Making Baby Jesus Cry

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Did they indict Rove yet????

Nope. And the deadline was Aug 1, so it's smoooooooth sailing for the GOP between here and '08!!

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Nope. And the deadline was Aug 1, so it's smoooooooth sailing for the GOP between here and '08!!

Well, DeLay's buddy Abramoff just got indicted.

[Connect_the_Dots]

"Rational people should have health insurance anyway - instead of buying a new Washing Machine - so we are just geting people to act rationally. So we are helping the marketplace conform more to Mr. Smiths Model."

Some people prefer a washing machine to health insurance. A more equitable solution would be to let people choose and bear the consequences of their own choices. The problem with choosing for people when you think that they shouldn't be allowed to make their own choices is that the people who inevitably end up in charge are not the ones who make the best choices, but the ones who are most ruthless. You are, afer all, talking about compulsion and the Mother Theresa types are not as good as that as the Hussein types.

For the people that can't afford health insurance the government pays for a private plan. So if something bad happens it still ain't the governments problem.

Just when I thought you couldn't say anything more stupid, you one-up yourself. When you say the GOVERNMENT pays for it, you really mean the taxpayer. By increasing taxes to pay for your brilliant plan, healthcare spending will go up and destroy jobs in the industries where that money would otherwise have been spent. Moreover, as Ludvig von Mises admonished, intervention begets intervention. By paying for insurance government will demand a greater role in health care until we have Clintonian socialized medicine with Hillary's Fat Ass running the country.

It will also be required under every health plan that you get a biannual check up. That way problems can be detected early before they become catastrophic and everyone can get a good tongue lashing from the doctor every two years.

see what I mean about the begetting?

Christian Scientists and everyone else would be under the same rules. I don't care what your religion is, if you want to drive you get health insurance. If you don't drive, the government covers you anyway so what have you got to lose. If your kid gets an appendicitis, and you don't take the kid in, and he or she dies. The rest of your children become wards of the state. In addition, if you don't take your kids in for checkups they become wards of the state.

Now begetting begets more intervention, this time in religion and childrearing. WHere does it end, comrade?

Seems like a perfect solution to me.

I know it does, that's why we are scared to put you in charge of anything besides the file room.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Saw it on drudge, but can't remember if it was him or a link.

The same guy who misquoted the earlier article about Cindy Sheehan to make it seem like she was a big Bush fan?

Tell me something - Dan Rather fails to confirm a source about a document and he is forever tainted, but Drudge, who has been wrong on more than one occasion, somehow retains credibility with you? How does that work?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
No. And same to Panda's buddy.

My buddy was fictional, meant to tweak Hank.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Saw it on drudge, but can't remember if it was him or a link.

Does drudge have anything other than links these days? Other than 5 word headlines, perhaps? What story has he broken? He's just a blog these days, except worse, because he cites the stuff that's later discredited. Bush is still waiting on Air Force I at Andrews to get the retirement letter from Rehnquist.

[Gattigap]

From Ed Kilgore at TPM Cafe:

• In remarks at an Aspen Institute session (reported by the Denver Post), Bob Woodward has revived speculation that George W. Bush might wind up talking a guy named Richard Cheney into running for president in 2008.
  
  Is this just late-summer noodling, or does the famously well-connected Woodward know something we don't know? Beats me, but unless Cheney quashes the speculation definitively, you can expect a boomlet to develop among hard-Right Republicans, who have a bit of a problem going into the next presidential election.
  
  Actually, they have two problems, named Rudy Guiliani and John McCain, who are consistently running far ahead of the field in test heats of Republican possibilities for '08. Both these men are deeply unacceptable to the K Street/Cultural Right coalition that runs the GOP these days.
  
  ...
  
  But acceptably conservative alternatives to the Dreadful Duo are slim pickings at present. Bill Frist's flip-flop on stem cell research has made him Public Enemy Number One on the Right. Sam Brownback is probably too extreme to be taken seriously in a general election. Tom Tancredo's neo-Buchananite act could cause all kinds of trouble during the nominating process, but it's hard to imagine him taking the Oath of Office. It's a good sign of the problem facing conservatives that George Allen is now the smart-money choice for '08; it's doubtful that even sports-crazy Americans could stand a presidential candidate who's incapable of communicating in anything other than football metaphors.
  
