From David Harsanyi:
There seems to be growing optimism among some Republicans that if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finagles the votes to pass Obamacare, the GOP will triumphantly sweep into power and immediately repeal it.
While short-term GOP gains are almost certain, there are numerous problems with this kind of quixotic thinking.
To begin with, there exists almost no historical evidence to suggest Republicans will possess either the fortitude or the power to undo a massive government entitlement program.
[…]
Obama spent last week campaigning for health care reform, at one point getting some college-age fans worked up about all the free stuff — “free” preventive care and “free” checkups, and so forth — they would receive if his version of health care reform passed.
Which brings us to another stumbling block. If health care is now a “right” and “free” to an ever-growing group of Americans — people who believe stuff can be had for “free” — are Republicans really going to snatch it away from them?
You can already picture the hideous debate, as Republicans fold in the face of accusations that they are working for the murderous profit- mongers against the underprivileged victims of a wretched capitalistic system. […]
Once government infiltrates, it rarely retreats. There are precious few examples of federal programs shirking rather than growing — most often in extraordinary ways.
Democrats know it.
Indeed — which is why we’ve witnessed juice box mafiosi like Ezra Klein unable to hold back the mental jism, their premature ejaculate smeared across the opinion pages of national newspapers like so much boy jam over an old Lara Croft PC Gaming ad.
One of the biggest let downs of the Bush presidency, in my opinion, was his signing of McCain-Feingold. At the time, I rationalized the signing by noting that the law couldn’t withstand judicial scrutiny — and that Bush was betting on this — and so his impulse was to play politics and sign a “reform” bill that polls suggested was fairly popular, even as he surmised that the law would be found unconstitutional when pressured.
This is a dangerous game.
The time to defeat this attempt to nationalize a good portion of our economy is now — not to wait and hope that a Republican revival will roll back the kinds of “progress” that gave us the New Deal and the Great Society — two pillars of progressivism that to this day still act both as economic drains and stumbling blocks to the kinds of equality of opportunity that our sociopolitical compact is based upon.
And if it takes dumping tea into a bunch of private swimming pools to keep the country from taking this next step on the road to European socialism, I’m all for breaking out the swim trunks.
It’s going to die on the vine and you can thank the pro-life Bart Stupak and Co, as well as the Massachusetts electorate. Weird, huh?
It is strange, yes, Pablo.
But it’s too close for comfort. What we need is to start over entirely. With, like, powdered wigs and such.
— Though I get to keep the big screen TV.
Yeah. We should raze Washington and build that over too.
It has been mildly funny to watch as the realization the reconciliation blather was all a giant headfake dawn on the smart set who pooh-poohed that very scenario, all while they attempt to maintain a pretense they were never fooled. And without the least bit of rancor at having been so used, it doesn’t seem to occur to them the evidence of mendacity in the process is more than enough to damn the substance.
The idea that this will/would be repealed is laughable. At least Ethra was honest in his assessment, something his leftist brethren are usually loathe to admit.
I get the impression that these noobs actually thought reconciliation was going to work and that they’d get it crammed through the House. Because they think they’re persuasive.
I was really hoping that the libertarians would finally get to riot this time. Breaking windows and torching cars looks like an awesome way to spend a couple of days.
Maybe Friday we could meet at Chili’s, have happy hour, and then blockade the Bureau of weights and Measures.
Of course, if one blockaded The Bureau of Weights and Measures, how would people be able to tell?
Would a pound suddenly weigh less?
What do they do there?
Why do we pay them so much money?
Gaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! Riot!
Some of their legislative schemes they are coming up with now are really quite remarkable. Everything, and I mean everything, is being done to avoid actually following the rules of the House, Senate, and basic legislative process. One suggestion I saw was that the House not even vote on the Senate bill, but rather, vote on the reconciliation items and insert a rule that passes the Senate language should the reconciliation package pass.
Didn’t the Bureau move out to Gaithersburg Mr W? On that assumption, pre-rioters could meet at Roy’s Place for magnificent sandwiches, fortifying their strength for the mayhem to come. It’s way better than Chili’s.
Even Reagan didn’t dismantle the DoEd like he said he would….the current Republican Party wouldn’t have the stones to take much down at all.
Oh, and Mr. W, to quote a notable law enforcement figure “a riot is an ugly thing…und, I think that it is just about time that we had one!”
Soccer is an excuse to riot.
oh. I thought that was Detroit winning any title JD?
I am some what heartened to hear the optimism you guys have that HCR is dead.
I wonder where it comes from though. It ain’t over with this bunch O’fascists til it leaves the news cycle, and judging by the way it’s come this far, bribery, MSM cheerleading, threats and secrecy, all too accepted by the entire Dem party, I expect them to pull some other chicanery to enforce their compassion on us.
I saw on CNN this morning, “thousands marching on Washington demanding healthcare reform be passed” (looked like a hundred to me, but whatever).
I haven’t seen a tea party reported in a long time (on TV I mean).
I think Obamas stupid deadlines are a farce; they know time is on their side. If Congress comes back after the Easter break, puts on a show of working real hard on a bill, and then slides it on the Presidents desk just as jobs numbers come up from the construction industry’s annual Spring surge, the Republicans might see it all slip away.
During the summer when people (and by people I mean the uninvolved squishy center that decides our elections and only pay attention when there gets to be a dozen candidate commercials during The Price Is Right) haven’t really made up their minds yet, and the consequences of HCR haven’t been felt yet, the Dems with their sycophant MSM may be able to manufacture the facade of “America on the mend”.
The time to buy ammo is now.
Of course it is. In fact, I’d use the the word “futile.”
My biggest frustration with the Elephants relates to their over arching ability to be crushed under the misery pimpage of Democrats. Rather than seek to aggressively redefine the argument in “means” and liberty terms the pachyderms tend to get defensive and, eventually, fold. The classic example year after year is Medicare. Democrats are allowed to bleat endlessly about “Republicans cutting Medicare, thus cutting care to the elderly” when the actual discussion was over the size of the increase.
