Stanek Sunday funnies 9-30-12
Here are my top five favorite political cartoons this week, beginning with a twofer by Glenn McCoy at Townhall.com…
by pro-abortion liberal Joel Pett, an interesting cartoon that could have connected the dots were Pett not so blind. The root of so much of the violence and societal chaos we see in America is actually “precradle to grave,” beginning with the murder of preborn babies at the current rate 1.2 million a year. Obviously this is a gateway to disregard for human life at later stages…
a surprisingly observant cartoon by liberal Ted Rall at GoComics.com…
by Lisa Benson at Townhall.com…
Sep.30, 2012 10:38 am |
Cartoons |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
The one of Obama on the View is very appropo. He didn’t attend his National Security briefings the week leading up to 9/11 and the day after the embassy attacks he skipped his National Security briefing to fly to Vegas for a campaign fundraiser. He reminds me of Nero watching Rome burn.
Some good comics this week. I like #1 the best.
The first one might have been more relevant if it had been ‘Chickens for Chick-Fil-A’
and McCoy could have added ‘Geese for foie gras’
In the second cartoon, Pett left out ‘homosexual on homosexual’ homicides and obamahellthscare death panels, tho ‘elderly abuse’ does cover it in a age specific manner.
The last one, ‘The View’, reminds me of Francis Scott Key, Fort McHenry and ‘The Star Spangled Banner’
and
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister in the Saddam Hussein administration, dubbed ‘Baghdad Bob’ by consensus of asssembled journalists:
“There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!” [as United States Army tanks are televised rolling thru in the background and the sounds of gunfire and exploding bombs could also be heard in the background.]
When the obamas vacate the casa blanca it may qualifiy to be listed in the ‘Good Neighbor Next Door’ program to make re-possessed homes whose mortages are guranteed by the federal government available to ‘qualified buyers’ such as public school teachers, police officers and fire fighters/para medics.
Hopefully the White House staff, the cooks, bulters, maids, police force and Secret Service, will guard the silver and the linnens to protect it from pilferage.
Two thoughts:
– Anybody complaining about the time either candidate is spending campaigning probably should look at the root cause and start rooting for some campaign finance reform.
– The one demographic of people that are truly looking for a ‘freebie’ this election season are those who are throwing personal responsibility out the window and hoping to get rid of health care reform. Romney essentially summed up the GOP health care argument – if you don’t pay for insurance, just wait until you are super sick, go to the emergency room, and then that cost can be passed onto others. Who wants completely free health care? The GOP. Oh, well, I suppose it isn’t free…those of us without insurance known that from our insurance rates that have gone up so much over the years.
Where did the meme that ObamaCare is “free healthcare” come from?
The core tenet if ObamaCare is that it forces more people to buy insurance.
People expect that cost of insurance will go up significantly, for everyone.
That “free contraception” is going to end up costing us quite a bit (we already pay half-a-billion dollars each year, just in subsidizing Planned Parenthood).
Over half of Americans STILL desire a repeal of ObamaCare:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law
Del,
What irks Americans even more then forcing people to buy medical coverage is mandating what be included in those policies; no lifetime caps; family reduction services; free well doctor visits etc.. Those necessarily raise the cost of health insurance for EVERYBODY. I think the last I read on it; Obamacare policies are estimated to cost over 10k annually. Most Americans want top preserve their right to have less expensive policies that might only include major medical and have lifetime caps etc. It is not as much the mandated purchasing of insurance (though that is a big factor to many); it is the mandating what is included in the insurance that has such a large percentage of the people rallying to repeal it.
Ex-RINO, your arguments in support of Obama get weaker every day. You are seriously trying to blame campaign finance reform laws for Obama’s incompetent mishandling of terrorist attacks. wth
How can it possibly be cheaper to pay an insurer and its employees and file a claim to get them to pay for a service that you know you will need and isn’t even expensive? It has to cost more because there is more work done by more people when you file a claim than when you just pay out of pocket. Having insurance that covers everything greatly increases administrative costs.
Also, take for example, your insurance costs $5000 a year but doesn’t cover anything until after you meet the deductible of $2000, so the max is $7000 a year. Some years you don’t even meet the deductible, your total cost is less than $7000. But you can get insurance that will cover absolutely everything for just $9000. Does that make any sense?
What I suspect happened behind the scenes was that the insurers and government struck a deal on the stuff that insurers could get away with not paying, thereby keeping them profitable.
Del -
Forcing everybody to pay is the only thing that makes any sense unless you are going to throw out EMTALA and literally let people die if they don’t have coverage.
Forcing everybody to pay for what though though Ex-RINO? Whatever you deem fit? Make them pay for family reduction services as part of your mandate? Make them pay for no lifetime cap? Why not just let them get catastrophic/accident coverage for $100 a month? Why force them into 10k policies? It makes no sense unless you want to take control of their health care completely. But you know that and that is what you are after. You are a statist. You breathe government control.
Truth – I’m going to bend my rules here and reply to this because I think it is important for people to understand – but don’t take my word for it, go find some good info and make your own decisions.
The reason we need more comprehensive coverage is mere economics. For somebody to suggest that it is about government control is simply foolish. The issue is, emergency medicine is the most expensive type of medicine that a person can get. If we truly want to tackle the price of health care, we need people to be healthier. It is about preventative medicine, not emergency medicine. It is about paying for outcomes, not paying for treatments.
And the reason we need a mandate is because we, as a society, have rightfully decided people shouldn’t just die – that we should cover them in emergency situations no matter what. The problem is, when the government passed that (look up EMTALA), there was no government payment method. And costs billed to the uninsured are, by a huge margin, never paid. So how does the medical facility cope?
Well, do the math – they, by law, are forced to perform the most expensive treatments on people with no hope for payment, so they have to actually charge more for people who do pay – generally those with health insurance. So if we go back to the GOP status quo, you’ll kick back into that downward spiral of more people without insurance equalling more uncompensated care which equals more people who can’t afford coverage, which equals more uncompensated care….until the whole system collapses and they we get a full takeover.
It is painful for watch Romney right now – because he understands – he championed it in Mass. – and now he’s being forced to put his common sense and intelligence aside and argue for a system that he knows won’t work. I watched part of the interview with him on health care, and I felt so bad for him – all these occasions where he has to check his intelligence at the door.
The reason we need more comprehensive coverage is mere economics.
@Ex-GOP
This is one of the best summaries of the issue I’ve ever read.
Do you work in health care?
mp -
Thanks.
Yes – in the field of health care services.
“The issue is, emergency medicine is the most expensive type of medicine that a person can get.”
No, Ex-RINO, you, and apparently also mp (who I had previously not seen to be a statist) want to make it illegal for people to get policies that would cover emergency medical care and micromanage the types of policies that they can legally purchase. Policies that cost a fraction of what the mandated Obamacare policies cost would cover the bulk of emergency medical care that you claim is causing your insurance rates to skyrocket.
“Yes – in the field of health care services.”
And let me guess Ex-RINO. Your business is booming since Obamacare became law. Say no more.
Truth -
First off, are you saying that you believe that some sort of health care coverage should be mandated by law?
Second – here’s the issue that was really the crux of my first post – you need to change from emergency coverage to preventative - focus on self-care, nurse lines, preventative care, and only use emergency when fully necessary.
Just for for, I went out to see some rates. Blue Cross has a plan with a $2500 deductible and a 30% coinsurance rate for $600 a month (family of five). You can go barebones catastrophic – $10K deductible with a 20% coinsurance – we’re talking $244 a month then.
No truth – we primarily work with the military. Health care reform doesn’t impact our customer base.
$244 month. A lot of people could afford that. But an Obamacare policy for a family of five would cost four or five times that. That is part of the point I am making. That and it is not the goverment’s place to micromanage to the point where every family in America is mandated to purchase family reduction services etc etc. as part of the ‘health care policy’ they want to purchase. It is complete foreign to the American psyche to think otherwise.
Truth -
Fair
So do you think we should repeal EMTALA? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act
I’d have to give that more research. Was EMTALA necessary in the first place? I graduated high school in 1981 and this law was passed in 1986. I don’t remember people being turned away for emergency medical prior to 1986. Was it a big problem? And people are already being forced to pay into the medicare. Maybe the government should be spending that money on things like this instead of raiding Medicare funds to spend on non-health care expenditures or ‘Obamacare’.
Here is the basic question -
If somebody doesn’t have insurance, and gets in a super bad accident, should the medical facility be mandated that they treat them. If so, how should the costs be covered?
Can you start by answering my question. How were these people taken care of prior to EMTALA? And the solution that I had already offered above is that instead of raiding Medicare $500 billion to fund Obamacare maybe they could use those funds to help offset those costs. Also, there are still a lot of hospitals that are non-profit and they have always cared for these people for free; even before EMTALA, if I am not mistaken. Certainly you don’t see Obamacare as being the answer do you?
I don’t remember people being turned away for emergency medical prior to 1986.
My father was denied emergency medical treatment in 1971 for a massive heart attack even though signs of vascular collapse were clearly evident and he was in intractable pain. In other words, he was turning blue, like a corpse. The hospital did this because he had no medical insurance card.
He’d lost his previous insurance. The company had cancelled his medical insurance after the first heart attack.
They wheeled him into a corner of the emergency room to die.
Truth -
Look up “patient dumping” and you’ll find a history of medical care before Emtala.
On the $500 billion – you don’t understand – therese are projected decreases in spending outlays over a 10 year period based on changes to how compensation is made – for instance, paying for outcome instead of paying for services is more efficient, and will save money. There is no cash transfer or anything like that.
I’ll leave you with a great quote a few years back from our friend Romney: ”When they show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care paid for by you and me. If that’s not a form of socialism, I don’t know what is, so my plan did something quite different. It said, you know what? If people can afford to buy insurance … or if they can pay their own way, then they either buy that insurance or pay their own way, but they no longer look to government to hand out free care. And that, in my opinion, is ultimate conservativism.”
EGV,
Look up patient dumping and you’ll find Michelle Obama.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/michelle_obamas_patientdumping_1.html
As Mr. Romney said, it isn’t the civil government’s job to heal our diseases. Their job, as the apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit said (Romans 13), is to punish evil-doers. I don’t know much about EMTALA, and it may well be an important law, but certainly (1) Obamatax is not the same as EMTALA, and certainly (2) Obamatax is a wrong according to Christian principles, republican principles, the democratic process, sound accounting, and legal analysis (because the one who wrote the majority opinion also wrote the minority opinion). Also, (3) show me where Republicans and conservatives are raising a big stink over EMTALA. Maybe they should be, but I don’t know.
mp, sorry to hear that about your father. I can see why it is important for society to have emergency care like that available on a help first and ask questions later basis. It sounds like your dad was in a really shitty hospital.
