I knew at the time I should have taken this bet.
But since you have so amply demonstrated that you are biased, misinformed, ignorant and illogical concerning the facts of how healthcare systems work, why should anybody take your opinion seriously?
Honestly, SA, you need to show that you’re capable of informed rational thought about this issue if you want your opinions to provoke any response beyond PALATR.
This is an example of the sloppy thinking that makes people laugh at you instead of taking your views seriously.
Have you actually devoted any thought to the comparative cost of things like computers and new TVs versus long-term prescription medications and emergency room care?
Have you stopped to think that many people who develop serious medical conditions are incapacitated for the type of casual labor that you’re recommending as a means to pay for insurance and medical care?
And has it even occurred to you that people who engage in casual labor are legally required to pay taxes on the income from it, which cuts into their take-home pay? Or are you seriously recommending that people adopt tax evasion as part of their routine strategy for generating extra income to pay for health care?
It’s this type of sustained, profuse, multi-layered thoughtlessness and idiocy that people find so exasperating about your posts. The ignorance contained in four or five sentences of typical Starving Artist blather, delivered off the top of your head while you watch a single Elton John number on TV, can take two or three Doper-hours of conscientious effort by more rational posters to thoroughly analyze and refute. You’re a veritable firehose delivery system for stupid, saturating your surroundings at the flick of a faucet.
Yes, they should wait until they get sick, then buy insurance! It’s so simple that I can’t believe people haven’t thought of it until now! Or would you like a third stab at this?
You are wrong here. She was not dropped (or is it denied?) because of a snafu. She was dropped because she no longer qualified. I want you to be aware that is was YOU that said she was dropped. Even though you recently tried to say you didn’t.
It wasn’t an error, it was a fucked up rule that is supposed to be followed. If you have surgery schedule with an employer based health care, and you quit, they won’t cover your surgery.
You are also wrong about “rocket surgery.” The correct term is either rocket science or brain surgery. So that’s two examples of you being either wrong or dishonest, on to the next.
Well, it was too late, she was above the income level and no longer qualified. I don’t qualify for all kinds of things on my taxes, I can’t write to the IRS and say “oops, I made too much, can I give some back and qualify for that income tax rebate thing?” This is what happens when you have a shitty health care system. Again, you are being dishonest, that’s three.
Here is number four. It does not illustrate what you think it does, in fact it does just the opposite. Remember post #97? You are completely wrong about what it illustrates. It was the private hospital that denied her the procedure.
Except, that’s not what happened. So this is the 5th time you were either wrong or dishonest. The government did backtrack on an individual case. And no one died. (I should count that as your sixth lie but there are more) You are trying to use this as a case where the government fucked up and a beautiful woman died. Except, the government didn’t fuck up, and the woman didn’t die.
Here is number 6. People will not be denied life-saving coverage, especially by the government. That is the point of single-payer health care. To do so is quite possible. There are 32million Canadians to the north of you alive as a result. We will also live longer, and have few infant deaths. Under UHC, we don’t actually deal with the government, we don’t ask for permission or submit receipts for reimbursement. I have tried to tell you that before. I’m telling you again now. I’ll tell you again when you say this tomorrow. The only person that has a say over your health care is your doctor.
Yes, they will pay for $10,000,000 worth of elderly care. Just as your current Medicare system pays for millions of dollars worth of elderly care. My grandmother is probably pushing the $6,000,000 mark as we speak. So that’s your 7th example of dishonesty. Here’s one more:
UHC is “underfunded” because it’s run in a not-for-profit manner. It starts out being underfunded, and then gets funded as it goes. That’s how it works. Private health care has to be OVER funded because it runs at a profit. That means you pay more than you should, which is part of the reason your health care costs more than everyone else’s.
There, you said one true statement.
Again, back to dishonesty, that’s #9. How the fuck do you sit back and say that 85% is good enough? The goal is 100%, when you crack 97% let me know.
No it doesn’t. That’s 10.
11.) No they can’t. Using the example that YOU posted, this woman could not get the procedure that she needed. Nor could she get insurance from another company. She was also too ill to get a job. So under your bullshit fucking system this woman was left to die, except the evil uncaring government stepped it to make sure she didn’t.
Fuck me, you’re up to 12 now. So that’s great, what happens when they do require it? You know that after you’re diagnosed with leukemia you’ll never get private insurance. You do know that right? And without insurance hospitals will not allow you to receive treatment. Want proof, read the article you posted.
