But liberals don’t own guns.

We’re doing this a different way - they pull a knife, you let everyone in the room know they’re pulling a knife on a cancer victim who tutors orphans in between chemo sessions.  And then you pull a gun.

Back when Al Gore was running for President oh so many years ago, he was pressing the case for Medicare Plan D.  He held up a picture of a little old lady who was being forced to choose between her meds and putting food on her table.

When Obama was running for President, he pushed universal health care with similar examples.
Going out to these town hall meetings, you’ll find a plethora of people with medical maladies and Obama has spoken to numerous case studies for universal coverage.

All that doesn’t matter if the media doesn’t cover it.

Right now, the only thing that captures the media spotlight is right wing protest.  A guy tears up a picture of Rosa Parks, and it’s at the top of Digg in an hour.  News media figures tackle all over it.  Meanwhile, the actual health care town hall is virtually ignored.

Arlen Specter gets told he’s going to be dragged to hell for his support of Obama’s plan, and the guy gets plenty of media attention for his trouble, but Specter’s own speech goes unreported.

Some wacko shows up at an Obama rally packing heat and we get a nice long debate on 2nd Amendment Rights.

And then there’s Gramme Frost.
Or, if you prefer, Gramme Frost 2.0
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200908130016

Your SiCKo example is perfect.  Michael Moore released his god damn movie and the media coverage was dragged out back and beaten with hammers to shut it up.  The only thing anyone wanted to talk about was how horrible Cuba is.

It doesn’t matter if you show up with a hundred laid off blue collar construction workers protesting for something better than COBRA or thousand orphans suffering from malaria that can’t get enrolled in CHIP.  The media.  Won’t.  Cover.  It.

Well, I was watching Obama during his town hall meeting and I couldn’t believe it was the same guy who ran that great campaign.  He sounded like John Kerry to me, verbally meandering all over the place and I was like, wtf is he talking about?

When this began polls showed over 70% of Americans supported the CHOICE of buying into a medicare-like health insurance program.

Why the fuck isn’t Obama out there slamming this no-brainer home?  We want to give you the choice to buy the same insurance congress enjoys, but if you don’t want it, you get to keep your current insurance.  And hey, if someday you lose your job or develop a condition that would be considered exempt because of pre-extistence, and you change your mind, the option will still be there for you.  No worries.  What do they want to give you?  Insurance companies who will let you die if they can find a way to do it.  Bankruptcy.  Worries.  Say it all in short sentences, and say it over and over and over. 

I am starting to think that Obama doesnt want a good public option.

Yeah the media won’t cover it, you’re right.  But they cover the President and if this is his idea of a sales job, or hardball, it’s over.

Jesse, you’re absolutely dead on. Yes, there are media problems but that’s why the democrats have to push harder with this kind of thing. The more examples they put out and the more centrally they incorporate this, the more mainstream and normal it’s going to appear to the ordinary person.

Our message is a little harder to distill down to sound bites, and since it relies on decency and empathy it really doesn’t play well as angry mob fodder.  But even if it did, the traditional media would fuck us.  We were angry about the Iraq invasion.  We were fucking pissed about torture.  We were angry about spying, and US attorneys, and corporate giveaways (and takeaways), and Bush v. Gore.  And what did that get us?  “Ooh, look at the angwy widdle wiberals, awn’t dey cute?”  Right wing anger is regarded as legitimate, even when it’s clearly not.  Left wing anger is portrayed as illegitimate, no matter how grave the insult.

Patience, patience.  There isn’t a bill yet.  That’s what’s really making people jinky.  This will all come together in the next month or so.  We need six or seven simple talking points to ram home time after time.  We haven’t drawn the gun yet because we don’t have the ammo.

Wow, this.

I’ve had the hardest time putting my finger on what it is about this whole thing that has bothered me so much that I know we can do something about, and THIS is precisely it.

The Repukes aren’t gaining traction on this isue because they have a truly better argument, but because our argument is completely sterile and devoid of a human face.

As much as we want to scream “astroturfing” at the efforts by the insurance lobby to shut down these meetings, it ain’t working.  While I have no doubt that the insurance folks are pouring tons of money into getting the message out that they want out there, the fucktards showing up having hissy fits are not paid lobbyists, and when we try to say they are, folks in the middle look at us like we’re crazy.  They are reactionary fucktards, and in many cases, wanton racists, but they don’t work for Aetna, and if we try to say they do, we look like fools.

Derided as he is, it was Michael Moore’s SiCKO that first led me to really care deply about our national healthcare crisis.  And as much as many want to write him off as a leftwing whackjob, the message he delivered in that film was INCREDIBLY powerful, and forced a whole lot of questions out into the national dialogue.  For example, prior to SiCKO, was there a whole lot of discussion about how American healthcare truly stacks up against the single-payer systems in other first-world nations?  Not that I noticed… it was just taken as a matter of fact that America had absolutely the best healthcare in the world.  Not many seemed to question that supposed “truth”.

We need real live human faces being brought to our side of the debate.  People willing to tell their stories in ad campaigns and at townhalls about how the current system has ruined them.  And not just those who don’t have insurance, but those who do have insurance but faced a medical catastrophe that ruined them when their insurance company decided not to cover them.  Part of what made Moore’s film so compelling and so powerful is because it shed light on something many never gave much thought to - that aside from the 50 Million people who don’t have insurance, there are tens of millions who DO have insurance who are still getting screwed by the system anyway.

We need those people’s real stories front and center if we have any desire to win this debate.

Otherwise, healthcare reform is toast.

While (once again), I will say that I don’t think that Obama has some kind of “grand strategy” at work where he is allowing the Republicans to think they have the upper hand by unleashing the crazy, the truth is that Obama doesn’t care about winning the news cycle on these town halls. He just doesn’t. He never has, really. His tactics for handling the news cycle always seemed pretty poor to me, and, quite honestly, I think he knows he’s bad at it, so he doesn’t bother to compete on that field. He thinks he can win the fight without this sort of media game, and maybe he’s right, but I think we have to accept the fact that it’s not that Obama is trying to counter these public newscycle spats and just looking for the right strategy—he honestly doesn’t have any interest in fighting them.

Am I the only one who skimmed the post and read “random barber” as random birther?

All this looks to me like what happened out here in Cali with Prop H8.

While there was a chance of making a difference (before the vote) the Anti-Prop 8 folks were keeping a fairly low profile, waiting patiently for Californians to do the right thing.

After we lost, then all the indignant shouting and outrage began in earnest.  But it was just a little too late.

If the healthcare thing was Obama’s #2 (after the economy) then why didn’t this get planned out in advance in media-savvy ways back before Jan 20?  Where are the anti-Harold & Louise ads?  Where are the endless personal stories of the countless Americans screwed over by Big Healthcare?

It is easy to suspect that it wasn’t given the attention it needed to be successful…for some political reason or other.

“Our message is a little harder to distill down to sound bites, and since it relies on decency and empathy it really doesn’t play well as angry mob fodder.”