Both David and Jeff have it exactly right (and, admittedly, more GOP legislators seem to understand this these days:) Once this spectacular bloated ill-conceived crap hoagie becomes law, we’ll be stuck with it in some manner, shape or form forever. The last thing most average politicians want to do is campaign against taking away “free” government stuff from voters.
And yet …
It occurs to me that this coming election, more so than any other in my memory, will require blunt truth and courage from Republicans. How many of the candidates anxiously warming up their campaigns, anticipation thick like a Cape Cod fog, are going to go the Chris Christie route? How many are going to talk to voters like this:
A few days back we heard from “someguy” who insisted that such talk, especially about entitlements, would be election day suicide. But what else can we say? I’m going to look for candidates willing to tell the truth about our economic situation. Cold. Hard. Blunt. Bromides or vague assurances will not do. We need many more Republicans who eschew the K Street wood paneled crowd of Blum and Brooks and step before angry and scared voters and say something along the lines of, “I’m with you, but understand this: The free lunch is over. If you judge me as a candidate on the basis of how much Federal tax dollars I can funnel to this district, then not only do you have the wrong guy but also you’ve completely missed the point. Here are the facts …”
It seems so simple but it’s an almost nuclear option for a candidate since every professional campaign apparatus operates on the credo of “figure out what the voters want to hear and tell ’em that.” Go to the average political pro and suggest an approach above and he’s liable to choke on his VSOP and then laugh in your face.
The “we need to cut spending just not in my district” mentality is too easily exploitable and a huge obstacle to grown up governing.
sdferr – Good point.
They don’t have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill. And the longer HC stays in the news cycle, the more Obama’s numbers go in the tank. As we get closer to the election, the debate becomes more and more toxic. They’re going to put this to bed soon, one way or another, because they can’t afford to leave it hanging out there. And if they can’t get it through the House, it’s dead.
“And if they can’t get it through the House, it’s dead.”
And concommitantly, to stress the point, if they can get it through the House, the law will be signed and enforced. Game over.
Some of the legislative machinations being discussed make reconciliation seem tame and honest in comparison. They appear to be willing to turn the entire legislative process on its head to pass this shitburger.
Twisting arms, taking names, “mob tactics” in use.
1. Stupak may just be a McGuffin to distract you from what is really going on. Remember that Stupak is all in favor of universal healthcare, he just doesn’t like the abortion funding provisions.
2. And if the Republicans take back the House and by some miracle even the Senate, what is really going to change? Will they have veto proof majorities to override the legislation? I think not, and Obama surely isn’t going to sign that bill.
3. This is nothing more than a real life example of the ends justifying the means. The Democratic leadership is so convinced they are right that they are willing to do anything to win. When someone asks who gave a medical board the right to deny you care you should expect to hear again, “We won.”
“And if it takes dumping tea into a bunch of private swimming pools to keep the country from taking this next step on the road to European socialism, I’m all for breaking out the swim trunks.”
Whatever it takes to get us off the road to South American plutocracy is fine by me. How many of those countries in Europe have better health care than the USA? Most of them according to the statistics but I realize those don’t mean anything to you, at least when they don’t back your argument.
Well, the one hope is that you can roll back an entitlement program that most people never knew they had. If you look at the timescale for HCR, much of the entitlement doesn’t come into effect until years and years after any legislation passes. And does anyone think that schedule will be enforced any better than the trivial switch-over to HD TV?
No, from a political perspective, the HCR genie could be put back in the bottle, except for on thing. It will be fantastic for business. The insurance industry will never allow it to be repealed.
Words mean things. “Nationalize” isn’t accurate.
Well said.
More and more, I’m coming around to O’Neill’s axiom that all politics is local. I’m writing off Washington as a lost cause, and instead putting my energy into electing City and State representatives that will leave me the hell alone. With a bit of luck, we’ll elect enough people with spines, and my state can serve as a shield between me and Washington, instead of its current subservient role.
Imagine a state that won’t approve federal health insurance for “sale” within its borders. Imagine a state that lowers the drinking age to 18, and stops sending gas taxes to Washington. Imagine a state that sets its own school curricula and graduation requirements. Imagine a governor’s press conference where he says, “No, we’re not seceding from the Union; we just don’t recognize Congress’ power in a number of areas, and we’re sure as hell not paying to bail out California.”
Okay, so Minnesota is never gonna be that state, but whichever ones do it are going to have to build a hell of a lot of new houses for all of us that relocate.
Then stay home and sip your tea, Kyle. The free stuff will be yours if and when me and my faulty statistics fail. And you can rejoice at how right you were — and how, regardless of what the American people wanted, you did what was in their best interests. Because you know best. Being their betters and all.
Kyle, I keep clicking on where you wrote “the statistics,” but it appears not to link to anything. Pray, would you be so kind as to link me to these “statistics” that show better outcomes in other countries?
As a word of forewarning, I’m not interested in your tired life expectancy quotes that have been rebutted time and again. Instead, I request that you show me where a 60-year-old man with diabetes or hypertension or macular degeneration or knee/hip joint degeneration or Alzheimer’s would receive better care and treatment.
Thanks in advance.
Actually, people mean things. Words are there to serve us.
And may I say that for as much as I appreciate our other writers, nobody but Jeff would write about domestic policy sticking to a Lara Croft advert.
I’d sooner point out that the world in which Kyle can celebrate his vague suggestions of Zeropean health care systems superiority has been a world in which the creation of those health care systems would of necessity be built in the context of a US health care system nothing like the one Kyle and his moronic cohort wish to bring about. It would appear therefore, that if there is any virtue in those Zeropean systems as they stand today, we would do well to preserve the US market system that has underwritten them lo these many years.
“Actually, people mean things. Words are there to serve us.”
That was profound.
You’re like Confucius of something…
And if they can’t get it through the House, it’s dead.
