2 things- 90% of which are "fuck what if" factor and the other 10% more ethical.
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To get passed if it started out as, say, guaranteed insurance for the unemployed or the underemployed. Not saying that's ideal, but it's a lot harder to argue against having a medicare for the unemployed type option.
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of insurance companies turning down claimants. Therein lies the whole problem with America's odd system.
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Of something, somewhere. I'm saying a full-bore, out-of-the-gate Single Payer system, or reasonable facsimile, will have a hard time making it to law. A "insure the poor and unemployed" plan, ala Medicare for the unemployed and impoverished, would have a much better chance of getting passed--essentially telling insurance companies that the government is only going to cover people the insurance companies don't cover anyway--and, eventually, it gets expanded, means testing gets removed when people see it's not the end of the world . . . that's what I'm saying.
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the problem in question is the fundamental problem that invalidates the whole system. That's why all the things you're suggesting are just band-aid over an axe wound.
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to pay for the needy is the way forward. Why not just introduce a system where the COST of the treatment is covered by the state for those below X income. That way, the insurance company cannot take the fucking money then STILL turn down the fucking treatment. You know that's exactly what they would do.
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That the ax wound is even going to get a band-aid. A government run system will turn down claimants, too, by the way. Might not be as severe, but it happens. And it definitely happens here. But, maybe it'll all come to pass. We shall see.
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That involve the government buying private insurance for individuals is not gonna suck twelve ways to Sunday. If we're going to do a public option, it shouldn't involve the government funneling tax payer money into insurance companies.
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But really, the whole problem is corporate fucking greed. Maybe an alternative would be rock hard fucking regulation that says if you spuriously turn down one customer then we yank your fucking license, liquidate you, stick your board in prison and then disperse any assets including pension fund to the policy holders. Draconian, but they bring it on themselves.
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OMG pigs are flying past my window!!!!! That's awesome
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We can't even come close to getting a public option, even with a Socialist Nazi Communist Pinko like Obama in office. Maybe Canada will invade, Red Dawn-like, and give us universal healthcare.
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If there's one...actually, another reason why i loathe these Right Wingers and zelots is b/c i don't like the concept of telling a woman what to do with her body as if she doesn't have any say whatsoever.At the end of the day, it's her choice not theirs.
Let's see if any of these idiots adopt any of the unwanted children from parents that couldn't afford to raise 'em.*cricket noise* -
Sep 23, 2009 11:55:23 AM CDT
PROBLEM ALSO IS OUR POLITICIANS ARE CHEAPER THAN A $5 HOOKER
by bringingsexyback
The way they - on every level of government - sell us all out for 1/1,000 of a penny on the dollar to corporate interests is incredible. I mean, they are the biggest bargain on the planet, short of African dictators who sell out Trillions of wealth, and the blood of their people, for a few bags of cash and some Bentleys.
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Sep 23, 2009 11:57:23 AM CDT
WELL THANK GOODNESS LILA ROSE IS NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT
by bringingsexyback
Yet.
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question about state subsidy. Because politics in America (in this instance, I've nothing but contempt for our lot of tossers as well) is so fucking far in the pocket of the corporations that some dollars will mysteriously spill into some cunts pocket to make sure that the government merely buys insurance for the poor and they keep behaving to type.
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..to prove how wrong the death penalty is? oh, wait a second..those same anti-abortionists are actually for the death penalty. Talk about a fucking contradiction.
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I don't know if you saw what happened with our lot over the summer, but trust me, your lot look like hard to get virginal debutantes compared to our lot. Our lot were caught being corrupt for shit that was worth 99 fucking pence. Not even £1. You know the South American dictators bully our politicians at the UN- "Eh, you limey fool, we show you proper corruption"
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OC Assemblyman In Bed With Lobbyist . . . No, Literally In Bed
By R. Scott Moxley
in Breaking News, Crime & Sex, Moxley, PoliticsTuesday, Sep. 8 2009 @ 9:23PM
Duvall ran from reporters today in the capitol
SACRAMENTO--Freshmen legislators arriving in Sacramento receive advice from veteran politicians about the intricacies of working in California's capital. One of those tips is to remember that microphones broadcasting legislative debates can also capture embarrassing, career-ending personal admissions if a politician isn't careful. Michael D. Duvall, Orange County's 72nd Assembly District representative, must have forgotten the warning.
