“Damnit!” Kenny squealed, pulling his hand back from the hot plate. “I think I burned my fingers. Took the skin right off ’em. Quick, get me to a doctor, would ya?”
“Sure, stay calm. Where do you want to go? Urgent care? The ER? Or does it not matter?”
“Shit, man, I don’t know. Whoever gives the best treatment. I mean, I’ll be using your insurance, so money is not an object.” He paused, rubbing his chin with his good hand. “Oh. And now that I think about it, I’m probably going to need to see a specialist, too. So I’ll be needing your car next week…”
~finis~
But Kenny is the short straw and thats just not fair
At least he won’t be pawing your wife with that hand…
Kenny makes me sick. I hate him.
the fiction… it is lost on ST.
“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
– Ronald Reagan
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, that ST, eh?
Reactionary leftism is like a germ, a very resiliant, antibiotic resistant mutant, infecting the body politic, a failed relic of the past.
kenny boy-here’s 12 bucks-see you next year-having a party this coming january..,
btw-if anyone takes ur picture/they steal ur soul-..
just saying
‘Course, Kenny’ll have to wait in the parking lot for four hours, so as not to screw up the maximum waiting time standards for the ER…
Kenny no longer has to pay…. there no longer is insurance… it is a right, guaranteed by the state. All private practices are to be closed, and anyone making more than another is a criminal and a thief.
So you do not have anything to worry about.
I don’t get it. If he lived in an idustrialized nation with national health care he wouldn’t be worried about insurance. You can keep demonizing national health care or you can go take a look for yourself. It’s better than American coverage and no one goes bankrupt paying for it. Do you really think we can fix America’s health care with a tax cut?
We pay way too much money to insurance companies who don’t provide so much as a bandaid when it comes to health care. We need to rethink this whole issue. We already have socialized fire and police protection and I don’t think too many folks would want to change that.
I nominate PaulO! for making what has to be the most ill-informed, massively black hole stupid comment of the day.
I nominate ginsocal for being the Rush Limbaugh idiot listener of the day. Congrats! You have won a “I Support Our Troops” bumper sticker.
Let’s make this simple PaulO: IF we nationalize healthcare to single-payer O! standards, what happened to the mortgage industry will happen to healthcare.
Can you explain what the problem is with our current health care system PaulO?
You got your all purpose “new imagining research” slush funds for our pals Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, a national discussion on whether sex changes are rights, and if not why we’re discriminating against the LGBT community. You’ve got waiting in ambulances outside ER’s to keep ER wait times low (like what’s happened in the UK, Scandanavia, Canada) and the largest of all: the gov’t has a financial incentive to see to it that you don’t live past 65.
new imagining = new imaging (CT, MR, etc)
What happens to our health care system if these insurance companies go belly-up like these banks? Do you think you could actually afford to get stitches?
#12
Wonder what the people that the state won’t treat have to say. I got one for ya paul. See if you like it. When everyone is equal, everything will be mediocre.
BTW can you cite the constitution on this? Healthcare seems to be missing in mine.
Comment by ginsocal on 10/21 @ 4:02 pm #
It’s a tossup.
Paul or ST.
ST or Paul.
Decisions, decisions.
Oh.
We know, ST.
Do you have a point hidden away in there someplace?
Rusty:
Some countries have health care in their constitutions and they rate higher than US in this department.
By what standard do they rate higher? Are we comparing apples to oranges here? Most times that’s what it comes down to.
Take your pick. How about bankruptcies due to medical expenses?
“How about bankruptcies due to medical expenses?”
How about waiting 10 months for a maternity ward?
#24 What countries and what medical advances have they made?
Get rid of insurance, and watch the medical costs go down.
Is it even possible to go bankrupt in a socialist economy? You’d have to work pretty hard at that.
Here’s one for you, PaulO. How often do American women go to Canada to give birth because there aren’t enough OBGYNS in America?
Jinx, N O’Brain. You oweth me a Coke.
Take your pick. How about bankruptcies due to medical expenses?
How about it? Are we going to use the system where any bankruptcy that has any costs associated with healthcare is counted as a bankruptcy due to medical expenses? Because to me that seems like rigging the numbers to get a desired outcome, which is like lying.
Waiting for a maternity ward? Why is our infant mortality rate so bad?
I’m talking about health care for all citiznes; not just those few who can afford it. What about pre-existing conditions? What the hell are you supposed to do then? Our system is a disaster. It’s broke.
Makewi:
So you are syaing there are no bankrupcies due to medical expenses? Because if you say “no” you are definitely lying.
“Why is our infant mortality rate so bad?”
Because we report as live births babies that are not reported as live births in most of the rest of the world.
Kinda skews the curve, that.
“Our system is a disaster”, says the beneficiary of the greatest health care in the history of the world to date.
“Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 4:40 pm #
Waiting for a maternity ward?”
When you had your humorectomy, did your insurance pay for it?
