“She Wore Her Dead Sister’s Teeth.”

Yeah, that was pretty jarring. And likely not the only case like that.

While that is a horrifying and memorable sentence, I thought all of her comments were terrific. She highlights problems that are frequently neglected.

Word! She sure as hell beats Boehner’s no-solution TP’s and Barasso’s love song about HSA’s and Congressional HC plans.

A very eloquent voice for reform that focused first and foremost on the personal cost of not having people covered and secondly on the financial costs to American businesses for covering their employees.

Karen Tumulty:
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Thanks for your level-headed, clear-eyed reporting on this issue. You’ve kept your head while others simply repeat DailyKos-style anecdotes designed as simply emotional appeals rather than a discussion of important policy matters. I can always count on you to hold politicians to a higher standard, forcing them to make valid, logical arguments rather than acting like someone to be found on Dr. Phil.
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/sarc

I had the pleasure of listening to Rush today. He was already tearing into the story and why the woman in question did not have dentures when we have Medicare?
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Oh, and Obama had not read the HCR bill but the GOP had, and Obama told John McCain to shut up, and the number of people jobless is astronomical, and….
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I need to go rinse my ears.

“Sorry, kids, no dinner tonight. I had to make a contribution to our health savings account instead.”

Jeez, what irresponsible slugs.

Note to self – It’s Thursday, It’s Thursday, It’s Thursday.

You are right KT that is the best. I love Congresswoman Slaughter. So clear! Clone that woman. What a contrast to the collection of ditses in skirts on the other side!

What a contrast to all the ditses on the other side!

“First pre-exisitng conditions have to go”

==
That is riveting. Does she have a magic wand to make the pre-exisitng conditions go away? That would be a great medical advance

I’m finally back…wha’d I miss??!!?

I tallied up 240+ comments on about 14 threads today.
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Bartender, make it a double! I’ve got Swampland to read…

I wonder if we have a magic wand that will make child labor go away…

Now that is a last name

Freepinpa…maybe it would be better to wave a magic wand and give you a heart and a brain. Oh, I forgot you’re holding Todo captive in the castle. A bucket of cold water will work…

When Murray wistfully talked about the PO, Schumer nodded “yes” strongly. He knew where the camera was. Good move.

For the benefit of Rush and his kind:Call the ah and tell him that Medicare will not cover dental care that you need primarily for the health of your teeth. For example, Medicare will not cover routine checkups, cleanings or pay for you to get fillings. Medicare will never pay for dentures. Even if Medicare has paid for you to have a teeth pulled (extracted) as preparation for a medical procedure, you will be responsible for the cost of your dentures.

SZ: WTF???

“maybe it would be better to wave a magic wand and give you a heart and a brain”

I am sure they could have an endless line of people with some horror stories on any topic. Unfortunately that won’t solve the problem.

If you are 20 and aren’t a liberal you don’t have a heart if by 30 you aren’t a conservative — you don’t have a brain.

I am past 30 and its time for grown-ups and a brain.

Geez, sure fooled me!

We could regulate insurers the way that we do utilities, in as much as both pre-existing condition exclusion could be forbidden and rate hikes could be subject to approval.
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None of that would solve the underlying problem of health care price inflation, but it would be like the government waving a magic wand and prohibiting child labor. Pre-existing condition exclusions could be waved away with exactly that wand. The practice of rescission could be waved away with that wand.
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Any overly anti-consumer or anti-competitive practice can be erased with that magic wand, as long as the sponsors of the market-damaging practice can’t bribe the wizard, that is.

We could cut right past all that SZ and go straight to Medicare for all. It won’t buy us our dentures, but maybe we’d have the disposable income to do it if we weren’t paying $1000 a month for private insurance.

Can’t these schmucks just look at the facts? As Rep Boehner indicated in his recent comment, health care reform should “protect human life.” Let’s look at how well our current system protects human life. I hope one would accept that a low infant mortality rate and long life expectancy would measure how well a society protects human life. We have a neighbor to the north and one to the south, which provide universal coverage to their citizens. I loved the commercial w/ the Canadian women stating that only by coming to the U.S. was she able to receive timely treatment. Cuba, our communist neighbor to the south of South Beach, is viewed as a backward, disfunctional society. So lets look at how the world’s leader in health care expenditures compares w/ our left leaning neighbors.
Canada Cuba U.S.
Infant Mortality 5.04 5.82 6.22
(deaths/1000 live births)

Life Expectancy at Birth 81.23 77.45 78.11

Expenditures/capita (2004) $3038 $230 $6096

So we spend twice as much per capita than Canada and have a higher infant mortality rate and lower life expectancy. We spend 25 times more than Cuba for .66 years in additional life expectancy, but a higher infant mortality rate. One would have hoped that looking at the FACTS would get all to work on improving our health care system. If Canada can do better in protecting human life, shouldn’t be look at how they do it and adopt features from their system, including universal care for all? Maybe, we should visit Raul and see what suggestions he might offer? Since the Obama plan has been called communist, speaking w/ Raul would be right in character.