In July--two days after Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Republican leader Sam Blakeslee put Duvall on the Rules Committee that oversees member ethics--the second-term, conservative, Republican assemblyman sat in a public hearing and vividly described lewd details about his trysts with a female lobbyist whose clients had business before another committee on which Duvall sits.
Duvall, speaking to a relatively mum Republican colleague seated to his left, apparently had no idea his dais microphone became live beginning about a minute before the start of a cable-televised committee hearing. He was captured in the middle of recounting portions of an affair.
"She wears little eye-patch underwear," said Duvall, who is married with two children. "So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And so, we had made love Wednesday--a lot! And so she'll, she's all, 'I am going up and down the stairs, and you're dripping out of me!' So messy!"
That line may quickly become part of colorful Sacramento political lore. In the meantime, it leads me to a question: Can someone please buy the assemblyman a box of condoms?
Duvall--who was twice a president of the Yorba Linda Chamber of Commerce, served two terms as mayor of Yorba Linda before entering the assembly in 2006, and is the owner of an insurance agency--continues his tale: "So, I am getting into spanking her. Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her. She goes, 'I know you like spanking me.' I said, 'Yeah! Because you're such a bad girl!'"
He then laughed.
The assemblyman representing Anaheim, Fullerton, Placentia, Orange, Brea, La Habra and Yorba Linda then offered clues to the identity of his sex partner.
"And so her birthday was Monday," he said at the Wednesday, July 8 committee hearing. "I was 54 on June 14, so for a month, she was 19 years younger than me. I said, 'Now, you're getting old. I am going to have to trade you in.' And she goes, '[I'm] 36.' She is 18 years younger than me. And so I keep teasing her, and she goes, 'I know you French men. You divide your age by two and add seven, and if you're older than that, you dump us.'"
According to voter-registration records reviewed by the Weekly, veteran Sacramento-based lobbyist Heidi DeJong Barsuglia turned 36 years old on Monday, July 6.
Legislative sources say they have witnessed Duvall, who is vice chairman of the Assembly's powerful Committee on Utilities & Commerce, socializing after-hours with Barsuglia. Sources--who asked for anonymity because of Duvall's power in the capital--say Susan Duvall usually stays in Orange County during the week, when her husband flies to Sacramento. They also say they have seen Duvall with Barsuglia in restaurants, "arm-in-arm" at political fund-raising events and even shopping together for groceries just blocks from the capitol building.
"Their relationship is the worst-kept secret in Sacramento," a capitol staffer recently told me. "He's old and fat. She's hot, blonde and about 20 years younger. He could have never gotten a woman like that before he got this job.'"
In April--two months after Duvall became vice chairman of the Utilities & Commerce committee--privately owned California utility giant Sempra Energy hired Barsuglia as one of its top lobbyists, according to Secretary of State records. Barsuglia, who has a law degree and once worked as a speechwriter for Governor Pete Wilson, had previously worked at the California Retailers Association (CRA). During 25 months of work at CRA, she reported that she incurred no reportable lobbying expenses. She joined Sempra after the departure of another lobbyist: David Hayes, who was named deputy director of the Interior Department by President Barack Obama. The San Diego-based utility conglomerate isn't shy about lobbying lawmakers for favorable treatment. This session, they gave Duvall $1,500 in campaign contributions. In May, the assemblyman officially adopted the company's negative view on Assembly Bill 64, which proposes increasing the percentage of electricity the utilities must procure from environmentally sensitive sources.
