Fucking healthcare

[tvashtarkatena]

Yeah, why didn't Dad save more from the lavish salary he scored in exchange for serving his country all his life? Why would he expect that all his health care needs would be covered in his retirement? Sure, they told him that his entire career, but people like PP can't be expected to prop up some loser who buys everything at face value. Retiree beware! And hey, why didn't mom learn to grow her own food so she'd be OK after the money ran out 16 months later?

 

Dumb fucks.

[Pete_H]

Your dad was just lazy for retiring in the first place.

[tvashtarkatena]

Actually, he got a BS in history in 2 years, (never finished high school...WWII and all that), then law school on the GI bill (so much welfare bullshit) after his military retirement. The strokes hit him shortly after he began working as an attorney. Fucking loser. This country needs more winners, not boat anchors.

Edited February 9, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[Bug]

Yes. They elderly should eat progressively cheaper dog food (or cat food, in the case of Grandma), as they spend the remainder of their "wealth" paying for what should be a constitutional right: health

Someone who becomes morbidly obese by choice does not in my opinion have a "constitutional right" to use my tax dollars to pay for the resulting health issues. I would say the same for smokers, drug abusers, and people who suffer from carple tunnel syndrome from drilling too many bolts.

But I am still in favor of a public option because it provides a safety net of sorts. For the low end it will really suck to wait in the lines and suffer the oppressive BS.

Constitutional right? No.

The right thing to do? Yes.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Some Adonis like you's gonna decide who gets covered and who doesn't, pudgy?

 

I can just see it now...

 

..."I'm sorry Mrs. Johnson, but our records show your BMI was 5% over the limit allowable by our tables when you contracted bone cancer. Here's the number of a local shelter."

 

Really well thought out Bug, as usual.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[rob]

hey, i thought *I* was the adonis?

[Choada_Boy]

If people had a constitutional right to health, they wouldn't be morbidly obese. They'd have this person in their life, all there life, called a "doctor".

 

This country's going down the toilet anyways, so why argue about this bullshit? Even Obama's starting to realize that the Republicunts are so far gone we need a dictator to set things right. He's shitting his pants that Palin might beat him to it. Democracy works fine when not everyone gets there say or has their voice heard. Now its a total clusterfuck.

[tvashtarkatena]

The one thing that'll make you fatter than a chuffy hog is working long hours. Proposals to penalize the fat when a lot of those two ton tillies are doing exactly what the Rcunts want; workin for da man, are almost as hilarious as the complete lack of thought as to how such a clusterfuck could possibly be administered. I love what's at the core of Bug's oh-so-Christian philosophy: fat = evil. No other aspect of the person's life or contribution matters. Die, fatty. Praise the Lord.

 

But it's not about any serious health care proposal, is it? No, it's about revenge and punishment. It's about picking a group to 'get back at'. What's at the root of this philosophy of cruelty? Who knows...everyones got their own trail of life's disappointments, it's just that some folks feel the need to pass it on and some don't. The reasonably happy folks I know never spout such punitive bullshit.

 

Obesity is a problem, obviously. Our entire economy, work culture, car culture, and food production system is increasingly set up for it, which is why it exists so pervasively. Our 'traditional' high consumption, heavy work load, high convenience way of life, the one Rfucks love to use to drive their stock prices up with, encourages it.

 

Personally, I believe in incentives, education, and encouragement as a way to combat obesity, not 'punishing the fat folk'. Denying people coverage is not going to solve the obesity issue. Preventative rather than punitive solutions, such as covering a health club membership would address the issue more effectively and cheaper.

 

Plus, who's gonna be the one to tell little Lotta she doesn't get any pre-natal care because she's a bit on the heavy side? But folks like Bug and his positive-power-of-prayer club positively cream their holy jeans over imagining shit like that. Personally, I find that way of thinking repulsive and beneath me.

 

Not just health care for all, but EQUAL ACCESS to health care for all Americans should be a basic right, as it is in almost every other civilized nation on earth. Anything else is cruelty. And fuck your pocket book. If I have to pay for your wastoid kids kids go to school, you can sure as shit pay for other people's health care. From a moral standpoint, we are only as strong as our weakest citizen. Nuff said there.

 

Edited February 10, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[Off_White]

This seems germane to the conversation...

 

[video:youtube]

[JayB]

The other thing that surprises me coming from a liberal of the highest order is what seems to be an implicit concession that the state - while having no legitimate role in determining what happens to a first or second trimester fetus - should have the authority to say whether or not, when, and how an octogenarian well past his 240th trimester gets treated or not.

