He surprises you.
Vetoing a program designed to use a tax on cigarettes to provide health care for poor children? With reasoning that prioritizes the needs of huge health care companies over helping sick children?
Does he remotely think that ANYONE is going to be fooled into thinking that his motivations come from anything other than protecting big business interests over the interests of the most helpless sections of the population?
Yes…it’s a new low. And if Congress can’t override this veto, they’re fricking useless.
PAD
• 
“Hillary care”
“sheeple”
“socialist security”
Does this kind of political rhetoric actually work? Does it contribute something to serious political discussion? Wouldn’t it be simpler to say: “hey, I’m a libertarian, these are my positions, let’s talk about it”?
You can argue the politics side all you want, but it comes down to morality: why is a child in foster care (or any situation where there is no or inadequate health coverage) not entitled to basic healthcare for a minimal quality of life? Medicaid is not the answer, people. Medicaid doesn’t cover squat. Find a dentist that takes it. There was a case last year in MD where a child DIED because a tooth became infected, no dentist would take state aid, and the infection went to his brain. If your child needs to be put under anesthesia to do dental work, the anesthesia is not covered ($800 cash only). No psychiatrist (required for any behavior-modifying drug) will take State Aid. Insurances will not cover helmets for children whose seizures cause them to smash their heads. Insurance does not cover braces or special shoes ($400+ each time they’re outgrown. A toddler can bankrupt you) so that the child can walk. Why does a nice clean kid living in a decent home have to sit for 6 hours or more at a Welfare clinic (or ER) with all kinds of crazy scum when ill or in pain, because it’s the only place they’re allowed to go under their insurance plan?
When did basic DIGNITY for fellow man require an act of Congress?
“When did basic DIGNITY for fellow man require an act of Congress?”
Because the question: whose responsibility it is to take care of the dignity, is a political question. The most extreme socialist position is that it is completely the responsibility of society (i.e. taxpayers) and its government; the most extreme libertarian position is that it is completely not the responsibilty of the government but rather a matter of choice for private individuals and organizations (like churches) to provide rgis dignity.. Mosdt people are somewhere in between.
Americans already accept socialist services. Why is it ok for the government to intervene in crimes and fires endangering 18 to 25 year olds — or anyone — but not health care?
“Sorry about the rant, everybody. Attitudes like that just really get my Irish up.”
Hey, Sean, Listen up…My comments were not about people who have the world come crashing down on them and everythimg falls apart. As a matter of fact, my family of four and I are FINALLY seeing the light at the end of a VERY dark tunell. I was making good, not great money, and then I did some really stupid stuff that resulted in me loosing my $60K a year job, going to federal prison for 5 months, and being placed on probation for 3 years. THIS IS ALL MY FAULT, before you attempt to point that out. And that also makes my point. I lost my financial means to support my family, so I got a job scrubbing toilets at McD’s. It sucked. But it came with health insurance. My wife, who had gone back to college to get her BA went back to work. The bad decisions I made forced us to make some other, more tough decisions. We were extremely lucky that no one in our family needed our help or care during all of this, and I am sorry that you lost family members during already dark times for your family. Again, my point is more to the people who continue to produce children partly because they know there is a government safty net beneath them. What is the solution, I don’t know, but throwing good money after bad has yet to work. Please put your Irish back down. Oh, and sorry about the typing and spelling. Two things are happening. 1. My 5 yearold is attached to my lap whenever I am on the computer, and 2. I gradated form Georgia schools, and I do beleive our schools ranked 49 in the nation the year I graduated,dispite the fact that billions of dollars was thrown at educating us, so the fact that I am able to type at all is, indeed, a true miricle. I will, however, spellcheck for your benefit.
“I didn’t realize Canada and England separated children from their parents and sold them as commodities. It’s a wonder some brave successor to Rosa Parks like you hasn’t spoken up before.”
And to you, Mike. I see every day the way the government has subjagated whole families by providing free goods and services. Now before you light into me with your rightious indignation, I am for limited time help for people who are in need, bu a life time at the government teat is too much. I was on free lunch at school because my mther couldn’t afford to send in the money for our food. I was on a program that provided juice, milk and cereal to our home. When our son was born, I was in the Navy, and didn’t make much money, so my family went on WIC for a couple of months. I am not insensitive to the need for help, but at some point, people need to stand on their own two feet. If you have read the rest of my post, then you know what my family and I have been through in the past 2 years. People can bounce back from problems. My point about England and Canada was that their nationalized healthcare programs DON’T WORK!!! People die wating for services. Do you want that here? It all happens in little baby steps, then one day you end up with a government that dictats when you can water your lawn, when you can drive in certain lanes of traffic, an can send you to jail if your kid is late to school too many days. We are half way there now. If want all of that and more….
