This letter is addressed to the Republican senators and congressmen who are all fortunate enough to have wonderful health care provided to them by the government — but are opposed to the new proposals that would insure millions who are not as lucky as they, prevent insurance companies from using preexisting conditions to turn people away, and provide choice and competition to hold down out-of-control health-care costs.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to file bankruptcy, half because of medical expenses, and half of those had health insurance. Family health coverage has risen over 86 percent between 2000 and 2007, and there is no end in sight. Is there only one Republican in Congress, Joseph Cao from New Orleans, who acknowledges this situation and feels a responsibility to his constituents to do something positive to help, rather than just place barricades between the status quo and relief?
Health-insurance-company lobbyists are spending $1,000,000 a day in Washington. Let's see a detailed accounting as to how that money is being spent and who receives it. Let's see if there's a connection between contributions and votes.
Perhaps if these Republicans had to seek their insurance the way that the rest of us do, those who can't understand or empathize would get some perspective. The cost, although an issue to most Americans, is obviously not an issue, as approximately 44 percent of all senators and congressmen are millionaires (Democrats included). However, it would be very interesting to see how they would deal with their preexisting conditions and the turndowns they'd receive in their search for coverage. Of course, those over 65 could sign up for Medicare, another government plan. Isn't it funny that government plans work well when Republicans benefit?
— Deborah Josephs
Asheville
I’m in favor of getting rid of the preexisting condition clause. But misusing statistics to get it done is wrong.
Half of bankruptcies are due to medical expenses? I think not. They may have been a line item on the overall BK, but not the cause for near that many. There are no statistics that point out a single cause.
Gov’t plans work well? Says who? How many times have you seen in the headlines over the years that Medicare and Medicaid are near bankrupt themselves?
A am for bigger people & smaller govt. When people work they can have insurance, if you choice to be a bag-boy all your work life then it will be hard to have insurance.
You must earn what you want however if you wish to pay for others then mail a check to the local hospital.
Evil rich Republicans blah blah blah….Evil rich Republicans blah blah blah…..Evil rich Republicans……
This bill is 2000 pages long and nobody knows what all it says. And Nancy “I am rich enough to rideout all the tax increases I’ll put on you” Pelosi ramed this through without any discussion of the real meat of the details. When parts of the 4 inch tome we deciphered, we were all surprised at the details. This is a BAD bill that will raise taxes on working people, tax those with good healthcare insurance as part of their job compensation, and cut medicare for seniors. All this so 39 million can get insured? And Obama and Pelosi can say they “reformed” healthcare?
T H I N K ! It’s a bad bill and I for one am glad republicans and many democrats opposed it. A taxpayer bride to a LA senator bought a vote to get it upfor consideration. Our own Representative Heath Schuler wisely opposed this bad bill.
Thank you Rep Schuler. You are a man of the people and will get re-elected. Is he the only democrat who gets it? That raising taxes during a recession/depression is flatout a stupid thing to do?
No national socialist healthcare!
Be different if Congress wasn’t immune to taking the Proposed Health Care Changes, they get to keep their Tax payer payed for Insurance and we get what they deem is fitting.
Seems obvious to me that the REAL purpose of this health care bill is to take power, choice and freedom AWAY from the citizenry (us!) and put it into the greedy, corupt hands of Washington Dem. leaders—forever. We would have to go begging to them for our health care. We need to get government out of the way of the free market, d/c most or all of the restrictions and current regulations on health care provision (and there are many). As in every other business where this is tried, the businesses flourish, prices come DOWN and quality and availability go UP! It’s called competition! Works every time it’s tried. Duh!!! For those of you who don’t know, the ‘Free Market’ is liberty and democracy at it’s finest– which is why it is demonized and destroyed by socialists/communists/marxists. Obama/Pelosi meddling is killing the goose that laid the golden egg before our very eyes. Let us stand against it.
Thank you for your comment Jose. Right on!