We just strongly differ in that I don’t think Obamacare is a good solution to that issue at all because it actually takes away peoples health care options. And it certainly wasn’t needed to help people like your father since EMTALA has been in place since 1986.
“On the $500 billion – you don’t understand”
Oh but I do understand Ex-RINO. No matter how you slice it they are taking money from Medicaid and using it to pay for Obamacare. Either Obamacare is getting the money period.
Here are the Democrats including Obama and Biden at the D&C bragging that they defeated AlQueda. So they tried to deny BenGhazi was even a terrorist attack. They said that the security at BenGhazi was appropriate. They referred to the attack as spontaneous and blamed it on a video insulting Mohammed. They denied it was a pre-planned attack. It has now been proven that Obama knew within 24 hours that it was a terrorist attack. http://nation.foxnews.com/libya/2012/09/29/definitive-libya-timeline
But according to Ex-RINO Obama can’t be held responsible for skipping all his National Security and Intelligence briefings until we reform campaign finance laws to free the president up to do things other than campaign. Ex-RINO, is this some kind of joke to you?
It sounds like your dad was in a really shitty hospital.
Actually, it’s a fairly prestigious hospital in Santa Clara Valley, California.
Patient dumping is what they wanted to do with my father. They wanted to transfer him to the county hospital’s “charity ward,” some 30 miles away across the valley.
I told the emergency room doctor, if he chose to do that, he’d best hope that my father didn’t die on the way, or I’d come back and kill him.
The good doctor decided to admit my father; the hospital was paid by cashier’s check 2 days after he was released.
It was a typical practice at the time. EMTALA was one of the first decent things done to help solve that problem.
And it certainly wasn’t needed to help people like your father since EMTALA has been in place since 1986.
Huh? My father’s heart attack was 1971.
EMTALA would have ensured that he received immediate treatment.
mp, I am glad to hear your father ended up getting the care he needed and was released alive and well. From your first post I thought he had actually died in a wheelchair in the corner of an emergency room. You shouldn’t have to threaten to kill people at hospitals just to get care.
I understand that EMTALA would have helped your father. I was just pointing out that people have been guaranteed that kind of emergency care since 1986 without needing to threaten to kill hospital staff in order to get admitted. So Obamacare did nothing and wasn’t needed to correct that issue.
Obama needs to start attending security briefings instead of campaigning. He doesn’t even know if Egypt is our ally. Ex-RINO, maybe Obama could have skipped the View and met with Egyptian president Morsi at the UN?
Hi ts,
Obama may have very stupidly fanned the flames in the mideast by blaming the video, which most people didn’t even know existed until Obama used it to excuse his own appalling incompetence.
Has Obama figured out yet who our other ally is in the Mideast, being Israel is only one of them?
Do you suppose that when Obama asked Medvedev to pass a message on to Putin, it was about exchanging recipes for cherry pie?
Jon -
What Biblical verses are you running with that says we shouldn’t provide medical care to people? Did I miss some verse where Jesus was healing people where he asks somebody for their insurance card first?
The GOP is not raising a stink about EMTALA – that is sort of my point – it is a very, very odd debate – the individual mandate used to be a conservative principle – they came up with it originally under the umbrella of personal responsibility. Now, they are fighting for the most inefficient type of healthcare in a system with no compensation so that those of us that are insured (at least I am insured – not sure of others on this board) can keep paying for their care.
Truth -
You keep focusing on the payment mechanism, and while that is a component – I keep hoping that you are pondering care in general.
The goal is to lessen the amount of emergency care and increase the amount of preventative medicine. Not only is it cheaper, but you get less dead people. Health care reform says “let’s get people in for preventative care. Let’s also pay medical facilities for outcomes, not treatment”. Repealing health care reform says “Let’s wait until people can’t afford care, and have them come to emergency rooms and we’ll pass the bills to the insured folks. And for medicare/medicaid where we are reimbursed, let’s rack up extra tests because we get paid for by the service, not the outcome”.
truth – as I’ve thought more, I wanted to ask on your proposed payment plan – so you essentially think the way to deal with uncompensated care is to expand the eligibility of medicare so that more people’s bills get paid by it? Is that a correct summation?
Mary says: Look up patient dumping and you’ll find Michelle Obama.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/michelle_obamas_patientdumping_1.html
WOW! Michelle, spinning something harmful as advantageous?!? And Jarrett & Axelrod are involved too?!? Tell me it isn’t so.
My condolences, mp.
bmmg39. Just as an fyi – Actually mp’s father did not die in a wheelchair in the corner of an emergency room. I thought that at first too. But then I found out mp threatened to shoot the doctor if he didn’t admit his dad and his dad was admitted for two days of care prior to being released.
Ex-GOP. You might want to force all citizens of the USA into annual checkups and government monitoring of obesity and cholesterol etc. But the majority of citizens who HAVE health insurance still don’t bother to go to the doctor unless they are sick. So get your grubby hands out of our health care choices will ya?
truth -
I think your arguments lack any sort of genuine thought. You propose mandating catastrophic care, for a second – and then bail on that. Then you sort of propose expanding medicare to cover more people, and then bail on that. I suppose I don’t know if you have any plan at all.
There was an excellent article today from a conservative, explaining why health care reform is really a conservative’s dream. Seriously, if you are going to completely read one article on health care, read this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-obamacare-is-a-conservatives-dream.html?pagewanted=all
Please.
Where did I bail on anything? I told you that one of the reasons such a large majority of people want to repeal Obamacare is not just that it forces people to carry insurance..it is that it makes it illegal for us to purchase the coverage that we want for ourselves. Then you brought up EMTALA and I said that government using Medicaid funds to cover a catastrophic policy would be a lit more tenable than the 3000 page destroyer of health care and liberty called Obamacare. Bail that.
And I read the article that you linked to and I disagree with so many of the assumptions that they base their arguments on that it seemed like a bunch of bs to me.
Ex-GOP, based on prior comments, I get the impression that perhaps you & others mistakenly believe that the majority of the uninsured just choose not to have health insurance or that their hospital bills become the tax payers problem. Let me tell you a story. Back in 2006, I was hospitalized twice (January & May) from the ER to the ICU for a life threatening health condition and was in the hospital for 24-48 hrs each time. By the time all was said & done, I owed around $25,000 in hospital bills. At the time, I did not have health insurance, I was kicked off of my parents high deductible plan after I left college and was unable to obtain or afford health coverage because of a previously existing condition that put me as high risk. I was working part-time at a library for minimal wage, but I didn’t qualify for governor assistance because I lived with my parents. However, I worked out a payment plan with the hospital and paid on it each month with interest, then got a personal loan through a bank for lower interest, and walked into the hospital patient accounts office & paid off my hospital bill with a cashier’s check, I paid off the bank loan over a period of 2 years. Despite not having insurance, I still took responsibility for paying my bill and someone else gave another good example this as well. I think, you’re thinking of the indigent homeless, of which the majority have an addiction or serious mental illness, not the working poor
How would Obama’s health mandate do anything but penalize myself or someone in a similar situation (who’s fallen through the cracks) or the working poor single or married individual who may not be able to afford or obtain private/employer’s insurance, but makes above the cut off to qualify for government assistance? What then? Do we further penalize them with a “tax”? I understand there are no easy answers to this issues, but don’t feel Obama’s Affordable Care Act is going to help but make the government richer and the poor poorer.
From the NY Times article:
“Because such participation is often expensive and always voluntary, millions have simply opted out, a risky bet emboldened by the 24/7 presence of the heavily subsidized emergency room down the street. The health care law forcibly repatriates these gamblers, along with those who cannot afford to participate in a market that ultimately cross-subsidizes their medical misfortunes anyway, when they get sick and show up in that E.R. And it outlaws discrimination against those who want to participate but cannot because of their medical histories.”
While I agree with outlawing discrimination based on prior-exiting health conditions, I can’t agree that the solution to people (again, more than likely the lower middle income & working poor) opting out of insurance due to inability to obtain or afford coverage, is to force them to participate. Let me put it another way. How does forcing individual Americans to participate in something they opted out of in the first place because they couldn’t afford it, further burdening them, going help anyone but the already wealthier upper income and the government(seeing as it’s a “tax”). Also, how is forcing those who can’t afford insurance, no-one-less medical care in the first place, to carry insurance plans going to lower health care costs? I think we’re missing a step here and need to look further back into the other, additional reasons for high health care costs and the poverty issue as well. I feel like we’re looking at the big puzzle here, but not the pieces that form it.
Truth – if you are genuine about it, then you might be jumping on board with a more progressive thought regarding health care – expanding medicare and medicaid to cover more and more Americans. Then we’d truly have a single payer, universal plan. I know you haven’t called for full coverage, but the simple admission that you’d expand it out is a big step.
Rachel -
A few thoughts:
1) Under current law, you wouldn’t be kicked off your parents coverage (assuming you were 22-23 when you left college) so you would have had coverage.
2) Furthermore, you would not be able to be discriminated against because of pre-existing conditions, so if you had chosen not to be on your parents plan, you could have gotten insurance.
The big thing you are missing is that medicaid increases to cover more people, and government subsidies exist so that people who don’t qualify for medicaid can receive payments. Though I’ve already said that you would have been able to stay on parent’s coverage under reform – if you were older and that was not an option, you would have had the choice of various plans, subsidized, through medical exchanges (which conservatives have always likes, up until the Dems liked them).
That is the piece you are missing though, and the piece you should look at if you want to study the issue.
Last thought – that was awesome you were able to pay over time, and that you had the discipline and accountability to pay. You, however, are in the minority. Hospitals in my area of Wisconsin typically get paid for about 9% of cases like yours – meaning the other 91% gets recouped by raising the rates of the insured (which contributes to the downward spiral I talked about earlier).
Do a bit more research though on reform – I think that overall, you’ll like what you see, and you would have benefited greatly if the law had been in affect at the time. I have a friend with pre-existing conditions who had terrible times getting coverage – she’s digging the fact that the term ‘pre-existing conditions’ no longer exists.
Ex-GOP asked, “Jon, what Biblical verses are you running with that says we shouldn’t provide medical care to people?”
None. That’s not what I said. I said that the civil government shouldn’t provide medical care to its citizens. Go back to my comment on September 30 at 11:14 pm and read more carefully. I provided not only a verse but a whole chapter, Romans 13. A sword isn’t an instrument of healing.
Ex-GOP wrote, “Did I miss some verse where Jesus was healing people where he asks somebody for their insurance card first?”
No, you didn’t. However, you did miss the passage (Matt. 9; Mark) where the Lord Jesus was healing a paralytic and told him that his sins were forgiven. Jesus did say that it’s better to enter the kingdom of heaven maimed or crippled than to descend into hell with the body intact.