44 million uninsured citizens, most of whom pay taxes. That is a disgrace. We can do better.
“I’m talking about health care for all citiznes”
You idiot, we take care of non-citiznes, too!
“Why is our infant mortality rate so bad?â€Â
B/c we stick them in closets and let them die, silly.
“44 million uninsured citizens, most of whom pay taxes.”
Ummm…..
What does the one have to do with the other?
PaulO
I’m not the one making claims here. You are. If however you are suggesting that we need to nationalize healthcare due to a specific problem of medical bankruptcies then you should show how big a problem it is, for starters. Then, you need to weigh the benefits of the change you suggest versus the likely problems that any change must have. It seems to me a better solution for the specific problem you are citing would be simple debt forgiveness, but then it would be better to judge each on a case by case basis.
And you do realize that many of the “uninsured citizens” you’re so concerned with are young healthy people who take a pass on insurance, do you not?
It’s called “taking a risk”.
You can keep demonizing national health care or you can go take a look for yourself.
Good idea.
Look here, here, here, and here for starters.
Oh, but it’s “free”, you say.
The only way that this crap is “free” is if you don’t work or pay taxes, PaulO.
When you had your humorectomy, did your insurance pay for it?
Sorry, I’m still waiting in socialized medicine hell because that line was terrifically unfunny.
44 million uninsured citizens, most of whom pay taxes. That is a disgrace. We can do better.
How many are young men who choose not to have health insurance because they’d rather pocket the money. How many are people who live on the street due to mental illness or drug addiction. How many is most?
You talk in vague generalities, but what you are advocating for has specific repercussions.
Police and fire is “free” too. Why not health care like in every other industrialized country?
Also, 44 million is less than 15% of the population of the US. Are you really suggesting that everyone else must change the system that is working for them because of 15% of the population? Wouldn’t it be better to just come up with a solution that targets just that 15%?
Go for it! You and others interested in paying for other peoples’ healthcare can do it, nothing’s stopping you.
Police and fire is “free†too. Why not health care like in every other industrialized country?
The simple answer is that we are not like every other industrialized country. Where are the innovations like GPS and the internet coming out of “every other industrialized country”? Can they put a rescue operation off the coast of Indonesia within 24 hours of a major disaster?
We pay for other peoples fire, national defense, and police (maong amny other services) so why not include health care? Do any of you have a pre-existing condition? Just try changing jobs after that. My next knee operation is probably going to be on me.
So some of you are basically saying that poor people don’t deserve health care. Is that it? What if you just can’t afford it?
Because we don’t want to. You can help people if you want; the rest of us are going to focus on obligations that are really ours.
Who is saying that PaulO? You aren’t paying attention, instead you are acting like a child.
“#
Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 4:51 pm #
Police and fire is “free†too.”
TANSTAAFL, sweetie.
“Why not health care like in every other industrialized country?”
Um, because it doesn’t work? Becasue it’s too expensive? Becasue it shifts decision making from the patient and his/her doctor to some faceless bureaucrat making decisions for political purposes?
Them reasons?
You realize, Paul O, that if you walk into any ER in the country, they’ll treat for whatever problem you have regardless of your insurance. Illegal aliens come to the ER all the time, I know b/c I worked in an ER for 4 years, and the good ol’ gov pays for them. I agree with the debt forgiveness idea for exorbitant medical expenses, but if you truly believe that there is a country out there with better health care, the socialist-biased UN report notwithstanding, then you friend are quite delusional.
Find someone who’s willing to help out. You’ve made it clear you’re willing to help.
Or are you more interested in making other people pay?
Stunning, really, as though the Constitution had never been written to guide us.
Just nevermind that Constitution thing over there, all the other countries are doing it! I mean, hell, they can’t even get one passed in EuroLand and they are just peachy!
Where are the innovations like GPS and the internet coming out of “every other industrialized country� Can they put a rescue operation off the coast of Indonesia within 24 hours of a major disaster?
I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but this is just lousy debating.
So why not abandon socialized police, national defense, and fire protection, too? Let everyone buy their coverage. It will be like the Road Warrior.
Why does France rate so much higher than US in health care? Christ, Spain rate higher and they were a poor country not too long ago.
No, PaulO. We are saying that people who can afford to pay for health care and choose not to do so are not our responsibility. (They ain’t all “poor.”) People who are illegal immigrants are not our responsibility. People who are temporarily between jobs and choose not to go on Cobra before settling into their new employment (and health care benefits) are not our responsibility.
When you look at the numbers, very few citizens are really “too poor” to obtain some form of health insurance. And I would submit that many of the people who claim to be so, have more TVs in their house than I do.
So everyone in America who isn’t insured is some kind of deadbeat. Gotcha.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but this is just lousy debating.
I see, so you want to discuss how the nations are different, but only along a very strictly controlled subject line. You kinda suck at this.