Also consider that, if the Dem leadership thought there was no chance to get it through the house it would be dead already. Yet somehow they persist. Which leaves me worried.
The irony of the statements “kyle” made are likely lost on him. Racists.
The upside, ThomasD, is that at this moment, it is clear they do not have the needed votes, as there is no doubt that if they had them, they would have already passed it.
If we’re going to man the barricades, I’d recommend erecting them outside an agency that isn’t Constitutionally mandated*, like the previously mentioned DoEd.
* Weights and Measures; Article 1 Section 8 Paragraph 5.
Where did Kyle go? I keep waiting for the links.
In other health care news, perhaps due to the shitty economy or perhaps due to the fear of the upcoming HC catastrophe – my mom and 22 other people in her department lost their jobs last friday. Home health care. She’s a nurse who supervises visiting nurses and doctors (insures there is no fraud, etc).
Figure that one out for me.
The top 10 in the order determined by the World Health Organization
1. France
2. Italy
3. San Marino
4. Andorra
5. Malta
6. Singapore
7. Spain
8. Oman
9. Austria
10. Japan
I would like to get out of the business of subsidizing the world’s “free” healthcare, but I don’t expect GlaxoSmithKline to protect us suckers from ourselves.
Still no orange words in that comment, Kyle.
It’s funny, ’cause I’m ‘membering that one of the criteria the bogus WHO used is whether or not the healthcare was “free.”
LOL.
Nice try though.
We’re #37. Right next to Cuba at 39.
BZZZT. That’s the sound of FAIL, Kyle.
Save it Kyle. I don’t care about the average Frenchman’s healthcare, or even your healthcare. I care about mine, which I can afford, and which is pretty darn good. The only part of HCR that I kindof like is that notion that a whole bunch of healthy young people will be forced to subsidize my coverage. Other than that, I don’t really know what the current proposal improves, for me.
When Kyle’s children got sick, I would not suggest sending them to Malta or Andorra, or San Marino.
Notice he does not link to his stats, because the WHO standards for these rankings have precious little to do with the actual quality of the care.
I can’t help it … ba haaa haa ahaaa …. no, thanks Kyle. In this trying times we need a good laugh now and then.
Kyle just proved the existence of God by showing us a potato chip that looks like Jesus.
If we had passed ObamaCare already, Corey Haim would still be alive today. You heartless bastards.
Btw, Catholics have a concept called “invincible ignorance”. In that loose sense, Kyle is a bit like Superman.
It also makes you wonder why a Canadian politician would travel from the # 30 ranked country (Canada) to the #37 one – USA.
It. Is. A. Puzzle.
In a contest with VP Joe Biden, do you think Kyle would have the upper hand bh?
Not sure, sdferr. Puts this to mind though. Kyle, does your caretaker put a cork on your fork to prevent accidental eye pokes?
*
Oh, Kyle’s right in that our “average” healthcare is the sukcs. We do have a lower life expectancy, and higher infant mortality, and all that stuff. But my advice to Kyle is – don’t be average. And take the damn TV out of your kids room and tell them they damn well better not grow up to be average (or worse) either. Because in the global economy you’re only entitled to what you can garner in trade for your skills and knowledge.
Seriously Kyle, get out of the bottom 1/3 and into the top 1/3, and you won’t see healthcare as a problem any more.
You’re cracking me up today, Jeff. Which, karma-wise, exactly equals out the sheer evil of putting that Ezra Klein image into my head.
Orange words that Kyle won’t like.
From John Stossel:
But there’s less to these studies than meets the eye. They measure something other than quality of medical care. So saying that the U.S. finished behind those other countries is misleading.
First let’s acknowledge that the U.S. medical system has serious problems. But the problems stem from departures from free-market principles. The system is riddled with tax manipulation, costly insurance mandates and bureaucratic interference. Most important, six out of seven health-care dollars are spent by third parties, which means that most consumers exercise no cost-consciousness. As Milton Friedman always pointed out, no one spends other people’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
…
The WHO judged a country’s quality of health on life expectancy. But that’s a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That’s not a health-care problem.
Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada.
When you adjust for these “fatal injury” rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation.
…
Another reason the U.S. didn’t score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it’s crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how “fairly” health care of any quality is “distributed.” The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but “unequal distribution” would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.
Bh – did you link to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?
Yep, JD. Specifically, to my favorite scene with Martin playing Ruprecht (sp?) at the dinner table.
Kyle won’t admit to the cork, but we can’t miss the fact he pissed himself in public.
The big fiction I see is that that insurance = healthcare. I think that is the linguistic slight of hand here.
Selling the notion that by “reforming” insurance companies our “right” to good health will be guaranteed is dishonest on it’s face. Only by changing what insurance means will the goals of universal healthcare advocates be achieved.
Kyle,
Is this Top Ten based on 60-year-old men with a specific disease, or is it an amalgam of health outcomes for 60-year-olds in general? Could you link to the WHO study you cite? I’d like to see their methodology so that I can make informed choices about where to live out my retirement years.
Thanks in advance.
Bh – you rock. That scene is comedic genius, for us lowbrow racist rubes.
Oh, Kyle’s right in that our “average” healthcare is the sukcs.
You may not know it, but in the nationalised British NHS, “average” health care sucks too. I’ve been paying for it all my working life, and it’s a bloody disgrace.
The WH is admitting that this is their last gasp. It stands or falls, soon.
My 1 1/2 year old angel is undergoing another surgery tomorrow. You can bet that if we felt she would get better care in Malta or Andorra or San Marino, we would be on a plane for there already. So, Kyle, you can shove your agenda driven ideological facty thingie right up your ass. How do my balls taste Kyle?
IIRC, the WHO ratings have a “Where they are compared to where we think they ought to be” metric involved. Which makes them claptrap.
Hope all goes well, JD. Stressful, I’m sure.
Let me help with the syntax, Kyle. Cut and paste this into your comment:
{a href=”http://www.GlobalHealthExperts.org”}This is the link{/a} to the report.