“I am past 30…”
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Height or IQ?
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It’s OK to poke them as long as we don’t feed them, right?

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”
– John Stuart Mill

You guys make it too easy. It’s almost like child abuse.
==
“Geez, sure fooled me!”

I bet if someone grabs your nose you think they took it don’t you1
==
“Height or IQ?”

In any event its well above you grade. Don’t worry SherperdWrong one day mommy will put you in big boy pants

SZ:
“We could regulate insurers the way that we do utilities, in as much as both pre-existing condition exclusion could be forbidden and rate hikes could be subject to approval.”
==
You do realize that utilities are guaranteed rates of return and the cost goes directly to the consumer. Which means if you add insured who were excluded by pre-existing conditions that would mean an immediate increase in premiums.

It’s probably my hemisphere, but wouldn’t a live single-post with updates from all of the Swamp writers facilitate better discussions. I awake to 30 posts, all save one with under 20 comments. Disjointed, scattered…

Get a grip and try to LISTEN before you speak. Rush didn’t say a word about Medicare – he said MEDICAID. Big difference there towandavt. MEDICAID is the FREE medical coverage for POOR people. Hello – do you know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid???

EACH state has different degrees of dental coverage when it comes to MEDICAID. So check with YOUR state and see what is covered.

Were YOU really listening to Rush or you’re just rushing to speak before you listen?

Kevin
“John Stuart Mill”

Isn’t it against liberal code to quote dead white males?

==
For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.

Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by both Barack Obama and his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

You know it’s hard out here for a wonk.

oK, topic first, then a comment
Freeinpa might mean that your own insurance company might drop you (unless you’re attached to the government’s plan, that is) because if “pa” means Pennsylvania, there may be a chance that you qualify for having a “pre-condition” due to your proximity to a working nuclear plant, ….and Pa has five working plants.

But, Kevin…”conservative” is good.
It’s the semantics, I guess.
(Conservatives I Love)
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Frederick Douglas
Robert E. Lee
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Calvin Coolidge
Franklin Roosevelt
Dwight Eisenhower
Lyndon Johnson
George Bush, Senior
Conservative. It’s a good thing.
Avoid waste
I believe that is the bottom line of being a conservative.
Less waste. That’s the liberal in me.
in the middle is good. The Sun Shines in the middle!
Avoid waste whenever possible, and less when it is necessary.
Protect the innocent. Good moral stand, wouldn’t you say?
Somehow I equate those with “don’t sell your future away for pennies on the dollar.” and that, in my eyes at least, is a solid conservative base.

not sure it matters whether caid or care…if there’s an insurance company involved..Rush did self medication of some serious drugs.
He be a “cash” customer, now, for medical care. I think that’s another “pre-existing” for some companies.
Heck, Insurance companies can probably equate breathing or being born a “pre-existing” if they want to.

Ms. Tumulty, I think Louise wore some Fangs with her teeth, today. And, she was better behaved that Biden or Pelosi, too.

I like her.
I don’t believe she takes much guff from folk!

Maxyoudog, you are presumptious and like the Freepa not the brightest bulb in the box either. Medicaid is a very difficult program to qualify (all the allegations to the contrary) for because in most states (not all) the income threshold is so low the beneificiaries have to be virtually destitue to qualify. It is particularly difficult to qualify as a dual eligible….you get that? Medicare and Medicaid coverage eligible. The income cliff point at which individuals fall off and are on their own is one reason why so many poor and old people are toothless! AND Dental coverage under Medicaid in a generous state plan is limited and payment for dentures is $250. Maybe you can get a set of wooden ones like George Washington was alleged to have….but suggest you go price a set of dentures. Some plans will pay to pull the teeth, but not put a set of dentures back in. Dental care is abysmall under current Medicaid state plans and is something that should be addressed as part of reform. What’s your crowd offering besides hot air?

Rush is an idiot. Medicare does not provide dentures.
Maybe she should have her maid get her some illegal dentures. Or, maybe oxycontin would make her feel better.

Apologies to Maxwell dog…I meant Msrebel in my reply 13.3

Correction…meant msrebel, apologies to Maxwelldog.

