Master Thompson, on the Hillary!Care scheme described here yesterday by Darleen:
“What is it that makes liberals think the best way to help somebody is to punish them?”
“I understand Hillary Clinton has just acknowledged that her new health care plan could require somebody to actually prove they’ve got insurance before they can get a job. You know, a job — the thing that would help you get health care. That kind of mindset is that the government knows best and if you don’t agree, then you’re just going to have to pay for it, one way or the other. The best way to improve the best health care in the world, which is what we’ve got right here in the United States, is to expand choice, not punishment.
“To some Democrats, choice to them is like a cross is to a vampire — they don’t like to see it coming down the road. Hillary says, don’t worry about it — the punishment — because the exact punitive measures they’d come up with would be worked out by congress. That’s a thought scary enough to make you sick.”
While I take Fred’s point, I think he’s being unnecessarily alarmist with respect to the efficiency with which congress would fine-tune a comprehensive program of nationalized healthcare, including those punitive enforcement measures that will be aimed at ungrateful dissidents not content to accept mommy government’s largess.
After all, who doesn’t want, say, Joe Biden deciding what’s in one’s best medical interests?
BALDNESS IS A DISEASE, NOT A CHOICE — AND ANYONE WHO REFUSES TO HAVE PLUGS DRILLED EQUIDISTANT INTO HIS SCALP FRANKLY DOESN’T DESERVE A JOB.
Attica, Attica, Attica…! &tc.
I don’t know, Jeff, I kinda like the way Joe Biden keeps plugging away.
– “You WILL be assimalated. Resistance is futile.”
– Been awhile since I saw any public figure voice such a clear Marxist doctrine. The LunarBats must have thrawled listening to her, fighting the urge to run naked in the streets yelling “The cause, the cause, it yet lives!”.
“After all, who doesn’t want, say, Joe Biden deciding what’s in one’s best medical interests?”
Boy, that one gets the gag reflex going doesn’t it?
And, yes, I can picture Fred Thompson in a black overcoat and tri-cornered hat wielding a copy of The Constitution towards Clinton and Edwards, hissing and cowering in the shadows whilst in a booming voice he declares, “Begone foul beasts of the Collective! Thou shalt not ruin the choice for liberty of mankind! Hie thee to the lecture circuit!”
BJ – Now that is a mental picture worth envisioning.
Every time I listen to Sen. Thompson talk about the issues, I feel myself leaning more his way. This kind of talk is hard to beat.
Should Fred get the nomination, the pressures to use camerawork and staging in the debates to prevent his presence from obliterating the shrill Hillary or the gimpy Obama will be enormous. It’s just not fair.
happyfeet – I would demand that the podium’s be placed as close together as possible. Additionally, at the beginning of the debate, I would demand that both candidates enter from either side, meet in the middle of the stage, shake hands, and then go to their podiums.
Is it possible to spoof the left anymore?
Richardson: Obese Americans Need Federal Protection
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/richardson-obes.html
It’s just not fair, JD. I see Hillary entering from above, with an orchestral accompaniment. Fred can participate by satellite.
My eyes are slowly glazing over from the spectre of Big Mommy Gov’t. Oooo, the large teat on which I would suckle…there are no worries…all my fears are fading away, and the blissful inebriation is setting in…I walk toward the light like a zombie, slowly, quietly, with so many others around me…ahhhhhhhhhhh.
For the non-violent enterprising criminal mind:
How many opportunities for congressional pork do you see in this particular enterprise?
And I thought the creation of Homeland Security couldn’t be topped.
“If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it’s free!”
“If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it’s free!â€Â
Putting that one in the bag o tricks to throw out at the liberals who come trick or treating at the old castle.
Thanks Timbo
stoo, it’s almost sad that the phrase “beyond parody” has already reached the point of being cliche’ in its veracity.
Socialized Health Care?
Well Canada has it, and liberal politicians love it!
Well…At least until you get really sick or something.
Then? Not so much…
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070914/belinda_Stronach_070914/20070914?hub=Health
HillaryCare 2.0 is about as scary as the first version. For those of us in opposition, in our daily conversations with the proponents or the ambivalent perhaps we can chip away at that support by questioning the “computerized record keeping” aspect of her plan. That means the Guvmint will have your file, and it won’t be confidential. Shouldn’t all those railing against the oppressive Patriot Act get alarmed by that major and unprecedented intrusion into our privacy? And not just our private opinion, but the results of your lab work, pics from your colonoscopy, copies of your medical marijuana prescription. How long until a Congressional opponent of her’s will be revealed as being on anti-depression meds just before a big vote, the way Linda Tripp’s teenage shoplifting was revealed by Pentagon spokeman Bacon during Monicagate. Yes, now the Queen of Filegate wants to see your chart.
