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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2009 : 23:32:18 [Permalink]
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Bill wrote: | You think?!?!?!?!? And now we are supposed to blindly trust these fools to "reform" health care just a few months after this last debacle!!!! Oh but this time Barney is right. How do we know this? Because the ignored said so. |
Considering that the USA pays more per person on health care than any other country in the world (yes, that includes France and Canada) and provides worse quality of health care per capita than all other developed nations, I'd say that our current health care system is so bad I'm more worried about our government doing nothing than doing something, even if most of our political leaders are "fools".
Filthy wrote: I would rant about health care, but am in no position to do so. I am in a purely socialist system that has been taking care of me and John McCain, and many others for decades.
But I'd like to see everyone get something similar, even conservatives (hell, especially conservatives. Mental health is a priority with that bunch). I'd like to see at least some form of health care made a civil right, available to all regardless of their social status. I think it is the right thing to do. |
The United States government made a decision to take money from those of means and use it to subsidize the health care of the less fortunate as soon as it made laws preventing hospitals from turning away people in emergency health care situations. And I have yet to hear the more hard core free market capitalist argue that hospitals should have the right to turn away poor people who are dying of cancer or who have a serious gun shot wound.
But what leads up to most emergency room visits? The person with cancer might have caught it early and perhaps could have received treatment which would have eradicated the disease in its early stage. The person with the gun shot wound might have suffered from very treatable mental illness which would have prevented the violent incident. If they couldn't pay for the prevention and treatment care, they sure as hell can't pay for the emergency room care. And if they die before ever paying off those huge debts then the costs get spread around to all of us.
I have a friend who racked up $12K in health care debt just in 2008. She's getting older and has more treatable health problems year after year, but she can't afford to treat any of them. Currently she knows she needs a root canal and to have a non-cancerous ovarian cyst removed. But until those conditions become dire enough (the cyst left untreated could turn into cancer or just grow until she can't physically function normally), she can't get them done even at the free clinic. Oh, and the free clinic requires waiting in line all day in the hopes that they can get you in that day - which is just great when you work low-wage, hourly jobs as she does. She must wait until it is an emergency, and then she'll be even more in debt. A debt she'll likely never pay off in her lifetime and which will be spread around to the rest of us. C'mon - any idiot can see this system of health care is both inhumane and impractical for everyone, rich and poor.
So unless someone here is advocating a truly and purely free market system, the real choice is between a health care system where those of us with means pay for more expensive and crappier health care for those less fortunate, or we pay for less expensive, higher quality health care for those less fortunate.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 08/20/2009 23:35:55 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
 Posted - 08/21/2009 : 08:06:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Bill wrote: | You think?!?!?!?!? And now we are supposed to blindly trust these fools to "reform" health care just a few months after this last debacle!!!! Oh but this time Barney is right. How do we know this? Because the ignored said so. |
Considering that the USA pays more per person on health care than any other country in the world (yes, that includes France and Canada) |
About twice as much to be precise(ish).
Honestly, the main reason the GOP is attacking the reform is for purely political reason (and some of them might be in the pocket for private insurance company) they are ready to lie and insult and disrupt democracy and they are plenty happy to condemn American citizens to sub-par health care and an premature death, at the same time wasting much money the country needs badly. All to try and grab a few sit back during the Congressional elections...
originally posted by Maverick
Saw it on PZ's blog last night. That was beautiful. Finally someone who actually punches these idiots verbally. This is what Obama should do, of course then people would complain that he's out of control and unable to debate in a civilised fashion, etc. I do wonder why more healthcare for those who can't otherwise afford it reminds these idiots of Nazism, while invading countries for no good reason and torturing prisoners of war does not. |
Pretty much. That's why it is not Obama's job to do that.
Better to use lower levels Dems to do it and this town-hall session are not bad for that.
In fact, Barney Frank is pretty much a template about the way it should be done. Which makes me wonder, maybe it was not spontaneous but was a trial run for what will soon become the Democrats standard answer to these fuckers.
I'd hope the Democrats are smart enough to have that planned. Surely, they did not expect the GOP to follow the rules of Democratic debate? |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 08:15:01 [Permalink]
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And now there's another example of a woman telling a Jew that national health care is a Nazi policy.