“In any event its well above you grade.”
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OK then, IQ it is.

@maxwelldog: Rusty! Welcome back! Can’t quit us, can you?

The vast majority of Americans don’t know these things.
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Unless we gain their trust, they wont’ believe us when we tell them what the facts are or what they mean.
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Why should they?

These politicians are a joke. He said, she said, they said- where’s the proof. If this healthcare plan is so great why don’t the politicians drop their present plan and sign on with the commoners? If this plan is so great why don’t the members of the auto union drop their plan(which Obama just subsidized) and jump on board. The democrats are idiots and the republicans stink!! Just more taxes on the backs of the middle class. We need representatives not non representatives! It is time for the professional politicians to goooh!! http://www.goooh.com

Democrats have gone from telling tales of 90 year old women eating dog food because they can’t afford to eat non-dog food, to telling tales of an imminent, catastrophic ice age (see Time magazine, 1974) to fabrications that polar bears are nearly extinct despite the fact that they are a runaway pest as plentiful as rats in Manhattan to now claiming that grandma is wearing “her dead sister’s teeth”? What’s next? A claim that Karl Rove, Halliburton and SUVs are causing a “global warming” so-called “crisis”?

OK, well, I got in too close, found these teeth in me.

Funny, how close you were, though.
I DO wear dentures. Couldn’t afford it at all, and Bush junior had already begun turning the VA off to honorable discharges if we were too slow getting help.
My church bought the work and choppers for me.

Sometimes I think carving my next set might not be a bad idea. I’m an artist and only make mid to moderate 3 digit incomes annually for several years, now.
Still don’t want in on the public’s dime, though.
Screw that. I paint good pictures, and, if I ever get my marketing right, should be able to get up to, I hope, high four digits annually in one or two years.

A couple inside that ring could use some ‘bites’ I think. Thing is, the best arguments, in my opinion, come with specifics, or points and alternatives. Like you presented.
Seems there are a few people who think their complaint is good enough on its own.

Heck, keep chewing, Towandavt.
I’ll just stand out of the way better next time.

Really?
Citing from a 1974 Time magazine? A disgrace of a president? Or was Ford in by then?

You won’t have to worry about SUVs and Halliburton causing global warming, it’s true. But does that mean you have to eat up every last drop of the Earth’s resources for your own selfish use?
Screw the future? The heck with the grandchidren and beyond?
Is the trumpet of truth blowing now so we don’t look back at the last administration’s grievous errors and the inevitable consequences they laid out to us, today?
So we don’t look back and see how the last president kept a massive bill ‘floating’ in the books, not landing till shortly before he left?
So we don’t look back at his other co-conspirators, Reagan who armed, trained, and supplied bin laden (hell no, I won’t capitalize his name!) with our economy then?
President Bush senior, though wisely leaving after his “mission accomplished” (a wise decision) but then left our allies, the Kurds, to die a miserable death at the hands of husein (nope. not him, either)…I don’t remember any Republican push against WMD, then.

Palin is still working on the eradication of wildlife in the Northern areas. Wolves and polar bears are the present day targets. I guess Kodiak bears are next, along with any of a dozen more species by 2016, when she runs seriously again.
(gather your 1980 magazines together and start reading then. You should be current by then)

Meanwhile, the topic is Health Care.
It was a fairly tense day watching these two groups gather enough good manners (except for a handful of Republican chair scrapers and that laughing Reid, Pelosi, and Biden trio, which, for my money, should stay away from meetings like this if they aren’t going to be serious about what this country needs)…
Getting the Health and Human Resources out of the red ink nose dive it is in, paying for it with something besides the Social Security or Department of Defense funds.
After all, the Pentagon wants a new stun gun…
And even if she’s wearing her sister’s teeth, she can still throw them at you if you come to try and take her SS check.

$250 of my tax dollars to pay for someones teeth is too much for me. People should plan for old age AND their teeth. I’m supposed to feel sorry for people who sit on their butts most of their life and then hold their hands out wanting someone else to pay for everything they need? I don’t expect anyone else to pay for MY teeth – I’ll do it myself. Welfare and dependency are the worst things that ever happened in this country. What will people do when they don’t have big brother for a hand out? It would be very interesting to know if the lady who is wearing her dead sisters teeth also has cable TV, lives in subsidized housing and drives a very large car. Funny – they never tell the whole story.

I’ll bet you had a hard time rinsing your ears because anyone that would listen to Rush has very little between them and the water would run straight thru.

Dentures are covered under medicaid.