Why does France rate so much higher than US in health care? Christ, Spain rate higher and they were a poor country not too long ago.
You are most likely unaware that we count things differently then they do. They game the numbers and we count everything.
Also, you never answered me why we must be forced to make major overhauls to a system that is only “failing” less than a fifth of the population. So why?
“So why not abandon socialized police, national defense, and fire protection, too?”
Um, THEY AIN’T SOCIALIZED.
We pay taxes for them.
Excuse me, us working people pay taxes for them.
See my “TANSTAAFL, sweeetie” comment.
Not deadbeats. They’ve just made different choices — bad ones, I think. But that’s just me. I’m a bit risk-averse.
Have any of you ever visted a hospital in Europe or Canada? I have seen many and they aren’t the socailized medicine hell-holes you people talk about. All I am saying is that we have a lot to learn and we should be learning it right now.
As I asked before, what if our insurance providers all decided to go belly-up like my bank did last month? What would happen to our privatized system if these companies broke apart? Not a pretty thought but not too unlikely in today’s business environment.
“Why does France rate so much higher than US in health care? Christ, Spain rate higher and they were a poor country not too long ago.”
Friend, who do you think is doing these rating? The UN, that’s who! O, I hear they really like America.
Where are the Spanish mayo clinics? What other countries develop the treatments we do? Where are the overwhelming majority of therapeutic drugs researched and invented? Where do you think CT’s, MRI, PETs come from? C’mon man.
“decided to go belly-up like”
Things just don’t decide to go belly-up moron, external forces do it for them. Like I said to begin with, if healthcare is nationalized the same thing that happened to the mortgage industry will happen to healthcare.
“So why not abandon socialized police, national defense, and fire protection, too?â€Â
Um, THEY AIN’T SOCIALIZED.
We pay taxes for them.
Excuse me, us working people pay taxes for them.
Yes they are socialized. Are you saying that they are private? So why not pay taxes for health care like they do in every other industrialized nation? Their systems work rather well. Granted, not withot problems but more or less well.
Have any of you ever visted a hospital in Europe or Canada?
Oh, yes. They’re just wonderful. Can’t wait to be like these people or these people.
Did you read those other links I provided? Going to respond to them?
Didn’t think so.
“Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 5:14 pm #
Have any of you ever visted a hospital in Europe or Canada? I have seen many and they aren’t the socailized medicine hell-holes you people talk about.”
My wife’s left foot begs to differ.
Thanks to British socialized medicine.
Yes they are socialized.
That word does not mean what you think it means.
Poor people deserve all the health care they can afford. Just like the rest of us.
BTW, brainwave, none of the stuff you mention is “free.” Note that Hawaii just tubed their children’s health care system ’cause it went broke. When you give something away, the demand skyrockets. Canada and britain are just now realizing this, to their collective sorrow. Police and fire are paid for through taxes. The tax required to pay for everyone’s health care would be exhorbitant, and untenable in the long term. You don’t want to be in the system when the sole provider of health care needs to cut expenses. british doctors are being paid for the number of people they don’t refer to the hospital, which has led to a number of cases of people not being diagnosed in time to SAVE THEIR LIVES. So, get a clue.
N. O’B, I will stick with PaulO due to his persistance. He is, of course, still catastrophically wrong on all counts.
“Yes they are socialized.”
No, they’re not.
“Are you saying that they are private?”
Are you stooopid?
“So why not pay taxes for health care like they do in every other industrialized nation?”
Sweet jeebus on a surf board, dare I? Dare I?
Yes I dare.
If all your friends committed suicide, would you?
“Their systems work rather well.”
No, they don’t you retarded marmoset.
“Granted, not withot problems but more or less well.”
Less well is right.
See foot, left, wives.
Things just don’t decide to go belly-up moron, external forces do it for them.
If you were anthing but a moron you would realize that many forces can cause the collapse of a private companyâ€â€just ask my bankers at Washington Mutual. This same orgy of greed could devour our health care insurers.
So your unbridaled selfish greed for a so-called “free” service, health care, doesn’t count?
Why not?
Oh, and WaMu?
Thank the Democrats.
Are your arms getting tired from waving your hands so much and so long, PaulO?
The reality of universal healthcare will be a rush of medical professionals becoming John Galt. They will simply remove their production from the system, not making it available to be stolen by socialism. I’ve seen doctors become John Galt when they sell their private practices to management companies and become employees. Incentive to see more patients, do more procedures, deliver a “more robust” product, are removed. Not surprisingly, the management company sometimes sells the practice back to the doctor at a fraction of the purchase price, after which, the wheels of capitalism give the doctor new enthusiasm for long days at the office.