Smoker? Pull the plug! Love Twinkies? Pull the plug! And it will extend beyond your physical problems because of the externalities of your lifestyle choices. Such as: Deadbeat dad? Well, let’s just say you won’t be fathering any more!
Getting back to the video, I’m so glad Fred started by saying that we have the best medical care in the world. I think that point should be made over and over so the public can perhaps shift focus to fixing the problems not redesigning the entire system. Perhaps he can also suggest we fix the problems in the 40-yr old system LBJ created before we kill the private markets for both health insurance and medical care.
When did “substance abuse” become “substance use disorder”? Also, Domenici is a pansy.
About the time when the Bible (or cookbook, depending on your perspective) of Psychiatry – the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual, 3rd edition (revised) – came out; late 80’s if memory serves me.
I did not know that, and I worked for a psych center in the late 90s for a couple years. Ok then. But it still seems new speaky.
Maybe I watch the wrong tv.
Why yes, I most definitely want to put my health care into the hands of people who cannot be fired. So that I can wait two years for hip-replacement surgery, 4 months for chemo, or be denied outright other kinds of “elective” surgery so that my condition worsens to life-threatening, finally making it legal to operate on me. Assuming they get around to it.
My body, Hillary’s choice, then, eh?
I’m still waiting for an answer (not you, JD) to this question posed in Darleen’s post:
The silence: It hurts my ears!!!
The argument I’ve found to have the most success in debating this topic is to have the socialized medicine defender imagine taking their not quite catastrophic injury to the DMV. It has ended hysterics twice for me now.
Stoo:
Excellent! (and frightening)
Getting a prostate exam by congress seems like overkill and not just a little kinky.
Oh. The idea is that “substance use disorders” encompass both abuse and dependence. So the idea is that by law your insurance will have to pay for treatment. Which is great. Whatever. But it seems like this is going to change the landscape of drug decriminalization a bit, no? Something here about moral hazard, I’d guess, though I’m not sure exactly what. Are we to imagine a world where it’s not only of negligible legal consequence to snort the coke, but that if it gets out of hand, that’s ok too? Great. Personally I like it better where the cokeheads and smack addicts lose everything in a downward spiral of self-destruction and die alone in a gutter leaving a trail of misery and broken lives in their wake, but as long as there’s a consensus on this new stuff I’m delighted to pay more taxes to make this work. Still, I would think that decriminalization schemes are going to take this one on the chin.
Stoo, yes, good point. Another suggestion: a comment I made to some Edwards supporters recently was to wonder if we’d get the same quality healthcare from the Guvmint as the quality of education we get in the public schools. That gave them pause. Made my evening, I tell ya.
We visited some relatives a few months ago. My grandma is 92, on a fixed income and had been taking about 9 different medications. Despite all the medicines, she wasn’t feeling any better.
As she was approaching the Medicare “donut hole” my uncle decided to investigate them. It turns out that some were redundant and others were absolutely not supposed to be prescribed with each other. This led to a discussion of health care with my aunt lobbying for socialized medicine.
I asked, “If grandma’s medicines were free, would anyone have even checked if they were right for her?”
“Well, no.”
Do not mention comment #32 (or 24)
Participation in the democrat envisioned universal healthcare system is mandatory for not only a job. Wasn’t it the Brett Girl that wanted mandatory check-ups? Might have been any of them I suppose.
Even though I prefer to avoid the newest FDA approved treatment for whatever bureaucrat MD diagnoses, will I be able to opt-out at that point?
Sorry comrade, is MANDITORY!
,blockquote> Why are we to assume that a government health care system will be well run both administratively and financially when the current government run health system is constantly criticized for excessive red tape, substandard followup care and an inability to use its financial resources judiciously?
BJTexs – I will take you up on your challenge. It is safe to assume that the government could and will properly administer a national healthcare plan. It will be incumbent upon them to do so, and when the various governmental agencies are working in conjunction with the White House and Congres, after the esteemed Senator Clinton, Rep. Pelosi, and Sen. Reid win their respective positions. You point towards the VA system, Medicare, and Medicaid being examples of poorly run governmental systems, and that may be so. The reality is that the Republicans care little about the Veterans, and even less about the poor and elderly, and have taken every opportunity to slash funds from these decades old programs that administer care and services to those amongst us that deserve it the most. Rather than funding care for Veterans, Cheney chose to cut his own taxes, the taxes of Halliburton, who pulls the strings in the White House, and all of the other filthy rich in the military industrial complex. The prices of oil have been driven up 400%, and it is just a coincidence that the oil baron friends of the White House, Halliburton East, are posting record profits. Fortunately, even the Chimperor’s own party no longer supports him, and they have taken out a 4th mortgage on their political capital, which has contributed to the bursting housing bubble, and will prevent any more of their extremist ideals from destroying America. Fortunately, Hillary and Bill Clinton will be there, again, to clean up after a Bush had trampled all over the Constitution and our way of life. May Allah have mercy on their souls.