Are you telling me we couldn’t find thousands of Americans whose dire plight at the hands of the system wouldn’t find some level of empathy among Americans?  Have we become so cynical?

They may have hate and fear, but we have anger.  And there’s no reason it can’t work as well.

It’s just classic marketing.  And if done right it would succeed.  The “enemy” here are some of the least sympathetic people in America, next to Wall Streeters, Blackwater employees, and John Yoo…

Obama fucked up bigtime yesterday in one talking point he put out there…

My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining…then I think private insurers should be able to compete.  They do it all the time.  I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right?  No, they are.  It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.

-President Obama, August 13, 2009

Dumb, dumb, dumb, Mr. President.

On top of insulting the thousands of people who work for the United States Postal Service (I would guess the majority of which probably voted for you), you’ve now told America, “don’t worry about the public option hurting private healthcare, because it’s gonna really suck, and nobody is gonna really want it.”  Nice work promoting the rightwing meme that all public works programs are inferior in quality.  Because that’s totally gonna make America want to invest billions of taxpayer dollars in a public option.

I get that his strategy was to try to quell the fears of people who think that reform will ultimately lead to a single-payer system, but he’s trying to play nice with people who have no interest in negotiating into an agreeable middle-ground.  Nothing short of “no reform whatsoever” will satisfy the opposition here.  So stop with the pointless bipartisan BS already.

“Real people contextualize political messages in ways that politicians simply can’t.”

I believe I know what you mean, and I can agree with it wholeheartedly.  I would merely quibble with your choice of the word “contextualize.”

Actually, the most thoroughgoing way to contextualize any political question is precisely to do the politically least effective thing, which is to present statistics in a wonkish manner.  Statistics are not about individuals; they are about thousands of individuals.  They are the “big picture” that we lose when we try to base our world-view upon personal anecdotes.  Statistics don’t lie: In countries with government-paid healthcare, the average life expectancy is higher (despite the atrocious smoking habits of many Europeans) and the infant mortality rate is lower.

Anecdotes, on the other hand, can and often do lie.  Every anecdote is a personal story, but unfortunately, many anecdotes are second or third-hand accounts.  Many recount unrepresentative freak events and flukes, taken out of all context.  And many are simply distortions or outright lies.  The infamous “Harold and Louise” commercials are a good example of the latter.  It seems that conservatives, being not interested in the truth at all, are more practiced in the art of populist rhetoric (as opposed to populist policy) than liberals.  Sadly, this remains an art and not a science.

What we actually should do is PERSONALIZE the statistics, not “contextualize” them.  Statistics are already contextual, but the problem is that they’re almost pure “context”; they’ve been seemingly emptied of personhood, just as a crowd appears faceless when there are too many faces.

So I agree with you that it is especially effective for people to tell their own stories, first-hand.  These stories are not only powerful, but also likely to be true.  Just don’t call it “contextualizing.”  Call it “personalizing.”

the fucktards showing up having hissy fits are not paid lobbyists, and when we try to say they are, folks in the middle look at us like we’re crazy.

A woman on NPR yesterday said that she she went to a town meeting only because she was offended that the shouters were being called astroturfers (ie, fake), so she went down to say her piece.  Unfortunately, her piece was Faux News talking points, but my take-away was that the more people feel that we’re shrugging off their concerns as fake, the more upset and loud they will get.  It’s not that they have coherent points, but that they feel dismissed.

And the more they show up, all quivering with righteous indignation, the more the media will talk to them.  It doesn’t look like anyone cares that the people being interviewed are logical, just that they’re passionate.  So we need to be just as passionate, but with truth, justice, and the American Way on our side.

While there was a chance of making a difference (before the vote) the Anti-Prop 8 folks were keeping a fairly low profile, waiting patiently for Californians to do the right thing.

After we lost, then all the indignant shouting and outrage began in earnest.  But it was just a little too late.

THIS is my biggest concern.  While it may seem obvious to us that universal health care (single-payer or not) is not only logical and humane but American, but we can’t assume that it’s obvious to everyone else.

Comment#8: “There isn’t a bill yet.  That’s what’s really making people jinky.”

Or, there are 2 bills (HR676 and HR3200) and who-knows-what from the Senate. I’m not convinced that President Obama has much control over the House Democrats. HR3200 at 1018 pages came into existence in a few weeks. The stuff in that bill has been sitting around for years in file cabinets and on disk drives. No matter what the President said, no matter what the talking points or vision, the damned bill was going to come out in the form it currently is in. Twenty Pelosi/Waxman staffers and 100 hired lawyers cranked the thing out, and somebody somewhere had a checklist of stuff that “HAD TO BE” included. Who had the responsibility to make sure the whole thing actually solved real problems, and that the individual sections work in harmony with each other? I doubt anyone was charged with the responsibility or had the authority. And I just don’t trust any media to report facts. ALL are agenda driven. Blog warriors keep debating ideology and beliefs, and meanwhile, the reality of what will get passed is beyond the influence of the people to whom it will be imposed. Jinky is a good description!

Most of the people I know who could really benefit from health care reform are unfortunately too sick to leave their homes most of the time, much less attend a town hall or appear on television.  =(

Are you telling me we couldn’t find thousands of Americans whose dire plight at the hands of the system wouldn’t find some level of empathy among Americans?  Have we become so cynical?

That’s exactly what I’m saying.  American corporate media doesn’t give a flying fuck about people betrayed by our healthcare system.  And we have an entire political party organized around the principle of “I’ve got mine,* so fuck off and die.”  Even if, and it’s a big if, we could get sympathetic stories out there, a huge chunk of the population wouldn’t give a damn.  The only way we can sell universal healthcare is to make it clear that it’s in the best interests of not just America as a whole, but every individual in the “I’ve got mine” crowd.  They’re assholes, but there are a lot of them, and they vote.

*Even if, in many cases, “mine” is nothing more than the privilege of white skin or a penis, or some blather about everlasting life in paradise as long as your sufficiently obedient to authority in this life.

Bah.  Should have used preview.  Doesn’t -> don’t and your -> you’re.  Probably some others too.

I’d be glad to volunteer.  I have a chronic illness that is currently well treated thanks to my student insurance, but obviously precludes me from ever purchasing insurance independently, which places permanent controls over what jobs I will be able to consider when i graduate.  My boyfriend is also a student, but his school doesn’t offer insurance.  He had to have an emergency surgery last year and the hospital ended up eating the entire cost of his surgery and hospitalization because they recognized there was no way he was ever going to be able to pay for it.  We’re very grateful for that decision but also recognize that my healthcare costs go up because of cases like his.

We’re just 2 schlubs.  There must be thousands of couples exactly like us who would be glad to stand up and tell our stories and say, “Hey, these stories would be very different if we had health care reform.”

Right wing anger is regarded as legitimate, even when it’s clearly not.  Left wing anger is portrayed as illegitimate, no matter how grave the insult.

Libdevil, it’s simple.  The right wing is a bunch of men, you know, adults.  And the left wing is a bunch of whiny girls and fags and .

