Yeah, I caught that one too. Does stupid get “better” or “worse”?
Yep. Insurance and (male) prostitution.
Let’s just say “more entertaining”.
Once we get past SA’s oft repeated bigotry, classisim, sexism, and all the rest, we can but laugh.
You mean like the people who have provided posts that dispute your assertions?
She was only a banker’s daughter, but there was a substantial penalty for early withdrawal.
There’s also this:
The Insurance Industry Targets People Living with HIV/AIDS
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/03/the_insurance_industry_targets_people_living_with.php
Lawsuit Shows Insurer Targeted HIV Patients For 'Rescission
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/182863.php
No, you fucking moron, you posted a news story (about a single bureaucratic error that was probably the patient’s own fault) and an opinion piece from an advocacy group, and pretended they were citations.
You’re now claiming that I “handwaved” them away, because I found an actual citation showing that the quality of care provided by the VHA is very good - much better, in fact, than private hospitals.
Starving, your cites are crap. You even apologized for them in advance, noting that the most substantial of them was from a Republican propaganda unit and was ten years out of date. Shirely you can do better than that? Or can you?
Further, the Herotage cite follows your posting style to a “t”: bald faced statements without any more substantiation than the author’s presumed expertise. How good can it be when it relies on such utter rot as I noted above, the propensity of lonely old folks to go talk to the doctor all the time. You gotta be kidding me! No, wait, its you, you’re probably not kidding, you probably expect us all to reel and stagger from the solid authoritative substance of your “cite”.
But you got that covered, don’t you? Your life experience and common sense say that the only reason we don’t lie down and grovel at your feet is because we don’t really care about evidence and proof, and will reject any that you offer, so why should you bother? So if you lose, that’s solid proof that you win.
You want us to play by your rules, but you also want to play by ours, and win, even when you don’t actually play by those rules, even when you offer Fox Gnaws as a cite, for the love of Og!
Since you like anecdotes:
I pay for medical insurance through my place of employment. I have polycystic kidney disease and a history of migraines. With the PKD there is a high occurrance of aneurysms, so I have to be on the look out if a headache is not “right”.
A few years ago I was flat on the ground in pain. I could barely see straight. I called my doctor, who said to come in right away. I did so, paid my $20 copay, was examined. The doctor set me up for an MRI right away - I walked from the doctors office to the hospital, had the MRI, went home. Luckily, everything was kosher.
The next month I receive a $360 bill for the MRI. Insurance covered only a portion of it, as they did not deem it necessary.
In arguing with the insurance company, I discovered had I gone to the Emergency Room, shelled out the $175 copay, was then had an MRI - they would have covered every damn penny.
Now, I don’t have a chunk of money set aside for emergencies. I’m one of those horrible single parents who refused to stay with her father after I discovered his propensity for cheating. Pretty much every penny goes to bills.
If I am hit with a headache that leaves me on the ground, I now have to figure out whether I can afford to go to the ER and wait for who knows how long to actually see a doctor and be sent for an MRI, or if I can afford to take the hit the following month and get in to see my doctor right away.
And this is with insurance. I constantly have to think whether they will cover anything.
Well, the Heritage Piece was a lot of cherry-picking and, frankly, well-poisoning. I saw repeated references along the lines of “if you think adopting a European-style system will solve all problems, you’re an idealistic moron”. Well, of course no system can solve all problems. I mean, duh.
There are at least some positive comments on the French system, though I don’t see anything along the lines of “this particular element looks good - we should adapt it right away”.
I must have lost track of the VA link.
Actually, no. There are detailed regulations stating what stores must stock if they are going to accept WIC or SNAP benefits. These regulation are so detailed that, for instance, all vendors must stock bananas and carrots and must not charge more than 115% of the average prices other vendors charge.
And the dishonesty becomes even more blatant. Or did you just happen to forget the rest of that statement. I’m going with deliberate dishonesty myself, and for the benefit of those who may come along later and skip my post buy see yours (which is no doubt what you have in mind) I’ll repeat the rest of that sentence:
…and telling grocery stores which foods they could sell and what they had to charge for it, and which foods we could have in which amounts and with a constantly changing place in line to get into the store in the first place.