As for the Rosa Parks comment, what the hëll? I’, not even sure how to respond to that, so you get to be the witty, cleaver one today.
Sean, I apologize. I did spell check, but I did not post the corrected version. Excuse could follow, but what would te point be, really. I’ll do better next time…
“gradated form Georgia schools, and I do beleive our schools ranked 49 in the nation the year I graduated,dispite the fact that billions of dollars was thrown at educating us”
Since I assume your parents were not rich enough to pay for private education for you, who would have paid for your education if the government didn’t? Do you think they would have done a better job educating you? \or do you think the government should have spent less educating you? What would have happened to you had you been less educated?
“My point about England and Canada was that their nationalized healthcare programs DON’T WORK!!! People die wating for services.”
How does the British and Canadian medical systems compare with the American system?
“can send you to jail if your kid is late to school too many days.”
Who should be responsible for protecting abused or neglected kids if the government will not?
“My point about England and Canada was that their nationalized healthcare programs DON’T WORK!!! People die wating for services.”
Um… could you give me specific examples of this? I live in Canada, am a politician in Ontario (part of my job is overseeing the local hospitals) and to my experience no one has died waiting for services.
Many of the complaints we have stem from the fact that we triage in the hospitals (your broken arm has to wait for the heart-attack victim) and that we don’t have enough family doctors, mainly because they move to the more financially lucrative U.S. market where they can charge what they want. There is a waiting list for elective surgery, but anything life-threatening is taken care of before it becomes too serious. In my own family, my mother-in-law was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had a tumor removed within a month of diagnosis.
Of course we have people grousing about our health care system, but who doesn’t complain about anything when given the opportunity? I once overheard a woman argue with a nurse at an ER over the fact that someone with ‘only’ a heart murmur got in ahead of her strained calf muscle.
Americans seem to be cowed by fears of ‘Socialized Medicine’, because time and again you’ve been told that it’s bad for your government to have a say in your health. But consider this: doesn’t your government already have a say in your health by forcing you into a system where financial concerns trump quality of life?
I would agree that our national healthcare is not perfect but no one gets turned away, no one dies, because some big business jockey has decided that what was needed was not covered in some plan. I refute the belief that “people die wating for services”. It is simply not true.
“I would agree that our national healthcare is not perfect but no one gets turned away, no one dies, because some big business jockey has decided that what was needed was not covered in some plan. I refute the belief that “people die wating for services”. It is simply not true.”
I was up in Canada visiting a retailer when his young son, who had been plagued by health issues, had to be rushed to the hospital for a recurrence of one of his conditions. As we waited to hear from the doctors who were working on the boy, the retailer told me that he was so grateful for the fact that the government covered medical costs. That if that were not the case, he would long ago have been driven into bankruptcy.
PAD
That if that were not the case, he would long ago have been driven into bankruptcy.
And let us all remember that when Bush and the GOP were reelected in 2004, the very first bill of significance they passed was one dealing with the [sarcasm] very pressing issue [/sarcasm] of bankruptcy reform, making it much harder for John Q. Citizen to declare Chapter 11 if they’re financially fûçkëd. The ostensible reason was to prevent the supposedly huge amount of dishonest borrowers from skipping out of their debts despite the fact that the vast majority of people who declare bankruptcy do so because of . . .
. . . wait for it . . .
. . . healthcare and medical costs/debts.
Sasha,
I’m not sure that the “vast majority” of people who declare bankruptcy do so because of the crushing debt that can come about due to medical problems. I know that it is the largest single cause (plurality), but I don’t think it outstrips all other causes combined (majority).
Regardless, your point is still valid. It is another piece of hypocracy on the part of the current Adminstration. Especially since I’ve read that many people who file for bankruptcy typically dig themselves deeper into debt trying to do right by their creditors and attempting to keep from filing bankruptcy until they have no other choice.
Bobb, sorry about your family’s loss.
“Um… could you give me specific examples of this? I live in Canada, am a politician in Ontario (part of my job is overseeing the local hospitals) and to my experience no one has died waiting for services. “
There have been a few problems with your system (like the same can’t be said of ours) that critics of health care reforms like to single out and play up way out of proportion. The line about people regularly standing in line and dieing while waiting for life saving medical procedures is hugely popular amongst the talk radio set.