What's worse is that the guy complains that he'd spent two hours in an ER and was charged $8,000 for it, and the woman goes "oh, boo-hoo" and pretends she's crying.
If this is the level of debate that the Republicans want, I bet the rest of us can do it better. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Maverick
Skeptic Friend
Sweden
385 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 09:18:34 [Permalink]
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| $8000 for going to the ER? Good heavens. Last I heard (4 years ago, shouldn't have changed too much since then) you would have to pay about $50 after coming in to the ER, and that's if they don't have to admit you to the hospital for further treatment, in which case you wouldn't have to pay for the ER at all. |
"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." -- Carl Sagan |
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Maverick
Skeptic Friend
Sweden
385 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 09:26:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
[quote]Pretty much. That's why it is not Obama's job to do that.
Better to use lower levels Dems to do it and this town-hall session are not bad for that.
In fact, Barney Frank is pretty much a template about the way it should be done. Which makes me wonder, maybe it was not spontaneous but was a trial run for what will soon become the Democrats standard answer to these fuckers.
I'd hope the Democrats are smart enough to have that planned. Surely, they did not expect the GOP to follow the rules of Democratic debate?
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Yeah when I think about it, it doesn't seem like something he should do. But others should, if their opponents set the bar at that level. |
"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." -- Carl Sagan |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 09:40:14 [Permalink]
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Simon wrote: About twice as much to be precise(ish).
Honestly, the main reason the GOP is attacking the reform is for purely political reason (and some of them might be in the pocket for private insurance company) they are ready to lie and insult and disrupt democracy and they are plenty happy to condemn American citizens to sub-par health care and an premature death, at the same time wasting much money the country needs badly. All to try and grab a few sit back during the Congressional elections... |
Yes, but my problem with the Dems is that there are nice, easy facts and soundbites which they could be using and they never do. The plain, hard facts that the USA pays more per capital for health care while getting poorer quality per capital health care for its citizens, coupled with the rising costs of health care and declining quality of health of Americans is the strongest and easiest to understand argument for reform. Dems needs to develop some damn sound bites to counter idiots who say crap such as, "Socialized medicine in France is so expensive that the country is going bancrupt because of it." (That is a paraphrased quote from a Libertarian economist I heard interviewed on NPR a few weeks ago. The "liberal" he was debating with didn't even mention that the USA spends more per person on health care than France! WTF!?)
On the Nazi comments - I rarely see people making this important point: Guilt by association is a logical fallacy. Just because Nazis did something doesn't make that thing automatically bad. Even though Nazis and Hitler are today symbols of pure evil, some of their governing policies were useful and helpful and have been successfully implemented by other modern societies, including in the United States.
From Wikipedia: Nazi economic practice concerned itself with immediate domestic issues and separately with ideological conceptions of international economics. Domestic economic policy was narrowly concerned with four major goals to eliminate Germany's issues, elimination of unemployment, rapid and substantial rearmament, protection against the resurgence of hyper-inflation, and expansion of production of consumer goods to improve middle and lower-class living standards. All of these policy goals were intended to address the perceived shortcomings of the Weimar Republic and to solidify domestic support for the party. In this, the party was successful. Between 1933 and 1936 the German Gross National Product (GNP) increased by an average annual rate of 9.5%, and the rate for industry alone rose by 17.2%.
This expansion propelled the German economy out of a deep depression and into full employment in less than four years. Public consumption during the same period increased by 18.7%, while private consumption increased by 3.6% annually. According to the historian Richard Evans, prior to the outbreak of war the German “economy had recovered from the Depression faster than its counterparts in other countries. Germany's foreign debt had been stabilized, interest rates had fallen to half their 1932 level, the stock exchange had recovered from the Depression, the gross national product had risen by 81 per cent over the same period…. Inflation and unemployment had been conquered.”[84]
German marriages increased from about 511,000 in 1932 to 611,000 in 1936, while births rose from 921,000 births in 1932 to 1,280,000 in 1936. Suicides committed by young people under 20 dropped by 80% between 1933 and 1939.[85] |
I think the best general rule is to just leave the mention of Hitler and Nazis out of any conversation. It is just too damn emotionally charged and thus is almost always a threat to maintaining rational discussion and debate.