We were discussing MediCARE not CAID. The point was that Limburger’s denial that the woman couldn’t be without them because Medicaid covers them is flawed logic. MediCARE does not COVER them and a narrow subset of people are MediCAID eligible. The vast number of people that fall outside the coverage limits of MediCAID are SOL when it comes to dentures.

msreb, I have a vision of you walking through the slums holding your nose and stepping over the bodies in the street. I hope nothing bad ever happens in your life…or that you never need help from anyone.
But I would suggest you print out that posting of yours and put it in a safe place as a keep sake. You will have it to remind you in the future of either how far you’ve come or how far you’ve fallen, but if you have any soul at all, perhaps you will regret your mean-spirited comments. Read any good stories lately by Charles Dickens?

http://dentures.net/free-dentures.html

You can apply for a grant and yes the government will pay for the dentures. They won’t be great but come on this woman in Congress is a loon.

Why of course, how could anyone have overlooked an obscure program you found through an extensive internet search that serves yet another narrow subset of people. Damn all we need to do is get them poor people computer savvy and all their “alleged” problems will disappear with a flurry of google searches. So smart you are!

Oh, and most definitely a good idea to get all those folks training in writing grants to help pay for their choppers! Hey at least it will keep them off the streets!

It wouldn’t have mattered because there is a certain group of people, like those that prefer to living on the streets, that no matter had someone helped them out they would not have changed their lifestyle. I’ve worked with them and know first hand that there are those who want to be helped and those that don’t. There was also no need for you to get sarcastic. This is also not a reason for universal heaslthcare. It will further destroy this country. It is unsustainable. By the way how was it that her dead sister had a set of dentures and she didn’t.

Me, sarcastic, never. Explain how giving every man, woman and child healthcare is likely to destroy the country? Provide details.

I don’t even know if I should comment here.
Health care:
1) Having health care causes people who feel mildly ill to get care before the condition becomes more serious and costly. These costs go to hospital emergency rooms since they are forbidden by law from turning down obviously ill people even if it has nothing to do with an accident or standard emergency.
2)With the above, Hospitals do not cover these costs by magic. They pass it on and, with a national system of full coverage, hospital costs will fall.
3)Uninsured people with illnesses pass on illnesses to insured people costing the insured lost work time and another trip to the doctor. Insured people will have more work time and use their insurance less further reducing costs.
4)People not covered by employers or the government only buy health insurance when they are at the age group or in conditions when they believe they will become ill soon. This is an upwards spiral making it only worthwhile for people likely to soon grow ill to buy health insurance. If young people were in the mix, costs would go down.
5)Under all existing proposals, except the “Cadillac” tax (which I have doubts about) anybody who likes their insurance just gets exactly the same thing except that they pay less for the above four reasons. For the insured, all of the proposed plans tell them to keep on doing EXACTLY what they were doing. THIS IS BIG BROTHER?
6) Being told by your employer that, at the employer’s expense that you must choose a health plan you like is OPPRESSION?
7)No part of the health care plan requires sick people to go to the doctor with their coverage, so, if they do not like being healthy they are more than welcome to enjoy their freedom of being ill. Obama is not coming to your house to make you go to the doctor.

There is nothing which vaguely resembles a loss of freedom in any of the proposals.

There are many ways our overall national (government and private together) expenditures on health care go down.

If Republicans really want to, they can always put in their dead sister’s teeth and nobody will stop them

I have known homeless people through the years and even worked with ones who were homeless before and afterward. They do not “Want to” live on the streets (at least none I ever met). They have psychiatric and/or substance issues which keep them too poor to pay rent!
I have read and heard about psychologically healthy people who are very briefly homeless, but, I do not believe that is who you are bringing up.
Now, tell me that your reasoning is not disturbed when you, apparently are saying “a man walks into a doctor’s office and, THE COUNTRY IS RUINED!”
Please try and tell me why I am supposed to believe that you are rational and sane?

Thanks patricks…we are still waiting hear to hear from ouisa48. We NEED to understand how our country is destroyed by healthy people, businesses that are no longer burdened by health care expenses and can compete with the rest of the civilized industrial nations of the world on a more level playing field, how one half of all personal bankruptcies are eliminated, and how some 40,000 fewer people will die because of lack of health care annually.

PLEASE explain how having a healthcare system that covers everyone WILL DESTROY THE COUNTRY. WE ARE WAITING FOR YOUR RESPONSE.