Repeatedly asked to explain his recorded sexual boasting, a red-faced Duvall fled me and another reporter, Dave Lopez of KCBS in Los Angeles, three times this afternoon in capitol hallways. He also ignored three handwritten interview requests that were delivered to him on the floor of the assembly. Said one assembly employee who witnessed the scene, "It definitely looks like he is afraid of you guys."
Barsuglia did not responded to a request for an interview made at Sempra's offices located across the street from the capitol building.
Sempra's 2008-2009 "Code of Business Conduct" states, "We've built [the company's] rich tradition because of the emphasis we place on ethical business conduct and compliance with the laws and regulations that govern our business. We don't compromise on either for the sake of success"
But Duvall wasn't content to just share one adulterous tale at the July 8 committee hearing. He referenced a second, simultaneous affair with another woman. He seemed amused that he was cheating on both his wife and a mistress.
"Oh, yeah, Sher, Shar, Shar," Duvall said. "Oh, she is hot! I talked to her yesterday. She goes, 'So are we finished?' I go, 'No, we're not finished.' I go, 'You know about the other one [Barsuglia], but she doesn't know about you!'"
The assemblyman punctuated his observation with laughter.
During his political career, Duvall has unabashedly espoused conservative principles and is known as a partisan Republican with a knack for theatrics: He has noisily driven his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to functions. In 2008, Duvall blasted efforts to condone gay marriage. Legislatively, he has proposed bills to aid the insurance industry and government contractors feeding off the state's massive transportation kitty. He has offered a law to alter the First Amendment rights of Americans by banning anti-war activists from putting the names of fallen soldiers on T-shirts with messages such as "Bush lied" on the front and "They died" on the back; he observed that the dead soldiers fought to protect freedom, and "opportunists" should not be allowed to "exploit" the sacrifices with political messages opposing war.
Such thinking impressed certain constituencies. Earlier this year, the man who never graduated from high school received "100 percent" approval scores by the California Republican Assembly, the state's leading conservative outfit, and the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), a fierce guardian of traditional family values.
"Assemblyman Duvall has been a consistent trooper for the conservative causes," CRI president Karen England announced in March. "For the last two years, he has voted time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California. We are grateful for his support of California families.'"
Acknowledging the CRI award, Duvall observed in a press release that as long as he is in office, he would work to protect "California families" from "constant assault in Sacramento."
rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com
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really, though, it's sad that he's more likely to get run out of office for sexual practices than being a fat, stupid, corrupt tosser.
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I thought it said: "Legislative sources say they have witnessed Duvall sodomizing after-hours with Barsuglia". Which, given his circumspection, is not too far fetched.Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And I think about 90% of politicians get into "public service" for the tail.
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Sep 23, 2009 12:08:03 PM CDT
STALKEYE - NO I THINK THEIR TACT IS, IF YOU CAN'T STOP THE WOMAN
by bringingsexyback
then kill the doctor. Hence, sadly, the tragic and untimely demise of Dr. George Tiller.
No, the Religious Right really isn't the American Taliban. They'll clean the public squares of blood where the Taliban would leave it messy. -
That I don't want to funnel tax payer money into insurance companies? I don't think we should be funneling tax payer money into any business--unless the government is purchasing a service it needs directly, like helicopters or construction on a new building or whatnot. I'm not at all a fan of corporate welfare.
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You should also support the death penalty?Makes sense to me.
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most lacking in self awareness of anyone on the planet. How on earth they can justify killing doctors to "save lives" is beyond me.
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Sep 23, 2009 12:13:06 PM CDT
JARV - BUT AT LEAST YOU HAVE NATIONALIZED HEALTHCARE
by bringingsexyback
Is the West really facing a demise like the Roman Empire? All indicators point in that direction. Fuck.
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Psychos. And murderers. They aren't killing doctors to save lives. They're killing doctors cuz they are murderers. The pro-life movement does not advocate killing people.Not that they have any real positive impact.
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Absolutely. I hold a victim's life in much higher regard than the murderer's. Some crimes are so horrific that the criminal surely has lost all rights to live. Take Phillip Garrido. Even if he didn't kill any girls (and let's hope he has not), I think he deserves death. What he did to that little girl was inhuman.