Ex-GOP wrote, “Now, [the GOP] are fighting for the most inefficient type of healthcare in a system with no compensation so that those of us that are insured (at least I am insured – not sure of others on this board) can keep paying for their care.”
Nonsense! nobody believes that. The Democrats are the ones fighting for Obamatax, which is exceedingly abundantly the most inefficient type of health care.
The GOP are fighting for a future for the bankrupt US. There’s plenty of corruption in the GOP, too, but not as much as in the Democrats, which have built irresponsibility, violence, harlotry, and deceit into their party platform.
The Audacity of Hopelessness
National Review’s Happy Warrior
by Mark Steyn
October 2, 2012
According to the New York Times, “the magic is gone.” According to the New York Post, “the thrill is gone.” And yet, according to the polls, he isn’t a goner. Even if you shave off two-three-four points for Democrat over-sampling and other pollster malarkey, the unmagical non-thrilling President Obama remains remarkably competitive.
Which means that if he wins we won’t have the same excuse as we did last time. In 2008, Senator Obama was lucky, as he has been all his political life: a global downturn, war-weariness, a Republican opponent who even in his better moments gave the strong impression that honor required him to lose . . . These and various other stars all aligned for him. But he himself was the biggest star of all: a history-making candidate, a messianic figure and not merely a national but a planetary healer. Not all of us bought into it even then: I saw him on the stump just the once and thought the silver-tongued orator was a crashing bore. Couldn’t see what the fuss was about. But fuss there was. It’s one thing if the Republican loses to a thrilling, magical superstar; it’s quite another if the Republican loses to a mean, petty, leaden, boring, earthbound hack who hasn’t lit up a room in years. In 2008, the American people said: We like this guy. In 2012, they’d be saying: We like these policies. That’s far more disturbing.
And yet it’s entirely within the realm of possibility. The conventional line is that this election is a referendum on Obama. But it’s also, as Jay Nordlinger wrote, a test of the people. In advanced Western societies spending themselves into oblivion, the political class has looted the future to bribe the present and the electorate has largely gone along with it. The question for voters now is a very simple one: Can they get real before it’s over?
The Democrats think they know the answer to that one. In recent election seasons, the United States has been, rhetorically, a one-party state: Republicans sound like Republicans, and Democrats sound like Republicans — tough on crime, fiscally responsible, cool with churchgoing. Bill Clinton slapped down Sister Souljah and went back to Arkansas to fry a guy. But even John Kerry talked about how he’d hunt down and kill America’s enemies, and, when abortion came up, did 40 seconds of anguished contortions on what an agonizingly painfully deeply painfully agonizing decision it is.
Not this time round. Abortion? The more the merrier. Bring it on. Half the speakers onstage at the Democratic convention would gladly have
performed partial-birth abortions on audience volunteers, of whom there would have been no shortage. God (and Jerusalem) found Charlotte
a tougher crowd. And, as for debt and jobs and boring CBO graphs and numbers with twelve zeroes on the end, who cares? Anyone can rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, but it takes a certain bravura panache to stage The Vagina Monologues on the lido deck as the iceberg looms.
A month or so back, I chanced to drive through Brussels, specifically the “Euro-quarter,” home to the architectural excrescences that house the EU bureaucracy. From every ugly rain-streaked concrete tower dangled their current slogan in 30-story-high font: “Strengthening Europe through Governance.” A charitable sort, I assumed something had got lost in translation. But the Democratic party’s first language is
still, just about, English, and their money quote was: “Government is the only thing we all belong to.” Take any electable center-leftie from around the Anglosphere in recent years — Britain’s Tony Blair,
Canada’s Jean Chrétien, Australia’s Kevin Rudd, New Zealand’s Helen Clark — and the disposition on display in Charlotte was well to their left. All that coy stuff from the Clinton years about “New Democrats”
and “Third Way” has been cast aside. These Democrats are out, and proud. They offered their most explicitly left-wing convention in 40
years — and they got away with it.
The Dems have made a calculation. They’ve bet that the electorate accepts the first part of the Republican critique — times are bum and getting bummer (to quote Gus Kahn in “Ain’t We Got Fun”) — but not the
second part: that the antidote to the lousy Obama economy is Romney-style economic dynamism. In a land where Americans in their late 20s have moved back in with their parents and Americans in their
early 50s have gone on permanent disability, more and more people have given up on any hope of change. To the old question “Are you better
off than you were four years ago?” there are millions who answer “No” — but that’s all the more reason to stick with the party of mass dependency and supersized food-stamp programs. In other words, what conservatives think of as Obama’s “failure” — the moribund economy, flatline jobs market, underwater housing, general sclerosis — the Democrats see as a wildly successful expansion of the base. Or as
Hilaire Belloc put it, “Always keep a-hold of Nurse / For fear of finding something worse.”
Over on the other team, the instinct is to soft-pedal. Romney decided a long time ago that his general line on the incumbent is that he’s a nice guy who’s in way over his head. This might even work — that’s to
say, it may enable Mitt to thread the needle and get to 270 electoral votes. But it happens not to be true, so that even the terms in which Romney has chosen to frame the election are a preemptive cringe and a
concession to the other side. As I say, Mitt could yet pull it off. But the confidence underpinning the Democratic convention — that the bleak certainty of dependency without end has more appeal than the
possibility of economic revival — says nothing good about where America’s headed.
Jon -
Well, maybe Christians should just fight for a system where people don’t get medicare care, and we can just try last minute conversions as they die in the hallway.
Let’s get serious here – many Christians have founded hospitals through the years, received payments from the government, and lobbied the government for forms of payment. Believing that the government should be involved in healthcare reimbursement doesn’t make a person more or less of a Christian, plain and simple.
Jon -
From your 3:17 post – do you really want me to start pinning you for some details on what you and the GOP support? I’ll go there, but you have to commit to going there with me. You in?
Ex-RINO, I am glad you admit Obamacare is a collosal clusterf@#$. I don’t want nationalized health care single payer bs like you but I am always willing to look at problems and come up with REAL solutions. Unlike you and your fearless leader I am not an idealogue. I actually look for working solutions and not a shitty deal like Obamacare that strips away liberty and grows a collosal bureacracy to f people over because you are ignorant and ‘feel’ like ” I had to do something”. You and your kind are dangerous.
truth – I don’t know how you made that (il)logical jump. I’ll simplify it for you:
1) GOP plan can’t even be called a plan – it is a dead-end street.
2) Health Care Reform is a big step, but not ideal – for as many great steps that there are, there are many more than can and should be made.
That make sense?
I’m not surprised though that you don’t like Health Care Reform – it provides for accountability, common sense, and people paying their fair share.
I’m glad though that my brief window of debating with you is almost over – you continue to prove that you can’t hold civil arguments – you move quickly into name calling, telling lies, and being downright rude. It’s really unfortunate.
Ex-GOP wrote, “Maybe Christians should just fight for a system where people don’t get medicare care, and we can just try last minute conversions as they die in the hallway.”
I wasn’t necessarily making that suggestion. You did. And we don’t make conversions; God does. He’s in charge. You do believe in Him, don’t you?
Ex-GOP wrote, “Let’s get serious here.”
I’m very serious. You’re the one who has to get real. Socialism doesn’t last except by becoming more and more totalitarian. And the US under President Obama is committing suicide.
Ex-GOP wrote, “Many Christians have founded hospitals through the years, received payments from the government, and lobbied the government for forms of payment. Believing that the government should be involved in healthcare reimbursement doesn’t make a person more or less of a Christian, plain and simple.”
That the civil government should provide health care is a belief of socialism which has arisen out of secular humanism and atheism, not Christianity and the Bible. Statism is not Christian.
I wouldn’t call it debating Ex-RINO. I call it you ignoring what is posted to you and posting what you think are ‘gotcha’ questions back. You know you can’t take the heat. That is why you will go looking for someone who won’t burst your bubble or bust your cherry. Everything I said was the truth and a few posts ago you admitted that my posts were “fair enough”; those were your words not mine. Then you accused me of bailing so I posted it right back at ya again. Obamacare is a 3000 page clusterf=c$ and a really lame-brained ‘solution’ to health care issues. It raises taxes and strips away freedoms and grows government panels to oversee peoples health decisions. And you have no legitimate response to that so you are bailing again. lol
I told you straight up how Obamacare’s FSA regulations were costing me thousands of additional dollar in taxes next year and you won’t even admit that it raises taxes on the middle class next year. That is really unfortunate. What is one supposed to think of a person like that?
Jon, don’t hold your breathe waiting for him to respond to your scripture passage. He will redirect.
Ex-GOP asked me, “Do you really want me to start pinning you for some details on what you and the GOP support?”
I don’t necessarily support what the GOP supports. However, I can do basic arithmetic, and my engineering degree means I have some understanding of numbers. The US is on an unsustainable path and is robbing the future for the present. Mark Steyn, whom I like to quote, sees a cliff at the end of the path. Also, the Bible tells me that the purpose of civil government is to enforce justice and keep order. Its purpose is not to provide food, health care, etc. Indeed, it cannot (as the former Soviet and present EU experiments prove). Obamatax and any lesser monstrosity that does not axe whole departments from the federal government, except those that accord with its core purpose (for example, the military) are out of the question.
Spare me your details. All you need is a few details: the unemployment rate, federal deficit, federal debt, Democrat refusal to produce budgets, American divorce rate, American birth rate, and Mohemmedan belligerence. And your unbiblical statism.
Jon -
If you believe that Obama is a socialist, and that health care reform is bad because it is a socialist system…then you have a massively poor understanding of socialism.
If your argument is that one person, through the government, should never subsidize another person’s healthcare – then you’ve got to really hate the current system – read the quote I posted by Romney earlier.
I think you’re really twisting things to fit some argument that is based on a house of cards. First off, the government isn’t providing health care. The government is providing reimbursement models for certain care. Certainly, you don’t think that the military is a socialist, evil society because health care is generally reimbursed through a government health care system (tricare). Second, if you think Obama is a socialist, then you really need to do a bit of reading and research.
I wouldn’t call it debating Ex-RINO. I call it you ignoring what is posted to you and posting what you think are ‘gotcha’ questions back. You know you can’t take the heat.
This!
Truth -
I said “fair” as a component of your first argument. You state that you believe that the government shouldn’t mandate insurance coverage, and I agree that this is at least a logical position to hold – but then when you state that the government should mandate that health care facilities provide care – that’s where the “fair” breaks down – your system is unsustainable, as countless people have written about.
You really need to research this, because it is clear you don’t understand the basic premises of it al – and aren’t making the logical connections. You want care, but don’t understand who is really paying for it. You want to stay on this train that isn’t sustainable. And the numbers you cite just don’t make sense. Costing you thousands? How many tens of thousands have you put in an FSA? You are losing a tax break – a smaller cap exists. If you were putting 20K or so in a year, then your math makes sense that you are losing thousands – but you aren’t doing that. Most companies put limits out there already. If you are lower-middle class, as you claim, it simply isn’t possible that you are losing “thousands” of dollars in tax breaks – you can’t make the math work.
