Recently I was listening to a radio program in which the host explained that in a few states health insurance policies issued by Blue Cross/Blue Shield were available at extremely reasonable prices, about $100 a month. The very first caller into the program demanded to know exactly what the annual deductible was in plans like this. When the host said $3,000 to $5,000 the caller responded, that isn’t health insurance but catastrophic insurance. It’s too expensive and that’s why we need health care reform from Washington, he continued.

75% of my health care premiums I mentioned in this post goes to an insurance policy with a $2500 deductible. This is the WORST KIND of bullshit.

And he goes on to advocate for the repeal of “guaranteed issue” in states which have it. Seriously?

I cannot state it any more simply that this: I am a person.  I am not a thing.

You’re not a person, in the view of Libertarians and neoCons and large corporations—you’re a consumer, a rational actor, a “Human Resource.” A person? Beside the point.

And if you think that’s bad, imagine what the typical white Know-Nothing thinks you are.

I cannot state it any more simply that this: I am a person.  I am not a thing.  Any health insurance system which treats a doctor’s office like Home Depot is inhumane.  Also, Trig Palin deserves to live.  The end.

Well, you’re half right.  Trig Palin is a person because he’s on TV and being coddled by Princess Sarah.  He deserves America’s Best Health Care which is the Best Health Care In The World, because he’s an innocent little white baby born to rich, politically successful parents in a deep red state.

You - Jesse - are a leaky pipe.  You’re not on TV.  You’re not related to a major political figure.  You aren’t rich.  And as a liberal, no one likes you.  So if you stop producing more than you’re worth, we should just toss you on the scrap pile.

Two Americas Jesse.  The Real Americans that deserve all the comfort the system can provide, and everyone else.

Also, it’s entertaining that whenever someone mentions deductible, they pretend it means “out-of-pocket limit.” COINSURANCE, motherfucker.

Any health insurance system which treats a doctor’s office like Home Depot is inhumane.

And the drawback to this from the market-friendly Republican perspective is?...

Zifnab you were tactful but red staters won’t make too fine of a point that Jesse is not WASP therefore not the same as Trigg Palin.

Those people are monsters.

So the problem with health care in this country is that we don’t appreciate how much we get for so little money?  This is through-the-looking-glass stuff.

Also, there are a few problems with “we” here.  We actually existing people kinda _don’t_ like to call the plumber, because it’s fucking expensive.

Actually, zifnab & lostmypassword:

An apology in advance to Jesse if I am misremembering your stats, but aren’t you a gay POC?  In which case you DOUBLY don’t deserve repairs, I mean health care.

“We’ve been schooled in this attitude by politicians who have mandated that health insurance do things that we’d never expect from other kinds of insurance, and by consumer advocates who will demand our legislators do something about a health insurance company that doesn’t cover some optional procedure that has nothing to do with life and death.”

Which is why “health insurance” is a total misnomer.

Idiots who claim that “We’ve been schooled in this attitude by politicians who have mandated that health insurance do things that we’d never expect from other kinds of insurance…” and then proceed to compare it to auto insurance or some other insurance are trolling the issue.

What “health insurance” should be is a repair and maintenance contract for your body, not just collision insurance to fix your car after an accident, or home owner’s insurance so you can replace your stuff after you’re robbed.  This difference is so fundamental that the term “health insurance” should probably be stricken from the language.

I’m glad that “Steven Malanga” doesn’t need to concern himself with reality and is thus unlikely realize just what despicable human beings he and the rest of the “Just Say No to Reform!” teabagger crowd really are.

But the rest of us here on Earth face really difficult problems, and the bullshit spewed by these moral midgets just clouds the issues and make the world a worse place than it already is…

Thank you, Auguste. “High deductible” doesn’t mean “you will not pay more than this”. 

When was the last time a plumber came to your house and said “Oh, you said this was a clogged pipe? It’s actually a leaky pipe. Since your call was fraudulent you now owe me $10,000.”

Or when a plumber said “yeah, YESTERDAY we agreed that what you were paying for included X, but today we’ve changed the terms.  I know we already repaired it, but we’ve decided your check doesn’t cover all the work we did.  You owe us another $10K.

Or when the plumber says, “We were called out here to fix a leaky pipe 10 years ago.  Since this is a pre-existing condition, you owe us another $10,000 and we won’t be back to fix any more leaky pipes ever.”