I am so serious about how gendering plays into this portrayal.  It’s misogyny (against women and men who are willing to look at the human side of this, like feely girls).  Never mind the real demographics - conservative women are just manning up and liberal men are just pussies.

And the American public will respond to you hydropsyche, with “Suck it up and work for a big company, you fucking hippie!”  And to your boyfriend with, “So what?  Sell your fucking TV, pay everything you have, live on ramen for the rest of your life and declare bankruptcy if you still can’t pay.  Deadbeat.”

They. Don’t. Care. About. You.

Hell, you’re on this blog, so there’s a good chunk of them who actively want you to die.  Your story won’t matter to them at all, unless we can make the connection that it can happen to them too.  And will, if the insurance industry has its way.  And even then some of them won’t care, because no matter how fucked up their life is here, as long as they obey then Corporate Jesus will save them at some point down the road, and send his alter-ego Warrior Jesus to kick us liberals in the ass just for being so damned liberal.

Well, Durbin emailed me back, at least.  Strangely, he addressed me as “Mrs.” and used an address from 2 years ago, despite the fact I picked (and always pick) “Ms.” and typed in my current address.  My email must have registered.

I ranted at him over his waffling over the public option the other day.  Told him I’d voted for him and expected him to do the job I hired him for—fight for us.  And if he didn’t, well…there’s a primary in his future, even if it’s 5 years away.

I’m assuming it’s just a form letter, but he made it very clear that he is supporting a public option, and that he considers the public option important.

I will continue to work for a reform plan that provides stable and secure coverage, stable and affordable costs, and better quality of care. A public plan is an important part of this effort.

A little ray of hope.

Obama and the Democrats didn’t come out with an early hard sell for two intertwined reasons.  First reason is that the plan was not any where close to being concrete enough to sell until very recently, and that’s being generous.  The second reason dictates the first and explains the Democrats’ duck-and-cover defensive approach.  Too many Dems are either on the payroll of the insurance industry or have a general aversion to upsetting the corporate apple cart.  Let’s be honest: the Dem senators and reps know as well as we do that a comprehensive single-payer plan—or a viable ‘public option’ that would lead to the same—represents an end to the insurance industry strangehold on our health care system.  It means no more egregious profits that can be lavished on lobbying and campaign bribes.  So the Democrats try to construct a byzantine plan that will appeal to their ostensible base without making their wealthy john nervous.  While they’ve dithered over the details and tried to respect ‘bipartisanship’, the Right has been mobilizing their ignorant and spiteful brownshirt army.

So the problem is more than just media bias.  The problem is that what we all really need and most of us want isn’t what the Dems have to sell.  If you’re going to fight a well-organized and highly energetic campaign of lies and fear-mongering, then you’d better come armed with a simple, powerful, and easy to accept truth.  Obama and the Democrats are selling a convoluted menu of platitudes and compromises.  That ain’t gonna cut it.

Caren, I read that excerpt from our distinguished senator (I’m a Chicagoan) and I hear the whoosh of Lucy snatching the football from in front of Charlie Brown’s foot.  Again.  I know this is barely related, but I am chuckling as I recall all the Democratic hand-wringing over the appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate.  I can’t help but think ‘this was expected to make a difference how?’

it’s pure propaganda - the media should be ashamed. Bullshit as far as the eye can see…...

and that includes Obama’s non-plan.  Don’t give me a plate of poo and tell me it’s chocolate mouse.

single payer - let’s have a real debate.

I don’t think the Democrats or Obama really want Public Health Care. What they may be aiming for is the have the Insurance companies ease up on some of their vicious practices, for a while anyway, in return for which the Government will make it THE LAW to own medical insurance.

Tho what the h they’ll do if one doesn’t get insurance I can’t figure. With car insurance it’s easy: revoke registration.  For Health Insurance ? revoke ones Social Security number?

Yeah, tiny ray I should have said.  He’d wavered on the public option a couple days before, and this email was a bit stronger toward it.  I’m assuming he got a lot of flack when he claimed the public option was optional.

Burris?  worthless.  He’ll vote with Durbin no matter what.

Tho what the h they’ll do if one doesn’t get insurance I can’t figure. With car insurance it’s easy: revoke registration.  For Health Insurance ? revoke ones Social Security number?

In Massachusetts, you have to pay a fine which gets progressively higher every year. In California, I believe the plan was/is to keep some of the money you would have gotten refunded on your taxes to purchase a base-level health insurance plan.

My point, Caren, is that (on this issue at least) Durbin is just as worthless.  Worse, he might be counterproductive.  That is, if the goal is universal health care.  Durbin’s platitudes and bloated affirmatives scarcely mask the lack of Democratic will to do what must be done, and that is to remove insurance companies from prominence in the health care equation.  It can be done all at once, or it can be done with the wedge of a truly public option.  Hence my amusement at the (apparently continuing) vitriol directed at Burris.

While it’s true that the Rethugs are playing their base for suckers, at least they have the balls to sling the filth openly.  They are going for the jugular, and they seem to be aware that there will be no meaningful opposition.  The Democrats have already compromised themselves—or rather us—to death, and the brownshirt thuggery is really overkill at this point.  We are standing at a crossroads where the correct path is clear, and we are paying the price for lacking the vision and the spine to pick leaders willing to take us there.  The right wing will count this as a huge victory, and it will further cement the Democrats’ reputation as the party of waffling, pro-corporate quislings.  This is developing into a truly pathetic moment in our nation’s history.  On the bright side, it isn’t too late to think up ways to blame the impending failure on Ralph Nader.

There’s talk about how awful the Massachusetts state insurance plan is and how the country doesn’t want that (I have no direct knowledge, so no opinion on how it works), but I just remembered that Oregon started a state plan, trying to insure more people by prioritizing illnesses and providing coverage up to a certain level.  The Canadian Medical Association did a good review of it here. 

I’ve not heard a single mention of it in the media, only negatives about the Massachusetts model, and I’m wondering if anyone here from Oregon (Auguste?) has first-hand knowledge of how it’s working out.  All I remember was that it was highly controversial out on here on the Left Coast (“What do you mean, you’ll only cover 709 conditions?  What if *I* get condition #710??”), but it’s all been quiet since.

As I type this, ANOTHER anti-reform commercial came on. Blech.

Tho what the h they’ll do if one doesn’t get insurance I can’t figure. With car insurance it’s easy: revoke registration.  For Health Insurance ? revoke ones Social Security number?

They’re saying it will show up as a penalty on your taxes.

Because the Democrats want to be the party of regressive taxation.

why has nobody in the vaunted Obama operation, nobody holding any of these town halls, tried to contextualize their positions by using actual real people who want or need universal health insurance?

There was at least one of these events where the roster of speakers before the politician included a little person who talked about how she couldn’t qualify for coverage.  She was yelled at and booed. 

Searching…

OK, found it.  It was Rep. Dingell’s event.  I read about it in this DailyKos diary.