Well, here is your lucky 13th dishonest statement. It does not make sense for it to cost more. It doesn’t matter what was considered miraculous a few decades ago. The reality is that you are paying more than the rest of the developed world, and getting LESS.
#14) no one will be forced to pay for health care coverage. They will pay a penalty if they do not have health insurance. Some of them might be lucky enough to not need it. Those (like the woman in the article you cited) will be very glad they bought health insurance while they were young and it was cheap. Why? Because under the new laws they won’t be able to have their coverage dropped when they become old and expensive.
No they won’t. A few idiots will, but those are idiots that laugh because they have been lied to by people like you.
#15 it is not the best in the world, by any measure other than cancer survivability*.
#16 you are wrong, that was not a fact that you stated, it was either an error or a lie.
#17 the goal is not to deliver mediocre care, you are wrong.
#18 wrong again, it will make things A LOT better for that 15%, and quite a bit better for probably another 80%. The rich will still be able to buy “cadillac health plans.” People with employer based health care will still have them. For a lot of people nothing will change.
#19 the whole fucking thing is wrong. I thought when I started this there might be 4 or 5 lies/errors, and I must admit this is really fucking long.
yes you would. You are a cranky old fart that is scared of the government. You would probably end up using this same article as an example of an uncaring government bureaucracy.
#20 you are wrong again. the rich can still have cadillac health plans, the “librerals” are not trying to take away private health care.
#21 No, we are not happy to have an expensive or mediocre system, that’s why we hate the current system. We are trying to propose changes to to make it inexpensive and vastly superior. It will not be “run by the government.” It will be run by doctors and medical professionals.
#22 That has already been proposed and passed into law, we are still waiting for you to shut up and support it.
Medicaid was supposed to be that, but the requirements are so fucked up that beautiful women get dropped.
#23 You can not “get a loan” if you have no job and no income, and are currently suffering leukemia. You also can not get a part-time job, while suffering leukemia. And few part-time jobs are going to get you $100,000 for a procedure you need next week. We’re not talking about a shiny new BMX bike you fucking halfwit.
Go walk into a bank and ask for a $100,000 loan. Tell them you need it for a medical procedure, which means it’s not collateralized. Tell them you can’t currently work, and won’t be able to work for about 6months after. And that you probably won’t live more than a year. Then ask them if they’re hiring part-time staff. Then come back and apologize to us for wasting our time with your fucking nonsense.
Are you seriously telling me you thought this lady was eligible for a $100,000 loan? Or that she could earn enough with a paper-route? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Even if you want to back-peddle and say you meant cheaper things, it still shows that a) you don’t know how much shit costs, and b) that you don’t understand loans or part-time jobs. You basically have the intelligence of a 15 year old.
*research the discussion about cancer survivability stats to see the discussion about how being at the top of the list isn’t actually a good thing.
God damn it, in the time it took me to get through one of this posts he manages to drool out a second one full of the same bile. I thought he was supposed to be busy with real life.
kaylasdad99 I’m sorry I quoted him so much, but as they say, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Unless the bacteria you’re trying to eliminate actually feeds on sunshine. Then, all you do is encourage further infection.
You need to stop debating him as if he were a reasonable and honest and intelligent person. He is not. He is completely immune to logic, reason, or good-faith attempts at debate. Pointing and laughing really is the only solution.
SA is out of touch to be sure.
The costs are insane because we subsidize those that don’t pay in. The bill for my or my Wife’s recent minor outpatient surgery from the hospital was $20,000.
This does not include the surgeon, anesthesiologist or all the accompanying bills that racked up to around $60,000 each.
Minor outpatient surgery. $20,000. Minor outpatient surgery. Just the hospital bill.
We and or our insurance company got charged a bill by the hospital to subsidize those that don’t or can’t pay.
The system is broken and something needs to be done.
Flamethrowers. Hands down. Neutron bombs, close second. But sunshine is the best acid!
Do you guys want to wise him up, or shall I?
As to the rest of that book you wrote, I could, as you might imagine, argue with, refute or restate in a more honest way virtually everything you said, but I don’t have time tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
Oh, and about the dropped/denied thing you’re having so much trouble with, you’re conflating two different things. Smith’s coverage was dropped; the “death panel” concerns I talk about in the main are in regard to denials of coverage due to expense or having run afoul of actuarial tables or because of procedures not covered or whatever else eventually results in people being denied care. They will still be covered by the government plan, it’s just that the plan will exclude whatever it wants to exclude whenever it wants to exclude it.