Jr, you are a veritable fountain of disinformation. It is bizarre that you constantly substitute your ill-informed intuitions for facts.
Here is an article on the Harvard study published in Health Affairs, which did indeed find that medical bills cause half of the bankruptcies in America:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html
What’s especially frightening about their findings, is that more than 3/4ths of the people who go bankrupt from medical bills had insurance at the time they got sick.
Hilariously, you asked, “Gov’t plans work well? Says who?”
The World Health Organization, who rated 36 other countries before us.
How big was their house payment? How big was their car payment? How many car payments did they have? How much debt did they have prior to the health issue? I’ll agree with the statistic when I know those answers.
Here’s a commentary that’s worth the read:
http://tinyurl.com/qgx42k
The WHO has an agenda. I work with insurance, medicare and medicaid every day. I know the real deal.
Golly, why would anyone trust an in-depth study carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School that was published in the foremost healthcare studies journal in the nation over JWT Jr, the Fox News-obsessed medical assistant?
Golly, why would anyone trust an in-depth study carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School that was published in the foremost healthcare studies journal in the nation over JWT Jr, the Fox News-obsessed medical assistant?
Well golly shucks gee wizzed, tumblin’ent, could it due to the fact that your source (the inevitably politically correct Harvard) has been soundly and appropriately refuted by people who actually know what they are talking about.
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Mathur090728.pdf
… another statist fundie gurgle knocked to the floor … that one might take a couple of stitches.
Here is a little more in depth material dealing with the Ent’s blind obeisance to the gawd of liberal excess, Hahvahd.
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20060719_MedicalBillsAndBankruptcy.pdf
Aparna Mathur, the research economist who conducted the study refuting the Himmelstein, Thorne, Warren, and Woolhandler paper, adds her comments here.
http://blog.american.com/?author=55
Ms Mathur’s bio is located here.
http://www.aei.org/scholar/111
Given the fascination the statist Ent has with professional education as qualifiers, I think he needs to soak his bum in light of Ms. Mathur’s excellent credentials.
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha! traveliar, are you trying to kill me with laughter?!? The American Enterprise Institute is a complete joke. It is a right-wing extremist neocon think tank that has been exposed time and time again for lending their opinions out to the highest bidder.
Yeah, Harvard is just a bunch of dum-dums with perfect SAT scores, and Health Affairs, the foremost healthcare studies is just for dum dums too. Your imbecilic anti-intellectualism never ceases to amaze.
And the irony of a person from Maine making fun of people who drop their r’s certainly is entertaining. Just because you can’t say the letter r yourself, you probably shouldn’t make fun of others in the same boat. You are just never going to grasp the concept of people in glass houses not throwing stones.
If you cannot deal with the evidence and the refutation, you are just blowing hot air. Otherwise, step up to the plate and offer a rebuttal to the evidence.
Can you quote you as stating George Bush is a Harvard intellectual or are you going to pass grapes at the thought?
As a side note, the Obama administration is delivering a policy address at AEI on Monday. I am guessing they are not in on the joke or you don’t have any pull with getting your message out.
traveliar, when I start taking laughably looney right-wing extremist advocacy groups seriously, I will let you know. If you think providing a link to a complete joke like the American Enterprise Institute is a refutation of a peer reviewed study out of the Harvard Medical and Law schools, you may be even more insane than I had imagined.
Actually, if George Bush had made it into Harvard on merit, as Obama did, I would have a lot of respect for that. He did not. People at the top of their class commonly fail to get into Harvard; a C student like George Bush had to pull strings, or he wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell. And as opposed to shrub, Obama graduated magna cum laude. Fortunately, the way admissions have been structured in recent decades, it isn’t easy to buy your way in any more.
Actually, it is not exactly a secret that the Obama Administration’s approach to Afghanistan is largely in line with the neocons in many regards, but of course, that doesn’t fit in too well with your hilariously delusional Marxist/liberal conspiracy theories.