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I've heard this argument before, but I disagree with it. I disagree with the Death Penalty and am Pro-choice for reasons that are mutually exclusive. It's too long and boring to get into here, and will no doubt induce a pyjama wearing anecdote from immortal_twat: The ninja counsellour, and I want to go home. So on that note, until tomorrow.
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At the very least, I would not shed a tear should he get the chair.Ever see Dead Man Walking? The thing that struck me about that movie is that the only thing that provoked Sean Penn's character to self-awareness, and a realization he had done something wrong in killing another person, was the fact he was about to be executed. A very even-handed approach from Master Tim Robbins.
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Then, logically, it would make sense that pro-life people could also be pro death penalty, for reasons that are mutually exclusive. And I think that is, by and large, the case.
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Can someone sue if they slipped on his drippings?
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And yes, another fine example of the upstanding party of "Repugnantcan'ts".God I'm lovin' this shit.Sure the right will bring up John Edward's baby-mama drama, but he never came off as the bible thumping high morale family values public servant.Oh, that and his good deeds far outweigh the "bad'. from suing the Red Cross for giving AIDS tainted blood to providing support for the homeless,katrina victims and so many other causes, which includes increasing the minumum wage.Can't say the same for "Raw Dawg" Duvall and vanilla pussy juice.,Great stuff BSB, keep it going!
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Sep 23, 2009 12:33:52 PM CDT
DEAD MAN WALKING? ONLY SEEN IT ABOUT A HALF DOZEN TIMES
by bringingsexyback
God or no God, there is salvation, and Penn's character received it when he gave up his life to, and begged forgiveness from, his victims' families.
I can't even begin to describe how moving that film was. -
how effin sad.Put all murderers of abortion doctors in the same cell with "Bubbba".he'll perform an "operation" they'll never forget.XD
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You can't make that shit up. 2for2true should just declare pencil jihad on all levels of government in UK & US., because really, that's the only solution.
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Infidelity sucks, but the worst part is all the payola and vagina this guy took from various industries he had authority over. It's not limited to Repubs, and damn if we don't have a crisis of morality in every level of government. I'm surprised we still exist as a country.
And look at Sarah Palin. She got a house built for her when she was mayor. Now she's in Hong Kong talking to investors about how she opposes regulations on private healthcare corporations? Sure, for $300,000 I'll say whatever anyone wants to hear. -
..that Edwards used campaign funds as hush money, which did further damage his credibility but that's nothing compared to the billions Dubya wasted on this "war effort" that is now a quagmire.(I hope Bammy has his exit strategy in tow, soon otherwise it's gonna look real bad for him.)Edwards also went through alot of shit from his son's death to liz getting the big "C".It's no excuse, but the affair, wrong as it was may have been an avenue of escapism for someone who couldn't handle the burdens heaped upon him.Like that quote goes: "Never underestimate the power of the pussy, one hair on that thing can pull a frieght train".
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You really think more then a handful of Pro-Lifers think that?
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we're all taking the worst people that orbit any particular idea and using them to define what the idea represents, instead of judging an idea on it's own merits. Scumbags orbit every idea or ideology. So Pro-Lifers are murderers, Joseph Kennedy was a Nazi, it get's tiresome.
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Is evil and an idiot.That is the tone of the modern debate. ;)
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It's true, and it's only getting worse because people align themselves with other peoples views on issues rather then weighing an issue themselves. I think these people perhaps are born with a lack of self reflection that makes it impossible to realize the're only repeating other people. It's on both "sides", and it's nausea inducing.
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Sep 23, 2009 1:54:57 PM CDT
AT LEAST THE GOP DOESN'T HIDE THEIR LOYALTY TO THE CORPORATIONS
by bringingsexyback
How your average 95 percenter can vote for any of these guys is beyond me.
GOP Rushes To Defend Insurance Companies
UPDATE: Veering right into Glenn Beck territory, House Republicans darkly hinted Wednesday that the White House was behind the nefarious plot to muzzle insurance companies.
House Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.), is now demanding to know whether anyone from the White House was involved in the decision to tell companies to stop using taxpayer-subsidized communication to terrify seniors into opposing health reform.
"I have never seen anything like this and I question if politics was the deciding factor," said Camp.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) doesn't think it smells right, either. "[G]angster government is at it again," she wrote in The Hill.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor again Wednesday morning and tried to tie this story into a larger narrative: "Over the past several months we've seen a pattern of intimidation by supporters of the administration's health care proposal, including efforts to demonize serious-minded critics at town hall meetings across the country. Now we're seeing something even worse. The full power of the federal government being brought to bear on businesses by the very people writing the legislation.... Americans are already skeptical about the administration's plan. They should be even more skeptical now."
* * * * * *
Republicans took to the floor of Congress, the Internet and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page Tuesday in a rush to defend a health insurance company that used taxpayer-subsidized communication to terrify seniors with the prospect that health care reform will cut their Medicare benefits.
Republican leaders in both houses of Congress ripped Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to put a stop to the insurers' efforts, decrying what they called a "gag order" and reading the First Amendment on the floor of the Senate.
Baucus, meanwhile, seemed mostly oblivious to the Republican attacks. "I never gag. I believe in the First Amendment," he told HuffPost, but added that he didn't know what the Republicans were referring to. "I have to go back and look to see what it is we did."
Story continues below
As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus spent most of the day marking up a reform bill that so far has no GOP support - although Maine Republican Olympia Snowe has offered some indications of being on board. Snowe has been speaking warmly of the package and most of her reservations seem to be that it isn't generous enough -- objections the Democratic caucus will be happy to overcome. And in Massachusetts, a state senate vote moved Democrats one step closer to regaining 60 seats in the U.S. Senate.
Meanwhile, the GOP rode to the rescue of health insurance companies.
"It is outrageous that the Obama Administration is trying to keep seniors in the dark about the consequences of congressional Democrats' costly government-run health care bills. Would the Administration impose this sort of gag order if seniors were being given information promoting the Obama health care plan? I don't think so," said Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).
"It looks likes CMS is engaged in government intimidation, pure and simple," said Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who sent off a letter to CMS demanding an explanation.
Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said it shouldn't be seen as coming to the defense of insurance companies. "I don't know that I'm coming to the defense of anything, except the First Amendment. I don't care who they write to," he told HuffPost. "You don't lose your rights because you happen to sell insurance for heaven's sake."
The free-speech argument, however, is complicated by the government-subsidy. Medicare Advantage is a GOP-created program that gives private plans an average of 14 percent more tax dollars than the government pays for coverage of patients under traditional Medicare.
Democratic health-care proposals would cut payments to those plans by about $123 billion over 10 years.
That would cut deeply into insurance company profits.
So, as Huffington Post citizen journalist Dawn Teo reported on Monday, Humana sent mailers to their list of Medicare beneficiaries warning that the Democratic health care reform bill will cut "important benefits and services" and urging them to call Congress to register their concern.
Baucus complained and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cried foul, protesting that the mailings were misleading and instructing them to stop.
Communication between the private Medicare Advantage providers and beneficiaries is strictly regulated because the private companies are using public dollars.
CMS focused on a mass mailer sent by the insurance giant Humana claiming that the leading health care proposals in Washington would cut billions from Medicare Advantage programs, "as well as spending reductions to original Medicare and Medicaid. While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable."
"I rise to call my colleagues' attention to a truly disturbing development in the health care debate," said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Humana's home state of Kentucky. "A colleague of ours has called for an investigation into a major health care company because this company informed its customers of its concerns about health care legislation that this colleague of ours introduced. Let me say that again," said McConnell, before saying it all again.
In 2004, Humana's chairman and former CEO David Jones donated a million dollars to the McConnell Center for Political Leadership, a University of Louisville academic center.
The Republican leader made sure to note his connection to Humana on the floor.