The typical story is told as to how there are hundreds, nay, thousands of people in Canada who are, each year, made to wait months and years for vital health services. England’s system is even worse then Canada’s by the way. Regular people who have the money to do so, and just tons of Canadian doctors who all know that the American system is sooo much better, flock South of the boarder for care rather then waiting for care that will come late or, gasp, even too
Funny thing is, I know a few Canadians and I know quite a few people from England (including several arch conservatives) and Scotland and they rarely see our system as better. One girl I know came over a few years ago and was appalled at the nature of our system when it came to a mutual friend’s discussions of the bills and ordeals involved in the birth of her first child. My English friend then discussed the care, treatment and attention she received for the birth of her son in England and found the U.S.’s system to be less then fantastic in comparison. Hëll, the whole thing with the bills was almost enough to make me want to move there this last summer. I’m still crawling out of that pit and I have insurance.
Most of the stories I hear from people actually living in Canada or Great Britain are a far cry from people desperate for an American style system or of people waiting so long for simple procedures that things spiral out of control until greater levels of medical treatment are required to save their life if they even get that before dieing while waiting in the system. But, turn on talk radio and you get lots of “experts” taking on the subject as well as the occasional caller (who is either missing an accent all together or doing such a bad one that it make the ones used in The Boondock Saints sound authentic) telling tales of near misses with death and the life saving moves of heading South to get the expert and available treatment so lacking in Canada.
And then 20 million dittoits go out and parrot every word of it.
Huh, lost words and goofed the italics. the correct post was….
_____________________________________________________________________
“Um… could you give me specific examples of this? I live in Canada, am a politician in Ontario (part of my job is overseeing the local hospitals) and to my experience no one has died waiting for services.”
There have been a few problems with your system (like the same can’t be said of ours) that critics of health care reforms like to single out and play up way out of proportion. The line about people regularly standing in line and dieing while waiting for life saving medical procedures is hugely popular amongst the talk radio set.
The typical story is told as to how there are hundreds, nay, thousands of people in Canada who are, each year, made to wait months and years for vital health services. England’s system is even worse then Canada’s by the way. Regular people who have the money to do so, and just tons of Canadian doctors who all know that the American system is sooo much better, flock South of the boarder for care rather then waiting for care that will come late or, gasp, even too late.
Funny thing is, I know a few Canadians and I know quite a few people from England (including several arch conservatives) and Scotland and they rarely see our system as better. One girl I know came over a few years ago and was appalled at the nature of our system when it came to a mutual friend’s discussions of the bills and ordeals involved in the birth of her first child. My English friend then discussed the care, treatment and attention she received for the birth of her son in England and found the U.S.’s system to be less then fantastic in comparison. Hëll, the whole thing with the bills was almost enough to make me want to move there this last summer. I’m still crawling out of that pit and I have insurance.
Most of the stories I hear from people actually living in Canada or Great Britain are a far cry from people desperate for an American style system or of people waiting so long for simple procedures that things spiral out of control until greater levels of medical treatment are required to save their life if they even get that before dieing while waiting in the system. But, turn on talk radio and you get lots of “experts” taking on the subject as well as the occasional caller (who is either missing an accent all together or doing such a bad one that it make the ones used in The Boondock Saints sound authentic) telling tales of near misses with death and the life saving moves of heading South to get the expert and available treatment so lacking in Canada.
And then 20 million dittoits go out and parrot every word of it.
You compared providing socialized healthcare to slavery. I provided what is perhaps the defining qualification for slavery — the privilege to trade human beings. Your obvious options are to validate your analogy by demonstrating how the qualification for slavery was fulfilled or retreat from your analogy.
We currently live under a system where insurance companies accept increased profits by refusing to do what they took their money for. Bouncing back’s got nothing to do with it.
As far as your analogy of socialized medicine to civil rights violations go, there doesn’t seem to be a place for comparing the challenge against socialized medicine to any civil rights dissent, which you’ve confirmed by questioning the relevance of a historical instance of civil rights dissent to your analogy.
Socialized medicine, just as socialism in general, simply does not work. This has been proven both logically and empirically any number of times. “For the children” may sound nice, but it isn’t much of an argument. Not to mention that a government that has the power to heal you also has the power to do the opposite.
Unless you waive the privilege of ever dialing 911, you accept a socialized service. Logically and empirically.
Socialized medicine, just as socialism in general, simply does not work. This has been proven both logically and empirically any number of times.
That’s why the US is 38th in the world in life expectancy, behind Canada, the UK, and most of western Europe? And why it’s in a similar position regarding infant mortality? The actual empirical facts don’t logically connect to your position.
For all the talk about how “socialized medicine” doesn’t work, nearly every industrialized nation has some kind of national healthcare system except the US. And, despite all the horror stories conservatives toss around about waiting lists, the majority of people in those countries prefer it to what we have.