Now, replace the curly brackets with less-than and greater-than signs, and replace the dummy URL with a link to your research. Rinse and repeat, if needed, but be careful not to put too many links in a a single comment lest the filter thinks you’re a spammer.
Thanks again for the help, Kyle. I figure that this country will have long since gone to hell by the time I retire, so I’m keen for any guidance on where to move my family.
It’s a hope. The twin truths enabling creeping collectivism are first that everybody’s entitlement is dispensable but your own, and second that the nature of social parasites is to kill their hosts. Witness Detroit.
There’s no evidence beyond the rhetorical level that anyone in DC has both the clout and the will to reset either paradigm.
Like truth combating the lie, minimalist politics fight a grossly unfair opponent. The Republicans win next and probably win large, but in 90 minutes they’ll be back to placating the career dependents and the loudest of their loudmouths.
As regards to the WHO study:
Our infant mortality rate is higher because we try to save babies that are far more premature than the rest of the world. The WHO study also doesn’t take into account the availability of diagnostic equipment. The US has more per capita than any other country in the world save for Japan (MRI’s, Cat Scanners, PET scanners, etc.) Also there is no accounting for the fact that more medical and diagnostic innovation comes from the US than any other country.
Our medical care is expensive, in part, because it’s so damn good. That’s why Canadian Ministers and your average potentate are constantly flying here to get complicated treatments and other countries send their med students to study in our Med Schools.
Other than all of that and more above, our health care sucks.
Is France still number one in August, when all the Doctors are on Holiday?
Before the 2008 election, a few people (Joseph Farah of WND, among others IIRC) put forward the idea that electing Obama was actually a good thing, because then it would be like 1976, and that swept Reagan into office, which would be a great upside.
All well and good, except for a few things:
1. It was 2008, not 1976.
2. Nobody who lived through the shitstorm of ineptitude and crapulence that was the Carter administration should have to do so again. 1977-1982 absolutely SUCKED. 2009-2013 is shaping up to be the same, only with more Internet and less mail service.
3. Most importantly, there is nobody remotely close to Reagan waiting in the wings. Farah et alii seemed to think that The Forces Of History™ would perforce raise a Ronaldus ex machina from the milquetoast breed of career bureaucrats infesting the GOP and usher in a new Golden Age of common-sense and responsible behavior. Sorry, but magical thinking rarely does anybody any good.
Like counting on a future redeemer to appear and rescue us from the present Obamessiah, counting on a future Congress to correct the present as-yet-unpassed evil of this one is, I agree, a dangerous game.
I have this sneaking suspicion that Kyle has learned nothing and any forthcoming retort will ignore or breezily dismiss all evidence produced to the contrary.
That’s why he has a cork on his fork.
New problem coming up for them?
From the NYT article that Ed links:
Not new I think bh, but old. Which is why “giant headfake”.
Could it be that, as they don’t have the votes, they’ll use this as their pretext to cut bait?
That would be great, if so.
As far as I can tell, first the Senate bill would have to be passed as it is now by the house, and then the Senate could do reconciliation. However, since this is their bill, they have no reason to do so. I’m hoping that basic distrust that the Senate would “fix” it to make the House happy will keep it from passing the House in the first place.
But, it’s a very close thing, and I am not optimistic. Too many right now are thinking that the damage to their electability has already been done, so they might as well go ahead and pass this piece of poop. Too bad we don’t have politicians who actually try to represent the will of their constituents, like they are supposed to in the first place.
Oh. Thanks, sdferr.
Question, sdferr. Do you mean that “reconciliation for new legislation is a sham” is old? Or, do you mean that the parliamentarians possibly recognizing an aspect of it as such is old?
I knew the first, not the latter.
Actually, perhaps I simply take your point with “giant headfake”, sdferr.
I have to admit, once they started talking about reconciliation, it became pretty much impossible for me to think about the process arguments sensibly. I just wish the Dems would admit the same thing.
I meant merely that reconciliation wouldn’t be addressed seriously once the bill was passed by both chambers and signed into law by the President. And that being the case, no promise about reconciliation to reluctant House members is worth the breath required to utter it, other than as an attempt to fool them. That they were considering treating a bill as though it were a law hadn’t occurred to me though.
This from Ace.
I’m done trying to make sense of this. It’s impossible. They’re just saying things like “the moon is less than four” or “long division is purple” now.
“Too many right now are thinking that the damage to their electability has already been done, so they might as well go ahead and pass this piece of poop.”
I’ve heard this argument made cranky-d, repeatedly, and yet I still can’t get my head around it quite.
I mean, it appears to me akin to someone telling a wife-beater who, having whapped his frau across the gob, he may as well go ahead and shoot her, since he’s going to be blamed as a wife-beater anyhow.
what are the well dressed serfs wearing this year?
The moon is less than four.
Long division is purple.
Insta-classics.
I’ve always been partial to 2 + 2 = 5 (or whatever I want it to be).
As in, 2 + 2 = 5, and if you don’t agree with me, let me show you by poking you in the nuts with this cattleprod 2+2=147 times and see if you understand where I’m going with this.
Oh, you get it now? So glad you see it my way. As you see, it’s really all about context.
Is it a coincidence that the Supreme Court in general and Roberts in particular are suddenly in the news over the SOTU fiasco?
MSNBC is carrying on about the “politicization” of the Court and a SCJ being impeached before.
I hadn’t realized that this road back to serfdom shit was fucking literal.
What’s the opposite of an annexation? Perhaps Detroit could cede sections to functioning suburbs (assuming there are any). It’s either that, or sell out to Omni Consumer Products.
I think reasonable people can disagree about the average quality of US healthcare vs. other countries. Yes, our very best healthcare is likely better than the very best in other countries, hence leaders and celebs coming here. On the other hand, there’s more people who leave the US to have treatments done elsewhere, than come here for medical treatment. And the US doesn’t have a lot of metrics that provide evidence that, in aggregate, we’re better. And with 40 million people uninsured, I can’t help but believe that they pull down the average.