The President’s healthcare bill cannot be sustained financially unless there is rationing and in some cases elimination. The government is also imposing themselves into a private business that eventually will be destroyed. The government should have instead come up with a plan to allow health companies to compete and stop interefering in the free market. The governent is spending money that was given to them by the tax paying people of society and is being spent like a drunken sailor. This healthbill will also limit the private sector from what we are way ahead in and that is developing new drugs and treatments. Check the cancer survival rate between Canada and the US and you’ll see what I mean.

As far as the woman who supposidly wore her dead sister’s dentures have you asked yourself how is it her sister had dentures but she did not.

1) Private insurance already has very, very extensive rationing to protect the bottom line including denial of care. Rationing will remain the same or decrease.
2)Firemen were once a private business only putting out fires from insured households and those businesses did go under. However, private law libraries remain in business competing with government run libraries. Private courier services, Fedex and UPS remain in business competing with the post office. Private freight train and private bus services remain in business when each compete with GOVERNMENT OWNED Amtrak. The only way the public option will shut down private insurance companies is if consumers CHOOSE the government option and, as FREE MARKET principal, if the GOVERNMENT MORE EFFICIENT then the inefficient private company will close down. If government is so bad, the PUBLIC OPTION will go out of business and the private company will do great. Unfortunately when private insurance takes YOUR MONEY to give multi-million dollar salaries to CEOs, advertising agencies and BIG PROFITS TO ALREADY WEALTHY INVESTORS, they will often be LESS efficient than the public option. Competing with the public upon would mean that some of those poor CEOs will have to stop flying around in private jets. (Poor baby.)
3)It is clear that if you added up all of the private expenditures in our non-system that it would cost more than any publicly managed health care system.
4)Unrelated to health care there other other projects in the stimulus package which are designed to create job growth as when FDR both through the New Deal and, unintentionally, through the incredibly high spending of World War II got us through the great depression. Spending money on particular projects puts money into poor people’s pockets where it immediately goes to pay rent, buy food and minor luxuries such as McDonald’s and creates jobs.
5)Most of these new drugs are researched with the National Institute of Health in joint ventures with private drug companies. A major reason these drug companies are doing their best research here is because the NIH is providing so much assistance to them.
6) Brothers and sisters do not all earn the same income. In my own family one year the poorest sibling earned one ninth as much as the best paid one. So, the dead sister, clearly had either better pay or better private health care than the one that lived.

You want to continue to FORCE US ALL to give our money to huge CEO salaries and big profits to investors, literally every times we sneeze.
I want the freedom to decide which health care plan I want.

If the public option gets in and the free market causes many inefficient, bloated private insurance companies paying absurd compensation to their CEOs and other top executives, the Obama plan will not stop you from opening on your own or through your church a private charity to give laid off incompetent CEOs and other top health care executives millions of dollars of your money. You might, if it is a cause so close to your heart, be able to get enough donations to get these possibly laid off CEOs there own private jets.
I mean, what else does a good Christian do/
Obviously caring about the working poor who can not afford health care is a waste of time, but, donating more money to CEOs, that is a cause which conservatives love.

It is obvious that, although some of the least efficient health care insurance companies will close their door when competing with the public option, others, if they are efficient, will remain open and more cost effective.

Wait, aren’t CONSERVATIVES supposed to want open competition as much as possible?
Maybe today’s Republicans just only care that the rich get richer and don’t care how poor the poor are.

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/90/12/1866.pdf
Hate to burst yer bubble, but analysis of cancer survival rates dating back to 2000 (above) and in the OECD’s annual comparison of health statistics contradict your allegations. All the reports confirm that cancer survivability in the US has more to do with your race and your state of residence and the US doesn’t have any particular advantage. We spend more money than any other country and one can only conclude after looking at the numbers that the cash is going in the pockets of rich CEOs et al, because our country falls behind most of the other wealthy nations in comparison. WE ARE NOT USA NUMBER ONE. You are probably getting your information from some conservative groups that have an agenda. Go do some research on your own using reliable sources. You might learn something unless you are too thick-headed to get it.

First of all this is 2010 and the article (2000) comes from Canada. What do you think they are going to say. Have I called you names or make observations of your position? I get my general information from doing my own research and weighing all sides not conservative groups like you believe. This is a capitalistic country not a European style Socialism. This president is following the rule book by first taking over ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, & NATIONAL HEALTHCARE. Not necessarily in that order. Healthcare is not the job of government and it will bankrupt this country. Speaking of an agenda what is spreading the wealth called?

“Speaking of an agenda what is spreading the wealth called?”
Answer: The New Deal from 1933 until 1945 a program which, by bringing money to the poor to spend through mostly public works as well as public assistance to the disabled brought the United States from the very worst Economic times (ONE THIRD of AMERICANS WERE UNEMPLOYED IN 1933) to the beginning of the best twenty five years of growth in US History.