And the numbers bear it out. We pay a higher precentage of our GNP on health care than any other nation and yet we’re near the bottom of industrialized nations in terms of life expectency.
Our current system of employer provided health care is broken. It’s one of the main reasons that companies complain that US labor is too expensive. Hëll, companies like GM are doing everything they can to get out of paying for the health care of their retirees, never mind that they signed the contracts 40 years ago when things were good for the US auto industry.
Waiting lists? Inefficiencies? Rationing of care? We’ve already got those here. It’s all just hidden under layers of financial incentives from the insurance companies to keep costs down.
I had to go to the ER a few years ago for a back injury and it took hours to be seen and it wasn’t even at a busy metropolitan hospital. It was a small rural community late at night (non-peak hours). But they made sure all my insurance forms were filled out before a doctor even said hello.
But no, let’s argue about whether 82k is “poor” in Alabama, even though the elgibility limit in AL is actually about half that for a family of four. Nothing like making up facts as we go along.
Bush was here in Pennsylvania last week to justify his veto. Here’s how it went:
“I really appreciate the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce for giving me an opportunity to explain why I have made some of the decisions I have made. My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions. And it’s important for me to have an opportunity to speak to you and others who would be listening about the basis on which I have made decisions, to explain the philosophy behind some of the decisions I have made.”
Yep, he’s the decider.
Bobb, my condolences to your family
“Not to mention that a government that has the power to heal you also has the power to do the opposite.”
So, the private doctor under the system we have now has the power to do the opposite. Just about anyone or anything that can be helpful or beneficial in any situation has the power to do the opposite. So, was that point actually meant to be something other then extra words at the end of your post or had you just not thought it through all that well before posting?
Doug Atkinson: That’s why the US is 38th in the world in life expectancy, behind Canada, the UK, and most of western Europe?
Luigi Novi: How do you know that life expectancy is tied so closely to whether a nation has socialized medicine? Have you excluded all other societal factors?
Here It Is.
The Answer To All The Health Care Problems.
If you CAN NOT afford to have a kid, THEN DO NOT have a kid!!!!
Dave, you’re absolutely right. Every parent should make sure they save up enough money to pay for several years of chemo therapy in the event that their kid gets cancer before they even think of having children.
Why didn’t anyone else think of that?
Dave W.,
You’re an idiot and here’s why.
You can afford to have a kid, two kids or three kids at any given time in your life. Thing is, life tends to be a little fickle. Sean already pointed out above the situation he was in. I once watched layoffs drop a family of four with a pretty good six figure income down to being a family of four with about $30,000 a year coming in to live off of. That lasted for about three years before they were able to get back up to better income levels. My father-in-law was “downsized” from his $125,000 + a year gig. He’s still not making anything near that now.
Jobs can go “poof” real fast these days. You can afford five kids one year and not be able to afford one kid the next.
That doesn’t even take into account unexpected medical or care bills. Den pointed out the chemo example before I could, but there’s tons of stuff out there that can bring on medical bills that can crush someone. Special needs children, long term treatments, really bad accident that put you out of work for a long spell. I had a friend who developed a tumor in her brain. She had to stop working. A cop’s salary ain’t much, but if it’s half of what’s coming in and it goes away then you’re hurting. She couldn’t work and she and her husband were paying huge bills right up until the cancer killed her. They had kids. Fortunately, all three kids were adults and either in the military or working elsewhere, but had that tumor hit just a few years earlier..
I’m not an advocate of 24/7, cradle to the grave nanny states, but any nation that dares to declare itself the greatest nation on the Earth better dámņëd well better have system that’s better then “F ’em, they’re own there own.” And it certainly better have a better idea then the drivel you slapped out on your keyboard.
Mike, what’s your point? Yes, I accept a socialized services now –and I would accept it if we were given universal health care– that doesn’t mean it works.
The United States being 38th in the world most likely has to do with our eating and exercise habits. And look at what the United States considers infant mortality compared to what most European countries do.
Jerry, the difference between a private doctor and an all powerful central state should be obvious.
Mike, what’s your point? Yes, I accept a socialized services now –and I would accept it if we were given universal health care– that doesn’t mean it works.
The United States being 38th in the world most likely has to do with our eating and exercise habits. And look at what the United States considers infant mortality compared to what most European countries do.
Jerry, the difference between a private doctor and an all powerful central state should be obvious.
You said nothing socialized works. Your police and fire departments are socialized services, logically and empirically. Your unwillingness to do away with your police and fire departments demonstrates your inaccuracy in portraying socialism ruining everything it touches. It ain’t Rocket Surgery, Ben.