Prax -
If you and truth think that asking hard questions is a “gotcha” type scenario, then consider me guilty as charged.
I simply don’t believe people can run around and shoot their mouth off ignoring the facts. If somebody is going to say, for instance, that health care reform is about people wanting “freebies”, I’m going to challenge them on that. It is a stupid assertion made by people who don’t understand the law.
I fully admit that I ignore most of truth’s questions – we had a falling out, and I skip most of her/his posts. There were such outrageous errors on this thread that I had to jump in. But anybody else, if they ask a question, I try to answer. Many times, I have half a dozen threads to respond to, and I miss stuff – I’m simply not going to take the time to go line by line, but if you feel I’ve ever missed anything that you feel should be answered, let me know.
Go back through this thread though – my questions get dodged all the time – but again, I ask some tough questions. I bet I’ve asked questions regarding EMTALA to 25 people through time on this board, and most people are completely ignorant about it, and won’t research it unless they can find an article on Fox Political Entertainment website.
Ex-RINO, you try making yourself feel smarter by saying you’ve asked 25 people about EMTALA and that most other people are completely ignorant about EMTALA. I am here to tell you that I learned all I need to know about EMTALA in about five minutes. It was an unfunded mandate passed by congress in 1986 and says hospitals that take government subsidies cannot deny emergency care to patients. And the fact that you use your knowledge of that to make yourself feel of superior intellect is laughable.
People make points to you about things all the time and you have shown almost zero reading comprehension skills. Instead you bring up something like EMTALA that is in no way relevant to any discussion on this board except that YOU like to bring it up and ask people if they would like to repeal it. If I had to describe you and your posts in one word; that word would be inane.
Some would say it is actually NOT an unfunded mandate and rather that it is funded by the government subsidies that hospitals receive. Why do you keep going back to EMTALA anyway? If anything it is just one more reason we don’t need Obamacare.
http://partyhardpolitics.com/archives/8450 (emphasis mine)
The Maddening Effect of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)
This guest contribution was submitted by Nancy Johnson, a student at Penn State studying for a Masters in Health Administration. She also owns the site MedicalBillingDegree.org.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986 is a federal law that requires hospitals to admit all patients needing emergency care regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. This law is known as an unfunded mandate, because the government does not compensate hospitals for their loss.
Hospitals do have the option to not participate in this mandate. However, that would require them to no longer accept payment from Medicare and Medicaid, which would cause them to lose patients and even more money. The system was purposefully set up as a catch-22.
There have been several studies done to show the effects of this law. However, according to a 2001 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, it is supposedly difficult to measure the impact of this law due to there being “no data on the incidence of patient dumping before the enactment of EMTALA…” (page 11). “Patient dumping” refers to emergency rooms turning away patients for treatment.
This same report states that, although they support the good intentions of EMTALA, most hospital officials and physicians have noticed that the law has resulted in additional costs for hospitals and physicians. They also reported an increase in nonurgent emergency room visits. However, the report concluded that the reason behind this could be attributed to many other factors other than EMTALA.
Other private studies have also reported that EMTALA has played a role in the increase of the cost of health care and health insurance, but results are never conclusive due to a lack of sufficient data.
During last week’s Florida Republican debate, Mitt Romney stated that he enacted the Massachusetts state health plan, because “under federal law if someone doesn’t have insurance, then we have to care for them in the hospitals, give them free care.” What Romney is basically saying is Massachusetts had a problem with the “free riders” of EMTALA. A problem that was so bad, a law had to be passed to combat the effects of another law.
Is it really democratic and constitutional to create a state law that essentially forces citizens to have health insurance in order to decrease the negative effects of a federal law the forces hospitals to treat people without insurance?
What all of these laws are really saying is that our government doesn’t trust health care professionals to do the right thing (treat someone in need) or us to take care of ourselves (get insurance on our own). We have a government that doesn’t trust its citizens, and citizens that don’t trust their government. The phrase “police state” comes to mind.
Health care is just one example of how ridiculous big government can become. We need to start getting real. Health care is not a right, it is a service. Through their own accord, most intelligent and honorable nurses and doctors would give emergency care to all who truly needed it. With EMTALA they give treatment to everyone (emergency and non-emergency), because it is a safe legal move.
The truth needs to spread about government mandated health care and government mandated business practices. If we want to remain a free country, we have to start drawing the line on unnecessary law enactment. Let the people take care of their own freedom.
Ex-GOP wrote, “The reason we need a mandate is because we, as a society, have rightfully decided people shouldn’t just die – that we should cover them in emergency situations no matter what.”
I’m currently in Asia, and I meet many beggars. Sometimes I give them a little money; the governments of these formerly communist and still officially socialist countries do not. I think that these governments, despite their founding philosophies, have realized that “communism is the opium of the people.” In some ways they have become more capitalist than many of the utopian and failing states of the West. It’s not the job of the civil government to provide everyone with food. As I think Ronald Reagan is said to have said (though he signed EMTALA into law), “A government powerful enough to give us everything we want is powerful enough to take it all away, too.”
God has said that the wages of sin is death. You and I are going to die. While we would like our earthly existence to be more like the heavenly, we’ll have to wait for Judgement Day for all things to be made new. The Church’s mission is to preach the good news of eternal life to everyone everywhere, promiscuously, without discrimination. Christ has turned death into an entrance to life for those who are His (Phil. 1:21). In advertisement of this news, the Church also deals with people’s earthly wants, to show the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and because He is concerned with their bodies as well as their souls. “May Your kingdom come,” we pray. And so the Church established hospitals and soup kitchens.
To decide that because, as you say, “people shouldn’t just die in emergency situations,” the civil government should step in and make a law is to think like a secular humanist and statist but not a Christian. A Christian might persuade the deacons of his church to arrange payment of emergency treatment for the uninsured, or at least those uninsured in the church (or pay for their insurance, if possible). If possible.
And don’t say then that I’m hypocritical and statist to push for laws against abortion. Abortion is premeditated murder; letting somebody die when you could do something to help is not. They might both be wrong–and that’s why I’m praying and speaking out for justice for the unborn–but one is within the jurisdiction of the federal government and the other is not. (Perhaps at the community level, civil government could be involved. No EMTALA, though.)
Ex-GOP asked, “So do you think we should repeal EMTALA?”
In view of the article I posted as a comment at 3:54 am, despite MP’s weighty personal experience, at this early stage in the formation of my thinking regarding EMTALA, yes, let’s repeal it. We have to repeal it. And there will be many more such tough but necessary decisions in the lean years ahead.
truth
If “some” would say that it is indeed not funded, those people don’t understand it – Jon posted an article right after that says, it is an unfunded mandate. Where in the world did you get that it was funded, and that “some might say” that it isn’t unfunded? I just think it is borderline funny that you said that you learned everything you need to, and then came out swinging by butchering the key component – that it is unfunded. Good grief.
Why it important? You want your cake and you want to eat it to. Romney summed up your position very, very well the other night when he essentially said people should just wait and go to the emergency room. We have a backwards care system. Instead of saying people should go early and get care before it develops into an emergency situation, we tell people to wait, and then pass their bill onto somebody else. EMTALA and Health Care Reform go hand in hand – facilities get a mandate, the people get a mandate. Everybody is responsible. I dont know why you don’t want people to be responsible…
I still can’t believe though you butchered the unfunded part…
Jon
Okay – so let just sum up your position then, and you can tell me if you disagree or agree.
Your position would be to repeal EMTALA and repeal Health Care reform…so
– If a 55 year old unemployed person without insurance had a heart attack, the proper response of the medical facility (by law, and being resourceful and not passing unfunded care onto those who can pay) would be to wheel the person into a corner and let them die – correct?
– If a family of illegal immigrants rolled their car and all were in a life threatening situation, they should not be helped?
– If a 24 year old kid who has been kicked off of their parents insurance (remember, we repealed reform) gets cancer, we should only treat them for what they can pay in advance.
Please confirm – thanks.
Ex-GOP, my response to your request at 7:44 am is given in the article I posted at 3:54 am. I will say more, if you like, if you will first confirm for me the following:
Your position is that health care can and should be universally available in the US… so
– continue Obamatax (it’s not perfect but it is health care reform in your thinking)
– continue to cut back the military (and ignore the Romans 13 passage in the Bible)
– force insurance plans, even those for Roman Catholic organizations, to provide free contraceptives
– tax millionaires and billionaires at ever higher tax rates (i.e. punish productivity)
– follow the lead of France’s new president into ever higher taxes, greater socialism, and lofty promises
– increase bureaucracy until every bureaucrat passes the buck (like the UK’s NHS) and citizens are punished or excused at the whim of the president-king and the technicalities available to him (as is happening under President Obama, e.g. with Nakoula)
– turn the US into third-world states with dysfunctional hospitals, out-of-control inflation, and no emergency health care
Ex-RINO,
You have ZERO reading comprehension skills. ‘Some’ do not see this as an unfunded mandate because the mandate only applies to those hospitals that take government subsidies. You really are thick headed. Does it help that I repeated my explanation or are you still unable to comprehend why some don’t consider it an unfunded mandate?
Who are these “some” people? Because we should round them up and not let them vote, because they are the dumbest people on this planet. Read any article on EMTALA – any criticism, and you’ll see the phrase “unfunded mandate” because it mandates care, that by definition, IS NOT PAID FOR.
Just because a facility gets money for other services doesn’t mean those services are funded. It’s like going into a restaurant and saying “I’m not going to pay tonight because I paid taxes to the city and you got a tax break to build here”.
Seriously – round those people up – let’s find them – because they shouldn’t vote, they shouldn’t be allowed to participate in society and decision making.
Can you find anybody – anybody at all – any article, any opinion piece, anything anywhere that says that EMTALA is not an unfunded mandate? I’d love to see it – I really would. So pull out your “some”, or shut the hell up. I’ll be the first to admit if I’m wrong if you can post something. I don’t think you can.
Jon -
Where did you get those positions? We’ve been talking about health care reform – where in the world have we talked about France? What’s going on here? I asked you three pretty straight forward questions, and you want to talk about France now? Were those questions not clear? Or are you all of the sudden having second thoughts about promoting a line of thinking that results in wheeling people into a back alley to die? I’m willing to talk about other subjects when we finish up this one – three questions – three scenarios – can I assume you are fine with medical facilities washing their hands of those people and letting them die?