If the insurance companies went belly-up and the medical economy returned to local control, it would go back to the old “fee-for-service” model and you would pay for what you got, a la carte. That is, until some idiot recreates “managed” care, that quasi-socialist extortion racket, which takes your money, pays doctors to not give service, leaving a ton of money on the table that will go to admin and profits for insurance companies, not healthcare to the patient. American medicine began the path to socialized control long ago. You should visit your local public health clinic, especially in big cities, to get a look at your future with Obama-med. You will find Obama supporters already in control of the facility.
I don’t want government bureaucrats having open access to my medical records.
Do you?
So there are no horror stories about American medicine? Grow up. Look, I’m really glad that you all have great health care coverage, so do I. I just want it to be the same for everyone, and if that means that I don’t have a TV with HBO in my private room, I can live with that. If we can afford this endless war in Iraq then I think this proves that iniversal health care is not some silly pipe dream.
Couple questions, PaulO:
1. If I, like the majority of the population in the day and age of six and seven figure billings for highly advanced procedures encounter huge bills before and during end-of-life that outstrip any hope I’ll ever have of repaying them, how will I and such a majority expect them to be paid from a national pool.
2. Especially when they’re filtered through the highly inefficient system known as central government?
3. By what prior authority will you make that central government a service provider when it’s mandate is only to protect rights, property, and national security?
Here’s a question for our resident genius, Paul:
Why isn’t there a crisis in veterinary care?
“So why not abandon socialized police, national defense, and fire protection, too?â€Â
Shitty analogy. Those cannot be offered in a competitive system; they are primary charges of government at all levels. They don’t work if you have private versions of any of them, nor would you honestly advocate them.
Health care, on the other hand, does well in a competitive system. In fact, we’d do better if we actually had a competitive system. We have a bastardized one with socialized aspects.
Arguing for a greater share of health care to be lorded over by bureaucrats is like arguing for more blows to the head because you can still feel the first one.
I just want it to be the same for everyone, and if that means that I don’t have a TV with HBO in my private room, I can live with that.
Cool. Have your HBO disconnected and send the money to the local free clinic.
Voila, your wish is granted.
In the US if the insurance company decides that you are covered for a procedure, you still have the option to find a way to pay for it yourself. As it turns out, this can actually end up saving your life. What happens when that possibility is removed? So maybe you can live with universal health care, and maybe you can’t.
“Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 5:31 pm #
So there are no horror stories about American medicine?”
Wait, you’re the moron who wants medicine controled by the same people who bring you the IRS, the Postal service and the DMV.
“Grow up.”
Um, you’re the reactionary leftist around here. A little maturity wouldn’t hurt.
You want to see an “orgy of greed”? Turn healthcare into a service paid with other peoples’ money.
Why?
“If you were anthing but a moron you would realize that many forces can cause the collapse of a private companyâ€â€just ask my bankers at Washington Mutual. This same orgy of greed could devour our health care insurers.”
Well I take you’re one of those who subscribe to “the gov’t had nothing to do with the mortgage crisis” types. Yes, an orgy of greed is more likely to devour a gov’t run system with slush funds running every which way to politicians pet projects than a private institution intent on staying afloat. BTW if fellas like Barney Frank hadn’t said that F.M.x2 was a good investment and that derivatives of sub-prime mortgages weren’t AAA rated, WAMU would prob be ok.
I actaully love the service provided by my post office, police department, fire services, library, and other socialized aspects of American society.
Also, you really should listen to the commenter about the John Galt phenomenon, PaulOlio: While you’ve been all over the socialist medicine map in wondrous other lands, I’ve some experience in US medicine that says the damn thing is already nearly involuntary, meaning trained specialists with 8 or 12 or more years education and their own practices and multi-practicioner offices make so little in the day and age of gross government intervention that they’re getting out of the business.
How well do you think they’re reestablishing the massive, collossial incomes they had as private opportunist capitalists, out raping the countryside, PaulO?
The point? I’ll spell it out. Free markets self-regulate both costs and the levels of financially-acceptable care. Collectives do not.
You want to screw with something you haven’t got a clue about simply because you can vote. You’re dangerous.
Oh, and by what constitutional authority will you put central government into state medicine. (Or education, welfare, etc, etc, but I’ll settle for one straight answer.)
Health care, on the other hand, does well in a competitive system.
Most statistics say otherwise. Our sytem rates rather low compared to national health care programs.
I actaully love the service provided by my post office, police department, fire services, library, and other socialized aspects of American society.
I bet you live in a nice neighborhood.
That’s nice.
What does that have to do with forcing the rest of the country to live the way you want?
About standards you’re full of shit, Paulio. Answer my questions. Cite proofs. Make sense. Choose one.
Paul, I REALLY don’t give a rat’s ass whether other people have as good a health care plan as I do. Nor do I care if their car is a good as mine, or their house is as big as mine, as I am not responsible for their choices. In a free country, people are free to fail, as well as succeed. It’s a concept you really should investigate, as that will keep you from looking as stupid as you do right now.
Constitutionality, Paulio?
Go for it. I learn fast.
