# Jon Stewart is SICK! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 20, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032 "2009-08-20T03:30:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/101 "2009-08-21T02:49:08Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Guys, you’re forgetting: OMG SOCIALISM!!11! Not forgetting it. 🙂 It will always amuse me that even Taiwan, that would teach us a thing or two about fighting against communism, decided recently that it was better that all citizens had access and a safety net against health care cost bankruptcies. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89651916](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89651916) > [@](#): > > The government consulted experts from around the world, like Taiwanese American health economist Tsung-mei Cheng. > > “In the end, the program that they finally set up in 1995 really is like a car that was made of different parts, imported from overseas, but manufactured domestically,” Cheng says. > > A Consolidated System > > They wanted a system that gave everybody equal access to health care — free choice of doctors, with no waiting time — and a system that encouraged a lot of competition among medical providers. > > To finance the scheme they chose a national insurance system: a single, government-run fund that forces everybody to join in and pay. > > The result is a system that works a lot like Canada’s, or like the U.S. Medicare system, but with more benefits. > > “It has drug benefits, vision care, traditional Chinese medicine, kidney dialysis, inpatient care, outpatient care, just about everything under the sun,” Cheng says. > > To satisfy the patients in Taiwan, there’s no gatekeeper who controls access to specialists and no waiting lines. > > If you woke up in Taiwan with shoulder pain, for example, Chang says that you would be able to see an orthopedic specialist the same morning, no recommendation from a general practitioner required. > > “Our people don’t like the idea of gatekeepers. They want to decide by themselves,” Chang says. > > Don’t Forget Your Smart Card > > By consolidating so much — one government plan that covers everybody — Taiwan achieves remarkable efficiency. > > Everybody here has to have a smart card to go to the doctor. The doctor puts it in a reader and the patient’s history and medications all show up on the screen. The bill goes directly to the government insurance office and is paid automatically. > > So Taiwan has the lowest administrative costs in world: less than 2 percent. > > They also use that smart card to track patterns of use. > > “If a patient goes to see a doctor or hospital over 20 times a month, or 50 times in a three-month period, then the IT picks that person out. The person then gets a visit from the government, the Bureau of National Health Insurance, and they have a little chat. And this works very well,” Cheng says. > > That may be too much like Big Brother for some people in the United States, but surveys show the Taiwanese are highly satisfied with their health care. > > Plus, **no one goes bankrupt because of medical bills** , Chang says. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/102 "2009-08-21T02:50:52Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Back to the OP, one of my favorite things about Jon Stewart is his interviews with authors. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw an author interviewed on any CNN or FOX show unless it was a new book about Anna Nicole Smith or Michael Jackson (and God help us all if they ever learn Anna Nicole was Blanket’s mother). Stewart interviews authors who are heads of state, the guy who wrote the expose’ of Blackwater, historians, economists, etc.. The other night not only did he interview Chris McDougall (author of a new book about the Mexican Indian ultramarathon runners) but it was clear that if he hadn’t read the book itself then he at least was very familiar with it; can you even imagine Larry King or Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck doing that? And at the same time I can’t imagine Jon Stewart wasting time and airspace on somebody with a book about Nostradamus predicting the Mayans would come back in 2012 and raise Elvis and Michael Jackson from the dead, while King- oh yeah, he’d talk to him for the entire hour then take calls from a Tulsa woman who wants to know if Edgar Cayce is Jesus or just one of his elves. _[missed the edit window]_ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/103 "2009-08-21T02:51:30Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Accusing one’s opponents of evil is a lib/Dem tactic. Ah, you’re so uninformed. If only you watched _The Daily Show_ you’d have oddles of counter-examples. You _have_ watched _The Daily Show_, right? I mean you’re in here commenting on it and all. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/104 "2009-08-21T03:04:00Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Did you happen to see the show where he got Bill Kristol to admit that the best healthcare in the country is the government-run VA. Kristol (and I) never saw it coming. Very slick indeed. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It’s a cute moment, but doesn’t prove anything. On the assumption the the military does indeed get excellent healthcare (and ignoring for the moment that the military is overwhelmingly male and thus doesn’t have to deal with women’s health problems in nearly the same proportion as the general population), the cost of that healthcare is bundled in with the already huge amount of money the Americans spend on the military in general. Keeping soldiers healthy is critical aspect of keeping the military effective. FWIW, the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) and “military” (Department of Defense) are both cabinet-level departments with their own separate budgets. The VA is not engaged in keeping soldiers healthy (it is involved in keeping ex-soldiers healthy), nor is it part of what we usually think of as military spending. In FY 2009, the budget for the DoD was about $650B, and the VA about $33B. ETA: The VA also runs home loans and other services and maintains veterans’ cemetaries out of that $33B. ETAA: The VA also offers benefits for the families of vets, including, presumably, women. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/105 "2009-08-21T03:08:51Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Ah, you’re so uninformed. If only you watched _The Daily Show_ you’d have oddles of counter-examples. > You _have_ watched _The Daily Show_, right? I mean you’re in here commenting on it and all. Don’t kid yourself–a standard rightie tactic is to patronize the leftie (poor sad delusional soul) while position themselves as martyrs (it’s us who are persecuted and demonized!). That he likens Stewart to Limbaugh–when they’re polar opposites not only in beliefs but in style, temperament, and sensibility–shows either a flagrant dishonesty or an epic delusional quality. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/106 "2009-08-21T03:20:26Z")
Man, is anyone watching at the moment? Almost better than last night. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/107 "2009-08-21T04:39:07Z")
> [@ZebraShaSha](#): > > Man, is anyone watching at the moment? Almost better than last night. It was weird. Shows like this should be an hour long. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/108 "2009-08-21T06:05:50Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The very fact that people on your side of the argument are framing it in this way is what makes me see 100% full-blown socialism on the horizon, with 100% full-blown communism taking its place when it fails, as it ultimately must because people being what they are, socialism reaches a breaking point and is unsustainable forever. Wow. If many of those on your side of the aisle think this, it’s no wonder they’re acting the way they are. That really must be a frightening thought to have. Still, I must admit that I’m unconvinced so far by the arguments used to show why the U.S. would be ripe for this kind of transformation when it hasn’t happened anywhere else systems even more “socialistic” are used. But that’s beside the point (I was making). I saw the segment (part of it) this evening, and I enjoyed it. Still, I pretty much know/can imagine what those skewered in the segment would say in reaction, and I’m sure they’d mean every word. Still doesn’t make it any less funny, tho’. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/109 "2009-08-21T06:12:53Z")
Addendum: Hmm. [From Bill O’Reilly’s comments,](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsKGqns_Aek&feature=player_embedded) I may have been wrong with my guess mentioned above. I was thinking that he/they would concentrate more on context as in “Bush was fighting a good, just, and necessary war while Obama is tinkering with something that’s not broken and leading us to inevitable ruin,” not on context as in “surrounding parts of the segment.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/110 "2009-08-21T09:22:13Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Wow. If many of those on your side of the aisle think this, it’s no wonder they’re acting the way they are. That really must be a frightening thought to have. Still, I must admit that I’m unconvinced so far by the arguments used to show why the U.S. would be ripe for this kind of transformation when it hasn’t happened anywhere else systems even more “socialistic” are used. I’m pretty much a moderate, but that is basically the argument I have heard every somewhat intelligent conservative use. Except, they are usually less eloquent about it. Heck, I’m not sure that isn’t where the meme of calling UHC “socialism” came from. It could have originally a simplification of a metaphor. As for the OP: I’ve seen Stewart do some good work, even though I don’t always agree with his actual points. I unfortunately discovered that watching the news lately, with their pessimistic predictions and fear mongering inflamed my anxiety disorder. Thus, I can’t watch Stewart as much as I used to, as half his show is essentially news. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/111 "2009-08-21T09:40:49Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’ve never said government was evil. Accusing one’s opponents of evil is a lib/Dem tactic. [Funny you should say that…](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-19-2009/fox-news--the-new-liberals) ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/112 "2009-08-21T13:04:02Z")