“Who should be responsible for protecting abused or neglected kids if the government will not?”
Are you saying that being late to school is the same as abusing your child? Wow. That’s something…
“You compared providing socialized healthcare to slavery. I provided what is perhaps the defining qualification for slavery — the privilege to trade human beings. Your obvious options are to validate your analogy by demonstrating how the qualification for slavery was fulfilled or retreat from your analogy”
Okay, how about this, by the government’s willingness to continue to coddle individuals and families and not give them their own personal “D-Day”, where they can be expected to fend for themselves, then the one’s on he government take volunteer to subjugate themselves to the wishes and whims of a government that is all too willing to allow them a life or financial slavery at worst, and financial indentured servitude at best.
“Since I assume your parents were not rich enough to pay for private education for you, who would have paid for your education if the government didn’t? Do you think they would have done a better job educating you? \or do you think the government should have spent less educating you? What would have happened to you had you been less educated?”
In fact, I did spend 3 years in a privet school, not because my family is or was rich, but because they sacrificed and did without for me to go there. And no, money is not the answer. Accountability is. Teachers are doing a tough job, not only dealing with the children of someone else, but dealing with the parents as well. Parents need to be held accountable for their children and not simply bìŧçh and moan when little Johnny gets a 0 on his homework. Look, I could ramble on for hours, but nobody cares. Most of you have your opinion and it is not going to change by me telling you anything. You are right, the sky is falling. Everybody run, run, run. I have to take my kids to school before I get arrested.
Oh, and one final thought…Why can’t big boys and girls like all of us not have a grown up conversation online without calling each other name. Keep in mind the old saying about opinions and áššhølëš…
How do you know that life expectancy is tied so closely to whether a nation has socialized medicine? Have you excluded all other societal factors?
The burden of proof isn’t on me, since I’m not making any such claim; I’m just providing data that’s contrary to the claim that socialized medicine “empirically” doesn’t work. (Those who want to claim that the Canadian system is killing people could start by explaining how Canada has 2.6 years more life expectancy and 3/4 the infant mortality rate, for example.)
“Oh, and one final thought…Why can’t big boys and girls like all of us not have a grown up conversation online without calling each other name.”
Dear Mr. MyTMauz, I was not aware that I called you names or was trying to be insulting in any other way. If I did, please point it out to me so I will not repeat the mistake. My questions were serious and with the intention of holding serious conversation.
“Most of you have your opinion and it is not going to change by me telling you anything. You are right, the sky is falling. Everybody run, run, run.”
You are mistaken about that, my mind is not made up on these issues, which is why I ask questions. You should also know that I’m not an American and have no stake whatsoever in the specific welfare policies of your country, except perhaps when they are imitated by politicians in mine.
“Are you saying that being late to school is the same as abusing your child? Wow. That’s something…”
I don’t know if the problem here was that I was not clear enough or that you are deliberately misunderstanding me. I’ll spell things out more clearly. The question here is: what is the responsibility of the government? It is assumed by people who support the welfare state that the government should step in to protect and provide for children if and when their parents are doing it below certain standards, and it is also assumed that he government should use its coercive power to do so. Thus the government arrests abusive parents, takes away neglected children, and enforces mandatory school attendance. What is unclear to mm is whether you completely oppose the government involvement; oppose its involvement in certain things (which); or just the way it performs its job?
“In fact, I did spend 3 years in a privet school, not because my family is or was rich, but because they sacrificed and did without for me to go there. And no, money is not the answer. Accountability is. Teachers are doing a tough job, not only dealing with the children of someone else, but dealing with the parents as well. Parents need to be held accountable for their children and not simply bìŧçh and moan when little Johnny gets a 0 on his homework.”
Here I find myself completely at a loss. There so many issues here, and I really don’t know where you stand.
1) Public school system, good or bad thing (as a matter of principle)?
2) If government provided education is the right thing, why are there problems with the system, and how can they be fixed (taking into account that this will cost the taxpayers money)?
3) What is the role of parents? What can be done so they perform that role? When should governmental coercive power be used?
“Okay, how about this, by the government’s willingness to continue to coddle individuals and families and not give them their own personal “D-Day”, where they can be expected to fend for themselves, then the one’s on he government take volunteer to subjugate themselves to the wishes and whims of a government that is all too willing to allow them a life or financial slavery at worst, and financial indentured servitude at best.”
First it should be pointed out that this last paragraph was in response to somebody else, not me. I take not responsibility for what he said or the way he said it. However, again things are unclear to me. Does the American welfare system actually force people to do things based on their dependence on government welfare? Secondly, it has always been my impression that opponents of the welfare system feel that the government should be more demanding of the recipients of welfare.