And by the way, Apana Mathur’s paper was written for a right-wing extremist advocacy group that has been repeatedly busted for selling their support to the highest bidder, and not a peer reviewed journal like the Harvard study.
I still do not see a refutation of the evidence destroying the argument of the Himmelstein paper. Are you capable of it or do you have more hot air to blow instead?
Why the double-standard there traveliar? Your only refutation of the peer reviewed Harvard study that was published in the foremost healthcare policy journal in America was to say that it is all part of some ivy tower liberal conspiracy. I am not about to go through “the Himmelstein paper” point by point to refute it. I certainly do not claim to be an expert in healthcare policy. I will trust the most credible source to date, which is the Harvard research published in Health Affairs.
Now about your obsession with blowing, spanking, and ripping orifices. Have you had the opportunity to see the HBO documentary about the closeted homosexuality of right-wing extremist politicians called Outrage yet? You might like it. Try not to abuse yourself too much in the process though.
At least one Republican “gets it”. He is Sen Coburn of OK (who also happens to be a Physician). He has introduced an amendment to the Senate Bill that would REQUIRE members of the House and Senate to be “stuck with” whatever plan Congress inflicts on the REST OF US. A few non-hypocritical Democrats have actually joined him in this effort.
If ALL of the sad-sacks we are over paying in Congress would agree that Congress gets the “public option” — no more — no less, then they might have better success convincing THINKING Americans that it is a “good thing”.
T100
I still do not see a refutation of the evidence destroying the argument of the Himmelstein paper. Are you capable of it or do you have more hot air to blow instead? Man, you have been bloodied all week long and you still come back with puffed up false bravado… classic statist fundie ignorance.
traveliar you statist fundamentalist, you really are some kind of deranged lunatic. You keep asking for a refutation of an article that attacks a study that I never even cited in the first place. And you think that is rational? How hysterically funny.
I have never even read the study from the American Journal of Medicine that she is refuting for the right-wing extremist think tank that employs her, so I am sure as hell not going to defend it. Apparently, in your hilariously inept haste, you seem to have conflated it with the study that I cited. Do you ever get tired of being wrong?
What makes it so particularly absurd is your outlandish hypocrisy. You ask me to refute some attack on a paper that I am not even familiar with, yet you have not in any way refuted the peer reviewed Harvard research that I cited. Not a peep other than your usual conspiracy blather.
Bloodied? Whaaaaaaaahahaha! I have completely mopped the floor with you in every single debate we have ever had, and you know it! Most notably in the ongoing debate that lasted a year, where I finally irrefutably proved that you had been lying your head off all along. And most recently in a debate where you claimed that I was clueless about child psychology, a 20 year professional completely humiliated you by making mincemeat out of your asinine arguments. You really are the Black Knight, wriggling around on the ground with no arms or legs, declaring victory. It’s amusing, in a sadly pathetic kind of way. Almost as amusing as a climate change denying fundamentalist windbag, who thinks that dinosaurs and evolution are liberal conspiracies, trying to pretend that he understands science.
If cartoons watched cartoons that watched cartoons, that would be a close approximation of traveliar the statist fundamentalist. It is especially cartoonish when an actual fundamentalist uses the word “fundie,” completely oblivious to the hilarious hypocrisy and laughable naivete of his use of the term.
You keep asking for a refutation of an article that attacks a study that I never even cited in the first place. And you think that is rational? How hysterically funny
You offered:
Here is an article on the Harvard study published in Health Affairs, which did indeed find that medical bills cause half of the bankruptcies in America:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html
What’s especially frightening about their findings, is that more than 3/4ths of the people who go bankrupt from medical bills had insurance at the time they got sick
I replied with:
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Mathur090728.pdf
Now if you did not actually read the study you are attempting to present as some sort of irrefutable “Ive League” evidence even in light if a strong academic rebuttal to it (yeah, the one I provided links to), then what you find as hillarious might actually be the musings of a man destined to find the white padded walls of an isolation cell his new home.