Last night with Blonde Chick was even better. I’m sorry I don’t recall her name: my jaw became unhinged and I was stupefied by her ignorance and refusal to open her mind at all. If anything, I admired Stewart’s patience and forbearance with her. Clue phone for those not in the know (not likely to be Dopers, but I can but try): RNs talk to patients and their families about “end of life issues” every. single. day. Doctors talk to patients about “advanced directives” (same thing) every. single. day. Every single one of us above the age of about 35 should have AT LEAST thought about what they would and would not want done in case horrible tragedy strikes. To not do so is irresponsible. Just like adults should have wills regarding their financial affairs (but tend not to…). All that portion of the bill was saying was that docs would now get compensated for having such discussions and that they document them. It does NOT say that Grandma or Dad must choose “DNR” or “send me out to the ice floe”. We “Do Everything” every. single. day. depending on the pt’s wishes (or family’s if the pt can no longer speak for themselves). Doing “everything” is upon occasion a great thing and all is well. All too often, though, Doing Everything results in a painful, slow death–treating the critically ill is nothing like on TV (not even House MD). And guess what? Even knowing that things like invasive procedures, ventilators, multiple lab sticks, infections and sepsis, pain, loss of independence, and all the hazards of immobility (bedsores, deep vein thrombosis and probably resultant pulmonary embolism, muscle wasting, loss of dignity, depression, pneumonia, and possible kidney stones) can be god awful despite our attempts to prevent them, we will still Do Everything and willingly, if the pt or family so desires. ALL that portion of the bill stipulates (from what was read last night) is that docs take more initiative than they already are (and I don’t know of many docs who don’t already do this) and keep a record of it. She kept saying that the bill mandates this and that docs would “be punished” (lose reimbursement) if they didn’t do this. There is nothing wrong with either of those options. Keeping records of who picks what advanced directive is an excellent way of tracking trends. There is no judgement on which option you pick. And there is no penalty if you change your mind and decide later you want everything done (or nothing done). There isn’t now and there won’t be if and when this is passed. For me, it all comes down to this: of just what is this woman (and others like her) afraid? A frank and needed conversation with her doctor? Is she pissed that her doc can get compensated for this? She made me wonder if she had ever been in a hospital or had a loved one die in one. The ignorance is so profound and so entrenched, it’s sad. IMO, this woman fears death (as do we all) but instead of entertaining possibilities and doing what she can to decide her destiny, she is like a child with her hands pressed to her ears, shouting “lalalalalalalala; I can’t hear you!” If this is the opposition, I’m not sure we can get this passed. It’s one thing to disagree; it’s another to refuse to engage at all. ☹ I plan on watching the rest of the interview after work tonight. At work today, I will likely ask at least 10 more senior citizens (and younger folks) if they have living wills or durable powers of attorney for health care etc–IOW, address end of life issues. (in same day surgery, we only go this far, unless the answer is positive, then we explore a bit more. For inpatients, this discussion goes a bit further). ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/113 "2009-08-21T13:18:16Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The other night not only did he interview Chris McDougall (author of a new book about the Mexican Indian ultramarathon runners) but it was clear that if he hadn’t read the book itself then he at least was very familiar with it; can you even imagine Larry King or Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck doing that? Only if the book was available in large print, screamed into a CD by an old man on methampetamine, or written in gibberish on a pile of Burger King napkins, respectively. The McDougall interview ([video here](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-18-2009/christopher-mcdougall)) was intriguing and weird. It’s a hard-to-believe story, so who knows, but it was fascinating. And you’re right that Stewart and Colbert don’t get enough credit for being literary. Most talk shows won’t spend time on a book unless it’s a Harry Potter-size blockbuster or if it’s an autobiography “written” by a celebrity. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/114 "2009-08-21T13:45:19Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > Last night with Blonde Chick was even better. I’m sorry I don’t recall her name: my jaw became unhinged and I was stupefied by her ignorance and refusal to open her mind at all. If anything, I admired Stewart’s patience and forbearance with her. “Blonde Chick” is [Betsy McCaughey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_McCaughey), former lieutenant governor of New York and currently working for a research institute funded by Big Pharma. She is the person most responsible for the current hysteria over "death panels. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/115 "2009-08-21T13:58:36Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > FWIW, the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) and “military” (Department of Defense) are both cabinet-level departments with their own separate budgets. The VA is not engaged in keeping soldiers healthy (it is involved in keeping ex-soldiers healthy), nor is it part of what we usually think of as military spending. In FY 2009, the budget for the DoD was about $650B, and the VA about $33B. I admit there are nuances, of course. How many people (veterans and let’s assume each has a family) does that $33 billion cover? Can the program be replicated and scaled up to cover the entire population? How much are VA doctors and nurses paid (seriously, I don’t know, but I don’t expect it’s a huge amount)? Is there a rapid turnover as they migrate to better-paying jobs in the private sector? If a comparable program was possible, how many doctors and nurses would it need and would they accept a VA-style pay scale? Personally, I think the anti-UHC arguments are absurd, but while the VA may be a success, I wouldn’t claim it _proves_ a program to cover the entire population will be easy to implement. Anyway, I’ll watch the complete interview with the blonde woman over the weekend. What struck me most is that while he frequently interjected his jokes and all, Stewart actually _let her talk_, which is a refreshing contrast to various Fox interviewers. Afterthought, does Fox even _have_ complete interviews on its website? I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/116 "2009-08-21T14:07:36Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Now that the Republicans no longer have power Stewart’s schtick seems a little lame. The most effective (and dangerous) satire is always that directed at those with power over us. The Dems have power now and yet Stewart still, week after week, launches himself at the Right. Sure, it’s amusing, but now it also seems safe and cosy. . LOL I came in to say the opposite. I’m pretty firmly in the Obama camp, but I’ve liked that Jon is still making fun of who is in power and more importantly, pointing out foibles and inconsistencies. He still has a little bit more reverence perhaps for Obama’s camp than Bush’s but that’s understandable given that even though both have had screw ups, there’s a big difference in how they carry themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/117 "2009-08-21T14:22:20Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I admit there are nuances, of course. How many people (veterans and let’s assume each has a family) does that $33 billion cover? Can the program be replicated and scaled up to cover the entire population? How much are VA doctors and nurses paid (seriously, I don’t know, but I don’t expect it’s a huge amount)? Is there a rapid turnover as they migrate to better-paying jobs in the private sector? If a comparable program was possible, how many doctors and nurses would it need and would they accept a VA-style pay scale? > > Personally, I think the anti-UHC arguments are absurd, but while the VA may be a success, I wouldn’t claim it _proves_ a program to cover the entire population will be easy to implement. I agree that there are many complicated issues to work out. I just wanted to point out that it’s unfair to dismiss the VA analogy on the grounds that it’s part of the US’s crazy military budget, since it isn’t. They’re entirely separate things. I have no idea if the VA can be scaled up or if it is a good model. It often does beat the private sector in patient satisfaction surveys, at least. I agree with you, though, that the arguments against UHC are generally asinine. I nurture the tiny hope that we’ll get to single payer in the US at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/118 "2009-08-21T16:10:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How many people (veterans and let’s assume each has a family) does that $33 billion cover? Can the program be replicated and scaled up to cover the entire population? How much are VA doctors and nurses paid (seriously, I don’t know, but I don’t expect it’s a huge amount)? Is there a rapid turnover as they migrate