No, it doesn’t. We measure things differently. For example, we count as live births newborns that other countries say were stillborn. Since many of those marginal cases don’t survive, it looks like we have a horrendous infant mortality rate.
We also tend to try to prolong the lives of the elderly or terminally ill long past the point when socialized systems have written them off.
I actaully love the service provided by my post office
Us, too.
Most statistics say otherwise. Our sytem rates rather low compared to national health care programs.
Again, you just parrot this bs without ever actually examining it. You are dangerous, and fortunately for the rest of us this sort of thing is often self correcting. If I were you I’d be praying that under the new system you advocate you don’t find yourself outside the margins of what is considered worthy risk. Because if you are, your one and only choice will be to die. For the common good.
Again with the fucking ratings. You realize that by virtue of not being socialist we get a lower rating.
You want to see an “orgy of greed� Turn healthcare into a service paid with other peoples’ money.
Huh? What about my bank? That was a completely private endeavor gone belly-up because of lousy management. The same could easily happen to your health care provider and then you’d be totally SOL as we used to say in the military (I had great socialized medicine in the military, by the way).
It’s a concept you really should investigate, as that will keep you from looking as stupid as you do right now.
You may be right but I look like some sort of genius compared to you. Thanks a million for making me look so smart.
“#
Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 5:42 pm #
I actaully love the service provided by my post office, police department, fire services, library, and other socialized aspects of American society.”
Oh. A dyed in the wool masochist.
That explains a lot.
Jesus, you’re an obtuse pantload, aren’t you, pauly? Do you really suppose that if one insurer goes out of business, that every hospital and clinic in the country will close their doors? BTW, I, too, am a WaMu customer. Last time I checked, (yesterday) the office was still open, clerks were at their stations, and I could access my accounts. Now, perhaps you can conjure up a better analogy for us.
No, he can’t.
Medical care in the military isn’t socialized, it is earned by being in the military. As others here have pointed out, it is a job benefit, just like medical insurance in a civilian job. And a system which works for a small, regimented part of society might not work so well for a much larger, more diverse number, such as the entire population of the country.
Except there are dozens of other health care providers.
At least, there are unless you get your way.
I still don’t understand what makes you think you should be allowed to change the way I get my healthcare in order to help a third party. If you’re worried about that third party, help them yourself.
I look like some sort of genius…
You should’ve gone with peculiar.
PaulO argues:
Peculiar sort of genius, is what I meant.
Jesus, ginsocal. Why do I hear banjo music as I read your barely-coherent rants? I realize that you are looking for some kind of liberal Ned Beatty, but I’m more like a socialist Burt Reynolds. Watch out for that crossbow arrow. Leave out the insults and so will I.
I actaully love the service provided by my post office, police department, fire services, library, and other socialized aspects of American society.â€Â
Oh. A dyed in the wool masochist.
So you don’t like the police, firefighters, or librarians?
The police force is socialized, how come when I called the police at my Detroit home, no one showed up? Does that happen to you too PaulO?
#Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 6:07 pm #
You have to admire Paul for the way he’s mastered the reactionary leftist tap-dance.
Notice how he hasn’t answered ONE question posed to him here.
His “Oh, look over there shiny spoon” tactics are superb.
Fine, Paulio. I’m going to take it then, as will the entire board here, that you cannot answer fundamental questions about either economic feasibility, practicality and quality, or legal authority.
Therefore we’ll conclude that Sdferr rightly nails it #110.
Fail. Child.
Again, PaulO, why do you want to force the rest of us to change our lives to address a problem you could address yourself?
That’s some good socialism. Can I expect the same when health care is socialized?
Oh, and the libraries in Detroit suck too!
In the land of socialism, Burt Reynolds will be denied life saving care because his choice of a drunken woman chasing lifestyle put him at risk for the very health problems he now needs help for, and as such is too risky to help. Burt dies.
In America, Burt goes out and gets a second opinion. And possibly a third, fourth, fifth, sixth…
This really isn’t getting through to you is it PaulO?
You just asked the wrong guy. If I may: Not nearly as much if they were privatized. Not even remotely. I’ll defend myself, I’ll accept the consequences of anything from Acts of God to my own carelessness, and if I want books, I’ve fond that the sum of private market vendors obliterates the entirety of public lenders. Sorry.
Far more importantly, what you do not know about the structure of authority in this constitutional republic is quite seriously frightening.
Oh, and I have some deadbeat relatives who were w/o health insurance. The taxpayers have been picking up her health care tab for the last 13 years. She’s an alcoholic diabetic. Soon, we may be paying for her to get a new liver. So far, her tab is over a million. All the while she drinks and smokes and refuses to follow even the simplest of doctors orders. She got new skin on her foot, and was supposed to stay off it. She didn’t and the skin all died. NEW SKIN FOR THE DEADBEAT!
Where did Paul go? I just got home. Don’t us working stiffs get to have any fun?