@badkitty and now it’s on your plumbing record, so no other plumbers will ever fix your pipes, either.

@siobhan, at least we can be comforted to know that once our house is thoroughly water damaged and condemned. we can file for bankrupcty and our fellow tax payers will pay for an entirely new house.

Fixing a leaky pipe is my landlord’s responsibility—otherwise why am I paying him rent?

I fear the Home Depot model. My sink drain leaked a couple of years ago, so I walked over to Home Depot to get some replacement parts. When I got there, however, three-quarters of the pegs that should have held drain parts were empty. Helpfully the ends of the pegs had stickers indicating when new product would arrive. But the ETA was a week previous. So I drove to one of the few survving ACE Hardwares, which of course had drain parts in abundance.

So poor Trig would die on the operating table, because pipe repair parts would be out of stock under the Home Depot model.

Health insurance is really not a lot different than HSA’s except they have a lot more liquidity.  I’ve paid thousands of dollars of premiums into my health insurance, and they’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars out for my care years before I’d have amassed nearly that much money in my own HSA.  But I needed it then, and they had it.  Medical costs are so high that it’s tough to believe they’re making money off of our premiums, but they sure as hell are.  Now that I’m not having crazy, once-in-a-lifetime health crises, they’re back to making money off of me, thanks to regulations that allow me to pay the eye-explodingly high premiums for myself.  If I had to pay them back dollar for dollar, I’d be in debt for the rest of my life. 

How often do you need to decide with whom to contract for replacing all of the plumbing in your house within the space of a week where you’re a)having cognitive problems and b) positive you’re going to die very soon?  I’d have loved to be my own advocate, but I’d broken my advocator and had to take it in for repairs. 

To go from plumbing to something a little more fun, if you’d steadily been paying a wedding planner a deposit on their services, plus a budget for the event, wouldn’t you be bummed if they just drove you and your betrothed down to city hall, snapped a few photos with their phone, and handed you a cake?

On the other hand, how cool would it be to tell your insurance company, “the in-network doctor you insisted I use and the cheapo medication that was the only one you covered didn’t cure me, I’m not paying a cent more until you get it right.”

In general outline health insurance is almost exactly like the dealer’s or aftermarket warranty you get on your car or computer or whatever, except rescission and refusal to pay…

And to change insurances you have to change jobs.

Corwin, what unhealthy behavior did Trigg Palin engaged ? Are you saying Trigg is to blame for his illness ? Are you saying Sarah Palin is to blame for her kid’s Down Syndrome ?

Yet if she wasn’t white and Republican, you might say that she chose to have a kid after 40 so you shouldn’t have to pay for her folly of making a Down Syndrome baby.

But then, remember, she doesn’t believe in abortion, so as soon as she got pregnant,, she HAD TO have the baby. And you guys are against contraceptives too. So she had no choice, because a good wife is not supposed to deny sex to her husband. So Todd Palin has to pay for wanting to have sex with his wife of 20+ years, the nerve of the man!!

See how fucked up your ideas are ?

corwin:

I sure hope you can get that keyboard fixed someday.

I’m paying for the uninsured now.  The cost for them is being shifted to me.  I haven’t seen any Republican Congresspersons or Senators complaining about, or asking to get out of, that horrible Government insurance they have.

One reason our businesses are so uncompetitive and why our trade deficit is so astronomical is that they are forced to be health care providers and their competitors aren’t.

Magis, don’t be an idiot.  Non-American companies can’t compete with US companies on ANY LEVEL.  They don’t have the American ingenuity, the American know-how, the American moxie, the American, ummm… good stuff, in ANY WAY.

The fact that American business provides health care means they are paying American Insurance comanies which provide more jobs and, ummm, stuff!

Those second-rate international companies like Sony, Nokia, Siemens, Honda, etc., nobody takes them seriously.

corwin, none of us is an island.  And to answer the question you should have asked, yes, we are our brother’s keeper, at least at some basic level.

We are all part of a society.  Society as a whole benefits when its individual members are healthy and productive.  Likewise, society suffers when there members who are merely hanging on by their fingernails.

The teabagging assholes who disrupt these townhall meetings are often receiving Medicare and Social Security that you, me, and other working Americans are paying for. 