And now, before my Elton John song runs out and I have to reiterate one more thing: the government’s behavior in the Diana Smith case mirrors almost exactly the type of behavior I’ve been attributing to it for a long time now.
I have talked about how Social Security makes disability applicants wait a year for rulings on whether they qualify, and that, in my state anyway, virtually everyone is routinely denied originally and that in most cases attorney assistance is needed before disability coverage is granted. I have talked about the patient of my dentist who was denied disabilty after a stroke left her completely paralyzed on one side of her body. The government decreed that she could still do “some kind of work”. Presumably quadraplegics would be denied as well, as blow tubes and computerized speech and writing programs mean that they can still do “some kind” of work.
I’ve talked about my former brother-in-law who fell and severely injured his hip and, after actually being granted disability and qualifying for government-paid hip replacement surgery was given the run around for months, being #59 on the list for four or five months and then suddenly finding himself at number #160 on this list the next month. When he asked why after all that time at number 59 he was suddenly at number 159 he was told “I don’t know, sir. All I can tell you is that you’re now at number 159”.
The common denominator in each of these cases is serious difficulty (and in Smith’s case, potentially fatal difficulty) caused by government red tape and indifference. Government financial concerns are the reason people who have become disabled are forced to wait a year or more for decisions, and why almost every time those decisions are “No!” unless the by now penniless supplicant hires a lawyer, at which time the government appears to feel that granting benefits is cheaper than fighting the case in court. My brother-in-law’s case is a perfect example of the arbitrary “we’ll get to you when we get to you” governmental red tape and attitude toward people on the dole. And Diana Smith’s case is a textbook example of government inflexibility and indifference when faced with an unusual situation, and is especially egregious given that a young woman was about to lose her life and a young child was about to loose his mother as a result.
Was the government response “I’m awfully sorry about this, Ms. Smith. Please get in touch with your state agency and inform them of your situation and have them rescind your son’s disability payments so we can reinstate your Medicaid coverage as soon as possible”?
No, it wasn’t.
And why not?
Because number one, no procedures appear to have been in place in the first place which would have allowed them to do so; number two, because the cubicle functionary she was explaining all this to apparently couldn’t care less and never even looked to see if something could be done (either that, or he/she knew from past experience that it would do no good to try) and instead blew her off with the typical excuse of bureaucracies that it was “too late”, apparently meaning that it was impossible to turn the ship of government largess in time to return and throw her a life ring; and number three, that just isn’t the way government operates. It isn’t hamstrung by things like the need to turn a profit or keep it’s “customers” happy. It just tells you how things are and expects you to accept it.
Each and every one of these anecdotes, as well as the posts I’ve made listing problems with the Canadian and U.K. health care systems, wait times and cutbacks in care have been met with nothing here but excuses and equivocations and hair-splitting, and I expect nothing but the same should I try to look up and post further data. Unequivocal cites here traditionally get ignored while posters nitpick, distort or otherwise misrepresent whatever periferal tangents they can seize upon in the offending posts, and cites which are merely evidentuary are invariably handwaved away or scoffed at and made fun of.
There is simply no way to argue these conservative vs. liberal issues here with a smidgeon of honesty or acceptance of an opposing view or evidence. I learned this early on and it’s why I more or less no longer respond to cite demands. It’s also why I’ve developed the belief that the best approach is simply to lay out my beliefs and observations and let others on the opposite side do the same and then let people (readers, lurkers, whoever) decide for themselves which side has the most merit.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to crack open a beer and fire up another Elton John performance. 
Certainly there are problems with any system in the world. But my question is, why do you think the posters here who actually LIVE under those UHC regimes like it so much? Where is the clamor to make their systems more like ours? What advantages would our system give them that would balance out what they’d lose?
I’m going to take the time to answer this before I call it a night because you’ve asked it sincerely and with a nod to the fact that the system has problems, and because it touches upon a question I often get asked.
The quick answer is that the posters here who live under government UHC, primarily from Canada and the U.K. are liberals like the American ones who populate this board and they’re perfectly happy to sacrifice quality, treatment options and timeliness in return for health care they don’t have to worry about paying for.
Further I think they support it so much because most of them are young and haven’t had occasion to need health care that would bring them into conflict with their country’s being able to deliver it.
Thirdly, there is the very human inclination to think that whatever you have or whatever system you live under is the best.
And fourth, I don’t think most of the people in those countries are in a position to accurately judge the type of health care most of us have here . Most Americans don’t know much at all about the ins and outs of health care in England, France, Germany, Belgium, etc. and I don’t think the people there know or understand much of what it’s like to live here and be one of the 85% who get excellent care when they need it.