Oh, and the libraries in Detroit suck too!
So let’s cut off the already pathetic funding for libraries in America and we can all go to Barnes and Nobles and buy The Da Vinci Code. Great, can’t wait to see how stupid we all are in 20 years.
Notice how he hasn’t answered ONE question posed to him here.
I have answered every good question posed.
Sure. You get to pay for everyone else’s health care.
Far more importantly, what you do not know about the structure of authority in this constitutional republic is quite seriously frightening.
Quite honestly, everything you think you do know about anything is incredibly frightening.
As an addendum to my earlier conclusion about you and the silent convincing defeat of your premise, Paulio, I’d like to add that since you also cannot cite a single example of one centralized government entity (except the military) doing a better job then the private sector, that your entire argument, such as it is, is built on the wish for your own loss of autonomy, legal sovereignty, and ultimately freedom.
That’s the bottom line about you and those like you. So. Aren’t you in the wrong country? Really?
You see, government is a force and power for destruction. That’s what it is. That’s what it has been. It’s here to break things and individuals if they interfere with the original charter its inhabitants abide. Get out of line, commit the crime, assault the shores, and down you go. Nothing more, nothing less. This is how freedom exists. This is only how freedom exists.
There is nothing that enumerates your plan, Paulio, so as to give it the right to exist constitutionally. You have no authority. Oh, to be sure that won’t stop you and O! and Hilary in the end; we all know that. But for now have the stature to cite me, if not the letter of the authority you’ll need for the time being, then that single example of collective success, because I can show you over a quarter of a billion lost lives in the 20th century due to inescapable collectivism.
Sound dramatic? Had the poisonous collective been the best course for humanity, whether the whole or the part of any other system including ours, some smart dudes would probably have prescribed for you a little over two and a third centuries ago.
They did not, of course. So what you gonna do, failing both that authority and that functional precedent? I mean, you could just wait. But spare us the empty argument then.
Carin, I’m sorry about your white trash kinfolk (Is that the word you guys use?), but under the insurance form of health care we also all have to pay for deadbeats.
Paulo – well, I guess socialism is just peachy keen, as long as you are the one with the good library, not the one with the sucky one, right? It’s super cool that there is someone (we’ll call them the “gatekeeper”) deciding which books are deserving of a place on the shelf.
Of course, if I decide to buy my own books I can do that NOW. Now one says “sorry, you can’t buy a book … you can only get books from the library.” Neato! You know, libraries just don’t carry a ton of
pornrepublican authors.Heh. You reduced him to “I know you are, but what am I” comments JHoward. Some people think, and some people just pretend to. The only question in my mind is, is PaulO unwilling to think because of his preconceptions about things (fairness, the poor, etc.) or is he just not smart enough to understand opposing arguments?
How so?
Sorry, Paulo. You called ’em white trash. I just said they were deadbeats. Nice to know you’re a classist. Like I’m shocked.
Paulio fears his own freedom, Makewi, or perhaps yours and mine and his own. Whether he knows it or not.
So let’s cut off the already pathetic funding for libraries in America and we can all go to Barnes and Nobles and buy The Da Vinci Code. Great, can’t wait to see how stupid we all are in 20 years.
Urm, Paulo … doesn’t that insinuate a rather uncomfortable (nay unacceptable ) truth about the populations of cities such as Detroit?
JHoward,
You are like Shakespeare’s Dogberry: You are too clever to be understood. Your world view probably makes sense at your militia meetings but not to this citizen. You seem positively crazy to me. Anyone else sensing this? I think the scientific term is “nuts.”
Freedom carries with it responsibility, so perhaps what he fears is that he is not up to the task.
Actually Carin, that makes Paulio an elitist. I knew he rejected my freedom of choice. Yours too. And Detroit’s, Clevelands, LA’s…
What Paulio also fails to translate in his rush to making my stuff his and theirs, is that private schools have been shown to provide a comparable education at half the cost. Or if you prefer, twice the education for no more money, roughly.
But apparently that doesn’t translate to bookstores. Just why is another question Paulio will throw on the heap of banned questions. To be burned.
I’m nuts because you reject logic, Paulio? So who’s nuts, ad hom boy?
Poser. Liar. Fraud.
can’t wait to see how stupid we all are in 20 years.
And the starting point is you?
“Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 6:37 pm #
JHoward,
You are like Shakespeare’s Dogberry: You are too clever to be understood. Your world view probably makes sense at your militia meetings but not to this citizen.”
Ooooo, condescending reactionary leftist stereotyping.
WELL PLAYED, SIR!
I have done a bit to shoulder my responsibility for the democracy in which I live. Military service, political activism, voting, paying taxes, and playing by the rules. Am I an elitist? Only if you are a self-conscious hick who is terrified of anyone who has bothered to read a few books. I am not an elitist to anyone on this forum.
“Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 6:46 pm #
I have done a bit to shoulder my responsibility for the democracy in which I live. Military service, political activism, voting, paying taxes, and playing by the rules. Am I an elitist? Only if you are a self-conscious hick who is terrified of anyone who has bothered to read a few books.”
And AGAIN!
DOUBLE BONUS POINTS!
PaulO, I recommend, then, that you start sending in a bit extra to the IRS. Tell ’em you’re giving up your HBO (which I don’t have, BTW, I guess I must read more books than you?) to allow some
white trash deadbeatpoor American have health insurance.Oh, you pay taxes?
Thanks,
You’re paying for the bullets in my sons rifle.
TANSTAAFL, sweetie.
I had a friend in Germany who was diagnosed with a dissected aorta. Here in the US he would have been in surgery in a matter of hours, there they told him to go home and take it easy, and they would get him in for surgery in about a week. While having dinner a couple days later the aorta ruptured, and he died in minutes. Maybe good for the collective, but for him not so much.
I wonder how you all would feel after having an injury, losing your job, and then trying to get health care that doesn’t exclude your pre-existing condition. Or is that just a problem for deadbeats and poor people?
gebrauchshund:
Shocking story. I’ve never heard of anything shocking in American medicine.
Oh, see I just CAN’T IMAGINE what that would be like, PaulO. See, I live in a plastic bubble, and I’ve never encountered the real world. Say, a pregnancy, then a miscarriage, while uninsured. I’ll try to think really, really hard, though and try to imagine what this cold, hard world must be like.
PaulO, I think most everyone would agree that free healthcare would just be peachy. But, such a thing doesn’t exist. And, real world examples of socialized medicine just bring the suckage to everyone.
Pau!O
And a little anecdote will lead them.
Jesus said that, I think.
From what you’ve said so far you seem to think that shocking outcomes ONLY occur in american medicine. Nobody on this thread has even suggested that american health care is perfect, only that your recommended solution will make it worse, not better.
My flight is finally going to take off. I appreciate that most of the people commenting weren’t insulting as I tried to stick to my points without getting personal. From what I have seen first hand, I honestly believe that the European health care system has a lot to offer. I see America’s private health care industry as highly flawed and exclusive. I think it harms the nature of our democratic system. I also see it as highly vulnerable–like our banking industry.
I think you’re deluded, Paulie. And yes, I have a preexisting condition.
Only if you are a self-conscious hick who is terrified of anyone who has bothered to read a few books.
You have no fucking idea who you’re talking to here, do you?
Chapter writers!
Give ’em a chapter, sPies! Tell ’em just how fresh your bag of suckers is!
You know what else is highly flawed? The American University experiment. I mean, COME ON! Only the PhD’s get to be all smart? That’s bullshit! I just want it to be the same for everyone. KNOWLEDGE IS A RIGHT, MAN! Imagine going into a hospital and saying, “Hey, I hear you need a surgeon. I can start right away.” And they turn you away because you haven’t “earned” your MD. BULLSHIT!! Imagine how many doctors there would be if you just had ACORN sign up a bunch of people to be doctors. You’d have doctors out the sphincter! Supply up, cost down.
Easy. Next problem?
Doctors out the sphincter isn’t as much as a problem as doctors in the sphincter. Or so my older male friends tell me.
You have no fucking idea who you’re talking to here, do you?
A bunch of hicks. Sheesh, he’s already declared that, hick.
We are pretty afraid to be a socialist country aren’t we? i recently had a conversation with Kenny’s conservative / fundamentalist grandparents who despite the fact they have good health insurance are pretty much entering the poor house because of medical bills and prescription fees but think that if this country goes socialist we all will pretty much end up in hell. if anybody should want the socialist agenda i think it would be them but no way, they are way to right on this whole thing.
The medical system is obviously broke, come on! Socialism probably isn’t the answer but does anyone really thing that is eve a possibility in this country? Even if the leftist illuminati are in power that’s just not going to happen. Guarantee it!
“Comment by E.W. on 10/21 @ 11:46 pm #
We are pretty afraid to be a socialist country aren’t we?”
Fuck yeah.
And 120,000,000 murdered souls echo that sentiment from the grave.
E.W., why didn’t you tell those stupid old fundies about Medicare Part D? You want them to die miserable, don’t you?
E.W. – because those drugs should grow on trees, right? The government can’t do shit, but you think they can somehow figure out how to give absolutely EVERYONE every bit of healthcare they need?
You know, my dad was pretty much entering the poor house because of medical bills. You know what? He lives with me now. You go tell Kenny to take care of grandma and grandpa. That’s the only kind of socialism this country needs. You know, the kind where you take care of those related to you?
It amazes me that today’s generation (at least those on the liberal side) see poverty w/in their own family, yet have decided that it’s the government’s problem.
They gripe, over double non-fat lattes, that grandma’s eating catfood. Oh dear … why doesn’t someone DO something?
Carin, you don’t want a socialist to take personal responsibility, do you?