"Humana is headquartered in my hometown of Louisville and, yes, I care deeply about its 8,000 employees in Kentucky. But this gag order, Mr. President, this gag order applies to all Medicare Advantage providers. 'Shut up,' the government says. 'Don't communicate with your customers. Be quiet and get in line,'" he said.
He was followed by third-ranking Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who read the First Amendment on the Senate Floor.
Humana was recently featured in a HuffPost story for denying health care due to lack of an enema. In 2005, it settled a racketeering suit for $40 million. It settled a fraud lawsuit in 2000 for $14.5 million. Since 2000, its profits have soared from $90 million to $834 million.
White House Office of Management and Budget chief Peter Orszag explained earlier this year that Medicare Advantage profits would be a prime target of health reform. "Evidence suggests that each dollar provided under Medicare Advantage costs the government a dollar thirty in costs," he said. "I believe in competition. I don't believe in paying a dollar thirty to get a dollar."
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/gop-rushes-to-defend-insu_n_295469.html
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Speaking as someone in the medical field. The Medicare Advantage plans do A LOT to help both the provider and the patient
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..202-225-6536. Call and question his stupid remarks.I know I will soon.
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Sep 23, 2009 2:56:43 PM CDT
Latest Gallup Poll: 80% satisfied with their Health Care
by coughlins laws
85% with Health Insurance are satisfied with their coverage. Looks like the Megalomaniac-In-Chief is pretty much a failure when it comes to convincing people they should trust him to take over and run 1/6th of the US Economy.EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sep 23, 2009 3:01:12 PM CDT
I wonder if any of the Celebutards in that video would
by coughlins laws
give up their Cadillac Health Care plans and agree to Obama's Public Option Care? Useful Idiots...
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Sep 23, 2009 3:11:36 PM CDT
Yay, Coughlin's Lies is hear to spout right wing talking points
by stabby
from Hannity and Beck.
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Massawyrm has a new talkback. Let's take the fight there.
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Sep 23, 2009 3:16:10 PM CDT
Mastidon the German system works because illegals aren't covered
by darth_inedible
You guys actually deport your illegals and it's comparatively difficult to become a citizen. Even if we prevent illegals from signing up Obama can just wave his wand of amnesty to achieve the same result.
If you literally put the German system into place in America without changing the current rules for migration, deportation and naturalization we'd be paying for the health care of half of South America's poor. -
Sep 23, 2009 3:16:38 PM CDT
I WONDER IF DAVID ZUCKER WILL SIGN UP FOR PUBLIC OPTIONCARE
by bringingsexyback
He must've lost a fortune in that recent rightwing movie. What was it called?
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Sep 23, 2009 3:17:54 PM CDT
INEDIBLE - PUBLIC OPTIONCARE WOULD NOT COVER ILLEGALS
by bringingsexyback
Next lie, please.
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thanks to the unbiased review he did of Moore's film.
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Sep 23, 2009 3:18:24 PM CDT
What half the country believes = "right wing talking points"
by darth_inedible
What less than 1/4 of the country believes = current Obama agenda. Have fun in 2010 guys.
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And your point is?
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Just wanting Coughy to stir some shit up there.
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Alinsky must be dancing in his grave.
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Sep 23, 2009 3:27:11 PM CDT
Stabby I just like hearing lefties say they hate 75% of America
by darth_inedible
If only all Democrat politicians were this honest.
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Actually, socialized health care wouldn't cover illegals anymore than an American could expect to hop north of the border and receive free health care. Access to services would be linked to a social security number leaving unofficial immigrants out in the cold.
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Sep 23, 2009 3:35:11 PM CDT
LOL YOU THINK ANY AMNESTY BILL WOULD PROVIDE ILLEGALS FREE HEALT
by bringingsexyback
What are you ON, man?
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Obama can't get AMERICANS free healthcare and Inedible thinks he will get it for illegals. ROFLMALOLLLLLLLL back to the floor I go ...