But all that falls into the “who cares” category. On one hand, I don’t really care about the very best care in the US, because won’t likely say, “I want the top cardiac surgeon in the country,” or fly to the top US facility. I’m also not uninsured, and won’t pretend to know what that’s like.
So again, what I really care about is my personal healthcare, and I feel that my personal healthcare is pretty darn good. It’s also afordable. Now I don’t begrudge the 40 million who healthcare for free, but I’m not on their side.
I wouldn’t put it past this collection of leftwing thugs to try a procedural coup of the SCOTUS.
” On the other hand, there’s more people who leave the US to have treatments done elsewhere, than come here for medical treatment.”
Whatevs.
Can you provide me any source that more people leave the US for live-saving health care then come to it?
Going to Mexico for cheap botox or an illegal choppadicktomy/addadicktomy doesn’t count.
OOOOFFF!!!!
Health Care, shmealth care.
If the government puts their fingers in it (and they already have their whole fucking fist in it), it’s FUCKED!
Ask your doctor about the crazy people who run the government, and can’t seem to 5resist sticking their stupid, stupid, extra stupid noses into EVERYTHING that they know NOTHING about…
I can’t wait for tomorrow. Days like this are very hard to deal with.
“And with 40 million people uninsured, I can’t help but believe that they pull down the average.”
Huh? Why? Just because you’re uninsured does not mean that you need healthcare. Alot of uninsured people are uninsured because they figgured out they’re young and quite healthy. I can tell you what that’s like – it rocks.
Also, just because you’re uninsured does not mean you don’t pay for your healthcare. You can pay out of pocket.
Also, hospitals do not with-hold life-saving treament from people who don’t have insurance, or give them budget plans. You get treatment when you need it.
< and > are your friends. So is & when you want to describe them.
If the unmitigated disaster the Feds made of the residential mortgage markets wasn’t proof enough, I have no idea what possibly could be.
But no, the Media says: “Let’s not even address decades of government manipulation, let’s go after a few easy targets on Wall Street…”
“The Forces Of History™ would perforce raise a Ronaldus ex machina from the milquetoast breed of career bureaucrats infesting the GOP and usher in a new Golden Age of common-sense and responsible behavior”
That is so freakin awesome I wanna turn it into a movie.
Starring Bruce Willis.
I mean, it appears to me akin to someone telling a wife-beater who, having whapped his frau across the gob, he may as well go ahead and shoot her, since he’s going to be blamed as a wife-beater anyhow.
That’s just stupid ass talk.
Guns are loud.
You gotta think these things through.
http://www.GlobalHealthExperts.org = 404 error.
< > & is not a language either I or Google Language Tools are familiar with.
LOL. Glad it works for you, and I hope you think to sign up for health insurance the day before you get in that car wreck. You make being uninsured sound so great that it’s a wonder why anyone bothers with health insurance at all. I’ll keep paying the premiums, thank you very much.
Gosh, in all my years, I don’t know that any of the healthcare I’ve needed would qualify as “life saving”. But like I said, I have no complaints with my coverage or the current system, although the notion of spending 2 weeks in some tropical paradise when I need the eventual knee replacement is fairly tantalizing.
We also take in more people from the shitholes of the world who require healthcare, and lots of it. Kyle’s eyes have to be brown due to the shit he’s full of.
“The Forces Of History™ would perforce raise a Ronaldus ex machina from the milquetoast breed of career bureaucrats infesting the GOP and usher in a new Golden Age of common-sense and responsible behavior”
That is so freakin awesome I wanna turn it into a movie.
Starring Bruce Willis.Not in today’s Hollyweird.
Does cheap dental work count? Then again, I’m a guy who believes in “you get what you pay for.” I’m not a big fan of cheap medical procedures for the sake of cheapness.
I think what you know about reasonable people wouldn’t fill a thimble.
And then you prove it in comment 96. Were youy just born an obnoxious dickhead, Charles, or is it something you had to work at?
“and I hope you think to sign up for health insurance the day before you get in that car wreck.”
wouldn’t your or others auto insurance cover that?
LOL. Glad it works for you, and I hope you think to sign up for health insurance the day before you get in that car wreck. You make being uninsured sound so great that it’s a wonder why anyone bothers with health insurance at all.
I am insured now through work. I requested that my employer STOP insuring me, and instead add the money to my paycheck. He told me he would, if I showed him proof of medical insurance.
Doh. Nosy bastard.
It’s not as crazy as you think. Insurance companies must operate with both profit and overhead. Both profit and overhead are added on the cost of whatever healthcare they actually pay for, and then the total is what you must pay them (averaged out over all their customers).
If you are, like many people, grossly irresponsible with money, a single moderate health emergency will screw you sideways.
But if in fact you take the amount of money you would have payed for health insurance each week out of your paycheck and put it into a savings account with meager interest, and only use it for health care expenditures, you will be statistically very likely to eventually die (no sooner!) with a good amount of money in your bank to leave to your heirs.
Because you will still pay the exact same amount over the course of your life for healthcare that the insurance company would have payed, but you will have retained all the money in addition to that they would have charged you for overhead and profit, and in further addition, collected compounded interest.
If it was not so – the insurer would not be in business very long.
It’s a statistical gamble. But so is everything else you do – there’s a statistical chance you’ll be killed by a drunk driver every time you hop in your car. If you walk instead, you may be struck by lightning. If you choose to stay home, your roof may collapse in a earthquake, or the house may be struck by a meteor.
Guessing these risks intuitively is something that human beings have repeatedly been shown to absolutely suck balls at.
Doing the longform math is something most will never do.