You are clearly an internet troll and an unconvincing fraud.
To add further evidence of your incompetence in these matters, the study you did reference is the same study that Ms.Mathur refuted.
From your link …. Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of the study …
I suspect you have read neither the original study, the rebuttal to it or anything else regarding this subject matter. In other words you lack any competency to understand the matter at all.
I overlooked this priceless gem …
You wrote:
I am not about to go through “the Himmelstein paper” point by point to refute it.
Knowing you have studied or read nothing on this matter, I can understand your demonstrated ignorance. Why would you go through the “Himmelstein” paper in an attenpt to refute it when it is the Himmelstein paper that you presented with your claim regarding bankruptcies? You poor knucklehead, it would be the Mathur paper that you would need to refute for your nonesense to stand.
Face it, you are a fraud.
Hmmmm. 12 trillion dollars in debt and all this complaining about our government attempting to serve the people. Bush and Cheney spending trillions we did not have abroad chasing imaginary ghosts and manufacturing consent for the corporate death brought on by Blackwater in Iraq. I am sure the exciting new bank account of Halliburton is supported by the likes of Travelah.
While he shreds on the noble endeavor to care for all of the people of this nation, and actually do it here in our own country. For once our tax dollars being targeted to help the people who pay the taxes in the first place. Not that I mind a healthy debate on how that occurs.
What is not debatable is whether it is the right thing to do.
The measure of a great nation is how it cares for its weak and disenfranchised- not by blowing up foreigners and infecting us with fear fermented in fantasy that we are doomed if we don’t.
This could literally be construed by the likes of Travelah and his ilk to mean he supports murder over mercy.
Very Christian of you.
And as for Entopticon- you are so damn clever. Although they can be scathing, I must say your posts are some of the most articulate and evolved with critical thought I have seen in quite a while. You absolutely have me in laughing so hard my stomach hurts as you not only shred, but actually devour Travelah’s rhetorical and fundamentalist rantings. Keep it up.
You would have my vote if you ran for office. But wait… You have convictions based in humanity and not corporate homicide and think critically. That would preclude you from being a typical politician.
Again travelah, the Himmelstein paper that she refutes is from the American Journal of Medicine, and the paper by that I cited is from Health Affairs. As far as I know, it is the same author, but they are two different papers. I don’t know anything about the AJoM paper, so I am not about to defend it. I don’t claim to be an expert on health care policy, nor am I about to get into debating the facts with some wingnut hired by the American Enterprise Institute.
Are you really so hilariously mentally deficient that the outlandish hypocrisy of what you are saying is completely lost on you? You are not any more of an expert trained on analyzing healthcare policy issues than I am. You keep pointing the gun at yourself every time you chastise me for not wading through the American Enterprise Institutes propaganda to refute it. I have little interest in doing that, and you have still not offer one word to refute the peer reviewed study that I linked to. Not a word to refute it, yet the hilariously outlandish hypocrisy of that is completely lost on you. You are the most cartoonish person imaginable.
You poor dummy …. they are one and the same.
Anasazi … you should get the MX Sockpuppet of the Year Award for 2009 … well, if they had one.
The more fundamentalist ones’ beliefs become- the more negotiable morality and virtue seem to be.
Obama did not create the debt. We went from the largest creditor nation on the planet to the larget debitor nation under Reagan. Bush took our nation’s credit card and irreparably injured our ability to be solvent while protecting corporate interests that guaranteed that welfare for their immorality and soulless endeavor was left unchecked and even encouraged.
We now have someone in office who desires to help the people and lobbyists and corporate death mongers in the insurance industry veil and obfuscate his efforts with the absolutely insane fear based nonsense (Socialism=Unamerican). Our military is socialized. Our postal service. The most socialized of all is the corporate welfare we dole out without blinking when their interests (not ours) run us all into the ground.
God forbid someone tries to make a difference and actually invest in America’ infrastructure and welfare. I know I would rather have it spent here than on the Mall of America Embassy we are building in Iraq.