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I really liked that movie. Some gratuitous and unfunny attacks on the ACLU, et al. But mostly it was a love letter to the American soldier, airman, seaman and marine. Reminded me a lot of WWII era pro-American propaganda. And Kevin Farley made a very likable Michael Moore type character. And it tanked at the box office. I imagine Zucker had to apply for food stamps afterwards. Ah, the irony.
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If not now, then eventually. Certainly, they've ended up getting covered, one way or another, under various state systems. If they aren't covered, then what? Are we going to just let them die? How is that going to play?
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Doesn't traditional Medicare spend something like 70 cents of each dollar in revenue in pure administration? Which would make each dollar provided under Medicare cost something like $1.80? Are we going to get rid of that? I might be mistaken, or recaling bad statistics, but I thought it was the case that a significant portion of Medicare taxes went to administration.
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First off, Germany doe not have tougher immigration laws than the US. In fact, it is harder to get a US Green Card than to immigrate here. Oh, and the German system WILL cover anyone who shows up at a hospital ill. Sure, they may get deported if they are an illegal but they won't be denied help because of it. Also, if you read my other comments, under no circumstance do I say import the German system as is. The US is very different so why not take the best part of it - flat tax on salary for all health insurance fees or a private option if you are in a high income bracket. All insurance companies here are PRIVATE just under tough government rules - something that is missing completely from the American system. Even if you are unemployed, you still have health insurance from the provider of YOR CHOICE. It is just paid by the government. Why is this such a tough pill to swallow?
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Sep 23, 2009 4:49:57 PM CDT
Again, every single time, I get attacked but the things
by coughlins laws
I say go unchallenged by you lily-livers... Why don't you respond to the facts I give instead of personally attacking me. You guys are in for a rude awakening if you think that those of that are against Obama's irresponsible spending are just right-wing nutjobs or out on the fringe. Independents have turned on Obama, too. The only one supporting him right now are die-hard Democrats, who mostly don't work or would benefit from Robin Hood Obama's theft from the producers and achievers in this country...
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17,000 more soldiers in Afghanistan. Then, he backpedaled and is promising 4,000. He has a general that might resign because he's refusing to send the correct amount of troops. Meanwhile, while this clown is waffling and flip-flopping, 364 troops have been killed this year, more than any year since the War started. He has resided over 364 troops being killed, 30% of the total killed since the War began, while he's hemming and hawing, refusing to make a decision. What a pathetic loser. His indecision and lack of leadership qualities is getting more troops killed and I don't know how he can live with himself. Either try to win the War or get out...
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gotten up at the UN and bashed the US as much as Obama did today, Americans would have walked out. But, at least Obama got an endorsement from the terrorist Gadaffi, who said he wants Obama President for life. I couldn't think of a better endorsement than from a guy who gave a Hero's Welcome to the Lockerbie Bomber when he came home. It's amazing how many terrorists and anti-Americans throughout the world just love Obama...
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...I'll consider addressing it. But with your current grasp of "facts," I don't imagine that'll happen anytime soon. Good luck finding a playmate stupid enough to take your bait.
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God it's gonna be a looooong four years.
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BILL MOYERS: Why is public insurance, a public option, so fiercely opposed by the industry?
WENDELL POTTER: The industry doesn't want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot of acquisitions and mergers. So first of all, they don't want any more competition period. They certainly don't want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are, that they operate. The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.
BILL MOYERS: Compared to the industry's--
WENDELL POTTER: They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit. So they don't want to compete against a more efficient competitor.
BILL MOYERS: You told Congress that the industry has hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street. You said, "I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors." How do they satisfy their Wall Street investors?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, there's a measure of profitability that investors look to, and it's called a medical loss ratio. And it's unique to the health insurance industry. And by medical loss ratio, I mean that it's a measure that tells investors or anyone else how much of a premium dollar is used by the insurance company to actually pay medical claims. And that has been shrinking, over the years, since the industry's been dominated by, or become dominated by for-profit insurance companies. Back in the early '90s, or back during the time that the Clinton plan was being debated, 95 cents out of every dollar was sent, you know, on average was used by the insurance companies to pay claims. Last year, it was down to just slightly above 80 percent.