On Barney Frank's response - I d |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 08/21/2009 09:46:48 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 12:24:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
It was an ultimately lame response because he didn't even bother to even point out that her comparison of policies was inaccurate. |
But "what planet are you living on?" is a common euphemism for "what you just said is total bullshit." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 12:56:42 [Permalink]
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| Dave, that doesn't solve the problem. I'm looking for a politician in a public speaking position to be able to say "This is total bullshit because..." If what the woman is saying is so obviously off-base, it should be easy to, in one short sentence, clear say why she's off-base. In a public forum, politicians are speaking to everyone, not just smart people who will do their research. And especially if the politician is going to use insults and sarcasm, his basic message and reasoning should be clear to just about everyone. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 13:27:30 [Permalink]
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Meh.
Like she was going to listen to any explanation.
These guys are not going to be convinced. They wantto believe that Obama is a Nazi, this way they wan hate him without having to admit their real problem with him. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 15:50:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Dave, that doesn't solve the problem. I'm looking for a politician in a public speaking position to be able to say "This is total bullshit because..." If what the woman is saying is so obviously off-base, it should be easy to, in one short sentence, clear say why she's off-base. In a public forum, politicians are speaking to everyone, not just smart people who will do their research. And especially if the politician is going to use insults and sarcasm, his basic message and reasoning should be clear to just about everyone.
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In general you are correct. But in this case, no matter what Frank would have said wouldn't have made a difference to the person he was insulting back. I'm sure Frank did explain what the house was working on and probably had already debunked that woman's complaint.
I think his response to her comparing those who support the health care reform plan to Nazi's was totally appropriate. It's time that that accusation gets exactly the response that it deserves. You can't reason with those people, and there were other people waiting to ask legitimate questions, which I am sure Frank answered politely.
She got what she deserved. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 16:39:45 [Permalink]
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Simon wrote: Meh.
Like she was going to listen to any explanation.
These guys are not going to be convinced. They wantto believe that Obama is a Nazi, this way they wan hate him without having to admit their real problem with him. |
Kil wrote: In general you are correct. But in this case, no matter what Frank would have said wouldn't have made a difference to the person he was insulting back. I'm sure Frank did explain what the house was working on and probably had already debunked that woman's complaint.
I think his response to her comparing those who support the health care reform plan to Nazi's was totally appropriate. It's time that that accusation gets exactly the response that it deserves. You can't reason with those people, and there were other people waiting to ask legitimate questions, which I am sure Frank answered politely.
She got what she deserved. |
And if Frank was just talking to her, I'd totally agree. I'd like to reiterate that I didn't mind his insults directed at her at all. I found them quite appropriate and amusing, and yes, she totally deserved it. I just wish he'd intermixed his direct and immediate responses with the briefest and clearest explanation of why her comparison was way off. Not for her benefit for the benefit of any possible listeners of low intellectual prowess who might have been made concerned by the woman's comparison. I could just imagine some dull-minded person on the fence who is trying to be open-minded about the whole thing thinking to themselves, "The health reform plan includes something that Nazis did? That's bad." And then they hear nothing from Frank but insults and are not sure what to think. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 19:36:17 [Permalink]
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For the sound bites on the media?
That's kind of true, although, one would hope the media to actually have pundits around the tables explaining the bill themselves.
I am not talking about fox news. Fox news would have cut of anything intelligent and convincing anyway. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 20:41:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
And if Frank was just talking to her, I'd totally agree. I'd like to reiterate that I didn't mind his insults directed at her at all. I found them quite appropriate and amusing, and yes, she totally deserved it. I just wish he'd intermixed his direct and immediate responses with the briefest and clearest explanation of why her comparison was way off. Not for her benefit for the benefit of any possible listeners of low intellectual prowess who might have been made concerned by the woman's comparison. I could just imagine some dull-minded person on the fence who is trying to be open-minded about the whole thing thinking to themselves, "The health reform plan includes something that Nazis did? That's bad." And then they hear nothing from Frank but insults and are not sure what to think. |
Apparently, the way FOX News is editing and replaying it, they're just showing Frank insulting the woman, leaving out her question entirely. I haven't even seen the whole town-hall meeting, and apparently the clip in the OP here only shows the last two sentences of the woman's question, and there's an obvious edit in the middle of Frank's reply. This report gives the whole of the woman's question:I think the Administration is missing something in these town hall meetings, which is, that it's not just one group. The economy is collapsing. We have 30% real unemployment. Forty-eight states cannot balance their budgets and they are cutting programs to the bone. This is the context under which the Obama Administration says we need health-care reform... They say we need to limit Medicare expenditures in order to reduce the deficit. That's the origin of this policy. This is the T4 policy, the Hitler policy in 1939, when he said certain lives are not worth living; certain people, we should not spend the money to keep them alive. Which is exactly what Ezekiel Emanuel has said.