Homework for Travelah…
Critical Thinking
critical thinking deliberately evaluates the quality of thinking. In a seminal study on critical thinking and education in 1941, Edward Glaser writes that the ability to think critically involves three things:
1 An attitude of being disposed (state of mind regarding something) to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experiences,
2 Knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning,
3 Some skill in applying those methods.
Travelah… What you utilize is the following:
Ad Hominem
An ad hominem argument has the basic form:
Person 1 makes claim X
There is something objectionable about Person 1
Therefore claim X is false
Entopticon claims that the sky is blue
Travelah says he is a liberal
Therefore the sky is not blue.
Travelah…If you want to use Ad Hominem attacks I will continue to be amused as you are funny as well (and I do downright laugh at what you say), but what would be much more interesting is for you to actually respond to my post on Health Care Reform.
I find the whole Socialist debate to be ironic. The government plan is flawed, but not because of socialism. It does not even begin to touch the real problem… that the corporate interests in the insurance industry are costing us by their incapacity for any consideration other than profit.
Remember… Corporations are in fact granted the status in this country of legal human beings without a body to incarcerate or a soul to save.
Interesting that they acquired that unbelievable right under legal filings on the Amendment to ensure the freed slaves their liberties. Over 300 filings and only a handful for the rights of actual human beings the rest by corporate lawyers for corporations.
Exactly whose intentions are we questionning?
Again travelah, I haven’t taken the time to go through the Journal of American Medicine paper, so I can’t comment on it one way or another, but you still haven’t addressed the hilarious hypocrisy of your double standard. You haven’t offered a word to refute the peer reviewed research that I presented. Not a word. The American Enterprise Institute is a complete joke. Her paper is not peer reviewed. They are a right-wing extremist advocacy group that is for sale for the highest bidder. They have been busted time and time again for that.
Yes, the World Health Organization has an agenda indeed: the health of the people in the world. And the most qualified people on the planet run it, not medical assistants with delusions of grandeur that they know better.
If Enepticon wants socialized “healthcare”, I think she should pay for it herself. Us working stiffs just cannot afford to pay for all the “what me work?” crowd. Let them go to the ER like they can do now.
And for crying out loud, the last organization we need to run anything as important as healthcare certainly is NOT the government. They’ve screwed up everything they’ve touched. The post office, medicare, social security, and you-name-it, are all underwater financially.
I’ve got an idea, to bring some reality to any bill that might get rammed through. Make all federal people be under the same system they want us to be under. Don’t let it be like social security, where federal employees are exempt and have their own system that is better than ours. That includes our modern day “lords”, senators and representatives. Oh, and of course, the “community-organizer-in-chief”, Barack Hussein Obama.
Maybe they will care more about us worker bees and our healthcare system if they themselves have to live under the same plan.
Maybe we could privatize our fire departments to run like a health insurance company as the witty link posted by Chops suggests…
“Depending on your fire protection insurance plan, the fire department might tell you they can put out the fire in your living room and bedroom, but not the kitchen or the garage… unless you pay an additional out-of-pocket fee.”
Yes… Our fire departments are socialized, too.
Maybe Travelah could travel to his local socialized volunteer fire department and protest them as liberal infidels.
I am in no position to evaluate the efficacy of all proposed government funded/run insurance plans. It is an important debate, and I do not possess all the answers.
I do know I would trust that entity more than an insurance industry that functions with sociopathy and abject zealous prevention from the provision of the very product they pedal.
Anasazi/Entopticon, the one of you is a ‘tarded joke. Of course creating the Anasazi account on Dec 2 and then drooling all over yourself in the blathering post above, well, that doesn’t mean anything. Of course not ….
I am definitely not Anasazi traveliar, but nice try. Speaking of drooling all over yourself, it’s true that Levi Johnston is going to be in Playgirl, but try to contain yourself.