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and choke themselves.
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go fuck yourself
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...Asshat. "I got something to say here! I GOT A RIGHT TO SPEAK!"
"All right. Speak."
"Mumble, mumble...conspiracy... mumble...Hannity talking point ...mumble...rhetoric, hearsay... mumble...Beck talking point..." -
CENSUS WORKER HANGED: Bill Sparkman Found With “Fed” Marked On Body
By Devlin Bartlett and Jeffrey MacMurray
9/23/09 5:20PM
WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.
The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.
Investigators have said little about the case. The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, said Wednesday the man was found hanging from a tree and the word "fed" was written on the dead man's chest. The official did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word.
FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is helping state police with the case.
"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved – and that's part of the investigation – and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a census worker," said Beyer.
Beyer declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.
Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.
Story continues below
Census employees were told Sparkman's truck was found nearby, and a computer he was using for work was found inside it, she said. He worked part-time for the Census, usually conducting interviews once or twice a month.
Sparkman has worked for the Census since 2003, spanning five counties in the surrounding area. Much of his recent work had been in Clay County, officials said.
Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County pending a resolution of the investigation, Scurry-Johnson said.
The U.S. Census Bureau is overseen by the Commerce Department.
"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our co-worker," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with William Sparkman's son, other family and friends."
Locke called him "a shining example of the hardworking men and women employed by the Census Bureau."
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McMurray reported from Lexington, Ky.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/census-worker-hanged-with_n_297114.html
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that is all
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We turn up at the A+E with the above injured hand, you wait for the triage nurse to assess the injury, if urgent the above takes place, if not, then you have to wait, and wait and wait...
I have worked as a nurse in A+E, also as a nurse bring my clients to an A+E, I know how hard the system is to perect, and also how affordable it is.
Sadly private healthcare has come close to ruining out health system completely, private patients occupying public beds, essentially money buys you a better place in the queue, a completely immoral position to have.
So, the Irish system is not perfect, but it is a lot better than the one you have to endure there in the US.
Problem is wealthy folk like to hang onto their money, the attitude to taxes seems to be one of an assualt upon the wallet by the government instead of a necessary way to play for essential services.
People of a certain class often see themselves in isolation, believing their elevated position in society to be purely becaus eof their own efforts and not built upon the backs of a working class.
Society relies on all parts working together, not sacrificing the wellbeing of an underclass for the continued comfort of an elite. -
...but I cannot resist returning the favor to Doc PaDoucheu"Ever since that truly repellent, chest-thumping post of yours describing how you heroically chastise rape victims for wanting abortions there is nothing you can say which could contain even the slightest moral or sensible weight."According to who? You? The self-anointed arbiter of all things TB?You fail to mention from your high horse that when I counseled women I explained to them that they had MANY CHOICES, not a single choice as they were led to believe by the establishment.You fail to mention that I am pro-choice.This is straight out of Saul Alinsky's handbook... Attack the person, not the facts. Demean someone's character and you do not have to weather the facts of the debate."You went from being what was perceived as a somewhat sensible conservative voice in TB a few years ago to being a ghoulish Republican martinet embodying the worst of the movement."Again, according to who? Everyone in TB is opinionated otherwise they wouldn't bother to engage. And what makes your subjective (and incorrect) opinion better than mine? Who the hell do you think you are?"Thank God you people are on the wrong side of history and on your inevitable way out."According to who? Gallup or Rasmussen?If anyone is reading this, please understand that this... person... expects me to convince me that I am wrong for not expecting the victims of rape to perpetuate victimhood on the innocent. There truly is shame in this? I have godchildren that are being raised by healthy mothers that love them as a result. Try as I may, I simply cannot see the harm nor shame in this.So again, if anyone out there is reading this... do the efforts on my part truly make me a "repellant (sic)" and "ghoulish" person?
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