Ex-GOP, I started off talking about Obamatax under Jill’s post here (see my comment on Sept. 30 at 11:14 pm), and I want you to converse with me on that before I converse with you any further on EMTALA. As Truth-seeker said, you tend to re-direct and not deal with arguments you don’t like. And actually, I’ve already answered your questions from Oct. 3 at 7:44 am, though not directly, so you need to read more carefully. Or else you can wait until you give me a better answer to my request at 9:15 am on October 3. Then I’ll give you a more focussed response.
Who are these “some” people? Because we should round them up and not let them vote, because they are the dumbest people on this planet. Read any article on EMTALA – any criticism, and you’ll see the phrase “unfunded mandate” because it mandates care, that by definition, IS NOT PAID FOR. So pull out your “some”, or shut the hell up. I’ll be the first to admit if I’m wrong if you can post something. I don’t think you can.
Ex-RINO, The funny thing is that the article about EMTALA where I read ‘some’ consider it to be an unfunded mandate was one that YOU posted for me to read. I read it at a link you posted to me on Sept30th at 7:38pm. LOLOLOLOL The article goes on to say that these costs are a tax right off for the hospitals (indirectly funded by the government). You are really, really, really thick-headed. Either you don’t even read the things you post for other people to read or you have ZERO reading comprehension skills.
or both
Truth -
You are absolutely, positively hopefully.
The law is criticized by some as an unfunded mandate – not that some people see it as funded and some don’t.
You’ve butchered EMTALA – you’ve butchered how much you would pay in taxes – you’ve butchered Ryan’s plan throughout the past year – you’ve butchered Health Care Reform. I just don’t know what topics you understand enough to actually have conversation about?
So back to the argument at hand -
Bottom line – plain and simple – you want people who don’t have insurance to simply wait until the situation is bad enough, come to the emergency room, and then if they can’t pay the bill, let my rates rise. Is that a fair summation?
Jon –
your sept 30th post. Never addressed it to me, so I read it and skipped it. Essentially, I said earlier the GOP isn’t raising a stink about EMTALA, but I think it is unfair to essentially have an unfunded mandate on one hand, and not require personal responsibility on the other hand. This creates an economic situation where more people will jump off insurance, get uncompensated care, and the fewer and fewer people who have coverage will have higher bills. To say “we can’t live with a mandate” while also mandating facilities seems hypocritical to me.
You never gave a question to those answers. You posted an article. If you want to let them die, just say so. Don’t believe it and then hide behind half-answers and not live up to your beliefs.
On your 9:15 post:
“continue Obamatax (it’s not perfect but it is health care reform in your thinking)”
—Yes – I think the law should still in place, and continue to be tweaked over time as we learn what works and what doesn’t. Not a perfect law by any means, but hands down better than what we were living under.
– continue to cut back the military (and ignore the Romans 13 passage in the Bible)
—-Health Care Reform doesn’t talk about military in it at all. Like any institution, I think we should look at where we can cut waste and be more efficient, but I never have called for big cuts in the military, and this hasn’t been a focus ever in this conversation. I reject your assertion here as false.
- force insurance plans, even those for Roman Catholic organizations, to provide free contraceptives
—- I think there should be a religious exemption for churches. I don’t believe there should be an exemption for education facilities or medical facilities insurance plans.
– tax millionaires and billionaires at ever higher tax rates (i.e. punish productivity)
—-I’d like to have tax rates for the highest brackets around what Reagan did (or a little less). If Reagan was punishing productivity, well, I’ll join him.
– follow the lead of France’s new president into ever higher taxes, greater socialism, and lofty promises
—-What? This doesn’t even make sense. No, I don’t think we should have a temporary 75% tax rates on the rich.
– increase bureaucracy until every bureaucrat passes the buck (like the UK’s NHS) and citizens are punished or excused at the whim of the president-king and the technicalities available to him (as is happening under President Obama, e.g. with Nakoula)
—-What? Where did this come from? You’ve have to be more specific if you’d like an answer
- turn the US into third-world states with dysfunctional hospitals, out-of-control inflation, and no emergency health care
—–I believe the best course to do this is by rejecting health care reform and going back into the spiral of non-responsibility that we were on – so no, I reject that – but believe this is what you want.
Oh yes, and you also want to wheel people into the corner of the room and let them die. Or would you call them a cab and send them home to die?
Ex-GOP, I did respond to what you asked to me respond to. As I wrote on October 3 at 9:15 am, “Ex-GOP, my response to your request at 7:44 am is given in the article I posted at 3:54 am. I will say more, if you like, if you will first confirm for me…” And now, you’ve done so, not confirming everything I wrote supposedly in your name, just as I won’t confirm everything you wrote supposedly in my name. And you do need to read more carefully.
And now for your request on October 3 at 7:44 am–I will go to Nancy Johnson again for my answer. The proper response would not be to wheel the 55-year-old unemployed man into a corner to let him die. Certainly not. The Christian response would not be to ignore the family of illegal immigrants trapped in the rolled car. Definitely not. What did Jesus Christ say about the good Samaritan? However, I can’t say what the right response would be for the 24-year-old adult who has cancer (or, for that matter, a 12-year-old child who has cancer). It depends also on the relationship and level of acquaintance with that person.
But let me give you a wrong response. The wrong response is, “The government should do something about it.” No, probably it shouldn’t. You do something about it! You pay for the 55-year-old and 24-year-old person’s hospital treatment. You try to break open the rolled car. And if you can’t or aren’t willing–well, that’s reality, isn’t it. This world has been cursed, but its light is the Lord Jesus.
I said I’d go to Nancy Johnson for my answer. After all, I did refer you to her and say that she gave my answer already. So here it is again, a whole paragraph, but with a different sentence emphasized:
Health care is just one example of how ridiculous big government can become. We need to start getting real. Health care is not a right, it is a service. Through their own accord, most intelligent and honorable nurses and doctors would give emergency care to all who truly needed it. With EMTALA they give treatment to everyone (emergency and non-emergency), because it is a safe legal move.
The above paragraph was Nancy Johnson’s. The end result of your statism is bloated bureaucracy in which everybody passes the buck, everybody doesn’t know the law (because there’s just too many of them), everybody votes for more free stuff, and everybody lives in a third-world country, probably without ambulances and or immediate emergency health care. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Republics degenerate into democracies, and democracies into dictatorships.
I’m all for health care reform. But the status quo before Obamatax was much better than Obamatax.
Jon -
What kind of bizarre answer is that? And how would that even work? So the doctor should just treat the person outside of their billable hours, using no medical equipment that would rack up charges? If there is an x-ray, who is going to pay for it? Are you saying the doctor should pay for it? Or are you now saying what Republicans have said all along – the facility should eat the charges and pass it on.
It isn’t as if medical care is just listening to somebody breathing now. If somebody gets in a bad wreck, we’re talking x-rays, cat scans, blood transfusions – all sorts of stuff. This isn’t free.
For all your railing against socialism…
I’ve answered everything you asked to answer – sorry if I didn’t read more carefully – I didn’t know you would be hiding your answers within articles written by other people.
Ex-RINO,
If only some people (notice the use of the word some and not the word all), like you, lack comprehension skills; doesn’t that mean that some other people (the rest of the all), must have comprehension skills?
Opportunity number TWO.
Post any link to an article that says that it is a mandate that is funded.
Thanks.
I told you that YOU already did. If you can’t comprehend what an article says then it would do no good to post a second one.
That’s a wikipedia page with background information, and never states that some call it funded.
If you truly believe it is funded, go find an article – they should exist.
As I stated above ALREADY. The article goes on to say that these costs are a tax right off for the hospitals (indirectly funded at least partially by the government already).
First of all, it’s “write” – a tax “write” off.
Secondly, a tax write off isn’t a FUNDED mandate. A FUNDED mandate would say that there is a mechanism in which a facility could bill and recoup the charges. For instance, Medicare is FUNDED.
Unfunded says “do this”, and figure out how to get money back on your own – and much of it never happens.
You would really benefit by reading some critical thought on health care – any at all – it would be lovely.
I’m really praying this thread is coming to a close quite quickly.
What do you call the dollars you keep from a tax write-off then if they are not funds? Are they unfunds?
Ex-GOP, I may say more later about your latest response. For now, I’ll just respond to this: you said, “I didn’t know you would be hiding your answers within articles written by other people.” That’s not true; you did know. As I reminded you in my last comment, I had said, “Ex-GOP, my response to your request at 7:44 am is given in the article I posted at 3:54 am. I will say more, if you like, if you will first confirm for me…”
My answer was not bizarre. Your trust in the civil government is bizarre. And Nancy Johnson said as much in her article although she doesn’t know you.
What’s more, your saying, “The government should do something about it,” could be interpreted as shirking your personal responsibility to your fellow man and refusing to love your neighbour as yourself. You do something about the problems! You can even get involved with charitable organizations or a church to collectively give to the poor. But don’t create more useless bureaucracy and a poverty-fostering culture; the Democrats, especially, are already robbing future Americans to pay for present Americans’ lavish lifestyles. And that’s wrong.
Give like Mr. Romney! What an example he is for me and you, even though he’s not a Christian. But don’t give any more to the civil government than you are obligated to in your taxes. It’s a sinkhole. Bureaucrats have no incentive to use money wisely; in fact, as clock watchers, they often have an interest in wasting money.
I call it a far cry from the word “funded”.
So, let’s break it down.
A hospital has somebody come in without insurance that racks up $10K in costs. They don’t ever pay the bill. Let’s say the hospital gets 20% back in tax write-off ($2000), and has ($8000) they just eat – so to make up for all this care, they raise rates on those who do pay and who are insured.
Do you fundamentally have no issue with this system, and do you honestly not see the current problem and why some have suggested that a mandate is needed so that everyone is responsible? Can you at least acknowledge some validity in the arguments made by the Heritage Foundation, Romney, and now Obama?
Jon – With all due respect, giving the vast majority of my charitable giving to the mormon cult is not going to help the health care situation.
And surely you don’t think we should check a patient into the waiting room and raise funds until they can get enough collections. If you looked at any numbers at all – if you’ve been insured, read articles – anything – you know that the system has been broken for a long time. And you know that people are skirting care and going without care because we have such a broken system – and they come in at the last minute and pass the bill off on others.
Hospitals have HARD costs – the thought that health care can simply be solved by figuring that doctors will treat people for free – that’s just not a grown up idea. Unless you’re promoting a total system of Socialism – which I don’t advocate.
“Do you fundamentally have no issue with this system, and do you honestly not see the current problem and why some have suggested that a mandate is needed so that everyone is responsible?” NO. If you wanna be such a grither about other people getting “unfunded” care that raises YOUR medical bills that is your perogative. But mandating they get a plan that includes what YOU see fit (including family reduction services) is assinine and anti-American.