Do I begrudge paying for their health and food and lodging?  No.  I realize that the societal contract that we are all a part of says that I will in turn receive these things when I retire.  Even if they choose to spend their time making life more difficult for the rest of us, I’d rather they be alive and healthy than be euthanized like they accuse everyone who’s not a wingnut of planning for them.

The rich that bitch and moan about paying taxes directly benefit from a safe (fire and police), educated (public schools), accessible (roads and highways), and healthy populace working for them and making them rich. 

Have you ever wondered why it is that throughout human history every group of human beings larger than a family or three has setup a government?  It’s because individuals can only accomplish so much by themselves.  Large issues usually take collective action to solve.

So take your 3rd Grade level “Libertarianism” and shove it up your ass…

Corwin, do others have a reponsibility to pay for your military defense? Your Social Security? The roads you drive on? The education of your children?

Since Corwin is so against collective benefit, I propose he no longer receive mail, be allowed to drive on roads, or receive police, fire or EMT assistance.  His children cannot attend any school that receives government funding.  He must pay pre-subsidized prices for his food, and purchase his health insurance not from his employer (since that is regulated).  He will not receive social security or medicare, and will, in return, be exempt from paying taxes.

Corwin:
1. I’m intreigued by your reference of Canadian patients being referred to Detroit. I’m assuming that those patients are from Windsor. Can you provide a link?

2. are the American doctors being reimbursed by OHIP at OHIP rates (I’m assuming yes)?

3. what is the problem with that? I honestly don’t get it, if there’s a doctor shortage on one side of the border and a glut on the other why is it problematic to send the people 15 min over the bridge to get treatment asap, fully covered as usual.

I’m also wondering if the patients are people who work in the US and live in Canada who may find it easier to make it to appointments in their work area than in their residential area.

All told I don’t know what your point was, but to answer your question, yes, people are entitled to healthcare even if they screw something up along the way. They’re also entitiled to police services even if they walked through a “bad part of town”, or engage in other risky (but not illegal) behaviour.

Because you are a person, do others have a responsibility to pay for your health care ?

Yes, because the alternative is letting poor people die.

What if you’re engaged in unhealthy behavior (obese , smoke , vote Democratic )

Yes.  Smokers, fatties, and democrats all deserve to live.

What if you’re engaged in perilous behavior (Inject, take it up the ass, vote Democratic

Yes, drug addicts, homosexuals, and democrats all deserve to live.

Because you are a person, do others have a responsibility to pay for your health care ?

Yes.  It’s called “living in a society.”  If you never want to pay for services that someone else will receive, move to a deserted island and eat seaweed for the rest of your life.

I’m getting really sick of these libertarian spongers who expect the rest of us to pay all of their expenses and then whine when they find out that they have to pay their fair share.  corwin doesn’t want to have to pay for a fire department, but he wants to use their services when his house catches on fire.  corwin doesn’t want to pay for someone else’s health insurance, but he wants to use the emergency room when he gets sick.  The fact that the emergency room wouldn’t have that MRI machine if they had to depend solely on corwin’s insurance premiums somehow eludes him.

Let’s call libertarians what they are:  leeches.  They want to take the society that the rest of us built with our tax dollars and get services from it without having to pay in themselves.

There’s one more thing corwin can’t use—the Internet.  While Al Gore did not invent it, he did support the technology research that led to it very early on and got the research funding that helped make it a reality.  I guess corwin doesn’t know about DARPANet and how it morphed into the Internet.  So he can’t use computer communications because it’s socialistic.

I made the mistake of call Max Baucus’ Finance Committee in support of the public option.

I got a snotty clerk who had the nerve to ask, “But how are we supposed to pay for that?”

“I’m paying for YOUR healthcare!” I managed to retort before he hung up on me.

It’s the ol’ libertarian, Blue Dog, Republican, “I got mine, fuck you.”

Corwin, if nobody else should pay for anything I do, then you’re proposing ending all insurance.  Which, if that’s your position, is fine, but it’s also counter to the idea of civilization.

I pay to have my neighbor’s trash taken away, their house policed, their children educated.  And I’m happy to, because I don’t like smelly criminal children laying on my lawn.

“They’re also entitiled to police services even if they walked through a “bad part of town”, or engage in other risky (but not illegal) behaviour.”