Sort of late, but ya’ll should see this, if you haven’t already:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090812/FRONTPAGE/908120351/1037/NEWS04

The 58-year-old uninsured sword juggler drove himself to the emergency room, and after doctors fixed him up, his bill tallied close to $60,000. Even without insurance, Rynne said he wants nothing to do with President Obama’s plan to overhaul the health care system.

“I don’t have the money to pay the bill, so you think I’d like this plan. But I don’t support it, because it’s anti-freedom,” Rynne said while protesting yesterday outside Portsmouth High School. “If I get sick and I don’t have health care, then I’ll die - gladly. That’s how I feel, and that’s the American way.”

Idiot…of course, you’ll note that when he was seriously injured, instead of patriotically dying on the field at RenFair, he drove himself to the hospital and racked up a bill he will never be able to pay. I hope that most Americans aren’t this retarded, because if this is what we’re up against, we are SCREWED!

I never understood the Massachusetts model.  They completely ignored the fact that the number-one reason most people don’t get insurance is they can’t afford it. 

For most people, the fine is probably cheaper.

Back when Al Gore was running for President oh so many years ago, he was pressing the case for Medicare Plan D.  He held up a picture of a little old lady who was being forced to choose between her meds and putting food on her table.

This reminds me of a hilarious SNL skit from 2000:

Jim Lehrer: Which beings us to our final question. Governor Bush, both you and the Vice-President have offered plans to provide prescription drugs for the elderly. What makes your plan superior?

Al Gore: Jim, I’d like to interrupt here and answer that question as if it were my turn to speak. Jim, let me tell about a friend of mine. [ holds up a picture of an elderly woman ] Her name is Etta Munsen. She’s 94, she’s a widow living on Social Security in Sparta, Tennessee. Etta was born with only one kidney. She also suffers from poilo, spinal menengitis, lung, liver, and pancreatic cancer, an enlarged heart, diabetes, and a rare form of styctic acne. Now, several recent strokes, along with an unfortunate shark attack, have left her paralyzed and missing her right leg under the knee. Just last week she woke from a coma to find that, due to a hospital mix-up, her left arm had been amputated, infected with syphillis, and then reattached.

Jim Lehrer: Mr. Vice-President, we are short of time..

Al Gore: As you can imagine, Jim.. Etta’s prescription drug bills are staggering. They run to nearly $113 million a day! And she tells me that some weeks she has to choose between eating and treating her Lyme Disease. Now, under my plan, Etta’s prescription drugs would be covered. Under my opponent’s plan, her house would be burned to the ground. And that is wrong. That is just wrong!

Jim Lehrer: Governor Bush? Response?

George W. Bush: I believe that some of those figures may be in-ock-urate.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/00/00adebate.phtml

It’s hard to confront the stupid and mendacious in a polite way that still says, “You’re either utterly misinformed or a damned liar.” Especially when the pundits will report it as “Ooh, democrats are impolite to questioners.”

I don’t get it.  He was sick, but he didn’t choose the American Way and die.  He chose instead to go to the emergency room and charge himself 60 thousand dollars worth of health care.  Who the fuck does he think is going to pay for that?

Too. Stupid. To. Live.

But on that day some little kid somewhere died.  And this guy lived.  Then people will try and tell you there’s a God.  Yeah. Sure.

Who the fuck does he think is going to pay for that?

He knows exactly who’s going to pay for it—all the rest of us.  See, it’s the American Way for him to sponge off society, but it’s evil and anti-freedom for us to expect him to pay his fair share and contribute as a citizen.

They’ve had 30 years of Republican chatter to come up with this philosophy, and I really don’t know how to break people of it.

Maybe because there arent MILLIONS of people screwed over by insurance. Maybe because private insurance, for the most part, WORKS. There are changes that need to be made to address the legit concerns (ie. Pre-existing conditions) but NONE of them involve letting government run anything. But hey, Obama said the post office is doing OK!....hows that for government management and no competition! HE GOVERNMENT FUCKS EVERYTHING UP that it tries to run, with the exception of the military (mostly because its members are conservatives)

Jesse you’ve clearly been spending a lot of time on the east side, the “squaring things up” capitol of Michigan.

Casp, are you for real?  Or are you another parody troll?

Got any relatives or friends on Social Security and/or Medicare?  Ask them how they much they would like it if AIG/Goldman Sachs/General Motors/Enron ran Social Security and Medicare the same way they ran their own businesses — all for the benefit of the people at the top and eff everyone else…

The healthcare plans in Congress don’t have and never had “Death Panels”. 

But there are such things in Corporate America and Wall Street.  You might know them as “boardrooms”...

@Casp- Ummm…okay, so you can KEEP YOUR PRIVATE INSURANCE under every healthcare reform bill under consideration at the present time. I, on the other hand, would prefer to at least have the option to buy insurance administered by the government (which is funded with my taxes and at least in theory answerable to me as a citizen) as opposed to a private insurance company that is answerable its shareholders and Wall Street and makes money by NOT paying for my healthcare.

You get what you want, I get what I want…sounds like healthcare reform is a winner, no?

“You get what you want, I get what I want…sounds like healthcare reform is a winner, no?”

Casp would probably like it better if he gets what he wants and you don’t get what you want, or maybe if you don’t get anything at all.  After all, selfishness is the real altruism, or some such Randroidian bullshit…

You get what you want, I get what I want…sounds like healthcare reform is a winner, no?

Nope. It’s a zero-sum game. If you get anything, anything at all, short of misery and death, he loses. So you have to die of pneumonia or something in order to make him happy.

I disagree slightly.

I think Dems should put forward people who have gotten screwed by their insurance companies.

Make people realize that

1) Insurance is not a “Free Market” like the GOP makes it out to be - it is a rigged market that favors the insurance companies. 

2) You too might get screwed when you call on your insurance in need.

Monday is our town hall and I will be there to give our “private insurance v. medicaid” story.

“Obama and the Democrats are selling a convoluted menu of platitudes and compromises.  That ain’t gonna cut it.”

And that’s the problem. It’s HillaryCare Redux. The original was 1,000 plus pages of what humorist PJ O’Rourke would call a veritable dog’s breakfast of bureaucratese, something that nobody has read, let alone understands. This is just the same thing repeated, so it’s little wonder that no one trusts it, and no one wants to vote for it and then face the wrath of the voters.

Quite honestly, the Dems would have been better off proposing a “Single payer” plan, which would at least have the virtue of simplicity. People could know at a glance what they were getting, and then just vote “Yes” or “No” for it.

Of course, my own feeling, as expressed elsewhere, is this might have been best left up to the states. Let each state come up with a “Universal” health plan, then tailor it to meet what their voters want. Some might want a “Just the basics” plan, that would provide coverage for what everyone is scared of, namely, an illness or accident that will leave them bankrupt from hospital bills. Others might want a “Cadillac” plan that would cover everything from routine doctor bills to dental, vision, and mental health coverage. With 50 states offering 50 plans, you’d see what worked and what didn’t.

Obama seems to be offering the worst of the old (a complex mess no one can understand, and that does not cover every one) with the worst of the new (gov’t run health care that will resemble the postal service, as Obama himself noted just a couple days ago).