“…[T]he article (2000) comes from Canada. What do you think they are going to say.” unless it was written by a political party, it will say whatever the facts show you just as American researches sometimes trash our policies when they are bad and praise them when the findings are good.
Apparently you are saying one of two things:
1) Canadians are deceitful people.
or
2)Canadians do not have freedom of academic expression as we do here would not trash their government policy if it was flawed.

“This is a capitalistic country not a European style Socialism.”
The first Capitalist thinker and first Economist ever was Englishman Adam Smith.
Apparently you are saying that England, the birthplace of capitalism, is not capitalist nor are any of the thirteen EEC countries, Canada.

“Healthcare…will bankrupt this country”
If so, then why aren’t any of the other countries bankrupt including several who have a higher gross domestic product per person than the United States?
It is not my own invention, but, I believe that I had explained a very intuitive explanation as to why our total national expenditures will go DOWN if we have universal coverage. It is, also, tested from these other countries.
Is it that Europeans are better people than Americans and that Americans will go insane and suddenly start going to the doctor and asking for medications when we are healthy or what terrible things do you think about Americans to make you believe our results will be any different from those of, basically, the rest of the developed world.
Our current system, or lack of same, is like Mexico (who, truly can not afford even to pay their police an acceptable wage much less healthcare.)

“This president is…taking over…PUBLIC EDUCATION”
No child left behind is a Bush program being modified by this president. Please tell me, how is this “taking over”?

“This president is…taking over ENERGY”
I don’t know what this means. Nobody has expressed the slightest interest in the government buying out or taking control of coal mines, oil companies, electric companies, wind turbine companies, solar power companies or any energy producing means whatsoever.

Are you saying that, if we get national health care this will make our president WANT TO take over education and energy?

It appears as if you have a favorite commentator who is conservative and take that commentator’s point of view and agenda as fact without questioning it since this is what is very often repeated among a variety of conservative commentators without being challenged on their own networks.

I’ve toned down my sarcasm, but, please do tell me a few things:
1) How do you believe Americans will use health care in such a way that that is so different from other countries that it will result in bankrupting our country while the way every other developed country has not had such a result?
2) Please tell me your specific definition of socialism since most definitions I can find would define Europe as CAPITALIST,not socialist.
3) Explain why you do not believe what you had gotten from a Canadian report as valid.
4)Please tell me how you believe this president is taking over public education.
5)Please tell me how you believe this president is taking over energy?
6) Please tell me either why this unlike a much smaller version of FDR’s New Deal and/or how you believe the results from jobs programs will have such dramatically different results this time.

You have made some extremely bold statements about a “rule book” (I do not know what that means) and our country’s future.

If you have factually correct information, I promise you that I will gladly campaign against health care here, in Canada, in Europe and anywhere where one can find it.
However, I will have to admit that, if you make a weak argument without facts or continuing to deny information as invalid for no reason I can figure out, I will quietly gigle while reading it.
I am honest that, when I see incomplete, emotion driven,illogical thinking, I laugh a little.
If I knew you and saw how pessimistic you seem to be, I would, probably, feel really bad for you and buy you a coffee to cheer you up.

Maybe I am jumping to a conclusion, but, are you a member or believer in the John Birch society?
I am familiar with them, once read a book of theirs given to me and found it unbelievable for many reasons.
The words “taking over” “rule book” and “socialism” all thrown into one post all remind me of JBS.

Maybe you should actually look at other countries healthcare. Maybe you should look at how much of Medicare will be cut and how much of the quality of healthcare will suffer. I suppose you think Cuba has a good system thanks to Michael Moore and his lies. Yes GW interfered in PUBLIC education by the no child left behind. Actually what should have been done is the teachers should have been looked as as to why the school systems are failing our kids with teachers thaqt have an iron clad union that allows them to remain.As far as the energies the government has already interfered with the bogus climate change and what we must do to eliminate it. Ask yourself this. How are we going to pay for healthcare for every man,woman and child without raising the largest ever National debt without raising taxes or eliminating programs?
No I am not a member of the JBS nor have I ever been. I guess you will have to figure it out yourself as time moves forward. Hopefully you will see what this president is trying to accomplish and it ain’t pretty.

Canadian cancer survivial rates vs the United States

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596

“Maybe you should actually look at other countries healthcare. Maybe you should look at how much of Medicare will be cut and how much of the quality of healthcare will suffer.”
I have a cousin who,engaged to a Canadian (family joke “that foreigner”) and been living there for years.
It is OUTSTANDING!