They’re also entitled to police services if they did engage in illegal behavior.  Just because the murder victim is a crack dealer who got shot during a deal gone wrong doesn’t mean they don’t dispatch homicide in an attempt to apprehend the culprit.

This is one reason why I balk at the “Trig is an angel” crap that’s spouted by Sarah Palin and her ilk.  I can’t help but suspect that they’re overcompensating because they secretly feel that caring for the disabled is a waste of resources, or at least something they’re not willing to pay for with their taxes.

”...but it’s also counter to the idea of civilization.”

I think corwin would probably be okay with that, like any good Randroid Libertarian Idiot.

There is no civilization, no society, only rugged individuals engaged in the Sacred Combat of Capitalism, and their only duty is to themselves.  The more selfish and scorched-earth they are, the better.  Besides, Dagny Taggart is just waiting for a genuine stud like corwin to come along and rock her world. 

Of course, as always, corwin and his fellow travelers probably wouldn’t think it was so cool when he’s stuck scrubbing toilets, or picking through trash at the dump, while the über-rich Wall Streeters are flying off to the Dominican Republic with a fresh bottle of little blue pills on the money they ripped out of corwin’s (and everyone else’s) hide…

And to change insurances you have to change <strike>jobs</strike> states.

Fix’d.
Hurray for state run monopoly.  It’s like the board game Monopoly, except the companies get to own all the squares and we just get to roll dice and run around the board.

Why is it taking so long for Dr. O to give more of Libertarian’s and Corwin’s money to Auguste and Jesse?  Why why why?

Why haven’t Libertarian and corwin paid Jesse back if they’re so concerned about using other people’s money?  Why why why?

Why don’t you PayPal Jesse with the portion of his tax money that you’ve been using for the past 10 years instead of insisting that Jesse’s money has to be used for the things you want so you can keep your own?

Seriously:  leeches.  You want the benefits of other people’s tax money without paying in yourself.  You’re the kind of guy who takes a long trip to the bathroom when it’s time to split the check so your friends finally give up and pay your share for you.

“You admit you want to take my money and give it to Jesse and Auguste.  And you want to do it NOW.”

Considering their moral stature as compared to yours, what’s the problem?

And it’s rather stupid to pretend that that Jesse and Auguste don’t have some their money taken to pay for others, even people as ungrateful as yourself.

You really are trying to go for libertarian parody, aren’t you?...

“You’re the kind of guy who takes a long trip to the bathroom when it’s time to split the check so your friends finally give up and pay your share for you.”

...except that some of those people might be stimulating conversationalists to compensate.  Libertarian and corwin?  Hmmmm….

No doubt corwin grinds his teeth whenever a fire engine roars by, as he longs for the good old days when rival private fire companies would brawl in the street for the right to put out a given fire.  Meanwhile the building in question was often reduced to ashes.

But that’s the beauty of the free market for you.

“Meanwhile the building in question was often reduced to ashes.

But that’s the beauty of the free market for you.”

Sure it’s destruction.  But it’s profitable, freedomific, individual, and liberating destruction…

“No doubt corwin grinds his teeth whenever a fire engine roars by, as he longs for the good old days when rival private fire companies would brawl in the street for the right to put out a given fire.  Meanwhile the building in question was often reduced to ashes.”

Or the current days in some jurisdictions, where the fire department comes out and watches a place burn to ashes because the owner/occupant hasn’t paid their annual dues.  They wouldn’t have come out at all, but the neighbors were all paid up.

saraeanderson says: To go from plumbing to something a little more fun, if you’d steadily been paying a wedding planner a deposit on their services, plus a budget for the event, wouldn’t you be bummed if they just drove you and your betrothed down to city hall, snapped a few photos with their phone, and handed you a cake?

F*cking priceless!  And the cake was probably from CostCo!

I have to live in society as it is.  If it became more and more free market and libertarian, I would be happy with that.

You’d be willing, that is, to die of diseases spread by people who can’t get health care.

You see, biology doesn’t respect stupid libertarian fantasies.

The diffence is - I am not lobbying every day to force other people to pay for me.

No, you just sit back and take the “free” money that other people are paying.  And then you bitch and moan about how other people want your money to do silly things like repair bridges.