to better-paying jobs in the private sector? If a comparable program was possible, how many doctors and nurses would it need and would they accept a VA-style pay scale? I wanted to give this a little more thought. I’m bored, and my organization is collapsing around me as I type (there’s a big announcement going on at this very moment to that effect), so what the hell? Let’s take a look at the VA! [Here’s](http://www.va.gov/budget/summary/2010/Volume_2-Medical_Programs_and_Information_Technology.pdf) the proposed 2010 budget for the VA (PDF). The VA is requesting about $37B for medical opertaions in 2010 (this does not include VA loan operations, burial benefits, etc). In 2010, the VA expects to treat just over 6 million unique patients, including 515,000 non-veterans. I don’t see anything about the proportion of women, but although the VA may not have to deal with as much Ob/Gyn as does the private sector, the VA probably has a higher percentage of amputations, long-term rehab, and so on, so it’s probably a wash in terms of complexity of care provided. In 2010, the budget calls for 15,932 physician FTEs (full-time equivalents). Salary + benefits for physicians is about $4.1B, making the average salary + benefits for a VA physician about $273,000. The average physician salary (without benefits) in the US [appears](http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_%2F_Doctors/Salary) to range from about $140K to about $270K. Add in benefits to those numbers, and the VA compensation looks to be about in line with what other doctors make. Now, here’s my favorite part. Out of the $37B budget, I added up everything that looked like administrative overhead. Here’s what I got (all numbers rounded where I felt like it): Admin Sal+Bene: 1.8B Travel & Maintentenance: 0.6B Transportation: 15M Printing: 4M Contracted Administrative Services: 327M Total Admin Overhead: around $2.8B 2.8B out of 37B comes out to around 7.5% of the budget being burned in admin overhead. Put another way, about 92% of the budget goes directly to services. In a thread a while back, I posted an analysis of how much private sector healthcare burns in admin overhead. I [came up](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10344455&postcount=206)with about 30-40% of revenue going to overhead, which jibed with some other analyses posted in that thread. I went on to [argue](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10351130&postcount=354)that we could compare private for-profit medicine to a non-profit like Shriners’ hospital, which boasts an adminstrative overhead of only around 6.5% of revenue. So, I add to that earlier analysis that the VA is able to keep its admin overhead to about 7.5%, still way the hell lower than the vaunted private sector. Government inefficiency at work. Can the VA model replicate that across a bigger slice of the US population? Who the hell knows? Kind of an interesting idea, though. ---
**Author:** ![FlightlessBird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cdc98d/32.png) [@FlightlessBird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlightlessBird)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/119 "2009-08-21T16:10:49Z")
Re: the interview with Betsy McCaughey, I was glad to see that Jon let her talk, but was disappointed that her ‘counter-argument’ throughout the argument was: “You’re wrong”. And yet she wouldn’t explain herself when given the opportunity. She kept talking down to Jon. What I heard from her was, “You just can’t understand what you’re reading here. You don’t have the background for it.” His response was, “You see evil behind this legislation which is a valid POV, but you have to demonstrate it. Just saying ‘it’s happened before’ is not good enough.” My paraphrasing obviously removes a lot of subtleties, but I think that’s an accurate ‘gist’ of what I heard. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032/120 "2009-08-21T21:13:59Z")
I stand corrected on the divide between the VA and the regular military budget (though as a minor thought, doesn’t the latter include the immediate trauma care for injured soldiers as well as ongoing maintenance care like dental and optical for serving soldiers?), for which I thank the citers. In my own experience in the Canadian military, most of the medical and dental personnel I’ve dealt with are themselves members of the Canadian forces and subject to its pay scales which, although having been boosted significantly over the last decade, aren’t exactly riches. I guess a valid concern is how doctors and nurses who work primarily for a public system might migrate in large numbers to higher-paying jobs elsewhere. Frankly, we’ve already had similar problems in Canada of doctors and nurses heading to the U.S. where the pay is better. Just a potential concern, I figure. Of course, it’s entirely possible that many more doctors will choose to stay in the U.S. if the headache of dealing with private insurance companies goes away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-is-sick/507032.md?page=7)