Well Truth – so at the end of the day, we’re both okay with things being more expensive for people so that health care can be achieved (you are okay with the rates of the insured going up – I’m okay with everyone having to pitch in). I feel your way promotes free-riders, but understand your issue with mandates. Though I don’t feel the solution is to simply just let people have care when it is most expensive and least efficient.
Reform looks like a better shot at staying around though, so we’ll have to pick this conversation up in a few more years and see where things are.
Ex-RINO, your way promotes free-riders too. The mandated cost pays less 30% of the total 10-$15k cost of the policy these people are getting anyway. And the difference is still made up by the tax-payer so you gain NOTHING in the way of rate reduction and you lose control over managing your own health care decisions. This conversation is going to be going on for the next few years alright and it will alienate the Dems farther and farther from the majority of Americans as they “see what was in the plan”. And the religious liberty issue is going to front and center and it will almost assuredly mean the end of any politicians that stand against religious liberty. I, for one, put my faith in the Lord for my health and I would never let my desire for government health care come between me and my Lord. Obama AND the Democratic party have shown they will not yield on this issue. And that one thing could mean the decimation of the DemocRATic party.
Well Truth – that’s excellent – if you truly put your faith in the Lord for all of your health, and never go to medical facilities anyways, you are exempt.
The plan has become more popular as time has gone on – even the GOP now says that they don’t want to get rid of a lot of the provisions within the plan. Most people will see no change at all – and therefore, at the end of the day, it’s going to be around for quite some time. I’m sure there will be tweaks – but the fundamental aspects will be around, and that is the key. Romney has come a LOT towards the center in the past few weeks – and with the senate most likely staying in Dem control, repeal simply isn’t going to happen.
Repeal may not happen till 2014. So the plan will likely be to prevent implementation until then. Obamacare will be a noose around the neck of the Democratic party until it is repealed.
Very, very unlikely that the GOP can get to 60 senate seats anytime soon. If we come out of this election with 51 for the Dems (a lot of projections are saying 52, but I’ll even knock it back one – that means the GOP would need 9 in 2014 – and there are only 20 dems up.
Of those, you’ve got a lot of folks that cleared 60% last election – Pryor, Biden, Durbin, Harkin, Kerry, Levin, Baucus, Udall, Reed, Warner, Rockafeller. Not going to happen.
Furthermore, the GOP doesn’t have a plan to replace it with – so as of right now, they are going to say “yes, we are bringing back pre-existing conditions, and we are kicking off young adults from parent plans, and yes, we are allowing insurance companies to kick people out of plans if they get sick enough”. That just isn’t going to fly – which is why you see the GOP already struggling with that.
They can only thumb their noses in the face of the people for so long; and the noose will only get tighter and tighter till Obamacare is repealed. I thought it actually hurt the other DemocRATs chances this upcoming election last debate when Obama said there would be a lot of angry DemocRATs if Obamacare gets repealed. I hope he repeats that over and over between now and election.
Neither of us know for sure…I’ll just say that in working in the health care industry, and reading a lot in regards to the health care industry – the general belief is that the law will be around for a long time.
The biggest issue in my mind and that I’ve read is, there are a few provisions that are massively popular (and I’ve named them a few times, so I won’t bore you with them). It would not be easy to keep those in place while repealing the whole law. For instance, pre-existing conditions are a reality unless there’s a mandate – it is very, very difficult to outlaw pre-existing condition exclusions while not having a mandate (because people would just wait until they have cancer, and then demand coverage, and prices would be sky high). So as we get further into this, at one point, even if the GOP has critical mass, they’ll have to have an alternative or it will be political suicide. And I just don’t see that alternative out there.
Last thought -you think that it is wildly unpopular – but I think you’re living off of the polls from a year or two ago. It polls much differently now, and reflects the “I want everything” attitude – people don’t like the mandate, but people really like the aspects I’ve mentioned before.
I am Catholic and I am not in support for Obama. It is a shame there is a bit of a number for Obama. Many that I have seen though arent for him but for Romney(for the religious freedom and stuff) as I am.
Oneday in the future to think it will be Jesus who will rule the nations for a 1,000 years before the new Jerusalem comes and then he will rule with God for all eternity. How less stressful it will be and pure bliss. No suffering or wickedness…its hard to imagine now but it will be so wonderful. The maxium of a human life in the flesh is about 100 years. That is but a tiny drop of water in an ocean when you compare 100 years to a 1,000 years, or better yet, all the rest of eternity.
What about the infringement on religious liberty? As I stated above; I think that is the going to be the biggest deal over the next year or two. And if the SCOTUS strikes it down because of that; could that mean the whole law goes down because there is no severability clause?
Ex-GOP wrote, “Giving the vast majority of my charitable giving to the mormon cult is not going to help the health care situation.”
I wasn’t suggesting that you donate to a cult. I was suggesting that you follow the example of Mr. Romney and give to needy people. Really, do you want to help a situation? I care about people. But giving something–anything–is already an improvement from the mentality that the “government should do something about it.”
According to a story I first heard from Ravi Zacharias, one man met another on the seaside, where the tide had washed ashore countless starfish. Soon the starfish would all die of exposure. One of the two men was slowly tossing the starfish, one at a time, back into the ocean. “Why do you bother?” asked the other man, overwhelmed by the vast numbers of starfish dying. “It won’t make any difference.” The first man stopped for a brief moment, looking at the starfish in his hand. “It will to this one,” he replied.
There are a multitude of people in the kingdom of heaven, but there is a greater multitude on the broad road to destruction. Does the Christian say, “What’s the use? Most people are still going to hell!” No, he promiscuously propagates the seed of the Word of God, knowing that most of it will not reproduce. The fields are white unto harvest, their Lord said, and He wants more workers. But even the seed that the devil snatches accomplishes its purpose of glorifying God.
Truth – it doesn’t – the current lawsuits are simply focused on the aspets mandated to be parts of plans – but the whole law doesn’t rest on that – the various aspects that are or aren’t mandated aren’t a fundamental component of the law. So that part could be overturned or not allowed, but wouldn’t affect the larger law at all.
Jon -
The vast majority of Romney’s giving was to the Mormon church, which I consider to be a cult. That was my comment.
If you believe that churches can take upon themselves the healthcare of the nation, that is your right to have that opinion. Neither of the two major parties have that stance.
My family gives to our church, and a variety of Christian organizations.
I believe with the amount of money our country spends on healthcare, we can figure out a way to cover everyone.
“So that part could be overturned or not allowed, but wouldn’t affect the larger law at all.”
Ex-RINO, If people of faith are exempted from the mandate then wouldn’t that take away 80% of the people who are now forced to participate?
No – if the law is overturned, it would simply mean that insurance plans would not be forced to cover contraception – plans could still cover if they wanted, but would not require – so a place like Georgetown could buy a plan and have an exemption.
There are a few other lawsuits that specify non-religious organizations as well – but again, that would simply mean that their insurance wouldn’t have to cover contraception – it doesn’t mean they opt out of insurance overall.
Anyone who wants Obamacare to remain the law of the land is a domestic enemy of the Constitution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-romneys-trifecta/2012/10/04/8e4fc77a-0e4d-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html
Ex-GOP wrote, “I believe with the amount of money our country spends on healthcare, we can figure out a way to cover everyone.”
Yes, if by cover you are referring to an early grave. And by we you are obviously shifting the responsibility to the civil government, which has fewer altruistic reasons for wanting more bureaucracy than you do even if your concern is genuine (which I believe it is, but you’re foolish). “Government is like fire,” your union’s first president is reported to have said. “It is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
What do free-born Americans have to do with tyranny? You are a statist, a utopian socialist. The communists painted a lovely picture of workers living in egalitarian harmony, too. What civil right does another man have to your hard work? Should a man who studies and saves for marriage be taxed for the children of a prostitute? Or should his children, raised by his stay-at-home wife, eventually pay for their drug treatment and welfare costs? But I’m putting the cart before the horse. Why do you trust the civil government to allocate charity responsibly? They’re people, too, and they look out for Number 1. Power corrupts…
I think you need to get real, Ex-GOP. As you know, the only way to eternity is through the Lord Jesus Christ; you cannot prevent death. The question is only when and how. If you really believe that we the US in its bankrupt state for the current and foreseeable future can and should really give every citizen meaningful health insurance, then you have a problem with God. God has said that this world will always have wars and rumours of wars. He has said that there will always be the poor. He has shown us the magnitude and horror of the consequences of our sin. The wages of sin is death.
Do you know the size of the federal debt? And don’t forget to take into account existing obligations! Mark Steyn wrote at the beginning of the year:
For us doom-mongers, at the House Budget Committee on [February 16], Chairman Paul Ryan produced another chart, this time from the Congressional Budget Office, with an even steeper straight line showing debt rising to 900 percent of GDP and rocketing off the graph circa 2075. America’s Treasury Secretary, Timmy Geithner the TurboTax Kid, thought the chart would have been even more hilarious if they’d run the numbers into the next millennium: “You could have taken it out to 3000 or to 4000” he chortled, to supportive titters from his aides. Has total societal collapse ever been such a nonstop laugh riot? “Yeah, right.” replied Ryan. “We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path.”
Ex-RINO, what if the IPAB is found to be unconstitutional; would that be able to be severed from the law.
Rasqual, very informative link. Obamacare is a litigator’s dream. A bonanza of lawsuits and court cases. IPAB and HHS getting authority to make laws sure sounds unconstitutional to me. Even more so then the EPA and the courts have been striking down the EPA’s authority recently for the way they attacked the coal industry.
“I’ll just say that in working in the health care industry, and reading a lot in regards to the health care industry – the general belief is that the law will be around for a long time.”
Ex-RINO, The first day in office as POTUS Romney plans to direct HHS to return Obamacare authority back over to the states and grant Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. We already know that a majority of states have challenged the law as unconstitutional and expressed a desire for these waivers. Wouldn’t that effectively cripple Obamacare as of January 2013?
Mr. Will’s article is good, Rasqual, but it’s still too optimistic:
“America can be the society it was when it had a spring in its step, a society in which markets — the voluntary collaboration of creative individuals — allocate opportunity. Or America can remain today’s depressed and anxious society of unprecedented stagnation in the fourth year of a faux recovery — a bleak society in which government incompetently allocates resources in pursuit of its perishable certitudes and on behalf of the politically connected.”
America’s struggle is existential; it needs to be concerned with basic survival. Americans are the brokest people in history.
Ex-GOP wrote, “I believe with the amount of money our country spends on healthcare, we can figure out a way to cover everyone.”
You have great faith, Ex-GOP! I don’t believe there is a way, and in any event that amount of money that you are speaking of isn’t available anymore. The US has been operating in the red, and its current path will have the economy shut down by 2027 according to the CBO.