If you don’t want to be a leech, stop taking the benefits you get from other people’s money.  Move out to a Unabomber cabin, grow your own food, and generate your own electricity.  If you live in a town, you’re leeching off your neighbors every time you drive on a street or call the cops because you heard a strange noise outside.  Your measly little tax contribution didn’t pay for those—your neighbors did, and they’re awfully tired of you whining about how you shouldn’t have to pay your share ‘cause you’re speshul.

Put up or shut up, because I’m really sick of libertarian bullshit.  Either remove yourself from society or stop whining when we expect you to contribute to the society you want to live in.  People like you are the reason why we can’t have nice things.

Because you are a person, do others have a responsibility to pay for your health care ?

Except for a few years in my 20s, other people have always paid for (the vast majority of) my health care.

Universal health care will be a spur to entrepreneurship. I’ve known so many people hanging onto crap jobs just for coverage for their families.

As I said, I have to live in society as it is.

No, you don’t.  You can move out to the country and not interact with the rest of us.  You can find a deserted island and form your own country of one.  But it’s a typical libertarian who insists that he’s forced to live in our society so therefore other people should pay his expenses.  Unless someone’s taken away your passport, no one’s forcing you to live here.  Be a man and support yourself.  Stop taking your neighbors’ money.

It’s us hard working, self supporting, tax paying slugs that are the reason you can’t have nice things.

You mean the slugs who refuse to pay their share, leech off of public services, and then brag about how “self supporting” they are?  Yes, it’s true, you are the reason we can’t have nice things, because you keep insisting on taking more than your share and then refusing to contribute, so the rest of us have to try and make up the difference.

WAAAAAAAAAAAA.  Oh my God, you want your Mommy?

That’s right—when you steal from people and then brag about it, they’re just whining if they protest.  Again, typical libertarian:  anything you have is mine as long as I can take it from you.

“Oh my God, you want your Mommy?”

I’m surprised you are even aware of the the concept of “mommy”. 

After all, didn’t you burst forth into the world, fully formed, through shear force of will and unbounded intent to succeed as an individual by harnessing your awesome talents to overcome all obstacles and achieve domination of your fellow man as nature and your superior genes dictate?...

Oh, and I also love the typical libertarian view that he is the only person with a job.  Those people you see manning the cash registers at the store or serving your food at a restaurant?  They’re all volunteers, right?  After all, if they were getting paid for their work, that would mean they were taxpayers, too, and you can’t possibly admit that.  So therefore anyone working a job other than yourself must be an unpaid volunteer because, after all, you’re the only one who pays taxes.

Why are we engaging with the Libertarian?  They’re crazy people.  They have no power.  Let’s concentrate on the crazy people who do have power.

Well said Punditus!

I noticed Corwin ran away scared. Sent “Libertarian” instead, to not have to refute all the replies that pwned him.

Silly teenager leeches! Go read Ayn Rand’s porn.

Siobhan: POC, but straight. 

Libertarian, don’t ever have a stroke, heart attack or seizure in a big city. Or an underfunded rural area where few people have health insurance. In fact, to be completely secure you need to live in an enclave where there is no one for miles around but people with health insurance. Because otherwise there is a very good chance that you will go to the ER with a sudden onset condition, and they will not be able to treat you on a timely basis despite your good health insurance because they are so swamped with the uninsured and underfunded because the uninsured can’t pay, and you will suffer permanent damage.

This almost happened to me. I worked for a health insurance company. I had *gold* plated insurance. 90/10, full coverage, full mental health parity, no authorization required for emergencies, no recission, no trouble getting them to pay. I was pregnant and my whole left side went numb. My doctor said, “Pregnant women are at higher risk of stroke. Go to the ER.” My husband said “They’ll treat you faster if you go in an ambulance than if you walk in.” So I called 911 and got an ambulance to take me to the closest ER, at about 6 in the afternoon, having had symptoms for about an hour. An hour later I was seen for triage. They triaged me “urgent”.

I saw a doctor for the first time at 2 am. I saw a neurologist at 4 am, and he told me they wouldn’t do an MRI until 8 when the technicians come in.

When you are having a stroke, if you get clot-busting drugs within 3 hours you may end up with no damage at all. If you don’t get them until 12 hours are up, all the damage is done.

I checked myself out AMA at 5 am, 12 hours after my symptoms started, having received no treatment at all.