And…oh, oh, wait! Here’s more dishonesty from CannyDan, “Once we get past SA’s oft repeated bigotry, classisim, sexism, and all the rest, we can but laugh.”
C’mon, Danster, let’s see some of that bigotry, classism, sexism and ‘all the rest’ that I ‘oft’ repeat?
C’mon, I dares ya! (Though the inevitable deconstruction of whatever minor league crap you try to present as proof will have to come later as I am out for now and most of the rest of the day.)
The gentle reader will also note how my suggestions that we find a way to deal with the relatively few among our nations populace who need care buy have no coverage be dealt with effectively while leaving everyone else alone - in other words, finding a solution to what everyone is whinging about but without an absolute government takeover of our health care system - is falling on deaf ears. This is because the liberal contingent isn’t really that concerned about those few people needing care, but because it is merely using them as a weapon in its battle to create government-run health care, which is its real goal. Liberals seek government like bears seek honey and excuse to increase it is as good as another. This is why you see no discussion of alternative plans or programs. I recall bumper stickers from the era following Urban Cowboy which read “If you ain’t oilfield, you ain’t shit”. I suggest this is the attitude of liberals toward all things not government run, “If it ain’t government, it ain’t shit!” It might as well be their rallying cry.
This is something completely different that what I was talking about. The government, in response to hunger on the small part of the population, instituted the food stamp program to assist those in need. It did not institute a sweeping overhaul of the food delivery system in a way that affected all Americans, which is what I was talking about.
And now I’m out for the day and will have to refute CannyDan’s false assertions as to my bigotry and whatever when I return.
Whenever he does that, I can’t help but picture Cher on her Absolutely Final, No, I Really Mean It This Time Farewell Tour singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” as her last encore, number fifteen…
And he grabs those goal posts and… look at him go! Past the 10, the 20, broken tackle… and he plants them firmly back on the 40 yard line!
Just to get the relevant quotes in one place.
He was talking about government intervention that affected many, many Americans, not a couple of minor changes that only affect people who go to grocery stores!
So may I encourage you to buck the trend? How about declaring bullshit on that cite, and taking the time to consider the cites people gave you.
For the record, I got about half way through, well, quarter of the way through, then started reading the bullet points.
My impression: 1.) the article is worded in too political a tone, it sounds like they set out to find fault, and were happy to show it. I feel like I’m watching Fox News, makes me instantly skeptical.
2.) it focuses heavily on France, my guess it that they avoided health care systems that they couldn’t readily find fault with. (I kept searching for references to Canada and was sad not to see any, it’s what we do, eh)
3.) I think it directly contradicts a statement you made earlier about problems being hidden in UHC systems.
I believe that if I set out to compare foreign made cars to American cars, I could produce EXACTLY the same article (the Honda has this wrong, the Hyundai has that wrong). I’m not sure that it would advance the discussion.
Conclusion: USE IT! Take all those problems and create the worlds greatest system of UHC. I’m sure a lot of Canadian politicians are looking at that thinking, “damn, if we had known all this our system would kick ass right now.”
The lesson should be don’t make those mistakes, not avoid fixing your own.
Insurance companies pay because the providers harass them for their payment. When that doesn’t work, the lawyers get involved and, when the insurance companies become too intransigent, contact the state’s insurance commission with a formal complaint. They don’t pay out of the goodness of their hearts, believe me. I’ve done this for almost 20 years.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, he wasn’t talking about the health insurance industry, he was talking about . . . . some other industry.
To the contrary, the government is quite intimately involved with food production. The sheer volume of regulation that there is concerning food could EASILY dwarf the recent health care law in total verbiage.
The Department of Agriculture (check out the enormous list of legislation Congress has passed concerning agriculture!) and the Food and Drug Administration may not seem very radical to you because these things have been around all your life, but there was a time when the Federal Government took a much more hands off approach to food production, and the laws that have been enacted over the past 100 years are definitely a radical overhaul from what it was in the past.