—————
“And look at what the United States considers infant mortality compared to what most European countries do.”
Do Western European countries have lesser standards when it comes to infant mortality? Does Canada?
“Here It Is.
The Answer To All The Health Care Problems.
If you CAN NOT afford to have a kid, THEN DO NOT have a kid!!!!”
Jerry and Den have already talked parents who may have sufficient funds to take care of their children under regular conditions, but not under extreme ones, or if their economic condition changes suddenly in an unforeseen way. They also pointed out that in todays economy changes like that can occur quite often. A collapse of a stock market in the far east can cause recession in the US, for example. The question is, is is desirable that only financially secure people should have children?
Furthermore, it should also be pointed out that children are not always born to the most capable parents. If a child is born to a parent who is incapable to provide for his or her care, and lacked the foresight not to have a child, what should be done? Or should the government step in to ensure that people like that do not have children?
—————
“I accept a socialized services now –and I would accept it if we were given universal health care– that doesn’t mean it works.”
Obviously socialized services do work, or you wouldn’t be able to use them. ? The question is not one of a systems that completely doesn’t work and one that works perfectly well. All western countries live in a kind of compromise between market economy and the welfare state, the question is one of degree. There are three basic questions: (1) what is better (in different circumstances), socialized or privatized services, from the point of view of quality of service? (2) What is the price (monetary or otherwise) of using either one of the systems? (3) What is the right balance?
Please indicate the subject of your sentence to those of us who learned to read and write English in the wild west of public education.
Please indicate the subject of your sentence to those of us who learned to read and write English in the wild west of public education.
It’s hilarious that you would even attempt to include yourself in such a group, Mike.
“Here It Is.
The Answer To All The Health Care Problems.
If you CAN NOT afford to have a kid, THEN DO NOT have a kid!!!!”
Ignoring the gross oversimplification this statement makes, seeing as it ignores all health care problems that stem from adult illnesses…
I’d be the first to say that anyone having children who hasn’t determined that they can afford to care for and raise that child is irresponsible. Having said that, this is no solution at all. Short of highly draconian measures, there’s just no way to get society to this point. Even good public educations…at least when I was in school…teach barely the basics of reproduction, thanks to our society’s fear of encouraging promiscuity in children. There’s no education on child-rearing, the differences in child stage development, or any kind of real education on the financial requirements a child has. Maybe more kids would be more careful about sex if we taught them what kind of time and money responsibility children are.
Luigi Novi: How do you know that life expectancy is tied so closely to whether a nation has socialized medicine? Have you excluded all other societal factors?
Doug Atkinson: The burden of proof isn’t on me, since I’m not making any such claim; I’m just providing data that’s contrary to the claim that socialized medicine “empirically” doesn’t work. (Those who want to claim that the Canadian system is killing people could start by explaining how Canada has 2.6 years more life expectancy and 3/4 the infant mortality rate, for example.)
Luigi Novi: And I’m asking you, in response, to explain how you know that life expectancy has anything to do with whether a nation has socialized medicine. Of course you’re making a claim. By brining up life expectancy, you’re making the implicit claim that there’s a connection between the two.
“I’d be the first to say that anyone having children who hasn’t determined that they can afford to care for and raise that child is irresponsible.”
When my then-wife was pregnant with our first child, we had everything planned out. I was working as an all-around office hand at a small publisher and had been promised a promotion to assistant editor and a raise right before Christmas. She was going to be able to stay home and take care of our child. We had income, medical coverage…we were set.
A week before Christmas, rather than keep her word about the promotion, my boss fired me. So there I was, with my wife seven months pregnant, out of work at the worst time of the year to be out of work.
Are you telling me I was irresponsible for believing my boss’s promise or thinking my job was secure?
PAD
You are welcome to put me in my place anytime you feel like bringing out one of my many sentences you can’t find the subject to, Craig. Until then: attempted and succeeded.
Man, I wish I lived in a world of delusions like Mike. Life would be so much easier then.
To me, the most appalling thing about the whole veto is this:
Way, way back when Bush the Smarter was running for President the first time, there was a Doonesbury strip in which someone was asking the erstwhile President what people should do if some disaster befell them and their homes were lost or damaged (I’m doing some major paraphrasing here because I can’t find it online and the collection the strip is in is at home). The candidate’s reply was that he assumed they’d just go to their summer homes.
Now, that was satire in a comic strip. It wasn’t real. It was funny.
Dubya saying there’s no health-care crisis because, hey, you can just go to an emergency room and get treated if you need it–that’s real. And it’s not very dámņ funny at all.