My incredible fantastic health insurance and my good job would have done me exactly jack if I had, in fact, suffered a stroke (and while I probably hadn’t suffered a stroke in retrospect, due to not having had any long-term mental damage, NO ONE KNEW THAT when I went in—I had three of four symptoms and belonged to a group at high risk). I could have gone from the breadwinner of a family of four, soon to be five, to a drooling vegetable on the public dole. My blind husband’s ability to work at *all* partially depends on my ability to drive him; when he can get to his jobs he can make huge amounts of money, but if he lost his transportation his ability to get a job in the first place would be drastically limited. Because of where I was physically located at the time of my symptoms, I received no treatment despite being triaged as urgent, despite being a pregnant white woman with money and good insurance, despite having an Ivy League degree and belonging to the category that even Republicans consider “people that bad stuff should not happen to”.

Because of the lack of a public option, the ERs are full of people having expensive medical crises that would have been very, very cheap to prevent, had they had health insurance. Many of them are hard-working people, maybe with two jobs, neither of which will give them 40 hours because the employer doesn’t want to give health care. And few of these people can pay for their expensive medical crises, so the ER is always running in the red, so it is overworked and understaffed even if it *wasn’t* overcrowded. Thus the people you consider deserving, like yourself and other people with health insurance, could well *die* or suffer serious medical consequences because you were too selfish to pay for other people’s health care.

Damn straight I want you to pony up. I can’t pay enough to insure everyone in my whole goddamn city so that when I go with my insurance to the ER, I actually get treated. You can fucking well pay your share. Otherwise, get the fuck out of my ER and let those of us who are willing to try to fix the problem receive the care.

Why are we engaging with the Libertarian?  They’re crazy people.  They have no power.  Let’s concentrate on the crazy people who do have power.

These crazy people do have power—they broke my state and now they’re insisting that everyone but them should pay for their bad policy.

I have no patience for people who whined about their taxes being too high who are shocked—shocked, I tell you!—when the state collapses and suddenly their neighborhood’s fire station shuts down.  Well, no shit, Sherlock, what did you think was going to happen when you decided to vote for lower taxes and more services?  Contrary to what Howard Jarvis told you, public services are not free and you get what you pay for.

“Contrary to what Howard Jarvis told you, public services are not free and you get what you pay for.”

I was going to say that Jarvis and Saddam are now bunkmates in Hell, but then I realized that Saddam is probably occupying just one small part of Howard Jarvis’ massive Rancho Del Fuego Complex which currently contains thousands of Republicans, libertarians, Randroids, and other authoritarian ne’er-do-wells.  And, of course there is a huge building effort going on to add enough space to hold many more thousands of Republicans (as well as many Blue Dogs) who are still among the living…

us hard working, self supporting, tax paying

You idiot. You take way more tax money than you personally contribute.

Don’t believe me? Go ahead, total up what it costs to provide you with the roads and highways you use, the cops who patrol your neighborhood and all their equipment, the clean water and the electricity available to you right now, the cost of even one ambulance trip if you got hit by a bus.

You won’t, of course, but don’t worry, we’ll still know you’re full of shit.

Oh, and I should have said, not only do you already cost more of OUR dollars than you contribute, that’s not enough for you, you greedy pig, you want to keep getting the benefits WE pay for and contribute even less! Why are you so fucking unAmerican?

I attempted a reasoned argument, but what can you say to someone who’s ideal level of governmental power is equal to that of Afghanistan or Somalia?

Fucking hell, corwin.  “Unhealthy behavior?”  When I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, I was a stick-thin vegetarian running 20 miles a week in addition to regular yoga and weight lifting.  I was even skinny as fuck.  Then when I was pregnant, I spent 7 months taking shots of heparin every day, because of a condition I inherited. Behavior doesn’t guarantee shit for health outcomes. (Neither does being skinny, I might add.) If only I’d magically personal-responsibilitied myself up some quality genetics!

And let me just add: without insurance, the Lovenox brand heparin would have been $800 a month.  My C section would have been $12,000.  Who the hell can pony up an extra $800 a month for 7 months?  Who the hell has 12 G’s just sitting in the bank? Maybe it sticks in your craw to pay for other people’s healthcare, but just how the fuck is anyone other than the richest 1% supposed to pay for their own?

As usual, the libertarian forgets that he (it’s almost always he) has already been “taking” money from all the rest of us for his whole sorry-yet-smug life.  Like the money we collectively spent on his public education.  And he didn’t even USE that!  Give it back.