  A Cheney candidacy would instantly give the Right a front-running candidate who could go one-on-one with Guiliani or McCain, with the overt or covert blessing of the White House.
  Sure, between his health problems; his well-earned association with the worst blunders of administration policy in Iraq; and the huge weight of Halliburton baggage he carries; he'd be the Republican nominee Democrats would most like to face. But for movement conservatives, maintaining control of the GOP is Job One; winning the general election is a challenge they'll deal with down the road.

Please, God. If you give the GOP a presidential candidate in '08 who epitomizes its current dedication to fiscal responsibility, and its steadfastness not only in Iraq but generally advocates bombing the shit out of everything west of the Atlantic, I promise to stop taking your name in vain, to limit impure thoughts, and to cut back on vice generally. For at least a day or two.

Gattigap

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
My buddy was fictional, meant to tweak Hank.

Duh.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Until 1986, ERs were notorious for doing so-called "wallet biopsies" before taking patients. If it didn't look like a patient could / would pay, the hospitals would chuck the patients out and send them over to whatever public hospital was around. They'd do this with indigent women in active labor, as well. An irritated Congress passed EMTALA in 1986 and as a result, if you show up at a facility with emergency services, they're stuck with you until you're stable enough to transfer to another facility.



Health insurance, as any good automaker will tell you, ain't exactly cheap. And it's even more expensive if you're an individual. And HIPAA aside, pre-existing conditions are a bitch. I've been trying for years to put together some sort of program to help artists purchase health insurance. It's not an easy proposition.

The problem is that in this country people expect the best medical care in the world for not that much money. People will just have to adjust to the fact that it is really expensive.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Again with the cost. Additionally, a shitload of people in this country have to drive in order to work. On the other hand, there are a lot of places where no one drives.

So - if you are poor the government pays. Otherwise people have to learn to priotise health insurance. After food and rent you buy health insurance. Health insurance comes before a TV, and extra car, stereo, vacations and everything else.

There are places where people don't drive and those places are good. We need less people driving in this is one way to help that along. Especially since oil just reached $66 a barrel.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
There was a piece on NPR this morning about the debates on how effective some screening methods are. Depends on the person, the person's family history, the person's health history, etc. I don't need a pap smear every year, because I've had three in a row that are normal.

OK so leave the decsisoin to the primary care physician. Whatever is optimal.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Please, God. If you give the GOP a presidential candidate in '08 who epitomizes its current dedication to fiscal responsibility, and its steadfastness not only in Iraq but generally advocates bombing the shit out of everything west of the Atlantic, I promise to stop taking your name in vain, to limit impure thoughts, and to cut back on vice generally. For at least a day or two.

Holy Smoke. I'd pay to watch Cheney vs. Hillary Clinton (from the safety of my fallout shelter in Canada). What a carnival. Might be one of the very few serious Dem possibilities he could beat.

On the other hand, I might maybe cast my first GOP vote in a Presidential election if Giuliani or McCain ran (like John better).

S_A_M

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Connect_the_Dots
Some people prefer a washing machine to health insurance. A more equitable solution would be to let people choose and bear the consequences of their own choices. The problem with choosing for people when you think that they shouldn't be allowed to make their own choices is that the people who inevitably end up in charge are not the ones who make the best choices, but the ones who are most ruthless. You are, afer all, talking about compulsion and the Mother Theresa types are not as good as that as the Hussein types.

The problem is that we have to live with peoples bad decisions and so do the children. Once ERs were told they could not turn people away everyones problems now became our problem.

Originally posted by Connect_the_Dots
Just when I thought you couldn't say anything more stupid, you one-up yourself. When you say the GOVERNMENT pays for it, you really mean the taxpayer. By increasing taxes to pay for your brilliant plan, healthcare spending will go up and destroy jobs in the industries where that money would otherwise have been spent. Moreover, as Ludvig von Mises admonished, intervention begets intervention. By paying for insurance government will demand a greater role in health care until we have Clintonian socialized medicine with Hillary's Fat Ass running the country.

Is it stupid to mention the term government subsidies. Or I got a check from the government? Or on the otherhand maybe everyone with an IQ above three knows that all government money comes form the tax payer. We already pay for all this health care so why will we have to raise taxes for my plan. We are also forcing most people to get private health insurance. So we might even save money.

Originally posted by Connect_the_Dots
see what I mean about the begetting?