Is there anywhere that this doesn't happen - outside of a ghetto anywhere in the world including the U.S.? Do you think our elder care system (languishing in nursing homes) is particularly humane for the individual involved or their families or one in which someone isn't making such decisions now?

 

This is probably the most disingenuous, specious argument put out there by the Right; the assumption that old people in the US enjoy unlimited access to health care while their counterparts in other civilized countries are selected for life or death by the state. First, all systems ration, one way or the other. Ours does by a) refusing coverage b) not covering certain conditions c) capping coverage and d) not providing affordable health care at all. It does not, like most other countries, provide EQUAL ACCESS to health care for all. Here, if you can afford it, you live. If not, bye now. It is absolutely the cruelest system in the civilized world.

 

JayB's obviously insulated from the reality of our system. He's married to a doc living in NZ. I'm surrounded by people who can't afford coverage or who are inadequately covered. My own father, a 30 year military veteran who fought in 3 wars for this country, was one of the latter. There was no system available to him to cover his required home health care, which had to be paid out of pocket. He was considerate enough to die before the family savings were exhausted.

 

Fuck you, JayB. You're completely out to lunch here, and I think a large part of you knows it. Frankly, you remind me of the good little Nazi family man who pets the dog, kisses the wife and kids, and dutifully goes off to work gassing Jews. How an asshole like you can sit back and support what's going on when you, of all people, should know better, is completely beyond my moral understanding.

 

Hey - I like to do my part to inspire empirical verifications of Godwin's law from time to time.

 

Much to your probable dismay - I've been back in Seattle since May - and since we've been back we've had two grandparents die off - one in hospice, one in a long-term care facility, an uncle in the ICU for eight weeks, my Dad hospitalized with an ongoing cardiac issue, etc, etc, etc. Before that I spent three years getting daily decompression updates from the safety-net hospital in Boston that all of the folks with no coverage got funneled into. I have a different opinion than you do with regards to the best way to reform the payment and delivery of healthcare, but I am not quite as oblivious to the realities of healthcare as you claim. BTW - don't you live in Phinney in a house that'd go for $400-600K? Are you invoking your neighbors when discussing people who are too poor to pay for their own coverage - or other people that you are surrounded by in a less literal sense?

 

It's true that all systems ration one way or another, but I find it hard to square your civil libertarian impulses and healthy distrust of the state when it comes to speech, and your awareness of all of the unintended consequences of state actions, etc, etc, etc - with a desire to hand responsibility for both payment *and* delivery of care over to the state. I could understand if someone with your background was in favor of something like a voucher system, but it's difficult for me to understand how a guy who doesn't want the likes of Tom Tancredo to have any role in determining who gets to say what has no problem with a system where...Tom Tancredo has a role in determining who gets what treatment when they're sick.

 

With regards to rationing, it would be interesting to take a look at exactly what treatment guidelines are in force that determine what kind of care the elderly get around the world and who makes those decisions. So if you are privy to the algorithms that they use to determine who gets chemo in say Canada, England, and NZ vs the US - I hope you'll share it.

 

And finally, as a guy who seems to like to challenge conventional wisdom from time to time, I'm surprised to see you tethering your argument to the "50 million" number. I've also looked into the "50 million" stat a bit, and even a brief look at the evidence was sufficient to establish that it includes large numbers of people who qualify for Medicaid but haven't enrolled for some reason, people who make enough money to buy insurance but choose not to for some reason, people who are only temporarily without insurance in a given year, non-citizens, etc. Not sure what the final number you get is, but it's considerably lower in quantifiable terms, and qualitatively, is something very different than a static pool of people who can never get insurance. Having no insurance is also something very different from having no access to any health care at all under any circumstances. Pay a visit to an urban ER and see for yourself.

[JayB]

If people had a constitutional right to health, they wouldn't be morbidly obese. They'd have this person in their life, all there life, called a "doctor".

 

This country's going down the toilet anyways, so why argue about this bullshit? Even Obama's starting to realize that the Republicunts are so far gone we need a dictator to set things right. He's shitting his pants that Palin might beat him to it. Democracy works fine when not everyone gets there say or has their voice heard. Now its a total clusterfuck.

 

You have vastly more faith in a physician's capacity to influence how their patients behave once they leave their offices than any physician I've ever met.