I also don’t believe there’s much correlation between their systems and whatever we would end up with under a single-payer plan because our country and the way its government operates is unique. We run huge deficits and public debt and are governed by a Congress that only 16% of the citizenry thinks is doing a good job. Irresponsibility and a head-in-the-sand approach are the defining characteristics of American social and economic governance and it has been since federal income tax was first instituted in 1913. In less than a century we have gone from no income tax to a situation where even middle class earners pay over 50% of their income in federal, F.D.I.C., Medicare and state income tax. The top ten percent of earners are covering approx. 70% of the cost of government while almost half of our working citizens have been exempted from federal income tax altogether. We’ve spent more than we’ve taken in every year since the late sixties and our national debt is almost 13 trillion dollars, and we are currently blowing 383 billion dollars a year on interest alone. Our lenders are getting nervous and we’re beginning to have trouble borrowing more.
This is not a well-run country and it hasn’t been for a long time. I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the United States government as it is now and has been for some time to finance, properly run and keep solvent any kind of major social program, and therefore I am adamantly opposed to the idea of putting all or most of our health care needs in its hands.
As I’ve said, I would not oppose attempts to create some sort of govenment-backed program to provide emergency and catastrophic-event health care for the 15% of our citizens who don’t have coverage, but there is no way I want to see the U.S. government in charge of health care for everyone. And yes, I’m aware that the current bill does not provide for single-payer health care, but I don’t think there’s much room for argument that single-payer is the ultimate goal of America’s liberals and Democrat politicians.
Not to quote a giant post for one thing, but Starving, you said earlier that “the government doesn’t care.”
What makes you think that a private corporation, who is actively seeking to profit from these sorts of situations, will care more than a government that’s just trying to break even?
With the way you portray it, health care in Britain or elsewhere consists of metal sutures, no anesthetic, and prayer. While there are some statistic differences, particularly when it comes to cancer treatment outcomes, to completely generalize and say that overall health care quality in UHC countries is worse than the US is completely unfounded.
And do you have any evidence to support this out-of-the-blue theory? You seem to be assuming, with your own example being the strongest counter-point, that just because posters are on this message board that they are young. You further assume, again despite your grab bag of anecdotes at the ready that neither they nor anyone they know well has had to use their UHC system.
Your next paragraph (and your other statements) seem to indicate that you are suffering from this human fallacy.
You’ve lost all credibility here. Usually the chief conservative complaint about the continental European social safety net is that taxes can be 50% or higher. But you’re saying that the US already has such a system? Are you relying on facts or anecdotes again?
Well, hell, problem solved!
In a few short years this bill will have been enacted, you will be living under it, and presumeably consider it the best system in the world!
Holy fuck, how can you continue to be so dishonest?
You are wrong, flat out, baldfaced, wrong. First you are wrong that “we” are liberals. Secondly, you are wrong to suggest that we are happy to sacrifice quality, treatment options and timeliness. You need to realize that what you said was wrong. Please stop saying it.
This statement is also wrong. I don’t know how to convince you of this, but you should know that there are millions of Canadian seniors receiving extremely expensive care RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT.
Here’s an anecdote for you: My grandmother at 86 suffered congestive heart failure last year. She spent 3 weeks in the ICU, do know what 3 weeks in the ICU costs? Technically, she only needed 2, but because there was a bed free the MEDICAL STAFF kept her there because she was more comfortable.
So here is the kicker, she needed by-pass surgery (do you know how much that costs) and she was denied! Did you just jizz in your sweat pants? I bet you just blew a load right there reading that. A Canadian senior was denied life saving surgery. I bet right now you’re scrambling to use this in your next Hannity worship service.
Wanna know why she was denied? A TEAM of medical professionals evaluated her, accessed her physical fitness level, and determined that she shouldn’t recover. Multiple doctors met with her, the lady in charge of physical therapy met with her, the head of home-care met with her. They concluded that surgery was a BAD choice. So they are treating her with medication and a variety of other means.
That’s UHC, no government bureaucrats have any involvement what so ever. The issue of cost doesn’t come up. There isn’t a cost benefit analysis at any stage. The decision is based on what the team of medical professionals think is best, in conjunction with the patient and family. That’s right, the patient and family have a say in their care. You are the dumbest fucking asshole in the world to continue your lies in the face of all this.