Seriously, why do libertarians and conservatives never see themselves as beneficiaries of government and/or society-as-sustained-by-government?  Never.  It never happens.  Someone’s always trying to take their precious, precious stuff.  That they got, like, fairly, with no help from no one.  No electricity from New Deal programs, no roads, no clean water, no public education, no security that the law will be enforced, nope, none of that, just pure Edenic autonomy.

Face it, libertarians.  We made you.  Ungrateful bastards.

You’re not a person, in the view of Libertarians and neoCons and large corporations—you’re a consumer, a rational actor, a “Human Resource.” A person? Beside the point.

That’s another beef I have: when did we go from being citizens to consumers? I’m a citizen damn it!

What benefit does insurance provide?

What we want is health CARE.  What we have is a middleman skimming “profit” and increasing costs for everyone.  Since the middleman is responsible for payment, the consumer is left virtually powerless.

For-profit insurance provides NO necessary benefits.  It provides no necessary needs.  It is completely unnecessary.

It needs to go.

“For-profit insurance provides NO necessary benefits.  It provides no necessary needs.  It is completely unnecessary.
It needs to go.”

Caren, where oh where will CEOs and their heirs get the money to maintain the lifestyles to which they’ve become accustomed if they can’t screw billions out of us proles?

Won’t somebody think of the CEOs?!...

Thanks Jesse.  I tried to check your bio, but clicking on your name reveals you to be:  a SUPER-ADMIN!

Face it, libertarians.  We made you.  Ungrateful bastards.

Yep.  They’re the political equivalent of the teenager who screams at his parents that he hates them and can’t wait until he can move out and not have to live by all of their rules, and then demands the keys to the car.

Every time Auguste posts you can see the tears flowing.  Send me your info, I"ll lend you a few bucks, take you out for a beer (the Presidential approved method) and talk to you about how you can make more of your own money.  Nah.

I make a shit-ton of money, Libertarian, compared to most of the uninsured people in this country. I’m incredibly lucky (and smart, and industrious, you shithead) that way. If I didn’t, I couldn’t afford the amount I have to pay. (Well, most of the time I can afford it, anyway.)

That’s okay, though, because I know what your advice would be. “Start your own business,” you’d say. “Then, once you are in a position to hire people, do everything you possibly can to make sure that they have it much worse than you ever did.”

Ironically, I wouldn’t mind starting a business, am in a good position to, and quite likely would, if it weren’t for the health insurance issue.

It’s a frustrating problem, my spouse and I are looking at taking over the small business he’s currently employed at, and the healthcare issue for employees is going to be maddening. We refuse to do what the current owner does (offer a byzantine requirements and application process, with only two employees actually eligible), but just about every other group option would leave the business in the red. We both fear where the healthcare bill will go, and where it won’t.

It takes a particular kind of chutzpah (the libertarian kind) to steal the plus value of the working poor (i.e. what they call ‘profit’ in Capitalistan) and then go around and whine that the big bad government will take the money YOU’ve legitimatly stolen from the poor and give it back to them.

I have to live in society as it is.

No, actually, you don’t. You’re entirely free to piss off to the libertarian paradise of Somalia any time you like. Or go live in the wilds, with just your own wits and efforts to support you. You choose to live in society because you prefer it to the alternatives.

“Libertarian paradise.”  Brrrr, shudder.

Curious mind wants to know: in a Libertarian Paradise, what happens when one ruggedly individual property owner wants to blast his music or race his ATV around and around and around in circles in proximity to another ruggedly individual property owner, who has to listen to the auditory effulgence of the first property owner’s pastimes (which are technically on the first man’s property but encroaching on the second’s)?  In a Libertarian Paradise, whose rights prevail here—the guy with the bigger gun?  I never could figure that angle out.

You guys ever stop whining and crying?  Ewww.

I’m assuming this comment is in reference to libertarians talking about their relatively low tax burden.  Because if ever there was a childish, whining crybaby to be had, dig up a libertarian and ask him about taxes.  You’ll be swimming in seas of tears as you change his diapers every 5 minutes, as he turns into the mega-baby, the equivalent of 200 crybabies crammed into one grown man.

the equivalent of 200 crybabies crammed into <strike>one grown man</strike> a physically adult male.

Fixed that for you.