 

A person's weight is the government's responsibility? Really? How does one simultaneously believe this and insist that the government has neither the capacity nor the right to dictate or determine what constitutes "safe" climbing?

 

[j_b]

Someone who becomes morbidly obese by choice does not in my opinion have a "constitutional right" to use my tax dollars to pay for the resulting health issues. I would say the same for smokers, drug abusers, and people who suffer from carple tunnel syndrome from drilling too many bolts.

 

I am not sure where you got these people got there by choice when they were pushed to consume these things at every corner, and it cost a pretty penny to the pushers too.

 

But I am still in favor of a public option because it provides a safety net of sorts. For the low end it will really suck to wait in the lines and suffer the oppressive BS.

Constitutional right? No.

The right thing to do? Yes.

 

who said the right thing to do wasn't the definition of a constitutional right?

[j_b]

Oh, there's always room for movement. We're at the highest health care cost in the world for the 37th best care and only mediocre longevity. We could always pay a little more for a little less and die a little sooner.

 

Yuck it up buddy, its likely your children won't have as long a lifespan as you do.

 

It's not so bad, Off.

 

The WHO themselves state quite clearly that the rankings have much more to do with fairness than clinical efficacy.

 

Which is a powerful argument toward showing the for-profit system cannot be salvaged.

[StevenSeagal]

Meanwhile, another Obama overture met with Republican douchery:

 

Douchery

 

Republicans suspect that Obama's invitation to a televised health care summit Feb. 25 is a thinly disguised political trap.

 

Unbelievable- after weeks of deriding Obama for not making good on televising the debates on C-Span, well, here you go, let's televise it then. "Oh, he's setting a trap for us!" Yeah, the trap is that the American public (those with critical thinking skills, anyway) will observe the Republicans in action: no ideas apart from obstruction and obsession with destroying the president for political gain. If they have such great ideas I would think they would be PSYCHED it is going to be on TV.

 

Some Republican activists worry that the summit is designed to portray their health care proposals as thin. A shaky GOP showing could embolden congressional Democrats to make a final, aggressive push to overhaul health care, with or without any Republican votes.

 

What I just said. Uh huh.

 

Still, Republican leaders expressed renewed skepticism about Obama's call for bipartisanship and reiterated their demand that Obama jettison the Democratic bills and start from scratch.

 

Proving again that Republican version of "bipartisan" means, "do it entirely our way or we'll shut it down".

 

I hope the 60% of the thinking portion of the public can see this bullshit for what it is, and that the Democrats in turn will also use consideration in forming something that benefits everyone and not just placates the fringe elements of their party. Obama has got to unify the party and keep them in the center, which also could help keep the moderate element of the Republican party- what it left of it, anyway- relevant and active.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I wager you 47 tons of jet fuel that Chicago is going to host the Olympic games.

okay, apples to apples then...

 

how much fuel was wasted on obama's bullshit flight compared to this bullshit flight?

 

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[JosephH]

JayB, that one issue alone is a real drag on the system - our medical establishment has become expert at agressively keeping terminal patients alive for extended periods. Many, end up with more medical expenditures in their last two months then they did over the course of their lifetimes prior to those last two months. It's built into both our culture and legal system - no giving up. Crazy.

 

My wife and I have end-of-life instructions and medical powers-of-attorney specifically so we don't end up in one of those situations (mine can basically be summed up in the phrase "the deader, the better"). Having just watched a relative die a lingering death in the ICU as her lungs died from smoking we're reviewing what we have again to be sure it's all good and still effective. Ugh!

[Fairweather]

Why would we want to revive a dead, so-called healthcare bill that is going to deny individual rights and apply additional taxes to the 84% of Americans who are presently covered? Why have Democrats locked out Republicans until now? Can you say Massachusetts? Why did Obama and Pelosi lie to us about "keeping the coverage [we] have?" Why didn't Obama C-Span debates as earlier promised?

 

This bill is D-E-A-D. Appearing on TV with the teleprompter-in-chief would be pointless.

 

BTW: why haven't we heard anything more from his "jobs summit" back in November? Because it was just a ploy.

[JayB]

JayB, that one issue alone is a real drag on the system - our medical establishment has become expert at agressively keeping terminal patients alive for extended periods. Many, end up with more medical expenditures in their last two months then they did over the course of their lifetimes prior to those last two months. It's built into both our culture and legal system - no giving up. Crazy.