Actually Travelah I am my very own person, and you are like my very own fundamentalist right wing born again toy. What I always wanted for Christmas. How thrilling. And you talk without batteries or a string. I didn’t know Mattel had you in their product line.
Despite your confused pareanoid ramblings about liberal conspiracies and other liberal nightmares that appear to have you fixated and distracted from rational thought, I am willing to entertain the possiblility it is better to keep you on blog sites and off the street where you present a risk to the civil liberties of others.
May the ACLU and Planned Parenthood keep you forever on guard. They are coming for your bible and your god and your guns.
I am still awaiting a coherent response from you regarding my views on the health care debate.
More homework to help Travelah, but this will be a tough lesson for him
Critical Thought Lesson Two (Errors in Thought)
To develop one’s critical thinking traits, one should learn the art of suspending judgment (for example, when reading a novel, watching a movie, engaging in dialogical or dialectical reasoning). Ways of doing this include adopting a perceptive rather than judgmental orientation; that is, avoiding moving from perception to judgment as one applies critical thinking to an issue.
One should become aware of one’s own fallibility by:
1 accepting that everyone has subconscious biases, and accordingly questioning any reflexive judgments;
2 adopting an ego-sensitive and, indeed, intellectually humble stance;
3 recalling previous beliefs that one once held strongly but now rejects;
4 tendency towards group think; the amount your belief system is formed by what those around you say instead of what you have personally witnessed;
5 realizing one still has numerous blind spots, despite the foregoing.
Humility in this area generally leads to a person’s ability to adapt and develop their critical thought. It is a noble endeavor. Give it a try and you may just evolve.
But you probably don’t believe in evolution.
Still waiting for a response from you that actually relates to health care.
For anyone interested in the global breakdown of per capita expenditures on health care this is an good link. The data is from 2006. We spend the most on the planet per person. The link is to a global map. http://www.who.int/nha/use/THE_pc_US$_2006.png
Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which compare trends among 30 industrialized countries, shows that the U.S. spent $5,267 per capita on health care in 2002—53 percent more than any other country.
If you extrapolate the math given the U.S. Census Clock which is currently at 308,095,506 by that $5267 number which is 7 years old, and I doubt it has gone down, the results of the arithmetic is $1,622,739,030,102.
Imagine how exciting our bank accounts would look if we didn’t have to fund the excesses of corporate insurance company bottom lines- to make as much money as humanly possible by preventing as much of the very services they provide from helping to heal sick people.
We spend more on health insurance than the entire expenditures (GDP) of 171 of the 179 nations on the planet Earth (according to the IMF’s 2008 statistics). We spend more on health care than the GDP of countries like Spain, Brazil, Canada & India. Our expenditure is close to number 8 on the IMF GDP list… Russia.
The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year—almost $8,000 per person. That number represents approximately 16 percent of the total economy and is growing rapidly. If we do not act soon, by 2017, almost 20 percent of the economy—more than $4 trillion—will be spent on health care. Sourced by the Office of Management and Budget.
That would equate by 2017 to exceeding the current GDPs of EVERY NATION ON THE PLANET EXCEPT FOR CHINA AND JAPAN.
I find it fascinating when the people who claim to be fiscal conservatives ignore this math and want to guarantee that preventing change and maintaining status quo are the priority.
Republican fiscal conservatism in its current form is an oxymoron.
And there is no better way for these so called fiscal conservatives to do this than deflecting away from reality with fears of Socialism (applied only when convenient) and an absolute lack of action to not only address this crisis, but to even acknowledge its existence.
Preacewarrior, seriously, do you huff glue before posting? If I want socialized healthcare I should pay for it myself? Your logic is hilarious. I do pay for my own healthcare. Nearly $2k a month because of preexisting conditions. Preexisting conditions that would be a nonissue if we had universal healthcare like any civilized nation should.
As Anasazi pointed out, we actually spend far more on healthcare than nations with universal healthcare, even though for all but the richest of the rich, our healthcare is vastly inferior. We are one of the lowest ranked industrialized nations on the planet.