So, my question to you is, one, since this policy is already on its way out, it already has been defeated by LaRouche, my question to you is: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it? I have little doubt that it's the idea that our new health care policy says anything like "certain lives are not worth living; certain people, we should not spend the money to keep them alive" that really torqued Barney Frank. Sure, the gratuitous Nazi comparison didn't help, but the idea that we need to limit spending on Medicare so we're going to let granny die is just plain dumb.
(That piece claims that the Washington Post showed the whole thing, but all I can find is the same abbreviated clip.)
So I have no idea if Frank said anything like, "this bill won't deny care to anyone, there are other ways to cut Medicare expenses, you twit," but you're right, Marf, one hopes that he did. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 21:13:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
That's kind of true, although, one would hope the media to actually have pundits around the tables explaining the bill themselves.
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pundit(p#365;n'-d#301;t) n:
A person who makes a business of not knowing what he is talking about.
marfknox: In my opinion, the townhall meatheads are suffering from exactly the same mental failures as really committed paranoid conspiracy theorists. Refuting such a person's fantasies with mere facts never works, in fact, doing so will most likely be perceived as an attack on the person and will only prompt them to repeat the false claim more loudly and cling to it more tenaciously.
I don't know how to knock someone caught in such an authoritarian-follower mindset back to dealing with reality; pointing and laughing does seem to be useful in preventing batshit crazy beliefs from penetrating into mainstream thought.
On the subject of living wills etc.:
When I was hospitalized with a stroke last year they had a nice lady come around and ask me if I had any advance directives, if I could designate anyone to be responsible for making treatment decisions should I become incapacitated and what I would consider essential to an acceptable quality of life.
While I haven't got a written directive, I was at least prepared to answer those questions. To my great good fortune, I have a very good friend whose honesty, intelligence and sense of ethics I hold in the highest regard, with whom I've discussed these issues and who is willing to take on that responsibility (and who has pledged to see that my wishes for the disposal of my carcass, should it be necessary, are carried out)- so I gave her his contact information.
On quality of life, I told her "if my mind deteriorates to the point that I can't derive a proof of the maximum power transfer theorem, pull the fucking plug".
I wonder how much of the exorbitant hospital bill I faced was or the time she spent discussing these things with me. I do believe I'da quite liked it if we had a healhcare system that would cover that cost.
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"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 21:58:21 [Permalink]
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As I mentioned, I watched the town hall live and uncut. The collection of maniacs and fools packing the audience were probably a majority of the crowd, though there were vocal Frank supporters as well. The opponents of health care reform were doubtless a mixture of GOP drones, Lyndon LaRouche's anti-Semitic cultists, and what might be called "lone shouters".
The woman who Frank slammed so effectively was a LaRouchite. Frank had already repeatedly addressed the issues she brought up. He was entirely correct to slam her mercilessly for her "Nazi" comparison.
This woman was not a concerned citizen trying to have a rational conversation. Personally, I think that no one -- especially a Jew like Frank -- should allow the Nazi Holocaust be used trivially to make an irrelevant political point. We should express our anger and utter contempt for this twisted, back-door kind of anti-Semitism. Righteous indignation was called for. It was the proper and only possible ethical or rhetorical response. I would have thought less of Frank had he not responded as he did. The genuine health care reform supporters in the audience understood the context of Frank's stinging replies. They, like myself, reacted very favorably to Frank's slam.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/21/2009 23:13:22 |
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Barney Frank smacks down anti-health care idiot