“If I get sick and I don’t have health care, then I’ll die - gladly. That’s how I feel, and that’s the American way.”

Even setting aside the fact that this asshole is saying this after he hypocritically ran up a $60,000 emergency room bill that he can’t pay…no. That’s not the American way. That’s the opposite of the American way. The American way, as you might recall, is that all are created equal. That means that rich or poor, either everyone’s life is worth saving, or no one’s is. So either we figure out some way to foot the bill as a society, or we abolish all medicine. Those are the only American options.

Do not knock the postal service.

Just. Don’t.

They know where you live - and they know how to order guns…

Quite honestly, the Dems would have been better off proposing a “Single payer” plan, which would at least have the virtue of simplicity.

Single-payer has many merits.  But any plan that had the effect of telling everyone who _now_ has insurance that they would from now on have something else, something new and untested, would be Armageddon.  The reason it’s complicated is because of needing to bend over backwards to soothe people who would moan, like that woman in Arkansas did about this slew of soft and incremental improvements, “wha does everthang hayaf to chayunj?”

“Do not knock the postal service.
Just. Don’t.”

Well, that’s part of the problem. The Post Office works - sort of. In short, the service is adequate. But, when it comes to health care, Americans want exceptional, not adequate. They want Ted Kennedy style heath care, i.e., the very best. And, for the most part, they get it. The only problem is the uncertainty. If you’re uninsured, you have to rely on the emergency room. If you’re employed and insured, you worry about losing your job (and your coverage).

The question is - How do you keep the best of what we have (which most people seem to like) and fix the uncertainties people worry about?

And, for the most part, they get it.

Except 47 million of them.

If you’re uninsured, you have to rely on the emergency room.

Um, if you think the ER is the very best, Ted Kennedy style health care, you have either never been to the ER, or are just a fucking liar. Could be both, I suppose.

Let’s assume for the moment that the Post Office is inferior to FedEx. A nearly offensive assumption, but let’s roll with it, because stupid liars like analogies.

Right now, *some* people who have jobs, are able to use FedEx. Super-fast shipping *snort*, expensive but worth it *snort.*

Some people use the post office. Slower shipping, but also less expensive; long lines occasionally but your package definitely gets there.

And some people have to WALK THEIR FUCKING PACKAGE WHEREVER THEY WANT IT TO GO.

All we’re saying is we want everyone that can’t afford FedEx, to be able to use the goddamn Post Office.

Save your breath, Auguste. If you wanted an informed opinion from a conservative perspective, why would you bother talking to EricJG?

“Save your breath, Auguste. If you wanted an informed opinion from a conservative perspective, why would you bother talking to EricJG?”

Except my opinion IS informed. Americans DO expect FedEx style health care, not post office level. They want the very best, not merely mediocre. We don’t want Soviet style health care in this country. Is that asking for too much?

Let’s face it, Americans have never settled for second best. We have the Mayo Clinic and tons of other first rate care providers. Why should we give that up? The key is to provide the best care for the most people, not the lowest care for whatever the government can afford. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but surely we’re innovative enough as a people to figure it out!

Except my opinion IS informed. Americans DO expect FedEx style health care, not post office level. They want the very best, not merely mediocre. [...] Let’s face it, Americans have never settled for second best.

Then why, Eric, are you advocating for a system in which Americans are expected to die years before the citizens of other Western countries?

We have the Mayo Clinic and tons of other first rate care providers.

So we have the best education in the world, too, right, Eric?  I mean, there’s Harvard and Stanford and MIT!  People come from all over the world to partake of their services, and for a pretty penny!  And I can only conclude that, by extension, all of us are very, very smart!

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but surely we’re innovative enough as a people to figure it out!

Hey, neat-o!  Let’s start by trying to guarantee a baseline level of adequate health care for everyone!  Surely even Republicans would support that! 

*crickets chirping* *tumbleweed rolls by*

Well FlipYrWhig, that’s just the thing. People come to the U.S. from places like fantastic France and the U.K. to have the type of health care we have. How many Americans do you see flocking Canada or Europe for the amazing healthcare.

*guy in audience clears throat* *circus music plays*

You guys are SUCH FUCKING IDIOTS.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/20/world/americans-filching-free-health-care-in-canada.html

And yes, FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN AFFORD TO PAY American health care has a lot to recommend it.

The key is to provide the best care for the most people

Which in our case is not very goddamn many, unless 15% of the population strikes you as statistically insignificant. And it’s also not very good, considering where we fall on the life expectancy table and tons of other statistics.

But nobody’s trying to take away FedEx! We’re just trying to let the folks who are being told they have to walk their Christmas packages to Hawaii to be able to use the post office!

My mother got top notch neck surgery at the Mayo Clinic. This was excellent, and all that. But her ability to do this isn’t and shouldn’t be dependent on my mother-in-law dying because she can’t afford day surgery at the local clinic.

And you know? Even in some Bizarro world version where it is? I’m kind of okay with that. My mother could live with surgery locally. My mother-in-law couldn’t live with no surgery at all.

Well FlipYrWhig, that’s just the thing. People come to the U.S. from places like fantastic France and the U.K. to have the type of health care we have. How many Americans do you see flocking Canada or Europe for the amazing healthcare.

Let’s see…

A report published last month by Deloitte, a consultancy, predicts that the number of Americans travelling abroad for treatment will soar from 750,000 last year to 6m by 2010 and reach 10m by 2012 (see chart). Its authors reckon that this exodus will be worth $21 billion a year to developing countries in four years’ time. Europe’s state-funded systems still give patients every reason to stay at home, but even there, private patients may start to travel more as it becomes cheaper and easier to get treated abroad.
[...]
One motive is to save money. America’s health inflation has consistently outpaced economic growth, making it the most expensive health market in the world. The average price at good facilities abroad for a range of common medical procedures is, by Deloitte’s reckoning, barely 15% of the price a patient would have to pay in the United States (see table)

“Then why, Eric, are you advocating for a system in which Americans are expected to die years before the citizens of other Western countries?”

Well, according to the numbers you posted on Dana’s site, the difference between our country and yours is less than a year, or barely one percent. The Japanese have a slight edge on both, but then they’re a homogeneous society with very low crime and drug abuse rates (unlike the US, don’t know what those are in NZ) plus they eat better (lots of fish & seafood). In short, I don’t know if those numbers mean a whole lot about quality of health care vs social and lifestyle factors.

Cuba and every country in Western Europe have lower rates of infant mortality than the USA.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/health/07stat.html

But since Eric is pro-life, he doesn’t give a shit how many sinful babies die after being born.

“Cuba and every country in Western Europe have lower rates of infant mortality than the USA. “

Well, you’ll excuse my skepticism, but I wouldn’t exactly put it past the Cuban regime to “Cook the books” when it comes to their stats. Sorta like the old USSR when it came to their economic forecasts.

It reminds me of the scene from the movie “An American Carol”. The Michael Moore character (played by Chris Farley’s brother) is interviewing Cubans about how great their health care is, and all they want to do is jump on his boat to return to the USA.