The working class would have by far the most to gain from universal healthcare. Take your head out of your Foxhole for once.
By the way, the President doesn’t go by his middle name. The only reason that people make an issue of it is bigoted idiocy.
The link I posted for the global GDP expenditure by nation appears as an unreadable image. Here is the link to the page with that image for global per capita health expenditure… It is from the World Health Organization.
http://www.who.int/nha/en/
What we currently spend on health insurance is half of what the rest of planet Earth spends on health insurance. Half.
We have 4.53% of the people on planet Earth and we spend as much as the remaining 95.47% of the people on Earth spend to take care of our sick.
The World Health Organization tells us what we pay for. We rank number 37th in the world behind Costa Rica and above Slovenia. We are behind such socialized “disasters” (as the likes of Travelah would have us believe) such as Canada (30th), the UK (18th), and that horror show, France (number 1 in the world)
All dollar amounts to follow are US dollars and are sourced by The Commonwealth Fund.
Per Capita Spending on Health Care
France spends $3,601
UK $2,992
Canada $3,895 (a little less bang for their buck)
and the US? $7,290
And for anyone interested in where this massive mismanagement of our monies went… It was Richard Nixon who began HMO style “prevent the provision of the product you peddle” insurance infrastructure. Following link for Nixon’s own words when establishing our current system…
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4092
When I say half I mean half of Planet Earth plus the United States. We spend what the rest of the world combined spends on health care.
Doesn’t feel like such a bargain does it?
What REALLY motivated Nixon in his own words and taped for all of us to consider given today’s current crisis with Health Care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHTte8jRLk
The stats behind the 37th ranking are bogus. That number is ridiculous. Every country reports different types and data and interprets things differently. WHO doe NOT supervise that stat.
I dare you to go to some of those countries and be sick. You’d be begging for home.
It is interesting to watch the Statists complain about the money beng spent on health care in this country and then endorse a whopping increase in health care spending. My question is simple. What is wrong with spending 17% of GDP on health related expenditures? Shall we spend 10% and slash Medicaid programs, WIC, as well as what the Democrats are doing, slashing health spending on the elderly? Shall we do as the Democrats propose, drastically cut home health care at a time when an aging population is growing dramatically?
The Statists are drunk on their short term power and fail to realize the degree of idiocy in their programs.
Even NPR shot holes in that 37 figure. Its BS.
Golly Jr, good point, it’s not like the WHO is made up of a veritable who’s who of the most qualified people on the planet….. Oh wait, yeah it is, but it’s not like those qualified elitists, with all of those fancy pants degrees and professional experience could possibly know any more about the issue of healthcare systems around the world than a Faux News obsessed economics major with no advanced degrees turned medical assistant…. okay, they probably do, but at least you will always have Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on your side.
More math issues Ent. I’m sure you hate NPR as a right wing extremist organization. Hate them, not me. They debunked the stat, not me.
Kayne … you know nothing of data collection or interpretation. Stick to finger painting.
Kanye … you think being a medical assistant is a failure? All your advanced degree did was make you a jerk to people.
Kanye .. come down off the stage Kanye!!!
So you keep saying, without any evidence to back it up whatsoever. You can say that the moon is made out of green cheese, but that won’t make it true.
I would love to know who is exactly is more qualified at NPR to compare health systems around the world than the WHO anyway. And by the way, it is not exactly a secret that NPR has been strongly swayed by right-wing directors since the Reagan era.
Why is it that right-wingers have such embarrassingly lame understanding of humor? The studies really are correct. I don’t think being a medical assistant makes you a failure; your arguments do that for you.
Taylor, sing us another song about dry-humping teenage cowboys, Taylor.
You said being a medical assistant was a failure. You can’t take that back.
Come down off of your high horse.
I’ve heard the methods used in that particular survey. It is not hard to see the problems with it. Have you?
Blindly following and never investigating must be a prerequisite in the ivy league.