I guess it is easier for you to fear the terrahists. Why in the hell should you fear them though? Do you really think that those peace loving Muslims care would ever target some suburban strip mall in Columbus, Louisville, Davenport, or Omaha? The only people that have any reason to fear the terrahists are those of us that live in civilization, on the East and West coasts, and remarkably, we are not scared of them.
The putative “Voice of Reason” japes:
Uh, no. You didn’t even reach escape velocity from the gravity well of incoherence.
Do you really think that those peace loving Muslims… I smell satire.
*sigh*
I am destined not to get a serious answer to my serious question.
But I have enjoyed the satires. (Was that you, again, JD?)
BJTexas – I don’t think there is a satisfying answer an actual progressive can give you to your question. I’ve never gotten any kind of serious answer to “So, why not just put everyone on Medicare since it already exists?”
No one is supposed to question their proposed remedies, because they care. Deeply, even lip-bitingly.
Yup.
Now I know why people are drawn to liberalism. It is so damn easy. You just do not have to think. Just sit back, and feeeeeeeeel.
BJ – Apparently there is not one moonbat lurking out there willing to take a crack at a rather straightforward question, except for me.
MOONBATAPHOBE!
Seriously what bothers me most about the surge for “Universal” health care is the idea that we are to care more about the 40 million without and not a whit about the 250 million with. The dem campaign stops are short form documentaries of Misery Pimpage%copy;. They manage to find individuals who either have no health care or have been brutally banged by an evil HMO to tell their personal tale of horror. Policy making is not about what’s best for all but what’s needed for the lost and least. The pimpage fires the activists and the lip biting commences without any regard for the vast majority of citizens who are getting the best health care in the world. By far!
Throw in the checkered history of the VA and Medicare, sprinkle with “must have insurance at a job interview” and “all will be required to get annual exams,” stir in horror stories from overseas (if you’re fat or smoke we will deny you services) and I’m still stuck with struggling to understand the lure of U.H.C.
BTW: PW quiz: What famous Dem Liberal was the co-sponsor of the bill creating the HMO system in the late 70’s?
[quote Voice of Reason]It is safe to assume that the government could and will properly administer a national healthcare plan.[/quote]
The.Mind.Reels.
God knows what other SCARY assumptions are running around in this poor bastard’s head. Interesting how very quickly he slides down the slope of ‘argument’ to Standard Boilerplate BSDâ„¢
[quote]The only people that have any reason to fear the terrahists are those of us that live in civilization, on the East and West coasts, and remarkably, we are not scared of them.[/quote]
So comfortable to be able to sit back and kvetch while others sacrifice for your safety. What I object to is when you and your buds put a stick in the spokes of those trying to keep us alive. When the next “terrahist” (whatever that is) strike occurs on the civilized coasts I presume you will then be first in line to donate your organs to the victims.
VoR appears to subscribe to the left’s “mislabel it” meme. You know, like Truthers who spread lies, the “Reality-based community” that wouldn’t know reality if it was neck deep in it, “Move On” that wants to revert the world to Marxist degredation, and so on.
It’s probably partly the inability of Liberals to distinguish between different things (that old “judgement is bad so you must abandon it” thing), and partly good old-fashioned dishonesty.
You fascist racist sexist misoynistic nihlistic homophobic automatons that would blindly follow the Chimperor and Darth Evil to the ends of the Earth which is right where they are taking you need to read a little outside of your little insulated bubble I know my superior views give you pause and reason to question who you are at your deep hate filled core but do not despair Some of you will see the potential for what this world has to offer if we just love each other work together and quit trying to gain superiority on those around us If we are just tolerant of differences of opinion except for ones of hate we can live a life full of love rather than continually going around the world killing people because of the color of their skin and what natural resources they possess If we could all live by the themes outlined in An Inconvenient Truth and Earth in the Balance we would not need to kill Muslims for oil Join us Peace is good
Sorry, BJ. I tried.
BTW: PW quiz: What famous Dem Liberal was the co-sponsor of the bill creating the HMO system in the late 70’s?
That would be Ted “Ted” Kennedy.
eLarson: Ding! Gold star! Everyone should try to remember that fact the mext time St. Teddy blo0viates about “evil” insurance companies.
For those who may have missed it: Voice of Reason is our own JD channeling the essential leftness. You need to stop as you are starting to scare me. It’s scary that the quality of commentator here was willing to accept JD’s rants as what passes for reasoned leftist dialogue on UHC.
Hello! cicero? cynn? Semi-Concious? vandalay? Luis Mendoza? anybody?
Well, JD had me fooled. Jolly good show, that. Cheerio!
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