But I’m curious. Just what is this way that you believe we can find? Does it involve a lot of preventive health care? the gram that’s worth a kilogram of cure? I don’t have much faith in that, either, because it’s susceptible to abuse, human nature being what it is. In any case, I do believe that any way you find will further enslave Americans. They will lose their freedoms, either because of failing to meet the requirements of an insurance plan (“You’re too fat”) or because of Mayor Bloombergs who outlaw big servings.
You will say that the system just needs to be run better; cut out the fat. But that’s the point–bureaucracy being what is, additional laws to supervise our bodies will result in a lot more fat. Bureaucracy is fat.
Rasqual directed us to Mr. Will’s article. It has a very relevant paragraph:
Because IPAB effectively makes law, thereby traducing the separation of powers, and entrenches IPAB in a manner that derogates the powers of future Congresses, it has been well described by a Cato Institute study as “the most anti-constitutional measure ever to pass Congress.” But unless and until the Supreme Court — an unreliable guardian — overturns it, IPAB is a harbinger of the “shock and awe statism” (Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’s phrase) that is liberalism’s prescription for curing the problems supposedly caused by insufficient statism.
Rasqual -
Wil is a brilliant guy. He oversimplifies things quite a bit here.
Again, ipab seems like a conservative’s dream – if MEDICARE (note all health care) is growing too fast, this panel makes recommendations by the beginning of the year, and then Congress has the year to pass them. If they don’t like the specific recommendations, they can pass their own that EQUAL the amount of savings. This is meant to keep Medicare from growing too fast. If you do any reading on the subject, you’ll find that historically, what we’ve had is medical device/drug companies lobby to congress and get expensive treatments to pass that don’t often benefit end users as much as less expensive treatments.
Furthermore, as you are upset about this board – can you detail out how medicare reimbursement charges are decided now?
Last thought – Paul Ryan, in 2009, proposed a 5 member board, appointed by the President, with the scope of authority being the entire healthcare system. Recommendations would be made yearly, regardless of it costs trigger over a certain amount. So again, this isn’t just some crazy idea the dems made up – GOPers have embraced this in the past, even your own Paul Ryan.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/13/682511/flashback-ryan-proposed-ipab-like-boards-he-now-wants-to-repeal/
truth – I haven’t read too much on Coons vs Geithner (the lawsuit on ipab), but I would highly doubt that it would affect the whole law.
Since the beginning, the bigger criticism I’ve seen on ipab is that it gives too much power to congress – that in a smart effort to control costs, it relies on people who are lobbied and who don’t historically make tough budget decisions (hence, our deficit).
truth -
I don’t know, quite frankly, what Romney can and can’t do without congressional authority when it comes to the waivers and such. And I don’t know what he would or wouldn’t do – quite frankly, he has come so strongly to the center in the past few weeks – and made so many ambiguous claims of the things he likes about health care, I have no idea at all (and I follow politics) what his current plans are with taxes, reform, or just about anything else. And I’m being completely honest here.
Jon – if you look at the amount of money that the US spends on health care as a percentage of the GDP – we should be able to do it.
I think the biggest, most fundamental thing we need to do is shift from pay for services to pay for outcome. Read a bit on that – the Mayo Healthcare model – and then read about the differences in Texas where there is little regulation, and pay for services rules. You’ll see some massive changes right there.
The hard part is, and I can’t stress this enough – health care isn’t normal free market enterprise, and thus, can’t be treated as such. If I can’t afford a BMW, I don’t buy a BMW. Supply and Demand work there. If somebody has a heart attack, I don’t believe the ethical, loving thing to do is simply not treat them. They need care and should get care. Coordination and control is needed – it has to happen if we’re going to make progress in health care and getting it under control.
The IPAB is an unelected board that Obamatax sets up.
Statists like Ex-GOP call Obamatax health care reform. They take away our freedom. The rich man can no longer pay for his expensive operation; he must wait in line for the same operation that the poor man needs. The man who didn’t eat sweets because dentists are too expensive now loses incentive because the civil government hasn’t yet made a new rule, or it has but the rule is ineffective. Or again, the rule is effective but it’s a symptom of a nanny state where the citizenry never grow up to understand consequences and accept responsibility. Everyone is made equally poor except those in control of the system. Some will be waiting for heart surgery because of cutbacks while others get fully funded transexual operations and abortions.
Government health care obliterates the seller-customer link; it turns the relationship between the citizen and the state into one closer to junkie and pusher. It’s soulless and impersonal. Doctors aren’t in it to show compassion and help people; they’ve no reason to build up a practice. Emergency departments watch the clock and wheel your 55-year-old unemployed man into a corner. Yes, there was just such a case in the U.K.’s National Health System.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-76150/War-hero-left-die-NHS-hospital-floor.html
A war veteran and former mayor died naked and blood-spattered on the floor of an NHS hospital.
Ian Moy-Loader, 80, was found in a distressed state alone in a sideroom by his daughter when she arrived to visit. He died two hours later.
Geraldine Des Moulins told of her horror at his degrading treatment. ‘I thought he was safely tucked up in a hospital bed, yet here he was an awful state lying on a mattress on the floor. The sight took my breath away. I had to take a step backwards,’ she said.
An urgent inquiry was underway at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. Mr Moy-Loader, a diabetic who had also suffered a stroke, was admitted after falling over at his home in Hove. His ordeal began immediately.
In casualty he was forced to wait for two hours on a trolley in a corridor until his daughter insisted he should be moved to a sideroom.
After waiting more than eight hours for a bed, he was placed in a medical assessment ward where staff assured Mrs Des Moulins he would be well looked after. She phoned in the following morning and was told her father was comfortable.
But when she arrived two hours later she found him spattered with blood lying on a mattress on the floor of a sideroom, with his nightgown wrapped around his neck.
Nurses explained that he had suffered two falls during the night and had been put on the floor to keep him safe. One told Mrs Des Moulins: ‘We are doing our best.’
Mrs Des Moulins said: ‘I asked why they hadn’t put cot sides up on the bed but they said they could only find one.
‘They had shoved the bed against the wall but he had still fallen out. One can only wonder why someone didn’t stop him doing so. It was left to me to put a sheet over him and they didn’t appear to start monitoring him until I kicked up a fuss.’
Less than two hours later, Mr Moy-Loader passed away, still lying on the mattress. Brighton Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, received no stars in a new Department of Health rating system issued last week.
Mr Moy-Loader was a sergeant with the Royal Berkshire Parachute Regiment during World War II and survived being shot by the Germans after an airborne assault on the Rhine.
The ultimate NHS indignity: Body of hospital patient left to die in corridor is ignored for hours… before staff simply drag him away
By Jaya Narain of the Daily Mail
Created 10:05 AM on 8th June 2011
* ‘He went to them for help and they left him out in the corridor to die’, says Peter Thompson’s daughter
* Senior nurse claims it was ‘the appropriate method of handling the situation’
Sentenced to death for being old: The NHS denies life-saving treatment to the elderly, as one man’s chilling story reveals
by John Naish of the Daily Mail
published April 7, 2012
Express – Nicola McCafferty 24 March 2009
SIX patients with learning difficulties have died as a result of “significant and distressing” failings in their NHS care, a damning report revealed today.
A Government watchdog today revealed that patients with learning difficulties are treated less favourably than others, resulting in “prolonged suffering and inappropriate care.”
One man who suffered with epilepsy, was left to die in excruciating pain and distress after being left for long periods, while another died after being left without food for a staggering 26 days, the Health Service and Local Government Ombudsmen said.
The charity Mencap said the conclusions were a “damning indictment” that confirmed an “appalling catalogue of neglect,” and today joined the watchdog in calling for an urgent review of health and social care for those with learning disabilities.
The investigation – entitled ‘Six Lives’ – was launched after Mencap made a complaint on behalf of the families of six vulnerable people who died in NHS or local authority care between 2003 and 2005.
…
Heading to church now, but I suppose this is my greater question to you three:
Right now, Medicare costs are rising to the point that in the near future, costs will outweigh what is currently brought in for taxes. What should we do about that?
1) We should pay all costs, bring in the current amount of taxes, and we should simply borrow what we can’t pay (add to the deficit).
2) Simply raise Medicare taxes across the board and continue to pay all costs.
3) Try to control costs.
If you like option 3, how would you control costs – whose plan do you like?
I’m not saying ipab is perfect – far from it – but what is the better alternative?
NHS PRIORITIES…
by David Vance on May 20th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
The NHS shows it has the right priorities at a time when patients die on trolleys and hospital wards are filthy…
[BEGIN QUOTE] The NHS has funded a “human rights week” with dozens of events including a photographic exhibition to celebrate transgender staff. Hundreds of managers and front line workers are due to attend conferences and workshops on equality and diversity this week. Patients’ groups criticised the spending at a time when services and jobs were under threat, as the NHS attempts to make £20 billion in efficiency savings. The events include two all-day conferences involving at least 170 health care managers. In addition, NHS Rotherham will host a week-long exhibition of “inspiring images” which promises to “celebrate the lives of transgender staff and patients”. And NHS North West is promoting an “awareness raising timeline” to commemorate homosexual and transgender doctors and nurses.[END QUOTE]
Well worth your taxes…right? The sooner the NHS is reformed the better.
Call 1-800-CHEST-PAIN
by Mark Steyn
August 8, 2009
Here’s one of those anecdotal horror stories from Scotland’s National Health Service that we are enjoined by American “reformers” to pay no heed to. From the Daily Record:
[BEGIN QUOTE] A mum suffering chest pains died in front of her young son hours after being sent home from hospital and told to take painkillers.
Debra Beavers, 39, phoned NHS 24 twice in two days before getting a hospital appointment. But a doctor gave what her family described as a cursory examination lasting 11 minutes, before advising her to buy over-the-counter medicine Ibuprofen…
Seven hours later, the mum-of-two collapsed and died from a heart attack in front of her 13-year-old boy. [END QUOTE]
It’s one of those stories that has all the conventions of the genre: The perfunctory medical examination; the angry relatives; the government innovation intended to pass off an obstructive bureaucracy as a streamlined high-tech fast-track (“NHS 24? is some sort of 1-800 helpline). Indeed, in the end, it’s all about the bureaucracy: The 1-800 guys don’t think you’re worth letting past the health-care rope line. So you call again, and ask again, and they say okay, we’ll find you someone, but he can only spare eleven minutes of his busy time. And, while you’re being carried out by the handles, the bureaucracy insists that all went swimmingly:
[BEGIN QUOTE] NHS 24 executive nurse director Eunice Muir said: “We can confirm Ms Beavers contacted NHS 24 and that her onward referral was managed safely and appropriately.” [END QUOTE]
Phew! Thank goodness for that. In the Wall Street Journal, our old friend Theodore Dalrymple writes:
[BEGIN QUOTE] In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog.
As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.