What we should do is tax the shit out of those evil drug companies. Then they’ll see the error of their ways and drugs will be lots cheaper and they’ll invent lots more of them. That will definitely work. Right?
And doctors too. If we take all the profit out of providing health care, there will be lots more of it available at a much lower cost.
Well, I don’t think a socialist is able to take personal responsibility. A socialist believes their own responsibility is to pay taxes, and the rest is up to the government.
What makes doctors think the job they do is any more important that the trashman? If it weren’t for the noble trashman, we’d have garbage EVERYWHERE. The both should, definitely, be paid the same.
Although we’re funning, though, I believe – who wrote the article over the weekend – that the real engine for socialist thought comes from the educated elite. Who can’t BELIEVE that stupid uneducated rubes can possibly (in a Capitalist system) make more than someone who went to Harvard.
I believe most garbage men would never argue they should make the same as doctors. They usually have more common sense than that.
Can we stop with the KENNY the SOCIALIST already? Surely we can find some other first name that has more of a Marxist feel to it? May I suggest GROUCHO?
PaulO,
Socialized medicine in the military? Not so much “socialized” as carried with us as a support function. Not like I could have gone anywhere when I was in Dhi Qar or Al Basrah provinces…
You may have heard of/remember Tricare? A less screwed up system than the old CHAMPUS. It isn’t like my wife and kids can’t choose who treats them – and if we decide for our own reasons to go to a provider that isn’t in the Tricare service group, I can pick up the tab. “Socialized” would be more like a sitaution where my family would have to go to the nearest available military facility and only there. We would not be allowed, by law, to go and pay for care on our own, either.
When I get done with this tour, I will go back into the civilian world and take care of my own family’s needs. I’d really rather that you and yours not try to take that ability away from me, in the name of “fairness” to someone else. Thanks.
The MAJ, as an officer, must often leave options open and be more diplomatic. I am an NCO and the limitations on my demeanor are not as circumscribed.
To amplify his point, while I have been deployed, my civilian employer has been willing to extend the healthcare coverage on my wife for those periods, so long as the premiums are paid–and they continue paying their part of that cost. Which means that my wife did not have to use TRICARE at all. In a socialized system, that wouldn’t be allowed.
Where I part with the MAJ’s sentiments– he would “really rather that you and yours not try to take that ability away….” For my part, I defy you and yours to attempt it and guarantee that you and yours are neither prepared for nor willing ot accept the consequences of it. But I am.
I can’t believe we’re letting Paul distract us with all this “fire and police” nonsense. I don’t know where you live, Paul, but I’m pretty sure that your fire, police, library, parks & recreation, public works, utilities, and city administration are all taken care of locally, by local official and local staff overseen by local politicians elected by local voters. Thus, if you think your level of service is too low, you can lobby your fellow citizens to pay higher taxes for better service. Similarly, if you think a particular policy is bad for your town, you can try to get it changed.
If your fire, police, library, parks & recreation, public works, utilities, and city administration were all taken care by federal bureaucrats in Washington, you’d have almost no say in the level of services available in your town. They would be decided based on compromises worked out with every other town in the nation, and these compromises would assure that policies were structured to be the least-bad for all, as opposed to being the best for each community. Or, more probably, they would be decided based on who could best grease the palms of the congressmen and bureaucrats in charge of the programs.
What’s worse, on those occasions when the state and federal governments do interfere with local government service provision, they tend to screw things up. Their so-called “help” usually comes with strings attached, in the form of restrictive spending directives, regulatory hassles, or unreasonable standards and specifications. Too often, the “help” from above is a specific contract that serves to enrich a politician’s friends, as opposed to helping the community’s residents.
So spare us, Paul, from your protestations that basic local government services are “socialized.” Your definition of socialism is so broad as to be meaningless, and if you’ve spent any time reading our host’s writings and observing this community, you’d know that we’re quite aware of attempts to subvert critical thinking through redefining terms.
If you think your community should provide health care to its residents, then by all means lobby your City Council to buy or build a hospital. But please, stop trying to force your local service desires on the rest of the country.
I just got here and read all the comments. I figured once you guys heard “I just want it to be the same for everyone” you probably could have stopped arguing. That is probably the dumbest thing I have heard on PW, even comparing him to Nishi, considering he actually BELIEVES that crap. He said it like he was convinced that is a noble and attainable goal. What a freakin moron.
Like my dad told me one time “wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up quicker”
Comment by PaulO on 10/21 @ 4:21 pm #
What happens to our health care system if these insurance companies go belly-up like these banks? Do you think you could actually afford to get stitches?
Late to the party, but I had to answer this one: Hell fucking pussy assed yes I could afford stitches. Stitches would be cheap motherfuckers if there were no third party interference. The materials are cheap and the skill needed to insert and remove them is minimal by medical standards, so yes, they’d be affordable.
Dumbass!