“…no child left behind..teachers should have been looked as as to why the school systems are failing our kids with teachers”
A close relative of mine who is a teacher calls that program “no teacher left alone”. It is EXACTLY what you recommend: a program to review teacher’s performances. He is growing dissatisfied with Obama for continuing the same system. I, personally, agree with Bush, Obama and, – even though you are not aware of what it is – you and not the teacher’s union.

Micheal Moore is a comedian more than anything else. He is a little bit like conservatives are to Denis Miller if Denis Miller were still funny.

“….bogus climate change …”
Fifteen years ago when 98 out of 100 doctors said smoking was bad and those two out of 100 said that it was fine were hired by the tobacco companies, did you put cigarettes in your teenage children’s stockings (nieces and nephews – Hanukkah gifts…) or did you believe that it was obviously not a hoax by the government that cigarettes are bad.
If you weren’t and did know that cigarettes were bad for you, then why, when 98 out of 100 climatologists say climate change is real and caused by CO2 emissions that we should continue this to see how much more chaotic the environment will get?

“How are we going to pay for healthcare for every man,woman and child without raising the largest ever National debt without raising taxes or eliminating programs?”

See PatrickSartor 23.1 and PatrickSartor 23.2

“Hopefully you will see what this president is trying to accomplish and it ain’t pretty.”
Statements like this make me think you are JBS or something since you seem to believe that our president is TRYING to do harm to our country.

I thought Reagan and the Bushes were incompetent (least so Bush Sr. in my opinion) but woke up in the morning every day and said to themselves “Let’s make America Great” and DOH, OOops. Oh, no, it doesn’t work that way. SHUCKS. That must have been the Democrats mistake not mine.

What do you think Obama is trying to do?

“The National Center for Policy Analysis ….states that its goal is to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Policy_Analysis

Getting facts from this source would be like getting the best, unbiased opinion of Barrack Obama by asking Barrack Obama.

Maybe I could win any debate by opening my own website PatrickSartorisright.com and then make exactly the same case again, but on my own website.
BTW that is a fake link. No such site exists.

ouisa48
Show me something about health care or, if you really want to, climate change which is Peer reviewed.
Peer review is when several other people with PhDs in the same sub-sub field you work in spend days on end looking for a chance to go “ha-HA” you got this wrong!
After a first peer review, if there are any minor errors, it has to go through the process again.
When the peers have nothing to “ha-HA!” about and find all of your conclusions are correct, it is called a “peer reviewed” paper or article.
I paraphrased from memory news articles and websites about health care. Then I put it in the blog.

Let’s be fair as most conservatives are about it. Barrack Obama was a star student in law school turned attorney turned law professor and a highly intelligent man who, like almost everybody I know of in office seeks to do what is best for our country and, in the process, his legacy for his great-great-great grandchildren to talk about.

As a general rule, conservatives would say that this bright, well intentioned man comes to incorrect conclusions since they are different from that of conservatives.

You are saying he has bad intentions for this country.

Please tell us more about the dark side of this smiling, likable man if you know something that the rest of us (including conservatives) do not know about him.

You are a left leaning Obama lover so nothing I show or prove to you will change that position. You like Obama? Fine but I don’t. I believe he is a person who is trying to destroy capitalism and everything our founding fathers wanted for this country. Universal healthcare sounds terrific on the service but actually read what the bill is going to do. It’s doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it will destroy the private sector of health insurance providers and it will cost this country trillions of dollars to sustain in return.

Read Framing Healthcare Reform on this blog.

I supported national healthcare when Bill Clinton was a candidate in 1992 and Obama was a Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

In case you were wondering, I had to use Wikipedia to know where Obama was in 1992. I didn’t read his biography and don’t foresee ever doing so.

I am believer in healthcare and, when I discovered my second choice for the Democratic ticket for president was a man who, also, thinks that the United States should have healthy citizens (and a few other issues I agree with) I then voted for him in the general election.

You must have noticed that both Bushes on a personal level like and worked with Bill Clinton on charities and W got the nod from Obama to go on this relief effort with Bill Clinton to Haiti.

These presidents all have mutual respect, so, I don’t understand why “Obama lover” is supposed to a slur considering, on personal level, also applies to George W Bush.

“I believe he is a person who is trying to destroy capitalism and everything our founding fathers wanted for this country.”

I can safely say that GWB would disagree with you there, too.
I think he would say that they are people who disagree on how healthcare should be provided.