To clarify, since you seem to have a bit of trouble, you studied economics, but failed to make a career of it, and became a medical assistant instead. That doesn’t qualify you to be a world class expert on climate science or international healthcare policy. Thw WHO is a hell of a lot more qualified than you are.
You have “heard”? Well maybe if you took your head out of Rush Limbaugh’s ass for once in your life, you would hear something that is actually true.
To clarify, since you seem to have a bit of trouble, you studied economics, but failed to make a career of it,
Most who earn a B.A. in economics choose not to work in the field of economics and nobody with their head screwed on right would consider it a failure to work in another profession. However, somebody who has studied economics at that level is also generally far more adept at applying mathematical statistics than yourself.
That doesn’t qualify you to be a world class expert on climate science or international healthcare policy
What are your qualifications given your never ending insistence that you are always right? You are a Googlizer? Blogbot? Post Shifter? What is it that gives you the idea that you know anything you are talking about? You completed an M.A program in a year (assuming it was a two year program)? Now, I don’t hold people to such a standard and recognize that people learn and acquire knowledge through many channels but I am curious why you dismiss everybody and anybody who disagrees with you yet you yourself don’t have a real background in anything except mind awareness/ art conscience studies of some sort?
Entopticon, perhaps you could provide a listing of professional opportunities for those with a B.A. in Economics to work in that field in Asheville (or any city for that matter)?
Kayne – you’ve reduced your argument to simple personal attacks. Pretty familiar territory for you.
Come down off of your stage Kanye!
Tell me what you know of that statistic. Anything other that the survey results you can misinterpret.
All hail the all powerful and infallible WHO!!!
HAIL!!!
HAIL!!!
HAIL!!!
traveliar, it is adorable when you make an attempt to sound smart. You still don’t get it. I may or may not be more qualified, but if you are going to say you know more than the WHO, you better be able to back it up. Of course, you can’t.
Jr, on multiple threads you attacked my intelligence and my education level, and now that you get a taste of your own medicine you are seriously trying to play the victim?!? Your hypocrisy is almost as pathetic as it is hilarious, but not quite.
Taylor-Jr, you hypocritical imp, you attacked my intelligence and my education, so I responded in kind. It is just too funny how you can dish it out, but you sure can’t take it. Someone call Taylor-Jr a waaaambulance.
You always seem to forget who casts the first stone. Its just about always you.
You called my education level into question, and that is when I pointed out that I had an ivy league grad degree. Not before. Your inability to recognize the ludicrously obvious nature of your own hypocrisy truly is hysterical.
this is the left/right paradigm delusion in full force.
Federal health care is a fundamental threat to abortion coverage because bean counters care about saving money on maternity and pediatric care, where legislators don’t. Thus prochoice people need to kill the whole bill, not just certain amentments. Besides, The Stupac amendment is waiting in joint committee regardless of the content of the Senate bill, so the only sure way to kill the Stupac amendment is by killing the whole bill so that nothing goes to the joint committee.
Guilty pleasure-I love it when the rabid Left eats their own.
I love it when the rabid-right takes over the Republican party and makes them incapable of winning votes. Palin in 2012!!!
One election at a time, ashevegasjoe. There is no better friend to conservatives today than the current Democrat leadership. The 2010 elections have the potential to make the 1994 Republican takeover look quite tame in comparison.
Palin is not a likely serious contender in 2012 and there are a lot of us conservatives who will most likely back somebody else when serious Primary season comes around.
Rigtho travelerman. Let the left continue to disrespect and ridicule a fine independent woman, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. She is a fine woman and was a fine governor. But unlike democrats who nominate a lightweight with almost no federal level experience (Obama), republicans nominate qualified candidates.
And I can predict the ticket right now:
Governor Huckabee of Arkansas, for President
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, for Vice President
And the travelerman is so correct here. The republicans most important boost for 2010 and 2012, is the democrat party itself with it’s failed high taxing policies and soft-on-terrorism stances!