“Dubya saying there’s no health-care crisis because, hey, you can just go to an emergency room and get treated if you need it–that’s real. And it’s not very dámņ funny at all.”
It shows how fûçkìņg out of touch with reality the First Chimp is…
Bush always stands on principals…after kicking them to the ground and rubbing their faces in the dirt like the rugby thug he is.
Bush always stands on principals
I always knew that W. was anti-education but this is taking it too far.
I notice that the conservative line is that “socialized medicine” doesn’t work. Yet studies have shown that Americans are more disatisfied with our current system than residents of other industrialized nations.
“One-third of Americans told pollsters that the U.S. health care system should be completely rebuilt, far more than residents of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the U.K. Just 16 percent of Americans said that the U.S. health care system needs only minor changes, the lowest number expressing approval among the countries surveyed.”
And
“Four in 10 U.S. adults told researchers that they had gone without needed care because of the cost, including skipping prescriptions, avoiding going to the doctor, or skipping a recommended test or treatment.
“Meanwhile, 26 percent of Americans surveyed said that they had faced more than $1,000 in out-of-pocket health care costs in the last year, compared with 14 percent of Australians, and 4 percent of Britons.”
Of course, feel free to ignore the above quotes, as it’s just more of the “liberal media” spouting off their socialist agenda.
Peter David: Are you telling me I was irresponsible for believing my boss’s promise or thinking my job was secure?”
I highly doubt it. I think it is more likely that Bobb is referring to the phenomenon of chronically poor individuals having children indiscriminately.
It is a false dilemma to argue about whether government assistance enables irresponsible procreation or simply helps families who fall on hard times. Both phenomena coexist within our society.
My girlfriend has worked for the social services department in the county in which we live for nearly two decades. She is currently a supervisor for one of the county’s Child Protective Investigations units. As such, she has a perspective that many “bleeding hearts” lack: the poor are for her more than merely an abstract concept which she has fleshed out with preconceived notions. She interacts with them, works with them, and understands quite a bit about them. Moreover, she is earning an Master’s Degree in Social Work and has had an academic paper published in a journal published by the National Association of Social Work. And, yes, there is a significant swath of the population that suffers from poverty because of their own irresponsible behavior. Choices including indiscriminate, unprotected sex resulting in unwanted pregnancies; indiscriminate intentional procreation by individuals with no means to support a child; drug use; and criminal behavior are all choices that people make that either result in poverty or aggravate it.
The costs to society are often more than liberals care to acknowledge. After all, the government spends far more on “corporate welfare” than on aid to the underpriviledged, right? Well… no. Because that comparison blithely omits the other costs to society inflicted on us by the chronically poor and irresponsible: the cost of providing health care to children damaged by malnourishment and/or other forms of neglect, the costs of maintaining prisons for the disproportionate number of poor people who end up there, and the costs of government-funded drug treatment programs are all examples of the less-obvious costs of poverty.
So we simply need to stop giving these people hand-outs, goes the conservative trope. Well, wrong again. It’s easy to say that people should straighten up and fly right. But a child who grows up in a household where no one works, criminal behavior is the norm, and there is no loving guidance has very little chance of understanding that he or she has a choice about how to behave. Worse still, if he or she suffers trauma such as abuse, or is malnourished, his or her neurological development can be impaired in subtle yet profound ways.
Clearly, the current system isn’t working because it encourages irresponsible behavior by providing an omnipresent safety net. On the other hand, the idea that we can just cut off these programs fails to take into account the costs society will incur should the chronically poor be turned out on the street without learning the skills needed to be productive citizens.
It’s a complicated problem, and I have yet to hear anyone offer a realistic solution. I think it’s a discourse we need to have, but instead we have polarized debates like this that degenerate into personal acrimony.
SCHIPS, by the way, is a band-aid for the hemmorhage that is our health care system today. Health care costs are skyrocketing way past the rate of inflation. As others here have pointed out, even the middle class is having trouble keeping up. Real wages are being driven down as people’s raises are being eaten up in large part by ever-more-costly health insurance premiums. Hard-working, economically secure individuals are now one catastrophic health problem away from seeing the fruits of their life’s work wiped out. If left unchecked, the meteoric rise of health care costs could have a significantly adverse impact on our overall economy.
There are many causes, however, and not all of them are due to the Big Evil Boogey-Men of the Left or the Right.
Take prescription drugs, for example. On the one hand, drug companies are unconscionably profiteering at the expense of the U.S. consumer. On the other hand, I don’t think drug companies will ever be able to manufacture drugs as cheaply as some would like to believe. Research into new drugs costs millions or even billions of dollars and is a crap-shoot. Drug companies have to maintain cash reserves beyond what companies in other industries need, because they have to be prepared to absorb those losses.