Paying for catastrophic insurance is a smart enough idea that makes sense in other areas (people insure their home – the collectivized risk of the insurance being needed is quite quite small, but that just means the collectivized rates needed to cover it are also quite small). The chance is very small and you’ll probably never benefit from coverage, but the risk is quite huge because if you win the reverse lottery just once, despite the odds, it can ruin you for life. So people like to collectivize it.
But no one thinks it’s a good idea to get home insurance to cover you every time you spill a drink and want to steamclean your carpet, or repaint your siding. Or to pay your cleaning service.
Using health insurance to cover predicable small expenses like check-up’s or biannual ear/nose/throat infections (which most people do) is really not the brightest thing.
Let’s say the Repubs win back the House in the November elections. The Senate bill would still be in play and if you had already lost your seat well why not just pass the sucker as a big FU upon leaving. Better than removing the “W” keys or stealing the china which were child like too.
Let’s not pooh-pooh the idea of medical tourism. It’s at the foundation of my plan for when things hit the fan.
Taking people to the islands for medical treatment + smuggling booze and tobacco back to the mainland – bribes for third-world customs officials in the U.S. = PROFIT!
All depends on the wreck, my friend. Perchance you agree that being uninsured, “rocks?” So be it, in the land of the free. No one’s compelled (yet) to own health insurance, nor should they be.
Way to let the free market shine through. The one thing that does vex me about our current system is that my medical care is somewhat more expensive because I’m compelled to subsidize the wise young people who “rock” and “don’t need” health insurance – until they suddently do.
FWIW, I went without medical coverage for almost six years in my 20s, and didn’t miss it one bit. After I got a “real” job and a fiance, insurance seemed like a better idea.
It saddens me that coming generations will be forced to spend their valuable beer money on health insurance so that their grandparents won’t be forced to spend their valuable bingo money on health insurance.
How about I be the dickhead, B Moe, and you pay for #90s ER visit.
“if you had already lost your seat well why not just pass the sucker as a big FU upon”
yea that’s the one scenario to watch if p-o-r bail in the next few weeks.
Chuckles, if I’d been hit by a bus when I was 24, I would have worked out a payment arrangement for my medical bills. It might have stretched out ten years, but a lot of debts do. I was willing to take that chance, and it worked out just fine.
Health care is a service. An expensive one, but not the first or only expensive service in history. This really shouldn’t be that hard.
Exactly. And in a health management plan, which is what most people mean when they say health insurance, you are in essence hiring somebody else to pay your bills for you. If you are a leftard, you are then outraged that this costs more than just paying it yourself, and believe Obama when he says adding yet another layer or two of bureaucracy between you, your doctor and your insurance company will lower the costs.
People are just too fucking stupid, is what the problem is.
I had grandparents who considered gambling to be sinful. They would not buy any insurance unless unless it was mandated by the State and there was no way around it. They would pray for forgiveness for that insurance. That experience is why I left this comment earlier.
A fixed race is no longer a gamble for the fixer and friends. It is simply theft.
“My 1 1/2 year old angel is undergoing another surgery tomorrow.”
JD,
I sent a PRIORITY ONE request for support upchain. God Speed Angel!
1936 all over again.
You’re making the assumption that I wouldn’t be able to pay.
That’s just that – an assumption. Based on not much at all.
All I can say for certain is that statistically, you’ll be wrong with that assumption more often then you’re right.
The one thing that does vex me about our current system is that my medical care is somewhat more expensive because I’m compelled to subsidize the wise young people who “rock” and “don’t need” health insurance
The one thing that does vex me about our current system is that my medical care is much more expensive because I’m compelled to choose only from a handful of government regulated plans, all of which force me to accept excess coverage and pay greatly inflated rates due to people who want to use insurance as a middle man transaction service to pay for routine medical care for no apparent reason I can fathom whatsoever.
It’s like they force me to be averaged in with stupidity to offset it, because left on it’s own, stupidity couldn’t pay for itself.
As far as you having to pay for the likes of me, I’ll have you know that the costs of treating uninsured young people in the ER, and probably illegal aliens to boot, is far far less then the cost in excess to their own risk young people who do get insurance must pay to bring down the average rates to semi-feasible levels for old people who use nearly all the damn health care.
If you’re over 60, no no, don’t say thank you, YOU’RE WELCOME.
I was one of the unlucky ones who at going on 25 needed health care and lots of it. As I was in college at the time, I was covered under my father’s plan. I found that the quality of care in this country can vary within a certain range, but overall it’s pretty darn good. When I needed some follow-up scans and the like when checking for nerve damage, I didn’t have to wait very long at all. I have a hard time listening to people running down our system when they probably have little or no experience with it.
Right now I’m on a special state insurance plan for people with pre-existing conditions. I’m 45 and pay about $300/month for it (it has a $2K deductable), and it is administered by a regular insurance provider. The simple solution would be to either use plans like this already in place to cover people who have pre-existing conditions, or create them in states that don’t have them. Then the Fed could subsidize people who cannot afford the plans, up to the point of paying for them.
That’s what the government would do if it really wanted to both insure people and do it as cheap as possible. However, they don’t want that. It’s all about control, and maintaining a permanent Democrat majority.
In #114, I’m assuming that everyone has decided that everyone should have access to health insurance and have it subsidized if necessary. I’m not saying I agree with that, I’m just saying that I think my way of doing it is a heck of a lot better than what the Fed is currently considering.
People over 60:
That, by the way, is why Obama wants to kill you.
Because he’s kind of right.
Not about the killing part – I’m opposed to that.
But because there’s no bloody way in hell you’d ever be able to pay for your own healthcare. The only way you get it is by averaging yourselves in with healthy people who then all have to pay more – kind of like social security. It’s a ponzi setup.
The only downside to completely unregulating the health insurance industry – and I do mean downside, because I’m not sure what to do about this but don’t want it – is that there’s no way in hell people over 60 would be able to afford their own insurance rates without having healthy people pick up the slack. They use way too damn much healthcare.
Your whole life your healthcare costs are like, I don’t know, $2,000 a year.