“…nothing I show or prove to you will change that position”
You sent a link to an organization who’s stated belief is to destroy any chances at universal healthcare.
If you can find stories anywhere – anywhere – and the world wide web is a huge place of anybody in Western Europe, Canada or Japan dying to shut down their own universal healthcare to bring it to a system where fewer people are covered, I will read it.
Also, if you can show me a peer reviewed paper or article about the costs of healthcare, I will read that, too.

Since 1992 I have not seen anything to say that it will be more expensive on a national level than what we have now or provide less care than we have now.

In 1991 I was fairly young and didn’t think about healthcare.

Is it fair to compare American health care with systems in Europe or Canada?
August 18, 2009

0by Ralph Silverman, MD, FACS, FASCRS

I am tired of the comparisons people make between health care in the United States and other countries. For instance, there are those who think that we should have universal health care because some European countries and Canada do.

It is true that those countries do have universal health care, but is it a fair comparison?

Who does Canada rely on to defend its borders? When the Germans invaded France in World War II who stormed the beaches at Normandy? The point is, these countries rely on the United States for security when peace is compromised. America allocates trillions of dollars to defend both itself and the rest of the world. No other country does this. That money could easily be used for universal health care.

Furthermore, President Obama has consistently said that health care costs are rising and we aren’t any healthier. The White House uses statistics that demonstrate that, in the U.S., childhood disease is more rampant than in European countries, and that people die earlier Stateside. They ask the question, “Why are we not healthier than other countries when we spend more on health care?”

The answer may lie with American patients, who are more obese than patients in other countries. We eat a diet high in fat and carbohydrate content. As a population, we smoke like there’s no tomorrow. We drive everywhere we go and don’t get any exercise. Instead of exercising to control our blood pressure or diabetes, we sit on the couch and take a pill. We eat ice cream and cake, and then take some insulin to bring down our sugar levels.

Consider Asia. People there eat mainly rice and fish and walk everywhere they go. Smoking is a problem there, but it is worse in the United States. How many 300 pound Asian men and women do you see walking into Burger King in Tokyo? The same is true in France. And guess what? People in these countries are healthier than we are. It’s not surprising.

If anything, the United States should give itself a pat on the back. We have managed to treat our bodies like trash, and yet, the length of life is comparable to other countries that live a much healthier lifestyle. Just imagine if we kept health care at the same level and we, as a population, decided to really change our way of life for the healthier.

The White House and the rest of the government need to make fairer comparisons when contrasting our health care system with those of other countries.

After doing so, perhaps things may not be as bad as they appear.

You’ve got me thinking of another point: anachronisms.

Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776 and, like things in academic journals today, was just for nerds to read.
Our founding fathers were not worshiping this book and, therefore, not completely in line with what would later be called “capitalism”.

Healthcare until about one hundred years into this country was cheap and consisted of, in most cases, a doctor or a barber cutting you so that you could bleed or using leaches to drink your blood.

So, since it was cheap and did almost no good, bringing up our founding fathers and healthcare would be like bringing up the story of Adam and flying around in airplanes – an anachronism.

Would General Petraeus have done a better job at the revolutionary war than George Washington?
I don’t know.
I don’t believe anybody could know that or what our founding fathers would have thought about universal healthcare.

You’ve entertained me, but not convinced me.
I am nearly positive (but am not going to go look for the stats now) the Europeans smoke much more than we do (unless he means marijuana which I had heard many times is rare in almost all of Europe except for, of course, the Netherlands).
” When the Germans invaded France in World War II who stormed the beaches at Normandy?” another anachronism.
France didn’t have universal healthcare until AFTER World War II while the fit Germans had had universal healthcare for about fifty years before World War II.

I have heard discussions about taxing fatty foods,even higher taxes on cigarettes and subsidies for gyms (using the taxes on cigarettes and fatty foods) to make us get thinner.

Interesting concept.

I have this strange sense that i know you from somewhere.
You have a writing style of a woman I used to know about ten years ago.
I think she was chronically pissed off at me and I can’t tell if you are a 33 year old woman, a very young woman or a man from your name.
However, you remind me of her.

Well dear, that was a peer reviwed article, not the NCPA which patricks correctly points out is not impartial. But I can assure you that the data from the OECD studies, an unbiased, international economic think-tank, confirms the 2000 piece. In fact, it’s only gotten better since then and I suggest you dip into the world of economic analysis for its own sake without political motivation and with published and reviewed methodologies.

But, I want to say thanks to patricks for his class A effort and ‘splainin’ things while I was off in the “capitalist” world today. I couldn’t have said it any better and would have had a lot less patience. Well done patrick!