Well, this one is true, but it’s actually about you, not the rest of us. You are the fucking moron that in the face of a mountain of evidence still consider it your “opinion” that socialized medicine kills people.
Wow you are a fucking tool. I lived (and survived) in Canada. Now I live in the US. Who the fuck do you think has a better understanding and is in a better position to accurately judge what’s going on? You? The fucknut drinking alone in his basement listening Elton John?
Over the past 5 years I have seen the most fucked up shit, beyond what I could ever imagine, and YOU think that’s considered the best medical care in the world. While my friend’s mother had to raise money for cancer treatment, MY mother got her’s completely covered. Who the fuck would think it’s normal to have a fundraiser for medical care?! My mother’s friends had what might be called a fundraiser, except it was people bringing my mother food to fill her freezer.
So just fucking accept that YOU are in no position to accurately judge the shit stain in your pants, much less the ability to judge even your own health care bullshit. Which means you have even less ability to accurately judge ANYONE else’s health care. Just fucking stop talking about the health care in other countries that you don’t understand. UHC is not anything like what you or Sarah Palin think it is. You are completely wrong.
Fuck you are so wrong, so very wrong. Most Americans don’t know the ins and outs of their own system. You know even less, about your system, and about every other system. You don’t know anything, so why do you continue to post bullshit about “substandard” care?
I know what it’s like to be one of the 85% you quote, and it’s not that good. You wanna know a secret? It’s not as good as being in the 100% in Canada. It’s just not that good. And after going to a hospital, that wasn’t that good, I get to deal with bills and insurance, and that sucks. I’d rather spend an extra hour in an ER waiting room than deal with insurance and paper work, co-pays, deductibles, and all the bullshit that goes with it. But the ER waits I’ve experienced where the same! You are such a fucking moron to think you can in any way provide a meaningful discussion on a topic you know nothing about.
That’s right, your system is so unique and special and fragile that it could never handle providing health care. Is that really a country you can be proud of? Your voters and elected officials are so incompetent they can’t put together a simple single-payer system. Your system right now is so fucked up it can’t possibly get more complicated.
Fuck you are stupid.
And don’t think that just because I skipped your previous garbage load of bullshit that you managed to make a convincing argument. It’s just as full of festering piles of crap as the one above. If you have time today, go back to your previous post, and after every sentence say, “wrong.” It would really help me out.
I have no doubt you could argue with everything I wrote. But you are wrong again, you can not refute the things I wrote. All you can do is restate them in your bullshit way of trying to dance around a topic you know nothing about. And if, as you claim, you are able to say something in a more honest way, why the fuck don’t you do that to begin with?
Your “opinion” of socialized medicine is entirely wrong, 100%. It is so wrong that if you were to write about what you thought socialized medicine is, no one would recognize it as UHC.
The government is not involved. The government doesn’t decide individual procedures. At no point would a government worker say, “that’s too expensive, don’t do it.” That doesn’t happen. Everyone gets the treatment they need. Life saving treatment doesn’t get denied because it is too expensive.
And just to drive home this point, the woman in your example wasn’t denied treatment because the government thought it was too expensive. There was no cost benefit analysis. You need to realize that there isn’t a little troll federal building someone where looking to cut patients to save money.
The hospital denied her treatment because THEY thought it was too risky, what the fuck don’t you get about that? The example from this article is that private health care doesn’t work. In a system of private health care, corporate pencil pushers decide if a procedure will be too much of a liability. That is the lesson you should take from this article.
Without government involvement this woman would have died.
Stupidest thing ever written by Starkers and that’s saying something.
Tell that to my friend that just had cutting edge heart surgery (filmed by TLC), no wait to see the doctor, no wait for OR, and didn’t have to lose his house. He’s already back at work. How did he get what was needed without a wait? Triage. Access is based on need, not wallet size. Was his access determined by a death panel? No such thing exists. His doctor made the decisions about his care. Not some insurance company hacks, now that’s a true death panel.
Liberal? You do know we have a Conservative government in power, right? The Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, hell, even the Bloc would not dream of altering our system to resemble yours, in any way whatsoever. A hint of such a thing and they’d never see office again. Get your head out of your ass.
Just when I think you couldn’t be stupider you are.
This bears repeating.
What a fucking idiot.
“Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza”. One of my favorites.
You know, Starkers, when I suggested that maybe all those Yurpeen liberals were lying to us, I was kidding. Making up something stupid. Just so you know.
I like "Philadelphia Free Stuff, " followed by “(Bureaucrat,) Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.”
Anybody know what an F.D.I.C. tax is?