Then you turn 68 and one day, for the next 4 years until you die, your healthcare costs are $467,000.00 a year.
So yeah, rates are high. They have to be to pay for grandma.
Don’t like high rates? Kill grandma.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. It’s your money or your grandma.
I don’t mind paying for grandma. I do wish I could get a $10,000.00 deductable though, and stop paying for stupid people and stupid grandmas.
But if you’re over 60 and if this country wants to really lower health care insurance rates without changing what’s covered, we can pretty much only do it by killing you.
So if Obama says that (A) rates will go down not up, (B) We won’t kill nana, you know he’s lying at least once.
Entropy@177: Maybe they just intend to off Grandpa.
Damned time machine. That should be Entropy@117.
Um, Charles the life expectancy argument? Really? Our high murder rate (a completely different topic) has a lot to do with that. I know you know this, so why the “life expectancy” argument? Also, infant mortality? Try using the same methodology in coming up with that rate and I’ll be impressed. Having 23 hour old babies dying and not calling it “infant mortality” as the euros do is bullshit. Again, I think you know this. Kyle’s just plain blinkered, so I have no hope. You claim to have classical liberal sensibilities. Being disingenuous isn’t one of those.
I’m not sure I would say old people “use too much health care.” Too much would imply that they are using more than they need, which is not clear. They certainly use most of it, though.
“Charles the life expectancy argument? Really? ”
15,000 dead from a “heat” wave french oldster want to know
No, I didn’t, but not surprised. That doesn’t make insurance any less of a form of gambling though and I do not believe it is sinful or wrong. What Obama and the Democrats are doing is however both, to me.
But, that’s another topic, too, newrouter. Whenever either the “life expectancy” argument or the “infant mortatlity” argument, I smell something amiss. But, when used together? Something a bit stronger.
“Too much would imply that they are using more than they need, which is not clear.”
They use more then they can possibly pay for on their own.
I don’t really have a problem with that, but they do.
tests
“I smell something amiss.”
scary pics of the real cuban health care that i tried to post
#116
I’d agree with you, in the short term (about 5-15 years, in this case, being short term.)
Within and beyond that time frame we would rather quickly begin to learn to separate what we need from what we think we need. With subsequent adjustments in cost and price.
Much of the details are just plain undiscovered country, but do consider (relatively speaking) how well humans did before all the technological wonders of modern medicine. Vast swathes of what gets spent in modern medicine is of the ‘just in case’ variety, and I’m not even referring to defensive medicine per se.
Yes, some unfortunate souls might suffer without it, but most would be just fine. We would need to learn better just how to draw such distinctions, but working within a limited budget has a way of sorting things out.
My guess? Procedures like knees and hips would drop in price, as would most cardiac catheterizations. Coronary artery bypass would probably still require a reverse mortgage. The big loss would be on any future advancements – much like we no longer make (m)any major advancements in aerospace since the end of the space race and cold war. but we would become much more savvy about utilizing the technologies still available to us.
This really isn’t a question of if we do so, health care spending truly is on an unsustainable trajectory – it does not deliver the returns in terms of productivity anymore.
The only things to be decided are just how we will alter the system, and who gets to make the decisions. Right now the Dems are voting in favor of big brother.
Also, anyone who wants to compare WHO statistics needs to put money down on what those numbers will look like in twenty to thirty years. The rest of the industrial world is facing the same issue. Whoever confronts it sooner and more aggressively (which to my mind means a free market pay-as-you-go approach) will do better in the long run.
I see what you’re saying but I don’t know that we’d make it 5-15 years.
The minute you get some little old lady with no assets crying on TV because the bypass surgery is $400,000 and the insurance company wants $30,000.00 a month and her S.S. check is only $24,000, the democrats wouldn’t have any problems getting the votes for healthcare nationalization.
Don’t like high rates?
Compete.
They say you can’t win if you don’t play, so failing to buy lottery tickets must be a gamble too. Except that you don’t lay any money down and you stand neither to lose nor win. But aside from that, exactly the same.
I’m constantly amazed that I so frequently find myself in such agreement with people here about the solutions, but so at odds with people over the underlying facts.
My healthcare is very good, and I’m quite opposed to changing the current system. The proposals in the House and Senate are both abominations (although the Senate plan would likely be a boon to the insurance industry).
So in discussing the underlying facts, I’m only doing so for the sake of discussion, because even accepting these facts, I see no compelling reason to jump up and down and “do something” about it.
The “average” healthcare in America trails many other countries. On infant mortality, there are measures that correct for the different counting techniques used in various countries. Even when you adjust the numbers, we’re not at the top. As for life expectancy, you throw in murder rates, but that doesn’t explain why our life expectancy rank keeps dropping compared to other countries even though the US homicide rate has dropped precipitously since 1993. And the notion that 40 million uninsured people could possible pull down the average was handwaved as simple minded foolery.
Again, my healthcare is good, and I’m vehemently opposed to the proposed changes in the House and Senate, but my healthcare experience is significantly above the “average” US healthcare experience, and the “average” experience is not The Best in the World.
I’m constantly amazed that I so frequently find myself in such agreement with people here about the solutions, but so at odds with people over the underlying facts.
Are you equally amazed that everyone here thinks you’re an insufferable buffoon and jackass? Or does that reaction dog you everywhere as I suspect?
Where are we, then?
Obesity, among other things like traffic fatalities that have everything to do with life style and nothing to do with the efficacy of the health care system. And that murder rates drop does not negate the effect they have on average life expectancy.
I dunno there Abe. Do you think the PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased since 1960? The answer will affect the label-feces I choose to hurl back.
How about apologizing to Entropy for making unfounded accusations directed at him Charles? Then maybe owning that Entropy had the better of you in the question of “And with 40 million people uninsured, I can’t help but believe that they pull down the average.”?
I dunno there Abe. Do you think the PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased since 1960? The answer will affect the label-feces I choose to hurl back.