 

My wife and I have end-of-life instructions and medical powers-of-attorney specifically so we don't end up in one of those situations (mine can basically be summed up in the phrase "the deader, the better"). Having just watched a relative die a lingering death in the ICU as her lungs died from smoking we're reviewing what we have again to be sure it's all good and still effective. Ugh!

 

I agree that medical spending tends to be concentrated near the end of one's life - the only place where we'd disagree a bit is on the conclusions that can safely be drawn from that fact.

 

Lots of folks go from the above to "...and is therefore both futile and wasteful" and I'm not convinced that that's a defensible logical correlate t the preceding statement. Seems like the folks compiling the Dartmouth Atlas fell into that trap - but the discussion is incomplete IMO unless you look into percent survival, duration of survival, etc. The fact that patient A and B are equally dead after having tons of money spent trying to keep them alive doesn't tell you much unless you factor in how many patients like A and B survive out of a given population when X-dollars are spent on their care.

 

And that's supposing that you limit the conversation to a technical input-vs-output discussion, and don't get into the political implications of granting cash-strapped states the right to pull the plug on Granny, particularly when there's lots of other hands grasping for the same pile of money.

 

I don't know about you, but when it comes to arm-wrestling in the legislative sausage factory I think the odds favor public sector unions plying for the right to retire a year earlier over grannies vying to live a year longer...

[glassgowkiss]

Why would we want to revive a dead, so-called healthcare bill that is going to deny individual rights and apply additional taxes to the 84% of Americans who are presently covered? Why have Democrats locked out Republicans until now? Can you say Massachusetts? Why did Obama and Pelosi lie to us about "keeping the coverage [we] have?" Why didn't Obama C-Span debates as earlier promised?

 

This bill is D-E-A-D. Appearing on TV with the teleprompter-in-chief would be pointless.

 

BTW: why haven't we heard anything more from his "jobs summit" back in November? Because it was just a ploy.

84%- where the fuck did you get this number? fox news? and how many out of your 84 have only so-called catastrophic coverage, which btw don't really cover anything. and since you are such a fucking duche-nozzle expert on healthcare when did you have to pay any medical bills. by the way you spew your bullshit not in the last decade.

[Fairweather]

Why would we want to revive a dead, so-called healthcare bill that is going to deny individual rights and apply additional taxes to the 84% of Americans who are presently covered? Why have Democrats locked out Republicans until now? Can you say Massachusetts? Why did Obama and Pelosi lie to us about "keeping the coverage [we] have?" Why didn't Obama C-Span debates as earlier promised?

 

This bill is D-E-A-D. Appearing on TV with the teleprompter-in-chief would be pointless.

 

BTW: why haven't we heard anything more from his "jobs summit" back in November? Because it was just a ploy.

84%- where the fuck did you get this number? fox news? and how many out of your 84 have only so-called catastrophic coverage, which btw don't really cover anything. and since you are such a fucking duche-nozzle expert on healthcare when did you have to pay any medical bills. by the way you spew your bullshit not in the last decade.

 

Fucking psycho.

[JayB]

Why would we want to revive a dead, so-called healthcare bill that is going to deny individual rights and apply additional taxes to the 84% of Americans who are presently covered? Why have Democrats locked out Republicans until now? Can you say Massachusetts? Why did Obama and Pelosi lie to us about "keeping the coverage [we] have?" Why didn't Obama C-Span debates as earlier promised?

 

This bill is D-E-A-D. Appearing on TV with the teleprompter-in-chief would be pointless.

 

BTW: why haven't we heard anything more from his "jobs summit" back in November? Because it was just a ploy.

84%- where the fuck did you get this number? fox news? and how many out of your 84 have only so-called catastrophic coverage, which btw don't really cover anything. and since you are such a fucking duche-nozzle expert on healthcare when did you have to pay any medical bills. by the way you spew your bullshit not in the last decade.

 

Bob:

 

That figure comes from the US Census Bureau. Specifically, page 27 of this publication:

 

http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf

 

You'll find the text below on the top left of the said page:

 

"The percentage of people without

health insurance in 2008 was not

statistically different from 2007 at

15.4 percent."

 

This figure includes people who are only uninsured for part of the year, those who make enough to purchase coverage but decline to do so, non-citizens, etc, etc, etc, etc and as such dramatically *overstates* the number of people who cannot get coverage because they're too poor or too sick.