Except my opinion IS informed. Americans DO expect FedEx style health care, not post office level. They want the very best, not merely mediocre. We don’t want Soviet style health care in this country. Is that asking for too much?

Let’s face it, Americans have never settled for second best. We have the Mayo Clinic and tons of other first rate care providers

Actually, your opinion is fairly uninformed. Most Americans are happy to be able to have their insurance company actually pay their bills, deny the coverage, or offer any kind of coverage at all on the individual market, something which doesn’t happen under the circumstances. And I’ve never been to the Mayo Clinic, and neither has anyone else I know. I’ve heard it’s pretty good, though, though you might want to note that they don’t use a fee-for-service model of care. Everyone there is on salary.

You, like most other right-wingers, tend to mix up the providers with the insurance company and don’t understand what the reform plans are trying to do.  And that’s why engaging with your argument is worthless, because it’s essentially uninformed and out of touch with what normal everyday Americans grapple with (primary care physicians who are squeezed by paperwork and trying to fit in as many patients as possible in the course of a day, insurance companies leaving families on the hook for thousands of dollars with expenses, people who can’t get insurance outside of a group plan, etc.)

You keep saying how we have “the best health care in the world” (is that so? health care in appalachia is best in the world? not sure how the existence of the mayo clinic helps there) I notice you don’t claim that we have “the best insurance companies in the world.” That’s either because you’re trying to distract from the actual issue or (more likely) because you have no idea what you’re talking about when you’re discussing health reform.

Most Americans are happy to be able to have their insurance company actually pay their bills, deny the coverage, or offer any kind of coverage at all on the individual market, something which doesn’t happen under the circumstances.

Uh, “Most americans would be happy to be able to have their insurance company actually pay their bills, not deny them coverage, and offer any kind of coverage at all on the individual market, something which doesn’t happen under the circumstances.”

I lost track of my sentence, midway through.

Has everybody forgotten that when FedEx or UPS can’t get a package out to the middle of Bumfuck, USA, they call the Post Office?

I don’t have the numbers, but there is a very large proportion of packages that are sent through FedEx or UPS that end up being actually delivered by the Post Office BECAUSE THEY’RE THE ONLY ONES WHO HAVE THE INFRASTRUCTURE IN PLACE TO GET ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY IN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME.

Plus, it’s the government, so they damn well have to get the mail through, even for competitors.

So when everyone talks about how the Post Office sucks and look at the free market alternative and how great it is, I snicker.

Because it wouldn’t be so great without the government backing it up.

Dumbasses.

And it doesn’t matter how amazing and wonderful our health care is if people can’t access it.

I also have to wonder why EricJG always tries to act as the “bridge” between this blog and Dana’s. It’s like he wants to be Dana’s PR flack. I don’t go around else making arguments based on links back to pandagon. (You guys are great, really, but I’m not being paid to do your online promotion)

And it doesn’t matter how amazing and wonderful our health care is if people can’t access it.

Well, I suppose you could benefit from the pride of knowing it’s there.

And you wouldn’t want the government to get between the sacred relationship between the consumer and his health insurance company, would you?

Sorry Eric, it’s the United States’ own CIA that says that Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than we do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

Maybe you ought to watch Sicko and see how seriously the Cuban government takes its citizens’ health.

Well, that’s part of the problem. The Post Office works - sort of. In short, the service is adequate. But, when it comes to health care, Americans want exceptional, not adequate. They want Ted Kennedy style heath care, i.e., the very best. And, for the most part, they get it. The only problem is the uncertainty. If you’re uninsured, you have to rely on the emergency room. If you’re employed and insured, you worry about losing your job (and your coverage).

or C), you ARE insured and your silly ass asumed that meant that if you get sick that your insurance would foot the bill, only to find out that because you had that zit popped by some dermatologist when you were 16 years old, your insurnace company won’t cover a 10 day hospital stay for something ENTIRELY unrelated to your dermatologist zit-popping experience as an adolescent.

You know what you call people who “love” their health insurance and have never had any problems with it?

Healthy people who have never had to use their health insurance for anything more than routine office visits every six months.

You say “most people” get Ted Kennedy quality of health insurance?

Bullshit.  Try finding people who supposedly have “Ted Kennedy style” health insurance who also happen to be suffering from “Ted Kennedy style” brain cancer.

You won’t find many.

EricJG and wrongside:  What part of the idea don’t you get that having the best health care in the world is absolutely fucking useless to the people who can’t afford to access it?  What part of the fact that medical costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy, and that 75% of people who declare banruptcy due to medical costs had health insurance says to you that our current system works?  You’re really hunky-dory with 18,000 people a year dying from lack of access to health care?  No?  Then why the fuck do you oppose a public option that would prevent these deaths?

Tangent:  We only define the post office as “struggling” because it loses more money than it takes in.  It works wonderfully.  I can ship a package from my door to someone else’s mailbox for $0.44, and they’ll get it in two to three days if they’re in the U.S.  FedEx and UPS would charge $20 minimum for the same service, and without any delivery guarantees.  Given the level of service the USPS provides, I’d be perfectly happy having the government reabsorb it, and budgeting for its shortfalls.  Hell, the entire budget for the post office is just teeny, tiny drop in the budget for “defense.”

What part of the fact that medical costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy, and that 75% of people who declare banruptcy due to medical costs had health insurance says to you that our current system works?

THIS.

See, I’m not willing to frame this debate solely around the 15% of folks in this country who have no health insurance whatsoever, because it gives credence to the rightwing meme that the only people who are suffering under the current system are the uninsured.

That’s simply bullshit.

I HAVE health insurance, which I paid for, and now I’m in the middle of an epic battle with United Health Care to get a $16,000 hospital bill in Scottsdale, Arizona last month paid for.  If I’m forced into a position where my only option against UHC is litigation, I’m screwed… because I don’t have the time or money for a lengthy legal battle with a multi-billion dollar health insurance company.  If I can’t get them to pay, I’ll just have to tell Scottsdale Healthcare, “Sorry, talk to my insurance company - if they won’t pay you, you’re out of luck.  I don’t have $16,000 to pay you,” and then probably be forced into bankruptcy.

And there are millions of other Americans who ARE insured, who are still getting crushed by the crappy system we have now.

So don’t feed me some bullshit that the 85% of people who have insurance are completely content with what we’ve got.  I’ve got health insurance - what I thought was a decent policy (it isn’t a high-deductible catastrophic policy) - and I’m getting totally fucked by the system we’ve got.

The system is completely broken… not only for the uninsured, but also for the insured who get fucked by their insurance companies and don’t have the means to fight back.

“You, like most other right-wingers, tend to mix up the providers with the insurance company and don’t understand what the reform plans are trying to do. “

But that’s the problem. As previously mentioned, it’s HillaryCare redux, 1,000 plus pages of government gobbledygook that nobody has read and that nobody understands. Seriously, the Dems would be better just offering Single Payer, which at least is simple. Or 50 states version of the same. where each state could decide the level of coverage, and the cost involved. You want “Basic” health care and low taxes? Move to Texas. You want full coverage of everything? Move to Minnesota.