Now begetting begets more intervention, this time in religion and childrearing. WHere does it end, comrade?




I know it does, that's why we are scared to put you in charge of anything besides the file room.

As I pointed out before, the Slippery Slope argument, as Aristotle pointed out, is only used by morons. We shouldhn't outlaw murder because pretty soon we will outlaw breathing. If we make companys clean up toxic waste pretty soon we will nationalize them. A policy is either good or it is not. If you can turn the idea of good policy down because it might lead to a bad policy then every policy proposition can be turned down.

[Connect_the_Dots]

Originally posted by Spanky
We already pay for all this health care so why will we have to raise taxes for my plan. We are also forcing most people to get private health insurance. So we might even save money.

So in scenario 1) the hospital eats the costs and in scenario 2) the insurance company eats the costs. You claim that in scenario 2) we might save money? DOes it not occur to you that now that someone else is picking up the tab the hospitals may have an incentive to provide more services that are non-life threatening because someone else is paying? Don't you think judgment calls about what's necessary and what isn't will now be much more likely to be in favor of providing services than they would be if the hospital were picking up the tab?

As I pointed out before, the Slippery Slope argument, as Aristotle pointed out, is only used by morons.

I pointed out (with your own examples) what would happen if government got involved. YOu don't think intruding in religion and childcare by government agents (your examples) are bad enough to warrant caution?

A policy is either good or it is not. If you can turn the idea of good policy down because it might lead to a bad policy then every policy proposition can be turned down.

Well, I don't think it's a good policy. It's not realistic because it runs counter to human nature (like most utopian social schemes).

As I said, let people choose for themselves and live with the consequences. What is it about choice and free will that you liberals find so offensive?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
The problem is that in this country people expect the best medical care in the world for not that much money. People will just have to adjust to the fact that it is really expensive.

No. They just have no idea what anything costs. No one really has a grasp on what healthcare actually costs. The guy bitching about the $8 aspirin doesn't realize that somehow or another, the cost of my legal services to healthcare providers is going to have to factor in there somewhere. Or that the hospitals have to pay Wonk's doctor to take call at inconvenient times. Wonk wouldn't have bitched about the bill as much if his insurance company had covered it.

And cost doesn't really come into the equation when making the decision as to whether going to Ben Taub (county owned teaching hospital) or St. Luke's (not-for-profit teaching hospital) or HCA (for-profit hospital). Most people just go to whereever their insurance will cover them or where their personal physician practices. Unless it's an emergency (trauma: btw, Ben Taub, especially gunshot wounds, or Hermann Memorial; heart attack: St. Luke's or Methodist; pregnancy: St. Luke's, Memorial, Women's or LBJ.)

And most people choose their physicians based on bedside manner and who their friends like instead of competence, because they don't really have other ways to guage.*

So - if you are poor the government pays. Otherwise people have to learn to priotise health insurance. After food and rent you buy health insurance. Health insurance comes before a TV, and extra car, stereo, vacations and everything else.

Define "poor." And you don't think that the 44 million people without health insurance haven't thought about the options? (Though thanks to your favorite political party the bankruptcy option isn't there any more.) $300 a month** is a lot of money for a lot of people. And that number just keeps on going up if they have pre-existing conditions, or kids, or spouses, or live in a place where there aren't that many providers.

OK so leave the decsisoin to the primary care physician. Whatever is optimal.

The managed care model would have worked if people had been stuck in the plans, because care would have been, er, managed by the pcps. We're too used, though, to having lots and lots and lots of choices, so the model was never going to work outside the Medicare context.

*I choose based on who my family members recommend, because they're all physicians.

**Number pulled from my pay stub. See argument with sebby last month or the month before for numbers for self-employed people who aren't quite to medicare.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Connect_the_Dots
So in scenario 1) the hospital eats the costs and in scenario 2) the insurance company eats the costs. You claim that in scenario 2) we might save money? DOes it not occur to you that now that someone else is picking up the tab the hospitals may have an incentive to provide more services that are non-life threatening because someone else is paying? Don't you think judgment calls about what's necessary and what isn't will now be much more likely to be in favor of providing services than they would be if the hospital were picking up the tab?

Uh, that's why we have DRGs. They're never going to go away.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
As I pointed out before, the Slippery Slope argument, as Aristotle pointed out, is only used by morons.

Slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Doesn't mean it can't be used as persuasive rhetoric.