(Canadians, among other nations with socialized health care, ought not to be so quick to criticize our health system, by the way. The low prices their governments negotiate for prescription drugs are subsidized by higher prices charged for those same drugs in the U.S.)
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The current tangled mess of multiple payers, including private insurance plans, HMOs, Medicaid, and Medicare, each of which has its own labyrinthine and crushingly massive set of rules and procedures, increases the administrative overhead for medical providers who pass those costs along to us. There is fraud on the part of both providers and health care consumers. There is irrational rationing of health care: plans that will not pay for preventive treatment such as mammograms but will pay for far-more expensive cancer treatments such as radical mastectomies. I could go on and on.
We need a serious debate about health care in this nation, one that is driven by a sober assessment of empirical evidence. Unfortunately, that cannot take place in an environment where the debate so quickly degenerates into personal acrimony, and where emotion trumps thought.
“Your unwillingness to do away with your police and fire departments demonstrates your inaccuracy in portraying socialism ruining everything it touches.”
I’d appreciate it if you didn’t put words in my mouth.
“Do Western European countries have lesser standards when it comes to infant mortality? Does Canada?”
From Wikipedia: “The infant mortality rate correlates very strongly with and is among the best predictors of state failure.[1] IMR is also a useful indicator of a country’s level of health or development, and is a component of the physical quality of life index. But the method of calculating IMR often varies widely between countries based on the way they define a live birth. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat. Many countries, however, including certain European states and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and raises their rates of perinatal mortality.
The exclusion of any high-risk infants from the denominator or numerator in reported IMRs can be problematic for comparisons. The United States counts an infant exhibiting any sign of life as alive, no matter the month of gestation or the size, but some other countries differ in these practices. For example, in Germany and Austria, fetal weight must reach one pound to be counted as a live birth, while in some other countries, including Switzerland, the baby must be at least 12 inches long. Both Belgium and France report babies as born lifeless if they are less than 26 weeks’ gestation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
My understanding is that in many cases other countries don’t even try to save these “non-living” babies.
“Are you telling me I was irresponsible for believing my boss’s promise or thinking my job was secure?”
Did you have a contract? Even if not, what she said constituted a verbal contract no doubt, and if you wanted you could have threatened a law suit in this day and age.
What are you denying, that you’d rather have your police and fire departments than not have them, that you said socialism ruins everything, or what?
Do Western European countries have lesser standards when it comes to infant mortality? Does Canada?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
It’s very late and I may be too tired to understand correctly, but doesn’t the above quote suggest that European countries have higher standards when it comes to infant mortality. Naely, that if the american standards were appplied in Europe than their infant mortality rates would have been even better compared to the US?
“We need a serious debate about health care in this nation, one that is driven by a sober assessment of empirical evidence. Unfortunately, that cannot take place in an environment where the debate so quickly degenerates into personal acrimony, and where emotion trumps thought.”
Well said. True of other complicated subjects as well.
It’s very late and I may be too tired to understand correctly, but doesn’t the above quote suggest that European countries have higher standards when it comes to infant mortality. Naely, that if the American standards were appplied in Europe than their infant mortality rates would have been even better compared to the US?
I think it means that what would be considered a dead infant in the US–and thus contribute to the overall infant mortality rate–would be just a stillbirth in other countries, and thus not add to their total.
How much this changes the overall numbers, I can’t say.
Incidentally, the standards are not even equal from state to state in this country. Talking about the sudden spike in infant mortality in MO, a reader commented “In some states, an infant must live for several hours to be counted as born live. If it dies sooner, it is counted as a still birth. Other states do not count premature infants. Some places count deaths attributed to accidents while others do not.”
Interesting article at http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/cuba-vs-the-united-states-on-infant-mortality/ may shed some light on this. Money quotes:
The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category — the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old.
Why? Because the United States also easily has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality — the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.
This is not an necessarily an attempt by the countries involved to game the system; the World Health Organization itself recommends that for official record keeping purposes, only live births of greater than 1,000g should be included. The fact that the USA includes smaller births (which have a 50% survival rate at best) drops our numbers relative to those that don’t.
If the ability and desire to save ultra low birth weight babies is a sign of a successful health care system it would be ironic to have it be used as a condemnation of that same system.
“Government run health care may not be ideal, but it’s certainly better than the corporate run health care we currently have.”
Sounds like the choices are eating shite and sucking vomit.
“What are you denying, that you’d rather have your police and fire departments than not have them, that you said socialism ruins everything, or what?”
The former.