But honestly, can the Federal government solve this problem in a way that keeps everyone happy? I tend to think not. Better to let the states handle this, or perhaps even cities/counties. This way, we get more competition between different types of systems. I do tend to think we need more competition in health care, for it will drive down costs while encouraging better coverage and treatment.

You want “Basic” health care and low taxes? Move to Texas. You want full coverage of everything? Move to Minnesota.

Okay, I’ve seen you bring this up on a couple of threads, and I don’t think that having the states set up different standards of care is a good idea.  First, because it screws over the people living in states with ‘basic” care who cannot afford to move someplace else.  Second, because it will put an undo burden on the states that do provide good care for its citizens, as sick people do as you suggest and move into states where their illnesses will be covered.

Finally, how would you fund the different care standards?  The states are already pretty well financially fucked and are making giant cuts to vital social programs and education—would the states have to come up with the scratch for health care?  Federal funds should equal federal standards of care.  Sure, the states can administer it, but Minnesota should not get to decide that yearly doctor’s exams are covered while Louisiana gets to decide that preventative visits are just an extraneous expense.  We do this with highway funding—sure, the states can decide the their legal drinking age is 18, but then they don’t get any money from the fed for transportation.

Actually, now that I think about it, letting the states opt out of administering health care the way they could opt out of federal highway funds is a terrible idea—especially given the right-wing asshole governors who balked at taking the stimulus money, despite the fact that their states needed it.  Nope, federal funding, federal standards, and no way for backwards states to fuck over their citizens by saying thanks, but no thanks.

“I also have to wonder why EricJG always tries to act as the “bridge” between this blog and Dana’s. It’s like he wants to be Dana’s PR flack. “

Well, I only mentioned Dana’s site because Pho posted a bunch of statistics there Re: life expectancy, and I was responding to his point. Turns out that most of the industrialized nations are within a few years of each other, meaning everyone dies at about the same rate. I don’t think this proves the US system is worse than anyone else’s, but perhaps we have some lifestyle issue (being overweight, drug use, murder rates. etc.) that put us at a disadvantage compared to, say, Sweden or Japan.

Yes, those dead infants had a serious lifestyle issue of being born in the USA.

“Sorry Eric, it’s the United States’ own CIA that says that Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than we do. “

And those stats come from where? The Castro brothers? Who else keeps medical statistics in Cuba?

More to the point - If you had to have a preemie baby, where would you rather have it? In the US, or in Cuba? The Cubans might have mastered cave man style health care (have broke arm? Here cast!), but when it comes to cutting edge high tech health care, they’re still, well, cave men. Don’t expect amy MRI’s in Havana.

You idiot. The CIA does not simply report other nations’ propaganda; they do their own estimates. Otherwise they’d also be reporting that China has a lower infant mortality rating than the USA.

Cuba is on average a better place to be pregnant. They have fewer premature births in the first place, because they do a better job of taking care of pregnant women and ensuring that women of childbearing age are healthy in general.

EricJG—Cuba, easily.  My health insurance wouldn’t cover the kid, so he or she wouldn’t get care here.

That’s the problem.

And who says they don’t do MRI in Havana?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18272400

“Okay, I’ve seen you bring this up on a couple of threads, and I don’t think that having the states set up different standards of care is a good idea.  First, because it screws over the people living in states with ‘basic” care who cannot afford to move someplace else. “

Well, no system is perfect. But at least a state by state system allows competition, and states whose health care sucks will lose out to those whose work well. It would also benefit employers, who wouldn’t have to cover everything themselves. The problem with a national plan is it leaves no choice. If you like it, fine. If you don’t, too bad, you’re stuck with it.

The problem with a national plan is it leaves no choice. If you like it, fine. If you don’t, too bad, you’re stuck with it.

No, that’s the problem with a state plan; as someone upthread said, it’s too easy to get screwed by a governor who wants to opt-out of federal funding (see Mark Sanford’s we-don’t-need-stinkin’-unemployment-extensions-in-SC tantrum for just one example).  As Molly Ivins used to say, you get what you pay for, and in a low-tax-low-service state, that ain’t much.  So you pretty much have to take what your state offers and just envy from afar what your family in other states enjoys.  Sounds like us now with Canada, so how is this going to help?

Besides, if the plans were state-specific, what’s to stop a state from adding a provision that someone from out of state would not be covered for, say, a year, so they weren’t burdened with health care refugees?  How would that allow someone who is sick to move to another state to be covered, as EricJC suggests?  And how would that help someone who needed treatment at a place like the Mayo Clinic but lived out of state?

Now that I think of it, if we think health care bureaucracy is big now, imagine what major hospitals would need to have in order to keep track of every state’s coverage requirements and eligibilities, not to mention that hospitals’ own guidelines?  The mind boggles. 

Nope.  Federal control.  Federal funds.  Better yet, single-payer.

Eric, you do realize that immediately upon any Democrat throwing any weight behind any kind of single-payer plan, every Republican in government and every slackjawed Fox News viewer would erupt in one simultaneous rage-gasm about “SOCIALISM,” right?  The reason why the reform plans are always complicated is precisely because everyone in the political class dreads the prospect of changing the insurance status of hundreds of millions of people overnight.  So the plans are always struggling with how to define who will benefit and how _while at the same time_ reassuring people that they won’t _have_ to change.

If Republicans or conservatives want to get behind single-payer and push, fantastic, because it’s going to need an astounding level of muscle, commitment, and thick, thick skin.  But Republicans and conservatives seem to prefer to say that everything’s pretty great as it is, and all change is murderous homo-comm-fascist thuggery that will leave our poor poor nation like some amalgam of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Mordor, and Brave New World.

There are a lot of possible approaches to reforming the US health care system.  Republicans and conservatives have decided en masse that they’d rather scream, cry, and lie than help.

But that’s the problem. As previously mentioned, it’s HillaryCare redux, 1,000 plus pages of government gobbledygook that nobody has read and that nobody understands.

This is why I warned Auguste away from you—you’re intellectually incapable of having an honest conversation either because by choice or by temperament you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you have any arguments to make based on your knowledge oif policy, make them. If you’re drunk and bored and want to repeat some right-wing talking points, take the junior engineers at your company out to lunch and regale them with your ignorant stupidities.

The article about the sword juggler?  *All* the comments are criticizing him for getting treatment and stiffing the rest of us for the bill.  It gives me a little bit of hope that people are seeing through such nonsense.

Don’t expect amy MRI’s in Havana.

Other than the fact that this is total bullshit, the fact is that MRI is of significantly lesser importance than you think, except for a set of specific situations.

Even if there were no MRI machines on the entire island, Cuban healthcare would still be better, in terms of positive outcomes to a high number of patients, than the US.

Eric, are you really that stupid?

We have a competitive health care system right now, and costs are not being held down.

We have the most expensive health care system in the world.  Health care expenditures is about 17% of our GDP.  Seventeen.