The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different. There is no tension, no feeling that one more patient will bring the whole system to the point of collapse, and all the staff go off with nervous breakdowns. In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. [END QUOTE]
That’s because, in their respective health systems, Fido is a valued client, and poor Debra Beavers wasn’t.
Obama builds roadblocks, not roads
by Mark Steyn
July 21, 2012
Instead of roads and bridges, Obama-sized government funds stasis and sclerosis: The Hoover Dam of regulatory obstruction, the Golden Gateway to dependency. Last month, 80,000 Americans signed on to new jobs, but 85,000 Americans signed on for Social Security disability checks. Most of these people are not “disabled” as that term is generally understood. Rather, it’s the U.S. economy that’s disabled, and thus Obama incentivizes dependency. What Big Government is doing to those 85,000 “disabled” is profoundly wicked. Let me quote a guy called Mark Steyn, from his last book:
The evil of such a system is not the waste of money but the waste of people. Tony Blair’s ministry discovered it was politically helpful to reclassify a chunk of the unemployed as “disabled”. A fit, able-bodied 40-year old who has been on disability allowance for a decade understands somewhere at the back of his mind that he is living a lie, and that not just the government but his family and his friends are colluding in that lie.
Millions of Americans have looked at the road ahead, and figured it goes nowhere. Best to pull off into the Social Security parking lot. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. As the president would say, you didn’t build the express check-in to the Disability Office. Government built it, and, because they built it, you came.
Ex-GOP, thanks for responding. I’ve written a lot but can’t write much more now.
You wrote, “Read a bit on [a shift from pay for services to pay for outcome] – the Mayo Healthcare model – and then read about the differences in Texas where there is little regulation, and pay for services rules.”
That’s certainly interesting, and maybe I will sometime. Of course, knowing the desperate finances of the US, I believe that the most pressing action to take is to axe whole departments of the federal government–with as much of a “gradual phasing out,” because of existing commitments, as possible. The politics, however, are extremely difficult–or even impossible–as both Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan appreciate.
You wrote, “If somebody has a heart attack, I don’t believe the ethical, loving thing to do is simply not treat them.”
Then treat him! Do the ethical, loving thing, and “coordinate and control” with your church or charitable organization. But don’t create a 1-800-CHEST-PAIN and more useless bureaucracy to take away my freedom and control my body. See the blurb I posted at 8:53 am.
“I don’t know, quite frankly, what Romney can and can’t do without congressional authority when it comes to the waivers and such”
He couldn’t have been any clearer so I don’t know what you are smoking/drinking. He says he is going to turn control back over to the states and grant them Obamacare waivers. Waivers are the authority of HHS so Romney has that power. It is posted on his web-site that those are his intentions and he says those are his intentions at just about every speech he gives. Your argument that you don’t know is just one more glaring example of your inability to comprehend what people say.
Truth – what is unfortunate is for a while, you were actually able to talk without becoming such a mean person. We were actually having a constructive conversation where you didn’t stoop to name calling, accusations, and downright evil behavior. It’s sad to see that go away so fast. The whole conversation this morning was you asking questions because you don’t research, and me answering them without ridicule or taunting. Again, very, very unfortunate that you can’t carry on a conversation like an adult.
Politicians say all sorts of stuff. Obama said we’d have 0 unemployment, shrimp for every meal, and no deficit (I’m exaggerating of course). But we know what somebody offers and what they can deliver are two different things.
Waivers don’t get rid of all aspects of reform. A state waiver to allow for states to bypass the implementation of medicaid will mainly impact the ability for poor people to obtain coverage (so they’ll just keep going to the emergency rooms instead).
Jon -
Can I have the phone number of your church? There’s a lot of uncompensated care across the country – my thought is, if we can post that you folks are open to covering the health care costs of those who can’t afford it, well, problem solved.
It’s great in theory – it really is – but crunch some numbers sometimes. For instance, based on the proposed cuts to food programs in the US, some church groups calculated that to make up for the government proposed cuts, that EVERY SINGLE CHURCH IN THE US would need to spend about $50K each.
Don’t know about your church – my church couldn’t afford that, so if your church could do $100K, that would be great.
Oh, on top of healthcare.
http://news.yahoo.com/romneys-pledge-repeal-obamacare-elected-165418907.html
What are the practical implications if congress defunds it? Could they stop paychecks for the new IRS Obamatax collectors and the oversight panels that would be responsible for colecting peoples personal health information to enter into a federal database?
Truth – I encourage you to read the yahoo article I posted.
I did. Do you know what happens ‘practically” if congress doesn’t fund Obamacare?
“The whole conversation this morning was you asking questions because you don’t research, and me answering them without ridicule or taunting.”
Ex-RINO, I only posted to you ONCE this entire morning and that was at 2:36am so I don’t know who were having this conversation with but it wasn’t me. You might want to check and find out cause whoever you were actually having that conversation with probably felt like you were not comprehending them at all.
Ex-GOP wrote, “Don’t know about your church – my church couldn’t afford that, so if your church could do $100K, that would be great.”
My church can’t, either. Nobody can. Americans aren’t presently living in the real world, and that’s why they’re “accumulating” trillions of dollars of debt to impoverish their children. Blame FDR. Sooner or later reality will catch up with America.
God hasn’t said we’re responsible to make sure everybody has health care. As Nancy Johnson wrote, “Health care is just one example of how ridiculous big government can become. We need to start getting real. Health care is not a right, it is a service. Through their own accord, most intelligent and honorable nurses and doctors would give emergency care to all who truly needed it. With EMTALA they give treatment to everyone (emergency and non-emergency), because it is a safe legal move.”
My church in Canada can and does help needy members financially. God’s solution to the misery of our sin, however, is the atonement and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the work of His Spirit through His Word. The Great Commission is not about providing everybody one with health care; it is to preach the gospel to every human being.
Ex-GOP wrote, “Don’t know about your church – my church couldn’t afford that.”
The American government (i.e. American citizens) can’t afford that, either. It owes many trillions of dollars. A trillion is 1,000,000,000,000.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/07/charts-of-the-day-deficits-and-spending/
We don’t really have a revenue problem… or at least not primarily a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Most of that is almost certainly in Medicare and other health-care spending, and it’s certainly going to be the biggest problem in the next few decades. Sequestration isn’t going to solve that. We need to find a way to revamp our safety-net programs to truly reduce spending in order to rebalance the relationship between federal spending and household income. We simply can’t get enough income to support that rate of growth — most of which has been funded by exploding deficits and national debt, the service of which will cost households in future generations even more in federal-spending growth.
Wait Jon – you are from Candada??? You don’t even live here?
Yes, I’m a Canadian, Ex-GOP. And I’ve noted that fact more than once on Jill Stanek’s site. I deplore Canada’s socialized health care.
Sorry Jon – I guess I don’t follow you around the boards here.
So you envy the current US health care system – what objective measures are you looking at that make you so excited?
Oh incoherent one. If you’d comprehended any of what Jon just posted you wouldn’t ask such assinine questions of him.
Jon – my question still stands – truth somehow thinks you talked about the components of the US health care system that you think is better than Canada’s – I’m not seeing that.
Truth – if you don’t have anything better to do, please answer my question asked October 7th and 8:42 am.
Thanks,
What we should do is have a much more vigorous debate prior to implementing reforms. One thing was glaringly missing from the previous debate was the effect that all these new patients would have on the existing family medical practices; we should be getting the input of the doctors who are being expected to treat all these new patients. I know that is a general answer but it is ONE of many things that not done and that should be done prior to making decisions on any reform.
Truth -
Buzzzz
Wrong- Medicare isn’t taking on NEW patients – Medicare treats everyone over a certain age.
Try again.
Ex-GOP, you made a wrong inference.
I said, “I deplore Canada’s socialized health care.”
You said, “So you envy the current US health care system.”
The second doesn’t necessarily follow from the first. Not at all. And what exactly is the “current US health care system.” Is it completely un-socialized? Isn’t the president trying to completely socialize an already partially socialized health care system?
Andrea Mrozek of the blog “Pro-woman Pro-life” wrote the following on October 11:
Heartwrenching letters here (on a blog called “Letters of Note”, also posted October 11), from mothers and in one case, a father, who are giving up their children to be cared for by nuns at the Foundling Asylum in New York City in the late 1800s. They can’t care for them, so they give them up. We don’t have asylums or orphanages today because we kill kids in utero instead. And indeed, some today claim these children would be better off dead. I’m not sure why they feel so confident about that. Who is to say?
Here are the letters:
2-21-71
New York Tuesday
Kind Sisters,
you will find a little boy he is a month old to morrow it father will not do anything and it is a poor little boy it mother has to work to keep 3 others and can not do anything with this one it name is Walter Cooper and he is not christen yet will you be so good as to do it? I should not like him to die with out it his mother might claim him some day I have been married 5 years and I married respectfully and I did not think my husband was a bad man I had to leave him and I could not trust my children to him now I do not know where he is and he has not seen this one yet I have not a dollar in the world to give him or I would give it to him I wish you would keep him for 3 or 4 months and if he is not claimed by that time you may be sure it mother can not support it I may some day send some money to him do not forget his name.
Yours respectfully,
Mrs Cooper
New York April 6th
My dear good Sister,
Please accept this little outcast son of mine trusting with God’s help that I will be able to sustain it in your institution. I would not part with my baby were it in any way possible for me to make a respectable living with it, but I cannot, and so ask you to take my little one, and with the assistance of Our Blessed Lady I promise to place in the contribution box, each month all that I can spare from my earnings, and to bring it clothes as often as my means will allow. This is no idle promise Good Sister. I know how often such are made and broken, but I will do my duty. Its name is Joseph Cavalier.
Sister Superioress
I am a poor woman and I have been deceived under the promise of marriage, I am at present with no means and with out any relatives to nurse my baby. Therefore I beg you for god sake to take my child until I can find a situation and have enough means so I can bring up myself. I hope that you will so kind to accept my child and I will pray god for you.
I remain humble servant
Teresa Perrazzo
New York, Dec. 3rd 1874
New York July 3rd 1872
Kind Sisters of Charity
This worthy man Mr. Edward Keefe has had the misfortune to lose within about a week, both daughter and wife. The mother of his child died today, leaving upon his hands a tender infant but a few hours old.
He prays of you to care for it and sustain in it the feeble spark of life which God has placed there.
Yours truly
F.E. Donlin MD
No 1 Ludlow Place
Dear Sister of Mercy,
Please take care of my baby as I can not do it my self. I trust God will reward you. I do not know if I live or die. I give it in charge of you and the Almighty. I have sinned can not expect much good luck. It will not be christened as I know you will attend to that. If I live I hope to claim it some day. Its fathers name is Hudson. You call it as you think best. I am not able to write any more. I call it Julia R Hudson.