 

It's strange for someone who's concerned about the price of coverage complain about high-deductible plans, when they're one of the few good mechanisms available to limit wasteful spending, keep premiums affordable, limit the capacity of insurance companies to meddle in routine medical decisions, while simultaneously protecting against getting wiped out in a medical catastrophe.

 

If you're upset about anything, it should be the first dollar plans that encourage waste and state mandates that foist the cost of fertility treatments, massages, Retin-A scripts, etc, etc, etc, etc, on people who just want something to cover them when they get a serious injury or illness.

[StevenSeagal]

Why would we want to revive a dead, so-called healthcare bill that is going to deny individual rights and apply additional taxes to the 84% of Americans who are presently covered? Why have Democrats locked out Republicans until now? Can you say Massachusetts? Why did Obama and Pelosi lie to us about "keeping the coverage [we] have?" Why didn't Obama C-Span debates as earlier promised?

 

This bill is D-E-A-D. Appearing on TV with the teleprompter-in-chief would be pointless.

 

BTW: why haven't we heard anything more from his "jobs summit" back in November? Because it was just a ploy.

 

Actually, I'm not a big fan of the bill either, but I imagine for different reasons- mainly, it is gutted of all the basic things the "reform" was promised to include, but then requires us to buy their still shitty coverage. No thanks! It currently looks like a giant giveaway to the the insurance industry, increasing their enrollments but doing nothing to address rising costs of care and skyrocketing premiums.

 

My problem with the Republican approach is that it is so transparently political and disingenuous: I am convinced that the R's have no interest whatsoever in seeing any legislation passed. Imagine, for them, what it looks like if Dem's and R's work together and produce legislation the public finds pleasing...the end result is Obama and Democrats in congress will look good and get reelected, and they cannot have that. "Starting over" is code for "let's have another year of partisan bickering and character attacks and hopefully the public will be so jaded that we'll gain some seats and set the stage for Sarah in 2012".

 

I'll concede that Pelosi and Reid haven't taken the high ground politically either and that the Dems have reaaly blown a good opportunity to control the debate without appearing to be excluding Republicans, but I believe Obama's actions of late are the actions of a reasonable person who is willing to work with adversaries without pretending his core values have changed. He took direct responsibility for the lack of cspan coverage, and is now arranged to fix that; the response of the R's is another dodge.

 

There's a lot of elements in the bills details that are already good like preexisting conditions and such that really need to get passed. The key for whatever happens is adding legislation that actually helps address the COSTS of care, therefore coverage. I just don't believe the Republicans have any priority apart from obstruction, delay, and reascendency to power. If Obama calling their bluff is a "political trap", then I guess the game is up for them.

 

 

[StevenSeagal]

Oh and the Teleprompter joke is getting old; the implication being that no president ever used notes or such and that the president is a programmed buffoon. Whether you agree with him or not is irrelevant, the guy is obviously intelligent, the problem is that the Tea Party crowd is the champion of "intelligent, thoughtful speech and proper use of the English language is elitism and arrogance!" it's the newspeak of this generation, ignorance is virtue and education is elitist.

 

Get over it. Even Reagan spoke eloquently and that was one of the qualities I appreciated about him despite policy disagreements.

[Peter_Puget]

Anyone else find it odd that Tvash is going on and on about the elderly when as a group they are primarily covered by goverment provided care? Clearly since that is so fucked up the only solution is to broaden government support of healthcare!

 

My parents have saved quite a bit over their lives. part of it was luck and part of it being smart. My father is now suffering from some sort of creeping dementia and can no longer be independent. Years ago my parents bought long term care insurance for my mother but the neglected to do so for my father. oo late now. How long will my father live? Who knows. I do know that care costs thousands per year and in a very short time my parents won't have much left. But guess what? Their wealth should be the primary source of their support.

 

 

 

 

[j_b]

So much spin to hide the fact that 1/4 to 2/5 of Americans have no to inadequate health insurance coverage, which means everybody else pays in increased premiums when these folks can't put it off any longer and have to go to the emergency room (the right wing tax bogeyman to increase effective costs isn't needed here despite FW's affirmation). Too bad for the 45,000 Americans who die every year for lack of access to health care but regressives don't give a shit and they'll obstruct any reform they can by any means available.

 

Can we say Massachusetts? more than 80% of Mass voters want Medicare extended to everybody, and Brown tried to stay as far away from the toxic GOP brand as he could (riding around in a pickup truck to pretend one is a populist won't fool the people for very long). Hardly the victory conservatives want us to think it is.