Look at Charles attempting to set the terms again. I really wasn’t reacting to the part where you expressed disagreement with people here, but rather your uncanny ability to be in such frequent agreement while also inspiring such antipathy. There’s really nothing you can choose to hurl back aside from either disputing that assessment or insulting people here further.
Your shrink must find you exhausting.
You don’t think the uninsured pull down the average either? Sleep well, the laser cannon of facts will never penetrate your reality distortion field.
And as to the appology, Mr. Entropy, I appologies for besmirching your honor and insuating that you personally may not have been willing to repay catastrphic medical bills, had you had them, when you were a 20-something.
It was unfair to lump you in with your fellow rocking 20-somethings who state (as you did) that if anything really bad happens to them, the hospital has to (by law) provide treatment, and then soil their dignity by declaring bankrupcy or simply refusing to pay. They do cost me, and it pisses me off.
Yes, up since that point in time. Which means exactly nothing. Not one fucking thing.
Asshattery is Charles’ SOP.
Or you could just keep digging Charles.
The same levels Chuckles speaks of have been significantly higher throughout history. He ignores whether or not it is a leading or trailing indicator, as he prefers to declare his superiority in its normal pompous pedantic mendoucheous way.
Not as much as the insured do.
You guys may be too hard on Charles. He really is the high quality troll we all long for when Nishi or RD show up.
I mean, he is a pompous ass, but I prefer his dry put downs to grade school playground silliness or geek/hipster illiteracy. He actually cites a source(though too arrogant to make an actual link) and argues it. He does occasionally cede points.
Having said all that, Charles is a troll, eerily similar to actus, the original TTP, only with more “concern”. His main goal is to derail a thread. We started out talking about the game, and are now arguing over whether life expectancy is an over weighted stat in a WHO study.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Hey, discuss restaurant menus if you like, I’m just pointing out who you are arguing with and about what…
“appologies”?
Being Appolo means never having to say you’re sorry.
You could say the same thing about being Apollo.
By the way, did anyone see a laser cannon of facts pass by? No?
huh.
Neither did I. Piles of assertions, ok, that’s been hanging around lately. Actuarial tables based on surveys of the uninsured, not so much.
So Charles, you like what we have, but you think it could be better…like those on top of the WHO ranking.
Does that mean you’re unconcerned if the Dems do get healthcare passed? Things will improve for “the average person”?
With all due respect, much of the above misses the point. The argument now is about health care insurance, not health care. The argument is about who should have what level of access to health care, not the health care itself. Progressives claim to want a type of equality that pushes everyone into the same queue for everything, but as we all know, every such system eventually transforms into one where we are all equal but some are more equal than others.
Health care insurance did not exist as it does today as a predominantly middle class employment benefit until WWII to overcome wage and price controls by providing extra benefits to retain workers. It is often missed that the rich don’t need health insurance. Before WW II, the idea that anyone was entitled to the type of health care we have now was ludicrous, but luxuries become necessities. There is some unwise nonsense about controlling some aspects of health care in this bill, but this is all really about controlling health care insurance. Why? Well, as with most schemes, follow the money.
There is method to their madness. The changes proposed, especially price controls and unlimited pools must inevitably lead to a single payer system, and once they have a single payer Nirvana they will be able to completely control health care and access to it. As usual, the game is more sophisticated than it appears on the surface.
Chuckles could learn much from Mr Austin, who proves there is an exception to every rule. Well, every rule other than that BS rule the Dems are trying on for size.
Hmmm, that kinda sounds like a dig.
heh, Not a dig bh, maybe an admission…
I don’t eat out much. I find it hard to beat a rib-eye BBQed medium-rare, and a can of pork and beans. But I would never want my disinterest to influence what you all want to talk about.
Salt-free menus are teh suck.
“Salt-free menus are teh suck.”
Right, you are.
I hear you, that is hard to beat. Even a good burger at home beats a bad restaurant choice.
On the topic of off topic, I sometimes wonder when talking about other stuff crowds out the post at hand. Try to keep in on slow threads but who knows. And I always consider the quick takes posts to be looser that way. I kinda like the idea of having some overnight threads and/or open threads for that purpose because I enjoy just joking around with people and sharing wacky links as well as discussing the more important issues of the day.
Ace is taking this Waxman statement as a positive sign.
It’s hard to know if a particular tangent from the topic crowds out the post at hand sometimes. I think usually not, unless it is a troll mooning us for attention. I mean if a whole new line of mob protest accessories are being created one night, it doesn’t mean someone can’t still comment on the post, right?
I also interpret Quick Takes as an open thread.
I’m concerned that in their effort to bring up the average, they’ll bring down my actual, and likely to no benefit whatsoever to the average.
I figure after midnite, not the most recent thread, and over 100 comments in, an amount of OT will come into play.
“I’m concerned that in their effort to bring up the average, they’ll bring down my actual, and likely to no benefit whatsoever to the average.”
Why would you be concerned about that if government controlled healthcare is a proven leader over our free market[sic] style?
Are you trying to be coy in suggesting you think our system is sub-par, but you are better off, being privileged, and so you agree with all us self satisfied
rethuglicansclassic liberals that NHC must be stopped?‘Cuz moby’s aren’t nearly as clever as they think.
Bingo.
On infant mortality, there are measures that correct for the different counting techniques used in various countries. Even when you adjust the numbers, we’re not at the top. As for life expectancy, you throw in murder rates, but that doesn’t explain why our life expectancy rank keeps dropping compared to other countries even though the US homicide rate has dropped precipitously since 1993.
Probably because in this country doctors treat more “at risk” infants and older people. People which, in other countries are left to whither.
“Words are there to serve us…”
And so very many things would get fixed if this were deeply explored and believed by the populace. Thanks for the reminder.
Well Charles, if I believed that NHC was the superior model, would extend life expectancy, lower infant mortality, and generally be a plus for the population as a whole, I would support it, despite my current satisfactory circumstances.
I think you would too if you weren’t a liar.