Health care is four times more expensive than defense.

For fuck’s sake. Read it yourself.

“We have a competitive health care system right now, and costs are not being held down.”

I’m guessing that’s because most of the money is being spent at or near the end of life. Sure, we could try to “ration” care to the elderly, but Americans are a compassionate people, and we don’t want to do that. That’s why even most conservatives don’t complain about Medicare any more, because they all have grandparents (or parents) who need it. But we also know its expensive as hell, because old folks in particular worry about their care. Like I said earlier, I don’t have all the answers.

Tyro, I’m not trying to be intellectually dishonest, I think what you’re seeing is genuine confusion as I’m trying to sort this issue out. The libertarian side of me wants a fully private system that offers maximum quality and the most competition. But the other, call it “liberal” side also says thank God for Medicare because I’ve got a 92 year old Grandma and there’s no way she could pay all her health care for herself. So, yeah, I’m maybe not sounding “consistent” on this issue because, quite honestly, there’s just so many factors to consider.

I’m sure Cuba handles the basics. They seem to have sanitation figured out, and at least keep tropical diseases under control. The thing is, though, what about the cutting edge stuff? A long time friend’s husband just survived a nasty bout with cancer, and without giving out any personal details, I’ll just say that the care he got was absolutely top notch. Nowhere else but here do you get this Cadillac level of service. I don’t have any idea how they’re paying for all this (and I’m not going to be gauche enough to ask) but all they time they didn’t give a damn about the money, just that his life would be saved, which, thankfully, it was.

I can’t find an article that I won’t have to pay for that breaks down health spending by condition.

However, end-of-life spending or not, your argument is still fucking stupid.

It doesn’t matter what we spend the money on, we are still SPENDING THE MOST MONEY OF ANYBODY including those in single-payer or government-run health care.  Your argument that competition keeps costs down is a bullshit lie.

I’m guessing that’s because

No one gives a shit what you’re “guessing” in order to back up your false beliefs. If you want to have an informed discussion, do that. If you want a forum to screech your right wing anxieties in a public forum while drunk, save it for the bar. Your commentary has been astoundingly ignorant on this issue, and it makes me wonder why you enjoy ignorantly mouthing off about matter you know little about beyond the rhetoric that’s been shoved down your throat byu republican talking points monkeys.

The libertarian side of me wants a fully private system that offers maximum quality and the most competition

The libertarian side of you is feeding with with false beliefs and preventing you from understanding the issues involved with health insurance and health care. The fact that you don’t understand the difference between health insurers and health care providers is only a symptom of this. I know you have a “libertarian side” that tells you to do things and believe things. Why do you have to bother the rest of us with it? Your libertarian beliefs are of little to know relevance when it comes to health care policy, which depends on an understanding of the way that medical care works and the way that insurance works. You seem to have neither; only a fanatical dogma that you apply to everything.

I don’t have any idea how they’re paying for all this (and I’m not going to be gauche enough to ask) but all they time they didn’t give a damn about the money, just that his life would be saved, which, thankfully, it was.

Okay, that right there, is one of the major the problems with our current health system.

Nowhere else but here do you get this Cadillac level of service.

I’ve actually had sick friends who were grew up in europe who could actually make a personal comparison, and they would claim you’re wrong. Their experience with the US is that it’s fine as far as it goes, but nothing to write home about. We’re a rich western country. Within a certain range, we have access to many of the same things other rich western countries do. And even then, sometimes you end up with worse service, and sometimes better.

We have to wait to see a specialist, our specialists have trouble diagnosing subtle issues, our PCPs don’t have much time to see us and understand our problems (though usually their first-5-minutes diagnosis is correct). This is the only place where, if you’re really adamant about it, you can get an MRI within a week for an issue you’re worried about. But doctors tend to be pissed off about that stuff.

As for “Cadillac level of service,” for the most part, I would be happy with Ford levels of service, thank you.  I don’t need the Cadillac, I just need good, reliable health care that I can easily access and that does its job, which is keep me healthy.

You don’t need an MRI every time you have an ache.  You don’t need antibiotics every time you get sick.  You just need access to a doctor.

The Ford analogy sticks even if my heart somehow ends up outside of my chest, before you start spouting off about some emergency situation.  Emergency or not, I and everyone else is entitled to the very basic, minimum service required for the situation at hand.  If my heart is outside of my chest, that means cardiovascular surgeons and heart/lung machines.  It shouldn’t matter whether I’m rich or poor, and I shouldn’t have to worry about going into penury and living the rest of life on the streets because I’m going to be saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt just for making the mistake of requiring basic healthcare.

Your commentary has been astoundingly ignorant on this issue, and it makes me wonder why you enjoy ignorantly mouthing off about matter you know little about beyond the rhetoric that’s been shoved down your throat byu republican talking points monkeys.

Dunning-Kruger effect.

I just like the idea that the capacity to actually care about one’s grandmother is being defined as “liberal.”  I couldn’t have written a more scathing indictment of glibertarianism if I tried.

It’s a shame Clarke isn’t doing a town hall. I’d go to it:
“I want my country back! I don’t want to turn my health over to the bureaucrats and death panels at the insurance companies!”

JakobFabian (14):

Many recount unrepresentative freak events and flukes, taken out of all context.

I daresay almost all do, otherwise it’s not memorable. Representative events are normal by defiition, and don’t make good stories.

Which should make it easier for the pro-reform side. No one wants to hear the story of the guy who broke his leg reshingling his roof, and was rushed to the hospital, and his insurance paid for it and now he’s fine both osteopathically and financially. There’s no there there. There are no stories about the current sytem working, even though it’s bound to do so a fair amount of the time, because there are no stories,in general, about things working right.

Kwillow (27):

What they may be aiming for is the have the Insurance companies ease up on some of their vicious practices, for a while anyway, in return for which the Government will make it THE LAW to own medical insurance.

That can lower insurance rates (I assume) by giving people who aren’t going to be net consumers of health insurance a reason to put money into the system. This doesn’t help people like me or hydropsyche who are uninsureable regardless of how much money we make, and if we’re forced to buy insurance and the insurance companies aren’t forced to sell it to us, those lower rates won’t apply to us.

EricJG (57):

We don’t want Soviet style health care in this country.

I don’t know what it was like. The USSR wasn’t good at distribution of goods, but services? The government spying on its own citizens (what I always understood to be the big evil of the USSR) is bad, but the Obama Administration didn’t start that in this country.

asdf (85):

And who says they don’t do MRI in Havana?

Don’t be silly, they’re not white. And they speak Spanish.

EricJG (86):

But at least a state by state system allows competition,

Not really. I don’t really have a choice between New York and Iowa, or even Connecticut: I like Brooklyn, my family is here, my industry is here, and I grew up here. I don’t think anyone is going to pick which state to live in based solely on the healthcare system.

Punditus (102):

I just like the idea that the capacity to actually care about one’s grandmother is being defined as “liberal.”

Well, that right there says something about conservatives. “Caring about one’s grandmother=liberal” is a meme I’d like to see more of.